Different Circles

“Jake’s become friendly with some of the sheriff’s deputies that work in our area,” she said. “He donates money to their causes and he goes down to their bar on Friday nights to play guitar for them, sing for them, and drink beer with them. They told him that there were some reporters from the Watcher sniffing around last week, talking to a bunch of the locals, asking them about us and what sorts of things we did here in town. It was right after that that the story first popped up in the Watcher.”

“Assholes,” Neesh spat. “Why would you want to live among people like that?”

“We don’t live among them,” Laura said. “We live on a cliff that is miles away from any other house. Oceano is just the nearest town to where we are, the place we do our grocery shopping and fuel up our cars and things like that. We’ve never done anything to those people, have never been anything but polite and kind to them, Jake contributes a considerable amount of money to their high school music program and their libraries, and they respond to that by spreading lies and speculation about us.” She shrugged. “It’s frustrating, but it’s the price we have to pay to live where we do and be the people that we are. I love our house and I’m willing to pay that price. Besides, it doesn’t really matter where we live. The same thing used to happen when we lived in LA. Our neighbors would talk about us and the papers would print it. At least in Oceano we are isolated and secure. The reporters cannot actually approach us at our home.”

“I suppose there is something to be said for that,” Neesh allowed. “It just makes me angry. These assholes are printing and airing that my husband is fucking another man’s wife and got her pregnant and there is nothing we can do about it.”

“It’s the life we choose,” Laura said with a sigh.

“Yeah,” Neesh said bitterly. “The life we choose.”

Upstairs, Jake and Gordon had just finished burning the joint and were feeling pretty good. Jake sat with his Fender acoustic on his lap and Gordon sat behind his electric piano. So far, neither of them had played a single note. Instead, they were talking, doing much the same as their better halves and catching up on what had been going on in each other’s lives.

“I hear that song by your Brainwash peeps on the radio a couple times a day now,” G said. “I like it. It pulls you in. The Nerdlys outdid themselves with the engineering.”

Jake nodded. Brainwash’s debut song from the Brainwash II CD, What’s in a Name?, was getting saturation airplay all across the United States and Canada and was moving steadily up the charts. “It’s actually doing better than I thought it would,” he said. “I was afraid that it was over-engineered and under-polished.”

“Well, it is to some degree,” G allowed. “I can certainly hear your absence in the piece, but you had good material to start with and the Nerdlys to put their anal-retentive ways to it.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “My absence is why we were over budget and almost over time.”

“How’s the CD itself selling?” G asked.

“Not as fast as the first one,” Jake said. “We went Gold last week and are creeping slowly upward from there. I think this one will be a little more conventional than the last. We probably won’t start getting runaway sales until we’ve had three hit songs aired regularly.” Assuming we get runaway sales at all. He was really worried about that. Brainwash II just did not have the same panache as Brainwash. And there was nothing that could be done about that at this point in the game.

“You gonna have those teachers hit the road?” G asked. “That should pick up some sales for you and generate some tour income.”

“Aristocrat is hot to send them out,” Jake said. “They were willing to finance the tour and split the profits with KVA fifty-fifty. They figured we could easily price the tickets at seventy-five minimum, three hundred maximum, and sell out all of the first-rate venues. I am inclined to agree with them. Unfortunately, Brainwash balked at the idea. They voted four to one against going out.”

“What the fuck did they do that for?” G asked, appalled at the thought of a successful musical act not going out on the road.

“Of the five of them, only Steph, the guitarist, is willing to quit her teaching gig. In fact, she has already done it. The rest are too afraid of cutting themselves loose and drifting. Their school board has been clamoring to fire them for years now. They know that if they resign they will never get another teaching gig in New England.”

“That sounds idiotic,” G opined. “How much you paying them people in royalties?”