“Outstanding,” Celia said happily.
“Agreed,” said Pauline, taking the infant away from her breast since it seemed she was done feeding. She buttoned up her blouse and then put a washcloth on her shoulder and patted Tabby on the back until she issued a healthy burp. “Now then. Anyone need any practice changing a baby? I believe she needs it.”
Celia and Sharon had a minor battle over who would get the privilege.
Negotiations with Joshua Flag, head of the Artists and Repertoire department at Aristocrat Records, commenced the following Monday morning. Present with him in the top floor office of the Brubaker Building in downtown LA, were Miles Crawford, the head of the promotions department, and Gene Rickens, a high-priced lawyer from the high-priced firm that Aristocrat kept on retainer.
It was Pauline’s first trip away from little Tabby since she had been born and she was anxious about it. She turned that anxiety into determination and grit, preparing herself to get down and dirty and pull out all the stops to keep the slimy suits in line. As it turned out, she needn’t have bothered. Flag and Crawford—sleazy, untrustworthy snakes, just like all record company execs—were most eager to get the CDs into production and were agreeable to just about anything she suggested. In fact, they added a few enhancements of their own.
“Let’s talk tour,” Crawford suggested once the primary details had been discussed and agreed upon.
“Tour?” asked Jake, who was feeling decidedly uneasy about how easy all of this was going. “There is no tour. We told you that when we first asked for bids. We’re not prepared to finance a tour at this stage in our development.”
“You don’t have to finance a tour,” Crawford said. “We will.”
A look passed between Pauline and Greg, the primary negotiators. Celia and Jake passed their own look.
“You will finance a tour?” Pauline finally asked. “What kind of game are you trying to play here?”
“It’s called the game of making money,” Crawford said. “We think that if Celia goes out on a nationwide tour for the new CD, sales will benefit by at least twenty percent, perhaps as much as thirty. Since that equates to more royalties for Aristocrat stockholders to benefit from, it behooves us to do what we can to make such a tour happen.”
Another look passed between the four of them.
“Are you talking one hundred percent financing of the tour?” Pauline asked. “That includes the opening band, band member and crew salaries, transportation, lodging, food, entertainment expenses, the whole shebang?”
“The whole shebang,” Crawford assured her. He turned to Celia. “We want you out playing the first date by the end of April. We’ll book first-rate venues across the board, put you and the band up in first-class accommodations in every city, and transport you and the band by private air between each venue.”
“That sounds ... very generous,” Celia said carefully.
“It does indeed,” Pauline said. “What about Jake? Are you offering the same for him?”
Crawford shook his head apologetically. “Unfortunately, we cannot offer the same deal for Jake,” he said. “You see, our financial advisers believe that a tour by you, Jake, would only result in a ten to twelve percent increase in CD sales. This number, of course, is nothing personal and is no reflection on your music, but is rather the end result of a complex set of calculations that takes into account such variables as your target demographic, past album sale patterns, your pre-existing fan base from the Intemperance days, and other things such as that. Does that make sense?”
“It does,” Jake said with a chuckle. “You’re saying your witch doctors read the chicken entrails differently.”
Crawford laughed as if that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “An apt way of putting it, Jake. In any case, the best we can offer for a Jake Kingsley tour is fifty percent of tour costs if Jake and band ride the bus between venues, and KVA pays for lodging and entertainment expenses on the road.”
Pauline looked over at Jake, her eyes questioning. Reluctantly, he gave her a little shake of the head. As much as he longed to get back out on the road again, that was just too much money to lay down for too little of a likely gain.
“We’re going to have to decline the tour for Jake,” Pauline said.
“We understand completely,” Crawford said. “What about Celia’s tour, however? Do we have a deal?”
Greg spoke up at this point. “We’re going to have to talk that one over among ourselves,” he said.
Celia shot him an angry look and then turned back to Crawford. “The hell we will,” she said. “I’m in. If those terms you offer are genuine and you put that all in writing, I’ll start working on a set list tomorrow.”
“Those terms are indeed genuine,” Crawford said happily.
“Now wait a minute,” Greg said. “This is a major decision that affects things on many levels. C, I really think we should talk this over.”
“And I don’t,” she told him coldly. “I’m ready to hit the road and play music. I’ve never been more ready in my life.” She turned to Pauline. “Let’s make this happen.”
Pauline looked back and forth between Celia and Greg for a moment. Finally, she nodded. “All right,” she said. “I guess we’ll make it happen.”
Chapter 20: Providence (the one in Rhode Island)
Somewhere over northern Utah
February 28th, 1994
The Gulfstream IV business jet cruised forty-one thousand feet over an endless expanse of high desert salt flats. Out the left side of the aircraft and slightly ahead, the gray-blue surface of the Great Salt Lake could be seen, as could the sprawling city named for it on the southeast shore. Beyond that were the snow-capped peaks of the Wasatch Mountain Range. The air was clear and calm, with not so much as a hint of turbulence since they had crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains an hour before.
This private flight from LAX to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, had cost twenty-eight thousand dollars for the eight passengers aboard. Since it was KVA Records business, however, the funds to pay for it had come out of the KVA account. Celia and Jake had both been nominated for several Grammy awards and the ceremony was at Radio City Music Hall in New York City tomorrow evening. Neither of them expected to win anything—business as usual, especially when Whitney Houston was the primary competition—but their presence at the venue was quite expected and, though they were an independent label and answered to no corporate masters, the media would have jumped to (and reported) all kinds of wild speculations had either or both failed to accept their invitation.
Celia, in particular, was unhappy to take time off from her tour rehearsals to participate in the farce that was the awards. She and her band—Coop and Charlie playing rhythm, Dexter Price on the horn, and the best of the best available Aristocrat studio musicians playing piano, synthesizer, violin, and lead guitar—had been putting in eight-hour days, six days a week in a rented warehouse in West Covina, dialing in the show she planned to put on. And it was to be her show, not what the suits and promotion managers of Aristocrat had been envisioning. At the very first meeting Celia had with them after signing the MD&P contract, they had laid out before her a meticulously planned set list they wanted her to do, complete with choreographed dance numbers that would feature professional dancers accompanying her, multiple costume changes throughout each performance (said costumes being ridiculously scanty and sexual), and, worst of all, they had actually had the gall to suggest that each performance would be lip-synched by her while she was wearing a headset mic that would be turned off during the vocals, but on for between song banter.