“Congratulations, you two,” their flight attendant, a mid-thirties blonde with tremendous breasts, told them as she asked for their preflight drink orders. “I saw a report of your wedding on the telly in the hotel last night.”
“Thank you,” Laura said, smiling at her. “Can I get a bloody Mary, extra pale perhaps?”
“Coming right up,” she promised. “And you, Mr. Kingsley?”
“I’ll have the same,” he told her.
The plane roared into the tropical sky just after eleven o’clock Honolulu time. It turned to the southwest and leveled off at thirty-seven thousand feet. It landed nine hours and fifteen minutes later at Auckland International Airport on the North Island. Jake and Laura had both stayed awake for most of the flight, reading books, watching a movie, having a few drinks, eating dinner when it was served, and only occasionally nodding off for a light nap when the boredom got to be too much.
There wasn’t much of a jet lag issue. The time when they landed was just past 6:30 PM, Auckland time. Only two hours behind what it would have been had they been in Hawaii all the time they had been flying. But since they had crossed the International Date Line en route, it was now the next day. They would get that day back when they returned home, actually landing in Los Angeles before the time they would take off in Auckland.
They stayed overnight in Auckland, in the Presidential suite of the Auckland Hilton Hotel which stood out at the end of Prince’s Wharf in the harbor. The hotel had just been built the previous year and their window looked out on an impressive view of the harbor and the city lights.
Before going to bed, they fucked on the balcony of the suite, Laura leaning over the railing and Jake sliding into her from behind.
“Does it feel different now?” Laura asked, after they finished up and went back inside. “Now that we’re married?”
“It does somehow,” Jake had to admit. “It feels ... I don’t know ... more legitimate I guess.”
“And that’s good, right?”
“Right,” he assured her. “It’s very good.”
At 8:30 the next morning they boarded another Air New Zealand aircraft, this one an Airbus A320. Less than two hours after planting their butts in the first-class seats, they were stepping back off the aircraft at Christchurch International on the South Island. After collecting their baggage, and being momentarily mobbed by a few people wanting autographs, they walked out of the terminal to the parking area. The air was clear and the temperature was pleasant. It was a typical South Island spring day.
Jake’s 1991 Toyota pickup truck, which he had purchased from a Christchurch dealer on his second day living here and that had been in storage ever since he’d left, was sitting in the short-term lot, just as he’d instructed. The door was unlocked. The keys, including the key to his house, were underneath the floormat. He loaded the baggage into the back and then he and Laura climbed into the cab.
“I missed this truck,” Jake said nostalgically as he pushed in the clutch and fired up the engine. It started at once. A glance at the odometer showed he had only put a little more than eight thousand miles on the vehicle.
“I like it,” Laura said. “It seems rugged.”
He drove out of the parking lot and headed for the main road. Laura was astounded, as had been Pauline and Jill during their visit here, by the fact that there was no fee for parking in the airport. It seemed so ... un-American not to gouge someone when you enjoyed a monopoly.
Jake drove slowly through the streets of Christchurch, pointing out the various sites to his new wife as they went. She seemed impressed by what she saw, particularly the cathedral that had given the town its name. He did not make any mention of some of his own familiar landmarks as they went: the bank where Samantha had worked (and perhaps still did), the library where he had checked out more than books from Julie Anne, the corner grocery where he had bought more than canned goods from Carrie, the grocer’s daughter. He made a mental note to avoid all of those places while he was here with Laura. Not that he was ashamed of his past, or that she did not know what kind of man he had been before meeting her, but because it would just be awkward.
He entered the tunnel and drove under the Port Hills, emerging in the small town of Lyttleton, where the fishing fleet and the harbor were located. He drove her around this town as well, showing her the wharf and the waterfront bars he used to frequent.
“This is where I used to do my drinking when I was here,” he told her. “Well ... my away from home drinking anyway.”
“You did that a lot, huh?” she asked softly.
“I did,” he confirmed. “That bar right there.” He pointed to a place called The Shark’s Tooth. “That’s where I was the night I had them wake up old Ian Blackworth so he could put this tat on my arm. Proof of how much I love the South Island.”
Laura reached out and slid her fingers under the right sleeve of his shirt, pushing it up a bit so the tat in question came into view. “I really do like this ink,” she said. “I’ll always remember when we were in the hot tub together that first time ... not the time we kissed and ... you know ... but the very first time, when you suggested that contest of us listening to each other’s music. You pointed out your house to me on this tattoo. That was the night I first started really ... you know ... getting into you. I never thought I’d actually get to see the house.”
He smiled at her and caressed her hand for a moment. “How about we get ourselves on up there now?” he suggested. “Hopefully my maintenance people have it nice and clean for you.”
“Let’s do it,” she said.
He drove past the fish market where Elizabeth and Kate, the mother and daughter team of fishmongers, plied their trade by day before heading to the waterfront bars by night. Jake did not point this location out to Laura.
He turned onto the Summit Road, which had been the only way to get from Lyttleton to Christchurch in the days before the tunnel was built. He twisted and turned his way up the road until they were nearly at the top and then turned off on a small access road. He drove a bit along this road until he was finally looking at the house he’d commissioned, had built, and had then lived in during six of the worst months of his life.
“This is the place?” Laura asked.
“This is the place,” he confirmed.
“I like the way it looks,” she said. “Especially the view.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “Let’s go see if there are any ghosts in it, huh?”
She looked at him seriously. “You really were in a bad place the last time you were here, weren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “But I’m in a good place now. I think it’s time to make some happy memories here.”
The next morning, seven thousand air miles away and one day earlier, Matt Tisdale had just finished a jam session with his band. They had been working fairly steadily on new material for Matt’s next album. They had six solid tunes in the late stages of development and two others in the beginning stages. He hoped to get into the studio and start recording them by February 1, and to have master CDs in hand by mid-May.
Matt climbed into the back of the limousine that had been parked outside of the rehearsal warehouse since 4:00 PM. It was now 5:30, but Matt always had the limo show up at four because sometimes they (meaning he) decided to call an end to a jam session that early and, if he did, he wanted his ride waiting for him. Today had not been one of those days. Corey, the driver of the limo today, did not mind. He was paid by the hour and if Matt wanted him to sit there for two or three (or sometimes even four) hours doing nothing, it was easy money.
“Home, Matt?” Corey asked him politely. On many occasions, Matt did not want to go home immediately after the session. Sometimes he wanted to go out and drink and pick up a groupie or two. Other times he wanted to go out to eat.