“I would freakin’ hope so with how much the water system for this place cost us,” Jake said. They had one well located just behind the house. Their drinking water and water for the sinks was supplied directly from the well by one electric pump. The shower, toilet, and outside faucet water, on the other hand, came from a twelve-thousand-gallon plastic cistern up on the hillside that was kept supplied by another electric pump that moved water from the well into storage. Yet another pump then moved the water to the house for bathing, pooping, peeing, and washing down the deck outside. This setup had not come cheaply, and the power to run it all was going to make for some impressive bills from Pacific Gas and Electric, who provided electricity in this particular part of the state. Jake was not looking forward to the lecture from Jill when that first bill reached her.
He stepped into the shower and found Laura was right. There was significantly more water pressure than he was used to. He washed his body and then his hair, singing Night Moves by Bob Seger all the while. By the time he stepped out, Laura was dressed in a matching set of bra and panties and was blow drying and combing out her hair. He kissed her between the shoulder blades affectionately, making her smile, and then toweled off and started to get dressed for the day.
By 7:25, they were both fully dressed. They went into the dining room and found Celia at the table, drinking a cup of coffee from the carafe that Elsa had placed there. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and button-up blouse. Her hair was done in a ponytail. As was usually the case with both her and Laura, she wore no makeup except a light coating of lip gloss.
“Good morning,” Jake greeted her, sitting down and pouring himself a cup of coffee.
“Good morning,” she said.
“How’d you sleep?” Laura asked her.
“Quite well, thank you,” she said. “I love the sound of the ocean at night. It reminds me of being at the rental house in Oregon.”
“It’s not a rental house anymore,” Jake reminded her. Two months before, KVA Records LLC had purchased the rental house from the owners for $1.2 million dollars. They had been rather glad to unload it for that price as it had been a money drain for them. Other than when KVA was recording something, it sat empty and unrented most of the time because it was somewhat of a white elephant in the coastal Oregon vacation rental market. Most of the people who rented houses in the Coos Bay area were middle-class vacationers who simply could not afford the weekly rental rate. KVA, however, did not plan to rent it out. It was now their official domicile for when they were recording. Jake, Celia, Laura, and the rest of the band members would be heading up there in two more weeks.
“Oh yeah,” Celia said. She smiled. “One of our more impulsive business decisions, but I’m glad we made it. I really do love that place.”
“Me too,” Laura said. “It’s a whole lot better than the Tidepool Hotel.”
Everyone had a laugh about that. The Tidepool Hotel was actually a cheap motel that sat three blocks from the beach in the southern part of the town of Coos Bay. It had been Jill Yamashito’s suggestion that everyone rent rooms there for the duration of the next recording session instead of buying or even renting the house on the cliff. She had even produced a spreadsheet showing how much money KVA would save by going with this suggestion.
“Oh man,” Jake said. “You gotta love Jill, don’t you? Her heart is in the right place.”
“I think,” suggested Celia, “that between you buying this house and KVA buying the Coos Bay house, she might actually be close to going postal on us.”
“She really should learn to mellow a bit,” Jake agreed.
“I tried to get her to smoke some pot with me last time she was in town,” Laura said.
“Yeah?” Jake asked. “What did she say?”
“She just started lecturing me about how much it cost,” Laura said.
Elsa brought their breakfast in. It was scrambled eggs with kielbasa cut up in it, homemade hash browns, and sourdough toast. A pitcher of chilled, fresh-squeezed orange juice accompanied it. All of them were ravenous and they tore in, pretty much annihilating the entire platter of food.
“All right,” Jake said, looking at his watch. “It’s 7:40. We’re running a tad behind schedule. Are you two ready to hit the road?”
They were ready. The three of them climbed into Jake’s Beemer and made the ten-minute drive to the airport. Jake parked his car in the parking lot and they walked into public access part of the office at 7:51. The main part of the office was still closed up and locked. Dave didn’t report to work until 9:00 AM. There was a bathroom available, however, and Laura took the opportunity to use it while Jake put together his flight plan and faxed it off.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s get in the air.”
This took another twenty minutes to accomplish. They pushed the plane out of the hangar and Jake went through all the preflight checks. He then taxied to the runway and ran up the engines. They lifted into the sky at 8:22 AM.
“Well, that didn’t go as planned,” Jake said as they climbed out and turned toward Santa Maria.
“Can you make up the time in the air?” Laura asked. She was sitting behind him because Celia was afraid to sit anywhere but next to Jake when flying with him.
“Not twenty-two minutes worth of time,” he said. “Maybe five at the most, but I’d burn a lot more fuel doing it.”
“Live and learn, huh?” Celia said.
“Live and learn,” he agreed.
They were delayed another five minutes when he entered the landing pattern at Whiteman. A Cessna 172 was in position for takeoff, so Jake had to circle around an additional lap to let it do so. They touched down at 9:18 and Jake parked in the general aviation area. Since he rented hangar space at the airport, he did not have to pay a landing fee. Still, it took another ten minutes to secure the aircraft, tie it down, and then get the F150 out of the hangar. From the airport, it was a twelve-minute drive to the rehearsal studio in Santa Clarita.
“9:42,” Jake said disgustedly as he looked at his watch. “I seriously underestimated how long the commute would take.”
“It’s no big,” Celia said. “We’ve only got another ten days worth of this gig anyway. I don’t mind showing up at ten instead of nine.”
Jake shook his head. “No, that’s unfair to everyone else. We’ll just have to get up a little earlier, move the routine back.”
“How early?” Laura asked.
“We’ll need to get up at six-twenty instead of seven.”
“Yuck,” she said, making a sour face. She was not a fan of getting up early.
“It’s the price we have to pay, babe,” he told her.
They went into the studio where, of course, everyone else was already there and waiting for them.
“Nice of you to join us,” Coop remarked.
“We were getting kind of worried,” Sharon said.
“Indeed,” Nerdly agreed. “It was starting to seem possible that you might have suffered a catastrophic failure of an aircraft system leading to an untimely demise.”
“Nope,” Jake said. “Just poor planning on my part. I was a bit optimistic about how long it would take to get from bed to here.”
“That is a relief,” Nerdly said. “Do you plan to reorganize your routine so that you will be punctual for future sessions?”
“Yes,” Jake said. “That is what we plan.”
“How was the new house?” asked Natalie, who was sitting in her chair with her violin in her lap.
“It’s amazing!” Laura told her. “We still haven’t completely unpacked yet, but it’s so quiet, so peaceful. No other people around except us. I went to bed listening to the sound of the waves crashing into our cliff. Slept like a baby.”
“It sounds wonderful,” Natalie said.
They all talked about the house for a few minutes, asking questions about it, wanting to know when the housewarming was going to be, asking about the town. Finally, Jake took charge and suggested they get some work done since they were already behind schedule.