Under the Same Sun (Stone Trilogy)

by Mariam Kobras

  There 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.

  He 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.

  Jon 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.

  “Darling,” he greeted her, ignoring her parents. She looked so formidable, cool and coll
ected, 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

  She 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.”