"Yeah," Jake said softly, feeling like he was fifteen years old again and had just been caught smoking cigarettes in the backyard. "It is."
"Are you a cocaine addict?" Tom asked him. "Don't give me the answer you think I want to hear, tell me the truth."
"No, Dad," he said.
"No, you're not going to tell me the truth, or no, you're not a cocaine addict?"
This broke the tension just a little bit. "No, I'm not a cocaine addict," he said.
"You're sure about that?"
"I'm sure," Jake said. "I'm not going to tell you I don't use it because, obviously, I do, especially when we're out on tour. The parties we have after our shows sometimes... well, you've read the reports."
"They are somewhat exaggerated by the press, I hope," Tom said.
"Somewhat," Jake said, although, in actuality, the press didn't know the half of it. "It's a recreational drug, just like the pot and the alcohol. A little more dangerous I will agree, and a lot more expensive, but that's all I use it for. When we're off tour, I pretty much leave it alone."
"That's the truth?"
It wasn't, not entirely. Jake still snorted up once or twice a week during the off periods — usually when he was going out — but his dad didn't need to know that. "It's the truth," he said. "At least for me and Bill. Matt uses it considerably more, even off-tour, but then Matt goes out a lot more than Bill and I."
"What about Darren and Coop?" Tom asked. "I understand Darren was quite intoxicated when he was injured in that explosion."
Jake nodded. "He was. That's one of the problems we're having in relation to our contract. He and Coop are into things a little worse than cocaine now."
Tom looked shocked. "Heroin?" he asked.
"We think so."
"Jake, you're not using that stuff are you?"
"No," Jake said. "Absolutely not. I may be a bit reckless but I'm not a complete moron."
"And Bill?"
"He's not doing it either. Neither is Matt for that matter. It's those two idiots. It started with the painkiller shots they gave Darren after he got burned. They ended up shooting him up before every concert after that. Sometime when the tour was over they started replacing the Demerol with heroin."
"The record company is actually supplying them with this drug?"
"They supply us with everything, Dad. From the food we eat to the houses we stay in to the booze we drink. We're owned by the company store right now."
"And you're going to try to change this?"
"We are going to change it," Jake said firmly. "Come hell or high water, I'm not going to keep living this way. That's a promise."
Tom smiled respectfully at his son. "Good," he said.
Mary Kingsley hugged her only son for the better part of a minute as soon as he walked in the door. She cried on his shoulder she was so glad to see him safe and sound and in his family home without any news helicopters hovering overhead or reporters peeking in their window.
When she finally released him Jake saw an exchange of glances between his two parents, a form of silent communication that only long-married couples could accomplish. Jake, having grown up observing such glances, was able to loosely interpret what they were not saying to each other.
Did you talk with him? his mother asked.
Yes, his father responded, and it's not as bad as we thought.
He carried his luggage upstairs, leaving them alone in the living room to confirm their silent communication with real communication. When he came back down, both of them seemed a little more at ease. His mother's tears had disappeared and his father handed him a cold bottle of beer. They sat down on the couch and talked, Tom and Jake smoking cigarettes, Mary giving her motherly disapproval at what she considered a nasty habit. Now that Tom had addressed the subject of drug abuse, Mary gradually brought the conversation around to another concern that had been lodged in their heads by he local media: the subject of girlfriend abuse.
"What exactly happened between you and Mindy Snow?" she asked him. "She seemed like such a nice girl when you brought her home to meet us."
"We broke up, Mom," Jake said with a shrug. "It was fun while it lasted but it just wasn't meant to be."
"The papers and the news," Mary said, "all reported that you were... you know... not very nice to her. And she told Johnny Carson that you were... uh... abusive. You weren't... you know... hitting her or anything, were you, Jake? Because we certainly didn't raise you to be like that."
Jake sighed. He had hoped his mother would let the subject drop but apparently she wasn't going to. "No, Mom," he said. "I never hit her or any other woman. And I was never abusive to her either."
"Well why would she say such things?"
So Jake explained it to her, telling her about the importance of image in Mindy's mind, about how she had started the relationship in the first place so she could shed her good girl image and get more adult roles, about the manipulation she had put him through, about how she had tipped off the photographer so he could take pictures of them in compromising positions.
"She told that photographer where you would be?" Mary asked, appalled. "And then she goaded you into being... you know... naked?"
"She did," Jake confirmed. "And then, when it was time for us to go back out on tour, she decided it was time to break up with me. I guess she figured it would help her get her role in Handle With Caution if she herself had been the victim of abuse, so she implied that I had been abusive to her."
"Why that manipulative little bitch!" Mary cried.
Jake nodded. "So that's the story of Mindy," he said. "She's in the middle of filming her movie and I haven't spoken a word with her since that last phone conversation while we were on tour. She's still dating John Carlisle and probably manipulating him just as badly."
"What a horrible person," Mary said.
"She's kind of typical for Hollywood," Jake said.
"I certainly hope you never get like that, Jake," she said.
"Me too, Mom," he said. "Me too."
The Thanksgiving get-together filled Jake a strong sense of pleasant nostalgia. It was the first time in four years he had been able to participate in the celebration with his family and it was just like it had always been while growing up. Stan and Lorraine Archer were there with Bill. Pauline was there. The men watched football and drank beer while the women gossiped and prepared food. At 2:00 PM the turkey was removed from the oven and Tom meticulously carved every last bit of meat from it, leaving a shredded carcass. They feasted on the meat, on Mary's homemade cornbread stuffing, on mashed potatoes and homemade gravy, on Lorraine's candied yams and fresh corn and green bean casserole, on Pauline's fruit salad. They drank several bottles of expensive Chardonnay that Jake had brought and put in the refrigerator to chill the night before. And they engaged in the pleasant exchange of family, talking of the upcoming Christmas season, the past year and all the good things that had come from it.
It was only as the get-together was winding down, after the dishes had been done and they were sitting in the living room eating homemade pumpkin and cherry cream cheese pie with strong coffee, that the subject of Jake and Bill's profession entered the conversational stream.
"Your success as rock musicians has done wonders for the Philharmonic," said Lorraine.
"Oh?" said Jake.
"Oh yes," Lorraine said. "Over the past two years attendance at our performances is up by more than a hundred and twelve percent. We've actually sold out the auditorium on more than a dozen occasions."
"That's stupendous," Bill said. And it was. For as long as their children could remember, both Mary and Lorraine had complained about the lack of interest the community held for the Philharmonic Orchestra and how the threat of bankruptcy and being disbanded was always hanging over their head.
"What do we have to do with that?" Jake asked.