Sweet Children Come Out And Play

Tears fell down Delphine’s face and with a deep breath she cried, “Of course I will, Billie!” and flung her arms around him, practically falling on him. Billie caught her and hugged her as tight as he could.

“Thank you, Del,” he sniffed into her shoulder. Delphine smiled and kissed him. He brushed the hair from her eyes and kissed her again. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” She smiled, “You are still an asshole though.”

“I know, I really am,” he half laughed.

“Would you take it back?”

“If I could I would take it back a thousand times I would. But I would never take back one kiss from you.”

Delphine smiled again and kissed his lips. “Ok. I forgive you.” She had forgiven him awhile ago, but now it was settled. It was ok. Billie took her hand and slipped the little gold ring onto her ring finger. “Oh, it’s beautiful!” she stared at it.

“You’re beautiful.” Billie encircled his arms around her again and held her close. He thought he might never be able to do that again, but now she was his. If she could forgive him for this, they could get through anything.

After awhile, Delphine spoke up. “Should we go tell someone?”

“I was just thinking about that. I forgot until just now. Damn.”

“Where is everyone?”

“I think downstairs.”

Delphine took his hand, “Let’s go.” They stood up and Delphine slowly opened the door of her bedroom, peeking around the corner; no one in the hall and no voices from below. They crept around and down the stairway. When Delphine turned into the kitchen, Billie in hand, all the surprised faces of her friends turned to look. Richelle hopped up from Tre’s lap. “Delphine! You’re ok,” she looked questioningly to Billie. Brites was gone at the store, but the other three were just sitting and pretty much waiting for something to happen.

“Hey guys,” she said. “Umm…we have something to tell you so we might as well say it now.” Delphine turned to face Billie. They never expected such a change in her mood. They kept quiet and eagerly waited for one of them to say what happened.

He took over, “We’re engaged.”

Every person let out a cheesy gasp while Billie and Delphine were smiling from ear to ear. Richelle ran forward and threw her arms around Delphine. “Well, that was a change of plans!”

“Shit, you’re serious?” Tre butted in. Billie just nodded and Mike gave him a big slap on the back.

“That’s great man.”

Richelle started jumping up and down clapping her hands, “This is so exciting! We have to tell Brites too! Oh yes, she’s coming back from the grocery store soon. Can I tell her!?”

“Hey, it’s my wedding,” she kidded.

“Oh fine. Huu! We will have to go shopping for a dress! And shoes!”

“Not too much now, it’s a short wedding,” Delphine said trying to calm down.

“I just want like a five minute ceremony. The point is that we are getting married. Not to be flashy,” Billie kissed her head.

“And you’re a cheap bastard.”

“That’s true,” he gave her another kiss.

“Don’t worry, dear. Me too.”

“Let’s go celebrate!” Tre yelled. “I’ll get the fun!”

“Tre! No we do not need any fun!” Billie called after him as he ran down the hall.

“But Billie man, it’s not fun it’s THE FUN!”

“Tre we will have plenty of time for that later!”

“But I have been saving up a whole big bag of fun for a special occasion and I think it just might spontaneously combust if we don’t have some right now!”

“Tre!”

“I’m already gone! I got it!” he dashed back around the corned with a rolled up paper bag. “Who wants some fun?”

Everyone smiled and shrugged, “All right…”

“In that case hand it over.”

Before long, the joints were rolled and smoking up the kitchen. “You guys,” Delphine coughed, “It’s only eleven in the morning! My voice is so loud! I can hear an echo, whoa…” she trailed off.

Billie heard, “Yeah, but this is a most excellent time for celebrating. You and me getting married… Sweet Children is a success…”

“Yeah, I love you Billie.” They kissed again.

“Hey!” Tre yelled, “No making out in the circle!”

“Honey…” Richelle tugged on his shirt. Tre quickly forgot what he was saying and fell on her with a shower of kisses.

Mike, “What happened to the rule!” he threw an empty soda at Tre.

Tre waved him away, “I’m busy.” Delphine began laughing hysterically and Billie would not stop kissing her all over. Just then the door bell rang.

“DOOR!” Richelle cried, smothering a laugh under Tre.

“I’ll get it!” Mike ran to the door and opened it, making as much noise as possible down the hallway. Then a shout came back, “IT’S BRITES!”

“BRITES!” Delphine yelled as the newcomer ran into the living room.

“What on earth are you all doing?” Brites smiled.

Billie handed her a joint, “Smoke up.”

Fifteen minutes later, Brites was in on the fun. “Hey,” Delphine shouted across the table, “Guess what Brites!”

“What?”

“You’re not going to remember after this, but I just wanted to tell you that Billie asked me to marry him!”

“He did! What did you say?”

“And I said yes!”

“AWW!” Brites leapt up from Mike’s lap and ran over to her. “That’s wonderful!”
About ten hours later at ten o’clock at night, Billie announced the conclusion he had come to over the last day of running around, spilling things and smoking pot, “We’re all out!”

“Damn,” Tre said sleepily. He and Brites were resting on top of each other. The rest of the group was still wide awake.

“You know what. This has been a most excellent day. I’m getting married, and we dedicated the entire day to hell. This day needs a name.”

Mike was laughing, “Yeah, the day of green!”

“No, something profound,” Billie mused using his hand jesters widely, “Something like…it’s like what Ernie said on Sesame Street this morning, today is… Green Day.”

“Today is Green Day!” Tre piped up.

“Green Day. Yeah, that sounds so right. Wait, I gotta write this down. Give me a piece of paper, I got this…” Billie said rummaging through the stuff shoved under the coffee table. He pulled out a notebook and a pen, “Victory!” and scribbled something down. Then some more stuff.

“Green Day,” Delphine said to herself, “I like that.”

Sometime later, she woke up. Sunlight was flying in through the window in her bedroom. Lying next to her was Billie Joe, looking as cute as a little baby. “Hey, sweetie,” she nudged him. “Billie honey, wake up,” she whispered.

Billie finally stirred and flickered his eyes open. “Hey,” he yawned. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” she craned her neck to look at the clock. “It’s eleven.”

“So we’re early.”

“Yep, soo…what do ya want to do?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Billie gave her an innocent look.

“I think you know exactly what you want to do.”

“Maybe…” he kissed her sweetly. Billie wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. Delphine stroked her hands down his chest and kissed him more passionately than before.

“Oh, Billie, we have to be sort of quiet,” she paused for a second.

“Fine with me.”
~
“Well,” Delphine breathed, “That was nice.”

“You’re telling me?”

She laughed again. “Let’s go take a shower.”

“Ok!”

Half an hour of soaking in the shower as spent rubbing soap on each other, playing with Billie’s hair as it was covered in shampoo and bubbles, and they just could not resist more fun with the shower wall. After they stepped out and ran back to Delphine’s room, Delphine shook her finger at him, “You have to keep your hands off me!” she said trying to sound serious.

“But I want it!” Billie stomped like a four year old.

“Fine,” she gave him another kiss, “See, I would spend another 1000 hours with you, but I’m hungry and I smell either pancakes or waffles downstairs. That means we have only a small amount of time for optimum snagging before there are no more waffle opportunities.”

“Well, then let’s run!”

Billie threw on a black shirt, a pair of tight jeans and ruffled his curly black hair. Delphine put on a stretchy brown spaghetti strap top, olive cargo pants and jade green pendant on black ribbon to match. A little mascara, foundation in a spot or too (finally her face was clean), lip gloss, brushed her blue striped hair and she was ready to go. Billie was waiting at the door when she came back out of the bathroom. “Why do you need to go in there? You have about twenty mirrors in your room!” he laughed. Delphine rolled her eyes. She inherited that form her mom who was obsessive with mirrors. She thought it made the room look bigger. It did but they did not help with make-up when there was no light in the room so you could see into them.

“There’s no lamp in there,” she playfully pouted and put her hands on her hips.

“Oh fine, so I can’t do it for you?”

“Absolutely not!”

“You don’t trust me?”

“No!”

“No really, let me see,” Billie lunged for the mascara.

“Ha! No!” Delphine ran toward the stairs, “But I could put some on you!”

“Already done that! Just let me try. I’ll never get better if you don’t let me practice!”

Delphine ran back into her room and jumped up on the bed away from him and then shoved the mascara in a drawer. “Aw man, it’s gone!” he whined.

Delphine jumped back off the bed in front of him, “Sorry,” and gave him another kiss.

“Oh, wait,” he said and walked over to a drawer. “I have something for you I found yesterday.” He pulled out something small and handed it to her. Delphine looked curiously. It was a guitar pick; a classic molted blue Fender one with Fender logo written in gold letters over the front, though most of the letters had been worn off. “It’s just because that was one of the first picks I had and used while I was learning to play guitar. You know, my dad used it. I sort of stole it from his stuff. Then I used it as some of our first shows. It’s just one of those things I remember and I’ve always had.”

“Oh Billie, that’s beautiful. I love it. Are you sure you want to give this to me?” she asked sincerely. She knew it really must mean something to him if he was giving it to her. She touched his shoulder.

“Oh yeah. I want you to keep it.”

“Thank you, Billie.” She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a long hug. She curled her fingers around it and knew exactly what to do with it.

When they finally dashed downstairs, everyone was in the kitchen. Brites was standing at the stove holding up a pancake in one hand on the end of a spatula and a plate in the other, “Well, finally you guys could break away from each other to eat!”

“Brites!” Richelle shouted as she took the plate of fresh pancakes away from her. Mike and Tre were gorging at the table.

“What? Don’t blame me. It’s true. Now Billie, get your fat ass over here and take your damn food,” Brites waved another plate at him.

“My fat ass?” he gave her a pouty face and then started running around in circles trying to look at his own ass like a dog chasing it’s tail. “Delphine, baby, do I have a fat ass?”

“Billie, honey I love you and your ass,” she slapped him on the way to the stove.

“See! Someone loves my ass!” he pointed manically at Brites.

When everyone had had at least three, and Tre and Richelle had finished the dishes, the guys all piled into the car; time for a day trip. They had a gig in Berkeley today and tomorrow they would all have to pack up again and get on the road. This was the start of their tour for Sweet Children.

Billie gave Delphine a kiss good bye as he ran out the door to the van. “I’ll see you tonight! Be ready to go!” he called.

Delphine nodded and waved. Now it was just her, Richelle and Brites. Just like old times. “Well,” she sighed, “Let’s go pack.”

Billie already had a suitcase packed in the corner of their room. Brites and Richelle followed Delphine into Delphine’s room. “We’ll help you first and you help us. We have all day so what the hell,” Richelle said going for the closet. Delphine opened her suitcase and Richelle began throwing in flip flops. “Just my old black pair, the brown flower ones and the black and pink high ones,” Delphine said while rummaging through her t-shirts.

“Here you go!” Richelle said next placing her three pairs of Vans slip-ons in the case. First her old really worn - should have been thrown out already - checkered black and white pair, the newer and smaller peachy, red and pink circle/skull pattern and last the pair of pink and black skull and cross bones pattern Delphine had custom made online. Delphine packed in a bunch of shirts which did not take up much room, some pajamas (mostly oversized shirts and baggy colorful pants with the exception of the little pink spaghetti strap top and Capri pants with black cats on them), two pairs of jeans (her cargo pants were already on), three sweatshirts, lots of underwear (she hated not having clean underwear), her only three bras and lastly all the random make-up and bathroom things. Now all that was left was the jewelry which Delphine took some pride in. She tucked a bunch of necklaces and bracelets into a bag with a few pairs of earrings which she rarely changed.

The entire time, the girls were singing as they threw the items into the case, like, “Shirts!” “Pants!” “Mascara!” And so on until the case was almost full. Finally, Richelle grabbed Delphine’s two stuffed animals (a pink bunny, named Bunny and Valentino the beanie buddy from Delphine’s first love in middle school) and her baby blankets that Delphine had slept with all her life or at least as far back as she could remember. She was one of the few who understood the importance of stuffed animals, and one of the first things Delphine made sure to put in Richelle’s bag was her puppy and tattered woven blanket. Just those things, some old small toys, notebooks and diaries all packed into two suitcase. That was it, that was all her life. When all the bags were finally packed, it was five o’clock.

“So,” Brites sighed as the three sat down on the couch, exhausted, “now that that’s done, what shall we do?”

“How about Delphine explain exactly to us what happened yesterday,” Richelle said.

“I don’t remember parts of yesterday. We were on Green Day, remember.”

“I mean before the pot fest. How did Billie propose?! See, I remembered what you told me!” Brites giggled back in an all too girly Californian way.

“Oh, that!” Delphine said sarcastically. “Well, actually I think I remember more when I am high than normally. You think that’s bad? Oh, well. I guess I woke up and remembered what happened at the bar. Billie was already there, and when I moved he spoke up. I was frustrated with him, but, I don’t know, he was so sad.” Delphine looked longingly at them. “He had actual tears on his face too,” she pointed to her cheek. “And he knelled down and said how sorry he was, and then he just pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him! It sounds sort of shallow when I say it like that, but it was so fast!”

“That is so sweet!” Richelle mused.

“Oh shite, I forgot about the ring!” Brites grabbed Delphine hand and looked. There on her ring finger was a real diamond ring. It was real small, but defiantly a real diamond. Richelle hopped up and looked over Delphine’s shoulder.

“Oh, I forgot too!”

“It’s beautiful Del!”

“How on earth did he pay for that?”

“I have no idea,” Delphine smiled. Then Delphine stopped, “Oh, I have to go to my parents’ house for a second. Can we walk down there real quick. It’ll only take half an hour to get there and back.”

“Sure,” Brites said a little confused, “What for?”

“Well, I can say good bye to mom, she’s home, but I need the Dremel.”

“What’s a Dremel?”

“A drill.”

“Ok, whatever. Wait, why?”