“All right,” Jake said, walking back over to his seat and sitting down. “That went easily enough.”
“Let’s hope the rest of this shit does too,” Matt said.
And, of course, it did not. Corban made it through the sound check without issue, but when they asked him to start playing the melody they were actually interested in, his fretting and strumming were hesitant and coarse on the unfamiliar instrument. They kept having him do it over and over again on the theory that he would get better with repetition. He did get better, but not good enough for recording quality sound. And he flubbed a note or two almost every time. It seemed liked it was going to take a considerable amount of time before he was able to churn out three entire chorus repetitions perfectly.
“Maybe we just do without the fuckin’ string strikes,” Matt suggested forty-five minutes into the experiment.
“That’s one option,” Jake said slowly. “But maybe there’s another.”
“What other option?” Matt asked. “I could give it a shot but I’m not any better at playing acoustic than he is. Probably worse at it, truth be told.”
“I could do it,” Jake suggested.
“You?” Matt asked, surprised.
“Why not?” Jake asked. “I’ve been told I play a decent acoustic guitar a time or two. And that is my instrument. I’m familiar with it.”
“You want to play guitar on my CD?” Matt asked, just for clarity. “After all those fuckin’ rumors and reports about Intemperance getting back together because you and I are working together?”
Matt did have a point. The rumors were flying around the music and entertainment industry about an Intemperance reunion. They had never really had any hope of keeping the fact that they were working together secret. The entire town of Coos Bay knew that Jake Kingsley and Matt Tisdale were both in town at the same time. And the only reason they would both be in town at the same time was to use Blake Studios. Pauline and Matt had both vehemently denied that they were recording Intemperance material in the studio or that there were any plans for a reunion, but the media was not buying it. Eventually they had been forced to come clean and announce that Jake and Matt were, in fact, working on a project together, but that it was Matt’s latest solo effort and not an Intemperance CD. The media people dutifully reported this information, but it was clear they did not believe it. They continued to write stories and air gossip shows about a possible reunion of the infamous “death metal” group.
“It’s not like I’m really playing guitar for you,” Jake said, putting a little extra rock into his sway because Caydee was getting fussy again. “I’m just throwing down an overdub that no one will really even notice in the final product. And it’s not like I’m going to be taking credit for it on the CD insert. It’s just an efficient way to get something done.”
“None of that shit matters if the word gets out,” Matt said. “If someone hears that you played so much as a single note in this studio, that you even picked up a fuckin’ guitar at all, it’s just gonna add fuel to the fire and make those motherfuckers come sniffing around even harder.”
“That is true,” Jake said, nodding thoughtfully. “I guess we’ll just have to keep word from leaking out.” He turned to the technician. “Rory, if I step into that booth and strum out an overdub for Matt, are you going to tell anyone about it?”
“No way,” Rory said. “What happens in the studio stays in the studio.”
“I’m talking no one,” Jake said. “Not your girlfriend, not your preacher, not your mom.”
“Well,” Rory said, “I’m between girlfriends currently, I’m an atheist so I have no preacher, and my mom lives in Syracuse and I talk to her as little as I can get away with because she likes to lecture me about my choice of career. But, in answer to your question, no, I will tell no one. Not even Obie if you don’t want me to.”
“You can tell Obie,” Matt said. “He knows how to keep his fuckin’ mouth shut. For everyone else though, you take that shit to the fuckin’ grave.”
“To the grave,” Rory promised.
“All right then,” Matt said. “I guess we give this shit a shot.” He looked sharply at Caydee, who was now quite fussy and inconsolable in Jake’s arms and starting to make little hitching cries. “What the fuck’s the matter with that kid?”
“She’s hungry,” Jake said. By this point in the game, he knew the difference between the hungry cry and the soiled diaper cry and the I’m-just-going-to-prevent-Mom-and-Dad-from-sleeping cry.
“Fuckin’ feed her then,” Matt said.
Jake laughed. “I don’t have the right accessories for that,” he said. “Let me go run her back to Laura and then I’ll go in the booth.”
“Oh ... right,” Matt said, now looking at Caydee with a little envy. She got to suck on Jake’s old lady’s tits on a regular basis. “You go get the kid fed. I’ll pull Corban out of there and start setting up for you.”
“Right,” Jake said. He pulled off his headphones and left the studio again. He ducked into one of the smaller offices along the path. It had been assigned to the Kingsleys as a feeding and diaper changing station. Caydee’s big green diaper bag was sitting on the desk next to a changing pad. Jake laid the baby down on the pad and quickly unfastened her onesie. She squirmed and continued to cry as he did so, but he was now quite practiced at this maneuver. Holding her by the feet, he opened the sticky fasteners on the disposable diaper (“fuck the environment,” Jake was on record as saying when asked by one of the entertainment reporters if they were going to use reusable cloth diapers to help protect the environment) and opened it up. The diaper was wet but not soiled. He was glad. He wiped her down with a baby wipe (also disposable) from a large tub that sat next to the diaper bag. He pulled the wet diaper off, bundling it up with the baby wipe inside, and tossed it into the waste basket. He then pulled out another diaper and quickly installed it. Finally, he fastened the onesie back up and continued his trip to Studio B.
Laura was still in the isolation booth blowing her horn when he entered. He could not tell what tune they were working on because the output was only flowing through the headsets, but he knew from the morning briefing that they had been planning to do retakes for both The End of the Journey and When You’re Lonely today. Everyone was concentrating on their tasks and did not notice his entry until the sound of Caydee’s cries reached their ears. Celia turned and looked.
“Feeding time?” she asked. She was pretty well-versed in Caydee’s different cries as well.
“Yep,” Jake said. “Sorry. Gonna have to borrow those boobs for a little bit.”
“Understandable,” Celia said.
They finished up the take they were working on—this only took another thirty seconds before Nerdly heard something he did not like—and then Celia pushed the intercom button. “Come on out, Teach,” she said. “Someone needs a little snack.”
Laura nodded and took off her headset, setting it on the stool. She set her saxophone down on the floor and then came through the door and into the main room. She walked immediately over and took Cadence from Jake’s arms.
“Awww, is my little girl hungry again?” she asked in the high-pitched voice that women used when talking to babies. “Do you need some num-nums?”