Bella and Elaine
Elaine's POV
Elaine woke up from a deep sleep thinking it was a school day. She wondered why her mother had not come into her room to wake her up as she did on most mornings. She heard the power mower outside cutting the grass. She got up and went to her window and looked out. Her father whom everyone called Mr. G but was actually named Andrew Grady was mowing the front yard of their home with the Thought Technology Mower. He did so before breakfast every Saturday, so it wasn't a school day after all. It was Saturday and that meant that Bella's mom would be at their house at 10:30 to take them to their ballet lesson. They would then go to lunch; it was Bella's turn to choose where and then to the Sanders Ice Cream shop in Grosse Point for a delicious treat. Elaine would have an ice cream Sunday. Bella would have a Chocolate Malt with double malt...she always did. Elaine and Bella were best friends and had been as long as she could remember. Their moms and dads were besties too. They had lots of pictures of the two little girls as infants and toddlers in the same crib and playpen. They had never had a real argument although they did not always agree on everything. They just let each other be who they were and always had.
Looking into the mirror she saw a reflection that was almost identical to her mother. Her hair was honey brown and long, her eyes a dark gray and her skin very fair. She was slender but already at almost 14 had breasts a little larger than the other girls in her class. Even with ballet and track as part of her regular routine though, she still had a rather flat derriere which always irked her. It was a testimony to the generations of women in her family line who appeared more white than black. Elaine thought that whole era of history while tragic was also stupid. She would have given anything to have Bella's round butt!
Elaine jumped in the shower and when done dried her hair and put it into a chignon. Her ballet teachers. Mr. and Mrs. Tsoukalos, were old school and would not tolerate hair flying which detracted from the beauty of the lines of the body in movement. Originally from Greece they had trained in Cecchetti Technique in Paris and had danced with the Paris Opera Ballet which is considered by many professionals to be the best Ballet Company in the world. Mr. and Mrs. Tsoukalos had met when they were dancing with the Company. Mrs. Tsoukalos was second generation Greek and her family owned and operated a restaurant in Greek town which is how they ended up in Detroit. Mr. Tsoukalos was the first in his family to come to America.
The Cecchetti Technique was developed by an Italian but flourished in France under the 19th century ballet master Carlo Blasis. The method emphasizes rigorous training and adherence to a highly structured training format, success with which is measured by balletic exams both on theory and technique. Cecchetti trained dancers are found throughout the world in major ballet companies. Both Bella and Elaine were good dancers, but Elaine would readily admit that Bella was the more serious student and frankly was exceptional in form and technique. Elaine was more of an athlete than Bella though and excelled in track in school where Bella was just above average. They were both outstanding when it came to academics. They did not compete with each other though. They simply encouraged and enjoyed each other's successes and admired each other's strengths. Elaine dressed quickly, made up her bed and then went downstairs to have breakfast.
Elaine's mom had made fresh squeezed orange juice and scrambled eggs were now on the stove. There were also sausage links and toast. Elaine's dad came in the house and washed his hands in the downstairs half bath and came into the kitchen. "Hi mouse" he said. Elaine hated the nickname but knew better than to make a big deal of it or he would tease her with it all day. " Hi dad", she said. " Hey baby" he said to his wife and tapped her on the fanny as she moved passed him to put the eggs and sausage on the table. She smiled and said Good Morning Mr. G. Andy said grace and they ate enjoying the normal morning family banter. After breakfast Mr. G. went to shower and would dress and head into the city to the Club. Saturday was their busiest day of the week and this afternoon Linda would also head into the city to help ready the club for the dinner crowd and the clubbers as well. She oversaw the wait staff and the hostess team while Mr. G overviewed the bus boys and anything else that had to do with the kitchen, the bar and the music except for the food preparation. He had been blessed to find an amazing chef whose name was Antoine Bordeaux. He was from New Orleans, was Linda's first cousin and had trained at the Cordon Blue in Paris, He had returned home and had worked for some of the better restaurants in New Orleans but had been uncomfortable with the growing hurricane activity in the area. He and Andy had become close over the years and he had come on board when Andy bought the Stork Club and had finished his renovations. Andy knew that like all people he would work harder and stay put as an owner, so he sold him a percentage of the business through sweat equity. Antoine was creative and amazingly talented with both recipe development and preparation as well as presentation. He had solid management skills as well. His contribution was huge when it came to the success and reputation that the Stork Club enjoyed. They were discussing expanding the location...Andy did not want to do additional locations...there would only be one Stork club thus assuring its continued elite status...he would just enlarge the location he was in.
Elaine cleaned up the kitchen after breakfast and just as she was done, Bella and her mom rang the front doorbell. "Good morning Kendra, Bella" Linda said as she opened the door. As they stepped inside she embraced them both. " Elaine...she called "Bella's here. "Hey Elaine" Bella said as she walked into the living room. "Hey Bella" Elaine said. She grabbed her Ballet bag from the hall table where she had put it when she came downstairs. "Would you like some coffee Kendra", Linda asked? "Yes, I only had a half a cup this morning" Kendra said. Kendra followed Linda into the kitchen and the ladies sat for a few minutes enjoying each others company and their coffee. Elaine said "Mom made fresh squeezed Orange Juice this morning. Want some"? "Duh" said Bella..."yeah"! They both laughed and headed into the kitchen for their juice. Linda said that Elaine's change of clothes was in her Ballet bag and that they would meet up tomorrow at 12:00 Mass. Elaine was staying at Bella's tonight as her mother would work until closing with Andy at the club. She was training 2 new waiters and a new hostess and Saturday was not the night to let them go solo for the first time. Kendra smiled and said "well you know the girls will have fun. We will see you at Mass tomorrow. Oh by the way, did you see the invitation to attend the crossing over party for Sissy's line"? "Yes, we have to go girlfriend", Kendra said. "Cool, let's talk about it tomorrow at brunch after church", Linda said. With that Elaine, Bella and Bella's mom left for the Ballet School.
Kendra and Linda had met their freshman year in college and had pledged the same sorority...Delta Sigma Theta Inc. Although Andy had gone away to school, with the long term ties he and David had, Andy was around them a lot after she and David began dating. He took one look at Linda and was smitten. They had married during the summer of Linda's Junior year, one year after Andy had graduated. Kendra had been her Maid of Honor and Linda had been her Matron of Honor in her wedding to David two years later. They had been pregnant together and had delivered their girls just 2 months apart with Elaine being the first born of the two. Sissy was Andy's youngest sister and she had also just become a Delta and there was a big party in a couple of weeks at U of M to celebrate. It would be a blast...girl stuff all day and then a dance that night. As they arrived at the Ballet School, Kendra told the girls she would be back in 2 hours to pick them up and then they would go to lunch. Where are we going any way Bella, Elaine asked? "To Jumps" Bella said. "Yum" Elaine said. "Good choice". The girls quickly changed into their leotards and ballet slippers and were standing at the Ballet Barre with the other students when Mr. and Mrs. Tsoukalos entered the studio. "Good Morning Dancers. Let's begin", said Mr. Tsoukalos in his thick accent...and so they did.
Bella was slender and had the tiniest waist Elaine had ever seen, She measured 32 in the bust 22 inches in the waist and her hips were 32 last year when they were fitted for the winter festival dance performance. Her butt was like an apple and she appeared to be all legs depending on what she was wearing. She was 5'4' tall unlike Elaine who was already almost 5'6" and while not through growing probably would not be more than an inch taller. She would fill out though as time passed. Her hair was a really dark brown and just below her shoulder blades in length and wavy although she often blew it dry and straight. Her Almond shaped eyes were a darker brown and were often mistaken to be black. She was an exotic looking girl and very pretty, but there was not an ounce of arrogance in her. She loved dance, vocals and writing and excelled at all three. She and Elaine danced and sang together in both Glee Club at school and the Choir at church and had also been selected for the All City Dance and Choir this year both of which met in the City of Detroit at Cass Tech High school twice a month until performance time. Rehearsals were weekly and sometimes twice a week when performing.
After class the girls showered and dressed and were standing outside talking and laughing when Bella's mother pulled up to pick them up. "Hi girls; how long have you been out here", Kendra asked? About 5 minutes Bella said. With that they drove the few miles to Jumps and had lunch and then headed for Sanders for ice cream. They took their ice cream to go and ate it in the car on the way back to Bella's house. It had been a full day and they would go home, listen to some music, eat dinner, talk about boys and then watch some TV and stay up longer than normal giggling and about only God knows what before falling asleep in Bella's room. Elaine hung up her clothes after checking to see if they needed pressing which she did before dinner. They had a great time as usual in each other's company.
Elaine and Bella
Bella's POV
The girls were seriously knocked out when Kendra went into Bella's room to wake them. It was 10:00 and they needed to get up shower and dress and get focused for Mass. They would not eat before so that they could take communion. Kendra had heard them giggling well into the night and she had fallen asleep around mid-night. They woke up and got up reluctantly. Bella used the bath connected to her room, Elaine the guest bath off of the upstairs hall. After they dressed, they went downstairs and had a glass of juice and then they were off to Mass. Neither girl would sing today as the Adult Gospel Choir was singing. They both loved to hear them sing. As they entered the Sanctuary they saw Andy and Linda getting out of their car. They sat down in a pew that had room for all of them in the middle of the Sanctuary. Mass began and the two bonded families began to worship.
After Mass they went to brunch at a restaurant called the Seahorse that had a huge buffet each Sunday and enjoyed good food and company. The Stork Club was open on Sundays for Brunch too but Antoine and Andy had worked it out so that each of them had two Sundays off a month. When Antoine was off, the Assistant Chef that he was training ran the kitchen. When Andy was off Antoine ran the entire place and on Sundays when he worked, Andy went to mass the night before and Bella and her family would join Elaine and hers for Brunch at the Stork. More often than not, Linda and Elaine went to mass with Bella and her parents on those days.
Andy and David talked about a friend of theirs that had called him the day before. Royal Anderson, Andy and David had all grown up together in the same neighborhood. Although Royal was not Catholic, he had gone to Catholic School with his friends and they had all remained close despite the fact that Royal had opted to stay in Chicago after graduation and his grad studies. He had called because his Son whom he had always called by his middle name Prince had his heart set on being a musician and had been working at it since high school. His father had insisted he graduate from college which Prince would do in May a month before his twentieth birthday and a year early, majoring in music. At almost 20 years old he was doing some very interesting composing and arranging. He, they all knew could play a huge number of instruments, most of which he taught himself, although he had been formerly trained on the Piano, but Royal also said he could sing...really sing. He had been playing some clubs in and around Chicago, but the higher end clubs were still out of reach in his home city. Royal thought it was time to test his sound...which he said was pretty amazing...on a more sophisticated audience than he could access yet at home. He had asked if Andy would review a Cloud file of his Son and his band playing and if he thought they were good enough allow them to play at the Stork. He told him he would and would commit to a Friday night and Sunday Brunch performance at least if they sounded good. If they were as good as Royal thought they were they could renegotiate the days of play. He had received the file last night and was going home to listen to it and wondered if David would like to hear it also. He trusted Royal. The man knew his music and he would like David's opinion too. These men had his full confidence and although he wanted to help Royal and his boy, he also wanted to make a sound business decision. David asked Kendra if it they were free to head over to Andy's for awhile and she said sure. Kendra and Linda then started telling them about Sissy's crossing over celebration at University of Michigan in a three weeks and what a good time it would be and how much it would mean to Sissy for them to be there. Andy said as long as the wait staff and the hostess staff was ready to solo and Antoine was willing to run the whole operation for that one Saturday night, and the Sunday after, he would love to go. David was down for it period! Bella had listened to this conversation with great interest. She had even stopped horsing around with Elaine to listen. When she heard the name Prince for some reason it got her attention, Elaine noticed. She would have to ask her about that.
Bella like most young teens really was interested in boys but she was not by any stretch of the imagination boy crazy. When they went to the school dances or house parties, Bella was always on the dance floor as all of the boys found her attractive and liked her, but as far as Elaine knew she had never kissed a boy yet. Bella knew that Elaine had...one particular boy Devin Hart...who Bella did not like all that much. He was their age but hung out with some older boys and it was said that he had already started having sex. She told Elaine she thought he was trouble and Elaine agreed and said she had only kissed him out of curiosity. Bella said she would prefer her friend get curious about somebody else or not at all for awhile. Elaine had laughed and promised no more Devin and she had kept her promise. But now Bella was curious about someone...was this the man she remembered. She saw flashes of his face in her mind sometimes and those flashes had been happening much more often. She thought him to be beautiful and knew he was an incredible musician and vocalist. She had to see his face for herself. She had to get her Dad and Godfather to take her to the club when he came...if he came. She would think about that and would not say anything, even to Elaine, until she had figured out what to do. They enjoyed their meal and then headed over to Andy's.
When they got to Andy's they went into Andy's study. He loaded the Cloud File into a player and they all sat down to listen to the young man named Prince. As he loaded the file he noticed that the file had the recordings under the name Royal. He needed to ask Royal Sr. why that was. There were six cuts on the file 2 were really old songs from even before her grandparents time that were associated with Detroit...La La La Means I Love You and Betcha By Golly Wow, Two Originals, If I Love You, and Forever, and two songs from the Artist of the 20th and 21st Century named Prince called Damn U and Adore . Andy turned on the Player. As the music began to play you could have heard a pin drop. Prince or Royal or whoever he called himself had an amazing voice. His falsetto was crazy beautiful and his range...from falsetto to bass not only in one song but sometimes in one phrase. The original songs were in a word hits...and the Songs by Prince from about 200 years ago sounded, in this man's voice and with his arrangement like they had been written yesterday. As Bella heard his voice, it was like something awakened in her. His voice was beautiful for sure but it was more than that...when he sang Adore, tears ran silently down her cheeks...she knew this song...it had been sung for her by someone before. It had been sung by her Prince. Bella smiled through her tears...he was coming and he would find her of this she was absolutely sure. She wiped her tears away without being noticed except by Elaine and asked "Mr. G. could you play that last song again please"? As the intro began with his amazing falsetto leading, she had to smile...she would see his beautiful face soon and soon could not come soon enough.