.7.
"Cherry Bomb"
The winter days / they last forever
But the weekends went by so quick
When I think back about those days
All I can do is sit and smile
Laughing, laughing / with our friends
Holding hands meant something, baby…
© 1987 John Cougar Mellencamp
.xxxxx.
Richie and Kenny chattered lightly as they strolled into the P*lace on a Monday afternoon. Devyn and Connie were already there, giggling with a flock of girlfriends at one of the tables, so the boys made a beeline for the counter instead. It was a rare rehearsal-only afternoon, and both were determined to make the best of their free time until the others showed up and the work began.
"What can I get you guys?" Riley asked, looking pleased to have two more customers stepping up to his counter.
Kenny shrugged. "The usual," he ordered, counting out his money and passing it across.
"Same here," Richie said, digging into his pockets. Boy, what a great idea this was, striking a deal for the band's outfits, in exchange for Rocky Rahsaan Ripple ice cream, he thought to himself. It's my favorite flavor – I could probably eat my weight in it and not even get sick!
"Here you go," Riley announced with a flourish, placing two dishes of the special flavor in front of them. Kenny murmured his thanks and left, wandering over to an empty table near the entrance.
Richie counted out the last of his change, shining his last penny on his shirt before passing it over. "So, Riley, how are we doing?" he asked. "Have we made up much of our debt to you yet?"
"Some of it," Riley replied, smiling as he dropped the money in the cash register.
"Most of it?" Richie asked hopefully, digging his spoon into his sundae.
"Some of it," Riley reiterated, with emphasis. "We did well, making it the featured flavor last month, but you still have a ways to go. You did buy a lot of jackets, after all."
Richie shrugged, stuffing a huge bite of the delectable treat into his mouth. Riley had done the band a huge favor, and was taking it all in stride, for which Richie was eternally grateful. He didn't always think his schemes completely through before launching them, but so far? He'd been lucky – they'd all worked, even if it meant his friends bailing him out on occasion.
He turned, about to set off towards the table where Connie, Devyn, and their friends were congregated, before noticing Kenny sitting by himself a few tables away. Furrowing his brow, he altered paths, sidling up to Kenny's table and sliding into the seat next to him.
"Hey, man, is everything okay?" he asked, dipping his spoon into his ice cream again.
Kenny shrugged. "Yeah," he replied noncommittally. He shot a baleful stare across the way at the girls before lowering his eyes to his own dish.
Richie glanced from his friend to the girls and back again, the gears in his mind grinding together. "So – is there a reason you're not sitting with Devyn and the others? You guys didn't have a fight, did you?"
Kenny sighed. "No," he replied, "but I'm so tired of listening to them. All they talk about is boys and clothes and who's going out with who." He made a face. "It gets boring after a while, know what I mean?"
Richie shrugged. "I suppose," he remarked, taking another bite. It was obvious something a little deeper than idle gossip was needling his friend. "Are they talking about anyone in particular?"
Kenny nodded. "Oh yeah," he confirmed, rolling his eyes. "If you're curious, go sit with them – I'm sure they're still talking about it. It's a losing battle to get them off the subject."
Richie's brows shot up – he'd never heard Kenny speak with such vitriol before, especially not aimed at his supposed best friend, Devyn. Curiosity claimed him and he stood up, wandering over to where the girls had gathered. He was pleased to see that they had also ordered the usual, which meant, slowly but surely, everyone truly was pitching in to help with their ice cream/performance outfit debt.
The girls' conversation reached his ears long before he reached their table. "Well, like I said," Devyn was saying, eyes sparkling, "Ryan came to rehearsal the next day, and told us that Stacy was writing a story for a huge English assignment, and she was feeling a lot of pressure because it was due at the end of the week. He insisted that she wasn't mad at us – and when she showed up a couple minutes later? She definitely wasn't angry."
Devyn looked triumphant at the end of this little soliloquy, but Richie just felt confused. They were talking about Ryan and Stacy?
"I don't get it," he piped up, drawing the girls' attention.
Devyn couldn't contain her grin. "Don't you see? Something happened between them, and they're keeping it from us," she clarified. "Isn't that totally romantic?"
The girls sighed dreamily in unison.
Richie nearly choked on his ice cream. "Um…"
"I think you're just delusional," another voice interjected. Richie glanced over his shoulder to see Kenny, his arms folded across his chest as he stared defiantly at the girls. "Face it, your little plan didn't work!"
Devyn dismissed his protest with a wave of her hand. "You didn't see the note I found!" she contended with a grin. "It was all about how she's in love with him, and willing to leave the band because of it. Don't you get it? He must've said or done something to make her stay."
"And you read the note out of context," Kenny argued. "Ryan told us that Stacy was writing a story – how do you know the page you saw wasn't part of that?"
"Context," Devyn asserted. "And subtext. Didn't you guys see the way they were acting during our concert on Saturday?"
Connie nodded. "You know Ryan and Brian haven't always seen eye to eye on the staging, but he was totally into it."
"And he's not exactly coordinated," one of their friends remarked ruefully.
Connie grinned. "Right – and yet, he willingly went along with everything that Brian had designed. When was the last time that happened?"
Devyn clapped a hand on Connie's shoulder. "He had eyes only for Stace," she agreed with a dreamy sigh. "Did you see it, during 'Seven Wonders'?"
Connie nodded in response. Their "Seven Wonders" performance had been pretty straightforward – the band had lined up by height, with Stacy in the middle, flanked by Ryan and Kenny, with Connie and Devyn on the ends. There was little actual choreography during the song, as each member took turns contributing on the lead vocal line, but the transition from the stage to the risers in the audience between verses had produced material worthy of conversational fodder, apparently. The five members not playing instruments had completed a complicated figure-eight style sequence, moving from one end of the stage, to the other, to the staircase, and finally moving to the opposite end of the risers from where they started on stage – with the tallest kids on the outside this time, and the shortest in the middle.
Another of their friends, Rosie, spoke up. "He was always looking at her."
During the entire sequence, Ryan had kept his eyes trained on Stacy, which Devyn, Connie, and their friends found so romantic – but the boys just thought was practical.
"Well, yeah, for the steps," Richie supplied. "You just said it – the dude isn't coordinated."
The girls only laughed.
"Then how do you explain, when we were back on the stage, why he was still looking at her?" Devyn countered.
"And fondly," Rosie added.
The boys simply stared at them. "You guys are nuts," Kenny deadpanned.
"Ooh, how about the encore, 'Cherry Bomb'?" another friend, Emily, piped up. "I had a front-row seat for that one!"
The girls nodded and grinned knowingly.
"What about it? They've had that song planned for weeks," Richie remarked.
Connie gave him a disbelieving stare. "You really can't see anything from behind your drums, can you?"
He shrugged, taking another bite of his ice cream.
Emily shot up out of her seat. "Then allow us to demonstrate," she said, grabbing Devyn's hands and pulling her to her feet. "Will you be my Ryan?"
"Of course," Devyn giggled.
The girls gave a blow-by-blow of the performance as they imitated it. "They came out into the audience from opposite wings," Emily noted, "and met in front of the stairs to the stage to sing the first verse."
"To each other," Devyn emphasized.
"Right," her friend laughed. "And they climbed the stairs in unison, so that – wait, what was the chorus?"
"'That's when a sport was a sport,'" Devyn sang, picking up Ryan's line of the duet. "'And grooving was grooving!'"
Emily laughed. "Then they were on stage together, and that's when it happened."
Devyn took her friend's hand, twirling her around. "'Dancing meant everything,'" she crooned dramatically. "'We were young and we were improving!'"
"'Laughing, laughing, with our friends,'" Connie chimed in.
The two clasped hands. "'Holding hands, that's something, baby!'" the three sang in unison, before collapsing into giggles.
"So romantic," Rosie proclaimed. "And then at the end – loved it! The way he practically growled that line, 'outside the club Cherry Bomb / our hearts were really thumping' at her as they climbed the stairs again, and then they held hands all the way through the end!"
The girls practically squealed with delight at the memory.
Richie and Kenny exchanged skeptical looks. "Did it ever occur to you that – maybe all that was staged?" Kenny asked. "Like, you know, every other performance we've done this season?"
"Oh, come on, you guys! We had the perfect view!" Devyn teased. The three had been at center stage for the entire performance, actually playing the song as Ryan and Stacy sang. "I don't know what you were looking at – "
" – the audience?" Kenny grumbled under his breath.
" – but I was watching them, and it looked real to me," she concluded.
Connie and the others nodded in agreement.
Kenny turned to Richie, throwing up his hands. "See what I mean? Losing. Battle."
Richie shrugged. His mind was still stuck on a remark Devyn had tossed off at the very beginning of the conversation. "But…if they're keeping something from us, how can that be good?" he wondered aloud. "We work together so well because we communicate so well."
Devyn shot a pointed look at his ice cream dish. "Really?" she drawled, as if she couldn't believe he was the one to belabor that point.
"I'm serious, guys," Richie said, setting the cup down. "And with Ryan as our leader, it's even more important that he be honest with us. I don't like it."
Connie sighed. "You guys just don't understand," she mused dismissively.
"No, you don't understand," Kenny shot back. "If something's going on, it's going to affect all of us." He tightened the brace of his arms. "I don't want the group to splinter off over this."
Richie put a hand on his shoulder, giving him a reassuring squeeze. "If it helps, I don't think they're like that. Ryan and Stacy wouldn't keep anything from us, not intentionally. They've been members of Kids Incorporated the longest…" After a beat, he continued. "Anyway, I agree with you – I think the girls are making something out of nothing."
Devyn's smile flattened. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Whatever, guys," she said flippantly. "Be blissful in your ignorance."
The factions glared at each other, the tense silence that rose up around them broken only by the swinging of the double glass doors.
"Is everything okay?" a new voice interjected, somewhat skeptically.
Richie, Kenny, Devyn, Connie, and their friends turned their attention to the source of the comment, tense stances and folded arms dropping instantly. Ryan was looking at them, concern and confusion clouding his features. Stacy was standing next to him with a similar expression, her arms wrapped around her books.
The girls seemed quite disappointed that the two weren't all over each other.
"Yeah," Richie finally said. "We were – just discussing how much we still owe Riley for our jackets."
Ryan quirked a brow, clearly not believing him, as he came to a halt by the counter. "Yeah, it's a lot," he said, swinging his backpack onto a barstool and digging into it for some cash. He passed a few bills to Stacy and set off for the table. "Riley told us it'd probably take us until spring to pay him back in full."
Richie gulped. "Really?" he asked, suddenly feeling a pang of guilt.
Stacy returned just then, with two fresh sundaes in hand, and sat at the table formerly occupied by the gaggle of girls. Ryan sat beside her, and the others quickly followed suit, pulling up chairs to accommodate them all.
"Well, yeah," Ryan clarified. "I mean, especially since you ordered them for people who don't even eat ice cream." He shot a dark look over his shoulder, directed towards the dancers outside, who were warming up under Brian's watchful eye. "Anyway, we have a lot to do, so let's get started, okay?"
"Okay," the others sighed. Kenny cleared away the empty, drippy ice cream dishes, and Connie and Devyn waved goodbye to their friends. When Kenny returned to his seat, Ryan pulled out a gigantic stack of sheet music, piling it in the middle of the table.
"Whoa," Connie said, her eyes wide. "That's a lot of music."
"So we have a lot to choose from," Stacy remarked.
Ryan nodded, noshing on his ice cream. "I figured we could plan out a week's worth of shows off this – I'm just trying to stay ahead of the game." He took another bite, gesturing with his spoon. "So, come on guys, choose what you want to do, and we'll start putting set lists together!"
The others dug into the pile while Stacy and Ryan enjoyed their after-school snack. Truth be told, there was more than enough music to plan two or three weeks' worth of concerts around – the band played five-song afternoon sets three times a week, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and one longer, twelve-to-twenty song concert on Saturday nights. They rehearsed every day of the week, save Sunday, so they went through a constant rotation of songs. Monday and Friday afternoons were the most grueling, but most of the time, they were also the most fun.
Everyone began talking at once – "This would be great for Saturday!" or, "you should do this one afternoon, Kenny!" or, "Connie and Stacy and I could turn this into a trio without much work, I think," – but Richie mostly kept to himself. He didn't volunteer for lead singer duties, much preferring to stay in the safety of his drum kit. He watched the others, however, looking for signs that the tension from earlier had dissipated.
He didn't have to wait long.
Ryan pulled a sheet from the stack. "I nominate you for this one, Stace," he commented. "I think it'd make a good solo, maybe for a Saturday?"
Stacy smiled. "How appropriate," she mused knowingly, accepting the music. "I accept."
Devyn elbowed Connie once she caught the title of the song – "Out of the Blue," by Debbie Gibson – and the two stifled triumphant snickers. Neither Ryan nor Stacy seemed to notice, but Kenny did, frowning in their general direction.
Richie glanced from one to the other, a knot of uneasiness setting in his chest. He didn't like the idea of his friends fighting, and over something so stupid, no less. He could only hope this question of, "are they or aren't they?" would be answered soon – and satisfactorily – before it tore the band apart.
