"See? I told you you'd be all right."
Bonnie was forced to agree with Mike's only-slightly-smug observation as she lounged comfortably in a lush recliner, surrounded by Benny's unimaginable guitar tunes. He'd been right about the quality of the sound, but then he was sure of it. He'd designed the system himself. The tape had already played through once, and was rewound and played again at Mike's insistence. Now he had one of his vintage Gibsons in hand and was trying to pick up one of the more complex tunes.
"Nuh-uh, Nesmith, the harmonics are all on the right hand," Bonnie corrected. "But not bad for a beginner," she teased.
"Well how the hell," Mike muttered, right hand down low as usual, the left up on the fretboard.
"Right hand." Bonnie crawled out of the recliner and knelt on the thick carpet in front of Mike where he sat at one end of the impossibly long sofa. "Here, like this." She slid Mike's right hand up to where his left was, and then pushed the left hand back. "Just support he neck with the left hand. Now wherever you want the note, tweak it, think kind of like a harpsichord. Your forefinger is striking the string, while your thumb is plucking it up."
After a time or two, he struck a note that rang like crystal.
"Perfecto," Bonnie sat back on her heels and applauded. "And before you ask, no he didn't invent that. Just that nobody much uses it."
At first Mike was completely focused on his hands as he worked on other notes, but then he looked up and asked, "You sure you don't play?"
She nodded. "Nah, just a good observer. I don't have the dexterity. But I understand the mechanics inside and out."
"This is more than mechanics," he insisted, sitting up again and closing his eyes as the last flourish of the tune subsided. The reel-to-reel shut itself off when the tape ran out. "Damn, it's definitely more than that."
Bonnie reached for her glass and drained the last of the very good white wine Mike had opened. "Well yeah, I like to think of it as the difference between playing they music and playing the instrument. Any fool can learn to hit the right notes, right? But every instrument has its own voice, and you have to know how to help it sing."
"You have a poet's heart, Morris. Unfortunately it's trapped in the body of an administrative enforcer."
"Ha, ha. Well it ran in the family, I guess. The poet's heart part, anyway. As for the rest, Benny always said when he was ready for a manager, I'd be the only one he'd hire." She smiled, and sat back on her heels. "So, as long as you're armed and dangerous, why don't you play something you like? Something nobody's paying you to play. You've written some pretty outtasight stuff for the show and the band, but none of that. Something totally that comes from here and now." She settled back, leaning against the nearby ottoman, and waited.
"Hmm, lemme think." Mike set the Gibson back on its stand and got up to select yet another guitar. "Got this Martin Goya from a dealer a couple weeks ago, set me back a pile of bread. But if you're gonna make 'em sing, they gotta have the voice, and a good voice don't come cheap." He saw Bonnie was watching him intently. "Quit staring, okay? This isn't a gig."
"That's crazy," she protested. "People look at you all the time when you're playing. I like watching hands while they're playing." More to the point, I like watching your hands. But she didn't say that out loud.
"Well this isn't 'all the time'. So just sit back and close your eyes and pretend I'm on tape like Benny."
"Fine, Mr. Prima Dona." She did as he asked. When he began the few bars of lead-in she asked, "Is this new? I kind of recognize it, but I'm not sure. Not one of yours, I don't think."
Without stopping, he looked at her where she sat, eyes obediently closed, and mouth still running. "Are you gonna listen or are you gonna rap?" He caught the edge in his voice, and added more evenly, "And no, it's not one of mine, it's by that Indian songwriter Buffy Saint Marie. I recorded it before I came to L.A. but it never went anywhere."
"Fine, sorry…"
The first thing she noticed was the difference in his voice. No funky rhythms, none of the subtle – and sometimes not-so-subtle – Texas twang. His phrasing was so smooth, so sweetly lyrical, it almost didn't sound like Mike Nesmith at all.
The second thing she noticed was the lyrics. It wasn't a love song, exactly, but it was a real-life song about maybe-almost-love, risking a lot, expecting just the moment. When she heard the phrase "you could have stayed outside my heart, but in you came, so here you'll stay until it's time for you to go" she risked a squinty-eyed peek... and caught him looking steadily at her, then down again at his guitar, as if gauging the distance between the music and reality. Then Bonnie lost herself in the delicate guitar break, and the poignantly beautiful last lines that spun out like velvet in Mike's even tenor. When the quiet echo of the guitar faded, Bonnie opened her eyes carefully. He was still looking down at the guitar, examining the strings.
"Damn, Nesmith." She tried to think of something more clever to say, but couldn't.
"It's kinda different," he admitted with a shrug. "Not exactly mindblowing rock'n'roll."
"Doesn't have to be, for christsake. Has anyone told you that you sing like an angel when you have the right song?" She regretted her words immediately.
"Well hello, honesty," Mike sniped, his expression darkening, but Bonnie managed to cut him off.
"No goddammit that's not what I meant. I mean, your songs are fantastic, they're more real and thoughtful than all the other crap you guys get fed. But aside from a couple of them, you write leaving songs, and stay-away songs, like that. Even when they're a thing of beauty, there's this sadness. This one, well it wasn't. Sad, I mean. Just a thing of beauty. Who cares who wrote it?" She waited.
"I think I have you figured out, Morris," Mike told her, "When you slip on a banana peel, you just start to dance. Makes it all better." He leaned forward for emphasis, "I mean that."
"So… where'd it come from?" she wanted to know.
"Told ya, I recorded it a while back. Buffy Saint Marie."
He was dodging, so she wove. "I heard you. I mean, why when I told you to do something that comes from here and now, you sang that, sweet enough to cry for."
"Why do I get the feeling you have an answer in mind?" he asked, then put the guitar aside and motioned around them. "Here and now, huh. Yeah, a little bit. Morris, we both know why we're here. Because nobody else gets us like we do. Even if we can't figure it out."
Finally Bonnie slid closer to the sofa, looking up at him. "I might have to disagree. I think maybe you just did figure it out."
They looked at each other in silence for a minute, and a half-smile came to Mike's face. "You could be right. There was this girl in New York…"
"Now is not the time for confession, Nesmith," Bonnie declared with a roll of her eyes. "I don't care who you got it on with, I know the difference between this and that." Mike gestured impatiently, but Bonnie continued, "I've been around enough musicians to know that groupies aren't much different than jerking off, they just give you something besides your hands to work with. So I couldn't care less."
"Congratulations, you've shut me down again without knowing what I was gonna say. I don't guess you care it's not what you think."
Bonnie shook her head. "I'm finding out nothing much about you is what I think."
Mike reached for his shades and put them on. "Back at ya, Siobhan."
"It's not the same thing," she bristled, and he leaned forward again.
"That so? How the hell do you know if you won't listen? And this time you are gonna listen, lady, because you're in my house and it's a long walk back to your place." He poured her a glass of wine from a second bottle, and slapped it down on the coffee table with almost enough force to break the stem. "Now drink up, and shut up, because I can talk almost as good as I can sing if you will open your ears. Like I said, there was a girl in New York, desk clerk at the hotel, and she came on strong enough to kill, talking about some other girl she knew that I had after the New York gig, talking like getting at my dick was like getting a trophy. And as usual I wasn't in the mood to say no, so I said c'mon in. And just as we were getting down to it, my brain started wrestling with my balls, and I tried to talk to her like a real person. I asked her last name… not interested. I tried to tell her about being able to play on stage for the first time… not interested. Then I said okay, let's do it, but no autograph, how's that suit ya? And she shut down real quick. And I thought, fuck this. For the first time I can remember I got fed up before I got laid. So I kicked her out and took a cold shower and slept like a baby. And if comparing this to that were a song, it'd be the one I just sang. The segue's a little rough, but I think you get the picture."
By now she was standing over him. "Like I said… I think you just got us figured out. Look, I remember what you said about wanting to find some relief with your pants on… if that's what this is with us, that's fine, because I feel the same way about it. I don't wanna mess up what's already here." But she saw he was smiling at her.
"I believe the ideal situation would be, to find relief with and without pants. And I believe we can make some space for that."
"So… what happens right now?" she asked.
Mike reached his hands out to rest on Bonnie's hips, and moved his fingers back and forth.
"Well," he drawled lazily, "right now I'm thinking we've gotten very groovy at providing relief with pants on… and I am thinking what would be just the right way to seduce you into the same kinda thing with pants off."
"Ah," Bonnie said quietly and took a step closer, pulling off Mike's shades and laying them on the end table. "You wanna seduce me, huh?" He nodded with a sly smile. Bonnie straddled his lap and smoothed back the thick dark bangs with one hand. Nodding in the direction of his guitar she purred, "Head's up, Nesmith… you just did. Now gimme some sugar." She took hold of his head with both hands and they locked onto each other for so long they came up gasping.
"How about we move this party upstairs," Mike suggested between kisses along the edge of Bonnie's ear.
"Thought you said no parties," she managed to challenge. Good God he is good at this...
"First time for everything."
Then, suddenly, he froze. "Damn. I believe I am caught short again," he sighed. He could still feel Bonnie's smile through the kisses she was laying along his neck.
"No problem," she whispered against his skin. "I started taking those little magic pills…"
"Why Morris!" Mike grabbed hold of her shoulders and held her back from him with an expression of (feigned) shock. "You are wicked and lustful!"
He lifted her off of his lap and jumped up, smacking her on the ass and giving her a shove toward the stairs. "For that you get a 10-second head start!"