That summer they had some new neighbors. In their neighborhood half of the houses had been built. The houses had sold poorly and many of the houses were unsold for a few years. The second tract had been prepared with streets and sidewalks. The land had been leveled, but no houses. In their freshman year new houses were finally built. They were smaller, but still nice houses.

There was an orange grove next to some of the houses. The three of us used to walk in the orange grove. We would walk, talk, eat the oranges, throw the oranges (sometimes at each other), play fort, play hide and seek, and generally get away from the world.

Mary and Steve were walking in the orange grove. These days they just walked, talked, ate the oranges, and sometimes held hands. That’s all they did, honest. Not that I was spying or anything.

The street that ran along the side of the orange grove was the last street for both tracts of houses. As they were walking on the street next to the orange grove they both looked up and saw a moving van at one of the new houses. It wasn’t the van that stopped them. On the lawn was a drum kit stacked haphazardly. They sat on the lawn of a house a few houses down the street and watched.

After about a half hour a car pulled up to the house. In it was a family of four. Two teenage boys jumped out of the car. One of them had long hair and was holding an electric guitar. It looked like a Les Paul. This was a good sign. The other one was wearing a black beanie (Steve wore one sometimes). He ran right up to the drums and then swore. His Mom walked up and started scolding him. He put the drum down and started for the house. She was small, slight, and would be pretty for her age if she wasn’t wearing such a sour face. The Father was the same build as the Mother. He had black hair and a pronounced limp.

"Hey, look." Steve said.

Mary scowled.

The one with the guitar was leaning against the back of the car and was strumming his guitar with his eyes closed.

"Come on." Mary grabbed Steve’s hand and headed toward the car.

"I don’t know." Steve protested.

"Come on." She said more forcefully.

Approaching the boy Mary said, "Hey, my name is Mary. This is Steve."

The boy opened his eyes and after a moment nodded slightly.

"That looks like a ’63 Les Paul. Is it an original?"

"I don’t think so."

Mary put her hand out. "Mary."

He took her hand for a second. "Michael."

"And your brother?"

"Sean."

"Those sound like good Irish names, what’s your last name?"

"Murphy."

Mary Brady and this is Steve Ryan. You guys in a band?" Mary never beats around the bush.

"No."

"What kind of music you like?"

"I’m into Zappa. Sean likes Sabbath."

"Do you guys know any of their songs? Maybe you can teach us."

"We gotta unpack now, maybe later."

"No problem, we just live around the corner. Here’s my number." Mary took out a pen, grabbed his hand and wrote the number on the back of his hand.

They walked back to Mary’s house. At the sidewalk Mary kissed Steve on the cheek. This made me a little jealous. "I’ll see you later she said and walked into the house. Steve walked back to his house.

Steve’s sister had a boyfriend who went to Cal Poly in Pomona. He had taken up residence on the couch. Steve saw that his car was in the street.

"Hey Steve." He said as Steve walked in the door. "Marx Brothers are on."

Steve grabbed a glass of juice and sat down. The boyfriend had a large glass with coke in it.

"Were you with your girlfriend?"

Steve thought for a second. "No, I was with Mary." He paused, "I don’t have a girlfriend."

"Ok, well, you spend all your time with her. What is she then?"

"She’s a friend, she’s a girl."

"Steve have you seen this movie? It’s called A Night at the Opera. It’s a classic." They sat and watched the movie for a while.

The phone rang and Steve’s sister’s boyfriend answered. "Hello. Yes, he’s here." handing the phone to Steve. "It’s Mary.

Steve took the phone. "Hi, sure, just a sec." He grabbed the phone and went into the closet under the stairs and closed the door. The phone cord was sticking out of the closet door. A few moments later Steve came out of the closet and placed the phone on the stand. "Gotta go, see you later." He went out the door. After a few moments the door slowly opened, but no one was there. Steve’s sister’s boyfriend got up and closed the door.

"Hi Steve." Mary said as he stepped into her house.

"Hi."

"You ready to go?"

"I guess, why do we have to meet them over there? Why can’t they come here?" Steve asked.

"They were downtown and called from there. Besides, we need to get out more often."

"Oh, where are we meeting them?"

"You know where the old gas station was? They put in a Winchell's there. We’re meeting them there."

"Ok, you ready?"

It took them a while to walk to downtown. They took their usual route that they took going to the High School, passing the Methodist church where they filmed The Graduate.

"I’ll have a maple bar, and a coffee. What do you want?" Steve said, looking at Mary who was sitting at the booth with the Murphy brothers.

"Just a milk."

"And a milk."

Steve sat in the booth next to Mary.

"They said that they were interested in getting together and playing some songs." Turning back to Mike and Sean. "Steve here plays bass and drums, and sings."

Steve cringed. "I sing some."

"He has a nice voice." Mary smiled. "I can play just about anything."

"I can play lead or rhythm guitar, and Sean plays the drums."

‘How’s this, Sean plays drums. Steve plays bass and sings. Mike plays lead guitar. I’ll play rhythm, keyboards, sax, and anything else. If a part is too complex for one of us we can switch it up. I know some bass parts that Steve doesn’t like to play, so you or I can take that." Mary didn’t want to imply that Mike couldn’t play lead on some songs. She needed to see how he played. Steve was relieved that he didn’t always have to play.

They practiced all summer. They mixed up their song list so they had slow and fast songs. They even played a couple of Blues standards. Most of the songs were cover songs, but they practiced a couple of the songs that Steve and Mary had written.

They were hoping to get a chance to play at a High School dance or two, so they set up an audition with the High School dance committee at Bonita High.

Near the end of summer Mary stepped into her music room. "I just got off the phone with the San Dimas High School dance committee. They want us to play their first dance." This was San Dimas High’s first year. The Freshmen and Sophomore’s that lived in San Dimas were going to go to the new High School this year and they were going to add a grade each year after that. "The dance committee at Bonita had called them after accepting us for their second dance, so we don’t even have to audition."

The dance at their school was the second week of school, and the one at San Dimas was the next week. They had decided to change up the set for each dance and encourage the kids at Bonita to go to the San Dimas dance.

They talked about what they would wear. They had all agreed that they would each wear something different. Mike wore jeans and a button shirt. Steve wore a tight white t-shirt and jeans. Sean wore dirty jeans, biker boots and no shirt (he brought a shirt in case they made him wear a shirt), but was willing to fight for it. Mary wore a black baby doll top over a black bra, white cutoffs torn and frayed at the bottom and a red tutu. She wore red stiletto heels. Her hair was long and straight. She hadn’t cut it since she had dyed it black, and it was her natural red at the top and black at the bottom.

They were setting up their equipment while the football game was on. The English teacher Mr. Camplin was one of the chaperones and he was watching them set up. He walked up to them.

"Turn around." He said to Mary.

Mary did her best at doing a spin.

"Now I think that the look is awesome. Some of the chaperones will probably object. Do you have something to cover up?"

"I have a small Levi jacket. It is cut short though. My Mommy approved, but since she is a jazz singer from way back and she has an appreciation of the creative spirit…"

"I’ll do my best to head them off." He smiled.

After they finished setting up their equipment and did a sound check Mary tool Steve to the side.

"How are you doing?"

"I’m OK."

"You know you’ll do fine."

"I know."

"You have all your songs memorized. If you get nervous, just look at me. Pretend you’re just singing to me."

Steve smiled.

I liked this set list. I guess if I was singing I would have sung a different set of songs, but I guess I took care of that.

They started out with Steve singing The Who’s Behind Blue Eyes A cappella. The kiss that Mary gave him at the beginning was a ruse so she could get him started on the first note — not that they didn’t like it also. Mary followed by accompanying Steve with an acoustic guitar. The rest of the instruments followed.

They didn’t quite know how they would act on stage. Sean was a wild man on the drums. He almost stole the show since he upstaged everyone. Sometimes he would even stand up while he played. Mike just stood there. He barely moved. Of course all of his movement was with his hands on the guitar.

Mary was enchanting. When she played her electric piano she would do a little spin, which wasn’t easy for her, so she would do it slowly. Her movements were beautiful — but I am biased.

Steve was the surprising one. While he sang he danced a little on the stage. Now, I would have a hard time calling it real dancing. He didn’t quite have the chops for dancing. It was more like awkward movement. It had its own rhythm, and I want to say — grace. His feet moved nicely, but the rest of the body had a hard time following. What was really surprising was that for such a shy boy he was mesmerizing on stage and in complete control, it was like he was alone up there — like a teenage boy singing in his underwear alone in his living room.

The kids liked their playing. At least they seemed to like it. They danced, applauded a little when a song was playing that they liked, and some even stood and sang along. Mary and Steve played a couple of their own songs. Steve played bass and Mary played guitar on one. On the other Steve played drums and Mary played guitar — Mary sang that one. Sean and Mike took a break one those songs. At the end of the dance Mary asked the kids to come to the dance at San Dimas High. From the applause they got it sounded like they would get a good showing there also.