Heaven Beside You (32 page)

He surveyed the look in the mirror. A couple of years ago, say, pre-Stella, he’d have been overjoyed by the thought of tormenting his sister with junky clothes. Today, it felt like an empty gesture in an empty house. This room, done in cool white with its king-size bed and gauzy white curtains, always made him feel like an unwelcome speck of dirt. He should have it redone. Connie might be up to the job, around her regular work doing wardrobe for television. Or Candy would know somebody.

The writing sessions were going very well. The other guys had been working on stuff independently. Thanks to the hillbilly songs he’d remembered snatches of, he could fake some contribution. His main contribution had been the title
Crocodile Tears
that Marc had run with.

Settled in the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal, he decided he hated the color of the kitchen too. Claiming the color was good for appetite, Stella had picked out some screwed up shade of green that didn’t exist in nature and shouldn’t anyplace else. Though it was great for ruining appetite, he hadn’t bothered to argue with her. It needed redone as well. So did the living room. From his seat at the table he could see his black leather couch. He had some thoughts on what he wanted for the living room. Hardwood with light finish. Burgundy drapes and furniture. Maybe a fake fireplace.

He flipped open the half-memorized dossier on Cass that Tessa dropped off the morning after he got home. She’d rattled him out of bed at ten thirty and handed it over amid disparaging comments about his appearance and work ethic punctuated by some Spanish she’d learned to make it look like she had street cred, but which impressed him not at all. The dossier didn’t tell him anything he didn’t know, but added some color and it was all he had. There was a picture from her driver’s license and a summary of her old tax returns. Tessa had included the paperwork from her divorce and a copy of Michael’s acting portfolio. Jason didn’t ask how she’d gotten the portfolio. Tessa had probably called his agent for it and now the little creep thought someone in Hollywood wanted him.

Jason hoped so. He wanted to think the bastard was twisting in the wind, especially after the summary of Michael’s attempt to steal part of Cass’s campground in the divorce proceedings. That had made him want to attend Michael’s latest performance so he could throw rotten vegetables at him. He also had a yen to buy Cass’s old comic book publisher just to fire a couple of people. To pull that off though, he’d have to convince everyone he knew to invest with him, and make Tessa understand why it was a good idea. So far it seemed too daunting. Maybe next week.

For a guy who wanted to get as far away from Cassandra Geoffrey as he could, he certainly had a lot of plans to be her knight in shining armor. He missed Cass’s kitchen, all finished wood and good smells. Maybe he should sell this ugly house and start over.

The only comfortable room was his music room in the back. Stella never laid a hand there. In fact, she’d never stepped in it. If she wanted to talk to him, she would stand in the doorway as if afraid the cables snaking across the floor would attack her.

Jason settled in the big comfortable chair in the corner and picked up his oldest guitar. It was the first one he’d ever owned, given to him by his mother and sisters for his thirteenth birthday. At the time, he’d been guilty about the cost even though it was the cheapest guitar available and never stayed in tune, but he’d paid them all back. Comforted by the feel of the strings and the slightly out of tune sound, he started to pick out notes.

The phone ringing almost startled him out of the chair. He ran to the kitchen and grabbed it, absurdly hoping Cassie would be on the other end. “Yeah?”

“Jason, where the hell are you?” Connie shouted. “It’s two thirty. You were supposed up pick up Mom an hour ago. Everybody else is already here.”

By the time on the wall clock, which took a second to figure out because it was some kind of nonfunctional artistic thing, he’d sat down to play over three hours ago. That didn’t make sense. He wasn’t drunk. People blacked out when they were drunk, not when they were stone cold sober and playing guitar. The tips of his fingers ached. “I lost track of time.”

“Damn right you did.”

“Look, I’m sorry.” Jason set aside the guitar.

“Have you been drinking again?”

“No. Call Mom and tell her I’m on my way.”

“Eleanor is bringing Mom. Just get over here. And you better not be wearing anything stupid.” Connie slammed the phone down.

Jason hung up the phone and dashed for his car. Right after he’d gotten the guitar, there had been times when he’d gotten lost in it. He’d learned to play on Brian’s, and when he got his own he could play
Stairway to Heaven
for hours. When Tessa threatened to beat him to death with his guitar if he played that song one more time, he’d embarked on learning every one of George Harrison’s songs, including his Beatles and his Wilbury stuff. Consoling himself for three years with a guitar and a monumental goal made him one of the most proficient guitar players in rock. It also meant he lost track of hours.

As he swung into Connie’s driveway, her little boy came racing out of the house. “Mom says you’re late and you’ve got to get into a chair immediately.” Colton seized his hand and dragged him to the house.

Connie took in his outfit and glared at him. “You never get tired of this, do you? Get that off. Put this on.” She shoved a clutch of hangers into his hand and gave him a push in the direction of the bedrooms, which had been turned over to dressing rooms for the day. His mother sat in the makeup chair watching him. Burgundy trimmed in gold, the dress his sister had chosen for her made her look like an attractive older woman without making her look like a fossil. Connie had given him a burgundy shirt, black pants and a black jacket that was a little too short in the sleeves.

“Hey, Conjob, this is too short,” he pointed out.

On her knees in front of Bear’s fiancée, Maureen, adjusting the hem of her dress, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Don’t call me that. It’s supposed to be that length.”

“It’s too short.”

“No, it’s revealing the cuffs of your shirt. Tonio is waiting for you.”

Jason slumped into the hairdresser’s chair. Around him everyone chattered, fidgeting with their dress up clothes and trying not to muss their hair or makeup. In this sea of happiness and excitement, he was an island of misery. He’d have cut off his right hand for the opportunity to sit on Cass’s couch watching the Grammys with her leaning against him. There had to be some way to get a little bit of her. But if she wanted everything, she would never settle for some, and he couldn’t let another woman dictate the color of his kitchen unless she was his sister.

Eleanor pulled a kitchen chair next to him and sat. In her jeans and t-shirt, hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked as out of place as he felt. “I hear you met up with Stella the other day,” she said.

“Bitch,” Tonio snorted. “I worked with her on a commercial last year. I told her I’m not a plastic surgeon or a magician. It ain’t happenin’.” He snapped a Z in the air.

Tonio might like to meet Paul.

Eleanor smiled at Tonio’s outburst before focusing on Jason again. “I hear it went well.”

Jason shrugged. “Well enough.”

Eleanor reached up to brush his hair off his face as she’d done when he was a little boy, and hesitated. She must have remembered where they were. “So what is it?”

Jason shrugged. He couldn’t hide his face because Tonio had hold of him. “Nothing.”

“You can’t lie to me. Is it this woman you met in West Virginia?”

“How do you know about her?”

“Brian can’t lie to me either. I used to babysit you guys. Tessa said you asked her to dig up dirt on her. Divorced, single, former artist. What’s she like?”

He closed his eyes, and was with Cassie again. Bright eyes smiling, she laughed with him, that warm, husky sound that proved whatever he’d said, she thought it genuinely funny. Her hands were on him again, gentle, caressing. The clean, citrusy scent of her hair surrounded him and he could taste her salty sweet skin.

His breath hitched. Eleanor put a hand on his arm and the touch reminded him of Cassie. Those non-sexual, undemanding touches she never hesitated to bestow on him that made him feel loved instead of just desired.

“So you loved her?”

“I only knew her for a week,” he said. He opened his eyes, ashamed to discover tears in them.

“Sometimes you know right away. What happened?”

“She didn’t love me.”

Eleanor nodded. “She rejected you.”

“No, she manipulated me. She wanted to be the next Stella.” The ever present vise around his chest tightened. All these people loved him. Three of the five members of his family were here, his best friend from childhood, his closest adult friends. He shouldn’t feel so alone, like some important part of himself was missing.

“Are you sure?” Eleanor asked.

Jason thrust away from the chair, losing a few hairs to Tonio’s comb. “Jesus, would you all stop it?” he shouted.

Utter silence, and everyone’s eyes on him. Then Tonio’s comb clattered to the floor. The front door opened a moment later.

“Hello! Have I missed anything?” Tessa barged into the living room wearing a neat pink suit and black pumps. Her gaze honed in on him, joining those already staring at him. “Oh. It looks like I’m right on time,” she said.

“Jason Albert, you behave yourself!” his mother bellowed.

Jason turned away, putting his hands over his eyes. Someone behind him whispered his name with wonder. Probably Maureen. His middle name wasn’t common knowledge, and she was new to the group. He hated it. Albert was his father’s name. He didn’t know why he hadn’t changed it years ago.

“Jason, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up a sore point.” Eleanor rose and rested her hand on his arm.

Cassie had stood in the window behind him, painting, while with his back to her, he sat on the couch, playing his way through the Harrison catalog from memory. She’d stepped away from the easel to check to her work and lain a hand lightly on his shoulder. The touch had made him fumble a chord, and had felt so incredibly good. He wanted that again. Even if it was an act, he wanted it.

“Don’t coddle the boy, Eleanor.” His mother scowled. “Jason Albert, you are such an ungrateful little monster.”

Dressed in a designer gown dripping in diamonds, she glared up at him, calling him ungrateful? Monster he could admit to, but he’d done his best to never be ungrateful. And he wasn’t little.

“Just because your papa walked out on you when you were a little boy doesn’t give you the right to act like a beast all your life.”

The chorus of shocked sounds seemed to echo for a long time. His sisters didn’t even flinch, but suddenly found fascinating points of interest on various walls. They must have discovered the letter, too.

“You don’t think we didn’t know?” Mom yelled. “Did you think your mother was stupid? Why do you think you got that guitar for your birthday? We had to use money from Tessa’s college fund.”

“Well, I paid it back. I put her through law school!”

“That’s not the point,” his mother shouted, louder than him.

“Please, stop,” Eleanor pleaded. “There’s no need to yell.” She tried to step between them.

“Talking hasn’t gotten through.” His mother reached around Eleanor and shoved him back a step. “Your father hurt you. He hurt all of us. You let that ugly, skinny woman hurt you. And now you won’t see when someone really loves you because you have cold feet.”

About to yell something even more unfortunate at his mother, he closed his mouth. Not only his feet were cold. No single part of his body felt warmer than it had when he’d been building snow sculptures in Cassie’s yard. Why did everything come back to her? Cassie, who sight unseen, his mother believed loved him. “How do you know that? You’ve never even met Cassie.”

“I don’t need to. I can read you better than I can read a book. I see when the pain comes to your eyes and the tears you don’t cry, the way you clench your fist. You aren’t stupid, Jason. You know when someone loves you but just can’t accept it. You push them away because you’re scared. You reject them before they can reject you.”

“Mama,” Tessa put her hands on their mother’s arms, trying to guide her to a chair, “you’re going to hurt yourself.”

Mom pulled against Tessa’s hands as if she wanted to lunge at him. “No, I’m going to hurt my only son because he seems to think that’s what he deserves.”

Her words rang off the walls. Jason checked to make sure he was still standing. He should have been beaten into the fetal position by now. That, or this was the worst nightmare he’d ever had and he’d be waking up any minute now. Around the room, his family’s expressions were grim, his friends, shocked. The other day he’d told Brian’s daughter people fought because they had something they wanted to save.

“Why didn’t you tell me, man?” Brian asked.

Unable to form a response, Jason shook his head. He’d been so humiliated to discover his dad wasn’t there, not because he couldn’t be, but because he’d chosen not to be. On some childish level, he’d been sure if his friends knew, they’d leave him, too. It had never gone away.

After he’d told Cass, she’d wanted to be with him. Even as he’d pulled away, she tried to comfort him, warm him from a coldness that had nothing to do with the winter hike.

“Son, you love this girl.” His mother stepped toward him, twisting off the wedding ring she’d always worn. “Go to her. Give her this, and love her always,” she said, and folded it into his hand.

The solitaire diamond was so riddled with incursions from hard wear, it was cloudy. Why hadn’t he replaced the stone for her a long time ago? He laughed bitterly. “It didn’t work for you, did it? He left anyway.”

“Jason!” Eleanor scolded.

“He left me, but I never betrayed my vows.” His mother lifted her chin.

A sob came from Bonnie. Marc’s sister Becky, who had been doing her makeup, put her arms around her and hid her face in Bonnie’s hair, destroying the perfectly coiffed arrangement.

“You could go now,” Tyler suggested. “It’s not like we can’t go pick up the award without you, and this is kind of important.”