Standing On Top

Chapter 9A

Palm Springs, California

November 11, 1988

5:24 PM

"Wow," Helen said as the limousine came to a stop in the circular driveway at 210 Jacinto View Drive. She was looking out the window at the huge house that towered above them. Even though the sun had just gone down, bringing an inky twilight to the desert city, she could see enough to be quite impressed.

"That is a big motherfuckin' domicile," Jake agreed, managing to combine a Nerdlyism with a Mattism and successfully pull it off.

The house in question was three stories tall and spread out over the better part of an acre of land. It stood out from its neighbors by virtue of the fact that it was considerably larger — not that the other houses were small — and it was of modern architecture instead of the classic Spanish or Southwestern architecture that was the norm in this neighborhood.

"It has to be close to ten thousand square feet," Helen said as the limo driver came around to her door to open it.

"Actually," Jake said, "it's ninety-two hundred square feet, not including the detached garage."

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"Greg is one of those guys who likes to give you the specs on everything he owns."

"Oh," she said. "I see."

Her door opened and she stepped out onto the stamped concrete of the drive. Jake stepped out right behind her, carrying a canvas shopping bag he'd kept separate from the rest of their baggage. Both were dressed nicely. Helen was wearing a black, sleeveless cocktail dress that showed off her bare back and a generous amount of her ample cleavage. Dark nylons covered her athletic legs and a pair of three hundred dollar heels adorned her feet. Jake was wearing a pair gray slacks, a white dress shirt, and a gray dinner jacket.

The driver closed the door and turned to them. "I hope you enjoyed the ride," he said to Jake. "After you make entry to Mr. Oldfellow's residence I will coordinate with the household help in order to deliver your luggage and your golf clubs to their proper places."

"Thanks, Tim," Jake said, calling him by the name he'd introduced himself as back at the airport. He pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of his jacket pocket and handed it to him.

"And thank you, Mr. Kingsley," Tim said, making the bill disappear without even looking at it.

Jake and Helen walked up a small path and mounted the polished marble steps that led to the front door. The house belonged to Greg Oldfellow, Celia Valdez's fiancé. He had purchased the property thirteen months before for $1.2 million and had torn down the thirty-year-old house that occupied it. He had then spent another $1.8 million building the structure they now stood before. Construction was completed four weeks ago and Greg — who only planned to winter here — had moved in the week before. He had not yet held his official housewarming party but had invited Jake and "that girl you've been seeing" over for a weekend stay to check out the house and to play some golf at the country club it overlooked.

"I'm a little nervous about this, Jake," she whispered to him. "I mean, I'm about to meet Greg Oldfellow and Celia Valdez. This is kind of a new experience for me."

"They're just ordinary people," Jake said.

"Really?"

"No, not really," he said. "They're mega-rich superstars with egos even bigger than this house and they like to belittle anyone who doesn't have as much money as they do."

She looked at him, aghast.

"Just kidding," he said with a chuckle. "They're actually pretty down to earth people for celebrities, especially Celia. That's why I associate with them."

"You're an ass," she said, slapping at his shoulder. She did seem to feel better, however.

Jake rang the bell and an instant later the nine foot double doors swung open revealing a tall, middle-aged man dressed in a traditional butler's uniform. He bowed politely to them.

"Mr. Kingsley," he said. "Ms. Brody. Welcome to Oldfellow Manor. Mr. Oldfellow and Ms. Valdez are expecting you." He held his hand toward the entryway, inviting them to come in.

"Thank you," Jake said, allowing Helen to step inside first. He followed behind her. The entryway featured marble flooring and had several pieces of modern art hung on the wall. They followed the butler into a large, open area. Hallways led off in several directions and two spiral staircases led upward to a second floor overlook.

"Nice pad," Helen said with a whistle, her eyes taking in everything at once.

The butler led them through a set of oak doors into an entertainment room that was at least sixty feet by fifty. Here, the flooring was of meticulously polished hardwood. Modern leather furniture was arranged near a large screen television. A bar took up one portion of the room and a glittering chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling. Soft, classical music played from hidden speakers. Celia and Greg were sitting at the bar, both sipping from a drink.

"Mr. Kingsley and Ms. Brody have arrived, sir," the butler said formally.

Greg and Celia both stood. Greg was dressed in a pair of tan slacks and a navy blue dinner jacket with a tie. Celia wore a maroon cocktail dress that was considerably less revealing then Helen's but did manage to cling quite alluringly to her curvy figure.

"Thank you, Jim," Greg said to the butler. "Could you see to their luggage, please? I'm sure the driver is anxious to get back to other duties."

"Of course, sir," Jim the butler said. He gave another little bow and then disappeared through the door through which they'd entered.

Greg and Celia walked over to them, both smiling.

"Jake," Greg greeted, holding out his hand for a shake. "It's nice to see you again. How the hell have you been?"

"Livin' the dream," Jake said, shaking with him.

Celia came up next and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for coming out," she said. "I think we're going to have a great weekend."

"Me too," Jake agreed. He turned to Helen. "Greg, Celia, this is Helen Brody. I'm sure you've read all about her in your local celebrity news columns."

"Those rags," Celia said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling for a moment. "I hope you aren't letting all that publicity get to you, Helen."

"I try to just take things a day at a time," Helen said.

"That's the way to do it," Greg said, holding out his hand and shaking with Helen. "It's very nice to meet you."

"Thank you," Helen said. "It's nice to meet you as well."

Celia, who was a hugger, didn't just settle for a handshake. She put her arms around Helen and pulled her against her. Helen seemed a little surprised by the affection but quickly warmed to it, returning the hug.

"You've got yourself quite a handful with Jake here," Celia told her. "You know that, don't you?"

"That's something else I have to take one day at a time," she said.

Celia and Greg both laughed.

"I'm sorry we're late," Jake said. They were supposed to have arrived at five o'clock. "The flight took longer than expected."

"What's up with that?" Greg asked. "I thought when you flew your own plane you didn't have to worry about flight delays."

"Yeah," said Celia. "What happened, Helen? Was he absent the day you were teaching about how to calculate your ETA?"

"Oh, I calculated my ETA down to the minute," Jake said. "I came into Palm Springs airspace right on schedule at 4:16 PM. What I didn't know was that every Tom, Dick, and Harry would also be flying into the airport at exactly the same time. We had to circle in the landing pattern for almost twenty minutes while nine other planes landed in front of us."

"Hell, I could've told you that," Greg said. "Everyone knows not to try to fly into Palm Springs on a Friday afternoon."

"You could've told me that," Jake said, "but you didn't."

"You should've told the tower who you were," Greg said. "I bet if you would have let them know you were Jake Kingsley they would've bumped you up in the list. What's the point of being famous if you can't take advantage of it once in a while?"

Jake could tell that Helen was appalled by the suggestion that air traffic control could be influenced by one's status. "I guess it didn't occur to me," he said with a shrug. "Anyway, we're here. And I brought some wine for dinner. I didn't know what we were having so I brought a Napa Valley Merlot and a French Sauvignon Blanc. If we're having white meat, you might want to get the Blanc on some ice pretty soon."

"Carmen is preparing duck breast with a fig and port sauce," Greg said. "The Blanc will go perfect with that. Let's give you two a tour of the house. When we go through the kitchen you can drop it off with her."

"Sounds like a plan," Jake said. He reached into his bag. "I also brought these for you, Celia." He pulled out a CD copy and a VHS tape of In Action.

"Your live album," she said, taking it and looking at the cover. "I heard it was almost ready for release."

"You get it a week before anyone else," Jake said. "They've released a few copies to the radio stations but it won't be in stores until the eighteenth."

"I can't wait to watch the tape," she said. "I've never caught you guys in concert. I hear it's something to see."

"I'm not as fond of the video as I am of the album," Jake said. "The video lacks continuity. It's a hodgepodge of concerts instead of one continuous one. Some of the clips have Darren on the bass and some have Charlie. And in almost every song, we're wearing different clothes." He shrugged. "It's not bad though, and it did a decent job of capturing the basic essence of our shows."

"Any backstage shots?" Greg asked hopefully, earning him a playful punch on the shoulder by Celia.

"Some," Jake said with a chuckle. "But not the kind you're hoping for."

"Damn," Greg said.

They toured the house, Greg leading them through every nook and cranny of it. It took the better part of forty minutes to see everything and it was as opulent and decedent as Jake had suspected it would be. The kitchen was huge, large enough to provide meals for a medium sized hotel and with a pantry that could store enough food to survive for six months after a nuclear holocaust. There was a ballroom complete with discotheque lighting and a professional sound system. There was a movie room that resembled a small theater, complete with raised seating and a Dolby equipped projection system. There were five secondary bedrooms that each had their own bathrooms and Jacuzzi tubs. There were two master suites, each equipped with fireplaces, hot tubs, waterfalls, and views of the fifth fairway of the Mojave Springs Country Club. Since Celia would someday take up residence here, there was a library set up with all of her music collection and all of her musical instruments. The walls here were soundproofed so she could compose in solitude. Outside, was a huge swimming pool and hot tub combo. To run the house, Greg had hired three permanent servants. There was Tim the butler, Carmen the cook, and Vanna, the maid (a sensually attractive blonde of about twenty-two who wore a traditional maid's outfit). In addition to these three, there was Randolph, the forty-two year old retired Chicago police officer, who served as Greg's bodyguard and security specialist. He had his own office and bedroom in the mansion where he monitored the take from the sixteen cameras that covered virtually every square inch of the property (Randolph had been the one to push the button that admitted the limo through the wrought iron gates and onto the grounds).

"It's impressive," Jake said when the tour was finally complete. "I think I could live here if I had to."

"I've never seen anything like it," said Helen, whose lower middle-class upbringing had left her numbly awed by the display of wealth she found herself in the midst of.

"It'll do for a winter home," Greg said off-handedly, as if he was barely managing to tolerate it. "What I'm really looking forward to is building my summer home in Bar Harbor. I've started looking into the acquisition of property there but I haven't found anything that suits my needs just yet."

"Be diligent," Jake advised. "I'm sure the right piece of land will just jump out and grab you at some point."

"My thoughts exactly," Greg said, completely missing Jake's gentle sarcasm.

Celia caught it, though. She chuckled a little and shook her head in amusement.

Greg checked his watch — it was a top-of-the-line Rolex — and said, "We've got another twenty minutes until dinner. Anyone up for a pre-dinner cocktail?"

"Now you're talkin'," Jake replied.

They returned to the entertainment room and sat down on the leather couches, Jake and Helen on one, Greg and Celia on the other. Jim, the butler, appeared as if by magic and asked for their drink orders. Jake asked for a rum and coke. Helen requested a whiskey sour. Celia and Greg both requested "the usual".

"Very good," Jim said, heading to the bar where he began mixing.

"So, Jake," said Celia. "I know I'm putting you on the spot here, but you haven't told me what you thought of our new album yet."

Jake inwardly winced. He had hoped that this wouldn't come up. La Diferencia's latest album, Caress Of Warmth, had been released two weeks before. Sales had so far been dismal and the album's first single, a record company written tune called Kiss Me Goodbye, was not doing very well either. Radio stations were not giving the song much airplay and it had not even debuted on the Hot 100 list yet, something that every other La Diferencia single had done within two days of release. Celia had given Jake an advanced copy of the album about a month ago, handing it over with the disclaimer that she wasn't really proud of the contents.

"Well," Jake said, "I listened to the album a few times."

"And?" she asked.

"Well... what can I say?" he asked. "I try to be honest in all things relating to music. I didn't much care for it."

She nodded as if she'd been expecting this. "I didn't much care for it either," she admitted. "And it seems like the public feels the same way. We haven't even sold sixty thousand copies yet."

"I listened to it too," Helen said. "Your voice sounds as pretty as it always has."

"Thank you," Celia said, patting her leg. "My voice just couldn't carry this one though. Like I told Jake a few times before, our fans have grown up but our music hasn't."

"That's part of your problem," Jake said. "The biggest part is that your record company exerts too much control over your music. Those songs they wrote for you..." He shook his head in consternation. "They're just... I won't go so far as to use the word 'horrible', but they're pretty bad. It's almost like they're doing a parody of the earlier stuff they wrote for you that was successful."

Celia nodded again. "I was ashamed to sing most of them," she admitted. "Kiss Me Goodbye? Awful lyricism. Some of the campiest lines I've ever been given. Caress Of Warmth is almost as bad."

"I did like the lyrics of the three songs that were yours," Jake said. "You sang two of those to me that night we had our little jam session, remember?"

She giggled. "I remember some of that night," she said.

"Jam session?" Helen said, raising her eyebrows a tad.

"It was the night before the Grammy awards back in February," Celia told her. "Jake and I were both out on tour and they were flying us in to make an appearance at the ceremony. We ran into each other at DFW and I told Jake they were putting me up in some cheap hotel. He invited me to stay the night at his place instead. Elsa made us dinner and then we spent about three hours getting drunk and singing our unrecorded material to each other." She looked at Jake fondly. "God, I was so hungover at the awards the next day."

"Me too," Jake said. "I was afraid I was gonna throw up on the red carpet when I got out of the limo."

"You never told me about that, Jake," Helen said, her eyes probing a little into his.

Jake shrugged. "It never came up," he said.

"It's very fortunate that word of where Celia was that night never leaked out," said Greg, who was obviously not all that amused by the story either. "Can you imagine the stories that would've been circulating in those gossip rags?"

"We were careful," Jake said. "I got her over to my place like she was a spy slipping into an iron curtain country."

"You do have a very devious mind when you want to," Helen said.

"It's part of the siege mentality that goes with being a celebrity," Celia said. "I'm sure you're starting to get a taste of it, aren't you, Helen?"

"Yeah," she said. "Every time I go to work or out shopping there's some photographer or reporter trailing after me. It does get kind of old."

"The public has a right to know," Greg said bitterly. "That's their favorite line. I had too much to drink once out at a club and ended up throwing up in the parking lot. The next week there were pictures of me barfing in the American Watcher."

"At least they never caught you naked on a boat with Mindy Snow," Jake said.

"I saw those pictures," Celia said. "You guys weren't naked. You were wearing matching swim suits that looked like black lines."

They had a laugh over that, breaking the tension a little.

"So anyway," Celia said. "You're right, Jake. Two of the songs on the album are songs I sung for you that night. I'm sure you noticed they didn't quite sound the same."

"Yeah," Jake said. "The tempo was quite a bit faster on the album and there were an awful lot of synthesizers involved."

"They ruined the songs," Celia said. "And they're not even planning to release any of my originals as singles. They just used them as filler."

"What is with these record companies anyway?" Greg asked. "I've heard most of Celia's unrecorded songs and they are good, solid material that her fans would've loved. She could have had a blockbuster album if they just would've let her put those songs together and put them out there. Instead, they forced her to record a bunch of crappy, psuedo-dance tunes and they destroyed the integrity of the tunes she actually did write. Are they trying to sabotage her career? Is this deliberate?"

"No," Jake said, "it's not deliberate. They actually think they know what it is the music audience wants to hear and doesn't want to hear. The problem they're having is part of the problem this whole country is having."

"And what's that?" Greg asked.

"They've become too large," Jake said. "The people making the decisions are too far removed from the tastes of their target audience and too ingrained with corporate thinking to make decent decisions. You basically have a bunch of old, accountant types trying to produce music for the masses in order to make money. Since everyone loved Celia and La Diferencia on the first few albums, their corporate minds want to stick with the formula that made them so much money in the beginning. Music is not like selling shoes, however. You can't keep going back to the same well and putting out the same thing."

"And the guys who are writing these songs are just as much out of touch," Celia said. "They actually think they're composing masterpieces in there. You should've heard some of the stuff we rejected."

"As I told you before," Jake said. "You need to chart your own destiny. You have to find a way to get your own music out there, in the form you composed it in."

"Not under this contract," Celia said.

"When does your contract expire?" Helen asked.

"We have two more periods on it," Celia told her. "That means they can demand two more albums out of us."

"Or they can reject the albums each year," Jake said. "If they do that, they're not allowed to produce any other music for anyone else."

"Do you think they would do that?" Helen asked.

"It's possible," she said. "If this album doesn't sell enough, they might decide not to invest in the next one."

"And they'd just let you rot there, doing nothing?" Helen asked, appalled.

"Without a second thought," Jake said. "Isn't it great being a musician?"

Jim brought their drinks over, carrying them on a silver tray. He distributed them silently, doing an excellent job of pretending he hadn't just heard their entire conversation.

"You're going out on tour though, aren't you?" Jake asked Celia.

"Yep," she confirmed. "We've been rehearsing it for the past month. We're starting in Miami on December 12. We'll finish up in Los Angeles on April 15."

"So you won't see each other for five months?" Helen asked.

"Longer than that," Greg said. "I'm leaving at the end of the month for Alaska."

"Alaska?" Jake asked. "Why the hell would you want to go to Alaska in the winter?"

"My next picture is a science fiction piece that takes place on an ice and snow planet," he said. "The best place to film it is at some place called King Salmon, which is an old air force base on the coast."

"How long will you be gone?" Helen asked.

He shrugged. "Probably for the better part of four months. That's how long it will take to film the outside scenes. We'll come back to Hollywood to do all the inside work."

"Won't you guys miss each other?" Helen wanted to know.

"Well... sure," Celia said. "But it's part of the life we live. We've accepted the fact that our careers will pull us apart for months at a time out of any given year."

"And it's not like we won't talk or anything," Greg said. "Last time she was out on tour we talked on the phone at least three times a week."

"We even managed to get together every month or so when we both had time off," Celia said. "That's part of the advantage of being rich. You can always catch a flight and meet somewhere."

"Although it was usually me who was catching the flights," Greg said with a hint of gentle sourness, "since someone here doesn't like flying."

"Shut up," she said, slapping at his arm. "The less I fly, the less likely it is I'll die in a plane crash."

"That's why she made me drive here," Greg said.

"I'm with you on that one, Celia," Helen said. "I hate flying commercial. It scares the living shit out of me." She blushed. "Uh... excuse my language."

Everyone laughed dutifully at her potty-mouth.

"Are you worried about Jake going off on tour, Helen?" Celia asked her.

"A little," she admitted. "I'll miss him while he's gone. And... well, I'll worry about whether or not our relationship will last through it."

"Relationships can last through a music tour," Celia said. "Trust me on this one. As long as you both want it to last and put in the effort."

Jake looked down at the carpet as she said this. He was still not completely sure just how concrete his relationship with Helen actually was. He liked spending time with her, that was true enough, but would he be willing to forgo the temptations that would be sure to present themselves to him on every night of their foreign tour? Would he be able to say no to a hundred English, French, German, Belgian, Dutch, Japanese, Taiwanese, Australian, and New Zealand groupies who would be begging to fuck and suck him every night? That was something he didn't know. It was a subject that he and Helen had avoided discussing to any length since the tour had been announced.

"What's the status on your tour anyway, Jake?" Greg asked, thankfully (and probably deliberately) changing the subject. "Celia said you were negotiating with National on the terms of it?"

"Yes," Jake said. "Since it's a foreign tour and it's not in response to a release of new material, the terms of it fall outside of our contract."

"So you're in a position of strength then?" Greg asked.

"Exactly," Jake replied. "Pauline, our manager, stuck to her guns and got us a pretty sweet deal on this one. We just signed the touring contract a week ago."

"What kind of deal did you get?" Greg asked.

"It would sound like bragging if I told you," Jake said.

"Brag away," Greg replied. "I want to hear this."

"Well, okay," Jake said. "But remember, you asked. Basically, National is paying for everything. They assume one hundred percent of the tour costs, one hundred percent of the travel costs, and one hundred percent of the shipping costs."

"Wow," Celia said, visibly impressed. She was, after all, under a contract that forced the band to pay one hundred percent of the touring expenses.

"That's not even the part he likes to brag about," Helen said.

"There's more?" Celia asked.

"A little," Jake said casually. "All of our accommodations are to be in four star hotels and all of our travel between venues is to be by chartered aircraft."

"No sitting on the bus?" Celia said.

"The roadies and the rest of the crew will still have to ride the busses," Jake said, "but we should never see the inside of one the whole trip. We'll travel first class commercial between continents, on twin-engine prop planes between cities, and in limousines from the airports and hotels to the venues."

"Now that's the way to tour," Celia said. "At least for those who aren't afraid to fly. When and where do you kick off?"

"We're leaving January 15 for Auckland, New Zealand. They're gonna have us knock out the Oceania portion while it's summer there. The last date there is in Sydney, Australia. From there we'll fly to Japan and hang out in some resort until our equipment — which is traveling by ship — catches up with us. We'll do three night engagements at six different cities in Japan and two in Taiwan and then we'll fly to the French Riviera for a two-week vacation while we wait for the equipment to catch up again."

"Two weeks on the Riviera?" Celia said dreamily. "That'll be fun."

"I'm looking forward to it," Jake agreed. "I've never been out of North America before. And since we're doing mostly multiple night engagements, the pace will be a lot slower then normal. I'll actually have time to do some sightseeing."

"When will you be back home?" Celia asked.

"April 29 is the last date," Jake said. "That'll be in Amsterdam. Italy, Spain, and Portugal all declined to let us play in their countries because we're Satanists."

"Prudes," Celia said with a shake of the head.

Jake simply shrugged. "They don't want us there, we won't go there. Anyway, we should be back home again by May 1."

"Perfect," Celia said with a smile. Jake didn't know why she thought that was so perfect and she didn't explain herself. Not yet anyway.

They finished their drinks and then had another round. Just as they finished up with that one, Jim came in and announced that dinner was ready. The four of them moved to the formal dining room and took seats at one end of a polished mahogany table that could have seated twenty more people.

Jim served the white wine that Jake had brought and Carmen brought in the first course — a spinach salad with slivered almonds and a raspberry dressing. All in all, there were five courses to the meal. Jake found the food nothing short of delicious — particularly the duck breast main entrée — but he felt that the portions were too small. After the dessert dishes were taken away he was still hungry. He wondered if he would be able to score a sandwich or something later on.

"Would anyone care for an after-dinner drink?" Jim asked them.

"All of us would," Greg said, before anyone else could answer. "Pour us each a snifter of that Normanden Mercier cognac."

"Yes, sir," Jim said, bowing politely.

"And bring it to us out on the deck," Greg added, getting another 'yes, sir' in return.

Greg led them out onto the second floor deck, which was constructed of redwood. A hot tub, a small bar, and some very expensive patio furniture sat out here. The night air was just on the right side of being called brisk. They gathered on the patio furniture around a table with an umbrella. Soon, Jim appeared with their cognac.

Helen had never had cognac before and wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Jake gave her the basic course.

"Hold the snifter in your hand and use your body heat to warm the cognac," he said. "That will allow the vapors to rise so you can inhale them with your nose."

"So we don't drink it?" she asked.

"Eventually you get to that," Jake told her with a smile. "After you've sniffed it and basked in the aroma, you take small sips of it."

"This is the best mass produced cognac in the world," Greg told her. "It's two hundred and twenty dollars a bottle, but well worth the cost."

Helen's mouth gaped a little when she heard how much it cost. When she finally tried a sip she judiciously did not mention that, to her, it tasted the same as the E&J Brandy she used to steal from her father's liquor cabinet when she was a teenager.

"We have some good news to share," Celia said. "We've finally set a date and a place for our wedding."

"You did?" Jake asked. Ever since becoming officially engaged they had been unable to set a date because of differing views about the prenuptial agreement Greg wanted her to sign.

"We did," Celia confirmed. "June 15^th. We're going to have the ceremony and the reception at a private resort on Martha's Vineyard."

"That's awesome," Jake said. "Congratulations."

"Yes, congratulations," Helen echoed. "And Martha's Vineyard. Wow. I've heard very nice things about that place."

"All of them true, I assure you," Greg said. "The resort rental itself is costing me sixty thousand dollars."

"Quite a chunk of change," Jake remarked.

Greg shrugged, as if to say it was nothing — which, to him, it was. "And we've also decided that we would like you to be there, Jake."

Jake was quite surprised. "Me? You want me to be there?"

"And a guest, of course," Greg said. "We would be honored to have Helen attend as well. Wouldn't we, Celia?"

"Absolutely," she said.

"I... I don't know what to say," Helen said, blindsided. She had just started to get comfortable with the fact that she was sitting in Greg Oldfellow's mansion, that she was attending a private dinner party with a famous actor and a famous musician, and now... now they were inviting her to their wedding.

"What about... you know... the clash of images that my presence would cause?" Jake asked. "Won't that create a problem for you?" He was referring to the fact that Celia and Greg were both considered squeaky clean, straight arrow, virginal do-gooders while Jake was considered the hard-partying, ass-crack sniffing, spawn of Satan. The media had no idea that Jake and Celia were even friends, mostly because such an idea seemed so ridiculous.

"We're willing to take the flack from that if you are," Celia said. "You're a very dear friend and both of us want you to be there on our most important day. Right, Greg?"

"I couldn't have put it better," Greg agreed.

"I'm not one to worry about my image," Jake said. "I think people make too much of such a thing myself. But I do want to make sure that you're not just doing this to be polite. If you'd rather that I don't accept your invitation, my feelings won't be hurt in the least."

"We're not doing this to be polite, Jake," Celia said. "Our invitation is sincere. We would be honored if you would be there with us."

Jake nodded. He wasn't quite sure about Greg — Greg was a hard person to read — but Celia seemed as sincere as she claimed. "In that case," he said, "I would be happy to attend. I'll make sure to keep that date on my calendar clear." He turned to Helen. "What about you, Helen? Can you keep June 15^th open?"

"Uh... sure, of course," she said, prudently not adding, assuming that we're still together in six months. That was, of course, a question that was still open to debate since the exact nature of their relationship had yet to be defined.

"It's settled then," Celia said with a little clap of her hands. "We'll send you the official invitation as soon as they go out. And there's one other thing I wanted to ask you, Jake."

"What's that?"

"Will you sing at the wedding?"

"You want me to sing?" he asked, raising his eyebrows a bit.

"And play your guitar," she said. "I'd love to have you strum something out and sing during the ceremony."

"Uh... well... what do you want me to sing?" he asked. "I'm sure you don't want me going up there and pounding out an unplugged version of Who Needs Love? or It's In The Book, do you?"

"Well... no, not exactly," Celia said with a giggle. "I was thinking something soft, gentle, romantic."

"I don't think I have any songs that fit that description," Jake said doubtfully.

"It doesn't have to be one of your songs," Celia told him. "You can sing something from another artist if you want. I was just thinking... you know... something that symbolizes love and commitment."

"I could get in a lot of trouble for singing another artist's song at a public ceremony," Jake said. "You know how our contracts are written. Technically I could even get in trouble for singing at all in a public place without National's permission."

Celia looked a little dejected. "You are right about that," she said. "I understand if you don't feel comfortable doing it."

"No no," Jake said. "I didn't say that. I just said I couldn't do another artist's tune. I could still sing something of my own. National might throw a bitch about it — they did that to me once when I sang for some of my co-workers when I was working at the restaurant while we were recording Descent Into Nothing — but we wield a little more power these days then we used to. I seriously doubt they would push the issue in any way."

"What could you sing if you can't sing another artist's work?" Greg asked. "No offense, Jake, but I don't think any of your current work is quite appropriate for what we have in mind here."

"Well then," Jake said, "I guess I'll just have to write you two a wedding song myself."

Greg simply nodded, as if he thought that was a pretty good idea. Celia, on the other hand, was very touched by the offer. As a fellow songwriter, she understood how personal of a gesture this entailed.

"You would do that for us?" she asked, almost tearfully.

"What are friends for?" Jake asked her.