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David looked over and saw Holly and Nikki step outside onto the deck. He was torn between the desire to go talk to her and explain, and the urges of his friends to join them on the bandstand. With part of himself still walking out the door onto the deck he joined his old band mates and slung Rich's Gibson around his neck. Strumming an E chord a few times, he found it in perfect tune. His fingers glided up and down the neck a few times in a bluesy scale, bending the final couple of notes until they rang out with a touch of feedback. David then stepped toward the mike.
"Hey, we haven't played together for something like twenty years, so I hope we sound okay," he said.
Danny pounded the drums, working the kinks out of several years of layoff, but not sounding like his chops were missing all that much. David recognized Danny's favorite roll and fill with a great cymbal crash that he snuffed out quickly.
"Yeah, that's it man!" David shouted into the mike.
Donny had strapped on the bass and began to bump his way through a couple of rudimentary bass lines. He glanced over at David as if to say that he only needed a few moments to warm up. Some of their old friends began to call out the names of their tunes. "Monks On The Run!" shouted Speen Dog. "Tina My Dreams! Whoo!" yelled Greg. "It Ain't Fancy!" called out Ritchie.
"All right! All right!" David shouted into the mike in a couple of minutes after his re-united band mates gave him the high sign. "We're gonna start with one first done by The Kinks." He glanced over at John manning the keyboard. "Key of E," he said. John nodded.
David stroked the first three chords solo and shook the guitar until the feedback from the final chord wound through the entire room. Bashing the guitar with a crashing chord, he leaned forward to the mike, and sang out.
"Baby, I feel good!
From the moment I rise.
Feels good from morning through
Till the end of the day. Till the end of the day."
Danny and Donny had joined in on the musical riff that followed, the unmistakable sound of the IT Band, as if it had been twenty days, and not twenty years since they had last played together. He smiled at the sound of the backup vocals from the others harmonizing in the background. John followed along and improvised little organ or keyboard fills. By this time, the gathered crowd, including all of Holly's friends had jumped up and filled the dance floor. As they thumped through the rest of the song and added an additional refrain so that the folks on the dance floor could enjoy the energy and feeling of the music a little more, the guys grew tighter and it felt as if the last couple of decades were only imaginary. Yet David's eyes kept sweeping through the room and he didn't see any sign of Holly or Nikki.
They played through nearly a dozen of their old songs, mostly the originals that they had played the hell out of so much so many years before. After a few tunes, it felt as if they hadn't broken up. And it was great to see from the bandstand as the two generations melded, members of one dancing with someone from the other. It was all about energy and feeling and everyone was bopping. It felt as if the temperature in the room had been raised twenty degrees. After nearly forty minutes of this impromptu reunion, David finally stepped to the mike and announced their last tune.
"Since this is an election year, here is a tune that has particular relevance," he said, still somewhat out of breath. "It's called Who Do You Trust!"
With a slapping of four sticks, Danny cued them up, and they bashed into the tune. The dance floor was jumping and the guys were cranking up to and through the chorus.
"Tell me Baby and this is a must!
It's not a matter of Love or Lust!
Tell me baby 'fore your diamonds rust, tell me Baby!
Who do you trust? Who do you trust?"
Out of the corner of his eye, David saw Holly and Nikki reenter the room and sit together as far away from the bandstand as possible. It was hard to tell in the lighting and with her makeup, but it looked like Holly had been crying and Lord knows he had been inside for the last hour. During the instrument refrain, David poured everything he could remember into his solo, his weary out-of-practice fingers bent sharply into the notes and he rang out every bit of feedback he could muster from the guitar, nearly falling to his knees at one point before jumping back up to the mike.
"Who do you tru-ah-ust?
Who do you trust?
You gotta tell me baby,
Who do you tru-ah-ust?
Who do you trust?"
The boys in the band held the last note while those on the dance floor still hopped to the beat. When they realized the tune was over, they all jumped and applauded loudly. Donny slipped out of the old Fender bass and Danny stood up from the drum kit. David set down the guitar and started down from the bandstand, but paused when his eyes caught sight of Holly still sitting in the back of the room with Nikki.
He leaned over to John, who had started to get up from behind the massive Roland keyboard. John listened to what he was saying and nodded. John sat down and noodled on the keyboard for a few moments.
"We're going to do one more, just John and me if you don't mind," David announced. "What do you want to do?" David asked John through the mike. John shrugged. "How about something sad, 'cause I feel that way right now."
For some reason, those on the dance floor hung on while John swung through a couple of bridges. Like a pitcher shaking off the catcher, David shook his head at the first couple of tunes. Finally, when John began to play "The September Song" David nodded. "Yeah, that's the right one for right now," he said.
John began with a slow, sad intro to the verse. David slipped the mike from the stand, walked to the center of the bandstand, and when the tune came around, he began to sing slowly and softly and with great expression.
"When I was a young man courting the girls I played me a waiting game.
If a maid refused me with tossing curls I'd let the old Earth make a couple of whirls,
And as time came around she came my way, as time came around, she came."
By this time everyone had settled back into their seats to listen and indulge these two in their spur of the moment cabaret fantasy. Yet John's playing was superb and David was acting out the lyric and making it his own as he sang, since he had been there, living those words so many years before. The piano like sound of the Roland faded away and David was left at the mike to count out the rest. He began slowly and softly, but by the fourth word John picked up the accompaniment and they played on.
"Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September."
David's voice began to crack on the last line, but it didn't matter to his friends who knew that he wasn't just singing the words, but was singing the song to a certain someone. He looked out through the small hall directly at the table in back and saw that Holly's eyes were on him. He longed to see the sparkle in them again, and he hoped that somehow these words would reach out to her.
"When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game."
John played a brief instrumental interlude that lead to the next refrain.
"Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few, September ... November ... "
David drew out the middle syllables of the last two words, a sad, omniscient tone to his voice, the sound of age and wisdom that has come to understand the meaning of the passing of everyday. The sound of the piano faded into silence as David lowered the mike from his lips. When the room had fallen silent, he began to sing again and John followed along.
"And these few precious days ..."
His voiced cracked with emotion when he sang the word "precious" and everyone close to the bandstand could see the tears forming in his eyes and the first one roll down his cheek. In the back of the room there was a stirring as Holly shifted in her seat and began to rise to her feet, and as David continued to sing to her, she began to walk slowly toward the bandstand.
" ... I'll spend with you. These precious days I'll spend with you."
David and John repeated the last refrain and by the time he was singing the last few words, his voice was filled with emotion and Holly was standing before him at the bandstand. As his voice faded away with his exhausted breath on the last word, he let his hand that was holding the mike fall down to his side, and bowed his head down. Holly stepped up to him, put her hand under his chin, raised his face up and kissed him, a long warm, wet loving kiss that brought a tear to every female eye in the crowd, and to a few of the male eyes as well. And a microphone wasn't needed to hear David's voice saying softly, "I love you, Baby!"
"Oh, god, I love you too!" she replied.
And they kissed again as the sound of John's piano faded. Danny and his wife began to applaud. Then so did Justin and Donny, and Greg and George and the rest of those sitting around, as Holly and David slipped their arms around each other's shoulders and walked back to their table that had sat empty for the last couple of hours.
And just like that, the evening turned back around, the talk and laughter became infectious, and when the band began to play again, everyone seemed to find the dance floor appealing. They eventually held the best costume contest and it wasn't till well after two in the morning that the last guests left. A few friends had stayed late to help them clean up so that all that remained were the largest decorations, which they planned on taking down the next day anyway. Closing the door and locking it, David took Holly's arm and they walked the short path back to their apartment.
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