“Good morning Izzy!” Penny was walking up to the diner at her usual time. Mouse had been staying with her and Jessie while Amanda was away. She was a little worried when she woke up and Mouse was gone, but now she knew something was up.
Mouse was sitting on the ground, cross-legged, the box of Crayola chalk in front of her. She was staring at the Today’s Special’s sign.
“Uh-huh.” Penny sat down next to Mouse. “Are you worried about Amanda?”
Mouse nodded. “She’s on assignment with Brodie and Moska. I thought it would distract me to come down and see if you’d make Luciano’s Lasagna with me for the special today and…”
“Well you’re neither a dull boy nor suffering from writer’s block, so that’s a start. Let’s go get that lasagna started.”
Penny got up and started to unlock the door. “Let’s just leave that. Send it to Maddisun.”
Penny unlocked the door to the diner and walked in. “Hey Bumblee, play Izzy something… danceable.”
The Wurlitzer jukebox affectionately known as “Bumblebee” powered up.
Penny entered the kitchen while Mouse opened the back door, and Miss Jackson and Danny came inside to join them. When the needle dropped on the vinyl, Penny and Mouse looked at each other while they got the eggs and milk for the flour from the walk-in fridge.
They would have said something but standing in the kitchen looking out towards the barn through the diner windows as Matthew sang “Here comes the sunshine”, the overcast sky cleared and the sun came out.
“Show off” Penny whispered, knowing full well Bumblebee was aware of how they felt.
Somewhere in Washington State…
Charlie and Samantha had left early in the morning. They’d taken Charlie’s truck and planned on having lunch with Monique and Earnest in Spokane. Samantha was excited about their first double date.
"I’ve never honestly been on one Charlie, now that I think about it. I mean, it’s more weird that I haven’t than me being excited about it… Charlie?”
Charlie had that grin. That Jones Family grin.
“What are we going to name her?” -Samantha, who knew what Charlie was thinking.
“Mayhem Millicent Jones.” -Charlie
Samantha smiled and grabbed the CD case between her and Charlie, then ejected Joe Walsh’s “Average Ordinary Guy” CD that was playing and put it back in its place. She flipped through the case for a minute, pulled a CD out, and forwarded it to track four.
“Charlie Jones, have you ever owned a dog?” Samantha thought about it for a moment and then added. “This is such a normal couple thing, hey, we’ve been together, let’s get a dog! If that goes well maybe we can have kids? We started with kids, then skipped dogs and went right to wolves. I love how all this feels perfectly normal.”
Back at the diner, Mouse wasn’t her normal self.
Jenny walked into the diner, turned into the kitchen, and stopped.
“Isabella Flanagan! Are you depressed? This must not happen often.”
Mouse looked up from the mixer where she was cracking eggs into the large dough mixer and nodded.
“Penny Lane, I have a job for you. I need you to take Miss Flanagan to the barn, grab Jessie, and go upstairs. Charlie left a project open for you all to play with. It’s a new Maddisun song, but he pulled all the faders down and removed all the plugins. He wants you to build it from scratch, and he’ll work with you on it when he returns. It’ll help all of you learn how to produce and engineer songs. He said he’s hoping a Gummy Bear Crucifix mix of it would be a good place to start, and I agree. I’ll finish up here, I know the recipe for the lasagna, and I make better bechamel than Charlie. Wow. Unexpected monologue complete. Move along now, nothing to see here.” Then Jenny started cracking up, and Mouse looked up from the mixing bowl and said
“Notice, complete destruction,” Mouse stood up, shoulders back, chin up, and saluted Jenny then continued. “Right up to the point where she asks me what kind of tree I'd like to be.”
Jenny bent over laughing, and Mouse joined her.
“Ok, this isn’t fair. We’re binging Police Squad! and Naked Gun tonight!” -Penny, who had yet to experience Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin.
Mouse shook herself into some composure and put her left arm out for Penny. Penny joined Mouse’s left arm with her right and they walked out. Jenny felt a little bit of pride in helping those girls. They were special to her. Even though she could probably return to Austin, this is where she wanted to be. She counted the egg yolks already in the mixing bowl, added two more, and started on the bechamel for the lasagna bolognese.
A few hours later Mouse, Penny, and Jessie radioed Jenny over the VHF radios. It’s not like cell phones didn’t work, everyone just really liked the radios. They had something they wanted her to hear.
It was 10 AM.
“So… there’s all these groups and busses and tracks! We know what they’re for, and that’s cool, but we just clicked off everything but the drums, bass, guitar, shaker, and the lead vocal and a backing vocal track. The thing is, we like it just like this. It’s just, should I tell her now?” Penny looked at Mouse and Jesse who nodded yes, so Penny continued.
“We’re trying to make the lead guitar a harmony with vocals.” It ALMOST works, or maybe it works and we’ve just listened to it too much. So, here.”
Penny pressed play in the Pro Tools session open on Charlie’s Macbook Pro.
After she listened, Jenny just said one sentence before they got to work on the mix together before the bus came.
“Before you walk you have to learn how to…”
Charlie and Samantha pulled into Spokane and headed to South Hill. Charlie had only ever seen the Japanese Tea Garden in the deep of winter and they had some time to kill before lunch with Earnest and Monique.
“It’s gorgeous, Charlie.” -Samantha
“It’s a little like the wide river in the Veil…” Charlie trailed off for a moment then smiled and sang a little Hozier for Samantha as they sipped their coffee in the Nishinomiya Tsutakawa Japanese Garden, his coffer black, hers sweetened.
I take my whiskey neat
My coffee black and my bed at three
You're too sweet for me
You're too sweet for me
The Jukebox at The Diner will return…