Clare De Loon

RATING: PG (not much in the way of anything naughty)
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NOTES: My answer to the Squiggy gets the girl challenge.
CATEGORY: Squiggy/other character romance
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: The gang buys Squiggy some clairenet lessons for his birthday, resulting in him getting the hots for his sophisticated but down-to-earth teacher.

****

It was pouring that April day in 1961, just the sort of day the birthday boy enjoyed most. His friends were gathered around in Laverne and Shirley's apartment (Lenny had said that no one had wanted to celebrate in their own place, for some reason), festooned in party hats, blowing noisemakers, and blasting records at top volume. They'd even painted a banner for him.

The big surprise was the cake, though; a REAL bakery cake, the kind Squiggy hadn't seen since his mother had remarried. The whole group of them even sang the 'Happy Birthday' song for him.

"...Happy Birthday Dear Squigggggyyyyyy!" They sang, mostly off-key (no one hit a high note like he could, he reasoned to himself), "Happy Birthday tooo youuuu!!" In the very center of the cake an old pink candle glowed, which he managed to blow out with only a tiny bit of spittle dripping onto the cake.

Laverne shoved the pastry into his hands, "It's all yours," She said, her niceness sounding just a little bit fake, her smile a tiny bit wooden.

"Thanks, Laverne," He dug right into the vanilla-frosted confection, and continued with a full mouth, "Boy, this's th' best birthday I eva had!" He said, spraying crumbs every which way.

Lenny grinned, "Yeah, and it ain't over, Squig; ya haven't opened your present yet!" He withdrew an envelope from the inside pocket of his red plaid dinner jacket.

Squiggy immediately dropped the cake in his haste to get to his gift; only Shirley's quick reflexes prevented it from splattering all over the apartment's freshly-scrubbed wood floor. "What'd'ja get me?!" He piped, grabbing the envelope from Lenny's hands and tearing it in two, pulling free a handwritten note and unfolding it. Reading, his brow furrowed; it was an awful lot of big words, some of them too big for him to pronounce; the only object he truly recognized were half and quarter notes that danced on the mimeographed margins of the paper.

"You'd better read it to him, Len." Laverne suggested, "We've gotta be in work tomorrow at ten."

Lenny took the note from Squiggy's frosting-covered fingers and began to read, "This certificate entitles Andrew Squiggman to five weeks of private clarinet lessons, to be given under the tut-ledge of Clare DeBussy at Five PM ever Saturday night. A gift in honor of your twenty-sixth birthday, as paid for by his friends Laverne, Shirley, Lenny, Carmine and Mr. And Mrs. Frank DeFazio." Lenny finished, handing the paper back to Squiggy, who's face was the very epitome of confusion.

"That's tutalage and De BuSAY, Len," Shirley correct, savoring the hoity-toity sound of the woman's last name.

"It says 'bussy'," Lenny's face hinted at his own confusion, "Did she name herself after the Metro line?"

"Never mind," Shirley sighed, "Aren't you gonna thank us for the gift, Squig?"

"Thank ya?!" Squiggy frowned, "I ain't gonna thank ya fer gettin' me a gift I don't need!"

"Waddya mean, you don't need?" Laverne snorted, after taking a long draft from her Pepsi bottle, "Ya love playin' the clarinet!"

"Yeah, but I already got my trainin' papers," Squiggy pointed out, "My mom got me lessons in the.." He tried to count on his fingers, "Fifth...Sixth grade."

Laverne and Shirley traded sheepish glances, "Well, Squig...it's not that yer teacher didn't know what he was doin'..."

"Oh, Squig's teacher was one of the best in Milwaukee!" Lenny praised, "As a matter of fact, after he got done teachin' Squig what he knew, he retired, ain't that right, Squig?"

Squiggy nodded, "Went off to some island in Bora Bora," He turned to Lenny, "What did he say when he quit?"

"Somethin' about not wantin' to be on the same content with you for another minute," Lenny turned to the girls, "Can you believe it? Squig was so good that he made his teacher give up playin' the classics and become a fisherman in Bora Bora!"

Squiggy smiled at the memory, "That Doctor Fisher was a great chump. D'ya think he plays Elvis in 'is grass hut now?"

Squiggy was so lost in his moment of pride that he didn't even notice the girls's attempt to stifle their own laughter.

"Still, Squig, you can always use a tune-up," Carmine pointed out, "Kids take my classes when they're five and they come back a few years later just to learn a few new steps, or polish up on one or another part of the lesson."

"Doesn't that mean you're a lousy teacher?" Squiggy asked.

Carmine's expression darkened, "Funny, but my fists say different," He held them close to Squiggy's face, "Can ya hear 'em, Squig?"

"Len," Squiggy said quietly to his best friend out of the corner of his mouth, "Do you hear Carmine's fists talkin'?"

"No, but I'll lie and say we do." Lenny returned, a bit more obviously. Then brightly, to Carmine, he said, "I think your left one has a Spanish accent!"

Squiggy nodded, "Chimichangas, S'il voo plait!" Squiggy said, his accent French as he tried to mime the fist's "voices".

Carmine sat back on the sofa and glugged down more of his beer.

"Anyway, I don't need no more lessons. Th' first ones were lousy enough!" Squiggy retorted, Sipping his own beer. "'sides, Lenny don't think I need any; do ya, Len?"

Lenny's expression turned from jovial to guilty; "Er...Well, Squig..."

Squiggy slammed down his bottle of beer on the coffee table, upset, "You too, Bluti?" He cried.

Lenny sighed, "It ain't like that, Squig." He leaned down so that his mouth became level with Squiggy's ear, "The girls worked really hard to get ya somethin' ya like; I TOLD them you'd want somethin' ya could use, like some food for the baby moths 'er somethin' like that, but the lessons were cheaper." His voice went lower, "Besides, these're gonna cost all of us fifty cents an hour for every lesson! You know that's a lotta money."

Squiggy leaned back from Lenny, rubbing at his other ear, "Everyone except for me?"

Lenny nodded, "Everyone but you."

Squiggy brought his hands together, deciding abruptly, "I'll take em!"

A brief cheer went up from his friends.

"Now who wants some more cake?" He asked, holding it up.

The cheering faded into grunts of disgust.

***

One Saturday later, Squiggy stood on the steps of a Brownstone five miles and several classes away from his home in Knapp Street. He shrugged at the brightly-polished stone steps and green-painted trim of the apartment; it was just another building to him and, as always, he remained oblivious as to whether or not he fit in.

Some tiny part of him had leapt over his usual sense of bravado and expressed itself as nervousness; rarely had he been far from home without Lenny. He bit his lip as he opened the appartment's unlocked front door.

"Numba 5..." he muttered to himself, climbing two flights past the maintenance man's storage closet. Sure enough, Apartment Number Five stood at the head of the stairs, five down (naturally) from the right, it's door glowing mutely with it's posh brass number and oaken door.

Instinct had tutored him over the years that, when meeting an closed door, one simply shoves the door open and shouts a 'Hello' to its inhabitants. That wouldn't do this time; the door was locked up tight. Shrugging to himself, he pounded on it until a latch shifted and the door opened.

And his palm came down one more time..onto what felt like a nose.

Somewhat chagrined, he looked up from the umbrella stand he'd been staring at and to the nose he was now pressing down. "Hello," He said, smiling meekly.

"'ello," The woman returned through her mushed nose, "Would you mind taking your nose off of my face?"

He pulled away from her face, giving her time to rub at her squashed proboscis, 'Sorry, I thought ya were a door."

The woman smiled shyly and adjusted her dark, tortoise-shell glasses, "That's a common mistake," She responded, smiling, "You're Squiggy, aren't you? My new student?"

He would have responded, but he couldn't force the words past his lips. This Clare DeBussy was one of the prettiest girls he'd ever seen in his life, with her patrician features, long, red hair combed back into a ponytail, green, sparkling eyes and long, manicured fingers.

"You must be...he said he'd be here at five...my, you're early, come in...is this your clarinet?" She asked him, taking the instrument from his limp fingers and examining it, "Ohh! You have a Smith Company! And it's a Tenor; I have one of the same make and model...And where are my manners?" She offered him her hand, "My name's Clare," She said warmly, "Clare Marie DeBusay, Spelled with an a and pronounced "Buss-ay"." She laughed, "My parents named me after mass transport."

Squiggy had lost any and all ability to speak, unfortunately; only one thought echoed in his brain:

"How d'ya go out with a girl like that an' remember yer last name?"

To Be Continued.....