Celia did not sleep in their room when the act was finished. No one commented on this or protested it or even thought much about it. It just seemed like the right thing to do and it happened by unspoken mutual agreement.
Everyone, even Elsa, spent the 4th of July out on Brent Hadley’s charter fishing boat. As promised, Brent took out all ten of them, plus baby Everett, privately on his boat (which was capable of accommodating another twenty fishermen plus five or six more guests) for the price of letting him use pictures of Jake and Laura in his advertisements. They left Morro Bay marina at 6:30 AM, just as the sun was rising in the east, and motored out into the Pacific Ocean more than fifteen miles. The sea was reasonably placid, with gently rolling five-foot swells that imparted an almost soothing rhythm to the vessel as they chased after schools of ocean fish that lived and fed off the central coast of California. No one got sick and everyone had a great time. Everyone except Everett caught their limit of rock cod and Gracie even managed to hook into a ling cod, which she had to fight for the better part of thirty minutes before they could gaff it aboard and kill it. Brent’s deckhands took plenty of pictures of Jake and Laura, particularly when they were reeling in fish or holding their catch.
After stowing all the gear, the deckhands cleaned and filleted the fish for them, packaging it in plastic bags and stowing it all in ice chests filled with salt ice that the boat’s icemaker had produced. While this was going on, Brent motored slowly back to Morro Bay, arriving in the harbor just before sunset. He did not take them back to the marina, however. He motored over and wound his way through more than a hundred other boats that were anchored in clusters around the bay just offshore of the town itself. He found a suitable place and dropped his own anchor. The group sat around, munching on deli sandwiches and drinking cans of Budweiser (even Jake and Celia—there was a time and place in life for drinking watery canned beer). Jake produced Cuban cigars for all who wanted them (Celia once again scandalized the Best family by firing up), including Brent and the deckhands.
As darkness fell and the stars came out, Jake and Celia took out their guitars and spent about an hour entertaining everyone by playing and singing for them, taking turns for the most part, but occasionally throwing in a duet. They mostly did classic tunes, even venturing into what country music they were familiar with in deference to most of the Best family. Neither of them played any of their own songs. Soon, the applause and whistles were coming not only from the people on the boat, but from those on the boats surrounding them. Sound carries quite well across water and more than two hundred people first noticed and then enjoyed the unplugged performance, none but those on the boat with Jake and Celia realizing who they were listening to, but most realizing that whoever it was, they were very talented.
And then, at ten o’clock, the reason everyone was anchored out here began. It was the famous Morro Bay Independence Day fireworks show, known throughout central California as being one of the best. It went on for more than forty minutes, huge plumes of multicolored explosions that boomed and banged out over the harbor, sending thrilling concussions through the air and blinding afterimages to their eyes.
After the ten-minute grand finale, Brent motored them slowly back to the marina. It took nearly an hour due to the boat traffic all trying to do the same thing at the same time. Finally, however, they docked and were able to put their feet back on dry land. They took their ice chests and made their way to the three vehicles they had used to get here. Laura, Elsa, and Julie were the designated drivers (though Elsa and Julie had both put away more than a few cans of Bud during the day part of the adventure). It was after midnight before they made it back to Kingsley Manor.
Everyone was tired and grimy and smelled like fish. The house’s fresh water system and the hot water delivery system were given the test of their lives when seven showers were fired up all at once. It held up to the test with only a barely noticeable drop in water pressure or temperature. Jake and Elsa stored most of the fish in the walk-in freezer, setting enough aside in the main refrigerator for a beer-battered fish-fry that was planned for the next night. After that, Jake wearily trudged to the master suite. There, he found Laura and Celia, both freshly showered and dressed in lingerie, lounging on the bed and listening to soft-rock music. They were not touching each other, were, in fact, on opposite sides of the King-sized bed, leaving the entire middle section empty.
“Go shower up, sweetie,” Laura told him with a smile. “You have women to satisfy.”
He gave a faux-sigh of the long suffering. “If I must,” he said.
“You must,” Celia told him.
He took a shower. It was a fast one. And then he managed to satisfy both women (though they were active participants in satisfying each other as well).
Later, after Celia had slithered back to her own room to sleep off the day and night, Jake lay on his back in the darkness while Laura, smelling pungently like sex, lay cuddled against him under the covers. Her breathing was deep and regular and he assumed she was asleep. He was just starting to drift off himself when she suddenly stiffened against him and rolled completely onto her back.
“Oh my God!” she barked, excited.
Jake’s eyes flew open in an instant. “What?” he asked. “What is it?”
“It’s Ziggy!” Laura said. “I just felt her move.”
“Really?” he asked. He knew that she was now in the early stages of when such movement could be detected by the mother, but so far she had not felt anything that was even questionable.
“Really,” she said. “There was this flutter in my stomach. Here it is again!”
“Where?” Jake asked, putting his hand on her swelling stomach—by now it had gone beyond merely being a bump.
She took his hand and moved it a little lower, just to the right and below her belly button. “Right there,” she said. “There it is again! Can you feel it?”
Jake tried, but all he could feel was her breathing. “I don’t feel anything,” he said apologetically.
“That’s okay,” Laura said. “I do. And it’s Ziggy. I have no doubt about it. She really is in there!”
“Did you doubt that?” Jake asked.
“Not really,” she said. “But until now ... well ... it’s hard to describe. It didn’t really feel real.”
“But now it does?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said happily. “Now it does.”
The Bests had the time of their lives during their trip to California.
The morning after the fish-fry, Jake flew Celia back to Los Angeles. Chase and Grace tagged along for that ride, as Celia and the shy seventeen-year-old had bonded a bit during their time together—they had had a lengthy, in-depth discussion about what it was like to be brought up in a religious family and then to later harbor doubts about the religion in question—and both girls received warm hugs and kisses on the cheeks from the famous singer. The next day Jake, Laura, and the two teens left everyone else to fend for themselves and flew to Hayward Airport just south of Oakland in the San Francisco Bay area. They drove a rental car into The City where Jake had booked them rooms at the Ritz-Carlton. They spent that day and the next exploring San Francisco, doing all the touristy things that people did there, like riding the cable cars, walking across the Golden Gate Bridge, taking in the Haight-Ashbury District and Chinatown, and visiting the wharf and Alcatraz. They dined in fancy restaurants and ate clam chowder out of bread bowls.