The current owners, Ulrika and Swen, were restoring it to its former glory. To pay for this, they first restored the mother-in-law house and rented it out. Then they restored my room and rented it to me.
To get to my room, you entered the mansion at a side door off the Italian-tiled veranda and walked up two semi-private (as in, only Swen, Ulrika, Juno, Swen and Ulrika’s three cats and I used them) flights of stairs.
My room was big, airy, painted white (but not harsh white, a soft eggshel ). It had hardwood floors with bright-colored rugs thrown everywhere. My décor came from TJ
Maxx and Target. On my budget of money from gigs and intermittent guitar lessons for the kids of fans of The Gypsies who wanted their children to live their dream (thus, these lessons didn’t progress very far because the kids were never real y into it, only their parents were, but the kids and I’d have fun anyway), I couldn’t afford the good stuff.
It wasn’t luxurious but I loved my space.
You walked in the door and to the left there were three steps up to a platform that held my big bed covered in a creamy, eyelet cover with soft yel ow sheets. It was shoved in a huge, round turret, windows al around, filmy-white curtains and views of Ulrika and Swen’s quadruple-lot garden that Ulrika kept ful of flowers and Swen kept tidy as a pin. There were also unadulterated panoramas of the Front Range.
From my front door, to the right and down two steps, was my sunken kitchen, tiny and u-shaped.
In front of the kitchen, up five steps, was a platform holding a worn, moss-green couch, my TV and another big window.
Across from that, up two more steps, was another platform. My ultimate space. Three guitars on stands, two electric, one acoustic, piles of music, two music stands, stacked amps and a big, mauve, overstuffed armchair that had seen better days but was comfortable as hel .
Behind the partition wal of the kitchen was a stacked washer dryer, a walk-in closet and the door to the bathroom which was as big as the kitchen, had a claw-footed tub, a pedestal sink and mosaic tile floors. I kept my wicker laundry hamper in there and a big, glass-front apothecary cabinet that looked like it came from an antique drug store.
I found it at a yard sale and Floyd fixed it up for me, Emily and I painted it white and it held my bits and bobs and towels and stuff.
My space was not rock ‘n’ rol stereotype with rich colors, lots of clutter and tasseled scarves over the lamps. It was tidy, clean, unlittered with junk which was how my space needed to be because my head was always a mess.
I remembered the first time Mace walked into it when he picked me up for our date. He looked around and couldn’t hide his reaction.
“You’re ful of surprises,” he murmured and I had the feeling he didn’t mean to say that out loud, so, to be polite, I didn’t respond.
I always wondered what he meant. I didn’t find myself surprising at al .
After that date, he spent nearly every night with me. We only stayed at his place a few times. He said we needed my bed because of Juno (Mace only had a queen-size) but I suspected it was because he liked my space. As for me, I liked him in my space, in the end, too much.
Daisy lived in Englewood and I lived in the Highlands, at least a twenty minute drive if traffic was good (which, it wasn’t). My mind moved from going home to its more usual pastime of worrying about my band. Or, at this juncture, them worrying about me.
Especial y Floyd.
I sighed and rested my head against the window. Behind me, Juno licked her chops and snuffled the wind coming through the crack where Mace had rol ed her window down.
I real y needed to cal Floyd.
Floyd was talented. He could have done something with his music. He could have gone somewhere if he’d gone after it and moved to NYC or LA. He could have been at least a sessions player but likely more. A lot more.
He didn’t want it, he wanted to live a quiet life with his wife and see his girls grow up happy. So that’s what he did.
That was Floyd and that’s a lot of the reason why I loved him.
At first, he pushed me to be more than I wanted to be, saying not only did I have the talent for it but I had a stage presence that “knocks your socks off” (his words).
I didn’t want fame and fortune, stadium gigs and my picture on the cover of Rolling Stone. I didn’t write music, I played it. I didn’t play music for the money; I did it for my sanity. The only way to escape my shit life growing up was by entering the hundreds of little, dizzyingly cool worlds of notes and lyrics of the songs I played.
Don’t get me wrong, I was happy The Gypsies had local success. We demanded top dol ar, free drinks, a percentage of the door and our cover charge was nothing to sneeze at. It paid the bil s and let me live the music. The whole band knew we weren’t going any further because I had no intention of taking us further. I’d been approached by some scouts, more than once, but for me, it was about the band. For the scouts, it was about me.
It was unspoken but Hugo, Pong, Leo and Buzz al knew the heart of the band was my guitar and my voice and the soul was Floyd’s piano. The other band members were good but they weren’t ever going to be great.
good but they weren’t ever going to be great.
They looked great, al handsome guys up there with Floyd and me and they were better players with the band than they’d ever be on their own. They needed The Gypsies to stay together for them to be anything at al and part of me knew that was the only reason The Gypsies d i d stay together. We were always fighting and in danger of one of the hot-headed ones (Hugo and Pong) or the dramatic ones (Buzz and Leo) losing it and walking out the door.
I needed us to stay together and I needed them. At first it had been just about the music but then they became the only family I had since I’d turned my back on my own. When that happened, it became al about the band.