“Yes, no problem at all thanks to that Trip Quest website you told me about. I just printed out the directions and then followed them step-by-step. That was very cool.”
“You can thank Nerdly for that one,” Jake said. “He’s the one that told us about that site.”
“It’s an amazing time we live in, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Indeed,” Jake agreed with a smile.
“Well now,” Laura said. “How about you go open that wine and pour us some, sweetie?”
“Right,” Jake said. “Wine. Pour it.”
“And I’ll give Molly a tour of the house while you’re doing that.”
“I’d love to see it,” Molly said. “It’s so big.”
“Uh ... yeah,” Jake said, letting that juicy lob just sail on by. There may be time for that later, but right now was too early. He headed for the bar to get a corkscrew while Laura led Molly up the stairs to show her what was there.
Hopefully, they would be making another trip up there later on.
The vibe in the air was a strange one. All three of them knew what was on the agenda for the night—or at least that was the assumption—but nobody mentioned it or even alluded to it at first. There was no flirtation, no innuendo. They sat in the living room and drank the bottle of wine Molly had brought (it wasn’t all that bad, Jake was happy to discover). They talked about their lives and their plans. Molly asked a lot about Laura’s upcoming tour schedule and what it was like to be away from home for months at a time. Jake frequently had to get up to go check on his rice simmering away on the stove, but even when he was gone, the talk between Molly and Laura remained innocent. Jake started to wonder if maybe Laura had misunderstood Molly, or—more likely—maybe Molly had misunderstood Laura. Maybe she really did think this was just a dinner date among friends?
But then Jake started pouring the margaritas. He mixed them to be a bit on the potent side, covering the taste of the tequila by using good tequila—Patron—and going heavy on the lime juice and adding a little bit of agave syrup to sweeten the concoction. That, and heavily salting the rims of the glasses made for a nice, smooth, flavorful frozen beverage that packed a respectable punch. After drinking two of them with dinner, Molly was the first to break the ice a bit and make allusion to what the night might hold.
“Teach,” she said to Laura and then paused. “Uh ... is it okay if I call you ‘Teach’? I heard Celia and Pauline calling you that the other night and I think it’s adorable.”
“Absolutely,” Laura said, smiling. “It’s what my friends call me, and you are definitely a friend.”
“That’s so cool,” Molly said, smiling back. “Why do they call you that?”
“Because ... uh ... I used to be a teacher,” she said.
“Oh ... that’s it?” Molly asked. She seemed a bit disappointed.
“That’s it,” Laura said. “What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know,” Molly said with a shrug. “I think I kind of assumed that there would be ... you know ... some kind of sexual connotation to it.”
“Sorry,” Laura said.
Molly’s eyes suddenly widened, and she looked at Jake. “Your new song!” she blurted. “Teach Me! The one they play on the radio all the time! It’s about Laura, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” Jake said, pleased, as always, when someone correctly picked up on the meaning of one of his compositions.
“Oh my God,” Molly said in wonder, her brown eyes shining now. “When I think about the lyrics to the song that way, in that context ... that’s so romantic, Jake.” She turned back to Laura. “That’s so cool that your husband wrote a song like that for you. Nobody has ever done anything like that for me ... and I date girls!”
“There is an advantage to having a songwriter for a husband,” Laura said with a smile.
“Did he tell you it was about you?” she asked. “Or did he make you figure it out for yourself?”
“He made me figure it out for myself,” she said. “It didn’t take me long though. I picked up on the meaning of the piece the first time he strummed it out for us in the studio while we were doing the initial workups.”
“Did you rush over and hug him and kiss him right there?” she wanted to know.
“Uh ... no, we were working,” she said, “but I definitely showed him my appreciation when we got home that night.”
“Yeah?” Molly asked.
“Oh yeah,” Jake confirmed. “I felt very appreciated that night.”
She smiled again. “You two make a very cute couple,” she said.
“Thank you,” Laura said. Jake echoed the sentiment.
“No, I’m serious,” she said, as if they had contradicted her. “I was really kind of nervous about meeting you, Jake. I’ve always loved your music, but you’ve got this ... you know ... reputation.”
“Ahh yes,” Jake said, nodding his head. “The Satanism, the drug addiction, the domestic violence.”
“Don’t forget about the corruption of America’s youth,” Laura added.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to forget about that.”
“Well,” Molly said, “it was actually the domestic violence thing that kind of put me off the most. I mean ... well ... I volunteer at the women’s shelter—been doing that for years. I am really passionate on the subject of domestic violence. And I get women in my clinic all the time who are victims of it. I can see the old bruises, the new bruises, and I listen to the bullshit excuses they give for how they got them.”
“It is a horrible thing,” Laura agreed, although she really had no experience with it except for that one incident with Dave the dentist—an incident that Jake had taken care of for her quite handily.
“Yes, it is,” Molly agreed. “And ... I have to be truthful here ... when I first met you, Teach, I kind of assumed that some of those stories about Jake were true. While we were drinking that wine at my table that night, I was kind of checking you out.”
Laura giggled. “I was checking you out too,” she said.
Nice one, Jake thought appreciatively. And she says she doesn’t know how to flirt.
Molly blushed a little. “That wasn’t what I meant,” she said. She then reconsidered. “Well ... actually I was checking you out that way too—you are very beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Laura said, blushing a little herself.
“But what I meant, was that I was checking you out, trying to see if you had bruises on your arms, too much makeup on your face. But you didn’t have any of that. And when you talked about Jake ... well ... there’s a certain way that a woman talks about her boyfriend or husband when she’s being abused. It’s something you learn to pick up on when you deal with those women a lot. For instance, they usually don’t refer to their husband by name, they just say ‘my husband’. Not that that’s the tell-all, say-all or anything, but there are other things, subtle things. Am I making sense here?”
“Kind of,” Jake said, wondering where this was all going. It certainly did not seem to be going in the direction of the bedroom.
But Laura knew what she was getting at. “You didn’t see any of those things in me,” she said.
“Right!” Molly said, pleased she was on her wavelength. “It seemed pretty obvious to me that you love Jake. You said his name whenever you talked about him. You didn’t gush about how great of a guy he is, like you were trying to convince yourself of that as well as me, but it was obvious that you love him.”
“I do love him,” Laura said. “Jake is the best thing that ever happened to me. And not just because he’s rich and famous.”
Molly nodded. “I see that now,” she said. “I kind of thought it might be true after that first night when you brought Eric home. The idea was reinforced when we went to lunch together and talked on the phone. And then, on Christmas, when I actually got to see the two of you together ... that’s what really convinced me.” She turned back to Jake. “You’re nothing at all like the media portrays you, Jake.”