Jake had been forced to give an impromptu press conference to them just so he could get on with his business transaction. After shooing Helen into the safety of a hanger he had stood before them and told them that, yes, he was taking flight lessons, that yes, Helen was his instructor, and that his business in Omaha was to pick up an airplane he'd just purchased. Helen was along only because he was not yet certified to fly solo and she needed to be in the cockpit with him when he flew. They had stayed overnight in the Ferriday Hotel and had had separate rooms.
"We have information you both stayed in the same hotel room last night," one of the reporters asked after this statement. "Is that true?"
"How would you have come by information like that?" Jake asked.
"An anonymous hotel employee let it be known that the two of you ordered room service sent to your room last night and that Ms. Brody did not, in fact, sleep in her room."
"We had dinner in my room in order to avoid being in public down in the restaurant," Jake said. "Ms. Brody slept in her own room."
"Our sources tell us that she never returned to her room last night," another reporter said.
"Your sources were wrong," Jake said. "And that's the end of the discussion. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go check out my new plane."
He left them and went into the hanger, dozens of inflammatory questions following in his wake. Once inside, he found Helen and Bill Misterly, the insurance executive who was selling him the plane, watching a television set in the office. Jake and Helen were the top story of the morning. The news reports were repeating the allegations that had been leveled at Jake just a few minutes ago and were showing a picture of Helen — a picture she identified as having come from her purse, and which was now mysteriously missing.
"They went into my room, Jake!" she yelled, outraged at the invasion of privacy. "They went into my room and took things out of my purse! And now the picture of me and my dad is up on the television screen!"
Jake nodded apologetically. "Welcome to my life," he told her.
By the time they made it back to Ventura, every entertainment magazine, television show, and tabloid was splashing Helen's face, biography, and ever sordid thing she'd ever done across their medium. They had dug up and interviewed former students of the school who had not passed and printed their inflammatory accusations. It was suggested that Helen and her father were both in the business of offering pilot's licenses for sexual favors or money. They had dug up a retired FAA official who speculated that if, in fact, Jake and Helen had a sexual relationship going on while Jake was a student that it might constitute an ethics violation on Helen's part. He then opined that the FAA should probably open an investigation into Helen as an instructor and into Brody Flight School as an entity.
John Brody, Helen's father and the owner of the flight school, was infuriated on several different levels. He did not appreciate the fact that Jake and Helen were intimate with each other (they admitted to him that they'd slept together in Omaha). He most assuredly did not appreciate the vile slander that was being leveled against his previously well-respected business. His initial reaction was to try to kick Jake out of his school. The confrontation became borderline ugly when Jake refused to go.
"I signed a contract with you, John," Jake told him. "That contract states that you will provide all necessary training to me until I'm certified as a private pilot. I've already paid you the money for this. You can't just kick me out because the news is slandering you on my behalf. You have to have a reason to drop me from the school."
"Sleeping with my daughter is not a good enough reason?" he'd asked.
"No, it's not," Jake said. "I have to flunk out or prove myself unsafe in some way. If you try to kick me out for this, I'm afraid I'll be forced to get my lawyer involved and file a breach of contract suit."
"That's what you rich rock stars like to do, isn't it?" John asked. "Hide behind your high priced lawyers."
"Daddy," Helen said. "There's no need to be so dramatic. Jake is right. We can't kick him out for this."
"You're defending him?" John asked. "After what he did to you? After smearing your reputation all over the news? After smearing our school's reputation? After possibly getting an FAA investigation going on us?"
"Jake didn't do any of that, Daddy," she said. "And he didn't do anything to me that I didn't want done. I was the aggressive one. I practically raped him in that hotel room."
"I really don't need to hear about this," John said, shaking his head in disgust.
"I just wanted you to know that it wasn't Jake who put all this in motion. It was me. I didn't realize the consequences, true, but I'm the one who went after Jake."
"This might bankrupt us, hon," John warned. "After all the bad publicity we're getting from this, I think it's quite possible we'll never get another student."
"Do you really think things will be that bad?" Helen asked, seemingly near tears.
"No," Jake interrupted. "It won't be bad at all."
"What the hell do you know about it?" John asked venomously. "You're a multi-millionaire rock star. What do you know about running a business?"
"Not very much," Jake admitted. "But negative media attention is not exactly a stranger to me. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with what sort of effect all of this will have on your business."
And, of course, Jake was right. Within two days of the first reports, there were literally hundreds of people calling Brody Flight School enquiring about flight lessons. So many people wanted to enroll that John had to develop a waiting list and hire two additional instructors. He also had to purchase a new plane in order to accommodate the increase. Jake managed to get back into his good grace by loaning him the twenty thousand dollar down payment on the aircraft and co-signing the loan for the rest.
"Are all these people signing up because they think they're going to be able to sleep with me?" Helen asked him at one point.
"No, that's not the reason at all," Jake said. "They're doing it because it's the same flight school where Jake Kingsley learned to fly, the same one that's been in the news. They'll be able to tell all their friends that they're going to Brody Flight School, that they actually learned from you, or your dad, or an instructor who knows you or your dad. They're doing it on the hope that they'll run into me out on the airfield some day. If I were your dad, I would raise my rates by at least twenty percent. People will pay it."
This was advice that John took and soon the money was rolling in like it never had before. John was still worried, however, about the possibility of an FAA investigation. Jake, in order to assuage that worry, had his "high-priced" lawyer look into the possibility. Pauline checked with some of her contacts and the information she got was exactly what Jake had suspected it would be.
"There is nothing specific in the regulations about sexual activity between a student and an instructor," Jake reported to him. "They could conceivably apply an ethics violation against the instructor but that would only be if they had convincing evidence that a sexual relationship existed between Helen and I — which they do not, since media speculation does not constitute evidence — and they were able to show that the sexual relationship was causing Helen to overlook faults in the student. Since that is not happening, they would not have a leg to stand on."
"Nevertheless," John said, "I think you two oughtta keep your hands off of each other. I don't think you should socialize outside of the classroom either."
"I'm not making any promises about that, Daddy," Helen told him.
John didn't like this, but he was forced to live with it.
Chapter 8c
Jake and Helen did continue to socialize with each other outside of the classroom. He took her out to dinner on a few occasions, to a Los Angeles Dodgers game one Friday night, and to a party at Matt's house. Everywhere they showed up, the media soon followed, dying to get a glimpse of Jake and Helen in some sort of compromising position. The public was fascinated with Helen for some reason Jake could not even begin to put his finger on. Not even Matt's newfound relationship with the famous porn star — something that should have been equally fascinating at least — could derail or mitigate this enthrallment. What they were looking for was some sort of proof of sexual involvement with Jake. Although their speculation of such a relationship was rampant, and though the circumstantial evidence from the Ferriday Hotel was somewhat suggestive, no one had ever been able to indisputably document Jake's penis in Helen's vagina. Nor had they been able to catch them spending the night together in the same room. Their experience at the Ferriday had taught them to be careful. Though they had slept together several times since Omaha, it was always at Jake's house or Helen's house and they always made sure to leave afterward.