“We look forward to meeting you too, bye, now.” Thelma said as she put down the phone.
Carefully Arleen wrote RC46732 on her calendar for the following Friday, and settled down to watch the awards show.
The two weeks went by fast enough, her Agent gave her information about working in Canada and gave her some forms and documents she’d need if she wanted to work in Canada for more than three months, as well as the necessary contact and fax numbers. By 6:30 on Friday her plane was rolling along the runway. Her guitars and amplifier being the bulk of her luggage was in the cargo hold. She was in time to catch the New York transfer, and enjoyed a glass of wine and a few elegantly prepared sandwiches that tasted like cardboard during the short flight from Rochester to Toronto.
She walked into the Terminal carrying her overnight bag of clothes, and was happy to see that her equipment had arrived safely with her in Toronto, and was already rattling around the baggage rotunda and had not flying out to some exotic destination like Freezeyerassoff in Iceland, Fuckenmuddy in Brazil or Yourawanka in Australia.
She picked up her instruments, mixer board and amp and wandered along to the exit with the hundred odd passengers, from her flight. A young woman stood to one side with a number of uniformed limo chauffeurs holding a sign “Arleen Armstrong”. Arleen estimated she was somewhere in twenties with curly dark hair. She was short, just over 5′ Arleen guessed. Her eyes were green, with a cute turned up nose, her lips wide and sexy, her boobs, beneath a thin silvery blouse were generous and proud, her designer jeans, showed her figure off extremely well. When Arleen drew nearer she noticed that her large eyes were green and flecked with gold and her skin unblemished and unadorned by any cosmetics.
“Hi there, I’m Arleen, are you Mel?” She asked.
“Hi Arleen, uh huh, yeah, I’m Melody Verren, welcome to Canada, eh. I hope you enjoyed your flight. Can I help you with your stuff, it looks heavy.”
Arleen unburdened herself of the amplifier and cased mixer board; the amp was designed to be pulled along on recessed wheels. Melody tugged it behind her as they made their way out towards the car park.
They stowed her guitars and other equipment in the back seat of Melody’s four wheel drive SUV and headed out of the airport and along the freeway, making small talk. “Have you been to Canada before?” Melody asked.
“Oh yeah we did Toronto as part of the tour, also, Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver.” she rattled off.
“Well we’re a little off the beaten track, our club is about three hundred kilometers North of Toronto, in a little town called Birchacres. We grew up there my parents died last winter in a car crash, Thel and I have spent most of our time and money rebuilding it and bring the place up to code. It’ll take about four hours to get there, would you like to stop and get something to eat?” Melody continued.
“Oh no, it’s fine, I had something on the plane.” Arleen answered politely.
“Well then let’s get moving shall we?” Melody said, turning onto a wide highway and headed north. She pointed out various landmarks along the way, Arleen found her to be a lively and animated tour guide. Melody, she discovered, was not a garrulous type, and there were often times of silence, not stilted silence but easy contemplative times when it didn’t seem necessary to speak, she enjoyed Melody’s company. Although it would have appeared rude, she stared at Melody who was concentrating on driving quiet a bit during the trip.
It was close to 2:00 AM when the white SUV pulled up outside a motel and Melody handed her the keycard. “We’ve booked you in here for the weekend. Its room eleven. Sorry it’s not a Jacuzzi suite Try and catch some sleep, I’m really sorry it’s so late; Thel will call you around noon to set up the audition. Oh yes, I forgot you musicians don’t go to bed before three AM and don’t get up before noon anyway, eh?” She giggled prettily.
Melody helped her take her equipment into the motel room; it was medium sized with a large bed and colour TV with a bathroom leading off opposite the closets. It was neat and clean, and far better than some of the rooms she had used while on tour.
“Well get some sleep, Thel will set up the audition in the afternoon, see ya, eh?” Melody said while walking out the door. For some reason it was an awkward moment, almost as if there should have been more.
Arleen lay awake for a while, Melody seemed really nice, it was strange, she felt she had to get to know Melody better. She hoped her sister would be nice too, it would be good to get out of Nashville for a while, even this weekend, although it was also an audition seemed like a vacation. These thoughts soon lulled her to sleep.
She rolled out of bed around 10:00 she showered and dressed in black jeans and a tooled leather belt with an oversized oval western buckle and a simple white tee-shirt and slid into a pair of fancy stitched high heeled black western boots that matched her belt; she used the room’s hairdryer to blow-dry her hair, before venturing out. It was a shock. The temperature was close to 100 degrees. The Birchacres Motel was just off a long straight tarred road. About one hundred yards to the right was a gas station and a Subway sandwich store and one hundred yards to the left a MacDonald’s, and nothing else to see for miles but farmer’s fields. This had to be a prank, ok a really expensive prank, Ashton Kushner better watch out. Damn! She’d fallen for it.
She ambled over to the MacDonald’s and ordered a burger and fries and a coffee. The young guy who took her order, who’s name was Dave according to his nametag seemed to be the only employee; rushed about and put her order in front of her on the standard brown plastic tray. She dug into her jeans and pulled out a $10.00.
Dave, Employee of the month, verified by his picture against the wall, shook his head. “No, no!” He said.” Thelma and Melody Verren were running her tab; it was all already paid for.”
“What would have happened if I went to the sub place at the gas bar? She asked Dave.
“Oh, they probably made arrangements there too, I saw Thelma or Melody, I’m not sure which, stop by there after she came here yesterday”. He said.
She sat down and ate her burger, and sipped her coffee wondering what the hell she had gotten herself into.
She finished her meal and wandered back to her room and cranked the air conditioner up higher, she took her acoustic Hohner guitar from its case and practiced a few chords while tuning the strings before moving into Gretchen Wilson’s raunchy ‘Redneck Woman’. She then took her Fender electric guitar, plugged in her amp, and launched into a heady version of Heart’s ‘Barracuda’. She continued practicing with her acoustic guitar doing the haunting ‘Don’t tell me the time’ made famous by Martha Davis, until the phone rang.
“Hi this is Thelma Verren, we have set aside all afternoon for you, so tell us what time you think you’ll be ready, and I’ll come and fetch you.” She said.
“Hi Thelma, thank you for the burger at MacDonald’s that was kind of you. I’m ready anytime.” She answered.
“Well ok then, I’m on my w…. Ow! Ow! Jesus stop hitting me bitch! I’m on the phone here.” Arleen heard a couple of muffled ‘thunks’ before Thelma continued. “Sorry about that. Melody is already on her way to fetch ya, see you soon, eh?”
Arleen unplugged her amp, and put her guitars back in their cases. She opened the drapes and sat on the bed looking at the road and farmland that surrounded her, there didn’t seem to be any town nearby.
The white SUV pulled up outside the motel room after about ten minutes, and Arleen grabbed her equipment and went out to meet it, as it Melody climbed out Her face flushed. She wore blue jeans and a pink t-shirt with Rosécliffs Tavern emblazoned across her ample chest in Burgundy letters. Their greeting was awkward and stilted, again as if both women realized that something was missing. Melody took the amp and mixer as before and stowed everything in the back. They both climbed in silence and drove out of the car park and onto the tar road and headed North again. This time Melody seemed reserved and there was not much conversation, it was almost as if they were strangers again.
The town was a few miles North of the motel, at a crossroad Arleen saw the sign, Birchacres 5> they turned off the main road and followed the sign. The Rosécliffs Tavern nestled beneath towering pinkish coloured rock cliffs of a tall mountain and on the other side of the road the land sloped down to a large blue lake and the town. The two story building was painted an identical colour to the cliffs. “We’re here.” Melody said unnecessarily.
With Melody’s help she carried her equipment into the bar. She looked around the bar room. The ground floor was a large windowless air conditioned square room with an oaken bar counter running the length of one side, in the center was a good sized wooden dance floor, and against the wall, opposite the bar counter was a small stage; the rest of the tavern had chairs and tables. All the lighting seemed to be recessed or hidden. A kitchen was situated opposite the ladies and gents rest rooms, altogether it was well set out and looked like all the furniture and equipment was new, and the walls smelled of new paint.
She was surprised to see Melody already standing behind the bar counter. She must have moved fast, she thought. “Hi you must be Arleen, I’m Thelma.” Melody said holding out her hand, and shaking hands. Arleen realized that they were twins. Their voices were practically identical, Thelma was the mirror image of her twin, but there were subtle differences, it was the eyes; Thelma’s eyes were pure green, without the golden flecks. She was slightly taller as well, Arleen saw, on closer inspection, Thelma’s breasts beneath the pink emblazoned Rosécliffs Tavern T-shirt were significantly smaller. Outwardly they appeared virtually identical.
“Hi Thelma, pleased to meet you, shall I set up on the stage?” She asked.
Leave a Reply