Celia, the band, and Jake had things a little easier. It was only a two-hour flight to Salt Lake City, so they were able to stay in their hotel room that night and then head to the airport after breakfast. There was a crowd of reporters and paparazzi at both places, but they ignored them.
“All right,” Celia said once they were airborne. “So far, so good. Now things start to get a little tricky.”
“How so?” asked Jake.
“Because we have to rely on the media sending us a troll,” she said. “What if that doesn’t happen?”
“It’ll happen,” Jake said confidently. “Trust me.”
“If you say so,” she said. “And what about Mindy? What if she decides to break her news early now that we’ve let the cat out of the bag?”
“I don’t think she will,” Jake said. “She’s going to want the initial sensation of the divorce filing to die down a little before she steps onto the stage for her part. She won’t want to be upstaged in her own story. I think she’s still probably planning to drop her bomb just before the nominations.”
“Let’s hope so,” Celia said.
“Yes, let’s hope I really can get inside her head and I’m not just talking out of my ass.”
There were even more reporters and paparazzi in Salt Lake City. They were also much more aggressive, demanding to know why Celia was divorcing Greg, demanding to know why she had told no one of the separation. They finally noticed that Jake was there as well, leading to another ridiculous line of questioning.
“Is it true that you and Jake have been having an affair and that’s the reason for the divorce?” shouted one reporter.
Jesus fucking Christ, Jake thought, unable to resist rolling his eyes and shaking his head. Even if that were true, like I would admit it in front of my wife, who is walking right next to me. These people truly are morons.
The band did the normal rounds of radio station interviews and record store signings. The paparazzi and the reporters were at each one but were kept at a distance by the security team. At the radio stations, the DJs who would be interviewing them were instructed to not ask anything about Celia’s divorce or her relationship. All agreed and all abided by their agreement. The same could not be said of the fans at the record store signings, however. Nearly all of them brought the subject up in one way or another. Many just told her they were sorry and that they were praying for her. But many others seemed to think it was appropriate to ask her questions about it. To all, she politely thanked them for their interest and told them that she preferred to keep her personal life separate from her music. Most accepted this. Those who did not got no autograph.
At 7:30 that night, she stepped onto the stage at the Delta Center, home of the Utah Jazz, and put on her show before nineteen thousand enthusiastic fans. She played her guitar and sang as she always did, and she entertained well. She said nothing about her personal life in her between-song banter. After the show, she had a few glasses of wine and ate her catered dinner. Once the arena was empty and the roadies were well into the process of tearing everything down for the trip to Boise the next morning, she, the band, and Jake all climbed into the limousine for the trip to the Hilton Salt Lake downtown. There were no groupies on this night, not even for Charlie and Coop, as Coop thought it might be disrespectable under the circumstances and Charlie feared that if he violated a Mormon girl he might be putting his immortal soul at risk.
Everyone headed directly for their suites upon arrival. All of them, with the exception of Jake and Laura, planned to hole up for the night. Jake and Laura took the time to smoke a little reefer out of her pipe and then headed downstairs to look for a troll. Thanks to religious-based alcohol laws in the state of Utah, the only bar in the hotel was in the steakhouse restaurant in the lobby, and, in order to drink there, the Kingsleys had to join the “Steakhouse Club” as members. Their membership cost them a dollar apiece and there was no attempt made to verify their information on the club applications they had to fill out.
“What a weird rule,” Laura commented when they were finally given their first drinks of the evening—a gin fizz for Laura, a vodka martini with an olive for Jake.
“Hey, it’s your people who run this state,” he replied.
“They’re not my people anymore,” she said. “I’m sure I’ve been excommunicated by now.”
“Because you married me?”
“Because I haven’t been paying them their ten percent,” she said. “That’s even worse than marrying a Satanic butt-crack sniffer.”
Jake nodded. “I can see their perspective on that.”
They settled into the bar seats and then took a look around the room. Since it was late, the restaurant was no longer serving food. The crowd was moderate and mostly males, most of whom were cleanly shaven and nicely dressed, obviously wealthy businessmen from out of town, enjoying a little wind-down drink before retiring. There were a few women present. Two of them were obviously prostitutes, but high-class ones, dressed about as conservative as a hooker probably ever dressed. Jake, who had never actually employed a prostitute before (he had never seen the point of paying for it when there was more than he could handle available for free), guessed that these particular ladies of the evening would charge a minimum of four digits for their services and that a healthy portion of that fee would be spread to the hotel staff who allowed them to operate.
In addition to the hookers, there were a few classy looking businesswomen. They were dressed as nicely as the men and two had joined a trio of men at one of the tables. Further down the bar were two young women in their early twenties who were dressed quite scandalously for a classy restaurant in Utah. At one of the tables was another group of three women of similar age and dress. All of them were eyeballing Jake and Laura and whispering excitedly amongst themselves. These were obviously groupies who had managed to find out where Celia and her band were staying. Laura’s presence would hopefully (but not assuredly) keep them from approaching and propositioning Jake.
Lastly, sitting alone at one of the cocktail tables and sipping on a fruity looking drink with an umbrella in it, was another woman who did not look like she really belonged there. She was wearing jeans and a flannel button up shirt. She was slightly overweight, in her early thirties, but not unattractive. She too kept looking at Jake and Laura, her expression thoughtful.
“That might be our troll over there,” Jake whispered to Laura, giving a little nod in the direction of the flannel shirt woman.
“Troll” was the word that celebrities had coined for undercover entertainment reporters whose method of operation was to show up at places where said celebrities were known to gather and then pretend to be ordinary fans. They did this in hope of engaging a celebrity in conversation and being able to collect a juicy quote or other information. The trolls usually came out when some sort of scandal was afoot, and their primary targets were not usually the celebrity involved in the scandal but those close to him or her. Jake, over the years, had gotten pretty good at recognizing them, if not on first sight, at least on initial dialog.
Laura cast her eyes over in that direction, quickly sizing up the woman, and then back at her husband. She nodded in agreement. She, after all, had been approached by trolls many times since it became public knowledge that she was romantically involved with Jake Kingsley. “I think you’re right,” she said. “How do we play it?”