"Hey, time flies when you're having fun, huh? I guess maybe I'd better get to bed. I have to get up in about five hours so I can visit Darren before all the wardrobe and interview crap starts in the afternoon."
"And I promised my A&R guy I'd be back in my hotel room by nine o'clock," Celia said.
They staggered their way upstairs and said goodnight at the top of the staircase.
"Thanks for inviting me over, Jake," Celia told him, giving him a chaste hug. "I've had a really good time. It's been awhile since that's happened."
"We'll need to do it again sometime," Jake said, returning the hug, feeling the press of her breasts against his chest, smelling the lingering remnants of her vanilla. "I need to ask you something," he said when the embrace ended.
She looked at him a little nervously. "What's that?"
"Don't take this the wrong way," he said. "But you smell really good. What is it you're wearing?"
She giggled. "Oh, you have no idea what I thought you were going to ask," she said. "It's vanilla lace body spray. I hate perfume but I like the smell of vanilla."
"It suits you," he said. "Good night, Celia."
"Good night, Jake."
They went to their respective bedrooms. Both of them passed out atop the covers without even removing their clothes.
Jake visited Darren in the hospital the next day. He had been weaned from the ventilator and was breathing on his own now but his muscles were still too weak to allow him to stand or lift anything on his own. Nurses had to feed him and he was kept constantly stoned with anti-anxiety medications like valium and ativan.
"How's the new guy working out?" Darren asked, his eyes only partially open, his words thick and heavy.
"He's really strange," Jake said. "He doesn't eat meat and he puts on latex gloves before he fucks groupies."
"No shit?" Darren said.
"No shit," Jake confirmed.
"How's he play?" Darren wanted to know.
"He's okay," Jake said diplomatically, not wanting to mention that Charlie was ten times the bass player that Darren could ever hope to be. "How are you doing? They treating you okay in here?"
"As long as they keep giving me the dope I don't seem to mind anything," he said.
The Grammy Awards were held that night. Both Jake and Celia were in attendance although their seats were far apart. None of the media types seemed to have any idea that they had spent the night together, or even that they were both suffering from tremendous hangovers.
Neither Intemperance nor La Diferencia won an award.
Jake went home in a limo and slept in his bed. At seven o'clock the next morning he was put on another plane and flown to Fort Lauderdale, Florida so he could make the next concert.
The tour went on.
Chapter 7a
August 11, 1988, 2:37 PM
2100 feet above Ventura County, California
The single engine Cessna 172 was in a thirty-degree bank to the right, its engine turning at forty percent power, its nose pointed slightly downward, its flaps partially deployed. Jake Kingsley sat in the left hand seat, his hands on the stick, his feet on the rudder pedals, his eyes flicking back and forth between the compass, the altimeter, and the view outside. Sitting next to him was Helen Brody, one of the two certified flight instructors for Brody Flight School.
Brannigan Airport was a rural general aviation field in southern Ventura County, some fifty miles north of Los Angeles and thirty miles east of Ventura. As the plane continued to bank the airfield's single runway came into view from the right side. It was a 16/34 runway, which meant it was aligned northwest to southeast. Horse and cow pastures stretched off to the east and an automobile junkyard was situated to the west. Jake slowly and smoothly straightened out his bank until the nose was pointed directly at that runway and his compass read 160.
"Beautiful," Helen said, her hands resting comfortably in her lap but prepared to take over the controls in an instant if it became necessary. "No need for adjustments on this one. Now bring us down."
"Bringing us down," Jake said, reducing the throttle and letting the nose slip downward. Their airspeed began to increase as gravity acted upon them. Jake slowly increased the flaps to maximum deployment, slowing them up but also increasing lift and causing the nose to come back up. He pushed down on the stick and throttled down some more until they were descending exactly on a glide path that would put them down on the first third of the runway. Their airspeed was sixty-nine knots, just two knots above the 172's stall speed with flaps deployed. Jake continued to make minor adjustments with the stick and rudders, adjusting their course to compensate for the twelve-knot south wind that was blowing. As they passed over the perimeter fence Jake throttled down to almost idle. The plane dropped a little faster. Just before it reached the ground he pulled up slightly on the stick. The nose came up and the plane went into a controlled stall. The fixed tricycle landing gear thumped softly down on the pavement with a slight screech. Jake retracted the flaps, neutralized the controls, and pulled the throttle all the way back.
"Very nice," Helen said, reaching out and giving him a friendly pat on the back. "Now let's do it again. We have time for two more."
"Yes, Sensei," Jake said with mock formality as he pushed the throttle forward once again. The engine screamed with horsepower and the plane rapidly accelerated. When it reached 85 knots he pulled back on the stick. They rose back into the air with three hundred feet of runway left to spare. Thus, his twelfth touch and go of the day was complete. Now he would take it back around for lucky thirteen.
The It's In The Book tour had come to an end June 15 with two sold out shows in Heritage. Since then the entire band had been on a much-deserved hiatus from most of their normal obligations. The only real task was for Matt and Jake to compose some new music for the next album. Since Book was now approaching five times platinum and five of the eleven songs on it were still receiving continuous airplay all over the North American and European continents, National was in no particular hurry to begin work on the next album.
"Just be in the rehearsal warehouse by mid-September," Crow had told them at the beginning of their vacation. "We've pushed your submission deadline all the way forward to November 15."
Since this was quite a departure from National's previous post-tour demands — they usually wanted the band in the rehearsal warehouse immediately and in the recording studio shortly after, regardless of when they actually planned to release the next album — the band was understandably suspicious at first. Jake, Matt, and Pauline had wondered if National's kindness was nothing but another plot to revert to the old contract, which failure to submit by the deadline could have done. Crow had squashed this suspicion before it could even be fully formed when he presented them with an addendum to their contract specifically stating what the new submission date was.
"Why are they doing it?" Pauline asked Jake. "I can't think of a reason."
Jake had simply shrugged. "Maybe they're starting to realize that we compose better when we're not pushed so hard. Who knows? I'm not going to question it too much. I'm just going to enjoy it."
And so he had been. So had they all.
Coop had taken up dirt bike riding, purchasing two high-end Yamahas, a truck, and a trailer to haul the bikes with. He spent most of his days out in the wilderness or the desert somewhere, riding up and down hills and sand dunes. He had dislocated his shoulder once and his left kneecap twice and bumped and bruised himself numerous times pursuing his new hobby but he seemed to be having fun.
Matt had acquired a house in Cabo San Lucas. He didn't actually own it since Mexican law forbid foreigners from actually purchasing land in their country but he had a ninety-nine year lease on two acres of beachfront property with a thirty-five hundred square foot house sitting upon it. This property and the building upon it, which would someday be worth over two million American dollars, he had picked up for just over two hundred thousand. He had been there ever since the close of escrow, partying and fishing his ass off.