Chapter 15: Changes in the Routine

San Luis Obispo Regional Airport, California

October 25^th, 2003

It was 11:06 AM on a pleasant autumn day on the central coast and the Avanti-180 stopped at the hold line for Runway 29. It was instructed to hold there as an ExpressJet Embraer-145 was on final approach to the same runway after flying in from Denver. This gave Jake a little extra time to go over his takeoff configuration checklist. He made sure the flaps were set for takeoff, the trim settings were set for the same, and he had extra time to double check his speed bugs for VI and VR.

It was a Saturday so Caydee, not being in school today and mostly over her viral illness (she still had a bit of runny nose was all), was acting as his copilot for the flight. As always, he gave her the stern (though completely unserious) lecture that if anything happened to him, it would be up to her to bring them in since Mommy was not along on this trip. She concurred seriously even though her feet could not reach the pedals and her hands could barely reach the yoke. There was also the small matter that she had no idea how to fly a plane. She did know how to tell him his landing gear were down and locked, could read off altitude and airspeed to him, could even tell him when he was locked onto a localizer for an ILS landing and when they got capture, but that was about the extent of her knowledge for now.

Sitting behind the two of them, in the forward facing seats, sat Celia in the seat behind Jake while Cap, strapped into his car seat which was, in turn, strapped into the aircraft seat, sat placidly. He had no idea what was about to happen as this was the first airplane flight of his life—or at least the first one outside of his mother’s womb. He had no fear about it. To him, this was just another ride in a weird looking car. Celia held one of his bottles of breast milk in her right hand. He had gotten to the point that he actually preferred to drink it out of the bottle instead of directly from the source, though he did still do that at least three times a day. He no longer cared if his breast milk was body temperature, room temperature, or even cold, directly from the refrigerator. There was some talk about starting to add rice cereal to the bottles, which, Celia knew with sadness, was the first step in weaning. And once Cap was weaned ... well, she would have to hold up her end of the agreement between herself and Laura.

“Okay,” Jake said, “I’m going to climb out to eleven thousand feet. The plane will automatically start to pressurize once we hit eight thousand. It’s that period between takeoff and eight thousand where he’s likely to have the most discomfort in his ears.”

“I have the bottle ready,” Celia said. She was more than a little nervous about this experiment.

“As soon as we lift off, hit him with it. The swallowing will help keep the pressure equalized and decrease or prevent any pain. That’s what Laura used to do with Caydee and it worked most of the time.” They had, in fact, deliberately kept Cap a bit on the hungry side so he would hopefully not refuse the bottle when it was offered.

“I hope Cap is like Caydee,” Celia said.

Something occurred to Caydee as she listened to this conversation. She broke the sterile cockpit rule just as the ExpressJet came in and touched down.

“Did I used to drink boob milk too?” she asked.

Jake let her violation pass. “You certainly did, Caydee girl. Right up until you got your first tooth and started biting Mommy’s nipples.”

“Ewww,” she said, grossed out. Though she was fascinated by watching Cap feed from Celia’s breasts, the thought that she used to do it too did not sit well with her. “I thought only brother did that.”

“Nope,” Jake said. “It’s how most babies in the world get their milk for the first few months of their lives.”

“It’s what makes us mammals,” Celia told her. “Remember when your teacher taught you that all human beings are mammals, just like mice and rats and elephants and cows and even bats.”

“Yesss,” Caydee said, having no idea what that had to with the topic at hand.

“Boobs are called mammary glands,” Celia told her. “That’s where the name mammal came from—or maybe it’s the other way around. In any case, all mammals feed their young from their mammary glands.”

“Are you saying that mice have boobs?” Caydee asked, incredulous.

“They do,” Celia confirmed. “They’re just small and you can’t see them.”

“And bats??”

“Bats too,” Celia said. “Fish, birds, reptiles, alligators, bugs, worms, spiders; none of those are mammals, so none of them have boobs. They feed their young in other ways.”

“Whales and dolphins and seals are mammals though,” Jake added. “They do have boobs. It must be quite the trick to feed their babies underwater.”

“Wow,” Caydee said, shaking her head a little. “This is some serious shit we’re talking here.”

“I would’ve thought you would have picked up on this with all those nature shows you watch,” Celia said.

Before Caydee could answer, the tower controller’s voice came through the headsets that both Jake and Caydee were wearing. “Avanti November Charlie,” she said, “ExpressJet 238 has exited the runway. You are clear for takeoff with VFR departure to the south.”

“Avanti copies clear for takeoff,” Jake replied. “Departure to the south.”

“Have a nice flight, sir,” she said.

“Will do, thank you,” Jake responded. “All right. Let’s do this thing.”

“Fly high in the sky!” Caydee said excitedly.

“Quiet time for now, Caydee girl,” Jake admonished. “No non-essential conversation until we’re at altitude.”

Caydee did not respond verbally but she pantomimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key. Jake advanced the throttles a bit and steered them onto the runway, lining up on the center line.

“Okay,” he said. “Here we go.”

He advanced the throttles and the engine noise increased. They began to roll faster and faster down the runway, soon reaching the V1 speed of eighty-five knots, closely followed by the VR speed of ninety-four. Jake pulled back on the yoke and they broke contact with the ground, soaring into the sky, picking up speed, and quickly reaching thirty-five hundred feet of ascent per minute. The gear retracted (Caydee verified this for him as part of her copilot responsibilities). Jake could feel the air pressure in the cabin decreasing as they went higher and higher into the air.

Celia, feeling the same, reached over and shoved the nipple of the bottle in Cap’s mouth. He immediately began to suck and swallow, showing no signs of discomfort. Jake retracted the flaps, putting them into a climb of three thousand feet per minute. He flew out to Morro Rock and turned left, following the standard egress pattern for takeoff from Runway 29 for destinations to the south. Two minutes later, the air pressure stabilized as the pressurization system automatically began to feed cooled bleed air from the engines into the cabin to keep them at a relative eight thousand feet of pressure. One minute after that, they were at eleven thousand feet and in cruise flight, trucking along at 320 knots indicated, or 380 miles per hour ground speed.

Jake engaged the autopilot to hold them at altitude and keep them on course and at cruise speed. He made a quick scan of the instruments to make sure everything was holding and then scanned outside, seeing a few smaller aircraft below him, a few airliners above him, but nothing that warranted any kind of concern.

“How’s it going back there?” Jake asked.

“Not so much as a whimper out of him,” Celia said. “He’s still sucking on the bottle.”

“Be sure to save some for the final descent and the return flight,” Jake reminded her.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I have another bottle in the drink refrigerator.”

“Just don’t fill his tummy so he won’t drink it,” Jake told her.

“Good thought,” Celia said, removing the bottle from his mouth. Her shoulder was getting sore anyway. Cap gave a quick, unhappy squawk at her for this and then got over it. He paid no attention to the scenery outside of the window he was sitting next to even though it was spectacular. He was more interested in the little wheels and plastic spinners on the arms of his new car seat. When they hit some turbulence (“the bumpies!” Caydee said, delighted) as they passed over the spine of the coastal mountains, he appeared not to even notice (his mother did, however).

As they descended through eight thousand feet to enter the pattern for Whiteman, Celia had him start sucking on the bottle again. As before, he did not so much as whimper. Jake brought them in for a smooth landing and then taxied to the transient aircraft parking area in front of the main office building. He shut down the aircraft and then tied it down after everyone got out. Once secure, he opened the cargo compartment and removed the second of the two car seats he had purchased at Costco the day before. This was for the truck and would remain in it unless it needed to be moved to Laura’s Lexus for some reason. The one in the aircraft would remain there permanently as well.

Jake hiked over to the hangar and retrieved the Ford F-150 from within. He drove it back over to the aircraft parking area and then spent the better part of ten minutes getting the new car seat safely installed in the middle rear seat of the vehicle. Celia, like any wife worth her salt, offered non-helpful suggestions throughout the process. Like any husband worth his salt, Jake nodded and said “uh huh” in all the right places, making her think she was really helping him.

Once the seat was secure, they strapped Cap into it. Celia got in the front with Jake while Caydee sat next to her brother.

“Caydee, stop wiping your nose on your sleeve,” Celia told her, not for the first time. “There’s a box of tissue right in front of you.”

“Sorry, See-Ya,” she said, reaching out and grabbing one of said tissues.

As they made the drive to Silver Lake, Celia used her cell phone to call Pauline and let her know they were on the way from the airport. Pauline told her that lunch would be ready when they arrived.

The drive to Pauline’s house took twenty-five minutes. His sister hugged and kissed Caydee (despite the warning that she was probably still slightly contagious with whatever pestilence she was getting over) and then held Cap and rocked him and talked to him while Caydee and her cousin Tabby greeted each other warmly. Obie had flown up to Oregon the day before to deal with some issues at the studio with one of his bands.

Lunch was turkey and bacon sandwiches served with potato salad. Jake, Pauline, and Celia all had iced tea to drink while Tabby and Caydee got the rare treat of high fructose corn syrup Sprite from the can. Jake had already given Pauline the envelope with the master copies in them. He told her to keep one for herself (she had not heard any of the tunes yet in any stage of their evolution). She promised she would listen to the CD today and get them in the mail to the various record company suits on Monday morning.

“We’re going to Noosie-Land for Christmas!” Caydee blurted out, unable to hold it in any longer. They had finally filled her in on the plan now that it looked like it was really going to happen.

“What’s Noosie-Land?” Tabby asked.

“New Zealand,” Jake said, enunciating carefully. “And Caydee is right. We’re going there for Christmas break.”

This hurt Tabby’s heart a little. “No Christmas at your house, Uncle Jay?” she asked.

“Not this year, Tabs,” Jake said, “but the way it works out, we’ll get Christmas a day earlier because Christmas comes a day earlier in New Zealand.”

“How does that work?” Caydee wanted to know. They had not told her this part.

“I’ll explain it later,” Jake said, “when we get home and I can show you on the globe in my office.”

“What does your globe have to do with it?” she wanted to know.

“It’ll make sense when I explain it,” Jake promised.

“So, you were able to secure all the tickets?” Pauline asked. As with her brother, she had not wanted to say anything about the trip to her child until she knew it was on for sure.

“I got the entire first class section booked for both of the long-ass flights,” Jake said. “Business class for everyone on the short hops between Christchurch and Auckland and back.”

“The entire first class section?” she asked, amazed.

“All of coach and most of business class were already booked for both flights,” Jake said, “but no one had booked any of the first class seats yet. Probably waiting for it to get closer to flight time so the prices would go down. Man, are they gonna get a surprise,”

“Wow,” Pauline said. “All of us get to sit up front then?”

“Not all of us,” Jake said. “There are only twelve first class pods on the NZ Air 777s. We have fourteen people going. Grace and Chase don’t know it yet, but as the youngest among the adults, they volunteered to sit in business class instead. I was able to book two seats together for them for both the outbound and inbound long-ass flights. I don’t think they’ll mind too much. They are getting an all expenses paid vacation, after all. They can put up with the dregs of humanity that sit in Business Class for twenty-six hours of their lives.”

Pauline chuckled. “I guess they can,” she said. “Especially since you’re also paying for their college education.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with where they sit,” Jake said. “They’re just the lowest in seniority among those who don’t need a minder on them during the flight. I’ll call them up and let them know tonight after I get home. I don’t think they’ll have a problem with it.”

“What are we going to do for Christmas, Mom?” Tabby asked. She had recently graduated from calling her mother ‘Mommy’ to calling her ‘Mom’ and Pauline was a bit sad about that. Especially since she still called Obie ‘Daddy’.

“Well, Tabs,” Pauline said, “we’re going to do the same thing we always do on Christmas and spend it with our family. Only this year, we’ll be doing it in Uncle Jay’s house in New Zealand.”

Tabby’s eyes got wide. “We’re going to New Zealand for Christmas?”

“Yes, we are,” Pauline said with a smile. “Uncle Jay just confirmed that for me. We’ll leave the day after you get out of school.”

“It’s a long-ass airplane ride,” Caydee told her.

“How long-ass?” Tabby wanted to know.

“Thirteen hours,” Pauline told her. “Plus, another hour and a half on a different plane to get to where Uncle Jay’s house is.”

“That is long-ass,” Tabby said in awe (and maybe a little fear). “How far away is New Zealand?”

“It’s all the way down below the equator and two time zones west of Hawaii,” Jake told her. “We’re talking more than six thousand miles in the air. And that’s just to get to Auckland where the main airport is. It’s another four hundred and sixty miles from Auckland to Christchurch, which is kind of where our house is. It’ll be an entire day spent on airplanes.”

“That’s a long ways away,” Tabby said, her nervousness increasing a bit.

“It is,” Jake agreed. “New Zealand is a couple of big islands and lots of little ones that are way out in the middle of the south Pacific Ocean, more than thirteen hundred miles across the ocean from Sydney, Australia. It’s the most isolated big, modern country on the planet. That’s why I like it there so much.”

“And you know what, Tabs,” Pauline added. “It will be summer there during Christmas season because they’re way south of the equator. It’ll be nice and warm, the sun shining all the time.”

“And the people who live there are very nice,” Jake added. “They mind their own business and let you mind yours.”

“I guess that does sound like fun,” Tabby said slowly.

“It sounds bad-ass,” Caydee said. “Even if it is a long-ass airplane ride to get there.”

“And Grandma and Grampa will be there,” Jake said. “Grace and Chase will be there. Aunt Celia’s mama and papa will be there too.”

“Daddy too?” Tabby asked.

“Daddy too,” Pauline confirmed.

Tabby thought this over for a few moments and then nodded. “Okay,” she said, as if the entire decision had rested on her, “I guess we can do it then.”

“All right,” Jake said, suppressing a chuckle. “I’ll keep the reservations in place then.”

Pauline smiled in amusement and then asked her brother, “How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing,” Jake said. “The trip is on me.”

She shook her head sternly. “Three first class round trip tickets from LA to Auckland, three business class round trip tickets from Auckland to Christchurch. No way, bro. That had to have cost you at least fifteen grand, right?”

“At least,” Jake agreed, although the cost of NZ Air tickets for Pauline and family, when all added up, had actually been just a bit less than twenty thousand dollars, “but that doesn’t matter. We’re both richer than God. It’s more trouble than it’s worth to have you transfer money into my account and have Jill try to figure out where to put it and how to account for it. I already pissed her off something fierce when I called her to let her know how much this little gathering is costing, but it’s nothing to me. Just consider it your Christmas present.”

“I don’t know if I can accept a gift like that,” Pauline said.

“You can and you will,” Jake told her. “How about you pay for all the groceries we’re going to need when we get there and we’ll call it even?”

“Groceries?” she asked. “You’re comparing groceries to six round trip airline flights? What are we talking here? Fifteen grand versus five or six hundred dollars?”

“It’ll be more than that,” Jake said. “There is literally nothing in the cupboard there, so, aside from food, we’re going to need wine, beer, good whiskey, good rum, good vodka, sodas and juice for Tabby and Caydee, some various mixers for the adults who are into mixed drinks. We’re talking closer to eleven or twelve hundred with that thrown in.”

“That’s still not even close to fifteen grand,” Pauline objected.

Jake sighed. “Pauline, just accept the goddamn airline tickets, pay for the groceries when we get there, and we’ll move on with our lives. We’re both too rich to be arguing about piddly shit like how much something costs. That’s the beauty of being rich and successful.”

Now Pauline sighed. “Okay, bro. I agree. Thank you very much.”

“You’re very welcome,” he told her.

Cap did just as well on the flight back as he did the flight over. No crying, no fussing, no signs of any discomfort as long as he was able to suck on his bah-bah. They were home in time for both Jake and Cap to take a nap before dinner. They did it together, snuggled up in the master bedroom bed.

Sean and Westin had been told by this point the Kingsleys’ plans for Christmas break. They were quite looking forward to their own Christmas vacation, their plans to just stay on the property and enjoy themselves. Jake gave them permission to have their respective parents over for as long as they wished (or until the Kingsleys came back home, whichever came first) and for them to use the unused guest rooms in the main house to accommodate them. Everyone would also have the run of the house as long as they threw no parties or invited anyone other than parents. And the pool had finally been completed and had finished being filled with water the week before—it had taken more than forty-eight hours for the thirty thousand gallons to go in from the garden hose (the one connected to the non-potable water cistern)— and was now in full operation, including a locking safety fence around it, which was required by California building code (Jake would have had this done even if it was not. While Caydee could swim like a fish, Cap could not, and he would be walking before too long). The pool’s water heater was operating and keeping the water at a steady seventy-six degrees, which, of course, would lead to greatly increased propane usage and the cost that went with that. Jill was going to explode when she got the next propane bill. Jake was already dreading the conversation that would follow.

Sunday, Celia got into Papa’s new Tacoma in the front passenger seat and Papa got behind the wheel while Mama sat in the back behind Celia. Roberto and Maria had both passed their DMV written test and were now operating under what were basically learner’s permits. Papa drove them from Kingsley Manor to Saint Anne’s for the Sunday service. After communion there was another baby being christened. They did not stay for this. Instead, they went back to the house on the cliff, changed into casual clothes, and ate the lunch that Jake had prepared for everyone. It was more of his meatballs and homemade marinara sauce. While Westin and Sean had sampled it before, Mama and Papa had not. They told Jake it was magnifico and he knew they were not just saying that to be polite. Both had two helpings of it, as well as two pieces of his homemade garlic bread.

After the kitchen was clean and spotless to Westin’s standards (or at least as close as they could get to them), Mama, Papa, and Celia left the house again, this time with Mama behind the wheel of her new Lexus and Papa sitting in the back. Maria drove them to their new home, doing well on the winding PCH, but maybe not so well through Pismo Beach and the southern part of Avila Beach. She did nothing that actually endangered anyone, but made the same flubs that Papa had made during his drive, flubs that had more to do with unfamiliarity with American and California driving customs than anything else.

They toured the house for twenty minutes or so. Nearly everything was in place, with just a few end tables, a nightstand, and some lamps missing. The six person hot tub, the largest the deck was rated to accommodate safely, had been delivered and hooked up to the 220 volt power post three days before. The water within was now sitting at a comfortable one hundred and one degrees and smelled strongly of the setup blast of chlorine it had been treated with. They played around with the jets and the lighting for a few minutes and then shut it back down and closed the cover.

“Isn’t it expensive to keep it heated all the time?” Roberto asked his daughter.

“It does draw a considerable amount of electricity,” Celia replied, “but that is nothing you need to worry about. The electric bill comes to me and I will pay it for you. We’ve already agreed to that.” The bill would actually go to Jill in Heritage since Celia had switched to her for her personal accounting needs shortly after marrying Jake.

“I understand, my daughter,” Papa said, “but there is no sense in wasting that electricity and making the bill higher, is there? Can’t we just shut everything down and then turn the heater on when we plan to use it?”

“No, you can’t really do that,” Celia said. “In the first place, it will take a lot more electricity to heat the water up from ambient temperature all the time than it will just to maintain thirty-eight degrees all the time. In the second place, it takes about eight to twelve hours to heat it up from ambient to thirty-eight. You want the tub to be ready for you to hop straight into whenever you want to use it. Just let it do its thing. As long as you turn the jets off when you’re not in there, everything will be fine and you don’t have to worry about the electricity bill.”

“Okay,” Roberto said softly. He still had some pride issues with his daughter supporting them financially, but he was getting better about it. “We will do as you say.”

Mama drove them back to Kingsley Manor without crashing into anything or causing anyone else to crash into something. She did spent an inordinate amount of time checking speed limit signs and monitoring the speedometer so she stayed within a mile or two per hour of the limit. Partially this was because she was unfamiliar with miles per hour and, while the speedometer did have kilometers per hour in smaller font inside of the miles per hour reading, most of the speed limit signs did not have a KPH advisement on them. The primary reason she stayed at the speed limit, however, was her fear of being stopped by an American police officer. Despite all of the reassurances, she still could not believe that American cops were not corrupt like their Venezuelan counterparts.

Mama parked in the driveway and they went inside. Celia saw that Jake had gone grocery shopping and would be making hamburgers for dinner. All of the ingredients except the actual ground sirloin beef and the frozen tater tots were sitting on the kitchen island, ready to be sliced up. She was happy about this. Jake made a pretty damn good hamburger and her parents had not tasted one yet.

After they all made a bathroom run, Celia took her parents into the entertainment room and they sat at the bar. Jake and Laura were sitting next to each other on the loveseat, watching something on the TV. Caydee was outside, swimming in the new pool—something she did at least three hours every day since it had opened for business. She was out there alone and no one but Mama and Papa were concerned about her being unsupervised in a pool that had a six foot deep end. Tiff had taught her well and she had practiced a lot after the lessons. She was no more likely to drown in a backyard swimming pool than she was to spontaneously combust.

“Drinks?” Celia asked her parents.

“Some of that Scotch that Jake serves would be nice,” Roberto said.

“I’ll have a glass of white wine if there is some open already,” said Maria.

“I’ll pour you some even if there is not some open, Mama,” Celia told her.

It turned out that there was a half bottle of Inglenook chardonnay in the refrigerator. She poured some into a wine glass and set it before Mama. She then poured two glasses of Johnnie Walker Green for Papa and herself.

“All right, you two,” Celia told them. “You’re both doing very well as far as basic driving skills go. I did not expect any issue there, honestly. There are some things we need to work on though.”

“Like what?” asked Mama, who thought she had done a pretty good job.

“Well, first and foremost for both of you is the whole turning right on a red light thing.” Drivers were not allowed to do that in Venezuela so it was literally a foreign concept to them.

“It seems so wrong to go through a red light,” Roberto said. “I’m not comfortable doing it.”

“Me either,” said Maria.

“You both need to get comfortable doing it,” Celia told them. “You see, in California in particular, turning right on a red when safe to do so is not just something you are allowed to do, it is something you are expected to do.”

“Does the law say that?” asked Maria.

“There is no law that says you have to do it,” Celia told them, “but there is the rule of society that says you have to. As long as there is no sign prohibiting it, you are expected to turn right on a red light if there is no traffic approaching from the left or the oncoming left turn lane or if the traffic that is approaching is far enough away that you can safely make the turn and accelerate back up to the speed limit without causing that traffic from the left or that is turning left to have to slow down for you. If you have the opening and it is safe to do so, you do it, or the cars behind you will be very irritated and might even honk at you.”

“How rude!” Mama said indignantly.

“That’s exactly what they would be saying about you if you fail to make the turn when safe,” Celia said. “And that would be the nicest thing they would say about you. So, next time we go out, I’m going to have you drive to SLO, where there will be plenty of opportunities to make right turns on reds. I’ll talk you through them and get you used to them. I can guarantee that the driving tester is going to make you safely perform a right on a red at some point during the test. If you fail to do it, that will be a mark against you.”

“I understand,” Maria said nervously.

“Me as well,” said Papa, who seemed calm, cool, and collected, but was much better at concealing his emotions than Mama.

“Another thing we’ll need to work on is merging into the bike lane when making a right turn from a street that has them,” Celia said. “I explained to you about the bike lanes and even showed them to you, right?”

“You did,” Mama said. “Such a strange concept.” And, to her and Papa, it was. There was not a single dedicated bike lane in the entire country of Venezuela. Bicyclists were expected to watch out for themselves and stay out of the way of cars. Any collision between a bicycle and an automobile (or even a motorcycle) was generally deemed the bicyclist’s fault by the investigating police officer.

“It’s not so hard to grasp,” Celia told them. “As long as there are no bicyclists in the bike lane, it allows you to make a smoother right turn and to let the cars behind you in the right lane pass by without changing into the left lane when you slow down to make your turn. Again, it is something that is expected of you if there is no reason not to do it. Just be sure to check for bicyclists in the lane first.”

“Of course,” Roberto said. “That seems common sense, does it not?”