Chapter 10: They Say it’s Your Birthday

Oceano, California

March 7, 2001

It was Jake’s forty-first birthday and a gathering was in progress at their cliffside home to celebrate it. Elsa was making chicken tacos for the occasion and the smell of the simmering meat permeated the entire house, making mouths water. The Nerdlys and Kelvin were there. Charlie, Coop, and even Matt were there. Laura and Kim were there. The birthday boy, however, along with Pauline, Tabby, Celia, Ron her boyfriend, and Massa (who was really coming to see Meghan) were not there currently. They had been delayed in Los Angeles when Jake had gone to pick them all up. His plane ended up with a flat nose wheel tire shortly after landing and it needed to be fixed before they could fly home.

It was now 3:30 in the afternoon. Jake had texted Laura ten minutes before that the tire was fixed and they would be on their way shortly. She was sitting at the bar with Kim Kowalski, the two of them sipping glasses of white wine. Coop and Charlie were playing a game of eight-ball against the Nerdly adults (and getting their asses handed to them). Kelvin was watching and commenting on the geometry of the game. Matt, oddly enough, was sitting on the couch across the room next to Caydee. He did not seem to be uncomfortable as he normally did around children. In fact, the two of them seemed to be engaged in a fairly serious dialogue.

“It seems like Matt is warming up to Caydee,” Kim remarked. She would not have believed it if she were not seeing it with her own eyes. Matt actually conversing with a three year old!

“He is,” Laura agreed. “I wonder what they’re talking about.”

What they were talking about was how to improve Caydee’s use and implementation of the word “fuck” and its many derivatives. After noting that that was a word she enjoyed utilizing, Matt determined that he could help her up her game a little.

“You see, fuck is one of the most versatile words in the whole fuckin’ English language,” he explained to her. “You’re cheating yourself by just using it to say ‘fuckin’ A’ and ‘fuck it’. It can be used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, even a fuckin’ modifier. There’s a whole world of fucks out there that you need to embrace.”

“How ‘bout fuck a duck?” Caydee asked. “That one funny.”

Matt shook his head. “That’s something a kid would say,” he told her.

“Me am a kid,” she reminded him.

“Yes, but if you want to be taken seriously in your profanity, you need to stay away from kiddie curses like fuck a duck or fuck-a-doodle.”

Caydee giggled. “Fuck-a-doodle,” she said happily. “Me like that one.”

“Stay with me here, kid,” Matt told her.

“Okay,” she said.

“Let’s start basic,” Matt said. “You got your ‘fuck this’, ‘fuck that’, ‘what the fuck?’, and, of course, the all-time favorite, ‘fuck you’, although I’m not really sure why that’s considered a bad thing.”

“Huh?” Caydee asked.

“Never mind,” Matt told her. “Let hear you say them.”

“Fuck this, fuck that, what the fuck, fuck you,” she replied.

“Excellent,” Matt said, nodding in appreciation. “Practice those to start with and try to keep them in context. ‘Fuck this’, for instance, is to be used when you are doing something you don’t want to do and you are announcing that you are not going to do it anymore. ‘Fuck that’, by contrast, is to be used when someone suggests something you do not want to do and you are letting them know you are not going to do it. ‘What the fuck’ is to be used when someone says something stupid. And ‘fuck you’ is to be used as a general expression of discontent with another person.”

“Okay,” Caydee said, absorbing all of this like a student in a classroom.

“Let’s try an exercise here,” Matt said. “Your mom wants you to take a bath and you don’t want to. Which one do you use?”

“I like my baffs,” Caydee told him.

“Let’s say for the sake of argument that you don’t,” Matt said. “Which one?”

“Fuck that,” she said.

“Fuckin’ A,” Matt told her. “Now suppose Elsa sends you out to clean up all the bird shit on the deck. You start doing it and decide it sucks ass and you don’t want to do it anymore. Which one?”

“Fuck this,” Caydee said excitedly.

“Right again,” Matt said. “Now ... let’s see ... suppose that Nerdly starts blabbing some shit about the space-time continuum and you have no fuckin’ idea what he’s talking about.”

“What the fuck?” she said, a little less sure on this one.

“Right,” Matt said, impressed with her. “And suppose Kelvin gets here and starts spouting some shit you don’t agree with.”

“Like there’s no such thing as Santa?” she asked.

“Yeah, just like that,” Matt said.

“Fuck you,” Caydee said.

“That’s right, but it adds to the insult if you say his name after the ‘fuck you’, so he has no doubt that you’re talking to him. Makes it a personal insult.”

“Fuck you, Kelvin,” she said.

“Much better,” he said. “Practice those up and perfect them. The next time I’ll teach you about ‘fuck the government’, ‘fuck The Man’, and, one of my all-time favorites, ‘Jesus fucking Christ’.”

“Daddy says that all the time,” Caydee said.

“He learned it from me,” Matt told her. “I’m gonna go shoot some stick now. Remember to practice.”

“I will,” she promised. She gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Matt.”

“No problem,” Matt said, blushing a little at the affection. “I’m all about helping out the next fuckin’ generation.”

He got up and walked over to the bar, making himself a Jack and Coke and then carrying it over to the couch where Kim and Laura were sitting. “Hey, Kim,” he said. “You wanna take on the winners over there?”

“Sure,” she said brightly. “Did I just see Caydee give you a hug and a kiss?”

“Yeah,” he said dismissively. “I think she likes me. God knows why.”

“What were you two talking about?” Laura asked.

“Oh, this and that,” Matt said. “Vocabulary stuff mostly. She pretty fuckin’ smart for a three year old.”

“That she is,” Laura said proudly. “And she’s kind of a musical prodigy too. After dinner and happy cake, we’ll have her play I Am Time for you. She sounds just like you on the harmonica.”

“No shit?” Matt asked.

“No shit,” Laura replied.

Matt and Kim took on the Nerdlys for a couple of games of eight ball. They were both quite good at the game as they had a table in Matt’s house and practiced often. They were not as good as the Nerdlys though—who did not have a table in their house but did have superior knowledge of applicable geometry—and lost both games. Just as they watched the eight ball drop into the corner pocket, exactly where Mrs. Nerdly had called it, Jake, Pauline, Pauline’s kid, the Mexican bitch, some square looking motherfucker, and some skinny chink came walking in. Jake’s hot nanny suddenly appeared as well (Matt still did not believe that Jake and/or his old lady were not tapping her—no fuckin’ way was he buying that shit) a big smile on her face.

“Hey, Massa,” she said to the chink. “Glad you could make it.”

“Me too,” the chink said shyly and then the nanny gave him a big hug and a kiss on his cheek.

That bitch has got the hots for the chink, Matt thought. If he’s not boning her he’s either a dick smoker or a fuckin’ moron.

Everyone who already knew Matt and Kim greeted them. Introductions were then made for those who did not. The chink was named Massa Wu—weird fuckin’ name—and he was the violinist for Jake’s band. The square looking motherfucker was Ron Grover, a helicopter pilot who was the Mexican bitch’s boyfriend—how the fuck did this asshole manage to score some gash like that? He shook their hands and said it was nice to meet them (though it really wasn’t). The chink told him that he admired his guitar work. Matt thanked him politely (for Matt anyway).

“What happened to your tire?” Laura asked Jake.

“It was FOD,” Jake said.

“What the fuck’s a fod?” Matt asked.

“F-O-D,” Jake said. “Foreign object debris. Anything that could potentially do that is called FOD, like a noun, not to be confused with the other FOD, which is foreign object damage that is caused by the first FOD.”

“Does a Canadian goose qualify as FOD?” Valdez asked.

“A Canadian goose does indeed qualify,” Jake said with a smile. “And such a creature has been known to cause a good deal of the second FOD. In this case, the FOD—the first kind—was a three-eighths inch bolt. It was either on the runway or, more likely, on the taxiways or the tarmac. My nose wheel tire found it. When I did the walkaround before we started the return trip I could not help but notice the tire was going flat.”

“That’s why we do walkarounds,” the pilot who was boning Valdez said.

“Yep,” Jake agreed. “Cost eleven hundred dollars for the guys to pull it out and plug it for me.”

“Eleven hundred dollars?” Jake’s old lady exclaimed. “The tire store in SLO plugs tires for free.”

“It’s a little more complicated on an aircraft,” Jake explained. “They had to put the whole thing on a lift and remove the entire wheel. And that eleven hundred was just for a temporary repair. I’ll need to replace the entire tire as soon as possible. That’s gonna run a couple grand.”

“Don’t you have insurance on that fuckin’ thing?” Matt asked.

“I do,” Jake said. “The deductible is five thousand dollars.”

“What a rip,” Matt declared.

Jake shrugged. “It’s only money, right?”

“That’s what I used to think,” Matt said. “And look at me now.”

“Good point,” Jake said.

Everybody mingled around for a little bit. Pauline’s kid went over and hugged and kissed Caydee. They then started to chat. Pauline’s kid suggested they go outside and play on the deck. Caydee replied with “fuck that”. Matt smiled, proud of her.

“How are things going, Matt?” Pauline asked him. She now had a glass of wine in her hand. “Jake says you’re all getting along and being productive.”

“So far nobody has killed anyone else,” he said. “Yeah. We’re getting along. It’s almost like the old days. We still got it.”

“That’s good to know,” she said. “Jake says you’ll be ready to move your action into the recording studio on March 15?”

“That’s the plan,” he said. “We got eleven solid tunes. Five from me, six from Jake, and we’ve worked them up pretty good.”

“I never thought this was going to work when I was first told about it,” Pauline said.

“I had my fuckin’ doubts too,” Matt told her. “Especially when Freakboy started smoking dicks and taking it up the ass again.”

“That does tend to throw one for a loop, I suppose,” she allowed. “Give him a month or two. He’ll make the switch again.”

“I’m not sure which version is creepier.”

She nodded in sympathy. She often wondered that herself. “Anyway, as long as all of the voting members of KVA and all of the members of Intemperance are here today, what do say we have a little business meeting before dinner?”

“What kind of business meeting?” he asked warily.

“Since you’re all planning to go into the studio and start putting this CD together, it’s time we start putting things in writing. You know? How much of a cut of sales everyone is going to get.”

“Are you guys gonna try to fuck me?” he asked, his eyes glaring.

“No,” she said. “We’ve talked among ourselves and believe we’ve come up with a fair distribution of the revenue from sales of the CD.”

“Even though National doesn’t give a fuck about it?” he asked. Jake had briefed him on the meeting he and Pauline had had with the suits over at National. They did not give a rat’s ass about the Intemperance reunion CD, claiming that in this day and age, all people wanted was a tour from a reunited band like Intemp. Since it had been more than ten years since Intemp had broken up, it was not necessary to put out a reunion CD that no one was going to buy anyway and that radio stations would not play (except for a few token airings for a month or so). They wanted the classic Intemp in concert, not a bunch of new shit that would not hold up to the old shit. Of course, subsequent tours would require a token new CD to justify the outrageous ticket prices, but they got a free pass on the initial reunion.

“Even though they don’t give a fuck about it,” Pauline said, “they’ll still play ball with us as long as there will be a tour at some point. And they know they won’t lose any money on the deal since KVA is paying for the production, manufacturing, and distribution and they themselves will get around twenty percent royalties without actually laying down any money of their own.”

Matt nodded. “Makes sense,” he said. “You want me, Coop, and Freakboy to sign a contract with you then?”

“We do,” she said. “That’s how we do business. Do we want to work this thing out today, or wait for another day? You’ve been drinking and this is a business meeting. We’ll understand if you don’t want to do it now.”

“You swear to fuckin’ God you’re not trying to screw us?” Matt asked.

“I swear to fuckin’ God,” she promised.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s do this shit then.”

Pauline gave a nod to Jake, who was across the room sipping on a drink of his own. He then gathered up Charlie, Coop, Celia, and Nerdly. He pointed down the hall that led to the formal dining room. All five band members and the two ladies made the trek and then sat down at the dining room table. Pauline’s briefcase was already in there. She opened it and took out a few pieces of paper with figures printed on them.

“Okay, guys,” she said. “Everyone knows why we’re here, right?”

Coop, Charlie, and Celia all nodded. They had all been briefed by Jake or Pauline earlier. Matt nodded as well. “We’re here to talk contract for distribution of the money brought in by the new Intemp album,” he said. “I vote we just make it easy. We’re not fuckin’ greedy or nothin’. Subtract the royalties National will get and divide the rest by five and distribute it equally. Me, Coop, and Charlie each get one fifth of that amount. KVA fuckin’ Records gets the other two fifths. That’s pretty much what we did back in the day, minus Pauline’s cut anyway.”

“Uh ... no,” Jake said without even the briefest pause to think it over, “that’s not what we’re going to do.”

“Why the fuck not?” Matt demanded. “It’s fair, ain’t it?”

“No,” Pauline said, “it is not fair. KVA is funding the entire production of this CD, Matt. We bought and paid for the recording studio, the beds you have all been sleeping in, your food and booze. We’re paying for the technicians who will be helping us put things together, the security force that guards the Campus, the electricity that powers it, the accounting firm that keeps track of all of our finances. We will also be paying up front for the cost of manufacturing and distributing the CD and the vinyl copies. That is why simply dividing by five is not feasible. We would lose money that way. We are not in the business to lose money.”

“You’re losing money on your fuckin’ vineyards,” Matt countered.

“That is not a valid comparison, Matt,” Jake said. “It’s apples and oranges. Why don’t you listen to what we have in mind and we’ll go from there?”

Matt wanted to get pissed off and start yelling and cussing. He fought down the urge. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Let’s hear what you came up with.”

“Jill, Jake, and I put this together after our last meeting,” Pauline said. “We came up with what we believe is an extremely fair and generous distribution of profits from sales of Never Say Never that will allow everyone, including KVA, to rake it in in the manner we are all accustomed to. We’re not trying to screw anyone. We want you all to have your fair share, but we need to have our fair share as well. Remember, we are the ones who are paying for all of this. We are the label.”

“You went corporate on us,” Matt said bitterly. “I’m surprised you’re not wearing fuckin’ suits.”

“Be nice, Matt,” Jake warned. “If the terms we’re offering are not acceptable to you, there is nothing preventing us from shutting this whole thing down. After all, Celia wants to start putting together her next CD pretty soon and so does V-tach. It’s not like we would be hurting for projects without Never Say Never. In fact, this whole deal is slowing up our other projects because I am needed to produce those other CDs and Nerdly is needed to engineer them. While we’re working with Intemp, neither of us can do anything else.”

“And don’t forget the basic fact here, Matt,” Pauline put in. “We’re doing this to help you. You were the one who first suggested it. And we’re willing and able to help you, but we’re going to get our fair share of this thing and not operate in the red just to help you with your tax issues.”

“All right,” Matt said through gritted teeth. “Let’s hear what you got.”

“As I mentioned earlier,” Pauline said, “National Records, who we are most likely to do business with in this case because they already own the rights to the previous Intemp material and are most likely to accept a reasonable royalty rate for distribution in anticipation of a future tour contract with them, will likely get twenty percent royalties for using their promotion apparatus, even if they do not have faith in the sales of the project. We, KVA Records, are prepared to offer you, Matt, and you, Coop, and you, Charlie, thirty percent royalties on wholesale rate of the CDs and vinyl releases in perpetuity and the retention of song rights for any tune that you, Matt, wrote the lyrics to.”

Matt raised his eyebrows up. “Thirty percent?” he asked with a smile on his face now. “I can get behind that shit. Where do I fuckin’ sign?”

“That’s not thirty percent apiece,” Jake explained carefully. “It’s thirty percent divided among the three of you. If it was thirty percent apiece, that would add up to more than a hundred percent when you put in National’s share and leave KVA ten percent in the red. Not going to happen.”

Matt’s face fell. “Oh,” he said with a grunt. “Then thirty percent divided among the three of us means we only get ten percent apiece.”

“That is correct,” Pauline confirmed.

“How is that a good fuckin’ deal?” Matt demanded. “Ten percent it what fuckin’ National was giving us for our first contract!”

Jake massaged his temples for a moment. “Matt, that was ten percent divided among the five of us, not ten percent to each of us. What we’re offering is five times what you were making under the first Intemp contract and with no housing clauses or breakage fees or fuckin’ recoupables thrown in. That means, at a current wholesale rate of eleven dollars per CD, if we just go Platinum, you personally will make ... uh ... tell him what he’ll make, Nerdly.”

“Uhh ... one point one million dollars,” Nerdly said slowly, astonished that Jake could not do the math in his head.

“One point one million bones,” Jake said.

“That’s not that much,” Matt said.

“It’s not chump change,” Jake replied. “It’s enough to keep making your property tax payments and keep you in groceries and booze and cocaine until the tour revenue comes rolling in, isn’t it? And that’s assuming we only go Platinum. I think we’ll do a lot better than that.”

“The fuckin’ IRS and the fuckin’ FTB are going to take almost forty percent of that for taxes and shit. And then the IRS is going to also take half of the fuckin’ gross for those back taxes I owe. It ain’t shit. I need more.”

“We can’t give you any more, Matt,” Pauline said. “Not and still maintain our own profit margin.”

“The fuck you can’t,” he said. “KVA is taking fifty percent of the whole fuckin’ deal. You can give up a little bit more. Hand over forty percent instead of thirty and that extra ten goes to me because I’m the motherfucker writing half the tunes, coming up with the riffs, and the guitarist who people will want to fuckin’ hear playing on that CD and driving a good portion of the sales. I deserve that shit.”

Neither Coop nor Charlie disputed this statement.

Jake and Pauline and Nerdly all looked at each other for a moment. They passed around a collective shrug.

“Thirty-five percent,” Jake said. “The extra five goes to Matt. We absolutely will not go any higher than that. That’s starting to push our margins a little closer than we like.”

“Thirty-eight,” Matt countered.

Jake shook his head. “Thirty-five is as high as we will go,” he said firmly. “That is already above the hard ceiling we agreed to. Take it or leave it.”

Matt sighed. “I guess I’ll have to take it then,” he said. “Fuck a duck.”

Pauline promised she would have the actual written contract between Coop, Charlie, and Matt and the entity known as KVA Records by the time they had their first studio day. Matt asked if Jake had remembered to hire “some fuckin’ beaners” to move all their studio equipment from storage into the studio.

“Yes,” Jake said dryly. “I remembered to arrange for a labor force to move our equipment. They are both KVA employees who work on the vineyard maintenance staff. They’ll be getting time and a half for the gig and paid for a full four hours even if they can knock it out in two. They’ll do it on Saturday.”

“That shit will work,” Matt said, sidling up to the bar where he worked to refresh his Jack and Coke.

“You know, Matt,” Celia said, “people of Mexican descent find the word ‘beaner’ somewhat offensive when it comes out of a white mouth.”

“I don’t mean nothin’ by it,” Matt countered. “I like beaners. They’re about the hardest working motherfuckers on Earth. There ain’t no fuckin’ job too miserable or too fuckin’ hard for them. If it wasn’t for them, nobody would be able to get their fuckin’ lawn mowed, the fuckin’ golf courses would all go out of business because they’d be all overgrown and shit, and there would be fuckin’ leaves everywhere. They’d take over the fuckin’ city. Oh ... and who would work in the fuckin’ fast food places?”

Celia looked at him, her face without expression. “Forgive me,” she said, picking up the wine bottle. “I did not realize you were using ‘fuckin’ beaners’ as a term of respect and admiration.”

“Yeah, I am misunderstood sometimes,” Matt allowed.

Celia poured some wine into her glass and then walked over to where Laura was sitting on the floor and playing with Tabby, Kelvin, and Caydee. Ron the pilot was sitting on the couch behind them, watching, not contributing anything. Celia sat down on the floor with Laura and the children and began to play as well.

“What’s the deal with Valdez and that pilot geek?” Matt asked Jake.

“They’re dating,” Jake said, a hint of sourness in his voice.

“Well, no fuckin’ shit,” Matt replied. “What I mean, is how did a guy with the fuckin’ personality of a sea slug and a fifty K a year income fix it so he gets to play hide the salami with Valdez? It’s like a goddamn little league kid playing in the stadium with the fuckin’ Dodgers. Nice for the kid to fantasize about, but that shit don’t happen in real life.”

“In this case it did,” Jake said with a shrug. “Celia kind of picked him.”

Matt shook his head. “I don’t fuckin’ get it,” he said. “There is no way in hell that fuckin’ geek is better at hosing her down than you and your old lady.”

“I would agree,” Jake said, “but it seems that it is not all about sex.”

“That’s a scary fuckin’ thought,” Matt said with sincerity.

Meanwhile, Massa and Meghan were sitting on the other couch and talking softly to each other. They sat close together on the corner where the sectional made its ninety degree turn. Every once in a while Meghan would reach down and pat Massa’s leg when she was making a point or laughing at something he said. Massa would blush each time she did so.

“You still haven’t heard from Tif?” Meghan asked him carefully, referring to the ditzy but beautiful backup singer Jake had employed for his tour. She was so dumb that she actually believed she had to swallow sperm once a week or so to keep her vocal cords healthy. Out on tour, Massa had been her primary source of that sperm and that had led the two of them into a more advanced sexual affair.

“Not a thing since we came off tour,” Massa told her.

Meghan smiled in satisfaction. She had the major hots for Massa and did not want any competition for him. Even with no competition, however, he still seemed like he just wanted to keep their relationship at the friend level. “I guess she’s back doing sessions at the studio and finding her ointment in her traditional places.”

“I’m guessing so,” Massa agreed.

“Did you remember to bring your bathing suit like I told you?” she asked him.

“I did,” he said. “It’s in my travel bag in my room.” Massa had been assigned one of the guest bedrooms for his overnight stay.

“Cool. It’s a nice clear day. After dinner and happy cake, we’ll go out to the hot tub just before sunset so we can watch it. It’s one of my favorite things to do here.”

“Sounds like fun,” Massa said a little nervously, but determined. After all, he would get to see Meghan in a bathing suit again. He had the major hots for her but he realized that she only wanted to be friends with him. That was okay though. He did not have very many friends and he certainly did not have any other friend that he could think about while he masturbated. Meghan’s image in his brain had almost completely replaced internet porn in his life.

“How did it go?” Laura asked Celia from where they sat on the floor.

“We came to terms with him,” Celia told her. “He squeezed us for three percent more than our hard ceiling, but we’ll still make good profit as long as the CD at least goes Platinum.”

“Hmmph,” Laura grunted. “Part of me was hoping he would reject the deal.”

“Yeah, me too,” Celia said. “Now I need to find a new bass player and a new drummer to start my workups. And I’ll be delayed in getting into the recording studio for God knows how long.”

“Do you want me to be your sax player or are you going to use Miles again?” Laura asked.

“I’d love to have you, Teach,” she said, “but how would that work? Jake will be working with Intemp in Atascadero. I’ll be working in the studio in Santa Clarita. He’s not going to fly you down every morning and then pick you up at night during all of that, is he?”

“No,” she said, “but he can fly me down every Sunday night and pick me up every Friday night so I can stay the weekend at home and the week in Granada Hills.”

“Fuck that!” barked Caydee, who had overheard the conversation.

Laura looked at her in surprise. “I guess your opinion had been noted, little girl,” she said. “Where did you learn that phrase?”

“Matt taught me,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Of course he did,” she said with a sigh.

“Did me say it right?” Caydee asked. “‘Fuck that’ for something Caydee don’t wanna do. ‘Fuck this’ for something Caydee already doing but don’t wanna do no more.”

“Uh ... yes,” Laura said, “that was the correct context of the phrase. Please refrain from using it as much as possible however, particularly in front of Elsa, Grandma and Grampa, as well as Kelvin’s grandma and grampa.”

“Okay,” Caydee said with a shrug, “but me don’t want Mommy to go away for so long.”

“I know you don’t, Caydee girl, but Mommy has a job. What’s Mommy’s job?”

“Making moo-zik for the peoples,” Caydee said reluctantly.

“That’s right,” Laura said, “and See-Ya needs Mommy to make moo-zik for the peoples with her and that means I will have to be in nasty old LA for five days a week for a while.”

“Caydee go wif Mommy?” she asked hopefully.

“No, you can’t go with Mommy,” Laura told her. “You’ll stay with Meghan during the days and Daddy will take care of you at night. Mommy will be home on the weekends and we’ll have all day Saturday and most of Sunday together. And I bet you that Daddy will let you fly high in the sky with him when he drops me off in nasty old LA and then picks me up again on Fridays.”

“Meghan and Caydee come wif Mommy to nasty old LA?” she asked.

“Wouldn’t you miss Daddy if we did that?”

Her face scrunched up as she thought it over. “Yesss,” she said miserably.

“How about this?” Laura suddenly asked. “If Meghan agrees to it, we’ll fly you and her down for one week and then the next week you’ll stay here with Meghan and Daddy. How does that sound?”

She thought it over and then smiled a little. “Sounds okay,” she said.

“All right then,” Laura said. “I’ll ask Meghan the next time I talk to her.”

“I don’t think she’ll have a problem with that plan,” Celia suggested, pointing over to the couch where she and Massa were sitting. They were talking and laughing and Meghan was frequently touching his knee.

“Yeah,” Laura said, “I think you’re right.”

Massa Wu went into the bedroom he had been assigned and closed the door. It was a simple guest bedroom but it was still larger than his room in his apartment and it had a view of the ocean. He closed the blinds to hide that view for now and then opened his travel bag. He dug around inside and found his swimming trunks, which were baggy on him and fell almost to his knees. He undressed down to his bare ass, neatly folding his clothes and setting them on the elaborate footboard of the bed. He then pulled the trunks on and tied the string so they would not fall down. He rummaged a little more in the suitcase and pulled out his royal red robe that Meghan had also advised he should bring. He put the robe on and tied it around his waist. He was nervous about walking out through the entertainment room dressed like this.