Snowblind

Chapter 5: Shades of White

Haena, Hawaii

November 4, 1994

Jake had not known when booking the venue for his wedding that November was the start of the rainy season in the Hawaiian Islands. Nor had he known that the north shores of the islands—which was where the Haena Resort was located—were the windward sides during the winter months. By sheer luck—or perhaps the blessing of Pele?—the day turned out to be clear and calm. The temperature was a pleasant seventy-six degrees at 1:00, when the guests were being seated in the chairs set up on the beach, and there was a pleasant trade wind blowing from the northeast at around ten knots. The sky was mostly clear, with only a few low clouds drifting by. About the only thing that kept the day from being absolutely perfect were the waves. November brought the big ones to the north shores of the islands—to the delight of the surfing community—and this day was no exception. Tremendous breakers rolled in, one after the other, crashing down on the beach with ear-hammering, rhythmic booms that were loud enough to necessitate a PA system be set up so the words spoken at the ceremony could be heard.

Jake and Nerdly, dressed in white tuxedoes, walked up the aisle and took their places before the podium, where Timmy Palakiko, the officiator of the wedding, stood in a pair of knee length shorts, a blue patterned Hawaiian shirt, and a pair of flip-flops. He had a flower lei around his neck and a pair of dark sunglasses covering his eyes. His black hair was shoulder length, but neatly combed. The strong smell of marijuana exuded from him and was carried over the audience by the wind. Despite all this (or perhaps because of it), he projected a regal presence. And the price was right too. He was not charging for his services at all as long as he got to partake in the reception food and drink and would be allowed to hang a few photos of him officiating at the celebrity wedding in his office and use those photos for advertising purposes.

The wedding photography team itself—there were six of them running around, dressed in jeans and casual shirts, snapping away with expensive-looking cameras—were also plying their trade without charge, although, in actuality, taking pictures of nuptials was not their normal business. They had been sent to the venue by People magazine, who had agreed to Jake’s terms for being given the rights to take and publish official wedding photos in their rag. The agreement was simple and did not involve the exchange of money at all—although Pauline had told Jake that he could have easily gotten them to pay twenty to thirty grand for the privilege. They would serve as the exclusive wedding photographers and give Jake and Laura copies of the negatives of all shots taken during the event. They, in turn, would have the right to publish any of their photos.

Once Jake and Nerdly were in place, they turned and looked back at the guests seated in the folding chairs. They were all dressed casually, most in shorts and Hawaiian style shirts, per instructions from Jake. The only exception was Greg Oldfellow, who would no more dress casually for a wedding ceremony than he would skydive naked. He was decked out in a custom-tailored three-piece suit, complete with jacket and polished handmade shoes. The photographers made a point to get multiple shots of the handsome actor in a variety of poses. His wife was not with him at the moment. She was with Laura, behind the door of the staging area in front of the beach, waiting her time to make her entrance.

Jake smiled as he saw his friends and family gathered in one place. His parents were seated next to Stan and Cindy, his mother and Cindy both with tissues at the ready. Pauline and Obie were just to the left of them, Paulie with little Tabby (dressed quite adorably in a Hawaiian patterned dress) sitting in her lap and sucking on a binky. Elsa sat just behind his mother, next to Charlie Meyer and a thirty-year-old woman named Sonya.

“Who is Sonya?” Jake had asked him shortly after being introduced to her earlier that day—right after the two of them had arrived at the resort from the airport.

“She’s the daughter of the guy who owns the cheese factory that supplies my restaurants,” he explained simply. “We’re going out now.”

“You’re ... going out?” Jake asked. “You mean ... like ... boyfriend/girlfriend kind of going out?”

“That’s right,” Charlie said. “She’s pretty hot, isn’t she?”

Jake nodded. Sonya was, in fact, quite attractive, an olive-skinned beauty with a nice trim body, dark, luxuriant hair, and a face that men dreamed of nutting on. “Yes ... but ... but what about Malcom?” Malcom Stone was the manager of the vegetarian restaurants Charlie owned, the business brains behind the success of the venture, and the man Charlie referred to as his ‘life partner’ on every possible occasion. They had been living together as man and husband ever since Charlie had come out as gay almost four years before.

“Oh ... Malcolm,” Charlie said with a shrug of dismissal. “We broke up. It was one of those irreconcilable differences.”

“That’s too bad,” Jake said, though he had never actually met Malcolm. “What happened?”

“Well,” Charlie explained casually, “it turns out that I’m not really gay.”

“You’re ... not really gay?” Jake asked slowly.

“That’s right. It’s kind of a relief to stop living the lie, truth be told.”

“Living the lie?” Jake asked, astonished.

“Yeah,” Charlie said, nodding seriously. “Pretending I like sucking dicks, or having Malcolm stick his cock up my ass. It was getting old.”

“Getting old,” Jake said. “So ... you’re saying you didn’t really like doing that all those years?”

“Not really,” Charlie said with another shrug. “I guess it was a phase I was going through. In any case, having sex with a woman is a lot more hygienic when you come right down to it. It’s also easier to get in and out when you’re wearing two condoms. You know how it is.”

“I don’t think I do,” Jake said. “You’re saying that just like that...” He snapped his fingers. “ ... you’re hetero again?”

“I never really wasn’t hetero,” Charlie explained. “It was just a phase I was going through.”

“A phase where you slept in a bed with another dude, sucked his dick, and let him put that dick up your ass ... all on a regular basis and for more than four years?”

“That’s right,” Charlie said. “Just one of those things.”

“I see,” Jake said, although he did not. He let it go though. This was probably the wisest course of action.

Seated on the other side of Charlie and Sonya were Gordon and Neesh, both dressed in matching shorts and Hawaiian shirts, G with his signature clenched fist medallion dangling around his neck and a four-carat diamond stud in his left ear. Neesh was wearing similar diamond earrings in both ears and had her hair down around her shoulders. The two of them held hands as they waited for the bride to make her appearance. Jake had been a little worried about whether or not G and Neesh were even going to make the trip. For some reason, Laura had been avoiding Neesh ever since that night the couple had come over for dinner. Neesh called her up every few days trying to arrange a girls-night with her, but Laura always found an excuse (most of them, Jake knew, patently untrue) not to go with her. Laura had also found excuses to not go on the two occasions that Jake had gone over to G’s house to work on their song.

“Is something up between you and Neesh?” he asked her on the second occasion, after she told him that she wasn’t feeling well and would skip the trip to G’s house that night.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked, her voice perhaps just a bit too casual.

“Well ... it seems like you keep trying to find a way to avoid being in her company,” he said. “She seems to like hanging out with you. Do you not like her?”

“She’s a wonderful person and one of my few friends,” Laura explained. “I’m not trying to avoid her, I’m just kind of stressed out ... the wedding and everything.”

“I see,” Jake said. “Well, we’ll miss you tonight.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Laura said. “Be sure Neesh knows that.”

But Jake wasn’t so sure. There had been a look in Laura’s eye when she’d said that—a look that had seemed to have a little bit of fear and ... and a little bit of something else he couldn’t quite identify.

Still, Neesh and G had been on the Gulfstream with them for the flight to Hawaii and the relationship between his soon-to-be wife and G’s fiancé had been as it always had. The girls had sat together with Celia for most of the trip, laughing and giggling and drinking glasses of wine. Maybe the wedding stress had been getting to him? Putting odd ideas in his head? It was possible.

Just behind G and Neesh, Coop sat next to Dexter Price and Bobby Z. None of the three had brought a date with them, and Jake had been a little worried about having Dex and Z in the same place together given their tumultuous past with each other, but they seemed to be getting along quite well with each other. Perhaps even romantically well? It was hard not to notice the looks and smiles the two jazz musicians were giving each other. Homer, Sally, Groove, and Squiggle—Laura’s bandmates on the Bobby Z tour—had all been invited, but all had politely declined. Jake was actually sort of glad about this. Laura had told him about her feelings for Squiggle out on the road, and the fact that Squiggle would have acted on them had the offer been made. This was drama he just did not want to deal with at his wedding and he was glad that he wouldn’t have to.

Next to the drummer, the sax player, and the smooth jazz singer, sat Sharon Archer, Nerdly’s wife. Her Hawaiian shirt was of the loose-fitting maternity variety and it hung loosely over her tremendous pregnant belly. Across the aisle from her sat Ted Duncan, the drummer they had used for the first two KVA albums. Ben Ping had been invited but had been unable to attend due to work. Phil, Laura’s best friend and roommate—and the singer in the band that Ted and Ben had formed—was present at the wedding but not currently seated. He would be standing in for Laura’s father and would walk the bride down the aisle. None of Laura’s family were present. None of them had even sent so much as a nasty note in response to the wedding announcement. Laura had not seemed terribly upset or surprised by this.

Beyond the seating area, just to the right of the covered table with the wedding cake and all the guest tables, was a small bandstand. A five-piece group of musicians—reputed to be the best wedding band on Kauai—were standing by. Their name was Hibiscus Dreams and their resume was impressive enough, assuming that any of it was true. Jake certainly hoped so. He was paying them five grand for this gig.

At a cue from Timmy the officiator, the band struck up a version of Bach’s Joy of Man’s Desiring using acoustic guitars and an electric piano. They were actually all playing in the same key and in reasonable harmony with each other. So far, so good.

A door opened in the building that led onto the beach and out stepped Celia, the maid of honor. She was wearing a maroon formal dress that fell to just above her knees and showed a respectable amount of her cleavage. She walked slowly down the aisle—Jake unable to help feeling a considerable tug of lust as he took in her form—and took up position on the other side of the officiator. She offered Jake a sweet smile of encouragement and then blew him a kiss.

The band then switched over to the Wedding March, this time using distorted electric guitars to play the melody.

“And now, friends and family of our happy couple,” said Timmy with a smile, “will you all please rise in honor of the bride.”

Everyone arose and turned toward the back. The door opened again and out stepped Laura Best—soon to be Laura Kingsley—accompanied by Phil. Phil was dressed in a tuxedo like Jake and Nerdly’s. Laura was in her wedding dress. It was a relatively simple frock, traditional white, that had been custom fit to her body. It outlined her trim waist and fell to mid-calf. Her breasts, not the largest in the world by any means, had somehow been made to look bigger than they actually were. She wore no veil, but her hair had been professionally styled by a man reputed to be the best hairdresser on Kauai. Jake thought she was breathtakingly beautiful. Based on the murmured comments he heard from the crowd, most of the guests did too.

The photographers snapped away and the band continued to play the Wedding March as Laura and Phil made their way to the pedestal. Laura looked a little nervous, but she steeled herself forward and took her position next to Jake on one side and Celia on the other. Phil, after answering Timmy’s question about who giveth this woman, peeled off and headed for a seat in the front, next to Jake’s father.

“You’re beautiful,” Jake whispered to her.

She blushed and gave him a smile.

The ceremony, at the request of both Jake and Laura, was brief. Timmy made a short speech about the sanctity of marriage and the bonds of love. Jake and Laura then recited the vows they’d composed for the occasion. They were your basic vows, touching but not earth-shattering. And they were brief.

“Now, if we can have the rings?” Timmy said next.

Nerdly produced the gold band that Jake had bought to go with Laura’s engagement ring. He handed it to Jake. Celia produced the diamond studded gold band that Laura had picked out for Jake’s ring. She handed it to Laura.

Timmy spoke a bit about the symbolism of the wedding rings, about the circle of love that could not be broken, about the nearly indestructible nature of the gold that made up the rings. Jake then placed Laura’s new ring on her finger, nestling it against the engagement ring.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” he told her.

She did the same with his, sliding it onto his bare ring finger.

“With this ring, I thee wed.”

Timmy then placed a wine glass before them. He reached into the podium and pulled out an opened bottle of Napa Valley Merlot that had been pressed in 1991, the same year the two of them had met. He poured wine into the glass until it was about half full and then picked up the glass and handed it to Jake.

“Drink now,” he said, “and seal the pact of your love.”

Jake put the glass to his lips and took a drink. The wine was excellent and went down quite smoothly. He passed the glass to Laura and she drank as well. They continued passing the glass back and forth until the wine was gone.

“And now for the fun part,” Timmy said with a smile. He took the glass from Jake’s hand and wrapped it in a large handkerchief. This, he then placed on the ground at Jake’s feet.

Jake smiled. “I’ve been looking forward to this part for months,” he said.

He stomped on the glass, shattering it.

“Mazaltov!” Timmy and the crowd hailed.

“By the power vested in me by the State of Hawaii,” said Timmy, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” He patted Jake on the shoulder. “Feel free to kiss the bride.”

He took Laura in his arms and put his lips to hers, kissing her for the first time as his wife.

The guests cheered enthusiastically at the sight.

The reception began immediately on the large lawn adjacent to the beach. An open bar with two bartenders went into operation and the band started to play some lively music. Jake, Laura, Celia, and Nerdly, however, were not able to join the festivities right away. They spent the better part of forty-five minutes posing for pictures in every combination.

By the time they made it to the bar for their first rounds, many of the guests were already edging into the land of intoxication.

“Captain and Coke,” Jake told the male bartender, a dark-skinned mixture of Hawaiian and Chinese whose name was Tony. “Tall, and double on the Captain.”

“You got it, Mr. Kingsley,” Tony told him.

“Call me Jake,” Jake said. “My dad over there is Mr. Kingsley.”

“As you wish, Jake,” Tony said. He then turned to Laura. “And you, Mrs. Kingsley?”

Laura flushed a little at being called this for the first time. “That sounds so weird,” she said. “But so cool too. I’ll have a glass of chardonnay.”

“Coming right up.” Tony pulled down a wine glass and a water glass and went to work. As he put their drinks together, he nodded in the direction of the band. “You know, I’ve worked with Hibiscus Dreams at quite a few weddings, and they’re a good band, but today, they really seem to be outdoing themselves.”

“Is that right?” Jake asked. He had never heard them before today, but they did sound pretty good for a band that did nothing but wedding gigs.

“That’s because Sharon and I helped them with their sound check,” said Nerdly, who was waiting on an appletini from the female bartender.

Jake looked at his best man and laughed, shaking his head. “I wish I could have seen that,” he said. “Did they want to kill you?”

“I’m sure they did,” Nerdly said, “at least, until they heard the end-results of our interference in their preparations.”

“I would like to think they’ve learned something from the experience,” said Sharon, who had just waddled over to join her husband. She was sipping from a glass of sparkling water.

“I’m sure they have,” Laura said, remembering the endless sound checks they had all endured when rehearsing and recording the first two KVA albums.

Sharon became the first to hug Laura as a married woman. She put her arms around her and pulled her tight, having to twist a bit to keep her pregnant belly out of the way.

“It was such a beautiful ceremony,” she told Laura. “Very simple, very dignified.”

“And very brief,” Jake said, accepting a hug from her as well. “Just what we asked for.”

“And just think,” said Celia brightly, a mischievous look in her eyes. “Now that you two are married, you finally get to have sex.”

Jake, Laura, and Sharon all had a laugh at this. Nerdly only scowled. “I can all but guarantee that Jake and Laura have been engaging in unsanctioned sexual relations almost the entire time they’ve known each other,” he told Celia.

Sharon shook her head and chuckled a little more. “It’s a joke, Bill,” she told him.

He looked at her. “It is?” He thought it over for a moment and then shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

Greg wandered over, glass of Scotch in hand, and shook Jake’s hand warmly. “Good wedding,” he said. “Very short and succinct. I particularly enjoyed the Jewish touch there at the end.”

“I was inspired by the Nerdly wedding,” Jake said.

“You should have followed my example and had us wear Star Trek uniforms as well,” Nerdly said sourly. He had, in fact, made that suggestion several times.

“Naw,” Jake said. “That’s been done. I told you that you and Sharon were free to wear your uniforms here.”

“Sharon’s doesn’t fit her in her current state of uterine protrusion,” he said. “And it’s no fun if I’m the only one doing it.”

“Well ... maybe you can talk G and Neesh into the Star Trek theme,” Jake suggested.

Nerdly brightened at this thought. “Maybe I can,” he said happily. “I’m going to go over and suggest that to him right now.”

Jake smiled as he pondered the thought of the notorious rapper dressed as Captain Picard. “You do that, Nerdly,” he told him.

Now that their drinks were secured, the newlyweds waded into the crowd of guests to make their rounds. Thankfully, it was a small crowd. They started with Jake’s parents and Nerdly’s parents. Mary broke into fresh tears when he hugged her, and Cindy did the same when it was her turn. Even Tom seemed a little choked up.

“I never thought I’d see this day, son,” he told him.

Jake patted him on the back. “It took me a bit of searching around, Dad, but I finally found the right girl.”

“That you did,” Tom agreed. He then took Laura into his arms and gave her a big hug. “You’re a beautiful bride, Laura.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I still can’t believe this is all really happening.”

From the parents, they moved on to Elsa, who was sitting at one of the tables with Gordon, Neesh, Charlie, and Sonya. Gordon didn’t notice their approach because he was looking at Charlie with an expression that was half disgust and half morbid curiosity.

“So, you’re telling me,” Gordon said to the bass player, “that when you accidentally got it on with that tranny that one time, that’s what made you think you were gay?”

“That’s right,” Charlie told him. “I figured it was fate that put Roberto in my path, that it was written in the halls of the universe, or perhaps in my subconscious, that I should pick him when I decided to go get a simple blowjob that night. I thought it was something that was designed to tell me that I really was gay. Happily, as it turns out, I’m not.”

“But you went to MacArthur Park, homey,” Gordon said. “You tryin’ to tell me that you didn’t know that’s where the fuckin’ buffalos roam?”

“Well ... I know that now,” Charlie said. “I didn’t know that then.”

“But what about...” Gordon started.

“Look!” interrupted Elsa, who had an expression of extreme discomfort on her face at the current topic of conversation. “It’s the happy couple!” She practically shot to her feet and opened her arms for a hug.

Jake provided it to her.

“Lovely ceremony, Jake,” she said. She released him and then turned to Laura. “And you! You are an absolutely stunning bride!”

The housekeeper and the new Mrs. Kingsley shared a hug. Gordon and Neesh stood next, the former engaging Jake in a complex handshake, the latter hugging him and kissing him soundly on the cheek.

“I dug the glass-smashing bit,” Gordon told him. “Classy shit, homey.”

“It was a lot of fun,” Jake said. “Did ... uh ... Nerdly come over and offer his suggestion for your own wedding?”

Gordon chuckled. “The Star Trek thing? He was dead-ass serious about that shit.”

“Are you going to do it?” Laura asked him with a smile.

“Yeah ... that’d give my street cred a serious boost, wouldn’t it?” Another chuckle. “I couldn’t bring myself to hurt his feelings though. I told him I’d think about it.”

“And that’s true,” said Neesh. “We’re going to be thinking about that a lot.”

“Anyway, how long you gonna be gone down there in that New Zealand?” Gordon asked.

“Just two weeks,” Jake said.

“That’s what you said the last time you went down there,” Elsa said. “And you didn’t come home for more than six months.”

Jake smiled at her. “The circumstances are a little different this time,” he said. “I actually have commitments in LA. And I don’t have anything to hide from.”

“Thank the Lord for that,” Elsa said.

“Did you update all of your shots?” Charlie asked. “I hear they have some nasty microbes down there south of the equator.”

“Of course, Charlie,” Jake told him. “We’d never cross the equator without updating our shots.”

At the next table, Jill and her parents were sitting with Coop, Pauline, and Obie. Jill was playing with Tabby, bouncing her up and down in her lap and making her giggle, while Coop and the elder Yamashito were having a political discussion.

“So, I figure it’s like this, dude,” Coop was explaining. “If your people would’ve just had some good ganja back in the day, there would’ve been some mellowed-out motherfuckers in the head office instead of those aggressive-ass warlords you had running things. They would’ve been able to get their minds right, you know? Think shit through and see where the path would lead. If you’d have had stoners in charge of things, they would’ve seen that fucking with America and bombing our shit over here in Hawaii was a bad idea. If they wouldn’t have done that shit, we never would’ve had to drop the goddamn bomb on your asses. All of history would’ve been different! Ain’t that some shit?”

“So ... you’re suggesting,” said the elder Yamashito, “that if the ruling class of Japan, back in the early 1940s, would have just smoked some marijuana, all of World War II would have turned out differently?”

“You’re feeling me!” Coop said, delighted.

“And my parents and I and my future wife and her parents ... we never would have ended up in that internment camp?”

“Fuck no,” Coop said. “There would’ve been no reason for that shit!”

“Hmm,” Yamashito said. “An interesting viewpoint on world history, Mr. Cooper.”

“Ain’t it though?” Coop said. He looked and saw Jake and Laura. “Hey, guys! How’s it feel to be married and shit?”

“Still getting used to it,” Jake said.

“That’s right,” Laura said. “It still hasn’t quite sunk in.”

Hugs and handshakes were exchanged.

“I must say, Jake,” Mr. Yamashito told him, “that the relative frugality of this wedding is a refreshing change from your normal spending habits.”

“I agree,” said Mrs. Yamashito. “Although flying the three of us here first class was a trivial waste of your net worth.”

“You didn’t like the first class travel?” Pauline asked them.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Mrs. Yamashito said. “It was enjoyable. It’s just one of those things that makes accountants cringe. Paying outrageously extra just for a little bigger of a seat and some free drinks.”

“And a less crowded toilet,” Jake said. “Don’t forget that part.”

“And speaking of unnecessary expenses,” Mr. Yamashito put in, “Jill tells us that they’re getting ready to break ground on construction of your new home.”

“That’s right,” Jake said. “The road in has been finished, the power lines have been strung...”

“One thousand, six hundred dollars per hundred feet, or fraction thereof,” Jill said with a shake of her head. “And it was two thousand, six hundred, and fifty-five feet from the power lines on the road to the house site.”

“Great Jehoshaphat!” Mr. Yamashito cried, imagining the horror. “That’s more than forty-two thousand dollars!”

“Just for power lines alone?” Mrs. Yamashito said.

“Well ... I can deduct it as a construction cost, can’t I?” Jake said weakly.

“That’s not the point!” Mr. Yamashito told him. “You did all this for a house with a view?” He turned to his daughter. “Jill, haven’t you explained to Jake about how paying extra for property with a view is never in the best interests of the investor?”

“I explained it to him, Dad,” Jill said sadly. “Jake doesn’t listen.”

“He certainly does not,” Mrs. Yamashito said, shaking her head once again.

He endured a few more minutes of financial lectures from his accounting firm before breaking free and making his way over to the next table. Here, Phil and Ted were sitting with Dexter Price and Bobby Z, the former two seemingly in awe that they were hanging with the latter two.

As they approached, Ted was in the midst of one of his paramedic stories.

“ ... and so, the dude finally gets around to telling us that he’s got something stuck up his ass and that’s why he called us. I ask him what’s up there and he says it’s an apple.”

“An apple?” Dexter asked, raising his eyebrows.

“A motherfuckin’ apple,” Ted confirms. “So, naturally, I ask him how an apple managed to find its way up his ass.”

“A fair question,” said Bobby Z with a chuckle.

“Right!” Ted said. “He tells us that the apple had been sitting on the edge of the tub while he was taking a shower and he sat down on it and up it went. And he seriously expected us to believe that shit. Of course! We all bring our fruit into the shower with us, don’t we? And then suddenly find a need to sit down on the edge of the tub while we’re showering with our fruit. So ... anyway, we get to the hospital and they x-ray his abdomen, and, sure enough, there’s a goddamn apple up his ass. You could see the seeds and everything.”

“I wouldn’t even think you could fit something as big as an apple up there,” said Phil.

“Somehow he managed it,” Ted said with a shake of the head. “And that’s not the weirdest thing I’ve heard of people sticking up there. My friend Booger Breath—he works the southside, and they call him Booger Breath because he’s always picking his nose and putting it in his mouth—he had a guy that stuck a fuckin’ light bulb up their once. And Rennie, one of the nurses at St. Francis, she told me a guy came in once with a three-cell mag light jammed in there.”

“Big end first or little end?” asked Phil.

Ted did not answer the question. “Anyway,” he said, “there’s one thing I don’t understand about all this; maybe y’all can help me with it since you’re all gay. What’s up with the compulsion to put things up the ass? I don’t get it. I can’t even deal with the doc putting his fuckin’ finger up there for the old prostate handshake. Why would anyone want to stick something as big as an apple up there? Or a fuckin’ mag-light?”

Bobby Z gave a shrug. “I don’t think it’s a gay thing. I’ve known quite a few gay men in my time, as you might imagine, and none of them have ever wanted anything but a dick stuck up the back door. A lot of them don’t even like that up there.”

“I concur,” said Dexter. “And if someone I was with did suggest putting something up there besides a dick—either my ass or his—I’d find myself heading for the door as quick as possible.”

“Definitely a deal breaker,” Phil agreed.

“Even if you’re a bottom boy?” Laura asked him.

Phil looked at her and smiled warmly. “Especially if you’re a bottom boy,” he said. “You don’t want to stretch things out, after all.”

Jake, who still did not know what a bottom boy was (or if there was a corresponding thing known as a top boy) smiled politely but kept his mouth closed. It seemed safer.

The four men all gave Laura hugs and shook hands warmly with Jake, offering their congratulations on the marriage and complimenting the ceremony.

“And we definitely appreciate the accommodations and the first-class travel,” Ted said.

“Agreed,” Phil said. “I was happy enough that you paid for our airfare and room, but you went all out and paid for the deluxe.”

“I like my friends to have a good time,” Jake told them. “And I owe both of you a significant debt. Ted, we couldn’t have done our first albums without you and Ben. And Phil, aside from being a badass backup singer for us, you helped Laura with her little dental problem that one time. Things would’ve turned out a lot differently if you weren’t there, I think.”

“Ah yes, Dr. Dave,” Phil said with a smile. “Punching his face in was actually one of the high points of my life.”

“This sounds like an interesting story,” Dexter said.

“It’s also a bit personal,” Laura said. “I’d prefer it not be passed around.”

“Right,” Phil said. “Sorry, Dex. It’ll have to remain a mystery.”

“Understood,” Dexter said with a shrug. He then looked at the happy couple. “So, what’s the word on the next albums from you and Celia?”

“We’re still in the composition stage, and early in it at that,” Jake said. “Right now, we’re both still getting a lot of airplay from the last albums and sales are still high. There’s no real hurry to start putting the next albums together.”

“I understand that,” Dexter said. “What I was wondering was if you’re going to be needing me for the sax tracks on the next go-around or is Mrs. Kingsley here gonna be the one to do them?”

“Oh...” Jake said, glancing at his wife for a minute. She was flushing a little, although if it was because of the question or because of being called ‘Mrs. Kingsley’ again, he couldn’t be sure. “We really haven’t thought that far ahead yet, to tell you the truth. What do you think, hon?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I haven’t played much of anything since we came off tour. I’ve been thinking a little about going back to the studio and doing some sessions, but ... well ... I haven’t really taken any initiative in that direction.”

Z and Dex looked at each other. Z then said: “Well, truth be known, I’m ready to start putting together some tunes for my next album. I need a sax player, naturally. I love working with you, Teach—you know that, right?—but Dex here was just telling me that he doesn’t have anything going right now unless you and Celia will be needing him, and ... well ... Dex and I always did work well together, as long as we could keep our personal lives separate.”

“Hey,” Jake said. “Nobody owes anybody anything here, right, hon?”

“Right,” Laura said quickly.

“If you and Dex want to hook up and start laying down your tunes, you don’t need to ask our permission. Go for it. If Laura isn’t up for playing sax for us when it’s our turn, we’ll find someone else. As popular as we are now, I don’t think we’ll have any trouble attracting a decent horn blower.”

Z looked at the two of them meaningfully. “You ain’t gonna find anyone better than Teach here.”

“No, I don’t think we will,” Jake agreed.

“You won’t have to,” Laura said. “I’ll be ready to play for the next albums.”

Jake nodded. “All right then,” he said. “Issue resolved, right?”

“Right,” Z and Dex said in unison.

They looked very happy about this. Jake couldn’t help but feel that one of the suites the two men had been assigned to was going to be empty tonight.

The reception went on. Dinner was served—roast pork luau-style was the main course—and then the wedding cake was cut. There were no presents to open since Jake and Laura had insisted that they did not expect or want any wedding gifts. Jake removed the garter from her left leg and slingshot it out into the gathering of single men. Coop was the one who caught it, snatching it out of the air instinctively and then looking at it in horror. Laura then tossed the bouquet over her shoulder to the collection of single women. It landed neatly in Pauline’s arms like a Steve Young pass to Jerry Rice. She smiled sweetly over at Obie and held it up to him in salute. Obie had himself a good chuckle over that. He had already offered three times to marry her and she had turned him down all three times.

After dinner and cake, the dancing began. Jake and Laura shared the traditional first dance and then Phil danced with Laura while Jake danced with his mother. Soon, open dancing was declared and the lawn came alive with couples moving and grooving to the sounds of Hibiscus Dreams belting out classic rock and pop tunes from the sixties to the eighties. They really were a pretty good band and Jake made a mental note to give them a healthy bonus.

About an hour after the dancing began, Laura found herself sitting at one of the tables across from Neesh. She was still wearing her wedding dress and was a little sweaty from the muggy air and the dancing (and her lack of recent aerobic exercise). Jake was out on the dance floor, moving his hips and shoulders with Elsa while the band played their version of Twist and Shout. Elsa, it turned out, was a surprisingly good dancer.

“Hey, girlfriend,” Neesh greeted her. She herself was a little sweaty as well, she had been out dancing with G just a few minutes before. “How are you feeling?”

“A little drunk,” Laura confessed. “And kind of tired. It’s been a long day.”

“A day you’ll remember forever though, right?”

“Right,” she agreed.

Neesh looked out at her fiancé, who was displaying his own dancing skills with Pauline. She then turned back to Laura. “This is the first time we’ve been alone together ... you know ... since that night.”

“Yeah,” Laura agreed, taking a sip of her wine and wishing she had a joint to puff on. “It is.”

“By design, I’m assuming?” Neesh asked her.

Laura nodded. “It’s nothing personal, Neesh,” she said. “I really like having you as a friend. It’s just ... I find it difficult to resist you when ... you know...”

“When I want to have a little girl-time?”

“Right,” Laura said. “I can’t look at girl-time as casually as you do, not when Jake doesn’t know about it.”

“You think it’s cheating?”

“When Jake and Gordon don’t know about it, yes, I think it’s cheating. And I don’t like being a cheater, Neesh. I felt so incredibly guilty after that night, after ... after you put your mouth on me, after what I did to you.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I enjoyed what we did, and yes, I had high hopes of doing it some more, perhaps in a hotel room we rented for the day, but I got the message when you kept turning down my offers of us getting together.”

“I didn’t do it to hurt your feelings,” she said. “I really do enjoy your friendship, I just ... just didn’t want to do that anymore.”

“You could have just told me that,” Neesh said.

“I did tell you that,” Laura said. “The night you came over. I told you out on the deck that I didn’t want to do those things with you.”

“You did,” Neesh agreed. “But when the two of us went in that room together, you did want to do those things. I didn’t force myself on you, you’ll remember. I told you that all you had to do to make me stop was push me away.” She smiled. “You didn’t push me away, Teach. You put your arms around me and pulled me closer.”

“Yes,” Laura sighed. “I did.” She looked at her face, at her lips. “I wanted to do what we did ... I still do. That’s the problem, Neesh. I can’t. And if you and I get together again and you offer yourself to me like that again, I’m afraid I will. I have a hard time resisting the temptation you represent.”

Neesh sighed. “Listen, Teach,” she said. “I don’t agree with your point of view on this matter. Girl-time is just that, it’s girl-time; a pleasant little diversion from the day to days that should be embraced. I don’t think it’s cheating any more than I think G or Jake looking at a porno magazine and whipping their weasels is cheating. But I respect your feelings. And I don’t want to lose you as a friend. I don’t want you to have to avoid me because you’re afraid I’m going to lead you into temptation.”

“So, what’s the answer?” Laura asked.

“I promise not to try to seduce you anymore,” she said. “After you get back from New Zealand, we hang out like girlfriends should hang out. We’ll go out shopping. We’ll go out and have ourselves some drinks together, maybe catch a movie. And I will not attempt to get you into bed. I won’t kiss you. I won’t touch you in the places you like to be touched. I will not do anything sexual to you unless you beg me to.”

“Beg you to?”

“Beg me, girlfriend,” Neesh said. “And I’m here to tell you that, from this moment forward, you will have to seriously beg if you want me. I’m talking down on your knees. You dig?”

“I ... I dig,” Laura said.

“All right then,” Neesh said. She held out her right hand, the little finger sticking up in the air. “Pinky swear on it?”

Laura smiled and then hooked the little finger of her right hand around Neesh’s. “Pinky swear,” she said.

Jake and Laura retired to their suite just after nine o’clock that night. Both showered separately, Jake going first and then retiring to the bedroom in his birthday suit. Laura cleansed herself and then emerged from the shower room wearing a flimsy negligee she had bought (with Celia’s help) just for the occasion.

“That’s a nice outfit,” Jake said appreciably.

“Thank you,” she said. “And now, I think I’d like to fuck my husband.”

“All right then,” he said, patting the bed next to him. “Let’s consummate this thing.”

They consummated for the next hour or so. Both agreed it was among the best they had ever had.

They did it again the next morning, a little slower, a little more like lovemaking as opposed to fucking. And then they showered and packed their things.

They had said their goodbyes to everyone last night before retiring so when the limousine arrived, they simply loaded their things into it and climbed into the back. They were driven to Lihue Airport where they boarded a Hawaiian Airlines 737 for the twenty-five-minute flight to Honolulu International Airport. There, they went to the international terminal and, after a two-hour layover (during which they enjoyed custom-made omelets and a few bloody Marys in the first-class lounge) they boarded an Air New Zealand Boeing 767-ER and settled into the extra-wide seats in the front of the plane.

“Congratulations, you two,” their flight attendant, a mid-thirties blonde with tremendous breasts, told them as she asked for their preflight drink orders. “I saw a report of your wedding on the telly in the hotel last night.”

“Thank you,” Laura said, smiling at her. “Can I get a bloody Mary, extra pale perhaps?”

“Coming right up,” she promised. “And you, Mr. Kingsley?”

“I’ll have the same,” he told her.

The plane roared into the tropical sky just after eleven o’clock Honolulu time. It turned to the southwest and leveled off at thirty-seven thousand feet. It landed nine hours and fifteen minutes later at Auckland International Airport on the North Island. Jake and Laura had both stayed awake for most of the flight, reading books, watching a movie, having a few drinks, eating dinner when it was served, and only occasionally nodding off for a light nap when the boredom got to be too much.

There wasn’t much of a jet lag issue. The time when they landed was just past 6:30 PM, Auckland time. Only two hours behind what it would have been had they been in Hawaii all the time they had been flying. But since they had crossed the International Date Line en route, it was now the next day. They would get that day back when they returned home, actually landing in Los Angeles before the time they would take off in Auckland.

They stayed overnight in Auckland, in the Presidential suite of the Auckland Hilton Hotel which stood out at the end of Prince’s Wharf in the harbor. The hotel had just been built the previous year and their window looked out on an impressive view of the harbor and the city lights.

Before going to bed, they fucked on the balcony of the suite, Laura leaning over the railing and Jake sliding into her from behind.

“Does it feel different now?” Laura asked, after they finished up and went back inside. “Now that we’re married?”

“It does somehow,” Jake had to admit. “It feels ... I don’t know ... more legitimate I guess.”

“And that’s good, right?”

“Right,” he assured her. “It’s very good.”

At 8:30 the next morning they boarded another Air New Zealand aircraft, this one an Airbus A320. Less than two hours after planting their butts in the first-class seats, they were stepping back off the aircraft at Christchurch International on the South Island. After collecting their baggage, and being momentarily mobbed by a few people wanting autographs, they walked out of the terminal to the parking area. The air was clear and the temperature was pleasant. It was a typical South Island spring day.

Jake’s 1991 Toyota pickup truck, which he had purchased from a Christchurch dealer on his second day living here and that had been in storage ever since he’d left, was sitting in the short-term lot, just as he’d instructed. The door was unlocked. The keys, including the key to his house, were underneath the floormat. He loaded the baggage into the back and then he and Laura climbed into the cab.

“I missed this truck,” Jake said nostalgically as he pushed in the clutch and fired up the engine. It started at once. A glance at the odometer showed he had only put a little more than eight thousand miles on the vehicle.

“I like it,” Laura said. “It seems rugged.”

He drove out of the parking lot and headed for the main road. Laura was astounded, as had been Pauline and Jill during their visit here, by the fact that there was no fee for parking in the airport. It seemed so ... un-American not to gouge someone when you enjoyed a monopoly.

Jake drove slowly through the streets of Christchurch, pointing out the various sites to his new wife as they went. She seemed impressed by what she saw, particularly the cathedral that had given the town its name. He did not make any mention of some of his own familiar landmarks as they went: the bank where Samantha had worked (and perhaps still did), the library where he had checked out more than books from Julie Anne, the corner grocery where he had bought more than canned goods from Carrie, the grocer’s daughter. He made a mental note to avoid all of those places while he was here with Laura. Not that he was ashamed of his past, or that she did not know what kind of man he had been before meeting her, but because it would just be awkward.

He entered the tunnel and drove under the Port Hills, emerging in the small town of Lyttleton, where the fishing fleet and the harbor were located. He drove her around this town as well, showing her the wharf and the waterfront bars he used to frequent.

“This is where I used to do my drinking when I was here,” he told her. “Well ... my away from home drinking anyway.”

“You did that a lot, huh?” she asked softly.

“I did,” he confirmed. “That bar right there.” He pointed to a place called The Shark’s Tooth. “That’s where I was the night I had them wake up old Ian Blackworth so he could put this tat on my arm. Proof of how much I love the South Island.”

Laura reached out and slid her fingers under the right sleeve of his shirt, pushing it up a bit so the tat in question came into view. “I really do like this ink,” she said. “I’ll always remember when we were in the hot tub together that first time ... not the time we kissed and ... you know ... but the very first time, when you suggested that contest of us listening to each other’s music. You pointed out your house to me on this tattoo. That was the night I first started really ... you know ... getting into you. I never thought I’d actually get to see the house.”

He smiled at her and caressed her hand for a moment. “How about we get ourselves on up there now?” he suggested. “Hopefully my maintenance people have it nice and clean for you.”

“Let’s do it,” she said.

He drove past the fish market where Elizabeth and Kate, the mother and daughter team of fishmongers, plied their trade by day before heading to the waterfront bars by night. Jake did not point this location out to Laura.

He turned onto the Summit Road, which had been the only way to get from Lyttleton to Christchurch in the days before the tunnel was built. He twisted and turned his way up the road until they were nearly at the top and then turned off on a small access road. He drove a bit along this road until he was finally looking at the house he’d commissioned, had built, and had then lived in during six of the worst months of his life.

“This is the place?” Laura asked.

“This is the place,” he confirmed.

“I like the way it looks,” she said. “Especially the view.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Let’s go see if there are any ghosts in it, huh?”

She looked at him seriously. “You really were in a bad place the last time you were here, weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “But I’m in a good place now. I think it’s time to make some happy memories here.”

The next morning, seven thousand air miles away and one day earlier, Matt Tisdale had just finished a jam session with his band. They had been working fairly steadily on new material for Matt’s next album. They had six solid tunes in the late stages of development and two others in the beginning stages. He hoped to get into the studio and start recording them by February 1, and to have master CDs in hand by mid-May.

Matt climbed into the back of the limousine that had been parked outside of the rehearsal warehouse since 4:00 PM. It was now 5:30, but Matt always had the limo show up at four because sometimes they (meaning he) decided to call an end to a jam session that early and, if he did, he wanted his ride waiting for him. Today had not been one of those days. Corey, the driver of the limo today, did not mind. He was paid by the hour and if Matt wanted him to sit there for two or three (or sometimes even four) hours doing nothing, it was easy money.

“Home, Matt?” Corey asked him politely. On many occasions, Matt did not want to go home immediately after the session. Sometimes he wanted to go out and drink and pick up a groupie or two. Other times he wanted to go out to eat.

“Yeah, I think I’ll call it an early night,” Matt told him. “I already called up my man Chuckie and told him to have Louisa fix up some grub for me.”

“Home it is,” Corey said amicably, dropping the gearshift into drive and pulling smoothly away.

Matt quickly mixed himself a stiff Jack and Coke, the ratio quite close to fifty-fifty. He then pulled his cocaine kit from his pocket and assembled a few lines on the mirror. He snorted these up, thought things over for a minute or two, and then crunched up and snorted two more.

“Oh yeah,” he said happily as he felt the familiar rush of cocaine intoxication coursing through him. “That hit the fuckin’ spot.”

His heart hammered in his chest a little faster than he really liked it to, but he did his best to ignore this. Dumping a good portion of his Jack and Coke on it helped—not the actual heart rate of course, but his anxiety about it. And the combination of the two intoxicants together made him feel peace on Earth and goodwill toward men. He became talkative.

“What’s been going on with you, Corey?” he asked the driver. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’m just doing this gig part time these days,” Corey said. “I finished my degree in August, and I got a job working on some projects for LA County.”

Corey, he remembered, wanted to be a civil engineer and had been working his way through school for several years now.

“Does it pay well?” Matt asked him.

“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “It’s mostly research and math checking. But it’s a foot in the door. Hopefully, it’ll lead to a full-time gig at some point.”

“That’s cool,” Matt said nodding. “Engineers don’t score a lot of gash, do they?”

“Well ... it’s not exactly a profession that makes women throw open their legs for you,” he confirmed. “I actually score a lot more pussy doing this gig.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Corey said. “There’s nothing like driving a group of girls having a bachelorette party around all night. You really have to be a geek not to get laid when that happens.”

Matt patted him on the shoulder companionably. “That’s all fuckin’ right,” he said. “A bunch of drunk bachelorettes. Kind of hot. You ever nail the bride herself?”

“Uh ... no, I’ve never been able to pull that one off.”

“What a rip,” Matt said. “How about scoring with two of the bachelorettes at once?”

“Uh ... no, I’ve never done that either.”

“Oh,” Matt said, disappointed. Why tell a fucking sex story if it only involved one bitch who you had every right in the world to fuck? “Well ... to each their own, I guess.”

“Hey,” Corey said, changing the subject, “the last time I drove you somewhere you were telling me you were thinking about buying a boat. Did you ever end up doing that?”

This brightened Matt right back up again. “Fuck yeah I did!” he said excitedly. “I scored me a seventy-nine-foot motor yacht with twin diesels. Just closed escrow on it last month.”

“Oh yeah?” Corey asked. “Sounds sweet.”

“As sweet as eighteen-year-old pussy,” Matt assured him. “It’s got five full bedrooms, a fuckin’ hot tub, a dining room, and a complete kitchen. Down below it’s got cabins for the crew, its own icemaker, and lots of storage for fish. I got the entire back of it set up for deep sea fishing, with four chairs and a fish cleaning station.”

“Sounds awesome,” Corey said. “What does something like that cost?”

“Four and a half million bones, dude,” Matt said solemnly.

“Damn,” Corey said, impressed. “That ain’t chump change.”

“Nope,” Matt agreed. “It’s more than I paid for my fuckin’ house. And I have to hire a crew before I can take it out.” He shook his head. “I really need to start working on that shit.”

“Did you pay cash for it?” Corey wanted to know.

“Fuck yeah,” Matt said. “The only way to do business if you have the means. And between that Greatest Hits bullshit that National put out and my last album selling like wildfire and my profits from the tour, I had the fuckin’ means. Especially since my accountants figured out a way to keep me from being butt-raped by taxes.”

“That’s really cool, Matt.”

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?”

“Where are you keeping it?”

“Marina Del Ray for now,” he said. “Although I’m going to have to move it around every now and then.”

“Why is that?”

“Tax reasons,” he said. “Apparently California has this property tax thing on yachts. One and a half percent of the fucking value every year. Can you believe that shit?”

“That’s fucked up,” Corey said.

“It is. Anyway, since I bought the thing in Mexico—at least that’s where the Franchise Tax Board thinks I bought it—I didn’t have to pay sales tax on it. But my accountant has it registered in Mexico as well, connected to my home in Cabo. So, officially, the yacht is just up here because I’m visiting. And if I’m visiting, the state of commie-fucking-fornia doesn’t have any right to tax me on it. That shit all starts to fall apart, however, if I keep it in one place too long. So, every six months or so I’m going to have to move it somewhere else.”

“Wow,” Corey said. “And that’s legal?”

“That’s what my accountants tell me. And they should know about that shit, right?”

“I suppose so,” Corey agreed.

They talked of inconsequential things for the rest of the forty-minute ride. Matt crunched up two more lines of cocaine and made them disappear. He mixed and drank two more Jack and Cokes, each more potent than the last. By the time he walked in the front door of his house, he was feeling quite fine indeed.

Louisa had prepared a couple of New York steaks, sautéed mushrooms, baked potatoes, and steamed asparagus for dinner. Kim was at the house tonight and they ate in front of the television set, watching Wheel of Fortune and then Jeopardy while swilling down a few bottles of Corona beer.

Louisa had just cleared their plates from the coffee table when Jeopardy ended. The show following it was Entertainment Report, one of the celebrity gossip rags. Matt picked up the remote to change the channel but stopped when he saw a picture of Jake Kingsley flash up on the screen. Jake was smiling and dressed in a white tuxedo, the red-headed saxophone bitch he was boning on his arm and wearing a white dress.

“We’ve received confirmation,” the skinny bitch host of the show told him and the rest of the viewing audience, “that musician Jake Kingsley, former member of the death metal band Intemperance and current solo artist with one of the best-selling alternative rock albums of the year, married his girlfriend Laura Best, saxophonist for Celia Valdez, in a private ceremony in Hawaii yesterday. It is a first marriage for both of them, although Kingsley does have a rather notorious past, including accusations of abuse and of snorting cocaine out of the butt crack of a young woman in New York City some years ago.”

“Motherfucker,” Matt said, looking at the picture in amazement. “He actually went and married that bitch. Fucking married!”

“Does that surprise you?” asked Kim.

“That Jake Kingsley would marry someone? Fuck yeah, it surprises me. I can’t stand the motherfucker and he’s nothing but a sellout prick, but he’s a man who loves pussy almost as much as I do. I never thought I’d see the day he’d settle down with one bitch.”

“He dated Helen for quite some time,” Kim said.

“Yeah, and look how well that shit worked out for him.” He shook his head in consternation. “There must be some fuckin’ tax reason he did it.”

The host of ER, in the meantime, was talking while a series of pictures from the wedding were flashed on the screen.

“The ceremony,” she said, “was small and intimate, with only close friends and family attending. People magazine was granted exclusive photography rights to the ceremony and the reception, it has been reported, but these shots we’re showing you now were taken by long-time celebrity photographer Paul Peterson, who managed to infiltrate the venue and snap some photos with a telephoto lens.

“Guests included smooth jazz great Bobby Z, saxophonist Dexter Price, notorious rap musician Bigg G and his fiancé, Celia Valdez and Greg Oldfellow—Celia Valdez, as you can see from this shot, served as Laura Best’s maid of honor—and all the former members of Intemperance except for Darren Appleman, the original bass player who died of a heroin overdose four years ago, and Matt Tisdale, the iconic guitarist who vowed shortly after Appleman’s death that he would never play with any of the members of Intemperance again.”

“Motherfuck!” Matt said as he watched the screen. As she had been naming off the guests, shots of that particular guest had appeared on the screen. He saw the Valdez bitch standing next to Jake’s now-official snatch, he saw Greg Oldfellow in a suit, he saw that nigger rapper in a Hawaiian shirt, and then he saw shots of Coop, Nerdly (who was apparently Jake’s best man—no fuckin’ surprise there) and then that dick smoker Charlie (who was actually sitting next to a fucking woman! What was up with that shit?). And now, as they mentioned that he, Matt, had not been there, there was a brief shot of him with his guitar in hand, one of the publicity shots from the last tour.

“What’s the matter, Mattie?” Kim asked. “Why do you give a shit about Kingsley getting married?”

“I don’t give a shit,” he said. “He wants to fuck up his life, that’s his business.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I wasn’t invited to the fucking wedding,” he said.

“What?”

“All the other members of Intemperance were there,” he said. “Even that fucking dick smoker. But he didn’t invite me.”

“Would you have gone?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Fuck no!” he barked. “I don’t even want to be in the same fucking zip code as that asshole, let alone at his wedding. But he still should’ve fucking invited me!”

Though Jake and Laura had left for New Zealand the day following the wedding, most of the rest of the wedding party had stayed behind at the resort to enjoy a little rest and recreation. Jake had paid for everyone to have a full week there, and a full week is what everyone took.

Jill, Celia, Gordon and Neesh tried their hands at surfing on most of the days. The elder Yamashitos booked a cheap flight over to Oahu and did all the tourist things there—including visiting Pearl Harbor, where they mixed in quite nicely with a whole trove of mainland Japanese tourists visiting the memorial. Charlie and Sonya looked into the possibility of opening a vegetarian restaurant on one of the islands and received some good vibes. Greg ended up hanging out with Jake’s and Nerdly’s parents as they drove around and explored the island. Nerdly and Sharon mostly just stayed in the resort and surfed the internet, marveling over how much less the bandwidth was there. Pauline and Obie looked into the possibility of buying a winter house in the islands, and they received some favorable vibes as well. Ted, Phil, Z, and Dexter just hung around the resort bar most of the time, swilling up the booze and listening to Ted’s paramedic stories.

Finally, however, it was time to go home. The Yamashitos, the Archers, the elder Kingsleys, and Charlie all hopped on a plane to Honolulu and then another plane back to San Francisco—all flying first-class, of course. Ted, Phil, Z, and Dex all made a similar trip, but they flew back to LAX instead. The rest of them: Pauline and Obie, G and Neesh, Nerdly and Sharon, Greg and Celia, climbed back aboard a chartered Gulfstream for their trip home.

As such, they beat everyone else there since they did not have to stop in Honolulu for a layover first.

They parted ways at Van Nuys airport, each of the couples climbing into a separate limousine for their respective trips home.

Celia and Greg arrived at their Los Angeles house just after five o’clock in the afternoon. They trudged inside while the driver and the house staff unloaded their luggage and worked on getting it inside.

“Aww, home sweet home,” Celia said as they entered the living room.

“I suppose,” Greg said. “I’d really like to move our action over to the Palm Springs house in the next week or so though.”

Celia shrugged. “I’m up for that,” she said. “I can have some alone time now that the wedding is over. Maybe start doing some composing.”

“I’ll start working on the arrangements tomorrow,” Greg said.

“What about your project?” she asked. Greg had accepted the role in the upcoming cop film he had been offered. Us and Them was to be the title. They were still working on casting currently, but preproduction would start in earnest as soon as that was done.

“I’ll deal with that when it’s time,” he said. “For now, I just want to get out of LA for a bit.”

“I feel you,” she said.

They walked over into the office area. There were two phone extensions here, both connected to answering machines. One line was for Greg’s business calls, the other was for Celia’s business calls. When they had left for Hawaii, they left their cell phones behind and had not given anyone they did business with the number where they could be reached. The wedding was meant to be a vacation for them in every sense of the word.

Now, however, it was time to pay the piper. Both machines were blinking rapidly, their digital counters showing dozens of messages waiting.

“Ugg,” Celia said sourly. “I am not going to deal with this right now. I’m going to pour myself a nice glass of wine and go take a bath.”

“Enjoy,” Greg said with a sigh. “I might be up in a bit. I’m going to at least listen to some of these first.”

“You do that,” Celia said, giving him a quick kiss. “I’d suggest you get yourself a drink first.”

“I think I will,” he said.

She went to the bar area and pulled herself a bottle of Merlot out of the rack and opened it. She then pulled down a wine glass. She carried both upstairs to the master bedroom and shut the door behind her. She set the wine and the glass down on a small table next to the large tub in the master bathroom. She turned on the water to hot, stopped the drain, and then poured some scented bubble bath into the flowing stream.

While the tub filled, she took off her clothes and dropped them into the laundry hamper. She looked down at her vaginal area for a moment, debating whether she needed to shave. She had done so only two days ago in their suite in Hawaii and there was no real stubble to be seen. She then ran her hand over the calf of her left leg. It too was smooth. She nodded. No shaving necessary. If Greg wanted a piece of the action tonight, he would find that the maintenance was within specifications.

She lit a few candles and placed them on the edge of the tub. She then found a paperback book from her collection—it was Delores Claiborne by Stephen King—and carried it to the tub. She checked the temperature with her foot and found it was just a tad hot but nothing she could not live with. She climbed into the water and made herself comfortable.

It took the better part of five more minutes before the tub was full and she turned off the water. Silence descended in the room except for the occasional drip of water. She took a few sips of wine and then settled into her book, feeling the heat soothing her body, soothing her soul.

She was well into her second glass of wine when the door opened and Greg entered the room. He had a strange look on his face.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“A couple of things,” he said. “I just got off the phone with Johnny.”

“Oh yeah? About Us and Them?”

“That’s right,” he said. “There have been some ... uh ... developments while we’ve been gone.”

She really didn’t like the look on his face. “Such as?”

“They’ve nailed down the principal photography location,” he said. “Since the story takes place in Chicago, they managed a deal for filming there. They’re even getting a certain amount of cooperation from Chicago PD—use of their patches and logos and even some of their police cars and buildings.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “So, it’ll be another out-of-town shoot then?”

“Most of it,” he confirmed. “We’ll likely do some scenes here in LA, but I’ll probably be gone quite a bit.”

“Well ... it is what it is, right?”

“Yeah,” he said softly.

“It’s not a big deal, Greg,” she told him. “I think you learned your lesson from what happened in Alaska, didn’t you?”

“I did,” he agreed. “There ... uh ... there is something else though.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, remember when I was telling you about the story in the script. The main character—Frank Haverty—is a burned-out cop that ends up ... you know ... having an affair with a reporter that’s assigned to ride along with him.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I remember. You said there’s going to be a couple of sex scenes with her, right?”

“Right,” he said.

“Is that what you’re worried about?” she scoffed. “That’s just your job, hon. I know you’re not really going to have sex with whoever they get to play her.”

“Uh ... yeah, but ... well ... the thing is, they’ve just casted the part of Lyndsay Brown—the reporter that Frank is going to have the affair with.”

“Yeah? Who’d they get?”

He swallowed and took a deep breath. “Mindy Snow has been cast in that part.”