Standing On Top

Chapter 17b

Later, Jake, his mother, and Nerdly's mother took their places at the front of the room to perform the wedding song Jake had written for his friend. Jake picked up the battered acoustic guitar he used when composing. His mother removed the $18,000 Nicolas Lupot violin she played onstage with the Heritage Philharmonic from its case and put some rosin on her bow. Nerdly's mom sat down at a baby grand piano she'd arranged to have trucked here from her house.

As he had done with Celia's wedding song, Jake had written and composed the song himself, instilling in the lyrics what he thought the meaning of marriage and commitment was all about. The song was called All It Should Be and over the past eight weeks he had flown to Heritage on the weekends to rehearse it with the two women. It had been a strange yet rewarding experience putting together a song with two women who had regularly changed his diapers when he was a baby and who had always represented parental authority to him. He had been kind and competent but unquestionable in his direction to them. It had been awkward at first, but both of the mothers had spent their entire careers being told how and what to play and, once they accepted that he knew what he was doing (and that he wasn't going to make them jam out some sort of heavy metal atrocity) they fell neatly in line and treated him with the respect they would have given any competent composer. The end result, Jake thought, was something they should all be proud of.

Jake started out the song, strumming a complex, fingerpicked melody on the acoustic to set the tone. Mary then came in with a gentle background rhythm with the violin and then Cynthia set up a nicely mixed counter-rhythm with the piano. Jake began to sing, his voice un-amplified but strong enough to carry across the small room and find every ear. There were two verses, each followed by a brief chorus in which the two women joined him in three part harmony (this had been the toughest part of the rehearsal process, both of the mothers had decent singing voices but neither of them had ever had to use them in front of an audience before). Following the second chorus, Jake maintained the rhythm on the guitar while his mother performed a sweet, lively violin solo of her own composition. As Matt was the master of the electric guitar, Mary Kingsley was the master of the violin. She blended it perfectly, starting out with slow tempo, increasing it to a knee-tapping frenzy in the middle, and then slowing it back down to mix with the third verse and the final chorus. After the last word was sung, Jake and Mary both quietly let their instruments go mute while Cynthia performed a slowly decreasing piano solo of her own. When the song was over, the applause washed over the room and a standing ovation was given to the three musicians.

That was awesome, Jake thought in wonder as he linked arms with his mom on one side and Cynthia on the other. I just wowed an audience with a couple of fifty-five year old married women as my back-up. They took a bow.

"More! More!" the guests demanded.

"Let's do something else," Cynthia suggested, intoxicated with the applause (and with more than a few lechaim drinks).

"We don't have anything else," Jake reminded her.

"There must be something we can do," Cynthia said. "Some song we all know."

"Yes," Mary said, excited. She looked at her best friend deviously. "Let's get really wild."

"You mean... ?" Cynthia asked.

"That's right," Mary said. "Let's do some Neil Diamond."

"Oooh, yes," Cynthia said, clapping her hands together. "You really know how to rock, Mary!"

"Jake," Mary asked, "do you remember how to do Sweet Caroline?"

"Jesus Christ, Mom," Jake hissed. "Don't ever tell anyone I know how to play Sweet Caroline. I'd never sell another album as long as I live."

"But you used to love that song," she said.

"I was eleven years old, Mom. Besides, I can't perform any copyrighted material here. Not even my own stuff. I can do original, unsubmitted material or folk songs that are so old that no one holds a copyright on them anymore."

"Oh poop!" Cynthia pouted.

"Let's do Molly Malone then," Mary said. "You did that one at Celia Valdez's wedding, didn't you?"

"The rehearsal actually," Jake said.

"Let's do it. You sing and we'll harmonize."

"All right," Jake said. "But don't go making me look bad up here."

They played Molly Malone, much to the delight of the audience, many of whom sang along. The blending of the three instruments was a little on the rough side since they hadn't rehearsed the tune, but no one seemed to mind.

There were more cries for more when it was over, demands even.

"What do we do now?" Mary asked.

"How about What Is This Thing Called Love?" Cynthia suggested.

"Come again?" Jake said.

"What Is This Thing Called Love?" she responded. "It's a very famous love ballad from the World War II era. My mother used to sing it for me when I was a little girl."

"I've never heard of it," Jake said.

"Me either," Mary admitted.

"It's a beautiful song," Cynthia said. "It's about a..."

"Cynthia," Jake said gently, "I can't sing the song if I've never heard it before."

"Oh... yes, I suppose you're right."

"How about Silent Night?" Mary suggested. "I know it's only Halloween and all, but it's still a beautiful..."

"Mom," Jake said. "This is a Jewish wedding, remember? I think that singing about Mother Mary and the baby Jesus at such an event might be considered poor taste."

"Oh... yeah," Mary said, blushing a little.

Meanwhile, the crowd was starting to get a little antsy.

"I have an idea," Jake said. "Let's just jam."

"Jam?" the women said in unison.

"Yeah," Jake said. "Just play for the sheer joy of making music. I'll set the tempo and you two just follow my lead with whatever you think blends in."

"Jake, I've never done anything like that before," Mary said.

"Me either," Cynthia said.

"It's time you learned then," Jake said. "I'll start slow."

"Jake!" his mom hissed at him, but it was too late. Jake had already started to play.

It took the two women a few moments to get into the swing of things. Mary started by just playing single swipes across her strings, Cynthia by one or two keys. Soon, however, as the crowd started to clap to the rhythm Jake was setting, they became more prolific with their playing. As they discovered the absurd ease of mixing their instruments into a predictable rhythm, they lost their hesitancy and began to truly jam in every sense of the word.

Jake slowly brought the tempo up until they were moving at damn near heavy metal speed. Mary's arm pumped frantically on her bow while Cynthia pounded the keyboard like Jerry Lee Lewis on amphetamines.

"All right!" Jake encouraged. "That's the way to do it. Dueling solos now. You go first, Mom!"

"What?" Mary said, alarmed. "Dueling solos? What do you..."

"Hit it!" Jake said and suddenly stopped playing. Cynthia, figuring out what he was talking about, did the same. Mary, once the back rhythm stopped, instinctively launched into a blistering, up-tempo violin solo that would have brought Eddie Van Halen or Jimmy Page to tears had they heard it.

"Yeah, Mom!" Jake yelled. "That's smokin' hot!"

"Play it, baby!" Jake's dad yelled from out in the audience. "Show us what you got!"

Other such comments came drifting up from other members of the crowd.

Mary finished off her solo, ending it with a particularly flaring display of showmanship, and Cynthia immediately picked up the thread, her nimble fingers flying across the keys, her shoulders dipping and swaying. In truth, she wasn't quite as good on the ivories as her son, but only by the thinnest of margins. She swept up and down the keyboard like a woman on fire, bringing the tempo up, back down, and then up again, finally bringing it nicely back around to the original rhythm that Jake had been setting. Recognizing his cue when he heard it, Jake started to play again. Mary chimed right in. The first twenty seconds or so was swallowed in the sound of enthusiastic applause from their audience.

Under Jake's lead they gradually brought the tempo back down to a slow, lazy, gentle melody and brought it to an end, Jake playing out the last ten or fifteen seconds with a finger-picked solo of his own. The applause washed over them once more and they stood together for another bow. This time they did not heed the cries for more and decided to adhere to the cardinal rule of entertaining.

They left the stage area, all of them sweaty and hot from the autumn heat, but it wasn't more than a minute before someone else took the stage. The rabbi and his wife asked for permission to use Jake's guitar and Cynthia's piano to perform a little number of their own. The permission was granted and they took the stage to do a few traditional Jewish folk songs.

Jake, Cynthia, and Mary walked arm and arm back to their table and took a seat, all three of them grabbing glasses of water and drinking them down.

"You guys were great up there," Helen told them. "I've never seen anything like that."

"I can't believe you made us do that, Jake," his mother scolded. Then she smiled. "I'm glad you did though. I don't remember when I had so much fun as a musician."

"You guys rocked," Jake told them. "I knew you had it in you."

"You should do a record with your mother playing violin sometime," Helen suggested.

"Me, play on a rock and roll record?" Mary scoffed. "That'll be the day."

Jake didn't say anything though. He had already had the same idea himself.

The festivities went on for several more hours. There was music and dancing and lots of drinking. By the time things started to wind down there was hardly a sober person in the house.

Finally, it came time for the bride and groom to leave. They climbed into a stretch limousine that had been painted with "Just Married" slogans and had cans tied to the back bumper. The limo pulled away, rattling its way down the street and disappearing. It wasn't going far. The honeymoon suite had been booked for the two of them at the Stovington Suites Hotel on the riverfront — just nine blocks away. A one-night stay there was to be the extent of their honeymoon for now. The wedding had taken place on a Tuesday and the band needed to be back in the recording studio on Thursday morning.

Coop and Charlie both went directly from the wedding to the airport. They had chipped in for a private flight back to Los Angeles. Days off from the rigorous recording schedule were rare and neither wanted to waste their second of two such days hanging around in Heritage.

Pauline, the Levensteins, and Sharon's parents shared a limo back to the Royal Gardens Hotel, where they were all staying for one more day (along with many of the Cohen family and their guests — all at Nerdly's expense). Except for Pauline, who was flying back in Jake's plane with Jake and Helen, they were all booked on the same flight back to Los Angeles the following afternoon.

Jake and Helen rode with Jake's parents back to their house. Since they'd stayed the first night there they figured they might as well stay the second as well. They arrived home shortly before six o'clock that evening, all of them tired, hot, and more than a little drunk. All four of them went directly to bed. Jake wasn't sure what his parents did behind their closed door — and, in truth, he didn't really want to know — but he and Helen engaged in a lengthy session of sultry sexual activity before drifting off to a contented sleep. None of the four emerged from their rooms until the next morning.

The hangovers were light when they did get up to face the day, so everyone was in the mood for the monstrous breakfast that Mary constructed. There was bacon, sausage, pancakes, fried potatoes, and an enormous platter of scrambled eggs with ham and cheese. They sat around the kitchen table, munching contentedly while they sipped coffee and drank glass after glass of Mary's fresh-squeezed orange juice. It was after, when the plates had been pushed away but before the dishes were cleared, that Jake's father dropped somewhat of a bombshell.

"So," he said casually, "your mother and I are going to retire at the end of the year."

Jake looked up, unsure he'd heard correctly. "Retire?" he asked. "Both of you?"

He nodded. "I've been with the ACLU for a long time now. I've fought the good fight and I like to think I've contributed to some significant changes over the course of my tenure, but it's time to call it a career and enjoy the fruits of my labors."

"And I've been with the philharmonic for thirty-three years now," Mary said. "I think I'm ready to put my fiddle down."

"Wow," Jake said. "Well... it sounds like you've thought this through."

"We have," his father said. "There's something else we wanted to talk to you about though."

"What's that?" Jake said carefully, part of him fearing that he was about to say they were going to divorce as well.

His mother read the expression on his face. "Nothing like that, Jake," she said with a chuckle. "We intend to do the whole 'until death do us part' thing. At our age it's kind of hard to find someone else you can tolerate sleeping in the same bed with."

Jake and Helen both laughed. "Okay," Jake said. "You had me worried there for a minute. So what is it?"

"Well," Tom said, "right about now, Bill is probably getting the same talk from Stan and Cindy. They're planning to retire at the same time. We're both planning to sell our houses and move somewhere else."

Jake grinned. "Fuckin' A!" he said, happy. For years he had been trying to get them to sell this small house and move into something bigger. He and Pauline had both offered to buy them whatever they wanted, but they'd always refused. "It's about time. Do you have something in mind? Will you let Pauline and I help you?"

Tom and Mary shared a look with each other, a look that was part happiness, part subtle shame. "As a matter of fact..." Tom said, "... yes, we may need a little help. You know we hate asking, but we've had our eye on a little piece of land up in Cypress County, just up in the foothills."

"Dad, Jesus Christ," Jake said. "You know we'd both love to help you out. How much do you need? I'll write you a check right now."

"We're not sure yet," Tom said. "We may not even need your help at all. This house is completely paid off and, since it is the house that Jake Kingsley grew up in, it's worth an obscene amount of money. The other houses on this street are selling for around a hundred and ten thousand dollars. I've been told that we could auction this one off and get at least three hundred thousand for it, possibly as much as half a million."

"Sweet," Jake said, nodding appreciatively. Helen seemed quite astounded.

"Stan and Cindy's house isn't worth quite as much," Tom said, "but it's still worth about a hundred thousand more than the other houses on their block because of Bill. They can probably get two-fifty to three hundred for it."

"That's nice," Jake said, wondering what that had to do with them. His father told him.

"Stan and Cindy are looking at going in on this property with us," he said. "Equal partners all the way, and they would live on it with us."

Jake raised his eyebrows up a little bit. "You're going to move in with Stan and Cynthia?" he asked slowly. Was there something about this friendship he hadn't been told or hadn't guessed at over the course of his lifetime?

Once again, his mother seemed to read his mind. She blushed furiously for a second, and then got angry. "You get your mind out of the gutter right this instance, Jacob Kingsley!" she barked at him, using a voice he hadn't heard since perhaps eighth grade.

"What?" Tom said, puzzled. "What are you..." Realization dawned on him. "Oh my God," he said, shaking his head strenuously. "That is not what we're saying at all, Jake. Jesus. How could you think something like that?"

"Something like what?" Helen asked carefully. "I think I missed something."

"He was thinking that me and Tom and Stan and Cindy are some kind of... of... swingers or something," Mary said with disgust. "I can't believe that would even cross your mind, Jake."

"You were thinking that?" Helen asked, astonished. "About your parents? Jake, that's kind of... well... twisted."

"Sorry," Jake said, embarrassed now. "It didn't seem plausible or anything. It's just that I live in Hollywood and there's all kinds of weird things going on there and... well... you know... you just said you're going to be living with Stan and Cynthia. You have to admit that is a little strange."

"We're not going to be living together, Jake," Tom said, a little exasperated now. "If you would've let me finish explaining..." He shook his head again. "Wow. This conversation is not going exactly like I expected."

"I'm sorry," Jake said again. "Let's just forget that ever happened. Tell me about this property."

Tom nodded. "Okay," he said. "It's two hundred and fifty acres about two miles off Highway 38. It sits on a hilltop overlooking the Heritage River Canyon, about twelve miles from Cypress. Our plan is to build two houses on the property, one for your mother and I, one for Stan and Cindy. The houses would be at either end of the property, almost a quarter mile apart, and each completely self-contained."

"That way," Mary said, "we would be living very close to our best friends, but we would still be far enough away to maintain a separate identity."

"Ohhh," Jake said, feeling even more embarrassed now. "I see."

"The land itself is not that expensive... well, in a relative sort of way. We can get it for $1.1 million. Between the money we'll get for our houses and the money we each have in our savings and investments, we will be able to buy the land outright and hold it free and clear."

"Are you sure that's the best way to go about it, Dad?" Jake asked. "Why don't you let me talk to Jill about this? I seem to remember her saying that it's actually a better idea to take out a loan on the acquisition of property. That way, the interest that you pay is..."

"Jake," his dad interrupted. "I'm sorry, but whether it makes sense or not, we've already decided we want to own our land outright. It's just the way we are."

Jake nodded. "Okay," he said. "I can respect that."

"Our plan is to use the value of the land, once it's free and clear, to secure construction loans for the building of our houses, prepping of the land, and all those incremental costs. You have experience in that. You're going through that right now with that land you bought in New Zealand."

"Yes, I do," Jake agreed. And he did at that. The property he'd looked at outside Christchurch had just cleared escrow and was officially his. He was now in the process of improving the land for construction and having his dream home designed by the most prestigious architecture firm in the Christchurch area.

"Our portion of the price for this has been estimated at four hundred and fifty thousand," Tom said. "That will get us a two thousand square foot house complete with road, electricity, well water, septic system, propane tank, and the landscaping we're after. This is where we might need the help of you and Pauline a little bit. You see, the monthly payments on that kind of loan will run close to three thousand dollars a month. Once I retire, our only source of income will be my ACLU pension, which is going to be about thirty-eight hundred dollars a month."

"You can't live on eight hundred dollars a month, Dad," Jake told him.

"It will only be temporary," Tom said. "Ever since 1975 we've been putting more than half of your mother's income into an IRA account, as well as a good portion of mine."

"Wow," Jake said, surprised. "You were financially responsible?"

Tom and Mary both chuckled. "Guilty as charged," Tom said. "In any case, we have over three quarters of a million dollars in that IRA but we can't start pulling it out until 1993, when I turn fifty-nine and a half. Until then... well... that's where we thought you and Pauline might be able to help us out a little."

"You bet your ass, Dad," Jake told him. "We'll do more than help you; we'll pay for the goddamn house entirely. That way, you won't have to worry about anything at all. All you'll have to pay for is your utilities, groceries, and your property taxes every year."

"No no," Tom said. "We don't want you paying for the whole house. We were just hoping you'd give us enough for the initial down payment on the construction loan to bring the payments down into the range of two thousand dollars or so. Now, between you and Pauline, that would be about..."

Jake held up his hand. "Dad," he interrupted.

Tom looked at him, questioningly.

"We're going to pay for the whole house," Jake said. "That's final. I'll get half and Pauline will get the other half. You'll be free and clear and you can spend that thirty-eight hundred a month going on cruises and buying RVs and touring the country."

"Jake," Mary said, "we can't ask you to do that."

"You didn't," Jake told her. "I volunteered it and we're going to do it."

"I can't allow that, Jake," his dad said sternly. "I do have my pride."

"Screw pride," Jake scoffed. "You're my parents. I'm a multi-millionaire. There's no way in hell I'm going to let you live in some sort of fixed-income poverty while I've got money falling out of my asshole."

His mother raised her eyebrows and gave him a disapproving look.

"Sorry, Mom," he said. "Remember, I hang out with Matt Tisdale and sometimes he kind of rubs off on me. Anyway, I won't take no for an answer. You buy your land and find an architect to design your home and start getting the services set up. Pauline and I will foot the bill. That's all there is to it."

"But..." Mary started.

"No buts," Jake said. "I'm not trying to insult you or placate you or anything else. You guys raised me and you did a damn good job. You were the best parents anyone could hope for — except for maybe that time you caught me with those Playboys, Mom. I still think you overreacted to that one a little bit. Anyway, this is something I'm in a position to do and I want to do it. You guys deserve it."

His parents looked at each other, holding a conversation with their eyes. Jake was able to follow some of it. Can we let them do this? Maybe. Won't they think this is what we planned all along? Maybe, but we didn't. They'll understand that, won't they?

"Uh... what about Pauline?" Tom said. "Shouldn't we discuss this with her before you go committing her to anything?"

"Absolutely," Jake said. "In fact, we should get her over here right now. But I can guarantee you that she'll say the exact same thing that I'm saying. So will Nerdly when his parents bring this up. So why don't we just take it as a given that we're going to do this and stop arguing about it?"

They held another brief eye contact conversation. Once again, Jake was able to interpret a fair amount of it. Could we? Should we? It would really solve all of our problems if we did. But what about our pride?

"Look, guys," Jake said. "Let's get Pauline over here and we'll discuss it some more before we head back to LA. When you see that she feels the same way as I do, maybe you'll feel better about this. No need to make any decisions right now, is there?"

"No," Mary said slowly. "I guess there isn't."

"I'll call Pauline," Jake said.

He did. She agreed to come right over. And, as Jake suspected, she insisted that Jake's plan was the only thing they were going to allow. It took another hour or so, but finally the two siblings were able to break their parents down and convince them to say yes.

The elder Kingsleys' dream retirement was now all but assured.

Jake lifted off from Westfield Executive Airport at 1:33 PM. He maintained control of the plane until they were clear of the local air traffic control and handed off to regional. Once they were given their assigned altitude of eighteen thousand feet, he engaged the autopilot and let it take over the flying duties. So sophisticated were the avionics that the autopilot automatically leveled them off at the assigned altitude, maintained the speed Jake had punched in, and steered the plane toward the navigation beacon he'd programmed in. Once it reached the first navigation beacon, it automatically locked onto the next, changed their course accordingly (which had kind of creeped Jake out when he'd first started using the system, feeling the plane turn by itself, but he was used to it now), and maintained that heading until the next. Assuming no malfunction or change of plan, it would continue to do so until they reached the last nav beacon, which was within visual range of Brannigan Airport in Ventura County.

Jake, of course, maintained a diligent eye on the instruments and especially the airspace surrounding the plane as the autopilot flew them, but he kept his hands on his armrests and his posture relaxed as they soared high over the central valley on their way home. He and Pauline conversed excitedly and frequently about their parents' retirement plan and their own, gladly undertaken roll in it. Neither of them noticed that Helen was not saying much, that she was spending most of the flight staring out the side window at the passing scenery.

Jake resumed control of the aircraft again when they were at five thousand feet above Ventura and in visual range of Brannigan Airport. He slowed them down, continued the descent, and brought them to a safe, gentle landing at 3:55 PM, just two minutes ahead of the time he'd filed on his flight plan.

He went through the shut-down checklist and the three of them climbed out of the plane. They retrieved their luggage from the storage compartment and then pushed the plane into Jake's hangar and secured it. They walked together to the parking lot where Pauline's Mercedes and Jake's BMW had been parked. There, Helen and Jake bid Pauline farewell for now.

"Thanks for flying me, Jake," Pauline told him, giving him a hug. "Your plane is cramped, slow, bumpy, and noisy, but I'll take it over first class any day."

"Thanks, sis," he told her, returning the hug. "And thanks for standing up with me on the Mom and Dad thing."

"Glad to do it," she said. She turned to Helen and held out her arms. "Bye, Helen. I'm glad you came. It's been fun."

Helen returned the hug fiercely, clasping Pauline tightly against her. "Goodbye, Pauline," she told her. "It's been a lot of fun."

Puzzled, Pauline nonetheless returned the hug. "Uh... you bet," she said.

Helen finally released her. Then, to Jake's surprise, she leaned forward and kissed his sister on the cheek. "I'll see you around," she said.

"Uh... right," Pauline said. "I'll see you around."

Pauline shot a what-the-hell look at Jake and then tossed her suitcase in her car. She started it up and, a minute later, she was gone. Helen watched her until she had disappeared completely.

"Are you okay, hon?" Jake asked her carefully. She was acting very strange again.

She nodded, wiping at her eye for a second. "Yeah," she said. "Shall we take me home?"

"Sure," Jake said. "Let's take you home."

He loaded their suitcases into the BMW's trunk and then opened the passenger door for Helen. She climbed inside and buckled up. Jake climbed into the driver's seat and did the same. He pulled out of the parking lot and started the fifteen minute drive back to Helen's house.

"Is everything okay?" Jake asked once they hit the open highway.

She didn't answer for a few moments. Finally she nodded. "Yes," she said. "Everything will be okay."

For the rest of the drive, she seemed to have slipped back into her uncaring persona. She spoke only in monosyllables, with little or no animation in her face. Jake didn't push her, although he felt the familiar troubled sense of being slipping back into him.

When they arrived at her house, she disabled the perimeter alarm but didn't bother making a recon of the outside of the house. She also didn't bother checking out the interior of the house once she let them in the front door. Instead, she carried her suitcase to her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Jake stared at the closed door for a few moments and then shook his head. He walked to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of beer from the refrigerator. He cracked it open and walked out to the back porch to have a few sips and smoke a cigarette. He sat down in one of the lounge chairs and sparked up, staring at the distant mountains he'd just flown over.

After a few minutes, just as he was finishing up his first smoke and lighting the second, the sliding glass door opened and Helen emerged. She was still wearing the jeans and t-shirt she'd put on at his parent's house that morning. Her eyes were red, as if she'd been crying.

"Helen?" he asked her. "What's the matter, hon? Talk to me."

She nodded, grabbing a seat in the lounger next to him. She pointed to his cigarette pack. "Can I have one?"

"Uh... sure," he said, fishing one out. Helen, like Celia, only smoked when she was drunk or stressed out. He lit it for her and handed it over.

"Thanks," she said, taking a deep drag. She looked at Jake, her face miserable but determined. "We need to talk, Jake," she told him.

Jake swallowed, feeling a little burst of adrenaline go through him. Those were five words that no one in a relationship ever wanted to hear. "About what?" he asked.

She didn't answer him; at least not directly. "I had a very good time these past few days," she said. "It was just like when we first got together, you know?"

"Yes," he said. "I know. I had a good time too. It was nice to see you back to your old self again."

She nodded slowly. "I was," she said. "I was back to my old self because I wanted to enjoy being with you again, like we used to be, you know, back in the beginning. It worked. I was able to put everything else aside and enjoy your company, enjoy loving you and being your girlfriend again. I wanted to do that on this trip, Jake, but I wasn't sure I was going to be able to at first."

"But you did, didn't you?" Jake asked. "You're not going to try to tell me that was all an act, are you?"

"No," she said, shaking her head strenuously. "It wasn't an act at all. I truly did have a wonderful time and all of my emotions were sincere. The reason I was able to put... you know... other things aside and do that was because..." She took a slow, deep breath. "Because I knew it was going to be for the last time."

Jake looked at her, into her eyes, feeling the adrenaline rush kick up a few notches. "The last time?" he asked. "What are you saying?"

"I think you know what I'm saying," she said. "It's time for you and me to... go our separate ways."

"You want to break up?" Jake asked numbly, although that was obviously what she'd just said.

"I don't want to, Jake," she said. "I love you very much and I always will. But I have to get out of this relationship. For my own peace and sanity, I have to. I can't live as the girlfriend of a rock musician anymore. I want my old life back."

Jake felt as if he'd been hit in the stomach. He actually felt it possible he might vomit. "Helen," he said, "how can you say you love me in one breath and tell me you don't want to see me anymore in the next? That doesn't make any sense. When two people love each other they try to work things out, don't they? Isn't there some way we can work this out?"

She was shaking her head, tears running freely down her cheeks now. "Don't make this harder than it has to be, Jake," she pleaded. "I do love you. You're the first man I've ever loved in my life and you have to believe me when I say this is tearing me up inside. But there's no way we can go on. There is no way we can make this work."

"We can!" he insisted.

"We can't!" she countered. "For God's sake, Jake, we have absolutely nothing in common except a physical attraction. How in the hell did we ever fall in love with each other in the first place? Whose idea of a sick joke was that?"

"What do you mean we have nothing in common?" he asked. "We have lots of things in common."

"We have nothing, Jake! Nothing! You're a musician and I'm almost completely tone deaf. You like to dance and I have no rhythm at all. You like to dress up and go to fancy restaurants and I like to stay home and eat in my sweats or my jeans. You grew up in the city and I grew up in the country. You like to fly all over the world and I like nothing more than staying right here in my home. You bought a goddamn house in New Zealand, Jake! That was what really convinced me, really drove it home for me that this could never work. You plan to live in fucking New Zealand for half of the year. I consider it too far of a move just to live in Los Angeles. I'm a homebody, Jake. A country girl who doesn't want to leave the country. Why in the hell do you think I never agreed to move in with you?"

"What if I gave up the land in New Zealand?" Jake asked her, feeling desperate. "What if I moved here to Ventura County? Bought some property and..."

"No no no, Jake!" Helen said. "That isn't the answer and you know it. I could never ask you to give up New Zealand. I know how much that land means to you. I know how much you want to live there, build your house there. It's part of what make you Jake Kingsley and if you gave it up for me you wouldn't be happy, you'd be resentful. And don't even try to tell me you wouldn't."

He didn't. He knew she was right.

"It's not just that we have nothing in common," she said. "It's everything about this relationship. I'm not cut out for this lifestyle. I don't like living my life in the spotlight, with reporters following me around all the time, with my picture showing up in the fucking American Watcher and reporters speculating that I've put on a few pounds over the summer, or that I might be pregnant. I especially don't like psychotic bitches coming onto my land and planning to kill me with knives and a blowtorch because they're obsessed with you. I know you told me back in the beginning that it could be rough dating you, and I know I said I was willing to live with it, but... but I never knew it would be this rough. I can't take it, Jake. I love you with all my heart but I just want to go back to being anonymous Helen Brody. Can you understand that?"

He sighed, feeling a tear going down his own cheek now. "Yeah," he finally said. "I can understand it."

"So you agree that this just can't work?"

He shrugged. "I guess I don't have any choice but to agree, do I?"

She wiped her eyes. "No," she said, her voice breaking a little. "You really don't."

Jake put out his cigarette and finished off the last few swallows of his beer. "Well," he said, standing up, "I guess I'd better go up to your room and start gathering all my stuff together."

"Okay," she said with a small nod.

"I'll put all the stuff you have at my place into boxes for you. You can pick it up whenever you want... or I can bring it over here sometime."

"Okay," she said again. "This doesn't have to be ugly, does it, Jake? I mean, I know there's no such thing as staying friends after you break up, but we don't have to be nasty to each other, do we?"

"No," he agreed. "We don't have to be nasty at all."

"Uh... about your airplanes..."

God, it kept hitting you from different directions. "I'll move them to another airport," he promised. "As soon as I can make arrangements for hangar space."

"Thanks, Jake," she said. "I know we don't own the airport or anything, I just think it would be... you know... awkward if we kept running into each other there."

"I agree," Jake said. "I wouldn't want anything to be awkward."

He walked back into the house and headed up stairs. Listlessly, he began to pack his belongings. It took about thirty minutes.

He didn't say goodbye to Helen when he left.