RATING: PG (Just because it involves mature themes, but it isn't an
"adult" fic)
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NOTES: Continuing right where we left off...
Part: 2-3
CATEGORY: L&L romance, S&C Romance, Humor, drama
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Will Squiggy save Rhonda from Dick? Will Lenny ever
meet up with Laverne? And what about that proposal?!
****
Milwaukee, amazingly warm in its Indian Summer, welcomed Laverne back to its bosom like a mother in need of pure love.
Laverne traveled the streets of her home town on foot, a wad of cash in her pocket from her last Cowboy Bills paycheck and her mind focused clearly on what lay ahead of her. First, she would have to find Knapp street; an easily negotiable task.
She felt a short sensation of surprise at noticing that much of the street had undergone reconstruction; fresh fronts to old buildings; new finishes on sets of stairs; heavier grating over the windows. There were signs of the existence of more children living inside the old building; discarded hopscotch fields, a few abandoned jacks. More impressive were the abandoned booths that lined the street; Laverne realized that some sort of street fair must be underway. A Ferris wheel stood, eerily still, at the other end of the street. Laverne felt supremely old; they probably belonged to the children of her old girlfriends, of Angora Debs, of old acquaintances. She stopped short when she saw their building which hadn't even changed a bit in the eight plus years since she and Shirley and the boys had left.
Climbing the front stairs, she found the building's front door unlocked. The inside seemed darker than she remembered, especially for this time of night. Pressing her hand to the doorframe of the landlady's first-level apartment, she knocked cautiously, praying that this woman had followed Mrs. Babbish's tradition and had moved into the older woman's apartment. Cautiously, she knocked on the door, hoping that it wasn't too late.
She lost count of the number of times she had rapped on the door; a nervous, inborn politeness whispered inside of her mind that perhaps it was too late at night. Just then latches on the other end slipped audibly loose and finally it slipped open; revealing a tiny, slim-boned woman with soft, patrician features.
"May I help you? Oh my," Said the tiny figure quietly, "You look like you've been through quite a night. Would you like to come in?"
Laverne nodded her head, "I've been travellin' all night, since twelve yesterday mornin'...It's gotta be five by now, am I right?"
The woman nodded, "I was just getting up for my shift this morning. Would you like something to drink." She peered down into Laverne's dirty countenance and said suddenly, "Laverne?! Laverne DeFazio?"
She looked at the woman curiously, "Yeah?" She asked, wondering how exactly the woman might know her.
"I'm Edna's daughter, Robin!" She explained, "Her oldest girl. She gave the building to me when you guys moved out to LA." A Dreamy look overcame the woman and Laverne realized that she was a lot younger than she'd originally believed. "What's it like to live out there Laverne? Is it really that warm? And do you see lotsa movie stars?"
Laverne smiled, seeing in Robin her own former childlike sense of enthusiasm, "I've met a few," She said, "It ain't as big of a deal as ya think, after awhile. It was fun for awhile, but now..I just miss this place so much. And I came cause I wanna see my old apartment. I kinda want ta make peace with the past."
"The basement?" The woman thought, "Well, the place is being rented now, by two young woman working down at the cannery. You'll like them, Laverne; one of them actually made rank in the Army!"
This description vaguely matched someone that she was aware of, but faces wouldn't match, and she felt too tired to try to think about it now. She just wanted to see the apartment and then crawl into a bed in the cheapest hotel she could find.
"They should be gone for their shifts by now," Robin explained, picking up a ring of keys from her kitchen table, "If you want to come in and see the place, I could let you in for a few minutes."
Laverne quickly decided that this was better than not having seen the place and followed Robin to the basement.
At the very bottom of the steps, the doorway to what used to be their apartment glowed with a wonderful familiarity. Laverne smiled as she touched the door; a cornerstone to her youth.
"It feels like home," She explained to Robin, who could only seem to marvel that this woman had seen California and rubbed elbows with a star, but still loved her simple haunts of Milwaukee. Robin knocked at the door for a good minute, calling for the 'girls' repeatedly. (That took Laverne back more than anything else; she could almost hear Mrs. Babbish shouting for her and Shirley). When no one answered, Robin shrugged and slipped a passkey into the lock, "They're probably gone now," She explained.
Less then a second after the door flew open, a female voice cried out, "NOW!". The sound of a bat whistling its way through the air issued in Laverne's mind, and she ducked swiftly, watching the bat crash into the doorframe, missing her head by an inch. The sound of someone tumbling to the ground issued nearby. Laverne groped in the darkness for the lightswitch, which she swiftly found and flipped, bathing the predawn Milwaukee darkness in light.
She saw a young, short-hared girl in a filmy nightgown lying sprawled across the floor, a bat in her hands. Another girl, with longer hair and more conservative dress, stood open-mouthed, holding another bat. Laverne's instantaneous, instinctive reaction was to laugh.
"Miss Babbish!" The standing girl blurted out, "We thought you were a prowler!"
"What're you doing here? It's five in the morning!" The girl on the floor asked, shifting herself into a sitting position. Her eyes widened, "It's not the rent, is it? We paid up front last month!"
"No, no girls," Robin said, "Though I will be charging you an extra five spot for this scuff mark," She said, gesturing to the place where the sitting girl's bat had bashed into the doorframe. "I'm showing one of my mother's old tenants what used to be her apartment." She gestured, "If you don't mind, Miss DeFazio would like to tour her old home."
"Miss DeFazio...You wouldn't be Laverne DeFazio?"
Laverne smiled, "Yeah, I am."
"You're one of Fonzie's old girls!" The one on the floor piped, climbing into a standing position, "I'm Jenny Piccalo, Joanie Arcola's best friend!"
Laverne's eyes went wide as she took Jenny's offered hand, "You're Little Joanie's best friend? I remember seein' ya at Arnolds when you was twelve!"
Jenny placed her hands on her hips and wiggled them in a Mae-Westian manner, "Thanks for making me feel old. I'll have you know, I age like fine wine, honey!" Laverne laughed in acknowledgment, "And This is K.C. Cunningham, one of Joanie's cousins."
"Nice to meetya." Laverne said, shaking K.C's offered hand.
"Likewise," The southern girl said with a smile. "You look tired; been travellin' all night?"
Laverne nodded, "I just wanted to take a look around the place," Laverne explained, "I hadda lotta good times here, and I just wanted ta put some old spirits ta rest."
"I heard you lived here for seven years," Laverne nodded, "Wow, that's a long time," Jenny opined, "I can't imagine living in a dump like this for that long."
That comment ruffled Laverne's feathers; the place had certainly been remodeled since she and Shriley had shared it years ago; evidence of Fonzie and Mr. Cunningham's mutual ingenuity. Altogether the place seemed bigger, more poshly decorated, than it had when the girls had lived there.
These were no longer the wrong side of the tracks.
"Ooh! Is this your L on the back of the door?" KC asked.
"Yeah," She entered the apartment and stepped back from the door, which shut behind them, "I did that way back when Shirl and I moved out." She smiled fondly, "Why didn't ya get rid of it?"
"I tell my dates that it stands for lover and leave it at that," Jenny laughed. "C'mon, KC; we've gotta get ready for work." The younger girl followed her friend into the bedroom, "Hey, feel free to look around, Laverne. If you like, you can stay here for the morning; with the street fair starting tonight we're going to be busy all day."
"Aww, thanks, but I don't wanna be a bother to ya.."
"You aren't a bother," Jenny called from the bedroom, "Any friend of the Fonz's is a friend of ours!"
"I think that's a cue for me to make my exit," Robin noted, "I'll see you at the next family reunion, Laverne."
"Sure," She said, absently, "Bye, Robin." She heard the door latch closed behind her.
Laverne sat down awkwardly on the sofa, her hands in her lap while her head turned, looking, really looking, at the apartment for the first time since she'd arrived that day. She couldn't get over how their little apartment now looked like something out of an architectural digest; everything was pink and white and violet. The existence of her L, still painted to the door, pleased her, but clearly, this wasn't home anymore.
Jenny and K.C. emerged from the bedroom, both clad in their uniforms, "We'll be back at about six tonight," Jenny said, handing Laverne a cheap, green blanket not unlike the one she'd given to Lenny the night he'd told her that he was in love with her. "You know, I think this might be the blanket you left behind; We don't use it much. Can't get the smell of Sen-sen out of it."
Laverne smiled shyly, "Thanks," Both girls withdrew from the apartment, chatting merrily and doing their best to remind Laverne of being twenty-one and running to get to the bus stop on time with Shirl so that Shotz wouldn't dock them another days' pay for tardiness.
Exhausted, she plucked off her shoes, setting them under the fancy wood coffee table. When she reclined across the sofa and her head hit a fluffy, heavy side pillow, her only conscious thought was that it felt just like lying across a the double bed she'd always yearned for.
Then she slept.
****
"LAVERNE?!" Lenny's voice rang out as he crossed the threshold of the Laurel Vista apartment. He looked around himself, frantically searching for the woman he loved, but found no one dwelling inside of the home. Something caught his eye on the sun deck; two lounge chairs, apparently occupied. A lump formed in his throat.
She found someone else, He thought to himself, Went out and found anotha guy... The distinctive scent of very cheap musk tickled his nostrils; the familiarity of the odor fired his cerabellum and sent him onto the palazzo, his nostrils flaring.
"SQUIG!" He seized his best friend by the lapels of his sports jacket, shaking him soundly, "How couldya do this ta me?!"
"Wah?!" The sleepy little guy muttered, "Waddya doin'! Put my down, Len!"
"Yer datin' Laverne!"
"Wha?!" Squiggy repeated, eyebrows furrowed downward and he turned and gave a glance to the snoozing woman sprawled across the lawnchair, stomach-down. "Ey, Rhonda, you didn't tell me Yer named after Laverne."
The leggy blond turned over on her stomach, and Lenny felt very, very foolish.
"Silly Squiggles!" Rhonda sighed jokingly, "That would be because I'm not. Lenny thought I was Laverne."
"Squiggles?" Lenny began to snicker, earning him a slug in the arm from his best friend.
"Lenny, don't laugh!" Rhonda admonished, "We're still looking for that perfect nickname for one another..."
"Waitaminute.." Lenny looked from Rhonda to Squiggy and back again, "That'd mean you two are an item..."
Squiggy's face betrayed an easy cockiness, "Well, Len ol' buddy, that'd be corectal..."
"He means correctumundo...I think." Rhonda explained.
"You Don't hafta tell Len what I mean," Squiggy grouched, "We've only know each other since the first grade, afta all..."
Lenny held out both of his hands, "Fill me in lata," He urged them,. "I ain't even gonna ask where Dick went; I just need to know where Laverne is."
Squiggy frowned, "She left ya a note...Somewhere...I dunno where we put it...Rhonda, My Dove, did you see where I put the note?"
Rhonda frowned, "I know it's somewhere..."
Lenny was apoplectic, "It's a matter of life and death!!" He shrieked. Squiggy held his right ear, opposite of the way he stood next to Lenny.
"Wouldya watch it?!" He howled in return, "Laverne ain't gonna die if ya don't know where she is."
"I will," Lenny said glumly.
A coy smile slipped across Rhonda's face, "Rhonda believes that Lenny's in love."
"We know that already," Squiggy snorted, "I told ya, remember?!"
"How'm I supposed to remember every little thing you say?" Rhonda asked acidly.
"You're my woman!" Squiggy announced, "It's your job!"
Rhonda's eyes flared, "Oh yeah?! Well, as MY man, YOUR job is to alphabetize and correlate all of Rhonda's false eyelashes!"
"Cor'late?!" Squiggy complained, "What's Cor'late?"
"Will you just tell me where Laverne is?!" :Lenny shouted, sending his friend jumping.
"Awright!" Squiggy seemed to be using every single neuron in his brain to remember where the note had been placed. He smacked his the counter in frustration.
A paper came up from the surface, sticking to his oily hand. Confused, he peeled it from his skin and read.
"Len,
Went to Milwaukee to sort out some stuff. Please don't follow.
Laverne."
"Milwaukee!" He cried, peeling the paper from his best friend's hand; then he crushed it on a wail, "I don't have no money left!"
He saw pity flicker across Rhonda's features. The tall, statuesque blond sighed and withdrew a pink wallet from her bikini top. "Rhonda has one hundred dollars left in her joint account with Dick; I cleaned him out before he could clean RHONDA out," She handed the crisply folded bills to him, "I was looking for a good cause."
Lenny frowned, "I already took charity from Shirl and..."
"So? Squiggy owes you!" Squiggy's mouth popped open to disagree, but she shut it with a withering glare. "Take it as a present from one couple to another."
Squiggy slugged Lenny's arm again, "Go get 'em, Liger!"
Lenny punched his best friend back, sending Squiggy sprawling backward into his girlfriends' arms, "You guys're the best! We ain't gonna forget yer generousness!" He swore, running to catch the next bus to Milwaukee.
It was Four in the morning, California time, according to his watch; he would have to cross two time zones and take a two-hour plane ride, but he would be back in the old neighborhood by evening, barring disaster.
He squeezed Rhonda's money tightly in his fist. Hold on, Vernie. I'm commin!
***
She peered around the inside of the Pizza Bowl; so dark inside, empty. A calendar on the wall told her it was 1963...
"Did you ever have a dream....."
The song echoed through her heart, shaking her to the bones. Turning around in the bell-skirted, orange-striped dress, she dizzily searched for him in the gloaming.
A hand caressed her shoulder; spookily. She turned around on her heel.
"Laverne," He said easily.
Her eyes almost fell out of her head.
"Randy....Randy, is that you?"
To Be Continued...
Back to But He's MY Weirdo! Part One