Sherry’s face revealed none of the worry that her words would indicate. I remembered again how my friend Jack Williams seemed confused and confounded when I told him not to remember things under the influence of the tickets. I was careful not to play with people’s minds like that since, but it appears I really fucked Sherry’s mind over now.
“I’m…”
“I know what you are going to say, Jim,” Sherry said, her voice much softer. “I think you don’t want me to worry about things, and for some reason, I’m not. It’s that it just doesn’t make any sense.”
Letting out a sigh, I said, “I know. Things don’t always make sense to me, either.”
The two of us looked at each other for a long moment. Neither of us seemed to know what to do.
Finally, I moved closer to Sherry, bringing my face close to hers. Sherry’s eyes closed and her lips pursed; she obviously knew my intention.
I kissed the girl. I felt her lips part, but I didn’t follow her lead. Instead, I moved my arms around her waist and pulled her closer to me.
After a few seconds, I felt Sherry breathe out through her nose. It was almost a sigh.
I’m not sure how long we kissed.
When we finally broke it off, I pulled Sherry into the master bedroom. I sat her down on the foot of the bed, and then walked into the large walk-in closet. I turned the light on within and then opened a large drawer inside, verifying the contents within.
I left the closet, and I could see that Sherry had a look of quiet expectation in her eyes. I intentionally ignored her, and grabbed the bathing suit that was on the bed. It was one that Kristen and Lynette purchased a few weeks before that I hadn’t worn yet.
Gathering up all my will power, I finally spoke. “Kristen’s bathing suits are in the open drawer in the closet, Sherry. I’ll give you some privacy in here as you get dressed.”
I picked up my bathing suit and quietly left the bedroom to go into the spare bedroom to change.
I was sitting in the living room when Sherry finally emerged from the bedroom. She was wearing a pale blue bikini that seemed to fit her properly.
“Jim, did I ever tell you why I’ve loved you for so long?”
The question startled me. “I don’t think so. Why?”
Sherry gave me a slight smile. “Ever since I saw you the first time, I noticed that you seem to have a self-assured determination to achieve whatever it is that you seem to want to do. I heard that you learned to play the clarinet in seventh grade in a matter of a couple of weeks, and when you played it, you played it better than anybody else in the junior high.”
I remembered that incident. One of the older students told me that anybody could play the brass instruments, but it took a real musician to play the clarinet. I asked my teacher, Mr. Thurd, if I could borrow a clarinet for a couple of weeks, and begged my mother to purchase a box of reeds for it. I went to the library to find a book with the fingerings, and it took me about three weeks to get to the point that I was confident enough of my ability to actually play it in front of people. Sherry’s version was exaggerated, of course. I doubt anybody could pick up an instrument and be as proficient as she said so quickly.
“Sherry, you know that most of that story is just exaggeration.”
“I know that. Answer this question, then. How long did it take you to learn the oboe, Jim?”
Sherry’s question made me very uncomfortable, so I avoided it.
“OK. When I set my mind to doing something, I tend to do it. What’s so special about that?”
I got a warm smile from Sherry. “I always dreamed that one day, you’d get it in your mind that you were in love with me, and that you’d go after me in that same way. I figured that you would be like Cyrano or Romeo, or perhaps Tony in West Side Story.”
That drew a chuckle from me. “That’s not me, Sherry!”
“That is you, Jim. Everybody knows why they call you Oogie.”
I sighed. This was the second mention today about the Hooked on a Feeling set I performed for Kristen on the first day of school last year.
“You are that person, Jim,” Sherry said. “Only, it isn’t for me, but for Kristen. My cousin saw how this tied me up in knots, and she was pissed at Kristen because Kristen just walked away from Dale and all those other snobs. Dale knew how I felt and she told me things that I was secretly believing myself, trying to make me feel even worse. She said you were just another gold-digger out for Kristen’s money. She said you were a rock and roller and Kristen was just a convenient but rich groupie. ‘Kristen’s opening her purse and her legs for your lover boy, Sherry!’ she’d say…”
“Sherry…”
“Please! Let me speak! I went from loving you to hating you! It wasn’t just Dale, because she was saying what I was really thinking. If you were just looking for a groupie, then I could prove it by trapping you, and Dale dared me to try. She offered me money!”
Sherry paused. I waited, since Sherry asked me not to talk. Finally, she said, “I failed, but something else happened. You noticed me, but treated me nicely… like a friend. You introduced me to Kristen and to Patty, and they treated me like a friend as well. I wasn’t sure what to make of this, and… it took some time… but I found that I liked you even more this way. It wasn’t just me, either. You were now talking to everybody. Suddenly, people noticed you. At first, I was jealous. I mean, where were they when I was the only person who loved you, right? People would call you ‘Oogie,’ and you pretended to hate it, but every time they did, you’d glance at Kristen when she was around. And she did the same with you.”
There was another pause, and I was about to speak, when Sherry said, “I finally realized that while I may have dreamed about you being my lover, what I really wanted was for you to see me as a friend. And you did that!”
“You are a friend, Sherry,” I softly replied.
Sherry nodded. “That’s why it hurt me so much to tell you about how I felt the other day. After being friends with both of you for a year, it was as if I was going back and trying to trap you once again… and that’s not the case!”
“I know, Sherry.”
Sherry looked me in the eyes, and said, “You do know, don’t you?”
I simply nodded in return.
“And Kristen knows, too.” This was not a question, but a statement.
I nodded again.
“And Kristen is serious… she’s not jealous of me, is she?”
“Can I tell you something, Sherry?”
Sherry looked a bit apprehensive. “What?”
“I never knew how you felt about me in junior high… at least, not at the time. My life wasn’t a very happy one…”
“You were always mad at your father.”
“Please, don’t interrupt,” I said, softly. “I let you say what you had to say. It’s my turn.”
Sherry nodded and I continued. “Anyway, my life wasn’t happy, but I found that when I played music, a part of my brain that felt so frustrated and angry would go someplace else… a place that I find difficult to describe. It was like, I found a place where I could be happy and not have to worry about anything. A place where everything followed the rules. If a note goes up on the paper, its pitch goes up. It’s like mathematics. Once you learn the rules, you can predict where everything will go.”
I looked at Sherry, and she seemed fascinated by what I was saying. I didn’t go on and explain how the rest of my life didn’t follow the rules… husbands shouldn’t hit their wives or children; I stayed away from that tender subject.
“Anyway, after Kristen and I started going together, I found that the rules had changed, slightly. Instead of pursuing music just to satisfy myself, I found myself doing it to make Kristen happy. I didn’t know the whole story at the time, but Kristen was very lonely. I once played the Moonlight Sonata in the parlor of her parents’ house, and she’d later tell me that she used to play that song when she was alone. I could see in her eyes that she really felt that loneliness, and that she saw music as a way to escape. When she told me that, the song meant more to both of us… it was no longer a lonely song, but a song of love. I found a purpose to my life, and it wasn’t really music after all… but with Kristen, the music became even better! I’m no longer alone when I’m making music. We are there together! Does that make sense?”