That night, as they climbed into bed together, Laura informed him that she had invited Molly and Eric to the family Christmas gathering.
“You did what?” Jake asked, raising his eyebrows a bit.
“I already cleared it with Pauline,” she said. “She’s fine with it. She has plenty of food.”
“I’m sure she does, but ... none of us have even met this Molly person. Doesn’t she have somewhere to go on Christmas besides our gathering?”
“She doesn’t,” Laura said. “And neither does Eric. They were just going to spent it alone in their house. Isn’t that depressing?”
“Uh ... I suppose,” Jake allowed.
“We’ll just have the limo swing by Toluca Lake to pick them up,” Laura said. “It’s pretty much on the way.”
Jake, too tired to engage in an argument that really was not that important—and that he most likely would not win anyway—agreed to this plan.
They woke up just past nine o’clock in the morning. Jake put on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. Laura remained dressed in the long t-shirt she had slept in. They went downstairs and Jake brewed up a pot of Jamaican Blue. They each poured themselves a cup and then went into the family room to open their presents from each other.
Laura received an original 1958 vinyl recording of Dizzy Gillespie at Newport, a rare find that Jake had discovered on the online auction website that Nerdly had introduced him to. Her grand gift was a crystal and brass statue of a tenor saxophone, something that had cost Jake four thousand dollars. Laura absolutely loved both gifts.
Jake’s first gift was a bag of socks, which he expressed a respectable amount of fake enthusiasm for. His second was a bottle of expensive cologne—the scent of which Laura was particularly fond of. His grand gift was in a larger package. Jake did not know what the grand gift was, but he did know she had spent eleven thousand dollars on it. The reason he knew this was because an outraged Jill had called him up two weeks before to complain about the charge on Laura’s credit card. Jake had nonchalantly told her not to worry about it, which had ramped up the level of accountant outrage by a factor of at least 3.14.
“Don’t worry about it?” Jill cried, as if he had told her not to worry about nuclear terrorism, or global warming. “Eleven thousand dollars for a Christmas present? That’s even worse than what you spent on her!”
“Don’t tell me where she bought it, Jill,” Jake told her. “That might ruin the surprise.”
“Are you going to talk to her about this?” Jill asked, exasperated.
“No,” he said. “But hopefully, for that much money, it’s something she put some thought into.”
It turned out that she had put some thought into it. He unwrapped the package and discovered an acoustic guitar inside—an old acoustic guitar that looked like it had seen much better days. And it was not even close to being in tune when he strummed it. But it was not just any old guitar. A legal and proper certificate of authentication came with it. It was the very Harmony Sovereign H-1260 that Jimmy Page, one of Jake’s heroes and major influences, had played when recording the songs Gallows Pole and Since I’ve Been Loving You on the Led Zeppelin III album and onstage during the tour that supported it.
“How did you find this?” an astonished Jake asked.
“Obie helped me out tracking it down,” she said. “Do you like it?”
“I love it,” he told her. “I feel like I’m holding the freakin’ Holy Grail in my hands. I’m going to hang it right next to my Les Paul Les Paul. Thank you!”
“You’re welcome,” she said with a smile. “You’re very hard to buy for you know. What do you get a guitarist who has enough money to buy anything he wants? Well ... a guitar, of course, but a guitar that has meaning.”
“You did good, hon,” he told her, leaning in and giving her a kiss. She returned it with much enthusiasm.
They drank their coffee and then Jake made them chili-cheese omelets for breakfast. After eating, they both cleaned up the kitchen. Jake then phoned his parents to wish them a merry Christmas (they were staying home with the parental Nerdlys for the holiday even though Jake, Pauline, and Bill had all offered to have the entire group of them flown south). After that, Laura suggested they flame a bowl in honor of the birth of Christ.
“Sure,” Jake said. “Why not?”
Laura retrieved her LA stash box—a round Tupperware container designed for leftover soup or chili—from the entertainment room. They went out onto the backyard patio and sat down at the granite table Jake had put out there. The weather was pleasant enough, but a bit on the cool side, so Laura went back inside and retrieved her fuzzy white robe. She then opened up the stash box and pulled out a baggie of potent, skunky-smelling bud, a pipe, and a lighter. She quickly loaded up the pipe with a respectable hit and passed it over to Jake.
“Thanks,” he said, flicking the Bic and sucking down the smoke.
They took two hits apiece in honor of the birth of the Savior. That was all that was needed. They sat in silence for a bit, looking out at the view of the San Fernando Valley below them, each lost in their own thoughts. The sky was clear, with very little in the way of smog (as least as far as it went for the LA basin) and even the freeways and the major arteries visible to them were lightly traveled due to the holiday.
“So...” Jake finally said, breaking the silence, “what’s the deal with your friend Molly?”
Laura looked over at him, her eyes half-lidded and a little red, her fuzzy robe pulled tightly around her shoulders, her copper-colored hair in a state of disarray that she would allow no one but Jake to see. Her face blushed a little, but she did not evade his question. “She’s a lesbian,” she said simply.
“Really now?” Jake asked, raising his eyebrows.
“A very ... uh ... attractive lesbian,” Laura added.
“Is that a fact?” he asked, his interest ramping up a bit.
“It is,” she said. “She’s forty, but looks thirty, maybe thirty-two at the most. Nice body, nice boobs, pretty face.” She smiled whimsically as she thought about it. “Oh ... and she’s a very nice person too.”
“I would hope so,” Jake said. “She told you she was a lesbian?”
“She did,” Laura said. “On the night I picked up Eric from the hospital and took him home.”
“She volunteered that information?” Jake asked.
“Yes,” Laura said. “I had a couple of glasses of wine with her after we got Eric to bed and ... well ... it just kind of came up in the conversation.”
“Interesting,” Jake said, nodding his head a little. “What are your intentions with her?”
“My intentions?”
“Your intentions,” Jake said. “We’ve had this conversation before, remember? You are free to indulge in your bisexual leanings if you so desire, as long as it is done openly, without deceit.”
“I understand,” she said quietly.
“Is that why you are developing this relationship with her? Do you want to ... indulge?”
Laura nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I want to put my hands and my mouth on her. I want to feel her hands and her mouth on me.”
“I see,” Jake said, feeling Little Jake starting to poke his head up in interest. “And does she know about your tastes in women?”
Laura nodded again. “I told her I was bisexual,” she said. “And then I shared my ... you know ... my stories with her.”
“You told her about watching Neesh’s friend eat Neesh out while she was in her wedding dress?”
Laura smiled fondly. “I didn’t use names, but I told her the story—about Neesh, about Tally doing that to me after, and about the bartender and the groupies down in South America.”
“Did she like the stories?”
“Yes,” Laura said, licking her lips a little. “She said the story about Neesh was one of the hottest things she’d ever heard of.”