Chapter 4: Revelations

Moosehead Lake, Maine

May 16, 1996

Jake and Laura wanted to be alone with each other during the seven days of her tour break and they accomplished that quite literally. They awoke on this morning in the master stateroom of a large houseboat Jake had rented in Greenville, Maine, on the southern tip of Moosehead Lake in the isolated north-central region of the most northeasterly state in the contiguous United States. From Greenville, they had motored the boat twenty miles north, anchoring it in a moderate-sized cove fifty yards offshore of a seven-hundred-foot-tall slab of ancient volcanic rock known as Mount Kineo, which rose from a large peninsula that jutted out into the lake. The peninsula itself was a state park but it was a state park that was only accessible by watercraft or helicopter. There were no roads to drive to it and there was no airport to land at. There were occasional boats that came in to explore the cove during the day, but they tended to keep their distance. There was no cellular phone coverage and the only communication device they had access to was the marine radio in the cockpit of the vessel, which they kept turned off. For all intents and purposes, Jake and Laura were utterly, wondrously, and intimately alone in one of the most isolated places in the continental United States.

They had been here for three days and three nights now and were thoroughly enjoying themselves. The days were pleasant and sunny, and the nights were chilly and quiet, with only the sound of the gentle waves lapping on the boat. The water itself was far too cold to swim in, but Jake had rented them a pair of jet skis and dry suits and they spent a good portion of each afternoon tooling around and exploring. At night, Jake would make dinner for them and they would share a bottle or two of wine and then spend some time in the hot tub up on the upper deck, looking at the stars and talking. It was therapeutic for both of them. They had agreed not to discuss the impending article in the New England Reports in which Laura would be outed for dallying with female groupies. Laura, working through Pauline, had already denied the accusations, calling them ridiculous storytelling. Jake had refused to comment at all, other than to say that the accusations were not even worthy of a response from him. There was nothing that talking about the issue, or even thinking about it, could accomplish at this point, so they didn’t.

“Good morning,” Laura said now as she sat up in the queen-sized bed they shared in the master stateroom. She was naked, as was Jake, and smelled of sex, as did Jake, but the bedding was relatively unruffled since they had done their pre-retirement fucking the night before on the foldout hide-a-bed in the entertainment room. Their goal was to fuck in each of the eleven beds on the vessel before they returned it. So far, they had used six of them, plus the hot tub.

“Good morning,” Jake returned with a stretch and a yawn. He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the side of her jaw. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like a baby,” she said contentedly. “This was a great idea.”

“It was, wasn’t it? I think we should make a habit of doing something like this at least twice a year from here on out. Find some out of the way place and isolate ourselves for a few days there. Get away from everyone and everything and just be.”

“I’ll vote for that,” she said, pushing the covers off of herself and standing up. She stretched a little and then headed for the tiny bathroom attached to the stateroom. “It should be pretty easy to find places like that once we get the new plane, right?”

“Uh ... right,” Jake said, careful to keep any inflection out of his voice. He did not want to talk about the plane right now.

But Laura did. She sat down on the toilet, leaving the door open, and began to pee. “Didn’t you say it’s going to be entering escrow soon?” she asked.

“Yes,” Jake said. “Uhhh ... escrow starts today, as a matter of fact. Jill was supposed to fly down to Bogota yesterday with that property lawyer Paulie set me up with.”

Laura giggled a little. “And to hook up with that Colombian pilot, no doubt.” Jake had told her the story of Jill getting herself laid.

“No doubt,” Jake said, giving a little chuckle in return. “She was very enthusiastic about the trip. Told me it was no problem at all, that whenever I needed her to go to Bogota for something, she was on it.”

“Wow,” Laura said. “That from the woman who grumbles when you ask her to fly down to Los Angeles for a meeting.”

“I guess that pilot knows his way around her cockpit.”

She looked at him in confusion. “How’s that?”

“Cockpit,” Jake explained. “As in, a pit for him to place his cock. It’s kind of a pun, you see.”

She shook her head and gave him a little eyeroll. “I don’t think puns are your thing, sweetie,” she said dryly.

“I thought it was funny.”

“I’m sure you did,” she said, finishing her business and standing up. She wiped and then pushed the flush button on the toilet. It gave a noisy whoosh like an airplane toilet and then silenced. “Anyway, since the plane is going into escrow today, I’m assuming you finally nailed down the final price?”

Fuck! Jake thought miserably. I thought the cockpit joke might steer her away from this. “Uh ... yeah,” he said softly, trying to find a way out of sharing the information and failing. “We did.”

“How much was it?” she asked, turning on the sink to wash her hands.

“Well ... uh ... it was a little more expensive than I thought when I first started looking into this whole thing.”

“How much more?” she asked, soaping up her hands. “You said you could probably get one for around half a million, right?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “That’s what I thought at first. It turns out I underestimated the value to some degree.”

“That’s a bummer,” she said, now rinsing. “How much more? Like eight hundred thousand or so?”

“Uh ... well ... I sent Jill with an authorization to wire nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars into the escrow account.”

“Nine hundred and fifty?” she asked, surprised. “That is quite a bit more than half a million.”

“Yeah,” Jake said miserably.

“But still, I guess it’s not that bad. I mean, you really love the plane, right?”

“I do,” he admitted.

“And it does have a bathroom, like I asked.”

“Yes, it certainly does,” Jake agreed.

“And it’s not like we can’t afford nine hundred and fifty.” She turned off the sink and reached for the towel hanging on the rack.

Jake sighed. “Actually, babe, there is one thing I really think I need to confess right now.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Well ... the fact of the matter is that ... uh ... you know ... that that nine hundred and fifty thousand is really only ... uh ... the down payment.”

Her hands stopped the motion of drying. She slowly turned and looked at her husband. “The down payment?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, fighting to keep his eyes on hers. “It’s uh ... twenty percent of the agreed upon price.”

Her eyes widened and then bored into him. “Nine hundred and fifty thousand is only twenty percent of what the plane costs?” she asked him, a little steel in her tone. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

He nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted. “That’s what I’m telling you.”

“Then the actual price of the plane is ... is...” She could not do the math in her head. “How much is it, Jake?”

“Uh ... four million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” he said.

“Four million, seven hundred and fifty thousand?” she nearly screamed. “Please tell me you’re kidding, Jake! Please tell me this is a fucking joke!”

“Well, it was originally priced at four million, eight hundred thousand,” he said, “but I won a bet with the owner playing darts and got fifty thousand off.”

This time she did scream. “Darts! You gambled fifty thousand dollars playing darts?!”

“I won,” he said defensively.

She shook her head rapidly. “Forget the darts,” she said. “That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you agreed to pay almost five million dollars for an airplane you told me would cost around half a million and you didn’t talk to me about it! How long have you known it was going to cost that much?”

“Well ... uh ... pretty much since I heard about the plane from Jill in the first place,” he admitted.

“That was months ago!” she said. “Months! And you never mentioned it to me a single time!”

“You were on tour for most of...”

“We talked on the phone all the time, Jake!” she yelled. “At least three times a week! And I did ask you about it multiple times if you’ll recall! And every time I did, you said the price wasn’t decided yet and changed the subject. What the fuck, Jake?”

“I’m sorry, hon,” he told her, “it’s just that ... well ... you know?”

“I do not know,” she said. “You lied to me! You knew the whole time it was going to cost almost five million and you lied when I asked you about it!”

“Uh ... yeah,” he said miserably. “I guess I did.”

“Why, Jake?” she asked. “I know you are the one who makes the money around here. I know that! The only money I make is what KVA pays me for touring and recording and royalties and KVA is owned by you, so even my money originally comes from you, but we are married! Aren’t married people supposed to talk about things like five-million-dollar purchases before they happen?”

“Yes,” he said softly. “They are.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Well ... truthfully, because I thought you might try to talk me out of buying it.”

Her eyes continued to glare into him for a few moments and then softened a bit. “You decided it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission?”

He nodded. “That’s as good a way as any to put it,” he agreed.

She shook her head again, this time seemingly in bewilderment instead of anger. “I probably would have tried to talk you out of it,” she said. “Five million is a lot of money.”

“Four point eight million,” he corrected.

“That’s still a lot of money.”

“True,” he had to agree.

“But if you had just told me that it was something you really wanted, Jake, and if you had just showed me that we could really afford this thing—we can afford this, right?”

“We can,” he said. “The monthly payments will be around twenty-seven thousand. Insurance will be another eight hundred a month. California use tax—which is sales tax essentially—will be three hundred and eighty thousand, but that won’t be due until next year and it’s a one-time deal. And then there’s the one percent per year personal property tax that California will charge. That’ll run around forty-eight grand a year, gradually going down as the plane depreciates in value. A lot of money I will agree, but yes, we can afford it. As of the last quarterly meeting, I ... uh ... I mean we are pulling in more than nine million dollars a quarter in income when you add up the KVA disbursements, instrument endorsements, and Intemperance royalties. And that’s even before the next Brainwash album is factored in.”

Her eyes softened a little more. “That’s good to know,” she said softly. “Anyway, my point is that if you would have impressed upon me that you really wanted the plane and that we really could afford it, I would have said yes. You really didn’t need to go through all of this deception.”

“Well... now you tell me,” he said.

She sighed. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she said. “What am I going to do with you?”

He smiled, sensing the argument was now over and feeling a large weight of stress falling off his shoulders. “I think a good punishment would be to make me watch you have lesbian sex again.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” she agreed. “Only this time, you don’t get to touch me, or even jack off.”

“Well ... I can live with that, I suppose.”

“Until the next day,” she added.

“Okay, now that’s just cruel and unusual.”

She smiled then, and now he really knew the argument was over. And he had learned something fundamental and profound from it. It really was better to ask for forgiveness than permission—just a little more painful in the immediate confession period.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said.

“All right,” he replied. “I’ll get breakfast going.”

While Laura headed naked to the main bathroom just off the entertainment room, Jake went and relieved his own bladder and had his morning BM. After washing up from these activities, he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and walked into the kitchen, shirtless. He opened the refrigerator and rummaged around for a minute. Their supplies were getting low, but he had what he needed to make them a couple of Denver omelets and some buttered toast. He got the coffee going and then began his construction project. Laura emerged from the bathroom, naked and fresh smelling, and walked back through the kitchen on her way back to the stateroom to get dressed. She returned five minutes later wearing a pair of denim shorts and a plain t-shirt over a bikini top (she still would not wear the bikini by itself anyplace she might be seen by someone other than Jake, but would wear it beneath a shirt).

“Looks good,” she said as Jake put their breakfast plates on the table.

“Naturally,” Jake replied as he poured each of them a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain.

They sat down and dug into their meal.

“Anything on the agenda for today?” Laura asked. “You know ... besides spending five million dollars on a bathroom?”

“Four point seven five,” he corrected. “And we’re starting to get low on supplies. I don’t have anything to make for dinner tonight, we’re all out of eggs, almost out of cheese, and we’re down to one bottle of wine.”

“That will simply not do,” Laura said. “Where can we get these things?”

“That little town where we gas up the jet skis,” he said. “Rockwood. It’s just a two-mile ride and they have that little grocery store there just a block or two up from the docks.”

“Won’t things be hideously expensive there?” she asked. “You know? Like the four dollar a gallon gas?”

“Undoubtedly,” he agreed. “But you gotta do what you gotta do, right?”

“I guess you’re right,” she said. “And besides, if we’re going to spend four point seven five million dollars on a plane, why scoff at thirty dollars for a bottle of ten-dollar chardonnay?”

“How long are you going to keep making backhanded references to the four point seven five-million-dollar plane?” he asked. “Just out of curiosity.”

“Pretty much for the rest of your natural life,” she replied.

“That’s kind of what I thought,” he said with a sigh.

They ate and then, while Laura did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, Jake went and took his own shower. After toweling off, he pulled on a pair of baggy swimming trunks and a t-shirt he had bought in Bar Harbor. He then picked up the backpack he used when traveling—it was currently empty—and threw his wallet into it. Inside of his wallet was more than six hundred dollars in cash he had also picked up in Bar Harbor. Using your ATM card to make purchases had not quite made it to most of the state of Maine outside of Bangor or Portland yet. And it certainly had not made it to Rockwood, Maine.

Their dry suits were hanging on a rack on the lower deck on the aft side of the boat. This was where the two Kawasaki JS750 jet skis were secured. It took them about five minutes to completely gear up for the trip to town. They pulled on the dry suits, put water shoes on their feet, donned their life vests, and then Jake put the backpack on and tightened the straps as much as he could. He then locked up the door that allowed entry into the boat and put the key in a little pocket on the dry suit that was designed just for that purpose.

“You ready?” he asked Laura.

“Let’s do it,” she said with a smile of pleasant anticipation. The jet ski had scared her at first but now she had fallen in love with riding it. And she had gotten quite good at it as well.

The so-called “keys” for the jet skis were actually just plastic pieces that plugged into a slot and allowed the ignition circuit to complete and the engine to run. These keys were attached to lanyards that they secured to their wrists. In the event of a fall—and they had both fallen a lot when they were learning to ride—the lanyard would yank the key out of the slot and kill the engine instantly, thus preventing the watercraft from continuing on its merry way without its rider. You then just had to swim after the machine and remount it.

Jake untied the skis and they climbed aboard, settling in on their knees and then pushing away from the boat. They plugged in their keys and fired up the two-stroke engines, which sent clouds of fragrant exhaust into the air.

“Lead the way!” Laura told him. She had a terrible sense of navigation outside of cities or towns (and it was not that great inside of them either). She could probably find her way out of the cove—since there was only one way to escape and it was plainly visible—but after that, she did not even know which way they should turn to get to town.

“Try to keep up!” Jake returned playfully. He did have a superb sense of direction and navigation, even in unfamiliar places, and always effortlessly led them back to the cove without the use of a map of any kind, or even a compass, no matter where they went out on the large lake. Of course, he was greatly assisted in this impressive feat by the fact that Mount Kineo, where they were anchored, was visible from anywhere in the range of the jet skis.

Jake pulled on the throttle just enough to get moving and steered around in a circle until he was facing the exit to the cove. He then throttled up, putting on some speed. As the jet ski moved faster and became more stable in the water, he slowly stood up until he was standing tall on his own two feet. He glanced over his left shoulder and saw that Laura was keeping station with him, just behind and to the left, where his wake would not catch her. She too had assumed the standing position.

The water was mostly calm as they exited the cove and turned to the right, with no wind-driven waves at all and only a few wakes churned up by the sparse boat traffic that was motoring about here and there. The Yamahas could easily go forty-five miles per hour, maybe even fifty, but Jake did not go balls to the wall. He kept the throttle at around eighty percent or so and they cruised at around thirty-five to forty miles per hour. They cut through the water smoothly, feeling the wind in their faces, occasionally getting splashed a bit when they hit one of the rolling boat wakes. The trip took only five minutes to complete and neither of them fell off. They pulled up to the Rockwood Town Landing boat ramp, maneuvering over to the fuel dock and then shutting down.

They stepped from the jet skis onto the dock—Laura almost falling into the water but catching herself at the last second—and tied up. Jake turned his back to her and told her to get into the backpack and pull out his wallet. She did so.

He peeled off a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to her. “You fuel us up,” he said. “I’ll hike in and grab the groceries.”

“Sounds good,” she said.

The proprietor of the fueling station was heading toward them from the direction of the little snack shack where he had been sitting in a wooden chair out in front of it. He was a grizzled man in his late fifties or early sixties. He was balding, missing a few teeth, and constantly smoked cigarettes, even when he was fueling someone up. He was the same man who had fueled them on their previous trips to the dock and he was a man of few words, speaking no more than was necessary to complete the transaction. Jake did not even know his name, as he had never offered it and he wore no form of name tag or badge.

He walked up to them now, his lit, half-smoked cigarette sticking out of his mouth. He was looking at them intently as they approached, much more intently than he had ever looked at them on previous visits.

“Good morning,” Jake greeted when he reached their position.

“Ayuh, it is,” he agreed, still staring at the two of them, as if he were trying to memorize their features. “Shapin’ up to be a real pisser of a day, ain’t it?”

“Yes,” Jake agreed. “It looks like it.” Pisser, he had learned from his time spent in Maine, was not a bad thing, but a good thing. As in, ‘that was a real pisser of a blowjob you gave me last night, hon’.

“We’d like to fill both tanks up,” Laura told him.

“No problem,” he said. “That’s what I do here.”

“Is it okay if we keep the skis tied up to the dock here long enough for me to walk up to the store and pick up a few things?” Jake asked him.

“Ayuh,” he said. “I’m not exactly drove right up at the moment. No problem at all as long as you book it.”

“Book it?” Jake asked.

“Do it fast,” he clarified.

“Oh ... right. I’ll certainly book it as much as I can.”

“Fair enough,” he said. He still had not taken his eyes off of them, and he made no move to get to work putting fuel in their tanks.

“Uh ... is everything okay?” Jake asked.

“Ayuh,” he said. “Everything is just fine with me. Was just lookin’ to see if you two really are who I think you are.”

Ahhh, so that’s what this is about, Jake thought. We’ve been recognized. “Who is it that you think we are?” he asked.

“I don’t just think, I know,” the proprietor said. “Now that I’ve had a chance to get a good look at you both.” He turned to Jake. “You’re that rock and roll musician that they say is up to devil worshiping and sniffing dope out of butt-cracks.” He then turned to Laura. “And you’re the woman who travels around with that Mexican singer they play on the radio sometimes. You just had a show down Bangor way, didn’t you?”

“We did,” she said. “But Celia Valdez is Venezuelan, not Mexican.”

The proprietor shrugged, as if to say, what’s the difference? “They say you two are married.”

“They’re not making that up,” Laura said, showing him her wedding ring, which she had felt more comfortable wearing on the jet ski than leaving unattended on the houseboat.

“Girl, that’s a wicked rock you have there,” he said. He looked back at Jake. “You’re quite the rig, aintcha?”

“The rig?” Jake asked.

“Flashy, flamboyant,” the proprietor clarified. “Someone who would buy a diamond ring for his wife that probably costs more than I earn in ten years runnin’ this place.”

Jake wanted to be insulted, but he could not quite rise to it. The man was not trying to get under his skin, he was just stating what he believed to be a fact in a no-nonsense way. “I see,” he said simply. “Rig. A good word for it. Short and to the point.”

“Ayuh,” he said. “We like to speak plainly up here in the willy-wags.”

“A good custom,” Jake said with a nod. “So ... anyway, I’ll just...”

But the proprietor was no longer listening to Jake. He had turned back to Laura. “When I saw your picture in that tabloid rag up to the store this morning, I thought you looked familiar,” he said.

“Tabloid rag?” Laura asked.

“The New England whatchamacallit,” he clarified. “You and that Mexican singer are both on the front page of it.”

Jake and Laura looked at each other incredulously. They had known that the issue was hitting the newsstands today, of course, but they had not dreamed that anyone in this part of the state would have access to it. “You sell the New England Report here? At that grocery store?”

“I don’t sell nothin’ at that grocery store,” he said, “but Maudie does. She’s been runnin’ the place since 1978. That’s when that old timer Tim Jenkins finally up and sold it.”

“And there is a demand for that rag here?” Laura asked. “In this little town?”

“Ayuh,” he said, nodding. “Not by the townspeople, of course, but we get lots of flatlanders from down Boston way up here in the spring and summer. And it seems like they like to keep up on all the gossip from home.”

Jake looked at his wife and sighed. “Well,” he said to her, “it looks like our little break from reality is now over.”

“It looks like it,” she agreed with a sigh of her own.

“I hear that rag is claiming you and the Mexican woman like to lie down with your own kind,” the proprietor said. “That’s a pretty wicked accusation.”

Jake blinked. “I’m sorry, is wicked a good thing or a bad thing?”

“It could mean either,” he said, “but in this case, it’s a bad thing, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Jake said.

“Not that it’s any of my business,” the proprietor qualified. “I’ll still sell you gas and Maudie will still sell you groceries. Even if you do like to play for both teams, your money is just as good as any flatlander’s.”

“That’s good to know,” Laura said. She turned back to Jake. “Maybe you oughtta pick up a copy of that rag while you’re there.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I’d better.”

Back in Bangor, Celia Valdez and Suzie Granderson were in Celia’s suite at the Sheraton hotel near the airport. It was just past 11:00 AM and they were still in bed, naked and cuddled against each other, Celia resting her head on Suzie’s chest while Suzie’s arms were locked around her. They had been up late last night, first drinking two bottles of white wine (the King Air was currently at Bangor Airport undergoing a B-level check, therefore Suzie’s moratorium on drinking alcohol was temporarily on hold) and then engaging in a lengthy, two-hour long session of lesbian lovemaking that had finally wrapped up around 3:00 AM. Now, both of them were awake, but too comfortable to get out of bed just yet. Both had headaches and sour stomachs but were quite satiated sexually.

They no longer bothered trying to hide their relationship from the other members of the band. In truth, it had been an exercise in futility to even try, as was evidenced by the ‘anonymous source close to the band’ who had spilled the beans to the New England Reports journalist who had called asking for commentary on the allegation. They still had no idea who that anonymous source was, but he or she had provided enough details of the day-to-day operations and engagement of the band members—particularly Suzie, Celia, and Laura—that they knew they had a mole among them. Was it a member of the road crew? One of the techies? One of the bus drivers? One of the limo drivers? One of the band members? Of all the possibilities, that was the one that bothered Celia the most. The seven of them were very close to each other, had been living and sleeping and traveling and playing music together for months. The thought that one of them might have betrayed her was too much to handle.

“The issue should be at the news stands and supermarket checkouts now,” Suzie said softly, bringing her hand up to play with Celia’s silky hair.

“That’s true,” Celia said with a sigh, snuggling a little tighter into her lover. “From this point on, the media circus will begin. You’ve never been through anything like this before, have you?”

“No,” Suzie said. “I mean, I saw what happened when you and Greg were divorcing and the whole Mindy Snow pregnancy thing hit the public, but I’ve never been personally involved in anything like this.”

“Maybe you won’t be,” Celia suggested. “Paulie said that when the reporter called her, all she knew was that your name was Suzie and that you were a pilot who flew us around. She did not provide them with your last name, the name of your company, or even confirm that there was a female pilot on our plane. This is a sleazy gossip rag. There’s a good chance they were not able to identify you.”

“Really?” Suzie asked.

Celia shrugged. “It’s certainly possible,” she said. “No reporter ever called you to ask for your version of the story, did they?”

“No.”

“You’d think that if they knew who you were, they would have done that, right?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It that how it usually works?”

“Well ... with legitimate journalism it is,” she said. “I don’t know if this New England rag follows the standards of journalistic ethics, but even if they don’t, their story would be juicier if they were able to get a quote from you, or a picture, or anything at all. The fact that they did not even try is suggestive.”

“Maybe,” Suzie said, leaning down and kissing the top of Celia’s head. She hesitated for a few seconds, continuing to stroke Celia’s hair, and then said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything,” Celia said. “You know that.”

“Did you ever think ... uh ... even for a minute ... that maybe the best course of action would have been to ... just ... you know ... admit that we are together?”

The question caught Celia off guard. She raised her head up and looked into Suzie’s eyes. “Admit we are together? You’re not serious, are you?”

“Well ... we are together,” Suzie said. “We’ve been living and sleeping together as a couple for the past month now. How long do we need to keep this in the closet?”