“We still on for Remington’s?” Jake asked the actor when he answered his phone.
“Are you kidding me?” Greg asked. “I’m not leaving this house until all of this blows over.”
“Until all of what blows over?”
“You haven’t heard?” he asked.
“Heard what?”
“Mindy is having her baby today,” he said. “She’s in the hospital right now.”
“Oh ... I didn’t know that,” Jake said, still not understanding what the issue was. Why was Greg the least bit interested in the birth of a child he had been tricked into fathering and had publicly renounced a relationship with?
“I have reporters and paparazzi clustered in front of my house and at least two news helicopters circling over the top of it. It’s insane.”
“Why are they bothering you?” Jake asked.
“Because I’m the father,” he said. “Johnny, my agent, tells me they have been harassing him since last night. First it was Bernadette Tapp for the LA Times. She’s the one that broke the story that Mindy was being induced today. And then, once the Times came out this morning, all of the other gossip trolls started calling and showing up in front of my house.”
“I don’t understand their interest in any of this,” Jake said. “She’s just having a baby. An ordinary, everyday baby. It’s not like she’s a virgin birth or something.”
“A truer statement was never made,” Greg scoffed.
“Why the helicopters and the pap and all that? I don’t get it.”
“It’s because Mindy is being induced more than a week before her due date,” Greg said. “Somebody at her doctor’s office or the hospital leaked that information along with the speculation that she is doing it for vanity reasons.”
“Vanity reasons?” Jake had no idea what he was talking about.
“That she’s getting the baby out early to avoid stretch marks or a C-section scar. This same ‘anonymous source close to the case’ is also claiming that Mindy was starving herself the entire pregnancy to avoid weight gain. The press has already been painting her as a heartless manipulative slut.”
“That’s what she is,” Jake reminded him.
“I know that,” Greg said, “but now they’re painting her as an unfit mother, willing to risk the health of her child for her own vanity. The article brings up the fact that she had an amniocentesis that was not medically necessary just to DNA type the child as being mine. The anonymous source is claiming that there was no medical reason at all to induce the baby early and plenty of reasons not to.”
“I see,” Jake said. “And they’re trying to drag you into this for what reason?”
“They’re asking Johnny crazy questions,” Greg said. “They want to know if I’m going to step in and try to stop the induction. They want to know if I’m going to try to obtain full custody of the baby to keep her incompetent hands off of it.”
“And you’re not going to do any of those things?”
“Of course not!” he said. “My position is unchanged. Mindy made this bed, now she can lay in it. I just don’t want to deal with those reporters and this media circus. I’m holing up in here until this all blows over.”
“Didn’t you say you were going to head up to Coos Bay soon?” Jake asked. His golf course was now complete and would be ready to host its first players on July 20. Greg planned to be the very first golfer to swing a club on the course. And it was intended to be a high-publicity event to serve as advertisement for the posh course.
“I will be there, one way or the other,” he vowed. “I still have a week to figure it out. Maybe this will have died down by then.”
“I doubt that,” Jake opined. “Listen, I have an idea.”
“An idea?”
“I’m flying back to Oceano after rehearsal today. Going to stay the weekend. Come with me. You can see my new plane and then hole up at my house where the reporters can’t get to you. On Sunday morning, I’ll fly you up to Coos Bay and you can hole up there as long as you want.”
Greg thought this over for a few moments and then tried to dismiss it. “It won’t work,” he said. “They’ll just circle your house in their helicopters instead of mine. They’ll just send the mobs to your front door instead of mine. And then they’ll just follow us to Coos Bay.”
“Well, they can’t show up at my front door,” Jake countered. “My property is secured. The most they could do is cluster around the access road where it comes off of the PCH, and I don’t think the SLO sheriff’s department and the highway patrol would be very keen on that.”
“There’s still the helicopters,” Greg said. “Do you really want two or three of those vultures circling over for hours every day.”
“Not really,” Jake admitted, “but I think there’s a way we can avoid that as well.”
“What do you mean?”
“They won’t show up at my house if they don’t know you’re there.”
“How would we keep them from learning that?” Greg asked. “If you pick me up, they’ll just follow us to the airport with their helicopters. Even if they don’t see us fly off, they’ll know I’m with you and they know where you live.”
“Then I should not be the one to pick you up,” Jake said.
“Who is going to pick me up then?” he asked. “A limo? I will still have to fight my way through the horde in order to get inside.”
“How about you drive yourself to the airport, Greg,” Jake said.
“Drive myself?” he asked, as if Jake had suggested that he club a baby seal.
“You do know how to drive, and you do have a car, right?”
“Well ... yes, but ... I still don’t see how that solves the problem. The helicopters will still just follow me.”
“They can only follow you so far,” Jake said. “They can’t fly in the airspace adjacent to the airport. They’ll have to break off when you get close. In fact, if you just take North Hollywood instead of the Golden State, you’ll pass right by Burbank Airport. They’ll have to break off pursuit there and you will likely lose them at that point. They won’t even know you were in the vicinity of Whiteman by the time you get there. And I can have the plane all ready to go as soon as you arrive.”
“Hmmm,” Greg said, pondering this plan. “It would be nice to be able to get out of town without anyone knowing where I’ve gone.”
“All you have to do is leave from your garage,” Jake said. “Just back out onto the street and drive away. That way, none of them will have time to get in their cars to follow you on the surface streets. By the time the helicopters realize they have to break off, you’ll be too far ahead for them to catch up.”
“But what about my car?” he asked next. “Will it be safe at that airport for a week or so?”
“They have security there,” Jake assured him. “And even if something happens to your car, you’re rich. You just buy another one out of the cash in your pocket.”
Another few moments of pondering and then, “I find you make some good points. Let us put the plan into action.”
“Right,” Jake said. “I’ll be heading to Whiteman at 4:00 PM and should be there by 4:15. I will be ready to fly by 5:00. You time your drive so you get to the airport about 4:45. Don’t forget to account for the detour up North Hollywood. That should add another ten minutes or so.”
“Uh ... right,” Greg said. “Ten minutes.” A pause. “So ... what time should I leave here then?”
Greg did not do much of his own driving and was quite inexperienced at estimating travel time.
“It’s a Friday afternoon,” Jake said. “Traffic will be a little thick. You should probably leave your house at about ten minutes to four. If you arrive a little early, it’s no big. If you arrive more than ten or fifteen minutes late, however, things start to get more complicated.”
“Right!” Greg said. “Ten to four. I’ll be there.”
“See you then,” Jake said.
“See you then,” Greg agreed.