Lady Ann

(A few weeks after Squeaky)

Ray did not miss the fact that the proposal was floated during a dinner at Mom and Dad's.

All evening, Mom and Annie had been sharing Significant Looks. So he was braced for an announcement of some sort.

Then Annie, Buttercup and Pet climbed up on the paper towel dispenser and faced where Ray and Denise sat.

"Time now," he muttered.

"What?" Denise asked.

"Ray," Annie announced. "We want something for The Day."

"You don't celebrate Sylphmas, Annie," he pointed out. Mom smirked and Dad shook his head. Someone had wagered on his immediate response, he figured. But he was concentrating on Annie.

That's where the land mine would be.

"I don't want to celebrate Sylphmas, Ray," she replied. She then placed arms around Buttercup and Pet's shoulders.

"But this year it's on a Saturday. And you love your sylphs, don't you?"

"Of course we do," Denise said. She glanced over at Ray's silence.

"I do love you all," he said slowly. "What will it take to prove it, though?"

"We want to go out to dinner," Buttercup said. She made it sound about as significant as watching a Star Trek rerun. So why did it take three sylphs to beg for a dinner out?

"Where?" he asked.

"We'll make the reservations," Dad said. "And it'll be well within your budget."

"So it's five to two," Ray calculated. Mom nodded.

"Come on, it'll be fun," Denise added.

"Six to one? What do you know?"

"Nothing!" she protested. She grabbed his arm and laid her head on his shoulder. "But we wuv our sywphs, doan we?"

"Of course," he said.

"So we can pwobabwy suhvieve wun night of wha'evwre dey wanna do, wight?"

"Put your lips back in place," he said. "I guess I'd have to be a terrible ogre at this point to demand an explanation? Or the name of the place?"

Everyone nodded. Pet's lip was pouted out enough for all three sylphs. He gave in with little grace, but he did give in.

----------

Dad gave a time and a street address that Ray didn't recognize. No name. He found out why in the parking lot.

"KaraokWee Night?" he protested.

"Don't worry, Ray," Buttercup said from the carrier. "No one is allowed on stage without a sylph to accompany them."

"Great," he muttered.

"Oooooh!" Annie said in sudden amazement. "And we HAVE wee accompaniment!"

"What a SURPRISE!" Pet followed.

"What LUCK!" Buttercup squealed.

"How many?" Denise asked.

"One each," Buttercup said.

"One each per holiday?" Ray asked. "Or one per human?"

"One per sylph," Annie said. "But again, Ray, only for the sylphs that you love."

"Which had better be three!" Pet stage-whispered.

--------

Their table was right up next to the stage. "So we can volunteer at ANY TIME!" Pet said.

"Great," Ray snarled.

"Oh, you'll enjoy yourself," Denise said.

"Yes," snarled Buttercup. "Remember, Ray, this evening is not about you." "Then I can go?"

"You'll make Pet cry," Buttercup pointed out. Then her expression cleared. "Okay, so, how about my song first?" she asked cheerfully.

Annie and Pet agreed and started trying to get the MC's attention.

When they were on stage, there was a microphone pointed at a stool and another placed for humans. Buttercup arranged everyone to her satisfaction, then led her family off in a heartfelt rendition of The Witch Doctor.

It was well chosen as the family was well-rehearsed. Even Ray relaxed and started to smile.

The whole audience sang along with the Dr. Demento Favorite.

They retired to resounding applause and recovered at their table. A male sylph and his three human dancers started to perform Gonna Make You Sweat.

Ray admitted to having enjoyed himself and actually thanked Buttercup for getting him on the stage.

Pet raised her hand. "Can I go next?"

"Sure," Denise said, glancing at her husband with an amused expression.

"And Ray doesn't even have to get up!" Pet said.

"Wait, what?" Denise's face spun down to stare at her pet. "I'm… I'm not going to be alone up there?"

"You'll be fine," Ray assured her. "Hide behind Pet."

"Shut up," she fired back.

"Come on, it'll be fun," he quoted her in retaliation. "We wuv ouh widdle sylph, doan we, wuver?"

"What, uh, what song do you want, Pet?"

"Shake your tail feather!" she said.

"Pet! We haven't done that since high school!"

"That's the Blues Brothers movie?" Annie asked.

"Ray Charles," Ray said with a nod. "Where they get the whole neighborhood dancing the various dances that were popular in-"

"In the dark ages!" Pet cheered. Buttercup scowled. "That's what Denny always said…"

"I have danced to the Watusi, Young Lady" Buttercup said. "And twisted."

"So…we can't do that?" Pet asked.

"Sure you can, Pet," Annie said. "Just don't do it with stone tools or caveman accents."

"Oh. No, we never do that, what we do-"

"Show us," Annie said. Denise shook her head and went to get the MC's attention.

The dance had been inspired by the movie. Pet shouted the dance steps and Denise demonstrated them. As they started, though, a TV screen came on at the back of the stage. A giant blow-up of Pet showed there. She saw herself and felt compelled to do the dances, too.

She, also, had not performed this routine since Denny had been in high school. So she missed a few lyrics while she was trying to remember the steps. Denny quickly started helping her sing the tune, then it became a duet.

There were missteps, but the enthusiasm was high, the energy contagious and they received another resounding round of applause.

Then collapsed into their seats at the table, where Ray had drinks waiting. And then everyone looked at Annie.

And she looked at Ray.

"No," he said. "You don't want me singing up there."

"Why not?" she asked.

"Yeah, why not?" everyone asked.

"Because there's only one song I CAN sing to Annie, and it'll make her cry."

"Your singing's not THAT bad, Master," Annie said. "If allowances are made for your being untrained. And male. And, you know, about as extroverted as a blind cave-fish."

"No, no," he said, his head shaking. "Not tears of discomfort. You'll become a softie and ruin your reputation.

"I just won't do that to you on Sylphmas, Annie. I respect you too much."

"That's why I lived naked in a birdcage all those years," she snapped. "For your respect."

"Yeah," he nodded, picking up the menu. On stage, a little girl sylph was on the stool, trying to work her way through Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Her owner was dressed in black with one aluminum-foil star on his shirt that she sang to.

The audience waited patiently through the stutters, the stammers and a few silences.

Everyone here could have been wearing an 'indulgent sylph owner' name-tag. They were pre-selected to be equally indulgent of someone else's pet.

Annie, however, wasn't in the mood to indulge her idiot owner. She stamped a foot when Darling was finally finished. "Buttercup got her song, Pet got her song. I want my song, Ray. And I want you to sing-"

"It doesn't matter," he said, putting the folder down. "Like I said, there's only one song I CAN sing. I've been rehearsing," he tapped his temple, "in my head since 1978."

"Oooh, that's a lot of rehearsal," Pet said.

"What happened in 1978?" Buttercup asked. Denise was counting on her fingers. "He was a sophomore, then started junior year…"

"Was there a Bond movie in 1978?" Pet asked. "Is he gonna sing Moonraker's theme song?"

Buttercup shook her head. "But Grease came out…"

"And Dawn of the Dead," Denise added. "But I don't remember a song from that."

"Swamp Thing? Was there a love-theme from Swamp Thing about then?"

"Conan's love thing was a cavalary charge," Pet said.

The other two ignored all three of them.

"Put up or shut up," Annie sneered, bowing and waving towards the stage.

Ray stood and walked away. He spoke with the MC for a moment, got a nod, then came back to the table for Annie.

------

He held her cupped in his hands and asked for a spotlight, a soft one. There was a shaft of blue light and he put Annie in it.

A piano started to play. And Ray didn't quite sing, but softly spoke the words to She's Always A Woman To Me.

He didn't glance at the prompter, in fact never took his eyes off of his little pet. She sat entranced and stared back into his eyes.

Denise and the other two burst out laughing at some of the lines, such as 'hides like a child,' or 'laugh while you're bleeding.' And they nodded at 'wound with her eyes.'

The close-up view came on about halfway through the song. Annie's sniffles weren't heard, but her eyes were definitely leaking.

She was speechless at the end of the song.

One guy, because there's always one in any room, complained aloud that it was KaraokWee night and she should have said something, anything, during the performance.

Buttercup shouted him down, and the rest of the audience agreed. He quieted, but it was a surly silence. No one cared.

Ray stepped off the stage and continued to hold his familiar at the table. Denise wrapped an arm around his shoulders and nuzzled his face with hers. Buttercup and Pet climbed up his forearms to hug and squeeze Lady Ann on her throne.

Annie eventually cleared her throat. "So, 1978? It took you fifteen goddamned years to SAY that?"

"You never asked why I had that song on LP, cassette AND on 45," he replied. "I thought you knew."

"No, I thought…" Her voice drifted off. He nodded as if she'd completed the thought, though.

"Oh, okay." Then he touched a check with his thumb, wiping away a tear.

"I am so glad no one knows us here," she said.

"And I'm glad they got that on tape," Pet said.

"Wait, what?" Ray asked. He looked around wildly. Dad was just visible on the balcony, taking down a tripod. "We must capture that film," he said.

"A moral imperative," Annie agreed.

--------

Six months later, Ray stood behind the judging table as Annie signed some of the kids' entries. Parents looked on with smiles as kids still giggled about some of the little tyrant's judgments ("Sting shines around ORCS, Jonathan, not lunch! Or elevenses. MAYBE around dinner. If the hobbits're eating orc pies.").

A few people tried to congratulate Ray on how well trained his sylph was, but they were new additions. Married into the family, not REAL Fosters.

Everyone else complimented Annie directly. She took it as her due, of course.

A last straggler's dad glanced at his watch and hurried his twins along towards the big tent. "Are you coming to the Karaoke contest?" he asked Ray.

"Never," Ray replied. He lifted an exhausted judge to his shirt and poured her limp form into his pocket.

He turned for the refreshment tent to find Denise coming back from there, three snowcones in her grip. He held two while she set up a little stand and three tiny straws for the third.

"I hear there's a Karaoke contest," she said, with a wicket smile.

"Somewhere," he said, handing her back one of the cones. Buttercup and Pet sipped from the shared one.

"Where's Annie, Ray?" Pet asked.

"She passed out," he said. "And she's not one for grape syrup, anyway."

"Hunnah, hah whazzit?" he pocket erupted. "Syrup? On what?"

He lifted her down to the treat. "Yeah, we figured to stay as far from THAT contest as possible."

"Agreed," Denise said. "Even though we burned that tape."

In the distance, Cousin Danny was announcing the rules of the contest. "And if you don't know what Karaoke is, Uncle Victor has a little demonstration. Victor?"

"Dad's going to demonstrate Karaoke?" Annie asked. Then two familiar voices started to declare what they had told to the Witch Doctor.

"We burned that tape," Ray said softly. Denise was already running towards the tent. "We burned that tape!" he shouted, then followed.

Annie shrugged and took another syp of syrup. "I told him Dad gave up the tape too easily."

"We should have searched the car," Pet said with a nod.

"Well, if you can't trust a father...," Buttercup said. The other two stared at her.

"I've met Chuck," Annie said.

"Oh. Well. You know," Buttercup shrugged. "Dads that aren't psychotic."

"There goes Victor, then," Pet said sadly. She kept her expression for a whole four seconds before all three sylphs burst out laughing.

Voices were raised in the tent. But the protests didn't drown out the laughter.



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