“I called him,” he assured her. “He said the check should be here any time.”
“But he didn’t tell you how much it was?” she asked.
“He said he did not have the figure in front of him,” Jim told his wife. “He did say he thought we would be pleased.”
Marcie shook her head in consternation. “Do you really think he doesn’t know?” she asked. “He’s one of the owners of KVA! How can he not know how much money he’s sending us? How can he not know how many albums we’ve sold?”
“What are you suggesting?” Jim asked, looking at her carefully.
“Maybe he’s trying to screw us,” she said.
“I don’t think Jake would do that,” Jim said. “He’s a good man. We lived with him and Laura for three months, remember?”
“I remember,” she said.
“Did he give you the impression that he was someone who was going to screw us?”
“Well ... no, not really ... but he’s from Hollywood, Jim! How do we know what he’s really all about?”
“He’s not from Hollywood,” Jim reminded her. “He’s from Heritage; a little podunk town in northern California.”
“It’s still California,” she insisted.
“Listen,” he said. “We’re worrying about things that are out of our control right now. Let’s just go about our day and see what happens. Mom will be here any minute and we’ve got children we need to corrupt at school.”
She sighed. “I suppose,” she said.
Margaret arrived a few minutes later and Marcie headed for work. Jim helped his mother get the kids up and around and then told his mother they were expecting a very important correspondence that would be arriving by UPS at some point.
“What is it?” his mother asked.
“Our royalty checks from the Brainwash album,” he told her.
His mother wrinkled her nose a bit. She had never particularly understood her son’s music compulsion—it certainly had not come from her side of the family—nor did she particularly approve of it. She had heard his music before—both when he had been with Courage back in the early eighties and with his coworkers back when they had first started performing. She loved her son but thought his music was incomprehensible noise, nothing at all like the sixties and seventies easy-listening staples that her ear enjoyed. Still, he was finally going to be getting paid for his efforts, so that was a good thing, she supposed. “How much are they paying you?” she asked him.
“We won’t know until the check arrives,” he said.
“It sounds like those little songs you have on the radio are popular,” she suggested. “Hopefully, it’s a good amount.”
“Hopefully,” he told her.
He kissed his children goodbye as they ate their cereal at the table and then headed off to work. He spent the day as usual, teaching fifteen to eighteen year olds about the English language.
He had to stop for fuel on the way home from work, putting only eight dollars worth in the tank in light of their dwindling funds. He hoped it would be enough to carry him through until payday but suspected that it would not.
Because of the delay, he arrived at the same time as Marcie, both of them pulling in the garage one after the other.
“Another meeting with the dragon?” asked Marcie as the garage door closed behind them and they stepped into the house.
“No, but I needed some gas.”
She frowned. “I’m going to need some pretty soon too,” she said. “How much did you put in?”
“Just eight dollars.”
“I’ll need at least ten,” she said. “My commute is longer than yours.”
He nodded. “Do you what you gotta do.”
Meghan and Alex both ran to greet them as they entered the house, both of them talking excitedly about their days. They kissed and hugged their children, listened to their tales, and then walked into the living room, where Margaret was sitting on the couch, sipping from a glass of iced tea and watching the People’s Court on the television.
“We’re home, Mom,” Jim told her.
“So I hear,” she said. “Good day?”
“Nothing to complain about,” he told her with a shrug.
“How were the kids?” Marcie asked.
“They were good,” she said. “Meggie and I worked on her reading for a little bit and Alex and I practiced our letters.”
“He’s getting pretty good at them,” Marcie commented. “We really appreciate you coming over every day to help out.”
“What are grandmas for?” she asked. “Oh ... by the way, the UPS guy came today.”
“He did?” Jim asked.
“He brought a big envelope from California,” she said. “I had to sign for it and everything.”
“Where is it?” Marcie asked.
“I put it on the TV,” she said.
Jim and Marcie both rushed into the living room and found an eight and a half by eleven manila envelope sitting on the television set. It was sealed shut. Their names and address were on the front and a return address sticker was in the corner. It was headed KVA Records LLC.
Jim picked up the envelope and practically ripped it open. He reached inside and pulled out a moderately thick sheaf of paperwork, upon which were itemized tallies of CD sales, expenses, cost breakdowns, and other data. Stuck to the front of this was a yellow post-it note. Jim peeled off the note and read it.
Sorry to keep you in suspense,
but I wanted your first checks to be a surprise.
Are you surprised??
Jake
Jim handed the note to Marcie and then dug further in the envelope. Inside were two checks, one made out to Jim, one made out to Marcie, each representing one fifth of the total royalties from first quarter sales of Brainwash minus one fifth of the fifty-thousand-dollar advance money. Jim looked at the amount, at first sure that he was seeing it incorrectly.
$47,314.88 was written in the number box.
And in the longer box: Forty-seven thousand, three hundred fourteen and 88/100 DOLLARS.
This was for real. And there were two checks in this amount, two checks for a total of ... he could not do the math in his head, but roughly ninety-four thousand six hundred dollars. Ninety-four fucking thousand! That was considerably more than the two of them combined made in an entire year.
“Fuck me!” Jim said aloud, lapsing into an expression he had picked up from Jake when they had been staying together in the Coos Bay house.
“Jim!” his mother admonished harshly. “Your language! The children are present.”
“How much is it?” Marcie asked, her eyes showing nervousness. “Did he screw us?”
He handed her check over. She took it and looked at the amount, her eyes growing wide. “Is ... is this right?” she asked.
“It’s right,” Jim told her.
“But ... it’s made out just to me. Does that mean...”
“There are two of them,” Jim said. “One for me and one for you.”
“Yours is ... is the same amount?” she asked.
He nodded slowly. “The checks are identical except for the names.”
His mother’s curiosity was quite aroused now. “How much is it?” she asked.
He slowly handed her the check in his hand. She looked at it and her eyes widened as well. “Forty-seven thousand dollars?” she whispered in awe. “And you both got one of these?”
“That’s right,” Jim said.
“My God,” she said. “And this is only for the first quarter?”
“Yep,” Jim said. “We’ll be getting royalty checks every three months now from here on out.”
“And will they all be this much?” Margaret asked.
“They’ll probably be even more for a while,” Jim said. “The CD sales are just now starting to take off.”
“My God,” Margaret said again.
“Well ... I guess we don’t have to worry about how we’re going to pay our tax bill now,” Marcie said.