“Hear, hear,” Jake said, hefting his own iced tea glass in salute. “I have Elsa who cooks for me, and she does make things like tacos and meatloaf, but there is nothing that compares with your own mom’s cooking, am I right?”
“Fuckin’ A,” said Pauline, causing all four parents in the room to stare disapprovingly at her. Now it was she who blushed. “Uh ... sorry,” she said. “I think I’ve been hanging out with Jake too much lately.”
“Oh sure,” Jake said, rolling his eyes. “Blame your profanity on me.”
“You say that all the time!” Pauline told him.
“Not at the freakin’ dinner table in front of our parents and their guests, I don’t,” he countered.
“He does have a point there, Pauline,” Nerdly put in.
“Oh, shut your ass, Bill,” she told him. “How about another hit of this wine, Dad?”
Amused at her discomfort, Tom poured her another glass of chardonnay. She quickly drank a quarter of it down.
“Anyway,” Mary said, “I appreciate your praise of my cooking. I’m happy everyone likes it.”
“I chopped up the tomatoes and grated the cheese,” Tom put in.
“And a fine job you did, Dad,” Jake said. He looked at Pauline for a moment and the two of them passed a silent message back and forth. Pauline gave a small nod at him. It was a good time to bring up their request.
“What’s up?” asked Mary, who had picked up on the exchange quite easily.
“Well,” Jake said, “there’s a reason that we all came out here to see you.”
“A reason?” asked Tom.
“Well, I really wanted to see you all and check out your pads, that’s the real reason, of course. But we also have a bit of an ulterior motive. I can see you and mom wondering why we brought Celia here. She’s a part of this ulterior motive.”
“Really?” Mary said slowly, all sorts of strange possibilities running through her mind. Were Jake and Celia involved with each other? Was Celia going to announce a divorce soon? Was she, perhaps, pregnant? Did they maybe not know who the father was?
Jake caught the jist of her thoughts through sheer familiarity with her expressions and thought patterns. He chuckled aloud. “It is nothing like what you’re thinking, Mom,” he assured her.
She looked at him sharply. “How would you know what I’m thinking?” she asked, a tinge of guilt in her tone.
“What was she thinking?” asked Celia.
Pauline handled this one. “She was thinking that you and Jake are ... you know ... doing the naughty with each other and we came here to break the news.”
Mary was appalled by her daughter’s words. “Pauline Marie Kingsley!” she shouted. “How dare you accuse me of something like that! I was thinking no such thing!”
“Really now?” Pauline asked, amused.
“Me and Jake?” Celia said with a gasp. “Madre de Dios, no. I’m a happily married woman, Mrs. Kingsley.”
“Mary,” Mary said, blushing furiously. “Call me Mary, please.”
“Mary,” Celia corrected. “I’m not sure how we might have given that impression, but believe me, Jake and I are nothing but friends and partners in the record company we’re trying to get going. I assure you that our relationship is platonic.”
“I assure you as well, Mom,” Jake said, giving a little glance at Celia. Did she really have to protest that firmly?
“I assure you that is not what I was thinking,” Mary told them, though her eyes were cast downward as she said it. “Can we talk about something else now?”
“Absolutely,” Jake said. “How about the real reason we’re here?”
“What is the reason?” Tom asked.
Jake looked at Pauline and then at Celia. They both gave him the nod. He turned back to the parents. “We need the help of the ladies,” he said.
“The ladies?” Mary said. “You mean ... uh...”
“You and Cindy,” Jake clarified. “We’ve hit a wall in our music composition and we would like to ask you to help us over it.”
“Our help?” asked Cynthia. “What could we do?”
“You’re both retired professional musicians,” Jake said. “We’d like you both to help us get our albums into production.”
“By playing music for you?” Mary asked.
“Yes,” Celia said. “That’s exactly what we’re asking.”
The two mothers looked at each other. They looked back at Jake. “I’m not sure we would be much help to you, honey,” Mary said. “We’re musicians who specialize in classical music. You’re a rock and roll musician, Jake. And Celia, you’re a popular musician. Don’t you think it would be better to get ... well ... musicians who are younger and more adept at playing the style of music you compose?”
“Exactly,” said Cynthia. “And you have William here, don’t you? He plays the piano better than I do—he always has. Not only that, but he’s used to playing your style of music.”
“Well,” Jake said, “let’s address those concerns one at a time, shall we?”
“That would be the proper format,” Bill said.
“Right,” Jake said. “As for what kind of musicians you are, that does not matter as much as the fact that we need a violin player and a piano player to help us with our tunes. Do you remember when we composed the song for Bill and Sharon’s wedding?”
“Of course,” Mary said.
“I remember it quite fondly,” said Cynthia. “I particular liked it when we jellied after doing the song.”
“Jellied?” Pauline asked, confused.
“Jammed, Mom,” Nerdly corrected. “You jammed, not jellied.”
“Oh ... jammed, right,” Cynthia said. “An interesting term.”
“Semantics aside,” Jake said, “you ladies were badass. I remember thinking at the time that I’d love to do some original material with the two of you someday. That day has come. We need your help.”
“Surely there are other violinists in Los Angeles you can use,” Mary said.
“And, as I said, William plays much better than me,” Cynthia repeated.
“Not much better,” Bill told her, “only a little better. You are a premium pianist, Mom.”
“Well, thank you, but...”
“Let’s go back to the other musicians thing,” Jake interrupted. “It’s not as easy as you seem to think to secure a professional level violinist or pianist for the length of time we’ll be needing them.”
“It’s not?” asked Tom. “LA is the music capital of the world. I would think it would be teeming with musicians of all categories.”
“It is,” Jake said, “but remember the key phrase here: Professional level. We don’t want some hacker playing the violin or the piano on our tunes. Most of the musicians at the level of skill we require are already working under contract of some sort for either the record companies or some studio that produces soundtrack music or one of the orchestras in one of the cities. We had a hell of time just finding a bass player and a drummer so we could work up our tunes in their basic format.”
“Couldn’t you just ask to borrow one for a while from one of the record companies?” asked Stanley. “My understanding from talking to Bill is that you’re going to have to use one of those companies to distribute your music once it’s recorded anyway, right?”
“Right,” Pauline said. “We don’t have the financing available to actually make our own product. We’ll have to contract with a record company for manufacturing and distribution.”
“Then wouldn’t it behoove them to lend you some musicians to get your albums done?” Stan enquired.
“Perhaps it would,” Jake said, “but we don’t want to do that. We don’t want any publicity or knowledge about this album leaking out to the music industry until we have master tapes in hand and are ready to negotiate terms with them. We don’t want them knowing how our progress is going. It will hurt our negotiations later.”