Under the Same Sun (Stone Trilogy) (29 page)

Ferro placed her on a rock with her feet in the surf, the hem of her dress trailing in the water. He emptied baskets of flowers around her, where they floated, slowly swirling, gently clashing  against her legs and the stone.

Naomi, startled by the movement, looked down and pulled up her knees, trying to keep her balance by putting her hands on the rock at her side.

“Like that,” Ferro said. “Don’t move.”

And that was how he drew her.

The sun was to her side, pouring golden light over her bare arms, reflecting in her hair, gleaming off the white dress Ferro had asked her to wear. It was borrowed from Gemma and too large, but that, he said, added to the charm of the mermaid image because it looked as if she had nicked it from someone’s clothesline. He was, Ferro added judiciously, a bit unhappy about her short hair. Surely there were no mermaids with hair chopped off at chin length. Would it be all right if he played around with that?

Jon smiled sadly at those words, and Naomi, seeing it, agreed.

“It used to come down to my hips until last week,” she explained when Ferro drew up his eyebrows in question. “I just had it cut. I swear, Ferro, I can still feel the weight sometimes. But I felt it was time for the braid to go.”

“You crazy American girls,” Angelica threw in. “Here, her hair is a woman’s pride. I would never cut mine. It hasn’t been short since I was a small girl, only trimmed.” She patted the thick chignon at the back of her head, the deep black liberally mixed with gray, as she peered down at Ferro’s work.

“You are too thin, my dear, and he’s drawing you even thinner. Ferro, don’t make her look like a ghost, for goodness sake!”

Ferro looked up from his sketchbook, first at Naomi, then at his mother, then back at Naomi. “She doesn’t look like a ghost. She looks like a mermaid: fragile, pale, and precious. If only her hair was longer..”

Naomi rolled her eyes at him.

“If I work fast I might be able to finish it before you go.” His lips pursed, Ferro put some strokes on the paper.

Jon got up from where he had been sitting with Gemma and Gloria and peered over Ferro’s shoulder. His face softened into a smile at what he saw, and he looked up at Naomi. “You will look like the selkie in the
Secret Garden
, love.”

She blushed and pulled up her shoulders, but he laughed. “I’ll put it in my studio, right over the piano where I can always see it. I’m so glad we came.”

His heart light, his spirit soaring, Jon gazed at the mountains rising in vineyard terraces behind them, at the clusters of bougainvillea growing over the cliffs like a pink carpet. He couldn’t remember when he had last felt this happy, this carefree. He found himself thanking Olaf for putting the idea of coming here in their heads.

Even now he felt he owed Naomi’s father thanks for making things easy for once, for sending the jet without conditions and without asking. “Just bring it back when you’re done.” Jon’s eyes had nearly rolled backward in his head at those words. He recalled so well how bitterly they had fought when Naomi had been shot, how he had thrown Olaf out of the hospital, so scared for her life, so mindless of hurting others.

Now his gaze wandered to the water, and at last he allowed those memories to surface. He had come home from the hospital a day after she had woken from her coma, unwillingly and against his instincts, but Solveigh and Sal had insisted. They had pushed him out of the ICU and told him to go home and get some rest, eat a hot meal, and for heaven’s sake, shave and take a shower. Dazed, exhausted like never before, he had let Sal drive him home. The house had seemed deserted without her—an echoing, empty cave, no soul, no love, no warmth—and he had crawled into their bed and hugged her pillow, inhaling the elusive scent of her perfume.

“This will be a big painting.” Ferro woke him from his thoughts. “I hope you have a fireplace to hang it over. Or better yet, a hallway.”

“We have both,” Jon replied, easily, “but I want it for myself. Just for me; it will be mine to dream over.”

The dress had slipped from Naomi’s shoulder, and she tried to pull it up again; but Ferro waved his pencil at her and called, “No. no, that’s perfect, leave it,” and she did.

“Everyone is allowed to eat and drink,” Naomi complained, “and I have to sit here and watch. It’s so unfair.”

“I will feed you when you’re done, “Jon promised. “No worries. I’ll take care of you.”  He bent down to roll up his jeans and waded toward her, water sloshing onto his pants, soaking them. “I saw you yesterday when you went into the church. You prayed,” he said softly when he was close to her.

She nodded. From the stone beside her, she picked up a hibiscus blossom that had fallen there.

“You prayed to the Holy Mother. You prayed for a baby, didn’t you?”

There was no response.

“Naomi, my love,” Jon said, but she laid her hand on his arm and shook her head.

“Don’t, Jon. It just happened. All of a sudden there was this urge to go inside and light that candle, to say thanks for what we have and to ask, if it isn’t too much, and just for your sake, to atone for what I did to you in taking Joshua away, to ask for another child. I came out and back to you, and it felt as if a huge load had been lifted from me. I saw you and Cesare and Ferro sitting under the trees, chatting, drinking wine; and the sea was so beautiful in the distance. For the first time since the shooting I felt at peace.” A smile curled her mouth. “I still had that scent of incense in my nose, and the sun was hot and good on my face, and I was happy.”

“Good.” It sounded stupid and not nearly as enthusiastic as he felt, but it was the best that  Jon could come up with. “Well, good.” And before he could say more, Ferro told him to go away because he was disturbing the light.

J
on was learning that  things were different here. There wasn’t a lot of privacy, but no one seemed to mind. The house was always full of people, always someone coming or going, and somehow it seemed there was always a meal going on or being prepared. Most of life took place outside, on the big terrace, under the trellises, or around the pool, one step farther down the mountainside, in the shade of the pine trees.

Cesare had given him a tour of the house when they got back from the beach. They had strolled through the high-ceilinged rooms with antique furniture and tiled floors, paintings on the walls, beds hung with draperies, flowers on the tables. Everywhere, the windows or doors stood open to let the air flow through the home. Lace curtains were stirring in the warm breeze. Jon could hear the rustling of foliage and the breath of the sea all the time.

There was no air conditioning; the heat was dry  and easy to live with, just like in California.

“You are always welcome here,” Cesare said when they returned downstairs to search for coffee.  “You are part of this family, and very welcome. We are proud to have a musician like you married to one of our women.”

Jon blinked. “But you said you didn’t even know my music.”

Naomi was sitting with her cousins, all of them busy shelling peas at the table in the center of the kitchen, her bare feet propped on the chair next to her. She was still in the dress she had worn for the painting, the wide skirt gathered between her knees; with the bowl in her lap she looked like a peasant girl.

“But I will, soon.” Cesare grinned at Jon at he took mocha cups from the shelf. “And anyway, it doesn’t matter. Ferro says the world loves you, and if that’s so, then you make many people happy with your songs. And that’s what matters, isn’t it? To bring happiness into the world with what you do. One way or the other, that’s what we all have to do.”

A happy tune, a summer song, one that would make people want to hum and dance, with words as light and easy as whipped cream, Jon thought. Something about a moonlit night and a meadow warmed from the long hours of sun.

He took the tiny coffee cup from Cesare and wandered away, out onto the terrace to where the breeze from the ocean ruffled his hair and stroked his face.

Like a storm calming, like surf settling after the storm, Jon felt his soul coming to rest at last.

chapter 27

T
he painting wasn’t finished before they left. Ferro apologized, saying he needed a little more time for details. He had ordered more pigments—he wanted to get it just right—and no, Naomi could not see it. He took them up to the chapel one more time at her request, and this time she lit a candle in front of the Annunciation picture. She stood gazing at it for a long time, long enough for Ferro to start fussing with his brushes and Jon to return outside into the sun.

Naomi thought it was miraculous how, by just applying the right color, Ferro had brought light into the painting. It seemed to flow over Mary’s hands, bathe her face in the soft glow, and now that she looked carefully, Naomi could see that it was not coming from the lamp she was holding at all but from another source altogether. Catching her breath, she took a step back to get a better view.

“Ferro,” she said, “you have caught the angel’s ray. It is his light shining on her.”

“Well, yes.” He put down the jar he was holding. “That’s the point, isn’t it? That’s what the Annunciation is all about.”

“I wonder what she felt.” Naomi’s voice echoed through the church. “I wonder what she thought when that light poured into that dim room  and the angel spoke to her. Was she scared, do you think?”

Ferro peered at his artwork. “Well, I should think so. I know I would be scared if that happened to me. I’d sooner believe it was an alien than God’s angel, I think. It is rather hard to accept, isn’t it? There’s an illuminated something standing in your cellar door and it tells you you’re going to have a baby and no, no sex. Ha.”

That made her laugh, but her attention was drawn back to the image of Mary. The gentle sweetness of the face touched her unaccountably. “This painting makes me feel so strange. It makes me sad, yet happy. It fills me with a strange yearning and makes me want to spill my heart into her hands.”

Out of sheer impulse, Naomi hugged her cousin. “Thank you, Ferro. Thank you for painting this, and thank you for letting me see it.”

“Ah, it’s nothing.” Embarrassed, he patted her shoulder. “This chapel, it is a pilgrimage place. Is that what you call it in English?”

She nodded, and he went on, “Women have always come here to pray to the Virgin. They come to pray for a man, then later, when they are about to get married, they pray for happiness and health.” He turned and pointed at the other picture, the one with the Christ Child. “But mostly they come here to ask for babies. They walk up from town and bring flowers, light candles, and pray for children.”

The pain hung in her throat like a million unshed tears.

“Does it work?” she asked. “Do they have babies after coming here?”

“That’s what they say, yes. I don’t know.” A small laugh escaped him. “I’m not married. No girl wants to marry me.”

Astounded, Naomi looked up at him, but he shrugged. “No woman wants to be second to my art. I’ve tried it, but it doesn’t work. There always comes a point when they demand more attention, more love, and I can’t give it. My greatest love, my beloved mistress, will always be painting. My wife would have to learn to take second place.” Distracted by Jon coming back, he moved away from her and busied himself with his supplies once more.

“I wish,” Naomi said to Jon when he walked up to her, “I wish I could take that painting away with me, the Annunciation one. I wish I could look at it all the time. It’s so beautiful it makes me want to cry.” Her arms wandered around his waist. “I can feel what she feels, Jon, I can feel the shock, and the revelation and fear, and yes, the joy. He has caught it all, hasn’t he?”

Jon laid his chin on the top of her head and contemplated the picture. “Yes, he has. He’s a wonderful artist. You should see your portrait. Ferro isn’t asking anything for it, says it’s our wedding gift; but I’m going to write him one big, fat check.”

Naomi didn’t reply. There were other ways, she was certain, of thanking Ferro. New York was full of galleries, and no one would send Jon Stone away without at least listening to him. She decided to keep this thought to herself until she had seen the mermaid painting though.

N
aomi didn’t want to leave. She walked through the house and the park, where she took off her sandals to feel the prickly carpet of pine needles under her soles. Their sharp scent was released with every step she took, and as she moved up the hill and farther into the grove it grew quieter around her, the heat of the day cooling, getting mustier. When she looked back she could not see the house anymore, or the ocean and the sky. It was just she and the canopy of trees. No birdsong, no cicadas, nothing. Like a tiny melody, a gentle hum, the memory of her coma dreams crept back. She recalled the mossy forest in which she had found herself, and how she had found peace and healing there, and the gentle, calming presence of that other being.

With a sigh, her heart light, Naomi sank down on the ground, her back to one of the huge boles, and breathed in the aroma.

One more day, one last day of reprieve, and then they would have to return, finish the tour, settle in New York and start work on the musical.

Her dream, they were realizing her dream.

She raked her fingers through her locks, felt their ends curls at the back of her neck, then rubbed her hands over her bare knees. They were brown now, after three weeks under the southern sun, with a white ribbon under her rings. Her arms had taken on a golden tan, and they looked less bony, sleeker.

Tentatively, Naomi pulled up her dress and stretched out her legs.

She had gained weight. It wasn’t a whole lot, but she did not look as thin as a stick anymore; her shape was coming back.

That morning, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, she had inspected the scar—her zipper, as she called it bitterly—and found that it was indeed fading. The angry red was a pale pink, and it was no more than a fine line. Jon and Kevin had seen to that. They had made sure only the best plastic surgeons touched her, and the care afterward had been ever so thorough. For the first time in six months she could look at her body and not feel disgusted or angry at herself for being disfigured, no longer perfect, not beautiful enough for Jon.

Once, only once, had she taken out the replica of the dress she had worn that night at the Oscars, so lovingly made for her by her designer.

Jon had not been at home; no one had been at home when she had gone upstairs and opened the wardrobe where she kept all her evening gowns, all those lovely clothes Jon had bought for her over time. Her heart had beaten hard when she touched the cream satin, ran her fingers over the dainty embroidery, and recalled how she had stood on that stage, the statuette in her hand, her own Oscar. Jon had laughed at her and pressed her sweaty palm.

Naomi remembered so well how she had felt. The applause had hit her like a wave, and she had soaked it in, ridden that wave, felt the ecstasy of success. For a few seconds, no longer than a heartbeat or two, there had been no doubt, no fear, and she had felt whole.