Chapter Three
Reunion
“Oh for the love of the goddess, get out of the car, will you?”
Sibyl was addressing her dog and cat, who both, somehow, managed to fit themselves into her old, red MG convertible.
Sibyl didn’t know how she’d managed to get herself in this terrible snag nor did she know how she managed consistently to find herself in a variety of terrible snags, something which happened with disturbing frequency.
Her day had not gone well. It was a busy day which included Bingo Afternoon at the Pensioners Club of the Day Centre and try outs for the kids’ Annual Talent Show in the Community Hall. Sibyl was responsible for running all the myriad community programmes put on in the Centre and Hall. The Day Centre and Community Hall comprised (along with a vast kitchen, several small offices, some storage rooms, a stage and narrow backstage area) an enormous, but dilapidated old building on a Council Estate in a deprived area of Weston-super-Mare, a small, seaside city in the West Country.
Early afternoon, after a two-course lunch had been served to the pensioners and many of them had gone home on the minibus the Council provided the estate, Sibyl had pulled back the sliding doors and exited the smoky Day Centre. She heard the Bingo call, “One, one, eleven, legs eleven,” sounding behind her coming from Marianne, the Bingo caller’s, hoarse, cigarette-clogged throat.
Sibyl entered the vast Community Hall, sliding the doors shut behind her to see Jemma, her dearest friend in England, sitting in an old, beat up plastic chair and staring in horrified fascination at the stage. Sibyl glanced toward the stage to see what held Jemma’s attention only to witness four very young girls dressed in alarmingly alluring outfits far older than their tender years, gyrating their hips and lip-syncing to a popular song.
Sibyl dragged a chair over to her friend and sat down to watch as the children carried out their inappropriately suggestive performance.
The song ended and both Jemma and Sibyl sat in stunned silence.
“Hey Miss Sibyl,” one of the girls called.
“Hi Flower,” Sibyl called back, her voice sounding strained.
“How’m I going to handle this?” Jemma muttered, sotto voce. “This is a family show.”
Sibyl felt for her friend and tried not to grin in amusement at her predicament. Jemma ran a small youth project out of a side office of the Community Hall. Sibyl volunteered for the project and co-ordinated its efforts in the Community Centre. The girls were going to have to be told that they should do something more age appropriate and considering the fact that age ten was the new eighteen that was not going to be an easy task.
In an effort to help her friend, Sibyl called, “Girls, can you come down here for a word?”
The girls clattered eagerly off the stage. They did this because Jemma Rashid and Sibyl Godwin were the shining lights of these young girls’ often unhappy, promiseless lives.
Jemma, petite, dark-haired and chocolate-eyed, was a local girl who was devoted to her community and even more devoted to her family. This kind of devotion was not experienced by many of the children on the Council Estate where they lived and where the Community Centre was located. Many had well-meaning but hard-working parents. Others had thoughtless or even abusive, lazy, wastrel parents. Devotion to family and community was a rare concept and one to be savoured whenever it became available.
Sibyl, on the other hand, was American, a fact in and of itself that made the girls think she was the coolest of the cool. However they loved her accent – they loved her style, her spirit and her incredible beauty more. She was nice to them, always, and she had the best smile – a smile that could warm you from the very top of your head straight down to the tips of your toes.
The girls arrived to stand before their two idols and they shifted on their feet, twisting their ankles awkwardly, waiting for the opinion that meant everything in their small worlds.
Jemma looked at Sibyl and Sibyl returned her friend’s look. Both were at a loss.
Then Sibyl had an idea, it was a lame idea but it was, at least, an idea.
“I love that song!” she exclaimed. “Who chose that song?”
“It was me!” Flower cried.
Even raised by a hippy, Sibyl felt for the girl who had such a terrible name, a name she knew (because she heard) other children used to make fun of her. Flower’s mother was even flakier than Sibyl and had four children by four different fathers and another one on the way. Flower’s mother was always out partying and never home. The care of the entire family rested on Flower’s ten year old shoulders, evidenced by the fact that her three brothers were, at that very moment, fighting in the back corner of the hall.
“Good call, Flower,” Sibyl enthused, lying through her teeth.
Jemma turned to her friend, her eyes round and her brows raised.
“Though, I hear it all the time on the radio. All the time,” Sibyl continued.
“I know, it’s very popular,” Katie, another of the girls announced, thinking this was a selling point.
Sibyl particularly liked Katie, a bright girl with a head on her shoulders. She had both parents at home, her mother owned a small cleaning business and her father was currently redundant, trying to find a job and was a recovering gambler. Sibyl knew this because Katie’s father ran the local Gambler’s Anonymous meetings on Tuesday nights in the Day Centre (but, of course, Sibyl would never tell a soul this information).
Sibyl went on, but gently, “By the time of the Talent Show, do you think people might have heard it a bit too much? Even you girls might be tired of it by then.”
The girls looked at each other, not at all convinced since it was their most favourite song of all time. How could they ever be tired of it? Not in a million years.
“I know!” Jemma exclaimed as if a thought just occurred to her. “Why don’t you let Sibyl find a song for you? Something American.”
This caught the girls’ attention and four pairs of enthusiastic eyes collectively swung to Sibyl.
It was Sibyl’s turn to stare at her friend, her eyes round, her eyebrows raised.
“And,” Jemma dug Sibyl’s hole deeper, “she’ll help you with outfits and dance steps and everything.”
Sibyl made a choking noise but swiftly hid it and smiled warmly at the girls. She was going to kill Jem, or maim her for life, or, at least, never speak to her again. Jemma was very artistic, knew all the latest songs and was a natural at choreography. Sibyl loved music, loved to dance, but had always done it to the beat of her own drummer and wouldn’t know how to create a choreographed dance if someone was forcing her to do it by shooting at her feet with pistols.
Nevertheless, the girls excitedly agreed to this new development, happy to spend more time with their American Goddess.
“What have you done to me?” Sibyl hissed at her friend as the girls scattered and Jemma motioned for the next act to come to the stage.
“Relax, I’ll pick the song, I’ll choreograph the dance moves, you just have to teach them,” Jem assured her then finished. “I’ll help, of course.”
“You better or I’ll make those girls a laughingstock.”
“I’m already thinking of something.” This, Sibyl could believe. Jemma was sharp as a tack and nothing got by her.
As the next act prepared to begin, Sibyl got up.
“Off for your afternoon chat with Meg?” Jemma enquired, sorting through CDs to put the next act’s in the player.