"That's part of your problem," Jake said. "The biggest part is that your record company exerts too much control over your music. Those songs they wrote for you..." He shook his head in consternation. "They're just... I won't go so far as to use the word 'horrible', but they're pretty bad. It's almost like they're doing a parody of the earlier stuff they wrote for you that was successful."
Celia nodded again. "I was ashamed to sing most of them," she admitted. "Kiss Me Goodbye? Awful lyricism. Some of the campiest lines I've ever been given. Caress Of Warmth is almost as bad."
"I did like the lyrics of the three songs that were yours," Jake said. "You sang two of those to me that night we had our little jam session, remember?"
She giggled. "I remember some of that night," she said.
"Jam session?" Helen said, raising her eyebrows a tad.
"It was the night before the Grammy awards back in February," Celia told her. "Jake and I were both out on tour and they were flying us in to make an appearance at the ceremony. We ran into each other at DFW and I told Jake they were putting me up in some cheap hotel. He invited me to stay the night at his place instead. Elsa made us dinner and then we spent about three hours getting drunk and singing our unrecorded material to each other." She looked at Jake fondly. "God, I was so hungover at the awards the next day."
"Me too," Jake said. "I was afraid I was gonna throw up on the red carpet when I got out of the limo."
"You never told me about that, Jake," Helen said, her eyes probing a little into his.
Jake shrugged. "It never came up," he said.
"It's very fortunate that word of where Celia was that night never leaked out," said Greg, who was obviously not all that amused by the story either. "Can you imagine the stories that would've been circulating in those gossip rags?"
"We were careful," Jake said. "I got her over to my place like she was a spy slipping into an iron curtain country."
"You do have a very devious mind when you want to," Helen said.
"It's part of the siege mentality that goes with being a celebrity," Celia said. "I'm sure you're starting to get a taste of it, aren't you, Helen?"
"Yeah," she said. "Every time I go to work or out shopping there's some photographer or reporter trailing after me. It does get kind of old."
"The public has a right to know," Greg said bitterly. "That's their favorite line. I had too much to drink once out at a club and ended up throwing up in the parking lot. The next week there were pictures of me barfing in the American Watcher."
"At least they never caught you naked on a boat with Mindy Snow," Jake said.
"I saw those pictures," Celia said. "You guys weren't naked. You were wearing matching swim suits that looked like black lines."
They had a laugh over that, breaking the tension a little.
"So anyway," Celia said. "You're right, Jake. Two of the songs on the album are songs I sung for you that night. I'm sure you noticed they didn't quite sound the same."
"Yeah," Jake said. "The tempo was quite a bit faster on the album and there were an awful lot of synthesizers involved."
"They ruined the songs," Celia said. "And they're not even planning to release any of my originals as singles. They just used them as filler."
"What is with these record companies anyway?" Greg asked. "I've heard most of Celia's unrecorded songs and they are good, solid material that her fans would've loved. She could have had a blockbuster album if they just would've let her put those songs together and put them out there. Instead, they forced her to record a bunch of crappy, psuedo-dance tunes and they destroyed the integrity of the tunes she actually did write. Are they trying to sabotage her career? Is this deliberate?"
"No," Jake said, "it's not deliberate. They actually think they know what it is the music audience wants to hear and doesn't want to hear. The problem they're having is part of the problem this whole country is having."
"And what's that?" Greg asked.
"They've become too large," Jake said. "The people making the decisions are too far removed from the tastes of their target audience and too ingrained with corporate thinking to make decent decisions. You basically have a bunch of old, accountant types trying to produce music for the masses in order to make money. Since everyone loved Celia and La Diferencia on the first few albums, their corporate minds want to stick with the formula that made them so much money in the beginning. Music is not like selling shoes, however. You can't keep going back to the same well and putting out the same thing."
"And the guys who are writing these songs are just as much out of touch," Celia said. "They actually think they're composing masterpieces in there. You should've heard some of the stuff we rejected."
"As I told you before," Jake said. "You need to chart your own destiny. You have to find a way to get your own music out there, in the form you composed it in."
"Not under this contract," Celia said.
"When does your contract expire?" Helen asked.
"We have two more periods on it," Celia told her. "That means they can demand two more albums out of us."
"Or they can reject the albums each year," Jake said. "If they do that, they're not allowed to produce any other music for anyone else."
"Do you think they would do that?" Helen asked.
"It's possible," she said. "If this album doesn't sell enough, they might decide not to invest in the next one."
"And they'd just let you rot there, doing nothing?" Helen asked, appalled.
"Without a second thought," Jake said. "Isn't it great being a musician?"
Jim brought their drinks over, carrying them on a silver tray. He distributed them silently, doing an excellent job of pretending he hadn't just heard their entire conversation.
"You're going out on tour though, aren't you?" Jake asked Celia.
"Yep," she confirmed. "We've been rehearsing it for the past month. We're starting in Miami on December 12. We'll finish up in Los Angeles on April 15."
"So you won't see each other for five months?" Helen asked.
"Longer than that," Greg said. "I'm leaving at the end of the month for Alaska."
"Alaska?" Jake asked. "Why the hell would you want to go to Alaska in the winter?"
"My next picture is a science fiction piece that takes place on an ice and snow planet," he said. "The best place to film it is at some place called King Salmon, which is an old air force base on the coast."
"How long will you be gone?" Helen asked.
He shrugged. "Probably for the better part of four months. That's how long it will take to film the outside scenes. We'll come back to Hollywood to do all the inside work."
"Won't you guys miss each other?" Helen wanted to know.
"Well... sure," Celia said. "But it's part of the life we live. We've accepted the fact that our careers will pull us apart for months at a time out of any given year."
"And it's not like we won't talk or anything," Greg said. "Last time she was out on tour we talked on the phone at least three times a week."
"We even managed to get together every month or so when we both had time off," Celia said. "That's part of the advantage of being rich. You can always catch a flight and meet somewhere."
"Although it was usually me who was catching the flights," Greg said with a hint of gentle sourness, "since someone here doesn't like flying."
"Shut up," she said, slapping at his arm. "The less I fly, the less likely it is I'll die in a plane crash."
"That's why she made me drive here," Greg said.
"I'm with you on that one, Celia," Helen said. "I hate flying commercial. It scares the living shit out of me." She blushed. "Uh... excuse my language."
Everyone laughed dutifully at her potty-mouth.
"Are you worried about Jake going off on tour, Helen?" Celia asked her.
"A little," she admitted. "I'll miss him while he's gone. And... well, I'll worry about whether or not our relationship will last through it."