Tom smiled, receiving the message quite well. It was a true story. He had always rather suspected it was. The male part of him could not help but feel a little twinge of envy for his son. True, he worried to death about him, but the life of a rock star was certainly an entertaining one—in multiple ways.
“I withdraw the question,” he told her.
“Very well,” Pauline said. “Those sitting in judgement will disregard that question and draw no inference from my answer.”
They shared a laugh at this. Nothing like a little lawyer humor between two active members of the bar.
“Well,” Tom said, “I’ll say that you’ve set my mind at ease a bit—just a bit.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I do have just one more question though.”
“What is that?” Pauline asked him.
“What’s the deal between Jake and Celia?”
Pauline looked at her father meaningfully. “Interesting,” she said. “You were able to pick up on it after just meeting her a few hours ago.”
He nodded. “It’s hard to miss—especially when you see them playing music together. I picked up a definite chemistry going on there.”
“It’s there all right,” Pauline said. “I can see it, Bill and Sharon can see it, even Jill the accountant can see it. I’m forced to wonder if Greg can see it as well, although he’s been kind of unofficially banned from showing up at the studio when they’re playing.”
“Banned from the studio?” Tom asked, surprised. “What is that about?”
“He means well, but he has a strong personality and he kind of gets in the way if he shows up. He has no musical knowledge whatsoever, but he starts making suggestions about how they should do this, or how they should change that. He kind of feels that since he put up a quarter of the money for KVA Records, he should have some input into the product. Celia had a talk with him about a month ago. She didn’t say what she told him, but he stopped showing up after that.”
“Interesting,” he said. He gave his daughter the serious look again. “You don’t think that Jake and Celia are actually ... you know...”
She shook her head. “No,” she said firmly. “Nothing like that. For one thing, they’re never really alone together—they only see each other in the studio when Bill and Sharon and the band are there as well. For another, I don’t think that either of them would do anything even if they had opportunity. Celia genuinely loves Greg and I don’t think she would cheat on him. Jake is genuinely a friend of Greg’s. They’ve been known to hang out together, play golf together, go out and have beers together. Jake may be oversexed and may sometimes display poor judgement—particularly when he’s drinking—but he would never sleep with a friend’s wife.”
“I would hope not,” Tom said.
“Having said that, however, there is something strong between those two, something that is plain to see for anyone who cares to see it.”
Tom nodded. “I guess that’s just one more wait and see item, isn’t it?”
“I guess it is,” Pauline agreed.
Mary Kingsley had planned to make chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner—one of her specialty items. Unfortunately, the musicians became so enthralled by their playing that they did not return to the Kingsley house until well after five o’clock in the afternoon. Making enough of that particular entrée for nine people would take at least two hours. She apologized profusely for losing track of the time, but Jake and Celia deflected her apology, stating that it was their fault. After a minor argument was resolved on whose fault it actually was, Celia offered to take everyone out for dinner instead, her treat.
“Let’s go to the nicest place we can get into wearing these clothes,” she told Tom and Mary and Stan and Cynthia. “Money is no object. I have a platinum credit card with no limit that my husband’s accounting firm pays off every month.”
Though they were hesitant to take advantage of her generosity, Pauline finally convinced them by saying: “Her old man has money falling out of his asshole. Trust me, we’re not going to break him.”
And so they headed back down to Cypress and had a very nice dinner at the Hilltop Inn, a landmark restaurant, known for its generous portions and high quality, that had been in business atop the hill just outside of town for more than fifty years.
The food was wonderful, the wine equally good. Four bottles of top shelf Merlot from the Napa Valley were opened during the course of the dinner. Everyone had their share except Jake. He sipped water instead, explaining that he had to fly tomorrow and, though he was well outside the eight hours from bottle to throttle rule, he did not want to take any chances.
It was as they were enjoying their desert that Mary Kingsley gave them her decision.
“Count me in,” she told them. “If you want my fiddle on your albums, I’ll give it to you.”
“Yay!” Celia said happily. She had really enjoyed playing with the mothers and was already envisioning how she would use them on several of her songs.
“That’s awesome, Mom,” Jake said, just as happily. He got up and gave her a hug.
They all finished dessert and then Celia paid the check. It was three hundred and sixty-three dollars, to which she added a seventy-five-dollar tip. Everyone thanked her for her generosity and then they piled back in the cars and headed back up the hill—Jake driving the Landcruiser, a slightly impaired Mary driving her husband’s Chevy sedan.
Back at Kingsley Manor, there was a little socializing but soon people started drifting off to bed, one by one. Mary begged off first, followed by Pauline. Then the Archers all went back to the Archer homestead as a group, leaving only Jake, Tom, and Celia standing. At this point, Jake finally broke down and asked for a beer.
“Well, of course,” Tom said. “You know where they’re kept. Are you still within your eight-hour window?”
“Well within it,” Jake assured him. “We’re not taking off until ten in the morning. I can drink all the way up until two in the morning.”
Tom looked up at him a little sharply. He saw his son staring back at him in an amused fashion, as if he knew exactly what his father had been thinking.
“Not that I really intend to do that, of course,” Jake said with a smile.
“Of course,” Tom said.
“Can I get you a beer as well?”
“Uh ... sure, I’ll drink one with you,” Tom said.
Jake nodded and then turned to Celia. “How about you, C?” he asked. “Need one more for the road?”
“I’m good,” Celia said. “I’m kind of tired and I think I’m going to hit the bed, just as soon as I get up the energy to lift mi grande pompis off this couch.”
Jake scoffed at her. “Tu grande pompis?” he said. “A typical woman, fishing for compliments. You know very well tu pompis es magnifico.”
Celia giggled. “Not bad,” she told him. “You managed to sound flirty there and use the proper sentence structure.”
“Gracias,” Jake said. He looked at his father again. “Celia’s trying to teach me a little Spanish in our spare time. As you can tell, we don’t have much spare time.”
“I see,” Tom said. “What exactly is a pompis?”
While Celia explained it, Jake made his way to the bar and opened up two bottles of Steinlager out of the refrigerator. When he returned, Celia was still sitting there. He sat on the couch next to her, though at a friendly enough distance. He took a large drink out of his beer, obviously savoring the experience.
“So, Dad,” Jake said. “You were talking earlier about these trails down in the canyon?”
Tom nodded. “Oh yes,” he said. “There’s the primary trail that runs all the way from Gibbons Lake in the High Sierra to Cypress. It’s called the Northwestern Trail and it’s an offshoot of the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs all along the crest of the mountains from Canada to Mexico. The Northwestern runs along our canyon rim just a half a mile down from the edge of our property.”