I thought I heard the Old Man say
Tomorrow is a holiday
We'll work tomorrow, no work today

"Can I use the shower?"

The question cut me out of my yawn, but was unable to make me stand up from the couch where I had just sat. You want to shower, with this temperature? Not that I wouldn't have to. In this season, there was little hope of the weather improving, or the temperature rising during the day. But right now, I couldn't imagine mustering enough courage. I'd probably end up heating some water on the stove and having a quick and minimalist toilet. But I felt too tired to show my guest how to light the stove right now.

"The heater isn't working."

"You've got water? Then temperature is no problem."

I felt my eyebrows raise, "if you say so, go on." And she disappeared in my bedroom before I could nod.

I laid down on the couch, and realized I didn't want to sleep right now. What I needed was some music; something cool and melodic to help me unwind. What had Dad listened to yesterday? Nguyen Le? And the CD was still in the player? Good.

I stood long enough to turn the player and the amplifier on – in that order, Dad was adamant about it – then hit play.

I lied back on the couch and closed my eyes, savoring the intricate guitar play, then Huong Thanh's voice began singing that the wind took her shirt while in fact she'd lent it to her lover – according to the CD notes, of course, I didn't speak Vietnamese. And suddenly, I realized I had skipped two songs. A feminine voice had woken me up.

"Can I borrow fresh clothes?"

I opened my eyes to be treated with the sight of tanned skin, the bare skin of a naked girl toweling her hair. I immediately looked away, which didn't prevent the memory of a small breast with a large brown nipple engraving into my brain.

"What's the problem?" She asked. "Oh yes, decency rules, sorry. You can look now."

The towel was now draped around her breasts, leaving nothing to ogle except a cute face with a big childish gaze above muscular shoulders, and bare feet. Odd bare feet. I blinked, and realized the oddness came from two toes missing their extremity on the right foot.

"Yes, just dig in the drawers," I finally answered.

She disappeared again, and I went back to enjoy the distant growl of the bass under the music.

"What's all this data?"

I stared up at her from the couch. She was looking at Dad's CD collection. Wet curly black hair, now untied, was dampening the t-shirt shoulders. It was my old Infectious Grooves t-shirt which tended to be a bit small for me, and hugged her chest nicely: I could make her nipples pushing on the cloth. She was also wearing one of my jeans and it nearly fitted. That looked quite sexy, in its own way. Even if her figure, with the small breasts, barely noticeable hips, and muscular shoulders, was far from what my classmates would describe as sexy. I tried to imagine how I would describe her as pretty; how I would convince them; but I found that the white scar on her tanned left arm, and the missing toes, did not help.

But where had she been living, that she didn't know what an audio CD was? Where did she think the music we were hearing came from? I was surprised enough that I didn't even think about how she might be cold wearing just a t-shirt, or remarked about how she'd used my old judo white belt to put her right arm in a makeshift sling.

"Music."

"I did not imagine so much existed. Is that what you play?"

"This is just a small subset. All the music that has been recorded in the last century would not even fit in this building." I yawned again and explained, still wondering at what she knew or not. "And no we don't cover any of it. We're playing originals." In fact, we had been learning covers, to get a longer repertoire to choose from, and avoid repeating songs too often for Saturday regulars; and because, from a bartender point of view, famous songs drew people. As long as he was the one paying us, we had to abide. But I didn't want to complicate my explanations, and kept silent about that part.

A long discussion ensued, in which I had to explain to her how it worked. How a band recorded its music, how some bands then covered it sometimes. A discussion in which I understood she had only been listening to the radio before today. And most probably stereotyped gangsta rap, by the way she described it.

Which didn't mean she was idiot or clueless because she also started discussing the audio CD encoding. And when I mentioned the mp3 format, the possibilities of compression, of frequency description of sounds, she immediately jumped in the discussion with mathematical theories of how it could be done and improved; and completely lost me, as she definitely had more advanced mathematical knowledge than I did. Coming from a street punk to me, with my college preparation courses, that really felt strange, but I had to admit I had no idea of what she was talking about.

She looked disappointed, but was quick to rebound when she opened Dad's Omnibook that was laying on the table, and asked me how one was to read that.

I yawned.

"You don't know?" She asked.

"Oh yes, I know. It's music. You want to learn?"

"Of course."

I yawned again. I didn't really feel like launching on a music theory course.

"Please?" She asked again.

I looked up, and found my gaze climbing up her feminine body, before meeting big dark eyes, and immediately changed my mind. Why didn't I feel like teaching her music? I can't even remember.

Music theory can be quite boring, but I was a geek, and she had asked for it! So I dove in. What I was not expecting was to find her lacking so much that she hadn't even a notion of what a pitch was! I had to fetch Dad's guitar to sound them to her.

And that's when I got the second surprise, that made me decide I was now well awake: she was hearing frequencies! I mean, really hearing them, mathematically. With her help, I was able to tune the guitar better than it had ever been since the bomb had fried our electronic tuner, dead on a 440 A. And once again, she switched from kindergarten level to university level, humbling me with a try to discuss harmonic series and temperaments. Another book to look for at the library...

With a brain working so fast, I shouldn't have been surprised that just two hours later, she was able to read Charlie Parker's solos directly from the book. But I was. Or was I just jealous? I would have needed much training to be able to do that!

Her only problem was she was reading like a machine. No enjoyment in her voice, despite her warm smile, that I attributed to the satisfaction of the academic achievement. No feeling. At all. I tried to explain her, I put a Charlie Parker's CD in the player and raised the volume, but I could find no way to get the message across!

At that point, the discussion was becoming really frustrating. I was racking my brain to find a way to explain feeling. Could I invoke experience? Or, in a band setting, taking clues from the others?

The heat I was feeling in my side, the proximity of a real live girl, didn't help. The composition sessions with Sam should have trained me, but no, I still felt the distraction. She wasn't Sam. And she was sitting upright, which emphasized her unsupported breasts under the t-shirt, and my brain wouldn't let me forget how they looked naked.

Not that she was giving out any sexual signal I would be aware of. Here again she wasn't Sam, and wasn't playing near any innuendo. Which looked quite sane to me, I had never quite grasped my singer's fascination with that disgusting thing we boy had dangling between our legs. The smooth female body looked so much better! And Fy, sitting beside me, waiting patiently for me to resume my pitiful try at an explanation, had that kind of body. And I had to stop thinking about that now, because my hands wanted to explore that curly hair, and my lips... Stop!

I forced my brain back on the problem of teaching feeling, but we were interrupted by a knock, followed by the sound of the door opening. I had missed Dad not locking it when he left.

"Mr Dibanga, are you okay?" I recognized Grace's voice before I finished turning my head. Fy had already sprung to her feet. "Oh, it's you Etienne. And?"

"Fy." I quickly answered, before deciding on a more formal introduction. I stood. "Fy, meet Grace." Who you can trust to be interested enough in her neighbors that she knows Dad's work-hours better than I do! "Grace, this is Fy."

"Fy? You mean Faye?" When Grace had first met me, I had a bad case of French accent, so the possible confusion wasn't so improbable. And given how she'd been avoiding me this year, her frown wasn't too surprising either.

"No, Fy. As in five," I replied, "shortened."

A silence followed and I found myself in a very awkward position between the two girls. Fy's smile was totally gone. Her eyes narrowed, she was studying Grace in the way a cat was evaluating the distance of a bird. And Grace's frown had turned to a glare.

Grace was the one who spoke again. "Your father knows you're not in school?"

"Yes," I said. You've also memorized my timetable?

"And you inviting that girl? He agrees?" I blinked at the way she talked of someone still in the room, and had to glance aside to make sure Fy was still around. She was, perfectly silent, eyes still locked on Grace.

"He said that was my decision to make."

"Your decision?" Loaded with surprise and anger, her voice climbed from her usual piano to at least mezzo-forte. "I thought you would be an exception, but I see I was wrong. One of those people come around here, and you immediately side with them. You're all the same. Grandma Hanh should never have offered you that flat!"

"What are you..." How could she guess Fy came from a gang? And how did Dad and I having spent a few uncomfortable days without a real home after the bomb had fried his bank's computers made us the same kind of people? Or was she speaking about something else? I could not make sure because she didn't even let me finish the question before continuing her rant.

"You're the last one allowed to decide who can sleep here! What do you think, that it's your house? Even your father's not much more than a guest here! And you... How can you side with her after what you suffered with Roy?"

What is Roy having to do with Fy?

"I'm not going to let that last!" With a last exclamation, Grace turned away and headed for the door.

Thanks to Kim (berley from The Globe) for beta-reading this chapter's first version. There have been a lot of changes since, so if you're in the mood, it could use another beta!

Sound / epigraph: John Kanaka, as performed by Cabestan.