She was looking at him closely now, obviously wanting to be angry at his words, but with a certain amount of respect in her gaze as well. “Maybe I will,” she said at last.
“I will be disappointed in you if you don’t,” he said. “Follow your dreams. Take your chances. Use the weapons you’ve been given. Play all of the cards you’ve been dealt. That’s how you make it in this business. That’s what I’ve always done and look at me now. Out in the real world, I couldn’t get a job teaching, like you, because I don’t have a college degree. I can’t be a doctor or a lawyer like my dad and my sister, or an architect or an engineer. I might be able to get a gig driving a garbage truck, or maybe working on the docks unloading ships, but that’s probably about the best I could hope for.
“Instead, I live in a mansion overlooking LA. I have another mansion in New Zealand.” He brought his right shoulder out of the water and turned it toward her, tapping the red dot on his tattoo. “That’s it right there, as a matter of fact. Anyway, my point is that I followed my dreams and I used the talent that God or whoever gave to me and I’m a rich bastard now. Follow those dreams. It’s what we’re here on this planet to do, I think.”
She considered his words, nodding slowly. “You’re smarter than you seem,” she said, almost in wonder.
He chuckled. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he told her.
“Oh ... I didn’t mean it like that,” she blurted. “What I meant was...”
“I know what you meant, hon,” he assured her. “No offense taken. Listen, I have an idea.”
“What’s that?”
“I noticed you brought a whole collection of CDs and a CD player with you. You like to listen to music at night before you go to bed?”
“I do,” she said. “I usually put a little something on and mellow out to it until I get sleepy. Why do you ask?”
“I do the same,” he said. “And I brought a good chunk of my CD collection as well. How about we have a little challenge?”
“What kind of challenge?”
“We’re going to be here in this town for months. How about a week by week challenge? Starting tonight, I give you a CD from my collection, something I think is a great example of the genre I enjoy—namely rock and roll. You listen to the CD every night and see if it grows on you at all, see if you can start to appreciate the musical quality of the album and the band. In turn, you give me something from your collection and I’ll do the same. Let’s see if we can enlighten each other.”
She made a sour face. “Are you going to give me heavy metal music?” she asked. “I’m not sure I can do that.”
“No heavy metal,” he assured her, “at least not at first. I think I have just the CD to start this out.”
“Hmm. And I can pick anything I want as well, and you have to listen to it?”
“That’s the challenge,” he said. “The goal, however, is not to bore me or make me disgusted or prove how musically unsophisticated I am. The goal is to find something that the other person will like. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “I do,” she said.
“And I’d stay away from the classical side for me,” he advised. “Remember, I grew up with a symphony musician for a mother. I already like classical just fine.”
Another look of surprise. “You do?”
“Strange but true,” he said. “Hit me with the jazz. I’ll listen and do my best to appreciate it. You do the same.”
Her smile widened. “Deal,” she said, holding out her dripping wet hand.
He took it in his and gave it a shake.
Later that night, they met at the bottom of the stairs, just before each headed off to their respective bedrooms. He held in his hands a copy of Journey’s eighth studio album: Frontiers, which, while not the best rock and roll album of all time (or even the best Journey album of all time), was something that he thought Laura might actually learn to like due to the blues progression guitar work of Neal Schon and the absolutely stunning vocals of Steve Perry.
“Interesting cover,” she said, looking at it.
“Never judge a CD by its cover,” he told her. “What do you have for me?”
She handed over a plastic case. He took it and looked at the cover. There was a mishmash of multicolored, seemingly senseless images arrayed across it. He did not judge it based on this. The title was Time Out, by something called the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Jake had never heard of it before.
“Hard core jazz?” he asked.
“It’s actually of the genre known as cool jazz,” she said. “A little lighter in tone than traditional jazz.”
“And you think I’ll like it?” he asked. “That was the challenge, remember?”
She nodded. “If this doesn’t grow on you,” she said, “I’ll be forced to question your very musicianship.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
“And this?” she asked, holding up Frontiers.
“I’ll give you permission to skip over the track Back Talk,” he said. “But other than that, the same deal. I really think it’ll grow on you.”
“All right then,” she said with a smile. “Let’s get to listening.”
They went to their respective rooms and they got to listening.
Celia and Jake came stumbling in after their run at 7:35 the next morning. Both were damp, partially from the sweat of their exertions, but mostly from the marine layer fog that had rolled in in the wee hours. They set their water bottles down next to the sink and greeted Cindy, who was dressed in her pajamas making a large pan full of scrambled eggs with potatoes and crumbled sausage in it.
“That smells wonderful, Cindy,” Celia told her. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“You can wash your hands and start making some toast,” Cindy suggested.
“I’m on it,” Celia responding, using a phrase she had picked up from Jake.
“I’m gonna go hit the shower before everyone else has the same idea,” Jake said. As the maker of yesterday’s breakfast, he was exempt from having to help with this one.
While he disappeared upstairs, Celia washed her hands at the sink and then started popping slices of bread into the toaster four at a time. When they popped out, she replaced them with more and then, while waiting for that batch to toast, went about spreading butter on the first pieces. She kept this up until she had eighteen pieces of toast prepped and arranged on a large plate.
By that time, the others had begun to drift in, drawn by the smell of cooking and brewed coffee. Stan sat at the table and opened the Portland newspaper that he had arranged to have delivered every morning. Cindy rattled off a few groceries that would be needed for her dinner tonight—it was going to be beef Florentine with steamed broccoli—and he dutifully wrote them down. Ted and Ben came staggering in next, the former in a pair of tattered sweat pants and a Led Zepplin t-shirt, the latter already showered and dressed in his jeans and polo shirt. Laura followed soon after. She too was already dressed and ready for the day.
“You look a little tired, Ben,” Celia remarked to the bassist. He had visible bags under his eyes.
“Yeah,” Ben said sourly. “You try sleeping with a guy that snores loud enough to cause seismic readings to register.
“I told you,” Ted said, “I got the sleep apnea. I can’t help it.”
“I know,” Ben said. “That’s what kept me awake. As soon as I started getting used to the snoring, when my mind started thinking of it as white noise, you’d suddenly stop breathing and that would wake me up. A couple of times I thought you’d died.”