Chapter 21: Red Skies at Night

Los Angeles International Airport

Los Angeles, California

March 17, 1994

It was 9:30 AM, twenty-four minutes after the big board reported that American Airlines Flight 612 from Sau Paulo had ARRIVED, when Jake first caught sight of her. He was sitting in one of the hard plastic chairs near the bottom of the escalators that led downward from the gates of Terminal 4 to the main concourse. A steady stream of arriving passengers from a variety of American Airlines flights had been making their way down those moving staircases ever since Jake had planted his butt there. Now, at last, he saw a familiar female figure with a head of hair a familiar shade of red at the top of the ride. Gathered around this familiar looking person were several other people who looked familiar as well—a group he had spent a week hanging out with and playing live music with five months before.

His eyes locked onto her, a smile coming to his face. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a loose-fitting t-shirt with a picture of a chili pepper on it. Her hair was down and flowing across her shoulders. Even from a distance, Jake could see that she looked tired and haggard from her travels. Even so, she was beautiful, he loved her, and his heart was extremely happy to see her with his own two eyes.

He stood and made his way toward the bottom of the escalator. He waved his right hand at her as he approached. About halfway down, she spotted him and her face lit up. She waved back enthusiastically. The moment her feet stepped off the bottom step, she rushed to him, weaving in and out of other passengers and loved ones in the crowd until she slammed into him nearly hard enough to knock him down. They put their arms around each other and she began to cover his face with wet kisses.

“I missed you so much!” she told him, kissing his lips, his cheek, his ear. “It’s so good to finally be home!”

“I missed you too, hon,” he told her, relishing the feel of her body in his arms, not minding at all that she smelled of sour sweat and stale cigarette smoke (smoking on domestic flights was no longer allowed, but the ban had yet to be applied to long-haul international flights). He could not wait to get her back to the house and into bed. He was already springing a semi just from the thought.

By the time they broke their embrace—after one final, passionate mouth kiss that involved a bit of tongue play—the rest of the musicians had made their way over to the couple. Squiggle, Groove, Sally, Homer, and, of course, Z himself—all looking burned out and haggard to varying degrees themselves—each shook Jake’s hand and gave him warm greetings.

“How was the flight?” Jake asked.

“Fuckin’ long,” Homer said. “Thirteen goddamn hours in the air.”

“Yeah,” said Z, “but at least it led to home.”

“Damn right,” said Sally. “No show tonight, no show tomorrow, no show anytime in the near future. We’re back in the land of wanton waste and the twenty-four hour drive-through, where it’s reasonably safe to drink the tap water and eat from a roadside taco stand.”

“You got that shit right,” Z said, shaking his head with a painful grimace. “You ever had dysentery, Jake?”

“I never have,” Jake said.

“Take it from me and Sally,” Z told him. “Don’t try it just to see what it’s like. Especially not if you have to do a ninety-minute show.”

Laura giggled a little. “I had to extend my sax solo for him a few times that week so he could go take care of some emergency business. I improvised for nearly ten minutes straight one night.”

Jake nodded, impressed. “The show must go on, right?”

“Right,” Z said sourly. “Sometimes, however, I think maybe we should change that to ‘the show might go on’.”

The group made their way through the concourse to the assigned baggage claim area for their flight. They found a spot near the carousel and, while Jake and Laura held hands and stood with their bodies in contact, the rest of the band continued to regale him with a few anecdotes of their time in South America.

It took the better part of twenty minutes for everyone’s checked baggage to drop down and get collected. Laura had one large suitcase and her saxophone case—an insurance policy had been taken out on the sax to cover its potential loss or damage by American Airlines—and they were among the last items to emerge (naturally). From there, the group made its way to the terminal exit. A limousine had been arranged to take away the rest of the band and it was waiting out front.

It took another ten minutes for Laura to give a tearful farewell to the group of men she had been traveling and playing with almost constantly for the past eight months. The emotion of the moment was quite thick in the air as they exchanged hugs and goodbyes with her. Though Bobby Z intended to start putting together his next album very soon, he would not be needing a saxophonist for quite some time and Laura had not, in any case, even committed to being that saxophonist when the time came. This would be the last she would see of this bunch for months, possibly even forever.

Jake watched quietly as this played out, his hand resting on Laura’s suitcase. He could not help but notice that when it came time for her to say goodbye to Squiggle, the hug was extra-long, extra-snug, that the tears running down her face began to run a little faster, in higher volume, and that the kiss on the cheek she gave him was positioned a little closer to the corner of his mouth.

“Take care of yourself, Teach,” Squiggle told her. “Maybe we’ll play together again sometime.”

“Anything is possible,” she told him, giving him one last hug and then tussling his hair.

Laura absolutely insisted on showering first.

“I cannot wait to get my hands on your dick,” she told him, hunger in her eyes, “but I am not going to let you see me, smell me, taste me, or fuck me while I’m all sweaty, gross, and my hair smells like cigarettes.”

“I don’t mind,” he insisted.

“I do,” she told him. “Now go pour us some wine and wait in the bed while I get cleaned up.”

“Wine? It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”

“I’m still on Sau Paulo time,” she reminded him. “It feels like mid-afternoon to me. And besides, I’ve been flying all night long. I want some wine, some dick, and then some sleep. In that order.”

“Yes ma’am,” he told her, smiling and giving her a little salute.

He got the wine for her but she did not end up drinking any of it. When she emerged from the bathroom she was wearing only a white robe over her bare flesh. Jake was wearing nothing at all and his little buddy was standing tall and proud, ready to perform the service for which he had been designed and constructed.

The robe came off and they fell into each other’s arms. They kissed hotly, their tongues swirling together, their hands touching everywhere, everything. Jake licked and sucked her nipples for a few minutes and then began to kiss his way southward, heading for that freshly shaved, sweet smelling junction between her legs. He barely made it to her belly button, however, before she hooked her hands into his armpits and began pulling him back up.

“Fuck me!” she demanded, her voice full of lust.

“Let me eat you first,” he said. “You love it when I put my mouth on your pussy.”

“I do,” she said, “but I don’t want that right now. I want cock, baby and I want it all the way in!”

Though he really wanted to get a taste of her juices, he did as requested. He slid his body up atop hers, found the proper positioning, and sank into her hot wetness in one stroke.

It was absolute heaven after so long feeling only his own hand for stimulation. He hardly thought of Celia at all as he began to thrust in and out of her.

April 1^st, also known as April Fools Day, was a beautiful example of early spring in southern California. The temperature at noon was seventy-two degrees, with just enough of a westerly wind to blow some of the smog out of the basin and let one see the actual blue of the sky above.

Jake and Greg were spending the day at the Pacific View Country Club above Malibu. Greg had been a member of this exclusive set of links for the past ten years and the two of them played here together several times a month when time, work schedules, and weather permitted. Greg, who was a better golfer, almost always won the matches. Jake, on the other hand, almost always won the bets when his handicap and his greater propensity for shining under pressure were factored in.

He had already taken the first nine by sinking a twenty-foot putt just prior to the turn and edging out Greg on the automatic press. Now, as they mounted the tenth, fresh beers in hand and Cuban cigars smoldering in the cart’s ashtray, Greg declared it was time to start kicking some rock star ass.

“You always say that,” Jake told him, pulling a driver from his bag walking up to the tee.

“I know,” Greg said sourly. “This time, I’m going to do it.”

“Care to double the bet?” Jake asked lightly, knowing that Greg could not resist such a thing even when he knew he was likely going to lose.

“How about we double the stakes but take out the automatic press for the game?” Greg suggested.

“I can still request the press if I’m behind?” Jake asked.

“Of course,” the actor told him. “But I’m not compelled to grant it.”

Jake smiled. He knew that Greg could no more refuse a request to press the bet than he could refuse to have an olive placed in his martini. “Deal.”

“All right,” Greg said. “Let’s do this.”

The tenth hole was a long, picturesque par 5 that stretched along the ridge and offered stunning views of the ocean (the name of the club was not false advertising by any stretch of the imagination). Jake, who had won the ninth hole, made a slow, easy swing and blasted his little white ball more than two hundred and fifty yards downrange, where it rolled to a stop near the right side of the narrow fairway.

“Nice,” Greg said, nodding. He then proceeded to outdrive Jake by a good twenty yards and end up with favorable positioning for the second shot.

They put their clubs in their bags and got back into the electric cart. Greg was behind the wheel for this round—they took turns being the driver from round to round ever since Jake had yelled at the pompous actor several years before that he wasn’t a goddamned limo driver—and he drove them down the well-maintained cart path. Both puffed on their cigars as they made the journey.

“You seem a lot more relaxed since Laura got home,” Greg pointed out.

“Yeah,” Jake said, nodding. “There’s still a shitload of stressful things going on, but ... you know ... when you’re back to getting regular sex after a long stretch without it, it does tend to have a mellowing effect.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Greg said sourly.

“She’s still not giving up the trim?”

“She’s not refusing to have sex with me,” he said, “but she’s not offering it up either. The two times I’ve gotten some since she’s been home were only after I initiated things quite strongly and fought through a concrete wall of disinterest on her part. And even after all that, she just laid there and let me do what I needed to do, not participating much in the effort.”

“That thoroughly sucks,” Jake said with sympathy. He knew, after all, how passionate Celia could be in bedroom.

“No kidding,” Greg said. “Quite honestly, taking myself in hand is more pleasurable than that. At least my imaginary lover moves a little.”

“I wish I knew what to tell you,” Jake said. “Is she still giving you the silent act?”

“She claims she isn’t. She’ll talk to me when I talk to her, answer whatever I’ve asked, but that’s about it. We talk about business things, scheduling things, household things, but not much else. She doesn’t tell me about her day, not even if I ask about it. She doesn’t ask about my day. When I tell her things about my day, she just nods and grunts—never asks any follow-up questions.”

“It certainly sounds like you have a communication issue of late,” Jake said.

“That might be the understatement of the year,” Greg said.

They had arrived at Jake’s ball. He got out, took a quick look at his distance to green—it was still well over two hundred and fifty yards—and then pulled out his three wood. He took a few practice swings until it swished over the grass at just the right level and then addressed the ball. Greg kept respectfully silent behind him. He swung the club and the head made good contact with the ball, launching it into the air with a resounding smack. It sliced a little to the right, but not enough to really matter. It landed thirty yards short of the green, bounced a few times, and rolled to a stop an easy chip shot away.

“Nice one,” Greg said when Jake got back in the cart.

“Could’ve been better,” Jake said as the cart began to roll again.

“It can always be better.”

“This is true,” Jake allowed. He took a puff from his cigar, a drink from his beer. “If it makes you feel any better, Celia’s not all that communicative at tour rehearsal either.”

“No?” Greg asked. He seemed a bit surprised by this.

“Strictly business with me and the Nerdlys both. Even with the band, she’s short, succinct, to the point and not much else. She even yelled at Charlie the other day when he took too much time disinfecting his bass during the encore break. Almost made him cry.”

“That guy is bizarre,” Greg said. “And as someone who regularly works with homosexuals, directors with over-the-top OCD, production managers with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and just plain crazy people, that is saying a lot.”

“Charlie does take some getting used to,” Jake agreed as Greg brought them to a halt at his golf ball.

Greg’s shot was about as close to perfect as it could be. He made solid contact with his own three wood and the ball was right on the line. It bounced and rolled and finally stopped just short of the fringe of the green.

“Almost on in two,” the actor said with a shake of the head.

“You’re just showing off,” Jake said.

“I do not show off,” Greg said. “I perform.”

“Right,” Jake said as they lurched forward again, heading for Jake’s ball.

“How is the tour rehearsal going anyway?” Greg asked. “Celia is obviously telling me very little about it.”

“It’s dialed in tight,” Jake said. “She may be dealing with her demons and her own issues off that stage, but when she steps up there and starts playing, all that shit seems to slip away and she puts on a hell of a show. The audiences are going to love the performance. She’s a natural.”

“That’s good to hear,” Greg said. “The suits over at Aristocrat keep insisting that the whole thing is going to be a failure—she did tell me that much. They continue to pressure her to put on the sexy outfit and do a little bit of dancing.”

“Yeah, Pauline and I both keep hearing that crap as well. Trust me, not them. It’s a stellar performance we’ve put together that is pure music in the format it’s supposed to be heard in. Even the opening band that Aristocrat is sending out with her isn’t half bad—for a bunch of hackers anyway. We’re doing two days of dress rehearsals next week. After that, the roadies will start setup and tear-down training so everything will be ready when they hit the road for the first date in Phoenix on the 27^th.”

“Hmm,” Greg said. “As of yet, I have not been invited to either of the dress rehearsals.”

“I’m sure you have an open invitation,” Jake said. “We’re doing them Wednesday and Thursday nights, with the openers taking the stage at 7:30, which is what time the show starts at most of the venues.”

“I will talk to C about it,” Greg said. “I’m sure she’ll just tell me to do what I want. That’s been her standard answer these past months.”

“Hopefully things will get better,” Jake said with sincerity. He honestly did want things to work out between Greg and Celia. “She’ll have lots of time to think while she’s out on the road.”

Greg nodded. “That’s kind of what I’m afraid of,” he said softly, speaking more to himself than Jake.

Since returning home from South America, Laura had turned into a considerable homebody. She would go days at a time without ever leaving Jake’s house, and if she did leave, it was only to perform a brief, necessary errand and then she would come right back home. Her routine these days was to sleep until well after ten o’clock in the morning, at which point she would shower and dress in comfortable clothes like shorts and a T-shirt, usually leaving out the bra. She would then eat whatever Elsa had prepared for her—or leftovers if it was the weekend and Elsa was off—and then spend the rest of the day either reading some novel from Jake’s collection or watching television. She listened to no music and her saxophone remained in its case in the music room. At night, after dinner, she would drink wine and smoke some of Jake’s marijuana, getting herself into a mellow mood. Most nights Jake would imbibe with her and they would end up in bed for a lengthy session of sex. Her lovemaking (or ‘fucking’, as she still preferred to term it) was as passionate as ever with one small exception. She no longer asked Jake to perform cunnilingus on her—an act she used to demand during nearly every session—and, if he went downtown on his own, she would usually let him lap away at her for only a few minutes before dragging him back up and encouraging him to bury himself in her body.

Jake thought this new aversion to having him eat her out was a bit strange—and disappointing, as he truly loved performing that particular act—but in all other things Laura was pretty much the same Laura he had fallen in love with. True, she had developed a considerable taste for drinking wine and getting stoned during her tour, but other than that she was still the funny, quirky, adorable redhead she’d always been. He did not mind that she was doing little work these days. He certainly understood that tours were brutal and one needed to rest up after completing one. Her bank account was nicely swollen thanks to the tour revenue and the royalty checks she regularly received from KVA Records, and even if it hadn’t been, Jake had more than enough money to support them both.

“I’ll pick up the sax again soon,” she assured Jake the one time he had asked her about it. This had been in bed, just after they’d finished taking a few hits from the old pipe. “I’m just a little burned out on playing after all the touring. Right now, there’s only one horn I want to blow.”

“Oh yeah?” Jake asked, smiling as her hand began to caress the horn in question.

“Yeah,” she said, licking her lips and then lowering her head to begin the performance.

On the night of April 8^th, however, her presence at Celia’s final dress rehearsal was pretty much mandatory. She put up no fuss when Jake told her this. In truth, she was getting anxious to start interacting with the world once again, and she had not seen or talked to Celia in a long time now—since a few days before she’d left on the American part of the Bobby Z tour. She dressed in a pair of new blue jeans and a fashionable blouse, put on a little makeup for the first time in weeks, and even did her hair a little. Before getting into the limo that Jake had arranged to take them to the performance she made sure to pack her one-hitter pipe and a baggie of Jake’s greenbud in her purse.

“Greg’s going to be there?” Laura asked Jake as they sat in the back of the limo and sipped from a bottle of wine she’d opened.

“That’s the rumor,” Jake said.

“Is it awkward being around them?” she asked. Jake had told her what the situation was between the actor and the singer, including the reason for the rift. She felt bad for both of them, but also more than a little sympathetic. She certainly did not approve of infidelity in a relationship, but she also knew what it was like to be far away from the one you loved and understood the sexual frustration that went along with it. Yes, she understood that very well indeed.

“Most of the time, no,” Jake said. “They both remain personable with everyone else, and they don’t fight or put each other down or anything like that. It actually takes a while to realize sometimes that they’re not talking to each other. It’s subtle.”

“Interesting,” she said, pondering that. She then turned to Jake and grinned. “Do you mind if I suck you off really quick before we get there?”

“Uh ... well ... no,” he said. “I’m certainly not going to say no to that.”

“All right then,” she said, putting her wine glass down. “Break that thing out and let’s do this.”

He broke it out and she did it, putting her head in his lap and sucking his manhood between her lips. She had been doing this a lot lately. She tried to tell herself she just loved the taste and texture of Jake’s cock—and she truly did—but she knew that wasn’t the complete truth. Being out on the road all those months, the only girl among a band and crew of males while her lover was far away had put a sexual pressure on her that she had never experienced before—had never even really imaged. She was still trying to come to grips with how she had chosen to deal with that pressure in order to remain sane and faithful to Jake. Her compulsive need to have her hands, mouth, and vagina on Jake’s erection now that it was available to her was how she was dealing with a combination of guilt, confusion, and desire brought on by the experience.

She finished up the blowjob, swallowed down the offering without spilling a drop, and still had enough time to reapply her makeup and rinse out her mouth with another glass of wine before they arrived at the rehearsal warehouse.

“I’ll give you a call when we’re ready for pick-up,” Jake told Tony, their driver, after passing him a folded green piece of paper with a picture of Ulysses S. Grant on it.

“My cell phone is on, Jake,” Tony promised, taking the bill and making it disappear. “I’ll be here ten minutes after you call.”

“Good enough,” Jake said, taking Laura’s arm.

They went inside the building, where the stage, the lighting, and the soundboard had all been set up in the exact configuration that was going to be used in the actual venues out on tour. Though the warehouse was much smaller than a concert venue, there was still enough room for a couple of dozen folding chairs between the soundboard and the stage. Many of these chairs were already occupied by men in suits. These were bigwigs from Aristocrat Records, Brogan Guitars, and the Yamaha Corporation’s music division. The Aristocrat suits were here because they were financing the tour and were entitled to see what they were paying for (even if they didn’t like it). The Brogan and Yamaha people were here because several of the musicians in the band had signed endorsement contracts with them for the tour and they wanted to see what they were paying for.

Jake led Laura over to these front row chairs and introduced her to the suits. She shook their hands, told them she was happy to meet them, and smiled pretty for them, knowing she would not remember a single name, and hoping she would not have to talk too much to them.

She did not. After making small talk for less than five minutes, Greg came in through the front door. He was alone, dressed in a custom-tailored business suit complete with jacket and tie. Laura rushed over to greet him and gave him a big hug before kissing him on both cheeks. Greg seemed very pleased with the greeting, his smile genuine instead of an actor’s pretend smile.

“You look as beautiful as ever, Laura,” Greg told her.

“Thank you,” she said, feeling herself blush a little. She loved Jake with all her heart, but it was always flattering to have a handsome Hollywood actor call you beautiful.

“Are you going to come with Jake to the premier of So Others May Live?” he asked her.

“Absolutely!” she said. “I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never been to a real Hollywood premier before.”

“It’s just like going to see a film at your local movie theater,” he assured her. “Except, you know, the dress is formal, and there are a bunch of stars and directors there, and there are appetizers prepared by the best chefs in the region.”

“Jake said the drinks are free?” she asked.

“The drinks are free,” he assured her.

“That’s all you had to say,” she said. She then leaned forward and gave him another kiss on the cheek.

Pauline and the Nerdlys showed up next. Laura had had a meeting with Pauline, her manager, shortly after arriving back home, so she rushed right by her to give big hugs to Bill (who blushed furiously as she embraced him) and especially to Sharon.

“Congratulations!” she told the master of audio engineering, who was already exhibiting a distinct glow. “Jake told me the news last week. It’s so exciting, isn’t it?”

“It’s actually kind of nauseating, truth be told,” Sharon said. “Now I understand what my mother is always holding over my head.”

“The tendency toward circadian rhythm disturbances and early day nausea and emesis should pass around the completion of the first trimester,” Bill said matter-of-factly. “At least all of the internet research I’ve done on the subject seems to suggest this.”

“Early day nausea my ass,” Pauline said sourly. “When I was growing the clump, I’d puke any fucking time, day or night, usually with only six or so seconds of warning.”

“Did this condition resolve by the end of the first trimester though?” asked Bill.

“More or less,” Pauline said with a shrug.

“That is fortunate,” Bill said. “I am quite looking forward to the surge of hormones in the second trimester that is purported to trigger increased sexual desire.”

“The second trimester horniness,” Pauline said with a fond nod of the head. “That’s a real thing. Obie almost didn’t survive it.”

“He told me he had to turn it down a few times during that phase,” Jake said.

Pauline nodded. “This is true. He’s such an old man.”

“How much longer until he comes home?” Laura asked.

“He’ll be here for Greg’s premier,” Pauline said. “The final tour date is May 16^th in Portland. Tabs and I are going to fly up there to catch the show and then spend a little time in Coos Bay.”

“You’re going to bring a baby to a concert?” Laura asked.

“Damn right,” Pauline said. “She’s from a musical family, isn’t she? I want her first concert to be her daddy’s—even if it is that crappy-ass country music.”

7:30 was rapidly approaching, so everyone found seats to plant their respective butts in. Laura and Jake sat as far away from the suits of Aristocrat, Brogan, and Yamaha as they possibly could. The Nerdlys tried to sit at the sound board so they could monitor the hand-picked engineers and techs they had assembled for the day to day operations, but were soundly rejected on the grounds that it was time to let their little birds fly free. They ended up sitting next to Jake and Laura. Greg sat on the other side of Jake and sipped from a glass of wine he’d poured from the small bar that had been set up.

The opening band was a group called Flex, an alternative rock group from Minneapolis that Aristocrat had signed six months before. Flex’s debut album, titled Under the Surface, had been released for sale three weeks before and the title cut was getting some decent airplay across the nation. They were, of course, operating under a first-time contract that exploited them horribly and pretty much guaranteed that, no matter how successful they became, they would do nothing but lose money and go into debt to Aristocrat. The owners of KVA Records did not approve of this, but they knew it was the world they lived in and there was little they could do about it.

Flex took the stage and played a forty-five minute set that included every cut on their debut album and two unrecorded songs. Laura was not terribly impressed with them, but she understood that this was primarily due to her still-present prejudice against rock and roll music. Good rock could impress her—Jake had shown her that—but almost never at first listen, and only if it was truly good. Flex did not have the sound of something that might eventually grow on her.

The newbies finished their set and then left the stage to the sound of polite applause from the fifteen people who made up the audience. The roadies began to clear Flex’s equipment from the stage so Celia could come on in thirty minutes. It was as much a dress rehearsal for the roadies and the techies as it was for the musicians—maybe even more so.

“Where do you think you’re going, Nerdlys?” Jake asked as Bill and Sharon began to rise from their seats.

“We just want to have a brief word with Flint and Jeff over on the sound board,” Nerdly said.

“Right,” said Sharon. “The mid-range on the bass was just a little too high and the secondary mic volume was a little too low. We want to make sure that...”

“Sit down,” Jake said firmly. “We’ve been over this, remember? It’s time to let them do their jobs.”

“But the mid-range!” Nerdly said. “It has to be adjusted before Celia steps out!”