“All of which would eat further into our capital,” Celia added. “And we’re already over budget. Pretty soon we’re going to start eating into our production funds.”
“Yeah,” Jake sighed. They had just had a meeting with Jill the previous week and she had laid all this out for them in her usually sterile and immaculately organized manner.
“I’m worried about all this, Jake,” she said softly. “We get one shot at this. We have just enough money to put out one album apiece. We’ll need to sell enough of those albums to not only cover the costs of production, manufacturing, and distribution, but also to make enough profit for follow-up albums.”
“That was the understanding going in,” Jake said. “Why are you getting cold feet now?”
She took a deep breath and another sip of water before answering him. She looked at him meaningfully, some shame in her eyes. “I’m not sure my stuff is good enough,” she confessed.
“Your tunes are great, C,” he told her. “Once we get the mothers working with us, we’ll dial them in tighter than a...” He paused, making the decision not to say what Matt would have added at the end of that phrase, “ ... well, you know what I mean. They’ll be tight.”
She nodded. “I think the music will come out good,” she said. “If that was the only consideration, I wouldn’t be so worried. It’s not the only consideration though. You know that as well as I do.”
He did. They could put out absolutely groundbreaking, colossal albums full of high quality, commercially viable tunes and still fail in their endeavor because of circumstances and decisions that were outside of their control. There were a dozen things that could go wrong. The record companies could refuse to contract with them for distribution. They could agree to contract for distribution but not aggressively promote the albums because some peon in the marketing department might think the effort a money loser. Even if the albums were promoted, radio stations could refuse to play any of the tunes if program managers didn’t like the idea of a Celia Valdez or a Jake Kingsley solo album. Or, the most distressing thought, fans, the people who bought albums, might hear the songs on the radio and not want to buy the albums because Celia was considered a has-been and Jake was switching to a genre that was quite different from the Intemperance sound that had made him famous.
“Yes, I do know that,” he told her. “And there’s nothing we can do about it right now. All bridges to cross later.”
“It’s not just a simple matter of putting our music down and then sending it off into the world,” she said. “We have to think about how it is going to promoted. With me, they’re going to refer to me as ‘the former singer for the teen pop band La Diferencia’. With you, they’re going to constantly compare your guitar work with Matt’s.”
“Yeah,” Jake said sourly. Though his acoustic guitar skills were without reproach and considered among the best out there, and, though he could play a distorted electric extremely well, he was following in the footsteps of Matt Tisdale, perhaps the best electric guitar player to put his licks down on vinyl since Eddie Van Halen. “That discussion and issue have serious possibilities of overriding the music I’m making. It could be that no one will actually listen to the song, they’ll just bag on my guitar riffs and especially my solos, no matter how good they are.”
“All factors that could lead to failure,” Celia said. She looked at him meaningfully. “This stuff is keeping me awake at night, Jake. I can’t get my head to shut down.”
Jake put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. She accepted the embrace willingly, her hot, perspiring body pressing against him, her damp hair touching his neck. “It’s a scary thing we’re doing here, C,” he told her. “Sometimes I wonder how this is all going to turn out myself. Failure is an option, there is no denying that, but so is success. I think that success is the more likely scenario.”
“And what facts do you have to base that judgement upon?” she asked him.
“Absolutely none,” he told her.
This got a laugh from her. She looked up him, her head still resting on his shoulder. “Thanks, Jake,” she said. “You have a way of making me feel better.”
“Anytime,” he said.
And then, acting on an impulse brought on by the feel of her body against his, he put his finger under her chin and lifted gently, so her head came up. He leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips. She kissed him back, letting it linger for two seconds, then four. It was not a kiss of passion, but it was not a chaste, sisterly kiss either.
When their lips parted, she stared into his eyes. He could see a plethora of emotions at work there, undoubtedly a mirror of what she saw in his eyes. It was not the first time they had kissed—the first had been during the rehearsal ceremony for her wedding, the second after he’d flown her to Palm Spring one day—but it was the first one initiated by Jake.
“What was that for?” she asked quietly.
“For good luck,” he told her.
“That’s a nice way to wish someone luck,” she said, smiling, her face flushed more than the recent exercise could account for.
“I thought so as well,” he said.
They sat there for a few more minutes, his arm still around her, her head still nestled into his shoulder. They did not kiss any more, but the memory of it hung between them quite heavily.
Finally, Jake released her and stood up.
“Well,” he said, “shall we push on up the hill and get ourselves back to the house?”
“I guess we’d better,” she said, standing up as well.
“I’m thinking it’s about twenty minutes or so back. After that, we’ll have a little breakfast and then go see a man about a studio.”
She nodded and they headed up the trail. Both of them had the energy to run now.
Chapter 2: Wheeling and Dealing
Coos Bay, Oregon
July 4, 1991
North Bend Municipal was the largest airport on the coast of Oregon. Even so, it was not very big and the only commercial passenger service it supported were daily flights to and from Portland. Situated on a peninsula of flat land that protruded out into Coos Bay—the largest natural harbor between San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound—it was just south of the large cantilever bridge where Highway 101 spanned the neck of the bay.
Jake overflew the town of Coos Bay itself and then brought them in for a gentle touchdown on Runway 22 at 11:43 AM. The weather on the Oregon coast was clear and pleasant, with only a light onshore breeze blowing and the temperature sitting nicely at sixty-two degrees. As they stepped out of the plane in the general aviation parking area, everyone took a moment to enjoy the contrast between hot and sticky inland California and where they were now.
No sooner had he secured his aircraft for an overnight stay than Jake heard the high-pitched whine of jet engines approaching. He looked up to see a Lear jet on final approach, its landing gear down, its flaps fully deployed. It touched down on the same runway Jake had just used and then taxied over to park near the GA terminal. The engines shut down and, a moment later, the side door of the aircraft opened. Out stepped Greg Oldfellow, washed up character actor and Celia’s husband. He was dressed in a custom tailored three-piece suit and carrying a briefcase. He was the only passenger on the plane.
Greg looked a little older than he had back when he’d made The Northern Jungle. His hair was a little thinner, his cheeks a bit hollower, his eyes a little more tired. Still, he was an extremely good looking man and, like most professional actors, in fine physical shape thanks to a stringent diet and regular workouts. Though he had no prospects in sight for making more films, he made a point to keep himself in Hollywood form in case something did pop up.