Armstrong Twins

“RJ! Jess! Billie! Dinner, guys!” Adrienne called downstairs. She heard her husband sigh, and then come the complaints from her twin daughters. From the time they were born, Adrienne knew Billie was eventually going to teach them to play guitar. And now they were learning. She could remember exactly just how many times Billie had said the two were going to sideline the rules and do whatever the ‘rock star’ state of mind told them to. Well, the fact they were twins guaranteed it already.

Adrienne remembered being in the delivery room, her husband holding one girl and she holding the other. They were beautiful. Her and Billie’s little angels, fast asleep in their parent’s loving arms. She smiled tiredly. If only it hadn’t hurt so much…

“Honey, y’know our lives just turned into living hell, right?” he asked, laughing softly. She nodded sleepily in agreement. It’d been a long day, and she’d had the twins just fifteen minutes apart. Well, at least they were asleep. If only she could slip off…

“Ow!” Jessica’s yelp brought Adrienne’s mind back to the present. She sighed.

“Mom! RJ just Ow! Tried to trip me!” came the younger twin’s voice.

“Did not!” came the other’s.

“Enough. It’s bad enough you two have competitions to see who sounds more like me when we’re practicing.” Billie said, but this only added fuel to the fire.

“Which we both know I won.” RJ interjected. Adrienne sighed at the sudden silence in the room as they finally quieted, noticing the smug little grin on RJ’s face.

“You’re grinning like your father used to do when he was in trouble. Roberta Jeanette Armstrong, what did you do?” Adrienne asked her older daughter. Roberta Jeanette was RJ’s full name, but most people called her RJ or Robbi-Jean.

“Nothing, mom. Just thinking about Christmas. And him.” She sighed dreamily.

“Yeah, you and Jayson kissing under the mistletoe.” Jessica threw in. RJ turned at once to glare at her twin, her dark make-up making her eyes look bright and alert.

“Hey. There will be no talk of kissing boys unless I’ve met said boy. Alright?” Billie asked. It was true that when it came to the girls dating that he was a little nervous.

“Alright.” The girls agreed. “Then maybe I’ll just go make out with Mike.” RJ added under her breath. Jessica laughed. They headed to the bathroom to wash up.

Looking in the mirror, it was obvious which twin was like whom. RJ was more like Billie; her hair was cut short and colored the same way. Where as Jessica looked more like Adrienne. Her hair was halfway down her back, and it was dark brown, almost black, highlighted with honey blonde streaks. Her bangs were dyed red. After dinner, the girls went to their room, where RJ grabbed her guitar and immediately started strumming a chord progression she’d learned earlier.
“Hey, that’s Whatsername!” Jessica said. Her twin only smirked in reply.

“Well, sing along.” So they did, while RJ played. After she finished, they shut off the lights and went to bed. The next day, the twins went Christmas shopping with Billie. Well, it wasn’t really shopping. Billie was doing most of the buying, whereas the twins were looking.

“Alright. You guys go to this one store with me, and I’ll let you walk around for awhile.” So they ended up heading to Brookstone, this really cool store for the Ipod generation. After that Billie told RJ and Jessica to meet him at the food court at six o’clock. They nodded, taking off. They roamed the mall, starting at Hot Topic and working there way to LoveSac. LoveSac was a beanbag store. Upon entering, the twins each ran in and dove into the nearest beanbag.

“Ah…this is the life.” Jessica said, sighing at how comfortable the bag was.

“This is perfect for practicing. Just think…what?” RJ asked her twin after she noticed that Jessica had this crooked smile going from ear to ear.

“You mean practicing guitar? Or with Jayson?” RJ took a minute to think about this, and then smacked her twin’s shoulder semi-roughly.

“Eww! Jess, you have such a sick mind! I just got it! Ew, ew, ew. I can’t believe you’d say that! Well, no, I can. That’s still something Tre would say to dad. Picture that. Seriously. ‘Yeah, Billie, you mean playing guitar or Adrienne?’” Both couldn’t help laughing as they got up and headed to the Gelato store by Boston Store.

The gelato store was big. Each twin got a three flavor dish, RJ getting pumpkin pie, chocolate, and cookies n’ cream. Jessica got chocolate cherry, cookies n’ cream and something else. After they were done with that, they headed (of all the places) Starbucks. Both got their normal order. RJ got a venti Chai tea latte and Jessica got a venti white chocolate iced mocha with extra whipped cream. When they sat down to drink their coffee, Love and Theft’s Runaway came on the radio. They started singing along, getting looks of interest from the other customers.

After this the girls made their way back into the mainstream shops in the mall. Jessica grabbed RJ’s hand and dragged her into GameStop, where they found the RockBand set.
“Hey, I wonder if they have some Green Day stuff on it?” RJ asked.
“I dunno. Let’s find out.” Jessica responded. So they set off cruising on down the track list, and found three Green Day songs.

Everyone in the store was clapping by the end of the twins’ set. They bowed and lapped up the attention. “Thank You!” They called, leaving the store and racing to meet Billie in the food court. Once there, RJ found the grand piano someone was normally playing unoccupied. So she sat down, and started to play Matchbox Twenty’s Bright Lights.

“Roberta-Jeanette Armstrong!” Billie’s voice cut through the air, and RJ jumped about a foot in the air.

“Sorry dad, nobody was playing so I just…yeah. Play Song of the Century!” she called. Billie smiled, his eyes no longer held that look of amazement then when he saw his eldest daughter playing the piano in a crowd of people, instead his hazel eyes were warm, and he laughed softly at her trying to make him perform. Well, there was no better time then the present. So she scooted over and he sat down, and started singing and playing Last Night On Earth.

As soon as Billie finished, the twins cheered and clapped.
“You ready to go?” They and, grabbing their stuff, headed back for home. And what a wild day of shopping that had been for the twins. In the car, Billie had mentioned going to this ‘Puzzle World’ to get something for Adrienne. The girls wanted to look around as well, but that changed when they pulled into the lot. Next to that store was a huge guitar store. Billie sighed.

“Yeah, go ahead. But don’t break anything, alright?” So the twins got out and ran to the guitar store, not taking any time to heed their father’s warning. Jessica grabbed an acoustic guitar and started to play Before the Lobotomy. She paused, “Eh, I don’t like acoustics. I’mma go try an electric!” So Jessica did, and she played a different song, this time it being Are We The Waiting.
This carried on into St. Jimmy.

RJ had come to stand next to Jessica, and she was singing along with rapid fire accuracy. Next it was RJ’s turn to try the electric. RJ played American Eulogy.

The guy running the counter came over to the twins.

“You guys like Green Day, huh? You seem to know all their stuff.” RJ and Jessica exchanged a grin.

“Yeah, we love them. We’ve seen them in concert twice, and met them.” Jessica lied. Well, they had gone to some concerts, and Billie was their dad, so it wasn’t a lie at all. But they played it cool, anyways.

“Hey, can you play Letterbomb?” he asked Jessica.

“Um, sure, but y’know I’m not really good at singing. RJ, you can sing.” So they started.

The man clapped and pulled out his cell phone.

“I’m going to see if I can get you girls a record deal. With talent like that…”

“Girls? You ready?” Billie called. He walked over, and (Much to the cashier’s amazement) they responded, “Yeah, dad.” The cashier couldn’t believe it. The girls that had played guitar so beautifully were Billie Joe Armstrong’s kids. No wonder they were so good! It was a constant reminder that RJ was older (just by 15 minutes, a fact she’d never let anyone forget) though both would graduate high school in 2013. Everyone knew they were different, but very few knew how alike they really were. That was something everyone would have to discover.