Different Circles

Chapter 12: Into the Black

Santa Clarita, California

April 12, 1993

As a limited liability company, KVA Records was not required by law to have a governing board in order to conduct business. Under the terms of the operating agreement that had been drawn up back in the beginning, Celia, Jake, Bill, and Pauline were the official members of the company and each had equal say in the decisions that were made and would share equally in any profit that was enjoyed. They were not a board, as much as Greg (who officially held no power in the company even though it had been his money that had funded Celia’s share) would have liked to have called them that.

“Can we at least call this a board meeting?” he pleaded as the four official members, two spouses who held a considerable interest in what occurred here, and Jill the accountant all sat down at the conference room table in the KVA Studios building.

“Sure, Greg,” Pauline said soothingly. “We can call it a board meeting if you’d like.”

“And use Roberts Rules of Order to conduct it?” he asked hopefully as well.

“Well...”

“No Roberts Rules of Order,” Jake vetoed, shaking his head. “We’re all friends here, right?”

“We are,” Pauline said.

“Then we should just be able to talk like friends, right?” Jake asked.

“You’re no fun,” Greg said with a pout.

Jake chuckled, knowing the actor was not serious. Greg was actually in a decent mood these days. His wife’s album was selling like wildfire and was currently one of the most popular albums in the nation. She was getting tons of airplay and was frequently in the media. All of this attention had brought Greg himself back into the public consciousness as something other than the star of the miserably failed The Northern Jungle flick. A few movie offers had actually trickled in over the past month—invitations to audition for up and coming projects that were not spoofs or slapstick. So far, none of those offers had interested him, but it was nice to be asked.

“All right,” said Jill once everyone was seated and settled in. “How about we get started here?” Jill herself looked pretty much the same as she’d always looked. As a full-blooded Japanese woman, she possessed those magical genes for longevity and agelessness that her race was known for. Though she was exactly the same age as Jake—they had been born on the same day and had always jokingly referred to each other as twins—she looked to be in her early twenties instead of almost thirty-three. Her black hair was cut short, falling well above her shoulders and she had a pair of thick glasses on her face. Her clothing was a conservative pantsuit and arm-covering blouse, both in dark colors. She had a leather briefcase open before her. Though she was not one of KVA’s members, they paid her family’s CPA firm in Heritage, California quite handsomely for Jill to be their full-time accountant and financial manager.

“Let’s do it,” Jake said.

“I’m ready,” agreed Celia, who sat next to Greg and across from Jake and the Nerdlys.

“She really should have a gavel to bang for this part,” Greg said.

“I have a little bit of a hangover today,” Pauline said sourly. “I’d just as soon there be no gaveling, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Prude,” Jake told her.

“I am not,” she countered.

“Then perhaps you’d care to describe the details of your most provocative sexual encounters with Obie?” said Nerdly. He too was in a good mood of late. They had finally finished Obie’s new album and he and Sharon had been released from their semi-indentured servitude.

“In your dreams, Bill,” Pauline told him.

“I believe you might be correct in that assumption, Pauline,” Sharon said. “It is my understanding that Bill has always had a sexual attraction to you and I sometimes suspect that when he awakens in the night with an erection and wants to engage in marital relations with me, that he has, in fact, been dreaming of you.”

“That is not true on every occasion that phenomenon occurs,” Nerdly told his wife.

“All right now...” Pauline started, her face blushing.

“Now wait a minute here,” Celia suddenly spoke up. “Are you saying that you’re okay with him fantasizing about Pauline, Sharon?”

“I am indeed saying that,” Sharon confirmed. “After all, I reap the benefits of it, do I not? Besides...” She looked at Pauline with a shy smile. “ ... Pauline is sexually appealing on several levels. While I’ve never really desired a sexual encounter with a female and do not consider myself bisexual, I do have this underlying attraction for Pauline specifically.”

“No kidding?” Greg asked, his interest perking up considerably.

“I would not lie about something like that,” Sharon said.

“You’re saying you’d get it on with Pauline if the opportunity presented itself?” Jake asked, fascinated by this side track as well.

“It would depend on the circumstances and the mood at the time, of course,” Sharon said. “And it couldn’t be just me and her together. Bill would have to be there as well.”

“I believe I would consent to such an encounter,” Nerdly said in all seriousness.

They both looked at Pauline, who was no longer blushing, but was smiling in amusement. “Well now,” she said. “Perhaps you should have spoken to me about this a year or so ago, before I hooked up with Obie. Now we’d have to include him in the fun as well.”

Bill was shaking his head. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t think I could perform adequately if there were another man in the room during the encounter.”

“Are you kidding me right now, Nerdly?” Jake put in. “Remember those nights out on the road before you and Sharon got together? You had no problem whipping out the old John Thomas and plowing through a two by two while we cheered you on.”

“What’s a two by two?” asked Greg, interest clearly in his eyes.

“It’s when you get two groupies and...” Jake started.

“All right then,” Jill suddenly cut in. She seemed quite flustered by the turn the discussion had taken. “How about we talk some business now?”

“Prude,” Pauline accused.

“Yes,” Jill agreed, “and quite comfortable with my prudidity, thank you very much. Shall we move onto good news now?”

“I think the fact that a man’s wife is willing to have a threesome with another chick qualifies as good news,” Jake said.

“Hear, hear,” Greg put in, raising his water glass in salute and earning himself a playful slap on the shoulder by his wife.

“Financial good news,” Jill said, glaring at Jake.

Jake gave a mock sigh. “If you must,” he said.

Jill shook her head a few times in consternation. It was certainly interesting working for this bunch, that was true. And profitable as well. “All right,” she told them. “In a nutshell, here it is. I’ve gone over the numbers from the first quarter of 1993 and KVA Records is officially operating well in the black now.”

A cheer erupted from the table as everyone basked in this announcement.

“We’ve recouped our investment then?” asked Greg.

“That and a considerable amount more,” Jill replied. “Let me pass out copies of the financial statement for you all.” With that, she pulled a sheaf of paperwork from her briefcase. They were three pages each and each set had a staple placed at a precise forty-five degree angle exactly one quarter inch from the upper left corner. “Just like back in school. Take one and pass them down.”

They obeyed, passing the pile around the table until everyone had a sheet before them. Pauline, Greg and Sharon all opened theirs and began to look at it. Jake, Nerdly and Celia just let them sit there.

“Okay then,” Jill said. “Let’s start with the basics here. As of the close of business hours in the Eastern Time Zone on March 31, 1993, the end of the first quarter, Celia’s album, The Struggle, has sold one million, four hundred and ninety-seven thousand, six hundred and twelve copies during said quarter. Jake’s album, Can’t Keep Me Down, has sold one million, one hundred and twelve thousand, sixty-seven copies during the quarter. As you can see in the table there on page 1 of the document, that means that Celia has brought in ... uh...” She looked at Jake, who was raising his hand and waving it. “Yes, Jake?”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jake said. “Good presentation, really it is, but ... well ... we all have the exact figures here in front of us, right?”

“Uh ... right,” she said.

“For the sake of brevity, could you maybe just round your numbers to the nearest hundred thousand or so during the discussion?”

“Uh ... well ... I suppose,” she said. “If everyone wants that?”

“Is that cool with everyone?” Jake asked the table. Everyone gave some version of a nod. “Everyone is cool with it. Proceed please.”

“Right,” Jill said, thrown off stride a bit. She quickly recovered however. “Anyway, as I was saying. Celia has sold nearly 1.5 million copies. Jake has sold 1.1 million. The wholesale rate we are paid for these copies is six dollars apiece. That means Celia has brought in approximately 9 million dollars in sales and Jake has brought in approximately 6.6 million, for an approximate total of 15.6 million dollars in revenue.”

“Not bad at all,” Jake said approvingly.

“Especially for a has-been, huh?” Celia added with a smile.

Jake held out his hand across the table to her and they engaged in a brief high-five.

“All right,” Jill said. “Before we get too excited here, let’s remember what the definition of ‘revenue’ is. It’s the income received from selling goods or services before the expenses of operation and production are deducted. And the expenses and production of these two albums were considerable.”

“Accountants are such downers,” Jake whispered to Sharon, who giggled a little at his words.

“Be that as it may,” Jill said, “I will now review the expenses of KVA during the quarter. Our primary expense set against that 15.6 million in revenue are the royalties KVA is responsible for paying out. By far, the largest chunk of royalties goes to Blake Family Records and Blake Studios. The label itself pulls in forty percent royalties on each album sold while the studio pulls in an additional three percent, which, when totaled, means that Oren Blake II pulls forty-three percent of that revenue right off the top.”

“I still think that is an outrageous amount,” said Greg.

“When you think of it out of context, perhaps,” said Nerdly. “Keep in mind, however, that when Intemperance and La Diferencia were selling millions of albums for National Records and Aristocrat Records respectively, we, the musicians and composers of the product, were only being compensated at a rate of ten percent of the gross revenue.”

“And that’s the industry standard,” Jake said. “I’ll take what we’re getting as far as percentage goes. We all knew what it would be going in.”

“I suppose,” Greg said.

“In any case, Blake Records and Blake Family Studios are only the most significant royalty payee that KVA is responsible for compensating. Don’t forget about the musicians, however. Mary Kingsley and Cynthia Archer each get one percent of both albums. Ben Ping and Theodore Duncan each get one half of a percent of both albums. Phillip Genkins receives one quarter of a percent of both albums. Laura Best receives one half of a percent of Celia’s album and one eighth of a percent of Jake’s. This all adds up to a grand total of 46.75 percent total royalties being paid out on The Struggle and 46.38 percent royalties being paid out for Can’t Keep Me Down.”

“Which leaves 53.25 and 53.62 percent gross revenue after royalties respectively, correct?” said Nerdly after only the briefest pause to do arithmetic times two in his head.

“Uh ... correct,” Jill said, a little bit impressed by his math skills. She could not do that that fast, after all.

“So, how much total royalties are we paying out for the quarter?” asked Celia.

“If you’ll look on page two of the document,” Jill said, “the total is listed.”

Everyone turned to page two and spent a moment scanning. Jake whistled appreciably when he saw the figure. “Seven million, three hundred and forty-six thousand, four hundred and sixteen dollars and forty-eight cents,” he recited. “Which means we get to keep this amount...” He put his finger on the paper and recited it. “Eight million, two hundred and fifty-three thousand, five hundred and eighty-three dollars and fifty-four cents?”

“That is correct,” Jill said.

“Not bad at all, eh?” Jake said with a nod.

“And that’s just this quarter,” Nerdly said. “Both albums show every sign of selling at least another million or so in the current quarter.”

“Hell to the yeah,” said Jake.

“Please stop saying that,” Pauline requested.

“Sorry,” Jake said. “I’m getting better.”

“Before we get too far ahead of ourselves here,” said Jill, “I should remind you that the royalties are only the primary expense. There are several others.”

“Well ... naturally,” Jake said. “There’s the rent on this office we’re sitting in and your firm’s fees.”

“Right,” Jill said. “Rent on this building cost KVA nine thousand dollars during the first quarter. Fees to the firm of Yamashito, Yamashito, and Yamashito equaled twenty-five thousand dollars plus travel expenses equaling another four thousand six hundred and eighty-three. Utilities and maintenance fees on the building ran one thousand eight hundred and forty-two. City and state fees related to the operation of a business ran six hundred and nineteen. Catering and entertainment expenses were pretty light this quarter since you’re not practicing in here yet: only two hundred and eighteen dollars so far.”

“That all sounds pretty much like chump change when stood up against the royalties we pay out,” said Jake.

“Perhaps,” said Jill. “But chump change needs to be counted to the penny as well as non-chump change. And chump change can add up.”

“I suppose,” Jake said with a shrug. He pointed to a spot on the third page of the sheet. “This appears to be the bottom line, right?”

“That is the total profits for the quarter,” Jill said.

Everyone turned to that figure. It was $8,212,221.54.

“That’s the money we have to play with for the quarter then?” Jake asked.

“Correct,” Jill said. “In addition, we have six hundred and forty-three thousand, three hundred and eight from the previous quarter still sitting in our account, along with the one hundred and eighteen thousand, one hundred and eleven left over from the original investment money. That gives KVA a total of eight million, nine hundred and seventy-three thousand, six hundred and forty dollars and forty-six cents as of the close of the first quarter of 1993. Now, the question is what would you all like to do with it?”

“Party our asses off!” Jake said enthusiastically.

“Well ... yes, I’m sure you will want to do that,” Jill said. “But aside from that, how should we distribute this profit?”

“We divide it up equally,” said Greg. “That’s what is spelled out in our operating agreement, is it not?”

“Yes, that is an option,” Jill said. “I was never suggesting that we divide up any distributions in anything other than an equal manner. What I want to know is how much do you want to distribute?”

“We don’t want to distribute it all?” asked Greg. “After all, there will be a similar amount coming in next quarter, right?”

“In all likelihood,” Jill agreed. “But it would be my suggestion that you leave a considerable amount in the LLC’s accounts to secure further operations. Jake and Celia both plan to put out another record, right?”

“I do,” Jake agreed.

“So do I,” said Celia.

“It seems likely then that production of two further albums will cost at least as much as it took to produce the two you already have, if not more. The figure of what these two albums cost is on page two of the document.”

They all turned there and saw that the composition, production, manufacturing, and distribution of The Struggle and Can’t Keep Me Down cost KVA Records a grand total of four million, eight hundred and twenty-six thousand, four hundred and eighteen dollars and ninety-three cents. And that figure would continue to go up as they paid for more manufacturing and distribution as the CDs sold. Promotion costs, of course, were accounted differently as they were covered by the royalties being paid to Obie.

“I don’t think further CDs will cost quite that much,” Pauline said.

“No?” Jill asked.

“No,” Pauline said. “A lot of that expense was first time start up expense that will not need to be repeated. In addition, now that KVA has put out two best-selling albums, we’ll be able to negotiate from a position of strength on our next efforts. We should be able to negotiate a royalty rate of around twenty-five to thirty percent with National if we agree to sign with them for the next round.”

“We sign with them?” asked Jake. “What about Obie?”

“Obie was a great help getting the deal we have now because we were an unknown risk,” Pauline said. “He was able to use his influence and reputation to get us that forty percent we now enjoy and he is profiting from the deal quite well. I doubt, however, that he would be able to offer us a lower rate than what the major labels would offer now that we’re hot commodity.”

Jake looked at his sister sharply. “You would just dump Obie, just like that?”

“I would let him attempt to match or beat whatever the best offer was,” she said. “But if he did not or could not ... hell yes I would dump him. This is business. Our personal relationship has nothing to do with it. I’m sure Obie understands that as well.”

Damn, that’s cold, Jake thought, but did not say.

“What are you saying then, Pauline?” Greg asked. “Do you think we’d be able to get two more albums recorded and mastered for three million?”

“I think that sounds like a reasonable figure,” Pauline said.

“Then you think we should leave three million in the KVA accounts and distribute the rest?” asked Celia.

“I’ll vote for that,” Nerdly said. “That would allow us to recoup our original investment and our secondary investment and still have a reasonably significant capital gain for the quarter.”

“Sounds cool to me,” Jake said with a shrug. “After all, we’ll have another eight or nine mil coming in this quarter.”

“What about taxes?” Greg asked.

“You have to pay them,” Jake said. “I’ve found, in my experience, that Uncle Sam and Aunt California absolutely insist upon that.”

Greg rolled his eyes. “Of course we have to pay taxes,” he said. “I pay enough to have my own F-14 fighter. What I mean, is does the LLC have to pay taxes on that three million we’re leaving in the account?”

“You all have to pay taxes on that,” Jill said.

“Even though it’s for reinvestment in the company?” asked Pauline.

“It’s part of the profit made by the LLC,” Jill explained. “Do you remember the reason we set you up as an LLC in the first place? It was to protect your personal finances from liability and set up distribution of the income from the investment. Taxes are still very much part of the picture, however. A limited liability company utilizes pass-through taxation. That means that the company itself is not taxed, but the members in it are taxed on the profits and must account for those earnings on their personal tax returns. You will be responsible at the end of the year for all of the profits you earn as members of this venture whether you leave some of it in the KVA account or not. Once you start spending that three million in the account on the next albums, you’ll be able to deduct those expenses against the profits that were made from that investment. Does that make sense?”

Everyone nodded, even Jake. “That makes sense,” he said.

Jill smiled and looked at her most lucrative client directly. “That means you should not spend all the money you pull in, Jake,” she told him. “I would hold off on buying any new houses, any new airplanes, any new land, until you’ve taken care of your personal tax liabilities.”

Jake smiled at her. “I will take your words under consideration,” he told her.

She shook her head a little. She knew what he meant when he said something like that.

“All right then,” Pauline said. “Are we all in agreement here? Distribute all but three million dollars among the four members?”

Greg mumbled a little, but they were all in agreement.

And so, the quarterly meeting of KVA Records’ members—if not their board of directors—came to a close.

“Good meeting,” Jake said. “Does anyone want to go out and grab a little lunch? It’s getting to be that time.”

“I’m in,” Pauline said.

“Sharon and I are actually going on a date to the tar pits,” said Nerdly. “They’re having a presentation in the museum at one o’clock regarding the microfossils and mollusks that were trapped in the tar.”

“They’re going to have displays of the fossils that are not usually shared with the public!” Sharon said excitedly.

“If anyone would like to go with us, you’re more than welcome,” Nerdly added.

“Uh ... well ... yeah,” said Jake. “As fascinating as that sounds, I think I’ll take a pass and just go do some lunch.” He turned to Celia and Greg. “How about you two? We can hit that new place over on Alvarado?”

“Have we heard any reviews on the quality of the establishment yet?” asked Greg.

“We have not,” said Jake. “They’ve only been open a few weeks.”

“Well...” Greg started.

“We’d love to go,” said Celia, overruling him. “I’m starving.”

Greg sighed. “I guess we’re in,” he said.

“Didn’t you have breakfast, Celia?” asked Pauline.

“If you can call it that,” she said sourly. “I ate half a grapefruit and half a cup of cottage cheese.”

“That does not sound particularly appealing,” Jake said.

“Are you on a diet?” asked Sharon.

“Kind of,” Celia said with a shrug. “I haven’t been able to get my runs in as much as I like to lately and ... well ... I put on a few pounds.”

“You did?” asked Jake, looking her up and down. “Where did you put them?”

She smiled. “It was just a few, but it means I’m moving in the wrong direction. My trainer suggested this grapefruit and cottage cheese diet for breakfast and a low carbohydrate diet for the rest of my meals.”

“That’s what you’re eating every morning now?” Pauline asked.

“Yeah, kind of boring, huh? I’ve been doing it for about two weeks now. I used to like grapefruit and cottage cheese.” She shook her head. “Not anymore.”

“Did you talk to your doctor about this diet before you started it?” Pauline asked.

“No,” she said. “Why would I do that?”

“Well, I’ve heard that grapefruit juice sometimes interacts with certain medications and makes them inactive.”

“I’m not taking any medications,” Celia said. “Except my birth control, of course.”

“Birth control is one of those medications I heard can be inactivated by grapefruit juice,” Pauline told her.

“Really?” Celia asked, her eyebrows going up with a bit of alarm.

“That’s what I heard,” Pauline said.

“I believe that is a myth,” said Sharon.

“A myth?” asked Pauline.

“It is my understanding that certain antibiotics and other medications can be degraded in effectiveness by the consumption of grapefruit juice, but that standard progesterone-based birth control pills are not one of them. It can lead to increased side effects from the pills, but should not cause ineffectiveness as long as the dosing schedule is followed.”

“Well ... that’s a relief,” Celia said. “Kind of, anyway. I was hoping for an excuse to stop eating the grapefruit.”

“I am not a doctor, however,” Sharon said. “I would still check with yours regarding your diet.”

“I’ll do that,” Celia promised.

However, by the time they made it to the restaurant and sat down for lunch, she’d forgotten all about the conversation.

Culpepper Studios was a small recording studio owned by National Records and located in West Hollywood, just outside the Los Angeles city limits. It was a non-descript building of only two floors. Inside of it were three fully equipped studios. These studios were not, however, involved in the making of popular music that would be burned onto CDs or transferred onto magnetic tape for distribution. Culpepper’s main reason for being was to record secondary projects such as background music for television shows, music for radio commercials and other forms of audio advertisement, and, the studio’s most lucrative source of income these days: on-hold music that was sold to telecommunications firms.

Laura Best had been assigned to work full-time in Culpepper Studios for the past six weeks now, ever since Bobby Z’s album had been mastered and Bobby himself had gone out on tour to promote it. There had been a brief period of discussion when it seemed that Z might actually ask Laura to be his primary saxophonist out on the road—a prospect she had been both terrified and deliriously excited about—but then Z’s lover and usual sax player Dexter Price had come to his senses and made up with the man. Off they’d gone to tour the country and tune each other’s instruments (as Jake would have said), and off she’d gone to blow her horn in an out of the way studio for forty dollars an hour, plus benefits (the health plan was actually pretty good, much better than that offered by the LAUSD).

It was not the most exciting and respectable musical assignment of her life, but it paid the bills (not that there were that many bills to pay, of course, since Jake paid for her housing, her food, and had bought her a car) and she could quite honestly say that she was a professional musician—she would, in fact, have to list that as her occupation on next year’s tax forms.

She walked out the door of the studio at 4:30 PM and headed to her green Cabriolet, her saxophone cases—one for the alto sax, one for the soprano—in hand. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a sleeveless white blouse. Her red hair was tied back in a ponytail that she planned to release the moment she sat down. She had just spent the day working on a semi-jazzy piece that she had rather enjoyed contributing to but which she knew was only going to be heard by people waiting on hold when they called an insurance company or a cable TV provider. Such was life.

Her mood was not the best it had ever been. She enjoyed the life she had with Jake, and she loved him to death, but she was now quite in the midst of the bad side of being a notorious celebrity’s girlfriend.

The public knew about her now and the entertainment media were quite interested in learning all there was to know about Jake Kingsley’s current girlfriend, especially since he had a best-selling album that was getting a ton of airplay of late. The problem was the media did not want to know anything good about her. They only wanted to present the bad. And if there was no bad to present, they were perfectly okay with spreading innuendo or even outright lies.

Her first indication that they were interested in her came from Pauline about two months before. Pauline had called her at Jake’s home in the early evening to inform her that a reporter from the American Watcher publication was planning to run a story and photos about her relationship with Jake and wanted to know if she cared to be interviewed on the subject or otherwise comment.

“What?” she’d asked, appalled that that sleazy rag even knew of her existence. “How do they know about me and Jake?”

“Well...” Pauline confessed, “I’m afraid that might be my fault to some degree.”

“Your fault? What do you mean?”

“I accidently let slip that Jake was seeing someone a week or so back,” she said. “It was at the end of a long day and they were hitting me with enquiries about whether Jake and Celia were getting it on, and ... I’m sorry ... I spoke without thinking it through and said that Jake had a girlfriend.”

“And you told them my name?” Laura asked, her voice climbing a bit higher than was her norm.

“No no,” Pauline said. “Of course not. I told them that Jake and his lady friend would prefer to keep their relationship private. I gave them no hint about who you were.”

“Then how do they know about me?” she demanded.

“I’m guessing they staked out Jake’s house until they caught a glimpse of you leaving it or entering it,” she said. “Once they knew he was seeing someone, they would’ve pulled out all the stops to track and identify you.”

“They staked out our house?” she nearly screamed.

“Yeah, most likely,” she said. “The reporter I talked to says they have pictures of both you and Jake and he made a point to mention that he knows what Jake looks like now. From what he tells me, they have shots of you going in and out of the studio and shopping in the grocery store.”

“They’ve been following me around?”

“It’s what they do, Laura,” Pauline said. “Welcome to the celebrity life.”

“But ... but ... how do they know who I am? You said they know my name?”

“They probably ran the license number on your car to initially ID you.”

“Is that legal?” she asked.

“No, but they get away with it as long as they don’t admit that is what they did. That’s not all they know about you.”

“It’s not?”

“No,” Pauline said. “They know where you graduated from college, that you hold a teaching credential, that you used to teach junior high school for the LA unified, and that you are the sax player on both Jake’s and Celia’s albums.”

“My god!”

“That’s all public record stuff,” Pauline told her. “Once they had your name from the DMV records, everything else was child’s play to look up.”

“What do they want with me?” she asked.

“They want to interview you about your relationship with Jake and about your life prior to meeting him. They want to take some official photos of you to include in their rag when they run the story about you and Jake. More than anything, they’d love for you to say something that they can twist and distort with a negative spin so they can sell more of their shitty papers in the checkout stands.”

“I don’t want to talk to them!” Laura said. “And I don’t want them running any stories about me.”

“Well ... you can have wish number one,” Pauline told her. “You don’t have to talk to them. In fact, it is my stern suggestion that you do not talk to them or cooperate with them in any fashion, anywhere, anytime. It will never do you any good. As for the second wish, however, I’m afraid they have a right to run whatever they want to run about you as long as it is not blatantly and provably libelous. And even then, you’d have a run for your money trying to call them on it.”

“So ... they can just print whatever they want about me?”

“As long as they have the barest and thinnest of corroboration for what they allege,” she said. “And I’m talking paper thin here for them to keep in the bounds of the First Amendment.”

“Paper thin?”

“Razor thin even,” she said. “For instance, all that crap they printed about Jake and Michelle Borrows—his girlfriend back in his club days—was nothing but lies. She accused him of regularly raping her, drugging her, beating her, and then, finally, throwing her off a boat into the river and leaving her there to sink or swim on her own. None of that was true. Michelle was truly in love with Jake at the time and they were a reasonably happy and well-adjusted couple. Yet that highly respected Christian publication—Catholic Monthly, one of the primary magazines of the Catholic church, a publication that is presumably read and approved of by His Holiness Himself—was able to print these allegations based only on the word of Michelle Borrows, with no further corroboration whatsoever, and stand free and clear of libel charges because the burden of proof in a libel case rests with the person or persons against whom the accusations are leveled. In other words, Jake would have had to have proven that the accusations were not true and that Catholic Monthly knew they weren’t true. And that was a respected magazine. Rags like the Watcher toe that line even more loosely.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re not doing a very good job,” Laura told her.

“I’m not trying to make you feel better, hon,” Pauline told her. “I’m trying to talk reality here. The true fun and games of dating someone like Jake are about to start.”

And, of course, she had been right. Laura had refused to be interviewed or voluntarily photographed by reporters from American Watcher. And a week after that refusal was conveyed to them, a full spread about her and Jake had appeared in the tabloid, complete with unauthorized pictures.

JAKE KINGSLEY IS BACK IN THE GROOVE, read the headline on the front page. AND HE HAS A NEW LOVE INTEREST AS WELL.

Side by side on the front page, just below the headline, were pictures of Jake with his new look and Laura, standing next to her car in partial profile in what appeared to be the Safeway parking lot down the hill from Jake’s home.

Jake’s picture was captioned with: Notorious former singer for the death metal group Intemperance, Jake Kingsley, shows off his new look for our camera. Gone are the long locks and he now sports a mustache as he enjoys the success of his solo album, Can’t Keep Me Down. Laura’s photo was captioned with: Musician and former junior high school teacher Laura Best, who played saxophone for Celia Valdez on her latest solo album, is reportedly dating Jake Kingsley and living in his Hollywood Hills mansion with him. Article and more pictures on Page 12! promised a smaller text below the pictures.

And indeed, there was an article and further pictures. She looked at the photos first, seeing that all were zoom shots that had been taken from a distance. There were shots of Jake behind the wheel of his car and standing next to it. There were shots of her in the grocery store, behind the wheel of her own car, and one that had been taken in a restaurant when she and Jake had been together. They were not unflattering photos by any means—in fact the one of her in the grocery store, dressed in a pair of white shorts and a green top, was quite becoming to her figure and her bare legs. But still, she had not given permission for these shots to be taken or published! She felt violated in an icky way, as if someone had been peeping on her in the bathroom. And Pauline assured her they had every right to do this.

She then read the article and her anger and frustration grew. They knew absolutely nothing about her except what they had found in public records: They knew she was alive, that her name was Laura Best, that she had graduated with honors from UCLA with a degree in English and a teaching credential, that she had been hired as an eighth grade teacher by the LA City Unified School District, and that she had resigned her position with the district four months before. From those facts and from the supposition that she and Jake were actually romantically involved, they had woven a string of innuendo that suggested, but did not outright say, that Laura had not been a particularly good teacher, that there may have been some rumors of inappropriate behavior with her students, and that the district had strongly encouraged her to resign when it became known that she was dating the notorious Jake Kingsley. There were even a few observations about how she had been seen from time to time wearing long sleeved shirts when the weather was warm and how that was a classic sign of a woman in an abusive relationship.

“This is fucking outrageous!” she angrily complained to Jake shortly after reading the article. “They didn’t talk to a single person I worked with, a single student I taught, but they’re saying I was a bad teacher? I was an awesome teacher! And they’re saying I was told to resign because I was dating you? What the hell is that about? Nobody in the district even knew I was dating you until today!”

Jake had been sympathetic but otherwise unhelpful. “I’m sorry, hon,” he told her. “We got a free ride up until now, but that free ride is over. I’m afraid this won’t be the last or the worst you’ll hear from our friends in the popular press.”

And, of course, he was right. Now that the story had broken, both the Watcher and other celebrity watching publications began to dig deeper into her life. Reporters popped up quite frequently when she was out at the grocery store, or when she was shopping, even when she was in the parking lot at Culpepper Studios going into or leaving work. They always approached and began to launch questions at her, asking her if Jake was abusing her, if she was aware of his domestic violence background, if she was aware of the well-publicized infidelity he had displayed in the past, if Jake had bought that car for her, a dozen other questions, all of them inflammatory. She refused to answer any of them, always walked away as quickly as possible whenever this happened, but it still kept happening with depressing regularity.

Paparazzi photographed her endlessly as well. Sometimes she saw them—they were often blatant enough to just stand in front of her and start shooting—and sometimes she didn’t. Her picture appeared everywhere, on magazines, in newspapers, and on television shows such as Entertainment Weekly and Celebrity Files.

What was worse, however, was that the reporters had now branched out and started harassing people that knew her. Her parents had been one of their first targets, getting a visit from a Hollywood Reporter journalist only two days after the initial Watcher article had appeared. Joseph and Robin Best had still been trying to absorb the fact that the man their daughter had been living in sin with for the past year was Jake Kingsley, who, to devout Mormons such as themselves, was quite close to epitome-of-all-evil status. Though Joseph had not spoken to his daughter in more than three years, he had had no problem telling the journalist exactly what he thought of Jake and his daughter’s relationship with him.

“He’s a hell bound sinner right up there with Adolph Hitler himself,” Joseph was quoted as saying. “He corrupts the youth of this great country with his music and engages in perversions and sin without remorse. There is a special corner of Hell where he’ll spend eternity. And as for Laura, she has certainly destroyed any hope she might have had of entering the Kingdom of Heaven unless she pulls herself away from this atrocious relationship and comes back to the values she was raised with.”

Her mother’s statement was a bit gentler but no less judgmental. “Laura became corrupted and drew away from her faith back in college, but she was always a good girl underneath. Now, however, I’m not sure how this Kingsley character managed to pull her so far over to the dark side, but I want her to know that I’ll be here for her when she’s ready to repent. All of us in her family will be here for her.”

And on the subject of whether or not Jake was beating her, raping her, or abusing her, Robin Best had this to offer: “We don’t know what’s going on with her. Ever since she moved out of the apartment she was in before and into Jake Kingsley’s house, we hardly ever hear from her. She never comes over to visit anymore and we only talk on the phone about once a month or so. She’s always very mysterious and noncommittal about what is going on in her personal life. I know that one of the characteristics of an abusive relationship is that the man will try to keep the woman isolated from her family and friends to keep her under control. I very much fear for Laura’s safety and I pray for her every night.”

This article had prompted Laura to actually use profanity while talking to her mother for the first time in her life.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Mom!” she’d yelled at Robin on the phone shortly after reading the article. “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”

“Laura!” her mother barked, shocked. “Do not take the savior’s name in vain!”

“Fuck the savior!” she returned, as angry as she had ever been with anyone, even Dr. Dave when he had been trying to rape her.

“I will not listen to you blaspheme, young lady!” Robin told her firmly. “One more word of it and I will hang up.”

Laura took a deep breath, composed herself a bit, and then said, “Okay, sorry, Mom. I’ll try to keep my mouth under control here.”

“You never used language like that before you started seeing that ... that horrible man!”

“You don’t know anything about him, Mom,” Laura said.

“I know what I’ve read in the papers,” she returned. “I know he beats women regularly, that he worships Satan, and that he stands for the corruption of our youth.”

“He doesn’t do any of...”

“And I know that you hid the fact that you were with him from us,” she continued. “Does that sound like someone involved in a healthy relationship?”

“I didn’t tell you about him because I thought you might overreact,” Laura said. “And that’s exactly what you’ve done. Why in the name of G ... uh ... everything that is holy did you talk to those reporters? Did you read the article they published based on that interview?”

“I read it,” she said. “They did not misquote either one of us.”

“Mother, neither you nor Dad has ever even met Jake. You know nothing about him except what they publish in those rags. He is the sweetest, most considerate man I’ve ever met and I love him. He has never laid a hand on me in anger, has never done anything sexual to me that I didn’t consent to, has...”

“Then you admit you’re sleeping with him out of wedlock?”

“Of course I’m sleeping with him!” she barked, exasperated. “This is 1993, Mom, not the freaking fifties! Did you really think I was living in a man’s house for the past eight months and not sleeping with him?”

“That is not the way you were raised, Laura,” Robin told her sternly. “You are putting your very soul at risk.”

“I’ll worry about my soul, mother. You worry about your mouth.”

“Excuse me?”

“Please, for the love of God and all that He stands for, do not talk to any more reporters about me or about Jake. Just refuse to talk to them if they show up. If you have any love for me as a daughter, you will do this for me.”

“I do love you, Laura,” Robin told her. “Despite the path you’ve taken and the choices you’ve made, you are still my daughter.”

“And I love you too, Mom,” she said. “Now please, don’t talk to those sleazebags anymore. Will you promise me that?”

“I promise,” Robin said with a sigh.

And so far, that promise had been kept. Even after the next episode of American Watcher came out and featured nude pictures of Laura and Jake taken by good old Paul Peterson himself.

The shots were of she and Jake in the hot tub on Jake’s deck, where they had been having an after dinner soak one evening. Jake’s back yard was completely surrounded by privacy hedges that stood twelve feet high and blocked the view of the swimming pool and hot tub area from the prying eyes of any of his neighbors unless they wanted to climb a ladder and peer over (which, some of them had done on occasion back in the early days of his residency there). Since the hot tub was shielded from view (or so they thought) they typically did not wear bathing suits in it when they enjoyed its use. Such had been the case on this late afternoon.

“Where the hell did he take this shot from?” Laura asked when she first saw the pictures. There were four of them: One with Jake submerged but with Laura sitting on the top step with her breasts exposed; one with the two of them standing up and about to exit the tub in all of their glory; one of the two of them sharing a kiss on the top steps while holding wine glasses in their hands; and one of the two of them walking up the steps into the house, their naked derrieres on display. Of course, the breasts, genital regions, and butt shots all had those little black lines through the most interesting parts, but little was left to the imagination. JAKE AND LAURA FROLIC NAKED IN THEIR HOLLYWOOD HILLS LOVE NEST declared the headline.

Jake, who had been trying to take the media blitz in stride and help her through it to this point, was very angry about these shots.

“That motherfucker!” he spat, shaking his head in fury. “He had to have been up in the hills near the park to see over the privacy hedges. Probably at least a half a mile away and using a zoom lens as big as a whale’s cock to get detail like this. Look how the angle is always from above. He fucking staked us out in my own goddamn backyard!”

“Can they do that?” Laura asked, quite appalled in her own right. She was a very modest person by nature and upbringing and the thought that her naked breasts—line or no line across them—and her naked butt were now on display at every supermarket check stand in the United States was horrifying.

A quick phone call to Pauline assured them that they could indeed do that.

“You have a right to privacy in your backyard, that is true,” she told him, “as long as it is shielded from public view. If they had climbed your hedge to get those shots, you’d have a case for invasion of privacy and maybe even trespassing. But, if your hot tub area is visible from a public place and anyone standing in that public place has a view into it, they have every right to take those pictures and publish them.”

“But that public place is half a mile away and he had to use a goddamn zoom lens the size of a pony keg to take the shots!” Jake complained.

“That doesn’t matter,” Pauline told him. “He was still in a public place shooting from an unobstructed line of sight. For all intents and purposes, you were in a public place.”

And that was the final word on that. There was nothing they could do about it.

“Laura, really,” her mother said the next time she talked to her on the phone. “Naked in public? Having sex before marriage is one thing, but don’t you have any shame?”

“We weren’t in public!” Laura protested. “We were in Jake’s backyard surrounded by privacy hedges! That slimeball took those shots from up on the hill more than a half mile away!”

“This is the price the sinner plays for rampant sexuality,” Robin said.

“We didn’t even have sex,” Laura told her. “Well ... not in the hot tub anyway. We were just having a glass of wine out there after dinner.”

“You were not raised to be naked outdoors in front of men, young lady,” her mother told her without an ounce of sympathy in her voice. “Your father and I have never been naked before each other even in the privacy of our own room and in the bounds of matrimony. It instills lethal lust.”

“I don’t really need to know what you and Dad do or don’t do in your bedroom, Mom,” she said. “I’m just trying to explain to you that we were doing nothing wrong. We were sitting in the backyard having a glass of wine and just happened to be naked at the time. That paparazzi slimeball had no right to go zooming in on us.”

“Apparently he did have the right,” Robin countered. “Laura ... please come home.”

“Come home?”

“Move out of that house today, right now. Leave that horrid musician behind. Leave that car he bought you in the driveway. Come home to us and make yourself right with the Bishop and the church. I’m begging you, for your immortal soul.”

“My immortal soul will be just fine, Mom,” she told her. “I’ve gotta go now.”

That had been the last time she spoke to her mother. Now, as she left the studio and made her way to her car, she wondered if there was any point in ever speaking to her again. All it did was made both of them angry.

“Laura?” a voice called out to her. “Laura Best?”

Laura looked up and saw a late thirties woman wearing a business pantsuit approaching her. She was platinum blonde and carried a tape recorder in her hands. Laura had never seen her before but she knew who she was—or what she was.

“No comment,” Laura told her, resuming her trek to the car while digging in her purse for the keys.

“I’m Annie Stockland, from the American Watcher,” the woman said.

“Lovely,” Laura said, pulling out the keys and then shuffling her saxophone cases so she could use them. “No comment.”

“You might want to comment on this subject, Ms. Best.”

“No comment,” she repeated.

“It has to do with Dr. David Boulder, DDS,” she said, “and your relationship with him.”

Laura froze in her tracks, adrenaline flooding through her. They know about Dave!

“I can see by your reaction that you are acquainted with Dr. Boulder,” she said with a smile.

“He ... he used to be my dentist,” Laura said.

“My information is that he used to be considerably more than just your dentist,” Stockland said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, her eyes looking everywhere but the reporter’s face.

“If you two thought you were being discrete, you are sadly mistaken. Pretty much the entire office knew about the affair between you and the good doctor, pretty much since the first day it started. It was one of the receptionists who contacted our office, after all. She thought the public might like to know what the score had been between the now famous Laura Best and good old Dr. Dave.”

Laura chewed her lip a little and then said, “No comment.”

“It is your right not to comment on this information,” Stockland said with a nod. “However, I have already spoken to Dr. Boulder himself and got his take on the story. It differs greatly from what the receptionists, billing clerks, and one of the other dentists in the office have to say. It is not very flattering toward your image. Are you sure you don’t want to at least listen to what he alleges and maybe offer a counter-statement?”

“What did he say?” she heard herself asking.

“Well ... before I tell you that, how about I tell you what the other office members say? Let’s see, my juiciest information came from the receptionist who first contacted us—she will be identified as ‘an anonymous source within the dental office’ of course, and we did have to pay her ten grand for the information.” She shrugged. “She was small time, not a very good negotiator. We would’ve gone as high as eighteen grand for something as provocative as this. Anyway, she tells me that you used to make dental appointments far more frequently than a reasonably dental hygienically inclined adult really would. She tells us that you called quite frequently, sometimes pretending to be someone else, but that Dr. Dave always took your calls, even if it meant he had to take his hands out of someone’s mouth in order to do so. She tells us that he would frequently leave the office for his lunch hour and then come back looking rather flushed and smelling freshly showered. She tells us that, just before the end, you actually called up and told him that it was you calling but that Dr. Dave had told you to say it was someone else. Shortly after that incident, Dr. Dave left for lunch and returned with a black eye. After that, they heard from you no more.”

Jesus Christ, was everything that obvious? Laura thought to herself.

“All of the office staff I talked to support this version of events, although not in as much detail. Everyone knew that the two of you were getting it on. Even the guy who sweeps the floors and doesn’t speak English knew.”

“I ... I have nothing to say about that,” Laura stammered, feeling her face blushing brightly, knowing there was nothing she could do about it.

“Perhaps you will after you hear what Dr. Dave had to say about this whole situation,” Stockland suggested.

“What did he say?” she asked again.

“According to the good doctor, you are a crazy stalker.”

“A stalker?” she asked, her eyes burning, her fists clenching.

“Indeed,” she said. “He claims that he never had any kind of sexual relationship with you, but that you became obsessed with him. Apparently, you were in the market for a rich dentist and you didn’t care that he was happily married and not the least bit interested in you. You called the office frequently trying to speak with him and trying to get him to go out with you. You made appointments much more frequently than were called for despite his attempts to dissuade you. You refused to see any other dentist in the practice, always insisting on seeing him. Most of the time you showed up there was nothing really wrong with you, but you kept trying to get him to go out with you. Only because he is such a nice guy and such a professional did he not sever the patient-doctor relationship with you.”

“That is complete bullshit,” Laura said through gritted teeth.

“I have no doubt that is true,” Stockland said with a smile. “That is why I’m contacting you now. I want to hear the real story, get your version down for the record before we go to print with this.”

They know everything, her mind whispered. You can’t let the bullshit that Dave is spouting go unanswered! You cannot let them portray you as some crazy stalker! She actually opened her mouth to start speaking, to start telling her version of events. And then she stopped, hearing another voice in her head, the voice of Pauline. Don’t give those slimy pukes anything to print, the voice told her. Do not justify any of their accusations, even if true, with a response.

“I have no comment on any of this,” Laura told the reporter.

“You have to at least confirm or deny the accusation,” Stockland insisted.

“I don’t have to do shit,” Laura said, borrowing a Jake-ism. It seemed to fit the occasion. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get home.”

“You’re making a mistake, Laura,” Stockland warned. “Without your input on the story, we’ll just have to go with what we have.”

Laura shrugged. “No comment,” she repeated, unlocking her car door and opening the back so she could put her horn cases inside.

“All right then,” the reporter said with a regretful sigh. “Can I at least give you my card in case you change your mind?”

“I have no need for your card,” she replied. “You have a nice evening now.”

With that she climbed in the front seat and closed the door behind her. She fired up the little four-banger engine and pulled quickly out of the parking lot, not even bothering to put on her seatbelt first. The reporter watched her leave, shaking her head in disappointment.

“That fucking moron,” Jake said when he heard the story from her twenty-eight minutes later.

“Who? Dave?” Laura asked, her face miserable, her lip starting to get small wounds on it because she was chewing it so much.

“Yes,” Jake said. “He should have simply denied everything, denied a relationship of any kind except the standard dentist-patient one with you and said something about how his colleagues had very active imaginations. Now he’s actually admitted there’s a connection between the two of you. And he didn’t tell the truth about it. That is the worst possible thing he could have done for both of you.”

“How so?” she asked.

“Now they have an admission by one of the principals that something was going on between the two of you,” he explained. “That carries a lot of weight, even if it is a bullshit story. It’ll add depth to the unprovable accusations laid down by that receptionist bitch and those other people. Nobody will believe Dr. Dave’s rap, of course, but they’ll be much more inclined to believe the accusations now.”

“But those accusations are true,” Laura said.

“The readers of that rag don’t know that though,” Jake said. “If Dave and you had both denied the accusation completely, that leaves room for doubt in the story. After all, there are no pictures of the two of you together, no motel receipts, no actual evidence other than the word of a few people that this ever happened. But now that he’s admitted involvement, he’s removed that doubt, both with the public and with his wife.”

“Where does that leave me then?” she asked. “Is there any way to keep them from printing this story?”

“No, that ship has long since sailed,” Jake replied. “But you can still maintain a little shred of plausible deniability.”

“How?”

“You need to submit a statement to this reporter chick saying that you absolutely deny everything. There is not, was not, and never will be a romantic relationship between you and Dr. Dave and you’re not sure where or how all these wild accusations came about. He used to be your dentist and that is all.”

“But that’s a lie!” Laura protested.

“So is what Dr. Dave has told them,” he reminded her. “This is the best way to counter this unpleasant situation in any kind of a meaningful way. You have to trust me on this, Laura. I’ve been dealing with these fucks for more than ten years now.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t like to lie, Jake, but ... if that’s the best way to deal with it ... okay.”

“Good decision,” he told her. “And I’m sorry that all this shit is raining down on you. I feel horrible about it.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said. “Not really, anyway. Now, how do we do this? Do I just call her up and tell her my version? I didn’t take her business card from her so I don’t even know her...”

Jake was shaking her head. “You do not talk to her at all,” he said. “Rule number one still applies with these scumbags. Never say anything to them directly. If you do need to answer to something—as is the case here—you speak to them by having a representative of yours issue a statement.”

“A representative?” she asked. “What representative? Are you talking about you?”

“Not me,” Jake said. “That would just add fuel to the fire. I think Pauline will be willing to speak for you as your rep however.”

“Pauline?”

“My sister,” Jake said, deadpan. “I think you’ve met her a few times?”

“I know who Pauline is,” she said, exasperated. “Do you really think she would do that for me?”

“She loves you,” Jake said. “And this is her forte, after all. I’m sure she’d be happy to do it.”

“Well ... if you really think she would.”

“Only one way to find out,” Jake said. “Let me give her a call and explain what’s going down to her.”

Pauline had finally set herself up with an official office in the KVA Studios building and the LLC had hired a full-time secretary to staff the receptionist booth and field phone calls for her, as well as schedule everything that needed to be scheduled. Darlene—the secretary in question—had been off duty for the past hour now and the office at KVA was now standing empty. That did not matter, however. Jake had his sister/manager’s personal number. He dialed it now from memory.

“What up, bro?” she asked when she recognized his voice.

“What up, Paulie?” he returned. “You busy?”

“Just having a pre-dinner scotch on the rocks with Obie.”

“Say hi to him for me,” Jake said. “Listen, we’ve got a little situation with Laura and the Watcher.”

“Another one?”

“Another one,” he confirmed. “This time it’s something she’s going to have to submit an official response to. We were hoping you could help her out with that.”

“Absolutely,” she said without hesitation. “Tell me what’s going on.”

He told her the tale. She listened to it without interruption, including his best-case solution to the problem.

“Hmm,” she said. “Just when you thought you’d seen how sleazy that rag can be, when you start to think you’d seen the worst they can do, they come along and pull some even sleazier shit like this. They really have no shame.”

“They really don’t,” Jake agreed. “Am I making the right call here? Having her officially deny involvement?”

“I really don’t see any other choice,” she said. “We can’t threaten them with libel since the story is actually true, so a denial is about the best damage control she can offer. Is she sure there is no tangible evidence of the affair floating around?”

“She seems pretty sure about that.”

“I hope so. Because if she issues a stern denial and those fucks come up with some pictures or some shit like that later on, any credibility she retains will be gone forever.”

“Understood,” Jake said. “Will you make the statement for her?”

“I will,” Pauline said. “There’s just one thing. I need to be on record as her manager if I’m going to do this. It will carry official weight that way.”

“Her manager?”

“That’s right. In truth, I was going to bring this up to her the next time I talked to her anyway. She’s gotten to be big enough now that she really needs a manager. I can probably put out some feelers and get her a better gig than playing on-hold music in that shithole studio, and I can speak for her to the media as her official representation.”

“Uh ... let me put her on the line,” Jake said. “I can’t make a decision like that for her.”

He handed the phone to Laura, who had been hovering right next to him, listening intently to his side of the conversation. “She needs to speak to you about representing you as your manager.”

“My manager?”

“She says you need one now,” Jake told her. “That it’ll carry more weight if she speaks for you as your manager.”

“Won’t I have to pay her for that?”

Jake held out the phone to her again. “That’s for you and her to discuss,” he said. “Talk to her.”

Laura took the phone and put it to her ear. “Hi, Paulie,” she said softly.

“Sounds like a real shit show you’ve got going on, hon,” Pauline said. “Why don’t we talk about what to do here?”

They talked. In the end, Laura agreed to sign on with Pauline as her manager at the standard rate of twenty percent—with a clause that Pauline insisted upon.

“That’s only twenty percent of any gigs that I personally get for you,” she clarified. “The gig you have going now and anything that is offered to you because of the work you’ve done on your own, you still pull in all the money yourself. Fair?”

“Very fair,” Laura agreed.

“All right then,” Pauline said. “What time are they expecting you at the studio tomorrow?”

“Nine o’clock.”

“Any chance you could take the day off?”

She thought about this for a moment and then shrugged. “I’ve never taken any sick time yet,” she said. “I’m sure if I call out, they’ll find something else to work on for the day.”

“Do it then,” Pauline told her. “Meet me at the KVA Studios office at ten o’clock in the morning and we’ll draw up an agreement. Once that’s done, I’ll make a little phone call to our friends at the Watcher and issue your statement.”

“Thank you, Pauline,” she said, smiling for the first time in days. “I really appreciate this.”

“I’m happy to do it,” Pauline said. “Besides, I’m pretty confident that you and I are going to make us some money with this partnership.”

They ended the phone call and Laura put the phone back in the receiver.

“It sounds like you worked it out,” Jake said.

“We did. I’m going to call in sick for tomorrow and meet Pauline at ten at the studio. We’re going to draw up an agreement and then she’s going to give my statement to that reporter.”

“Very nice. I told you she’d do it.”

“You did. And you were right.”

Jake put his arm around her and pulled her close. “I’m so sorry about all this, Laura,” he told her. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but, well ... this is what dating me is like. This is the bad that goes along with the good.”

“It’s not exactly a walk in the park,” she agreed, snuggling into him a little, enjoying the feel of his arm around her.

“I would love to tell you that this kind of scrutiny will end at some point, but it probably won’t. As long as you are involved with me, there is going to be paparazzi photographers and media reporters following you around and popping up everywhere. They are going to print horrible things about you, about us, and there isn’t going to be anything we’re able to do about it. It’s part of the package that is me, unfortunately. It’s the life I chose to live, does that make sense?”

“It does,” she said softly.

“You, however, did not choose this life, not initially anyway. You do have to choose now, though. If the bad outweighs the good of the relationship, well ... there’s only one way to fix that.”

“What are you saying, Jake?” she asked.

“I’m saying I love you,” he told her. “I love you very much and I love what we have together. But ... well ... if it’s too much for you to handle, if that bad is outweighing the good ... I’ll understand if you make the decision not to keep going.”

“Are you saying ... that ... that we should break up?” she asked.

“That is not what I’m saying at all,” he said. “I’m just letting you know that I understand how hard this part of this life is on you and that ... if it’s too much and you want to go ... I won’t stand in your way. I’ll be sad and my heart will be broken, I’ll mourn you terribly, I’ll probably write a song or two about the experience, but I’ll understand.”

She was shaking her head. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” she told him. “After all, I’ve got all of my clothes over here. And if I left, I’d have to make my own dinners, clean up my own bedroom, wash my own clothes. Fuck that shit.”

He smiled and leaned down to give her a long kiss on the lips. “All right then,” he said when the kiss broke. “I guess I’ll have to keep you around a bit longer.”

“I guess you will,” she said, caressing his cheek with her fingers.

“And speaking of dinner,” Jake said. “It’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”

She looked up at the clock. It was twenty minutes to six. You could literally set your watch by Elsa’s dinnertime. “So it will be,” she said. “I’m going to go upstairs and take a quick shower and change my clothes.”

“Sounds good, hon,” he told her, kissing her again. “Why don’t you put something on that has ... you know ... easy access, if you know what I mean?”

She gave an impish grin. “I know what you mean,” she said.

She went upstairs to their bedroom, walking through it to the master bathroom. There, she turned on the shower and then removed her studio clothes, bra, and underwear (after first checking to make sure the blinds were completely closed—they weren’t going to get any more pictures of her in the nude) and tossing them in the hamper for Elsa to collect in the morning.

She then walked to the sink and turned the tap on to cold so she could brush her teeth. Her pink toothbrush was in a holder right next to Jake’s blue one. She pulled it out and then opened the medicine cabinet to take out the tube of toothpaste stored there (one on the many sure ways to incur the Wrath of Elsa was to leave a tube of toothpaste sitting on the sink counter—she and Jake were both well-trained in putting it away). As she reached for the half empty tube of Colgate her eyes happened on a small, circular case that sat two shelves above. The moment she saw it, a brief flood of adrenaline surged through her.

She picked up the case and looked at it carefully. Inside of it were little round pills, most white, some pink, each in a little round holder marked with a day of the week. Today was Monday and the pill for Monday, which she was supposed to take in the morning, was still sitting in its holder. So was the pill for Sunday and the pill for Saturday.

Jesus fucking Christ, she thought, lapsing into a Jake-ism in her head. I haven’t taken one in three days now! What the hell is the matter with me? I’m I that stressed out that I forgot something so goddamn basic?

She hurriedly took Monday’s pill out of its case and put it in her mouth. She swallowed it with a drink of water taken directly from the tap.

How many days can you miss before it becomes an issue? she wondered uneasily. Surely not only two and a half days, right?

She simply did not know.

It’ll probably be okay, she finally concluded. I’ll just have to make sure not to miss any more.

Laura met Pauline at ten o’clock the next morning and they quickly signed an agreement of representation that Pauline had drawn up. It was a straightforward document, one page in length, and written in laymen’s terms instead of legalese. This was a characteristic of a Pauline Kingsley Esquire document.

“All right then,” Pauline told her latest client. “Let’s go over your statement and then I’ll give those fucks a call and hit ‘em with it.”

“Sounds good,” Laura said.

It didn’t take them long to come up with the statement. Like Pauline’s documents, her statements were succinct and to the point and very short.

“‘Laura Best denies any and all allegations of a romantic relationship of any kind with Dr. David Boulder DDS. She was a patient of his for several years and their relationship was never, at any point, anything other than a doctor-patient one. Nor did Laura Best ever attempt to pursue any kind of romantic relationship with Dr. Dave Boulder DDS and she vehemently denies any accusation that she was stalking him or engaging in anything other than standard doctor-patient behavior during the course of their professional relationship,’” Pauline recited when the statement was on her computer screen for printing.

“I like it,” Laura said. “Thank you so much for doing this for me.”

“Anything for my clients,” Pauline said with a smile. “Now then, for the fun part. What did you say was the name of that snatch that met you in the parking lot yesterday?”

“Uh ... Stock-something,” she said. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember exactly, I was so flustered. Maybe I should’ve taken her card after all.”

“No need to fret,” Pauline said. “I know exactly who you’re talking about. Annie Stockland is your bitch. She’s high in the celebrity news section. I’ve dealt with her before.”

“You have?”

“Oh yes,” Pauline said. “She’s the one who harassed us the most back during the contract negotiation that never really happened. She’s a prying bitch all right.”

“You know how to get hold of her then?”

“Child’s play,” Pauline said, opening up a file of phone numbers and contacts on her computer.

While she was digging through it, looking for the proper number, Laura said, “Uh ... Pauline, you take birth control pills, don’t you?”

Pauline looked up at her. “I used to,” she said.

“Used to?”

“Obie has had a vasectomy,” she said. “I guess he figured three kids was enough. He’s got OB3, of course, and Sarah, and his latest little one, Kenny, all from different mothers I might add.”

“Wow,” she said. “I didn’t know he had that many kids.”

“He’s actually a very supportive father,” she said. “He sees them as much as he can and he’s not chintzy with the child support either. Pays considerably more than he’s legally required to just to keep the exes happy and cooperative. I’ve met them all—the kids, not the exes. They’re a good bunch.”

“Interesting,” Laura said.

“Anyway, what about birth control?” Pauline asked. “Some reason you’re enquiring about it?”

“No ... not really,” she said, losing her nerve. “I was just wondering about some of the side effects.”

“I remember when I first started taking them, my boobs got sore and I retained some fluid, but after a month or so, that went away. Never had any problems with them after that. Are you experiencing side effects?”

“Well ... I’ve been a little irritable lately,” she said. “I was wondering if that might be a side effect.”

Pauline shrugged. “I suppose it could be, but you’ve been taking them for how long?”

“About three and a half years now,” she said.

“Don’t you think it more likely that recent events in your life might be responsible for that irritability? After all, you’ve earned the right to be a bit peeved at the world.”

Laura nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably it.”

They spoke no more of birth control. Pauline found the number she was looking for and, after being on hold for only five minutes, was soon talking to Annie Stockland. She identified her as Laura’s manager and issued the statement, word for word. She refused to answer any questions beyond that.

“Well, that’s done,” Pauline said after hanging up. “What do you say we go out and grab ourselves a little drinky-poo?”

“At ten-thirty in the morning?” Laura asked.

Pauline smiled. “That’s why they make bloody Marys, right?”

Laura found her logic to be sound.

A week later, Matt Tisdale sat in the back of the limousine as it drove from his house to the National Records Building in Hollywood. In an envelope beside him was the demo tape that contained nine new songs that he and his band had put together and recorded for submission. Though the recording quality was shit—only Nerdly could make a demo tape sound good with that crappy equipment they provided—Matt thought the suits on the top floors were going to be pleased. Especially when he told them that he was going to embrace the engineering of them instead of fighting it.

“This next album is going to fucking sell,” he vowed to himself as they crawled along in the late morning traffic.

He put out the cigarette he was smoking and then immediately lit another. He sipped from a cup of strong black coffee, which was a poor substitute for his morning cocaine blast but would not impair him during a meeting. He then picked up the copy of the American Watcher he’d had the driver pick up at a news stand.

LAURA BEST INVOLVED WITH HER MARRIED DENTIST? read the headline on the front page. YOU MAKE THE CALL! Below the headline was a photo of the bitch that Kingsley was fucking these days. She was a redhead with a cute face—the kind of face a man liked to nut on—but her tits were kind of small (he had seen the nude photos of her a few weeks before and had some of his people looking into whether or not he could score some uncensored copies). Still, she had a decent enough body and she could certainly blow a horn with the best of them. He could see the appeal of her. The second photo was a shot of some old motherfucker with a balding head wearing a pair of green scrubs. He looked like the epitome of nerdiness, nerdier than Nerdly, if that were possible. How someone like that could’ve possibly tapped into the saxophone bitch was way beyond him. Maybe he has a big fuckin’ schlong, Matt thought.

He read the article inside, shaking his head from time to time, reading between the lines quite easily. Apparently when Jake met the bitch she was boning her married dentist, letting him come over and drill her in places other than her teeth during his lunch hours. Everyone in his office knew they were playing fill the cavity with each other but they thought they were being discrete. Right about the time Jake started tuning her up, the dentist came back to the office one day with a black eye he claimed was from running into a door (that the best you could come up with? Matt wondered with contempt). Had Jake done that? The article didn’t say, but it certainly said that the visits and phone calls from the sexy saxophonist had come to an abrupt end at that point.

The dentist claimed that he had never had anything to do with her, that she had been a crazy-ass bitch of a stalker. He had no answer, however, to the questions of why he did not report her to anyone, why he had not discontinued the doctor-patient relationship, why he always took her phone calls when she made them, and where he was always going during his lunch breaks. The saxophone bitch, on the other hand, simply denied everything, claiming that she was just a patient of the dentist and nothing more and she had no idea where all these accusations were coming from. Matt did not believe that for an instant, of course, but he couldn’t help but admire her response in the matter. Fucking deny everything even if caught red-handed. A tried and true strategy that left you with at least a little wiggle room in the renunciation game.

After finishing the article, he tossed the paper down and took a few thoughtful drags on his smoke. Thoughts of Jake and his current life and career always made him feel a little conflicted. He wanted to hate the man, and he did, but somewhere, deep inside of him, there was always a little part of him that cheered his former brother on. The two of them had been through a lot of shit together over the years—they had banged groupies together, been beaten up by cops and thrown in jail together (more than once), they had smoked weed and drank together, and, most significantly, they had made some damn good music together. If only that fucker hadn’t sold out Darren! Why the fuck had he done that?

They arrived at the National Records Building and Matt made his way up to the top floor conference room where Crow, Doolittle, and Bailey were waiting.

“You have the tape?” asked Crow, who was always a little leery when dealing with Matt.

“Got it right here,” Matt told him, tossing the envelope on the table. “Lyric sheets and musical scores are included.”

“Very nice,” Crow said, picking it up. “Can we get you any refreshments, Matt? A drink or perhaps a line or two?”

“You know the answer to that, Crow,” Matt said with a tired sigh.

“I do,” Crow agreed. “I’m still compelled to ask though.”

“I suppose you are,” Matt grunted.

“And how is that lovely lady of yours?” asked Doolittle. “Is everything well with her?”

“What lovely lady?” he asked.

“Uh ... the uh ... former adult film actress you’ve been seeing for quite some time?” Doolittle clarified. “Are you still seeing her?”

“Oh, you mean Kim?” he said. “We’re not really seeing each other in the strict sense of the word. I don’t hook up with bitches on that level. She just hangs out with me and fucks me and shit and I help her with her business.”

“Of course,” Doolittle said. “She’s well then?”

“Actually, she’s been kind of sick for a few days,” he said. “We ate at this new place on Alvarado last Wednesday and ever since then she’s been barfing up everything she puts in her stomach and shitting out her guts. We think those fuckers served her some bad shit.”

“That’s horrible,” Bailey said.

Matt shrugged. “Shit happens,” he said. “I took her to the hospital the other day and they pumped a couple of liters of IV fluids into her to rehydrate her. She’s doing a little better now. I was able to bang her last night for the first time in a few days.”

“Uh ... that’s good,” Bailey said.

“Had to wear a fuckin’ rubber though,” Matt said with a shake of the heat. “That was a bitch. But that doc at the hospital said that since she couldn’t keep her fuckin’ pills down we’d better use ‘alternate methods of birth control’ for the next four weeks. Ain’t that some fuckin’ Nerdly talk there? And ain’t that some fuckin’ shit, having to use a rubber with your primary snatch?”

“Uh ... yes,” said Bailey. “That is indeed some shit.”

“Anyway,” Crow said. “How about we give those tunes a little listen?”

“How about it,” Matt agreed.

They gave it a listen, stopping frequently and then rewinding to listen to certain parts again. The suits were impressed.

“Interesting guitar work you’ve got going on some of the solos, Matt,” Crow said.

“You like that?” he asked brightly. “I’ve been experimenting with chaining multiple effects pedals together and then playing around with the pre-amp and the output settings. I got some really cool sounds out of that old Strat and it’s all shit I can reproduce live.”

“It’s quite amazing,” Doolittle said without a hint of condescension. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anything quite like it.”

“It’s the direction I’m taking my guitar solos,” Matt said. “I’m going to create a new trend.”

“You just might do that,” Doolittle said. “Now, about the riffs and the other instruments...”

“I’m keeping my end of the bargain, Doolittle,” Matt assured him. “I’ve been listening to ... well ... other albums that have been released lately, and I’m ready to try some engineering and overdubs. Let’s see what we can do with this raw material.”

“That’s the attitude we like!” Crow said happily.

“My terms still apply,” Matt said. “Any guitar overdubs will be me playing for the recording. Now, the way I’m envisioning this thing is with a solid backing guitar during the solos. I will play it on the album, as I said, but in order to reproduce it live, I’ll need to have another guitar player in the band when we hit the road to promote.”

“That’s no problem at all, Matt,” Crow said. “We’ll get you whoever you want ... uh ... assuming he is available, of course.”

“Of course,” Matt said. “And it needs to be someone who can sing. I’m planning to do some double-tracking of vocals when we mix. I’ll need a backup singer. If that backup singer is also the backup guitarist, so much the better.”

“We’ll get you a whole fucking nigger choir out of a Watts church for backup if that’s what it takes,” Doolittle promised. “As long as you’re playing ball on this engineering thing, we’ll get whatever you want.”

“You can keep the nigger choir,” Matt said. “At least for this album anyway. But start looking into guitar player/singers I can audition. I get to make the final choice. I insist upon that. And don’t bother trying to hook me up with one of your ass-sucking moles. I’ll see right through that shit and we’ll be back at odds in no time. Legitimate talent is what I’m after. You understand?”

“We understand,” Doolittle promised.

“Excellent,” Matt said. “Is the meeting over now?”

“I suppose it is,” Doolittle said.

“Good. I’ll take those lines then, and maybe a little Chivas and Coke to go along with them.”

“Coming right up,” Crow said, picking up the phone.

Los Angeles, California

May 16, 1993

She woke up at 6:50 AM, her stomach churning, her skin clammy with sweat. A male body was sleeping soundly next to her, snoring lightly, bundled in the covers.

“Oh, God,” she muttered. “Not again.”

She fought against the nausea for a few moments, trying to will it away, and then realized she was fighting a losing battle. She rolled out of bed and made her way as quickly and as silently as possible to the downstairs bathroom, the toilet that was well separated from the master bedroom. Naked as the day she was born, she tore open the door and dropped into a kneeling position before the porcelain god. She barely managed to kick the door shut behind her before the retching began. There wasn’t much in her stomach, but all that was there came up. She recognized a remnant of the chicken parmesan and green salad they’d had for dinner last night.

The retching stopped and she almost immediately began to feel better. She flushed the mess away and then padded back upstairs to the bedroom. A glance at the bed showed he was still asleep, still snoring lightly, still in the same position. That was good. She did not want to answer any questions just yet.

She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror, paying particular attention to her breasts. They had been sore the last week or so, a dull throbbing ache that got worse whenever they were touched. In the mirror, they looked a little bigger than they usually did. They were definitely swelling.

“This cannot be happening,” she muttered. “It can’t.”

But she was running out of denial. She had sore boobs and had awakened with vomiting four out of the past six mornings now. And even during the day she sometimes had nausea assault her out of nowhere. And her period ... now that was the really interesting piece of information. It should have started two weeks ago. She was as regular as clockwork, as she should be. No period had come.

But it just can’t be! her mind insisted on telling her. There is no way ... is there?

She brushed her teeth listlessly and then took a shower and got dressed. When she finished with all of this she looked and saw he was still sleeping.

She grabbed her car keys and took a drive to the twenty-four hour drug store not far from the house. There, she purchased a small package that showed a happy, excited couple on the front. She drove it home and took her purchase into the bathroom.

She opened it up and pulled out a small piece of white plastic about three inches long and about half an inch wide. On the far end was a little circular hole with white paper inside of it. In the middle was a rectangular opening, called a window, where the results would appear. The packaging recommended that the first urination of the day would yield the most accurate results.

“Here goes nothing,” she said, sitting on the toilet and spreading her legs wide. She let herself go and then positioned the little circular hole into the stream (getting urine on her hands in the process). She then placed the device on the counter, face up, and went about the process of wiping and pulling her pants back up and flushing. She then washed her hands thoroughly in the sink.

She looked down at the device, which promised results in two minutes. If the test was positive, a plus sign would show in the rectangular window. If the test was negative, a minus sign would show. Bracing herself, she looked down. The minus sign was showing quite plainly.

“Negative,” she muttered, feeling mixed emotions at the revelation. But ... it hadn’t been two minutes yet, had it?

She continued to stare and, right before her eyes, she saw the vertical cross bar in the window slowly darken up across the horizontal cross bar. After another minute or so the + was showing in all its glory.

“Well ... damn,” she whispered, wondering what was going to happen next.