"What's Don Henley say about that?" Celia asked. "In that album he just released? 'You keep carrying that anger, it'll eat you up inside'."
"Don's a very profound guy," Jake agreed. "Don't ever get into a drinking contest with him though. I learned that the hard way. Anyway, the funny thing is that I don't think Matt's actually angry about losing Darren, not completely anyway. I think his main problem is that we defied him, me in particular, but the rest of the band joined in the defiance."
"He doesn't like to be defied?"
"He can't tolerate it," Jake said. "He grew up a little rich kid, always getting everything he ever wanted, and then he became a rock star and had everything handed to him. He's never really had to face defiance on the level he just had to face it and he's not taking it very well at all."
"Do you think he can get over it?" she asked.
Jake thought for a few moments and then shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I guess this upcoming tour will be the real test. We're going to be living in close proximity with each other for months. If he doesn't snap out of it, though, there's not going to be any more Intemperance albums. If this last cycle taught me anything, it's that I really don't need anyone else in order to make my music and that it's somewhat liberating to be able to do things my way. I'll walk before I commit to another album in this kind of atmosphere."
Since it was a weekday, two days before the traditional start of the Thanksgiving travel period, Jake only had to circle in the landing pattern for fifteen minutes before he was given clearance to land. He brought them in and touched gently down on the runway, taxiing to the General Aviation terminal. A limousine, commissioned by Celia before they'd left Los Angeles, was waiting for her in the parking lot.
"Thanks for the ride, Jake," Celia told him as the driver moved her two suitcases from the luggage compartment on the Cessna to the trunk of the limo. "You were right. It wasn't nearly as terrifying when I was sitting next to the pilot."
"Anytime," Jake told her.
"I'd invite you over for dinner, but... you know... the servants might raise a few eyebrows."
"I understand," Jake said. "I want to make a few turns around Joshua Tree before I head back anyway. Will I see you again before I go out on tour?"
She shook her head. "I'm back to the jungle tomorrow morning," she said. "Filming is not scheduled to wrap up until early January. And the way things have been going, it'll probably be more like March or April."
Jake nodded. "Well, I guess this is goodbye for a while then."
"I guess so," she said, looking a little sad at the prospect.
She stepped into his arms and gave him a big hug, wrapping her arms firmly around him and pulling his body close to hers. Jake returned the hug, feeling himself tremble a little at the feel of her soft body against his. He could smell her distinctive vanilla scent radiating off her skin.
"Take care of yourself, Jake," she said, pulling back a little but continuing to hold onto him.
"I will," he promised. "And you do the same."
She hesitated for the briefest of moments and then leaned forward, kissing him softly on first his left cheek and then his right. She looked into his eyes, seemed to debate a little bit more, and then leaned in and kissed him again, this time right on his lips.
"I wasn't drinking this time," she told him as she finally let go.
"Nope," he agreed, feeling flushed all over. "Neither was I."
"I guess we'll just have to figure out what that means," she said. With that she turned and walked to the limo. The driver held the door open for her and she got inside without looking back.
Now that the recording of the new Intemperance album — titled Lines On The Map, named for one of Jake's songs — was complete, the band was officially on vacation until December 11, the day they would start engineering the Lines On The Map North American Tour. As was usually the case, even in better times, all five members of the band headed off in different directions.
Charlie went his normal route and flew back to Birmingham to hang out with his family and manage his restaurant. The vegetarian cuisine he served had proven so popular he was considering opening a few more restaurants in Mobile, Montgomery, and Chattanooga. He was going to be meeting with his financial advisers to go over the possibilities and set things in motion.
Nerdly and Sharon elected to take advantage of the hiatus to go on the honeymoon they'd been denied immediately after their wedding because of the recording schedule. They flew to Paris, the city where Nerdly had proposed to her, and planned to spend their entire two weeks exploring the city and the surrounding countryside.
Matt, like usual, flew to Cabo San Lucas with Kim Kowalski, his porn-star girlfriend. He planned to spend half the vacation out on a fishing boat and the other half engaging in threesomes and foursomes with any woman or women he and Kim could convince to engage in such a thing with them. Experience had already taught them that there were quite a few such women in any crowd.
In the past, Coop had often gone to Cabo with Matt (Matt had even let him give Kim a "test-drive" on one trip) but for this particular vacation period Coop had not been invited along since Matt was still not talking to any of his fellow band members. Coop, undaunted by the rejection, had simply loaded up his dirt bikes on his trailer and driven to Glamis, the huge desert off-highway vehicle park where he liked to ride. Coop was happy enough that the band was still together and about to release a new album since the paternity test he'd taken had indeed proven he'd sired a child with his former girlfriend the investment banker and he was now legally obligated to send her a check for twelve thousand dollars every month.
Jake, obviously, hadn't been invited to go to Cabo either. He had been invited to go to Glamis with Coop and to Birmingham with Charlie and even to Paris with Nerdly and Sharon, but he'd politely declined each offer. Pauline and Nerdly were both afraid that he was just going to spend his entire vacation drinking and wallowing in self-pity over his break-up with Helen; and he might very well have done that except for the fact that he had business of his own to attend to during the break.
Two days after flying Celia to Palm Springs (and having her kiss him on the airport tarmac, his mind continued to remind him), he boarded a 747 at LAX and once again made the fourteen hour flight to New Zealand. Once there, he found the weather much more agreeable than it had been during his last trip. It was now late spring in the southern hemisphere and, though it rained a few times, the weather was, for the most part, pleasant in the Christchurch area, usually peaking in the upper sixties or low seventies during the afternoon, with gentle ocean breezes sweeping his hillside property.
The property itself had undergone some changes since his last visit as well. The muddy track that had led from the main road had been replaced by a paved, eight meter wide surface. Power lines had also been strung along the road, connecting the property to the power grid. Most of the underbrush and vegetation that had been present on the flat part of the property had been cleared away in preparation for the laying of the foundation of his future house.
The future house in question was actually the main reason for his visit. The Christchurch architecture firm called Jonas and Breckerman had finished up the design on Jake's house and wanted his final approval before moving forward to the next step. This technically could have been taken care of via mail and telephone — Jake had, in fact, received a copy of their blueprints a few weeks before the trip — but he wanted to talk to them in person and go over the blueprints while actually standing on the land before he committed to the project.