Climbing the Rock

Chapter 17A: Balance of Power

The back of the stretch limousine was filled with a thick, pungent could of marijuana smoke, a cloud so dense the passengers could barely see from one end to the other. All five members of Intemperance were back there as well as Janice Boxer, their publicity manager, and Steve Crow, the man identified as the producer of The Thrill Of Doing Business album and all the songs featured on it. There were two fat joints going around, the band members smoking them with enthusiasm, the two management types trying everything in their power to stop them.

"This really isn't proper," cried Janice, who had never smoked marijuana in her life (although she was suddenly starting to feel a little dizzy and thirsty). "We're on our way to the Grammy party! One of the most prestigious, exclusive black tie events in Hollywood!"

"We're dressed in black ties, aren't we?" asked Jake, who took the remainder of the first joint from Coop and inserted it into a sterling silver roach clip. He put it to his lips, inhaled deeply, and then deliberately blew the majority of the smoke out into the confined space after holding it in less than five seconds.

"We're all going to be reeking of this stuff," said Crow. "They're going to think I was smoking it too."

"You say that like anyone gives a monkey's cock who you are," said Matt.

"I'm the producer of Crossing The Line," Crow said angrily. Obviously this was a sore spot with him. "I'm just as much nominated for Record of the Year as you guys are."

"Yeah," said Matt. "You are. And that just goes to show how much of a fuckin' farce this whole Grammy Award concept is."

Janice and Crow both gasped as if his words constituted a blasphemy, which, to them, it did.

"A farce?" Janice said. "How can you say such a thing? The Grammy Award is the most coveted, most sacred of all musical honors!"

"It's nothing but a bunch of shit," Matt insisted. "It's a big promotional gambit put on, run, and voted on by you record industry assholes. The artists who make the songs have no input into it at all, nor do the fans who buy the music."

"Matt speaks truly," said Bill, who was sipping from his second cognac and 7-up (with two cherries and an olive). "If the award nomination and selection process was a true reflection of the popularity of an artist's music with the American public, Thrill, the album, would have been nominated for Album of the Year. After all, it was the third best selling LP of 1984, wasn't it?"

"You would think you would be grateful for being nominated for anything at all," Janice admonished. "Crossing The Line is up for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. Those are the top awards! The top!"

"And there's no way in hell we're going to win them," Jake said. "You do know that, don't you?"

"I'll admit that the ballots will probably favor either Tina Turner or La Diferencia," she said. "But Jake stands a good chance of taking the Best Rock Vocal Performance. A very good chance."

"Over Bruce Springsteen?" Jake asked. "Mr. Patriotism himself? I don't think so."

"All this shit has already been decided anyway," said Matt. "The fuckin' ceremony is still a week away and you people have already picked which ass-sucking bands you're going to promote the next cycle, haven't you?"

"You guys are so frustrating!" Crow suddenly yelled. "Why are you so negative about everything that has anything to do with our industry? Why do you think everything is a conspiracy?"

"The track record of your industry merits the suspicion that everything is a conspiracy," said Bill.

"Yeah," agreed Coop righteously. "It's the way the fuckin' world works, man!"

"Goddamn right," said Darren, who had just shot up with a healthy dose of heroin thirty minutes before and had no idea what anyone was even talking about.

"That is just ridiculous," said Crow. "We stand just as good a chance as Tina Turner or those improbably successful Mexicans of taking that award."

"They're Venezuelan," said Bill.

"A beaner is a beaner!" Crow yelled. "I don't even know why they were nominated! They're not an American band. Why are they in an American awards show?"

"Because an American record label recorded their album," said Jake. "Jesus, don't you even know how your own business works?"

"And what's up with this 'we' shit?" asked Matt. "Why the fuck are you included in the nomination for Record of the Year with us? What the hell did you do?"

"I produced the record!" Crow cried.

"You mean you threatened and tried to intimidate us throughout the entire process," said Jake. "Is that what producing is? And if you'll recall, you originally rejected that song in favor of some of that crap your ass-kissing songwriters came up with."

"Irregardless," said Crow. "I am producer of the record and just as entitled to the award as you are, maybe even more so."

"Regardless," Bill said.

"What?" asked Crow.

"Irregardless isn't a word. The way you use it means the same thing as 'regardless'. I hope you didn't insert that into your acceptance speech."

"Irregardless is too a word!" Crow said. "I hope you don't think you can..."

"There's the ballroom," Janice interrupted. "We're almost there."

"Shit," said Matt. "We'd better finish these roaches quick."

"Right," said Jake.

He and Matt each took a final hit and then blew out the smoke, adding a fresh layer of haze to the compartment. They then removed the smoldering remains of the roaches from the clips and popped them into their mouths, swallowing them.

"That's disgusting!" said Janice.

"Hey," said Matt, "there's no sense wasting even a fragment of good bud. Remember that and you'll go far in life."

The limo slid into the circular entryway to the Hollywood Grand Ballroom where the pre-Grammy party for 1985 was being held. This was an invitation-only event and, since the majority of the nominees were to be in attendance, a large contingent of the press corps was camped out in front to film the arriving stars. As the limo came to a stop more than a hundred video and still cameras were aimed at it. Camera lights blared brightly, lighting them up like they were on stage. Reporters doing live shots spoke into their microphones, speculating on who this latest arrival might be.

"Now remember," said Janice. "There will be reporters and camerapersons inside as well as out here. This is a very high profile event. No shenanigans like you pulled at the movie premier."

"Of course not," Jake promised.

"We've matured since then," said Matt.

The driver opened the back door of the limo and a large cloud of smoke, plainly visible in the light, went billowing out. Matt was the first person to exit the vehicle. He gave a nod to the gathered media and then turned to head up the red carpet towards the entrance. As he took his first step he belched and a large plume of marijuana smoke, formed in his stomach after he'd swallowed the still burning roach, ejected forcibly from his mouth.

"Oops," he said, grinning. "Excuse me."

Janice buried her head in her hands and wondered just how bad this one was going to be.

John Denver, who would be the host of this year's Grammy Awards, was also the host of the pre-Grammy party. He stood in the reception area of the main ballroom, dressed in a perfectly fitted tuxedo, his signature wire-rim glasses perched upon his face. A gaggle of reporters and cameramen flanked him. The band was led directly to him for the formal introduction and welcome. They all shook his hand as he greeted them by name. He wrinkled his nose a little as he caught a good whiff of the odor they were exuding.

"It smells like you boys have been engaging in a little Rocky Mountain high of your own this evening," he said lightly.

"Fuckin' A," said Matt. "Some good shit too. You wanna burn one with us?"

"Hell yeah!" said Coop. "That'd be a trip, wouldn't it? Gettin' stoned with John Denver?"

"Uh... some other time, perhaps," Denver said. "I've heard a few selections from your album. I'm not much of a fan of hard rock music but I must say, Jake, you play an impressive acoustic guitar."

"Thanks," Jake said. "You're not too bad at it yourself. My mom and dad listen to your music all the time."

"I see," he said slowly. "Well, welcome to..."

"Hey," said Coop. "Tell us some stories from Vietnam, dude."

"Vietnam?" Denver said.

"Yeah, when you used to be a sniper. Who would've thought that someone as candy-ass as you used to pick off gooks back in the jungle."

"Well, actually..." started Denver.

"You and Mr. Rogers used to be in the same squad, didn't you?" asked Darren. "Which one of you had more kills?"

"You fuckin' idiots," said Matt. "He wasn't really a sniper in Vietnam. That's just one of those urban legend things." He looked at Denver. "Uh... isn't it?"

"I was never a sniper in Vietnam," Denver assured them.

"No shit?" asked Coop, disappointed.

"No shit," Denver said.

"What about Mr. Rogers though?" asked Darren. "He was a sniper wasn't he?"

Denver thought this over for a second and then nodded. "Yes," he said. "Mr. Rogers was one of the best."

"Uh... why don't we mingle for a bit?" asked Janice, who was blushing bright red. "Thank you, Mr. Denver. It was lovely meeting you." With that, she whisked her musicians away and they quickly found the nearest bar.

For the next two hours, they mingled, sometimes together, sometimes separately. Janice tried to keep track of them — and thus keep them in line — but this task was made difficult by a sudden but insistent interest she developed in the appetizer table. She spent her first twenty minutes piling plateful after plateful of salami, cheese, crackers, and stuffed mushrooms onto the china and devouring them.

Jake talked to several musicians and other celebrities who had either been nominated for Grammy awards or were slated to be guests at the ceremony show. Weird Al Yankovich — who struck Jake as decidedly un-weird in person — discussed politics with him for almost twenty minutes. He held a five-minute conversation with Lionel Richie on the subject of the dress Sheila E. was wearing. He found himself next to B.B. King at one point and they talked for more than half an hour about the Les Paul guitar and the best means of reproducing sound through an amplifier with it.

After B.B excused himself and headed off towards the men's room, Jake lit a cigarette and headed for the bar to get himself another drink. Halfway across the room he was intercepted by a tall, heavily made-up brunette. He recognized her as Audrey Williams, a reporter for the Hollywood Reporter news show. Her cameraman and sound technician trailed behind her, shooting and recording.

"Jake? How are you doing?" she asked, stepping neatly in front of him and blocking his path.

"Just fine," he said, trying to step around her. She didn't allow it. She simply moved to keep her body in front of him.

"How about a brief word about the upcoming awards?" she asked.

He suppressed a sigh. He really hated dealing with reporters of any kind and these gossip show reporters were the worst. "Sure," he said. "What do you want to know?"

"There are many people who say that an act such as yours — you know, with the way you rampantly advocate immoral sexuality and drug use — should be banned from participation in the awards. What do you think about that?"

He shrugged. "I think some people worry too much about stuff like that. Obviously two million people liked our album enough to buy it."

"So you think you stand a chance to walk away with one of the coveted gramophones on February 26?" she asked. "You've been nominated for three but you've got some pretty stiff competition."

"I don't know," he said. "You tell me. What do you think our chances are?"

This threw her off stride. She was not used to people asking her questions.

"Well, if there's nothing else," Jake said when she failed to answer him, "the call of the spirits is beckoning to me."

"The call of the spirits?" she said, her brow wrinkling in confusion.

"The bar," he clarified, holding up his empty glass to her.

"Oh... I get it," she said and then gave a dutiful giggle. "Actually, there is one more thing."

Of course there was, Jake thought. There's always one more thing with these people. "And what might that be?"

"It's about the lawsuit that National Records filed against you and your band," she said.

Jake sighed, completely unsurprised. The plan that the dispute between Intemperance and their record label would remain secret had turned out to be quite naïve. As soon as it was realized that the band had not entered the recording studio on the date that National publicists said they were going to, the reporters began flocking around, demanding to know why. The pat answer — that the band was unhappy with a few of their songs and we're taking the time to rework them — satisfied the enquirers for less than a week. At that point an investigative reporter for the American Watcher tabloid got wind of the lawsuit somehow (probably from a court clerk, Pauline speculated, they were notorious for blabbing information to reporters for money). Once alerted to the possibility that National was suing its most profitable band it took the reporter less than a day to dig up the actual filing paperwork which was, of course, a matter of public record. They broke the story the first week of February with a copy of the lawsuit reproduced within their pages. Fortunately they had been unable to get their hands on the actual transcript of the hearings that had taken place since both parties had agreed to keep them sealed.

As soon as it became public knowledge that a lawsuit had been filed, the reporters and paparazzi began hounding the band almost as badly as they'd done during the peak of the Jake and Mindy relationship. National cried foul before negotiations for the new contract could even get properly started. Now that the word was out about the dispute, they said, there was no point in negotiating anything since one of the key terms of the agreement had been violated. Frowley told Pauline they were back to square one — either the band honor their existing contract immediately or they would go forth and sue the band for breach of contract. Pauline got them back to the table by pointing out that the media discovering the lawsuit was not the fault of either her or the band, that just because they knew there was a lawsuit didn't mean they knew the band and the label were renegotiating, and, most important, that if they did go back to square one there was still the significant possibility of a future California Supreme Court ruling in the band's favor. This argument didn't sway Frowley, who had been against renegotiation from the start and still was, but it did sway Casting, the National Records CEO who feared such a precedent-setting Supreme Court ruling the same way medieval Europeans used to fear the black plague. A press conference, attended by Jake, Matt, and Pauline as well as himself, was held, and it was announced that, yes, there were some disagreements about new material that would be recorded for the next Intemperance album, and yes, these disagreements had led to the filing of a lawsuit when the band did not present enough acceptable material by their contractual deadline, but that both parties were working hard to settle these disagreements so the lawsuit could be dropped and the band could get back into the studio.

"That should hold them for a little while," Casting said after the press conference. "But there had better not be any leaks about the negotiations we're having. If they get confirmation we're doing that, the whole deal is off and we'll take our chances with Rosie and The Supremes."

And so far, no word had leaked. The gossip press enquired almost daily as to what exactly was going on between the warring factions but they were given nothing but vague answers and reassurances that reconciliation was "progressing". There were rumors of a contract renegotiation — that was pretty much inevitable under the circumstances — but both parties emphatically denied this when they were asked. Even Coop and Darren, both potential weak links in the secrecy agreement, managed to keep this to themselves, mostly because both were back on the heroin and spent most of their time shut up in one of their condos instead of going out to get drunk in the clubs where a wily reporter posing as a groupie might be able to loosen their lips.

Jake himself hardly thought of it as a lie when he denied that a contract renegotiation was in the works because to him it seemed the entire thing was a farce anyway, a huge exercise in frustration that would probably end up leading nowhere. Twice a week Pauline, himself, Matt, and Bill would meet with Casting, Doolittle, Crow, and Frowley for eight hours and toss terms of an agreement back and forth. This had been going on for almost a month now and so far the two parties had not agreed to a single thing. Neither side had even progressed to bargaining in good faith yet. Pauline would demand that the band's royalty rate be increased from ten percent to thirty percent. National would call this ridiculous and offer to increase the rate to eleven percent. Pauline would demand the band's royalties be based on full retail album price plus two dollars. National would say that since they were willing to increase the royalty rate to eleven percent the band should accept the wholesale album price as the base. National would demand that any new contract signed be extended to eight more contract periods and Pauline would say that they would only accept a single album and tour contract only. They would argue and bicker about these points all day long and get nowhere at all and at the next meeting they would do more of the same.

"Why?" Jake had asked Pauline after the last session of negative progress only two days before. "Why are both of you making such ridiculous offers? You know they're not going to accept thirty percent royalties. They know we're not going to accept wholesale album rate. So why the hell are either one of you even making those offers? We've done nothing but waste everyone's time."

"It's the way the game is played, Jake," Pauline told him, her eyes with large bags beneath them, her skin color unnaturally pale from the constant fatigue she was forcing upon herself. "Have patience. Eventually we'll get around to tossing some real figures onto the table. That's when the fun really begins."

"How long?" Jake asked. "Jesus, look at what you're doing to yourself. You never get any sleep, you're flying back and forth twice a week to go to these worthless meetings, and you're probably pissing your bosses off something awful."

"That ain't no shit," she said. "They are definitely not happy with me lately."

"Pauline, you're going to get fired," he said. "I don't want that on my conscience. I appreciate everything you're doing for us but you're destroying your career."

"I'm not doing it entirely out of the kindness of my heart, little brother," she said. "Did you forget that? If this thing works out the way I'm hoping, I won't need that career anymore anyway."

"But you're burning your bridge behind you," he told her.

"Sometimes that's the only thing you can do," she said. "Don't worry about me or my job. We started this thing and we'll see it through, one way or another."

And off she'd flown, to go put in another seventy hours in her corporate law office and do another twenty or so of research on her own on the subject of entertainment contract law.

"I have nothing new to add about the lawsuit filed against us," Jake told Audrey Williams now, his voice a little testier than it usually was when dealing with these types. "We're working to resolve the issue and making progress on it."

"So there will be another Intemperance album this year?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "There will."

"That's good to know," she said and then abruptly changed gears. "Have you seen Handle With Caution yet?"

She was the first reporter to ask him this question. Handle With Caution was the critically acclaimed film, just released the previous week, starring Mindy Snow as an abused wife trying to break free of the relationship. Jake had actually been hoping that the media, with its attention span similar to that of your average houseplant, might have actually forgotten that he used to date Mindy Snow. No such luck apparently.

"No," he said. "I've been rather busy lately and I haven't had a chance to take in any movies."

"Were you hurt that you weren't invited to the premier?" she asked. "After all, you and the star of the film used to be in an intimate relationship and Mindy herself has said that her experience with you helped her prepare for the role. Don't you think you were owed an invitation?"

"No, I wasn't hurt at all," Jake said. "Have you seen the movie?"

Again, asking her a question served to throw her off stride. "Uh... well... no, actually, I haven't." She recovered quicker this time. "What about the news that Mindy and John Carlisle are now engaged? Any comments on that?"

"None at all," he said. "I wish them nothing but the best. Now, if you'll excuse me, the bar is calling."

Before she could formulate another annoying, intrusive question, he quickly sidestepped around her and made his escape. He did not make it to the bar, however. Before he could get there, Darren waved him over to a corner of the room where he and Coop were talking to two other musicians. Jake went over to them.

"Dude," Darren said, "you remember Mike and Charlie, don't you?"

"Of course," Jake said, shaking their hands. Mike Landry and Charlie Meyer were the lead singer and bass player for Birmingham, the southern rock group who had opened for them on the The Thrill Of Doing Business tour. "How you guys doing?"

"Not bad," said Mike, who was sipping out of what appeared to be mineral water.

"Hangin' in here," said Charlie.

"Congratulations on your nomination," Jake said. Birmingham had been nominated for the Best New Artist award. The fact that their album had barely gone gold was, to Jake, further proof of the heavy-handed involvement of the record companies in the whole Grammy process. True, their single, Texas Hold-em, had done pretty well, parking itself at number one for a single week and selling well over a million copies but it had done nowhere near as well as the other nominees in the bunch. National had simply pulled the strings they had to pull to get one of their acts into the show, the same thing they had done with Intemperance.

"Thanks," said Charlie, who was smoking a cigarette in an inexpert manner and sipping from a fruity looking drink. "I really hope we win it."

"Me too," said Mike. "You think we have a chance?"

Jake knew they didn't have a chance in hell of taking that Grammy. "Well," he said, "the competition is pretty stiff for that award. You got Cyndi Lauper, Sheila E., The Judds, even that MTV weirdo Corey Hart, all going up against you for it. They all sold quite a few albums." A lot more than you did, he did not add.

The dejection in their faces was a little more than he'd expected.

"What's the big deal?" he asked. "It's just a stupid award that doesn't really mean anything. At least that's my take on all of this."

"They have to win the award if they wanna do another album," Darren said.

"How's that?" asked Jake.

"National said we didn't sell enough of our first album," Charlie explained. "They said they made a small profit from us but they don't anticipate a second album doing the same unless we pull in one of the Grammy awards."

"They're not going to utilize the second contract period?" Jake asked. That was, actually, well within their rights assuming Birmingham had signed the same contract Intemperance had.

"Not unless we take a Grammy," Mike said.

"And if we don't," said Charlie, "and they don't pick us up for another album, we won't be able to go sign with another record company. In fact, they told us we won't be able to work as musicians at all until the contract we have is expired."

"That six years, man," Mike said. "Six fuckin' years. Is that shit legal?"

"Unfortunately, at this point in time, it is," said Jake. "These record contracts are like indentured servitude, aren't they?"

"Yeah," Charlie said, taking a sip. "That's what we're finding out."

"You oughtta do what we're doing," Darren suddenly blurted.

"What do you mean?" asked Charlie.

"We threatened those fuckers with..." He got no further because Jake's elbow drove into his side nearly hard enough to break a rib. "Damn, Jake!" he yelled. "What the fuck did you do that for?"

Jake pulled him to the side, out of earshot of the two Birmingham musicians. "You need to keep your mouth shut about what is going on between us and National," he whispered to him. "You can't tell anyone anything. I thought you understood that."

"Aww, man," Darren scoffed. "That just means reporters and shit, doesn't it? Mike and Charlie are cool. They're brother band members, man! They're getting fucked just like we are."

"It means everyone," Jake said. "It doesn't matter if they're cool or not. You can't even tell your mom about it."

"That's fucked up," Darren said, shaking his head at the injustice of it all.

"Besides," Jake said, "it wouldn't do them any good anyway. They barely made gold. We're double and triple platinum, you know what I mean? It's only because we're so fuckin' good that we're able to pull this off."

This argument seemed to carry more weight with Darren. "Ohhhh," he said. "I guess that makes sense. You gotta be important to The Man before The Man will start taking you seriously. That's what Coop always said."

"Coop is indeed a wise man," Jake said. "Now keep your mouth shut about it or you'll risk ruining everything. You dig?"

"I dig," Darren said. "But you didn't have to hit me so hard. That shit hurt, man."

"Sorry," Jake said, finishing the process of mollifying him.

They stepped back over to Charlie and Mike, both of whom were giving them strange looks.

"Excuse us," Jake said. "A little band talk, you know?"

"No problem," Mike said.

"What was that you were saying, Darren?" Charlie asked. "About what you threatened them with?"

"It's nothing," Darren said. "Forget I said anything."

"But..."

"It's nothing," Jake said. "Nothing at all."

"Yeah," Darren said. "And I gotta go to the bathroom again. You coming, Coop?"

"Oh... yeah," said Coop. "Good idea. I really gotta go."

They wandered off, undoubtedly to shoot another load of China White into their veins in one of the stalls.

"You guys are renegotiating your contract, aren't you?" asked Charlie.

"No," Jake said. "Not at all. You should know that National would never do that."

Charlie didn't look like he believed him but he said nothing further. Jake wished them the best of luck and then excused himself. He headed for the bar again, this time arriving safely and un-molested.

"Another triple rum and coke?" the bartender asked, his voice more than a little condescending. He, like most of the serving staff, was a frustrated actor (although some were frustrated musicians). He also seemed to think he had been appointed etiquette guardian and his disapproval at the members of Intemperance reeking of marijuana and ordering jumbo-sized drinks in water glasses was quite plain with every word he spoke, every piece of body language he communicated.

Jake didn't really care whether the man approved of him or not. "You know it," he said. "It's a night for celebration, isn't it?"

"Fuckin' A it is," said a voice behind him. It was Matt, who had just appeared out of the crowd for a drink of his own. "Hey, loser-boy," he told the bartender. "Fire me up with another quadruple Chivas and coke, will ya? And not so much fuckin' ice this time."

"Do you have any idea," the bartender asked with a glare, "just how expensive this Chivas you're swilling down is?"

"Do you have any idea," Matt returned, "just how much I'm going to kick your snooty ass if that drink isn't sitting before me in the next forty-five seconds?"

"Are you threatening me?" the bartender demanded.

"Yes," Jake said mildly, "he is. And he will follow through with that threat too."

The bartender looked in Jake's eyes, spared a quick glance at Matt, and then apparently decided that the two of them were telling the truth. He mumbled something under his breath and took down two water glasses. He filled them with ice, poured four shots of Chivas into one, three shots of Jamaican rum into the other, and then topped both off with coke from his tap. He pushed the drinks at the two musicians and then headed off to the other end of the bar to serve one of the members of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.

"Prick," Matt said, sipping from his drink. "I oughtta kick his ass anyway just for the sheer enjoyment of it."

"He does seem to be a man who could use a good ass-kicking," Jake agreed.

"Imagine that shit, a fuckin' waiter looking down his snooty nose at us." He shook his head in disgust. "Oh well. Fuck it." He brightened. "Hey, you know who I was just talking to?"

"Who?" Jake asked.

"Sammy Hagar. Now there's a dude that knows how to party. We were talking for almost half an hour."

"Is he cool?" Jake asked. He had found, since becoming famous and meeting other famous people, that many celebrities were not cool, that they were, in fact, arrogant, stuck-up assholes.

"Way cool," Matt assured him. "He's into fishing, just like I am. He was telling me about this place he found down in Mexico on the Baja peninsula. It's called Cabo San Lucas."

"Cabo San Lucas? Never heard of it."

"Me either," Matt said. "He said it's a small little village right on the ocean where the Pacific and the Sea of Cortez come together. The weather is nice and warm in the winter and they have the best sport fishing he's ever found. Marlin the size of fuckin' Volkswagons. Once this contract shit is all settled and we start pulling in some legal tender I'm gonna fly down and check it out. Shit, if it's as good as he says maybe I'll buy myself a house down there."

"Sounds like your kind of place," Jake said.

A woman walked up and stood at the bar next to them. Jake first saw her with his peripheral vision and even with only that as input he could tell she was attractive. He turned to look more fully at her and recognized her as Celia Valdez, lead singer and acoustic guitarist for La Diferencia, the band who's singles had aced them out of two number one spots over the last year and who's album had bumped The Thrill Of Doing Business from the top of the album chart.

She was bigger than he expected, not fat or out of proportion in any way, but definitely not petite. She stood nearly six feet tall, only a few inches shorter than Jake himself, and, unlike many female celebrities, who tended to resemble anorexia victims in real life, she had an appetizing amount of meat on her bones. She was dressed in a conservative royal blue gown, her brunette hair cascading alluringly over her shoulders, only the very top portion of her ample cleavage revealed. Modest diamond earrings were in her lobes and an expensive looking diamond bracelet adorned her left wrist. Jake caught a scent of vanilla wafting off of her, noticeable mostly because it was not Chanel #5 or some other ritzy scent favored by the rich and famous.

The bartender saw her standing there and practically fell all over himself rushing to serve her. "Yes, Ms. Valdez?" he said graciously. "What can I get for you?"

"A glass of chardonnay," she said, her accent considerably thicker than it was on her album. "Do you have Snoqualmie Vineyards?"

"Of course," he said. "Let me go open a bottle for you."

"Thank you," she said. He disappeared, nearly running towards the back room. She turned and looked at Jake and Matt. A smile appeared on her face. "Hi," she said, speaking to both of them. "You're Jake Kingsley and Matt Tisdale, aren't you?"

"And you're the current, though undoubtedly short-lived queen of feel-good pop, aren't you?" asked Matt, his voice sounding very much like that of the bartender when he'd been talking to Jake.

The smile disappeared from her face, a slight frown replacing it. "I suppose you could call me that," she said. "Although it would be rather rude of you to do so, don't you think?"

Matt shrugged, his eyes fixed on her. "Shouldn't you be out dancing?" he asked. "Since you love it so much. Oh... that's right, you didn't write that song, did you? Some Aristocrat Records hacker pumped it out for you."

Her frown deepened, her eyes flashing anger, but just for a brief second. "You and your band compose your own music, don't you, Mr. Tisdale?" she asked.

"Damn right," he said. "We're real musicians."

"As I recall," she said, "Crossing The Line and Rules Of The Road were both outsold and out-charted by our songs I Love To Dance and Young Love. Our album also sold a quarter million more copies than yours. So if our songs were composed by hackers, what does that make you and your band?"

Matt was actually rendered speechless. He stumbled and stammered and his face turned bright red but he was unable to formulate a single word. Finally he took a deep breath and composed himself. "I'll see you later, Jake," he said. "Something stinks around here." With that, he walked away, taking his drink with him and quickly becoming lost in the crowd.

"Wow," Jake said once he was gone. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone pull his chain like that before, not even when those cops in Texarkana gave him the phone book treatment."

"The phone book treatment?" Celia asked.

"Never mind," Jake said. He held out his hand to her. "I'm pleased to meet you, Celia, even if my bandmate isn't."

She shook with him. Her hand was larger than the average female's but no less soft, except for her fingertips, which were covered with the hard calluses indicative of a long time guitar player.

"Thank you," she said. "It would seem that your guitar player does not have much respect for a band that performs songs written by others?"

"Well, Matt's kind of a musical purist. He believes you're not truly a musician unless you're composing your own material."

"I see," she said, her eyes flitting downward and looking at the bar. "And do you feel the same?"

"Perhaps not as deeply as Matt feels," he replied. "But yes, I do tend to be prejudiced in favor of the classic singer/songwriter combination."

"So you don't care for our music too much, I assume?"

"It's catchy," he said. "I actually found myself singing along with I Love To Dance a few times."

"Really?"

"Really," he confirmed. "There are some impressive elements to the composition."

"Such as?"

He looked at her. Her brown eyes were locked once again onto his face, inquisitive, intelligent. "Your voice is beautiful," he told her.

"Thank you," she said. "I think I have a fairly good command of it."

"That's an understatement," she said. "You're naturally talented with your singing and its evident by listening to you on your songs that you've had considerable training as well."

She smiled again. "I'm flattered," she said. "And yes, I have had considerable training. I started out singing in the church choir in Barquisimeto when I was only eleven years old."

"Bar-what?" Jake asked.

"Barquisimeto," she said, pronouncing it slowly and phonetically as 'Bar-keys-a-meto'. "It's the city I grew up in. It's the capital of the Venezuelan state of Lara, a farming city mostly. My family is very active in the church and my mother put me in the choir at an early age. That was where I first learned to use my voice effectively. Since then I've had some professional lessons."

"They paid off," he told her. "Your singing voice is well-honed. It reminds me of Karen Carpenter with an accent."

"You like Karen Carpenter?" she asked, surprised.

"Well, The Carpenters music itself is kind of saccharin don't you think?"

"Perhaps," she agreed.

"But you don't have to like them to appreciate that Karen Carpenter's voice was exquisite, almost perfection in fact."

"And you're comparing me to her?" she asked. "That sounds like a pickup line."

He smiled. "I can't say that I'm not trying to pick up on you, because you yourself are every bit as beautiful as your voice, and I can't say that I haven't told the occasional fib before in the cause of picking someone up."

"No?"

"No," he said. "The most common one I hit them with is that I'm rich. It's an easy one to pull off when you're a famous musician, isn't it? However, since you are undoubtedly operating under a standard industry first-time contract like I am, I'm sure you already know I'm not really rich, don't you? In fact, I'm in considerable debt at the moment."

She smiled again. "Lord, don't I know it."

"But anyway, one thing I do not lie about, that I would never lie about, even to further my own sexual gratification, is someone's musical ability. I am sincere in my assessment of your voice. It is absolutely beautiful, a near-perfect contralto that Karen Carpenter herself would have been envious of."

This time she actually beamed at him. "You are a smooth talker indeed," she said.

"Thank you. Am I having an effect?"

"A minor one," she admitted. "If I didn't already have a boyfriend, and if you didn't work for a competing record company, and if I was the least bit inclined to date bad boys with a reputation for hosting orgies and drug parties, I might have agreed to go out with you."

"Did I mention your guitar playing is first rate too?"

She laughed. "No, but I'll forgo questioning your sincerity on that one and just thank you."

"You're welcome," he said, sipping from his drink. "And don't worry. I know when I've been shot down."

"Do you?" she asked. "That is certainly a rarity among men, especially men who happen to be famous musician used to having women cater to their every whim."

"I must admit, I don't get shot down often so the experience is probably good for my humility factor. I do appreciate your use of force doctrine in performing the shoot down."

"My use of force doctrine?"

"You went with the guns instead of the nuclear-tipped missiles," he said. "My ego appreciates that."

"Your ego is welcome as well. And while we're talking about your ego, can I stroke it just a bit?"

"Stroke away," he said, grinning semi-lasciviously.

She shook her head in amusement. "I'm not much of a hard-rock fan," she said, "but I find your voice and your guitar playing to be quite impressive as well. You're also quite the lyricist. I've only listened to the songs that have been in competition with ours, but I do like them. You should do more ballads and less of the heavy stuff."

"Our fans like the heavy stuff," he said. "We like it too. Our inclusion in this little production of the Grammy Awards is almost accidental."

"It seems if you made it more purposeful you might stand a better chance of getting the nominations."

"That would be selling out," he said. "We try to make our music from the heart, not from the pocketbook."

She nodded respectfully at this. "Well then, I guess that puts me in my place, doesn't it?"

"Gently, I hope," he said. "We take our music very seriously and I think that's why we're so popular. It's an effort of love that pays off quite handsomely in the end."

"Well put," she said.

The bartender returned, making a big production out of setting Celia's glass of wine before her. "My apologies for taking so long, Ms. Valdez," he said. "I had to go to the lower store room to find one of the chilled bottles of Snoqualmie Vineyards. It's an eighty-four, unfortunately, not quite as good as the eighty-three. Is that all right?"

"I think I can choke it down," she said. "Thank you for getting it for me." She dropped a dollar bill into his tip jar.

"Thank you, Ms. Valdez," he said. He then shot a distasteful look in Jake's direction. "I do hope you didn't find the company you were forced to keep in my absence to be too unpleasant?"

Celia looked from Jake to the bartender for a moment and then smiled sweetly. She plucked her dollar bill back out of the jar. "I found it much more pleasant than when you were here," she said. "Mr. Kingsley was merely trying to pick me up. He's not a brown-nosing snob like you are."

The pretentious little smile on the bartender's face withered and died. "Well!" he said huffily. "I can see how grateful some people are when you go out of your way for them!" He stormed off, going as far to the other side of the bar as possible.

"Fuckin' prick," Celia said.

Jake laughed. "I can see your impressive command of English includes some of our more popular slang terms as well."

She blushed, embarrassed. "The English comes from the Venezuelan public school system," she said. "It's a requirement for the college prep classes. The profanity... well... that's from hanging out with the American roadies out on tour. That Latin American temper we're so famous for makes it slip out on occasion."

"I appreciate you letting it slip out on my behalf. I had a witty and equally profane retort of my own all ready to go, of course, but you beat me to the punch."

"Don't tell my mother I said that," she said. "She'd wash my mouth out with soap. So would Bobby for that matter."

"Your manager?" Jake asked.

She nodded. "And the boyfriend I mentioned earlier. He really hates it when I cuss in public. It spoils the wholesome I Love To Dance image."

"Yes," said Jake, "our manager is the same, except he hates it when we don't cuss in public."

"So you're not really the sex-maniac, drug addicted bad boy you're supposed to be?"

"Not at all," he said. "I'm as pure as the driven snow. In my spare time I like to study the scriptures and write get well cards to crippled children."

"Of course," she said with a smile. "And that story about you and cocaine-filled butt crack?"

"All to enhance the image," Jake said. "My pastor was quite shocked by it."

She laughed again, her brown eyes sparkling. "You're funny," she said.

"And cute?"

"Mildly," she said. "Kind of like an alpaca just after shearing."

This line impressed Jake. "Is that a Venezuelan insult?" he asked.

"Peruvian actually, but since it seemed to fit the situation, I borrowed it."

"You're funny too," he said.

"And cute?" she enquired, dimples forming on her face.

"Almost sickeningly cute," he allowed.

She smiled and took a sip of her wine. Jake took a sip of his rum and coke. Both realized that the other had demonstrated a little more character than had been expected, that the encounter between them was a little more pleasant than would have been thought. A silence, not quite uncomfortable but not quite comfortable either, developed.

"So seriously," she said, finally breaking it. "Did you really do it?"

"Did I really do what?"

"Snort coke out of a girl's butt crack?"

Jake had never answered this question truthfully to any other woman before except Pauline. Not even Mindy, who he had once thought he was in love with, not even his own mother, who he really was in love with, had ever gotten an admission from him on the butt-crack issue. But, for some reason, he found himself coming clean to Celia. "Yeah," he said. "I did. Guilty as charged."

"I see," she said. "That's an interesting recreational pursuit. You managed to combine the deviant sexual aspect of your image with the rampant drug use aspect with one single act. You are to be congratulated I suppose."

Jake shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"I suppose I can see the appeal of something like that to the drunken male psyche. I assume you were drunk at the time?"

"Plastered," he said. "It's kind of what we do after our shows."

"To enhance your image, right?"

"Of course," he said. "You don't think we actually enjoy doing all that, do you?"

"No," she said, laughing, "I would never think something like that."

"What do you do after your shows?" Jake asked her. "Enlighten me on the La Diferencia post-show party."

"We have a sensible dinner, share a bottle of chilled chardonnay, say our evening prayers to the Virgin Mary, and then go to bed by ten-thirty."

"Really?" he asked. She had said that with the air of utmost sincerity.

She held her serious expression for maybe six seconds before laughter came bursting out of her mouth. "No," she said. "Not really."

Jake laughed with her, finding himself enjoying it. "So what do you do then?" he asked. "Don't tell me they have a collection of male groupies meet you in the shower?"

She didn't get a chance to answer. A tall, neatly groomed man suddenly appeared beside her. He was smiling — a phony, manager type of smile if Jake had ever seen one — but his eyes were looking at Jake with unmasked suspicion and distaste.

"Hey, Bobby," Celia said cordially. "Do you know Jake Kingsley from Intemperance?"

"I've never had the pleasure," he said. "How are you doing, Jake? I'm Bobby Macintyre."

"Nice to meet you, Bobby," Jake said, holding out his right hand for a shake.

They shook. Bobby seemed to feel that the harder he squeezed a person's hand, the more respect he would garner. He was going for broke in the respect department.

"Whoa there, Bobby," Jake said, twisting his hand and removing it from the grip. "I kind of need that hand to hold a guitar pick with on occasion."

"Sorry," Bobby said, sounding anything but. He turned to Celia. "Why don't we do some more mingling? The press is starting to notice your extended discussion with Jake here. It won't be long until they start speculating about it."

"Bobby!" Celia said, a bit of that anger flashing in her eyes.

"I'm sure Jake understands the need to protect one's image," Bobby said. "Don't you, Jake?"

"Oh you bet," Jake said. "We can't have them thinking that the queen of pop and the king of raunch were having a discussion."

"You see?" Bobby asked her. "Even Jake agrees. I saw Tina Turner heading to the bathroom a minute ago. Let's get positioned so we can talk to her when she comes back out."

"We're going to stake out a bathroom?" she asked.

"I wouldn't exactly put it that way," he said.

"How would you put it?" she replied.

He shook his head, a little temper flaring in his own eyes now. "Just follow me," he told her. "And leave that wine there. How many times have I told you that you shouldn't be seen drinking alcohol in public?"

She went with him but didn't leave the wine. As they walked off she stopped and turned to Jake once more. "Nice talking to you, Jake," she said. "Good luck next week."

"The same to you," he said.

Bobby nearly jerked her away, leading her into the crowd. Jake watched her go until she was out of sight. The scent of her vanilla perfume seemed to remain behind.