Standing On Top

Chapter 6B

Jake slept until just after four o'clock. He awoke feeling refreshed and vibrant for the first time in weeks. He shaved, showered, dressed in fresh clothes, and then went downstairs and fixed a stiff rum and coke that he took out onto the patio to enjoy with a cigarette.

He began to wonder if Celia had changed her mind about staying at his house. She had been more than a little tipsy when she'd accepted his invitation and now that she'd had time to sober up he thought it likely that the pressure her A&R team would be putting on her might derail the rebellious intentions he'd planted in her brain. He wasn't quite sure why he was looking forward to Celia's visit. He had no romantic aspirations toward her, nor did he have any serious thoughts about a meaningless sexual encounter with her. She was engaged to another man and she did not seem the least bit interested in him either sexually or romantically. Still, he enjoyed being around her. They seemed to share an ease of conversation that he'd never experienced with a woman unrelated to him before. She was, as he'd told Elsa, a friend. The brief conversations they'd shared in the past were something he remembered with fondness. There was a depth to her that he wanted to explore and expand upon. He would be disappointed if she didn't show tonight.

The phone rang just after 4:30. Elsa brought it to him, explaining formally that a "Ms. Valdez" was requesting to speak with him.

"Thanks, Elsa," he said, taking it. He put it to his ear and said, "Celia?"

"The one and only," she replied. "Are you ready to send some of your people to come get me?"

"I am," he said. He had called Buxfield Limousines before lying down and asked them to keep a car available for this mission. He had also let them know of the top-secret nature of this pick-up. "Did you call your people and let them know you were going AWOL?"

"I did," she said. "It would be safe to say that I've ignited quite the shitstorm. In the past two hours I've been threatened, begged to, threatened again, and then ordered to stay in my rented room like the good little spic I've always been."

"They called you a spic?" Jake asked.

"That was one of the kinder things I was called. I could really use a drink, Jake. How soon can that limo get here?"

"Where are you at?"

She gave him the name of her hotel.

"I'll have someone there in thirty minutes," he said. "Stay in your room until the driver calls for you to come down."

"I'll be eagerly awaiting," she said.

"And feel free to start drinking in the limo," he said. "You'll have to have a few to catch up with me."

"Sounds like a plan," she said.

At six o'clock Jake went to the small storage compartment next to the house and removed a bag of charcoal briquettes and a bottle of lighter fluid. He carried them over to his barbeque island and dumped a good portion of the briquettes inside. He drenched them in lighter fluid and then had a cigarette while he waited for it to soak in. When he was done smoking he struck a match and lit up the charcoal. Within a minute it was blazing brightly, sending black smoke up into the air.

"Mmm," a voice said from behind him. "I really love the smell of a barbeque being lit. It reminds me of camping trips with my parents back in Venezuela."

Jake turned and beheld Celia. She was dressed in a tighter pair of jeans then she'd worn on the airplane and a form-fitting burgundy sweater that outlined her breasts quite nicely. Her hair was flowing loosely over her shoulders. She had a drink in one hand and a smoldering cigarette in the other.

"You've arrived," Jake said. "And you're looking quite lovely as well. Did Elsa get you that drink?"

"She did," Celia confirmed. "She's a very nice lady. She introduced herself to me, gave me a tour of your house, and then made me this drink. Are you sure she's not going to tell anyone that I was here?"

"Absolutely positive," Jake said. "Elsa has no connection whatsoever to any media conglomerates or record company executives. I pay her very good money and, in return, she gives me complete loyalty."

"That's a concept," she said, walking a little closer. "My housekeeper is some record company puta who reports everything I say and do to my A&R guy."

"Does puta mean what I think it means?" he asked.

"It means 'whore'," she said. "But even that translation doesn't do it justice. It's the vilest manifestation of 'whore' currently available in Espanola. It means 'gutter whore', the worst of the worst of that particular breed."

"I see," Jake said. "I'll add that term to my lexicon of Spanish terms, filing it right next to cabron, which is my current favorite."

"We spics do know how to insult," she said, taking a drink of her booze.

"And I totally respect that," Jake said. "Did Elsa tell you about her grandchildren? She usually can't shut up about that."

"She mentioned that her granddaughter is a La Diferencia fan."

"A very big La Dif fan if I understood correctly," Jake said. "Do you think you could write a little note to her and autograph it? Elsa would never ask in a million years — it wouldn't be proper decorum, as she says — but I have no problem asking."

"Sure," Celia said, "I'd love to, but won't she wonder how Elsa got it? Remember, no one is supposed to know I'm here."

"I'll have Elsa tell her I got it at the Grammy Awards. Just remember to postdate it."

"Deal."

The briquettes were now blazing away quite nicely and seemed in little danger of burning out. Jake put the lighter fluid away and then brushed the black charcoal dust off his hands. "Shall we go inside?" he asked. "It'll take about forty minutes for them to burn down."

"Sure," she said, following him to the back door. "Do you do all the barbequing?"

"I do. Elsa owns the kitchen and everything in it but the barbeque is my domain."

They went inside and sat down at the bar in the entertainment room. Jake washed his hands in the sink and then mixed himself a fresh drink.

"This is such a nice house, Jake," Celia said. "Seeing it has made me realize what a crappy contract we're under. You own your own house and I'm assigned to mine. You're probably collecting millions in royalties and endorsement fees and I'm more than eighty thousand dollars in debt to Aristocrat Records. How did you do it?"

"How did I do what?"

"Get National to renegotiate your contract?"

This was a very touchy subject. The new contract had a strict non-disclosure clause in it, violation of which could force reversion to the old contract. "Who says they renegotiated anything?" Jake asked.

"Oh come on," she said, her green eyes sparkling. "Everyone in the business knows they did. The very fact that you were able to buy this house is as good as proof you aren't operating under a first-time contract anymore."

"You do have a good point there," he admitted.

"Of course I do. So tell me a story. How did you get the most tight-assed cabrons in the free world to share some of that profit with you? Do you know mobsters?"

"Assuming your supposition was even true," Jake said, "I doubt it would have been brought about by anything as dramatic as mobsters."

"Oh?"

"That's right," he said. "It would probably be more along the lines of a good lawyer threatening to challenge the very legality of first-time contracts under a legal theory known as 'unenforceable provisions'."

"Unenforceable provisions?"

He gave her a brief rundown on what that term meant. "Basically it means if you put something into a contract that was so outrageous — like agreeing to a lengthy term under conditions that almost guarantee you'll go into debt — it doesn't matter if the person who signed the contract was in his right mind and understood the provision. By their very nature they are unenforceable."

"Wow," she said. "And that worked?"

"I'm not saying anything worked," Jake said. "I'm just saying that if the scenario you're suggesting ever took place, that might be how it was done. You see, the record company would be willing to sacrifice Intemperance and all the future revenue we represented just to make an example of us to future bands. What they wouldn't be able to tolerate, however, is a threat that cuts to the core of their very industry and profit margin. If a court — most likely the California Supreme Court itself — were to rule that Intemperance's contract was null and void under unenforceable provisions, that would mean that every single first-time contract signed with any record company based in California would also become null and void. That would be something that could force a renegotiation now, wouldn't it?"

"Hmm," she said thoughtfully. You could almost see the light bulb going on over her head.

"Before you start getting any wild ideas," Jake said, "allow me to derail them. This scenario might have been possible back in 1985 but it probably wouldn't fly now. Rose Bird and most of her cohorts have been voted off the California Supreme Court and they were all replaced with conservatives whose asses are so tight you probably couldn't stick a baby thermometer in there. I don't think a record company would take the threat as seriously today."

Celia's face fell a little. "Well, that sucks ass."

"Indeed it does," Jake agreed. "Let's have another drink, shall we?"

"That sounds like a grand idea."

They actually had three more drinks before it was time for Jake to put the steaks on the barbeque. He grilled them to a perfect medium-rare and brought them back to Elsa, who put them on plates and carried them to the dining room table. In addition to the steaks there were sliced portabella mushrooms sautéed in garlic and red wine, homemade red beans and rice, and steamed asparagus spears with cheese sauce. To round it all out she opened a bottle of 1982 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Berringer vineyards in the Napa Valley. Jake and Celia both tore into the food with a vengeance, eating every last scrap of everything with hardly a word exchanged.

"Oh my lord, Elsa," Celia told her when she come in to clear the dishes. "That was absolutely fantastic. I've been eating nothing but cheap, catered food and greasy hotel kitchen food for the past five months. Thank you so much for a real meal."

"You're very welcome, Celia," Elsa said, displaying a small smile of satisfaction.

"I must agree, Elsa," Jake said. "The thing I was looking most forward to about this little vacation back from the road was getting some of your food in my stomach."

"Thank you too, Jake," she said. "I'm glad you enjoyed it. How does eggs benedict sound for breakfast in the morning?"

"Sounds good to me," he said. "How about you, Celia? Do you like eggs benedict?"

"I adore it," she said. "If I wasn't so stuffed right now I would be drooling."

"Eggs benedict it is," Elsa said. "Now please clear out of the dining area so I can clean it."

They obeyed, heading into the entertainment room. Jake poured each of them a snifter of cognac. Celia warmed hers in her hand and then took a sip. "Very good," she complimented. "You do seem to know your booze, Jake."

"I'm working on a PhD in booze," he replied. "This stuff is really nice with a good cigar."

"Now that's an idea," she said. "Do you have any?"

"You want to smoke a cigar?" he asked.

"I'm a woman of the world," she said. "Do you have any, or what?"

Jake grinned. "I think I just fell in love with you," he said. He walked behind the bar and opened the humidor that was installed there. He pulled out two of his finest illegally imported Cubans. "Shall we retire to the smoking area?"

"By all means."

They went out to the patio and sat down at the outside bar. Jake prepped the cigars with a cutting tool he kept out here just for that purpose and they lit up. Celia smoked it expertly, even commenting on the aftertaste.

"If the paparazzi could only get a shot of you now," Jake said. "Sitting out in Jake Kingsley's backyard, sipping cognac, and toking on an illegal stogy."

Celia only shrugged. "Who knows?" she said. "Maybe it would give my career a little boost. God knows I could use one after that last album."

Jake nodded. La Diferencia's fourth album — Love Is In The Air — had not done nearly as well as the first three. It had gone platinum, but only barely and only in the last month. Nor had it ever broached into the top ten on the album chart, stalling at number twelve for two weeks shortly after its release and then plunging rapidly downward. Similarly it had only produced one hit single — a song called How Much Can I Take? — instead of the three to four top ten singles produced by the first three albums (although, to be honest, How Much Can I Take? had parked itself at the number one spot for six consecutive weeks, denying Intemperance's song Cold Reality from the top spot).

"What happened on that album?" Jake asked, although he already knew. He had listened to the album several times and found it to be full of clichéd rehashes of the previous La Diferencia albums, some hokey enough that you had to wonder if they were jokes or not.

"Over-formulization, what else?" Celia said. "All of the tracks on Love sound like crappy imitations or our other hits. I knew it the whole time we were rehearsing it and recording it. The writers went back to the well a few too many times and the fans who loved our music so much have grown older and become more musically sophisticated. We didn't grow up with them. They just kept feeding us a bunch of sappy songs about teenage puppy love and dancing and being sad while your boyfriend is away and our fans got tired of it."

"Wow," Jake said respectfully. "That's a brutally honest self-examination."

"Above all else," she quoted, "to thy own self be true. I'm just being true to myself. We're a teen pop band and our fans have outgrown us. You guys, on the other hand, have done exactly what we failed to do. As your fan base grew older and wiser your music grew more sophisticated, more daring. Your lyrics became deeper and more relevant. Even Matt's lyrics, as much as I hate to admit it. That song of his, Can't Chain Me, is very moving in a disturbed kind of way. It was able to elicit an emotional response in me when I analyzed the lyrics. And your song, I Am Time, is simply brilliant, both in lyrics and instrumentation. There is nothing on Love that can even come close to that. That's why you're heading for triple platinum already and we're floundering at barely over platinum."

"You're right," Jake said. "Nothing the Aristocrat songwriters gave you for this one is worth a shit and it honestly sounds like they've flat run out of ideas. It doesn't have to be that way though."

"What do you mean?"

"You're a very good songwriter and melody composer if the few cuts they've allowed you to record are any indication."

"Nice try," she said with a pout, "but those were only bones they threw at me. You'll notice that none of them were ever released as singles. None were even played on the radio."

"Is that what you think makes a song good?" Jake asked. "Whether or not they play it on the radio?"

"Well... no," she said.

"I think Caribobo is one of the most moving and descriptive songs I've ever heard. It made me feel empathy for soldiers in a battle I'd never even heard of. And then there is Calling You on your second album. A very adroit analysis of the turmoil a person goes through after breaking up with someone who is no good for them."

Celia was looking at him in wonder. "I had no idea you paid so much attention to our music."

Jake shrugged, a little embarrassed, as if he'd been caught going through her purse. "La Diferencia always seems to be neck and neck with us on the charts so naturally I had to take a few listens to see what you were all about. My point is that you are a very talented songwriter. The music you make for those albums is consistently the best things on those albums. I'm not talking about how much airplay a song gets or how many singles it sells or whether or not it's nominated for a Grammy. Your songs are honest, written from the heart, which is the only way a song should be written."

"That's sweet, Jake," she said. "And it means a lot coming from someone like you."

"Glad I could boost your ego," he said, "but my other point was that you should push to get more of your own music on the next album."

"If there is a next album," she said. "There's a good chance they won't pick us up for the next option period after the sales of Love."

"Oh, they'll pick you up for the next," Jake said. "As long as they stand to make more money than they'll lose, they'll always pick you up. The album may sound like shit and not sell all that much but you're still a popular touring act, aren't you?"

"True," she said.

"So you should push them a little. Put together a collection of your original music and start throwing some weight around for them to include it."

"What makes you think I even have that much original music?" she asked.

"You do," Jake said. "I know you do."

"Oh really? And how might you know something like that?"

"The same way I know many other things about you. I listen to your music. As I've said before, you can tell a lot about someone by the music they compose."

"Example?" she said. "Tell me something you know about me from the music I compose."

"Okay," he said, rising to her challenge. "I know that you compose your music primarily on an acoustic guitar. I know that you tend to write your verses first and then compose the chorus later. I know that you are particularly fond of the F chord. But that's just the beginning. I also know that you tend to think liberally about social issues but conservatively on law and order issues. I know that you believe there really is such a thing as true love but that it is rare and that few people ever find it. I can tell you like romance but only if it's sincere in its offering. You would be particularly insulted by insincere compliments designed to get you in bed. How am I doing so far?"

Her eyes were wide, staring at him. "That's... amazing," she said. "You know all that just from listening to the six songs I have on three different albums?"

"Yep," he said. "And there's one other thing I know too."

"What's that?"

He took a long puff of his cigar and blew a few smoke rings with the bounty. He sipped from his cognac and then looked at her. "Someone who was able to compose a piece of music as moving and meaningful as Caribobo has dozens of other compositions that have never been allowed to see the light of day. Tell me I'm wrong."

She shook her head in bemused wonder. "All right," she said. "I do have a few."

"So why not push to get some of them on your next album?"

She sighed, puffing from her own cigar and then tapping the ash in the ashtray. "I've had to fight with everything I had just to put the six originals I already have on the albums. They started cracking down on this when we put Love together. They didn't allow me a single piece on that album."

"You gave in too easy," he said.

She seemed like she was about to get angry but then mellowed. She simply nodded. "Maybe," she said. "Sometimes it seems like it's just easier to go along with what they say."

"To do what they told you," he said.

"Yeah."

"And look what it's gotten you," he said. "You're an extremely talented musician with one of the most beautiful voices out there. You should be standing on top right now. Instead, you're stuck in a decline because you're letting other people write your music for you."

She didn't answer him. Instead she stared out at the city lights of Los Angeles and puffed on her cigar. Soon the subject changed to other things having to do with record executives who gleefully killed the geese who laid the golden eggs. When the ocean breeze started to kick up a bit, chilling them, Jake suggested they head back into the house.

They butted their cigars and chugged the last of their cognac. They went back inside and settled into the entertainment room. Jake made them each a fresh drink and then excused himself for a minute. When he returned he was carrying two acoustic guitars in his hands — his battered Fender and a newer Brogan he'd been given a few years ago when he had been playing under the old contract.

"What are those for?" Celia asked.

He dropped the Brogan in her lap and threw a couple of picks down with it. "Let's hear what you got," he said.

"What I got?"

"Show me some of your unrecorded work," he said. "I'd really love to hear it."

"Oh, Jake, I don't know," she said. "I usually keep most of that private."

"C'mon," he chided. "You show me yours and I'll show you mine."

She laughed at his reference. "How much unrecorded work could you possibly have?" she asked him. "You get to record all of your tunes."

"Not all of them," he said. "Only the ones that fit the Intemperance mold. I have dozens of tunes that don't, some dating all the way back to high school. Like you, I enjoy composing. It's how I relax. And when a song or a concept for a song gets into my head I have to strum it out. My supply is much greater than the demand."

"Yeah," she said. "I'm like that too."

"Then let's hear what you got," he repeated.

"You first," she challenged. "Sing me one of yours and I'll see what I can do."

He nodded, sitting down on the couch next to her. "Fair enough."

He put the Fender on his lap and pulled out a pick. He strummed a few times, getting the feel for the nylon strings and the wider neck after so many days of playing nothing but the Les Paul. Once his fingers became nimble and comfortable he dropped the pick and began to fingerpick a soft melody.

"This is called As You Will," he told her. "I wrote it for the last album but it was too mellow to be an Intemperance song. Still, I really like it. Hopefully I'll record it someday."

"I like the guitar work," she said.

He smiled and began to sing. Though he was somewhere between heavily buzzed and outright drunk he did not slur his words or stumble on the lyrics. His voice was as clear and crisp as it was on stage or in a recording studio. He sang through the first two verses, improvised a brief guitar solo, sang the bridge, and then rolled through the final verse. Since he'd never worked out an ending to the song he had to improvise that as well but he did a passable job of concluding the piece.

"I like that," Celia said dreamily. "I like it a lot. You're right though. It's really not like an Intemperance song and I don't think you'd want to try speeding up the tempo any."

"No, it would just make it sound like shit," Jake agreed.

They discussed the tune for a few minutes, talking about the chord changes, the key it was played in, and what sort of accompaniment by other instruments would enhance it the best if it were actually recorded. Both thought that minimal drums and minimal distorted electric guitar along with heavy piano and possibly a synthesizer track in the background would sound best.

"All right," Jake said when the conversation wound down. "Show me some shit."

She sighed, blushing a little, but settled the guitar on her lap and picked up a pick. She strummed the Brogan up and down a few times with open chords, getting the feel for the instrument and, undoubtedly, checking to see that it was in tune (it was — Jake did not allow an out-of-tune instrument in his house, even if it were just for display like his signed Les Paul). She then picked out a lightening fast piece with a decidedly Latin flavor to it before settling into a more sedate melody of moderate tempo.

"This is one I wrote for the last album," she said. "I thought it was the best of the bunch. It's called The Struggle."

"Sounds deep," Jake said, tapping the side of his own guitar to her rhythm.

"That's why they didn't like it," she said. "Too deep, too dark, too depressing for the target demographic."

"Yeah," Jake said. "I've heard that one before, although usually in reverse."

She strummed out the melody a few more times and then started to sing. Her throaty contralto voice sounded even prettier in person than it did on vinyl or on the radio. She sang of the basic differences between men and women and how those differences could tear a relationship apart if some accommodation was not made for them. As a verse-first composer her chorus sections all varied from each other, their purpose to support the verse just put down instead of the other way around like most of Jake's tunes.

Oh how we struggle, every day

We pick and pull each other every way

All the big things we try to ignore

And all the little things become so much more

That was the first chorus. The second was a little darker.

Why must we struggle? Why can't we work this out?

You're full of anger and I'm full of doubt

We can't make love and we can't go to sleep

All we can do is make sure the knife is in deep

It's such a struggle

Such a useless struggle

She did a guitar solo of her own, her nimble fingers flying over the fretboard and impressing Jake greatly. He took a moment to wonder what she would sound like with a fully distorted and amplified electric in her hands.

She ended the solo and picked up the main rhythm again, only this time a little more up-tempo, her pick hitting the strings harder and faster. She belted out another verse, this one dealing with the anger, the jealousy, the lack of communication, and, eventually, the hatred that marked the end of a relationship. That led into the final chorus.

Too much struggle, now we've fallen apart

It's finally over, out of room in my heart

All for nothing, all the time that we've spent

Our lives are shattered, we're twisted and bent

It ends in hatred, it ends with despair

Once there was love here, now I just don't care

Because of struggle... yeah

Useless struggle

Because of struggle... struggle...

Because of struggle

She sang the last two lines during a sharp reduction of tempo, until by the last word she was drawing out the syllables, focusing intently upon the last two. Her fingers then came to rest, her green eyes looking shyly at Jake.

"Well?" she asked.

"All I can say is wow," he said. "That was indeed a very deep song."

"Too deep?" she asked.

He shook his head strenuously. "I don't think there is any such thing as that. It did hit me a little close to home though. It reminds me of several previous relationships of mine."

"That's what it's supposed to do," she said. "People are supposed to relate to it. It's kind of like your song Point Of Futility."

"That song was written specifically about me," he said. "And specifically about the end of a certain relationship."

"Michelle Borrows?" she asked.

"The one and only," he said. "Don't ever tell her that though."

"I'll try to keep it to myself the next time Michelle and I have afternoon tea together."

They laughed and then discussed her song a little more, putting it through the same paces they had Jake's. Jake thought it would sound good with the acoustic guitar rhythm translated into a mildly distorted electric riff covered by heavy piano and enhanced by a background of intermittent lead guitar. Celia seemed to like this idea but thought a saxophone solo instead of a guitar solo would be better.

"Do another one," Celia told Jake when they finally ran out of things to say about The Struggle.

"Only if you match me," he said.

"Song for song," she promised. "But lets get another drink going first, huh?"

"Now you're talking my language," he said.

They played on for hours. Both dug into their archives of tunes they'd written, dredging them up one by one, singing them, and then analyzing the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. They got up frequently during their recitals to refresh their drinks. Before too long they were both stumbling back and forth from the couch to the bar (and quite frequently to the bathroom), their words becoming quite slurred when they talked (but not when they sang, although neither really noticed this). They eventually became giddy, laughing at everything, especially when they started to reach the bottoms of their song barrels and started digging up tunes that probably should have remained buried.

Jake played one he had written back in his early high school days, back before becoming interested in politics and human nature, when he'd been more into fast cars and the Oakland Raiders. That was actually the name of the song — Fast Cars And Football. It contained verses like: Gonna drive my Porsche to the Coliseum, gonna park it down in front then go in to beat 'em."

"Oh my God," Celia cried, in hysterics as she heard this. "That is so fucking terrible!"

"Hey," said Jake, who was laughing just as hard. "What do you want from me? I was fourteen years old. That was one of my first tunes."

"You're gonna be embarrassed that you sang that to me when you sober up."

"You're probably right," he agreed. "Now it's your turn. Sing me something that you will be embarrassed about."

She did. She sang a tune she'd composed when she was thirteen and obsessed with horses. A verse-first writer even then, the tune was full of hokey references to tall steeds with powerful shoulders and metal shoes on their feet, with thoughts of young thighs gripping furry backs on the beach.

"You call my shit terrible?" Jake said when she was done. "Your shit didn't even rhyme!"

"Well I wrote it in Spanish, you dope," she told him, her face red from laughter. "Of course it doesn't rhyme when you translate it into English."

"Sing it to me in Spanish," he told her. "I want it hear it in its original version."

"You don't speak Spanish," she reminded him.

"Oh yeah," he said, causing both of them to go into peels of fresh laughter.

They had run out of both rum and coke quite a few songs before and switched to beer. The empty Corona bottles littered the coffee table next to the couch. When Jake went back to the refrigerator to get them two more he found that they'd drank all of the beer as well.

"No more beer?" Celia asked. "What kind of a host are you? I've never been so insulted in my life."

"Sorry," Jake said, hanging his head low. "I'm ashamed. Maybe I can make a beer run." He looked up at the clock over the bar and thought it was wrong at first, that the batteries must have died during the afternoon. Only when he checked the kitchen clock did he conclude it really was 2:30 AM. They had been sitting in the entertainment room singing to each other for more than five hours.

"Wow," Celia said when he told her the beer run was cancelled on account of it being past last call. "I thought it was like ten."

"Hey, time flies when you're having fun, huh? I guess maybe I'd better get to bed. I have to get up in about five hours so I can visit Darren before all the wardrobe and interview crap starts in the afternoon."

"And I promised my A&R guy I'd be back in my hotel room by nine o'clock," Celia said.

They staggered their way upstairs and said goodnight at the top of the staircase.

"Thanks for inviting me over, Jake," Celia told him, giving him a chaste hug. "I've had a really good time. It's been awhile since that's happened."

"We'll need to do it again sometime," Jake said, returning the hug, feeling the press of her breasts against his chest, smelling the lingering remnants of her vanilla. "I need to ask you something," he said when the embrace ended.

She looked at him a little nervously. "What's that?"

"Don't take this the wrong way," he said. "But you smell really good. What is it you're wearing?"

She giggled. "Oh, you have no idea what I thought you were going to ask," she said. "It's vanilla lace body spray. I hate perfume but I like the smell of vanilla."

"It suits you," he said. "Good night, Celia."

"Good night, Jake."

They went to their respective bedrooms. Both of them passed out atop the covers without even removing their clothes.

Jake visited Darren in the hospital the next day. He had been weaned from the ventilator and was breathing on his own now but his muscles were still too weak to allow him to stand or lift anything on his own. Nurses had to feed him and he was kept constantly stoned with anti-anxiety medications like valium and ativan.

"How's the new guy working out?" Darren asked, his eyes only partially open, his words thick and heavy.

"He's really strange," Jake said. "He doesn't eat meat and he puts on latex gloves before he fucks groupies."

"No shit?" Darren said.

"No shit," Jake confirmed.

"How's he play?" Darren wanted to know.

"He's okay," Jake said diplomatically, not wanting to mention that Charlie was ten times the bass player that Darren could ever hope to be. "How are you doing? They treating you okay in here?"

"As long as they keep giving me the dope I don't seem to mind anything," he said.

The Grammy Awards were held that night. Both Jake and Celia were in attendance although their seats were far apart. None of the media types seemed to have any idea that they had spent the night together, or even that they were both suffering from tremendous hangovers.

Neither Intemperance nor La Diferencia won an award.

Jake went home in a limo and slept in his bed. At seven o'clock the next morning he was put on another plane and flown to Fort Lauderdale, Florida so he could make the next concert.

The tour went on.