"So what was the problem with Darren?" Mindy asked. Jake had mentioned to her after the dress rehearsal that there had been a problem but had not gone into details about what it was.
He explained about the sudden trip to the bathroom before hitting the stage, the reddened eyes, the mint-enhanced odor of greenbud, and, most damning, the familiar mannerisms and speech of Darren stoned.
"So what happened when you talked to him about it?" she asked.
"Nothing," Jake responded. "He kept denying it and denying it and denying it some more, no matter what we said to him. It's the same thing he did before, back when he was pulling that shit at D Street West in Heritage, but at least he stopped doing it when we threatened to kick his ass out of the band."
"Do you think that will work now?"
He shrugged. "Hopefully. I'm not sure what we'll actually do if it doesn't. It would be a little harder to get rid of him now. The way our contract is written we would need the record company's permission to fire a band member."
"Wouldn't they go along with you? I mean, he's using drugs before performing."
Jake grunted and took another sip of his wine. "Actually, they'd love to find out he's getting loaded before hitting the stage. They'd probably hold a press conference to announce it. It would fit in with this whole image they're trying to push on us."
"Image is important," Mindy said. "I'll be the first to agree with that."
"Yeah," Jake said, holding his tongue. He was well aware how much she agreed with that particular statement.
"But," she said, "it's a lot more important to have your head straight when you perform. Look at me. I take my acting every bit as seriously as you and Matt take your music and I wouldn't dream of trying to do a scene or even a rehearsal while I was stoned, or drunk, or coked out. It's just impossible to give your all, to do your best that way, no matter how much you're used to it. And doing your best is how you get to the top and stay there, right?"
"Right," Jake said, surprised again, as he often was, at her eerily accurate common sense insight into certain things.
"In the movie industry if an actor or actress is showing up to work under the influence of something, the producer will put a stop to it immediately. It doesn't matter how famous the actor is, how much money has been advanced, how much pull the actor has, it will be stopped or the actor will be fired from the project because the producers realize that you can't perform your best that way. I just don't see why your record producers aren't the same way."
"They are a different breed, that's for sure," Jake said. "Unlike your movie producers, they are convinced that image is more important than quality. The image they want of rock stars is of drugged out, strung out lowlifes and they do everything they can to promote that image. That's why they supply us with endless amounts of booze and coke and pot. They want us to be addicts. They want us to get fucked up before we go onstage. If we screw up a performance because we're wasted, they see that as an asset, a reinforcement of what they think is the most important thing."
"It's sad," Mindy said, draining the last of her drink and signaling to the waiter for another.
"Yeah," he agreed, "and hopefully Darren will get back into line. As long as he doesn't realize that we can't really fire him, he should."
Their dinner came and they ate slowly, relishing the tender cuts of filet mignon and the recently deceased Maine lobsters. For desert they had baked Alaska served with kahlua and cream.
"Well," said Mindy after the last bite went down her throat, "there's another twenty minutes of workout for the next two days. I can feel all this food trying to work its way into my butt as we speak."
"It's worth it though," Jake said, his stomach just below the threshold of being uncomfortably full.
"Agreed," she said. She twirled the remnants of her drink for a moment. "So when do I get my copy of your new album?"
"I told you," he said, "they're not giving us our complimentary copies until the last day of February. Once they do, I'll personally deliver it to you."
"That's only one day before its released in stores," she pouted. "Doesn't being your girlfriend get me any privileges?"
"Not with National it doesn't," he said. "They sent out about thirty copies of the first single to some of the radio stations they have close ties to but the album itself is locked up solid. They're not even pre-shipping it to the record stores until the 27th."
"I guess everything fits in with some master plan," she said.
"Of course."
"And you're leaving for Miami on what day?" she asked.
"We climb on the bus March 12 and drive across the country again," he said. "The first show is on the 15th. We'll be up and down the east coast and the Midwest for two and half months after that."
"They've got quite a schedule for you."
He nodded. "Lots of consecutive dates, lots of smaller cities we didn't hit before in addition to the ones that we did. It's going to be brutal but I'm looking forward to it. Performing is why I got into this business, after all."
"Not just for the free food?"
"Not just for the free food," he confirmed.
"Jake," she said, "there's something I need to talk to you about."
He looked up warily. "What's that?"
"It's nothing bad," she said. "Not really, anyway. It's just that... well... Georgette and I have been talking about what this tour is going to mean to our images... yours and mine."
"To our images?"
"Yes," she said. "You see, you're going to be gone for months, almost six of them, right?"
"About five and a half before the whole tour is over," he confirmed.
"And you're going to be... you know... doing your thing with the groupies and the drugs and all that while you're out there."
"Mindy..."
"Hold on a second," she said. "Let me talk. I told you before that it doesn't bother me when you do that and it doesn't. You can screw all the groupies you want. I expect you to. But you see... the media is going to be reporting that you're doing that, aren't they?"
He tried to formulate several responses to this question and failed. Finally, he just asked, "What is it you're trying to say?"
"Well, it would look really bad for both of us if, in the eyes of the public, we were a couple and the media was constantly reporting that you were out there getting it on with a bunch of sluts after your concerts night after night. They'd portray you as a heartless womanizer and they'd portray me as a suffering abused woman. Every time they got pictures or reports of you with some groupie, they'd start hounding me and asking me what I thought about it. It would be a zoo. You have to agree with that, don't you?"
"I suppose that would be a source of negative imagery," Jake allowed. "So what are you saying? You want to break up with me?"
"Not in real life," she said. "But on the record, yes, I think we should."
"On the record?"
"It's simple," she said, "we have Georgette and Shaver announce that we have decided to end our romantic relationship with each other for personal reasons. We don't make it ugly or anything, we just say that we decided to remain friends only and go our separate ways. That way, you'll be free to do your thing with the groupies while you're out on tour and it won't reflect negatively on either one of us. I'm sure Shaver and the executives at National would agree that this is the only way."
Jake was unsure what to say, what to think. This was a rather large bombshell for her to drop on him without any warning. "What if I told you," he suggested, "that I would stay away from the groupies while I'm on tour."