“This place is just so beautiful,” Celia remarked as they worked their way around rocky tidal pools and clumps of kelp. Tiny beach crabs scuttled to get out of their way. “I can see why Obie likes living here.”
“It beats the hell out of LA,” Jake had to agree. “No smog, very little traffic, not many earthquakes, just the occasional tsunami rolling in because of earthquakes somewhere else.”
“Not a bad deal,” Celia opined, “as long as your house is up out of the tsunami zone.”
“I’d like to find a place like this, but in California, within easy flight time of LA for when we’re working. Something to think about when our fortunes come rolling in.”
“You really think they’re going to?” she asked.
“I really do,” he assured her. “We’re underway now and our shit sounds good—or at least it will once the Nerdlys get their little hands on it. We only have the tedium of the recording and mixing process now.”
“And the negotiations with the labels for manufacturing, distribution, and promotion,” she reminded.
“They’re going to be fighting with each other over who gets to sign us once we present our masters to them,” Jake predicted. “Now that we got Laura playing her best and Phil on board, things are all falling into place.”
And indeed they were. It had been very touch and go with Laura for a bit, but gradually she warmed to the group, both musically and, perhaps more important, personally. And they had warmed to her as well. That band cohesion they were seeking did not appear magically overnight, but in small phases that nobody seemed to notice until they were well along. It had started with smiles. She actually had one, and it was a very pretty smile at that. They first started seeing it around the second week with her, just occasional flashes when someone noted that she was actually playing better, or when someone made a joke during the lunch breaks or during the setups. The smiles then came more frequently, became more animated and spontaneous, easier to appear.
Around that same time, they noticed her starting to converse more with them. Instead of sitting by herself during lunch, she would join in with the group, even occasionally add something to the conversation. And then, as that developed, they discovered she possessed a sense of humor as well, a dry, deliciously quick wit that caught one completely by surprise when it was displayed—the kind of thing that made one stare at her for a moment and think: Did she really just say that?
As the camaraderie and friendship developed between the pretty, square saxophonist and the rest of the band, her musical expression improved as well. Though she still proclaimed disdain with extreme prejudice for all things rock and heavy metal and most popular music, she did admit to them at one point that the music they were making with her seemed to transcend her preexisting stereotypes.
“Transcends your preexisting stereotypes?” Jake asked when she’d laid that one on them.
“It means,” she explained, utilizing that usually hidden wit of hers, “that you don’t suck quite as much as I thought you were going to.”
Everyone had looked at her in astonishment for a moment, and then burst out laughing.
“Did you really just say that?” Celia had to ask, shaking her head in amusement.
“No offense intended, of course,” she said, a smile on her own face.
“Of course,” Jake returned with a chuckle.
Whatever her personal opinions of their compositions, her phrasing got better with each repetition of each tune, until the music coming out of her instrument was just dripping with soul, was coming forth with all the talent that she had displayed when playing her favorites for them at her audition. Ben had been right all along. She was good enough to play professionally and make a decent living with her horn, and now that she was onboard with them, they were happy to have her as part of the team.
It was during this period of enlightenment that she suggested they give her roommate, Phil, a try as well. That had been during a Saturday afternoon beer bash when both Jake and Celia were complaining about their lack of suitable backup singers. True, they could double track themselves in the studio, and, true, Jake could sing some backup for Celia and Celia could sing some backup for Jake, but there were certain combinations of voices that certain of both of their tunes needed. In short, they needed someone who could sing soprano or mezzo-soprano for female backing on Celia’s Why? and Tell Me About Love, and someone who could sing baritone for male backing on Jake’s Hit the Highway and Can’t Keep Me Down.
It was the mention of the baritone that led Laura to speak up.
“My roommate, Phil is a baritone,” she said. “He’s a pretty good singer, too. He works over at Operetta While You Eat as a singing waiter.”
Everyone looked at her, perhaps wondering if this was yet another display of that dry wit. It was not.
“Operetta While You Eat?” Jake asked incredulously.
“It’s not as cheesy as it sounds,” she assured him. “The food is pretty good, and they make the waiters audition for the parts. It’s a good way for vocalists trying to break into the industry to pay the bills while they’re on their way up. Phil is actually classically trained.”
“No kidding?” Jake said, pondering that.
And so, they’d given him an audition and found that Laura was right. He really could sing, and he understood about things like keeping time and staying in key. He hesitated not in the least to take them up on their offer of fifty dollars an hour, once or twice a week, and to possibly make some trips up to Oregon once things really got rolling.
“I’m sure Laura has told you all,” he said to them after accepting the offer, “but I just want to disclose my sexual orientation to you all right now. I am gay. Hopefully you can all live with that.”
Laura had not actually told them that, but Jake didn’t give a rat’s ass if the man liked to fuck chickens while watching clown porn, as long as he could sing. Celia was actually somewhat delighted with the disclosure—she had a fondness in her heart for gay men since her brother, Eduardo, was one of them (though her family did not know this). Only Ted seemed to have an issue with the disclosure.
“Gay?” he asked. “You mean ... like you have sex with men kind of gay, or you’re just a happy motherfucker?”
“The former,” Phil told him.
“I see,” Ted replied, his face turning into a scowl.
“Is there a problem with that, Ted?” Jake asked.
“No, no problemo,” Ted assured them. He then turned his gaze upon Phil. “I just want it to be known that I am not gay, so don’t be hitting on me.”
Phil looked his morbidly obese body up and down for a moment, taking in the fat rolls and the triple chin, and then nodded. “I will try to control myself,” he promised.
“You do that,” Ted said.
After Phil had left the audition, Laura confided something to Jake. “He was kind of hoping that you might be gay, or at least bi,” she told him.
“Really?” Jake asked.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “He has the major hots for you. Always has.”
Jake nodded thoughtfully, unoffended. As a decent looking male celebrity living in Los Angeles for nearly a decade now, he was regularly hit on by gay men wherever he went. It was just part of the life. “Hmmph,” he said. “You should have told me that before you brought him here. I probably could’ve got him for thirty dollars an hour with a little flirting.”