Roc sat munching chips and guacamole, sipping a Mango Strawberry Delight from the room service tray. He looked again at the photos of properties in Big Sur arrayed on the coffee table. He’d replied to his mother’s email, authorized direct deposit of Emma’s cheques, deleted the penis enlargement enticements along with Justin Savage’s message, and knocked out a quick greeting to Danny from The Cocktails, congratulating him on Gwen’s pregnancy and the record. He couldn’t resist titling the email “rock ’n roll as usual,” echoing Frankie’s lame comment during the MTV interview. He was now wishing he hadn’t so quickly deleted Bobbie’s last few messages, but he still believed nothing would have changed. Some things are just too hard to forgive and forget. His attorney, Max Stone, had copied him on the latest version of the catalogue agreement with his changes handwritten in the margin. It looked signable. Every once in a while he’d re-open his desert island discs page and add another title or two. This time it was Steal Away by Charlie Haden and Hank Jones, along with T. Rex’s Electric Warrior, strange bedfellows to be sure.
The coast of California had held a special magic for Roc ever since that first family trip west when he was fourteen. He had done everything in his power to get out of going, the thought of sharing the back seat with his brother who could pass wind on command and his parents’ choice of music on the little record player that sat balanced between them being two very good reasons. He’d gotten his best friend’s parents to offer to take him to their fishing cabin, feigned car sickness for months in advance, even spoken enthusiastically of enrolling in summer school to pick up typing, all to no avail. He’d stayed in sweltering hotel rooms from Bismarck, North Dakota, to Missoula, Montana, playing his guitar while the rest of the family splashed in the pool; he’d heard his dad threaten “I’m going to have to separate you two” a few hundred times as they made their way from Duluth across the top of America along I-94 to I-90 through a major heat wave with no air conditioning, and he’d cursed his rotten luck the whole way. It all changed when he saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. His mother had put on her husband’s favourite Chuck Mangione record, rolled down her window, and coyly suggested they get off the interstate for a while south of Portland to look at some waves. Disneyland could wait an extra day if need be. And that was it.
Roc picked up one of the photos and recalled marvelling at the rock formations along the coast, his first sighting of a real lighthouse and the reflections of the cliffs in the coves below. He’d written his first song on that trip, a very unmemorable ode to a Sequoia tree, but the feelings never left. They’d ganged up on his dad, who was notoriously “all business” when it came to family trips and convinced him to spend one night in a tiny cedar cabin a short walk from the ocean. That first sunset had sealed it. Roc promised himself that someday he’d live in a place like this. Maybe now was the time to make good on that promise.
He was feeling a nervous excitement that had the effect of pushing aside his ongoing doubts. He hit speakerphone to call Uncle as he sat with a guitar on his lap, strumming lazily. “Hey, are you in all day?”
“Swamped. And just getting started. Can we meet later instead of lunch at the Ivy?”
“Yeah. No problem. I hate it when we’re going over contracts with all those big ears around anyway. Listen, why don’t I come by the office. I’ve got something to show you.”
“Cool. A soft three?”
“All right,” Roc replied and hung up. He could never master Uncle’s business speak, no matter how immersed he felt in their common affairs. He put down his guitar and clicked on the virtual tour of San Luis Obispo County. He could almost smell the ocean.