Matt nodded slowly when they finished the first run-through. "Could be better," he said. "But it has been worse too. Let's do it again. A little more projection this time."
"Right," Jake said.
They went through it again and again. Slowly, as they moved toward their lunch break, Jake began enjoy the theme of the song more and more. And as his enjoyment of it went up, the emotion of his singing got better and better.
"Now we're fucking getting somewhere," Matt said as they shut everything off for lunch. "Once you start applying yourself, we progress. How about we just skip the first part next time and go right to you applying yourself?"
Jake didn't answer him. He simply put his guitar down and headed for the refrigerator to get a beer to drink with his sandwich.
Like always, Matt ate apart from everyone else. He didn't talk to anyone until it was time to pick up their instruments and go back to work. And then, all he had to say was, "Let's go through it again. Maybe we'll be able to start working on the intro and the ending today."
By Friday afternoon, they had almost perfected Grandeur, with only a few minor details — all under the command of Matt — to work out. Even though they were on an increasingly tight schedule — September 15 was fast approaching and they only had five songs ready to put on the demo tape — Jake was forcing them all to take a week off because of something he had in the works. After months of searching and researching, Jill had finally found him a piece of property near Christchurch, New Zealand that fit his requirements and was also for sale. But there was no way in hell he was going to buy something without looking at it first. As such, he and Jill boarded a 747 from the first class lounge of LAX on Friday night. At 9:35 PM, the big jet roared into the sky, heading non-stop to Auckland, where they would catch another flight to Christchurch.
"I still think this is a horrible idea," Jill told him as the stewardesses began taking their first post-take-off drink orders.
"I don't pay you to like my ideas," Jake replied. "I pay you to make them happen."
"And to advise you when I think you're making a mistake," she added. "You're already paying for loans on two aircraft and one primary residence. Now you want to add a land purchase loan and a construction loan on top of that?"
"I do," Jake said. "You told me I could swing it, didn't you?"
"As long as your income remains steady," she said. "Remember though, you're about to enter into a period of uncertainty in regard to your income."
"What's the worst that can happen?" Jake said. "Real estate is real estate, isn't it? If my income goes down and I can't afford the payments anymore, I can just sell the property, can't I?"
"Well... yes," Jill admitted. "But there's no guarantee you'll get a fair market value if you have to unload it in a hurry."
"There's no guarantee in anything, Jill," Jake told her. "I've learned that if nothing else."
Their first drink orders came. Jake had a double rum and coke, Jill a glass of white wine. By the time they finished and ordered another round, the aircraft had leveled off at cruising altitude. They settled in for the long, overnight flight.
"Pauline told me that the record company and the band aren't too happy about you flying around the world right now," Jill said.
"No, nobody's real happy with me right now," Jake agreed. "I see where they're coming from."
"Do you?"
"Oh yes," he said. "We're just starting to hit some kind of equilibrium in our production and I'm forcing us to take a week off."
"How bad are things between you and the rest of the band?"
"As bad as they've ever been," he admitted. "Matt is still bitter over us ousting Darren and is working as hard as he can to make everyone's life miserable. We're having creative problems because everything has turned into a power struggle."
"Do you think he'll get over it?"
Jake took a long drink of his rum and coke. "I don't know," he finally said. "Sometimes I'm afraid that this is going to be the last Intemperance album."
"And yet you're going ahead with this purchase anyway?"
He nodded. "Who knows when a chance like this might come around again?"
She had no reply for that. To her, Jake was acting on impulse, something that accountants hated with every fiber of their being.
"What about your girlfriend?" Jill asked. "I can't help but notice that she isn't with us."
"She's afraid to fly," Jake said.
Jill raised her eyebrows. "Isn't she a flight instructor?"
"She is. She's not afraid to fly her own aircraft, she's afraid to fly commercial. She's always been like that to some degree, but after that little mishap we had in Boston a few months ago, she is officially phobic."
"So she's never going to see this property you're buying?" Jill asked.
He looked at her. "I don't know," he said. "We haven't been getting along too well lately."
"No?"
"No," he said. "In fact, we've hardly talked at all this past week. Something has changed in her. She's not the same person I fell in love with. It feels almost like... well... like she's letting go."
"That's too bad," Jill said. "I've only met her a few times, but she seemed very nice, very... oh... down to Earth."
"Yeah," Jake said. "And I think maybe she wants to stay down there."
"Ahh," Jill said with a nod. "I see."
They talked no more about Jake's social life. Both of them seemed to find the subject depressing. They did talk a little about Jill's social life. She had been dating a mid-level auditor for one of Heritage's major firms for about a year now and was starting to think that maybe he would be proposing to her soon.
"Really?" Jake asked. "He'll ask you to enter into legally sanctioned co-habitation?"
"Huh?" she asked.
"Never mind," Jake said with a chuckle. "How do your parents feel about him?" Jake had met her boyfriend twice now. He seemed a nice enough guy even though he had admitted to Jake that he'd never heard an Intemperance song all the way through before — he was in favor of AM talk radio or the easy listening music that could be found down at the end of the FM dial. He was also not Japanese.
"They were a little leery of him at first," Jill admitted. "But he is an accountant, you know, so it's not like I would be marrying outside the faith."
Jake laughed. That was actually one of the funniest things he'd ever heard Jill say.
They drifted off to sleep soon after, both of them wrapped up in blankets and resting their heads on pillows. Jill tossed and turned most of the night, never sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a stretch. Jake, a much more experienced flyer, dropped into a deep slumber and didn't stir for more than seven hours.
They landed in Auckland at 10:45 AM, New Zealand time. Because they'd crossed the International Date Line, it was not Saturday morning but Sunday morning. Jill pontificated about how strange it was to have lost an entire day.
"Don't worry," Jake assured her. "You'll get it back when we go home."
They had lunch at the airport and finished up just in time to board their next flight. After another hour and twenty minutes in the air, they were in Christchurch. A man named John Williams — the real estate agent Jill had been dealing with — met them at the airport. He was a short, portly man in his mid-forties dressed in an impeccable three-piece suit. He shook hands with Jake, who he had never met or spoken to before, and with Jill, who he had also never met but had spoken to many times on the phone.