September 4, 1978
Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, CA
"Ugh! I'm hungry," Tommy whined, throwing himself dramatically onto Julia's bed, where she laid smoking a joint.
"Me too. Order a pizza," Julia told him, passing the joint to him. Tommy took it gratefully, listening to the Grateful Dead record spinning on the record player.
"Jim said if we order anymore pizza he's gonna disconnect the phones," Tommy huffed.
Julie nodded, remembering the conversation about responsibility that Jim had with them. The conversation happened due in part to the fact that they had recently moved to a house in the deep recesses of Laura Canyon.
"Cook something then," Julia told him dismissively, leaning forward in an attempt to swipe the unsmoked joint from between his fingers. Tommy caught onto her plan, quickly pulling the joint away and taking a strong puff before passing it back to her.
"You cook something. You're a girl," Tommy rolled his eyes. Julia gasped, glaring at her friend.
"That's sexist! Women aren't just servants for men, ya know," Julia griped, kicking Tommy's leg. The two youngest members of the band had been left unsupervised for a rare occasion. Steven was visiting his family in Reno, Cyndi was off on a date with some guy Julia couldn't stand, and Jim had been away surfing in Malibu for the day.
"Fair enough, my bad," Tommy conceded, his head lolling lazily from one side of the pillow to the other. "What are we going to do then?"
"There has to be some food in this house, right?" Julia assumed, though she made no attempt to get up and go to the kitchen. After a few more minutes of passing the joint back and forth, Tommy decided enough was enough.
"Get up. We need to find food. We haven't eaten since breakfast," Tommy reminded her, standing up slowly.
"You mean when we were abandoned after breakfast?" Julia sighed dramatically. Tommy grabbed her hands, pulling her into a sitting position despite the fact that she allowed herself to be deadweight.
"Oh, Julie, not everyone is abandoning you just 'cause your mom did," Tommy rolled his eyes. Julia sat up fully, her eyes wide.
"Ouch, Tommy," she told him with a glare.
"Truth hurts, doll. Let's go," he insisted, pulling her up and out of her bedroom. After accepting that resisting was useless, Julia followed him down the staircase to the large kitchen. Tommy wasted no time opening up the pantry and pulling out random ingredients he found in there.
"Do you know how to make cookies?" Tommy questioned, pulling out an unopened bag of chocolate chips. Julia looked at the chocolate chips warily.
"No, but there has to be a cookbook around here, right?"
The two of them started combing the kitchen, looking for anything that could direct them on how to properly bake cookies.
"I found one! It's for desserts," Tommy announced, pulling a large red book from the very back of the pantry. "I'm sure we can figure it out."
Jim got out of his car, moving slowly due to his sore body. He had been gone the whole day surfing, and he was curious to see what he was returning to. It was against his better judgment to leave Julia and Tommy alone, but he felt some relief when he saw the house was still standing.
All the relief he felt was immediately diminished when he opened the front door. The smell of something burning quickly assaulted his senses. He dropped his stuff, rushing to the kitchen where the smell was coming from. The kitchen was filling with smoke, and Jim looked frantically around the kitchen.
"Tommy?! Julia?!" He called out when he didn't see either one of them in the kitchen. He tried not to panic when he didn't hear anything in response. He grabbed some oven mitts, trying not to breathe in the wall of smoke that poured out when he opened the oven door. He grabbed the sheet from the oven, quickly putting it on the stove and closing the oven. Waving away some of the smoke, he looked down at the black lumps sitting on the sheet.
"What the..."
Jim had no answer for what he was looking at, but he was thanking his lucky stars that he came home when he did. Glancing around the kitchen once again, he took notice of the things he had missed at first. A light layer of flour covered the counters and parts of the floor. A broken egg lied a forgotten mess on the tile. An array of dirty dishes filled the sink. Jim sighed loudly, before he decided to take care of one problem at a time. The top of his priority list was airing out the smoky kitchen. He went to the sliding glass door at the back of the kitchen, opening it widely.
"No, it wasn't her. It was her twin sister!"
Jim took a deep breath when he heard Tommy's insistent voice coming from the backyard. He followed the sound of Tommy and Julia arguing, finding them lounging lazily beside the pool. Dusk was settling into night, but in the light of the lit tiki torches, Jim could see the glazed over eyes of his bandmates as he approached them.
"Jim! You're back," Julia greeted when she noticed him. Tommy turned on the lounge chair to look at Jim, giving him a smile.
"How was surfing?" Tommy questioned.
"Were you planning on burning the house down?" Jim snapped, ignoring the pleasantries he was met with. Julia and Tommy shared a puzzled look, before the scent of burning cookies wafted outside. Their eyes slowly widened in shock.
"Oh. The cookies," Julia whispered to Tommy, although Jim had no trouble hearing.
"Shit," was all Tommy replied. Jim pinched the bridge of his nose, trying not to yell at his younger friends.
"What were you thinking?" He asked them, looking between the two of them.
"We were hungry," Julia said sheepishly, staring at the fire light bouncing off the pool water and avoiding eye contact.
"You said not to order more pizza," Tommy reminded him.
"So you made an absolute mess of the kitchen, put food in the oven, and came outside? The whole kitchen was filled with smoke. You could have started a fire," Jim reminded them.
"Sorry," the two of them said in matching quiet tones. Their apology-if it could be considered one-was short and curt, but Jim could see in their faces that they were aware of how badly they had messed up.
"Now, get in there and clean up the kitchen," Jim told them sternly. The two of them sluggishly got up, making their way into the house. Jim made his way inside shortly after giving them a head start. He ignored them as he walked through the kitchen, going to retrieve the cigarettes he had left in his car. Jim was feeling particularly stressed that evening. It hadn't been long since they had finished up their first tour as headliners. While he was feeling proud of them, he was feeling exhausted by Julia and Tommy. They were both getting a little too used to the 'rock star' life for his liking.
He sat on the front steps of the house, smoking a cigarette and contemplating what he was going to do with the so-called 'trouble-twins.' It wasn't long until a pair of headlights shone up the long driveway, a sleek blue car pulling in. He was relieved to finally have another responsible member of the house home.
"You look deep in thought," Cyndi said as soon as she had parked her car and gotten out. Jim nodded as she sat beside him, pulling a cigarette out of her purse.
"How was the date?" He asked politely. She shrugged, lighting her cigarette.
"Little boring. He's kind of starting to annoy me," Cyndi admitted with a laugh. "How was surfing?"
"Surfing was great. Getting back here was not," Jim told her. She looked at him inquisitively, prompting him to continue. "Damn kids almost burnt the house down."
"Kids? Julia and Tommy?" Cyndi questioned. Jim just nodded, taking a deep inhale and brushed some of his dark hair out of his face. His biceps flexed as he shook out his hair.
"Yeah. They tried to make cookies, but forgot about them in the oven. I have no idea what would've happened if I hadn't come in when I did," Jim informed her. He huffed in annoyance when Cyndi burst into laughter. "It's not funny."
"It kind of is," she insisted through giggles. She flicked her red curls over her shoulder and ashed her cigarette. "Nothing else I would expect from them."
"They made a huge mess. They could've started a fire. They could've gotten hurt," Jim reminded her. "They're so immature sometimes."
"Yeah. They are. Probably because they're twenty and twenty-two years old and living lavish lives with little to no supervision. They'll learn. They just gotta get some wild out of their systems first," Cyndi told him calmly.
"I hope you're right. I told them to clean up, but I'm sure they're only making a bigger mess," Jim sighed. The two of them finished their cigarettes before going inside to check on the progress being made in the kitchen. They both groaned at the sounds of arguing coming from the kitchen.
"I'm not cleaning it! You're the one who dropped it!" Julia yelled, pointing at the ruins of an egg on the floor. Tommy picked up a blackened cookie, whipping it at Julia with force. Julia yelled in surprise when it hit her forehead, before dropping to the floor with a concerningly deep thud.
"Ow! Tommy, what the hell?!" Julia yelled, picking up another cookie and launching it at Tommy, hitting him in the abdomen.
"Will you two stop?" Jim spoke loudly, making everyone freeze.
"Tommy, you hit her hard. There's a welt already forming," Cyndi chastised, going to look at the red lump quickly making its appearance on Julia's forehead.
"I didn't know it would be that hard," Tommy insisted. Jim sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that night. He bent over, picking up the cookie that had hit Julia.
"It's amazing that you're not bleeding. This thing feels like a hockey puck," Jim said, sounding the slightest bit impressed. Julia looked thoughtful for a moment, before her shoulders slumped dramatically.
"I forgot to call Robbie," she whined, wondering what else could go wrong that night.
"Okay. Here's what we're gonna do," Cyndi started, her voice taking on the maternal tone she saved for moments like this. "You and Jim are gonna do the dishes. Me and Tommy are gonna clean everything else. Then, Julia, you're going to go ice your forehead and call Robbie."
Everyone nodded, knowing better than to argue with her when she turned into their stand-in mother. Jim resigned himself to helping Julia, no matter how badly he wanted to argue. Tommy and Julia muttered quiet apologies to each other as everyone set to work to clean the kitchen. They worked silently, everyone doing their part to get the kitchen restored.
"But, like, is someone gonna cook me dinner?" Tommy asked after a few moments of silence.
Hi, friends. I am so sorry for such a slow update. Also sorry for the two throwbacks in a row. I had an idea for a chapter, but this one just seemed to come to me more naturally and I didn't want to make everyone wait any longer. I promise I haven't given up on this story, just been super busy! Thank you to everyone who votes and comments, it means the world to me!