Different Circles

Jake was behind the sound board with the Nerdlys currently, a sheaf of musical score sheets before him, a pencil tucked behind his ear. They had already worked up the basic composition of Journey, as they called the tune, and were polishing it up now. Little Stevie was playing his high-end Brogan knockoff but Jake’s sunburst Les Paul was leaning against a wall and there was a secondary guitar cord leading to the amps that he could plug in with if further refinement of the guitar part seemed necessary. Nerdly, who had his own musical score sheet before him, was listening to the take through a set of headphones while Sharon was intently watching the levels on the board itself. Celia, her own 12-string guitar in hand, was sitting in a chair in front of her microphone. Laura, her belly now swollen and prominent with Ziggy’s third trimester of life, was standing, her alto sax in hand so she could blow out the secondary melody and the solo she had composed to go with the piece.

All in all, Jake thought the tune was coming along nicely. It would likely require only a few more changes to the instrumentation, most of which would be minor in nature. He was already thinking that Journey would be the first tune promoted when the CD was released.

A gentle elbow in his side took him out of his thoughts. It was Sharon, who was pointing at the phone mounted on the wall next to the door. A bright red light was flashing on the phone, indicating that someone—most likely Kayla, the latest KVA receptionist—was trying to reach them. For obvious reasons, the phone in the studio did not actually ring.

Jake got up and walked over to it. He picked up the receiver and put it to his ear. “It’s Jake,” he said into it.

Even though the volume of the earpiece was turned all the way up, Jake could barely hear over the music. He heard enough though. It was indeed Kayla. She was telling him that the catering service had just dropped off lunch.

“Got it,” he said. “I’ll be out in a few minutes to get it.”

She said something else that he could not make out, but it did not sound important. He hung up the phone and then waited until the group wound up Journey (Jake still thought the outro needed some more work—maybe a violin solo from Eric?) and fell silent. He then announced that lunch was here and it was time to take thirty or so and feed themselves.

Lunch today was hamburgers and French fries. Jake and Laura brought everything into the studio and everyone settled down in various places to eat. Celia sat with Jake and Laura on the edge of the drum platform. They balanced their paper plates on their laps and set their bottles of water and tea down next to them. Celia noticed that between bites Laura was rubbing her belly just above the belly button.

“Is Ziggy kicking you again?” she asked, a big part of her full of envy at the life that her friend and occasional lover was growing in her body.

The kicks were now a regular occurrence, and strong enough now that others could feel them by putting a hand on her belly. Jake remembered with a sense of awe the first time he had actually felt an unmistakable fetal movement by his daughter. “She’s calming down now,” Laura said. “She was really hammering me when the music was playing a few minutes ago.”

“Oh yeah?” Celia asked.

“Ziggy definitely likes music,” Laura said. “Whenever we’re playing or when I’m listening to it at home, she gets really active in there. And then, when it stops, she calms down.”

“She’s certainly got musical genes in her,” Celia said.

“Or, it’s just part of God’s great plan,” Jake said.

Both ladies looked at him strangely.

“That’s what your brother told me when I suggested the existence of musical genes,” he explained. “He said there are no musical genes, that your musical talent and mine were instilled upon us by God so that we could fulfill our part in his plan.”

“What plan is that?” Laura asked.

“For us to meet and get married was how I understood the explanation,” Jake said.

“Just that?” Laura asked.

“What do you mean ‘just that’?” Jake asked. “Don’t you think that you and I hooking up was a good plan?”

“It was all right,” she said with a shrug. “It’s just that I’m not sure it rises to the level of divine intervention or anything. Wouldn’t you think that if God had a plan that involved instilling us with musical talent so we would find each other, it would have an end goal a little more profound than us jumping into the sack one night and then eventually deciding we actually loved each other enough to get married and have a little Ziggy?”

“Perhaps,” Jake said.

“Were you and your brother-in-law drinking, by chance, when you had this divine plan conversation?” asked Celia.

“Uh ... well, yeah, we kind of were.”

“Kind of?”

He shrugged. “It was Budweiser from the can,” he said.

She nodded her head wisely. “That explains a lot,” she said.