New York State Of Mind or How To Marry A Millionaire (A Peekskill Wedding) Part Two
"Where's Blair?" Natalie Green asked no one in particular while she sorted pasta in barrels.
Jo was busy writing in the books, making sure that Edna's Edibles was staying in the black. She looked up at Natalie and shrugged, "She said she was going into the city after class, something about something, I dunno, I wasn't paying attention. The minute she talks shopping I slip into a coma."
Natalie laughed, "You should have that checked out, Jo."
Jo chuckled and continued working the figures in the accounting book.
"You know Nat, I heard in my Poli-Sci class today that vinyl records are gonna fade out in time. Can ya believe that?" Jo said as she closed the books and leaned back to stretch.
Natalie shook her head, "No way, Jo. No one, not even the man can get between me and my Rick Springfield albums!"
"I'm just sayin', maybe it's time to get into something new like those compacted disks." Jo replied.
"Oh yeah, just like the whole 8 track conspiracy back in '78. Who wants to listen to music on a metal coaster? That's just so wrong. Vinyl was made for music. Oh, and it's compact Disc with a 'C'." Natalie said with a smile.
Jo shrugged, "Whatever, they cost way too much. Highway robbery!"
"You just told me to go out and buy one!" Natalie exclaimed.
Jo winked, "Well yeah, what do you think I am an imbecile?"
With that said, suddenly Blair entered the store laden down with packages, "Oh Jo, you are so much more than that, really!" Blair laughed as she flourished the bags into the store.
"Hey Blair, you are late for your shift." Natalie said with a anxious smile. The pasta could wait, now the fireworks would begin. Jo hated when any of them were late for shifts at Mrs. G’s expense.
"Just by a few, Natalie!" Blair said with a happy smile. She put the bags down, mostly on top of Jo's work which made the young brunette fume…slightly.
"Do you mind?" Jo said, annoyed but she looked amused too. Natalie found that weird.
"I come bearing gifts, ladies!" Blair said as she began to take items out of the bags.
Tootie came into the store and was ecstatic that Blair had returned. "Oh girl, tell me you got what I think you got!"
Blair grinned and kept removing smaller bags from the bigger bags. Jo sighed and stood up. Curious, she peeked into the many bags, "Anything other than boring designer crap?"
"Oh my silly Jo, if you only knew!" Blair challenged. She gave Jo a wink which irritated her more.
"I will know in a second once you get it all off the table I was working on, Princess!" Jo retorted, put off, but at the same time, amused by Blair's odd ball ways.
"Wait until you get a load of this, my little Gear Box!" Blair said triumphantly as she took out a large CD Boom Box out of the biggest bag that was by her feet.
"Holy crap, Blair, that's a compact disc player! Jo and I were just talking about them!" Natalie said, clearly impressed that Blair was actually in the same century as the rest of them.
"It’s the latest fad! Look I even got these musical metal coasters to go along with it!” Blair said with a sing song voice.
Tootie barged in, looking at the CD's in desperation, "Come on, Whitney, be here girl!"
"Not to worry, Tootie, I bought that new Whitney Houston Disc for you. See Jo, I used the word 'disc' properly! Are you not impressed?" Blair said, blissfully aware that Jo was watching her in awe, or dismay…it was hard to tell sometimes.
Jo smiled, "Nice work, Princess. But the real judge will be on the other kinds of music you bought, let's have a look."
They all dived into the plastic bags and took out CD after CD, looking for signs of musical taste.
Jo grinned when she held up a copy of 'Born in the USA' by Bruce Springsteen, "Fantastic, Blondie, pure brilliance! How'd you know my cassette was busted?"
Blair beamed, "I'm not telling!"
Natalie stared at both girls with a gaping mouth. What the hell? What was happening here? She turned her head quickly and looked over at Tootie, who was happily oblivious to it all. “Dammit, Tootie Ramsey, can you get back into snoop mode, please?” Natalie thought with irritation.
"Thanks Blair, I really appreciate you buying this for me!" Tootie said happily.
Natalie rolled her eyes and scanned the other CD's on the table...”Def Lepard, Quiet Riot...AC/DC? Who were these albums for....surely not....”
"Hey Pyromania...Highway To Hell...awesome Blair." Jo said with a smile.
"Really? I mean, really Blair? You bought all these CD's for Jo?" Natalie exclaimed.
Blair stared at Natalie as if she just noticed her in the shop, "Oh hi Natalie, here I got this just for you!" Blair shoved a CD into Natalie's hands.
Natalie looked down and saw the quirky face of Peter Frampton staring up at her, "Uh...thanks Blair!" Natalie said as she tossed the CD aside.
“Peter Frampton? What the hell, did she not know about her long time love affair with Rick Springfield? Obviously, Blair knew little about what Nat Green was into these days, but very into what Jo Polniazcek was into.” Natalie thought in annoyance.
She didn't hear the start of the conversation as she was immersed in her own self thoughts, and was startled to see Mrs. Garrett standing at the table with them.
"Oh Blair, I love Sinatra and they have him in these little round coasters!" Edna said with a swoon. “Sheesh, hold it together, Mrs. G!”, Nat thought with irritation.
"I'm going to let Jo set up the CC..." Blair started.
"...CD..." Jo interrupted.
"...CD player in our room. Then we can take turns listening to music, just like we did at Eastland on Natalie's old record player!" Blair gushed.
Natalie squirmed with embarrassment. “What the hell? Okay, I gotta clear my head. It's the frigging twilight zone in here.”
"I'm just going to get some air; I'll meet you all upstairs." Natalie said with a sigh. She wandered out of the store and stood on the main street of Peekskill. Something was going on and she was angry that she hadn’t seen it before. Well, she had but when she broached the subject with her best friend, Tootie, she was always shot her down in her place. "Just because they are getting along you assume they are involved? That's very shallow of you, Nat!" Tootie had exclaimed in anger one day when Natalie had started the whole Jo/Blair thing again.
It rang true for Nat, mainly because since the day she met Jo, she assumed the girl was gay. When Blair and Jo began their years of bantering, Natalie assumed it was some kind of 80's foreplay. But today, it just seemed like the fates were throwing her a bone and if she didn't run with it; she might lose the momentum of something bigger. Again she'd wait it out and look for more evidence before once again presenting the facts to Tootie. She sighed and re-entered the store, feeling a little more like herself.
Sometimes she felt like a time traveler, making her way thru a labyrinth of untruths and innuendo, with the eye of the prize just before the time tunnel would whip her away and she would have to start all over again. Maybe she needed to stop reading all those sci-fi manuscripts that Tootie's brother Marshall had sent her as an apology for the car accident they were in years ago. He sent her boxes of neatly typed manuscripts every Christmas, never letting on to Tootie or the others that he was the sender. Nat kept the secret, and enjoyed the stories all the same. She would write to him and let him know which stories were good and which were trash. He'd write back and tell her he would try harder next time. It wasn’t until years later that she discovered he was the writer of each manuscript and that his manuscripts were now novels being sold in Barns and Nobles!
Upstairs, Jo was working on getting the CD boom box to work. Once all the wires were placed in the right order, Tootie asked if she could play her CD first. Blair conceded when Jo shrugged and gave Blair a dazzling smile.
"Go ahead, Toots, play away!" Blair said.
Jo put the CD in the tray and pressed play. The whirring sounds of the small metal disc was fascinating to Jo. She wondered where the needle was exactly until she remembered that her professor said it was some kind of laser. Laser...she chuckled...just like Star Trek, she thought amused.
Soon, Whitney Houston, the 80's icon, was blaring from the two large speakers. Tootie's swayed and began singing in a loud voice the words to the songs. Jo looked over at Blair and shrugged. Blair grinned, seemly happy that she gave her friends something fun they could share.
No one even mentioned money, which was a relief to Blair. "If they only knew how much it all cost at the Sony Store in Manhattan!" she thought wearily.
"You Give Good Love to Meeeeeeeeee!" Tootie sang on the top her lungs.
Natalie finally made her way upstairs and could hear Tootie butchering a Houston hit. She entered the room and could see Tootie singing into her hairbrush while Jo and Blair were whispering to each other as they held a CD case.
"Yikes! That's quite the song, Tootie." Natalie said in a neutral tone. She glanced at the others and lifted an eye brow.
"What's that?" Nat asked, curious to see Blair and Jo liking the same thing in music.
Jo looked up and had a guilty expression on her face, while Blair just beamed at Natalie.
"Air Supply....I just love their music!" Blair responded.
Jo shrugged, "It’s okay for elevator music."
Natalie chuckled, that was her old Jo! "Really, Air Supply? What songs do they have on that CD that has both of you so enamored?"
Blair frowned, "What's that supposed to mean?"
Natalie shrugged, "Just a figure of speech, Blair, chill out. Come on, after seeing all those metal head albums, you picked up a soft rock album? Why?"
It was Jo's turn to scowl, "Blair bought it for herself, is that okay?"
Natalie looked over at Tootie who was still belting out the Whitney Houston ballads, ignorant to the conversation.
"Sorry! I didn't know it was so personal. Anyways, please put us all out of our misery and put something better on or I may become homicidal!" Natalie said irritably.
Jo laughed as she watched young Tootie Ramsey singing into a pink hair brush, "Yeah, she has a point. Let's play something else, huh?"
Blair pressed the pause button on the song Tootie was singing. She looked around and crossed her arms, "Hey I was getting to the good part!"
Natalie walked over and put a friendly arm around Tootie's shoulders, "I'm sure you were, if there ever had been one, I'm sure you would have topped it. Let's let Blair have a go at the toaster box, huh?"
Blair fumbled with the CD case and tried to open it up with the plastic coating trapping the case in a strangle hold.
Jo grabbed it and tried to get the wrapper off, "Jeez, they make it harder to get out than a pack of smokes!"
Blair looked at Jo with suspicion, "When have you ever smoked?
Jo ripped the plastic off and smiled, "The Young Diablo's had a Cuban Cigar ring and we all gave them a try. I'm more of a Colt Wine Dipped cigarillo fan myself, but they tasted damn good just the same. Ah, there you go, here's your elevator music, Princess."
Blair took the CD and put it clumsily into the tray, "Now here is some nice music!"
"You used to smoke, you know, with The Group, remember?" Tootie said distastefully to Blair.
"That was an initiation, and I hated it. Just ask Sue Ann!" Blair responded touchily.
"She would but she's too busy being a big wig in NY, huh?" Jo said with sigh. She knew Sue Ann was just some silly gopher at her corporate job but she kept it to herself. She made some kind of promise with the inane woman and wasn't sure why she upheld the lie for the three former Eastlanders, but a promise was a promise.
The first song began to float through the room. 'Girl, you’re ev’ry woman in the world to me, you’re my fantasy, you’re my reality' began to waft thru the air and Blair smiled at Jo.
Natalie noticed this right away and realized something big was happening. She was a committed investigative reporter, and this would be a huge coup if Jo and Blair were, say, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. But no one would ever believe this...even with Polaroid's. Oh, Polaroids! She would borrow Mrs. G's camera and catch the two Langley sophomores in some kind of lovers embrace.
Once the novelty of the music gave way, Tootie thanked Blair again for the CD and left the room to study her algebra in peace and quiet of the living room. Jo stacked her CD's by her bedside table and smiled. "Thanks Blair. Hope they don't die out like eight tracks."
Blair gave Jo dreamy smile and flapped her hands at the brunette, "I have it on good authority that these coasters are the only thing people will listen to in twenty years!"
Jo shrugged and looked around the room, startled to see Natalie staring at her. "Yes, Nat? Can I help you with something?"
Natalie tucked her unwanted Peter Frampton CD under her bed and smiled, "Nope, just wondering what you and Blair are up to tonight."
Blair looked over at Jo and gave her a perplexed look. Jo stepped up and shook her head, "I dunno, Nat. Mrs G closed the store early so we thought maybe we'd take in a movie or something in town."
Natalie smiled, "How friendly of you two!"
Jo's face reddened and she marched over to the bedroom door and slammed it shut. It startled both Blair and Natalie. Blair hadn't seen that side of Jo in a long time and she wondered what set her o