Wheels In Motion Ch. 02

They say when March comes in like a lamb, it goes out like a lion. That was holding true, as DC was given an April Fool's joke in the form of what was looking to be maybe the biggest winter storm ever that late in the Spring.

"Are you sure we shouldn't just stay in and watch a movie?" I asked Liz, as we arrived at her car in her basement parking garage. "Getting to Alexandria is going to be a bitch with this much snow on the roads." I'd taken the metro from my apartment in Tenleytown to Liz's condo in DuPont Circle, but I was deeply hesitant about going out in bad weather. It had been snowing since noon.

"I texted Jo. She said the show's still on, so I'm going. I haven't gotten to see them play since before Thanksgiving. I'm not going to pass up a chance to see them because of a little snow."

"Okay," I sighed. "Maybe we should take a Lyft instead of risking your car?"

Liz shook her head. "We're going to be out late and it might be hard to get one home later. I'd hate to be stuck in Alexandria for the night with nowhere to stay." She clicked a button on her keychain, and the two doors on the driver's side of her Kia swung open like a clamshell. She rolled up to the driver's seat and shifted over into it, and then started folding her wheelchair up.

"Here, let me do that. That always looks like such a pain in the ass watching you try and put it in the back." I took her chair, finished folding it and put it into the cradle of the lift in the back. Liz hit the switch that brought the contraption into the back seat with a low mechanical whine.

I tried not to talk to Liz while she focused on the road. It was kind of amazing how much better of a driver she was than most of the other idiots out that night, especially considering she was driving entirely with her hands. The throttle/brake lever in her right, the wheel in her left. She handled it all with dexterity. We passed at least a half-dozen cars who had slid off the road by the time we reached the Birchmere music hall.

"Ha!" Liz smiled broadly as we pulled into the parking lot. "This is the best thing about being in a wheelchair!" she said, as she pulled into a handicapped space right next to the front door.

"I can't believe how many cars there are on a night like this," I said, "and it's still almost an hour before the show. We might have had to park in the street!"

"I told you, they have a pretty loyal following, and this is their first show since early December."

I took her chair out of the back of the car and opened it for her. After we went inside, Liz claimed our tickets at the will call window, and we made our way towards the bar where there was a huge cluster of people. It soon became apparent that the band was in the middle of it, greeting fans and friends. We got in line and waited patiently.

We'd worked our way close to the middle of the group when I caught sight of a short, solidly built woman in the middle of the crush of bodies with a flat-top haircut, dyed platinum blonde, and prominent cheekbones. Her eyes widened as she spotted us through the press of people.

"Liz!" she yelled in delight then she cupped her hands to her mouth and said in a shockingly loud voice, "Make a hole!" The crowd parted good-naturedly and the woman stepped forward to meet us halfway. When she leaned down and threw her arms around Liz, I felt a short, unexpected pang of jealousy.

"Dr. Liz, how ya doing?" she exclaimed, as she stood up.

"Great, Chief!" Liz said. "How're you? Getting enough sleep?"

"Holy shit, I am not! I thought basic was tough, but this is a whole other thing. I guess I was a lot younger then, though," she said.

Liz laughed, then turned to me. "Chief, this is my friend Addison Wagner. Addison, Jo Collins."

"Good to meet you," Jo said to me. "I'm stoked you guys made it out. I had my doubts you would. It took us three hours to drive in from Front Royal, and that was this morning before it got bad." She turned and yelled through the crowd, "Hey Blue! Liz is here!"

For a moment I thought I must have misheard the name she'd called out, but then a tall woman moved through the crowd to join us and I understood. She had long, thick hair down to the middle of her back that had been dyed several different shades from electric blue, to sapphire, to almost purple. The effect was such that she looked like a mermaid, freshly stepped out of the sea. It was strikingly beautiful.

"You made it!" she said, leaning down to give Liz a hug as well.

"A little snow couldn't keep me away! It's been too long since I've seen you guys!" She turned to me. "Addison, this is Jill Collins, Jo's wife and Rotor's keyboard player extraordinaire. Jill, this is my friend Addison Wagner."

"Pleased to meet you Addison," she said, shaking my hand.

"I love your hair," I said.

"Thanks! Your dreads are pretty cool too!"

"How's the baby doing?" Liz asked them.

"Not sleeping through the night yet," Jill said, "Thank god for Jo. She gets up with him at all hours of the night, every night, so I can sleep and save my energy for feedings."

"You did the hard part for nine months," Jo said, "plus almost a year of getting those damn hormone injections. My turn to carry some of the load."

"I have a hard time picturing you taking care of an itty-bitty baby, Chief," Liz teased her.

"Are you kidding me?" Jill said, "Eric's in her arms every second he's awake and a lot of times when he's asleep too. I have to ask her to let me hold him sometimes."

Jo blushed. "Sue me, I love our little kid. I didn't even want to leave him with your sister tonight."

"His bedtime was like an hour ago," Jill said, laughing. "He'll come to our shows someday. Just not yet."

"Is Sara here?" Liz asked.

Jo grimaced, "No, she's at home with little Henry. He's got a cold, so she didn't want to leave him with the other kids at Jill's sister's place. Justine only has Eric plus Larry Junior."

"That's plenty," Jill said.

"Jo! Showtime!" someone yelled from over near the stage. I looked, and saw a man wearing a white button-down shirt and skinny black tie who was obviously Jo's brother, if not her twin. He had the exact same lopsided grin plastered on his face.

"Coming," Jill yelled back.

"Alright, time to rock!" Jo said, with a little bounce on her right foot. "We'll catch you guys after. Liz, make sure you come up front so you can see. I'll yell at the crowd for you if I see you having any problems getting close." She grinned at us, then grabbed Jill's hand and they made their way backstage.

"She's quite the bundle of energy," I said to Liz. "I've never seen a couple so different from each other."

"They are a study in contrasts for sure, but they make it work. When we crashed in Afghanistan, we got airlifted to Ramstein base in Germany, and Jill flew out there to meet us, like right away. Jo was in a coma for weeks. Jill was there long before Jo even woke up and never left her side for her entire recovery. They're inseparable."

"That's really sweet." I looked around. "Where do you want to try to watch the show from?"

"Right up front, of course!" She said and started slowly rolling through the crowd up towards the stage. It was clear that most of the people in attendance were regular fans, and Liz seemed to know most of them. She got a constant stream of hugs, fist bumps, and high fives, and no one seemed to begrudge us moving to take a space right up front.

Just as we arrived at the spot Liz was headed for, the house lights went down and the stage lights came up. The band walked out to applause and hollering. There were five of them. The two I hadn't met yet were a Hispanic woman with long reddish-brown hair carrying a bass guitar with a red-and-yellow sunburst and an improbably-tall black man with a shaved head who jumped behind the drum set. Liz identified them to me as Suzanne and Larry, another married couple and high school friends of Jo and Steve.

As Jill walked behind a stack of three keyboards next to the drum set, Jo took her place right in front of us, a black and white guitar slung over her shoulder, while her male doppelganger, Steve, walked to the center microphone.

"Hello Birchmere! How's everyone tonight?" Steve yelled out to huge cheers, while adjusting his black guitar. He waited for the noise to die down. "Been awhile, right?" More cheers. "We haven't been wasting our time. We're gonna play a lot of your favorites tonight, but we have a bunch of new stuff for you. Hope that's okay with everyone." Louder cheers. "Alright, let's go!"

He turned and looked at Larry, who clicked his sticks together and yelled out, "Two, three, four!" Then he started pounding out a beat while Steve started strumming a fast-paced intro of chords, joined quickly afterwards by Jo and Suzanne while Jill danced behind her keyboards waiting to come in. It only took me seconds to recognize the notes of The Cure's Hot, Hot, Hot!!!

I found myself rather taken aback at how good they sounded. I had known, from listening to the songs on the band's playlist on Liz's racing chair's speaker, that they did a bunch of great stuff, but knowing they were just a cover band, I'd had no expectation that they would be... good. Like, really good. Jo's guitars were indistinguishable from the original, and when the rest of the band joined in they sounded really, really good.

Steve wasn't Robert Smith, but he had a great vocal style of his own and found a groove with the lyrics that was working for him. The entire crowd was dancing within the first few beats.

Despite all that, what truly amazed me was Liz. She'd said, the first night we'd gone out, the night I'd wished was a real date, that she was quite the dancer. I'd taken that to be a joke at the time, but as the band got into the song I saw just how wrong I was.

Her face lit up when she recognized the tune, and she started swinging her chair back and forth; spinning in circles, first one way, then the other. Her upper body was swaying side-to-side in her chair, arms moving fluidly, almost hypnotically, and all the while managing not to crash into any of the crowd pressed around us. I couldn't believe how graceful she made it look, as if her wheelchair was an extension of her. She'd taken her disability and made it into something beautiful.

She looked up at me and grinned, shouting over the music, "C'mon Addison! Don't just stand there, dance with me!"

I belatedly realized I'd been staring at her. I shook myself out of my reverie and tried to just enjoy the music. Soon, I was dancing just as hard as the rest of the crowd.

When the song ended the band didn't even pause. They went straight into Blur's Song 2, with Jo and Larry doing the simple intro until Steve let loose into the mic with a resounding "Woo-Hooooo!" and the rest of the band joined in. Jo kicked at her pedals to amp up her sound as the crowd redoubled their energy, bouncing up and down as one mass of humanity.

Liz sang along with Steve's next yell, giving a loud "Woo-hooooo!" of her own, then popped a wheelie and, to my amazement, spun her chair in a complete circle before dropping her wheels back to the ground. She hadn't been kidding at all. She was an amazing dancer.

They followed up Blur with Veruca Salt's Seether, with Suzanne taking over the vocals from Steve. Once more I found myself really impressed by her voice.

After what must have been more than an hour, I was exhausted. I hadn't danced that much since college. Steve stepped to the mic to address the crowd.

"Alright, we're going to take a break soon." Good natured boos drifted up from the crowd. "But we're going to do something a little different right now. We know a bunch of you have been following us for years. And a bunch of you have met at our shows and become couples, like Mary and Dix over there." He pointed at a couple with their arms around each other. "Or Damian and Laura, Mike and John, Alison and Mike." He kept pointing out different couples in the room to cheers for each couple. He continued, "So, while we usually like to rock out, we added a few songs for slow dancing tonight for our favorite couples. That's pretty much all of them in this room," he said grinning. "So, we'll do a few slow ones then take fifteen."

Steve took off his guitar and put it in its stand next to Larry's drum kit, and then traded places with Jill; him behind the keyboards, while she came out and took his microphone out of its stand.

Steve started off the song on the keyboards, piano notes filling the room. Jill joined in a few bars later, singing softly and soulfully, and I recognized the power ballad Alone, by Heart.

I leaned down to Liz and said in her ear, "Do you want to go get something to drink before the rush?"

She was watching the stage as she answered, "No, I've never heard them do something like this. I want to watch."

"Okay. I may head to the bar. My feet are killing me, I clearly wore the wrong shoes for dancing."

She grinned up at me. "No problem, I carry around a built-in seat everywhere I go." She tugged at my elbow and suddenly I found myself in her lap with her arms wrapped around me. I was startled, but then figured what the hell? I wrapped an arm around her neck, legs hanging over the side of her chair and leaned gently back into her. I laid my head on top of hers as we listened to Jill sing.

Two tired friends, just enjoying music together. That's all.

Jill's singing voice was beautiful. I found myself surprised they hadn't found a way to feature it sooner. She was clearly the best singer in the group. She looked lost in the music, with one hand reaching out and resting on Jo's shoulder. Jo, meanwhile, was playing with a huge smile on her face, clearly thrilled to be accompanying her wife. As Jill sang about trying to get her would-be lover alone for the first time, I could smell Liz's hair.

I glanced around the room and saw dozens of couples slow dancing while they watched the band. Jo, Suzanne and Steve all sang harmony during the chorus, their voices blending to create the illusion of a dozen singers on the stage. It was kind of a perfect moment.

Liz dropped one of her arms, which had been encircling me. I thought for a moment she might want me to get up, but she held onto me tightly with her other arm and gripped one of her wheels with her free hand to slowly swing us back and forth in time with the music.

When the song ended I made a move to get up, but the band launched straight into Eternal Flame and Liz kept her arm around me. Jill's voice was perfectly suited to the vocals, ringing out across the crowd. When Jo and Suzanne joined her in harmony, it was like The Bangles had stepped onto the stage. Steve and Larry just grinned at each other across the back of the stage while they played.

They ended the song to huge cheers. Jill told the crowd they'd be back in fifteen or twenty minutes and they left the stage. I got off of Liz's lap and stood up.

"That was totally different from anything I've ever heard them do," Liz said to me. "I really liked it."

"Me too. I have to say, they're much better than I'd assumed they were going to be. They're really good. I have a hard time believing they all have real jobs."

She laughed and said, "I know, right? You say 'cover band' and everyone assumes they're just some hack garage group. These guys are musicians. Playing stuff like this for their friends is just what they love to do. I mean to be fair, Suzanne is a music teacher, but..." She trailed off, looking at the stage.

"What is it?" I asked her.

She looked down at her sneakers on the footrest of her chair. "This is going to sound sappy, but I'm really happy you made the decision to be friends with me. You coming with me tonight just..." She looked back up at me. "This band is important to me. Jo started inviting me to their shows when she was recovered enough to start performing with them again. She wouldn't take no for an answer, sometimes driving to my apartment before the show, putting me in her car, then taking me home afterwards. Going out, being with people, watching them play, it all had a part in getting me to a place where I could accept my life and the way it was going to be. A big part." Her eyes started glistening. "For a long time, I didn't know if I'd ever be able to accept it. It really means a lot to me to get to share them for the first time with someone I care about."

I felt a lump rise in my throat. "I'm glad you invited me Liz." It was the first time since we'd met that I'd ever seen her show any vulnerability, any hint that she hadn't always been fully accepting of her path in life, or of what had been taken from her. She was always so confident, so self-assured.

She stared into space for a moment, then shook herself and grinned at me. "Should we go get a beer and drink it in a macho fashion to overcome our girly emotional scene? Maybe slam a tequila shot?"

"Anything you want Liz. Tonight's your night."

~~ Chinatown, Washington, DC, April ~~

I stood on the street corner at Seventh and H Streets, watching the sun go down behind the brick buildings across the way. I'd come up the escalator from the Gallery Place Metro station and texted Viv that I was here. After a couple of weeks of texting, we'd finally made plans to go out. She'd said to leave the plans up to her. All I had to do was dress casual and make sure I brought a jacket, which was weird as the snow storm had passed and left behind early spring weather. Almost warm enough to go without a jacket, but maybe not quite, depending on what she had in mind.

With those vague instructions, I'd worn jeans and a button-down blouse with my favorite leather jacket over the top. The butterflies in my stomach seemed unavoidable. It was the first real 'date' I'd been on since Liz had taken me to dinner, which turned out not to be a date at all meaning it was my first date since before Halloween.

I caught sight of Viv coming up the escalator, and she gave me a big wave when she saw me.

"Hey girl, glad we finally got together!" she said, as she gave me a hug.

"Sorry it took so long! it's been a crazy month."

"No worries! Better late than never, right?"

"I suppose so," I mused. She looked even younger tonight than she had when I'd met her at the League. I had to remind myself I was just out to have fun, not get married, so letting the night play out still felt like the best plan. "You've been pretty cagey in your texts. What's our plan for tonight?"

"Well, I took a bit of a chance. Are you a sports girl?"

"I can be. Badger's football takes up my every Saturday in the fall."

"Badgers? Who's that?" She looked confused.

"Sorry, the University of Wisconsin. That's where I got my bachelors and then I went to law school in Madison as well. I'm a pretty big Badgers fan in any sport."

"Oh, gotcha. So, do a lot of people play hockey up there?"

I smiled. "Are you making the assumption that because we have all the cold weather we must all play hockey?" I joked. "Yeah, actually, lots of people play. Wisconsin doesn't have an NHL team, but we have a minor league team. My brother played in high-school and a little in junior college too, so I watched him a lot."

"Cool! Then I won't have to explain the rules to you tonight. I got two tickets to the Caps game. Hope that sounds like fun."

I looked down the street at the Capital One Center looming over Seventh Street. Surprisingly it did sound like a fun time. I'd spent many nights of my grade school years going to watch my brother play, so when I'd moved to DC I'd latched onto the Caps as the team I rooted for whenever I watched hockey.

"That sounds great, actually." I looked back at her. "I think you nailed it."