Different Circles

Chapter 19: Shake it Up

Los Angeles, California

January 16, 1994

The dinner meeting was held at Jake’s house on the very day that he, Celia, and the Nerdlys flew back to Santa Monica in Jake’s plane, master CD copies for both new albums in hand. They had finished well ahead of schedule, both with the recording process itself and with the mixing and mastering. After returning from their two-day excursion to Portland, Jake and Celia, by unspoken consent, had driven themselves, their band members, and their engineering team into overdrive, asking them to work twelve hour days, six days a week, and to step up all aspects of production while doing so. Part of this was because they wanted to get the projects done and out into the world. A bigger part, however, was that the constant workload kept them from having to think too much about what had happened between them that one snowy night.

It was a plan that worked quite well. Though some nerves and tempers had been frayed on occasion, Jake and Celia kept their hands off of each other and they did not speak, even when alone with each other, about their transgression. Though neither would ever be able to forget it had ever happened—Jake, in fact, took the memory out quite often, usually when alone in his bed at night—no one else in the group seemed to have the least bit of suspicion that the two singers had done anything but platonically share a two-room suite together for a few nights out of necessity.

And now, on their first day home, the Nerdlys, along with Pauline and Obie, sat at Jake’s dining room table at six o’clock that evening, Jake with them while Elsa was in the kitchen working on the dinner portion of the meeting. She was making chicken parmesan with garlic bread and the entire house smelled incredible. Jake, Sharon, and Nerdly were all sipping from glasses of a 1989 Inglenook Merlot that Jake had pulled from his collection. Pauline, who was now exactly one week from her due date and quite enormous in the stomach and boobs (although she remained remarkably trim everywhere else) was drinking a glass of iced herbal tea. Obie, who had just started his tour break paternity leave two days before, was drinking some of Jake’s Jamaican Blue coffee. Though he longed for a nice scotch on the rocks with every fiber of his being, he had made a vow to remain sober until the birth so he could drive her to the hospital when the time came.

The doorbell rang. Jake’s nerves ramped up a few notches at the sound of it. It could only be Celia and Greg ringing it, the two of them here to attend the meeting and have a little dinner. It would be the first time that Jake had been face to face with the actor, the first time he had even spoken to him, since he had left for Alaska the first time some months ago. A lot had happened since then, most notably that Greg had cheated on Celia and then (stupidly, Jake still thought) confessed it to her, and that Jake himself had spent a long, wonderful night naked and in bed with Greg’s wife. Greg and Celia themselves had only been reunited since the incident for a few hours. The potential for awkwardness was extremely high.

“Jake!” Elsa called from the kitchen. “Get the door, please. I’m right in the middle of breading these cutlets and I have egg all over my hands.”

“I’m on it, Elsa,” he called back. He stood from his seat at the table, took a deep breath, and then walked to the front door.

He opened the door slowly and there, standing out on his front porch, was one of America’s favorite couples. The dress code for meetings at Jake’s house was understood to be casual comfortable—it always had been, always would be—and Celia was adhering to it nicely. She had on a pair of loose-fitting designer jeans and a simple button-up blouse covered by a light sweater. Greg, on the other hand, had a different idea of what casual comfortable meant. He was wearing a pair of dress slacks and a long-sleeved Pierre Cardin dress shirt buttoned to the collar. A fashionable sport coat rounded out the outfit. Both of them smiled when they saw Jake standing there.

“Hey, guys,” Jake greeted, putting a smile on his own face—a smile that felt decidedly forced. “Welcome. Come on in.”

They stepped inside and Jake shut the door behind them. When he turned around, he saw that Greg was holding out his right hand.

“It’s good to see you again, Jake,” the actor told him with what seemed genuine sincerity.

“You too, Greg,” Jake returned, putting out his own right hand and shaking with him. To his surprise, Greg pulled him into a bro-hug and patted him firmly on the back. Jake returned the gesture out of reflex.

“I brought us a little something to go with dinner,” Greg said, holding out two identical bottles of white wine. “It’s an eighty-nine Sauvignon Blanc from the Piqure Pretentieuse vineyards in the southern Bordeaux region.”

“Very nice,” Jake said appreciably. He had heard of the vineyard but had never purchased any wine from it. It was reputed to produce some of the best white wine in Europe but Jake had a hard time believing that it could possibly be worth the price. He took the bottles and found they were already chilled.

“They’d better be very nice,” Greg said, “for six hundred dollars a bottle.”

Jake whistled. “That’s a lot of coin for a bunch of smashed grapes,” he said. “Thanks for bringing them. I’ll have Elsa keep them chilled and open them just before dinner.”

“It smells incredible in here,” Greg commented.

“Elsa makes a chicken parm that is close to orgasmic,” Jake assured him.

“I can’t wait,” Greg said.

With that, Jake turned to Celia, who was offering her friendly smile of greeting. She held out her arms to him, inviting their usual hug they shared when encountering each other. Still feeling awkward, but—ironically enough—knowing it would seem odd to Greg if he didn’t hug her, he stepped into her embrace and put his arms around her, giving her about as chaste a hug as he could possibly manage. Even so, she still felt really good in his arms and his mind flashed back to that night, the night he’d held her in a much closer embrace and his manhood had been buried to the hilt inside of her body. He released her before the surge of blood heading south could do much more than get started.

“It’s been forever, hasn’t it, C?” Jake asked.

“Yes,” she said with a chuckle. “Almost three hours now since we landed in Santa Monica.”

Jake led them through the house and into the dining room, where everyone else was still sitting. He watched as the greetings were exchanged among the group. Pauline and Sharon both shook Greg’s hand and then hugged Celia. Nerdly and Obie both hugged Greg and then Celia. They all told each other how happy they were to see each other. As this went on, Jake watched the couple carefully. They seemed genuinely happy to see their friends and business associates and there did not seem to be any palpable conflict between the two of them at the moment. So far, so good. The true test, however, was going to be when they all sat down and started talking.

Jake poured each of them a healthy glass of the merlot he’d opened and they sat down at the table, sitting next to each other just across from Jake and Pauline. Jake proposed a toast “to the masters”, and everyone had a drink to that. That done, the conversation began to move around the table, the topics mostly catching up related. Greg told them about the progress of So Others May Live, which was now well into post-production.

“When will it premier?” asked Pauline.

“Memorial Day weekend is when it will open nationwide in the theaters,” Greg told them. “Of course, there will be a black-tie, invitation-only premier the weekend before at the Hollywood Hilton. I’m hoping that all of you will be able to attend.”

“I can’t wait,” Pauline said. “I’ll have a four-month old baby to bring into the theater to scream and cry and disturb everyone.”

Greg looked at her sharply for a moment and then figured out she was kidding. He chuckled a little and then began talking about the gala premier again.

Jake watched carefully as the conversation traveled about the table. Celia did not participate much. She smiled and nodded when it seemed appropriate to do so, answered any questions that were thrown her way, but otherwise just looked politely at whoever was speaking and kept to herself. She also showed no marital affection to her husband—no touching of his hand, no patting of his leg, no smiling at his words. Very interesting indeed.

Finally, the inane preliminaries wrapped up and they started to talk business.

“Ten o’clock tomorrow we start making the rounds,” Pauline told them. “All four of the bigs are expecting us—National at ten o’clock, Aristocrat at eleven-thirty, Capitol at one-thirty, and Warner Brothers at two-thirty. We give them copies of the masters and have them submit bids for MD&P by close of business hours on Wednesday.”

“I’m surprised you were able to get so many appointments for tomorrow,” Nerdly said.

“Why are you surprised about that?” Pauline asked.

“Well, it is a federal holiday,” he said. “It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I would have thought that some, if not all of the major labels would be shut down in honor.”

“Honor?” Jake scoffed. “Are you kidding me right now, Nerdly? Those fuckin’ suits don’t honor anyone or anything, especially not when there’s money to be made.”

“A cynical, yet accurate description,” Pauline said. “Not a single suit I talked to on Friday had any problem with the meetings being held on MLK day. I’m pretty sure that most of them don’t even know that tomorrow is MLK day.”

“At least the traffic should be decent,” Obie observed.

“As long as we stay away from the parade route,” Sharon said.

“We’ll stay well clear of it,” Jake said.

“Okay then,” Pauline said, her hands rubbing her belly. “Now that we’ve had the obligatory politically correct discussion about a martyred civil rights leader and the celebration of his birthday, how about we get back to the business at hand? Since Obie won’t be bidding this time around, our little arrangement with Aristocrat for releasing Dex to us puts us in a decent bargaining position as long as the big four don’t actually collaborate with each other.”

“Something I would not put past them,” Jake said.

Pauline shrugged. “I wouldn’t either, but I think their own greed and sleaziness precludes that possibility. Quite simply, they know that both albums are going to sell well and be money makers, or at least they will once they hear the masters. You’ve both gone multi-platinum with your previous releases and they’re all going to want a piece of a future multi-platinum. Since they all know that Aristocrat has the right to match the lowest bid, there’s a good chance that the other three will all try to lowball them and name a royalty figure Aristocrat won’t want to match. In sense, playing the Dexter card was the best thing we could have done.”

“What kind of royalty rate do you think you’ll be able to secure?” asked Greg.

“We’re hoping for something in the vicinity of twenty-five percent,” Jake said.

Greg whistled. “Twenty-five, huh? That would be sweet.”

“Indeed it would,” Pauline said. “We are, however, prepared to go as high as thirty.”

“What if they don’t offer thirty?” Greg asked. “What if the lowest bid is thirty-five?”

“Never happen,” Obie said confidently. “If the lowest bid was thirty-five, that would be as good as a signed confession that the suits at the big four are in cahoots with each other and agreed to highball y’all.”

“And if they did something like that,” Pauline explained, “all bets are off. The deal we made with Aristocrat would be off the table. We would be inclined to go with Obie again for thirty-three or so and then let him open negotiations with them like we did for the first albums.”

“Is that a legally defensible position to take?” asked Nerdly.

Pauline shrugged. “If Aristocrat decided to file suit for breach of contract against us, the burden of proof would be on us to establish that corroboration actually took place, and, quite honestly, I’m not sure how we would be able to meet that burden. However, I truly don’t think things would come to that. Remember, there is no advantage for the other three of the big four to cooperate with Aristocrat in any collusion deal, and there is a lot for them to lose. They want to sign Jake and especially Celia because they know they’re going to be moneymakers for whoever does sign them. That’s why I think they’ll try to lowball Aristocrat and bid down in the twenty-five percent range.”

“That sounds like a sound hypothesis,” Nerdly said with a nod.

“Then we agree that our hard ceiling is thirty percent?” asked Celia, contributing to the discussion for the first time.

“That’s correct,” Pauline said. “Not a single dime more than thirty percent of wholesale rate. If all bids are higher than that, we walk.”

After dinner, Jake asked Obie and Greg if they wanted to join him for a little cognac and a cigar out on the deck. Greg was all for it. Obie, on the other hand, refused, since he couldn’t have the cognac and since a cigar wouldn’t taste right without either cognac or scotch to sip with it.

“Oh ... I see,” Jake said, feeling nervous at the thought of being alone with Greg. “Well ... how about you, Nerdly? Care to join us?”

Nerdly wrinkled his face in disgust. “You know that simply smelling those cigars sets off my asthma,” he said. “And now you’re actually asking me to smoke one? Are you attempting to unlawfully profit from a surreptitious life insurance policy you’ve taken out on me?”

Greg chuckled at this and clapped Jake on the back. “He’s on to your plot, Jake,” he told him.

“I guess so,” Jake said sourly.

“Looks like it’s you and me,” Greg said. “Lead the way.”

Suppressing a sigh, Jake led him over to the bar, where he first poured two healthy snifters of his best cognac and then opened his humidor to pull out two of his finest illegally obtained Cuban cigars. He then led the actor out onto the deck, where the sun had now set and the city lights of LA were shining brightly in the brisk air.

They sat in the chairs and prepped their cigars before firing them up with a lighter Jake kept out here just for that purpose. They puffed away for a few minutes, sipping from their snifters every now and then. Just as Jake was starting to feel that the silence was awkward, Greg asked him how Laura was doing these days.

“She’s in Santiago, Chile,” Jake told him. “They’re doing three shows there and then moving on to La Paz in Bolivia for six shows.”

“Are they flying her from venue to venue, or is she riding on that horrid tour bus?”

“The band is flying,” he said. “The roadies and the equipment are moving by truck and bus. She says that she’d almost rather travel by ground though. Some of those aircraft they fly her on are pretty primitive by American standards.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said, taking a long puff. “She told me she got in one plane to fly between cities in Peru and as they’re bouncing and banging along through a pass in the mountains, she looked out at the wing and saw that part of the flap assembly was being held together with duct tape.”

“Duct tape?” Greg asked, astonished.

“Ain’t that some shit?” Jake asked.

“Indeed,” he said, shaking his head. “When does she come home?”

“The tour will finish up in Sau Paulo on March 15,” Jake said. “She should be home by March 17.”

“That will be a happy day for you, huh?”

“You have no idea,” Jake said.

“Actually, I do,” Greg said. “I just went through a similar separation, remember?”

“Oh ... yeah, I guess you did,” Jake said awkwardly. How about we turn this conversation in another direction? he thought.

Before he could do that, however, Greg exponentially upped the level of awkwardness. “Celia told me what happened that night in Portland,” he said.

Jake’s hand tightened on his cognac glass. She fucking told him? his mind screamed angrily, with disbelief. She told him what happened in Portland? What the fuck happened to ‘we’ll never speak of this again, even to each other’?

“Uh...” Jake stammered, unsure what to say. “She ... uh ... she told you?”

“That’s right,” Greg said seriously, twirling his cognac around and around. “She said you two got stranded there when your plane was broke and had to share a suite and that ... she was upset with me ... and ... and she had a few drinks, and then she ... she told you about what happened between me and that makeup girl.”

Jake licked his lips slowly and then gave his own cognac a little swirl. “Yeah...” he said slowly. “That did happen.” He swallowed slowly. “Did she ... uh ... tell you anything else?”

“Anything else?” Greg asked, raising his eyebrows a bit. “Is there more than that to tell?”

Jake shook his head rapidly. “No, nothing at all,” he assured the actor. “She was just ... you know ... pretty emotional that night.”

Greg nodded sadly. “My fault completely. I’m still kicking myself in the ass for doing that. I was weak. I know a lot of these Hollywood marriages are rife with infidelity—they cheat on each other routinely, without even a first thought, let alone a second one—but Celia and I have always had something special.” He sighed. “Or at least we did until I let my Johnson do the thinking for me one night.”

“I can relate to that,” Jake said honestly.

“Yeah,” Greg said with a nod. “You’ve performed your share of indiscretion over the years, haven’t you?”

You have no fucking idea, Jake thought guiltily. “I like to think I’m getting over that these days,” he said, feeling like a hypocrite even as the words left his mouth.

“I admire you, actually,” Greg said. “You haven’t seen Laura in how long now?”

“Not since October when I went to visit for a week out on her tour,” Jake told him.

“That’s almost as long as Celia and I were apart, yet somehow you managed to keep your dick in your pants, right?”

“Uh ... right,” Jake said softly. “It ... uh ... hasn’t been easy though.”

“Not easy, but you did it. You know the funny thing about all this is that fucking makeup girl meant nothing to me, nothing at all but someone to flirt with. And she wasn’t nearly as attractive as Celia is, not even close. I didn’t even enjoy it while we were doing it, all I kept thinking about was how wrong it was, how I’d just taken something special that Celia and I had going and smashed it against a wall.”

“You made a mistake, Greg,” Jake told him. “It happens. As I said, I can relate quite well. What I’m wondering however, is do you really think confessing what you’d done to Celia was the right thing to do?”

“The guilt was overwhelming,” he said. “I couldn’t think of anything else but how I’d betrayed her. I had to confess, Jake. It was the only way I could put it behind me.”

“Well ... maybe you were able to put it behind you, but by doing that, you put it in front of Celia. And it’s still there, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “It’s still there. She was cold as ice to me when she got home today. Hasn’t said more than a dozen words to me. She’s refused to talk about it. To be quite honest, I’m not sure where we’re going to go from here.”

Jake reached over and patted the man on his shoulder. “Keep the faith, Greg,” he told him. “She’s got a lot on her mind that’s unrelated to her problems with you. We have our meetings with the big four and then we’ll have negotiations after that. Let her get through tomorrow and then maybe she’ll be more open to communication.”

Greg nodded. “I suppose,” he said. “Things always look better in the morning, don’t they?”

“That’s what they say,” Jake agreed, completely unaware that tomorrow was going to be a most interesting day for them all and for an entirely unforeseen reason.

And their day was going to start much earlier than planned.

It was 4:30 AM when it happened. Jake was sound asleep in his bed in the master bedroom, wearing only a pair of black boxer briefs, the sheets and comforter pulled tight around his body, the ceiling fan spinning along on high. Elsa was asleep in her bedroom as well. The sun was still more than ninety minutes away from broaching the eastern horizon.

A ferocious jolt of the bed rocketed Jake instantly from REM sleep to complete wakefulness in less than two seconds, adrenaline surging through him. His first thought was that an intruder had broken into his home and was violently shaking the bed—apparently wishing to wake him up before killing him with a hatchet or a machete. He sat up quickly, ready to fight or flee, his eyes looking around the dark room for his tormentor. There was just enough ambient light from the clock radio and the nightlight in the bathroom for him to see that there was no one there at all. But the bed was still being hammered back and forth. And it wasn’t just the bed. Above his head, the ceiling fan was gyrating madly as well, seemingly about to rip itself out of its mounting and drop right on top of him. And over against the wall, books were tumbling out of the bookshelf and thumping to the floor. From inside the bathroom, he heard the sound of objects falling onto the counter, the contents of his medicine cabinet undoubtedly—his deodorant, his bottles of cologne, his Tylenol and vitamin B tablets.

Earthquake! his mind finally screamed at him. And it’s a fucking big one! That had to be what was happening. As someone who had lived in southern California for more than ten years, he had felt tremors of the Earth before. There were generally quakes that could be felt a few times a year in LA. This was something different though. This one was violent. This one felt like the house was going to come apart around him.

“Fuck me!” he barked, casting the covers aside and rolling out of bed. He put his feet on the floor and tried to make his way to the doorway, which was where he had always been taught to station yourself in this kind of situation. His feet, however, did not seem to want to cooperate with him. It was like he was walking across the deck of a pitching, rolling ship after drinking a fifth of Jack Daniels. He fell down, skinning his knees on the carpet. From downstairs, he could hear the sound of other things crashing to the ground and breaking. He began to crawl frantically, growing more fearful by the second. Just as he finally made it to the doorway, the shaking came to a halt.

From outside he could hear the sound of dozens of car alarms braying out. He looked around at the room. The ceiling fan was still jittering back and forth but seemed like it was trying to steady itself. The blades were still rotating. The lamp on his nightstand had fallen over but the clock radio on the dresser across the room was still sitting there, still lit up and showing the time: 4:31. The power was still on. He stood up slowly, carefully, and flipped on the light switch. The room lit up, showing a mess of books and knickknacks spilled onto the carpet, showing his bed had actually moved about a foot to the right. The walls, however, seemed to be intact, with no signs of imminent collapse.

“That was some shit,” Jake said, feeling his heart hammering in his chest. He took a few deep breaths and then opened the bedroom door. Out in the hallway he saw several pictures on the ground.

“Jake!” Elsa voice called up to him. “Talk to me, Jake!”

“I’m okay, Elsa!” he called back. “The bedroom is kinda trashed though. Are you okay?”

Before she could answer him, the house began to shake again.

“Oh Lord!” he heard Elsa cry. “Another one! Stand in the doorway, Jake!”

“Fuckin’ A!” he yelled back at her, putting his hands against the doorjamb and bracing himself.

This shaking was not nearly as violent, but it was still respectable. Jake heard a few more things go crashing to the floor or to the counters in various parts of the house. After what seemed an eternity (but which he would later find out was only eighteen seconds), the shaking subsided and disappeared once again. He stood there for another minute, afraid to move lest there be another one.

“Still okay up there, Jake?” Elsa asked.

“I think so,” he called down. “You?”

“So far, so good!” she returned. “We have a considerable mess down here though.”

“At least we’re alive to fret about it,” he told her. “I’m gonna get dressed and come down. That felt like it was a big one. The kind that kills people and destroys shit.”

“I suspect you’re right,” she told him. “I’ll get the television on and see what’s going on.”

Jake hurriedly pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, nervously anticipating another round of shaking the entire time. None came, though outside he could hear the car alarms still braying away. He almost walked out of the room barefoot but then, thinking that there was probably broken glass to contend with, grabbed a pair of socks and his battered running shoes and put them on.

He left the room and made his way down the hallway, stepping over the fallen pictures for now, flipping on light switches as he went. He walked down the staircase and emerged in the entertainment room. His large screen television was still mounted on the wall, though it looked a little crooked, but several of his guitars had come crashing down. Fortunately, he saw, his most prized guitar—the sunburst Gibson Les Paul that had been signed by Les Paul himself (or Himself, as Jake thought of Him)—was still firmly in its case and hanging where it had always hung. His CD cabinets, on the other hand, had tipped over and spilled out their contents all over the polished hardwood floor and the rack for storing the pool cues had come down as well.

He made his way into the sitting room adjacent to the kitchen where he found Elsa, fully dressed in her jeans and blouse, staring at the television on the wall, the remote control in her hand, next to the remains of one of Jake’s wine racks, which had fallen over and broken open approximately three thousand dollars’ worth of premium vintages. The smell of wine was quite potent in the air.

“That is a goddamn shame,” Jake said, looking at his spilled wine.

“You do not exaggerate,” Elsa said. “I’m never going to get that wine out of the carpet. We’re going to have to replace it.”

“And the wine too,” Jake said.

Elsa shot him an irritated look. “The power is still on and the television works, but nothing is on the air right now. All the local stations are just showing a blue screen and the national channels, like CNN, are showing the technical difficulties screen.”

“The cable company must’ve been taken out,” Jake said.

“Yes,” she said. “That means it was a big one indeed. I need you to go outside right away and check the gas meter.”

“The gas meter? For what?”

She gave him another look of irritation. “For leaking gas,” she said sternly. “Why else would one check the gas meter after an earthquake? If you smell any gas at all, even a little bit, you’ll have to shut the valve off. I’m going to check around in here to see if any of the internal gas plumbing is damaged.”

“Shut the valve off? How do I do that?”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. She then walked into the kitchen. He heard her opening a drawer and then slamming it shut again. A moment later she walked back into the room with a large crescent wrench in her hands. She handed it to him. “Shut it off with this. There’s a large, round valve with a rectangular protrusion atop it. The rectangle is currently pointing in the direction of the pipe. If you need to turn off the valve, put the wrench on that protrusion and turn it ninety degrees, so that the rectangle is perpendicular to the pipe. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” he said. “And I should only do this if I smell gas?”

“Or if I smell gas and instruct you to do so,” she said. “Now hurry, before we get blown to Timbuktu.”

“I’m on it,” Jake said. “Just one more question.”

“What?”

“Where exactly is the gas meter?”

“Oh, for the love of God, Jake,” Elsa moaned, shaking her head. “It’s right next to the backyard gate, on the street side, near the garbage cans.”

“Right,” Jake said. “I seem to remember seeing it there before.”

While Elsa began to move about the house, checking everywhere there was a gas line, Jake opened the front door and stepped out into the night. The sound of car alarms was still the primary noise out here, interspersed with a few house alarms and the distant sound of sirens. A good portion of his neighbors were outside, some seemingly on the same mission as Jake, but most just looking around anxiously. Jake did not have a good relationship with his neighbors and made no attempt to communicate with any of them, nor did they with him.

He found the gas meter right where Elsa had told him it would be and he put his face up near it, sniffing loudly, trying to detect even a hint of natural gas odor. He smelled nothing, so he went through the gate and into the backyard, still carrying his wrench in hand. He found more destruction out here. It appeared that a considerable amount of water had sloshed out of his swimming pool during the quake and flooded over his deck area. Patio furniture and tables had been pushed around or overturned and there were several inches of standing water on the lawn itself.

Jake looked out over the hillside to the cityscape below and got his first hint of just how bad the quake had been. Entire sections of the city were darkened of city lights and he could see the orange spark of multiple fires and columns of smoke rising from them. Everywhere, he could see the flashing red and blue lights of emergency vehicles moving about on the streets.

“Christ,” he muttered. For the first time it occurred to him to worry about Pauline and Obie, and the Nerdlys, and Celia and Greg.

He ran up the stairs onto the upper deck, where he and Greg had had their conversation the night before, and then pounded on the sliding glass door until Elsa came and unlocked it for him.

“For God’s sake, Jake,” Elsa scolded. “Why didn’t you come back in the same door you went out?”

“This one was closer,” he said dismissively. “No gas smell out there. How about in here?”

“Nothing,” she said. “And the water is still running as well, although we should probably not drink it until we hear from the authorities that it’s safe.”

“Yeah ... good idea,” Jake said, glad that Elsa was here. Abstaining from drinking the water would not have occurred to him. “Have you looked out here yet?” He pointed to the cityscape.

“I haven’t,” she said, stepping out onto the deck and taking a gander. “My God, Jake. Half the city is dark ... and there are fires.”

“Yep,” he said. “It was a bad one all right. I’m gonna call Paulie and make sure she and Obie are okay. She’s only a week from her due date. This would be a real bad time for her to go into labor.”

“Lord have mercy,” Elsa exclaimed. “I didn’t think of that.”

“That’s okay,” Jake told her, heading for the phone. “You thought of everything else.”

Jake picked up the cordless phone from its holder, pushed the button that turned it on, and then put it to his ear. He was gratified to hear a dial tone. His gratification turned to dismay, however, when he pushed the first three numbers of Pauline’s digits and was interrupted by the shrill three tone warning and a recorded female voice telling him that she was sorry, all circuits were busy right now, and that he should hang up and try his call again later. He did so, with the same result. He then tried dialing Nerdly’s number. The circuits were busy for that one as well. And for Greg and Celia.

“Well ... shit,” he said, putting the device back in its folder. “The phones are all jammed.”

“Unsurprising,” Elsa said. “Everyone in Los Angeles is trying to call someone else at the same time. It’ll probably be a few hours before you’ll be able to get through.”

“What do we do then?” Jake asked.

“Let’s see if the radio works,” she suggested. “Maybe they’re still on the air.”

He went over to the stereo and flipped it on, turning it to the radio setting. The entire FM bank was silent except for some staticky blurbs that were indecipherable. He had a little better luck with the AM band—which he never listened to. All of the local stations were off the air but, since it was still dark outside, he was able to pull in several stations from Mexico, Arizona, and northern California. Most, however, were only playing crappy music or talk shows that were saying nothing about an earthquake. Finally, he happened upon a news channel from the Sacramento area. They were reporting on the earthquake in LA but had no more information than Jake had, which was to say that all they knew was that a large quake had just rocked the LA basin and that they were waiting for word of damages and injuries.

“Well,” said Elsa with a sigh. “I guess there’s only one thing to do right now.”

“What’s that?” Jake asked.

“Start cleaning this mess up. You want to start upstairs and I’ll start working down here?”

Gradually, as the day went on, first the radio stations and then the television stations began to come back on the air. The earthquake was, of course, the only story they were telling. They said it was centered in the San Fernando Valley, in the community of Northridge, and that it was estimated to be 6.7 on the Richter scale. Multiple buildings had collapsed into rubble, including several hospitals. Several elevated freeways and freeways ramps had collapsed as well, including the I-10 corridor, which was the busiest and most important stretch of freeway in the Los Angeles region, and the I-5/Route 14 interchange, which was also quite important to LA travel. Dozens of deaths were reported, with the toll expected to rise as the rubble was cleared. Hundreds upon hundreds were injured and many were unable to get medical treatment because of the hospital damage. Gas lines and water lines had been severed all throughout the valley, wreaking further havoc. It was even reported that the scoreboard at Anaheim Stadium, where the Angels played, had fallen into the bleachers which, thankfully, had been empty at the time.

Phone service remained spotty throughout the day but Jake was finally able to get hold of Pauline just before noon.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” she told her brother. “We got some damage, mostly shit that fell off the walls or came crashing out of cabinets, but the house is still standing.”

“That’s good to hear,” Jake told her, relieved.

“Yeah, but there’s a problem,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“The fuckin’ hospital where I was going to deliver the clump has been damaged and evacuated. Not only that, but a lot of other hospitals are in the same boat. All the hospitals that aren’t damaged are being overwhelmed with the injured and with the evacuees from the hospitals that were. I’m due at pretty much any time, Jake. What’s going to happen if I go into labor today, or tomorrow, or even three days from now? The fuckin’ roads are a mess. If I can even get to a hospital, which one am I supposed to go to?”

“That is a problem,” Jake had to agree.

“No shit it’s a problem,” she said. “I need to get out of the LA area as soon as I can.”

“What about your doctor?” Jake asked.

“Fuck him,” she said plainly. “Dr. Bradshaw has seen me through this whole thing, but an OB doc is an OB doc. There are no complications expected with this delivery. It’s more important that I be in a decent, undamaged, un-overwhelmed hospital somewhere than making sure that Bradshaw is the one to pull the clump out of my cooter. I need you to fly me out of here someplace where it’s safe.”

“Like where?” he asked.

“How about Heritage?” she asked. “Mom and dad will be thrilled if I have the baby there and they can visit right away. And it’ll be fitting in a way, having little Tabby be born in my hometown.”

“That’s a two-hour flight in my little plane that has no bathroom aboard with a woman who pees every five minutes and might go into labor any time,” Jake said. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea?”

“It’s the best one I’ve had today,” she said. “I’m a first-time mom. Even if I do go into labor in flight, the odds are the clump isn’t going to come squishing out before you can land. And as for the bathroom, I just won’t drink anything for six hours before takeoff and then I’ll pee right before we board. Hell, I’ll get some of those adult diapers and wear them for the trip in case that isn’t enough. I need this to happen, Jake.”

Jake sighed. What she was saying made sense (even though the diaper thing was more than a little disgusting of a thought), but he was still quite uneasy. Still, it seemed the only logical solution to the problem. A commercial airliner and even a private jet would likely not allow her to fly with her pregnancy so advanced. “All right,” he said. “If I can, I will.”

“Great,” she said. “When can we do it?”

“Well ... not today, that’s for sure,” he said. “I heard on the news that all the LA area airports have been closed until they can be inspected for damage. And even if they were open, I don’t think we’d be able to get there with the roads being how they are. Hell, I haven’t even been out in the garage to make sure my car is still functional. For that matter, I don’t know that my plane is undamaged either. For all I know, the goddamn hangar it’s parked in might have collapsed on top of it.”

“If that’s the case, we’ll have to come up with a Plan B,” she said. “For now, however, how about we assume your plane is still in good shape. It probably is, right?”

“Probably,” he had to agree. “Those hangars were built to live through an earthquake.” He hesitated for a second. “At least, I would assume they were.”

“As soon as they open that airport then, let’s bust ass,” she said. “We’ll fight our way through the surface streets to the airport and get the hell out. I need you to make this happen for me, bro. I don’t want to push this baby out in my fucking house with Obie—as fond as I am of him—serving as the catcher.”

“I’ll make it happen, Paulie,” he promised.

“Thanks, Jake,” she said, her voice a little softer now. “I know I can count on you.”

“Always,” he said. “What about those meetings with the big four? It seems pretty apparent that we’re going to have to reschedule.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s probably going to have to wait until after the clump is born. I’m sure they’ll understand. And even if they don’t, fuck ‘em.”

“Should we at least find a way to get those masters to them so they can give them a listen and start putting together their bids?”

She pondered that for a few moments and then said: “That would be cool if we can pull it off. I wouldn’t want to send those master copies through the mail though. We’d have to have someone drop them all off once the roads get back in traveling shape. Maybe one of the Nerdlys?”

“No deal,” Jake said. “I haven’t got hold of them yet, but assuming they’re all right after the quake, I’m pretty sure they’re going to want to come to Heritage and be with you when you have the baby.”

“Yeah,” Pauline said. “I’m guessing Bill is hoping to catch a glimpse of me nursing the clump so he can finally lay his eyes on my tits.”

“Uh ... yeah, sure,” Jake said. “Maybe Celia and Greg?”

“Have you checked in with them yet?”

“No, you’re the first one I’ve talked to, but I’ll call them as soon as I hang up with you.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said. “You call the Nerdlys and Celia, and I’ll call Mom and Dad to let them know we’re all right and that we’re coming to visit soon.”

“Deal,” he said.

Jake got hold of Celia about an hour later. She and Greg were both uninjured and their LA house was still standing as well, although, like almost everyone else in the region, they’d suffered a considerable amount of interior damage from falling objects. Jake updated her on the plan to get Pauline out of the area and asked if she and Greg would be able to get the master copies to the big four suits while they were gone.

“Greg can do it,” Celia told him.

“What about you?” Jake asked.

“I’m going with you,” she said matter-of-factly.

“You are?”

“I am,” she said. “There’s no way in hell I’m not going to be there when Paulie has her little bebita. I’m calling dibs on one of the seats on the plane right now. In fact, I’m calling shotgun.”

“Um ... well, okay, I guess,” Jake said. “But shouldn’t you talk to Greg about this first?”

“No,” she said plainly. “I shouldn’t.”

“I see,” Jake said slowly. And he really did.

It actually took two days before the Santa Monica airport was declared safe for operations and re-opened to traffic. Jake got hold of someone in the administration building and was able to confirm that there had been no damage to the private hangars and that no one had reported damage to any aircraft stored within them. A good sign.

They planned the trip for Thursday morning, their hope to be one of the first aircraft off the ground once the night time restriction on takeoffs expired at 7:00 AM. It was a plan that did not quite work out.

The trip from Jake’s house in the hills beneath Griffith Park to the Santa Monica airport was just over twenty miles. It usually took him about thirty-five to forty minutes to make the drive as long as he was not so foolish as to attempt it during the peak traffic hours. The problem was that, since the earthquake and the subsequent damage to the arteries of LA’s circulatory system, all hours were peak hours now and the most direct route was cut off. Interstate 10 was completely closed between the 110 and the 405. The 405 itself, the most obvious alternate route, was a slowly crawling parking lot at all hours, moving an average speed of less than two miles per hour. Jake left his house at 5:00 AM and ended up taking the 101 far out of his way and inching along that at an average speed of maybe seven miles per hour all the way to Sherman Oaks and then taking winding, twisting Cahuenga Boulevard back over the pass, crawling along with thousands of others who had had the same idea, all the way to Wilshire Boulevard, where a right turn got him heading west, toward Santa Monica. From there, it was only a matter of waiting through at least three light changes at each intersection until he was able to start working his way south through the grid of streets paralleling the 405, all of which were becoming steadily more congested as the morning progressed. It was, without a doubt, the absolute worst traffic jam he had ever experienced in his life.

He finally pulled into the airport just before 8:00 AM. It had taken him two hours and fifty-six minutes to go thirty-eight miles. Cranky, out of sorts, and desperately needing to drain the dragon, his mood was not improved when he discovered that, although Pauline and Obie were there—they had arrived only ten minutes before Jake—the Nerdlys and Celia were still unaccounted for. Since both Pauline and Nerdly had cell phones—Jake, Celia, and Obie did not, as of yet, see any need to have one—they were quickly able to determine that Bill and Sharon were still at least thirty minutes out, stuck in gridlock on Lincoln Boulevard just north of Marina Del Rey. Celia’s whereabouts was unknown.

“All right, I’m going to get the plane ready to go and file a flight plan,” Jake told his sister after relieving his straining bladder. “You stay here, near the bathroom, and wait for the others.”

Jake found his plane just as he’d left it the day before the earthquake. The only thing amiss in the hangar was that a few of the tools hanging on the wall had fallen off. He cleaned everything up and then wheeled the aircraft out through the doors so he could look it over. After performing the initial preflight check, he headed for the operations building to compose and file a flight plan to Cypress Municipal Airport.

There were considerably more than the usual amount of pilots in the building filing their own flight plans and making their own preparations. It seemed like getting out of LA for now was a popular idea. He found himself an air chart and some table space and went to work. It took him about twenty-five minutes to come up with a navigation course and calculate out his weight and the fuel load he would need to make the trip. Everyone had been told to bring no more than ten pounds of luggage (including the bag itself) since they would be carrying the maximum number of passengers that could fit in the plane. Having a full plane meant extra fuel in the tanks to provide a healthy safety margin, which, in turn, meant the plane was going to be quite close to maximum takeoff weight. This did not worry Jake much, but it did worry him some. Just one more thing to stress about on an already stressful journey.

Paulie better hold that clump inside of her until we land, he thought as he walked out of the ops building, carrying his kneepad with his navigation notes in hand. There’s sure as shit not enough room for one more.

Celia was there when he made it back to the GA building. She, like everyone else, was cranky and out of sorts and had a tale of horrible gridlock and nightmare traffic to tell. It had taken her over three and a half hours to drive thirty-six miles.

“Greg’s onboard with delivering the masters?” Pauline asked, turning immediately to business.

“He’ll get it done,” Celia said. “He’s going to start working on it this afternoon.”

“Did you warn him about the traffic?” Jake asked.

She simply shrugged. “He’ll find out on his own,” she said simply.

Pauline cast a strange look at her and then looked at Jake, her eyes questioning. He simply gave a shrug of his own.

The Nerdlys finally arrived ten minutes later.

“All right,” Jake said after everyone dutifully listened to their tale of traffic Armageddon. “Let’s get this show on the road—or up in the air, actually. Everyone go hit the bathroom and let’s get loaded up.”

This took another fifteen minutes to accomplish. It took another ten to get all the baggage loaded into the cargo hold and everyone squeezed into the plane. The Nerdlys, who were the smallest of the bunch, squeezed into the two rear seats. Pauline and Obie sat in the rear-facing seats just behind the cockpit. Jake and Celia took the pilot and co-pilot seats, respectively. He fired up the engines again, programmed his radios and his navigation gear, and then went methodically through the preflight checklist until it was complete. He contacted the tower and was given permission to taxi to the fueling area. Once there, he had to wait for two planes in front of him to be serviced first before they were able to pump 650 pounds of JP-8 fuel into his wing tanks.

Jake paid for the fuel with his bottomless credit card (over the objections of Pauline, who thought that she should pay for it) and then, after clearing the fueling area for the next customer (there were already two more planes waiting behind him), contacted the tower again asking them to activate his IFR flight plan to Cypress Muni. This they did, and then they gave him taxi and runway information. Since, for Los Angeles anyway, it was cold this morning, the air temperature cooler than the surface of the ocean, the wind was offshore instead of onshore, which meant that Runway 3 was being used instead of Runway 21.

“Be advised,” the controller told him, “traffic is heavy this morning. You’re sixth in line for takeoff behind the Cessna Citation with tail number November-Tango-Seven-Six-Six. We’ve also got multiple incoming aircraft in pattern.”

Jake sighed and then repeated the information back. Another par for the course.

Pauline had not been joking about putting on an adult diaper for the trip. This was a fortunate thing because, despite the fact that she had consumed no liquid since the previous night, she had to make use of before they even made it to the runway. The cramped aircraft interior soon smelled like urine.

“I’m sorry, guys,” she said, genuinely appalled and embarrassed.

“No sweat,” Jake assured her. “This is all going to make a great story to tell little Tabby when she gets older.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Obie agreed with a smile, patting her leg affectionately. “You’ll be able to hold this shit against her for the rest of your life, darlin’.”

Finally, at 10:17 AM, it was Jake’s turn. He throttled up and accelerated down the runway, lifting neatly into the air just thirty degrees east of due north. He pulled in the gear and then retracted the flaps as they climbed out. The air around them, though cold, was quite clear, with visibility well over twenty miles—a rarity for the LA region even under the best of conditions.

Jesus fucking Christ, he thought in amazement as he got a good look at the sprawling metropolis below. Would you look at that.

Directly ahead of them was the interchange of I-405 and I-10, the former choked with gridlock traffic in both directions for as far as the eye could see, the latter empty of all but construction vehicles clustered around where the freeway used to cross over La Cienega Boulevard until the earthquake had caused that particular crossing to collapse to rubble. Aside from the freeways, every surface street in sight was packed full of automobiles and occasional trucks, none of which were visibly moving from this height.

After passing over the 405, Jake banked left to 350 per standard departure procedure. As they crossed over I-10, the abandoned and condemned Kaiser Hospital came into view. The structure was still standing, but it was plain to see that things were not all right with it. It appeared to be leaning forward at an unnatural angle, with dozens upon dozens of trucks, tractors, and a few cranes arrayed around it.

They climbed up over the Santa Monica Mountains and then were over the San Fernando Valley, which had been hit the hardest by the quake. The traffic on the streets here, if anything, was even worse, but there were also many areas where no traffic was present at all due to flooded streets or road closures secondary to quake damage. In multiple places they could see apartment buildings that had collapsed and a few columns of smoke were still rising lazily into the air from different points here and there.

Celia was staring at the view below just as hard as Jake. She shook her head sadly. “Madres de Dios,” she said, violating the sterile cockpit condition.

Jake let it pass, and then violated it as well. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s something, isn’t it?”

“All that from just a couple of seconds of shaking,” she said.

“People weren’t meant to live here,” Jake said. “At least not in the density that they do.”

“You might be right,” she said.

“I am right,” he said. “And this whole experience has made up my mind for me.”

“About what?”

“About leaving,” he said. “I’ve been talking about it for years, but now it’s time to do it. It’s time for me to find that piece of land I want and get the hell out.”

Pauline decided to deliver her clump at Presbyterian of the Valley Hospital which was located in the well-to-do suburb of Gardenville just northeast of the city of Heritage. It was the newest and most modern facility in the Heritage metropolitan region, opened just three years before. It featured a women’s and children’s center that was state of the art and reflected the recent philosophy of in-hospital childbirth in that all of its delivery suites were large, private rooms designed to accommodate a family through all stages of the birthing process, from check-in to delivery to postpartum care and discharge home all without ever leaving the room. In addition, the center was equipped with a neonatal intensive care unit that was considered the very best in the northern central valley. Pauline and family sincerely hoped they would not be needing the services of the NICU, but it was nice to know it was there just in case.

Though Pauline was not an established patient of the facility, money and celebrity status both talked quite loudly. Within six hours of touching down at Cypress Muni, even before the six travelers from LA checked into their suites at the Hilton of Gardenville hotel, Pauline managed to hook herself up with the most reputable OB/GYN doctor with privileges in the hospital and complete all of her preadmission paperwork over the phone from Mary and Tom’s house. She was scheduled for a complete examination by Doctor Jennifer Lu at her office on the P of the V campus at 10:00 on Friday morning. Dr. Bradshaw’s office was already faxing all of her records over.

“I gotta say,” she said as she sipped from iced tea and munched on a tuna sandwich that Mary had made for her, “it really is nice to be a rich bitch.”

“Amen to that, mi hermana,” Celia told her.

Jake, meanwhile, was having a phone conversation of his own.

“You’re serious about this, Jake?” Jill the accountant asked him from her office in downtown Heritage, her voice the tired exasperation it tended to have when he instructed her to do something like what he had just instructed her to do.

“I have never been more serious about anything in my life,” Jake assured her. “If there is a God, he just sent me a clear and unmistakable sign. When you get shaken out of bed at four-thirty in the morning by a couple of rocks grinding together under the surface of the Earth, when you have to crawl through traffic for three hours just to get thirty miles, when your pregnant sister has to pee in a diaper just so you can escape, that means it’s time to get the hell out. I’m getting the hell out. I want a big chunk of oceanfront land somewhere within two hundred miles of LA, preferably near an airport or big enough and remote enough that I can build my own goddamn airport on it. I want to be able to hook up to power, obviously, and be able to have a reliable water supply. I want it to be high enough above the ocean that a tsunami from some earthquake in fucking Japan or Alaska doesn’t drown my ass or wash away all my shit. Are you writing all this down, Jill?”

“I’m writing all this down,” she assured him. “Can I assume that you’re going to put your assets in New Zealand on the market to partially finance this venture?”

“Hell to the no,” he told her. “I love my New Zealand pad. No way I’m giving it up.”

“Jake, you haven’t even been there in almost three years,” she said. “You’re paying a mortgage and construction loans on a house and property that is sitting empty, not to mention the monthly upkeep costs. Not to mention your airplane over there that you’re also still paying for and that some tour guide pilot is using for free.”

“When things settle down with Laura and I, we’re going there,” Jake assured her. “I’m keeping the New Zealand place.”

“Do you have any idea what a large chunk of southern California hillside oceanfront property is bound to cost?” she asked him.

“A few million, I’m thinking,” he said.

“Try at least double that,” she said. “And that’s the low end. And that does not include the cost of architecture, land improvement, road improvement, construction costs, infrastructure costs, and taxes.”

“Understood,” he said. “It’s a major expense. I get it. But I’m pulling in a lot of money now since the last album did so well, and I’ll be pulling in even more with the next one. This is a major life goal of mine and I’m going to do it. Now will you please stop lecturing me on it and start working on finding it for me. Hire whoever you need to hire, pay whatever you need to pay, but I want some possibilities to look at as soon as possible. You dig?”

A quite audible sigh, and then: “I dig.”

Pauline did not go into labor by the time her January 26^th due date rolled around. She did not even experience false labor. This was no problem. Dr. Lu offered to induce her on the 27^th if she was up for it.

“Hell to the yeah, I’m up for it, doc,” she said at her morning appointment that day. She then winced. “Jesus. I can’t believe I just said that.”

“That you’d like to be induced?” Lu asked, confused.

“No, ‘hell to the yeah’,” she clarified. “I fucking hate that expression.”

Dr. Lu raised her eyebrows. “Uh ... I see,” she said.

“Never mind, doc,” she said. “When can we get started?”

“I’ll call the hospital right away,” Lu said. “They’ll call you when there’s a birthing suite available and they want you to come in.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Obie, who was sitting next to her and holding her hand.

The phone call came just after one o’clock that afternoon. Pauline was politely asked if she could arrive at the women’s and children’s center at four o’clock.

“Bet your ass, I can,” Pauline assured her. “I want this thing out of me.”

“Very good,” the schedular said. “We’ll have the Manzanita Suite all ready for you.”

Pauline checked in ten minutes early, the entire bunch, including Tom, Mary, Stan, and Cindy coming to the hospital to be with her. They took up every seat in the Manzanita Suite, which was essentially a large room with a bed in the middle and designed to look like a master bedroom instead of a hospital room. The sinks and medical cabinets and other medical equipment were all designed to be unobtrusive and to kind of fade into the background.

“Jesus Christ,” Pauline remarked. “I could live in here.”

“We do like to make the birthing experience as pleasant as it can be,” said the labor and delivery nurse who was caring for her—her name was Collette and she was absolutely thrilled to be taking care of Jake Kingsley’s sister so she could deliver OB2’s daughter. And having Celia Valdez be part of the party was an added bonus.

“Let’s get this show on the road then,” said Obie, who had been through this particular experience twice in his life but was still thrilled and anxious.

They got the show on the road. Pauline changed into a hospital gown and got into bed. Collette started an IV on her and then hooked her up to a variety of sensors and monitors, including one that wrapped around her enormous stomach and could tell when she was having a contraction. The same device also monitored the clump’s heart rate in real time.

“All right,” Collette told her as she hooked up a separate set of tubing to Pauline’s IV. “The Pitocin is starting now. I’m starting it slow, but you should start to feel some mild contractions within fifteen minutes.”

“And that’s when that epidural goes in?” Pauline asked. She was not looking forward to the pain of childbirth.

“No,” Collette told her. “The epidural goes in after the contractions are well established.”

“Why?” Pauline asked. “Isn’t the purpose of it to keep me from feeling pain? I’m here to tell you, sister, I am not one of these chicks that thinks you gotta do this shit all natural. They invented epidurals for a reason, right?”

“That is true,” Collette assured her, “but I’m afraid the standard procedure is to wait until the contractions are well-established so, in case of a failed induction, we didn’t put a needle in your spinal column unnecessarily.”

Pauline shook her head. “You people and your rules,” she said with a grunt.

The contractions started right on schedule, almost fifteen minutes to the second after the Pitocin drip was initiated. They were mild ones at first, hardly more painful than menstrual cramps, but when Collette turned up the rate on the “Pit”, as she and her colleagues called it, the strength of the contractions went up as well.

“All right!” Pauline grunted unhappily as a particularly strong one rolled across her about an hour into the process. “This shit is no longer fun!”

“You seem to be well-established now,” Collette told her as she looked, not at Pauline, but the rhythmic lines tracing across the computer monitor. “I’m going to call for the anesthesiologist to come in now.”

Pauline experienced four more moderately strong contractions—they were coming about seven minutes apart—before Dr. LaFleur, the anesthesiologist, got the needle inserted into her spine and followed it up with the nerve blocking agent. These were the last she would feel completely.

“Better?” LaFleur asked her.

“Much,” she panted. “I can still feel a lot of pressure down there, and it’s not exactly comfortable, but it doesn’t feel like someone is squeezing my fucking guts out anymore.”

“That’s the idea,” LaFleur said with a smile. “And, if you wish, I can give you some fentanyl in the epidural space to help relieve the discomfort of the pressure.”

“Fentanyl?” Pauline asked. “Isn’t that a narcotic?”

“It is,” he confirmed.

“Wouldn’t that be bad for the clump ... uh ... the baby, I mean?”

“Not at all,” LaFleur said. “It would go in your spinal column, which is on the brain side of the blood-brain barrier. Fentanyl cannot cross that barrier. It’ll go to your brain directly and not get anywhere near the baby’s.”

“No shit?” Pauline asked.

“No shit,” LaFleur assured her. “It’s perfectly safe.”

Pauline grinned. “In that case, fire me up.”

He fired her up, and soon, Pauline was feeling mighty fine indeed.

“Oh man,” she said happily. “This is some good shit.”

“I think I’m jealous,” Jake told her with a chuckle.

“Obie!” she said, turning to him, not even noticing that, on the monitor, a huge contraction was currently ripping through her. “You know what I need?”

“What do you need, darlin’?” he asked.

“Some fuckin’ headphones and Pink Floyd, The Wall playing through them.”

Obie gave her a laugh. “That would probably be nice all right,” he told her. “Unfortunately, we don’t have either of those things available right now.”

“Then go find them somewhere,” she demanded.

He laughed again, and then realized she was serious. “Uh ... I’m not going to leave you while you’re in labor, Pauline,” he told her.

“We got time,” Pauline said. “Tell him, Collette! I’m still hours away from squishing this thing out, right?”

“Right,” Collette confirmed. “At least six. Probably closer to eight.”

And so, Obie left the women’s and children’s center, got in his rental car, and drove into the nearby suburb of Lemon Hill, where he went into a regional mall that had both a record store and an electronics store. He bought her a Walkman CD player, the entire collection of Pink Floyd they had available, a Moody Blues CD just for good measure, and five sets of extra batteries.

He took his purchases back to Presbyterian of the Valley and Pauline rode out the rest of her labor in style.

The clump came into the world in the usual way at 4:20 in the morning on January 28^th, 1994. At Pauline’s invitation, everyone stayed in the room to observe the birth. Jake, who had seen many a vagina in his time, was awed almost to tears as he watched one being used for this particular purpose. Celia, who had held the hand that Obie wasn’t holding through the process was awed as well. Nerdly was also awed, but he also became sick to his stomach and had to throw up in Pauline’s bathroom.

And so was born Tabitha Jean (named for Mary’s mother, God rest her soul) Blake. A pink, squirming little thing that was twenty-one inches in length, weighed seven pounds, six ounces, and had a dense mop of black hair atop her head. As she was placed on her mother’s belly and commenced nursing for the first time, she had no idea whatsoever of the kind of family she had just been born into.

Jake, Celia, and the Nerdlys flew back to Santa Monica aboard Jake’s plane three days later, landing just before the nighttime restrictions for operations began. Traffic was still terrible, but not nearly as bad as it had been on the outbound leg, and they all managed to make it home in less than an hour.

Pauline, Obie, and little Tabby stayed with Mary and Tom for another two weeks and then they flew home as well, utilizing a private jet arranged for by Obie. Mary went with them, her intent to help her daughter out for at least a month.

Pauline was glad to have her mother with her, particularly since there was a considerable amount of business to take care of as soon as she got back. All four of the big four record companies had, by this time, been able to listen to the master copies they had been given and had submitted their bids. Pauline smiled as she read them. She then called a meeting of the owners of KVA Records.

The meeting took place at her house, as there was no way in hell she was ready to leave Tabby behind and go driving around in earthquake damaged LA. There were lots of preliminaries before they got down to business because everyone, even Nerdly, wanted to spend some time holding and talking to Tabby first.

“All right,” Pauline finally said from behind her desk, Tabby in her arms and her left boob out of her shirt, the nipple in Tabby’s mouth. “Let’s talk business.”

“Uh ... right, business,” said Nerdly, who was blushing and trying to look like he wasn’t looking at Pauline’s breast.

“What’s the word?” asked Jake. “No hints of collusion between the suits?”

“None at all,” Pauline said. “It went just as I expected. The lowest bid submitted was from Warner Brothers. They offered twenty-three percent royalties based on wholesale rate for promotion, and an even fifty-fifty split of straight cost for manufacturing and distribution.”

“Nice,” said Celia, nodding appreciably for a moment and then going back to staring at the infant suckling on Pauline’s nipple. The sight was triggering some strong urges in her, urges she had never really felt before. She wanted to grow a baby of her own.

“I trust that bid includes the stipulation that control of promotion remains the exclusive right of KVA Records?” Jake asked.

“That is not a stipulation in the bid,” Pauline told him. “That was put into the language as a requirement to be agreed to just to submit a bid in the first place. In other words, just by bidding they agreed to accept that clause in any contract negotiated as a given.”

Jake nodded appreciatively. “You lawyers can come up with some cool shit every now and then,” he told her.

“So can you musicians,” Pauline allowed. “In any case, once I had the bids in hand, I faxed a copy of Warner Brothers’ over to Aristocrat. They agreed immediately to match it. That means we are contractually obligated to go with them at twenty-three percent and fifty-fifty for M&D. I let Warner Brothers, Capitol, and National all know that we went with Aristocrat. They thanked us for considering them and told us to submit again for the next albums.”

“It sounds almost too easy,” Sharon said. She too was feeling a sharp tug of maternal longing as she watched Tabby feed. She, in fact, was planning to have a little talk with Bill as soon as they got home about throwing away her birth control pills.

“Well ... like I said before, playing the Dexter card worked out to our advantage,” Pauline said, absently pulling her breast free, adjusting the infant in her arms, and allowing her to re-latch on. “We’re far from making this a done deal though. We’ve just agreed to the basics. There’s still a bit of negotiating to be done before we put our signatures on the line and start pumping out those CDs. If they decide to play hardball on things like touring, breakage rates, promotional budget, or audit rights, the deal could still fall through.”

“Do you think there’s any danger of that?” asked Jake.

“Honestly, no,” Pauline said. “The suits over there at Aristocrat seemed quite happy to go along with almost anything we suggested—within reason, of course. My guess is the first cuts will be on the radio by April 1 and the CDs will be on the shelves by the time taxes are due.”

“Outstanding,” Celia said happily.

“Agreed,” said Pauline, taking the infant away from her breast since it seemed she was done feeding. She buttoned up her blouse and then put a washcloth on her shoulder and patted Tabby on the back until she issued a healthy burp. “Now then. Anyone need any practice changing a baby? I believe she needs it.”

Celia and Sharon had a minor battle over who would get the privilege.

Negotiations with Joshua Flag, head of the Artists and Repertoire department at Aristocrat Records, commenced the following Monday morning. Present with him in the top floor office of the Brubaker Building in downtown LA, were Miles Crawford, the head of the promotions department, and Gene Rickens, a high-priced lawyer from the high-priced firm that Aristocrat kept on retainer.

It was Pauline’s first trip away from little Tabby since she had been born and she was anxious about it. She turned that anxiety into determination and grit, preparing herself to get down and dirty and pull out all the stops to keep the slimy suits in line. As it turned out, she needn’t have bothered. Flag and Crawford—sleazy, untrustworthy snakes, just like all record company execs—were most eager to get the CDs into production and were agreeable to just about anything she suggested. In fact, they added a few enhancements of their own.

“Let’s talk tour,” Crawford suggested once the primary details had been discussed and agreed upon.

“Tour?” asked Jake, who was feeling decidedly uneasy about how easy all of this was going. “There is no tour. We told you that when we first asked for bids. We’re not prepared to finance a tour at this stage in our development.”

“You don’t have to finance a tour,” Crawford said. “We will.”

A look passed between Pauline and Greg, the primary negotiators. Celia and Jake passed their own look.

“You will finance a tour?” Pauline finally asked. “What kind of game are you trying to play here?”

“It’s called the game of making money,” Crawford said. “We think that if Celia goes out on a nationwide tour for the new CD, sales will benefit by at least twenty percent, perhaps as much as thirty. Since that equates to more royalties for Aristocrat stockholders to benefit from, it behooves us to do what we can to make such a tour happen.”

Another look passed between the four of them.

“Are you talking one hundred percent financing of the tour?” Pauline asked. “That includes the opening band, band member and crew salaries, transportation, lodging, food, entertainment expenses, the whole shebang?”

“The whole shebang,” Crawford assured her. He turned to Celia. “We want you out playing the first date by the end of April. We’ll book first-rate venues across the board, put you and the band up in first-class accommodations in every city, and transport you and the band by private air between each venue.”

“That sounds ... very generous,” Celia said carefully.

“It does indeed,” Pauline said. “What about Jake? Are you offering the same for him?”

Crawford shook his head apologetically. “Unfortunately, we cannot offer the same deal for Jake,” he said. “You see, our financial advisers believe that a tour by you, Jake, would only result in a ten to twelve percent increase in CD sales. This number, of course, is nothing personal and is no reflection on your music, but is rather the end result of a complex set of calculations that takes into account such variables as your target demographic, past album sale patterns, your pre-existing fan base from the Intemperance days, and other things such as that. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” Jake said with a chuckle. “You’re saying your witch doctors read the chicken entrails differently.”

Crawford laughed as if that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “An apt way of putting it, Jake. In any case, the best we can offer for a Jake Kingsley tour is fifty percent of tour costs if Jake and band ride the bus between venues, and KVA pays for lodging and entertainment expenses on the road.”

Pauline looked over at Jake, her eyes questioning. Reluctantly, he gave her a little shake of the head. As much as he longed to get back out on the road again, that was just too much money to lay down for too little of a likely gain.

“We’re going to have to decline the tour for Jake,” Pauline said.

“We understand completely,” Crawford said. “What about Celia’s tour, however? Do we have a deal?”

Greg spoke up at this point. “We’re going to have to talk that one over among ourselves,” he said.

Celia shot him an angry look and then turned back to Crawford. “The hell we will,” she said. “I’m in. If those terms you offer are genuine and you put that all in writing, I’ll start working on a set list tomorrow.”

“Those terms are indeed genuine,” Crawford said happily.

“Now wait a minute,” Greg said. “This is a major decision that affects things on many levels. C, I really think we should talk this over.”

“And I don’t,” she told him coldly. “I’m ready to hit the road and play music. I’ve never been more ready in my life.” She turned to Pauline. “Let’s make this happen.”

Pauline looked back and forth between Celia and Greg for a moment. Finally, she nodded. “All right,” she said. “I guess we’ll make it happen.”