An Odd Kind Of Wonderful

Chapter Thirteen

    When he dismounts the stage, bowing to the crowd and blowing kisses to a group of giggling girls sitting in a booth in the corner, I ask him: "How can one person can sound like an entire band?"

    "Years of practice, my friend," Joel says enigmatically.

    Raisa appears not long after. "Did you find out where your car is?" she asks.

    Joel shakes his head. "The kid who had my guitar said he wasn't with the blokes who took my car. He was tagging along, he said, and they drove off before he could tag any further."

    "That's ideal," says Raisa. "Did he say where they were going?"

    "Nope." Joel affirms. "He was, actually, other than giving me my pride back, totally useless."

    They're both silent for a few seconds. I check my watch. "Guys, the fireworks." I interject.

    Joel makes an 'oh,' noise like he's completely forgotten, which, really, isn't wholly unbelievable. "Sorry, Nathan. I didn't know we were still doing that."

    "Do you still want to do it?"

    "Yes."

    "More importantly," Raisa pipes up. "Joel, what the hell? I thought you played Van Morrison and Ben Folds and that was it?"

    "No, I play some pub rock too." Joel sounds a bit wounded. "The Beatles, I can do some Deep Purple, a bit of Midnight Oil. You know, whatever keeps the crowd happy."

    This is amazing new information. I ask him, "I heard you doing an acoustic thing for a Sex Pistols song."

    "I thought you'd never heard of the Sex Pistols?" Raisa says.

    "Oh, I just heard that song on the radio ages ago, I didn't know it was the Sex Pistols. Learned it by ear, thought it'd be nicer if it involved finger-picking more than power-chords and there it was." Joel replies smugly.

    I nod appreciatively. "It was beautiful, Joel. Really."

    We've been walking for a while now, and when I look up from the ground I'm met with the ocean and the sea and a sand dune meeting a dusty road with a park bench placed upon it. Joel and Raisa sit next to each other, and I sit on the end.

    "Where did you guys go?" Joel asks the both of Raisa and I. "Did you kiss in a bush some more?"

    "Nathan is beginning to trust me, Joel," Raisa says. "And it's a really odd feeling to have someone trust you after earning it being the only thing on my mind for the past few hours." She sighs. "Odd not meaning bad.  I mean, like, an odd kind of wonderful, like butterflies, like pride but not."

    "And odd kind of wonderful." I echo. "That's poetic."

    "Well, I'll have you know I do sound like an arthouse movie." Raisa smiles at me. And I smile back.

    There's a few minutes where we talk together as a group, about everything and nothing, but I zone out and concentrate on Raisa's words. An odd kind of wonderful. A weird sort of perfect. The epitome of ironically happy. Against all odds, we are.