𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 - 𝐄𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞

𝐭𝐰𝐨

𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐒𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐬

Carmen: During one of the many times Dean and I were broken up I was living out of a motel, The Nomads Refuge, with the little money I had saved up from before our move to California. The name made it sound a lot more fantastical then it was, unless you love matted carpets and scratchy sheets.

On top of everything else I had going on, no one wanted to hire me, well one guy did but not because of how good I was at stocking shelves - he told me I had to suck his dick if I wanted the job -but anyway I was unemployed. Finally, I decided that if I was going to be treated like a piece of meat I might as well get paid for it.

I think it's important to clarify that I was not working in one of the classier establishments, I think It was called "The Randy Lady" or something equally as degrading, but it paid the bills and that was what mattered. The guy who ran the club was this old Texan, always wore this giant cowboy hat. I think he went by "Big Richard" or something like that. Anyway, he liked me a lot because I had this whole cowboy shtick to my routine. He got me a gig doing a porno, said the director saw me at the club and had asked about me. It really helped launch my career as a D-List porn star - every little girls dream. While all of this is going on I spent my free time waiting by the phone for Dean to call and tell me that he was sorry.

Louise was part of the cleaning staff at the motel I frequented and we had become close pretty fast. Whenever she had some extra time on her hands she would come in my room and we would listen to music on my portable record player. At some point I was high enough to disclose the fact that I wrote poetry, whenever I said that I think her world exploded. I had just solved a big problem for her without even knowing it.

Louise: When I met Carmen, Shawn and I had only been living in California for about a year. I was born in Wisconsin but moved to Indiana when I was seven. We started dating as Juniors in high school and once we graduated we decided to move out to California together so he could open another shop for his parents convince store chain and I could work to pursue my career in music.

Things weren't really going quite how I had planned. Whenever we first moved out there I would look around for adds, see if any bands needed a guitarist. I spent a lot of time with Shawn helping him run the store.

Lorraine, who I didn't know at this point, came in one day and was asking me if she could put up this flyer she had. I remember it so clearly - it looked like shit. It was on a pastel yellow legal pad, written in thick black marker across the top it said, "GUITAR PLAYER NEEDED". I told her she didn't need to hang it up because I was just what she had been looking for.

Lorraine went and introduced me to Cindy and Jennifer. We all got along well enough and started rehearsing. For a long time we were a cover band but we had started trying to write some of our own songs. I had only started to work at the motel to scrounge up some money for us to record an album. Nevermind that we didn't have a single song finished yet.

I met Carmen at work, she only had on a thong and a cheeky smile smoking a cigarette, sitting on the edge of the motel bed listening to a Buck Owens record. Right away I could tell she was fucking cool. We became good friends fast, it was like we were platonic soulmates. I would go to her room when I was done with my work and we would listen to her records. That was when I heard her sing for the first time. I mean she wasn't the greatest voice I'd ever heard but she was pretty damn good. Once she told me she wrote "poems" I knew I had to get her to at least write for us.

Lorraine: Jennifer left the band about a month after Louise met Carmen. Jenn and I had been friends for a long time so I was a little upset when she said she wanted to focus on law school, but who the fuck was I to stop her. So we were out of a lead singer. Louise suggested we audition this girls she knew, Carmen.

Cindy: Louise introduced us to Carmen. She got along with all of us right away.

♐︎

"So you write little songs?" Cindy's vitriolic voice pierced through the heavy silence of the mildew dusted garage with her ever present sarcastic pitch.

After a beat of silence Carmen shot back, "No, I write fuckin' hits."

Cindy immediately rebutted with a venomous, "We'll see." Followed by a tight lipped, insincere smile.

Louise and Lorraine watched as the two girls bit back at each other like small rabid dogs, each refusing to back down. Neither cared enough to interrupt the petty squabble to start actually working on the music. Louise had been contemplating how introducing Carmen to the other girls would go, and she had to be honest; this was going really well so far.

"Do you want my help or not?" Carmen asked looking to the other girls who were sprawled out on the lawn chairs tucked in the corner of the garage.

"Ignore Cindy. She's prides herself on being the biggest bitch in L.A. County." Lorraine deadpanned, finally speaking up.

"Show us what you have." Louise said looking straight at Carmen then turning and scrunching up her nose at Cindy.

Carmen took a breath as she fiddled through her notebook. "Most of them aren't really anything, but this one ain't half bad."

She laid out her notebook for the rest of the girls to see. Inside scrawled out on the paper was the beginning stages of the lyrics for 'Breathe'.

♐︎

Cindy: She showed us the lyrics to 'Forever & Always' first. We read through it and their was an unspoken agreement that she was the perfect fit for the dolls.

Lorraine: Before any of us knew it we were preforming shows. I mean they weren't on the strip or anything but every show we did, we made it feel like we were.

Carmen: I got back together with Dean pretty soon after I joined the dolls. He was really supportive of it, kept telling me how everyone in the world was gonna love me as much as he did. I moved out of the motel and back into our apartment. I quit working at the club too and didn't tell Dean anything about it. I don't think he would have been as supportive of that. Lorraine hooked me up with a job working with her at Duke's since I was recently unemployed. I remember coming into my first shift. Right in front if me was this gorgeous girl. She was real leggy with this beautiful red hair, she was Daisy Fucking Jones.

Everyone likes to say how I was this fucking cool girl who didn't take shit from men. That wasn't me though, that was who I pretend to be. Daisy really was that girl. If we hadn't met her we never would have made it out of that fucking garage.

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞
𝑰 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒍 𝒃𝒂𝒅 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒕 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒂 𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒌 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝑰 𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒌𝒚 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑽𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒎𝒆 𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓.