“I brought us a little something to go with dinner,” Greg said, holding out two identical bottles of white wine. “It’s an eighty-nine Sauvignon Blanc from the Piqure Pretentieuse vineyards in the southern Bordeaux region.”
“Very nice,” Jake said appreciably. He had heard of the vineyard but had never purchased any wine from it. It was reputed to produce some of the best white wine in Europe but Jake had a hard time believing that it could possibly be worth the price. He took the bottles and found they were already chilled.
“They’d better be very nice,” Greg said, “for six hundred dollars a bottle.”
Jake whistled. “That’s a lot of coin for a bunch of smashed grapes,” he said. “Thanks for bringing them. I’ll have Elsa keep them chilled and open them just before dinner.”
“It smells incredible in here,” Greg commented.
“Elsa makes a chicken parm that is close to orgasmic,” Jake assured him.
“I can’t wait,” Greg said.
With that, Jake turned to Celia, who was offering her friendly smile of greeting. She held out her arms to him, inviting their usual hug they shared when encountering each other. Still feeling awkward, but—ironically enough—knowing it would seem odd to Greg if he didn’t hug her, he stepped into her embrace and put his arms around her, giving her about as chaste a hug as he could possibly manage. Even so, she still felt really good in his arms and his mind flashed back to that night, the night he’d held her in a much closer embrace and his manhood had been buried to the hilt inside of her body. He released her before the surge of blood heading south could do much more than get started.
“It’s been forever, hasn’t it, C?” Jake asked.
“Yes,” she said with a chuckle. “Almost three hours now since we landed in Santa Monica.”
Jake led them through the house and into the dining room, where everyone else was still sitting. He watched as the greetings were exchanged among the group. Pauline and Sharon both shook Greg’s hand and then hugged Celia. Nerdly and Obie both hugged Greg and then Celia. They all told each other how happy they were to see each other. As this went on, Jake watched the couple carefully. They seemed genuinely happy to see their friends and business associates and there did not seem to be any palpable conflict between the two of them at the moment. So far, so good. The true test, however, was going to be when they all sat down and started talking.
Jake poured each of them a healthy glass of the merlot he’d opened and they sat down at the table, sitting next to each other just across from Jake and Pauline. Jake proposed a toast “to the masters”, and everyone had a drink to that. That done, the conversation began to move around the table, the topics mostly catching up related. Greg told them about the progress of So Others May Live, which was now well into post-production.
“When will it premier?” asked Pauline.
“Memorial Day weekend is when it will open nationwide in the theaters,” Greg told them. “Of course, there will be a black-tie, invitation-only premier the weekend before at the Hollywood Hilton. I’m hoping that all of you will be able to attend.”
“I can’t wait,” Pauline said. “I’ll have a four-month old baby to bring into the theater to scream and cry and disturb everyone.”
Greg looked at her sharply for a moment and then figured out she was kidding. He chuckled a little and then began talking about the gala premier again.
Jake watched carefully as the conversation traveled about the table. Celia did not participate much. She smiled and nodded when it seemed appropriate to do so, answered any questions that were thrown her way, but otherwise just looked politely at whoever was speaking and kept to herself. She also showed no marital affection to her husband—no touching of his hand, no patting of his leg, no smiling at his words. Very interesting indeed.
Finally, the inane preliminaries wrapped up and they started to talk business.
“Ten o’clock tomorrow we start making the rounds,” Pauline told them. “All four of the bigs are expecting us—National at ten o’clock, Aristocrat at eleven-thirty, Capitol at one-thirty, and Warner Brothers at two-thirty. We give them copies of the masters and have them submit bids for MD&P by close of business hours on Wednesday.”
“I’m surprised you were able to get so many appointments for tomorrow,” Nerdly said.
“Why are you surprised about that?” Pauline asked.
“Well, it is a federal holiday,” he said. “It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I would have thought that some, if not all of the major labels would be shut down in honor.”
“Honor?” Jake scoffed. “Are you kidding me right now, Nerdly? Those fuckin’ suits don’t honor anyone or anything, especially not when there’s money to be made.”
“A cynical, yet accurate description,” Pauline said. “Not a single suit I talked to on Friday had any problem with the meetings being held on MLK day. I’m pretty sure that most of them don’t even know that tomorrow is MLK day.”
“At least the traffic should be decent,” Obie observed.
“As long as we stay away from the parade route,” Sharon said.
“We’ll stay well clear of it,” Jake said.
“Okay then,” Pauline said, her hands rubbing her belly. “Now that we’ve had the obligatory politically correct discussion about a martyred civil rights leader and the celebration of his birthday, how about we get back to the business at hand? Since Obie won’t be bidding this time around, our little arrangement with Aristocrat for releasing Dex to us puts us in a decent bargaining position as long as the big four don’t actually collaborate with each other.”
“Something I would not put past them,” Jake said.
Pauline shrugged. “I wouldn’t either, but I think their own greed and sleaziness precludes that possibility. Quite simply, they know that both albums are going to sell well and be money makers, or at least they will once they hear the masters. You’ve both gone multi-platinum with your previous releases and they’re all going to want a piece of a future multi-platinum. Since they all know that Aristocrat has the right to match the lowest bid, there’s a good chance that the other three will all try to lowball them and name a royalty figure Aristocrat won’t want to match. In sense, playing the Dexter card was the best thing we could have done.”
“What kind of royalty rate do you think you’ll be able to secure?” asked Greg.
“We’re hoping for something in the vicinity of twenty-five percent,” Jake said.
Greg whistled. “Twenty-five, huh? That would be sweet.”
“Indeed it would,” Pauline said. “We are, however, prepared to go as high as thirty.”
“What if they don’t offer thirty?” Greg asked. “What if the lowest bid is thirty-five?”
“Never happen,” Obie said confidently. “If the lowest bid was thirty-five, that would be as good as a signed confession that the suits at the big four are in cahoots with each other and agreed to highball y’all.”
“And if they did something like that,” Pauline explained, “all bets are off. The deal we made with Aristocrat would be off the table. We would be inclined to go with Obie again for thirty-three or so and then let him open negotiations with them like we did for the first albums.”
“Is that a legally defensible position to take?” asked Nerdly.
Pauline shrugged. “If Aristocrat decided to file suit for breach of contract against us, the burden of proof would be on us to establish that corroboration actually took place, and, quite honestly, I’m not sure how we would be able to meet that burden. However, I truly don’t think things would come to that. Remember, there is no advantage for the other three of the big four to cooperate with Aristocrat in any collusion deal, and there is a lot for them to lose. They want to sign Jake and especially Celia because they know they’re going to be moneymakers for whoever does sign them. That’s why I think they’ll try to lowball Aristocrat and bid down in the twenty-five percent range.”