Chapter 27: 9:20. Hoedown

The costume shenanigans went on a while longer, as Rhoda insisted we try such-and-such and she and Tammy fleshed out their story for other-me. Oddly, I didn't mind as much as I expected; it even got to be kind of fun, though the torrent of details filtering out from the universe in Rhoda's head was a bit overwhelming.^* Sekhmet eventually grew bored and stalked off in search of something else to mangle, and even the sisters finally decided to move on.

^* ("Jellyfish leather?" Really?)

We went back downstairs to the living room, where everyone was chatting and laughing and having a good time, and sat down to join them; or at least Rhoda and Tammy did. I still felt weird about being at someone else's family gathering and wasn't sure if I'd make it uncomfortable trying to join in, so I sat back and passively observed. It was great that they enjoyed each other's company so much, but was I going to spend the whole weekend just sitting awkwardly on the fringes of other people's family time...?

But before long, a curious thing happened. Mrs. Greenfield was sitting on the bench of an old upright piano, and during a lull in the conversation she began idly fingering the keys, picking out a phrase here and there, striking on a particularly evocative chord... As if on cue, the rest of the family - Angie excepted - produced instruments seemingly by magic. Okay, they actually went rummaging through a basket on a shelf, reached behind the couch, etc., but it was so spontaneous and natural that it felt like they'd appeared out of thin air...

And then it was a jam session. Mrs. Greenfield spun around to face the piano properly without leaving the bench and suddenly music was flowing out of it, while the others got their instruments in order; Rhoda helped Tammy get a compact amp plugged in for her bass (not the one at the dorm, but a nice-looking "J-bass" brought out from a closet in the corner) and Nick tuned up a battered old archtop guitar, while Jason and his father joined in on soprano and alto recorder.

The music...how to describe it? It began as a lilting, emotive, captivating Impressionist piano solo; I couldn't tell if it was original or just something I didn't know, but it reminded me of Debussy's "Clair de lune," though it definitely wasn't. The recorders added a curiously Renaissance flavor, but kept with the theme; then Nick's guitar crept in, walking a weird, angular Frippian line around the perimeters of his mother's themes, steering things in a more modern direction...

Yet somehow, it all fit; and when Tammy sounded her first notes underneath it and Rhoda gently drummed her fingers on the cajón that'd been tucked away next to the recliner, it felt like something bigger coming together, rather than a hijacking. There was an energy to it that got right down into me, and I found myself standing up without even realizing, the ticking in my brain falling into sync with their time...

The music changed, perceptibly but elegantly - sailing smoothly around a tight corner. Somehow, we'd gone from variations on the initial piece to something else entirely. Tammy was laying down a Motown groove, and what were the rest of them even doing? They were building something warm and lively, jazzy and strange; how had we gotten here? I'd lost track, wholly swept up in the flow of it; my skirt twirled around my shins as I spun, lost in their emotions, soaring so freely...

The energy built and built, the music changing again, tension rising as Nick's guitar became more insistent and driving, until I could hardly believe it wasn't electric. I heard Mrs. Greenfield and her daughter building up a crescendo in the low end while her husband and son held out a high note and her other daughter tapped out a delicately syncopated holding pattern...

And then it exploded. The whole room was filled to bursting with sound - Tammy's thundering, Rhoda's pounding, the furious picking of the guitar, the singing of the flutes, the resounding swell of the piano - and I felt transported, like I'd been taken into a world where there was only this room, these people, and their music. It grabbed me, moved me, made me a part of it; I felt myself moving with it, surrendering to it and letting myself go, caught up in the awakening of something wild and wonderful, deep inside myself. The song was achingly beautiful now, crashing and apocalyptic like all of creation was coming down around us, and I never wanted it to end...

But we were already reaching the finale. As the last of the notes came crashing down, splashed across the room like raindrops, and faded away into silence, the spell lifted, and I found that I was in the middle of the room, hair in disarray, stumbling out of the last few steps of a wild, free-form dance I had not even consciously realized I was doing, but which everyone else had clearly been watching the entire time. I was suddenly immensely self-conscious, trying to account for my behavior, trying to find an excuse, even as Mrs. Greenfield smiled gently and said, "That was very beautiful, Susan."

This kind of thing wasn't me, was it? I didn't stand out, I didn't draw attention to myself, and I definitely didn't just abandon all self-control and go off into a fugue state doing a goddamn interpretive dance...! What had possessed me so? Was the music that captivating? Or was it something about the musicians, something they had done to me? Did they know?

No, no. Surely, this was just another bizarre aspect of my change; not just a clockwork automaton, but a literal dancing doll, compelled by...by that sound, by those feelings, by the desperate desire to get lost in that sense of wonder and never return to a world without it... I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts, but the feeling of exhilaration wouldn't go away. When had I last felt like this? How long had it been since I'd gotten truly lost in something, wrapped up in enjoyment for its own sake...?

Sure, I'd been self-medicating with music and stuff as a form of stress control since I started college - no, well before that - but that wasn't the same thing; that was me trying to use things I did like to trick myself into believing that stuff I wasn't so thrilled about was actually okay and I was doing fine when I really wasn't. It was a way to keep myself going when I didn't want to, not revelling in something I loved for the sheer joy of it; and I hadn't needed to do that since my change, being less susceptible to the stress. But this...

Mr. Greenfield let out a heavy, contented sigh. "Oh, I've missed that," he said. His wife nodded. "It's never quite the same with just the four of us."

Still dazed and confused, I turned to Tammy. "I, uh...I thought you said you hadn't played since high school...?" What was that? Could a person who only dabbled with something for a few years and had gotten out of practice really sound like that? Or did whatever aspect of my altered self turned me into a dancing fool just make me feel it that much more...?

She shrugged. "Well, yeah. We used to do this a lot when I was growing up, though. Guess it kinda stuck."

I stood there for a bit, still reeling inside, trying to process this, trying to regain my composure and get my feelings back under control; but no sooner had I done so than Angie, sitting on the couch, gave me a mischievous smile and said, "Well, don't stop there, guys!"

Her husband chuckled. "Right, let's do another one." He put the recorder to his lips and sounded out the first few notes of a simple pastoral melody. Something inside me kicked into gear, and I just knew this was going to be the whole freakin' evening...

...and part of me couldn't wait.

---

The music went on for a good while longer, and Tammy had to wind me partway through; it was draining, but I honestly didn't care. I felt ridiculous being so easily and completely enthralled, like I was an organ-grinder's monkey or some damn thing, but the feeling was so good that it didn't matter. Finally, though, the others got tired enough that they agreed to call it a night.

The very strange thought that If they were all like me, we might be able to keep doing this forever... crossed my mind, but no - then we'd all need someone to wind us, and anyway there must be a reason I still slept. People could have serious mental issues under extreme sleep deprivation, and for all I knew that went for clockwork minds as well. But the thought of being surrounded by others like myself struck a peculiar chord, and I wondered why. Was this the fundamental human social instinct, transposed to fit my altered form? Did my subconscious mind think that way even if I didn't consciously think of this as truly me? How did that work...?

I was still puzzling it over when they said goodnight to each other. Mrs. Greenfield paused, thought for a moment, and turned to me with a concerned look. "You know," she said, "I'm afraid I didn't think of it, but with Jason and Angie taking the guest room, I'm not sure where Susan is supposed to sleep..."

"Oh, huh - well, I can take the couch," Nick volunteered.

"Always gotta play the gentleman, eh?" Rhoda teased.

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He said nothing, but fidgeted slightly, rolling his shoulders and shuffling his feet; I noticed that he wouldn't look me in the eye. Was...was this a thing? No, maybe it was just his sister's teasing that embarrassed him; I hadn't noticed anything funny in his behavior earlier. Still, it felt weird to think about; by this point, I'd been subjected to more than a few uncomfortable stares and outright leers from guys on campus, but I'd never had someone treat me deferentially because I was a "girl," at least that I'd noticed...

I didn't know how to feel about that. Was I supposed to be flattered? Charmed? Or should I feel bad for deceiving him...? I probably didn't even need the couch; there was no call for me to be kicking a guy out of his own bed if he was only offering out of obligation to "Susan," who wasn't even real...

While I fretted over it, Tammy wheeled forward. "Don't worry about it," she said, "she can sleep in my room."

"Huh?" I said, surprised. "Uh, it's okay, the couch is f-"

"Ooh, slumber party!" her sister giggled.

Tammy shook her head, to both of us. "Not after a long day and a big meal. I wanna sleep. But seriously, Sue, it's fine. Besides, you know how you are in the mornings, and I know how my sister is. You wanna be down here with me."

"It was one time...!" Rhoda protested, catching some reference that I didn't.

I didn't know how to feel about this, either, but everybody else seemed to think it solved things nicely, and we were all eager to call it a night, so I just went along with it. They all went their separate ways, and I followed Tammy down the hall and into her bedroom, trying not to think about whether this was awkward and what I'd have made of this a month ago. "I'm gonna go get ready for bed," she told me. "You can make yourself comfortable."

Tammy's room was sparse next to the clutter of Rhoda's workshop, but pleasant enough. The bed was set at the same height as her wheelchair, and everything was arranged so she could get almost anywhere without too much trouble. There was an accessibility rail mounted on the wall, and a cupboard at the head with a CD player, a reading lamp, and a stack of books on top; they were diverse, but the top few were big glossy photo anthologies - nature photography, life scenes, and a particularly nice-looking one on the wreck of the Titanic.^* She must've spent a lot of time here since...well, since I didn't really know when.

^* (Which, funnily enough, was one of the major wreck discoveries in the 20th century not assisted by merfolk; they could dive much deeper than humans, but not that far down. It was still a sore point for some of them, and all the publicity surrounding the '97 film hadn't helped.)

It was funny - strange-funny, not ha-ha-funny - being here. I'd only known Tammy for a few months, and only by chance; I hadn't even thought of us as friends for most of that. Yet here we were, thrown together into this whole crazy mess, and now we were apparently close enough that she'd invite me to family gatherings with people I'd never even met; I didn't understand it, but it was nice to feel wanted, at least...

After a bit, Tammy came back from the bathroom, her hair put up for the night. She looked at me with mild confusion. "I, uh, I meant you could go ahead and go to bed if you wanted. No need to wait up on my account."

"Huh? Then where are you sleeping?" I asked, a bit confused myself. I looked under the bed, but no, there wasn't a trundle.

"On the bed, obviously...?" She paused for a moment, putting two and two together. "Wait, you weren't planning to lie on the floor or something, were you?"

"Was that not the idea?" I asked, turning back to her, then hastily turning away; she'd started undressing, casual as could be. "I mean, uh, are you okay with...?"

She bit her lip to stifle a chuckle as she changed into her pajama top. "Oh, really! C'mon, Sue, I know you better than that. And I'm not letting a friend and a guest sleep on the damn floor."

"You...you, uh, don't have to call me that," I said. "Not when we're alone."

She gave me a puzzled look. "Huh? Were you not trying it on...?"

Something inside me zizz-ed into high gear, and I sputtered incoherently for several seconds before I could even get out "N-no, no, that wasn't-!"I sighed; if I'd still been able to, I'd have been blushing like mad. "...I was trying not to make things awkward, alright?"

She thought that over for a moment. "...Ah. Um, okay, whatever you say, then." She gave me a wry smile. "But seriously, I trust you to be a gentleman, Stu. Now c'mon - we've both had a long day."

She wheeled up next to the bed and climbed in, pulling the covers back; then she scooted over towards the wall to make room for me. I went to lie down, then realized that A. I was still dressed, B. I'd been wearing Rhoda's outfit (sans armor) the whole evening, C. I hadn't even noticed until now, and most importantly D. all my things were upstairs in her room.

"I, uh, I need to go get my stuff," I said, still boggling over the fact that I'd been dressed like this the entire time and it hadn't felt weird or awkward to me. Was it just because I didn't realize other people were seeing me in it...?

Tammy laughed outright. "Come on, wouldja? Your 'underwear' is practically PJs for some girls, anyway. Let's just get the hell to bed already."

Reluctantly, I doffed the blouse and skirt, feeling a little exposed; Tammy had already seen me buck-naked, but that was by accident. I crawled into bed, lying on my stomach to let my key turn freely; Tammy made herself comfortable next to me, pulled the covers over us, and turned out the light. I willed myself to sleep before I could think any more about the situation.

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