Under the Same Sun (Stone Trilogy) (17 page)

For a moment there was silence. She did not pull away but looked down at their hands, at the watch on his wrist, the time ticking away, running from them.

“But I don’t want to die.” It came out so softly that Jon glanced up. “I don’t want to die, Jon. All I want is to be with you. Only…” She leaned forward to brush her fingers through his hair and gently stroke his temples. “Only, I want to give you everything, because you deserve that, you’re entitled to it, and I can’t. And that makes me so sad.”

“Stupid chick.” Jon, his arms around her hips, buried his face against her breasts. “When will you realize I have everything I want? When will you realize I don’t want anything else, nothing, not a thing, only you? Please?” He felt her hands on his face, a cool, gentle touch, and he looked up. Her eyes were large and dark in her pale face, her mouth the loveliest shape he could imagine. “Don’t you know what a miracle you are? You’re as beautiful as the dawn, and the only writer I want to work with. You’re the one woman I want to make love to all the time, who can turn me around with a simple glance. You are my treasure, my beloved, and I can’t bear to see all this pain and darkness in you.” He felt drained, out of words, overwhelmed by sorrow.

“As beautiful as the dawn?”  Naomi asked thoughtfully.

Jon smiled sadly. “Yes. Dazzling, like a sunrise on a clear day, like light skipping over water. A perfect rose.”

There was a knock on the door. It was Ralph, asking if he could come in. Jon didn’t bother to answer, intent on Naomi, waiting for her response.

“You are so perfect,” she said gently, still caressing his cheeks. “You are the man every woman wants, dreams of; you are my dream. You do everything right, and you always say the right things. I can never wait to be in your arms. I love you beyond words; you are the only one. I want to give you all the happiness and joy life can give, Jon. It’s what I want most, to see you content.”

Her words were like the key to the chain of dread around his heart. “Come here.” He pulled her down to straddle his knees, bodies touching, her arms around him.

“What would you do if I walked out on you, Naomi? If I left you? How would you live then?”

Her lips opened in shock; Jon could feel a shiver running through her.

“Nothing.” It sounded like a dying breeze. “There would be nothing. Life would end. How can you ask?”

“Because…” Those lips were so close, so tantalizing, and Jon wanted to kiss them and stop talking. “Because you keep offering that to me. And now think again and ask yourself how that makes me feel. I don’t want to be without you either.”

At last she softened against him and allowed the kiss.

chapter 15

J
on took the eyeliner from the table, saying she would not get it again and, hey, maybe he wouldn’t even use it himself anymore and to hell with the good looks onstage; he didn’t care one way or the other anyway.

“Then give it to me,” Naomi said, and held out her hand; but he shook his head and tossed it into the trash.

“No. You’ll get stupid ideas again, and I’m done with these scenes. Go buy your own.”

Ralph had wrapped a towel around Jon’s neck to get him ready, while Naomi sat on the table and Sal lounged in the doorway, smoking a cigarette and telling them how things  looked outside.

“I don’t get it,” Naomi interrupted his stream. “Why do you have to wear makeup onstage. I understand why it has to be done for the camera, but for the stage? I’ve always wondered.”

They all stared at her, distracted from their tasks, until Ralph told her how the spotlights made everyone pale and how the distance blurred features, making it necessary to enhance a face, even a male one. She shrugged. It looked fake, even unreal.

Jon grinned at her from his chair, his teeth white and shiny against the powdered skin. “Even the girls in the last row want me to look good for them, sweetheart. It’s not for you. It’s for my other lovers.”

She had used his dressing room to change into an elegant dress and matching high heels, both in an understated cream, explaining that she would not sit beside the stage dressed like a teenager. She had worn that outfit just for him and his sentimental memories. But she would not present herself to old friends and the Geneva audience as if he could not afford to take her shopping.

“Those discussions have to stop,” he had told her, watching her pin up her hair and put on lipstick. “I’m completely worn-out, as drained as a dishrag, and I have to go on and perform in an hour. Can’t you please stop wanting to leave or die or anything like that? Can’t we just live day by day, enjoy what we have, and love each other?”

She had promised she would try, but it had sounded brittle, half-hearted, and he hadn’t pushed any further.

“Your other lovers,” Naomi now repeated softly, “yes. But they don’t know you the way I do. They don’t know the sloppy weekend you.”

Strangely, with these words Jon felt a yearning rise in him, pulling, nearly hurting, for the quiet of the Malibu garden and the clutter of his studio, the sun on the dark wood of their bedroom floor, and even the coffee maker in the kitchen. Never before on one of his tours had he felt anything like homesickness, but here it was: he wanted to be back there, and right now. He wanted to wander through the cedar grove, through the gate in the fence out onto the beach, wanted to sleep in his own bed with the sound of the Pacific in his ears and breathe in the jasmine scent from the bushes below the window. They had been traveling  for three weeks, had given only a handful of concerts, and yet he was tired of it.

From somewhere down below his heart, from a spot right at its tip, Jon could sense a familiar tugging. He knew it only too well. Once, in a drunken, maudlin moment, he had told Art about it. It was, he had said, as if a tiny hand reached into his body, an unseen and very strong hand from another dimension; and it was there to pull all the melodies out of him, right out of his heartstrings, blood and everything attached. The only strange thing about it was that it did not hurt, and it did not make him weaker. Rather it was as if, by taking them from him, it had lightened his soul. Yes, by ripping the music from him, the same hand poured light into his soul. And Art had stared at him over the rim of his glass and asked if he had eaten some magic mushrooms; he had never before sounded so delusional.

T
here was movement by the door, Sal turning to look down the hallway over his shoulder; and Art appearing behind him. Jon stood with his hands pushed into his jeans pockets, and looked at Naomi.

Ralph removed the towel from Jon’s neck and began brushing Jon’s hair.

“There are some people to see you,” Art said to Naomi. “They’re waiting in the arena.”

With a sigh, Naomi left her seat on the table. “To see me? Not Jon? No one wants to see me.”

When there was no immediate reply, Jon swiveled in his chair expectantly, and Art shrugged. “Yeah, kill the messenger. Your parents are here, Naomi. They asked to see you.”

She took a small step back, bumping into Jon’s chair, her hand coming out to find some support; and he grabbed it and held it tightly.

“But they weren’t here,” Naomi said, her voice shaking. “They aren’t here. They don’t live here anymore. How can they be here now?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Art threw his hands up. “They are out there, and they are asking for you. Guess they must have bought tickets. Do you want me to bring them in now or what?”

“Baby, your parents know quite well how to use a plane,” Jon murmured. “What do you want to do? You wanted to see them, remember? Now they are here.” He did not look at her. The old anger at Olaf boiled in his gut, spiced by new fury at their surprise visit now. Silently he cursed at Art, wishing he had told him in private first so there would have been a chance to send them away or, even better, have them taken out of the venue altogether. But now, like this, he could do nothing. It was her decision. “You want them here, backstage, with us? Or do you want to go out and say hello and come right back? Or give Art a note to tell them to meet us later, at the hotel? You know I won’t let you go anywhere alone with them. I’m way too afraid your father would abduct you and I’d never see you again.”

She had paled visibly, so much that the light cream of her dress looked nearly tan against her skin. Jon loved this narrow cut on her, loved how it followed the shape of her body like a sheath of silk. It was graceful and elegant, and it made him  proud of her beauty.

“You have to come.” Her fingers clasped his tightly.

“Baby…” Jon began, but stopped when he saw her expression. There was no way he could go with her, and she knew it. Half an hour before the show, and the arena would be packed with people, the audience waiting for the concert to begin. He couldn’t show his face. “Well, bring them in. I’ll meet you in hospitality.”

This was just what he needed after their murderous discussion, another problem. “And if you don’t want to face them out there at the entrance with Art and Sal, stay here with me and we’ll meet them together.” He did not add that he thought it was a masterful provocation, and actually very well timed.

“I’ll go with you,” Sal said, and she looked up at him. “Come on, Naomi, they are your parents. Jon, you get ready. It’s time to welcome the mayor. Art will do the press meeting with you. I’ll take care of this.”

It was so unusual for Sal to give orders to Jon that everything stopped for a moment. Everyone’s attention turned to Jon, waiting for his reaction.

“Yes.” Jon’s verdict came slowly, thoughtfully. “Yes, that’s how we will handle this. Sal, you and LaGasse, not one yard away from Naomi.”

Sal snorted and stepped from the door to make room for her.

H
e followed her along the hallway toward the arena. She seemed so small, so fragile, her shoulders narrow like a child’s, her neck a slender stem, too frail to carry the heavy coil of hair. Sal wondered how her injury looked now, nearly half a year later, how much it disfigured her, or hurt. In the dress she was wearing she looked like a model, a rather short one but still a model, she was that thin.

“Do I look okay?”

Her question made him stop walking. “Yes. Yes. You look beautiful, stunning.” He could have slapped himself, seeing her blush and bite her lip.

“I mean,” he added, “you look the way you’re supposed to look, as Jon Stone’s wife.” For good measure, he threw in a shrug. “It’s part of the job. I remember you saying much the same thing before the Grammys.”

She gazed at him from those big, dark eyes that always reminded him of shadowy forest ponds, her mouth that soft, curved invitation he adored, her hands folded, waiting.

“You said you would take care to look your best, if only for his sake.” Again Sal shrugged. “And you did. You do.” Tentatively, he reached out to touch her arm. “They are your parents, Naomi. They love you. No matter what you did, no matter how much you disappoint them, they still love you. They are here, aren’t they?”

“I know.”

He could feel the shiver that ran through her.

“But my father, he hates Jon, he hates what Jon is; and Jon, he can get so furious and…” Her voice sounded quite unsteady.

“Yeah.” He did not need to look at his watch to know time was running. Over the years Sal had developed a very fine instinct for the flow of the last minutes before the show. Right now, in this very moment, Jon would be entering the dressing room of the band for a last word with them, a short pep talk, maybe a joke or two, and then everyone but him would take their places on the stage.

“We have to hurry,” Naomi said into his thoughts. “It’s almost time, and I want to be there for Jon.”

A few more steps and they had reached the curtain that led out into the open.

Jon didn’t want the audience to see even a little bit of what went on backstage, not even the band’s or his approach, ever since they had started out, saying that it was no one’s business how they hitched up their pants at the last moment or fiddled with their in-ear monitors. He wanted the glamour to be perfect. For the open air venues where there were no doors they brought along stage curtains to insure that privacy.

A burly security man held the heavy cloth to open a path for them.

Stepping out into the warm night air, Sal breathed in the scent of pine trees and freshly trodden grass. He loved this. He loved these moments best before a show; they were the culmination of everything he worked for, these seconds of excitement, of joy, when the air vibrated with the expectation of Jon’s music. So far, the stage looked serene, empty, waiting for the band. He noted that everything was in place: the guitars polished and in the right order, the little dish with the picks next to them, a towel, a glass of water. The microphone stand at just the right angle, just the right height; the lighting dimmed a dark blue, very male, very cool. They were good to go.

At the point where the public area began, just in front of the stage where the security stood in a loose line, her parents were waiting.

Sal fell a step behind, surprised. These were not the same people he had last seen in that hospital hallway where Jon had faced down Naomi’s father after that harsh, bitter fight, but an elderly couple, their faces anxious, their eyes searching for their daughter. They seemed lost against the huge backdrop of the arena, the thousands of people waiting for Jon.

Naomi, her shoulders straight and stiff, walked right up to them, the guards making way for her like a forest parting for a ray of sunlight, one of them even smiling at her with a friendly nod. She was not, Sal noted, wearing her backstage pass and yet they deferred to her, knowing who she was. He felt an insane and totally improper pride seeing her like that, and hastened to shake it off and rush to her side.

“Come with me,” she said to her parents instead of a greeting, “I need to hurry.” And turned away again, back to where Jon was.

J
on saw them approaching from where he stood. He had told Sean to wait for his signal, not to begin before he told him to and to hell with starting on time.