Moments In Time (5 page)

* * * * *

T
he welcome in her eyes as she watched him approach through the crowded bar had warmed his heart. He pulled out a chair and sat down next to her. They sat and looked at each other for a few moments. Her green silk blouse was a perfect match to her eyes.

“Like the show?” he asked to break the silence.

“It was,” she drew her words out slowly as if searching for just the right ones, “it was, well, pretty good.”

“Pretty good!” J.D. exclaimed indignantly. “Pretty good! That was the best goddamned band you ever heard and you bloody well know it.”

“You’re right, of course, it was the best,” she laughed. With simple sincerity, she said, “Even after hearing you and Rick last night, I wasn’t prepared for how good the band would be. I don’t think I’d ever heard but three or four of the songs before.”

“Old Daily Times songs,” he offered. “For some reason, Daily Times got more airplay on your radio stations than Monkshood has had. We’ve done a lot better in Europe than we’ve done here.”

“Why’s that?”

“Heavier promotion there. Don’t ask, Maggie. The record companies make those decisions. This is our first tour here that’s attracted any kind of widespread attention. And the publicity’s been better this time around.”

He took her hand and absentmindedly played with her fingers for a moment.

“So you thought we were pretty good, did you?” He was enjoying looking at her. Her dark hair curled behind her ears, and her eyes shone in the faint light.

“Actually, I was impressed,” she told him.

“Thank you. I wanted you to be,” he quietly admitted. “Another drink, Maggie?” The waitress was passing the table.

“Yes and a
…
”
She looked at J.D.

He provided his order: “Scotch and water.”

“Actually,” she said after the waitress had departed, “I probably don’t need another drink.”

She told him she’d had two drinks upstairs and another while she was waiting for him,

“You’re right,” he agreed. “Lightweight that I suspect you to be, you absolutely do not need another drink. The last thing in the world I want tonight is to have you pass out on me.
”

There was no mistaking the look on his face nor the meaning behind his words.

She tried to make light of it. “And if I passed out, I suppose you’d take advantage of me.”

He shook his head slowly and looked directly into her eyes.

“No, Maggie, I want you to be wide awake.”

They both knew there was no joke intended.

She tried to make small talk for a few minutes to ease the tension. Finally, he said, “It’s getting late, Maggie.”

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Almost eleven. Come on, Maggie. It’s time for us to go.” J.D. was stopped several times for an autograph, and he smiled and wrote his name on whatever was offered to him, somehow managing to hide his impatience to leave, to be alone with her. Finally, they were outside, headed toward Maggie’s car, which was parked in the employee’s lot directly behind the arena. He was stopped four more times between the building and the car.

“Let’s move it, Maggie, before someone else waves a cocktail napkin in my face.” He took her by the elbow, following her lead.

“Well,” she said as they got to the car, “isn’t that the price of stardom, the loss of your privacy?”

“I never wanted to be a star,” he replied quietly.

They were in the car now, Maggie starting it up and looking across the console at him. “Then why do you do it? Why aren’t you a teacher or a pharmacist or something like that?”

“Because music is a very big part of me. I love the whole process, writing, singing, putting all the pieces of a song together, playing around with different instruments to get a
different sound, performing. I love it all. It’s what I do best, the only thing I’ve ever done. Remember that I’ve been doing this for the past ten years, since I was seventeen, eighteen years old. Why did you become an accountant?”

“Because I like numbers,” she told him. “I like the way they always make sense and I like the logic of it all, the consistency of numerical patterns.”

“Well, they’re not so very different, you know, numbers and music. The same key on the piano always plays the same note,” he mused, “just like adding the same two numbers will always give you the same sum.”

He turned the radio on, suddenly deep in thought. Tonight’s show had been a stunner. He was still coming down from it in spite of the laid-back attitude he outwardly displayed. He looked at Maggie, hoping the best part of the evening was still to come. He wanted her so badly and wondered if she was aware of how he felt.

He knew that once he started to come down off the adrenaline, he’d crash and sleep for twelve or fourteen hours. He always did. Of course, he’d always been stoned for the better part of the night after each concert, unlike tonight. He had taken the promoter’s words literally and left the joints behind. He was taking no chances.

He cast a sidelong peek at Maggie, who’d stopped at a red light and was biting her lower lip, staring ahead. He was having trouble reading her. She wasn’t like most of the women he met in his travels.

She pulled the car into a parking lot and turned off the engine.

“We’re here,” she said simply.

As they got out of the car, he asked, “Do you live alone?”

“Yes.”

They walked across the lot, and he followed her up the steps of a large brick house. She rummaged in her purse for the key to the outside door, then swung it open, and they went through the dimly lit foyer and up to the second floor.

The phone was ringing in her apartment as she unlocked the door. She went through the doorway on the right, turned on the light, and picked up the phone. J.D. could see into the
room from the hallway. Maggie’s bedroom was all blue and white, neat and feminine but not fussy, with two dressers, a desk, a large overstaffed chair, a fireplace, a bedside table, and a double bed. He wondered how much action the latter had seen.

“Oh, Mitch, I’m so sorry. I’m so embarrassed,” he heard her say. “I completely forgot. I hope you didn’t wait there for too long. No, really, you d
on’t have to do that… Fine… Yes, that would be fine…
I’ll tal
k to you then… Thanks, Mitch…
”

As she hung up, she saw J.D., arms folded across his chest, leaning against the door frame, wearing an amused expression.

“I, ah, I blew a previous commitment for tonight,” she explained self-consciously.

“You mean you stood up some poor guy.” He was pleased that she had overlooked someone else to be with him.

“Yes,” she replied, lowering her eyes and walking past him into the living room. The walls were darkly paneled, the curtains drawn, giving the room a closed and dreary look. She turned the lights on as she passed through, bringing some bit of life to the space.

“Want a beer?” she asked.

“Sure,” he sighed, following her into the kitchen, where she found a cold bottle of beer for him and a diet soda for herself.
This girl really knows how to party,
he thought wryly as he leaned back against the sink on the opposite side of the room from where she stood.
This has all the makings of a really big night.

They stood and made small talk for a while, long minutes passing awkwardly. The sound of the phone ringing startled them both. She excused herself and went into the bedroom to answer it. As she reached for it and raised the receiver, she became aware that J.D. had followed her into the room, and she met his eyes as she turned around. He took the phone from her hand and replaced it on the base. Their eyes still locked, they stood still as stones.

“Ah, do you want another beer?” she whispered hesitantly, mild panic and indecision clear in her face.

The tiniest of smiles played across his lips.

“No, I do not want another beer. Just you, Maggie. All I want is you.”

Neither of them had moved, held by the moment and by the intensity of each other’s gaze.

“Tell me now, Maggie, if you don’t want this to go any further. Because if I so much as touch you now, there’ll be no turning back
…
no way to stop it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Her nod was barely perceptible.

He touched her neck with the back of his hand, his fingers slowly tracing a path along the V of her blouse. When he reached the top button, he caressed the skin underneath. Still looking directly into his eyes, she reached her hands up slightly and began to unbutton his shirt. He brought her close to him and held her, found her face and kissed it, cheek to chin, then moved to her lips, which were waiting for his. The powerful heat that had sparked when he’d kissed her the night before ignited full blast, and it was unbearable.

Later, they both lay in silence for a long time, J.D. cradling her, stroking her hair wordlessly, drinking in her sweet scent. Neither of them could think of a thing to say, both so stunned by the depth of what had passed between them. J.D. was thinking he’d never had a rush like that in his life, had never had a high better than the one he was coming down from now.

After what seemed like hours, she cleared her throat. “Jamey?”

He smiled in the darkness, moving his hand up and down her arm, savoring the feel of her skin.

“You are only the second person who ever called me that.”

“I’m sorry. It just came out. I don’t even know why I said it,” she apologized, embarrassed.

“You don’t have to be sorry. I like it,” he told her.

“Who was the first?” she asked after a few minutes had passed.

“My grandmother. Everyone else in the family calls me
J.D. I imagine she’d have a few other names for me right about now, since it’s been so long since I’ve paid her a visit. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen my mother in a while either. Or my sister, for that matter.” He lay back against the pillow and exhaled deeply. “It’s too easy to lose track when you’re moving about so much of the time.”

“Don’t you like it? You’re living a life most guys only fantasize about.”

“The truth is, after a few months, it’s not as much fun as you thought it would be. I don’t even know where I am most of the time. And after a while,
I
don’t even care, because it doesn’t matter. It’s all the same, every day. It all goes into a blur in my head. The hotels are different, but they all look the same, the crowds look the same, the scenery starts to all look the same. There’s no connection to anyone or anything. Except the band. That’s why you become closer than brothers. They’re the only constant in your life.”

“Why do you do it then?”

“Because it’s my job. Look, you want to make records, you sign a contract with a record company. You agree to do certain things after they let you make your record. One of those things usually is to do so many live appearances, to tour to promote the record, to get people familiar with your music so that they will want to buy your record. And if enough people hear you and like you and buy your record, then your record company is happy and you get to go back and make another record so that you can go on another tour. It’s like a big wheel, Maggie, it just keeps turning your life around and around. Albums turn into tours that lead to the next album
that turns into the next tour…”
His voice trailed off.

“Somehow I have to think there’s more to it than that.”

“Well, obviously I’ve oversimplified things a bit, but that’s the bottom line. It’s a business like any other business.”

“How long is this tour?”

“Twenty U.S. cities. We started in Europe, toured there for two months. Then three months here, a few dates in Canada, then home for however long.”

“So you’ve been traveling since, what, December, January?”

“Late December.”

“Did you travel a lot last year, too?”

“Not quite as much. We did the album we’re promoting now. Before that I got tied up helping a friend do an album.” He thought back to the six months he’d spent working with Glory Fielding on that atrocity of hers. Where had his brain been when he was getting roped into that? Somewhere between his waist and his knees, he suspected, in a portion of his anatomy that lacked the ability to think. “The year before we toured almost constantly.”

“I couldn’t live that way,” she noted. “I’m too focused. I take too much comfort from the familiar. I like going to work in the same place every day, seeing the same faces, coming home to the same place every night, seeing my family whenever I want.”

They lay in silence again. He thought back to the many women he’d slept with over the years—seldom the same woman more than once, none of whom had made a lasting impression on him. Even his affair with Glory had been marked with a certain detachment; he’d never really been close to her, had never been in love with her the way the press had played it up. For all her beauty and wildness, she’d never really touched him. No one ever had until he’d met this woman who now lay so close beside him.

She stirred in his arms, and he looked down at her. Something about her made him feel so good, so together. “Jamey?”