They were friends of some friends who were themselves not
really close friends, but, for a couple of years, we got together regularly and
I tried to fit in. They were all older
than me, the two, sometimes three couples, all settled in large houses with
teenagers, dining room sets with draperies and houseplants that had grown up
with their kids. I was in the land of toddlers, potty training, chicken pox and
five and dime shades on the windows.
There was usually really good food, prepared by Athena, who
shared my then husband’s Yugoslavian heritage. She was a lovely, petite woman with a
pronounced accent and a delightful laugh who seemed to cringe at her husband’s
mannerisms and crude jokes. Gale
and Bill were their closest friends and always present at the get-togethers. I watched Gale closely. She was a statuesque woman with large
breasts, red hair, very white skin and a very shy way about her. She was woman incarnate to me, a rather lanky
twenty something with traces of bad skin, and no breasts to speak of, even
after two kids. She and Bill had three teenagers who all seemed to be
well-behaved, average kids. Often I
wondered how Gale really handled it all; she seemed so ill-equipped for motherhood,
nonchalantly folding her arms under her large breasts and smiling widely as
Billy (as she called him) told stories and drank beers, as his cheeks became
pinker and his grin wider.
Inevitably, after the veal marsala and the salads and the
pastries, and the scotch and the beers and wine, everyone would settle into the
deep plush brown couches, and begin casting glances at the guitar case that lay
behind Bill. “Oh c’mon Bill” they would start
to cajole. “Give us some tunes!” Gale would smile shyly, her long wispy red bangs
in front of big brown eyes, like venetian blinds. “ Go ahead Billy, play for us” she would
coax. Well, Billy really didn’t need any
coaxing. In fact, he was pretty darned
good and this was really the highlight of the evening for most everybody
gathered. Bill, in fact, was a sort of
Glen Campbell look alike, with a large
round face, pale blond hair and a wide grin.
He liked to play Glen Campbell tunes too, and so he would begin. And he wound his way through Wichita Lineman and
Galveston, threw some Johnny Cash in too, and everybody was warming up. But I was watching Gale, who, I knew, would
soon start saying quietly “C’mon Billy,
do it. Play it for me.” And after
a few more tunes, Billy would take pause, his blond stringy hair now hanging in
his face and he a little bit sweaty, and he would strum loudly and throw his
head back and start wailing in the most spectacular
Elvis tones “One Niiiighhtt with Youuuuuuuuu” And Gale would blush and giggle and squirm and say “ Ohhhh,
Billy……..!" in the most erotic way.
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