She smiled, pleased with his praise, but she was still doubtful about the idea. “What is the point of the longer set?” she wanted to know.
“You’ll have a chance to perform pretty much all of your material,” Jake explained. “All of the hits from the first two albums, all of the future hits from the new album, and as many La Dif songs as you want. You could perform all the La Difs that you wrote and maybe even throw in I Love to Dance for nostalgia purposes. The fans get to hear it all and we don’t get complaints about how you didn’t perform this song or that song.”
“Then it’s to give the people what they want?” she asked. “That sounds rather selfless of us.”
“Well ... it’s not entirely without a profit-oriented angle,” Jake admitted.
“What do you mean?”
“People are more willing to pay triple digit ticket prices for longer shows with more material being presented. Especially once the word of mouth about the set list starts to spread. That translates into increased tour revenue. And, as you know, we cleaned up pretty nicely on your last tour when we went with the higher prices. We’ll be able to rake in even more with the extended set.”
“How much more?” she wanted to know.
“Pauline and Jill put their heads together on this one,” he said. “They estimate we’ll be able to charge seventy dollars minimum for the worst seats in the house, one-twenty-five for the lower-level bleachers, and up to one-seventy-five for the front floor levels.”
Celia whispered appreciably. “That’s quite a lot,” she said.
“The theory is that people will be willing to pay that for an extended Celia Valdez set. Assuming sold out houses across the board—like you did on the last tour—we’re talking about a quarter million or so in profit from each show. And that’s just ticket revenue. That doesn’t even include the merchandising.”
Celia nodded thoughtfully. “A quarter of a million, huh?”
“That’s just a loose average,” Jake said. “It’ll be a little less at some of the smaller venues, a little more at some of the larger ones.”
“Is that KVA’s share of the profit, or the total of all profit?”
“The total,” Jake said. “Assuming we have our MD&P provider finance the tour like they did before, they will logically want to share in that profit, just like on the last tour.”
“Naturally,” she said. “So ... fifty-fifty split, like before?”
He nodded. “I don’t think either KVA or whatever record company we end up with would accept anything less than that.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” she allowed. “Although you know they’ll want to try to negotiate it anyway.”
“Undoubtedly,” he agreed. “But that’s another discussion for another day.”
“I guess so,” she said. “Well ... sign me up. If people really want to see me step up there and sing and play for two and a half hours, and they’re willing to pay for it, I guess I can do it. I have enough material now.”
“All right then,” Jake said with a smile. “I let Paulie know you’re aboard and we’ll start thinking tour once we get masters in hand.”
“Sounds good,” she said. She looked over at him meaningfully. “Why did she task you with asking me about this? Paulie’s never been squeamish about talking business with me before.”
Jake thought about giving her a bullshit answer for a moment then decided against it. “Well ... it seems that she feels you’ve been ... uh ... a little testy of late.”
“Testy?” she asked, frowning.
He gave a half shrug. “You know? Kind of flying off the handle at times, getting disproportionately upset over little things, being uncommunicative. That sort of thing.”
“She says I’ve been doing that?” she barked, a touch of anger in her voice.
“You kind of have been doing that, C,” he said. “You’ve got everyone walking on eggshells around you since we got here.”
She took a deep breath, as if she were about to start shouting at him, and then let it out slowly, her face softening. “I guess I have been a little bitchy lately, haven’t I?”
Jake held his thumb and index finger about half an inch apart. “Just a bit,” he confirmed. “Anything you want to talk about?”
She shrugged. “It’s just a little marital stress, that’s all. It’ll pass. I’m sorry I’ve been letting it out around people who don’t have anything to do with the problem. I’ll try to watch myself from here on out.”
“We appreciate that in advance,” Jake said. He thought about letting it drop here but decided to push just a bit further. “Is it the Greg and Mindy show that’s bothering you?”
She looked over at him, her eyes daggers for a moment, but then they softened. “Yeah,” she said. “What else?”
“What’s the issue?” he asked. “All that clusterfuck over Mindy’s ex doing his little interview has already come and gone, right? The reporters have stopped calling. You’re no longer the lead story on ER every night.”
“That was just a minor league annoyance,” she said. “They had nothing substantial to report except groundless inuendo.”
“Did something new happen? Greg’s been going on about how professional and straightforward Mindy is, hasn’t he?”
“He has,” she said. “That’s what’s bothering me. He tells me she’s playing no games with him, is nothing but the constant professional actress, dedicated to portraying the role she’s been cast in.”
Jake nodded his head thoughtfully. “I will say that Mindy always did take her profession seriously,” he said. “She is a great actress, and she does dedicate herself fully to her work when it’s in progress, just like Greg does.”
This earned Jake another sharp look. “You’re defending Mindy Snow?” she asked.
“Not at all,” he replied. “I’m just stating a fact. Mindy is a lying, cheating, backbiting snake in the grass who will do anything or hurt anyone to further even a minor cause that she’s involved in. There is nothing short of murder she wouldn’t do to gain an advantage, and I’m not even sure about that. But she is a dedicated and professional actress.”
“I think that’s what is troubling me,” Celia said.
“That she’s a good actress?”
“No. That I know what she is capable of, that she will lie, cheat, steal, and hurt anyone she needs to hurt, but that, so far, she is showing no signs that anything like that is going on. According to Greg, she’s this wonderful, delightful girl he gets to work with every day. He even told me they’ve developed a certain chemistry between them that will enhance the scenes they do.”
Jake raised his eyebrows a bit. “Are you worried that he’s getting a little infatuated with her?
“I’m beyond worrying about that,” Celia said sourly. “It’s quite clear when I talk to him that it has happened. I can almost hear him glowing when we talk on the phone and he tells me about the latest scenes they filmed, about how great the interaction between the two of them was.”
“Wow,” Jake said. “You don’t think that they’re ... you know...”
“Tuning each other’s instruments?” Celia asked, using a Jake-ism. “No. I don’t think he’d be able to talk so casually to me if that were going on. And I like to think he learned his lesson after the little makeup girl incident in Alaska.”
“He bought himself a whole lot of silent treatment after that one,” Jake recalled.
“He did,” she said. “And I’m sure he possesses the understanding that if anything like that happens again, it’s the end. I don’t think he would actually do anything with her if she offered, I’m just uncomfortable with this happy, respectful, relationship he’s formed with her. Everything he talks about is ‘Mindy this’ and ‘Mindy that’ and ‘Did I tell you what Mindy said?’.”