Jon shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other and made his way to an information desk where a blond girl smiled a greeting at him.
“I need to go to Norway,” he said. “As soon as possible.”
She began busily typing into her computer as he spelled out the name of the town.
“It is not on a regular flight route. It’s a very small place.”
“Yeah.” He had understood that from the boy’s letter alright.
“You could fly via Oslo to Bergen, and then change again.”
It was a doubtful suggestion made even worse by the addition, “But there are no direct flights to Oslo from here. You’ll have a layover in London—or maybe New York—I’ll look, wait a moment.” She eyed him speculatively. “Of course, you could always charter a jet.”
Pushing a box of flyers out of the way, she turned the screen so he could see it and pointed with a well-varnished fingernail.
“Here it is, Halmar, out in the middle of nowhere, and one of the stops for Hurtigruten post ships. It does have one rather nice hotel, it says. Right on the water, too.”
“The name of the place?” Jon asked, but he knew.
“It’s the Seaside.”
Of course it was, but seeing it on that computer screen somehow made it real for the first time.
“Get me a jet,” he said.
He had two hours to kill while the plane was made ready, and he spent them sitting at a bar in the terminal drinking coffee and observing the other passengers. He felt an odd sense of displacement, as if he had somehow stepped out of his life with this mindless and hasty action. The fact that he was out here on his own without being accosted in any way made him feel as if he had become anonymous or invisible the moment he had hailed a cab instead of his limo.
A hotel, she was running a hotel. The sweet young girl he had picked up in Geneva all those years ago, the same one who had given up her life there on the spur of the moment to be his love and write lyrics for him. She was a businesswoman now.
He wondered if she had stopped writing when she had left him, or if there were songs there, somewhere, just waiting to be sung to the world. From his pocket, he retrieved the crumpled letter from the boy, Joshua, his son, to glean more information from it, but there was nothing.
Not a word about a family, a husband to his mother, siblings.
God, but he hated that thought. Hated that he might step into that place only to be confronted by some blond, giant Norseman who would just turn him around and run him out again. He could hear the mocking laughter even now.
Even worse would be Naomi, standing by, watching silently, letting it happen without a single word to him, and never an explanation, which he needed so badly it felt like a big burning scar down his back.
On the plane, taxiing toward the runway, his anxiety grew into a full -blown panic, and he was on the point of telling the pilot to return to the hangar, but it was too late. The fast little machine was up in the air and pulling away toward the East before he had made up his mind, so he settled down into the deep leather seat and stared out the window at the landscape passing by below as memories roiled in his head.
Sal had been exasperated with him. After his move from Malibu into the much smaller place further north, they had sat together on the deck, sharing a bottle of single-malt. Sal, his feet up on the barbecue, had demanded: “So tell me all about it. It’s time you talked. “
Jon had thought for a long time. The sun set into the ocean, it grew dark, a warm wind blew over the water, and music drifted over from some campfire down on the sand. “I was waiting in the hotel lobby when she walked in. I knew it was her right away. “
Sal had raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Yeah, I know. You don’t believe in that kind of thing. But it truly happened like that. She was wearing jeans and a white sleeveless top. Her hair was in a braid that hung nearly to her thighs. She had sunglasses pushed up on her brow, no makeup, flat sandals on naked feet.”
“You are disgusting.”
“Do you want to hear or not? She stopped by the hotel door and looked at me across the lobby, directly at me. There was no searching or uncertainty, she just stood, very still and contained, and looked at me. As if there were no other people in the whole wide world. Everything seemed to center on that look. I got up to meet her as she walked toward me, and I had the feeling that I should open my arms and let her walk right into them. It was that easy.”
“And did you?”
“No. I didn’t. But it really took some effort. It wasn’t like falling in love at all. It was something altogether different and much more powerful. It felt…” He had searched for words. “It felt as if all the wishing and the longing of all the love songs I had ever written were being drawn together in that moment and poured out. I wanted to hold her in my arms and never let her go again. That’s how it felt.” He had poured some more whiskey. “I couldn’t talk. My skin was running hot and cold, my stomach was in knots. I think we stood for a while just gazing at each other. It seemed like a very long time. Then you came. There isn’t anything else I can tell you. You ordered coffee, we moved out to the hotel terrace and sat in the sun. It was a lovely afternoon, with sailboats on the lake, waiters serving ice cream and cake and chocolate, and I just sat and stared. I don’t know what I had expected, but it certainly wasn’t for me to go to pieces.”
When they landed at last in Bergen, he stopped on the steps of the plane as an icy blast hit him. The small seaplane was waiting for him only a few steps away, but by the time he reached it, he was as cold as he had ever been in his life, and his shoes were soaked.
“The flight will be a little rough,” the pilot informed him, “I’ll take you along the coast so you can see something of the landscape, alright?”
Jon was not quite sure he liked his jaunty approach to the miserable weather. Fear was weakening the drive that had pushed him this far around the globe, fear that he was doing something incredibly stupid and that the outcome would be too much to bear. And here, now, coasting along the shoreline of this rugged country, past soaring snow-covered mountains and over water that was dark grey and capped by white breakers, the Atlantic storm buffeting the Cessna, this fear poured over him like icy slush.
He regretted not having brought Sal, at last seeing the sense in his admonition to take someone with him who would keep a clear head.
The wing of the plane dipped as they passed through a gap in the high hills, past a couple of small islands, and into the bay with the village at its end.
“There.” The pilot pointed, but Jon had seen it already.
There was a yellow wooden building with a red gabled roof and white trim right on the water, and behind it, rising into the gentle swell of a forested hillside, the little town itself. A white church with steeples sat nestled among greenery above the houses, looking down on the pier. To the right, just beside the hotel, a small inlet separated the town from a fishing wharf, just big enough to hold five trawlers and a sort of depot.
The landing was not as bad as he had expected.
Using a cigarette as an excuse, Jon lingered in the cold. Here he was, on her doorstep, and now, after many hours of travel, his courage failed him.
The entrance to the hotel lay right on the corner of the pier, the small square of red tiles separated from the water by a wooden railing and a low wall following the curve of the bay to the dock where a couple of yachts rested. From where he stood he could see along the deck at the side of the hotel. There were some folded deck chairs, forgotten now in deep winter, but a reminder that even here there would be days to sit outside and enjoy a semblance of warmth.
The sun had come out, and the wind was not as rough, broken by the surrounding hills, but the temperature was just as vicious, just as bitter. It was so very quiet. A bell was ringing somewhere, a single car passed by, two men strolled along the cobbled street along the pier with the collars of their thick woolen jackets turned up, a flock of seagulls swirled over th
e choppy water, but that was all. The air was so tart, it stung his nostrils, the light so clear it made him squint. At long last he tossed away the butt.
Seventeen years had changed him from the young man who had just made his first big step toward stardom into the music icon he was now. Yet here he was, just as pathetic as he’d been then, pleading for love from the same woman.
She was still laughing in the elevator.
“Honestly,” Christi said in a huff, “if he were the last man on Earth, I still wouldn’t go out with him again. A couple of sandwiches made by his mom? That’s not a date, Naomi. That’s pathetic.”
“You might have come here with him. That would have been nice, a date with all of us looking on.” Naomi took the tray from her. “I’ll take these to the kitchen. You go on up to the rooms.”
She stepped out into the lobby, balancing her load through the opening doors, thinking idly how nice these new plates would look with the pale green tablecloths and the table decorations when she noticed the man standing at the desk with Solveigh. He looked a lot like Jon.
In fact, he looked so much like Jon that she just stood, staring, lost in reverie, the old pain a dull throb somewhere below her throat and above her heart where it pinched her breathing. He wore jeans and a leather jacket, his figure tall and well built, his hair a little longer than was fashionable, curled over his collar. For a moment, she allowed herself to linger in that recurring dream of seeing him there, having found his way to her for some unaccountable reason.
Solveigh spoke to him, a sunny smile on her face, and he replied.
That voice she would have known it anywhere, even in the noisiest crowd.
The tray dropped from her fingers and crashed to the floor with an impressive sound, plates shattering, some rolling away to settle down with a melodic ring, some trundling on until they hit the wall.
They turned toward her simultaneously, Jon and Solveigh, to where she stood amid a pile of shards, still as a statue, caught in her moment of shock.
He was by himself. His jacket was too thin for the weather, his shoes, elegant loafers, were wet, as were his jeans, and his hair was wind-blown, and he was still the most beautiful man on Earth.
Jon was moving toward her, an expression on his face she could not rightly interpret—not anger but fear, expectation, and maybe even something like hope, but she could not be sure.
“Get me the key to the private guest room.” Naomi said softly to Solveigh, who glared at her.
“I’ll take care of our guest myself.” Naomi gestured at Jon.
Without a word, she took the key when Solveigh held it out to her and turned to walk down the stairs at the end of the hallway.
Jon followed, with a nod and a brief grin at Solveigh.
So hard. This was so hard.
How lovely she was, moving before him in the dim light of the corridor, her thick, black braid swinging down her back as it used to, its end well below her waist. She had filled out a little, but her figure was still slim and lithe, her face unchanged.
Naomi unlocked a door to her right. “This is our private guest room. It used to be my son’s. Not as luxurious as you are probably used to.”
The view was spectacular.
The glass front led out to the deck, and it offered a view of the entire bay and the rising hills on the other side, all the way to the towering mountains in the distance.
“You didn’t bring a lot of luggage.”
He could not find the courage to look into her eyes now that they were alone, nor think of the words to say to her. There was a big, hidden question in her short statement, and he knew he had to come up with the right answer or lose this moment.
“I didn’t take much time to pack.”
The room was simple enough, in a typically Scandinavian manner: a single bed with a blue and red patchwork quilt, a wardrobe, a desk by the window, a chair, on the wooden floor a circular woven rug, a painting of a beach on the wall. A second door led into a frugal bathroom. It was very peaceful, serene in its simplicity, cozy despite its bareness.
Naomi returned to the hallway where there was one more door and opened it for him.
Slowly Jon moved through the large space.
There was a kitchen niche toward the back and stairs that led to a sleeping loft to his right. In the center of the room, God help him, stood a Steinway Baby Grand. A couch, deep and comfortable, was turned to take advantage of another view of the bay. A dining table was pushed against the wall, and over it a huge framed photograph of them together.
He stood staring at it for minutes, recalling the day when it had been taken.
They had been in the garden of the Malibu house, in the arbor with the stone bench and the huge jasmine bushes, to shoot the pictures for the new album. It had been hot and humid, and he had been at the end of his rope, about ready to give up, because life as a rock star was not at all what he had expected. Sal had been upset, demanding he shape up and look his best for the camera, no one wanted to see a sulky bastard on an album cover. The makeup artist kept patting and fussing at his face and touching up his hair, making him want to swat her like an irritating fly.
And just then, right at the moment when he had been about to jump from that bench and tell them all to go to hell and take the whole music business with them and be done with it, Naomi had come up the path among the trees smiling, a cold glass of lemonade in her hand, her hair fluttering around her. She sat with him for a while and talked about small things, like the seashell she’d found on the beach that morning, about that piece of driftwood that looked just like a seal, and would he go for a walk with her later, she was still hoping to find a piece of amber.
He remembered laughing at her then, saying, “Dear love, how often do I have to tell you? There’s no amber to be found here,” and how she had shrugged in reply and insisted, “There are conifers in Oregon and Washington, so why shouldn’t there be amber on the beach in California? It has to end up somewhere!”
He had loved this about her so much, her faith in possibilities and the refusal to give in to common sense when it did not fit her expectations.
On the shelves, all of his records, and more framed pictures from moments he recalled only too well: Sean and Naomi sharing cotton candy; Jon slumped on a stool on stage during a sound check, and Naomi, her fists on her hips, while he grinned sheepishly at her anger, a cigarette between his lips, Sean, Russ and Sal in the background watching them in amusement. Another one where he was on the beach, his jeans rolled up, bending over to retrieve something for her from the surf. The two of them together, caught by someone’s camera in a moment of intimacy where she was in his arms, their lips nearly touching, her eyes looking deeply into his, seeing only each other and shutting out the world around them.
There were more pictures, of a boy.
A baby, a toddler, a gritty urchin of maybe five, a boy in a school uniform. A tall, strapping adolescent in a suit beside a piano, on a stage, bowing to an audience, and if there had ever been a moment’s doubt concerning his fatherhood it was blown away, seeing Joshua there.
It was like looking into a mirror of his own youth. He had the same dark eyes and smoldering stare, the same mouth and chin, the unruly black hair. Even the stance seemed to echo his own.
“These pictures,” Naomi said, waving at the wall and the shelves, “I put them up recently. After…” she hesitated. “Since I live alone now.”
In the corner of the room, where the glass walls met, a desk faced out so she could look at the landscape while she worked.
Jon threw her a questioning glance, but Naomi did not react. She stood, her hands folded behind her back and her head lowered, against the wall, still, withdrawn, and silent.
He looked down at her work, and it nearly broke his heart.
There were pages upon pages covered with poems and lyrics, some of them long, completed song texts, others only one or two verses, and some nearly blank, with only a short phrase or a single word. He saw years
of writing, and at least a hundred songs that should have been taken out into the world. “You don’t hate me?” It came out more as a statement than a question.
“I don’t hate you.” There was surprise in her voice. “I never did.”
After a pause, she asked, “How did you get here?”
And this was the second big question, its true meaning hidden so well beneath the mundane inquiry.
“I chartered a jet,” he replied, which made her nod thoughtfully.
She was wearing a kind of severe traditional dress in black, the bodice tightly laced across her chest, the skirt falling in heavy pleats, with a white lace blouse under it and woolen stockings in flat shoes. It made her look prim and pale, very young and vulnerable.
Create clarity, Sal would advise him, first of all, create clarity. Don’t muddle things.
“Is there anyone in your life? Should I leave?”
Naomi looked up at him. “You haven’t even taken off your jacket. Your shoes are soaked.”
“Well.” His soul soared; there was no other way to put it. “I was in a hurry. I wanted to get to you as fast as I could.”
Jon crossed the room to her, certain now of what he had to do, the leaden anxiety falling off him finally after weighing on his shoulders for so many hours.
The feeling was the same as in Geneva, the magic had not gone away. She was in his arms again at long last, the kiss a sweet, tentative touch of lips that made him nearly reel with desire and move closer to her. For an endless, wonderful instant, her hands clamped tightly onto his jacket and her mouth opened under his, but then Naomi pushed him back gently.
“Not like this, Jon. I need to understand why you’re here first.”
“This must be a dream. In a moment, I’ll wake up to Sal hammering on the door, yelling that I’ve overslept and missed some appointment or other, and I’ll discover I’m really holding a cushion instead of you, only the cushion would not kiss me back like that, right?”
Instead of answering, Naomi touched his cheeks in a feathery caress, but then she stepped away from him and into the kitchen, where she began making coffee. Her fingers shook as she measured out the grounds.
The Distant Shore (Stone Trilogy) Page 2