Circles Collide

Chapter 26: The Tour Packages

Oceano, California

June 15, 1998

It was Monday morning, the start of the new workweek, and there was a slight difference to the routine in the Kingsley household. Jake, Laura, Caydee, and Meghan still gathered at the breakfast table at 7:20 AM to eat what Elsa had prepared for them (it was a kielbasa, egg, and cheese scramble with onions and peppers, served with toast). Jake and Laura were freshly showered and dressed for the day. Caydee was still in her pajamas because she always ended up wearing a good portion of her breakfast, making it pointless to dress her until after the meal. Meghan took her showers before going to bed, but she was dressed in her clothes for the day: a pair of white shorts and a maroon sleeveless blouse. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail. She seemed a little restless this morning, unable to sit still. Elsa, like normal, did not eat with them. All of this was pretty normal. The difference was the radio was playing as they ate. It was turned on and tuned to the SLO hard rock station, KLBA. At any moment now, Matt’s first release from his new CD—the title cut—was supposed to be aired for the first time.

Fuel, by Metallica, was currently in its outro. It had only been released for airplay the previous week and Jake was still not quite sure what he thought about it. It had energy, and some good riffs by Kirk Hammett, but it seemed to be missing some fundamental element that had always been present in classic Metallica. He was not quite able to put his finger on just what that element was, but he could tell it was not there.

“All right!” the DJ—he went by the handle Big Johnson, which was the subject of endless complaints to the radio station manager from local parents, but the Cal Poly students loved it—said enthusiastically when the song finished. “That was Fuel, by Metallica, the latest from one of the greatest. And speaking of the greatest, we have more new music coming up after the break, something from Matt Tisdale’s latest CD, which will be on sale on June 30^th. Stay with us and give it a listen. You won’t be disappointed.”

A commercial for Central Coast liquor mart then began. It was an appropriately placed advertisement aimed at the hard rock audience who tended to be listening at this hour—namely young working-class people commuting in their cars and college students heading for their morning summer classes.

“Good job, Big Johnson,” Jake said with smile of satisfaction. “You got the plug in before the break.” That had not been required by Jake’s promotion instructions to National. He had just directed that they play Faithless after a commercial break and intro it at that time. Johnson had gone above and beyond.

“That’s a dumb name,” Meghan said with a shake of the head.

“And I bet his Johnson isn’t really that big either,” added Laura.

“I don’t know,” Jake said, pondering. “Those DJs score their share, especially in a college town. You would think you would have to be at least a little bigger than average to declare that’s your name, wouldn’t you? Otherwise, word would get around.”

“How do you know it hasn’t?” Laura asked.

“Well ... I don’t, actually,” he said. He then looked at the nanny. “What’s the word, Meghan? You’re part of the younger crowd. Any rumors floating around about Big Johnson’s Johnson?”

She blushed a little and shook her head. “I don’t really have much of a crowd,” she said. “And the crowd that I do have has never discussed his Johnson.”

Jake laughed and took another bite of his scramble. He chased it with a swig of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. Laura, meanwhile, was looking at the nanny with a little concern.

“Are you okay, Meghan?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You seem to be squirming around a lot. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, sure, everything’s fine,” she said quickly, her face flushing a little more. “I guess I’m just restless.”

Laura did not look convinced, but she let it drop. Jake elected to stay out of the issue. He turned his attention to Caydee, who was smearing a mixture of scrambled eggs and pureed squash all over her face.

“Are you getting any of that in your mouth, little girl?” he asked her.

She looked up at him and smiled. She stuck her tongue out and raspberried in his direction, spraying some of the mixture out over her high chair tray and onto the floor.

“I guess she is,” Jake said with a chuckle.

The commercials droned on for the better part of ten minutes and then Big Johnson returned to the air. Jake shushed everyone so he could hear the debut of the tune. All except Caydee obediently quieted down.

“This is the latest from Matt Tisdale here for you on KLBA, Ninety-three Rock,” Johnson told them. “The CD is called Faithless and the rumors you’ve been hearing about it are true. It was produced by none other than Jake Kingsley, Matt’s former partner in crime from the Intemp days, and was engineered by none other than Nerdly and Sharon Archer, also of Intemp fame. That’s right, they were able to work together to record this CD up in Oregon. Could this be the first step in an Intemperance reunion, perhaps? Time will tell. In any case, this song is the title cut of the CD. I give you Faithless on KLBA, Ninety-three Rock!”

Jake frowned a little. He had instructed National to instruct the DJs to intro the song and let the listeners know that he and the Nerdlys had produced and engineered it. He had not asked them to speculate on a possible Intemperance reunion, although he guessed that such speculation was probably inevitable and unstoppable. And who knew? Maybe it would even drive the sales.

The intro to the song began. Though Jake had heard the tune a thousand times or more by this point, he still got that little thrill that came with hearing something he had worked on airing for the first time. He tried to imagine the listeners out there, all of whom really were hearing it for the first time. How did it sound to them?

The intro that Jake had talked Matt into adding to the piece started with Corban playing a slow, fingerpicked melody similar to what would be in the choruses. Jake’s professional ear could hear the overdubbed string strikes that he himself had laid down atop of this. It played out for two measures and then Matt’s guitar played a slow solo over the top of it, matching the slow tempo. The drums played out a soft, military march style accompaniment in the background. All of this was new ground for a Matt Tisdale tune and was hopefully catching the attention, not just of his fans, but of other hard rock aficionados who maybe had not really appreciated Matt’s previous work as much.

After twenty-three seconds of intro, the piece launched abruptly into the first verse—the point where the tune had begun when Jake had first heard it played for him all those months ago. The tempo nearly doubled. The clean guitar switched to a distorted drop-D grind and mixed with Matt’s powerful five-chord riff that was the primary melody. The drums and bass began to pound out the rhythm. And Matt’s powerful, though limited range voice began to hammer out the lyrics in an angry, spiteful tone. Jake smiled as he heard it, bobbing his head to the beat. He was rather proud of how they had shaped Faithless.

The first chorus measure came and the tempo shifted back down. Corban’s guitar switched back to the clean, finger-picked melody with Jake’s string strikes atop it. Matt’s voice became less angry and more mournful as he described the essential hopeless nature of the human race and how nobody who was a part of it could be trusted.

“Such a dark theme,” said Meghan, who was hearing the tune for the first time.

“Yeah, that’s Matt for you,” Jake said. “Hard rock fans are going to love it though.”

“The jazz fans will pass on it, I’m pretty sure,” Laura said. She had heard the CD a few times and it had not captured her interest in the least.

Caydee, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying the song. She was giving it the attention she did most music and even kicking her feet a little to the rhythm. Keeping cadence, as it were.

The tune went through two cycles of up-tempo verses alternated by slow-tempo chorus and then entered a medium tempo bridge section in which Matt laid down some long, drawn-out solo notes while Corban kept a simple version of the riff going behind him. And then everything stopped for a moment and Matt launched into the primary guitar solo, playing it out at the up-tempo rate used for the verses. Corban played a full version of the primary riff behind him while multiple drum fills were hammered out behind that. From there, it shifted to an extended reprise of the chorus that served as the outro. Matt repeated versions of the main chorus hook “Faithless I will stand and Faithless I will die” while playing slow, melodic solos. Gradually the tune began to fade out, the volume getting lower until Johnson keyed up the next song on his list—Sober, by Tool—and it disappeared completely.

“All right,” Jake said, happy. “Good tune. I think they’re going to like it.”

“If you say so,” Laura said sourly.

“I say so,” he assured her.

They finished breakfast and Elsa appeared as if by magic, using her sixth sense to know the precise moment everyone was done. She shooed them out of the kitchen nook so she could start cleaning up and doing the dishes. Jake went to his office to organize and collect his notebook. Laura grabbed Caydee to take her to her bedroom and get her cleaned up and changed so that Meghan could assume her duties. Meghan followed Laura to Caydee’s room.

“I got her for now,” Laura told her. “I’ll get her changed and wiped down before we leave.”

“Uh ... yeah, sure,” Meghan said a little hesitantly, “but there was something I wanted to ask you.”

“Sure,” Laura said, putting Caydee down on her changing table and unceremoniously stripping her jammies off. “What’s up?”

“Uh ... well, I know you told me that it’s okay for my sister or my parents to visit,” she said, “but I just wanted to let you know anyway. Danielle is going to swing by here for a few minutes on her way home from work. I just wanted to make sure it’s okay.”

“Yeah, no problem,” she said with a shrug. “I’m sure she’d like to see the baby she helped deliver and how big she is now.”

“She does,” Laura said. “She won’t be staying long. She’s just coming to drop something off for me. I’ll show her the house and Caydee real quick and then she’ll head home so she can sleep.”

“It’s fine with me,” Laura said. “Will she get here before we leave?”

“Probably not,” Meghan said. “She’s just now leaving work.”

“Well, tell her that Jake and I say hi,” Laura said.

“I will. Thanks, Laura.”

“No problem.”

Meghan gave a little sigh of relief as she left the room. She was grateful that Laura had not asked any questions about the nature of the visit or what Danielle was bringing for her. It was embarrassing.

She took charge of Caydee five minutes later. Jake and Laura both kissed their daughter goodbye, told her that they loved her, and headed out the door. She took Caydee into the entertainment room, where she had a blanket on the floor covered in her favorite toys. There was also a mechanical swing and a standing bar that Caydee still did not use but was starting to express interest in. She put the child down on the blanket and then popped quickly back into the kitchen to let Elsa know about her impending visitor. Elsa merely grunted out a reply and went back to rinsing and cleaning the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.

She sat down on the couch and continued to squirm back and forth, more freely now since no one but Caydee could see her doing it. Caydee played contentedly for ten minutes, at which point the intercom began to buzz out the sound that indicated someone was at the front gate and had pushed the button. That would be Danielle. Relief was here! Hopefully, anyway.

Caydee was still not crawling, so it was still safe to leave her unattended on her blanket for a minute or two. Meghan trotted to the office and looked at the computer screens. Sure enough, Danielle’s Toyota Camry was parked at the gate and her face was peering into the camera. She pushed the intercom button.

“Hey, Dannie,” she said. “I’ll open the gate for you. Pull forward just out of range of it and then stop there until it’s closed again. After that, just follow the road up and park in the circular driveway.”

“Okay,” Danielle’s voice replied.

Meghan went back to the entertainment room and picked up Caydee, hefting her into the crook of her arm. Caydee came willingly enough. She was always up for adventure and was never happier than when someone was holding her. Meghan carried her to the front door and opened it. She stepped out onto the porch. It was a beautiful central coast morning and the air smelled fresh and clean.

Danielle parked in the circular driveway and then stepped out. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a pullover shirt. Her hair was in a ponytail and her face looked tired. She carried a small, white plastic bag in her hand. It was the sort of bag that was usually found in hospitals to hold personal hygiene supplies for the patients.

“Hey, Meggie,” Danielle said. “Nice place you live in.”

“Yeah,” Meghan agreed. “It really is. Did you find it okay?”

“I missed the road on the first pass,” she said. “It’s not really all that well marked.”

“Jake and Laura don’t really like to advertise that this is their place,” she said.

“I guess that makes sense,” Danielle said. She walked up to her sister and gave her a one-armed hug. Meghan returned it after shifting Caydee a bit in her grasp. Danielle then looked at the child in her sister’s arms. “Wow,” she said. “She really has gotten a lot bigger since I saw her come into the world. I don’t usually get to see them again after they come out.”

“She’s sixteen and a half pounds now,” Meghan told her. “Caydee, this is Dannie. You probably don’t remember her, but she helped pull you out of your mommy’s tummy.”

Caydee looked the newcomer up and down placidly, showing no sign of distress or discomfort. She traveled a lot and met new people frequently and, as such, had not developed the instinctive fear of strangers that most nearly eight-month-olds displayed.

“Hi, Caydee,” Danielle said. “You really are a cutie, aren’t you?”

Caydee smiled. She knew she was a cutie. People told her that all the time.

“Come on,” Meghan said. “Let’s go inside.”

They went into the foyer and then into the formal living room and dining room beyond it. In the entertainment room, Elsa was waiting for them. Meghan made the introductions and the two women pronounced that they were happy to meet each other.

“I’m just going to show her the house real quick,” Meghan told Elsa.

“I would be happy to hold Miss Cadence for you while you give the tour,” Elsa said.

“Really? Thanks, Elsa.”

“My pleasure,” Elsa said, quite sincerely. Caydee was actually one of the joys of her life and she took every opportunity she could to interact with her.

Meghan handed her over and then turned to her sister. “Let me show you my room first.”

“Sounds good,” Danielle said. “Lead the way.”

Meghan led her out of the entertainment room and into the hall. Neither of them saw Elsa giving their retreating backs a little eye roll and a shake of the head. They were not putting anything over on her.

“So ... here’s where I stay,” Meghan told her sister once they were in the guest room.

“Not bad,” Danielle said appreciatively. “This is a guest room? It’s bigger than our master bedroom at home.”

“Yes, it’s very comfy. And I have the run of the whole house. Anyway ... did you bring the stuff?”

“I brought the stuff,” Danielle assured her, “although you could have just bought some at the drug store and saved me the trouble of swiping it from the hospital supply and bringing it all the out way here.”

“Are you kidding?” Meghan asked. “If I would have bought some, the whole town would’ve been talking about it. Pauline got them to kill that story about me, but I’m still the subject of endless gossip. I can only imagine what they would say about something like this.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Danielle said. She opened the bag she was carrying and pulled out a tube that resembled a travel size tube of toothpaste, but that was not what it was. The word Miconazole was written in large letters on it.

“You’re sure this will help?” Meghan asked, taking the tube and looking at it.

“Well, you have itching and a rash down there and you haven’t been having sex with anyone, right?”

“Right,” she said. “I told you that when I called last night.”

“It sounds like a yeast infection to me,” Danielle said. “And this is the cure. Want me to look at it to make sure that’s what it is? Believe me, I’ve seen my share of them where I work.”

She shook her head, mortified at the thought of her sister examining her vagina. “No, you don’t need to do that. I’ll take your word for it. But how did I get it? I’ve never had one before. I’m a clean person. I shower every night and wash myself down there. How does this happen?”

“It’s not necessarily being dirty down there that causes it,” Danielle told her. “In fact, sometimes having too good of hygiene can be the cause.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, confused. Being too clean caused yeast to grow on and in your cooter? What kind of bullshit was that?

“Well, this is a little gross maybe, but a woman’s hoo-hoo is supposed to have a fairly good colony of bacteria living on it and in it. That bacteria is a woman’s friend. It keeps the Ph where it should be. And it keeps any yeast from growing there.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding,” she said. “If you disrupt that bacteria, the yeast can grow unchecked. Are you taking any antibiotics?”

“No,” she said. “Just my birth control pills.”

“Have you been douching or anything like that?” she asked next. “Douching is not really good for you for this very reason.”

“No, I’ve never douched in my life,” she said.

“Hmm,” Danielle said. “Something must have killed those bacteria.”

A thought occurred to her. “What about the hot tub?” she asked. “It has chlorine in it. Could that do it?”

Danielle shook her head. “It shouldn’t unless they’re really flooding that thing with chlorine. That much would probably make it hard to even get in the water though.”

“It seems like the normal amount in there,” Meghan said. “And Laura has never mentioned anything about getting yeast infections—although I’m not certain we have that kind of sharing relationship with each other just yet.”

“It must be something else,” Danielle said. “If you’ve never been prone to them before, there’s got to be a reason why you’re getting a nasty one right now.”

And then, Meghan’s mind went back to the douching suggestion. And suddenly, a horrible idea occurred to her. She flushed visibly. “Uh ... wow...”

“What is it?” Danielle asked.

“Uh ... well ... suppose that that chlorinated water out in the hot tub was ... uh ... was...”

“Was what?”

She took a deep breath. Her face was now an alarming shade of red. Her eyes were unable to meet the eyes of her sister. “Suppose it was ... uh ... you know ... a stream of that water and it was ... uh ... kind of hitting you in that area?”

Danielle’s eyes got wide. She nibbled her lip for a moment. “Uh ... well ... is that something that possibly happened to you?” she asked slowly.

Shamefully, Meghan nodded her head.

“Are you saying that you were letting the hot tub jet ... letting it spray on you ... down there?”

“Yes,” she said meekly.

“Why in the world would you do that?” Danielle asked.

“Because it feels good,” she hissed at her sister. “Don’t judge me. I don’t have a husband to stick his dick in me when I’m horny.”

“Well ... can’t you just ... you know ... do yourself the normal way? With your fingers? Or maybe a toy?”

“It doesn’t feel as good as the water jet,” she said shortly. “Not even close.”

“Really?” she said. “I almost want to try it now. How many times have you done this?”

Meghan looked down at the floor again. “Maybe ... uh ... ten times since I discovered this last month.”

“Ten times?”

“Give or take a few,” Meghan said, as embarrassed as she had ever been in her life.

“Well ... that’s your culprit then,” Danielle said. “You’re shooting high-pressure chlorinated water directly on your hoo-hoo. It’s blasting away the bacteria layer and then sterilizing the mucous membranes in the process. You created a perfect breeding ground for vaginal yeast.”

“What a rip,” she said with a sigh, employing a Jake-ism she had picked up.

“Yep,” Danielle said. “Unfortunately, everything in this world that is fun has consequences. Especially when it comes to hoo-hoos.”

“You’d think I would have learned that by now,” Meghan said, dejected.

Danielle patted her consolingly on the back. “At least you tend to learn from your mistakes, sis.”

“Yeah. I guess there’s that.”

Jake and Laura arrived at the warehouse in Santa Clarita where Celia and her band were rehearsing at 8:55 AM. Jake parked his truck and they were admitted to the facility by Jamal, the day shift security guard. Things were starting to look like an actual stage production now. All of the scaffolding and lights were now assembled and mounted so they could bathe the stage in light or have individual spotlights shine down in a particular place. The stage itself was now surrounded by a wooden structure that contained a large backstage area for the crew to work unseen by the audience. And, new to a KVA associated show, there were now two large video screens—each one forty feet high by thirty feet wide—mounted on either side of the stage. High up on the scaffolding at the rear of the building were two high-definition projectors that would send images taken by a series of twelve video cameras that were positioned throughout the room, thus allowing even those in the worst seats in whatever venue they were in to see Celia and the band doing their thing during the performances.

Jake and Celia had both always been opposed to the video screens on general principles, but had changed their views over the past year. The video screens were now considered a standard part of a show where people paid more than a hundred dollars a ticket, and the biggest criticism of the Tsunami Sound Festival that Jake and Matt had participated in was that no such screens had been there and the people in the back areas had barely been able to make out the forms of the performers.

And so, KVA agreed to use the screens for both Celia’s and Matt’s tours. This decision added considerably to the total cost of tour production, which KVA was paying fifty percent of. Although National was paying for leasing of the equipment and the screens themselves, KVA had to pay half the cost of employing six camera operators, fifteen technicians to install and maintain the equipment, an additional twelve roadies to heft and mount everything, an additional truck and driver to haul everything around, and two video producers who would be responsible for deciding which images to display on which screen at which time. The big positive from all this was that Jake and Pauline had negotiated that KVA kept the rights to the video and audio recorded from both tours and could do with it what they pleased once the tour was over and the contract was fulfilled.

The screens were blank now and the techs that operated the system were not on site. Everything was in working order and had been tested, but Celia and the band were still working on the basic setup of the show currently. They had the setlist nailed down at this point, but things had taken a bit of a step backward now that they had a new bandmember who was trying to learn the tunes from scratch.

Miles O’Leary was his name—his real name, that was not a stage name—and, assuming he worked out, he was to be the saxophonist for the tour. He was a short, gangly man who was thirty-six years old. He had long, stringy brown hair, an unruly mustache and beard, and was a licensed commercial pilot who flew a Grumman G-164 Ag Cat crop dusting plane for an agricultural air company based in Colusa, California in the northern Central Valley. Playing the sax was just his side-gig, but he was very good at it. And he declared himself to be a Celia Valdez and Jake Kingsley fan.

He was kind of an odd person. He looked like a homeless transient and often smelled like one as well. He was a voracious stoner who smoked close to an eighth of marijuana every day. He shamelessly admitted to Jake, when they started talking flying with each other on their first meeting, that he never got behind the controls of his plane without smoking out first.

“Not even sure I know how to fly a plane when I’m not stoned,” he declared in his thick Irish brogue.

And he also insisted that he could not play his saxophone unless he was stoned as well. This was almost a deal breaker for KVA when they auditioned him. One of the firm, nonnegotiable rules that Jake, Celia, and even Matt enforced in their production was that no intoxicating substances would be used before a rehearsal or a performance. But, as Jake had been known to point out on an occasion or two, everything is negotiable.

At his audition for Celia two weeks before, Miles had played like shit when he first stepped up to blow the horn. He could not keep in time with the rhythm, he could not phrase properly, even on material that he knew well. But then he pleaded with them to let him “smoke a few wee bowls” and try again. Reluctantly, they allowed this. And he had stepped back up there and blown them away with his skill and mastery of the instrument. He was not quite as good as Laura, not quite as good as Dexter Price, but he was in their league without a doubt. And he was the only prospect on their horizon currently since Dexter and Bobby Z were currently in the on part of their on again off again relationship and Dexter was unavailable. And they were supposed to hit the road for the first date in Seattle on August 14^th. The venue was already rented. The tickets would be going on sale next week. Their hands were a bit tied.

“Well,” Jake said doubtfully, “there is some precedent for the idea that getting loaded can help a performance. I mean, G and his boys get lit before every show. Who are we to judge?”

“Yeah,” Celia said slowly. “And it’s not like we have many choices here.”

And so, he was hired—with the stipulation that he pay for his own pre-show entertainment expenses.

“No problem, no problem,” he declared. “When I receives ye advance money I’ll buy enough to last me the entire tour.”

“It’ll have to travel in the trucks,” Celia said. “No pilot is going to let you load that much pot onto the band plane.”

“Understandable,” he said happily. “I still get to indulge in the after-show entertainment supplies, do I not?”

“Well ... yes, of course,” Celia said.

“And you be professional musicians,” he said. “There has to be an after-show ganja supply maintained by the tour manager, right? If ye say no, I’ll be reconsidering my contract here.”

“Uh ... sure, we do keep a supply on hand for those of us that imbibe in that sort of thing,” Celia said.

“Then we have no problem here, do we?”

“I guess we don’t,” Celia said.

And so that was the reason that while everyone else was getting their instruments out and ready to start rehearsing, Miles was in the back of the warehouse toking out of a pipe. He refused to even tune his instrument if he was not stoned.

“We heard Journey on the drive here from the airport,” Jake told Celia as she tuned her guitar. The End of the Journey, her first release from the new CD, had debuted as scheduled as well.

“On KPID?” she asked, excited. “I heard it too! It’s always such a thrill to hear your work on the airwaves for the first time.”

“It is,” Jake agreed. “It sounded great. And they followed my promo instructions to the letter. Hopefully that keeps up.”

“No reason why it shouldn’t,” Celia said. “National thinks the CD sales are not important anymore. They’ll just follow your directions and be happy because they won’t have to think about it themselves.”

“That is true,” he agreed.

Miles finished up his pipe hits and came over to the stage. He was now reeking of greenbud and body odor. He climbed into position and picked up his alto sax. Laura was up on the stage near him, her own sax in hand, so she could help him out on a section if he needed it. She tried to stay as far away from his as she could reasonably get away with. Though she rather enjoyed the smell of sweaty Jake or sweaty Celia in her nose—particularly if they were rubbing their sweaty selves all over her—she was not a fan of rancid BO. Miles quickly put his instrument into tune and then reported that he was ready to start.

“All right, everyone,” Jake said from his position near the front of the soundboard. “Go ahead and put in your ears.”

Another new form of technology that Celia and the band would be using for this tour were the in-ear monitors, called IEMs for short. They, like the video screens, were all the latest rage in high-end live music performances. Each one of the band members, Jake himself, and all of the sound technicians had a small plastic, wireless electronic device that was custom fit to slide into each of their respective ears. The biggest benefit of the devices was that they protected the hearing of the musicians and the crew from being blasted with high-decibel sound from the speakers night after night—and professional musicians and sound techs needed to be able to maintain reasonable hearing to continue practicing their art (Beethoven being the notable exception to this rule). They neatly blocked pretty much all incoming sound, even the bass drum strikes, even the high-pitches of the E-string notes. But hearing protection was only one advantage. They were also receivers and speakers themselves. They could play whatever instrument or combination of instruments into the ear of the individual musicians or techs that was required. Jake’s IEMs, for instance, played everything, and he had a microphone installed in his that he could use to talk to everyone without anyone in the audience hearing. Celia’s would primarily play the rhythm instruments and the melodic instruments and allow her to hear her own voice and her own guitar when it was played. Coop and Charlie would hear the melodic instruments and Celia’s voice so they could keep in perfect time and volume. They were actually game changers in musical performance and Jake and even Matt’s skepticism of them had disappeared almost instantly the first time they tried them out.

“Let’s do the sound check,” Jake said while pushing the microphone button on the handset on his belt. “It’s me today and not the Nerdlys, so this shouldn’t take long.”

Everyone had a chuckle and then went to work. And, true to his word, they had acceptable sound to Jake’s ears in only twenty minutes. True, it did not sound as good as it would have had the Nerdlys been there, but it was good enough for their purposes.

They went to work.

June rolled on and soon the 30^th arrived. By this point, Faithless, the song, had been getting saturation airplay on hard rock stations all across the nation. Rock fans and program managers were very enthusiastic about the tune. And, as Jake had hoped, many who had not particularly cared for Matt Tisdale’s music before found themselves very impressed by the song. It quickly became the most requested hard rock song across the board, neatly dislodging Metallica’s Fuel from that position. Even the progressive rock stations and a few of the pop stations started playing it as well, sometimes in the same set as Celia’s The End of the Journey. There was, of course, a small but vocal cadre of Matt Tisdale fans who accused him of being a sellout for putting out some radio friendly crap designed to cater to the unsophisticated masses, but this was not a new phenomenon. Matt had been accused of this in various forms for all of his CDs after Next Phase.

Celia’s new release, The End of the Journey, was enjoying even greater success. People from all walks of life, all demographics, went absolutely apeshit over the tune. It was quite obvious, even to the musically unsophisticated (which Jake knew was the majority of the American music consumers) that she was singing about the bitter end of her relationship with Greg Oldfellow. But the lyrics were not mean or spiteful, did not cast blame or make accusation. She simply sung about the painful, emotional turmoil that ending a long-term love caused, using simple analogies that hit directly in the heart. Those lyrics, along with the exquisitely engineered musical accompaniment, made for a powerful, memorable tune that people wanted to hear over and over again. By the time the CD was released for sale, Journey had already debuted high in the Top Forty chart and was moving rapidly upward. Pop stations and progressive rock stations was where it could be heard the most, but even the hard rocks and the easy listening stations that catered to older people spun the track with regularity. Entertainment reporters waxed philosophical about the meaning of the tune and tried to get Celia to appear on their shows or give statements for their columns (she refused all requests). One reporter managed to corner Greg Oldfellow at a pro-am event at his Oregon golf course and asked him what he thought of Journey. He told the reporter that he thought it sad and regretful that something that he had done had compelled Celia to write a song like that.

In the first week of July, stretching through Independence Day and the holiday weekend that followed it, Celia’s CD, Living in Limbo, sold more than fifty thousand copies across the United States. Matt’s Faithless, the CD, sold eleven thousand. The numbers were considered decent for the first week. Even the suits at National were impressed, though they were more fixated on the upcoming tours and the considerable ticket revenue that was now starting to pour in as the tickets in question went on sale.

In the warehouses in Los Angeles county, the rehearsals went on five days a week, at least seven hours a day. Jake and the Nerdlys continued to alternate back and forth between the two locations, doing everything they could to help make both shows everything they could be. The peace between the former Intemperance members not only held, but actually strengthened to a considerable degree. Jake and Matt did not socialize with each other. They never went out and had beers together, or hung out together the way they had back in the Intemperance days, but they enjoyed a mutual respect for each other’s work ethic and musical talent. When Jake suggested some change or tweak to the planned performance, Matt always listened to him and considered what he was suggesting. And if Matt disagreed with what Jake was suggesting, Jake always listened to his reasoning and they would put their heads together and try to come up with a mutual solution. So far, in every case, they were able to reach a conclusion without any sort of bitter argument or harsh words. Jake still did not know if this new Matt had appeared because of maturity and self-reflection or if it was simply desperation. In the end, he decided that it did not really matter.

In Celia’s warehouse, her show shaped up nicely as well. Miles O’Leary proved to be a quick study when it came to picking up Laura’s sax parts in Celia’s show and expressing them with his own phrasing and talent. As long as he kept his THC level therapeutical, he was pretty badass with his instrument. As for his other quirks, the band learned to live with them. All except the hygiene issue. Jake, as the titular head of the production, had been the one to lay down the law with him on this issue.

“It’s like this, Miles,” Jake told him one Friday after the rehearsal. “We love what you’re doing here, but there is something we need to address.”

“What would that be?” he asked calmly, his eyes red and half-lidded from the latest pipe hits he had imbibed in.

“To put it quite frankly,” he said, “you stink.”

“Stink? I’m playing my heart out for the lass! How can you say that?”

“Not that kind of stink,” Jake said. “The literal kind. You smell like a dirty sweat sock that someone has been blowing bonghits into. Your breath is terrible. And all of this only gets worse the more you stand up there under the lights and play. I have been asked by multiple members of the band to address this situation, so I’m going to lay down a new rule for you.”

“I had no idea that I was offendin’ people,” he said, quite clearly taken aback.

“You have been, I’m sorry to say. And these are people that you are going to be traveling in a small plane with, in limousines with, that will be hanging out with you in cramped dressing rooms. So, here’s the new rule: You shower at least once per day while working with us and out on the road on days there is a performance. You brush your teeth. You wear clean clothes after you take such a shower. There is laundry service out on the road so this should not be a problem. You will adhere to this rule faithfully and without fail. If you do not, it is quite possible that Coop, Charlie, and Little Stevie might resort to physical violence against your person.”

“They would do that?” O’Leary asked, shocked.

“In a heartbeat,” Jake told him. “Especially Charlie. He’s already a whacked-out germophobe. Your dirty clothes and unbrushed teeth are making the man psychotic.”

And so, O’Leary agreed to abide by the new rule. And, so far, he seemed to be doing so. Though his hair was still long and scraggly, his mustache and beard untrimmed and wild, he no longer exuded that offensive odor during rehearsals and his clothes were now different from day to day and seemed to be recently laundered.

By July 31^st, Faithless the song was the most popular hard rock tune nationwide. Faithless the CD had sold just a bit more than thirty thousand copies. Matt and his band (with Jim the paramedic always nearby, back on the payroll at Matt’s expense) finished their last of three full dress rehearsals for the two hour and twenty-minute set. There was no opening band going out with them. Matt’s first date was to be August 8, a Saturday night, in Bangor, Maine. The tickets for that show, none of which were less than $100, the most expensive of which were $350, had sold out within hours of being released. Reports were that the scalpers were offering the tickets up for more than $500 and were getting buyers. The next ten shows following Bangor had also sold out.

Jake and the Nerdlys attended all of the dress rehearsals. All of them went well. The road crew and the techies were all in the groove by this point and Matt and his band had rehearsed enough to put on the show in their sleep if they had to. Of course, the Nerdlys fretted about the sound, but that was as inevitable as the tide coming in. Jake found no fault with anything and, though he had only seen Matt perform at the TSF, he knew that this set was much more dynamic, much more energetic, and considerably more technical and sophisticated than his last tour by a factor of three at least. Matt fans were going to love the show. He had no doubt about that.

Jake hung out after the last performance and watched as the road crew went to work. This would be their first dress rehearsal of the tear down and load out process. All of the trucks were parked out in the parking lot, ready to be loaded up. The crew would disassemble everything and pack it up, leaving the warehouse completely empty. The timeline they were shooting for was three hours, but they would not likely come close to that on the first attempt. Tomorrow, they would all return in the morning and put everything back together again. They would then tear it down again and repack it. And then they would do it all again the next day. After that, they would head out on the three-day drive to Bangor, Maine where they would assemble everything for real in the Bangor Memorial Auditorium.

Jake was not involved with the tear down and assembly process. It was not his area of expertise by any means. He just wanted to watch the beginning stages to make sure everything was going smoothly. It was. All of the roadies involved were veterans of the process, most of them from Matt’s previous tours. And the new techs who dealt with the video gear and the cameras and the projectors all seemed to know what they were doing as well.

He watched in satisfaction for a bit and then checked his watch. It was now 4:38 PM. And it was Friday. That meant that he and Laura had a little appointment to keep over at Celia’s place after they were done with their rehearsal for the day. He smiled in anticipation. It had been that time of the month for Laura last Friday, so they had not gotten together then. He was eagerly anticipating a little fun and games with the ladies on this evening.

Just as he was turning to go, a voice called out to him. It was Matt. He was standing on the edge of the stage, drinking a bottle of beer and smoking a cigarette. He had changed out of his stage clothes and his hair was wet from his shower.

“What’s up?” Jake asked, walking over.

“There ain’t no fuckin’ groupies here, that’s what’s up,” Matt said sourly. “I can’t wait until we’re actually out there and getting the gash.”

“I guess I was remiss in not arranging for some dress rehearsal groupies for the dress rehearsal performance,” Jake said.

“Yeah,” Matt said, shaking his head. “What kinda fuckin’ boss are you anyway?”

Jake chuckled a little. This was the first time Matt had referred to him that way, at least not in a sarcastic manner. “Sorry, it’s my first Matt Tisdale tour. I’m bound to leave a few things out here and there.”

Matt shrugged. “Did the fuckin’ Nerdlys leave?” he asked.

“Yeah, about twenty minutes ago. Good show by the way. You’re gonna knock those motherfuckers dead once you start doing it for real.”

“It is a good set,” Matt said, nodding. “Our best yet. Anyway, I just wanted to see if you wanted to come back and have a couple beers with us before we cut out.”

“I’d love to,” Jake said, “but I’m flying later. Gotta get home tonight so the nanny can start her weekend.”

Matt sighed lasciviously. “The twenty-one-year-old nanny named Meghan,” he said. “That’s fuckin’ hot shit, dude. Is she like ... like really tight?”

“I told you, I’m not doing the nanny,” Jake said tiredly.

Matt laughed. “Of course you’re not,” he said. “Anyway, me and the guys are on a chartered flight to Cabo tomorrow morning. Gonna stay at my pad for a few days, bone some local gash, go out and do some fishing ... or at least everyone but Steve is gonna fish, he’s a fuckin’ pussy that gets seasick in the harbor.”

“Sounds like fun,” Jake said.

“I just thought I’d ask if you wanted to come with us,” Matt said.

Jake looked at him pointedly. “You’re inviting me to come to Cabo with you? To stay in your house with you?”

Matt shrugged. “Why the fuck not?” he asked. “We been working together all this time. I know there’s a lot of shit in our past, but maybe it’s time to start letting some of that shit go, you know what I mean?”

Jake was actually touched by this gesture. “Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean. And I agree. Unfortunately, I still have Celia’s show to finish up so she can get out on schedule too. I’ll have to stay local.”

Matt nodded, as if he had expected this reply. “Just thought I’d ask,” he said.

“I appreciate it,” Jake said, and he did, although even if he had not had Celia’s show to work on, there was no way in hell he would have actually gone. Laura would most definitely not approve of a trip to Mexico with Matt Tisdale. Nor would Matt approve of a Jake Kingsley who did not care to sample the local gash because he was married with a child now.

“I’ll check you later, then,” Matt said.

“Check you later,” Jake returned.

And with that, Matt headed backstage again. Jake would not see him anymore before he and the band boarded their flight to Bangor on August 6^th.

Celia and her band performed the first of their three dress rehearsals on August 5^th. By this point, The End of the Journey was number 3 on the Billboard list and projected to reach number 1 by the following week. Living in Limbo had now sold one hundred and thirty thousand copies, with more and more being purchased every day. Reviewers loved the CD and were touting it as the best Celia Valdez release yet, full of poignant, emotional songs of love and love lost. Tickets for the first of three Seattle shows had all sold out in less than an hour. The cheapest seats for these shows were $150 retail. The VIP tickets near the front of the stage were retailing for $500. Scalpers were reportedly selling tickets for well over a thousand dollars and they were being bought.

The August 5^th rehearsal hit a few minor snags, none of them having to do with the musicians. There were a few problems with the light sequences and the timing of the spotlights. There were a few issues with the video screens when the producers lost their communication with each other and could not discuss what angles or shots to show during several of the songs. It was likely nothing that an actual audience would have even paid much attention to, and an extensive debrief was able to solve the issues and keep them from recurring during the next day’s rehearsal.

For the final dress rehearsal on August 8, the same day that Matt’s show would be opening in Bangor, Laura stayed home in Oceano with Caydee. Jake had a couple of special guests that Celia had invited come with him instead.

True to her word, Celia had asked Meghan and her sister Danielle to come see the performance. Danielle was unable to attend because she had to work. But then Meghan hit Jake out of left field when she asked if her mother could come in Danielle’s place.

“Your mother?” he asked incredulously. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” she said. “If it’s okay. My mom’s a little stuffy, that’s true, but she’s okay.”

“She ... would want to come see Celia?” Jake asked.

“She listens to Celia’s music,” Meghan told him. “She owns a couple of her CDs and listens to them in her car all the time. And she really likes the new song they play on the radio. She says it’s one of the saddest songs she’s ever heard.”

“Wow,” Jake said. “Does she know it’s me playing the guitar on most of Celia’s music?” he asked.

“Uh ... no, I never told her that.”

“And does she realize that coming with you to the show means that she would have to climb into my airplane with me at the controls so we could get there?”

“I haven’t told her that detail yet,” Meghan admitted. “I just asked her if she might like to come instead of Dannie and she said it sounded like fun.”

“I see,” Jake said, not sure how to feel about this. “Well ... if she is willing to get in the plane with me, bring her along. Why not?”

“Cool!” Meghan said. “I’ll give her a call right now.”

There is no way in hell that this woman who thinks I’m a Satanic wife beater is going to even be in the same room with me, he thought, let alone let me fly her somewhere. Problem solved.

But, to his surprise, Loraine Zachary accepted the offer.

“You’re shitting me,” Jake said when Meghan told him the news.

“Not at all,” she said. “She told me she’s looking forward to meeting you.”

“Does she own a gun?” Jake asked.

“No, she doesn’t own a gun,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve been talking to her a lot about you and Laura ever since that American Watcher deal. Nothing private, of course, just about how cool the two of you are, how you’re nothing like what the media says. I think maybe she’s starting to believe me and she wants to meet you for herself.”

“Well ... all right then,” Jake said. “Ask her if she wants to come over for lunch at noon tomorrow. We’ll eat and then head to the airport after that. Wheels up at 1:15. The dress rehearsal starts at 3:00.”

“She’ll be here,” Meghan said with a smile.

And she was. She arrived promptly at noon, pulling up to the gate in her 1996 Audi convertible. She was an attractive woman for her age, her hair dark and neatly styled, her face pretty. The family resemblance to Meghan and Danielle in her features was actually quite striking. She was a little heavier than her daughters, but by no means fat or even chubby—just natural middle-aged plump. She was dressed fashionably in a pair of black slacks, a burgundy blouse, and a pair of fancy pumps. Her face was pretty much expressionless as Meghan made the introductions to Jake, Laura, and Caydee in the foyer.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Zachary,” Jake greeted, shaking her hand.

“Please, call me Loraine,” she said, returning the shake demurely.

Caydee served to melt a little of the ice. She smiled widely at the new visitor from Laura’s arms.

“What an incredibly adorable little girl,” Loraine exclaimed, seeing that smile. “You were right about her, Meggie. She is simply too cute.”

“Told you,” Meghan said, smiling.

“Look at that red hair!” Loraine said. She looked up at Laura. “I can certainly see where she gets that from.”

“Yeah, and the fair skin to go with it,” Laura told her.

Laura handed Caydee over to Jake and then she and Meghan took Loraine on a tour of the infamous “Kingsley Mansion” as it was often referred to in the local press. Though she was visibly impressed with the layout and décor, she seemed a little surprised that it was not nearly as decadent as she had been led to believe. After all, there was no dungeon with whips and chains in it, no room established and set aside for high-capacity orgies, no ornate pentagrams hanging on the walls, no altar to Satan, no oil portraits of Adolph Hitler, no piles of cocaine in serving bowls laying around. And the maid was a late middle aged Nigerian woman, not a slinky blonde dressed in the traditional short black skirt.

After the tour, they sat down in the formal dining room and Elsa served lunch. It was relatively simple fare. Sandwiches made from last night’s leftover roast chicken served with fresh garden tomatoes, red onion, and green leaf lettuce. Homemade potato salad was the side dish. A pitcher of iced green tea rounded out the offerings. Loraine ate everything that was served to her and genuinely enjoyed it as far as Jake could tell.

As they ate, the conversation was a bit sparse, a bit hesitant, with Meghan making the most contributions. She shared some anecdotes about taking care of Caydee, which served to involve Laura a little more in the discussion, which then led to anecdotes from Loraine about raising girls in the modern world. Jake sat mostly in silence as the conversation went on. He noticed Loraine shooting the occasional glance in his direction, as if she could not quite believe that she was really sitting here with him.

“When was the last time you attended a concert, Loraine?” Jake asked just as they finished up the meal.

“Oh ... my goodness, it’s been years,” she said. “Not since Meggie and Dannie were little girls.”

“What show was it?” Laura asked.

“Well ... I’m dating myself a little here, but it was Hall and Oates at the Civic Center in Long Beach back in ... oh ... it must have been 1981 or so.”

“No kidding?” Jake asked. “I love Hall and Oates.”

“You do?” she asked, surprised.

“Strange but true,” he said. “Their music is well composed and masterfully engineered. The lyrics are a bit simplistic, true, but the presentation is quite good. How were they live? I never got the opportunity to see them myself.”

“Uh ... well, they were quite good actually,” she said. “Jason and I had a wonderful time.”

“That’s good to know,” Jake said. “Sometimes when a band is very technical like they are, it’s hard to reproduce the music live.”

“It is?” she asked, obviously having no clue what he was talking about.

“It’s a matter of the difference between the studio and stage and how big that difference is,” he explained. “You see, in the studio, you have almost limitless resources to draw on to make the music sound good on the recording. You can redo every track until it’s perfect, you can use any number of instruments and then overdub even more into the recording in post-production, you can adjust the levels of everything so that it mixes perfectly. The problem is that if you get too complex in the studio, you cannot hope to reproduce that up on stage unless you use prerecorded tracks, which a traditionalist like myself would consider quite dishonest.”

Her eyes were a little wider now, a strange look in then. “That’s very interesting, Jake,” she said.

He smiled and shrugged. “It’s my business,” he said simply. “Meghan told me you like to listen to Celia’s music?”

“Oh ... well ... yes, I do own a few of her CDs,” she said. “She has a very pretty voice. I really enjoy that new song she has out, the one they play on the radio.”

“The End of the Journey,” Jake said. “I think it’s one of the best songs she’s ever done.”

“It’s about ... uh ... her divorce from Greg Oldfellow, right?” Loraine asked hesitantly.

“It is,” Jake confirmed.

“That was quite the story, wasn’t it?” she asked, obviously probing for a little inside information.

“Yes, it really was,” Jake said and then changed the subject. “Anyway, I think you’re going to really like her show. The technology of putting on a concert has improved quite a bit since 1981. And Celia is a superb performer surrounded by a group of incredible musicians.”

“You’ve known Celia for a long time?” asked Loraine.

“Yeah, about fourteen years now,” he said. “We both came up in the industry at the same time but in different genres. And then when Intemperance broke up and the record companies decided that La Diferencia was no longer relevant, we joined forces and started KVA. That’s where Laura and I met; when we were working together on Celia’s first solo CD.”

“And that’s you playing the saxophone on all the songs on that CD, right?” asked Loraine.

“That’s me,” she confirmed. “I toured with her on the last tour as the sax player too. And I helped her get the new guy up and running for this tour.”

“You’re not playing with her this time?” Loraine asked.

“That’s me blowing the horn on the new CD,” Laura said. “I did all the saxophone tracks in the studio, but I’m not up for another tour right now. I have Caydee to think of and I don’t want to be away from Jake for that long anymore. That was rough on both of us.”

“How long were you gone?” she asked.

“The better part of six months,” Laura said. “We had some visits here and there, but mostly he was here, and I was wherever we were playing. Sleeping in hotel rooms, riding on planes night after night and day after day. I just do not want to do that again at this stage in my life.”

“It sounds very hard,” she said.

“It’s the life we choose,” Laura told her. “But I chose not to do it this time.”

Both Meghan and Loraine started to have some doubts when they got their first look at the Avanti when Jake pulled it out of the hangar.

“It’s such a strange looking airplane,” Loraine said nervously.

“Yeah, it’s kind of non-traditional,” Jake allowed. “The backward facing props, the hammerhead shark wings on the nose. It’s a sweet aircraft though. It’s fast, it can fly high, and it’s fuel efficient.”

“And quite noisy as well,” Loraine could not help but say.

“Yeah,” Jake said apologetically. “I wish there was something I could do about that, but there really isn’t. It’s not like a car or a motorcycle where you can just not gun the engine as much when you’re starting out.”

“And ... uh ... exactly how long have you been a pilot?” she asked.

“I’ve been a licensed pilot for ten years now,” he told her. “I have just over thirteen hundred hours logged. I’m certified for instrument flight rules, multi-engine aircraft, pressurized aircraft, and type certified on this Avanti here. So far, every time I’ve logged a takeoff, I’ve also logged a landing.”

“Oh ... well that’s good to know,” she said. “A clean record.”

“Well ... mostly clean,” Jake said. “There was that little incident with a Canadian goose over Portland a few years back.”

“A Canadian goose?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“He got in my way,” Jake said. “And he got the bad end of the deal. It was no biggie though. I just turned around and came back to the airport. Had to land with the flaps stuck in takeoff position, but it was cool. We just touched down a little hot.”

She looked at his face, seemingly to see if he was joking with her.

“True story,” Jake said. “But other than that, no mishaps in the air. Shall we get aboard now?”

“Can I call shotgun?” Meghan asked.

“Meghan gets shotgun,” Jake declared. “She called it.” He opened the door and invited the two ladies to step inside.

As was often the case when new people flew with him, they were comforted when they observed how seriously he took the business of piloting. They watched him perform the external inspection of the plane, watched him seal them in and then meticulously go through his preflight checklist after admonishing them to not disturb or talk to him until they were above ten thousand feet. Their nervous looks returned when he actually fired up the engines, but they remained in their seats as he began to taxi to the head of the runway.

Both of them gripped their armrests tightly when he powered up the engines and they began to accelerate down the runway. When they broke contact with the ground, they both heaved in a sharp breath of air. But then that fear changed over to wonder as they saw the little world they lived in from above for the first time. Though both had flown on commercial aircraft a few times in their lives—Loraine considerably more than Meghan—neither had ever taken off from or landed at San Luis Obispo. Jake deliberately took the route that led them out over the coast at Morro Bay, so they would pass over the famous Morro Rock, the 580-foot volcanic plug that towered over the entrance to the harbor. He banked left here and headed south, passing over Oceano and the western edges of SLO itself. Both of them stared down at the scenery in awe, seeing it as they had never seen it before.

“All right,” Jake said once they climbed past ten thousand feet and the autopilot had the plane. “Sterile cockpit no longer in effect. Speak freely.”

“It’s beautiful up here,” Meghan said, looking down at the spine of the coastal mountains below them, the ocean on the right, the valleys and canyons on the left, the city of Santa Barbara coming up before them.

“Isn’t it?” Jake asked. “Laura and I get to make this flight twice a day, five days a week. I never get tired of it.”

“It’s so quiet in here,” Loraine said in wonder. “It’s no louder than in my car on the freeway. This plane is so noisy when it passes over though!”

“The engines are behind and above us, so the sound doesn’t tend to make it through the fuselage insulation very well,” he explained. “Oh, and the plane is not really any louder than any other twin-engine plane. It’s just a different frequency that is not as pleasing to the ear.”

“I see,” she said slowly, looking out her window at the land/ocean border below.

Jake brought them neatly in for a landing twenty-three minutes later. He taxied over to the GA parking and shut down. After securing the aircraft, he told them to stay with the plane and he would go get his truck for the drive to the warehouse.

“Truck?” Loraine asked her daughter once he was out of earshot. “He drives a truck?”

“In Los Angeles he does,” she replied.

“I can’t believe how fast we got here,” she said in wonder. San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles was usually a three to three-and-a-half-hour drive. They had flown the distance in less than thirty minutes. “We’re really in LA?”

“In the valley, but yes,” she said. “He and Laura do this every day they’re working. Here in the morning and back in the afternoon.”

“That must be terribly expensive,” she said.

“They can afford it,” Meghan assured her. “They have more money than they know what to do with. Jake has said that himself a few times.”

“It must be nice,” Loraine said huffily.

“Yeah,” Meghan agreed. “It certainly seems like it is.”

The audience for the final dress rehearsal numbered less than the crew who was running the show. There were the inevitable record company suits and promoters who wanted to see what they were investing in. There were a few reps from Gibson guitars, Marshall, Steinway, and other musical instrument makers who had been invited because they were paying out endorsement money and this was a perk of that deal. There were a few family members and friends of the band members. Little Stevie’s dad was there. Charlie’s latest lover was there (Charlie was currently gay again and dating a bartender from a Los Angeles club). Some chick named Debbie that Coop had been banging of late was there. And there was Jake sitting with Meghan on his right and Loraine on his left in the middle seats in the best spot in the house: just in front of the soundboard, where they could see the actual band in good detail and the video screen. Jake did not have his in-ear monitor in place. He wanted to experience the performance as an actual attendee experienced it.

There was, naturally, an open bar at the event. Meghan and her mother both partook. Meghan was drinking vodka and tonic (a drink that Laura had introduced her to one night not long before) and Loraine was drinking a Napa Valley merlot that was better than any wine she had ever tasted in her life. Jake drank iced tea. Loraine seemed surprised at this until Jake explained that it was not a good idea to have alcohol when he was supposed to fly everyone back to San Luis Obispo after the show.

“I guess that makes sense,” she said softly.

At 3:00 PM, the lights went down and the stage went dark. A murmur of anticipation filtered through the small crowd that was gathered. The video screens came to life, showing still pictures of Celia from her childhood. There were shots of her as an infant, shots of her in Easter dresses going to church when she was five, shots of her sitting with her father at eight, a guitar in her hands while he sat next to her, instructing her on how to play it. Her mother’s voice, speaking softly in Spanish, began to play from the speakers while subtitles in English told the audience that she was talking about how her little girl had taken to music and singing from an early age, how she had picked up the basics of the guitar in the third grade, how she had sung in the church choir by the age of ten. Photos of these memories flashed continuously on the screens: Celia in the choir, Celia in the school band, Celia at home playing for her family. In each shot, Celia got a little older, until soon she was a young adolescent, her future adult beauty plainly apparent. At this point, Celia’s voice took over the narration, speaking with her Hispanic accent deliberately thickened. She told of being in a band with her family and friends, of playing clubs in Venezuela, and finally of the band being discovered and being invited to America to make records.

Though there were many pictures of Celia as part of La Diferencia in the slideshow, at no point was the name La Diferencia mentioned, nor were the names of any songs they had done. Nor would there be any La Dif material performed in this show. Aristocrat Records owned the rights to everything La Dif and they were understandably miffed about being left out of this touring contract. As such, KVA and National could show pictures from those days, but they could mention no band name, could cite no lyric, could sing no song without incurring the wrath of Aristocrat’s legal team.

The La Dif days came to an end, and then Celia told of hooking up with her friends Jake Kingsley (of Intemperance fame—they could say that) and the Archers, and Pauline Kingsley. Pictures of the five of them together—always with Celia in the shots—began to flash now. She told of the merger of talent that became KVA Records and how they scrimped and saved and begged and borrowed and finally put together Celia’s first solo CD.

Then the pictures went away. On the left screen, suddenly appeared the words: AND THE REST. On the right screen, were the words: IS HISTORY!

The stage lights suddenly came on. The band was on the stage, Celia at the front, in front of her microphone. She was holding her twelve-string acoustic—the one she had bought one fateful day in a Portland music store—in her hands. She was dressed in jeans and a tight-fitting shirt, her hair flowing around her shoulders. Miles was behind her and to the right. He began to play the opening melody for The Struggle, Celia’s first solo hit. The rest of the band chimed in behind him and Celia began to sing.

The small crowd cheered and quickly got into the spirit of the show. On the video screens, the views became an ever-changing stream of live shots of the bandmembers. Celia was featured the most, but they also showed Miles when he was playing the melody or the solo, Little Stevie when he was hitting the riffs, Coop when he was pounding out the beat. The producers knew their stuff, were experienced at this sort of production, and they changed the view back and forth with skill.

Jake looked over at Loraine during the guitar solo and saw her bobbing her head and tapping her feet to the beat. She was smiling happily. Soon, she started singing along. So did many of the others, including Jake himself.

In all, the concert lasted two hours and thirty minutes. There was a twenty-minute intermission after the first ninety-minute set. Celia performed eight of the ten songs from her new CD, scattering them throughout the performance so that no one got bored by hearing too much unfamiliar material in succession. She played all of her most popular songs, scattering them throughout as well, and ending the set with Playing Those Games, her most popular hard-rock number. The encores were Why?, Should We Believe?, and, finally, The End of the Journey, which was projected to be sitting in the number one position on the charts when the first date was actually played.

Celia thanked the audience for coming out to see her, her voice humble, her accent, once again, deliberately thickened. She and the band linked arms and took a bow. They then walked off the stage to surprisingly loud applause from the small crowd, and the house lights came up.

“That was incredible,” Meghan said to Jake, her eyes wide, a look of profound bliss on her face. “Is there any more? Is it really over?”

“It’s really over,” Jake told her. “Always leave the audience wanting more. A cardinal rule of entertaining.”

The two of them looked over at Loraine, who was still staring at the stage, a peaceful expression on her face.

“What did you think, Loraine?” Jake asked her.

“That was very enjoyable,” she said softly, almost as if she were surprised to hear herself saying it. “She is very talented. All of them are very talented. I have to say that this was a very moving experience.”

Jake smiled at her. “That’s why I work with them,” he told her.

There was the general gathering and congratulating and gladhanding by the various suits who had attended. Jake made all the required pleasantries. He did not bother to introduce anyone to Meghan or Loraine. No one seemed to mind.

The suits finally made their way out to their limos, leaving only the family and friends. Meghan and Loraine each had a few more drinks at the open bar while this was going on. Loraine seemed considerably more jovial now. Whether it was from the performance she had seen or the alcohol, Jake was not sure, but he did not really care.

Celia and the rest of the band came into the audience area, all of them freshly showered (including Miles, thankfully). Celia came over to Jake and his small entourage right away. Her eyes lit up when she saw Meghan there.

“Meghan!” she squealed, as if they were old friends who had been apart for many years. “I’m so glad you could make it!” She then wrapped the startled nanny up in a full-on Celia-hug, which Meghan reflexively returned. “What did you think of the show?” she asked when the embrace finally broke.

“It was uh ... the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen,” Meghan said, a little tongue-tied, still unable to believe that Celia Valdez had just hugged her. “Really. It was totally the bomb!”

“I kind of like that expression,” Celia said with a smile, her accent not nearly as thick now. She then turned and looked at Loraine. “Hello,” she said, still smiling. “You’re Meghan’s mom, right?”

Loraine was tongue-tied as well. “Uh ... yes ... yes I am,” she stammered. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you as well,” Celia said, shaking hands with her. “I never would have believed you’re her mom if Jake hadn’t told me. You look like her older sister.”

Loraine blushed a little. “Trust me, I look a lot older than her older sister,” she said.

“Danielle,” Celia said. “I met her too. We spent a long night together about nine months ago.”

“You did?” Loraine asked, confused.

“I was there when Caydee was born,” Celia explained. “Didn’t she tell you that?”

“No,” Loraine said. “She didn’t mention that at all.”

Celia smiled. “She has professional discretion,” she said. “I like that in a nurse. Anyway, did you like the show? You can tell me if you hated it.”

“No, no!” Loraine said, shaking her head. “It was spectacular. I really enjoyed myself.”

Meghan giggled. “Mom was singing along with most of the songs,” she said. “She really got into it.”

Loraine blushed but did not deny the accusation. “I’ve forgotten how many popular songs you actually have,” she said. “Truly, that was an amazing performance. I am so glad I came.”

“I’m glad you came too,” she said. “Listen, if I don’t get a vodka and tonic in the next two minutes, I am seriously going to die. Please excuse me.”

“Of course,” Loraine said. “It was nice talking to you, Ms. Valdez.”

“Call me Celia,” she said. “And we’ll talk some more. I’ll be coming back to Oceano with you. Didn’t Jake tell you that?”

“I think I forgot to mention it,” Jake said with a little smile.

“Really?” Loraine said. “You’re coming back with us?”

“I’m on break for the next six days,” she said. “We all are—well, except the roadies and the techies. I’m gonna stay with Jake and Laura tonight and tomorrow we’re off to Montana for a little trek through Glacier Park.”

“Really?” Loraine asked. She looked at her daughter. “Are you going with them, Meghan?”

“No,” she said, perhaps a little sourly. “They’re taking Caydee with them. I’ll be off the next six days too.”

“Ohhh,” Loraine said. “I didn’t know that.”

“I was gonna tell you on the flight back,” she said.

“Then we can get together on your days off!” Loraine said happily. “How cool! Aunt Virginia has been asking about you. We can go visit her tomorrow!”

“Uh ... yeah, Mom,” Meghan said, casting an evil little look in Celia’s direction. “We can do that.”

“That’s great!” Loraine declared, now happy as a clam. “You know, I think that maybe one more glass of wine would do no harm before we fly back.”

“Then let’s hit the bar,” Celia said, grabbing her arm. “I’ll buy.”

As the two women headed to the bar, Meghan looked over at Jake sourly. She knew, of course, that Celia was not going to be staying in the guest room tonight, but that was not what was irking her.

“Maybe Celia shouldn’t have said that?” Jake asked knowingly.

Meghan shook her head. “I was really just kind of hoping to stay at home, relax, hang out in the hot tub, maybe have a few drinks, read some books from the library, watch some DVDs.” She sighed. “Now I got Aunt Virginia. What a rip.”