Different Circles

Laura was awake at the moment, but only because they were eating their meal service. She had an uncanny ability to sleep on aircraft and had dozed away more than five hours of their journey so far. Even on the Concorde she had slept for most of the flight, nodding off shortly after the supersonic plane had leveled off at sixty thousand feet and shut down its afterburners. She had taken a few moments to marvel over the fact that she could actually see the curvature of the Earth out her tiny window and then out she’d gone. She woke up long enough to eat the meal service and then had gone right back out, sleeping until the flaps had come down for landing.

Celia was not blessed with such an ability. She was ragged and torn, with bags under her eyes, a headache that a Tylenol and Motrin combo had not been able to tame, and a thoroughly distorted sense of body rhythm. She only picked at her meal of braised beef tips in gravy and her glass of chardonnay had long since assumed room temperature.

“Bleah,” Laura said next to her. She had just taken a bite of her braised beef tips. “This food sucks compared to what they gave us on the Concorde.”

“That was about the best airline food I’ve ever had,” Celia agreed. The meal service that Air France offered had included caviar, fois gras, and pan seared veal served with a rich Bordeaux.

“For thirty-five hundred dollars a ticket, the food should be pretty good,” Laura said.

“You would hope,” Celia agreed. “And you know, though that takeoff and climb-out was kind of terrifying for someone like me who is not a fan of flying, at least the trip was fast. Paris to New York in just over three hours. That is truly amazing.”

“I liked it,” Laura said. “If Jake and I ever go to Europe I’m going to have him buy the tickets on the Concorde. He would really love it. Jill would yell at him about how much it costs, but he’s used to that.”

“We all are,” said Celia. As one of the owners of KVA, she had to deal with Jill on a regular basis as well.

“Anyway, I’m glad you came with me,” Laura told her. The rest of the band and crew were making their way home leisurely, stopping in London for a day and Atlanta for a day before making the final flight back to LAX.

“Are you kidding?” Celia said. “There’s no way I’m going miss Jake Kingsley live on stage. I’m looking forward to the show.”

“Me too,” Laura said. “I’m a little nervous about my part in it, but it will be the first time I’ve ever actually seen him perform an entire show.”

“You’ll do fine,” Celia assured her. “I’ve seen how much you’ve been rehearsing Blur.”

“Yeah, I have been working my butt off on it, but I’ve been rehearsing by listening to a CD of Blur with the sax track removed. That is hardly the same thing as a real rehearsal.”

“Actually, it’s not all that different,” Celia said. “As long as Jake and the rest of the band perform in the same key and tempo as the studio version and don’t put in any add-ons or fills, you’ll be fine. And the outro on the studio version ends with a finale, not a fade-out, so there shouldn’t be anything unfamiliar, right?”

“I suppose,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll do okay. Just having a little stage fright. It will be fun to be up on stage with Jake again though. The times he played with me when I was touring with Bobby Z are some of my fondest memories of performing.”

“I didn’t get to see any of those shows,” Celia said. “It’s going to be really cool to see the two of you up there together. Well worth this long travel day from one side of the world to the other.”

“Thanks, C,” Laura said, patting her leg. “And I’m sorry we couldn’t get you your own hotel room.”

“Things happen,” Celia said with a sigh. Thanks to the TSF, pretty much every hotel room in the Las Vegas area that Celia would be caught dead in had already been booked, either by ticket-holders, band crews, TSF staff, or the bands themselves. As such, Celia was going to stay in Jake and Laura’s suite at Caesars Palace. And she could not help but remember what had happened the last time she and Jake had shared a hotel suite. Of course, Laura had not been there for that one, but now there was a strange little history between her and Laura to add to the discomfort level.

“I hope you don’t think it will be awkward staying with us,” Laura said, picking up a little on her feelings.

“In all honesty, I am feeling a little strange about being face to face with Jake,” she said. “He knows what we ... you know ... what we did that night.”

Laura smiled. Her memory of that night in Celia’s room was a fond one. It had not been repeated, partially because Celia was uncomfortable with the rule that Jake be informed each time something like that happened, and partially because they had not yet returned to the line where such antics became necessary. “I told you, Jake is cool with what we did,” she whispered. “In truth, it really seemed to turn him on when I told him about it.”