Hard Landing Ch. 08

Jo's breath caught and she had to calm herself before she continued. "And... I love you. You're my family."

Blue lunged forward, wrapped her arms around Jo and starting crying once more. But this crying sounded more like... relief. Less like despair.

"I'm your family, Blue. I'm your family," Jo whispered.

Later, Blue was curled up with her head on Jo's shoulder, her arm thrown over Jo's chest. Jo had her arm wrapped around her, listening to her soft snores. She had texted or called everyone, letting them know she'd found her Blue Girl and that she was okay. Mostly.

Jo had held her in her arms until she started falling asleep, right there on the floor. Then she'd lifted her into her bed, gotten them both undressed and had been cradling her ever since.

The street lights were throwing ghostly shadows on the curtains through the summer leaves on the trees planted along the sidewalks outside. She'd been watching the shadows dance for an hour when Little Voice spoke up.

"Okay, we gotta rethink this, Collins. She's putting too much of herself into taking care of you. And you're letting her, leaning on her too much. She clearly needs you to be there for her as much as you need her to be there for you."

Little, you spent the better part of last summer and fall telling me I needed to keep her out of my kitchen. What's gotten into you? she thought.

"A good soldier adapts to the conditions on the ground, Collins. You've shown you can't live without her. When you dumped her last year you became the worst pilot in your squad overnight. Can't have that shit again."

Well, I mean... no lies there.

"Right. So, starting tomorrow, lay off that 'don't handle me' crap. And start paying more attention to what she needs from you. You need to start thinking of some ways to build her up."

Jesus Christ, Little, when did you become a couple's counselor?

"You've never dated a girl who fucking learned to fly just to surprise you, have you? Pretty sure if we lose this one again, we'll just have to kill ourselves."

Jo snorted and Blue stirred on her shoulder.

"Jo?" She muttered sleepily, and rubbed her cheek against Jo's skin.

"I'm here, Blue," she answered. Blue made a contented sound then fell back into her dreams. "I'll always be here," Jo whispered, and closed her eyes.

~~ Front Royal, Virginia ~~

JILL

"Jilly-Bean!" Suzanne yelled as Jo and I got out of my Mini-Cooper. I'd parked next to all the other cars and Suzanne was coming out of the giant doorway of the barn to greet us.

I groaned. "I didn't think recommending my sister's salon to my friends would mean they'd all start calling me her pet name for me."

Suzanne grinned and tucked her hair behind her ear. She'd shortened it from her usual waist-length reddish-brown braid to a loose, wavy style, falling to the middle of her back. She had blonde highlights coming from either temple now as well. I thought she looked like Rogue from the X-Men. I think Jo would have appreciated that reference, but I doubted Suzanne would have gotten it, so I kept it to myself.

"She's amazing, Jill. I've already broken up with my regular hair place. I didn't want to go on the tour this year being the only female band member with plain old boring hair. Right, Josafina?"

"We're looking hot, Suze," Jo agreed.

"God it's so weird you don't call me Alvarez anymore, but I love it!" She and Jo exchanged an intricate greeting of high fives, fist bumps, finger snaps, and ended with them spinning around twice and saying, "Boosh!" in unison as they bumped butts.

"Jack's been here since yesterday getting everything set up," Suzanne said. "Larry's putting the finishing touches on his new drum setup. We should be ready to rock any minute." Suzanne gave me a fist bump as she led us towards the barn.

Larry was messing with his red drum kit as we walked into the music space, having set it up right next to the old beat-up black Pearl set that was the barn's usual house set. Steve and Sara were talking over in the corner in front of a pile of equipment cases while Steve was tuning his Les Paul, and Jack was behind the Rotor's sound board, which he had set up on a pair of sawhorses. There was about a hundred miles of cables coming out of it, and instead of the small guitar amps normally circled around the space, Jack had set up the band's Marshall stacks in the corners, facing into the room.

There were the usual four microphone stands in a semi-circle, facing the drums. I was brought up short the moment we walked in, however, as I saw something wildly out of place. In front of one of the microphones was a big, Korg synthesizer keyboard on a stand.

Jo felt me stop and put her arm around me to keep me moving. I didn't want to let her.

"Jo, where did that come from?" I whispered to her.

"Relax, Blue. This is all part of my Jill-plan." She was grinning like the cat that ate the canary.

"Jo..." I said warningly.

"Seriously, relax. I just want us to have some fun. I'm not expecting anything from you that you aren't comfortable with."

We walked over to the keyboard. It was full-sized, and obviously of far superior quality than the small electric piano I had at my condo. And probably ten times the price. I could see it had dozens of controls and buttons on it too, to change the settings, sounds, and instrument voices.

"Where did this come from?" I asked her.

"I saw it at Guitar Center last week. I had Steve run by yesterday and pick it up for me on his way out here. Got a pretty good deal on it too."

"But Jo... I wouldn't know where to begin with this... I mean, look at this thing! It's like the controls of a spaceship!"

"That's where it helps to have a s-u-u-u-per-g-e-e-e-nius of musical electronics at your disposal!" Jack said, walking up to us, doing his best Wile E. Coyote voice. "Jill, Jo, it's so good you see you guys again!" He gave me a hug and Jo a fist bump. He was wearing a t-shirt with the picture I'd drawn of the band silk-screened on the front that said 'The Rotors!" over the picture and 'F*** Yeah!' under it.

"I cannot wait to do some serious dancing this weekend. Okay Jill, so I've got it set up as just a piano right now. See these buttons here? These are presets, like your car's radio buttons. Do you know what preset buttons are?"

"I'm thirty, Jack, not a tween."

"Good, I won't have to Snap-Chat you to explain it then. So, if you hit button number one," he pressed the button he was pointing at, "it's a piano." He hit a random key with one finger and I jumped as a loud, rich piano sound came out of the stack of amps behind me. "Give it a try."

I stepped up to the keyboard and played a scale. The sound was amazing and the action was so much better than my little toy. I realized at that moment that's what I had at home, a toy. This was an instrument.

"We can mess with the sounds and voices and set up different presets for different songs as we go," Jack said.

I played a few bars of a Bach concerto, until Henry walked into the barn, yelling, "No, no, none of that! C'mon Jill, you can't play that in here! Classic rock please!" He was grinning the usual lopsided Collin's grin at me. I stopped playing to give him a hug.

"You okay, Jill?" he whispered in my ear. "We were all worried about you this week."

"I'm okay Henry, thanks. Just a little meltdown. Jo got me through it."

"I'm glad. Now git back over there and play me something I want to hear."

"Fine!" I said, pretending to be in a huff. "I'm only allowed to play classic rock around you? That's fine. Fine!" I was grinning as I started the intro to Elton John's Crocodile Rock.

Larry sat down behind his drums and started playing along with me, while Jo walked over to her mic where her guitar, Lola, was waiting for her in its stand. Henry went to the instrument cabinet and pulled out a worn red Fender Telecaster. Steve and Sara walked past me toward a mic, Sara stopping to give me a kiss on the cheek as I played and then we were into it.

And boy were we into it. I'd always been a solo performer in high school. Every public performance I'd ever done was just me, a piano, and a piece of classical music. I'd spent hundreds of hours learning pop music piano pieces just to entertain myself, but I'd never played them for anyone. Until last summer when I'd played for these people in this barn. They'd been my first.

But today felt... amazing. Larry fell right into rhythm with me. Suzanne picked up her Fender bass and joined us. I really got it for the first time why the bass and drums were 'the rhythm section' as we played together. It had nothing to do with me. I was just focusing on playing a song I'd messed around with, but Suzanne and Larry... They'd been playing together for fifteen years. They watched me, and flowed right into what I was doing, like they'd been playing with me for years. Their rhythm made it so much easier for me to stay focused on the notes, like my own personal metronome, they were keeping me on track.

Steve picked up the vocals. Of course, he knew the words. I think there wasn't a song I'd ever heard that Steve didn't know the words to. Henry and Jo played their guitars and I was surprised when Jo kept up the rhythm guitar and nodded at her dad to take the solo. I could see where she got her style. Henry wore his guitar high on his body like Jo did and was just as good as she was.

I didn't think I was anywhere near the caliber of any other musician in this barn. But they were carrying me. They made me sound like I belonged here. I felt like the Grinch. My heart grew three sizes that day.

Towards the end of the song, Steve motioned Sara over and she laughingly joined Steve at his mic, doing the "Laaaaa, la la la la laaas" along with his high falsetto.

I fumbled at the end, since the real song just faded out and I didn't know how to end it live, so the tune came crashing down in a disorganized mess. But I was smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.

"Oh, this is going to be a good weekend," Jo said, laughing. She walked over to me and kissed me hard, then whispered in my ear, "All part of my Jill-plan."

For the next couple of hours, Sara and I watched the band play together, rehearsing some of their favorites to get Jo back into the swing of it.

"Jo, I made you a list of all the songs I think we've ever done live," Jack had said, showing Jo a document on a tablet sitting on a music stand next to her mic and effects pedals. "If you touch a song title, it'll take you to the sheet music and words." There was a tablet on a music stand at every microphone in the barn, including on the sheet music holder on the Korg. "Jill said once you see it written down, it'll come back to you?"

"Thanks Jack, this is perfect," Jo said, settling Layla's strap on her shoulder.

I was sitting on a hay bale with Sara, while Henry sat on the next bale over, his elbows on his knees, chewing on a piece of straw, grinning at his kids as they rocked out.

Jo was finding her way back into her groove quickly and with every song was increasing in confidence. Steve would suggest a song, Jo would pull it up on her tablet and before they got a dozen bars into the song, she'd have remembered how it went, swung away from the music stand and just rolled with it, like she was on stage again.

She was running her finger down the list between songs when she excitedly said, "Ooh! Celebrity Skin!" She brought up the sheet music for it. "I remember this! I love this one!" Suzanne sighed and re-settled her bass on her shoulders and stepped to her mic.

Jo looked over at me and I said, "Go get 'em, Captain Marvel!"

"That's Chief Marvel to you, Blue!"

I blinked, wondering if she had remembered that exchange from the night we met, or if she just happened to randomly say the same thing again. Either way it made me feel warm.

Everyone watched Larry as he counted them in, "Two, three, four..." and then Jo let the opening cords rip from her guitar, pounding us from the amps.

Suzanne opened her mouth after the first bar but everyone did a double take when Jo cut her off, singing into the mic in front of her.

Oh, make me over! I'm all I wanna be!

A walking study, in demonology!

They she threw back her head and her voice became raw, an almost perfect Courtney Love, as she screamed into the mic.

H-e-e-e-e-e-y, so glad you could make it!

Y-e-e-e-e-a-h, now you really made it!

H-e-e-e-e-e-y, so glad you could make it, n-o-o-o-o-w!

The rest of the band were grinning at each other as Jo banged her head over Lola, thrashing the cords then coming back to her mic for the next verse. The energy in the barn went up to eleven, with Suzanne and Steve backing Jo's vocals on the choruses. Larry was pounding his skins and Jack was bouncing a foot in the air behind his soundboard, horns thrown up as usual. Sara and I got up to dance.

Halfway through the song, Jo was snarling out the lines "Beautiful garbage, beautiful dresses. Can you stand up or will you just fall down?!" and leapt into the air in a jump, holding up her guitar.

Except she hadn't tried her signature move since she'd lost her foot. She came down awkwardly on her prosthetic, stumbled and fell backwards, throwing her hands behind her, trying to break her fall. She landed hard on her back with a loud thump, her guitar giving a squeal of feedback in protest, then she covered her face with her hands and laid there motionless. Everyone froze as I rushed over and knelt down next to her. Her shoulders were shaking.

"Jo, are you okay?" I put my hand on her shoulder. "Baby, it's okay, you're alright." I really didn't want her day ending in tears now that she'd been doing so well.

Her shoulders kept shaking as she took her hands away from her face. But she wasn't crying. She was laughing. She sat up, holding her stomach. "I can't fucking believe I did that!" she managed to gasp out. "Oh god, that was hilarious!"

Steve was the first one to break. He doubled over laughing with her. "The picture of grace, that's my sister!"

Soon everyone was joining in, as I took Jo's hands and pulled her to her feet.

She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, as she drew in a breath. "Oh, Jesus Christ, that was funny. I guess I have more to practice than the guitar before we tour, eh Blue?"

"I'm just glad I don't have to sing Hole anymore!" said Suzanne, trying to stifle her own giggles.

"Damn right, that's my song!" Jo said with a grin.

Right then was when I knew. She was definitely going to be okay.

Jo

After lunch, Jo took Blue by the elbow and led her to her new keyboard.

"Jill, we're not expecting you to play a whole show with us. Or, really, to play with us at all if you don't feel comfortable enough," Steve said. "But we thought we'd try and work up maybe five to ten songs? And if it feels right, you could do part of a set with us. Maybe we could try it out at the kick-off show, that's our friendliest venue anyway. All the people you and Jo sang for in January will be there."

"Blue, you gotta know even if you don't want to play keys, you and I are doing I'm Feeling You at the kickoff show. And probably at Secrets." Her face was serious.

"Jo..." She was scaring me. We'd been singing that song together constantly every time it came on my playlist, but to sing it in front of a crowd that big...

"Don't worry about it now, just have fun. But you're going to see this weekend, you're more than good enough."

"She's not wrong, Jill," Suzanne said. "You are good. You've just never played in a band, so you don't know what to expect. But we got you."

"That's what the barn's for. Messing around and finding your groove," added Steve. "Just have fun. If you don't want to play on the tour it's totally fine. But let's have some fun here."

"It's gonna be fine. You're a really good sight-reader. Hell, you played that tune my mom wrote on the first go. She made me play piano for five years before she gave up and let me focus on guitar and I've never been able to play that piece." Jo was looking past Blue's shoulder as they looked at the iPad sitting on her keyboard. "You want to try something you already know first?" she asked.

"I mean, not unless you guys only want to do Billy Joel or Ben Folds. Maybe there's a tune you guys do that has piano but you played around it?" Blue said as she scrolled through the play list. "Wait!" She touched the iPad and brought up a song. She looked at Jo and said "This is the first song I ever saw you play in my life."

Jo grinned. "Special meaning for you?"

"I remember when I caught my first glimpse of you playing this and thought 'Whoa!' I knew you were the girl for me right then."

"Barf!" said Steve. "Let keep the sap to a minimum. What song is it?"

"Smooth, Steve, really Sm-o-o-o-o-th," Jo said, by way of reply.

"Oh, hell yeah!" Larry exclaimed, then clicked his sticks together and raised them to hit the beat.

"Wait!" Blue said, "Give me like a minute to read through this, I can't improvise like you guys can. There's a lot of piano. But there's... horns too. Jack?"

Jack came over to us and looked at the iPad. "Do you want to do the piano, the horns or try both?" he asked her.

"Both? How could I do both?"

"Gimme a second." Jack started fussing with the Korg while Blue nervously watched him. At one point he pulled out his phone and brought up a document for reference, then nodded and punched more buttons.

"Okay, so now this song's on preset two for you. This octave," he indicated the top octave on the board "is the horns now." He pressed some keys and a combination of trumpet and saxophone sounds came out. "Everything below that is piano." He pressed the keys below and piano sounds came out. Blue messed around with the keys, trying to figure out how to play the horn part, then sight-read through the piano part again.

"Ready, Blue?" Jo asked her.

"As ready as I'll ever be, I think."

Jo squeezed her arm, then nodded to Larry. He clicked his sticks, then he and Jo launched into the opening licks of Santana's Smooth.

She wasn't great. The band was great. Jo was great, ripping the solos, channeling Carlos. But Blue had some trouble with the rhythm of the horn part during the intro, just because it sounded so much different from playing the piano. But after that, there was just the piano, and she held her own, for the most part. She didn't have much experience with Latin rhythm, but the chords were easy enough.

Steve was doing his best Rob Thomas voice. Jo stood right next to Blue, wailing on Layla. Every time Blue looked over, Jo had her eyes locked on hers, smiling and nodding her head in encouragement.

"Okay, not bad Jill!" Steve said after they played out the song.

Blue flushed with relief at being adequate instead of awful.

"Nope," Larry said, shaking his head.

"What?" Jo said. "Larry, what the hell?"

"Listen, I'm not saying that wasn't good enough for her to be on stage with the Rotors." Larry had a sphinx-like look on his face. Suzanne folded her arms on top of her bass and watched her husband with a bemused expression, as if she knew exactly what Larry was up to.

"You better not be!" Jo said heatedly.

Larry ignored her, looking right at Blue. "I'm saying, that wasn't good enough for Jill." There was silence in the barn as Jill and Larry locked gazes. "Right Jill? We all heard you play last year. You're better than that, right? Hell, you were better this morning playing Elton John."

Blue didn't say anything. But her jaw took on a determined set as she looked at Larry.

"Okay, then," he said, nodding at her. "Let's go again." He caught everyone's eyes, then nodded at Jo, and clicked his sticks. Jo was frowning at him, but started the intro again.