Under the Same Sun (Stone Trilogy) (26 page)

“What I’m not getting…” He didn’t know how to say it without steering into deep, dangerous waters. “What I’m not getting is why
you’ve locked yourself away from them. I mean, I can see why you don’t care much for your father’s family, but your mom’s?”

A small shrug, a lowering of her head. “You know why.”

He didn’t though, and waited patiently for her to go on.

Naomi sighed. “Jon, you ask the most terrible questions.” Her shoulders came up, and she tucked her knotted hands between her knees. “There was only one thing I wanted from life, and I couldn’t have it. So…” Another shrug. “So I didn’t want the rest either. I crawled into hiding in Halmar, and day and night I thought of you, and how I should be with you. Nothing made sense, nothing seemed right, not even breathing or opening my eyes in the morning. You see, I could not allow myself to be anywhere else, do anything else, because I didn’t want to forget what it felt like to love you and be loved by you. That was all that mattered, and I wanted to keep it at all costs. If you hadn’t come to find me, if Joshua hadn’t written to you, I would have gone on like that forever. I would have carried that shining orb of our love around with me until the end of days, and it would have been my only light.” She pulled herself together even tighter. “It was the only thing I had, and the only thing I wanted. Loving you, Jon, is terrible. It hurts, it’s like the most insistent melody, like a knife in my back that I can’t reach and remove. It’s all-encompassing and final. There’s no way out.”

The grainy taste of fig lingered on Jon’s tongue like the residue of a summer day. He took a sip of the sweet wine. It tasted like the memory of a kiss in the dusk of a warm night. Her words hummed in him, resonating like a drumbeat.

“So you see,” she said, easier now, “how it is. It’s either you and the world or nothing at all.” Daintily, her fingers hovering over the plate for a moment; she selected a fat green olive and nibbled on it.

“But…” The words he wanted to say seemed so crazy and childish, he had to swallow before he could speak them. “But I love you more. I know I do. If you put it like that then there’s no room for me to love you more, and I have to.”

“You don’t love me more, you silly man.” Olive pit discarded, Naomi unfolded from her seat and moved over to sit in his lap.

Jon, his arms around her hips, laid his face on her chest and inhaled the scent of her rose perfume. “Yeah I do. I know so, I wake up at night and stare at you, and I memorize every curve, every part of you so when I go back to sleep I can take you with me into my dreams and never be without you. I want to breathe you in and hold you inside my heart so I’ll never have to be without you for a moment.”

Slowly, choosing her words carefully, she told him about the big family in Naples and Positano, about the vineyards on the mountainsides, the big house in Positano that overlooked the entire village, nestled into a pine grove. They had not stayed there though, she said, looking away from him, even though her uncle Cesare had wanted it very much.

Her fingers were caressing his neck, playing with his hair, and the soft touch sent shivers down his spine, just like her breath on his temple. “Why not? Where did you stay then?” he asked, and knew the answer even before she could reply. “Don’t tell me. Your father bought a hotel there, just because.”

“Yes. The story goes that he had a huge fight with Carl over it because he had his heart set on a special one and the old owner was being difficult about selling. I think they paid a lot more than it was actually worth in the end; but my father wanted to own a part of the place where my mother was born, and he wanted that hotel.” She shifted so she could look at him. “Now, of course, it’s one of the top places in Positano. You will love it. You will love the drama of the setting, the beach, everything.” A fine, sardonic smile flitted across her lips. “My family is really good at that. They are really, really good at making money, even if they do something for fun or out of sentimentality.” She patted the gray leather of the couch on which they were sitting. “And they really appreciate what they have.”

“I can’t see anything wrong with that.” And he couldn’t. As much as he loved her, he couldn’t understand this attitude. “I grew up in a middle-class family, Naomi. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich either. My parents could afford to take us away for a week in summer, maybe to Maine or to Florida; but we never traveled the way you do, on a whim, on the spur of a moment, and hell, never in first class let alone a private jet. We couldn’t buy whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted; we had to wait for Christmas, and even then it was a
maybe
.”

He held up his hand when she drew a breath to reply. “Baby, let me say this. I worked my ass off to be where I am; I worked day and night for many years, and I sold my soul. You know it. You know the dark side of fame and wealth. But I really appreciate what I have. I like being rich, and I like being famous. To me, that’s proof that I’ve achieved something. And yeah, why shouldn’t I enjoy it? Why shouldn’t I enjoy wearing designer clothes and buying my wife expensive jewelry, driving a Porsche, and owning a couple of beautiful houses? Yeah, I love it! So…” Gently he pushed her short locks behind her ears and ran his finger over the pearl stud she was wearing. “So why act as if it’s something shameful? Why not be happy we can have all this, live in ease and luxury, do as we please? There is no reason to be bitter about it.”

Naomi gave him a long, thoughtful look.

“Or is there?” Jon pushed. “Is there a reason to be bitter?”

“Well yes,” she replied softly. “For me there is. It’s part of the package. Using the family jet means accepting that I’m part of them. Taking this gift means owing them something; and Jon, I don’t want to owe my father and uncle anything. That’s the reason why I never touched my money…” Her words died.

“Your money? What do you mean, ‘your money’?” He didn’t let her go when she tried to climb out of his lap. “No, no, now I want to know. What do you mean, ‘your money’? Are you telling me you have your own fortune sitting somewhere in a bank, and you never touched it, never used it? Not even for Joshua?”

“Well yes, for Joshua.” She squirmed. “To send him to school, but only for the fees. I paid for most of it myself. I wanted to.”

“Good grief, Naomi.”

“It worked! And anyway…” This time he let her rise when she tried to and watched as she straightened her dress with something like regret. “Anyway, I was used to not having a lot of money after the years with you, remember?”

“Oh, don’t you go there!” They had been over this a number of time, and it still made him wilt in shame.

“What?” Another olive wandered into her mouth. “I was your little number, the girl you kept in your house. Why should you have…”

“Careful. Be very careful, you little number. Don’t you dare say that.”

She shrugged at him, but this time it was a saucy, flirty shrug. “Your little lovebird.”

“Stop.” Jon loved the dress she was wearing, a short, red cotton thing with a halter strap, just right for the beach and summer heat. “You’re my lovebird all right, but now I want to know about that hidden treasure of yours.”

Naomi pointed out of the window. “Look, the Mediterranean. Look how blue the water is, Jon.”

It was true; he had never seen an ocean so cerulean, so gentle. There were no breakers, no waves; it was as smooth and clear as a mirror.

“We are almost there,” she said. “Soon you’ll see Naples. And then I’ll rent a Ferrari and drive you along the coast to Positano.”

“Like hell you will. I’m driving that Ferrari. I’ve always wanted to do that.” Once again, and very neatly, she had turned his attention away from the real issue.

Settling back into her seat, putting on the seat belt, Naomi gently said, “If you really want to know, if it matters, I’ll tell you. There are some hotels in my name, some houses, a couple of…other things. And yes, there’s a trust…” She sighed. “It’s a lot. And it scares me.”

“You and your Monopoly game life, you scare the crap out of me with this.” His glass was empty, and Jon refilled it liberally. “I really wish you would come clean with me so there are no more surprises, and I finally know who I married.”

“But…”

He looked up at her.

“But Jon, will you still love me? Will you love me when you know I own a dozen hotels and half a dozen restaurants, and that I want nothing to do with it all?”

She said it so earnestly and full of fear, he wanted to laugh at her. “Baby, I know you better than you know yourself. I don’t give a damn about your hotels and restaurants and whatever. To me, you’re the poet. My selkie girl. The mermaid I found on my beach and brought home. My muse. Do with your stupid wealth what you want. Just don’t leave my life and my bed.”

The plane coasted over the water and began to sink toward their destination. The flight attendant came to clear away their meal.

Her lips curled in a smile. “You’re so transparent, Jon Stone. It’s always about bed with you. I promise, I won’t leave yours, ever.”

The sound of the engines changed, the pressure popping his ears.

“I’m driving that Ferrari,” Jon said.

Her smile widened.

chapter 24

T
here would be no Ferrari.

Instead, a pair of dark German limousines were waiting for them at the airport. Seeing the two men standing beside them, Jon wondered if he had at last arrived in Naomi’s Mafia family and was even now on his way to a sinister abduction scenario in the heat of southern Italy.

“My uncles,” Naomi said, “Cesare and Raphaele. My mother’s brothers.” She smiled. “A great honor. They are here themselves. There
is a third one, Lorenzo. They are all older than my mom. Imagine growing up in Italy with three older brothers.”

“It was bad enough growing up with Val as my older sister,” Jon muttered.

And suddenly, just like that, saying Val’s name, he felt homesick for New York and his own family. He wanted to sit at his mother’s kitchen table and drink an early-morning coffee with her, run over to the French bakery two blocks down the street and get fresh croissants, watch her do the crossword puzzle while he leafed through the sports section of the newspaper. Sometimes when a tour had taken him to New York he had done this, spent the night at home and slept in his childhood room. Joshua was there now. The thought of his son curled up in his old bed, wrapped in his faded quilt with the stars and his name embroidered along the edge, warmed his heart.

“One should never put away family,” he said as the door of the plane opened and the warm air of a Naples afternoon wafted in. “Never. We’re doing the right thing.”

Naomi threw him a puzzled glance.

“There’s no one else. Only your family love you for yourself. With everyone else, you never know.”

“But I’m not your family, Jon. Are you unsure of my love too?” She had been on the point of picking up her purse, but now she paused, a troubled look clouding her face.

“Ah, that’s different.” Jon handed her the bag. “And I wasn’t talking about you at all. You know it.”

“My father does not love me for what I am.”

The flight attendant was waiting for them to leave.

“My father does not love that I’m a woman, and he does not love that I’m a writer. That’s not right, Jon. Sometimes there are people outside your family who love you for what you really are and not for what you should be.” She turned away, her shoulders slumped, sad once again.

He wanted to kick himself. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it!”

“I know.” Her smile was wan at best. “I was raised with all these expectations, and now I live with being this enormous failure. There are moments when I understand why my father doesn’t love me.”

Before he could reply, she had descended the stairs into the noisy welcome of her Italian family.

“
I
will show you the vineyards and let you taste our wines.” Cesare said to Jon as they drove along the curvy road.

“We have many vineyards. We make our own grappa, red wine, some spumante. You like grappa?”

He went on to talk about olive groves and their olive mills, the pine trees on the slopes of the mountains, and the honey they produced. “Because, you see, we are farmers. At heart, we are farmers, and there’s nothing better than an early-morning walk under the olive trees seeing the fruit ripen.”

They were delighted, he rambled on, delighted to see his niece and her husband, the American. Lucia had told them about him, that he was a famous man, very famous, a rock star. Cesare squinted at him. “But I have never heard of you. You are not famous in Italy, are you? Only in America?”

“Not in Italy,“ Jon conceded. This felt strange. It felt as if he had to defend his success; and once again, just like in Canada visiting her father’s family, he felt like her consort, someone of lesser importance and only tolerated because Naomi wished it so. “But nearly everywhere else in Europe,” he added, and saw Naomi bite her lip at the bravado in his tone.

“It does not matter.” Cesare clapped his shoulder. “We will love you
because our niece loves you. You are part of our family.” Coming with 
the brilliant smile and the dark sunglasses, it sounded more like a threat than a welcome.

Jon’s breath stopped when they crested the mountains. He leaned forward in the car to take in the view, feeling he had somehow been poured into a painting, into a totally new world.

To their right, the Sorrento peninsula marched away. The mountainside spilled into the sea like a flounce on a silk gown in many shades of green, from the dainty hue of a young leaf to the moody darkness of old jade. The ocean, dipped into the soft light of the late afternoon, shone softly, as opaque as the inside of a shell, melting into the sky in the distance. Nestled around a sickle-shaped beach lay the little town, the pastel houses piled one on top of another, clinging to the slopes, hugging the rocky scarp, their faces turned toward the water and the sun.

Everywhere, clinging to every wall and framing every window, were flowers, most of them in tints of rose or pink.

“Positano,” Raphaele announced, his voice full of pride. “Welcome.”

The car took them through the town; down narrow, steep streets, back up another hillside to a small road that wound its way through a pine grove toward a big, sprawling house set on its own terrace. The yellow stone shone in the gentle light, its windows glinting a welcome at them.

Jon, looking up at the huge facade, was reminded of her father’s family home outside Kleinburg. He had felt equally speechless when they had gone there for New Year’s Eve. She had told him her family was rich; he had heard Sal tell him about their business. But only when he had seen that property, after driving through countryside for ten minutes after they entered the estate with no sight of the house, had he grasped the extent of their wealth.

It had made him forget for a moment who he was, and instead he had felt like the Brooklyn boy he still was at heart.

In her world he felt unknown, unimportant; and surprisingly, Jon liked it. He leaned back into the seat, amused by the twists and turns of his life, thinking how much Sal would enjoy this, would appreciate the advantages of the marriage he had made.

Naomi sat beside him as if none of this mattered to her. She was busy with her cell phone, checking it for messages. She hardly looked up when the car stopped.

“Welcome,” Raphaele said again, opening the door for them. “Now, at last you are back home.”