“Sure,” she said with a shrug. “I played around with one back when I was in the marching band in high school. It might take me a few days to get plugged back into it—you know, because of the breathing and the differences in projection and all that—but I can do it.”
The problem, however, was that she did not own a soprano saxophone and the one small music store in the Coos Bay region did not carry one either. And so the experiment had been shelved for the time being as other, more pressing concerns popped up with the recording process. But now, since he had to fly to Portland anyway, and since somewhere in the Portland metropolitan region there had to be a major music store ... well, perhaps things happened for a reason.
“I don’t know,” Laura said now. “It seems like an awful lot of trouble just for one song. And we don’t even know what it will sound like.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Jake said.
She was still doubtful. In fact, Laura had been in somewhat of a funk the past two weeks, moping around, going back to those uncommunicative ways she had displayed when they’d first hired her on. Though her musical expression hadn’t suffered, she had gone back to speaking only when spoken to, hiding out in her room for much of the off time, and those precious flashes of her smile and her deliciously quick wit had all but disappeared. Tonight was the first time she had actually socialized with her bandmates since the funk had started, and that was only because Jake had actually ordered her to report to the entertainment room for a few games of pool.
It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out what the reason for this funk was. Three weeks ago, just after the rhythm tracks had been laid down and they were getting ready to start the primary melodies, Laura, who would not be needed for the first steps, had asked if she could take a week off to fly home. They had granted her wish and she’d climbed onto the puddle jumper out of North Bend her normal self, happy, bubbly, and excited to go see her fiancé.
When she’d returned a week later, she was in the midst of the funk. She did not speak of what had happened while she had been home. She, in fact, denied that there was anything wrong with her at all. But it was quite obvious that something had gone wrong during her visit, something that had sapped a good portion of the life right out of her.
“A good soprano sax is not going to be cheap,” she told Jake now. “We’re talking at least fifteen hundred dollars for one that will produce recording quality sound. Maybe even two thousand.”
“Don’t worry about what it costs,” Jake said.
This drew the attention of Pauline. “Jake,” she said sternly, “I think she makes a good point there. Two grand is a lot of money. You know how far over budget we are.”
“Over budget?” Greg said, looking at her. “How far are we over budget?”
“It’s not that bad, Greg,” Jake assured him. “Look. I won’t use KVA funds for the sax. I’ll pay for it out of my pocket. After all, I’ve got fresh royalties coming in from that Greatest Hits album, right?”
“Are you sure you want to do that, Jake?” Celia asked. “The tune stands up on its own.”
“I’m sure,” he said. “I really think that sax will help set the tune to the emotion I’m trying to convey.” He turned back to the redhead. “What do you say, Laura? Let’s go out and find us some sax, huh?”
That actually brought a smile to her face. The first one they had seen since her return from LA. “All right,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
There were no direct flights from Portland to Detroit. The best that Pauline could do was to book an 8:20 AM flight to Denver, change planes and wait out a two hour layover, and then hop on a connecting flight to Detroit that would arrive at almost 10:00 PM, Detroit time. And in order to get to the airport in Portland on time, Jake’s plane needed to be wheels-up from North Bend Municipal by 6:00 AM.
“This is going to be a long, miserable fucking day,” Pauline declared as she, Jake, and Laura piled into Jake’s BMW at 5:30 AM that morning.
Fortunately, the weather was cooperative. A few scattered clouds at ten thousand, a light onshore wind, and the temperature in the low fifties. Jake filed his flight plan and did his preflight on the aircraft. Laura, who was a little nervous about flying in such a small plane—her only flying experience in her life had been the flights she had taken to get to Coos Bay and then return home and back two weeks ago—was offered the copilot’s seat by Pauline.
“Shouldn’t you be sitting there?” Laura asked her.
“Why?” Pauline asked. “I can’t fly this thing any more than you can.”
“You can’t?”
“I can’t,” she confirmed. “Besides, I can doze off a bit back here.”
They strapped in and Jake took off on schedule, barreling down Runway 22 into the breeze and lifting off for the one hour flight.
Laura quickly got comfortable with the trip as Jake explained everything he was doing and why he was doing it as he did it. She picked up instinctively on what Jake always had to explain to Celia—as long as he didn’t look nervous, there was nothing to worry about.
They landed at Hillsboro Airport, a municipal general aviation field just west of Portland, at 7:03 AM. Jake taxied over to the GA terminal and secured the plane. From there, they made their way to the rental car area and Jake procured a Lexus sedan for the day. Since it was a Sunday, the drive to PDX, as Portland International was known, only took about fifteen minutes. They dropped Pauline and her single bag off in front of the terminal for her airline.
“Have fun, sis,” Jake told her.
“Not fucking likely,” she muttered and then walked off, disappearing through the sliding doors.
Jake looked at his watch and then at Laura. “Well now,” he said. “I don’t think any music stores are going to be open on a Sunday before nine.”
“Probably not,” she said with a yawn. It was obvious she was not a fan of getting up so early.
“How about we go downtown and grab some breakfast? My treat.”
“Okay,” she said. “I could use a little something in my stomach.”
Jake had been to Portland before, a few times when he was a kid and on every tour that Intemperance had done, but he had never driven around in it before. Still, he was a good navigator with an instinctive grasp of direction and a pilot’s knowledge of the geography of the region. He drove them through the city, heading west and then north, until reaching the downtown area with its high rises and bridges over both the Willamette and the Columbia Rivers. On the Columbia waterfront, in the heart of downtown, he found a little café overlooking the huge river. It conveniently had a parking spot directly in front of it.
“This looks like the place,” Jake said as he pulled in.
There were only a few people in the restaurant and they were seated right away, at a booth near the window. A middle-aged waitress wearing a green uniform put menus and glasses of water before them.
“Can I start you folks off with some coffee?” she asked. “Or maybe something a little stronger?”
“Stronger?” Laura asked, raising her eyebrows.
“We’re famous for our bloody Marys,” the waitress told her. “It’ll kick you right into the morning, if you know what I mean.”
“Hmm,” she said. “I’ve never had one of those before. People really drink them this early?”
“That’s why they exist,” Jake told her. “Bloody Marys and mimosas are the two drinks we, as western society, have deemed socially acceptable to consume before noon. You can have one at eight in the morning and no one will look twice at you. However, if you ask for a rum and coke at eight in the morning, they think you’re an alky.”
“Interesting,” Laura said thoughtfully.
“You wanna try one?” the waitress asked. “You won’t be sorry.”
She hesitated. “Well...” She looked at Jake. “Will you have one too?”