Different Circles

Chapter 17: Out of the Blue

Coos Bay, Oregon

December 18, 1993

It was 6:30 AM and Jake, dressed in his running shorts, running shoes, and a white T-shirt, came downstairs from the secondary bedroom he was staying in. They were in the same house they’d rented before, the one up on the cliffside overlooking the ocean. The owners had been happy to let them occupy it for the premium price they were paying during what was usually the slowest of seasons for the Oregon coast vacation rental market. This time around Jake and Celia—since both were going to be sleeping alone for the duration of the recording process—had insisted that the Nerdlys take the master suite and the elder Nerdlys, Cindy and Stan, take the secondary suite. Jake was in one of the upstairs secondaries and Celia was in the other one. Coop and Charlie were sharing the bunk bed room (Coop had not been very keen on this arrangement, but he’d reluctantly accepted it) while Pauline stayed in the downstairs single room. Dexter had one of the downstairs bedrooms to himself—and he complained endlessly about the accommodations—while Stan and Cindy had one of the others. Tom and Mary, who had just flown in yesterday after Christmas break started for the school where Mary conducted, were in the last of the bedrooms upstairs, the tiny one intended for a single guest.

There was a light on in the kitchen and Jake figured it was Celia, who occasionally liked to join him on his morning runs, though not with the same regularity she had their first time around, especially not lately. His mood improved a bit at the thought of C hitting the trail with him. Maybe she would finally open up about what was bothering her so much.

When he went into the room, however, he found it was not the beautiful Venezuelan singer puttering about, but his beautiful, glowing sister, who was making some sort of concoction on the stove. Pauline was now well into her third trimester of pregnancy—her due date was January 24—and it showed. She was wearing a large maternity pullover shirt and a pair of black sweat shorts. Her stomach bulged out impressively, as did her breasts, which had grown considerably along with the baby. Her hair was in disarray and she wore no shoes or socks upon her feet.

“Well now,” Jake greeted as he carried his water bottle over to the sink to fill it, “look who’s all barefoot and pregnant in here.”

“Shut your ass,” Pauline grunted at him. “That’s all I need, is for one of those rags to hear you say something like that.”

Jake chuckled. Pauline’s pregnancy, and the fact that Oren Blake II was the father of record, was now public knowledge and the entertainment magazines and shows were having themselves a good time with it, especially since the two had announced no plans for marriage or even living together and Obie was currently out on tour, promoting his latest album. Despite the fact that he was on record as having planned the tour so he could have a month off starting the week before she was due and stretching for three weeks after, despite the fact that Pauline was on record as saying she fully supported Obie’s career and his need to tour, not a day went by when there was not some sort of report implying that Pauline had been abandoned and the couple were not speaking to each other.

“Hopefully they don’t have hidden microphones in here,” Jake remarked as he turned on the sink.

“I wouldn’t put it past them,” she said sourly as she watched a pot full of boiling water with pasta shells in it.

Jake shrugged and then turned his attention to what she was doing. “You’re up early,” he said. “Hungry?”

“Fucking starving,” she said. “Apparently the clump wanted to eat.”

Jake smiled a little at her reference. They knew the baby inside of her uterus was a little girl, and both Pauline and Obie loved her fiercely already. They had even given her a name: Tabitha Marie, and they were already referring to her as ‘Tabby’ on occasion. But she was still, while in utero, called ‘the clump’ by her mother more than anything else—always with the utmost affection. This stemmed from that first primary care visit she’d had way back in the beginning—back before she had even told Obie about their little gift from God—when the doctor had described her condition as ‘a clump of rapidly replicating cells in your uterus’.

“The clump wanted macaroni and cheese at six-thirty in the morning?” Jake asked.

“Not just macaroni and cheese,” Pauline said, picking up a small, flat can with a picture of a smiling fish upon it. “Macaroni and cheese with tuna.”

“Macaroni and cheese ... with tuna? You mean ... like mixed into it?”

She nodded, a sour expression on her face. “Yeah,” she said. “With tuna. I woke up about twenty minutes ago drooling at the thought of it. The funny thing is, I don’t even like tuna. I think it’s fucking disgusting—at least I always thought that before, when I didn’t have a clump hijacking my body fluids and putting in orders for what kind of goddamned nutrients it wants.”

“Wow,” Jake said. “Pregnancy is some weird shit.” He meant this with sincerity. Until his sister got herself knocked up, he had never been around a pregnant woman on any kind of familiar basis. The experience was certainly eye-opening and mind expanding.

“Pathetic, isn’t it?” she asked, giving her pasta another stir. “Hand me the milk and a stick of butter, will you?”

He opened the refrigerator and pulled out the requested items. “Has C been down here?” he asked as he handed them over.

Pauline shook her head. “I don’t think I’d expect her this morning,” she said. “She was up pretty late last night.”

“Really?” Jake asked. “Later than the rest of us?”

It had been a bit of a reunion last night as the Kingsley parents had arrived to spend Christmas break with their family and friends—and to get as much of Mary’s violin tracks recorded as they could. Celia had seemed particularly happy to see them. She had been more than a little down in the dumps during this foray into the Pacific Northwest, primarily because it had kept her from seeing Greg. Jake and Celia and the others had traveled up to start recording just two weeks before Greg had returned from his first trip to Alaska. Greg had been unable to join them in Oregon, however, because his presence was needed in Hollywood where the studio portion of So Others May Live was undergoing principal photography six days a week, eight to ten hours a day without break. And now that the studio photography had finished, he was on his way back to Alaska for another two months, at least, so they could film the on-location winter scenes that were planned for the film.

And so, Celia had taken the opportunity of the reunion to imbibe in some intoxication therapy last night. She, Jake, and Jake’s parents had gone out on the balcony after dinner and spent some time having a little informal jam session. Jake had played his old Fender while Celia played her beloved twelve-string and Mary accompanied on her violin. Even Tom took a few turns with either Jake’s or Celia’s guitar. They had played and sung some of the classics—Proud Mary, Yesterday, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, Highway Star (Jake and Celia did that one together), Mister Bojangles (Tom did an impressive rendition of that one, singing it, and playing the guitar quite well), to name a few—while Cindy and Stan had watched and sang along on occasion and all of them drank wine or beer or both. Celia had been swilling down the fermented grapes and the fermented grain faster and in higher volume than everyone else, becoming quite hammered by the time the little party broke up around 11:00 PM—though her singing and playing never faltered even a little. Jake himself had been one of the first to call it a night. He had not been drinking much of late and he had gotten up early to fly to Portland and pick up his parents from Hillsboro and fly them to South Bend (the regular airline service was once again down to only two flights a week), so the combination had made him quite sleepy.

“I got up to grab a little snack just after midnight,” Pauline told him, “and she was still out there on the balcony, all by herself, just strumming her guitar and drinking wine. I was going to go out and talk to her, then I saw she was smoking a cigarette. I’ve never seen her do that before. I had no idea she smoked.”

“She only does it when she’s stressed,” Jake said thoughtfully. “I’ve only seen her smoke a few times since I’ve known her.”

“Nobody else here smokes,” Pauline said. “You’re the closest thing we have to a smoker, right?”

“I haven’t had one in ... God ... probably four months now,” Jake said. “And that one made me dizzy and I almost threw up.”

“That means she bought a pack of smokes somewhere,” Pauline said, shaking her head. “Something is definitely up with that girl, something more than just Greg not coming to see her, don’t you think?”

He nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I think you’re right.”

“Maybe you should have a talk with her?” Pauline suggested.

Jake shook his head. “If she wants to talk to me, she’ll talk to me. Until then, I’ll just let it go. She’s still singing and playing well in the studio, so whatever is going on with her is not affecting her performance. Until that starts to happen, this falls under the umbrella of ‘none of my business’.”

“I suppose,” Pauline said, picking up her pot and pouring it into the strainer in the sink. A cloud of steam billowed up into the air around her.

“Anyway,” Jake said, walking back to the refrigerator, “I’m gonna hit the trail.” He checked the tide chart and saw that it was low tide right now. Good. He would be able to run on the beach. “Enjoy your macaroni and tuna,” he said, picking up his bottle.

“I can’t wait to put it my mouth,” she assured him.

“Words I’m sure that Obie would love to hear you say,” Jake told her.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head at his crude joke. “Just when I start to think you’re beginning to mature,” she said.

He smiled and gave her a little pat on the belly. “Feed the clump,” he told her. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“Break a leg,” she replied as she poured the pasta back into the pan.

He walked out of the kitchen and into the darkened living room. The sliding glass door that led to the balcony where last night’s festivities had taken place was closed, but the curtain that was usually pulled shut to cover it was still standing wide open and the outside light that provided illumination was still shining brightly, casting an eerie glow over the room. Jake saw through the glass that Rule Number 1 had been broken. Wine bottles and wine glasses, beer bottles and beer steins were sitting on the tables. He also saw that a significant marine layer had come ashore sometime during the early morning hours. Everything looked wet and drippy out there, with condensation plainly showing on the furniture, the glass debris, and even the balcony railing.

“Well ... shit,” Jake muttered, walking to the door. If the fog was too thick out there, he would have to cancel his run. The reduced visibility would make the trails down to the beach and, especially, the run on the roadway, a little too dangerous for his tastes.

He walked to the door and opened it to see how bad it really was without the window glare interfering. The fog was quite thick indeed, it’s damp chill instantly biting into his face and arms. But the fog only caught his attention for a moment. He looked over to where Celia had been sitting last night, in one of the wooden framed deck chairs. On the table next to it were four empty beer bottles, one empty wine bottle, another wine bottle still half full of red wine, and an empty wine glass. Next to the empties was an ashtray with six or seven soggy cigarette butts sitting in it. Next to that was a red and white package of cigarettes—also quite soggy—and a disposable lighter. Behind the table, leaning against the wall of the house, was Celia’s twelve-string guitar. It, like everything else out here, was covered with condensation.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jake muttered, stepping out onto the balcony and grabbing the three-thousand-dollar instrument, strongly suspecting it was already far too late.

Water dripped off of it as he picked it up, pattering to the deck. It was soaked. Moisture covered the entire instrument—which was bad—and was even inside the chamber—which was worse. He quickly carried it inside the house and back to the kitchen, where Pauline was now stirring the can of tuna into her mixture of pasta and powdered cheese sauce.

“Back so soon?” she asked him lightly, and then saw what he was carrying. “Why do you have Celia’s guitar?”

“She left it outside,” he said. “And the marine layer rolled in. It’s soaking wet!”

“Oh ... and that’s bad, right?” Pauline asked.

“That’s bad,” he confirmed. “It probably destroyed the instrument. The water soaks into the wood, especially inside the chamber, and as it dries it’ll warp.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a couple of kitchen towels.

“Shit,” Pauline said. “She loves that guitar. She must’ve been really drunk to have left it out there.”

“She is going to be very upset with herself,” Jake said, starting to wipe at the outside. Within a few seconds the first rag was already close to saturation and he had to switch to the next. He finished drying the outside as best he could and then looked inside. There was actually enough water in the chamber for it to slosh a bit. He shook his head. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he said again.

Celia was indeed very upset with herself. She came downstairs just before eight o’clock, freshly showered and groomed, but looking like death warmed over all the same. Her eyes were bloodshot and her skin was pale. She walked slowly, almost wincing with each step she took. She smelled primarily like a freshly bathed woman—fruity shampoo, toothpaste, and vanilla body wash—but beneath that was the faint undercurrent of stale alcohol and old cigarette smoke seeping from her pores. She made a sour face as she caught a whiff of the bacon and sausage that Mary was preparing for the communal breakfast.

Jake took her into the living room and showed her what had become of her guitar. He had tried to save it by removing all the strings, wiping out the inside as best he could with kitchen rags and then turning a portable hair dryer on it to try to get the water to evaporate from it without damage, but his efforts had been in vain. The body of the instrument had bulged out in several places, bulged inward in others. Even worse was the neck. It was now warped inward into an uneven C shape and twisted considerably out of alignment. No one would ever be able to put strings on it and get it into anything resembling proper tuning again.

“Madres de Dios,” she said, shaking her head, tears running down her face. “I can’t believe I left it out there!”

“Things happen, C,” Jake told her, putting his arm around her and pulling her against him. “I tried to keep it from warping but ... it was too late.”

“Mi padre gave me that guitar,” she said, her voice distraught. “He bought it for me for Christmas the year before we signed with Aristocrat. He couldn’t afford it, Jake, but he bought it for me anyway. I loved this guitar. It always sounded so sweet when I played it. And it always makes me think of papa when I hold it, makes it seem like he’s here with me.”

“I’m sorry,” Jake said again as she buried her head in his shoulder and cried, wetting his shirt with her tears.

“How am I going to tell him what happened to it?” she asked into his shoulder. “How am I going to tell him I was drunk and feeling sorry for myself and left it out in the rain? Madre de Dios!”

“I’m sure he’ll understand,” Jake said, although this sounded weak even to him.

“Oh my God,” she said. “This is just jodidamente perfecto!”

Jake had picked up enough Spanish from her to know that that meant ‘fucking perfect’. “I know,” he told her soothingly, his hand rubbing up and down her back. “It’s like losing a piece of your padre. But I’m sure he’ll understand. When it comes down to it, it’s just a thing. You’re still here and he’s still there, right?”

“It’s not just that,” she said. “I need that guitar! I need a twelve-string for Riding and for Faith and for the intro to Going. We were going to work on those tunes this week! I can’t duplicate those with a six string. How am I going to do them?”

“We’ll get you another guitar,” Jake told her. “I bet that music store in Portland has a few—you know, the one I took Laura to for the soprano sax?”

“I can’t replace my papa’s guitar!” she said.

“The show must go on,” Jake told her soothingly. “Your papa will understand that.”

The loss of Celia’s guitar caused the entire group to change their recording plans for the day. Their intention had been to work on Celia’s song, Riding Up Front, a clever reference to where she sat when she flew in Jake’s plane used as a metaphor for facing one’s fears in life. Riding featured Mary on the secondary melody with her violin and Celia laying down the primary melody with her twelve-string. There had been high hopes of getting Mary’s tracks down and then, perhaps, to start working on some of Celia’s while they were in the groove, but now they had no twelve-string for her to play.

“Maybe I should just stay here for the session today,” Celia suggested when they discussed the matter over breakfast (which she did little more than pick at).

“Stay here?” Jake asked. “We’re not going to get much done that way.”

“We’re not going to get much done now that I’ve destroyed my guitar,” she countered. “Besides, I’m feeling like someone who died two days ago and just doesn’t know it yet. I’ll go back to bed and get some more sleep and you and everyone else can start working on getting Mary’s tracks down on Free.” Free was Jake’s tune, Free to Choose, an examination of the aspects of making informed and sometimes not-so-informed choices in life that lead to lasting consequences down the road. It featured Jake’s acoustic as the primary melody with Mary’s electric violin playing a mildly distorted secondary and a solo.

“That won’t work,” Jake said. “Not without you there. We only have the rhythm prerecorded, remember? I would need someone on the distorted electric to back me.”

“I don’t think I’m ready to just jump right into Free anyway,” Mary said. “I’d really prefer to get into rhythm with my Lupot before going distorted.”

Celia sighed. “I really don’t feel up to going into the studio today,” she said. “Isn’t there something else you can work on without me?”

Jake gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, C,” he told her. “We need you. The show must go on, remember? Neither snow, nor lack of sleep, nor vicious hangover shall keep you from your appointed rounds.”

Another sigh, a deeper one this time, but she finally nodded. “All right,” she said. “The show must go on.”

“I think we should work on Ocean View first,” Jake said, referring to one of his tunes. It was the hardest rocking cut he planned for his second album, a song about his desire to own a huge chunk of land on a plateau overlooking the ocean and live his life in solitude there, away from the hustle, bustle, and smoggy air of LA. It featured two drop-d distorted guitars and a steadily progressing tempo and intensity that led to a grinding solo and a heavy metal style finish. It was a tune that was the closest in genre to Intemperance than anything else he’d done or was planning to do so far.

“Ocean View?” Celia said. “That doesn’t have Mary in it at all. I thought our goal was to get as many of her tracks down as we could while she’s with us for the break.”

“And that is still the goal,” Jake said, “but I’m sure Mom wants to just watch for a bit at first, get back into the rhythm of the studio. Right, Mom?”

“Uh ... right,” she said, quickly picking up on what Jake was laying down. “That sounds like a good idea.”

“You see?” Jake said. “We work on Ocean for the first part of the day to get Mom back in the swing of things. And I really want to try out our little idea.”

“What’s your little idea?” asked Mary.

“Instead of recording each guitar track individually, like we normally do,” Jake explained, “we thought it might help to record both at once, the way we do the rhythm tracks.”

“What is the advantage of that?” asked Tom.

Celia, to everyone’s surprise, fielded this one. “We thought it might better capture the camaraderie that flows between Jake and I on the tune,” she said.

“Camaraderie?” Mary asked.

“That’s right,” Celia said, her face getting a little more animation in it as she spoke of this. “You see, it’s not quite a dueling guitars kind of riff we’re laying down, but we’re definitely playing off of each other as the intensity builds up. It’s kind of a moment by moment thing as we’re playing, each of us responding in real time to what the other is doing. If we record individually, we kind of lose that to some degree and we think it would make the tune sound more mechanical, more manufactured. Does that make sense?”

Mary, Cindy, Bill, and Dexter all nodded quickly. It made perfect sense to them. Charlie and Coop agreed as well. Sharon, Tom, and Stan, however, had no idea what Celia was talking about. Tom actually became a little uncomfortable with the conversation once the beautiful and obviously troubled singer started talking about ‘intensity’ and ‘playing off of each other’ in regards to his son, who was involved in a romantic relationship with a woman he cared very much for. Just how much playing off of each other were they talking about?

“Of course,” said Jake, “whenever you decide to record two tracks at one time, you at least double the likelihood of having to stop and do a retake. I think we can pull it off though. We really click on that tune once we get into it, don’t we C?”

“We do,” she said, a slight smile on her face—the first sober smile anyone had seen her offer in more than a week now.

“Let’s open up the day with Ocean View,” Jake said again. “It’ll be fun, it’ll get you in the groove and take your mind off your hangover and your guitar, and it’ll help Mom get back into the swing of things.”

“All right,” Celia said, pushing a little bit of her scrambled eggs around once again, but making no move to put any in her mouth. “I find you make a good argument, Jake.”

Since the primary rhythm tracks for all songs on both upcoming albums had already been recorded, Coop and Charlie had the day off. They would, in fact, have most of the next month off unless they were needed to come in and do some rerecording in the event that one of the tunes was changed—something that happened frequently enough this time around that neither Jake nor Celia wanted to send the bassist and the drummer home until it was time for the overdubs as they’d done to Ben and Ted.

Since they would be playing Ocean View to the prerecorded rhythm laid down by Coop and Charlie weeks ago, and since both Jake and Celia would be playing electric instruments which had their amps enclosed and microphoned in isolation boxes, and since there were no other musicians or instruments that needed to be played in order to capture the primary riffs, there was no need to use the isolation booths. A microphone stand was set up in the center of the main studio and Jake took position there, sitting on one of the stools with his Brogan Les Paul knockoff in hand. Celia had no microphone or need of one (Charlie and Pauline would be Jake’s backup singers on the tune’s choruses, but they were a long way away from needing them at this point). She took up position directly in front of Jake, so they could see each other. She too sat on a stool. Her weapon of choice for her part of the tune was a purple Fender Stratocaster tuned to drop-d and running through a set of effects pedals that would allow her to change the level of distortion as the riff progressed.

“All right,” said Sharon from her position at the soundboard. They had just finished the lengthy sound check process. “Should we do the run-through?”

Jake and Celia both gave a thumbs up.

“All right, everyone,” Sharon said into her mounted microphone. “Quiet in the studio, please.”

Mary, Dexter, Cindy, and Nerdly were all clustered around the sound board with her. They all acknowledged her command silently.

“Cueing up the rhythm tracks for Ocean View,” she said. She fiddled with controls and the computer mouse for a few moments and then looked over at Jake, pointing a finger at him.

Jake nodded and then began to play. The tune opened with his guitar only, playing out the primary riff, only moderately distorted and at a tempo of ninety without any rhythm backing as of yet. He ran through the first rep and then, as it recycled, he began to sing.

“I’m so tired of dirty old LA

I think it’s time to find a new way

Someplace quiet where I can be alone

Someplace high above the crashing foam

Someplace a man can stretch his wings

It’s time to reap what this life brings”

With the first verse complete, Sharon pushed a button on her panel and the recorded tracks of bass and drum sounded in everyone’s headphones, picking up just where they were needed. At the same time, Celia began to play her guitar, duplicating Jake’s riff but deliberately playing it slightly out of synch with him.

Jake sang out the second verse, increasing the strength of his voice, projecting a little more power as he spoke of a big empty hillside, of the sparking blue of the ocean, of the solitude he desired. He brought them through the first chorus, Celia keeping up her slightly out of synch harmony, and then, for the third verse, they picked up the tempo and increased the distortion. As they powered through this part, heading for the bridge section, they looked at each other, smiles of satisfaction on their faces. They were nailing the tune and they both knew it.

At the sound board, everyone watched them and tapped or nodded to the heavy rhythm. Though the tune was not exactly Tom’s or Mary’s or Stan’s or Cindy’s cup of tea, they could all appreciate the energy and the power of it, could easily pick up the meaning of Jake’s lyrics. He hated LA and wanted to get away from it, to live on the ocean and be able to look out and see nothing but the ocean and empty land that belonged to him.

They transitioned into the bridge section and powered through it. Jake then laid down an impressive guitar solo while Celia continued to grind out the primary riff, now with heavy distortion and at the tempo of 120. They maintained this tempo during the transition out of the solo and then Jake sang out the last verse, his voice now projecting powerfully, forcefully, at almost a scream while both guitars went back to playing their heaviest version of the riff yet. From there, they went into the outro, which featured another guitar solo and then, finally, a grinding finale of drums and guitar that cut off suddenly instead of being prepped for a fade to black in the post-production.

“All right!” Jake said with a smile once the instruments were silenced. “That was badass, C!” He stood from his stool and walked over to her, holding his right hand up in the air, palm toward her.

She slapped a high-five on him and gave him a genuine Celia smile. She did not say anything, however, because he probably would not have heard her with his cans on his ears.

“I’d call that a good run-through,” Sharon said. “A little off initially on the timing of the rhythm cut-in, but that was probably more me than you two.”

Jake shrugged. He hadn’t noticed any timing issues, but then he wasn’t a Nerdly.

“Shall we try it for real now?” Sharon asked them.

Jake sat back down and gave her a thumbs up. Celia gave one as well.

“All right then,” Sharon said. “Ocean View by Jake Kingsley, basic guitar tracks, take one. I’m cued up over here. Play when ready.”

They played when ready. Jake did not even make it to the first vocals before Sharon stopped him and made him start take two.

The tedium had begun once again.

“Thanks, Jake,” Celia told him in the cafeteria a little past 1:00 PM. They had just broken for lunch after managing to lay down acceptable guitar tracks for Ocean View all the way through the second verse. They were now sitting at one of the tables, Jake with a turkey sandwich and a Sprite before him, Celia with small salad she’d made at the salad bar. She was actually eating some of it too.

“Thanks for what?” Jake asked her.

“For making me come in here today instead of letting me stay back at the house with Coop and Charlie and the dads, feeling sorry for myself.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. “I didn’t think hanging with Charlie for the day was going to improve your mood much.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have,” she agreed. “And getting me to play Ocean View with you ... that was pretty ingenious. You know that playing the hard stuff always gets my blood moving.”

He shrugged. “I thought it might be just the thing you needed today.” He looked at her pointedly. “How are you doing now? Feeling any better?”

“I still have one of the worst hangovers of my life—even worse than that one the day after my wedding. Remember how trashed I was that night?”

“I remember,” he said with a smile. That had been quite a night all right.

“And I’m still kicking myself in mi culo for destroying the guitar papa gave me, but ... all in all, I feel a little better having put in some honest work today.”

“We’ll get you a new guitar,” Jake promised.

“When?” she asked.

“Tomorrow is Sunday,” he said. “No studio time is scheduled. We can fly over to Portland and hit that music shop. I’ll give them a call and see if they’d be willing to open up an hour early for us.”

“Play the celebrity card?” she asked. “That’s not like you, Jake.”

“Not just the celebrity card, but the celebrities who are going to be spending a couple thousand dollars on an instrument card,” he corrected. “I have no problem playing that one if it keeps every Tom, Dick and Harry in the shop from mobbing us while we try to conduct business.”

“All right,” she said with a nod. “To Portland we go. This has the feel of a two-day hangover, but hopefully I’ll be reasonably human for the flight.”

“Hopefully,” Jake said. “We might even take the long way home along the river and the coast.”

“No no,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve certainly gotten more comfortable flying since you took me up that first time—I mean, really, I actually volunteered to go up with you when Greg did his little publicity shoot—but I’d still rather not be off the ground any longer than is strictly necessary.”

“Fair enough,” Jake said. He finished the last bite of his sandwich and then looked at Celia carefully. “Are you really doing okay, C?”

She looked back at him, her eyes touching his. “I don’t know,” she finally said.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. “It’s more than just Greg not being able to join you, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s more than that. And I’m not ready to talk about it just yet. It’s ... well ... it’s complicated.”

“All right,” he said, reaching across and giving her hand a squeeze. “Just know that I’m always here for you.”

“I know you are, Jake,” she said. “And I appreciate that. Have you heard from Laura lately?”

Jake’s situation with Laura was similar to what Celia was undergoing with Greg. She had finished up the US portion of the Bobby Z tour and returned to Los Angeles, but she had not been able to come up to Oregon to visit him because they were working every day rehearsing up the new set they would be doing for the South American tour. “Not in a few days,” he said. “Last I talked to her they were still working on their set, getting it dialed in. They leave for Caracas the day after Christmas.”

“I envy her,” Celia said at the mention of her native country’s capital city. “It’s been so long since I’ve been home ... my real home. Caracas is only about a four-hour drive from Barquisimeto. It’s one of my favorite cities.” She shook her head a little. “All the things I could show her if I was there. All my old stomping grounds.”

“Maybe you should take a trip home once we’re done recording,” he suggested.

“Maybe I will,” she said. “I’d love to show you my home town sometime, Jake—Caracas too. Will you think about going with me?”

“Uh ... well ... maybe,” he said, caught off-guard a little. “It depends on what Laura has going at the time. And what about Greg? I’m sure he’d like to see the sights of Venezuela with you.”

“Maybe,” she said stiffly. She then gave him a meaningful look. “And maybe not.”

Whatever is bothering her, he thought, it sure as shit has something to do with Greg. What happened between them? It was more than just the separation. It had to be. They had been separated for longer periods during their relationship.

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” he asked her softly.

“I’m sure,” she said. “Sorry to be such a downer.”

“You undoubtedly have your reasons,” Jake told her. “Listen, I’m going to go call that record store and see what I can arrange. Sound cool?”

“Sounds cool,” she said. “And think about Venezuela, huh? I think you’d like it there.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he promised.

In the corner of the cafeteria was a desk with a phone on it. Jake sat down and pulled a piece of paper and a pen from one of the desk drawers. He then dialed nine for an outside line and then information for the Portland region. He asked for and received the number for the Portland Music Store—a robotic voice recited the number to him in exaggerated, monotone fashion, something that had popped up over the past year or so and that Jake was still not used to—and he jotted it down. He then dialed another outside line, dialed a one for long distance, the area code, and then the number. Two hundred miles away, a phone began to ring.

“Portland Music Store,” a male voice chirped up. “This is Frank. How my I help you?”

Jake smiled. He remembered Frank from his first visit there. “Hey, Frank,” Jake said. “Jake Kingsley here. How are you doing?”

“Jake Kingsley?” Frank said slowly. “The Jake Kingsley?”

“Well, every Jake Kingsley is the Jake Kingsley, if you know what I mean, but yeah, I’m the Jake Kingsley you’re thinking of. I was in there last year with a cute redhead and we bought a soprano sax from you, remember?”

“I certainly remember that, Mr. Kingsley,” Frank assured him. “It’s an honor talking to you again. I understand that the sax we sold you is the one that Laura Best plays on your song South Island Blur.”

“That is right,” Jake said.

“And that was the song you two played in the store!” he said excitedly. “The first time I heard it on the radio I remembered how you and she played and sang for us that day.”

“We were just trying out the instrument and needed to see if it sounded like we thought it would before we committed to purchase. As it turned out, that was a good investment.”

“And a pretty good commission for me as well,” Frank said. “What can I do for you today, Mr. Kingsley?”

“You can call me Jake,” Jake told him. “And the reason I called is that Celia Valdez and I are over here in Coos Bay recording new albums. You’ve heard of Celia Valdez, right?”

“Of course I’ve heard of her,” he said. “We play her album on the overhead all the time.”

“Very nice,” Jake said. “Anyway, to make a long story short, Celia is in need of a new twelve-string acoustic guitar; a high-end Gibson model hopefully, although I’m sure she can live with a Guild or an Ibanez if that’s all you got, as long as it’s of recording quality caliber. Do you have such a thing in the store?”

“We have two professional quality Gibson twelve-strings in stock right now,” Frank told him. “One is the strict acoustic, the model 24. The other is the acoustic-electric version. We don’t have any high-end Ibanez twelve-strings at all, but we do have a mid-range Yamaha if that would suit your needs.”

“How much is the model 24?” Jake asked.

“I’m afraid it’s rather pricey,” Frank told him. “It’s listed at $2599.”

“That is rather pricey,” Jake agreed, but he knew it was well worth it. The Gibson model 24 was a well-made instrument that would last for generations—as long as someone didn’t leave it exposed to the fog overnight.

“I’m afraid I don’t have the ability to negotiate price with you, Mister ... uh ... I mean, Jake.”

“That’s okay,” Jake said. “I understand. Now, Celia and I were thinking about coming in tomorrow morning to check out the instrument and, as long as nothing is wrong with it, to buy it from you.”

“That’s awesome, Jake!” Frank said.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “But the thing is, we’re both pretty recognizable these days. We’d like to make this transaction quietly and privately if that is possible. What are the chances we could get you to open the shop an hour early so we could conduct business without getting mobbed?”

“Uh ... well ... I think for a sale like that, my manager would be happy to do it. Can I just check with him on this?”

“Absolutely,” Jake said.

“Hang tight, Jake,” Frank said. “I’m gonna put you on hold for a minute.”

“No problem,” Jake said.

There was click and then the on-hold music began to play. Jake felt a little tug of sadness as he heard the tune. It was a saxophone melody being laid down by Laura Best herself. He had never heard it before, but he knew her playing.

Just as the tune was winding down, the phone clicked again and Frank was back. “Are you still there, Jake?”

“I’m still here,” he assured him.

“Bart ... that’s the manager, says he would be happy to open up the shop an hour early for you. That would be nine o’clock.”

“Perfect,” Jake said. “We’ll see you then.”

“Uh ... before you go though, how exactly are you getting here? Are you driving?”

“No,” Jake said. “I have my plane. We’ll be flying into Hillsboro and then renting a car from there. Why do you ask?”

“Well ... I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to the weather reports,” Frank told him, “but there’s supposed to be a storm coming in.”

“A storm?” Jake asked. He had not, in fact, looked at a single weather report in days since he had not been planning any flights ... until now.

“That’s right,” Frank said. “It’s supposed to be high winds, rain, sleet, maybe even some snow. They say it’s going to hit late tomorrow afternoon. If you’re flying, you should be okay. I was thinking that if you were driving from Coos Bay you might get caught in it driving home over the mountains.”

I’d rather get caught by the storm driving over the mountains then flying over them, Jake thought mildly. “Thanks for the warning, Frank,” he told him. “I’ll look into this. If I have to cancel because of weather, I’ll give you a call back. If I don’t call back, we’ll be there at zero-nine-hundred tomorrow. Sound good?”

“Sounds good, Jake,” Frank told him. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again.”

“Me as well,” Jake said. “Oh ... and Frank?”

“Yes?”

“Please keep this meeting discrete. If we show up there tomorrow and there are a bunch of people waiting for us, particularly media people, we would likely be inclined to pass on the meeting and take our business elsewhere.”

“We will be discrete, Jake,” Frank promised. “You have my word.”

“Very good,” Jake said. He said goodbye to Frank and then reset the phone. He dialed nine again and then punched in a number he had committed to memory during his last temporary residential stay in Coos Bay.

“North Bend Airport operations,” a voice answered. “This is Guy. How can I help you?”

“Hey, Guy,” Jake greeted a man he had talked to dozens of times but had never actually met in person. “Jake Kingsley here.”

“Jake!” Guy greeted warmly. “What’s the word, my man?”

“Weather is the word,” Jake told him. “I’m planning a hop to Portland in the morning but I just heard there might be some nastiness coming in. What’s the poop on that?”

“Yeah, there’s a pretty good storm rolling in out of the Gulf of Alaska,” Guy told him. “It shouldn’t hit us here in the bay area, but it’s going to pound the hell out of northern Oregon and southern Washington.”

“No shit?”

“No shit,” Guy confirmed. “We’re talking snow and icing conditions with high winds over the coastal mountains; rain, sleet, and likely some snow in the Portland metro area. Extremely high winds—up to eighty knots, they say—through the Columbia River Gorge.”

“That sounds a bit disconcerting,” Jake said. “What’s the timeline?”

“It’s still well offshore,” Guy said. “It’s forecast to make landfall around thirteen hundred tomorrow. Should make it over the mountains to Portland by fifteen hundred.”

“Okay,” Jake said, nodding. “I should be able to stay ahead of that, especially if I fly south through the valley before cutting back over the mountains. What’s the forecast for the coastal regions before thirteen hundred?”

“The low-pressure system might throw some decent wind at you starting around eleven hundred for the north coast,” Guy said. “South coast should be cold but calm. All in all, as long as you bust ass out of Portland by noon, you should have visibility greater than twenty and nothing but scattered clouds around twelve thousand.”

“That sounds doable,” Jake said. “Thanks, Guy.”

“No problem, Jake. Have a good flight.”

“Will do,” Jake said.

He hung up the phone and walked back over to Celia, who was still picking at her salad. “Looks like we’re in business,” he told her. “They have a Gibson model 24 listed for twenty-five hundred bucks and they’re willing to open up the shop at nine o’clock to do some business with us on it.”

She nodded. “That’s good news,” she said. “At least I’ll be able to get my hands on a new twelve-string. What time do we need to leave?”

“We need to be wheels-up by seven-thirty at the latest,” he said. “A little earlier if you want to grab a little breakfast in Portland before we hit the store.”

“Can we grab breakfast after?” she asked.

“I’d rather not,” he said. “There’s a storm moving into the Portland area tomorrow afternoon. The sooner we head back to Coos Bay, the less likely we’ll be caught by it.”

“A storm? What kind of storm?”

“The usual for this time of year in this part of the world,” he said. “It’s a typical winter storm out of the Gulf of Alaska. Maybe a little stronger than most. No big deal, as long as we’re not trying to fly through it.”

“All right then,” she said. “Breakfast before music shop. Will anything be open on a Sunday morning that early?”

“I’ll take you to that same little place I took Laura,” he promised. “They make a really good bloody Mary, I’m told.”

“Bleah,” she said sourly, sticking out her tongue. “I think I’ll pass on the bloody Mary. It would go against the vow I made this morning to never drink again.”

Jake chuckled. “I’ve made that vow a few times myself,” he said. “In any case, if we’re doing breakfast, we’ll need to be wheels-up by six-forty-five, which means we need to be out of the house and on the way to the airport by six so I can fuel up and file a flight plan.”

“That is insanely early, but I’ll be ready.”

“I know you will,” he said, and then glanced at the clock on the wall. “And now, it’s about that time.”

“Yep,” she said with a sigh. “Back to the grind.”

Celia did not talk much on the flight to Portland and Jake did not try to encourage her. It was still dark when they took off, but by the time they were at altitude and flying over the coastal mountains, the sky had lightened with the coming dawn, casting an eerie, yet beautiful red glow over the western horizon.

“It’s true what they say,” Jake told her.

“What’s true?” she asked.

“Red skies at night, sailors delight, red skies at morning, sailors take warning.” He pointed out the left-side window. “That is one red-ass sky and we know there’s a storm moving in.”

She looked at the glow for a few moments. “It is pretty,” she said. “Is there really a scientific basis for that saying?”

“There actually is,” Jake said. “At least there is in the mid-latitudes. The red sky in the morning means the rising sun is shining on moisture-bearing clouds off to the west. Since most weather in the ocean regions moves west to east, that means we’re looking at the eastern edge of a storm that is coming right towards us.”

“I see,” she said. “And the red sky at night?”

“That means the setting sun in the west is shining on those moisture bearing clouds to the east. Once again, since the weather moves west to east it means those moisture bearing clouds are moving away from us.”

“Interesting,” she said, nodding as she thought about it. “Where did you learn that? Is it something they taught you in flight school?”

“No,” he said. “Basic meteorology is a big part of ground school, but mostly focuses on cloud formations and rain patterns and winds instead of old sailor lore. It was actually Nerdly who told me about the red skies thing. I asked him about it one day and he found the answer for me in some database he got to through CompuServe.”

“Really?” she asked. “He got on the computer and found some obscure article about meteorology in a database somewhere?”

“Yeah. Kind of cool, isn’t it? He says that in a few years everyone will be connected to a big global web of computers and that basically the entire sum of human knowledge will be at anyone’s fingertips.”

“The entire sum of human knowledge?” she asked, raising her eyebrows a bit. “And all in the next few years?”

“That’s what he says,” Jake said. “And get this ... he says that it won’t be the access to the entirety of human knowledge that gets people to sign up for all this and make it work, but the availability of free porn.”

“Free porn?”

“Free porn,” Jake said. “Apparently there is already a bunch of it available through CompuServe and some of the other services they’re coming out with, but as this collection of computers grows, the porn collections will ‘proliferate exponentially’—as he puts it—and become as easy to find as typing whatever kink you happen to be into in a search box.”

“That’s crazy,” she said. “You’re saying the porn would just appear on your computer screen? Are we talking movies, pictures, what?”

“The whole spectrum,” Jake said. “And Nerdly says that will be the prime motivator for people to sign up. They won’t admit that’s why they’re signing up, maybe not even to themselves—they’ll say they want to be able to chat with people in other places, access those databases and libraries, maybe even do their banking online.”

“Banking online?” she asked. “Is that possible?”

“Not just yet, but they’re getting there. Anyway, that’s what guys are going to tell their wives they’re signing on and paying the monthly fees for. In reality, it’ll be so they can sit in the privacy of their own home office and browse through the entire human history of pornographic images to their heart’s content and not have to pay for it.”

“And you believe this?” Celia asked.

Jake nodded. “If Nerdly says it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.”

“Hmm,” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe we should invest some money in the computer industry.”

“Maybe we should,” Jake agreed.

They flew on, and soon the sun itself popped up over the horizon, prompting Jake to put on his aviator shades to combat the glare. They touched down neatly and on time. After securing the plane in the general aviation parking area, they walked to the rental car area and Jake procured a 1993 Lexus for their use.

“All right,” Jake said. “Let’s go get us some breakfast.”

The same waitress that had served Jake and Laura on their trip last year served Jake and Celia now. She did not recognize either one of them—either from Jake’s previous visit or from their general celebrity status. That was fine with them both.

Celia, who was feeling much better today (though not quite back to normal—the hangover had been brutal) promptly broke her vow to never drink again and ordered one of the famous bloody Marys. She had most of it in her stomach before they even ordered food—both of them went with the eggs benedict—and then ordered a second bloody Mary to drink with her actual meal. By the time the plates were removed and the bill was paid, her mood had improved considerably and she was even smiling on occasion.

“All right,” Jake said as he checked his watch. It was 8:34. “Let’s go get you a guitar.”

Frank and Bart were both waiting for them when they arrived at the Portland Music Store. They were polite and subservient as they showed her the instrument and they watched in fascinated awe as she began to strum out some of her work on it once it was in proper tune.

“I like it,” she told Jake. “It sounds good and feels good in my hands. Of course, it’ll never replace the one papa gave me, but it’ll certainly do for the rest of the recording sessions ... as long as I don’t leave it outside.”

“As long as you don’t leave it outside,” Jake said.

Bart even gave them a good deal on the instrument. He let Celia have it for cost—which was sixteen hundred dollars—in exchange for allowing him to take a picture of her and Jake together with the guitar and being granted permission to use the picture in newspaper advertisements that would say that Jake Kingsley and Celia Valdez chose the Portland Music Store as their go-to shop when they were recording their albums in Oregon.

“Fair enough,” Celia said, shaking hands and sealing the deal. “After all, it is true.”

The two of them scratched out a little handwritten contract granting the store their permission to use their image and quotes in their advertisements and then Jake picked up a few odds and ends—extra guitar strings, extra guitar picks, a few replacement cords, and a new tuning fork. They then took their purchases and left the store twenty minutes before it officially opened.

“All right,” Jake said, climbing behind the wheel. “We’re ahead of schedule. We should be back in Coos Bay sipping a drink out on the patio before the first drops of rain even touch the coast.”

“That’s good to hear,” Celia said.

Jake would have let Celia take the controls for the takeoff—it was something he had let her do on several occasions and she always got a nervous little kick out of it—but the two bloody Marys she’d quaffed down earlier precluded this plan. Later, he was forced to wonder if things would have turned out differently if she hadn’t had the bloody Marys and had been able to take the controls for takeoff. True, she would not have really been flying the plane, per se, just making control movements at his direction, but would that have been enough of a difference in their flight path to avoid the collision? He thought it likely. And since everything that followed occurred because of the collision, wasn’t it logical to conclude that everything else might have worked out differently?

There was no way to know for sure. And as he turned the plane onto Runway 13L and made a final check of his takeoff configuration, he had no inkling, no premonition of what was about to happen. It was just another routine flight about to start.

“Flaps at fifteen,” Jake recited, mostly to himself as we went through the checklist, but also for Celia, who had flown enough with him to have picked up the terminology. “V1 is ninety knots ... set. VR is one hundred knots ... set. Mixture ... set ... cowling one ... open ... cowling two ... open ... and ... we’re ready to roll.”

“Ready to roll,” Celia said lightly, her hands gripping the armrest. The mild buzz she’d had from the drinks had pretty much faded away and her normal nervousness at leaving the ground in a vehicle in which she could not actually see what was holding it up had returned.

“Off we go then,” Jake said, pushing his two throttles forward, his eyes watching the RPM gauges.

The engines roared and the plane began to accelerate rapidly since it was nearly empty of passengers and the fuel tanks were less than half full. Jake used his rudder pedals to keep them aligned with the runway center line. The airspeed indicator moved steadily upward, passing through V1—the speed at which they were pretty much committed to takeoff because there would not be enough runway to stop if something went wrong—and then quickly moving to VR—the optimum takeoff speed for the weight of the aircraft and the altitude of the airport.

“Rotate,” Jake said, pulling gently back on the yoke. The nose came up and they broke contact with the ground. As soon as he saw a steady, positive rate of climb, he reached down and pulled the lever for the gear. The machinery began to whine beneath them and, just as the altimeter wound its way past eight hundred feet, became silent once again, leaving only the engine noise. The ground dropped away beneath them, falling further and further. They passed over the airport perimeter fence and out over a golf course beyond it.

“Turning right to one-eight-zero,” Jake said aloud, putting them in a shallow left bank and adjusting his stick a bit to maintain the rate of climb. By the time the bank was complete and they were on course out of the Class B airspace, they were passing through twelve hundred feet.

Everything was looking good. It was time to retract the flaps and start picking up some speed. Just as he reached for the flaps lever to complete this action, his peripheral vision caught the briefest impression of a white object in the sky, just off to their left, moving left to right and closing with them rapidly.

“What the fuck?” he barked.

Before he had a chance to even attempt a course correction, before Celia even had time to respond to his words, there was a solid thump from the left wing as whatever the white object had been slammed into it. The plane shuddered a little but otherwise kept climbing like normal.

“Shit!” Jake said, his eyes looking everywhere at once—out the windows, at his gauges, straight ahead, back behind.

“What was that, Jake?” Celia asked, tension in her voice.

“Quiet,” he told her, still searching for any sign of malfunction. Out the window he could see streaks of blood between the left engine nacelle and the fuselage. And there was a rhythmic rattle coming from out there, just audible under the sound of the engine turning.

“We hit something, didn’t we?” Celia asked.

“Quiet!” Jake barked again. “I need to concentrate for a minute.”

She kept quiet and he continued his survey. They were still flying steady on a due south heading, but the plane was trying to pull minutely to the left because the right wing was trying to come up. He compensated for it easily, first with the yoke and then with the trim wheel. Both engines were still turning at the proper RPMs. Both props were still spinning at their proper RPMs and providing thrust. Oil pressure was good. Fuel was good, showing no signs of a leak. They were still airworthy. But there was still that rattle, and that pull to the left.

“Okay,” Jake said. “I think that was a bird strike.”

“A bird?” Celia asked. “We hit a bird?”

“I think so,” he said. “I saw something white flash in front of us just before the bang happened. And there’s blood on the wing.”

“Can that damage us?” she asked.

“It can,” he confirmed. “It was probably a goose at this altitude. Geese are pretty massive and we were traveling at about a hundred and ten knots. That’s a good chunk of kinetic energy.”

“What do we do now?” she asked, her eyes intently staring at him, undoubtedly to see just how nervous he was about this development.

He was nervous about it, but he did not let it show. He commanded himself to keep calm, cool, and collected and work the problem—if there even was a problem—methodically. “We’re going to go back to the airport,” he told her. “We’ll inspect the plane on the ground and see if there is any damage. If there’s not, we’ll take off again and fly home.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “And everything is good right now?”

“We’re still in controlled flight,” Jake said, watching his altimeter. He planned to level off at two thousand feet for the go-around back to the same runway they had taken off from. “That’s always a good thing.”

“Yeah ... I suppose it is,” she said, her hands gripping the seat so hard now that her knuckles were white.

Jake keyed up his radio, which was still set to the airport’s departure frequency. “Hillsboro tower, this is November-Tango four-one-five with priority traffic.”

“Go ahead, four-one-five,” a male voice responded.

“We suffered what I believe was a bird strike on climb out,” he said. “We’re going to circle back around in the pattern and return to Runway one-three left.”

“I copy you had a bird strike on climb-out,” the controller answered, his voice calm, as if they were discussing something mundane, like the weather. “Are you declaring an emergency or a pan-pan?”

“Not at this point,” Jake replied. “We’re in controlled flight and the aircraft seems to be responding well. I have a slight rattle coming from the left wing and a slight pull to the left, but nothing I can’t handle. We’ll level off at two thousand and circle around left for one-three left.”

“Copy that, four-one-five,” the controller said. “I will keep the runway clear for you and have incoming traffic stay out of your way.”

“I appreciate that,” Jake said, pushing down on the yoke and adjusting his throttles as he reached two thousand feet.

The plane responded normally to his inputs so he banked left, turning them ninety degrees. There were no issues with the turn either. Outside on the wing, however, the rattling seemed to get a little louder, hopefully just because the engine noise had gotten quieter.

“We’re cool,” Jake told Celia. “We’ll be back on the ground in less than five minutes.”

“Glad to hear it,” she said, chewing on her bottom lip a little.

He flew on this heading for about half a mile and then made another left turn, bringing them to a heading of 310, exactly one hundred and eighty degrees from the runway alignment. He maintained 130 knots of airspeed, watching as the airport passed by on his left side. He flew several miles past it, passing over open green fields and the occasional residential area now. He wanted a nice, long approach path in case anything went wrong.

He turned left onto the base leg, flying perpendicular to the runway now, still experiencing no problems except the rattle and the slight pull. It was when he turned back to the runway and began his final approach that a little trouble reared its head.

“Reducing power,” he said, calling out his actions for Celia’s benefit. “Gear down.” He flipped the lever. “Watch my gear status, C.”

“Right,” she said. Checking that the gear was down on approach had been the first thing he had taught her when she started flying regularly with him. Not that he needed someone to check that for him, but it was a little task that made Celia feel she was helping him fly, and when she was helping him fly, she was less nervous.

The machinery whirred and then there was a solid clank as the gear locked into place.

“Three greens on the gear,” Celia reported as the indicator lights came to life on the panel.

“Three greens on the gear,” Jake said, his eyes tracking on the runway ahead and then dropping back to his speed indicator. “Increasing flaps to thirty degrees.” He reached out and pulled the flap lever back one notch.

He knew immediately that something wasn’t right. The motor that drove the flaps sounded strained, as if was pushing against an immovable force. The pull to the left got worse, forcing Jake to correct for it. The motor whine got louder, began to sound like an imminent failure in progress.

“Fuck,” Jake said.

“Fuck what?” Celia asked, her nervousness kicking up considerably. “Why are you fucking over there?”

He put the flap lever back where it had been. “The flaps are jammed in the fifteen degrees position,” he said. “That bird must’ve broke something.”

“What does that mean?” she asked. “Can we land without the flaps?”

“We can land at fifteen degrees,” Jake said. “We’ll just be going a little fast. I need to talk to the tower.” He keyed up. “Hillsboro tower, this is four-one-five. We’re having a little issue with our flaps.”

“Four-one-five, this is Hillsboro tower. What is the issue?”

“Flaps are jammed at one-five degrees,” Jake said. “I cannot fully deploy them for landing. We’re going to have to come in hot.”

“Understood, four-one-five,” the controller said. “State your intentions.”

“I’m continuing the approach,” Jake said, “but I’m requesting to land on one-three right instead.” 13R was 6600 feet in length, as opposed to the 3600 feet of Runway 13L. He might need that extra length.

“You are cleared to land immediately on Runway one-three right,” the controller said. “All traffic on the ground has been held on the taxiways until you’re down.”

“Copy that,” Jake said, throttling down a bit more and adjusting the heading so he could line up with the new runway assignment. “We’re coming in.”

Jake had never landed a plane without his flaps properly deployed before, but it was something he had read up on occasionally and the procedure seemed pretty straightforward. You just came in faster and needed more room to stop. He throttled down so gravity could pull him gently toward the earth and used his yoke to adjust his descent rate and keep him on the glideslope. His airspeed stayed right around one hundred and fifteen knots, thirty knots faster than what he normally touched down at, but still fifteen knots slower than what a 737 touched down at on the same runway—and a 737 was a lot heavier and harder to stop once that touchdown occurred.

“I got this, C,” he told her as the runway grew larger before them. He could now read the large, white 13R on the threshold, could see the perimeter fence, could see other aircraft lined up on the taxiways.

“I know you do,” she told him, still chewing on her lip.

In the end, it was almost anticlimactic. He touched down neatly on the center line just a hundred feet beyond the threshold. There was a slight thump as the wheels made contact with mother Earth once again and then he throttled down completely and applied the brakes. The rollout took quite a bit more runway length than normal, but he was able to slow to taxi speed well before he was even close to running out of room. He would have, in fact, been just fine landing on 13L had he chosen that route.

“All right,” Jake said. “Nothing to it.”

“Nothing to it,” Celia said, breathing a great sigh of relief.

Jake asked for and was given permission to taxi his aircraft over to Westside Aircraft Maintenance, the private business that leased space at the airport and provided maintenance and repair services for anything from a Cessna 150 all the way up to business jets. Jake had never used their services before—if he needed maintenance done on his plane while in Oregon, he used the facilities at North Bend—but he was familiar with their reputation, which was that they were expensive but excellent.

One of the mechanics—an early thirties man in blue coveralls with smudges of grease on them here and there—met him as he parked in the service area. He was already examining the damage when Jake and Celia stepped out of the aircraft.

“Would it be a little gauche of me to kneel down and kiss the ground right now?” Celia asked. Now that they were safe, she was shaking a little from the adrenaline rush.

“It’s okay with me,” Jake said, “although we were never really in any danger.”

“Uh huh,” she said. “What if that bird would have hit the engine, or the windshield?”

“We likely would have still been fine,” Jake assured her. “It’s a two-engine plane, so even if we’d lost one, I still would’ve got us down safely. And as for the windshield, it’s designed to survive a bird strike. It would’ve been messy, but intact.”

“Oh ... I see,” she said, seemingly disappointed that her near-death experience had not been as near as she had thought. “Can’t you let me freak out just a little? Haven’t I earned that?”

“I suppose,” he said, pulling her against him and giving her a quick, one-armed hug. She accepted it gratefully.

He released the embrace and then walked over to the mechanic. “Howdy,” he greeted. “Jake Kingsley.”

“Brad Martinez,” the mechanic said, holding out his hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, Jake. I’ve always enjoyed your music.”

“Thank you,” Jake said, looking at the wing of his plane. The leading edge seemed to be in good shape, although there was quite a bit of blood with fuzzy white feather clumps in it smeared across the underside. The smear stretched all the way to the underside of the flap, which was still deployed at fifteen degrees. “It looks like it was a bird strike all right.” And I’m thinking that the bird in question didn’t fare so well.

“Yep,” Brad said. “A Canada goose would be my guess, based on the damage that was done. How high were you when the strike happened?”

“We were just passing through twelve hundred,” Jake said.

“That’s a goose for sure then,” he said. “We get seagull and duck strikes here on occasion, but they don’t tend to fly that high. This airport is right underneath the Pacific Flyway, the primary migratory route for birds on the west coast of North and South America. We’re past the migration time for the Canadian geese, but there are a few flocks that hang out in this area—the lazy ones I guess, the ones who think Portland is as far south as they need to go.”

“I guess that turned out to be a bad decision for Mr. Goose, huh?” Jake asked.

“Apparently so,” Brad said. He leaned down and got up under the wing, his eyes looking at the flap itself. “It looks like it hit the leading edge and then got sucked under the wing by the air pressure. The body then slammed into the flap right here.” He pointed to the junction where the flap connected to the wing. “It looks like he bent the flap itself and some of the debris got into the pivot points. They told me you weren’t able to deploy the flap beyond fifteen?”

“That’s right,” Jake said. “It was jammed. When I tried to lower it to thirty, the motor began to whine loudly and the pull to the left got worse.”

“Did you try to retract the flaps after you landed?”

“I did,” Jake said. “They wouldn’t retract either. They’re jammed in that position.”

Brad nodded and then pulled himself out from under the wing. “I assume you have insurance on this aircraft?”

“Full coverage,” Jake confirmed. “The bank that financed my loan kind of insisted upon it.”

“That’s the good news then,” Brad said. “I can see that I’m going to have to replace that section of the flap completely and probably the motor and the push-arms as well. I would also recommend a complete safety inspection of the entire wing and everything attached to it or associated with it.”

“Fair enough,” Jake said. He had a five thousand dollar deductible for damage repair. And, since this would not be an at-fault incident, his premiums probably would not go up. “How long will it take?”

“At least two days,” Brad told him. “The work itself can be done in a few hours, but it’ll take a day or two to get the parts in.”

Jake sighed. “Well ... I guess we’re not going to get out of here in front of that storm after all.”

“I’m thinking you’re not,” Brad agreed.

They had to stay at the airport until an official from the FAA drove over from PDX to interview Jake and examine the damage. His name was Martin Rollins and he was a sixty year old engineer approaching retirement age. He had no idea who Jake or Celia were, but he did raise his eyebrows a bit when Jake told him “musician” when he was asked what his occupation was for the form.

“A musician?” Rollins asked. “That’s all you do?”

“That’s all I do,” Jake assured him.

“And you make enough money doing that to afford a two hundred thousand dollar aircraft?”

“Well ... I’m partial owner of the record label we play for as well.”

“Are you now?” Rollins asked, his tired eyes looking into Jake’s.

“I am.”

The intense gaze intensified a little more. “You’re not making this all up, are you?” he asked Jake. “This is an official investigation into an aircraft incident, you know.”

“Trust me,” Jake said. “The last thing in the world I would do is lie to the federal government. I’m a professional musician and I am part owner of KVA Records. So is Celia, by the way.”

Rollins looked over at the beautiful brunette, who had bummed a cigarette from one of the mechanics and was now puffing away just outside the hangar. “Which one?”

“Which one what?” Jake asked.

“Is she a professional musician or a part owner of the record company?”

“Both,” Jake said. “We’re comrades and business partners.”

“I see,” Rollins said, giving a knowing look. Jake could almost read the thought bubble above his head: He’s boning her.

“I’m not boning her,” Jake said, as if the investigator had said the thought aloud.

Rollins looked sharply at Jake for a moment and then back at Celia. “A pity,” he remarked. “Now then. How about we go through the events of the morning one by one. Let’s start with when you left Coos Bay this morning and what your business here in Portland was.”

“All right,” Jake said with a sigh. He began to speak.

In all, the telling of the story took the better part of an hour, with Jake describing everything that had happened that day from the time he woke up (Rollins actually spent a considerable amount of time questioning Jake about how much sleep he’d had the night before and if he’d been drinking alcohol or doing drugs) until he pulled his plane into the parking slot at the maintenance hangar and shut it down. He then went over and interviewed Celia for a bit as well, asking her many of the same questions. From there, he took out a notebook and a camera and spent about thirty minutes taking photos of Jake’s plane and jotting down notes.

“Jeez,” Jake said as he stood next to Celia and watched. “They say that most bird strikes go unreported. Now I know why.”

“Why is he taking pictures of the other wing?” Celia asked, puffing on yet another cigarette. “Nothing hit us there, did it?”

“We’re dealing with the federal government here, C,” he said. “Can I get a hit of that?”

She handed the cigarette over and he took a few drags. They made him cough so he gave it back.

Rollins finished up with them twenty minutes later, after crawling around inside the aircraft and snapping more pictures in there. He then stowed all of his things back in a large briefcase he carried with him.

“All right,” he told Jake. “I’m just going to go interview the air traffic controller you were dealing with and then get a copy of the radar data for the incident and then I’ll probably be able to close out the investigation.”

“Okay,” Jake said slowly. “What does that mean?”

“It means that this looks like a bird strike on climb-out with flaps still set in takeoff configuration, which, in turn, caused the flaps to be damaged and unable to retract or deploy further.”

“Yes,” Jake said. “That is what happened.”

“Well, now it will be what officially happened, if that makes sense,” Rollins explained.

“That does make sense,” Jake said. “And my insurance company will be able to get a copy of this accident report?”

“Incident report,” Rollins corrected.

“Incident?” Jake asked. “It’s not an accident?”

“I’m classifying it as an incident,” the investigator said. “No one was injured—except the avian, of course, and he or she doesn’t count—no property was damaged except for your aircraft, and there is no question about the ongoing safety of the aircraft itself, the aircraft type, the airport, or you as a pilot. We get bird strikes here a few times a year, most commonly in late spring or late autumn. If they’re reported at all, they’re usually classified as incidents.”

“Groovy,” Jake said. “So, my insurance company will be able to score a copy of the incident report?”

“It should be available for public review by the end of next week.”

“Excellent,” Jake said. “Are we free to go then?”

“You are free to go,” Rollins said. “I thank you for your cooperation.”

They shook hands and then Jake and Celia made their way back toward the rental car area. It was now well after two o’clock in the afternoon and the skies were starting to get cloudy.

“What now?” Celia asked. “Do we drive home?”

Jake shook his head. “That storm is still coming in, remember? It’s probably almost here. We’re going to have to wait it out here in Portland. Once we have good weather again, I’ll charter a private flight back to Coos Bay.”

“Great,” Celia said. “Another airplane ride.”

“You gotta get right back on the horse,” Jake said.

“I suppose,” she said. “Do you want me to work on hotel rooms while you get the rental car?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jake told her.

Jake’s part of the plan came off pretty easily. He rented the same Lexus they had just turned in. He then called the house to let everyone know what had happened. It was Charlie who answered the phone.

“What up, Jake?” Charlie asked him. “Where are you at?”

“In Portland,” Jake told him. “Celia and I are kind of stranded here for the night.”

“What are you doing in Portland?” Charlie asked. “I didn’t even notice you were gone.”

“Uh ... we flew down here to pick up a new guitar for Celia, remember? We talked about it last night while we were having dinner.”

“Oh ... yeah, I do seem to remember you guys talking about something like that, now that you mention it. How’s Portland?”

“It’s fine,” Jake said. “Anyway, can you let everyone know that we...”

“I always thought about learning to fly like you, Jake,” Charlie interrupted. “It seems like such a cool thing to do.”

“Uh ... yeah,” Jake said, shuddering a little at the thought of Charlie in control of an aircraft. “It is a lot of fun. Anyway, could you let everyone know that...”

“I imagine there’s some weird germs and shit up there in the atmosphere though,” Charlie cut in.

“Weird germs?” Jake asked.

“That’s right,” Charlie said. “Little microbes that live in the air currents and just float around up there all the time. You fly your plane through a colony of them and they’ll get sucked in through your ventilation system and then you’ll breathe them into your lungs. The next thing you know, you’re coughing up blood and laying in some hospital bed breathing through a tube while they try to figure out what this weird-ass infection you have is and your muscles slowly waste away.”

“Uh ... wow,” Jake said. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”

“Haven’t you?” Charlie countered.

“No, not really,” Jake told him. “You see, I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as weird-ass infectious microbes that float around in atmospheric air currents.”

“Just because none have been found yet doesn’t mean there’s no such thing, Jake,” Charlie admonished.

“Right,” Jake said slowly. “Hey, is Pauline there?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “She’s in the kitchen, making something out of rice and the leftover bread from last night.”

“Can you get her for me?”

“Right away,” Charlie said.

Jake told Pauline what the deal was. She expressed concern for the situation and gratitude that both of them were okay. She did not discuss weird-ass microbes in the atmosphere, at least not with Jake. And she promised to let everyone else know what had happened.

Once his conversation with his sister was done, he went back over to Celia, who was still on the phone herself and was jotting something down on a piece of paper. She had her wallet open before her and was holding one of her credit cards in her hand, reading off the number. He sat next to her until she finished.

“Did you get us some rooms?” Jake asked.

She shook her head. “I got us a room,” she said. “It’s the Presidential suite over at the Sheraton and it was apparently the last hotel room available in the Portland region tonight.”

“Really?” Jake asked. “Everything was booked? On a Sunday?”

“It’s the Sunday before Christmas, remember?” she asked him. “And it seems this Portland Festival of Lights thing we’ve been seeing flyers for is a big deal—the kind of thing that people from all over the country come to see. Not only that, but the Sacramento Kings are in town to play the Trailblazers. All the hotel rooms have been booked for months in advance. I had to name drop to get the suite at the Sheraton, and they’re charging me eleven hundred dollars for it! Highway robbery.”

“We’re going to share a suite?” Jake asked.

“It’s not a big deal, Jake,” she said. “It’s a big suite with two complete rooms. It’s not like we have to share a bed in a Motel 6.”

“I suppose,” he said. “I only hope the media doesn’t get wind of this. Can you imagine the stories they’d run if they found out we shared a hotel room? Greg would fly down here just to kick my ass.”

This caused a sour look to appear on Celia’s face. “I seriously doubt that,” she said, more than a hint of anger in her tone.

Jake debated saying something for a moment and then decided not too—not in the waiting room of a rental car agency anyway. “All right,” he said. “I guess we got no choice. I called and let Pauline know what was up. I’ll update her where we’re staying when we get there.”

Celia nodded. “Let’s go check out our suite then. They say it’s ready for occupancy as soon as we get there.”

“Let’s do it then,” Jake said.

They walked out to the rental car, stowed Celia’s new guitar in the trunk, and then headed for the Portland riverfront. As they drove, the rain started to fall and it began to get very cold.

Pretty soon, it would start to snow.