Part Two

"Wait," Davy interjected. "Maybe it isn't such a good idea for Pete to go. Remember Valerie?"

"Oh, yeah. I forgot," I said.

"I'll go instead," he said. I didn't need any mind reader to tell me what he was thinking. He was most probably tired of Mandy by now and was hoping to find a girl for himself as well as Mike.

"Fine. So, what are you going to do when you see a girl?"

"Flirt."

"No, stupid. A girl for Mike. How are you going to get her to go out with him? What will you say?"

"Well, how's this? I ask Mike if he wants to go to the club with me. When I see a girl is interested in him, I'll invite her to hang out with us and I'll make sure Mike pays a lot of attention to her. Then I'll keep telling her how groovy a guy he is to keep her intersted."

"Think you can pull it off?" I asked skeptically.

"Hey, I lie to girls all the time," he said with a grin.

"Well, I hope this works." I said.

"Me, too," they all responded.

"All right. Mike's coming," Peter warned as he looked out of the window. He opened the door and let the tall Texan in.

" Mornin', guys an' M.G.," he said as he shook the sand from his feet.

" Morning, Mike," Micky, Davy and I answered.

"Actually," I said, "It isn't morning anymore. I already have lunch made."

"Great. I'm hungry." He sat down before the remaining plate of food at the table. Shorly, he bagan to notice the rest of us were staring at him with smiles. He stopped chewing, put the sandwich down. "What?"

"Nothing." We said and pretended to get busy doing other things around the pad. Micky and I sat on the couch and turned the television on. Peter started on the dirty dishes. Davy got a book off a shelf and sat down to pretend to read it. Mike raised an eyebrow and watched us for a few seconds. Then he shrugged and went back to eating. The rest of us kept looking at each other and grinning.

"Hey, Mike," Davy said, grinning. "What's the name of that club on Sunset Strip you like? The Texas one?"

"The Ranch," he replied. "Why?"

"Oh, well, I was just thinking. We haven't been there in a while. What do you say me and you go there tonight?"

"Uhm, sure. What about y'all?" he asked the rest of us.

"I don't know," Peter said, not sure what to say.

"Let us think about it," I said.

"Okay. I'm gonna change, then I gotta go run to town for a few things." He picked up his plate, then went into his room.

"Should we go?" Micky asked.

"Well, it would be fun to see what happens," I said. "But, on the other hand, if Davy *does* find a girl for him, he could make an excuse and leave them alone if we're not there."

"Well, we could leave with Davy." Peter said.

"Good idea. Okay, that's settled, then. " I said. "We all go, and we all look for a girl for Mike."

Later, I went home to get ready. The guys were all just about ready, too, when I got back to the pad. Mike drove and Davy rode shotgun, so Micky, Peter, and I sat in the back. When we got there, we found a table and sat down. This groovy band called Red Fox was playing. It was pretty packed, so it took a little while for our waitress to get to us. She smiled when she saw Mike. "Why, back again, are we? You're just turning into a regular, aren't you?" He didn't say anything, just smiled shyly. So, I thought, this is where he has been spending his time. He often left at night, but when we asked him where he was going, he'd just say 'Out' ". Awww. He had a crush on our waitress. How cute. That's why he was so secretive. Mike was a very private person, and just didn't talk about things like this. He was too embarassed. I looked at the rest of the guys to see if they had also noticed. Evidently not, because Peter was concentrating on he music and Micky and Davy were swordfighting with pretzels. Men. They never noticed the important things. It looked like it was up to me to fix Mike's love life. Well, that's what friends are for. I needed a plan, so I decided to think of one. How in the world was I going to get him to ask her out? 'What to do, what to do?' I thought.

"So, Mike. You seem to you our waitress." I was fishing for anything that might help me in my mission.

I think his face actually reddened a bit. "Oh, not really. She's waited on me a couple of times. Her name's Brandi".

"She seems nice." I commented.

"Yeah," he said with a smile. Then he immediately corrected himself. "I mean, I guess so. I don't know her or anything."

"You've never talked to her?" I asked.

"*Talk* to her? No!" He looked shocked at the very idea. "Well, I mean I tell her hi and she tells me hi and she asks for my order and I give her my order and she brings me my order and she comes ask if I need anything and I tell her no and she tells me bye and I tell her bye. . . ." I saw that he had started rambling bacause he was watching her at another table. He's got it bad, I thought. Maybe that's why he had been having writer's block. He was so hung up on her that he couldn't concentrate on anything else, I bet. And, from what I had seen, she liked him, too. I needed a conference with the other guys, but I didn't know how to do that with Mike in the way. The solution to this problem was to get Mike *out* of the way. For a few minutes, at least. I got the attention silently of the other guys, then motioned to the back of the club near the pay phones and bathrooms. Thankfully, they all got the idea. Suddenly Micky and Peter had to go to the bathroom at the same time, and Davy had to call and check in with Mandy. A few seconds later, I also got away from the table and left Mike sitting alone. I met the other threee in front of the phones and out of sight from Mike.

"What's up?" Micky asked. "Someting wrong?"

"Not at all. I found the girl for Mike."

"Really? Where?" Micky said, looking around.

"The waitresss."

"Our waitress?" Peter asked.

"Yes."

"Well, she *is* blonde," Davy said with a smirk.

"Are you sure she's the one?" Micky asked.

"Of course. Didn't you notice him looking at her?"

"No" they each said.

"Anyway, the question is, what are we going to do about it? How do we get them together?"

"That's two questions," Davy commented.

"Go away," I told him.

"How about we ask her if she wants to go out with him?" Peter said inncently.

"No, Peter. That would embarass him so much, he would move out tonight and never speak to us again."

"How about if we bring her to the pad, and we lock them both up in it, and we don't let them out until they're going steady," Micky said, really getting into the idea.

"I don't think so," I said.

"Well, how about if we, uh, invite her to a small party at the pad. We just don't tell her that it's going to be just us." Davy said.

"Mike'll kill us for sure!" said Peter.

"Well, how about we tell him it's just a last-minute idea, and she was the only one who could come?" Davy said.

"He won't buy that," I commented. "Maybe if we have just a few other friends. Enought to throw off suspicion, yet not too much to intefere with a plan."

"Perfect!" Micky said. The others agreed, so we shook on it. Then we one by one walked back to the table.

"Hey, guys," Davy said as if an idea had just popped into his head a few minutes later. "I need your help with something."

"Sure, Davy," Micky said, trying to play along with whatever Davy's plan was. "What's the problem?"

"Well, there's this bird, see"--at this point Micky, Peter, Mike and I automatically rolled our eyes-- "and I like her, but she's really shy. So, I was wondering. Maybe, if we had a little party at the pad, you know, I could invite her, and--". Well, not a bad plan, if Mike didn't see throught it, I thought. Actually, it was pretty funny. Davy was pretending to try to get a girl so that we could try to get a girl for Mike. Oh, the party would be to get a girl all right. Just not the girl Mike expected.

"Sure, a party sounds like a groovy idea," Micky said, pleased with the plan as well.

"Ooh, I love parties!" Peter said excitedly. "What about you, Mike?" Everyone looked at Mike, who was in turn looking at Brandi. "Mike?" Peter asked again.

"Huh?" he answered absently. He suddenly turned to the rest of us as he saw Brandi heading toward our table. "Oh, sure, yeah. I ain't got no objections."

"Hey, Mike, the rest of you. Is everything all right? You guys need anything?" she asked.

We all said everything was fine. As she turned away, Davy said a little loudly, "So, who should we invite to our party?"

"Party? You're having a party?" Brandi turned back to ask.

"Sure. We all are. We're all roomates," he explained. "Do you want to come, as well?" I turned quickly to Mike to see his reaction. The look on his face wasn't anger as we feared. It was a look of horror.

"Are you sure? I love parties! Where is it going to be?"

"1334 Beachwood. Know the area?" Micky asked.

"Beachwood. . .I heard of it. Isn't that the street where this band lives together--wait. That's you, huh? I heard you guys throw the greatest parties." Just then, we saw someone motioning to her. "I'll be back," she promised, then went to tend to the other customer.

"Wow," Peter said. "Isn't this great! We already have a guest for our party!"

I looked at Mike again, and saw he was pale and just staring at us. "Hey, Mike. You all right?" I asked.

"Huh," he said, shaking his head to bring himself back to reality. "Oh, yeah. Just tired, I guess." I knew better. He was scared to death that he might actually have to talk to her if she went. Well, we'd just have to fix that, wouldn't we?

We stayed for a few hours, then left. They dropped me off at my house barely in time to make curfew, then they went back to the pad.

Micky, Peter, Davy and I decided that there should be 14 people (Micky said 13 would have been an unlucky number)at the party the next weekend. Peter's girl Wendy and Davy's girl Mandy each brought two people. One of Mandy's friends had agreed to pose as the fake girl Davy had used as an excuse to Mike for the party. The party started at 7:30, but we told Brandi 8:00 so that we would have extra time to finalize our plans. Plus it would be a lot of fun to see Mike acting all nervous longer. We told her she could also bring two friends. She and two of her friends arrived a little early, so we were very glad for our deception. We nodded at each other. Showtime! Now, for our first trick. . .

Until then, by agreement beforehand between everyone but Mike, everyone was standing around and talking. No one danced. Now, for the signal, Davy asked the girl he was supposed to like to dance. (Knowing Davy, he really *did* like her) Peter and Wendy began dancing. Then Micky and I started dancing. I guess that I should say now that half of the guests were boys, and half were girls, according to previous plans. Mandi danced with one of the spare guys. The two other guys asked Brandi's two friends to dance. So, the only two not dancing were Mike and Brandi. What a coinkydink, don'tya think? Course not! That was just the beginning of our plan. When it was obvious that there was no way in heck Mike would ask her to dance, Davy maneuvered toward him while dancing. "Hey, Mike. Brandi is going to feel left out and that no one here wants to talk to her if you don't go do something about it right now." He told him in between dance steps. Well, if Davy put it that way, what else could Mike do but to make sure a guest at his party had a nice time? He went over and asked her to dance. Of course, she was delighted to. I thought I'd better let nature take over from here, but just to make sure, everyone made sure that they had no choice but to sit near each other for the whole party. That intervention was only necessary for about the first hour.

"Hey," Micky said when he noiced them talking a little later. "Looks like it worked."

"Well, it's too early to tell," I cautioned.

Just then Mike walked up to us and told Micky, "Man, I just got a great idea for a song I wanna show y'all during practice tomorrow. And I invited Brandi to come watch us. Hope you don't mind." Then he rushed back to talk to Brandi.

"Hey," I said. "Looks like it worked."

The End