Snowblind

Chapter 10: Moving Day

Los Angeles, California

June 21, 1995

Granada Hills was technically part of the city of Los Angeles, but it was about as far from the high rises, the glitter, and the grit as it was possible to get. Nestled in the foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains, the high-income community sat above the San Fernando Valley and was perhaps the least densely populated community within the city limits. Jake and Laura Kingsley were now the proud owners of a twenty-four-year-old home in the community; a 2700 square foot, four bedroom two-story that sat on one of the higher hills just outside the entrance to O’Melveny Park, a mountainous, city owned recreation area full of hiking trails that was second in size only to Griffith Park.

Jake’s original plan had been to buy a condo in downtown LA for those times when he had to stay in the city, but, after seeing what a simple sixteen hundred square foot condo actually cost downtown and comparing it to what a large, secluded house in Granada Hills cost and realizing the second option was actually cheaper—as well as much closer to the rehearsal studio and the new airport he had picked to fly out of—the plan had changed. For the bargain basement price of only $885,000, which Jake had paid for in one lump sum, the quick escrow had closed a week before and the keys had been handed over.

Jake, Laura, and Elsa had spent the last week in the new LA house, having moved completely out of the Nottingham Lane house so it could be put on the market. Its value had gone up considerably since Jake had purchased it for $850,000 back in 1987. Now, because of the normal appreciation of real estate values in the Los Angeles region and the fact that the infamous Jake Kingsley was the current owner, the asking price was $2.3 million. Diane Brown, his realtor, seemed to think he would have no problem getting that much. All of the contents of the home had been placed in two tractor trailer rigs and trucked over to the new oceanfront home in San Luis Obispo county. Escrow had closed on that property two days ago and those contents were due to arrive today. And so were the occupants of that new house.

Today was the official move-in day that Jake, Laura, and Elsa had been planning for the better part of three weeks now. With their belongings en route, they needed to get three cars—Jake’s BMW, Laura’s Cabriolet, and Elsa’s new 4-Runner—as well as Jake’s airplane to Oceano. Laura and Elsa would drive their own vehicles while Celia, who had stayed the night in the guest bedroom of the house, would drive Jake’s. Jake would give them a little head start and then follow behind in the plane, hoping to time it so they all arrived in Oceano at about the same time.

“All right,” Jake said at 9:20 that morning, after everyone had finished the breakfast Elsa had made for them. “Are we all ready to do this thing?”

The three ladies were ready to do this thing.

“It’s a three-hour drive from here,” Laura said. “I’ll lead the way since I’ve been there before.”

“But you’ve never actually driven there before, have you?” asked Celia, who was wearing a pair of white shorts and a red, sleeveless top.

“Well ... no,” Laura admitted. “We’ve only flown there.”

“Maybe I should lead then,” suggested Celia. “At least until we get into Oceano.”

“Why would you lead?” Laura asked.

“No offense, Teach,” Celia said, “but I’ve driven with you before. You drive like my abuela. Always going the speed limit.”

“It’s the law!” Laura protested.

“This is California,” Celia told her. “The speed limit is just a suggestion. People change their freakin’ tires at fifty-five. I’m leading. You keep up. If you get a ticket, I’ll pay it for you.”

Laura thought this over for a minute and then nodded. “Fair enough,” she said.

“Exactly how fast are you planning to drive, Celia?” asked Elsa, who was proud of the fact that she had never gotten a speeding ticket in her life.

“Not as fast as Jake drives,” she said.

Elsa nodded. “Fair enough,” she agreed as well.

They loaded up their respective vehicles, making sure they had water bottles, snacks, and their cellular phones (even though the cell phones would be pretty much useless once outside of the LA area). Jake kissed Laura goodbye, hugged Elsa and Celia, and off they went, heading for Route 118, which would take them to the 101. Jake waved at them until they disappeared and then went back inside the house. He checked his watch. It was 9:35 AM. Now that Celia was the lead driver, the trip would probably only take two and a half hours instead of three. After arriving in town, Laura would lead Celia and Elsa to the new house and then drive to the airport to pick him up. The flight to Oceano would take forty-eight minutes. That meant he needed to be wheels-up at 11:40 at the latest, which meant he would need to leave Grenada Hills by 11:15 in order to give himself time to file a flight plan and preflight the plane.

That meant he had time for a little nap. He took advantage of this, setting his brand-new alarm clock for 11:05 and then climbing into the bed that Elsa had made just a few hours before. Three minutes later, he was asleep and dreaming. Learning to fall asleep instantly and make use of any slumber time, no matter how little, was a skill he had picked up on the Intemperance tours of the past. It was a skill that still served him well on occasion.

At exactly 11:15, he went to the three-car garage of the house. Here were the two vehicles he had purchased last week for he and Laura to use when they were in LA. Laura’s LA car was a gold 1995 Lexus LS400. For himself he’d bought a 1995 Ford F150 with 4-wheel drive. He climbed into the truck, making sure he had the keys to the house and his wallet, and then headed out on his journey.

He had closed out his hangar space at Santa Monica Airport the week before and rented a single hangar at Whiteman Airport in the valley, just seven miles from Granada Hills and ten easy freeway miles from the Santa Clarita rehearsal studio. Not only was this considerably cheaper, but the airport was much less congested, and, under routine circumstances, he would not have to leave the San Fernando Valley at all while in town. He wondered, in fact, why he had not moved his plane to Whiteman years ago.

The small airport had a single 12/30 runway, a control tower that was staffed only during the daylight hours, and no mechanical services. Jake drove his truck over to the hangar he had rented and parked outside, leaving the engine running while he opened the door. His airplane was not inside the hangar; it was tied down in the parking area outside of the main office. He parked his truck inside the hangar and then, after grabbing his carry bag and his own thermos full of iced green tea that Elsa had made for him, closed and secured the hangar and walked over to the office.

He filed his flight plan, preflighted his aircraft, and then, at 11:38, two minutes ahead of schedule, roared into the summer sky. After passing out of the Class B airspace around LA, he turned to a heading of 290, followed the Victor-518 airway to the Fillmore VOR station and then adjusted course slightly and flew to Santa Barbara. After passing over the VOR station there, he turned right to heading 307 and followed the Victor-27 airway, which skirted the edge of the controlled airspace around Vandenberg Air Force Base and then brought him just east of the city of Santa Maria. From there, he passed into the gap between the two Class-C bubbles and turned left toward Oceano to begin his descent. He circled into the pattern and touched down neatly at 12:27 PM. He pulled the plane around to the parking area in front of the office and shut it down. He did not tie it down, however, as it would not be staying there.

He looked around but did not see Laura’s car anywhere. With a shrug, he went into the airport office. The manager was behind the desk, watching the Dodgers playing the Reds on a small television set. Jake had talked to the man several times on the phone over the last two weeks, arranging for hangar space. He now knew that man’s name was Dave Harlan and that he had been working at this airport since 1974.

Harlan looked up as Jake entered and gave him a nod. “Jake,” he greeted, not the least surprised to see him, undoubtedly because the flight plan Jake had filed had informed him of the pending arrival. “Good flight in?”

“It was,” Jake said. “The weather was good, clear skies, hardly any turbulence, and a nice, soft landing.”

“The way it should be,” Dave agreed. “You ready to move into the hangar?”

“Yes, I am,” Jake told him. “I brought cash for the first month’s rent. I hope that’s okay.”

“Cash is just fine with me,” he said.

“In subsequent months you’ll get a check from my accounting firm.”

“Your accounting firm?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“That’s right,” Jake said. “Yamashito, Yamashito, and Yamashito. They handle all my finances for me and pay all my bills.”

“Japs, huh?” he asked, suspiciously.

“They make very good accountants,” Jake assured him, pulling out his wallet. He pulled out two twenties and a ten and laid them down on the counter. Dave picked them up and put them in a drawer. He then handed Jake a pair of dollar bills in change and scribbled out a receipt.

“Here you go,” Dave said. He then reached in another drawer and pulled out a set of keys. He dropped them into Jake’s hand. “Number thirteen. Hope you’re not superstitious.”

“Not at all,” Jake said.

“Good to hear,” Dave grunted. “Lots of people are afraid of parking their plane in old thirteen. It’s been empty these past three years now.”

“Interesting,” Jake said, since some reply seemed necessary.

“Isn’t it?” Dave asked. He then looked pointedly at Jake. “So, folks in town been talking about that big old house you built up there on the cliffside.”

“It’s not that big,” Jake said.

“More than eight thousand square feet they say,” he said. “And a guest house next to it with another eighteen hundred. And a garage that can fit five cars. And they say you been looking for a swimming pool contractor too.”

Jake raised his eyebrows a bit. “They say a lot, don’t they?”

“They do,” Dave concurred. “This is a small town, my friend. They talk a lot when some rich musician decides to build a mansion and move in amongst us.”

Jake nodded. “Yeah, I can understand that, I guess,” he said. “What else are they saying?”

“They’re a might worried about some of the things you might get up to out there on that cliff.”

“Such as?” Jake asked.

“Well, it’s said that you’re a Satanist and that you’ve been known to hold Satanic rituals on occasion. It’s also said that you’re a doper, that you might be trafficking in the white powder and maybe bringing some of those cartel types into town. Others heard that you might even be a faggot.” He said this last as if that was the worst accusation of all.

Jake nodded thoughtfully, as if considering all of this. “Well,” he said. “What do you believe, Dave?”

“I believe that as long as you pay your bills on time, it ain’t none of my business what you do.”

“A good philosophy,” Jake agreed.

“Although if you’re gonna do any of that faggot stuff, we’d all prefer you keep it to yourself,” he said. “Don’t flaunt it.”

“I assure you,” Jake assured him, “that neither you nor they will ever have to worry about seeing me engaging in any homosexual activity.” He considered for a moment. “At least not with a man.”

Dave scrunched up his brow in confusion. “What other kind is there?”

Jake chuckled. “Never mind,” he told him. “Listen, maybe you can help me put people’s minds at ease a bit. I don’t know if they’ll believe it, but you can tell them this: I’m just an average ordinary guy who happens to have some musical talent and a lot of money. I’m not a Satanist and I have never engaged in a Satanic ritual. I wouldn’t even know what the procedure is. And, while I have been known to flame a bowl of the green on occasion, I haven’t touched so much as a sniff of cocaine or any other drug since the Intemperance days. I know no members of any drug cartel, nor do I care to. I do not have sex with men. I am married to a beautiful, sweet woman and I never beat her; not even once. I don’t even really raise my voice to her. Our goal in this community is to simply live out our lives in peace and tranquility. We moved here because we hate living in LA and wanted some oceanfront property within easy flying distance of the city. That’s all there is to it.”

Dave looked at him through this speech and continued to look at him for several long moments after. “Hmmph,” he finally grunted. “I’ll pass the word along when I’m asked. Don’t know what good it’ll do though.”

Jake shrugged. “I just present the facts,” he said. “I can’t control whether people believe them or not.”

Dave nodded at these words of wisdom and then went back to watching the baseball game without another word. Jake took that to mean that the conversation was over. He bid him farewell and then walked through the door to go secure his plane in its new hangar.

He started his engines and then checked his fuel level. Both tanks were about a quarter full, more than enough to get himself and two passengers back to Whiteman in the morning with a healthy emergency reserve. His plan was to fuel the aircraft in LA whenever possible since Jet-A was almost two dollars a gallon cheaper there. Though he was frivolous with his money—much to the chagrin of the Yamashitos—he was not a fan of simply flushing it down the toilet for no reason. Besides, fueling on the return trips meant he could sleep a little later before the Oceano to Whiteman legs in the mornings.

He throttled up and taxied over to the row of hangars on the east side of the airport. Number 13 was approximately in the middle of the row. Jake positioned the plane the best he could and then shut it down once again. He got out and walked over to the hangar door. The keyhole was in the release handle. He inserted the key and turned it, hearing a click. He then twisted the handle and ran up the metal door.

Since Dave had told him the hangar had been empty for the past three years, Jake was expecting it to be musty, full of cobwebs, spiders, maybe even a rat nest or two. Instead, he found it to be sparkling clean, without so much as a speck of dust in it, the door mechanisms freshly oiled, the concrete floor neatly swept. Jake’s respect for Dave kicked up a few notches as he took this in. Even though he thought I might be a Satanic faggot, he still cleaned the place up for me before I moved in.

Jake pushed the plane backwards into the hangar. It was a bit of a struggle since he did not have his electric tug—it was too bulky to fit into the plane or one of the cars and would have to be brought up by Jake’s new truck at some point—and he was by himself. After a few starts, stops, and adjustments of the nose wheel angle, he was finally able to get it more or less centered inside. Sweating a little from the exertion, he shut the hangar door and locked it, making a mental note to move transporting the tug to Oceano a little higher on his list of things to do. He certainly did not want to do this shit every night, although under normal routine Laura would be able to help him park.

He walked back to the airport office and saw that Laura’s green Cabriolet was now parked out front. She was not inside of it, however. He went back into the office building and found her there, deep in conversation with Dave, who was looking considerably more animated than he had when Jake had been speaking to him.

“I was supposed to come home in early February of sixty-eight,” he was telling her, “but that whole Tet Offensive thing happened, and I got extended for another three months. Got shot down one more time during all that, not too far from Khe Sanh. The Huey took a couple rounds right in the main housing, threw the rotor out of balance and the pilot—old Jimmy Smith, Smitty, we called him—had to autorotate us down in this little clearing. That wasn’t a good time there. There were VC and NVA all around us, goddamn gook central, and they was all popping rounds at us. I had to climb up on top with my tools and rebalance that rotor so we could take off again.” He shook his head a little. “One of them rounds whizzed right over my head, couldn’t have been more than six inches away.”

“Wow,” Laura said, fascinated. “But you were able to do it?”

“Oh yeah,” Dave said, matter-of-factly. “Only took about ten minutes or so, but it seems a lot longer when you got a bunch of gooks shootin’ at you.”

“I can imagine,” Laura said.

Dave nodded in Jake’s direction. “Looks like your other half has returned,” he told her.

Laura turned and saw Jake. “Hey, sweetie,” she greeted. “We made it.”

“So did I,” he said, walking over and giving her a brief kiss. “How was the drive? No speeding tickets?”

“No speeding tickets,” she said, almost as though disappointed. “Dave here was just telling about when he was a helicopter crew chief in the army. Did you know he did two tours in Vietnam?”

“I did not know that,” Jake said. He turned to the airport manager. “From the end of that story you were telling, it sounds like you had quite the time there.”

“Yep,” Dave said simply. “It weren’t no tropical vacation, that’s for sure.”

“Do you fly yourself, Dave?” Jake asked him.

Dave shrugged. “I know how,” he said. “Been around pilots all my life, worked on airplanes and helicopters all my life, and been behind the controls lots of times. I just never went and actually made things official, either for the flying or the wrenching.”

“Why not?” Laura asked.

“Too much bookwork,” he said. “Doesn’t seem hardly worth it.”

“Interesting,” Jake said. He then turned back to Laura. “Shall we go home?”

She smiled. “It sounds weird to call it that, but yes. Let’s go home.”

They both bade Dave farewell and then left the office, climbing into Laura’s car (with Laura behind the wheel, Jake still would not be caught dead driving a certified chick car) and then headed for their new home.

The house not quite livable yet. The movers had brought everything in and had set up the actual furniture where they had been directed to, but the vast majority of the household items were still packed in boxes, each one labeled with what part of the house it belonged in. And there was no fresh food to speak of at all. Everything that had been in the refrigerator at the Nottingham house had either been thrown out or had been transported to the Granada Hills house. They had pantry items such as canned food, flour, rice, beans, but that was about it.

“I need to go to the store,” Elsa proclaimed after helping Jake, Celia, and Laura unpack things for about an hour.

“How come?” Jake asked.

“There is nothing to serve for dinner tonight,” she said. “Nor is there anything for breakfast tomorrow.”

“We can just get a pizza for tonight,” Jake said. He was forearms deep in a box full of bathroom supplies.

Elsa gave him a look. “Jake, you no longer live in Los Angeles, remember? You live on a cliff over the ocean outside of a small town. I seriously doubt that anyone is going to deliver a pizza up here.”

“Oh ... yeah, I guess you’re right,” he allowed. “Well ... one of us will just have to go into town and pick one up later then.”

“I need to go to the grocery store,” Elsa insisted. “In addition to dinner and breakfast concerns, we are lacking a variety of staples. We need bread, eggs, oranges for juice, toilet paper, paper towels. Need I go on?”

“Can’t you make that run tomorrow?” Jake asked. “You’ll have all day to get things organized and stocked while we’re in LA.”

“There is no beer either,” she said. “That all went to the Granada Hills house. And your top shelf alcohol is all buried in one of these boxes somewhere, as are your mixers, as is your wine collection. We may or may not stumble across them tonight.”

Jake, Laura, and Celia all looked at her in alarm.

“That’s different,” Jake said. “You’d better get to the store then.”

“I thought you might see things my way,” she said with a smile.

Five minutes later, she was in her new 4-Runner and on the way into Oceano. There was a Ralph’s Grocery Store near the airport, just inside the town limits. Elsa pulled into the crowded parking lot and eventually found a space near the back. She entered the store and saw that it was teeming with people, many of them dressed in shorts, skimpy shirts, and even swimwear. She took one look at the prices and then turned and exited. This store was where the tourists shopped and the markups on basically everything reflected that. There was no way she was going to pay four dollars for a gallon of milk, two dollars for a loaf of bread, three-fifty for a carton of eggs. And she could only imagine what they might be charging for beer and wine.

She got back in the 4-Runner and drove deeper into the town, heading east on Highway 1. She passed gas stations, a lube and oil establishment, a hardware store, and a dry cleaner. She made note of their locations as she would likely be needing all of these services soon. Finally, she came to an Alpha Beta grocery store on the eastern edge of the town limits, just outside of a residential zone. This parking lot was considerably less crowded. She parked and then walked inside. The prices in this store, while still higher than those in Los Angeles, were almost reasonable. She grabbed a cart and began shopping.

As she worked her way up one aisle and then down the next, pulling things from the shelf and checking them off on the list inside of her head, she noticed that everyone’s eyes seemed to be on her. She did not pass a single person without having to endure an extended stare at the least, a look of hostile astonishment at the worse. No one said a word to her, but their eyes were certainly making some judgments.

I guess they don’t see too many Nigerians in this store, she thought, more amused than anything else at this point.

She finished up her shopping and made her way to the checkout counters. The checker was an early-twenties Hispanic woman, and she was pleasant enough. She greeted Elsa politely and then scanned all of the groceries in the cart while another Hispanic, this one a late-teens male, bagged them.

“Will that be everything?” the checker asked when the job was done.

“Yes, it will,” Elsa confirmed.

“Very good,” the checker said. “Your total is one hundred and twenty-six dollars and forty-three cents. How will you be paying?”

“I have my checkbook,” Elsa said, holding it up. She had already written in everything but the amount.

“Okay,” the clerk said with a smile. “I’ll just need to see your ID.”

“Of course,” Elsa said. She finished writing in the amount and then tore off the check. She handed it over along with her driver’s license.

The clerk looked at both for a moment and then looked back at Elsa apologetically. “It’ll just be a minute,” she said. “It’s an out-of-town check and when it’s over fifty dollars I need to get the manager’s approval.”

“I understand,” Elsa said.

The clerk picked up the phone, pushed a button, and then spoke into it. “Manager approval, check stand two, please,” she said, her words issuing out over the store’s intercom.

From the little kiosk where cigarettes were sold and the photo developing was done, a slightly chubby woman with dark, curly black hair came walking over. She appeared to be in her mid to late thirties. A pair of thick glasses were perched on her nose. As she approached check stand two and got a good look at Elsa standing there, her pace slowed up a bit and her expression hardened. She sidled up next to the clerk, took one more glance at Elsa, and then asked: “What do you have, Maria?”

“An out-of-town check from Los Angeles,” she told her manager. “One hundred and twenty-six forty-three.”

“Los Angeles, huh?” she said, saying that as if were a vile expression; something not uttered in polite company. She picked up the check and Elsa’s driver’s license, examining both for the better part of thirty seconds, her eyes flitting from one to the other. She then looked back at Elsa, her eyes looking magnified under her glasses. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to approve this check, Ms. Tyler. Do you have an alternate means of payment?”

“Is there a problem with the check?” Elsa said quietly, her eyes boring into the manager.

“I’m sure there is not,” she said. “But I simply cannot approve an out-of-town check from Los Angeles in this amount.”

“Really?” Elsa said. She pointed to the laminated rules of paying with a check that were printed directly on the check writing platform. “According to this, out of town checks may be accepted here for the amount of purchase up to two hundred dollars with manager approval.”

“That is correct,” the manager said. “And that approval is discretionary on my part. I am electing not to give it in this circumstance.”

Elsa looked back up at her. “I see,” she said, nodding her head a little. “Do you mind if I ask your name and position?”

She seemed like she wasn’t going to answer for a moment, but finally said: “I’m Darlene Sams. I’m the manager of this store.”

“I would like to say I’m pleased to meet you, Ms. Sams, but truthfully, I am not. Will you please enlighten me as to why you decided to reject my check out of hand without even bothering to run it through that little machine you have first? You are a corporate grocery store, are you not? And that little machine would give you a good indication whether or not I was a habitual passer of bad checks, would it not?”

“The machine is imperfect,” Darlene said.

“That is true,” Elsa allowed. “After all, I could be a first-time bad check passer who decided out of the blue to just drop into your little town here at the age of fifty-eight and start my life of fraudulent malfeasance, right?”

“Uh ... well ... anything is possible,” Darlene said. “It could be that you are presenting me with a fake ID and counterfeit checks. If that were the case, you would not be flagged as a risk.”

“That is true,” Elsa granted her.

“Not that I’m suggesting you are attempting such a thing,” Darlene told her.

“Really?” Elsa asked. “It sounds like that is exactly what you are suggesting.”

“Not at all,” Darlene said. “It’s just that when we’re dealing with an out-of-town check from Los Angeles in that amount, we can’t be too careful.”

“I can understand that,” Elsa told her. “However, it is my understanding that that same machine we were just discussing is capable of accessing a database that can confirm that I have written checks on this account many times in the past—dating all the way back to 1987 as a matter of fact—and that not a single one of those checks has ever been returned for insufficient funds. Or am I mistaken about the machine’s capability?”

“You are not mistaken,” Darlene said slowly. “It’s just that ... uh...”

“It’s just that what?” Elsa enquired.

Darlene shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “I made a decision based on experience and judgement, that’s all.”

“Really?” Elsa said. “It wasn’t based on anything in particular? Perhaps the way my eyes are set? Perhaps my British accent? Oh ... wait, it could not be my accent because you rejected me before you even heard it.”

“No ... nothing like that,” Darlene said, starting to backpedal a little. “It’s just that I have to be very careful. Rejected checks are a big deal, as you can imagine, and they cost us thousands of dollars every year.”

“I’m sure they do,” Elsa said. “How about you run my check and my license through your little machine there? See what it has to say before you reject me based on whatever mysterious suspicious looking quality I possess.”

“I’m afraid that I simply cannot...”

“Because if you don’t,” Elsa interrupted, “two things are going to happen. First, your boss is going to hear from me. And if that does not get me anywhere, your boss’s boss is going to hear from me, and so on and so forth until someone in the Alpha Beta hierarchy decides to address this situation. Believe me, I can be quite tenacious on matters such as this.”

Darlene’s look of doubt increased considerably at these words. “Well ... I don’t think that we need to...”

“The second thing that is going to happen,” Elsa went on, interrupting her again, “is that this grocery store will be missing out on a considerable amount of future business. Considerable. Have you ever heard of a man named Jake Kingsley?”

“Yes, of course,” Darlene said. “I heard he just moved to town.”

“You heard correctly,” Elsa told her. “I am the housekeeper for Mr. Kingsley and his wife Laura. It is I who do all of the grocery shopping and meal preparation for the two of them. Do you want to know what my monthly budget for groceries is?”

“Uh ... how much?” she asked slowly.

“One thousand, six hundred dollars,” she said. “And that is just groceries and dinner wine. You see, Jake likes to live well and eat well. And that is just the day-to-day things. When he entertains—and he does so often—it is not the least bit unusual for me to make a separate trip to the store and spend six to seven hundred dollars at a shot. Now, your store is the most convenient non-tourist oriented one to where Mr. Kingsley’s new house is, but I’ll certainly be happy to travel a little further inland to spend Mr. Kingsley’s money if there is something about me that offends your sensibilities.”

“Oh no, not at all, Ms. Tyler,” Darlene said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot here. I will absolutely run your check and your license through the machine.”

“Thank you,” Elsa said stiffly. “Please proceed.”

She proceeded. While waiting for the machine to contact its database over the modem, Darlene asked, “How long have you worked for Jake?”

“Since 1987,” she said. “I thought I mentioned that.”

“Wow,” she said. “What’s he like?”

“He is a fine employer,” she said. “If he wasn’t, I would not have stayed with him all these years, would not have moved to this place with him.”

“But what about all the stories about...”

“I will relay no gossip about my employer, his wife, or any of their acquaintances,” Elsa said firmly. “Please refrain from asking me and instruct your employees to do the same.”

“Oh ... of course ... but...”

“Your machine beeped,” Elsa said, pointing at it. “Has it deemed me acceptable?”

“Oh ... yes,” she said. She looked at the printout and then nodding. “It says you’re a trusted check passer with greater than five hundred checks in the system and no rejections.”

“Imagine that,” Elsa said dryly. “Wouldn’t this have all gone much more smoothly had you just done that in the first place, Ms. Sams?”

“Uh ... yeah, I suppose,” she admitted.

“And then I would have already been halfway home by now and your checker here would not have a long line stretching behind me, all of them witness to the spectacle that just played out.”

Darlene took a deep breath. “I apologize,” she said. “I misjudged you.”

Elsa nodded. “Apology accepted,” she said. “And now, I’ll be on my way. I have a lot of work to do.”

They ended up having pizza after all, only it was homemade pizza, prepared and baked fresh by Elsa herself. She served it with a green salad with homemade Italian vinaigrette and a bottle of sixty-dollar chianti. To Jake and Laura’s surprise, Elsa actually sat at the table with them to eat dinner and even drank a glass of wine.

“It’s nice of you to join us,” Jake told her sincerely.

“Thank you,” Elsa said. “You’ve all been working side by side with me today, getting your hands dirty and everything. I figure you’ve earned the right to have me sit at your table.”

After dinner, while Elsa cleaned the kitchen and did the dishes, Jake, Laura, and Celia went back to work, opening boxes and putting things away. They drank cold beer that Elsa had purchased while they did this and, after three bottles apiece, their will to carry on was effectively sapped. By that point, sunset was approaching and Jake suggested they go out to the edge of the cliff and watch it.

“You three go,” Elsa told them. “I still need to locate the linen and make up the beds.”

“Are you sure?” Jake asked her. “It’s our first sunset in the new home. And there’s no marine layer offshore. It should be a good one.”

“I am sure,” Elsa assured him. “I have no doubt that there will be other sunsets during my tenure here.”

“Okay,” Jake said slowly. “Are you ... uh ... all right, Elsa?”

“I am fine,” she said.

“Really? Because you’ve seemed a little ... out of sorts ever since you came back from the grocery store.”

“It’s just been a long day,” she said. “Now shoo. Go watch your sunset. I’ll get the beds made so you’ll all have someplace to go when it’s time to retire.”

Jake let it go. He and the two ladies all grabbed another bottle of beer and then went out through the sliding glass door from the entertainment room. The landscaping out here was still a work in progress. All the vegetation between the front of the deck and the edge of the cliff had been removed, leaving bare dirt where drought resistant plants and other landscaping that did not require irrigation would soon be placed. Out on the cliff edge itself, a redwood deck had been built and a 220-volt underground power line had been run to it. A twelve-person hot tub was on order for that deck but would not be installed for at least another week. Currently there was not even furniture on the deck, just the bare timbers.

The three of them did not mind. They sat down on the edge, their legs dangling off over the small strip of land between the deck and the drop-off of the cliff, Jake in the middle, Celia on his left, Laura on his right. Below them, the Pacific Ocean swells crashed endlessly into the base of the cliff. Out above the horizon, the orange ball of the sun was sinking slowly toward the waves. Above them, seabirds cruised back and forth, seagulls and pelicans both. The smell was of salt air and the onshore breeze felt heavenly against their skin.

“This is amazing,” Celia said, a smile on her face. “I can see why you like this land so much.”

“Isn’t it peaceful?” Laura said. “Nobody around but us and the birds. The sound of the ocean crashing, the feel of the sea breeze. I’m going to come out here every night when I can. I still can’t believe I’m really going to live here.”

“I have been dreaming about this moment for years,” Jake said, putting his arm around Laura and pulling her against him. “And now it’s finally here.” He kissed his wife on the nose. “I’m going to remember this moment forever.”

“Me too,” she said, snuggling into him.

They watched the sun sink into the sea. Once it was gone, they stayed out there, talking and laughing until the twilight was nearly gone and the stars started to come out. Finally, they made their way back into the house. There was no television to watch since the satellite installer would not be out until the following week so they listened to the local rock music station on the radio and talked Elsa into joining them so they could play a game of hearts while they drank another bottle of wine. Elsa beat them quite soundly, successfully shooting the moon twice in two attempts to do so.

Finally, everyone drifted off to bed as they all had to get up early in the morning. Jake and Laura officially broke in their new home by enjoying a session of marital fucking while they listened to the crashing of the surf outside their open window.

“Now it’s really our home,” Laura told him as they lay cuddled naked against each other after.

“Yep,” Jake agreed. “The final step in the close of escrow has been done.”

The alarm clock in their bedroom sounded off at 7:00 AM, thirty minutes earlier than it had been set for in the Nottingham house, forty-five minutes earlier than in the Granada Hills home. Jake rolled naked out of the bed and walked over to shut the device off. Behind him, Laura was sitting up, yawning and rubbing her eyes.

“How’d you sleep?” Jake asked her.

“Like a baby,” she told him. “The sound of the waves just lulled me right to sleep.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jake said. “It’s a little chilly in here now though.”

“It is,” she agreed, looking down at herself. “Look, my nipples are hard.”

He looked and saw that they were indeed standing up quite proudly. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said with a smile. He closed the window, shutting out the cool morning air and the sound of the surf. “Now, let’s see if we can work this thing and get to rehearsal on time.”

“Right,” she said, putting her feet on the floor. “Let’s do this.”

Their goal was to be in the rehearsal studio in Santa Clarita by 9:00 AM, their normal starting time. In order to accomplish this, they needed to be wheels-up from Oceano Airport by 8:00 AM. They had a well-established morning routine by this point, but now they were going to utilize it in an unfamiliar setting. They would have to see how it went.

Their master bathroom was quite large, with a massive marble jacuzzi tub, an enclosed glass shower stall big enough to hold an orgy in if one chose to do so, and a large counter with his and her sinks, each of which had separate medicine cabinets and storage doors. The actual toilet was enclosed in a separate room (Jake called it the throne room) with a closing and locking door.

Laura turned on the shower so it could warm up and then walked into the throne room and sat down. She had long since lost her bashfulness about having Jake see her peeing, so she did not close the door while she performed this morning necessity. When she finished up and flushed the toilet, she stepped back out into the main bathroom and checked the temperature of the shower water. She adjusted it a bit and then stepped inside, closing the glass door behind her. Jake, meanwhile, went into the throne room and closed and locked the door behind him. His routine was to move his bowels first thing in the morning and neither he nor Laura really wanted to see the other in action for this particular bodily function. He made sure the ventilation fan was doing its job and took care of his business. After finishing up, he left the throne room, leaving the door closed and the fan running, washed his hands, and then shaved and brushed his teeth. By the time he was done with this, Laura had finished showering. She stepped out to dry off, leaving the water running.

“How’s the shower?” he asked her.

“I like it,” she said. “A little touchy adjusting the temperature, but the water pressure is good, better than what we had in the Nottingham house.”

“I would freakin’ hope so with how much the water system for this place cost us,” Jake said. They had one well located just behind the house. Their drinking water and water for the sinks was supplied directly from the well by one electric pump. The shower, toilet, and outside faucet water, on the other hand, came from a twelve-thousand-gallon plastic cistern up on the hillside that was kept supplied by another electric pump that moved water from the well into storage. Yet another pump then moved the water to the house for bathing, pooping, peeing, and washing down the deck outside. This setup had not come cheaply, and the power to run it all was going to make for some impressive bills from Pacific Gas and Electric, who provided electricity in this particular part of the state. Jake was not looking forward to the lecture from Jill when that first bill reached her.

He stepped into the shower and found Laura was right. There was significantly more water pressure than he was used to. He washed his body and then his hair, singing Night Moves by Bob Seger all the while. By the time he stepped out, Laura was dressed in a matching set of bra and panties and was blow drying and combing out her hair. He kissed her between the shoulder blades affectionately, making her smile, and then toweled off and started to get dressed for the day.

By 7:25, they were both fully dressed. They went into the dining room and found Celia at the table, drinking a cup of coffee from the carafe that Elsa had placed there. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and button-up blouse. Her hair was done in a ponytail. As was usually the case with both her and Laura, she wore no makeup except a light coating of lip gloss.

“Good morning,” Jake greeted her, sitting down and pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Good morning,” she said.

“How’d you sleep?” Laura asked her.

“Quite well, thank you,” she said. “I love the sound of the ocean at night. It reminds me of being at the rental house in Oregon.”

“It’s not a rental house anymore,” Jake reminded her. Two months before, KVA Records LLC had purchased the rental house from the owners for $1.2 million dollars. They had been rather glad to unload it for that price as it had been a money drain for them. Other than when KVA was recording something, it sat empty and unrented most of the time because it was somewhat of a white elephant in the coastal Oregon vacation rental market. Most of the people who rented houses in the Coos Bay area were middle-class vacationers who simply could not afford the weekly rental rate. KVA, however, did not plan to rent it out. It was now their official domicile for when they were recording. Jake, Celia, Laura, and the rest of the band members would be heading up there in two more weeks.

“Oh yeah,” Celia said. She smiled. “One of our more impulsive business decisions, but I’m glad we made it. I really do love that place.”

“Me too,” Laura said. “It’s a whole lot better than the Tidepool Hotel.”

Everyone had a laugh about that. The Tidepool Hotel was actually a cheap motel that sat three blocks from the beach in the southern part of the town of Coos Bay. It had been Jill Yamashito’s suggestion that everyone rent rooms there for the duration of the next recording session instead of buying or even renting the house on the cliff. She had even produced a spreadsheet showing how much money KVA would save by going with this suggestion.

“Oh man,” Jake said. “You gotta love Jill, don’t you? Her heart is in the right place.”

“I think,” suggested Celia, “that between you buying this house and KVA buying the Coos Bay house, she might actually be close to going postal on us.”

“She really should learn to mellow a bit,” Jake agreed.

“I tried to get her to smoke some pot with me last time she was in town,” Laura said.

“Yeah?” Jake asked. “What did she say?”

“She just started lecturing me about how much it cost,” Laura said.

Elsa brought their breakfast in. It was scrambled eggs with kielbasa cut up in it, homemade hash browns, and sourdough toast. A pitcher of chilled, fresh-squeezed orange juice accompanied it. All of them were ravenous and they tore in, pretty much annihilating the entire platter of food.

“All right,” Jake said, looking at his watch. “It’s 7:40. We’re running a tad behind schedule. Are you two ready to hit the road?”

They were ready. The three of them climbed into Jake’s Beemer and made the ten-minute drive to the airport. Jake parked his car in the parking lot and they walked into public access part of the office at 7:51. The main part of the office was still closed up and locked. Dave didn’t report to work until 9:00 AM. There was a bathroom available, however, and Laura took the opportunity to use it while Jake put together his flight plan and faxed it off.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s get in the air.”

This took another twenty minutes to accomplish. They pushed the plane out of the hangar and Jake went through all the preflight checks. He then taxied to the runway and ran up the engines. They lifted into the sky at 8:22 AM.

“Well, that didn’t go as planned,” Jake said as they climbed out and turned toward Santa Maria.

“Can you make up the time in the air?” Laura asked. She was sitting behind him because Celia was afraid to sit anywhere but next to Jake when flying with him.

“Not twenty-two minutes worth of time,” he said. “Maybe five at the most, but I’d burn a lot more fuel doing it.”

“Live and learn, huh?” Celia said.

“Live and learn,” he agreed.

They were delayed another five minutes when he entered the landing pattern at Whiteman. A Cessna 172 was in position for takeoff, so Jake had to circle around an additional lap to let it do so. They touched down at 9:18 and Jake parked in the general aviation area. Since he rented hangar space at the airport, he did not have to pay a landing fee. Still, it took another ten minutes to secure the aircraft, tie it down, and then get the F150 out of the hangar. From the airport, it was a twelve-minute drive to the rehearsal studio in Santa Clarita.

“9:42,” Jake said disgustedly as he looked at his watch. “I seriously underestimated how long the commute would take.”

“It’s no big,” Celia said. “We’ve only got another ten days worth of this gig anyway. I don’t mind showing up at ten instead of nine.”

Jake shook his head. “No, that’s unfair to everyone else. We’ll just have to get up a little earlier, move the routine back.”

“How early?” Laura asked.

“We’ll need to get up at six-twenty instead of seven.”

“Yuck,” she said, making a sour face. She was not a fan of getting up early.

“It’s the price we have to pay, babe,” he told her.

They went into the studio where, of course, everyone else was already there and waiting for them.

“Nice of you to join us,” Coop remarked.

“We were getting kind of worried,” Sharon said.

“Indeed,” Nerdly agreed. “It was starting to seem possible that you might have suffered a catastrophic failure of an aircraft system leading to an untimely demise.”

“Nope,” Jake said. “Just poor planning on my part. I was a bit optimistic about how long it would take to get from bed to here.”

“That is a relief,” Nerdly said. “Do you plan to reorganize your routine so that you will be punctual for future sessions?”

“Yes,” Jake said. “That is what we plan.”

“How was the new house?” asked Natalie, who was sitting in her chair with her violin in her lap.

“It’s amazing!” Laura told her. “We still haven’t completely unpacked yet, but it’s so quiet, so peaceful. No other people around except us. I went to bed listening to the sound of the waves crashing into our cliff. Slept like a baby.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Natalie said.

They all talked about the house for a few minutes, asking questions about it, wanting to know when the housewarming was going to be, asking about the town. Finally, Jake took charge and suggested they get some work done since they were already behind schedule.

“An appropriate suggestion,” Nerdly agreed. “We’ve already tuned and sound checked all the instruments except for those belonging to you three.”

“Right,” Jake said, walking over to the wall and pulling down his Les Paul. “Let’s get it done.”

They got it done and then went to work. It was Jake’s day, so they worked primarily on his tunes, spending about an hour and a half on each. One tune they did not work on, however, was Dark Matter. The week before, he had made the agonizing decision to not put it on his next album.

It was not that he did not like the tune. On the contrary, he thought it one of the best pieces he had ever composed and worked up. The problem was that it was not a Jake Kingsley tune; it was an Intemperance tune, complete with Nerdly on the piano. He did not perform that genre anymore, was not going to shamelessly exploit that sound just to help sell his CDs. He had a suspicion that if he did include Dark on the next CD, it would end up overshadowing all the other tunes that were in the alternative rock/grunge genre he was now known for. And there were some damn good tunes he was planning to put out with this next release. In addition to that, he knew that he and the group of musicians he was currently playing with would not be able to do justice to the tune, would not be able to make it all that it could be. Only Matt Tisdale would be able to play the riffs and the solos on Dark the way they were supposed to be played. And, though Celia was a fine guitar player and could shred a distorted electric pretty well, she could not do justice to the rhythm chords and the clean transitional parts the way Jake would.

No one had disagreed with him when he announced his decision in this matter. Coop and Charlie and Nerdly had been a little disappointed, but they had not argued. And Celia seemed downright relieved. It seemed clear to her that she would be unable to fill Jake’s shoes on such a cut.

Though they often knocked off a little early this late in the game, they continued to work on this day until four o’clock since they’d started late. It was a good session, and everyone seemed happy with it as they said their goodbyes for the day.

Celia gave Jake and Laura hugs, thanked them for having her at their new home, and they thanked her being their beast of burden for the move-in. She then climbed into the back seat of the Nerdlys’ Honda so they could take her home.

“All right,” Jake said as he and Laura climbed into the F150. “Let’s see how long it takes us to get home.”

Going home took longer than anticipated as well. First, there was heavy traffic on the roads driving from the studio to the airport. Once there, the filing of the flight plan went easily enough, but Jake needed to fuel the plane, a process that took the better part of thirty minutes to accomplish. Once fueled and preflighted, it took another twenty minutes to get into the air because the airport traffic itself was quite congested with both arrivals and departures. Once in the air, a moderate headwind slowed them even further, turning the forty-eight-minute flight time into fifty-five.

They touched down at Oceano Airport at 6:25 PM, both of them tired and out of sorts. They pushed the plane into the hangar (it was easier to do with Laura helping, but still a pain in the ass. Jake made another mental note to get the tug here ASAP) and closed the door. They climbed into the BMW and made the drive home, arriving at 6:50, approximately an hour later than Jake had told Elsa to expect him.

“I was worried about you,” she scolded when they walked into the door. “I thought you might have had an issue with your airplane.”

“No, just underestimation on my part,” Jake said. “Sorry about that.”

“Did it ever occur to you to call and tell me you are running late?” she demanded. “You have a cellular phone, Laura, do you not?”

“Yes, I do,” she said meekly. “And it did occur to us to call but...” She trailed off.

“But what?” Elsa demanded.

“We uh ... couldn’t remember what our new phone number is,” Jake admitted.

She looked at them, astonished. “You didn’t write it down?”

“Of course I wrote it down,” he said. “It’s on a piece of paper sitting on my desk in the music room.”

She shook her head sadly. “Your dinner was on the table precisely at six o’clock, like usual,” she told them. “It is dill salmon. I suspect it will not taste as well cold as it would have had when it was fresh out of the oven.”

“Sorry, Elsa,” Jake said. “My fault.”

“Will this be a regular occurrence?”

“I certainly hope not.”

“Hmmph,” she grunted, not appeased in the least. “Go eat. At least your wine will still be chilled.”

They ate, putting cold bites of broiled salmon into their mouths one by one and chasing them with sips of chilled Sauvignon Blanc.

“Maybe we should rethink this daily commute thing,” Jake suggested. “At least while we’re rehearsing.”

“What do you mean?” Laura asked.

“It’s not quite as easy-peasy as I thought it would be,” he said. “In order to make it to rehearsal by nine, we’re going to have to get up at 6:20 in the morning. That’s freakin’ early.”

“It is,” she agreed.

“And the only way we’re going to make it home by dinnertime on the other end of the day is if we knock off rehearsal at three o’clock.”

“I suppose so,” she said. “What is the alternative?”

“We just stay in the city during the week,” he said. “We have the Granada Hills house. We sleep there on weekdays and fly back here on the weekend.”

She thought this over for a few moments. “Well ... that would give us some extra sleep. We wouldn’t have to get up until ... what? Eight o’clock or so?”

“About that,” he said.

“But we’d have to make our own breakfast,” she said. “I’m assuming that Elsa would stay here.”

“She would,” he said. “And I know how to make breakfast. Dinner too.”

“I know you do,” she said. “You cooked for me every day when we were in New Zealand. But what about the laundry, and the grocery shopping, and the housecleaning?”

“We both know how to do all those things, hon,” he pointed out.

“Of course we do,” she said. “And I’m not suggesting that household chores are beneath me or anything, but ... well ... is that really easier than just flying back and forth every day?”

“I think it might be,” he said.

She nodded. “All right,” she said. “Let’s think it over a bit.”

“Let’s do that.”

They left the table and went into the main part of the house. They could see that Elsa had been hard at work while they had been gone. All of the boxes were now unpacked and nowhere to be seen. All of their belongings were where they expected them to be. Jake’s oak bar in the entertainment room was now fully stocked and functional, complete with booze, ice, mixers, and clean glasses.

“She did a really good job,” he remarked, pulling a glass down from the rack.

“She always does,” Laura said.

“Do you want to go out to the cliff and look at the ocean with me?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she said with a smile.

Jake poured himself a healthy slug of Macmillan single-malt on the rocks. Laura took her wine glass and the remainder of the Sauvignon Blanc. They went out the sliding glass door and strolled across the dirt to the redwood deck on the cliff’s edge. They sat down close to each other, so their hips were in contact. It was another beautiful day, with no smog to be seen, the sky a brilliant blue above them, the ocean a brilliant blue with white foam below them, the sun a round orange ball sinking toward the horizon.

They sipped their drinks in silence as the sun drew closer to setting. Finally, it began to sink into the sea. They watched as it was swallowed up by the waves and twilight descended.

“I want to keep making the commute,” Laura told him.

He looked at her. “You do?”

She nodded. “I do,” she said. “And it’s not because I’ll have to clean the house and do the laundry and take out the garbage and all that. I did all those things most of my life. It’s nice to have someone to do them for you, but I’m not afraid of work.”

“What’s the reason then?” he asked.

“I love this house,” she said. “I want to be here every night that I can, with you. I want to sit out on this deck every night and watch the sun go down. I want to sleep in our bedroom every night hearing the ocean. This is our home, Jake, and I want to be here whenever we can be here.”

He continued to look at her for a moment and then nodded. “All right,” he said. “We’ll be here whenever we can then.”

“Even if we have to get up at six-fucking-twenty,” she said.

“Six-fucking-twenty,” he agreed, putting his arm around her and pulling her a little closer.

They sat there contentedly as the sky continued to darken, as the birds all found shelter for the night, as the chilly salt wind washed over them.

“You know,” Laura said at last, “this seems like a really good place for me to suck your dick.”

“What if Elsa looks out here?” he asked.

“It’s dark enough now,” she said. “She won’t be able to see what we’re doing.”

Jake looked back at the house, seeing the light through the windows. He could see Elsa’s figure moving about in there, taking care of her final chores for the night before she retired to the guest house. Laura was right. She would not be able to see what they were doing unless she actually came outside.

“Well...” he told her, “if you really want to.”

“I really want to,” she said, leaning in and nibbling at his ear. “Now break it out.”

He broke it out. And the day ended on a very pleasant note indeed.