"Thank you," Helen said. "It's nice to meet you as well."
Celia, who was a hugger, didn't just settle for a handshake. She put her arms around Helen and pulled her against her. Helen seemed a little surprised by the affection but quickly warmed to it, returning the hug.
"You've got yourself quite a handful with Jake here," Celia told her. "You know that, don't you?"
"That's something else I have to take one day at a time," she said.
Celia and Greg both laughed.
"I'm sorry we're late," Jake said. They were supposed to have arrived at five o'clock. "The flight took longer than expected."
"What's up with that?" Greg asked. "I thought when you flew your own plane you didn't have to worry about flight delays."
"Yeah," said Celia. "What happened, Helen? Was he absent the day you were teaching about how to calculate your ETA?"
"Oh, I calculated my ETA down to the minute," Jake said. "I came into Palm Springs airspace right on schedule at 4:16 PM. What I didn't know was that every Tom, Dick, and Harry would also be flying into the airport at exactly the same time. We had to circle in the landing pattern for almost twenty minutes while nine other planes landed in front of us."
"Hell, I could've told you that," Greg said. "Everyone knows not to try to fly into Palm Springs on a Friday afternoon."
"You could've told me that," Jake said, "but you didn't."
"You should've told the tower who you were," Greg said. "I bet if you would have let them know you were Jake Kingsley they would've bumped you up in the list. What's the point of being famous if you can't take advantage of it once in a while?"
Jake could tell that Helen was appalled by the suggestion that air traffic control could be influenced by one's status. "I guess it didn't occur to me," he said with a shrug. "Anyway, we're here. And I brought some wine for dinner. I didn't know what we were having so I brought a Napa Valley Merlot and a French Sauvignon Blanc. If we're having white meat, you might want to get the Blanc on some ice pretty soon."
"Carmen is preparing duck breast with a fig and port sauce," Greg said. "The Blanc will go perfect with that. Let's give you two a tour of the house. When we go through the kitchen you can drop it off with her."
"Sounds like a plan," Jake said. He reached into his bag. "I also brought these for you, Celia." He pulled out a CD copy and a VHS tape of In Action.
"Your live album," she said, taking it and looking at the cover. "I heard it was almost ready for release."
"You get it a week before anyone else," Jake said. "They've released a few copies to the radio stations but it won't be in stores until the eighteenth."
"I can't wait to watch the tape," she said. "I've never caught you guys in concert. I hear it's something to see."
"I'm not as fond of the video as I am of the album," Jake said. "The video lacks continuity. It's a hodgepodge of concerts instead of one continuous one. Some of the clips have Darren on the bass and some have Charlie. And in almost every song, we're wearing different clothes." He shrugged. "It's not bad though, and it did a decent job of capturing the basic essence of our shows."
"Any backstage shots?" Greg asked hopefully, earning him a playful punch on the shoulder by Celia.
"Some," Jake said with a chuckle. "But not the kind you're hoping for."
"Damn," Greg said.
They toured the house, Greg leading them through every nook and cranny of it. It took the better part of forty minutes to see everything and it was as opulent and decedent as Jake had suspected it would be. The kitchen was huge, large enough to provide meals for a medium sized hotel and with a pantry that could store enough food to survive for six months after a nuclear holocaust. There was a ballroom complete with discotheque lighting and a professional sound system. There was a movie room that resembled a small theater, complete with raised seating and a Dolby equipped projection system. There were five secondary bedrooms that each had their own bathrooms and Jacuzzi tubs. There were two master suites, each equipped with fireplaces, hot tubs, waterfalls, and views of the fifth fairway of the Mojave Springs Country Club. Since Celia would someday take up residence here, there was a library set up with all of her music collection and all of her musical instruments. The walls here were soundproofed so she could compose in solitude. Outside, was a huge swimming pool and hot tub combo. To run the house, Greg had hired three permanent servants. There was Tim the butler, Carmen the cook, and Vanna, the maid (a sensually attractive blonde of about twenty-two who wore a traditional maid's outfit). In addition to these three, there was Randolph, the forty-two year old retired Chicago police officer, who served as Greg's bodyguard and security specialist. He had his own office and bedroom in the mansion where he monitored the take from the sixteen cameras that covered virtually every square inch of the property (Randolph had been the one to push the button that admitted the limo through the wrought iron gates and onto the grounds).
"It's impressive," Jake said when the tour was finally complete. "I think I could live here if I had to."
"I've never seen anything like it," said Helen, whose lower middle-class upbringing had left her numbly awed by the display of wealth she found herself in the midst of.
"It'll do for a winter home," Greg said off-handedly, as if he was barely managing to tolerate it. "What I'm really looking forward to is building my summer home in Bar Harbor. I've started looking into the acquisition of property there but I haven't found anything that suits my needs just yet."
"Be diligent," Jake advised. "I'm sure the right piece of land will just jump out and grab you at some point."
"My thoughts exactly," Greg said, completely missing Jake's gentle sarcasm.
Celia caught it, though. She chuckled a little and shook her head in amusement.
Greg checked his watch — it was a top-of-the-line Rolex — and said, "We've got another twenty minutes until dinner. Anyone up for a pre-dinner cocktail?"
"Now you're talkin'," Jake replied.
They returned to the entertainment room and sat down on the leather couches, Jake and Helen on one, Greg and Celia on the other. Jim, the butler, appeared as if by magic and asked for their drink orders. Jake asked for a rum and coke. Helen requested a whiskey sour. Celia and Greg both requested "the usual".
"Very good," Jim said, heading to the bar where he began mixing.
"So, Jake," said Celia. "I know I'm putting you on the spot here, but you haven't told me what you thought of our new album yet."
Jake inwardly winced. He had hoped that this wouldn't come up. La Diferencia's latest album, Caress Of Warmth, had been released two weeks before. Sales had so far been dismal and the album's first single, a record company written tune called Kiss Me Goodbye, was not doing very well either. Radio stations were not giving the song much airplay and it had not even debuted on the Hot 100 list yet, something that every other La Diferencia single had done within two days of release. Celia had given Jake an advanced copy of the album about a month ago, handing it over with the disclaimer that she wasn't really proud of the contents.
"Well," Jake said, "I listened to the album a few times."
"And?" she asked.
"Well... what can I say?" he asked. "I try to be honest in all things relating to music. I didn't much care for it."
She nodded as if she'd been expecting this. "I didn't much care for it either," she admitted. "And it seems like the public feels the same way. We haven't even sold sixty thousand copies yet."
"I listened to it too," Helen said. "Your voice sounds as pretty as it always has."
"Thank you," Celia said, patting her leg. "My voice just couldn't carry this one though. Like I told Jake a few times before, our fans have grown up but our music hasn't."