Under the Same Sun (Stone Trilogy) (18 page)

“Darling,” he greeted her, ignoring her parents. She looked so formidable, cool and collected, not scared at all anymore, and he felt his love for her like a hot flush running from his heart to his limbs. The urge to open his arms and fold her into them was huge, but he  stopped, deploring the stage makeup and the cables tucked into his shirt.

Naomi  ignored all that and embraced him to plant a careful kiss on his lips. “Take care,” she whispered so only he could hear. “I’ll watch you. No making out with strange women. No smooching at the edge of the stage unless it’s with me.”

Surprised, delighted, he hugged her. “Then come to the stage. I dare you, come to the stage, and I swear I’ll kiss you, with everyone watching. That’ll show them.”

She laughed and stepped back. “Maybe. Maybe I’ll do just that. Maybe I’ll make you kneel and bend down to kiss me, and play the groupie for you. Do you want me to throw my panties too?”

Startled, Jon laughed. He noticed how her father’s mouth tightened and how he lowered his head, and replied, “Nah, you can keep them on until later, until we’re back in the dressing room and alone. Now let me run and make the girls faint, babe. Be right back.” Again he wanted to embrace her, feel her close for a moment, but instead he took his microphone from Ralph and let him put the monitors in his ears. The band walked past, each one of them briefly touching Jon’s sleeve, Sean clasping his shoulder for a second and Jon patting his hand.

“Two minutes,” Sal said, and left to take his place by the mixing tables next to Art.

At last Jon turned to her parents. “Good evening. I hope you enjoy the concert. We have some seats for guests, if you wish.”

Olaf began to reply, but his wife quickly answered, “I’m here to see my daughter, Jon.”

“Yes.” Jon hated that he had to leave her with them, with her father and his blistering dislike, and most of all on this evening when he had meant to celebrate being here again, on the same stage where he had kissed her twenty years ago and lost his heart so completely. From out in the arena he could hear the applause rising like surf thundering toward the shore, and the first bars of the intro, played softly on Sean’s keyboard before Jones joined in on the guitar and Aidan on the bass. His fingers tightened around the microphone, the metal a familiar weight in his hand, his mind wandering away to his music and the stage. He wanted to be there now, wanted to hurry up that narrow stairway and emerge into the blinding light of the beams centering on him, breathe in the soaring sound, be carried away by the cheering, feel the guitar hum from his play.

“She is well protected,” he said to Olaf. “There are guards only for her safety. They will remove you if you so much as raise your voice to her. Naomi will not take any more crap from you. She’s my wife, and I’ll not allow it.”

Again it was Lucia, her mother, who was faster. “We’re not here to harm anyone, Jon. We are here because we want to make peace with you.”

Jon snorted. “You might start by loving your daughter and
respecting her decisions instead of drowning her in your disappointment.” He reached out to Naomi. “Babe, come here. One more kiss, and I’m off.  You know where I am if anything happens.”

The last thing he saw before he walked into the darkness of the stairs was Naomi standing in the spot where he had left her a second ago looking after him, her mouth still soft from his kiss, her parents a few steps behind her, wedged between LaGasse and Alan.

Jon liked what he saw.

chapter 16

S
he wanted to be out by the stage with Art and Sal, be with the music and Jon, but politely, with a wave of her hand, Naomi offered, “If you would follow me, we can go to hospitality and talk there.”

LaGasse shifted, ready to move in that direction.

Smiling, Lucia shook her head. “No, dear, let’s go and watch the show. We can always talk later. I want to see your husband perform.”

Judging, always judging. Naomi, leading them toward the arena, wondered why it had to be like this, why they couldn’t accept her for what she was, why she could never manage to please them.

“It’s pretty loud,” her father said.

A sudden, sharp spike of fury stabbed her lungs. His first words, the first words he had spoken to her since she had nearly died that day in the hospital, and it was criticism.

“There are twenty thousand people here, Father,” Naomi replied, “They paid a lot of money to see Jon. They deserve to hear him too.”

Sal jumped from his chair by the computers when he saw her, ready to assist, but she shook her head. The security line opened for them, and LaGasse escorted them to the empty seats in the first row, always kept empty for surprise VIP guests who decided to show up at the last moment, a gallant and generous habit of Jon’s, and a constant cause for discussion with Sal and Russ. Pauline and Walter were there, waving when they saw her, rising to greet her parents.

Right behind her, just a few feet away, the first chords hummed from the ebony guitar, calling to her, demanding Naomi’s attention, drawing her into the music. She looked around to see Jon at the edge of the stage, his dark red shirt gleaming in the beam of the spotlight. He cast a glance down and smiled to see her and then launched into the first song, a lively, upbeat number to wake up the audience and get them in the mood.

She knew the routine, had heard him preach it often enough to a bored band: you got them with the first two bars or the night was lost. Sean had told her once that it wasn’t true, at least not entirely, and Sal always walked out when Jon began talking about how he wanted the shows to go; but she knew. He wanted it perfect. He wanted to connect with his fans the moment he started to sing, not at the end of the concert when he was ready to go home.

“Nice to see you,” Walter shouted over the noise of the music. “I thought you’d moved away.”

“We came back to see the concert and Naomi. A holiday,” Olaf replied, neatly crossing his leg, and straightening the crease of his trousers, “after the stress of moving.”

Lucia touched her hand; and when Naomi did not pull away, she held it between hers, softly stroking her fingers like one would do with a baby to calm it. Her touch was warm, comforting, and it took Naomi back to her childhood when her mother sat at the corner of her bed. They would chat for a while, Lucia listening while Naomi told her mother how she would one day be a famous writer, or a singer and composer, how she would travel the world on concert or book tours. Lucia had smiled and nodded, patting her hand just as she did now but never replied. Even then, even when she had been so young, the huge beast of her inheritance had lurked in the shadowy corners of her room, ready to pounce and destroy her dreams.

The questions were burning in her throat, together with anger and a good measure of fear, fueled by the resentment of their intrusion into this moment, this special evening, when she and Jon had wanted to recapture the romance and excitement of their first encounter.

“Why are you here?” It burst out before she could stop herself.

Lucia smiled. “We knew you would expect us to be here, so we came. I did not want to disappoint you.”

Naomi bit her lips.

“You never told me you moved. You might have let me know you were moving to New York.”

Olaf turned away from Walter. “We wanted to be close to you and Joshua. He can’t keep us from living in New York; it’s a big city.”

Jon had taken the microphone to welcome the audience and introduce the band. “Twenty years ago,” Jon was saying, his voice booming through the stadium, “here in your lovely city, I met a girl and fell in love. I’m still in love with her today, so I have a lot to thank you for. Thank you for giving me your beautiful rose, my wife.”

Naomi blushed.

“And he can’t keep you from meeting us for lunch or coming to visit us if you want,” Olaf went on, undeterred. “He’s not your jailor, is he?”

“He’s my husband.” All she needed was to take one step, just get up from her seat, and someone would be by her side, help her escape.

“Yes, we know.” A bitter smile crossed Olaf’s face. “It’s hard to get anywhere near you. He keeps you locked away like a Picasso original behind those Malibu walls.”

There were so many things Naomi wanted to say, wanted to fling at him. “I wasn’t even in Malibu all the time,” she replied instead. “I went on vacation on my own while Jon was practicing for the tour.”

“You could have called us.” Lucia pressed her hand. “We would have come to you.”

Softly, slowly, Sean moved into the
Secret Garden
, the first song she had written for Jon, the reason why he had met her twenty years ago here, in Geneva.

Naomi pushed her parents out of her mind and looked up at the stage, at Jon, who was sipping some water while settling the koa guitar against his body. He gave Sean a short nod and returned to the mike. Applause rippled through the audience as they recognized the melody and hummed along in anticipation.

“This is a nice song.” It came out grudgingly, unwilling; and as if to counter his words, Olaf straightened his tie. “I’ve heard it a number of times on the radio, and it is really very good.”

Naomi rose from her seat, which brought LaGasse over. She smiled grimly at him. “This song, Father, this song that you think is very good, I wrote it. I wrote it for Jon.”

Sal was on his way to her, but she waved and he stopped to wait for her.

“Don’t ask,” she said, and sat down on his chair. Art, busy with the computers, gave her a short grin and offered his coffee cup.

Here, right beside the stage, right under the speakers, it was too loud to talk comfortably, so she leaned back to watch Jon and let the music drown her, wash away the black mood and the bitter feelings. She could see her parents, her father, relaxed now, his legs crossed and his long, elegant hands resting on them while he chatted with Walter, and her mother, her lips drawn in a thin line, staring up at Jon.

Jon briefly came over to check on her, and when he saw her surrounded by friends and security blew her a kiss and smiled.

The night was spectacular. There was still enough of the full moon to highlight the mountains, a gentle breeze brought down fresh air from the snowy slopes filled with the scent of pine trees and herbs.

Jon was singing. His voice filled the arena, soared all the way up to the stars sparkling in the sky, enveloping her like a warm shawl, throwing her back in time to that summer day so long ago when she had been in the exact same spot, listening to him, falling in love. Nothing had changed. It was still the same, a heady, hot longing, the desire for his kiss, for his embrace.

“I have,” Jon said, “a new song. My wife, who is also my lyricist, came up with these words last summer when we returned to LA from Europe. She has this habit of collecting stones on the beach.” He pulled up the stool and sat down. “She puts them in a special corner of our garden, and for the longest time I thought it was a cute but pretty silly habit; but then she wrote this song.” The guitar hummed when his fingers touched the strings. “And I knew it had never been about the pebbles. It had always been about love, and about bringing it back home.”

Her breath caught. She had not known. He had kept it a secret, to share with her on this special evening.

“I’ll pick you up; don’t be afraid anymore

You have been tossed around and lost your way

A beautiful pebble on a lonely shore…”

J
on sang the words thoughtfully, gently, as if he was tasting them on his lips, testing their impact. The band rested, it was only his voice and his guitar, the song a clear, fragile ribbon of melody that wove through the night. Very cleverly they had dimmed the lights until only one bluish-green beam rested on him, serene and cool like an ocean wave, soothing.

Naomi could see her parents, her mother talking to Pauline, and her father, his eyes wandering around, observing the security, assessing the speakers and the stage, the number of people in the audience. Rage blossomed in her chest; it unfolded like a huge, white flower that poured out its poison in a sticky, glistening stream. For an instant she was nearly blinded by it, blinded by the glare of the white petals and their razor-sharp, silvery edges.

She turned her back on her parents, on the hurt and the wrath, and let the music wash her away.

“
N
aomi.”

The moment he came off the stage, the instant the concert was finally over, he asked for her. Ralph was there to hand him a dry towel, wrap a dressing gown around his shoulders, and hand him a bottle of water; but Jon’s eyes traveled over all of them to where she was, a little to the side, to give them space, waiting. His vision seemed to shift when he saw her, mixing the real image and the memory of her, of the girl she had been.

“Baby, did you like it?” he called, his voice cracking, exhausted from the singing. “Did you like the new song?” and grinned when her face softened into a smile.

He wanted to hold her in his arms, but he was soaked, his face a sticky mess of sweat and makeup. The cables itched on his skin; the monitors irritated him.

From the end of the hallway he saw Sal and Art coming toward them, laughing, relaxed now that the concert was over and had gone well, and right behind them, her parents. His good mood wilted. Olaf was a study in politely hidden boredom. He glanced at his watch and then back toward the exit, took his wife’s elbow and yawned, hiding it behind his hand.

“So did you enjoy the concert?” Jon asked. He wanted to go to the dressing room and get out of the stage clothes, have a long, hot shower and feel human again; but he realized it would have to wait.

Naomi took a step toward him, close enough to bring her to his side and clasp his hand.

“Enjoy is not the right word,” Olaf replied. “But yes, it was quite impressive. You do draw a crowd, I have to say. I bet your revenues are quite satisfactory.”

A crease appeared between Lucia’s eyes. “That was a beautiful song, Jon.” Her tone was friendly, conciliatory, and she freed herself from Olaf’s grasp. “I liked what you said about the stones and the love.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He was beginning to feel cold.

“That’s all,” Naomi said. “You come all the way from New York or wherever, and all you can say is it was nice..” She was shaking. “You come
here and say you want to make peace, and that’s all you have to offer?”