London Harmony: Water Gypsy (8 page)

I blushed again, still fixating on Teresa's hands on my shoulders, she still hadn't released me and heat were spreading through my body from the contact points. I said almost hoarsely, “Tabs, please.” I met Teresa's eyes to let her know I meant her too.

With a glance down at her hands and a slight hesitation, she released me then smiled, and snagged my arm and pulled me in front of her and Jenny. “Let's dance! Can't let a great thrashing beat like this go uncelebrated. And none of that Miss McClellan shite, just Teri here, please.” Then she and Jenny just started banging their heads to the bass as they gyrated their hips to the music. After a moment of just staring at this total transformation of looks and composure of the bloody gorgeous creature, I raised my hands and joined in.

After a few moments, someone was bumping me from behind. I glanced back into Paya's brown eyes, she was grinning and mouthing, “Oh my god!” I exhaled with a big smile in answer. She bit her tongue and then did a sexy little grind into my back before she turned her attention back to her beau.

I turned back and Teri had a hard look on her face. I shrugged and said over the music, “My best friend Paya, she's here for moral support.” The hard look faded and she just danced slightly closer. My lord, I couldn't handle all the heat in the room, it seemed to be centering around her.

The song ended and Paya and Harry joined us as Ronnie hopped up on the stage. Then Teri looked at Harry and my bestie holding hands then cocked her head. “I know you. You're the other cleaning woman at the Conservatoire.” Paya nodded with a grin as Teri tilted her head to me and asked, “What do you mean, moral support?”

Before I could answer, Ronnie Marx was on stage, speaking into the mic on his earpiece. “Ok everyone, let's get this party started with a bang!” The crowd went wild. “Our first talent tonight is a special treat. Everyone welcome Tabby Cat!”

I yelled at her over the cheers, “Ummm... for this!” I smiled at her and I chanced reaching out and grasping her hand and giving it a squeeze before pushing past my screaming and whistling best friend.

I got to the stage and tucked my bag under the stage, Ronnie reached down with one hand, I grasped his hand and he effortlessly lifted me up. I handed him my mobile with the tracks cued. I put on the headset he handed me instead of a mic.

I looked up and people cheered more. I put my hands over my mouth then dropped them and smiled shyly. “Hi everyone. My first track is special to me, it's called Gift of a Heartbeat.” I inclined my head to Ronnie and jumped high into the air as the track started. I landed with the first boom of the bass then started banging my head for the intro, one hand in the air pointing at the exposed rafters of the ceiling as I bounced on my toes.

Then the music stopped and a lone piano started in a soft and more sedate tempo and I opened my mouth to sing the tender ballad. The words flowed from me and I blinked when I saw Teri, Paya, Jenny, and Harry at the front of the crowd. Teri had her eyes closed and her head tilted, listening intently, she seemed to be in a trance. I sang down to her.

The words shared the wonder of the world, of experiencing the kindness of souls in places most people just disregard. My voice and the music built in intensity and the full instrumental metal thrash kicked in and I sang my heartbeat to the crowd as I hit the chorus while I jumped up and down on the stage. The crowd was cheering and dancing, experiencing my music like I had always dreamed.

Then just as suddenly as it came, the music silenced except the piano at the bridge. I sent my emotion and heart fluttering through the people who had slowed their dancing to move in time with the river of feeling I was projecting. I noticed Scratch in his oversize hoodie standing with his arms crossed by the hallway to the doors, his head cocked, listening intently.

Then I exploded with the music at the refrain. It started with power but only increased in intensity past forte, building to a crescendo. My heartbeat, my music, my life. Then the music ended abruptly as I dropped from belting out the lyrics to the last whisper of a word in a delicate pianissimo. “Love.”

It was deafening, the response I received after two beats of silence, as the crowd exploded. I looked down and Paya was jumping on her toes clapping frantically close to her chest and screaming. Teri just smiled at me with a slight head tilt, her eyes glittering and a wistful smile on her lips as she placed both of her hands over her chest and made a single heartbeat.

That was what warmed my heart most, the other cheers were lost on me, Teresa liked it. I was smiling like a loon. Then stepped back and said into the headset, “Thank you! The next track has a little more pop flavor to it, Drifting.” With more cheering backing me as people danced, I had fun with this one. It just had a beat you couldn't help but dance to and just have a blast. There weren't any huge transitions, it was a pretty straightforward song I wrote to infuse fun into my listeners and dare them not to sing along and move their hips.

Though it did have... I hit the power note in the end. I singled out Teresa in her party goddess form and pointed at her, carrying the note past the instrumental a full measure before kicking up an octave to finish it off for fun.

People went crazy over it. I loved all the smiling faces as I looked around, realizing I had put those smiles there, the song did what it was intended to. But one smile in particular held me. I exchanged my headset with Ronnie for my mobile. He yelled in my ear over the crowd. “Friday after next, full set?” I blinked at the man. A full set? Really? I nodded stupidly as he smiled and stepped away, addressing the crowd over his mic, “Tabby Cat!”

I hopped down among my friends, retrieved my bag, and couldn't hear who he was announcing next as Paya's squeal threatened to burst my eardrums. She snagged me... “Gack!” Into a tight side to side hug and released me. Harry was slapping my shoulder in congratulation, and I turned just to be captured by blazing emerald eyes. There was a smile somewhere beneath them, but I wasn't sure as my entire body was buzzing suddenly when Teresa matched Paya's hug.

Goosebumps rose on my flesh and traveled down my neck as her hot breath hit my skin when she said loudly into my ear, “That was brill Tabs. You need to hold pressure in your upper diaphragm to gain more fortissimo on that last note to avoid a glottal stop, which can damage your vocal cords.” I chuckled as she released me, even now she wanted to instruct me, to improve my voice. Then she made the most adorable squishy faced, half-sarcastic smile and asked, “Tabby Cat?” Over the sound of a local garage band, Acid Reflux, doing a J8 cover of Pickpocket.

I could have blushed myself into a bloody coma. Paya was so going to die. I sputtered out, “Thank my evil bestie for that.” I nudged my head at the far too smug looking Indian woman standing next to me.

Then the traitorous bird said to Teri, “Yes, Tabby Cat. You seem to have her purring all over.”

Oh my god! I almost died on the spot. Was Paya trying to end me using embarrassment as a weapon? I'm not saying that it wasn't true, I mean I think I was close to purring with Teri's eyes on me, but that is beside the point.

I was saved by Teresa almost pulling my arm out of its socket “Gleep!” As she pulled me into the dancing throng, laughing out, “Come on Tabby Cat, let's dance! I love this song!”

Nothing else mattered as I let the brilliant song take me, floating on a cloud with that amazing woman. I still couldn't believe the total transformation between how she acted in the Conservatoire and here. I loved this fun version of her. It was like a double threat, sexy AND fun.

The others joined us and we danced in a pack, like wolves, just letting the music flow through us so we could express it with our bodies. I closed my eyes taking in the heat of the proximity of her body and basked in it and the words of the song.

It was about happenstance and chance meetings, something that was meant to be with its own impossibility. Someone stealing your heart away like a pickpocket, only to return it later along with the endless possibilities of the gift of a smile.

God, I bloody loved J8. The emotion she can evoke with simple words. I, like half the world was so curious about who the woman was. There are no pictures of her, and London Harmony says she won't do interviews nor public appearances. That was part of her mystique. That and the fact that she sounds freakishly similar to Mandy Fay Harris when she was younger, and has a similar intricate style on the electric guitar. To me, music isn't truly music without emotion, and J8 had it in spades!

At the refrain with its sexy innuendo;
Holy platypus crackers, I just realized that innuendo was the entire point of the song!
; I opened my eyes just to see Teresa smiling hugely at me in wonder. I did a fun little hip roll that I allowed to ripple through my entire body toward her. A blatant tease. Where did that fun cockiness come from? She usually scared the bloody hell out of me.

Her smile slowly spread and she daintily bit her lower lip, not breaking eye contact, then she threw her own suggestive move at me. It was as graceful as it was sexy. I damn near melted into a puddle. She cocked an eyebrow at me as I slowed down then grinned back and we finished the song in each other's personal space, trying to melt the other with the intense heat from our bodies.

When the song was over, she was laughing delightfully with a hand draped loosely over my shoulders. We looked around and all of our friends had decidedly shit eating grins on their faces as we stepped quickly back from each other.

Jenny said as the next cover started, “That's about it for me tonight, I'm right knackered. Paya here says she and Harry can give me a ride home. Taa.” She leaned in to give a terrified looking Teri a peck on the cheek.

I'm sure I had a similar look of terror and betrayal on my face as Paya just gave me a toothy grin as she waved and walked off with the other. “Bye Tabs!”

We both looked at their retreating backs then at each other and started cracking up laughing. I sighed in resignation, then at almost the same moment we both shrugged and started dancing to the re-imagined Miranda Keys cover of Mischief.

She yelled to me over the music, “We can plot their doom after this song. It just begs to be celebrated.” My smile grew as I nodded emphatically and got lost in her eyes and the beat.

When it was over and Ronnie put on some mix, he said was given to him by Scratch. My eyes instantly darted to where I had seen the man earlier, he was gone. The mix was inspired. I was about to start dancing to it when I saw Teri was laughing and rolling her eyes.

I tilted my head in question and she grabbed both of my hands in hers and dragged me down the hall and outside where we could speak without yelling at each other. I tilted my head at her embarrassed look and she said, “Well my cousin, in all her forward thinking glory, forgot to give me the keys to her car. She was my ride. Then she smiled cutely and blinked innocently as she tilted her head. “Give a girl a lift?”

Now it was my turn to laugh. “Looks like we're stranded then. Paya was my ride.” We looked at each other and burst out laughing again. God I loved this fun version of her.

She just looped her arm in mine and took a deep breath of air that smelled of river, and well... London. Then started walking with me toward the main road as she said, “A cab then.” Oh, I guess we weren't going back in. I really didn't care as long as she stayed beside me.

She cocked her head down slightly toward me, looking ahead as we walked. “I had no idea that was what you sang. I had you pegged for classical since that's all I have heard you sing at the Conservatoire. You were simply brill tonight.”

I blushed at the compliment and shrugged. “Classical really isn't my thing. For as long as I can remember, music has been buried inside of me, woven through emotion. I've always wanted to share the feelings and how music moves me with others. So I've adopted a mix of metal and pop. I guess Penny Franklin from Leather and Heels was sort of my inspiration.”

She stopped us and looked down at me with an appraising head tilt before we started walking again. I looked up at her with a goofy grin asking, “What?”

She shrugged as we passed the gate to the warehouse area, I noted the chain hanging on it with a lock that had apparently been cut. Then she said as she hugged the arm she had her's looped in. “I don't know. I just like this more talkative you. You seem so reticent to speak at the school.”

I snorted and slapped a hand over my mouth in embarrassment. Then I said, “Well you scare the bloody hell out of me.” Then I let go of her arm and swung around in front of her, walking backward as I grabbed her hands in mine. “Tell me about Teresa McClellan, what makes her tick?”

We walked for well over an hour into the core, passing dozens of cabs without hailing them, lost in our conversation. We spoke about everything and anything. Sharing bits and pieces of ourselves with each other.

She didn't scare me there. The conversation was so comfortable like we had known each other our entire lives, it felt like speaking with Paya, only my bestie didn't do all these wonderful things to my body. I could feel a heat building in my belly, slowly filling my entire being as we shared our lives with each other. I always thought that this type of sharing was as intimate as a caress.

We found ourselves walking along the Thames, not more than half a kilometer from my place. She checked her watch; yes she actually wore a delicate silver watch; it was past one AM. She sighed and looked at me then raised her hand, flagging down a passing cab. “As much fun as this has been, and how I'd love it to go on forever. I need to get to bed, church in the morning and all.”