Tales From Another Oakland Home (sequel to "The Summer of our Lives), New & Improved Version, chapter 7

"No seriously. It's on the tip of my tongue. I swear," Billie Joe said. "I've seen you before."
"Last summer? New Jersey?" I hinted, not sure what else to say.
He smacked his head. "Cassie! What are you doing here?"
"Visiting my cousin," I said simply. "She just got her own place so Liv and I flew out to stay the week. Plus Alice. She's here too."
"Who's Alice?"
"My other friend." I shook my head. "Here, they're right outside, you can meet her-"
"Hold on." Billie stopped me. "We just got here."
"Yeah, so?" I turned my head sideways and cocked an eyebrow.
"We kinda wanted to eat," he said. "But you know what; you guys can come sit at our table if you want to."
I nodded. "Sounds like a good idea. Hold on." I dashed back to our table on the sidewalk outside of Goldie's.
"Cass, what's wrong?" Liv asked as soon as she saw me. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Totally," Alice agreed.
"Yeah, what is it?" Chrysti inquired, her eyebrows knitting together.
Liv eyed me curiously. "You're not paranoid about those guys that look like the ones from Most Wanted, are you? I told you, you're not going to find drug dealers while you're here." Okay, so I wasn't the only one who had noticed the guys who were, as I now knew, not drug dealers but Green Day.
"Um, okay, maybe I thought they were from America's Most Wanted. But only for a minute! Come see who they really are."
Liv opened her mouth to protest being dragged out of her seat by me. "Hey wait a minute! I wasn't done with that soda yet -"
"Shut up and come on," I commanded, grabbing her wrist. Alice and Chrysti got up and followed after us.
"What's going on?" my cousin mouthed to Alice. Alice just shrugged.
After about a minute of working our way through the huge maze of the restaurant, I pulled Liv up to a round table near the back. She skidded to a halt and immediately stopped complaining about her unfinished soda. Behind her, Alice and Chrysti stopped short.
"What the -" Chrysti sputtered, annoyed. "What is this all about, Cassie? And who are those guys -" Her eyes fell on Billie, Mike, Tré, and the woman, who if you haven't figured it out by now, was Adrienne, Billie Joe's wife. Chrysti didn't finish, but instead loudly yelled, "Oh my God, it's Green Day!"
Funny how the entire restaurant seemed to fall silent and stare at us at that exact moment. Nobody seemed to feel like chewing, or clinking their silverware. Or breathing.
Billie gave us all a look. "Thanks," he said sarcastically. "You know, we wouldn't have come in here and made sure they gave us a table in the back and all if we knew you lot were gonna come in here and blow our cover for us."
Chrysti turned about as red as the streaks in her hair. "Sorry," she mumbled, like a little kid caught stealing from the cookie jar.
"Umm..." Mike said. "Bill, why are the Jersey girls here?" He looked at Billie for an explanation.
"Hey!" Liv exclaimed. "We are not Jersey girls!" She looked indignant. "It's not our fault our parents decided to raise us in the freakin' suburbs!"
"Mike!" Tré snapped, "They are not Jersey girls! They are Cassie and Liv of Suburbia!" He turned to us. "You came back for me! I knew you would! Are you two ladies single yet, or are you still with your boyfriends?" He looked at Liv and me.
Mike, as usual, was the one to smack the back of Tré's head. "Pervert," he grumbled.
Adrienne rolled her eyes at Tré's antics. "Honey, would you mind explaining to me what the hell is going on here?" she asked sweetly to Billie.
Billie sighed. "Last summer we were on tour and we were driving in New York and took a wrong turn and ended up in New Jersey -"
"Tré!" Mike coughed.
"- and we had to stop and get directions and we stopped at a house and it was Cassie's house and her mom wasn't home, and she and Liv were there and it turns out they went to our concert that day and they gave us a map to get back to civilization, and then later in the summer we were about to fly back home and we had to stop back in New York, so we figured, 'What the hell,' and we drove to Cassie's house again, but this time her mom and brother came home but nobody cared so we hung out there and left later and never saw them again until now," Billie said, all in one breath.
Adrienne raised her eyebrows at the extraordinary group of girls before her: me, out of breath from running and also from hyperventilating, thinking that I was in a place of drug dealers; Liv, who was waving shyly at the group that she obviously thought she would never see again; Chrysti, who was turning a very weird shade of maroon; and Alice, who looked shocked that she was meeting Green Day, but also fascinated that Liv and I obviously hadn't made up our story of what we'd been doing over summer vacation last year.
Billie pulled over a few chairs for us and we sat down. I finally broke the silence by saying to Adrienne, "Hi, I'm Cassie, and this one's Olivia." Liv rolled her emerald eyes but did not object to being called an it. Adie smiled at us, and then Mike said in a grumpy voice, "And you still have yet to explain to us who they are -" He gestured to Alice and Chrysti - "and what you're doing here."
I sighed. "This is Chrysti," I explained, pointing to the eighteen-year-old. "She's my first cousin on my mom's side. I'm staying at her place this whole week, along with Liv and Alice. Alice is my new friend from school. She's part Spanish and I won't even get into the whole name thing; just call her Alice, or she'll give it to ya."
"Give what to us?" Tré asked mischievously.
Alice shoved her balled fist under Tré's nose. "The shit beat out of you," she growled threateningly. Already I could tell Alice and Tré were not going to be the best of friends.
"Well," Chrysti said, having finally regained the use of speech and trying to smooth over that last comment, "Why did you come to Goldie's?"
Adie answered, "We saw some ad for it somewhere, and figured it would be a nice place to come and chill without anyone recognizing us."
I shot Chrysti a 'look.' She got my point right away and argued, "Well, it's not like anybody cares now. Look, they've all gone back to eating." Which they had.
"Still," Liv said, jumping in, "They were probably all staring at us because you yelled so loudly in a public eating establishment."
"Hey," Chrysti shot back, "It's not like I don't work here. If these people don't like me, they shouldn't come here and have me make their food."
Mike looked at her. "You work here?" he asked her.
Chrysti nodded. "Cook. Daytime shift." Then she smacked her head and exclaimed, "Crap! What am I gonna do with you five when I go into work?"
"Turn us loose upon the innocent city of Oakland then pretend you weren't indirectly responsible for the destruction of half the state of California?" Liv asked hopefully.
"What she said!" Alice exclaimed.
Chrysti shook her head. "No," she said swiftly. She swore under her breath for not thinking this over beforehand.
The waitress who was delivering the four adults' food looked at Green Day suspiciously. Then she looked at her coworker, who was sharing a table with Green Day, even more suspiciously.
Mike nudged the waitress. "Could I get a cup of coffee?" he asked her.
"Regular or decaf?"
"Regular," he said a little too quickly. This must have confirmed her suspicion that she was waiting on the great Mike Dirnt himself, because she quickly scurried off and brought Mike his coffee in about seven seconds flat.
Billie, who had been thinking over Chrysti's predicament, said, "They can hang out at our house."
We three thirteen-year-olds looked delighted, while our responsible adult looked skeptical. "Well..." she said, "I don't want any inconvenience or anything..."
"Forget it," Adie said, grinning. "I'm glad to have some girls in the house."
Billie nodded. "What about you, Mikey?"
"Mm-hm, sure," Mike said brightly. He was in a much better mood now that he'd gotten his coffee.
"Awesome," said Liv, Alice, and me.
A while later, Chrysti took us home. We was so tired we was about to pass out right there in the restaurant. I was vaguely aware of a dark walk home, some stairs, a bed, a pillow, and then I was asleep.