Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better

Great Balls of Fire

Rikki

I stare at the pictures in the hallway. I got Bee to calm down enough to I sleep. I look at the pictures of my baby's family that plaster the walls. Pictures of the four Johannesson kids line up. Pictures of Bee and CC with guitars and when they were little. There's a picture of a pair of skates and a pair of ballet slippers standing on tiptoe. Beside it is a picture set up in a similar idea. Two pairs of baby skates fill the frame. One pair with normal white laces, the second with red laces, Bianca's skates.

I walk into the lying room where the band is sitting with Jamie. All the blonde New Yorkers are sleeping. I sit on the couch beside Bret and he looks over to me.

"How's Bee doing?" He wonders. I sigh.

"Not good. It's like she can't feel anything right now. I don't know if it's registered yet." I admit. "I'm worried about her."

"She has always been close with her old man." Jamie explains. "It's gotta be killing her."

"Hey Jam, she play hockey?" Bobby wonders looking at the framed picture of teenaged CC and her in hockey attire.

"Yeah her, CC, and James." She looks down after saying his name. "Best team in the state. They won state so many times, more than I can count. Bee is always as well Bee, tough as nails. All boys team, only girl in history. The best there ever was. CC was pretty close but never Bee."

"Talking 'bout us?" A voice says from behind us.

"Make me blush." Another says.

Bee and CC stand in the doorway, smirking like crazy.

"As I remember, you couldn't stop for the first four years we played." Bianca tells her brother as she sits beside me. I wrap an arm around her.

"I thought you were sleeping." I say and she shrugs.

"Sleep is for the weak." She mutters and I half smile. She can't sleep.

"I remember that!" Ana says from behind. "I also remember you being six years old running through the house yelling 'Bruce Anthony Johannesson! Give me back my skates." She muffs up Bee's hair. "Robyn wants to play this season." The twins light up.

"Really?" They say in unison.

"Yeah." Ana smiles. "You take her out later?"

"Yeah, if CC can keep the sharp side down." Bee smirks.

"Fuck you." CC smiles.

"Where is half pint?" Bee wonders.

"The basement, listening to that old record." Ana explains.

"I'll go talk to her." Bee gets up.

Bianca

I open the door to hear Jerry Lee Lewis' Great Balls of Fire. I sit down on the floor beside Robyn.

"Mama says you wanna play hockey." I say and she nods. "Uncle CC and I will take you out later on." She nods. "You okay half pint?"

"All men leave me." Robyn says. "Daddy, Papa, who's next?"

"I don't know but I'll tell you one thing, there's four men up stairs that will never leave you. They love you like crazy." I say.

"Rikki, Bobby, CC, and Bret?" She asks.

"Exactly." I smile and kiss her forehead. "I'll be up stairs if you need me."

I walk back up stairs and CC point at me.

"Hungry?" He wonders.

"Always." I shrug.

"Cool, go get Chinese." CC smirks and I shrug.

"Jamie?" I say and she nods.

"Five says we can make it in under twenty." Jamie smiles and I dig in my pockets.

"Fifty says we can make it under ten." I smirk holding  up the bill I found in the pocket.

"Where did you get fifty bucks?" CC wonders and I shrug.

"They're your jeans." I smirk and walk out the door.

I walk back into the house twenty minutes later to see Robyn sitting on top the piano laughing. The boys circle her and Bobby sits at the piano. They sing Great Balls of Fire. Robyn is smiling again. She motions for us to go over to her and Rikki wraps his arm around me. We scream the first verse over and over again, laughing and having fun.

I almost forget what happened earlier.