Our Hearts' Desire (The Monkees Family Vol. 2)

Chapter 12

Peter was the first to move out. Then Mike bailed. The label had presented each of the guys with royalty checks with six figures printed on them, and after smelling salts had been declined and happy dances had been performed, contract extension talks were set and agreed upon. More creative control for the guys, a bigger piece of the pie, namely, takings on the stuff they weren't receiving profits from, like the t-shirts, lunchboxes, and other tchotchkes, and more importantly, the concert ticket revenues. With a six-record extension signed and sealed, after taking into account current and anticipated future earnings, it was a no-brainer to commit to leaving their shabby bachelor pad behind and move into bigger, more comfortable and grownup digs.

Davy and Micky hadn't made a move yet. Davy wasn't hot and heavy enough with Jan to move in with her, and he was still very much attached to Micky and his stabilizing presence. Micky didn't want to let Davy down and at any rate hadn't worked up the nerve yet to ask Gabby to move in to a new place with him. But a new problem presented itself. With Dawn and Wendy evacuating the apartment they shared with Gabby, she now needed to either find new roommates or a single apartment she could afford.

Micky asked Davy if he minded offering to let Gabby live at the Pad with them. Davy had an agonizing internal dilemma to manage. While he had been dating Jan, he had mostly been able to keep his feelings for Gabby stowed away in the darkest, most secret corners of his mind and heart. But he wasn't so sure about whether he could cope with her living under the same roof as him. On the other hand, if he refused to allow her to move in, he would have to come up with a logical reason that wouldn't raise suspicion or hurt Micky's feelings or cause resentment. And finally, a really awful part of him, the Davy he really didn't want to be anymore, secretly wanted her to move in so that he could be closer to her even though it was completely off-the-charts the wrong thing for all of them and setting up a situation rife with the possibility of horrific ramifications. He needed advice, but who could he tell, who could he turn to? He knew the answer as soon as he asked himself the questions. He dialed Lynda's number at work and asked her to have lunch with him.

Davy stopped by the fancy Rodeo Drive boutique to pick Lynda up for lunch and caused quite a stir, not because he was recognized as a Monkee, but because he was just so inherently handsome, debonair and charming. As they left the store, every female eye in the place and even some males followed their progress out the door.

After they had given their orders to the waitress at the overpriced café down the street where Lynda had never been able to afford to eat, she asked Davy to get down to business and tell her what was on his mind. His brow furrowed and he asked how she knew he had something particular he wanted to speak to her about. She gave him her "pull the other one" look and he sighed and smiled.

"Cahn't get anything by you, Lynda, can I? You know me too well. I guess that's why I called you. I'm in a jam and I need your advice. You've been keeping me on the straight and narrow and I trust your judgment."

"Why can't you talk to Micky about it?" Lynda asked suspiciously.

"Because the problem I'm having involves Micky. Well, more like, it affects Micky, or it could do if I let those demons locked up in me loose again."

He explained the housing situation and Micky's request to have Gabby move in. Then he took a deep breath and spilled about his feelings for Gabby, explaining that they had started to form slowly over many months. He reckoned that the start of it all was that day that he had been forced to leave her at the anti-war march on her own because she had insisted on it, the same day he had been pleading Micky's case for him to get Gabby to forgive him for the argument they'd had and to give Micky another chance. He started to see in her the same lovely, admirable, strong qualities that Micky did, and he realized that if she and Micky broke up, he would like to date her himself. But things hadn't worked out that way. She and Micky had gotten back together, but his own feelings hadn't changed, they had only grown stronger.