Chapter 16: Waiting on the World to Change

Atascadero, California

July 20, 2001

“Here comes another one,” said Jordan Swenson, one of the day shift security guards that protected The Campus from intruders. He was assigned to the gate that guarded access to the sprawling former winery that was now a recording studio. It was 9:45 on this fine summer morning in inland San Luis Obispo County and he was looking down the access road toward Highway 101, where a black Lexus sedan was slowly approaching the gate.

Colton Brown, who was the day shift security supervisor for The Campus, sighed wearily. It was undoubtedly another reporter of some sort. That would make it the fifth one to come calling since the members of Intemperance and Celia Valdez and her band had arrived nearly an hour before. And before that, the security team, the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Department, and the California Highway Patrol had chased an entire gaggle of such reporters and news crews off of The Campus property and away from the turn-in to the access road of Highway 101. “Yep,” he said, shaking his head a little.

The Lexus pulled up to the guard booth and came to a halt. It’s driver side window rolled down, revealing a middle-aged man with curly black hair and glasses. He had a look of arrogance on his face.

“Can I help you?” Jordan asked politely.

“Jack Kaylor,” the man said, “Los Angeles Times.” He tried to hand over a business card.

“I believe you,” Jordan said, not taking it. “How can I help you today, Mr. Kaylor?”

“I need to go up to the studio building so I can interview either Jake Kingsley or Laura Kingsley or both,” he said simply, as if it was his God-given right to do so.

“I’m afraid that is not possible,” Jordan told him. “We have been instructed to allow no visitors onto the campus for any reason.”

“But I’m a reporter with the LA Times,” Kaylor said.

“And you are also a visitor,” Jordan told him, “and therefore fall under the umbrella of who we are not to allow in.”

“I drove all the way here from Los Angeles for this interview,” Kaylor said firmly.

“That is a long drive,” Jordan allowed, “but you are still not allowed onto the campus.”

“I want to speak to your supervisor,” Kaylor said.

“You got it,” Jordan said. He then stepped aside.

Colton stepped to the window. “I’m Colton Brown,” he said, “day shift supervisor for the security force here. You need to turn your vehicle around and leave the property right now.”

“You can’t make a decision like that,” Kaylor accused.

“Actually, it’s not a decision,” Colton told him, “it’s an order that I received and I am following it.”

“I want to talk to your supervisor,” the reporter said.

“My supervisor is Jake Kingsley himself,” Colton said, though this was not strictly true, there were several other links in the chain of command between Kingsley and him, but he had been instructed in how to respond in this situation, “and he is the one who instructed me that no visitors were allowed admittance to the campus. And he specifically emphasized that reporters or media personnel of any kind were included in that designation.”

“I want you to call him and tell him who I am and who I work for,” Kaylor insisted.

“I am not going to do that,” Colton said. “Now, I need you to back your car into that turnout behind you and leave the property.”

“I am not going anywhere without talking to Jake Kingsley.”

Colton sighed. “Then I will be forced to call the sheriff’s department and have them remove you from the property and issue a trespassing notice.”

“They wouldn’t respond out here for something like that,” the reporter scoffed.

“They have already done so twice this morning and six times yesterday,” Colton told him, quite truthfully this time. “And each time we call them out here they’re a little more irritated. So, if you want to deal with some really cranky cops, you go ahead and stay right there. Otherwise, please back into the turnout and leave the property immediately.”

Kaylor apparently decided that Colton was not bluffing him about the cops. He did not leave right away though. First he tried to bribe the two guards with a twenty dollar bill, which did nothing but insult them.

“Twenty dollars?” Colton asked. “Twenty? Seriously? That’s the best you can do? That would be ten bucks for each of us. That’s pathetic! Get your car off of this campus right now or I’m calling the sheriff’s department. And believe me, when they know Jake Kingsley is involved, they show up PDQ.”

The reporter sighed. “How much will it take for you to let me in there?” he asked, pulling out his wallet.

“There is no amount you can offer that will get you that,” Colton said, “but if you’re going to try to bribe someone to look the other way, you need to offer a hell of a lot more than twenty bucks that will be split between two people. Now, off the campus, please, or the boys and girls in green and khaki are going to get involved.”

Kaylor left the campus in a huff, turning right onto Highway 101, presumably to head back to San Luis Obispo.

“What an arrogant prick,” Jordan said, shaking his head.

“He was the worst of them so far,” Colton agreed. “At least he left though.”

“How long do you think this shit is going to go on?”

Colton shrugged. “Who knows? They seem really hot to talk to the boss about why he and his old lady are getting divorced. They probably won’t lose interest for a few months at the very least.”

The story of the ending of Jake and Laura Kingsley’s marriage had broken a few days before. The filing of the divorce had occurred in the San Luis Obispo County Superior Court on Monday morning. On Tuesday morning, it was the headline in the San Luis Obispo Register. On Wednesday morning, it was reported on the front pages of newspapers all over the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. On Thursday—yesterday—the reporters started showing up, both at The Campus and at Jake Kingsley’s home, where it was reported that he and Laura Kingsley were still living together with their child and were still commuting to work here at The Campus in the same car. It was also reported that Celia Valdez was always riding with them. Colton and all of the other guards who worked The Campus knew this to be true information. After all, the three of them habitually arrived in Jake’s Lincoln Navigator together every morning and it certainly did not seem like Jake and Laura were a couple going through a divorce. It was extremely likely, in fact, that this information had been provided to a reporter by one of the guard force. Confidential information that only a member of the security force would know had been leaked on more than one occasion. Nobody knew who the mole was, or if there was more than one of them, but it was clear that they had at least one.

“What do you think is really going on with them?” asked Jordan, who was not the mole, but was a close friend of his supervisor (who was also not the mole) and often socialized with him during off hours. The guards all spoke with Jake, Laura, Celia, and most of the other musicians frequently when they were checking in, checking out, or strolling around The Campus during the day to day operations. Jake and his wife and the beautiful Venezuelan singer were all friendly and talkative with the guards, insisting upon being called by their first names, often asking them about their lives, their families, how they were doing on their respective journeys through life. All of them liked the couple they worked for quite well (though they were more than a little put off by Charlie the bass player, and more than a little nervous around Matt Tisdale).

“No fuckin’ idea,” Colton said. “There were reports in the papers a few years back that Laura likes to chow down on sushi on occasion and that she and Jake were getting it on with Celia.”

“I remember those reports,” Jordan said. “All three of them denied them at the time.”

Colton shrugged. “Maybe there’s some truth there. The three of them seem awfully close to each other.”

“Why would Jake and Laura get divorced though? That doesn’t make sense if the three of them are already doing it to each other. What would be the point?”

“Fucked if I know,” Colton said. “These celebrities are a breed onto themselves. They don’t live in the same universe as you and me.”

“That is true,” Jordan agreed. He then grinned. “Can you imagine if it’s true though? Jake gets to fuck his old lady and Celia Valdez at the same time? That’s some hot shit, bro.”

“Yeah,” Colton said, imagining it, “it really is, especially if Jake gets to watch the two of them doing each other.”

“Damn,” Jordan whispered as that mental image appeared in his brain. He then shook his head. “I’m not buying it though. Nobody is that lucky in life. Not even Jake Kingsley.”

Meanwhile, inside the recording studio where Intemperance was at work, a disagreement was taking place. “I like the tune the way it fuckin’ is,” Matt told Jake and the Nerdlys. His voice was firm but not hostile. For Matt, this was true maturity being displayed.

“We need a complete layer of unsynchronized transitional chords on every changeover segment,” Nerdly insisted. “Without this, the piece sounds raw and unrefined.”

“That’s how it’s supposed to sound,” Matt shot back. “This is classic Intemperance shit we’re talking here. The way our tunes sounded back in the club days.”

“We’ve evolved quite a bit since the club days, Matt,” Jake told him. He agreed with the Nerdlys that refinement of the underlying riff and changeovers was needed to make the tune sound better.

The tune in question was called Uphill Battle. It was one of Matt’s tunes and it was a good one, a tune about the struggles they had all been through over the years to make it as a rock band and finally reach the top. When Jake sang it, he sang it with true emotion because the gritty, realistic lyrics hit home. And Matt was right. It did sound very reminiscent of early pre-discovery Intemperance, back before they even knew about overdubs and double tracking and mixing and mastering. It sounded just like a tune they would have played in the clubs, only with harder-hitting, more mature lyrics.

“Yes, we’ve fuckin’ evolved,” Matt said. “I acknowledge that shit and have been going along with all the overdubs on the other tunes without too much bitching, haven’t I?”

Jake, Nerdly, and Sharon all looked at each other and then nodded. “Yeah, you actually have,” Jake admitted.

“I get the overdubbing and polishing shit,” Matt said. “Really I do. But this tune is not the place for that. I want this tune to sound like our club days. I want it to be unrefined. It’s a fuckin’ tribute to those days. Don’t you get that shit? It’s about how we fought and struggled uphill to get where the fuck we are now. I know you have the ultimate say in this shit, Jake, and if you pull rank on my ass, I’ll go along with you, but I truly want this tune to be raw because it fits with the fuckin’ theme.”

Jake thought this over for a few moments. What Matt was saying actually made sense and triggered an emotional response in him. He remembered the club days with fondness. Yes, they had been dirt poor, less than dirt poor even, but those had been some of the best times of his life. Driving in a beat up van all over the Heritage and Sacramento areas to play one hour gigs for five hundred bucks. Trying out new tunes they had worked up and getting to see how the small audiences responded to them. Drinking beer and picking up groupies after the shows. Going back to Matt’s place to party with said groupies and getting outrageously drunk and stoned. Those had been some of Intemperance’s finest days and nights. They had been rock stars—much smaller versions of what they were now, but rock stars all the same. Young, dumb, and full of come.

“I find you make a good point, Matt,” Jake told him. “We keep refinement of Uphill to a minimum.”

“I disagree,” Nerdly said. “We can make Uphill into a masterpiece if we just do some unsynchronized transitional chords and polish up the primary riff.”

“The tune should stay exactly as it is now, Nerdly,” Matt insisted. “Jake just said so and Jake’s the fuckin’ Grand Poohbah of this shit.”

“I said minimal refinement,” Jake corrected. “We do need you to do a little polishing of the main riff and smooth out the transitions a little bit.”

Jake saw a flash of anger on Matt’s face—a glimpse of the old Matt—but it quickly disappeared. “All right,” Matt said. “I guess that shit’s fair.”

“You’re the boss, Jake,” Nerdly said, though he clearly was not happy about the decision either.

They worked on polishing the riffs and Jake’s backing guitar until lunch. They then went to the kitchen to eat the catered food that had been delivered. Celia and her band were already there, tearing into the taco and burrito bar that had been assembled for their culinary enjoyment.

“Hey, sweetie,” Laura said, standing up to give Jake a wifely kiss on the lips.

“Hey, babe,” he returned, enjoying the feel of her lips on his, as he always did.

“You two are pretty fuckin’ friendly with each other considering you’re divorcing,” Matt observed. As of yet, no one (except the Nerdlys, who Jake trusted to keep things quiet and who were frequent visitors to the Kingsley house) in Intemperance or Celia’s band had been told why Jake and Laura were getting a divorce, just that they were doing so and it would be amicable and not affect production. Of course, everyone—except maybe the new bass player and drummer for Celia—knew that Jake, Laura, and Celia were getting it on, but there was no reason for them to know the true story at this point in time. As such, they were very confused by Jake and Laura’s continued marital affection.

“We still love each other,” Laura said with a smile.

“That’s right,” Jake said. “Just because we’re getting divorced doesn’t mean we can’t love each other and be affectionate with each other.”

“Actually,” Matt said, “that’s the very fuckin’ definition of divorce. You two are still living together and fucking each other and calling each other ‘babe’ and fuckin’ ‘sweetie’ and kissing in the fuckin’ dining room. What the fuck?”

“We’re keeping things amicable,” Jake said for perhaps the tenth time now. “It’s for Caydee’s sake. She needs both of her parents and she needs her routine to remain the same.”

“That makes no fuckin’ sense!” Matt insisted. “Why are you divorcing then?”

“We have our reasons,” Laura told him.

“I’m a very hard person to stay married to,” Jake added.

Matt shook his head and bit into his taco. He just did not understand the whole marriage thing. Was this maybe for tax purposes? He decided that had to be the case, although he could not think of just how getting divorced would be a tax advantage for them.

As for Jake and Laura themselves, everyone who needed to know the real story now knew it and had promised to keep their freaking mouths shut about it. Grace and Chase had been told shortly after the couple had returned from telling Mom and Dad Kingsley the news. The next weekend, the weekend before the filing, Joey and his wife Sarah had been told as well. They had kept the real story from Brian and his wife Julie, but both knew it was likely that Joey had told them on his own. Joey, as predicted, had not been an advocate of the plan.

“You mean...” Joey said slowly to Laura when she told them the tale, “you and Celia Valdez ... you’re... involved with each other?”

“That’s right,” Laura said simply.

“In ... in... that way?”

“In that way,” she confirmed.

“Heavenly Father,” he whispered, shaking his head. “So ... so ... you’re one of them... lesbians?” He could barely get the word out of his mouth.

“I am bisexual,” Laura corrected.

“What’s the difference?” he asked.

“It means I am primarily attracted to males, Jake in particular,” she explained, “but I also have a sexual attraction to the female sex, Celia Valdez in particular. She is also bisexual.”

“I see,” he said. “And when did you decide to start doing things with other women?”

“It’s not really something you decide, Joey,” she said. “It’s just a part of who I am. I didn’t realize it until I was in my late-twenties, but it is not something you sit down, think about, and decide to give a try. It’s just the way my brain is wired.”

Joey was clearly not buying this concept, but he did not press any further on the issue. “And you, Jake, are also ... doing it with Celia Valdez?”

“That is correct,” Jake said.

Joey shifted his gaze back to Laura. “And you’re okay with this, Little Bit?”

“Yes,” she said. “I am very much okay with it. It was my idea in the first place.”

“How long has this been going on?” asked Sarah.

“Ever since I was about four months pregnant with Caydee,” Laura said.

Sarah’s eyes widened. “You had sex while you knew you were pregnant?” she asked.

“Of course,” Laura said. “Didn’t you?”

“Certainly not!” Sarah said righteously—though with a strong suggestion of untruth in her eyes.

Jake was starting to feel like he had stepped back into Victorian times. “Look,” he said, “there is no need to get into details about what me, Laura, and Celia do with each other. What we want you to understand is that the three of us love each other and we are together in that way. This relationship is not just about sex. We consider ourselves to be married to each other even if society and the law and even you Joey, and you Sarah, cannot accept that. That is the way it is. Celia wants to have a baby and she wants to have a baby with me, who she considers her husband in all but legality at this point. It is very important to her that her future baby be conceived in legal wedlock and will therefore be considered legitimate by her family. That is why we are doing all of this. Once the baby is weaned, Celia and I will get divorced and then Laura and I will get married again. And we will continue to live as three married people who love each other, only with two children instead of one.”

“I think we should get remarried on November 4 when we do it,” Laura said—in all seriousness. “That way, we don’t have to change our anniversary.”

Jake pointed a finger at her approvingly and nodded with equal seriousness. “Good thinking, hon.”

“I thought so,” she said.

In the end, Joey and Sarah professed that they kind of understood why Jake, Little Bit, and Celia were doing what they did, but they could not approve of it.

“We’re not asking you to approve of it or give it your blessing, Joey,” Laura told him. “We’re just informing you of the plan because you’re family and you need to know what we’re doing. We love you and respect you too much not to tell you what is going on.”

“We love you too, Little Bit,” Joey said.

“We do,” agreed Sarah.

“And even you, Jake,” Joey said next. “We were pretty doubtful about you at first, but you’ve shown us that you love Little Bit very much and you are a good husband and a very good provider for her.”

“Yeah ... we’re not exactly starving,” Laura agreed.

“No, you’re not,” Joey agreed. “We just want you to know that we have a hard time accepting the fact that you two have another woman in your life, and that both of us don’t believe in men laying down with men and women laying down with women, but none of that is going to make us break ties with you. You two are still welcome in this house any time and we’ll still visit you when invited to your house if time and circumstances permit.”

“Thank you, Joey,” Jake said. “That is all we are asking of you.”

Laura smiled and gave her brother a big hug. She then hugged her sister-in-law as well.

“You certainly lead an interesting life, Little Bit,” Sarah told her.

“Yes, I do,” Laura agreed.

“Grace and Chase don’t know anything about this, do they?” Joey suddenly asked. His daughters, after all, were still staying with the Kingsleys.

“Of course not,” Jake said, lying smoothly (his nieces, knowing the mission he was on, had advised him that lying to their parents about this aspect of the notifications would be the best move). “They know we’re getting divorced, of course, but they think it’s just because of normal marital problems. They’re a little upset about it, but we’ve reassured them that Laura and I will still remain close to each other.”

“Oh ... that’s good,” Joey said in approval.

“Then they don’t know about you and Little Bit and Celia?” asked Sarah.

Jake managed to look suitably offended. “Absolutely not,” Jake said firmly. “Celia stays in the guest room and we have no involvement with each other on that level while the girls are visiting.”

This visibly pleased Joey. “You two actually do have some sense in you,” he said.

“That’s right,” said Sarah. “I’d hate to think of my girls exposed to something like that.”

“Us too,” Jake said solemnly.

Neither Joey nor Sarah noticed that Laura had said nothing during this part of the discussion. This was by design. She was still a terrible liar. One word out of her mouth would have likely given their deceit away.

August of 2001 rolled in. Intemperance continued to work in the recording studio, finishing all the planned overdubs by the second week of the month and moving directly into the complex process of final mixing of the tunes. They had twelve solid, original tunes for Never Say Never. All five of the band members, Sharon Archer, and all of the techs that worked with them knew they had a masterpiece of a CD brewing. Every single track was solid, a maturation of the classic Intemperance sound, a brilliant mix of heavy metal guitars, Jake Kingsley’s magnificent voice, and Nerdly’s classical piano. The creators of an entire genre were about to school all of the imitators that had followed on how it was done.

“We’re gonna blow the motherfuckers away with these tunes,” Matt Tisdale said happily on the first day of the official mixing process. “We sound so much fuckin’ better than we did back in the old days.”

“We’ve all learned a lot since then,” Jake said. He agreed with Matt’s assessment. Never Say Never was going to be, from a musical standpoint, the best album they had ever made.

“We have,” Matt agreed. “Especially the three of you. It’s hard for me to give fuckin’ praise to people—you know that shit—but I’m laying some down now. You, Jake, are the best fuckin’ music producer working today. And you, Nerdlys, are the best fuckin’ sound engineers of all fuckin’ time.”

“That is correct,” Nerdly agreed without pride of any kind. He was just concurring with a proven fact, as if agreeing that no matter with mass to it could reach the speed of light in a vacuum.

Meanwhile, Celia and her band had pretty much worked their twelve tunes into the ground over in the rehearsal studio. With Jake’s input, when he could give it, and the hard work of Celia, Laura, Little Stevie, Liz, Eric the violinist, and the two new rhythm players Mark Valentine and Jason Lavelle, they had put together an impressive collection that would appeal to a mass audience and was destined for at least triple Platinum in the year following its release. Jake spent an entire Friday just listening to them play for him and proclaimed them perfect in every way.

“What now?” Celia asked.

“We can’t start recording you until Never Say Never is mastered and ready for presentation to the record companies,” Jake told her. “I want to be involved in every aspect of it and we need both Nerdlys to be involved as well.”

“I understand,” she said. “There’s no hurry, really. It’s not like the world is about to change or anything.”

“Right,” Jake agreed. “We’ll get yours done by the end of the year. At that point, we can start talking tour for Intemp with whoever signs us. After that tour is done, we’ll start talking Celia Valdez tour.”

“I like it,” she said. “And hopefully our meeting with Brainwash will bear some fruit and we can get them out for a few months.”

“That would be nice,” Jake agreed.

“In the meantime,” Celia said, “I guess I give my band some time off until it’s time to start recording.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jake said. “They’ve earned it.”

And so, everyone in Celia’s band except Laura and Celia herself returned to Los Angeles to kick back and enjoy their considerable earnings for a month or two. None of them were displeased by this. All were exhausted by the effort they had just put in and were ready for a break from everything music related.

The mixing of Never Say Never went on. Laura joined Jake at the studio most days even though she did not really care much for the sound her husband and his former band had put out. It was too harsh and full of screaming guitars and pounding drums for her taste. Still, she was able to put that aside and lend a professional ear to the mixing process. She had become quite adept at sound engineering and mixing over her years just by hanging out with Jake and Celia and the Nerdlys and she was a valued part of the team at this point. Her particular niche in the process was in helping define and shape the mellower parts of each composition and the transitions between them and the heavier parts. Anything that Laura Kingsley worked on in this respect ended up better for her involvement and everyone, even Nerdly, listened to her when she offered a suggestion.

By August 30 it was clear that they would not be able to move onto the mastering process for at least another two weeks. At the same time, Jake really needed to get out to Providence to check on the set that Brainwash was putting together. He had read all of their emails and sent a few of his own regarding the order of songs they had come up with, but he really needed to spend a week or so with them so he could actually hear them and shape the final product into a show to be remembered.

“Who wants to go to Providence with me?” he asked his two women on September 1.

“Can both of us go?” asked Celia. “Meghan can stay with Caydee, can’t she?”

“That would take one of her Massa weekends away from her, wouldn’t it?” asked Laura doubtfully.

“Which would only mean she wouldn’t be able to bone him during the day,” Jake said, exasperated. “I think she can handle that, especially for time and a half and night hours at said time and a half. We don’t ask that much of her, especially not lately when you, C, are always home during the day.”

“That is a good point,” Laura had to admit.

And so it came to pass that Meghan agreed to watch Caydee while Jake, Laura, and Celia traveled to the east coast on KVA business. Pauline agreed to go with them as well. Obie was in LA for now and would be able to take care of Tabby. Pauline would need to have them sign a contract for their part in the music festival.

“When are we coming back?” Pauline asked Jake on the phone when they discussed the trip.

“Well ... I don’t know exactly,” he said. “We’ll fly out on the third or fourth and check into a hotel in Providence. When we come back depends on how long it takes us to shape and mold their set.”

“So ... what, like a week?” she asked.

“Yeah, about that,” Jake agreed.

The four of them flew to Boston on September 3, which was labor day, landing at Logan International at 6:35 PM Eastern Time. Jake took a shuttle to the huge, off-airport rental complex while Celia, Laura, and Pauline collected their checked baggage. Jake scored a Lincoln Navigator—different from his own only in color—and drove the vehicle back to the airport to pick up the three ladies and the baggage. From there, they made the one hour drive to the Beatrice Hotel in downtown Providence, arriving at 8:20 PM.

They checked into their suites on the top floor, having Celia’s luggage placed in Pauline’s suite to maintain the illusion for the staff that Celia, Jake, and Laura were not sleeping in the same room together. Celia would, of course, sleep in the large bed in Jake and Laura’s suite and not with Pauline. The staff did raise a few eyebrows at the fact that Jake and Laura were staying in the same suite together—their pending divorce was still big news across the nation—but no one asked anything or made any comment about it; not to the Kingsleys anyway. They talked plenty about it among themselves.

The four of them had a late dinner in the Italian restaurant down in the hotel lobby, sharing two bottles of Italian red wine and a few baskets of focaccia while dining on eggplant parmesan (Laura), veal scallopini (Jake), Ossobuco (Celia), and pan seared scallops with risotto (Pauline). They had tiramisu for desert followed by snifters of cognac. Jake paid the $487 bill with a KVA credit card and added a generous $100 tip for the servers since none of them had asked about the divorce or, in fact, had even acknowledged who the famous people they were serving even were.

All were travel weary by this point and that was a good thing when rapidly changing multiple time zones from west to east. The best way to acclimate in such a case was to go to bed at the traditional Eastern Time Zone bedtime even if one’s body still felt synched to Pacific Time. That way, one would wake up—more or less—at the traditional Eastern Time Zone morning hours. Pauline had one more drink and then drifted easily off to sleep. Jake, Laura, and Celia had a brief threesome and they drifted off too. All of them woke up around 8:00 AM Providence time.