Under the Same Sun (Stone Trilogy) (32 page)

“Something weird happens when you have success.” Pushing away from the table, Jon lit a cigarette. Helen clucked at him, but he ignored it and gave her a guilty smirk in return. “The world shifts. The moment you announce that you’ve made it, signed your first deal, the world shifts. There is no other way to put it.” He got up and began to pace, his head lowered, as if he was trying to gather his thoughts before he could speak. “I’ve often thought about this. I’ve tried to write songs about it, but there were never the right words; it always sounded like whining.” He took another drag on his cigarette. “Which, well, it is.”

“What do you mean, ‘the world shifts’? Are you off on one of your songwriter tangents, Jon? You know I never get that stuff.” There were some Italian sausages on the grill, and Kevin went to get them. Their aroma reminded Naomi of Positano, of the parties on the terrace and the sweetness of the nights there, compared to the oppressiveness of Brooklyn. She needed, she decided, lots of flowers for the garden of their new house, lots of Mediterranean flowers in terra-cotta pots.

“As long as you’re a nobody, struggling, hoping, your old friends will stick to you. But then, once you have some success…I don’t know.” Impatiently, Jon tossed  the cigarette into the ashtray Helen had brought out for him. “It’s almost as if your old friends think you don’t need or want them anymore once you are a success and get a slice of that fame so many are after. There’s all this talk of people leaving everything behind once they get famous and all that; but believe me, it works the other way around too. It’s like…” His hands shaped his thoughts in the air. “It’s like walking on a path, and when you take that certain turn in the road, some people won’t go on with you. And I don’t know why. I don’t think I’ve changed that much.” He shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, of course I’ve changed; I’m not a kid anymore, but I’m not a totally different person either.” More animated, he sat down again, pierced one of the sausages, and took a bite. “Do you remember Declan from high school? The guy I used to hang out with all the time; the one who would cheer me on like no one else? We would go to the football games, and he’d come downtown whenever I had a gig.”

Kevin nodded.

“Well, a couple of months after I signed my first record deal, he told me he didn’t want to hang with me anymore because all I did was talk about the studio and the recordings and stuff. He said it in a very friendly and regretful way; but he did say it, and it hurt. I couldn’t understand why my breakthrough would change anything. Why being a successful artist would turn me into someone else in my friends’ eyes. I don’t know. Declan was the worst though. We had been so close, real buddies. We had a great time. And then he dropped me just like that.” His hand hovered over the plate with the meat, and he picked out a kebab skewer. “It felt like being punished. It felt like being punished for being successful. And yeah…” The pieces of pork dropped onto his plate when he pushed them off the metal, right into the ketchup. “I’ve been careful with people outside the biz ever since. I’m not going to waste my time on useless friendships. They don’t understand anyway. They don’t understand the way we live. They think it’s all song and dance and glitzy parties. The work part, the loneliness, the many silent hours spent working on the songs—that they don’t see. The drive to be creative, to shape something new—they can’t understand that. They only see the stage, the opening nights, the tuxedoes and evening gowns.”

Jon stopped talking to pop a tomato into his mouth and wash it down with a good swallow of beer.

“What did Ferro say?” Naomi asked. Everyone was looking at Jon, Helen with a trace of sadness in her face, Kevin in puzzlement, and Sarah with disbelief.

“Ferro?” The bottle empty, Jon placed it on the ground beside his chair. “He said much the same thing. How friendship and love turned into admiration, and admiration into distance. How the expectation that you would move away into stardom made people pull back when you yourself don’t mean to distance yourself. And how he stood by and watched in amazement how that happened to him after his first exhibition in Rome. That instead of cementing old friendships, it killed them.”

Naomi recalled her own chat with Ferro, when he had told her how hard it was to fit both his art and love into one life, and she lowered her head to gaze at her wedding ring and the diamond Jon had given her that day in London when he had asked her to marry him.

“So yeah, I don’t have friends outside the music business.” A small, bitter laugh escaped Jon. “Hell, I don’t have a lot of friends at all, for that matter. Well, I do, but not buddy friends. Not friends who’d laze on  the couch with me on a Saturday afternoon, order in pizza, and watch football.”

“Ferro said he had no place for a woman in his life.” Naomi’s words made him shift so he could see her better.

“No wonder. He hides in that studio under the roof or that church of his all day long.” Jon laughed. “I wonder if he can even look at a woman without seeing a potential model in her.”

She smiled at him. “You’re not like that. You have enough space for a wife.”

“Yes.” He took her hand in his. “But I don’t think I’d be married if it wasn’t for you. I don’t think I could tolerate anyone else in my life day in day out. I need a woman who would buy a Steinway grand for me before buying a coffeemaker for herself.”

“But Jon—” Naomi leaned toward him, ignoring the rest of the family— “you would buy a coffeemaker for me before getting a piano for yourself.”

“Yes. Yes. I would. I’d buy you the best espresso machine in the world.”

He bent forward to plant his lips lightly on hers until Helen said, “We get it. You may stop, Jon, please. Why don’t you go and get us some wine from the fridge instead, please. There’s a good boy.”

“See?” Jon sighed, rising. “At least here I’m still my old, normal self. Mom always has errands for me to run.”

chapter 30

J
oshua dropped by the next afternoon, just like any high school kid coming home and expecting lunch.

They were sitting in the studio: Naomi in the window seat, laptop on her knees, gazing out at the skyline, lost in thought, and Jon trying the new Steinway, the chords and melodies like the tinkle of rain.

They had spent  the entire morning with the interior designer discussing furniture and decorations, carpeting and kitchen appliances. Jon had stood by and listened to Naomi swiftly and easily telling the man what she wanted, and when, and watched with some amusement how he had started to sweat at her demands. She had it all laid out, every detail, the hue of every cushion, the shape of every cup; and she had not forgotten the yard.

“Bougainvillea,” she had said. “Jasmine, roses. This garden should be overflowing with flowers and green. I want a gardener, and permanently. Get someone today to clean up the terrace, please. Oh, and send over a bricklayer so we can use the barbecue.”

Jon had called his housekeeper in LA and asked her to come over and help them get settled. Amparo would be arriving later in the week and until then they would have to get along by themselves.

He relished the idea. He liked the thought of being alone, of getting to make breakfast for Naomi, cooking her the omelet with mushrooms she liked so much and serving it to her across the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining room while she sat there in her bathrobe and asked for coffee, like he had done earlier today.

Just when he was about to suggest dinner downtown to her, the bell rang.

Surprised, Naomi looked up. “I’ll go,” she said, but Jon was already up. “No. Stay where you are.”

No one could ring their doorbell without being checked by security first, but he still hated the idea of her opening doors to strangers, to danger.

He hadn’t seen Joshua in two months, not before Naomi had left LA; and now Jon blinked in surprise.

Facing him was not the slightly straggly, long-haired teenager he had last seen racing along the beach with his friends, surfboard under his arm; this was a young adult in very tidy clothes and with an immaculate haircut.

“What happened to you?” Jon asked. “Are you working on Wall Street now?” He could hardly believe the shirt and trousers, the polished shoes and gold cuff links.

“Seriously, Dad,” Joshua replied, and walked past him into the studio, where he gave Naomi’s cheek a peck and sat down beside her. “Sorry about last night. I had an important dinner with Grandfather and some friends of his. Ethan was there too.”

“Ethan?” Jon felt stupid.

“Yes, Ethan. My cousin.” Joshua ran his fingers through his short hair, an echo of his father in the movement. “Grandfather invited us to meet some people, and we really had fun.”

“What people?” Naomi closed her laptop.

“Oh, just friends. Some guys from Harvard, a couple of people from Toronto. My uncle Carl was there too. I’ve been seeing a lot of them recently, and it’s really great. We should have gone to Toronto more often, Mom. I wish I knew more of my family there.” He grinned at her. “They are quite nice, and I love talking to Grandpa. He is really brilliant, and funny too. And Grandmother loves it here in New York, did you know? She’s on a shopping frenzy, took me out to buy new clothes and stuff.”

“So I see.” Naomi’s words dropped into the sudden stillness like icicles.

Joshua threw her a questioning glance but went on. “Okay, so I have something to tell you, and I thought I’d rather do it right away. I’m dropping out of Julliard.”

For a moment Jon thought Naomi was going to faint, and he took a step toward her, afraid she would fall off the seat. Her face had turned deathly pale; he could see her struggling for breath and holding on to the windowsill in an attempt to keep her composure.

“What?” Jon asked softly. “What did you say, Joshua?” He sank down on the piano stool.

“I said,” Joshua repeated impatiently, “I’m leaving Juilliard. I want to go to Harvard with Ethan. We want to go to business school and then go work with Grandfather in the hotel business.” He picked up the briefcase he’d been carrying and put it down on the floor to bring out a stack of documents. “Here’s the application stuff. I’ve been working on this with Grandfather; all I need is for you to sign. I want to start this fall. The Harvard people said I could. I think Grandfather knows them really well; they were quite pleased about the whole thing.”

Naomi got up and walked out of the room. Jon could hear her steps on the stairs and the bedroom door shutting, and then he was alone with his son. He folded his hands on his knees, wondering what to say, wondering how to handle this, somewhere deep inside amused by the fact that he had to play father when he hadn’t the faintest idea how to do it.

“You are so talented, Joshua,” he said carefully, “I’d like you to reconsider before you throw it away. You could become a great composer, a writer of wonderful music. It would be an incredible shame to waste all that.”

Joshua sighed. “I’m not throwing anything away, Dad. My talent is my own, and I won’t have to turn it in once I walk through the gates of Harvard. But there’s more to life than just music.” He flicked his wrist at the Steinway. “I know you are nailed to that thing the way Mom is nailed to her desk; you barely even look up from what you’re creating. You, both of you, you hardly see anything but your work and each other, and that’s okay, because it’s nice to watch my parents being so much in love. But I want more. I don’t want to be your shadow, and what you expect me to be.” His black eyes sparkled. “Hey, did you know I can pick any hotel in the world for an internship? I mean, any of the family hotels? I could travel all over the world!”

To Jon it felt as if little pieces of his heart were breaking off. “You could do that with us, Josh. You could have been in Italy with us the last few weeks, but you opted to return to LA for some surfing with your friends. You could have gone on tour with me, but you decided to stay at school because it was so important to you not to miss a class. And now you want to quit?”

“I’m not quitting.” For a moment, for an instant, Joshua looked like a small boy, his lip pushed out obstinately. “I just want to do something else.” He jumped up and began to pace the room, his hands pushed into the pockets of the fine trousers. “With Mom, for as long as I can think, it was music, music, music. Every day I had to practice, play the piano, play the guitar, learn theory; and she is one relentless teacher, I can tell you. Kind and nice, but totally relentless. Disappointing her was not an option. With Mom, you really strive to please her or else.” His gaze wandered out to the hallway and the stairs. “She is the grand master of friendly oppression.”

“She sets high standards,” Jon conceded, trying to suppress a grin.

“Dad.” Joshua leaned on the lid of the grand in much the same way Naomi used to do. “I really want to do this. It’s something that feels like my own choice. Please? What’s the harm in going to business school? What’s wrong with getting a Harvard degree? I mean, I don’t
have
to work with Grandfather if I decide not to afterward, but why can’t I at least try? The music won’t go away, and I promise to take a piano with me and keep practicing. But, please? Please, can I do this? Can I go to Harvard with Ethan?”

“Yes.” It was as easy as that in the end. There was no reason in the world not to agree. “Give me the papers, Josh. I agree; you should go to Harvard. In fact, I’m rather pleased with your decision. It’s a good thing. Yes, you should go. I’m pleased.”

“Mom won’t be.”

Jon took the papers from him. The Harvard logo made him feel proud and, unaccountably, a little sad. “You won’t be too far away. We can see you in Boston whenever we feel like it.” With a flourish, he put his name on the dotted line. “Boston is pretty. You’ll like it there, but Joshua,” he handed the documents over, “Kurt is going with you. You’re not going without a guard. Is that clear?”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Joshua pulled up his shoulders in another imitation of Naomi. “Sometimes it’s no fun being your son, I can tell you. I’m never free. I’m always your son, and Mom’s. And both are difficult, for different reasons.” He reached for the music sheets on top of the Steinway and turned them around so he could look at what Jon had scrawled on them. “You don’t really believe in staff lines, do you, Dad? Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to write music?”

“Actually, no.” Enviously Jon watched how Joshua, with a few deft strokes of the pencil, put order in his wild scribblings. “I didn’t have anyone to support whatever talent I had, and no one to push me into practicing as a child. I had to learn everything myself when I was your age, and it was infinitely harder. You see, I never wanted to do anything else, never wanted to be anything but a songwriter. I remember coming home from school, doing my homework and my chores and then settling down to try and write music, practice the guitar; and I hated it when it got too late and I had to stop for the day.”