Snowblind

Chapter 23: The Show Must Go On

El Paso, Texas

January 28, 1996

Jake Kingsley and Greg Oldfellow sat at one of the tables in the Plaza Hotel’s rooftop bar on the seventeenth floor of the historic, 1930’s era building. A large picture window looked out over downtown El Paso, the site of tomorrow night’s Celia Valdez concert. The musician and the actor had flown in from Los Angeles on a commercial flight (first class, naturally) just an hour before, their plane touching down at El Paso International at 11:35 AM local time. Celia and her band had not checked in yet. Their late morning flight from San Antonio, where they had performed the night before, was still in the air currently. Jake’s plan was to hang out with the tour for a week or so, flying on the plane with them from city to city and staying in his wife’s hotel suites. Greg’s plans were still pretty far up in the air. He was here to tell his wife that he had cheated on her with Mindy Snow and gotten her pregnant (allegedly) and that Mindy was about to go public with this information, humiliating them both. It seemed unlikely that he would be hanging out for the same amount of time as Jake.

Jake was drinking a bloody Mary and munching from a plate of so-called ‘breakfast tacos’, which were reputedly a Tex-Mex specialty of the house. They were corn tortillas filled with a mixture of scrambled eggs, chorizo, cheese, and spicy salsa and they were quite delicious. Greg was sipping from a glass of Perrier. He had ordered no food, nor had he eaten or drank anything on the flight. He had no appetite to speak of and, though he desperately needed a drink, he felt that he should remain sober for the coming conversation with Celia. There would undoubtedly be time for getting plowed later.

“You sure you don’t want one of these?” Jake asked, pointing to his plate. “They’re pretty good.”

He shook his head. “My stomach is quite knotted up at the moment. I don’t think I would be able to hold it down.”

Jake nodded sympathetically. He could only image what the man was going through. Jake had had some painful conversations with romantic partners in his life—the breakup with Michelle Borrows (now Rourke), the confrontation with Rachel Madison after pictures of him cheating on her had been shown to her, and the wretchedly painful ‘we need to talk’ from Helen Brody came immediately to mind—but to have to confess to your unprepared and unsuspecting wife that you had cheated on her with an evil bitch and knocked said bitch up and that the story was about to be spread far and wide in the popular press ... that was an entirely different level, an entirely different plane of existence.

Greg’s cellular phone—a top-of-the-line Nokia flip phone—began to chime out its irritating ring from inside Greg’s sport coat. He reached into the pocket and pulled it out, flipping it open. “This is Greg,” he said into it. He listened for a moment. “Hey, C,” he said, his voice monotone. “Yeah ... we’re here now. Just sitting in the bar ... Yes ... Yes, we did. Right. Okay, we’ll see you then.” He flipped the phone shut again and put it back in his pocket.

“They’re here?” Jake asked.

Greg nodded slowly, the miserable expression on his face becoming a little more miserable. “They just landed at the airport. The limo is waiting for them. They should be here to check-in in about twenty minutes or so.”

Jake nodded solemnly, figuring that Greg was now feeling like he was standing in his cell overlooking the gallows on the morning of his execution and had just been told that the hangman had clocked in for duty. “Are you sure you shouldn’t have given her at least a hint that something serious was in the works?” he asked. “Just so she could get a little bit braced for this?”

“I’m sure,” Greg said. “If I’d hinted I had some bad news to share she would have pestered me until I spilled it.”

“Yeah ... I suppose,” Jake allowed. He took another bite of his taco, another swig of his bloody Mary. “Uh ... I hate to bring this up, but ... you know ... I would just like to remind you of ... you know ... the bro code.”

Greg nodded. “The bro code,” he said. “I understand. I will mention nothing to Celia or anyone else that you knew about Mindy and me before I told you about it in Oceano the other day.”

“I appreciate it,” Jake said, feeling relieved. He had no idea how Celia might react if she found out that Jake had known about Greg’s affair with Mindy for two months and had told her nothing about it, but it would likely not be an understanding kind of reaction. Women, in Jake’s experience anyway, did not appreciate the gravity of the bro code or sympathize with its rules.

The minutes ticked quickly by. Jake finished his bloody Mary and his breakfast tacos. The waitress removed the dishes and Jake ordered a second drink. Greg continued to sit morosely and mostly silently, sipping from his sparkling water every now and then and frequently looking at the time on his Rolex. Finally, thirty-two minutes after Greg received the phone call, Laura and Celia appeared in the bar’s doorway.

Jake’s libido cranked up a bit just seeing his wife standing there. She was dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans and a pullover T-shirt with a cartoon chicken on it, her hair down, her eyes tired-looking. She was beautiful and, despite the pending doom atmosphere currently pushing down on the reunion, he could not wait to go to her suite with her and take her in his arms and get naked with her.

Celia was similarly dressed, though her top was a button-up blouse, and her hair was in a ponytail. The two women smiled broadly when they saw their men sitting at the table. They headed over, moving not quite at a run, but not dawdling either.

Greg closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to keep from panicking. “All right,” he said. “Here we go.”

“Uh ... you’re not going to tell her right here and right now, are you?” Jake asked nervously.

“No,” Greg assured him. “I’ll wait until we’re alone in the suite. Hopefully, there are no sharp or heavy objects in easy reach up there.”

“Hopefully,” Jake agreed.

The two men stood up. A moment later, each had a wife wrapped up in their arms. Jake relished the feel of Laura’s body against his, the touch of her lips on his as she smothered him with kisses. He returned the embrace warmly, feeling Little Jake already starting to wake up and get ready for work. Greg, on the other hand, was noticeably unenthusiastic in returning Celia’s affections. He put his arms around her and gave her a few taps on the back. He returned her kisses in a perfunctory manner, without any real affection.

Celia picked up on this quite easily. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Of course,” he said. “Extremely happy. Ecstatic. It’s just ... uh ... been kind of a long day. You know ... the flight and all.”

She raised her brows a bit. “Oh yes,” she said. “That torturous trek from Los Angeles to El Paso in a first-class seat. I’ve heard horror stories about it.”

Greg flushed a little. “Well ... you know ... I had to get up at six o’clock in the morning to get to the airport on time. The time zone change, you know.”

“I see,” she said carefully. She then seemed to shake it off. “Well, anyway, I’m glad to see you.” She gave him one last, lingering kiss on the lips. “Very glad, if you know what I mean.”

“Uh ... yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean.”

They broke the embrace. Jake and Laura were still entwined in theirs, Laura whispering in his ear. “I took a long shower this morning ... and made sure I shaved everything that needed to be shaved.”

“Nice,” Jake whispered back.

“And I have a story to tell you ... a story about a certain friend I made last week.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” he assured her, hoping that the coming hammer-blow from Greg and Celia would not fall prior to he and Laura finishing their business.

“Should we ... uh ... go to our rooms now?” Greg asked when Jake and Laura finally broke apart.

“Hell no,” Celia said. “I want a drink first. This is an extended travel day; the first one we’ve had in two weeks! No autograph sessions to go to! No radio station interviews! No sound checks to do! I want to get hammered.” She looked at Greg with a gleam in her eyes. “In more than one manner.”

“Me too!” Laura said, sitting down at one of the chairs. “Is that a bloody Mary?”

“It is,” he confirmed.

“I want one,” she said. “Maybe even two.”

“That sounds good,” Celia said, grabbing a seat as well. She eyed Greg’s drink. “What’s that you’re drinking?”

“Perrier,” he told her.

“Perrier,” she said, shaking her head a little. “Don’t ever let it be said that you don’t know how to party, hon.”

Jake chuckled a little, but still felt uneasy. Celia was in a very good mood, obviously happy to spend some time with her husband. And he knew that that mood would soon go crashing harshly in the other direction.

They ended up spending an hour in the bar before heading down a floor to their assigned suites. Jake, Laura, and Celia all swilled down three bloody Marys. Greg finally gave in and ordered a scotch, neat, which he sipped from sparingly for a few minutes and then gulped down. He ordered another and did the same. The alcohol did not improve his disposition much, but Celia made no further comments about it.

Laura’s suite was 1603, Celia’s 1601, right next door. As Greg followed his wife into the luxury room, he now felt like the hangman was on duty and ready for action and he himself was climbing up the gallows steps.

Celia tossed her travel bag in the bedroom and then turned to Greg, who was standing in the doorway. She smiled at him in a come-hither manner. He did not return the smile.

“Let’s get reacquainted,” she told him.

He did not step forward. “Uh ... well ... before we do that ... there is ... something I need to tell you.”

“I don’t want to hear it right now,” she said matter-of-factly.

“But it’s important,” Greg said. “And it’s something that you need to know as soon as possible so that ... uh ... we can start figuring out what we’re going to do.”

“It’s bad news,” she said. It was not a question.

“I’m afraid it is,” he confirmed.

She nodded. “I can tell,” she said. “The way you’re acting, the way you have trouble looking at me. I know that whatever you have to say is going to be horrible, and I don’t want to hear it right now.”

“But ... but...”

She walked across the room and stood in front of him, putting her arms around his neck. “Right now,” she said, “I want to get naked and I want you to eat my pussy out and then I want you to fuck me and give me the best fuck you are capable of. After we’re done doing that, then you can tell me your news.”

“Uh ... well ... the fact of the matter is, that I’m not sure I’ll be able to ... you know ... achieve an erection under the circumstances.”

She looked at him pointedly, keeping her arms around his neck. “That bad, huh?”

He nodded. “Yes,” he said, feeling tears forming in his eyes, feeling adrenaline flooding his bloodstream.

She nodded but kept the smile on her face for now. “Well then,” she said. “I guess the only thing to do is try to jump start your little friend.”

“Jump start?”

“It’s a figure of speech,” she whispered.

With that, she took her arms from around his neck and slowly sank to her knees before him. Her fingers went to his belt and opened it. She then unbuttoned his pants and let them drop around his feet. Next, she pulled his underwear down. His little friend, despite the circumstances, was already starting to rise to the occasion. When she put her mouth on it and began to suck gently, it kicked fully into gear. After all, Greg had not been laid in more than a month either.

And so, they performed their act of love. Greg enjoyed it immensely, but he knew that it was very likely the last he would ever have with Celia Valdez.

Meanwhile, in the suite next door, Jake was on his back on the King-sized bed, his shirt still on, his pants and underwear pulled down to his ankles, his shoes and socks still on his feet. Laura, naked from the waist down but still wearing her shirt and bra, was impaled on his erection, moving her hips up and down while Jake gripped her by the hips.

“Oh my God, I’ve missed your boner so much,” she panted at him, giving a little grind to increase the pressure on her clitoris.

“And it’s missed you too,” Jake panted back.

They continued to fuck against each other in this position. Jake reached up at one point and pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it on the floor. Laura herself then reached behind her, unsnapped her bra, and pulled it off, tossing it down atop the shirt and her pants and panties. She did not so much as break stride during this maneuver. Once it was complete, Jake pulled her body down a little, keeping Little Jake firmly buried inside of her, but angling his head down so he could suck on her nipples.

When he felt his control starting to slip a little—as it tended to do when he had been a long time without real sex—he used his hands to slow Laura’s pace.

“What’s the matter?” she panted, good-natured frustration in her tone.

“This feels too good,” he panted back. “I don’t want to come just yet.”

“Aww,” she whined. “You’re good for at least two, aren’t you?”

“At least,” he agreed.

“Then let it go, sweetie,” she encouraged. “I want to feel you lose control. It’s sexy.”

“Well ... if you insist.”

“I insist,” she said, her voice husky. It was obvious that she was telling the truth.

He took his hands off her hips and moved them to her breasts. She began to rise and fall atop him again, her pace increasing, her grinds getting more firm, more aggressive. Jake’s control mechanism, already fighting a losing battle, gave up any pretense of remaining in the game. The machine of orgasm kicked into gear and soon he was thrusting erratically back at her as the waves of pure pleasure began to build rapidly within him. He pulled her down against him and put his mouth to hers. They exchanged hot, passionate tongue kisses as he exploded and shot a large pent-up load deep inside of her body.

She collapsed onto him and they shared a few more kisses. Finally, she rolled off of him, his now wilting member popping free of her body in a drool of their combined juices. Jake finally kicked off his shoes and socks and then pushed his pants and underwear off, letting them fall to the floor at the foot of the bed. He then pulled the shirt over his head, tossing it over there with them.

“Mmmm,” Laura sighed, looking up at the ceiling fan spinning above them. “I just love the feel of your stuff shooting inside of me...” Another sigh. “ ... and dripping out of me.”

“There will be more for you in just a bit,” Jake promised, dropping his hand onto her smooth upper thigh.

“I’m counting on it,” she said, snuggling into him. She turned her head and nibbled on his earlobe a little. “Do you want to hear the story of my ... uh ... friend?”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“It was last week,” she said whimsically. “After the show in Birmingham. I put in a ... you know ... a request with Dan.”

“The pressure was starting to get to you?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I was getting very horny, and tuning my own instrument wasn’t cutting it anymore. That’s what I was supposed to do, right?”

“That was the agreement,” Jake confirmed. “What was her name?”

“I don’t remember,” Laura said, speaking honestly.

Jake smiled. “And that was the unspoken part of the agreement,” he said. “Tell me about her.”

“She was kind of emo. You know what I’m talking about?”

“I do,” he said. “Are we talking fringe emo or hard core here?”

“Hmmm,” Laura said, considering. “She was a little bit more than fringe, but I wouldn’t really call her hard-core either. Let’s say ... oh ... medium core.”

“Medium core?” Jake said, pondering this concept. “Okay. I can get behind that. What did she look like?”

“Her hair was purple,” Laura said.

“Purple hair?”

“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “It was cute, in a punk-rock kind of way. Good size boobs, natural, with big fat nipples. She had a stud through her left nipple.”

“That sounds painful,” Jake said.

“Apparently it was,” Laura said. “She said it hurt even more than the one in her clitoris.”

“A clit stud, huh?” Jake said, intrigued. He had seen such things in internet porn but never in real life. “Did you get a look at it?”

“Yeah,” Laura said. “A real good look.”

“So ... you mean ... you went down on her?” he asked, surprised.

“Well ... I wasn’t going to,” she said. “It seemed like maybe that was something I shouldn’t do with a groupie ... you know ... like how you don’t kiss them?”

“I’m aware of that rule,” Jake acknowledged. “Does it still apply to lesbian groupies?”

“It does,” she said. “Dan made that clear when I made the request. Anyway, I didn’t kiss her on the lips, but I did suck on her boobs for ... well ... a long time.”

“Yeah?” he asked, feeling a little blood start to flow down below despite the refractory period.

“Yeah,” she said. “And then she sucked on mine. She really got into my boobs. She liked squeezing them and suckling like a baby on the nipples.”

“Nice,” Jake said, picturing the scene.

“And then she went down on me,” she said, breathing a little heavier now. “She was pretty good at it. Almost as good as you, better than Molly, although Molly was sexier because ... well ... I knew her name.”

“I understand.”

“She made me come twice. And ... well, this is kind of kinky.”

“Oh yeah? Do tell.”

“Well ... I kind of liked ... uh ... pulling on her pig tails while she was eating me.”

“She had pig tails?” Jake asked, feeling another surge of blood heading south.

“She did. Didn’t I mention that?”

“You did not.”

“Oh ... well she did, and I really liked pulling on them, bringing her tighter up against me. And she liked it too. I could tell. Anyway, after I came the second time, I told her to take off her pants and panties. I wasn’t going to go down on her, but I wanted to see her pussy, to finger her a little, maybe trib her. I told you how much I liked tribbing with Molly, remember?”

“I remember,” he said.

“So ... she took off her pants and panties. That’s when I saw she had the stud in her clit. And her hoo-hoo ... oh sweetie, it looked so ... so appetizing. Her lips were all pink and swollen and she was shaved clean. It was obvious that she was really turned on by doing it with me ... that it wasn’t just an act, and then I smelled her ... that musky smell of ... you know...”

“A hoo-hoo?” Jake suggested.

“Right,” she said, a shine in her eyes. “And so ... I touched her with my fingers and felt how wet and slippery she was ... and ... I just couldn’t help myself. I put my face down there and ate her out.”

“That’s fuckin’ hot,” Jake said, his erection now at about three-quarters staff as he pictured the scene.

“It was,” she said. “I made her come two times. And licking the clit with the stud in it ... that was just ... I don’t know how to describe it. It was hot!” She saw the state of his erection and moved her hand over to it. She began caressing it, bringing it up to full-blown diamond-cutter status. “Why don’t we fuck some more?”

“I think we should,” he agreed, rolling toward her. A moment later, they were kissing hotly, getting ready to engage for round two.

Forty-five minutes later, they were once again lying side by side on the bed, still naked, their bodies now covered in a layer of drying perspiration and sexual musk. Both were now reasonably satiated.

“What’s the deal with Greg?” Laura asked.

“You noticed, huh?”

“It would have been pretty hard not to notice,” she said. “He was very morose. He was acting like his dog had just died or something and not like a man who was about to get laid after a month or so without it.”

“Well,” Jake said, “I’m afraid that he has some rather bad news to share with Celia.”

“Something to do with her family?” Laura asked, alarmed. “Did someone ... you know ... die?”

Jake shook his head. “No. Even worse.”

“Worse? What could be worse?”

He sighed. Jake really did not like being the bearer of bad news. It was not a happy thing to have to do. “He ... uh ... cheated on her again.”

Laura looked up at the ceiling and shook her head. “That idiot,” she said. “What is the matter with him?”

“It would seem he suffers from a lack of self-control in certain situations,” Jake said. “I can sympathize to a degree.”

She looked at him sharply. “But you’ve gotten over that ... right?”

“Right,” he agreed, successfully keeping thoughts of a snowy Portland night from emerging into his conscious mind. “Greg, however, apparently has not.”

Laura sighed, shaking her head a little more. “Celia is not going to be happy about that,” she said. “Why is he telling her? Guilty conscience again?”

“No,” he said. “Well ... I mean I’m sure he has a guilty conscience, but that’s not why he’s telling her.”

“Then why?” she wanted to know. “When he did this before, he did not do her or himself any favors by telling her about it. I’m not an advocate for infidelity or anything, but in that case, he should have just kept his mouth shut.”

“I agree,” Jake said. “This situation is a bit different though.”

“How so?”

“The whole world is going to know about it in a week or so whether he tells her or not. He’s giving her forewarning that the shit is about to hit the fan.”

“Ohhhh,” Laura said knowingly. “The entertainment media knows about what happened?”

“Not yet,” he said, “but they will.”

“Who is going to tell them?”

“Mindy Snow,” he said.

“Mindy Snow?” she asked. “What does she have to do with this?”

“She’s the one he cheated with,” Jake said.

Her face took on an expression of horror. “He fucked Mindy Snow?”

“He did,” Jake said.

“That asshole!” Laura said, outraged. “Of all the women he could have fucked ... God in Heaven, Celia is never going to forgive him for that.”

“Nope,” Jake agreed. “I don’t think she will.”

“She’s going to kill him!”

“Yep,” Jake agreed. “I think that entirely possible.”

“When did all this happen?” she asked. “While they were filming the movie?”

“You mean ‘the film’ or ‘the project’,” Jake reminded her. “And no, that was not when it happened—according to Greg anyway. He says she made it clear while they were filming that she was his for the taking but he kept his self-control back then and didn’t take her up on the offer.”

“The premier,” Laura said. “When they flew back east! Celia kept saying that he was acting weird after he came back from that trip. That’s when he did it, right?”

“Right,” Jake said. “She got him drunk on the flight to Chicago and then even more drunk at the premier that night. She managed to get him to let her give him a blowjob in his hotel room after the premier. That’s what opened the door.”

“Opened the door?”

“Yeah. The next night she got him drunk again and offered to let him ... uh ... uh...”

“Let him what?”

“Uh ... she let him ... uh ... perform anal sex with her,” he said, lapsing into a semi-Nerdlyism. As far as he knew, his wife did not even know that anal sex was a thing. While she did enjoy having her little bunghole tongued out on occasion (Jake would only perform this act for her in the hot tub or immediately after she had taken a hot bath), she had never expressed an interest in having his penis up there and Jake had never asked her to give it a shot since he had had more than his share of this particular act back in his younger days and had long since determined it was not really all that pleasurable once you got over the novelty of doing it.

But Laura surprised him. “He fucked Mindy Snow up the ass?”

“Uh ... yes,” Jake said. “Eloquently put. Anyway, that opened the door a little more. After that, it was pretty easy to get him to go conventional fuck the next night.”

“Wow,” Laura said in angry amazement. “And then what? Have they been having an affair ever since?”

“No,” Jake said. “Again, this is according to Greg, but that was the only time he fucked her.”

“That was the only time?”

“That’s what the man says,” Jake said. “And, for what it’s worth, I believe him.”

“But ... but ... I don’t get it. Why is Mindy Snow telling the entertainment press about this now? What’s her game? Is she just doing it to destroy him?”

“No ... not exactly,” Jake said.

“Then why?”

“She’s pregnant,” Jake said.

Laura’s eyes got wide again. “Pregnant? And ... and ... it’s Greg’s baby?”

Jake nodded. “That’s what she says,” he told her.

“But he only did it with her that one time? How does she know it’s his? That crazy bitch fucks anything with a boner, doesn’t she?”

“Apparently not since she broke up with her trainer boyfriend a few weeks before reporting for filming duty in Chicago.”

“And Greg believes that?”

“She doesn’t really have any reason to lie about it,” Jake explained. “She knows that Greg will demand a DNA test when the baby is born, and he said she does not seem the least bit worried about what the results are going to be. You see ... this was not a spontaneous thing from Mindy’s perspective. This was all part of a carefully plotted plan.”

“What do you mean?”

And so, he explained about how Mindy wanted to have a baby fathered by Greg in particular and had engineered everything to accomplish this. He explained her reasoning for why she wanted Greg’s baby. Laura listened in disturbed awe at the depth of Mindy’s depravity and sociopathy.

“Jesus God,” she whispered, stunned, when the tale was told. “She is ... is ... beyond evil. She’s the antichrist.”

“I can’t disagree with that statement,” Jake said.

“And so ... just like that, she’s going to destroy his marriage and his reputation?”

“Just like that,” Jake said. “It’s what she does.”

Laura opened her mouth to say something else, but she never got it out. At that moment, the sound of angry yelling and Spanish profanity erupted in the suite next door, a bit muffled but with a few phrases coming clearly through. Jake heard the word ‘puta’ and ‘cabron’ coupled with tenses of the word ‘chinga’ repeated multiple times. And then there were several bangs against the wall, one of them hard enough to cause a painting on their side to come loose and crash to the ground.

They looked at this impassively for a moment.

“I think maybe he just told her,” Jake suggested.

Laura nodded. “You may be right,” she agreed.

There were a few more angry outbursts of Celia’s voice, half in Spanish (the profanity and bile), half in English (they could not really make out what she was saying in English). There were a few more thumps on the wall and, on one occasion, the sound of glass breaking accompanied the thump. They heard Greg’s voice every now and then, but it was lower, incomprehensible, and with a pleading, apologetic tone to it. Greg’s voice was usually what preceded the thumps and the outbursts. Finally, they clearly heard Celia loudly exclaim, “largate de aqui, cabron!” This was repeated several times, each louder than the previous, and then the sound of the front door opening and then slamming shut reached them. After that, they heard no more.

“I guess Greg left?” Laura asked.

“That’s my guess,” Jake agreed.

“I wonder if I should go check on her?”

Jake shook his head. “I wouldn’t advise that. Let her cool down a bit.”

She nodded. “I was kind of hoping you would say that.”

“I’ll go downstairs in a little bit and see if I can find Greg in the bar. I’m guessing that’s where he’ll be.”

“Probably.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Laura asked the question. “How long have you known about this?”

Jake looked her straight in the eyes and said, “He just told me about it the other day.”

She nodded, no sign of disbelief in her face.

Jake felt no guilt at his lie. Sometimes the truth simply could not be told, even within the bounds of a marriage.

Greg spent the night on the couch in Laura’s suite. Laura avoided him, mostly because she was angry with his betrayal of her best friend, but also because the thought of speaking to him under the circumstances was awkward. He booked a private flight back to Los Angeles the next morning and left for the airport before Laura even woke up. Jake, however, accompanied him downstairs to have a cup of coffee in the café and wait for the limousine.

“What now?” Jake asked him.

Greg looked even more miserable than he had the night before. He was hungover and pale, his face a mask of misery. “Now, I go home and get together with my agent and we start preparing our press release for when Mindy breaks the story.”

“Are you going to deny the accusations?”

Greg simply shook his head. “There’s really no point,” he said. “I have to assume that the baby really is mine and come clean with the public. I’ll just stick to the facts, say that it is true, that Mindy and I had a one-time encounter, that I regret that it happened, that I apologize to Celia and everyone else I let down, and that I will do the right thing.”

“And if the DNA test shows the baby is not yours?” Jake asked.

Greg just shook his head. “In my heart, I know it’s mine,” he said. “It’s time to pay the price for my actions.”

“What about you and Celia?”

“It’s over,” he said. “You already told me you heard her reaction last night.”

“Well ... yes, but maybe after she cools down...”

“It’ll still be over,” he said. “There’s no coming back from this. She’s going to get in touch with Pauline and they’ll work out their own statements on the matter. She’s let me know without any ambiguity that she will be filing for divorce the next time she’s in California.”

“I’m sorry all this happened, Greg,” Jake told him with sincerity.

Greg simply nodded. “Yeah. Me too.”

His limo arrived a few minutes later and he headed for the airport to go home.

Jake answered the door to the suite just past noon that day. It was Celia. She was dressed in her jeans and a pullover shirt. Her eyes were swollen and red. It was obvious she had been crying.

“Hey, C,” Jake greeted carefully.

“Hey,” she returned miserably.

“You doing okay?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Very far from it. He’s not here, is he?”

Jake shook his head. “He left for the airport a few hours ago.”

“Good,” she said, stepping into the room without waiting for an invitation.

Jake shut the door behind her and then turned back to her. He saw that she was on the verge of tears, so he held out his arms to her. She stepped willingly into them and he hugged her tightly. She put her head on his shoulder and the tears came, spilling onto his shirt, running down under his collar.

“I’m sorry, Celia,” he said soothingly. There was really nothing else he could say to her.

“Me too,” she sobbed. “That fucking asshole!”

Laura came into the room and saw them. She walked over and joined in the hug, offering her own words of sympathy. Celia did not ask them how they knew about the situation or how long they had known.

“So ... what now?” Laura asked when Celia’s tears finally dried up and they broke the three-way embrace.

Celia took a deep breath and composed herself. “Now,” she said, “we head downstairs and get some lunch. The limo will be picking us up in an hour. I have two radio station interviews to do and then some record store signings.”

“You’re planning to go on tonight?” Jake asked.

“Of course,” she said simply. “The show must go on.”

“Are you going to be able to ... you know ... get through it?” Laura asked.

“Goddamn right,” she said.

They spoke no further on this subject. They went downstairs and had lunch. Jake and Laura both ate well. So did Charlie, Coop, Liz, Eric, and Little Stevie. None of them knew what was going on with Celia, but all could tell that something was wrong with her. She did not enlighten them just yet. Jake and Laura kept their mouths shut as well.

“Where’s Greg?” asked Coop. They had known that Greg was planning to visit.

“He had to go back to LA,” Celia said simply.

“A business thing?” Coop asked.

“That’s right,” Celia replied. “A business thing.”

Jake rode in the limo with them, tagging along as they visited the radio stations and the record stores, though he did stay in the vehicle for those stops to avoid any potential of taking the focus off of Celia. Just after four o’clock, they made their way to the Special Events Center on the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso, the venue where the UTEP Miners basketball teams played. They went inside the fifteen thousand seat arena and Jake greeted everyone he knew—which was almost everyone there as he had been heavily involved in tour production and rehearsals prior to them hitting the road. He watched in pride as the well-oiled machine that was the road crew got everything ready for the show tonight.

It was another sold-out show and Jake watched it from the stage left area. Celia, who had been mopey and generally noncommunicative all day, suddenly came to life when she stepped out onto the stage and began to play. Jake admired her for this. He had played under adverse conditions before—all of the Intemperance Lines on the Map tour had been performed under a veil of near-violent hostility between Matt and the rest of the band—but never with something like what Celia was going through on his mind. She sang her heart out, played her guitar to perfection, bantered with the audience, and left them all wanting more and with no hint that her world was in the process of crashing down on her.

After the show, however, morose and gloomy Celia returned as soon as the house lights came up. She ate none of the catered food but did slam down an entire bottle of wine by herself before even stepping into the shower to clean up. It was close to midnight before they climbed back into the limo for the trip to the hotel. The ride was quiet, Celia’s mood seemingly infectious. Coop and Charlie did not even have their usual groupies.

It was as they were walking from the limo to the hotel lobby that she finally snapped out of it a little. Charlie, Coop, Little Stevie, and Liz had already gone ahead, heading for the downstairs bar for a few more drinks before last call. Eric had already disappeared in one of the elevators. Celia hung back with Jake and Laura.

“I hear you brought some cigars with you?” she asked Jake.

“Uh ... yes, as requested,” Jake said. Two nights before he and Greg had flown out, Laura had called Jake at home and asked him to bring a box of his Cubans with him. Apparently, Celia and Laura were in the habit of getting together with Suzie, their pilot, at night to have a cigar out on the balcony and have girl talk.

“Perfect,” she said. “I’m up for one tonight. Some scotch too. How about you, Teach?”

“Uh ... sure,” Laura said. “Seems like a good night for it.”

“I’ll give Suzie a call,” Celia said. “I want to tell her what’s going on.”

“Okay,” Laura said.

“Could you bring some pot too?” Celia asked. “I think it might be a good night for some of that.”

“You got it,” Laura said.

“What about me?” Jake asked. “Is this strictly an estrogen-fest? I understand if it is.”

“You may attend,” Celia said formally, with a hint of a smile. “You’re the one with the cigars, after all.”

“Besides, you haven’t met Suzie yet,” Laura said. “I think you’ll like her.”

They rode the elevator up and went to their suites. Five minutes later, Jake and Laura, cigars in hand and baggie of high-grade marijuana in pocket, knocked on Celia’s door. She answered it and let them in. She already had a half-empty glass of single malt on the rocks in her hand.

“Suzie said she’ll be up in a few minutes,” Celia told them. “I let her know we were going to be smoking some yerba up here. Understandably, she would rather not be present while that occurs.”

Jake and Laura nodded and followed Celia out to the balcony, which overlooked downtown El Paso. It was a reasonably warm night, clear, with just a hint of a breeze blowing. The air was dry and pleasant. Up in the sky, the stars were shining brightly. The three of them sat down at the patio table and Laura quickly and expertly rolled a tight joint. She lit it with a lighter she carried just for that purpose and passed it around. Jake watched with interest as Celia sucked down a tremendous hit and held it in. He had never seen her smoke yerba before.

Soon they were all nicely stoned and Celia’s mood seem to improve to a certain degree. She still had a black cloud about her, but at least it wasn’t sparking lightning flashes and spawning tornadoes any longer.

Suzie arrived about five minutes later. She was wearing a pair of sweatpants, tennis shoes, and a tattered US Air Force t-shirt that obviously dated back to the days when she had served. It was also obvious that she was not wearing a bra, as her moderate sized breasts bounced and jiggled with each step she took.

Laura introduced Jake to her and they shook hands. Her grip was firm and strong. She seemed genuinely pleased to meet him and told him she had always been a fan of his music.

“I have the whole Intemp collection on CDs,” she told him. “When I was flying FREDs out of Travis and we’d have a long haul to Ramstein or Kadena, I’d pop them into the player and crank them out, one after the other.” She laughed. “We weren’t really supposed to do that. If we ever had an incident and they had to listen to our CVR they would’ve been pissed.”

This, naturally, led the two of them to start talking about their shared love: flying. Everyone poured some scotch (except Suzie, who drank sparkling water with lemon) and they sat down at the table and fired up Jake’s cigars. The two pilots then began to talk of their adventures piloting aircraft. Suzie’s stories were certainly more interesting and numerous than Jake’s, but Suzie did find his descriptions of flying over the Southern Alps in New Zealand in a Cessna 172 and his encounter with the Canadian goose over Portland to be worthy tales.

Celia and Laura, for the most part, just sat in their chairs and puffed away, contributing little to the conversation. Finally, after Suzie finished narrating a few stories about her role in the Persian Gulf War, Celia jumped in and changed the topic of conversation.

“There’s something I want to tell you, Suze,” she said, “before I let everyone else in the band know about it.”

“What’s that?” Suzie asked gently. She too had picked up the cloud of doom hanging over Celia’s head.

“I’m divorcing Greg,” she said simply.

Whatever the pilot might have suspected was the issue at hand, it certainly had not been this. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “Divorcing? Are you serious?”

Celia simply nodded.

“Where did this come from?” Suzie asked.

“From a little trip that Greg took with Mindy Snow a few months ago,” she said.

She told the story. It took the fun right out of the gathering.

Jake met Njord, Suzie’s copilot, at the airport the next day when they all boarded the King Air for the trip to Albuquerque, where Celia and band would be performing that night. He had already been briefed by Laura on several occasions about Njord’s personality and, thus had already developed a dislike for the man sight unseen. Meeting him in the flesh did nothing to alter this perception.

“I play guitar myself,” Njord told him after the two of them shook hands. “Do some singing as well.”

“Really?” Jake said tonelessly.

“Yep,” Njord assured him. “I thought about pursuing a career in music at one point. I’m sure I would have done at least as well as you and Matt Tisdale. But ... you know how it is. My true calling is the wild blue. Still, I do like to mess around with the old six string when I’m home. Maybe the two of us can jam together sometime.”

“Maybe,” Jake said slowly. “What kind of guitar do you have?”

“It’s a Fender.”

“What model?” Jake asked.

“Oh ... you know ... just a Fender six-string.”

“I see,” Jake said with a nod. “I’ve found throughout my career that those old Fender six strings are about the only instrument you can squeeze a decent Z-flat chord out of. Do you find that to be true as well?”

“Uh ... yeah,” Njord said, nodding wisely. “I have found that to be the case.”

Jake returned the nod and walked past the man into the plane. Behind him, Celia and Little Stevie both smirked.

They took to the air twenty minutes later. Once they were leveled off at cruise altitude, Celia gathered her band together and told them the news about Greg and Mindy and the clump of rapidly reproducing cells in Mindy’s uterus. Everyone was shocked by this.

“Dude,” Coop said, shaking his head. “That’s fucked up.”

“Yeah, Coop,” Celia agreed. “It really is fucked up.”

“Do you want me to kick his ass for you?” he asked next.

“Uh ... no, Coop,” she said. “That won’t be necessary.”

“Do you want me to kick her ass for you?” asked Liz. “I’m pretty sure I could take her.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Celia said, “but again, no. Nobody needs to kick anyone’s ass on my behalf.”

“Are you sure?” Liz asked. “I’m willing to do the time for it.”

“I’m sure,” Celia said.

“Does this mean you’re not going to the Academy Awards in March?” asked Charlie. It had been worked into the tour schedule that the Los Angeles dates were just three days before the Academy Awards ceremony on March 25 and that they had a week off during that stretch so Celia would be able to attend.

“Uh ... yeah,” Celia confirmed. “In light of the circumstances, I will not be present at the ceremony this year.”

“That’s too bad,” Charlie said. “It sounded like fun.”

“Uh ... right,” Celia said.

“How are you going to respond to this?” asked Little Stevie.

“What do you mean?” Celia asked.

“Well ... I mean, this chick is planning to humiliate you publicly. Are you just going to sit back and wait for it to happen?”

“I talked to Pauline this morning,” she said. “She’s flying out to meet us in Albuquerque. We’re going to formulate my official response then and get it ready for release, but, yes, the plan at this moment is to just wait until the story breaks and then respond at that time with the statement that I will be filing for divorce.”

“That’s kind of lame,” Little Stevie said.

“I agree,” said Eric, muttering the first words he had said all morning.

Celia looked at him. “You do?”

The skinny violinist was actually looking her in the eyes instead of at the floor. “I do,” he said. “That makes you look like a victim, like you’re weak. You need to show them you are strong.”

“Hell yeah!” Little Stevie said enthusiastically. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

Celia shook her head. “I’m not sure where you two are going with this.”

“I do,” Jake said, smiling. “They’re talking about a preemptive strike.”

“A preemptive strike?”

“Do you really think that would work?” asked Laura.

“What would work?” Celia cried, frustrated.

“It’s simple,” Jake said, picking up the thread. “Mindy’s plan is to announce this shit just before the Oscar nominations. And she’s going to want to announce it with her own spin on the story and with no one having any inkling that this shit is going down until she releases it. Her spin is going to be something along the lines of how she and Greg had this wonderful chemistry and just couldn’t stay away from each other and nature took its course and the inevitable happened and blah, blah, blah, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. She’ll probably even apologize to you in her little statement and ask for your forgiveness and all that. She wants people to think that her and Greg just fell for each other.”

Celia nodded thoughtfully, her face flushing with anger. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “That puta would do something like that, wouldn’t she?”

“She’s probably already got her release written and edited and rehearsed,” Jake said.

“I still don’t see what you’re getting at,” Celia said.

“I do,” Laura said brightly. “You break the story first.”

“What good would that do?” Celia asked.

“It lets you tell your version of the story,” Jake said. “And it forces Mindy to counter it.”

“Why would they believe my story over Mindy’s?” Celia asked.

“Well ... they might not,” Jake said, “unless...”

“Unless what?”

He told her. She immediately started shaking her head. “No way!” she said. “No fucking way!”

“Think it over, C,” Jake advised. “Don’t make a rash emotional decision in this thing. Try to make the best out of a bad situation.”

And so, she did as advised. She thought it over. And soon, she began to see the wisdom of what was being suggested.

That night, after the show, Celia drank no alcohol and smoked no marijuana. She managed to choke down a respectable amount of food. When they arrived at the hotel in downtown Albuquerque near midnight, Pauline, her manager and business partner, was waiting in the hotel for her. She and Jake got together in Celia’s room for a meeting.

“I don’t know,” Pauline said doubtfully after they explained what they had in mind. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I think it’s the only thing I can do under the circumstances,” Celia said.

“What if Mindy is not really pregnant?” Pauline asked. “What if this is just part of some elaborate game she is playing to break you and Greg up.”

“Well, that part worked,” Celia said. “We are definitely breaking up.”

“What I’m saying,” Pauline said, “is that the only reason we have to think that Mindy is pregnant is her word, which is about a solid as a methane fart from a cow.”

“Greg says he saw the baby bump,” Celia said.

“You don’t think that Mindy, an actress of extraordinary skill and with access to the best makeup artists in the business, could fake giving someone a momentary glimpse of a small baby bump?”

“I’m sure she could,” Jake said, “but she’s not. I know she’s not. I know her and I know how she plays these games. She’s really pregnant, it’s really Greg’s baby, and she really does intend to announce this to the world with her own spin on it so she can lay claim to being the mother of the greatest, most handsome and/or beautiful future actor in the world. It’s how her mind works. She undoubtedly thinks she was being merciful and mature by letting Greg know about her plans before her announcement is made so he could warn Celia of what was coming.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Pauline said, shaking her head.

“I want to do this,” Celia said. “It will let me at least hold my head up as I move through the rest of the tour.”

“Okay,” Pauline said. “I can respect that. Do you think that Greg will be onboard though?”

“He’d fucking better be,” she said. “He owes me this at the very least.”

“All right then,” Pauline said. “When are you going to call him?”

“Tomorrow morning,” she said. “And if he agrees, we’ll have to postpone the second Phoenix show and bump it to Saturday night. It’ll piss people off, but they’ll understand once they hear why.”

Greg was in the LA house the next morning when the phone call came. He was on the couch, still in his dress slacks and Pierre Cardin button-up shirt, his polished shoes still on his feet. He had a throbbing headache, and his mouth was dry. The room was spinning slightly in a clockwise direction. A three-quarters empty bottle of cognac sat on the table next to him. He wanted to get up and go to bed but was afraid he might vomit if he tried.

He was blackly depressed, the thought that his life was in tatters constantly running through his mind. Why did I let her into my room that night? he kept asking himself, over and over. And in between repetitions of this thought, the three-dimensional vision of his final conversation with Celia kept playing over and over. Was there something he could have said differently that would have changed the outcome? No, his mind gleefully informed him. There really was not.

When the phone began to ring, he ignored it, letting the answering machine field it. Even if the machine was not all the way across the room, there was no one on Earth he wanted to talk to at this moment in time. Not even God Himself.

Or so he thought.

“Greg,” came Celia’s voice after the recorded greeting (“This is the Oldfellow residence. Leave your name, number, and reason for calling after the beep and we will get back to you if appropriate to do so”), “it’s me. Pick up the phone if you’re there.”

He leapt to his feet and headed for the phone extension. His feet tangled and he fell down, abrading both of his hands and giving himself a good knock on the forehead. He got back up, feeling his stomach churning alarmingly, and snatched the phone out of the cradle.

“Celia!” he said breathlessly. “It’s me!”

“So it is,” her voice said plainly.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was screening calls. I didn’t think you would ... you know ... want to talk to me.”

“I really don’t,” she said, “but it’s necessary.”

“It is?” he asked, feeling a hint of elation. Was she going to attempt to reconcile with him? Why else would she be calling right now?

“Don’t get your hopes up,” she said, reading his mind from seven hundred miles away. “I’m not calling to tell you all is forgiven. I’m not calling to tell you that I won’t be filing for divorce.”

“Oh ... I see,” he said slowly.

“I need you to do something for me,” she said.

“Anything,” he told her. “You know that.”

“Uh huh,” she said. “Let me explain what it is. And if you truly care for me, you’ll do it.”

“As I said: Anything.”

“All right then,” she said. “I’ve been talking to Jake and Pauline about this situation. We’ve come up with a plan to keep from being humiliated and to maybe give little Miss Mindy Snow a taste of her own medicine.”

“A plan? What kind of plan?”

She told him. He listened. He then threw up on the carpet.

But he agreed.