“Uh ... well,” Stan said, casting an evil (though amused) glare at Jake, “I’d love to but ... you know, there are privacy issues involved.”
Bill nodded seriously. “Oh, of course,” he said. “Forgive me. I wouldn’t want to imply that your honor and professionalism should be forfeit simply because you’re now engaged in financially stabilized voluntary unemployment.”
“Well put, son,” Stan said, then turned his attention back to Celia. “So ... I hear you and Jake are making solo albums together with Bill. How is that going?”
“We’re moving along quite nicely,” Celia said.
“In fact,” said Jake, “the solo albums are part of the reason we came to visit.”
“It is?” asked Mary. “What do you mean?”
“We’ll talk about that in a bit, Mom,” Pauline said. “Maybe with lunch.”
“Of course,” Mary said. “Although I can tell you my curiosity is now piqued a bit.”
“We’ll un-pique you soon,” Jake assured her. “For now, how about you show me your house. I’ve been dying to see it.”
The house was quite nice. Though not as large as either of Jake’s houses—the one in the hills of Los Angeles or the one in the hills of New Zealand—it was practical, roomy, and well built. There were four large bedrooms spread throughout the single floor. The master bedroom where Tom and Mary slept was almost a house onto itself. A large picture window on the southeastern wall faced out over the Heritage River Canyon and the mountains beyond. The bed—a super king sized with a canopy—occupied only a quarter or so of the available space in the room. There was a large walk-in closet that was the size of a standard bedroom in a standard house, a sectional dresser and mirror set made of solid mahogany, and an entertainment center—also of mahogany—that was equipped with a forty-two-inch television set. The master bathroom featured a large soaking jacuzzi tub and separate glass enclosed shower. Another picture window looked out over the canyon from in here.
In addition to the bedrooms, there was a large kitchen equipped with propane fired appliances set into a granite topped kitchen island. The cabinetry in here was also of mahogany. Adjacent to the kitchen was a formal dining area that Mary and Tom confessed they rarely used, preferring instead to take their meals in the more intimate kitchen nook. The living room was adjacent to this and featured a projection television set resting in another large mahogany entertainment center. The wrap-around sectional furniture was light brown and rested upon a dark colored hardwood floor. In the corner of the room was a wet bar stocked with a variety of liquors, beers, and wines. Beyond the living room was a hallway that led to the secondary bedrooms, all three of which were equipped with queen sized beds and thirty-inch television sets. Two of the secondary bedrooms shared a connected bathroom with a smaller version of the shower and tub combo in the master. The third secondary room was right next to the communal bathroom in the hall.
At the far end of the house was another room that was larger than the guest rooms but not quite as large as the master. It had its own half-bath attached to it. This was what Tom called the entertainment room. A pool table was the centerpiece of this room. A variety of chairs and loveseats were arranged around it. On the wall near another large window was a top-of-the-line stereo system that had two turntables, a CD player, and a cassette player in addition to the stereo receiver. Arrayed on shelves to either side of the stereo were Tom and Mary’s music collection, which was considerable. Records—some dating back to the early 1950s—were neatly arranged alphabetically. Jake remembered many of these records from his childhood. There were complete collections of Neil Diamond, the Rolling Stones, the Animals, The Beatles, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Simon and Garfunkle, Beethoven’s symphonies by a variety of performers, Bach, Straus, and, of course, Intemperance. The CD collection was considerably smaller and consisted almost entirely of duplicates that his parents had purchased in order to enjoy the superior musical reproduction of their favorites. Most of the classical as well as the Stones and Neil Diamond were represented here. Jake was a bit chagrined to note that there were no Intemperance CDs in the collection.
On the wall opposite the stereo system and the music collection was a glass encased display cabinet. It contained Mary Kingsley’s Nicolas Lupot violin. An instrument worth around twenty thousand dollars (it had its own insurance policy, the underwriting paperwork issued back in the day by none other than Stanley Archer of Mutual of California), she had played it through the last eighteen years of her career with the Heritage Philharmonic. It had been retired with its owner, resting in the case ever since. Though his mother still played the violin quite regularly in her position as conductor and instructor for the Cypress High School orchestra, she played one of her many secondary instruments for that gig. Jake had a notion that maybe that violin would be coming out of that case soon. For what he had in mind, his mother would insist upon the very best.
Jake was installed in the guest room that did not have its own bathroom. Celia and Pauline were given the two rooms that did have the connecting bathroom. Nerdly and Sharon were given their own room over in Stan and Cindy’s house—a house that Jake promised to come over and tour soon.
By the time he was settled in and unpacked, it was time for the late lunch Mary and Tom had prepared. The Archers all returned to Tom and Mary’s to partake in the food festivities as well. Finally, the formal dining room table got to see some action as everyone sat down and tore into the fajita platter full of marinated chicken breast, homemade pinto beans, Spanish rice, tomatoes, lettuce, and freshly grated cheddar cheese.
Jake ate gratefully, sipping out of a glass of iced tea after turning down the offer of a beer. Celia, Sharon and Pauline each had a glass of white wine. Nerdly, Stan, Tom, and Mary all went with the beer.
“This is great, guys,” Jake told his parents after putting away his third taco and sopping up his second helping of beans.
“I agree,” said Celia, who was just finishing her second taco. “It’s nice to have a down to Earth meal once in a while.”
“Don’t you have servants in your home to make homemade food for you?” asked Mary. She was quite fascinated with the fact that Celia Valdez—the Celia Valdez—was taking lunch with her family just like she was a real person.
“We do,” Celia confirmed. “We have a live-in chef who follows us to whatever house we’re staying in—LA or Palm Springs.” She blushed a little. “Madre de Dios, that sounds a little pretentious of me, doesn’t it?”
Jake gave her a smile and waved his hand in a see-saw motion. “Yeah, that was pretty much an elitist statement if I’ve ever heard one,” he told her.
“Jake!” Mary said, aghast at his rudeness.
But Celia was chuckling at his words. “It’s okay, Mary,” she told her. “Jake and I have been working pretty closely together these last few months. We’ve both been granted put-down privileges.”
“And we’re not afraid to use them,” Jake added.
“They use them quite often on me as well,” Bill said, perhaps a bit huffily.
Mary looked at her son and the beautiful, married Venezuelan singer he had brought home to meet her. Her mother instincts were firing very strongly as she looked at the clear affection each displayed in their eyes. She wondered again just why Celia was here. “Well now,” she said dismissively, “I don’t think you were being pretentious at all. You were simply stating a fact. One should never feel ashamed for the success one has achieved in life.”
“Well said, Mary,” Celia told her, holding up her wine glass in salute. “In any case, I was complimenting your meal. Our chef is wonderful—don’t get me wrong—but he only makes gourmet dishes. He would die before he would make a fajita platter, and I am not talking figuratively here. My mouth started watering the moment I smelled the chicken cooking. And it tastes as delicious as it smells.”