Chapter 28: Wrapping Things Up

Heritage, California

July 27, 2000

The TrueWest Communications Amphitheater had just been completed and approved by all governmental bodies in question for commercial use three weeks before. The 19,000 seat capacity outdoor music venue was located in the midst of a large stretch of farmland twenty-five miles north of the Heritage city limits, near the junction of Interstate 5 and State Highway 30, which led west to Sonoma County and the Pacific Ocean and east up into the foothills and passes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and then to the high desert beyond. The builders and developers had had to scramble to make the deadline, but they managed to get it finished and operational in time for hometown hero Jake Kingsley and his band to be the very first performers to play the venue.

It was a very nice facility, with ample parking, good access roads, a huge green room for the performers to relax in before and after shows, spacious locker rooms for both males and females, all of which had private bathroom and shower stalls, and several luxury offices for extracurricular activities to take place in. The only downside to the venue was a big one, at least it was this time of the year. The stage was outdoors in the Sacramento Valley. When the band stepped onto that stage for their soundcheck at five o’clock that afternoon, it was ninety-three degrees. At the start of showtime at seven-thirty, it would still be in the upper eighties. That was not as hot as it could be in this particular part of the world in July, but it was still pretty freaking warm for jumping around onstage for two and a half hours under hot spotlights. Jake had already told the crew to make sure that extra Gatorade was on hand for this one.

And there was one other order that he gave personally to Ryan Dover, the head of security, in no uncertain terms. “Absolutely no groupies will be brought back at this stop,” he told him. “None! I have already made this clear to James, Lucky, Steph, and Massa, but I want it to be clear to you as well. No groupies! My mom and dad, Nerdly’s mom and dad, my uncle and aunt, my teenage cousins, my daughter, and an entire group of young musicians that played in the Cypress High School orchestra along with a few parents and chaperones are going to be back there with us after the show and I want them to believe that groupies are nothing but the stuff of legend and mythology. Are we clear on this?”

“Crystal clear,” Ryan said. “I will brief my people on this and make them understand that even if someone begs for a groupie tonight, they will be denied.”

“Very good,” Jake said. “Oh ... and another thing, there probably should not be any pot laying around in the spread for this particular stop either. I’m sure everyone knows we like to burn on occasion, but we don’t want to shove their faces in it.”

“You got it,” Ryan told him. “No ganja in the spread tonight.”

“Thanks, Ryan,” Jake told him, patting him on the shoulder. “I appreciate everything you do for us.”

“Just doing my job,” Ryan said.

All of the guests of the Kingsleys arrived at the venue at 6:00 PM, a half hour before the gates would be opened for the general ticketholders. They were allowed to enter at 6:15 and all were given SVIP passes to hang around their necks and were instructed to wear them at all times. They were then escorted to the special VIP section that Jake had instructed be set up just in front of the stage. It was roped off from the general VIP section to the left of it and the stagefront $350 seats to the right of it. At the front of the SVIP was a passageway that led into the pit in front of the stage and allowed access to the stage right area, where refreshments, appetizers, and a bathroom had been set up for the use of the SVIPs. One of Ryan’s people was assigned to stay in the SVIP the entire time and keep unauthorized people out of it.

Jake and Laura were waiting for the group when they arrived, both of them sitting on the edge of the stage with their feet dangling down. They were already dressed in their performance clothes and their hair was done. When the group was led in the two of them stood and waved, both of them smiling. They then trotted over to the stage right area and went down the stairs to the pit and them up another set of stairs to the SVIP.

“Welcome, everyone!” Jake told them. “Glad you could all come to see us tonight!”

“Daddy! Mommy!” an excited voice yelled. It was Caydee, who was being led by the hand by Mary Kingsley. Meghan had taken the little girl from the airport to her grandparents’ house so she could hang out with them all day. And now she going to see her very first rock concert.

“Hey, Caydee girl!” Jake greeted as she rushed over to him. He picked her up and gave her a big hug and a kiss. “Did you have a good time with Grandma and Grandpa?”

“Fuckin’ A!” she said enthusiastically, making Jake wince a little, most of the teenage musicians snicker, and Grandma and Grandpa shoot a stern look of disapproval in his direction. Still, he did not admonish her for her language. She was using the phrase in correct context, after all. He handed her to Laura, who gots hugs and kisses of her own.

“Mommy and Daddy make moo-zik for peoples tonight!” Caydee said excitedly. “Caydee watch moo-zik!”

“That’s right,” Laura told her. “But you have to wear your ear protectors.”

“Aww,” Caydee moaned.

“It’s okay, Caydee girl,” Jake told her. “You’ll still be able to hear the moo-zik Mommy and Daddy make. Mommy and Daddy’s moo-zik is loud and we don’t want your little ears to get hurt by it.”

“Fuck it!” she said firmly.

“Again, correct context of the profanity usage and I applaud you for that, but in this case, you have to wear them or Grandma and Grampa will have to take you home and then they won’t get to see Mommy and Daddy make moo-zik either, and that would make them sad. You don’t want Grandma and Grampa to be sad, do you?”

“Nooo,” she said slowly.

“All right then,” he said. “You’ll wear the ears then?”

“Yesss,” she said with a little pout.

“That’s my girl,” he told her, leaning over and giving her another kiss.

With that settled, Jake hugged his mother and father. He then hugged Stan and Cindy. He then greeted his Uncle Phil, Mary’s younger brother (and the likely source of the pot that Tom Kingsley kept in his little stashbox in the closet) and Phil’s wife Lisa. He had not seen either of them in more than fifteen years now. Phil was wearing a pair of jeans and a faded Metallica t-shirt. His hair was even longer than Jake’s and he sported an earring in his left ear. Lisa was dressed quite similarly, although she had the courtesy to wear an Intemperance t-shirt. She was a bit on the chubby side but not bad looking for a woman of fifty-two. His two cousins, Jeremy and Celeste were now eighteen and sixteen years old, respectively. He was amazed at how grown-up they were now. The last time he had seen them Jeremy had been an annoying little kid and Celeste had been a baby.

“It’s good to see you two again,” Jake told them, shaking all of their hands. He then turned to his cousins. “And look at you two. You’re adults now. How the hell did that happen?”

Neither one of them really remembered meeting Jake in the past (he had only met them a few times since their birth) but both knew very well who he was. They had both ridden a wave of popularity throughout their school years when it became known that they were Jake Kingsley’s cousins. Of course, they had never been able to score any free concert tickets or introduce their famous relative to anyone, but they had still managed to play their relationship to him for all it was worth.

“Can we get a picture with you, Jake?” Celeste asked him, holding up a camera.

“Yeah, sure,” Jake said. “And Laura too?”

“Uh ... sure, why not?” Celeste asked.

He and Laura posed for several shots for them, with Phil being the photographer. Jake and Laura with both of them, Jake and Laura with each of them individually, and then Jake alone between the two cousins with his arms around their shoulders.

“Thanks, Jake!” Jeremy gushed. “This is way cool! And thanks for inviting us to the show!”

“Hey, you’re family, right?” he said.

“Yeah,” Celeste said, seemingly in awe of that concept. “Family.”

Jake and Laura then made the rounds, greeting everyone else in the SVIP. The musicians from the Cypress High School orchestra (about half of whom had graduated by now) that had provided the melodies for Sunday and Got Away were all present. Jake and Laura both knew all of their names and greeted them as such. They did not remember the parents’ names, but this did not seem to offend anyone. They posed for multiple pictures with the musicians and passed some small talk on where their lives were now. They were thanked multiple times for inviting the kids to the show, to which Jake always replied that it was the least they could do. Currently, Any Given Sunday was just now falling off the charts after peaking at number 2 and holding there for three weeks and it was their playing that had made it the success it was. Jake was so happy with them that in addition to the royalties that the school was earning from sales of Winter Frost, KVA Records had donated two hundred thousand dollars to the school’s music program. They were going to present the big-ass fake check to Mary tonight up on the stage just before returning from the intermission break. All the kids from the orchestra were going to be up there with her.

Jake invited all of the guests to find their seats. They shuffled around and finally settled in, with Mary, Tom, and Caydee taking the front and center seats. Fortunately, the stage area had been deliberately designed to face the southwest so the sun would generally be setting off to the right of the performers during summer concerts instead of blaring in either the band’s or the audience’s eyeballs. The SVIP was partially shaded by the overhead portion of the stage and lighting assembly and because of this no one had to slather sunscreen all over his fair-skinned daughter.

“All right, everyone,” Jake told the assembled crowd. “We’re going to head back in now until the show starts. The gates will open in about ten more minutes and the crowd will come in. Stay in this section if you please.” He turned and pointed at the break in the ropes that led to the pit. “You are welcome to go down this little staircase here, turn left, and follow it to the stage right area. There are appetizers, complimentary drinks of all kinds, and a bathroom there. All of that is for your use and enjoyment but please don’t linger in there as it can get a bit crowded, and please don’t try to leave the stage right area because you’ll possibly interfere with us or the roadies who are back there doing are jobs. Everybody down with that?”

Everyone seemed as if they were down with that.

“Now then, when we break for intermission at 8:40 or so, give us about five minutes and then all of the musicians and my mom will come to the stage right area. From there, one of the security guys will lead you over to the stage left area. Just before the intermission break comes to an end, I’ll have Mom come out onto the stage. I’ll introduce her and a give a little spiel and then I’ll wave for the musicians to come out. Now, I remember your first names, but not your last names. When I give the cue, I want each of you to come up to Stephanie’s microphone—that is the one just to the right of mine if you don’t happen to notice which one she is singing into throughout the show—and I want you to tell the crowd who you are and what instrument you played on the recording or in the rehearsals.”

The kids all looked a little nervous at this prospect.

“Now, there are going to be nineteen thousand people out there looking at you and listening to you,” he said plainly. “That can be a bit nerve-wracking, even for me and Laura. Is there any one of you who thinks you can’t do this?”

Nobody spoke up.

“Very good,” Jake said. “After the introductions, Laura and Steph will bring out the big-ass check I will be presenting. Once that is done and the applause dies down, you’ll head back out stage left—that’s the left side of the stage from your perspective upon it—and you’ll be led back here to the SVIP. Does everyone understand this?”

“What about the check?” asked Jimmy, the guitarist.

“Uh ... what about the check?” Jake asked.

“Do we take it back here with us?” Jimmy asked. “We don’t just leave it back there where anyone can grab it, do we?”

“Uh ... it’s not really a check,” Jake told him. “Just leave it back there and the roadies will do something with it. The money has already been deposited in the school’s account.”

“Oh,” Jimmy said, nodding. “That’s cool.”

“Isn’t it?” Jake asked. “You gotta love modern technology, right? No need to take that big-ass check to the bank and run it through the big-ass check scanning machine anymore.”

It was indeed quite warm up on the stage when the performance began. Jake lost the scarf after the end of the opening number and the overshirt by the end of the third number. Lucky was actually wearing a pair of shorts and tank-top behind his drum set. Jake and Steph both made a point to take a few hits of their Gatorade between every single number of the set. Everyone was drenched in sweat by the fourth number, even Laura. Fortunately, as the sun sank lower and lower in the sky and twilight took over, the temperature dropped a few degrees and it became more tolerable. Jake thanked the crowd for joining him and his band on this “sultry night” during his between-song banter. He then reminded them that he had grown up in Heritage, had attended Carver High School and Heritage City College, and was used to the hot summer nights. This caused an enthusiastic and extended cheer from the crowd.

Jake kept an eye on Caydee as he performed the set. She was sitting between his mom and dad, her little ear protectors mounted to her head. She was smiling and watching intently every time his eyes went to her. She seemed particularly happy when her mommy was up on the stage as well. At no point did he see her looking bored or restless. She clapped enthusiastically at the end of every number just like everyone else. Her happiness to see Daddy and his band make moo-zik for peoples did his heart a world of good.

The intermission break began a few minutes late due to the cheering sessions by the crowd being longer than usual and Jake’s more extensive and more frequent between-song banter. He and the band trotted off the stage and the house lights came up. Five minutes later, just as his heart rate returned to normal and he had an entire quart bottle of Gatorade in his stomach, his mother and the Cypress High School orchestra kids were led into the stage left area by Chris Dick.

“Wonderful show so far,” Mary told him with genuine emotion. “I’m loving every minute of it. My goodness, Jake. You’re all sweaty!”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a little hot up there on the stage and we’re moving around and all.”

“I hope you’re keeping yourself hydrated,” she said.

“I am, Mom,” he assured her. “Now then. Let’s go over the plan here again, okay?”

As the clock ticked down to six minutes before the start of the second half of the show, Jake went back out onto the stage without his Ibanez in hands, a significant break in the normal order of things. The house lights stayed up and Jake was able to see the crowd quite well. They cheered loudly as they saw him.

He waited until the cheers died down and then walked up to his microphone. “Thank you, Heritage,” he told them. “I’ve said it a few times here tonight already, but it really is incredible to be here in my home town performing my music for you all. From the bottom of my heart, thank you all for coming out here tonight.”

Another round of cheers. Jake looked down at the VIP section where the contest winners, DJs, program directors, and other promotional people were sitting. He saw that a news crew from Channel 4 and a few Heritage Register photographers were filming and snapping pictures of this part. They had been given permission for this (and to film no more than ten minutes of footage of the show for news broadcast). He nodded in their direction and then turned his eyes forward again.

“I’d like to introduce you now to someone very special to me. This is a woman who taught me how to read and write music when I was a kid too young to even ride a bike without training wheels on it, this is a woman who made sure I got voice lessons when I was just a little bit older, a woman who always encouraged my musical gifts the best she could, a woman who played violin for well over twenty years with the Heritage Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, and a woman who played that same violin on my first two solo albums, as well as Celia Valdez’s first two solo albums. If you’ve ever heard the song Why? or Done With You or Playing Those Games on the radio, that was her laying down the violin melody and doing the violin solos. That woman is my mother, Mary Kingsley. Come on out here and say hello to the people, Mom!”

The crowd cheered as Mary, looking a little nervous, trotted out onto the stage in her blue jeans and Rolling Stones World Tour t-shirt. She waved to the crowd, putting a smile on her face, and then took up position next to Jake, who put his left arm around her and pulled her into a hug.

“These days,” Jake told the crowd, “Mom is retired from the philharmonic and living outside the town of Cypress up in the foothills. She did not completely leave music behind, however. Ever since moving to the new home, she has been conducting the Cypress High School Orchestra. She has a very talented bunch of kids playing for her there and, when I hit a wall in a few of my compositions on the Winter Frost CD and realized I needed some orchestral accompaniment to make two of the tunes sound right, I got in touch with her and asked her if she and her kids could help me out a bit.”

Another loud cheer erupted from the crowd. Many of them already knew this story as it had been extensively reported on ever since the initial recordings had been made. And, of course, the unauthorized recordings of the sessions that had appeared on Napster had helped drive the stories.

“Those two songs,” Jake went on, “were I Got Away From You, which we did before the intermission break, and Any Given Sunday, which we’ll be doing a little later in the second half. Now, since it’s not really practical for us to bus these kids and my mom around the country with us as we travel from city to city, we can’t have the actual orchestra performing the music for us here on the tour, so we have my wife Laura on the alto sax, and Massa Wu on the violin, and my man Doug Foreman on the keyboards doing their best to lay down the sound of that orchestra, but I want to take a few minutes here before we start the second half to honor and thank my Mom and her kids for what they did for me. It’s because of them that those two tunes sound the way they do when you hear them on the radio, and I’ve invited all of them to be here tonight to watch the show and hang out with us for a bit and I’m going to bring them all out now to introduce themselves to you all. Come on out musicians and tell the people who the hell you are, why don’t you?”

Another cheer erupted and then faded. As it faded, the kids came out, one by one, and stepped up to Steph’s microphone. They stated their name and their instrument in the composition or rehearsals and then formed up behind Mary Kingsley. Jake then asked the crowd to give it up for the Cypress High School Orchestra and they did so, cheering them and giving them a standing ovation for the better part of a minute. He then told the crowd that KVA Records, which was owned by himself, Celia Valdez, Nerdly and Sharon Archer, and Pauline Kingsley, would be donating two hundred thousand dollars of the profits from the Winter Frost CD and tour to the orchestra’s general fund. With that, Laura and Steph—the two shortest members of his band—came out from stage left, carrying the big-ass fake check with them, one holding onto each side of it. They positioned themselves in front of the assembled musicians and their conductor. Jake put his arm around his mother in the rear of the formation. They held that position for more than thirty seconds, allowing the tour camera crews to get a long, extended shot they could pull publicity stills from as well as allowing the news and newspaper photographers to get some good shots as well. Once this was done, Mary and the kids filed back into stage left and then made their way back into the stage right area (where Mary grabbed another glass of white wine—she was having a good time, after all) and then back to their seats.

Jake checked the timer. They were running even later now. It was already at more than four minutes past when they usually started the first song of the second half. He nodded in the direction of Ray Brandon, his guitar tech. Ray immediately trotted out with the red Ibanez acoustic-electric and plugged him in.

“All right then,” Jake told the crowd. “Now back to your regularly scheduled performance.”

The crowd cheered as he played out his solo and then transitioned that into Steph’s How Did This Happen?.

The day after the Heritage show, July 28, would have been a travel day under ordinary tour circumstances—and it was one for everyone but the musicians and their pilots. They would have flown to Portland, where they going to perform on July 29 at the Rose Garden Arena. The travel day would have allowed them to get acclimated to the Pacific Northwest for a day and allow them to rest and recreate a bit before their three day consecutive dates in Portland and Seattle. Instead, they burned that day and remained in Heritage so Jake, Laura, and Caydee could visit a bit with the elder Kingsleys. The three of them spent the night at the Kingsley-Archer compound and hung out all the next day. Celia had been invited to come along but she had declined, citing that it was awkward for her because Jake’s parents knew what the situation was between her, their son, and their daughter-in-law. She remained at the hotel in downtown Heritage and did some relaxing and contemplating of her own.

On the afternoon of July 28, Laura and Mary sat together in loungers on the concrete next to the large and ornate swimming pool that had been installed next to the tennis courts between the two houses a year before. The pool featured several waterfalls, a slide, and a diving board and had been specifically designed and constructed for the purpose of attracting children and grandchildren to come visit more often. Mary and Laura were both wearing modest one-piece bathing suits. They watched as Jake and Caydee, wearing their own bathing suits, swam and played in the water.

“She is actually swimming!” Mary said in amazement as she watched her not-even-three year old granddaughter dog paddle quite efficiently through the deep end, Jake trailing behind her but not even needing to keep a hand on her. She was not wearing her floaties either.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Laura said. “She’s a natural at it.”

“Did Meghan teach her that?” Mary asked.

“Actually, believe it or not, it was Tif that taught her to swim like that.”

“Tif?” Mary asked. “You mean that airheaded singer?”

“That’s the one,” Laura said with a little laugh. “She was down at the pool one day during one of our travel breaks. I think it was back in Chicago.” She thought this over for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah ... Chicago,” she said more firmly now. “It was after we met up with Brainwash in Boston but before we rolled into Salt Lake City and met up with my family. Anyway, Tif was down there hanging out at poolside with Steph the guitarist. They joined us and while Jake took Caydee into the pool, Tif went in as well. She offered to help teach her to swim. We were, naturally, a bit dubious about this at first. As you’ve pointed out, Tif is not the brightest bunny in the forest.”

“I picked up on that when we had dinner with you all after the show last night,” Mary said, “and she told us she would not eat any of the antipasto because she really likes pasta and did not want to eat anything that would be against it.”

Laura chuckled. “Anti-pasta. That’s classic Tif,” she said, though with clear affection in her tone. “Even though there’s not much upstairs, she sings beautifully and her heart is in the right place. Anyway, we were quite hesitant to let her be in charge of Caydee in a body of water but then Tif tells us that she used to work as a swim instructor for kids after she graduated high school. It was at the community center pool in the Valley. It seems like a lot of divorced dads really liked to sign up for her services during their weekend visitations.”

Mary scoffed. “I bet,” she said, shaking her head a bit.

“Seriously, Mom,” Laura said, “Tif’s heart really is in the right place. And she is actually a great swimming teacher. We let her give it a shot—with Jake staying in the pool and quite nearby at first—and we were kind of amazed. She incorporates her singing into the lessons.”

“How so?” Mary asked.

“She sings The Hokey-Pokey to Caydee and gets her to push her boundaries that way.”

“The Hokey-Pokey?”

Laura nodded. “She would sing, ‘put your left arm in, your let arm out’, ‘put your right arm in, your right arm out’, ‘put your head in, your head out’, and Caydee would do it. She got used to stroking in the water and got used to putting her face under water. By the end of the first lesson, she had the mechanics of the dog-paddle down and knew how to float on her back if she accidentally fell in.”

“Wow,” Mary said, impressed.

“She and Tif swim together at every extended travel day in whatever hotel we’re staying in’s pool. I don’t worry about her accidentally falling in and drowning anymore.” She looked over at Caydee, who was climbing up the ladder in the deep end. “Here, watch her.”

Mary watched as Caydee ascended the ladder and then trotted back to the side of the pool. She jumped high in the air and splashed down in the deep end, going several feet under water before popping back up. Jake was in the water near her landing zone but did not have to put so much as a finger on her. She surfaced with a huge smile on her face and then paddled over to the ladder so she could get out and do it again.

“That is amazing,” Mary had to admit.

“She hasn’t worn her floaties in weeks now,” Laura said.

They watched Caydee and Jake in the pool and sipped on the chilled chardonnay Mary had brought out with them. Laura told her about some of the other sights and places the three of them had visited on the tour.

“It’s nice that you have some time to sightsee,” Mary said. “When Jake used to go on tour before it was just one date after another with bus rides in-between.”

“That’s how it was when I went out with Bobby-Z and Celia,” Laura said. “That’s why Jake insisted on the many days off for the tour. It keeps us from getting too burned out. So far, it’s been working, for us and the band and even the road crew, though they still have to ride the bus.”

“And you’re making good money with this tour?” Mary asked.

“We are making, as Jake likes to put it, ‘an assload of money’ on this tour. Tour revenue is now the biggest source of KVA’s income, though the CD sales are nothing to scoff at.”

“That’s good,” Mary said. She took another little sip of her wine. “Celia didn’t want to come stay with us?”

Laura nodded. “She wanted to get a little rest and relaxation of her own,” she said.

“She’s ... uh ... staying in your suite with you in the other cities though?”

Laura nodded again. “Yes, Mom,” she told her, blushing a little. She had never talked to her mother-in-law—the only woman in the world she could really call ‘Mom’ at this point—about the Celia-Jake-Laura situation, but she knew that she and Tom knew about it. “She stays in our suite with us.”

“I see,” Mary said softly. “Then ... uh ... that arrangement you have with her is still in effect.”

“It is,” Laura said, blushing even more but not wanting to lie.

“Do you think that is healthy for Caydee to witness?” Mary asked.

“I don’t know,” Laura said simply. “It’s very unconventional, I will be the first to admit. Caydee does not seem to be fazed by our relationship right now. After all, she doesn’t know that society believes what we do to be wrong. She won’t know that until someone tells her.”

“That is bound to happen someday, don’t you think?”

“Probably,” Laura agreed.

“What will you do when that happens?”

“I don’t know,” Laura told her. “We just handle things as they come up and try not to pre-react to anything.”

“Don’t you think you have to make some sort of preparation for when she starts asking questions?”

“Again,” Laura said, “we’ll just handle things as they come up. That’s what we’ve been doing all along.”

Mary shook her head a little. “Maybe I’m old fashioned, but it’s just hard for me to fathom. I understand and accept bisexuality—hell, I’ve been a little curious about that subject myself a few times in my younger days—but I just don’t see how what the three of you are doing can work. Don’t you get jealous knowing that your husband is ... you know ... with another woman.”