Deaf & Dumb

Peter Gets More Coffee With the Beautiful Girl

Peter stared into the sign language book signing every word he could. Davy and Micky were impressed by his progress. Mike was still very uncertain about Peter. He couldn't understand Peter's attraction to Rosemary. Sure she was beautiful, but was it really worth all this extra work just to be able to speak to her. Sign language was another language. Was any girl worth that much?
Mike might not understand, but Rosemary was important to Peter. She wasn't just beautiful; she was also understanding. She was everything Peter ever dreamed of in a girl, and she was interested in him. It was a combination Peter never believed to be possible. So it wasn't so hard to believe that he wanted a way to communicate with her to understand what she was saying to him.
Peter spent most of his time leaned over the books. None of the other Monkees ever saw him so dedicated to something. Peter was interested with the whole idea of sign language. The grammar was different than that of English. Everything about it was different, and frankly it confused Peter a lot. But he had to learn it.
It was Thursday night, and Peter couldn't get his nose out of the books. He knew he should because his date with Rosemary was that morning, but he wanted to impress her with his signing skills.
When it was somewhere around midnight and everyone else had been asleep for hours Peter finally decided to go to sleep. Even in Peter's dreams sign language followed him. He had the most terrible nightmare that he couldn't talk and had to sign everything, but no one could understand him. They just stared at him as he went signed with his minimal sign language. Finally someone laughed. Then everyone laughed. Ghostly distorted faces of his friends and family floated through head. Just laughing at him.
Mike looked at him. "Nobody understands you," He said his voice for whatever reason cruel.
Peter was now sitting beside Rosemary. She was kneeled down crying without making a noise. Peter's hand went to touch her, but no matter how hard he tried she was just too far away, and she just kept getting further and further away from him. Then she was gone.
Peter woke up in a cold sweat. It was five in the morning, and he couldn't find it in himself to go back to sleep so he took a cold shower to calm his nerves. It didn't help much. He was still shaking all over so he got dressed and went for a walk. A walk couldn't hurt.
Peter was almost all alone on the streets it felt like. There was a man standing in an alley smoking something that was definitely not a cigarette. There was another man curled up on the ground asleep in the gutter. A woman was crying somewhere. All of this just made Peter feel more down so he headed towards the park.
The park was silent. The wind was pulling at the trees asking them to come with it, but the trees were too deeply rooted to run with the wind. The deeper Peter got into the park the more noise there seemed to be. He could hear a couple making love in the bushes so he walked past them quickly as to not disturb them. They didn't seem to notice or didn't care which suited Peter fine since that was not a situation he wanted to be in.
The sun hadn't yet rose so it was very dark out. A lot of the lampposts were out so there would be areas of complete darkness. Peter found some peace in the dark and silence. The dream was by this time out of his mind. Now he was thinking of Rosemary. He had awhile before he had to meet her for coffee so as the sun rose he headed home to pick up a little money.
When Peter entered the house no one was awake so he crept through the house into the bedroom. The other Monkees were snoring quietly. Peter grabbed his piggy bank and tiptoed out of the bedroom again. He took out what little money he had and counted it. He wasn't impressed. He had roughly five dollars. He took the money and put his piggy bank back in the bedroom just as quietly. He looked at the clock on the wall. It was 8:00 now. He had been up three hours wandering about.
Peter walked to the coffee shop. When he got there Rosemary was already waiting outside. She smiled at him as soon as she saw him. He took her hands as soon as he was close enough and kissed her softly on the cheek. Peter automatically began to sign for her what little he knew. Rosemary smiled at his attempts. She signed back telling him to just sign as if he were speaking. Peter decided to sign and speak at the same time.
"How are you?" He asked.
I'm good. What about you? Rosemary signed back.
"I'm pretty good," Peter said. He remembered his dream, but didn't know the sign for nightmare or dream so he didn't mention it.
Rosemary smiled and pointed to the door. They walked into the little coffee shop. It was the same man behind the counter as before. He saw Rosemary and frowned. "What can I do for you?" He asked Peter going out of his way to look at Peter.
Peter frowned. "Rosemary can order first. I need to think about what I want," He said.
Rosemary looked at Peter. She told him she was paying for it so he didn't have to worry about the price. The man behind the counter started to get impatient. "Is she going to order?" He asked.
"She can tell you herself," Peter said.
Rosemary smiled at him then looked at Peter. She told him that he'd have to translate for her. She signed that she wanted an espresso sweetened with two spoonfuls of sugar and a slice of coffee cake, and Peter told the man behind the counter.
"You didn't know sign language last week," The man mumbled under his breath he after he asked someone to make Rosemary's drink and grabbed a slice of coffee cake from the display. He put the cake on a little plate and handed it to her.
"I'd like a espresso the same way and a donut," Peter said smiling brightly.
The man gave Peter a dirty look and told someone to make Peter's drink and grabbing a donut from the displace area with a napkin. "Is that all?" He asked huffing.
Peter nodded. Their espressos were ready and the man handed them to them.
"That'll be a dollar thirty," He said.
Peter frowned at the price, but Rosemary looked through her purse for her money without thinking then looked to Peter and asked what the man behind the counter said. Peter signed a dollar thirty. He messed up a few times and had resort to signing it one letter at a time. Rosemary smiled and nodded. She put a dollar thirty on the counter and smiled at the man. Thank you, she signed.
"She said thank you," Peter said as they walked to a table to drink their coffee and talk.
The man looked mad Peter noticed. He couldn't help, but laugh quietly at the poor man.