Chapter 6B

Jake slept until just after four o'clock. He awoke feeling refreshed and vibrant for the first time in weeks. He shaved, showered, dressed in fresh clothes, and then went downstairs and fixed a stiff rum and coke that he took out onto the patio to enjoy with a cigarette.

He began to wonder if Celia had changed her mind about staying at his house. She had been more than a little tipsy when she'd accepted his invitation and now that she'd had time to sober up he thought it likely that the pressure her A&R team would be putting on her might derail the rebellious intentions he'd planted in her brain. He wasn't quite sure why he was looking forward to Celia's visit. He had no romantic aspirations toward her, nor did he have any serious thoughts about a meaningless sexual encounter with her. She was engaged to another man and she did not seem the least bit interested in him either sexually or romantically. Still, he enjoyed being around her. They seemed to share an ease of conversation that he'd never experienced with a woman unrelated to him before. She was, as he'd told Elsa, a friend. The brief conversations they'd shared in the past were something he remembered with fondness. There was a depth to her that he wanted to explore and expand upon. He would be disappointed if she didn't show tonight.

The phone rang just after 4:30. Elsa brought it to him, explaining formally that a "Ms. Valdez" was requesting to speak with him.

"Thanks, Elsa," he said, taking it. He put it to his ear and said, "Celia?"

"The one and only," she replied. "Are you ready to send some of your people to come get me?"

"I am," he said. He had called Buxfield Limousines before lying down and asked them to keep a car available for this mission. He had also let them know of the top-secret nature of this pick-up. "Did you call your people and let them know you were going AWOL?"

"I did," she said. "It would be safe to say that I've ignited quite the shitstorm. In the past two hours I've been threatened, begged to, threatened again, and then ordered to stay in my rented room like the good little spic I've always been."

"They called you a spic?" Jake asked.

"That was one of the kinder things I was called. I could really use a drink, Jake. How soon can that limo get here?"

"Where are you at?"

She gave him the name of her hotel.

"I'll have someone there in thirty minutes," he said. "Stay in your room until the driver calls for you to come down."

"I'll be eagerly awaiting," she said.

"And feel free to start drinking in the limo," he said. "You'll have to have a few to catch up with me."

"Sounds like a plan," she said.

At six o'clock Jake went to the small storage compartment next to the house and removed a bag of charcoal briquettes and a bottle of lighter fluid. He carried them over to his barbeque island and dumped a good portion of the briquettes inside. He drenched them in lighter fluid and then had a cigarette while he waited for it to soak in. When he was done smoking he struck a match and lit up the charcoal. Within a minute it was blazing brightly, sending black smoke up into the air.

"Mmm," a voice said from behind him. "I really love the smell of a barbeque being lit. It reminds me of camping trips with my parents back in Venezuela."

Jake turned and beheld Celia. She was dressed in a tighter pair of jeans then she'd worn on the airplane and a form-fitting burgundy sweater that outlined her breasts quite nicely. Her hair was flowing loosely over her shoulders. She had a drink in one hand and a smoldering cigarette in the other.

"You've arrived," Jake said. "And you're looking quite lovely as well. Did Elsa get you that drink?"

"She did," Celia confirmed. "She's a very nice lady. She introduced herself to me, gave me a tour of your house, and then made me this drink. Are you sure she's not going to tell anyone that I was here?"

"Absolutely positive," Jake said. "Elsa has no connection whatsoever to any media conglomerates or record company executives. I pay her very good money and, in return, she gives me complete loyalty."

"That's a concept," she said, walking a little closer. "My housekeeper is some record company puta who reports everything I say and do to my A&R guy."

"Does puta mean what I think it means?" he asked.

"It means 'whore'," she said. "But even that translation doesn't do it justice. It's the vilest manifestation of 'whore' currently available in Espanola. It means 'gutter whore', the worst of the worst of that particular breed."

"I see," Jake said. "I'll add that term to my lexicon of Spanish terms, filing it right next to cabron, which is my current favorite."

"We spics do know how to insult," she said, taking a drink of her booze.

"And I totally respect that," Jake said. "Did Elsa tell you about her grandchildren? She usually can't shut up about that."

"She mentioned that her granddaughter is a La Diferencia fan."

"A very big La Dif fan if I understood correctly," Jake said. "Do you think you could write a little note to her and autograph it? Elsa would never ask in a million years — it wouldn't be proper decorum, as she says — but I have no problem asking."

"Sure," Celia said, "I'd love to, but won't she wonder how Elsa got it? Remember, no one is supposed to know I'm here."

"I'll have Elsa tell her I got it at the Grammy Awards. Just remember to postdate it."

"Deal."

The briquettes were now blazing away quite nicely and seemed in little danger of burning out. Jake put the lighter fluid away and then brushed the black charcoal dust off his hands. "Shall we go inside?" he asked. "It'll take about forty minutes for them to burn down."

"Sure," she said, following him to the back door. "Do you do all the barbequing?"

"I do. Elsa owns the kitchen and everything in it but the barbeque is my domain."

They went inside and sat down at the bar in the entertainment room. Jake washed his hands in the sink and then mixed himself a fresh drink.

"This is such a nice house, Jake," Celia said. "Seeing it has made me realize what a crappy contract we're under. You own your own house and I'm assigned to mine. You're probably collecting millions in royalties and endorsement fees and I'm more than eighty thousand dollars in debt to Aristocrat Records. How did you do it?"

"How did I do what?"

"Get National to renegotiate your contract?"

This was a very touchy subject. The new contract had a strict non-disclosure clause in it, violation of which could force reversion to the old contract. "Who says they renegotiated anything?" Jake asked.

"Oh come on," she said, her green eyes sparkling. "Everyone in the business knows they did. The very fact that you were able to buy this house is as good as proof you aren't operating under a first-time contract anymore."

"You do have a good point there," he admitted.

"Of course I do. So tell me a story. How did you get the most tight-assed cabrons in the free world to share some of that profit with you? Do you know mobsters?"

"Assuming your supposition was even true," Jake said, "I doubt it would have been brought about by anything as dramatic as mobsters."

"Oh?"

"That's right," he said. "It would probably be more along the lines of a good lawyer threatening to challenge the very legality of first-time contracts under a legal theory known as 'unenforceable provisions'."

"Unenforceable provisions?"

He gave her a brief rundown on what that term meant. "Basically it means if you put something into a contract that was so outrageous — like agreeing to a lengthy term under conditions that almost guarantee you'll go into debt — it doesn't matter if the person who signed the contract was in his right mind and understood the provision. By their very nature they are unenforceable."

"Wow," she said. "And that worked?"

"I'm not saying anything worked," Jake said. "I'm just saying that if the scenario you're suggesting ever took place, that might be how it was done. You see, the record company would be willing to sacrifice Intemperance and all the future revenue we represented just to make an example of us to future bands. What they wouldn't be able to tolerate, however, is a threat that cuts to the core of their very industry and profit margin. If a court — most likely the California Supreme Court itself — were to rule that Intemperance's contract was null and void under unenforceable provisions, that would mean that every single first-time contract signed with any record company based in California would also become null and void. That would be something that could force a renegotiation now, wouldn't it?"

"Hmm," she said thoughtfully. You could almost see the light bulb going on over her head.

"Before you start getting any wild ideas," Jake said, "allow me to derail them. This scenario might have been possible back in 1985 but it probably wouldn't fly now. Rose Bird and most of her cohorts have been voted off the California Supreme Court and they were all replaced with conservatives whose asses are so tight you probably couldn't stick a baby thermometer in there. I don't think a record company would take the threat as seriously today."

Celia's face fell a little. "Well, that sucks ass."

"Indeed it does," Jake agreed. "Let's have another drink, shall we?"

"That sounds like a grand idea."

They actually had three more drinks before it was time for Jake to put the steaks on the barbeque. He grilled them to a perfect medium-rare and brought them back to Elsa, who put them on plates and carried them to the dining room table. In addition to the steaks there were sliced portabella mushrooms sautéed in garlic and red wine, homemade red beans and rice, and steamed asparagus spears with cheese sauce. To round it all out she opened a bottle of 1982 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Berringer vineyards in the Napa Valley. Jake and Celia both tore into the food with a vengeance, eating every last scrap of everything with hardly a word exchanged.

"Oh my lord, Elsa," Celia told her when she come in to clear the dishes. "That was absolutely fantastic. I've been eating nothing but cheap, catered food and greasy hotel kitchen food for the past five months. Thank you so much for a real meal."

"You're very welcome, Celia," Elsa said, displaying a small smile of satisfaction.

"I must agree, Elsa," Jake said. "The thing I was looking most forward to about this little vacation back from the road was getting some of your food in my stomach."

"Thank you too, Jake," she said. "I'm glad you enjoyed it. How does eggs benedict sound for breakfast in the morning?"

"Sounds good to me," he said. "How about you, Celia? Do you like eggs benedict?"

"I adore it," she said. "If I wasn't so stuffed right now I would be drooling."

"Eggs benedict it is," Elsa said. "Now please clear out of the dining area so I can clean it."

They obeyed, heading into the entertainment room. Jake poured each of them a snifter of cognac. Celia warmed hers in her hand and then took a sip. "Very good," she complimented. "You do seem to know your booze, Jake."

"I'm working on a PhD in booze," he replied. "This stuff is really nice with a good cigar."

"Now that's an idea," she said. "Do you have any?"

"You want to smoke a cigar?" he asked.

"I'm a woman of the world," she said. "Do you have any, or what?"

Jake grinned. "I think I just fell in love with you," he said. He walked behind the bar and opened the humidor that was installed there. He pulled out two of his finest illegally imported Cubans. "Shall we retire to the smoking area?"

"By all means."

They went out to the patio and sat down at the outside bar. Jake prepped the cigars with a cutting tool he kept out here just for that purpose and they lit up. Celia smoked it expertly, even commenting on the aftertaste.

"If the paparazzi could only get a shot of you now," Jake said. "Sitting out in Jake Kingsley's backyard, sipping cognac, and toking on an illegal stogy."

Celia only shrugged. "Who knows?" she said. "Maybe it would give my career a little boost. God knows I could use one after that last album."

Jake nodded. La Diferencia's fourth album — Love Is In The Air — had not done nearly as well as the first three. It had gone platinum, but only barely and only in the last month. Nor had it ever broached into the top ten on the album chart, stalling at number twelve for two weeks shortly after its release and then plunging rapidly downward. Similarly it had only produced one hit single — a song called How Much Can I Take? — instead of the three to four top ten singles produced by the first three albums (although, to be honest, How Much Can I Take? had parked itself at the number one spot for six consecutive weeks, denying Intemperance's song Cold Reality from the top spot).

"What happened on that album?" Jake asked, although he already knew. He had listened to the album several times and found it to be full of clichéd rehashes of the previous La Diferencia albums, some hokey enough that you had to wonder if they were jokes or not.

"Over-formulization, what else?" Celia said. "All of the tracks on Love sound like crappy imitations or our other hits. I knew it the whole time we were rehearsing it and recording it. The writers went back to the well a few too many times and the fans who loved our music so much have grown older and become more musically sophisticated. We didn't grow up with them. They just kept feeding us a bunch of sappy songs about teenage puppy love and dancing and being sad while your boyfriend is away and our fans got tired of it."

"Wow," Jake said respectfully. "That's a brutally honest self-examination."

"Above all else," she quoted, "to thy own self be true. I'm just being true to myself. We're a teen pop band and our fans have outgrown us. You guys, on the other hand, have done exactly what we failed to do. As your fan base grew older and wiser your music grew more sophisticated, more daring. Your lyrics became deeper and more relevant. Even Matt's lyrics, as much as I hate to admit it. That song of his, Can't Chain Me, is very moving in a disturbed kind of way. It was able to elicit an emotional response in me when I analyzed the lyrics. And your song, I Am Time, is simply brilliant, both in lyrics and instrumentation. There is nothing on Love that can even come close to that. That's why you're heading for triple platinum already and we're floundering at barely over platinum."

"You're right," Jake said. "Nothing the Aristocrat songwriters gave you for this one is worth a shit and it honestly sounds like they've flat run out of ideas. It doesn't have to be that way though."

"What do you mean?"

"You're a very good songwriter and melody composer if the few cuts they've allowed you to record are any indication."

"Nice try," she said with a pout, "but those were only bones they threw at me. You'll notice that none of them were ever released as singles. None were even played on the radio."

"Is that what you think makes a song good?" Jake asked. "Whether or not they play it on the radio?"

"Well... no," she said.

"I think Caribobo is one of the most moving and descriptive songs I've ever heard. It made me feel empathy for soldiers in a battle I'd never even heard of. And then there is Calling You on your second album. A very adroit analysis of the turmoil a person goes through after breaking up with someone who is no good for them."

Celia was looking at him in wonder. "I had no idea you paid so much attention to our music."

Jake shrugged, a little embarrassed, as if he'd been caught going through her purse. "La Diferencia always seems to be neck and neck with us on the charts so naturally I had to take a few listens to see what you were all about. My point is that you are a very talented songwriter. The music you make for those albums is consistently the best things on those albums. I'm not talking about how much airplay a song gets or how many singles it sells or whether or not it's nominated for a Grammy. Your songs are honest, written from the heart, which is the only way a song should be written."

"That's sweet, Jake," she said. "And it means a lot coming from someone like you."

"Glad I could boost your ego," he said, "but my other point was that you should push to get more of your own music on the next album."

"If there is a next album," she said. "There's a good chance they won't pick us up for the next option period after the sales of Love."

"Oh, they'll pick you up for the next," Jake said. "As long as they stand to make more money than they'll lose, they'll always pick you up. The album may sound like shit and not sell all that much but you're still a popular touring act, aren't you?"

"True," she said.

"So you should push them a little. Put together a collection of your original music and start throwing some weight around for them to include it."