Standing On Top

Chapter 11a

South Island of New Zealand

January 24, 1989

10:24 AM, local time

The rented Cessna 172 leveled off at thirteen thousand feet above mean sea level, just five hundred feet below the maximum operational ceiling of the aircraft. Jake was a little nervous. He had never flown this high before and he didn't like the sluggish way the plane responded to the controls in this thin air.

"You're doing just fine," Helen told him. She was sitting in the seat next to him, handling all of the navigation tasks.

"It's hard to breathe this high," Jake said. The plane was not pressurized, so its occupants were subjected to the outside atmospheric pressure. "It feels like no matter how many breaths I take, I'm not getting enough."

"You'll get used to it," she said. "If you start to get a headache, let me know."

"Why?" he asked. "Do you have to take over if that happens?"

"No," she said with a smile. "I have some Tylenol in my bag. That would probably get rid of it."

"Oh," he said, giving her a slight smile. She returned it, only a little slighter. She hadn't been smiling much the past three hours.

The reason they were flying so high was because they were over the Southern Alps, the mountain range that ran along the west coast of New Zealand's South Island. Less than twenty miles in front of them was Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand. It's jagged, snow-capped triple peak rose 12,316 feet above sea level. All around it were the other, lesser peaks of the Southern Alps range, with jagged gorges and valleys in between.

"Isn't that beautiful?" Jake asked, staring at the majestic scenery around them now that the plane was finally level and he wasn't looking primarily upward. "I really love this place."

He was not speaking figuratively. He had literally fallen in love with everything about the country of New Zealand, but particularly with the Southern Island. The tour had arrived on January 16, landing in Auckland on the Northern Island. They did three shows there and then three more in Wellington. After Wellington, they'd been flown to Christchurch on the Southern Island. They had four days off in Christchurch while they waited for their equipment — which was traveling by ship — to catch up to them.

This was day three of the break, their first of the tour. For the first two days Jake and Helen had explored the area around Christchurch and that was when Jake fell truly and completely in love. The Southern Island was beautiful in every way. The weather was warm but not hot. The scenery was some of the most spectacular on Earth. Christchurch itself was a clean, modern city of moderate size with very little in the way of slums or ghettos. The people in Christchurch were friendly and tended to mind their own business (as much as such a thing was possible when rock stars were in town). In a way, Christchurch reminded Jake of a Utopian version of Heritage.

"This is really pretty," Helen had to agree, even through the funk she'd been in. "It's like we're flying into a postcard or something."

"The turbulence is kind of a bitch though," he said as the plane bumped and rocked in the unstable air.

"It's the wind coming up over the mountain peaks," Helen said. "It can play hell sometimes."

"Yeah," Jake said as another violent jolt rocked them. "I guess so."

He flew on and silence descended once again. Jake brought them two miles to the south of the main peak of Mount Cook and then turned leisurely to the northwest. He could now see the glacier going down the west side of the mountain merging with the lush green of a rainforest near the base. From there, the land sloped gently to the dazzling blue waters of the South Pacific Ocean.

"I want to live here," Jake said whimsically.

"You want to move to New Zealand?" Helen asked in wonder, not because she thought the idea strange, but because Jake was someone who could do such a thing if he wished.

"Maybe not permanently," he said. "But I'd love to have a winter house here. Somewhere near Christchurch but a little bit out of it. Maybe up in those hills that surround the city. I wonder if they'll sell real estate to Americans or if they're like Mexico and only let you lease the land."

"I don't know," she said. "It was easy enough for you to rent this plane. They didn't even check to make sure your license was valid. I suppose if you have enough money you can do whatever you want."

"Yeah, sometimes it seems to work that way," Jake agreed.

Jake had to do some maneuvering as they passed in front of the mountain and the updrafts slammed into them. The plane began to bounce and shake like a car driving down an undeveloped dirt road. He had to nose down a little to counter the increased lift and turn to the west a little to keep from being pushed toward the mountain by the wind. He was feeling more than a little nervous about the flying conditions. Never before had he encountered turbulence like this. Helen's relaxed and unworried attitude did much to ease his mind.

When they finally passed out of the updraft zone in front of the mountain, Jake reduced power and put the nose down so they could descend back down to four thousand feet or so. He would then parallel the west coast of the island northward until they reached Hokitika, a small coastal town where they would land and have lunch before heading back across the mountains.

It was an exciting adventure to be in a foreign country, piloting a small plane over a large mountain range and then navigating to a town he'd never heard of until two days before. Some of Jake's enjoyment, however, was being sapped away by the dark mood Helen was in. As the plane bounced and bumped its way downward toward the glacial wastelands and the rainforest, he decided to try talking about it with her. Hell, anything could work, couldn't it?

"So, what's the problem?" Jake asked her.

"What do you mean?" she asked, not looking at him.

"You've been giving me the silent treatment all morning. Why?"

"I'm not giving you any kind of treatment," she said.

Jake sighed. "Yes, you are," he said. "Obviously you're upset about something, so how about you tell me what it is and we'll talk about it."

"If you don't know what it is, I'm not going to tell you."

"Oh, Jesus fucking Christ," he cried, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. "For someone raised by a man, you're sure acting like a girl right now."

"I am not acting like a girl!" she shouted at him. To Helen, that was one of the worst insults imaginable.

"Then why don't you be a man and tell me what's bothering you," he said.

She finally looked at him, her eyes shooting daggers at him. "I would think you would know what upset me this morning. Did you forget about that little incident with those two sluts?"

"Ohhh," Jake said, nodding. "Is that it?"

Jake and Helen had spent last night in a luxury hotel in Lake Tekapo, a small resort town at the eastern base of the Southern Alps. This morning, after they'd had breakfast in the hotel's restaurant and had been waiting out front for the taxi that would take them to the small airport, two young women named Hannah and Dandie had come out of the front lobby and recognized Jake. They immediately came over and engaged him in conversation.

The two girls were from England and were in New Zealand on holiday. They both said they were twenty-two years old but Jake suspected that they were actually closer to nineteen, twenty at the very most. Hannah was a blonde dressed in a very revealing spaghetti strap top and a pair of short shorts. Dandie was a brunette in a skimpy brown one piece dress that left her cleavage exposed on top and the majority of her shapely legs exposed on the bottom.

After fawning over him, telling him how unbelievable it was that he was here at the same time as they were, and asking all of the usual questions about what he was doing in Lake Tekapo, how he came up with his songs, where was Matt and Nerdly, when was the next album coming out, they both pulled scraps of paper from their purses and asked for autographs.

"No problem," Jake said. "Do you have a pen?"

"Uh... sure," Hannah said, digging furiously in her purse and finally producing one.

Jake took it from her. "How do you spell your name, Hannah?" he asked.

She told him and he scrawled out his usual bullshit line about meeting the nicest two girls in Lake Tekapo and signing it. He then did the same for Dandie. Through this all, Helen stood next to him, completely ignored by the two girls, just waiting for it to be over so they could get into the taxi, which had just pulled up.

"Thank you sooooo much, Jake," Hannah told him with stars in her eyes.

"Yes," agreed Dandie, was nodding furiously at him. "We just love all of your music. We tried to get tickets to one of the shows in Christchurch but they all sold out as soon as they went on sale."

"Yeah," said Hannah. "And the bloody scalpers are asking for nine hundred dollars for even the worst seats."

"And I don't even get a cut of those dollars," Jake said.

The two girls giggled as if this was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.

"I don't suppose," said Hannah, "that you have any extra tickets on you?"

"Nope," Jake said. "Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to pass out tickets to any of the shows. It's a contract thing." This was not strictly the truth, of course. If Jake or any of the other band members or even some of the upper echelon of the road crew wanted someone to have tickets to any particular show, it could be arranged. Jake was not in the habit, however, of arranging it for young girls he met in front of hotel lobbies — even if they were incredibly cute and exuding naked sexuality.

"Oh," Hannah said, pouting a little. "Well, that's too bad." She brightened a little. "Could you sign one other thing for me?"

"What's that?" Jake asked, although he already knew. Such requests were very common.

She stepped closer to him and pulled down the left side of her spaghetti strap top, exposing her naked breast to his eyes. "Could you sign my boob?" she asked him.

"Hannah!" Dandie squealed. "I can't believe you did that!"

"Yes, what would your mother think, Hannah?" Jake asked.

"My mum would have her top down too," Hannah told him. "Hell, probably her tarty knickers as well.

"Well, a pity mum's not here, isn't it?" Jake said, getting another laugh from the two girls. He took Hannah's pen again and scrawled his signature across the downslope of her breast without actually touching it.

"Lovely," Hannah said dreamily, as she gazed at the pen markings. "I'm never going to wash this boob again."

"I really wouldn't recommend that," Jake said.

"Uh... Jake," said Dandie nervously. "Could you... you know..."

"Bring it on out, hon," Jake said. "I still got the pen in my hand."

With a happy smile she rolled the entire front of her dress downward, baring both of her apple-sized breasts. Her tiny nipples were standing up proudly. Jake leaned forward and autographed the right one, again without actually touching it.

After the two girls covered their breasts back up, they finally acknowledged Helen.

"Could you be a dear and take a picture of us with Jake?" Hannah asked her.

"Sure, why not?" Helen asked. She took the camera and backed up a few steps. The two girls got on either side of Jake and put their arms around him and their heads on his shoulders. He put his arms around their waists. They smiled for the camera and Helen took the shot. She then had to take another shot with Dandie's camera.

The encounter soon ended when Jake told the two girls that they had a plane to catch. They fawned for a few more moments, thanked him profusely, and then finally went on their way, allowing Jake and Helen to climb into the taxi.

And, now that he thought about it, that was when the silent treatment had started.

"Why are you upset about that?" he asked her now. "You've seen a hundred girls stick their tits in my face to have them signed. It happens every time there are girls around, doesn't it?"

"Yes," she said. "I don't much like it, but I understand it's part of who you are. I'm involved with a rock musician and I have to accept that part of your job is signing titties and being nice to sluts."

"Well... it's not actually in the contract," Jake said, making an attempt at a joke.

It fell flat. "It's not the fact that you signed those girls' tits," Helen said. "What did that slut whisper in your ear while I was taking the picture?"

She was talking about Hannah, who had indeed whispered something in Jake's ear while Helen had been taking the pictures. "Just the normal crap that women are always whispering in my ear," Jake said.

This was not exactly the right thing to say. "This happens all the time?" Helen yelled. "What did she say? I want to know."

"Uh... well, she said that she and her friend were staying in room something or other and that I would be welcome to visit them tonight if I wanted to have some fun."

"She asked you to come to her room and fuck both of them?" Helen asked.

Jake shrugged. "That is how I took the invitation," he said. "I don't know why you're upset about it. I'm not planning on doing it."

"You told her, 'I'll keep that in mind'," Helen said. "You didn't tell her no. You said you'd keep it in mind."

"That was a jerk-off answer, Helen," Jake said. "I don't even remember the room number now. I hardly remembered the whole freakin' episode until you brought it up."

"She did that right in front of me, Jake," Helen said. "I was standing four feet away from you and she propositioned you while I was watching her. She knew I was there! If she's read any magazines or watched any TV in the past two months she knows that you and I are dating. And she still did it!"

Jake was now getting frustrated. "I'm sorry that it bothers you," he said. "But I can't help what other people do. Like I said, I'm not going to take her up on the offer."

"What if I wasn't there?" she asked. "What if she'd made that offer while you were alone? What would you have done then?"

"You mean if you were not present with me at the moment, but were still out on tour with me?"

"Yes," she said. "If I'd been in the bathroom or something?"

"I would've done exactly the same thing," Jake said.

"And what if I was back home in California?" she asked next. "Would you have taken them up on it then?"

This was touchy ground, Jake knew. He went for the oblique answer. "If you were back in California, I wouldn't have been in Lake Tekapo this morning. I would've been nursing a hangover in my hotel room in Christchurch."

"You know what I mean," she said. "If I wasn't out on the tour and you happened across that same situation somewhere, would you have done it?"

He decided to go with honesty and see where that led. "I might have," he admitted. "It would depend on the circumstances and what was going on at the moment, but yes, I might have taken them up on it."

"So you did find them attractive," she said.

"They were cute," he said. "I never tried to say they weren't."

"And young," she said. "Much younger than me."

"Not that much younger," Jake said. "Why are we even having this conversation, Helen? You are out on tour with me and because of that, I've turned down every offer of sex I've had except for those that come from you. Why are you getting upset over what I might've done if you weren't here?"

She shook her head in frustration. "You don't understand," she said.

"Then make me understand," he told her. "Tell me what's on your mind. Isn't that how people resolve problems?"

She didn't answer at first. Jake didn't push her. He continued his descent and made a shallow bank to keep them on course to the coast. It was only after he'd leveled out the turn that she found the words to say what she wanted to say.

"I'm having a hard time handling all of this, Jake," she said. "I know it seems like petty jealousy to you and it even does to me, but that doesn't make it go away. Beautiful women are constantly coming on to you. I know that's been happening the whole time we've been together and I'm pretty sure you haven't cheated on me, but now that we're out on tour together, now that I go to those after show parties with you, this whole issue is just constantly in my face now. Women pull their boobs out for you to sign them. They put their arms around you and kiss you on the cheek and rub their bodies all over you and you don't make them stop."

"I told you..." Jake started.

"I know, I know," she said. "It's part of being a musician. It doesn't pay to piss off fans and get a reputation as an asshole. What happened this morning, though... that was just too much. We're in fucking Lake Tekapo, New Zealand, some little tiny town in the middle of an obscure country, and there are still women there trying to get you into bed with them. They're so brazen about it that they proposition you right in front of me. I'm just coming to the realization that this is going to go on as long as we're together."

"Yes," Jake said. "It is going to go on as long as we're together. I don't plan to take any of these women up on their offers though."

"You did before, didn't you? You got caught with that redheaded girl down in Mexico while you were dating your last girlfriend."

"That was a completely different relationship," Jake said. "At the time I did that, Rachel and I were already on the outs. It was a mistake and I learned from it."

"And Rachel was publicly humiliated by your mistake," Helen said. "The fact that you'd cheated on her and pictures of the girl you cheated on her with were plastered all over the newspapers for a week. That bothers me as well. If you do decide to take one of these women up on their offer, my personal life and response to that won't be private. Nothing involving our relationship is private. There is always some reporter slinking around trying to get a story. Look what they're doing to poor Matt."

Matt, unlike Nerdly and Jake, had left his girlfriend back in Los Angeles. Since there had been no official break-up announced, the paparazzi and the other media types took great delight in photographing Matt in compromising positions with other girls, something that wasn't hard to do since Matt was now working on a new goal of 'getting some snatch' in every country in the free world. He partied with the groupies just as he always had and made no attempts to hide it.

"Matt is Matt," Jake said. "His girlfriend is in LA making a porno flick called Mississippi Yearning, remember? She's being filmed while she takes twelve inch cocks up her ass. What makes Matt's relationship work is that he and Kim have an understanding that fidelity is not part of the equation."

"That has nothing to do with what I'm talking about," Helen said.

"True," Jake admitted. "It really doesn't. What are you trying to say, Helen? Do you want to go home?"

She shook her head. "No," she said. "Despite all of this, I am having a good time out here with you. I like being with you and we get to be together every day. We've seen some beautiful places and beautiful things so far and it's only the beginning. I'm just having a little trouble adjusting to everything that goes along with dating a celebrity."

"I know," he said, taking his hand off the stick and putting it in her lap. "And I wish I had an answer for you, but I don't. This is life with me. I chose to follow this path and I don't regret it. I'm rich, I'm famous, I can get a table at the best restaurants just by calling and dropping my name, I can afford to buy airplanes in the United States and rent airplanes in New Zealand and stay in the finest hotels and drink two hundred dollar bottles of wine with dinner. But I also have to give up my privacy; I have to endure being recognized everywhere I go and having a bunch of asinine fans ask a bunch of asinine question of me. You have to take the bad with the good, hon. And so far, in this life I've chosen, the good is outweighing the bad. You've chosen to be with me and you have to take the bad with the good as well. If there is more bad than good... well... I don't think I have to tell you what you need to do."

"No," she said. "You don't. And at this point, the good is still outweighing the bad. You'll just have to give me a little time to get used to the bad, okay?"

"I guess that would be life with you, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah," she said. "I guess it would."

All in all, Jake was glad that Helen had come on tour with him. In the days following his semi-impulsive decision to ask her along, he had worried whether or not it was the right thing to do, whether or not it could possibly work. The distress she articulated in the first weeks in New Zealand seemed to add credence to this idea.

Nor was Jake the only one wondering if bringing Helen along was such a good idea. Both Matt and Coop had been firmly against the idea of any band member bringing any "bitch" along on the tour. Their argument was that it would break down the camaraderie of the band and deflect the creative energy required for night after night of repetitive live performances.

While Jake was pretty sure that having Helen and Sharon along for the ride did not detract from their live shows in any way — at least not yet — he did have to admit that the presence of the two women was having a detrimental effect on the normal after-show partying. Jake and Nerdly no longer participated in any of the standard rituals involving the groupies. They did not imbibe in the after show blow jobs. They did not help pick out which groupies would be allowed to accompany the band back to their hotel. They did not offer their rooms up for the normal party room rotation. Jake would typically hang out backstage in the dressing room after the shows to eat and grab a beer or two. He and Helen would make an appearance at the post-show parties in Coop's, Matt's, or Charlie's room once or twice a week but they tended not to stay long. They always left before the public sex orgies began. Nerdly did not attend any of the after show parties at all. When they came off stage he would shower, eat his dinner, and then he and Helen would find some deserted portion of the backstage area to be alone. Once back at the hotel, they would go immediately to their room and stay there until the next morning.

"You two are being fucking anti-social," Matt complained at one point. "We have to spend half of every goddamn night explaining to every groupie in the room why you're not there. Can't you just ditch your bitches every once in a while and come have some fun?"

"Afraid not," Jake told him. "I'm in a relationship right now. You can't do things like that when you're in a relationship."

"Yes," agreed Nerdly. "To engage in extra-curricular fornication would definitely jeopardize the harmonious synchronicity I'm enjoying with Sharon."

"So you two are going to go this entire tour only fucking one bitch?" Matt asked in disbelief. "We're going to have exotic groupies from all over the fuckin' world, all of whom are just dying to get a piece of Intemperance, and you're going to just ignore that?"

"Yep," Jake agreed. "That is my plan."

"I will answer in the affirmative as well," Nerdly said.

Matt just shook his head and stormed off. He didn't talk to either one of them for the rest of the day.

In truth, Jake found it quite a novelty to skip out on most of the partying. He didn't miss it as much as he feared he would. In the mornings after a show, when they had another show scheduled for that night and a heavy day of autograph sessions and radio station interviews to go to, he especially didn't miss it since he was typically well-rested and not nursing a horrid hangover. Though he still drank more than his share of alcohol, and though he still smoked a little pot every now and then, the sheer amount of his consumption was much less than it had been on previous tours. As for the cocaine, which Matt and Coop both snorted by the gram, Jake didn't so much as sniff a single flake.

They finished up the Oceania leg of the tour by the second week in February. From there, they went on to Japan and Taiwan. Though the audiences in every city on this leg were almost fanatical in their enthusiasm for the band, Jake himself was not terribly impressed with anything he found here. Sure, Mount Fuji was nice, and the side-trip he took to Nagano wasn't bad either, but he found the cities to be dirty and crowded and the people to be notorious invaders of personal space. Coupled with the fact that he didn't speak or understand the language, Jake was glad to leave Asia behind.

They left Taipei, Taiwan on March 1 and flew for sixteen hours to Heathrow Airport in London. They stayed one night in London and then caught another plane to Saint-Tropez, France where they would stay for two weeks in a decadent resort on the Mediterranean while waiting for a ship to bring their equipment around the globe.

"Fuckin' nude beaches!" Matt yelled excitedly as the limousine took them from the airport to the resort. "I'm gonna score me so much fuckin' puss at this place that they're gonna name a building after me."

"Do you have to be nude on the beach?" asked Sharon nervously.

"Hell yeah," Matt told her. "When in Saint-Tropez, you do as the fuckin' Saint-Tropezians."

"No," Nerdly corrected. "You don't have to be nude. The exact term is 'clothing optional'. And that's only at Pampelonne. At the other beaches in the area, it is acceptable to go topless but not bottomless, and even there your normal bathing suit is perfectly acceptable attire."

"Oh... good," Sharon said, obviously relieved.

"Prudes," Matt chided. "I'm going to Pampelonne and hangin' my schlong out for everyone to see and admire. And you guys don't have a fuckin' hair on your asses if you don't come with me and do the same."

"I actually do not have hair on my ass," Nerdly said.

"Me either," Sharon said.

Matt muttered a little more about what prudes he was riding with and then turned to Jake and Helen. "How about you two?" he asked. "You gonna let it all hang out?"

Jake gave him a doubtful look. "I'm not sure it's such a good idea," he said. "There's bound to be paparazzi following us. They'll snap pictures of us and put them in the tabloids. Some of them might even end up in some porno mag."

"So?" Matt asked. "They've taken pictures of your joint before, haven't they?"

"True," Jake admitted, "but I don't think Helen wants to see her bare boobs in next month's issue of Hustler."

"No," Helen said. "I really wouldn't enjoy that much."

"Why not?" Matt asked. "You've got an awesome set, hon. You should let people see them."

"Well thank you, Matt," she said sweetly. "But I like to choose who gets to see them."

Matt rolled his eyes. "Another set of prudes heard from," he said. He turned to Coop and Charlie. "What about you two? You wanna come to Pampelonne and bag some bitches with me?"

"I'm in," Coop said, already drooling over the idea. "Do they let you fuck on the beach?"

"I don't know about this whole thing," Charlie said nervously. "Having all those naked people around sounds like the perfect breeding environment for bacteria."

"Uh... yeah," Matt said, rolling his eyes. "Good point there, freak boy. We'll count you out then."

Their suites at the resort were nothing short of magnificent. On the top floor of a nine story building, they overlooked the main beach at Saint-Tropez and were equipped with ever conceivable luxury. It was a lifestyle that all of them were becoming quite used to.

Over the two week period they were there, only Charlie spent any significant time in his suite. He enjoyed staying inside most of every day, cleaning things with disinfectant wipes in case the maids had contaminated them, talking long distance to the manager of his Birmingham restaurant to make sure things were running smoothly in his absence, and staring for hours out of the window with a pair of binoculars to the beach below, looking at the bare breasts of the beachgoers and masturbating. Once every three days or so he would speak to the resort's concierge and arrange for a high end prostitute to visit his room. Once she arrived, he would make her shower with antibacterial soap, scrub her crotch with baby wipes, and then he would mount her from behind while wearing two condoms on his penis and two pairs of latex gloves on his hands. He was, however, a very generous tipper and all of the prostitutes went away with a good opinion of him.

Coop and Matt spent most of the first three days on the nude beach of Pampelonne, letting it all hang out, as it were. At the end of the third day, however, local law enforcement became involved after a small orgy between Matt, Coop, and five young women on holiday from Iceland developed just below the high tide mark. The musicians were not arrested or taken down to the police station, but they were banned from returning to the beach, pretty much for "the rest of your natural lives" as one outraged policemen termed it.

"Oh well," said Matt in response. "At least I finally managed to get me some Icelandic gash. That's kind of hard to come by outside of Iceland, you know."

"If it were up to me, sir," the Saint-Tropez police officer responded, "you would be banned not just from this beach, but from the country of France and the entire European mainland as well."

"Wow," said Coop as he heard this. "That's pretty harsh just for getting a little trim on the beach, isn't it?"

"What about England?" Matt asked. "Could we still go there?"

The policeman's face turned an interesting shade of red. "Get out of my sight," he hissed at them. "Right now, or I'll find something to arrest you for."

Matt, in a rare display of wisdom, did as he was asked with only one snide, under-the-breath remark about how these frogs were a bunch of fuckin' prudes.

For the rest of their stay on the Riviera, Matt and Coop contented themselves with fishing trips. They chartered boats on the Mediterranean and at several port towns along the Atlantic coast as well, catching over three hundred pounds of exotic saltwater fish that Matt arranged to have frozen and shipped back to his home in San Juan Capistrano.

Jake, Nerdly, Helen, and Sharon stayed the least amount of time in their suites. Basically, they spent the first night of their break there, and their last. All of the days in between, they spent visiting the various sights of Europe that the tour would not eventually be taking them to during its natural course. They financed all aspects of this trip themselves and stayed together through most of it, getting adjoining hotel suites, going on tours together, and dining together every night.

They visited Corsica for a day and then flew to Bordeaux for a two day wine-tasting tour in which Jake bought sixteen thousand dollars worth of rare wines and had them shipped home. Next, they flew to Cherbourg and visited the D-day landing beaches of Normandy and the United States military cemetery where Helen's grandfather, who had been blown to pieces by a German machine gunner while exiting a landing craft on June 6, 1944, had been buried. It was the first time she had ever visited his grave and, even though she had never met the man, even though her father only had vague recollections of the man, the experience was enough to bring tears to her eyes as she read his name on the white cross. She snapped pictures of it and made a paper engraving to give to her father.

From the rainy Normandy coast, they went on to cheerier things, flying to Spain, where Intemperance had been forbidden to perform but where they were more than happy to accept Jake Kingsley and Bill Archer's money. They spent two days in Valencia, two days in Barcelona, and another in Gibraltar, where they stood upon the famous rock and looked across the straight to the landmass of Africa. They then flew to Italy, where Intemperance had also been forbidden to perform, and spent two days seeing the sights of Rome, including the ancient coliseum and the Vatican. This left them with only two days remaining until the band was scheduled to fly to London for their first European performance. Nerdly and Sharon flew back to Saint-Tropez, their intent to stay those two days in their room, resting up and recuperating from the trip. Jake and Helen weren't quite ready to go back yet. Instead, they flew to Monaco where they lost a combined total of twenty-three thousand dollars at the gaming tables.

This portion of the international tour was, by far, the best part for Helen and Jake. It was almost like they were normal people on a normal vacation. While it was true that they were still recognized everywhere they went, that dozens of people at each destination accosted them whenever they were in public, asked them for autographs, asked inane questions of them, asked Jake to sign various portions of their anatomy, and propositioned Jake in full view and earshot of Helen, these concerns were almost secondary. They visited places like normal (although wealthy) tourists and did all the normal tourist things like snapping pictures, having passers-by snap pictures of the two of them, and goggling at the ancient architecture they encountered. There was no pressure to get ready for a show that night, no record stores to visit, no radio interviews to give. Helen seemed to learn to live with the fact that her boyfriend was a celebrity and that whenever she was with him in a public place they were in the spotlight. They fought very little and when they did, it was mostly about trivial things. As each day went by, Jake felt closer and closer to her.

It was in Monaco, the night before they flew back to Saint-Tropez, that the immortal and irrevocable words were spoken. They were eating dinner in the restaurant of the Royal Rivera Hotel, looking out over the lights of the city. They had just enjoyed a meal of Blanquette de veau — a French veal dish — and a two thousand franc bottle of 1978 Bordeaux cabernet sauvignon. Jake was dressed in a custom tailored three-piece suit he'd brought with him and Helen was adorned in a champagne cocktail dress he'd bought her in Rome two days before. While waiting for their after-dinner cognac and their crème brulee, Helen suddenly gazed at him with starry eyes.

"I love you, Jake," she said.

Her words did not surprise him. "I know," he said, reaching out and taking her hand. "And I love you too."

He was not lying to her when he said these words, not telling her what she wanted to hear. Though their relationship had started off a casual one, based initially on a student/teacher bond and then working its way to a strictly sexual arrangement, it had undergone a major progression over the past two months. And now, now that they had spent two full weeks in each other's presence, basically living together, the feelings of affection and friendship he had felt for her had deepened into romantic love. He had never intended for it to happen, nor had Helen, he was sure, but there it was all the same. He had known this for more than a week but it had taken Helen's declaration for him to put it into words.

"Wow," Helen said, squeezing his hand nervously. "I've... well... never said that to anyone before. Not... you know... truthfully."

"It's just three little words," Jake said. "It wasn't so hard, was it?"

"Just three little words," she chuckled. "Did you... mean it when you said it to me?"

"What do you think?"

She smiled at him again. "I think you did."

"You think correctly."

They ate their desert and drank their cognac. They then returned to the gaming tables and lost some more money. Finally, they retired to their suite and spent a considerable amount of time showing each other their newly declared love out on the balcony.

The next day, they flew back to Saint-Tropez and reunited with the rest of the band.

The day after that, they flew to London and the grueling schedule of the Great Britain portion of the tour began.