Chapter 11: Moving Right Along

Heritage, California

March 24, 2001

His name was Zachary Kim Luc and he had been squished out of Jill Luc-Yamashito’s womb five days before at Kaiser South Heritage Hospital. A perfect baby boy, seven pounds, eight ounces, twenty-two inches in length, with ten fingers, ten toes, a little whanger and testicles, and a mop of straight black hair on his head. His name was a compromise between his mother and father. In Jill’s family it was traditional to give children American names since they lived in and were citizens of America. In Jae’s family they liked to honor grandparents. And so, Zachary Kim (who was already being called Zack by everyone except his grandparents) was given his handle to carry through life.

Jake, Laura, Pauline, and the Nerdlys were in Jill and Jae’s home in the Pocket neighborhood of Heritage city while Caydee, Tabby, and Kelvin were hanging out with their grandparents not far away. Little Zack was being passed around like a joint from person to person, all getting their fix of holding a newborn.

“And please,” said Jill, who looked pretty tired and haggard as she sat in a rocking chair, “no profanity in front of him.”

“Is that remark directed at me?” Jake asked innocently. It was his turn to hold the baby and he was looking down at his big brown eyes as he fussed and squirmed in his arms. It was hard to believe that Caydee had once been this tiny.

“It’s directed at everyone who has a last name that starts with a K,” she said. “I will not have my son grow up learning how to properly use vulgar expletives.”

“Would you rather he learn them improperly?” Pauline asked with a smile.

“We would rather he not learn them at all,” Jill said.

“Understood,” Jake said, “and we will respect your wishes. He’ll just have to learn them in elementary school like everyone else and then figure out the context from there.”

“We appreciate that,” Jill said.

“Anything for my twin,” Jake said.

“My turn,” Laura said, holding out her arms.

“All right,” Jake said, passing him over. “I need to get my birds in the oven anyway.”

As promised, Jake was feeding everyone for the visit. He had brought three farm-fresh roasting chickens he had picked up from one of the ranch owners near the studio and a half a gallon of Elsa’s homemade potato salad (without the bacon bits in it in deference to the mostly kosher Nerdlys). He also had some zucchini and butternut squash he was going to roast and a couple of coconut cream pies for dessert. Jae, who was drinking a glass of the white wine that Jake had brought, followed him into the kitchen to keep him company while he prepped.

“It’s kind of a radical change in life suddenly having an infant, isn’t it?” Jake asked him.

Jae nodded dramatically. “I think I’ve slept no more than eight hours since we brought him home,” he said in his thick Korean accent. “Jill has slept even less. We thought we were prepared for having a baby. We were not.”

“I remember those days,” Jake said. “We were in the recording studio during them, trying to put together two CDs. Caydee used to come with us and we’d keep passing her around. At night, she wouldn’t sleep more than two hours at a time—and that was if we were lucky. I need a pair of scissors, where do you keep them?”

“In the drawer next to the dishwasher,” Jae told him.

Jake opened the drawer and found the scissors. He then asked for the biggest roasting pan they had. He was directed to the cabinet in the kitchen island where he found a pan big enough to roast a twenty-five pound turkey. “This will do,” he said, pulling it out and putting it up on the island. “How’s the Chancellor doing?” he asked as he used the scissors to cut open the heavy duty freezer bags the chickens were stored in. Jae and Jill had first met when Jae became interested in buying Jake’s Chancellor after Jake bought the Avanti. It was the airplane purchase that had brought them together.

“It’s in the hangar at Heritage Executive,” Jae said. “I haven’t flown it in almost a month now. Jill couldn’t sit in the cockpit after her stomach got big with Zack and I didn’t have any business trips I needed it for. I will have to take it down to Fresno County when I go back to work to check on the progress of a casino we’re building there. I am looking forward to it just for the flight.”

“Fresno, huh?” Jake said. “I’ve flown into FAT before when we were visiting Yosemite and Sequoia. Nice airport. Can be a little busy at times.”

“I have flown in and out of there a few times now,” Jae said. “It always makes me nervous landing at an airport that airliners use.”

“I can relate to that,” Jake said. “My very first solo flight in the Avanti was from Bogota to Simon Bolivar International in Caracas. That’s the busiest airport in Venezuela. That was nerve-wracking.” He put the chickens in the pan and opened up a bag of rub that he had made. He began to dump it on the skin of the birds so he could rub it in.

“That sounds terrifying,” Jae said.

“My butt was puckering a little as I brought us in,” Jake admitted. “I was more nervous doing that than I was after the bird strike Celia and I had in Portland. At least after the goose creamed us I was landing at a familiar place without having to worry about squeezing in between two airliners on final approach.”

“Why did you have to land there?” Jae asked. “Are there not other international airports you could have cleared customs at?”

“Nope,” Jake said. “I was entering their country for the first time in an aircraft that had been flagged for scrutiny. When I applied for the permit to enter the country I was directed to land nowhere but Simon Bolivar.”

“Why was the aircraft flagged?”

“Jill never told you this story?” Jake asked, surprised.

“I do not believe so.”

“The dude who owned the Avanti before me is named Eduardo Gomez. Apparently he imports and exports a little bit more than just coffee and electronics.”

“You bought your plane from a drug dealer?” Jae asked, amazed.

“Alleged drug dealer,” Jake corrected. “We got lots of scrutiny on the way home. We hopped from Colombia to Venezuela to Panama to Costa Rica to Mexico and then to San Diego. At every stop there were armed customs agents with dogs there to meet us. They all went through our baggage—paying particular attention to Laura’s panties—and then thoroughly searched the airplane before they would stamp our passports.”

Jae was fascinated by the story. “You have a very interesting life, Jake,” he said.

“I’ve been told that,” Jake replied, continuing to rub his chickens. “Can you turn on the oven to three-fifty please?”

Jae turned on the oven. From out in the living room came the sound of a shrill cry.

“That’s the hungry cry,” Jake said. “I remember it well. Time to break out a boob.”

“You can tell he’s hungry from the cry?” Jae asked, wondering if Jake was just fucking with him.

“You’ll pick up on it after a few more days,” Jake told him. “There’s the hungry cry, the dirty diaper cry, the I want someone to hold and rock me cry, and then there’s the cry for no discernable reason. The old I just want y’all to know I exist and this is how I communicate cry.”

“Wow,” Jae said, fascinated that his son was already speaking a language of sorts.

“I know Jill doesn’t speak Japanese, but are you going to teach Zack Korean?”

“We’ve talked about it,” Jae said. “That is the best time to learn a second language, while you are still learning the first language. It never hurts to be bilingual.”

The sound of the crying baby faded as he was carried away down the hall. A door closed and it became fainter. A minute later, it disappeared entirely as a nipple was undoubtedly shoved into his mouth.

“Do you think you and Laura will have any more children?” Jae asked.

Jake shrugged. “We’ve talked about it a few times,” he said. “We haven’t ruled the idea out but we’re both too busy to go through the whole pregnancy and taking care of an infant thing right now. Caydee is quite a handful as it is. Maybe when things settle down a little, after we get the Intemperance reunion and the tour done, we’ll talk about it again.”

“When she was in labor, Jill told me she was never having sex with me again, so I guess we’ll have to stick with only one,” Jae said sadly.

“I’m sure she didn’t mean that, Jae,” Jake told him.

“She seemed quite serious at the time,” he replied.

“Give her four or five weeks,” Jake said. “Those hormones will kick back into gear and you’ll be in like Flynn.”

“I hope so,” the engineer said. “Anyway, I don’t know how people with twins or triplets do it. One is hard enough. Imagine three of them at once.”

“No thank you,” Jake said with utmost sincerity.

Dinner was fantastic. There was very little left of the three chickens after the group got done with them. Jake, Laura, Pauline, Celia, and the Nerdlys, as promised, cleaned up the entire kitchen and washed all of the dishes after dessert was finished. Jill would not let them throw away the chicken carcasses. She wanted to boil them down for homemade broth.

Before leaving, Jake and Laura reviewed and then signed their 2000 tax return documents. As a couple, they had earned a net income of $23,418,912 during the course of the previous year, the vast majority of that their cut of KVA Records LLC’s earnings (a decent portion of that amount was actually still sitting in KVA’s accounts but the owners were responsible for paying taxes on it whether it was distributed or not). Since there was ongoing construction and other expenses related to the Campus, all of which were deductible at the rate of one quarter of the expenses for each owner of the LLC, and since KVA had paid a considerable amount to help finance both Jake’s and Matt’s touring responsibilities, and there was a considerable amount of KVA related business travel and housing expenses, the Kingsley’s had only been responsible for $5,854,728 in federal income tax and $1,873,513 in state income tax. Jill had figured what the Kingsley’s would owe over the course of the year with her usual wizardry and the quarterly tax payments to both the feds and the state had covered those amounts quite closely. They would be getting $10,812 back from the feds and owed $3,258 to the state. She would file both returns, send the check out the next business day, and the books would be balanced for the Kingsleys until the next year.

They bade the Lucs farewell and told Jill they would see her at the next quarterly meeting in mid-April. It would be held at Jake’s house this time and Jill was told she was welcome to bring Jae and Zack with her and stay in one of the guest rooms. She said she would think about it, unsure how she was going to feel about either leaving her son behind for two days or subjecting him to his first airplane ride and business trip at four weeks of age. Hugs and handshakes were exchanged and the travelers climbed into the two rental cars and headed back to the foothills and the Kingsley-Archer compound where they would all be staying the night. Pauline, Jake, Tabby, and Caydee would be staying with the Kingsleys while Celia and the Nerdly family would stay with the Archers.

All three children had been swimming most of the day even though the weather was still a bit on the cool side for it (the pool was heated and the heater had been turned on two days before the visit). As such, all of them were exhausted and barely made it through guitar and sing time. Caydee and Tabby shared a bed in the smaller of the guest rooms and were asleep even before the story was read. Kelvin had to be carried back to the Archer house by his mother. The Kingsley adults then stayed up a bit longer and drank some beer.

“It’s good to see you active and looking healthy again, Jake,” his mother told him.

“I’m still not all the way back,” Jake replied. “I’m off the antibiotics now and the doc says the MRSA infection appears to be gone at this point, but my stamina and my energy are still not what they used to be. After a day of workups, in which I spend most of my time just sitting in a chair and playing and singing, I’m exhausted. I can barely make it past dinner. And on the weekends I spend most of the day sleeping. Stairs and inclines are still a bitch too.”

“Do the doctors think you’re eventually going to get it all back?” Tom asked.

“They don’t like to answer that question,” Jake said. “They keep saying things like ‘it’ll be a long road’ and ‘it’ll take a lot of work on your part’ and ‘sometimes you just have to accept that your body is not the same as it used to be’.”

“That’s rather disheartening,” Mary said.

“No kidding,” Jake said, taking a sip of his beer. “I’m going to show them what I’m made of though. I’ve started going for walks, just around the property for now because I’m not quite ready to walk down the hill to the beach and then back up again. And I’ve started lifting some weights in the gym room. Not as much as I used to be able to lift—hell, Laura can outlift me right now on the right handed curls and the free weights—but it’s getting a little better each day. Hopefully, my stamina will continue to get better too.”

“You’re able to make music with the band though?” Tom asked.

“Like I said, I come home exhausted every day, but I’m holding my own. We just switched from the rehearsal studio to the recording studio on Thursday. We spent Thursday and Friday setting up and dialing in—you remember how that is with the Nerdlys in charge, right, Mom?”

“Indeed, I do,” she said, shaking her head a little.

“It was hell,” Jake said, “but we got it done. We’ll be ready to start laying down the basic rhythm tracks on Monday. We’ll see how it goes at that point. A lot more standing and moving around involved in recording.”

“You’ll get through it, son,” Mary said. “You’re strong and resilient.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Celia mentioned at lunch that you were going to play sax for her again, Laura,” Mary said to her daughter-in-law.

“That’s the plan,” Laura said. “She’s in the process of auditioning some National studio musicians for the drummer and bass player positions. Once they’re onboard I’ll start joining her in Santa Clarita to help her get her new tunes up and running.”

“How is that going to work?” Tom asked. “Are you going to have Jake fly you there every morning and then pick you up every night?”

“No, that wouldn’t be very practical,” Laura replied. “We’ve worked out how we’ll do it. Jake will fly me down every Sunday night and then pick me up every Friday afternoon. One week Caydee will stay in Oceano and Meghan will take care of her while Jake is in the studio. The following week, Meghan and Caydee will fly to LA with me and Meghan will take care of her in the Granada Hills house while I’m working.”

“That sounds rather complex,” Mary said.

Laura shrugged. “It’s what you have to do when your job is making moo-zik for the peoples.”

“It’s a lot better than having one of us out on tour while the other stays home,” Jake said.

“Very true,” Laura said.

Mary seemed hesitant for a moment and then asked, “How are Celia and her pilot boyfriend doing?”

“They’re still hanging in there,” Jake said with a shrug.

“I’m not sure how though,” Laura said, perhaps a bit of bitterness in her tone.

“Why do you say that?” Mary asked.

“They have absolutely nothing in common,” Laura said. “He’s a right wing conservative who listens to country music and doesn’t even own one of her CDs. He has no real sense of humor and is kind of a dud at get-togethers.”

“Celia obviously sees something in him that you do not,” Mary said.

Laura shrugged this time. “I suppose,” she said.

“He’s a nice enough guy,” Jake put in, “but it really does seem to be an unlikely romance at best.”

“It would seem that maybe Celia knows what’s best for her better than the two of you?” Mary suggested.

Jake nodded his head thoughtfully. “Maybe,” he allowed.

On April Fools Day, the first Sunday of the month, Jake flew Laura to Whiteman for her first five-day stay in Granada Hills. Celia had finally secured a bass player and a drummer. The core of the band, including Laura, would start workups the next morning. They took off from SLO Regional at 7:05 PM, after having enjoyed a nice steak dinner that Jake had made for them. They landed at 7:33 PM, just a few minutes after the sun had set in the west. Jake parked the plane in the transient aircraft parking but did not tie it down. He would not be staying long. He then made the walk to the hangar and got his Ford F-150 from it and drove it back to the plane.

In the cargo compartment of the aircraft was a large plastic crate Laura had bought at Costco. It was full of food supplies for her outing. There were ten pre-made frozen dinners in Tupperware, a few cartons of eggs, some sausages, a few packs of bacon, milk, cheese, onions, peppers, and other things that could be converted into breakfast. Jake had given Laura a crash course on making scrambles and omelets and she was confident she could pull it off. There was also ten bottles of wine—five red and five white—and an eighth of an ounce of high grade marijuana. The two of them hefted the box together and carried it to the back of the truck and pushed it up against the back of the cab. Jake then secured it using bungee cords.

“You’re sure C is going to be there to help you unload?” Jake asked.

“She texted me while we were having dinner that she was on the way from Malibu,” Laura said. “I’m sure she’s there by now.”

“Okay,” he said, “but if she’s not, don’t try to carry it in yourself. Wait for her.”

“I will,” she promised. She then got her travel bag and her two saxophone cases and tossed them into the back seat.

“I’m gonna miss you, hon,” Jake told her.

“I’m gonna miss you, too,” she said, “but it’s only for five days. That’s not so bad, right?”

“Right,” he said. “Give me some love.”

They hugged and kissed deeply for the better part of a minute. Laura then climbed into the cab of the truck and started the engine. She gave him one last wave and then drove away, heading for Granada Hills. Jake watched her go and then began prepping the aircraft for the return flight. He expected to be back in his own house and sipping a drink by 9:00 PM.

The garage was not big enough to accommodate Jake’s truck so Laura parked in the driveway when she arrived. Celia’s Mercedes was already parked on the right side of the driveway. The motion sensor driveway and porch lights came on when she pulled in. She grabbed her travel bag and her two saxophones and walked up to the front door. Since she was carrying too much of a load to use her keys, she pushed the doorbell button using her elbow. Celia opened the door about twenty seconds later. She was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, her hair down.

“Hey, Teach,” she said with smile. “Welcome to your house.”

“Thanks,” Laura said. “Can you give me a hand with some of this stuff?”

“Sure,” Celia said, relieving her of the sax cases.

She set the cases down in the formal living room while Laura carried her travel bag to the master bedroom and tossed it on the bed. They then went out and untied the crate and muscled it into the house, setting it down on the kitchen island. They began to unload it and put it away.

“What’s with all the eggs and cheese and stuff?” Celia asked.

“I’m going to make us breakfasts in the mornings,” Laura said.

“You?” Celia asked, quite dubiously. “You don’t cook.”

“Jake taught me how to make scrambles and omelets,” she said. “Don’t knock ‘em until you try ‘em.”

“All right,” she said, “but I retain the right to knock it if it’s knockworthy, right?”

“Deal,” Laura said.

The frozen dinners were on the bottom. Celia looked at them with delight. Each one had been prepared by Elsa and had a set of printed instructions on how to reheat them. “Score!” Celia said. “Are these for anyone? I only had a bagel with cream cheese for dinner and I’m starving.”

“Sure,” Laura said. “That’s what they’re for. There are five for each of us.”

“Mmm, chicken parm,” Celia said, grabbing that one. She quickly read the directions and then popped it into the microwave for seven minutes, the lid opened but resting at an angle atop the tray itself to avoid splatter.

Laura finished putting away the rest of the meals in the freezer. She then gathered up the white wine so she could take it to the wine refrigerator. “Why don’t you open a bottle of red while you’re waiting,” she suggested.

“I’m on it,” Celia said.

They sat in the dining nook in the kitchen. Celia ate her chicken parmesan meal and both of them sipped red wine. They talked of girl things during this—Caydee antics, shopping trips they wanted to take, when they would be getting their hair done next, menstrual cramps and bloating—basking in their friendship with each other.

“So, tell me about the new bass player and drummer,” Laura said after Celia rinsed out her Tupperware and put it in the dishwasher.

Celia poured another glass of wine for each of them. “They’re okay,” she said. “At least that was my impression. They’re from National so it goes without saying that they’re ass-sucking moles—as Jake would put it—but I think they’ll get us through.”

“Do they have any touring experience?”

She shook her head. “They’re both pretty young. Jason, the drummer is only twenty-six. Mark, the bassist is twenty-seven. Both have been studio musicians for the past five years, working mostly on music scores and commercials and things like that. They were both in bands in their earlier years but none that ever toured.”

“Do they smoke ganja?” Laura asked.

“I didn’t ask them that,” Celia said.

“You should have.”

“How come?”

“I don’t think I would trust a musician who doesn’t smoke pot,” she said. “It’s unnatural. Massa’s about the only one I know but he’s allergic to it so it doesn’t count.”

“I’ll remember that in the next auditions,” Celia said with a little shake of the head.

They took the bottle of wine and moved into the entertainment room. Celia turned on one of the progressive rock stations and set the volume to low.

“I’m gonna go change into my jammies,” Laura announced.

“Good idea,” Celia said. “I’ll do the same.”

Laura went to her room. She did not open her travel bag. She had a fairly complete wardrobe of various clothes in her closet here, as well as basic toiletries in the master bath. She stripped down to her panties, throwing all of her discarded clothes into the hamper for later laundering (which she would have to do herself, she thought with a good natured sigh) and then pulled one of her long t-shirts out of the dresser drawer. It was light blue and had a picture of a happy duck on it. She pulled it over her head, where it fell to just above her knees, and then put on a pair of fuzzy green socks to keep her feet warm.

She walked back out to the living room just as Celia emerged from her own room. She was a fan of traditional pajamas and was wearing a royal blue pair that looked silky and quite comfortable. The tops were sleeveless and it was apparent she had removed her bra. The bottoms were knicker style and fell to mid-calf. On her feet were a pair of orange slippers with kitten faces on the front. Laura looked at the bounce of her boobs for a moment and felt a wave of nostalgic lust shooting through her. She pushed it aside.

“Any interest in a little burn with our wine?” Laura asked.

Celia thought it over for a moment and then shrugged. “What the hell?” she said. “Let’s do it.”

They did it, stepping out into the back yard with glasses of wine, a pipe, and Laura’s bag of ganja. They sat in the chairs and looked out over the San Fernando Valley at night. It was reasonably clear and pleasant, with no breeze blowing, the stars shining, the lights of the valley and the traffic on the freeways clearly visible. Laura stuffed the pipe full of Humboldt county bud and fired it up with a disposable lighter. She and Celia passed the pipe back and forth until it was gone, each getting three hits apiece.

“Good shit,” Celia said, a smile on her face, as she felt the THC going to her brain.

“It’s the only way to fly,” Laura said, a smile of her own on her face.

“A few of your neighbors were checking me out when I moved my stuff in,” Celia said.

“Oh yeah?”

Celia nodded. “There were a few of the women at the mailbox, having a little hen chat. They watched me carry in my guitar cases. I could tell by the way they were chattering and trying not to look like they were looking that they recognized me.”

“That should get the gossip flowing around here,” Laura said. “As far as Jake and I know, they have no idea who we actually are. Everyone who lives up here is too old to be an Intemperance or even a Jake Kingsley fan. They probably like your stuff though. You edge into the over 54 demographic.”

“Hopefully they won’t object as much as when Matt Tisdale was staying here,” Celia said.

Laura giggled. “That would be pretty much impossible. I can only imagine the stories that were flying around when he was here.”

“How many times did they call the cops out here back then?”

“Five that we know of,” Laura said.

This gave both of them the giggles, though they could not say what was so funny about it. It had been rather stressful at the time.

“How is Ron doing?” Laura asked when the laughter died out. She kept her voice deliberately neutral.

“He’s kind of bummed that I’m going back to work,” she said. “This is the first time in our relationship that he’s had to deal with me doing that. He kind of got accustomed to staying at my place on his days off.”

“He’s welcome to stay here as much as he wants,” Laura forced herself to say with a smile. “It’s only ... what ... a half hour drive to Santa Monica airport from here?”

Celia shook her head (instantly gladdening Laura’s heart). “It would be pointless,” she said. “Remember? He won’t sleep in the same room as me in a guest’s house. He wouldn’t even have sex with me if you were here.”

“He’s got a little bit of a stick up his ass, doesn’t he?” Laura asked, using a Jake-ism thanks to her alcohol and marijuana loosened lips.

Celia was not offended, however. “Yeah, kind of,” she said. “He was brought up in a conservative Christian family and then spent six years in the military. It kind of goes with the territory I guess.”

“Are you sure he’s the right guy for you?” Laura asked gently.

Celia gave a little melancholy smile. “I’m not sure of anything,” she said, “but he’s the guy I have now. We get along. We don’t have a lot in common, true, but I enjoy being in his company and he enjoys being in mine.”

“Not exactly something you would put on a Hallmark card,” Laura pointed out.

Celia nodded. “I suppose,” she said, “but we’ve only been going out a few months. We’re still getting to know each other.”

“Well, I hope it works out for you,” Laura said, even managing to sound sincere.

“Yeah,” Celia replied. “Me too.”

Laura’s southwest scramble the next morning was not that bad. It was nowhere near what Elsa or even Jake could produce, but it was not burned or overcooked, it tasted reasonably good, and it (plus the toast that Celia had made) filled the holes in their bellies. After cleaning up the kitchen, the two of them climbed into Celia’s Mercedes and made the ten minute drive to the KVA Records office in Santa Clarita, arriving there at five minutes to nine. They carried their instrument cases inside and put them down in the studio room.

Everyone was present and accounted for by nine o’clock. Since Natalie was currently pregnant, Eric Pale would be playing violin for them. Liz was at the keyboards again and Little Stevie was on the lead guitar. The two new musicians were Jason Lavelle on the drums and Mark Valentine on the bass. Lavelle was a short, skinny man with a smoothly shaven head and a coarse black beard and mustache. His arms were heavily tattooed. Valentine, by contrast, was a huge man, standing about six foot six and weighing on or about three hundred pounds. He had greasy brown hair and several days’ worth of stubble on his face. He had a few tats on his arms and a stomach that bulged over the top of his waistline.

Celia introduced the two newbies to the rest of the band. Hands were shaken and “nice to meet you”’s were exchanged. Laura then hugged all of the other band members. She had not seen them in a while.

“Do you two know each other?” Laura asked the two newbies while they were getting their instruments unpacked.

“Uh ... yeah,” Jason said, hefting a snare drum out of a case. “We’ve played together a few times in the studio.” Mark nodded his agreement with this, seemingly intimidated by her.

“Do you guys smoke pot?” she asked them.

They both looked at her as if this was a trick question. Neither answered, they just stammered.

“Every once in a while we like to flame a bowl after the Friday practice,” Laura told them, looking them up and down. “Just wanted to know if you were in or not.” This was not true, as she would have to drive to the airport after Friday practices, sometimes with her daughter in the car, but she needed to know.