I'll Sing for my Dinner (12 page)

I laughed. “So, I assume the conversation didn’t go very well?”

“What conversation? My mother started lecturing me the moment I answered the phone, and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. In addition to being a drug-addict whore, I’m ungrateful, willful, incompetent to run my own affairs, and she demanded that I come home immediately so she can run my life again. Other than me being a drug-addict whore, there wasn’t much to agree on.”

I crooked a finger at her and she came over and sat in my lap. “I don’t think describing you as a drug addict is accurate,” I said.

She threw me a grin and said, “You’re going to agree I’m a whore?”

“By some people’s definition. You’re living in sin with a man.”

“Ooo, that sounds exciting,” she said. “If this be sin, then give me my sin again.”

~~~

Chapter 12

Cecily

I thought the low point of my week was the call from my mother. The visit from my agent, threatening to sue me and the Roadhouse for a hundred million dollars, trumped that.

I pointed out that there was a loophole in our agreement. I was allowed to perform at private functions for friends and relatives for free. Since my agreement with Jake was an under-the-table handshake agreement, and there weren’t any records of his illegal cash payments that neither of us was declaring to the IRS, I told the agent to fly a kite. I dared him to prove that Jake and I weren’t friends.

Jake looked worried for a while. I kissed him and told him to leave my money in the cookie jar from now on. “Honey, if they really try to make a stink of it, we can just tell them that I play for free, and you’re paying me for sex.”

The incident did spark an interesting dialogue concerning my contract and the possibility of my performing again. I pointed out that the contract was signed by my parents, and since I was over twenty-one, I wasn’t bound by it anymore.

Actually, taking another look at the contract when I got home, I had additional questions. It was signed by my parents when I was sixteen. Although state laws varied, it might have become invalid when I turned eighteen. That brought up the question as to whether my parents were entitled to any of my income between the time I was eighteen and when I turned twenty-one.

I called Kerrigan and asked for a recommendation for a lawyer in contract law.

I was still meeting with the federal prosecutors in Denver once a week. Kerrigan always flew in. The FBI was excluded. The prosecutors’ questions had long since abandoned Eddie’s murder and focused more on what I knew and whom I knew concerning the Baltimore drug scene. I kept telling them that I didn’t know squat on purpose. I never wanted to get involved in any of that. When people talked money, I always left the room.

Of course, all of that spurred the dreams and I was plagued with them nightly. Only now the FBI joined the gangbangers in chasing me. In the dream world, everything got turned upside down and intermingled. The night I dreamed about being gang raped by men in dark suits and trench coats was truly terrifying.

The bar was closed for Thanksgiving, and Jake showed me how to roast a turkey. Jared and Karen came over, along with two other members of the band and their girlfriend and wife. We still ate turkey sandwiches for a week afterward. I told Jake that I was going to fix Cornish game hens the next year.

The week before Christmas, the feds declared I was no longer ‘a person of interest’ and cut me loose. I steadfastly refused to testify in court and they got tired of badgering me. I paid Kerrigan off, and for the first time in nine months, I felt as though the air I breathed wasn’t tainted by fear.

But it didn’t make the dreams go away. As if my relief at knowing I wasn’t going to jail released something in my guilty conscience, my sleep that night was bathed in blood. I might have fooled the feds, but I couldn’t fool myself.

Chapter 13

Jake

With all of Cicely’s legal issues resolved, life still didn’t return to normal. The contract lawyer that Kerrigan recommended went to court and invalidated her contract with her previous agent. That didn’t mean the guy wasn’t interested in representing her anymore. It just meant a new contract needed to be negotiated.

Dave Thomas sent a CD of her original songs to a heavyweight agent in Los Angeles, and that agent also wanted to negotiate a contract. Cecily, being no fool, hired Dave to watch over the lawyer, who negotiated contracts with both agents.

I rapidly discovered that the little lost waif I fell in love with had a bit of shark in her when put back in her element.

“Jake, I remember everything I didn’t like about every trip, every performance I ever did. All the fun things sort of merge together, you know? I couldn’t tell you whether that sweet old man who was blowing me kisses one night was in New York, London, or Toronto. But I remember that jackass who said I couldn’t play my violin in the mezzanine of the Toronto Hilton. He told me that little girls should be seen and not heard.”

I loved the way she made me laugh. Life was never dull with her.

“So, what I’m trying to say,” she continued, “is when we nail down the final contracts, I want to make sure all the constraints, the little irritants, are covered.”

“My God,” I said, “you really are a diva. Do you want a specific brand of lilac water supplied in your dressing room?”

“No, I want a certain naked Marine in my dressing room,” she said with a grin. “Every night before I go on and waiting for me when I get off. If they have to pay him to show up, it’s not my problem.”

“Turning me into a sex slave, huh?” I teased.

“Darling, the slave role is mine, remember? Just be sure to show up in the right place, on time, whenever I want to be dominated.” She winked at me.

I hadn’t had a vacation since taking over the bar and the feds had taken care of my plan to take her to Hawaii for Christmas. A week before Christmas, Cecily breezed into the bar, laden down with shopping bags.

“Darling,” she said as she stopped to kiss me before hauling her booty back to the office, “I had the most brilliant idea! What do you think about San Diego for Christmas?”

“I thought we were going to spend Christmas at home,” I said.

“Oh, Jared will make do without us. If we aren’t there, he can put a girl in every bedroom and play musical beds to his heart’s content.”

I heard Kathy and the kitchen crew erupt with laughter.

The San Diego idea rolled around my head that evening as I watched Cecily perform. I hadn’t been there in eight years, and I was in uniform then. I knew the city pretty well, and decided we could have a good time. On our way home, I told her I liked the idea.

When I came downstairs the next morning, following my nose to the double bonanza of coffee and bacon, Cecily was sitting at the kitchen table, talking on the phone. I picked up pretty quickly that she was talking business, and San Diego was mentioned.

“Who was that?” I asked, munching on a rasher of bacon.

“The classical music guy. I’m setting up for all the agents and lawyers to meet us in San Diego two days after Christmas.”

“And why are we going to do business on our vacation?” I asked.

She stood and kissed me. “So we can write the trip off as a business expense.”

Pulling some strawberries out of the refrigerator, and bananas off the shelf, she began making pancake batter. God, I loved that woman.

We flew out of Denver with all the other holiday travelers two days before Christmas. It was starting to snow as we took off. Landing in San Diego, it was bright and sunny and sixty-five degrees. It wasn’t Hawaii, but there were palm trees.

Cecily picked a tropically themed hotel on Shelter Island. It had the advantages of a great restaurant, a two-minute walk to the beach, and a king-sized bed. I took her down to the Gaslight district the first night and we listened to a jazz quartet in a small bar.

On Christmas day, we exchanged presents and spent the day in bed, letting room service feed us our holiday meal. I usually worked six or sometimes seven days a week, so having time to ourselves with nothing to do was a luxury.

She rented a conference room for the contract negotiations. They were contentious, with the two agents each wanting as much of her as they could get. She set a limit of twenty-five percent of her time as the maximum bookings that she would accept from each, including travel time and recording time. She also wanted assurances that they would coordinate schedules.

“No,” she said when they objected. “It’s not negotiable. I am not going to perform in Toronto one day and attempt to get on stage in LA the next. The resource you’re arguing over is limited. For one thing, I need at least two days, preferably three, for my voice to rest after an operatic performance. I don’t even talk the day afterward, let alone sing.”

Every so often, she would turn to me and ask, “What do you think, Jake?”

I told her that it was her decision. After I gave her that answer a few times, she said, “Let’s take a break, gentlemen.” Then she pulled me out into the hall.

“Listen,” she said, “I’m not asking your opinion just to hear myself talk. I’m genuinely interested in your input.”

“But, it’s your life, Cecily, your career. I can’t tell you what to do.”

“I’m not asking you to tell me what to do. I know what I think. I want to hear your opinion. Maybe you’ll think of something I missed. Besides, it’s not just my life. These decisions affect us, affect you. Or did I miss something? When I woke up this morning, I didn’t think I was single. Has something changed?” She looked at the diamond she still wore, then looked back at me.

I smiled. “Okay, I get the message. You want my opinion, you’ll get it.”

“Great,” she said, and kissed me.

It was finally decided she would do four two-month tours in the first year, two classical and two popular. Plus a three-week country western tour in the southern U.S. with Jared’s band. She would also record an album with them and promoting it was to be a fifty-fifty job for the pop guy and Dave. I thought all of that was pretty ambitious, especially since no one had ever heard of her as a pop artist.

I underestimated the agents. When I flew back to Colorado, I went alone. Cecily was in the studio in Los Angeles recording her first album of songs she had written. It made for a lonely New Year’s Eve.

~~~

Chapter 14

Cecily

It was hard missing New Year’s Eve with Jake. We were on the phone with each other, and being in different time zones, we celebrated the New Year twice.

The tour. Ten venues in two months, four on the East Coast, and six in Europe. A reintroduction of Cecille Buchanan. I would deliver an hour of Celtic harp, an hour of violin, and an hour of arias at each stop. The agent confirmed the bookings within a day of signing his contract. Smug bastard. I was hoping to talk Jake into going with me, but I also had a fall back plan.

I flew into Denver at the end of the first week in January. I had finished recording my first record of my own songs, and I was psyched. We also recorded two songs for internet release, a love song and a fun one with a beat you could dance to. There might be some background accompaniment added to some of the songs, but I would have the right to approve them before they were released. If everything stayed on track, the CD would be released the first of April.

I went down to baggage claim, and the handsomest man in the world was waiting for me. I flew into his arms and gave everyone a show. I had missed him so bad.

When we got in Jake’s pickup, I slipped a CD with the finished songs in his player, and we listened to them on the way home. I had recorded violin for background to be added by the producer for six songs. But what I had was the final voice and guitar.

We didn’t even stop at the bar, just drove past it and arrived home about six o’clock.

The next morning, I was fixing breakfast when he came down to the kitchen. “How did you like it?” I asked.

He gave me a lopsided grin. “I always like sex with you. Why? ”

I threw a potholder at him. With my hand on my hip, I gave him an exasperated look. “The CD, Jake. Did you like the CD?”