Different Circles

He took a few deep breaths, closed his eyes for a moment to get the spinning sensation under control, and then walked back into the living room. He opened his travel bag and rummaged around for a minute until he found his calendar. He flipped it open to April and looked at the entry for the 27^th. Celia and the band had performed in Syracuse, New York tonight and were staying at the Sheraton Hotel there, assuming that had not changed in the months since the booking had been made. He checked his watch. It was 8:23 PM here in California, which meant it was 11:23 PM in Syracuse, the same time that Jake’s jet-lagged body felt it was. Unless Laura had a friend visiting her tonight, or unless she was having a smoke out on a balcony with Celia and Suzie the pilot, she would likely answer the phone in her room. He called information by using an area code map he kept in the back of the calendar and got the number for the hotel. He then placed his call, asking to be connected to Lynn Dolan’s room.

“Hey, sweetie!” Laura said brightly when she heard his voice. “It’s good to hear from you. Where are you?”

“Granada Hills,” he told her. “Just got back to LA tonight.”

“Wasn’t the last show on the 23^rd?” she asked.

“It was,” he confirmed. “G threw us all a little party after the last date.”

“That was nice of him,” she said. “But why did you stay another three days after the party?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “The party just ended this morning.”

“A three-day party?” she asked, incredulous.

“And three nights,” he added. “I am seriously considering giving up alcohol at this point.”

“Wow,” she said. “That’s some shindig.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t bad,” he said.

“I’m guessing you’re not going to fly back home tonight?”

“God no,” he said. “I’m going to choke down some food and then go directly to bed and stay there until the sun is high in the sky tomorrow.”

“Mmmm,” she said. “I wish I was there to get into bed with you.”

“Me too,” he said. And this was true. And not just for the sex. He truly missed having her around.

“Our tour break is coming up after the Bangor show,” she reminded him. “That’s only two weeks away.”

“It’s only a five-day break,” he said, choosing to look at that glass as half-empty in his current mood. “And you’re not coming home for it.”

“True,” she said, “but you can fly out to me, can’t you?” She gave a naughty little giggle. “I’ve never been banged in Bangor before.”

Jake could not make the same claim. He prudently did not mention this, however. “Well, yeah, I could do that,” he said. “I could catch a flight to Boston and then maybe rent a plane there and fly up to Bangor. We could explore the area a little.”

“Now that sounds like fun,” she said enthusiastically. “I hear it’s beautiful in Maine in the late spring.”

“They have lots of lakes, some mountains, some bitchin’ coastline,” Jake said, warming more and more to the idea.

“And you don’t have anything else going on, right?” she asked.

“I’m going to need to start putting a band together for the TSF show in September since Coop and Charlie and you are committed to the European tour now.” That commitment had been made two weeks before. Aristocrat Records would finance an eleven-week tour of Europe starting with the first of four shows in London on July 10. From the British Isles they would work their way through dates in Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, and round it out in Poland. There was talk of a South American tour after that—Celia was extremely popular in South America for obvious reasons—but so far, the suits at Aristocrat had not agreed to fund such an endeavor.

“Can that wait until you come back from my tour break?” she asked.

“I think so,” he said. “I’ll talk to Paulie in the morning and have her start putting out some feelers for musicians. Maybe I can get the auditions going now and then start rehearsing after I come back from Maine.”

“You are not allowed to have a female saxophonist,” Laura said with mock sternness. “Look what happened the last time you had such a thing.”

He laughed. “I did end up nailing that little slut, didn’t I?”

“She was asking for it,” Laura said with a giggle.

“They all are,” he returned. “Anyway, I’m not going to bother recruiting a saxophonist. Blur is the only tune that needs one.”

“You’re not going to perform Blur?” she asked, clearly disappointed. South Island Blur, the song about Jake’s exile in New Zealand after the breakup of Intemperance and his breakup with Helen, was her favorite song that Jake had written. This was partly because it was the only song in which she performed with him, but mostly because it had been during the recording of the tune that they had fallen in love. And strangely enough, it was also one of Jake’s most popular commercial hits as well. People who did not like any other Jake Kingsley or Intemperance tune loved Blur and perceived it as a song about partying on a tropical island and not a dissertation about depression and alcoholism, which was how Jake had composed it.