Under the Same Sun (Stone Trilogy) (31 page)

“Stop that!” Sal closed the window. “He’ll think we’re the freaking FBI or something. Or he’ll think he can have your credit cards! This is New York, for crying out loud; you can’t just smile at people!”

“I can,” Naomi replied, “and I will. You just wait and see; no one will harm me.”

With a groan, Sal threw her a glare through the rearview mirror. “This is a huge mistake. You in this city, big mistake.”

She looked back at the skyline when they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, at the twin towers of the World Trade Center casting their long shadows over the other buildings in the setting sun.

“I don’t think it’s a mistake,” Naomi whispered. “I think it’s just right.”

N
o one was waiting for them when they entered their new home. It was dim and cool inside, and smelled a bit of sawdust and paint; but it was clean and neat, and quite empty.

Jon dropped the bag he was carrying on the wooden floor and looked around. He hadn’t been here since Christmas, since their first look at the inside, and could hardly remember details. So much had happened since then.

“There was not much time,” Naomi said; “I couldn’t do a whole lot. We’ll have to decide what we want soon or this place won’t be habitable.”

In the living room there was a couch, a couple of chairs, and a rug, but that was it. The kitchen looked as empty as if it was a store display; there wasn’t even a coffeemaker.

“Here.” She opened a pocket door and stepped aside to let him see.

The Steinway was brand-new. It stood in front of the bay window; its lacquer shone in the slanting sun beams. There was a desk facing the window with a view of the Promenade and the city, a chair, bookcases, guitar stands, and on top of the grand, a stack of music sheets and his favorite, black pencils. In the bay window, on the broad bench in the niche, lay a load of colorful, soft cushions and a cashmere blanket; a small pile of books rested on a small table, a coffee cup beside them. A lovely blue carpet covered part of the dark hardwood floor.

“A Steinway.” Jon realized it sounded stupid, but he couldn’t come up with anything else.

“Yes.” Naomi was leaning against the wall, her hands behind her back, her feet crossed, just the way she had stood when she had first shown him her apartment in Halmar and given him the time to look around and explore her life. Only this time there was a smile on her face, and the rosy tint of expectation.

“How…”  He didn’t even know what to ask. Carefully he opened the piano and let his fingers glide over the pristine, smooth keys. “You weren’t even gone that long.”

“Do you like it?”

“Like it? Are you crazy?” The tone, when he played a chord, was clear and true; it hummed through the space and lingered under the high ceiling like its own memory. “You leave me there in LA, and you don’t tell me where you’re going or when you’ll be back; and then you come here to this empty house, and the first thing you do is buy a freaking Steinway and furnish a studio for me?”

“Well, it was the second thing,” she admitted. “The first thing I
bought was a bed.”

“A bed. You left me in agony, in exile, and you buy a Steinway grand and a bed. Is it big enough for two?”

“It is.” A small laugh escaped her. “You are so transparent.”

Jon moved through the room, exploring it. He picked up the books to read their titles, touched the mug and noted the dry residue of coffee in it. Half hidden under the blanket, he saw a pink wool sock. “Did you sit here? During your exile, when you were here, did you sit in this window seat all by yourself?”

“I had to watch them paint the ceiling,” Naomi replied. “I didn’t want them to ruin the stucco.”

There were no curtains up yet, and the panes were grimy on the outside. On the patio Jon could see some potted plants, but they were dry, dead; and the small piece of lawn in the backyard needed trimming badly. The brick barbecue was full of leaves from last fall. It would take a lot to make this place shine. “Let me get this straight. These were the most important things to you? The Steinway, and a studio for me?”

“After the bed.”

“Yeah, after the bed. There isn’t even a coffeemaker, Naomi, and you buy a Steinway?” The stool was just the right height for him; and when he sat down, his hands on the keys, he could see the entire panorama of Manhattan spread out before him: the bridge and its graceful Gothic arches, the river, and the skyline of New York.

She leaned on the piano and looked down at him. Gently she touched his wrist, sighing, smiling. “I can’t imagine anything more important, Jon, nothing at all.”

“Not even a coffeemaker?”

“Not even a coffeemaker, you silly man.”

They walked through the rooms together, hand in hand, exploring every corner of their new home, opening closets and doors and even exploring the musty basement. The house was not as large as the mansion in Malibu, and not as airy, as generous; but it was beautiful in a totally different way with the wooden floors and ornate doorways, the plaster ceilings and the stained glass in the high parlor windows, where Naomi stopped.

“This is where we will put the Christmas tree.” She pointed at a space beside the fireplace. “Right there. We need so much for this place, Jon.”

“We can go shopping as soon as we’re over the jet lag.” He put his arm around her waist. “Show me your new bed.”

A
s a boy, living with his parents only one block away, Jon had dreamed of owning this house, of using the upstairs room they were entering now as his studio. He had imagined himself stepping out onto the large stone balcony to get a breath of air after working for hours and seeing the city spread out before him. Now, entering behind Naomi, he had to smile at himself. There was no way anyone would have been able to lug a Steinway up the stairs and no way it would have fit through the door. Fondly, he turned the memory of those dreams over and then let go of them.

“It’s not much yet,” Naomi was saying. “I did all I could, but time was really short, and…” She straightened a fold in the satin quilt on the bed. “And I was in a hurry because I wanted to be back with you. When I left you in LA, when I called you from the airport to tell you where I’d be going, I promised myself not to stay away longer than those three weeks but not to come back sooner either. I wanted it to hurt.”

“For God’s sake, why?” Sometimes her reasoning was just too much to take.

“Because,” she answered softly, “because I wanted the yearning for you to be greater than the pain of the shooting. I wanted to feel the need to fly back into your arms, hear your voice, see your smile. And it worked. That guy on the plane when I flew to London, that reporter, he kept pushing his champagne on me; and all I wanted to do was fall asleep and make the time pass until I could be with you and kiss you. God, I wanted to slap his face.”

She walked over to the balcony door. “Here. I want a small couch here, or a settee or something, so I can sit and read or dream and look out at New York. And then, when you’re in your studio right below me, I can listen to you play.”

He liked the way the bed looked. The sheets were new, cream, fine linen; and there were enough pillows for his taste.

“Your mom was here,” Naomi explained. “I asked her to come. I think she also filled the fridge, but we’re supposed to go over soon.”

Jon knew. He had called Helen while Naomi had been busy breathing in Manhattan from the car. They were expected for dinner, and no excuses. They would walk over; take a stroll through Brooklyn Heights on a summer evening.

Looking out at the dusk, at Manhattan beginning to glitter with the myriad lights in the windows, Naomi beside him, he felt as if he had come a long way to end up  where he had started out. Only it didn’t feel bad at all. In fact, it felt as perfect as he could imagine.

chapter 29

J
oshua wasn’t there.

“He told me this morning he wasn’t coming home for dinner,” Helen said, taking a bowl of potato salad out to the table in the backyard. “Said he knew you were coming back but he’d been invited by his other grandparents, and he would see you later.”

Naomi, who had been just picked up the plates, set them back down and leaned, her hands on the kitchen counter. She could hear Jon’s reply. His voice was quite gravelly, anger swinging in it. “He doesn’t think he should be here when his parents get back?”

“Don’t blame the messenger, Jon. He called a couple of hours ago. What was I supposed to do?” Helen came back into the kitchen and stopped, seeing Naomi. “Was I supposed to tell him to come home? He’s not a kid anymore. He’s nearly eighteen, and as headstrong as both of you. He’s just returned from LA, where you let him go on his own, his bodyguard in trail. Do you think I’d be able to tell him where to have dinner?”

“But he was with Harry in LA; he wasn’t on his own.” Naomi sat down at the kitchen table and propped her elbows on it. “Jon didn’t let him travel on his own. He went on a private plane, and Harry and Grace picked him up at the airport, and he was staying at their house, well protected.”

“You and your private planes, your security men and high fences!” With a huff, Helen pulled open the fridge door and peered inside. “You are so far removed from normalcy, you and Jon, you don’t even realize it. You just breeze through life and do as you please. That jaunt to Italy? Maybe you should have come home instead and looked after Joshua yourself.”

“But we wanted him to come, and he refused! He said he didn’t care for Italy, and he wanted to meet his friends. Are we supposed to trail after him when he goes surfing with Harry’s kids? He’s nearly grown up!” Helen’s words stung badly. “And we don’t breeze through life. Jon was working! He did a show nearly every other night in Europe!”

“Yes, yes. I know.” Helen dumped a bag of oranges on the table. “I know. And I’m sorry, Naomi. I know your life was anything but a breeze recently. I just feel so bad about this. I know I should have made him come home to greet you. But…” She smelled one of the oranges. “He was hell-bent on meeting his grandfather. Said they had things to do and to talk about. Don’t ask me. That boy of yours is just like his father.”

Jon, walking in just then, got a dark glance from her.

“He was like that when he was Josh’s age. Secretive, determined, obsessive. I never knew what he was up to.”

“Well, we do know what Joshua is up to, thanks to Kurt.” Jon ignored Helen’s words. His phone was in his hand. “Joshua is at your hotel, with your parents, in the dining room; and three waiters are dancing attendance on him. They are spoiling him rotten.”

“Which, I can tell you, isn’t happening here,” Helen threw in tartly. “I make him take out the trash like any other teenager.”

“I didn’t raise him to be a pop star either.”

Both Helen and Jon turned to look at Naomi.

“I didn’t raise him to live a jet-set life. Our life in Halmar was pretty small, and very quiet. Until I sent him to boarding school, which I had to do.” She pulled down the corners of her mouth, ready to cry. “And that wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy at all; but he has all that talent, and I didn’t want him to waste it.”

“I know, baby, I know.” Jon reached out to caress her hair. “I know you always did what was best for Joshua, regardless of your own feelings. Please don’t be sad. I’ll have a talk with him later.”

Just then the bell rang, and Helen went to open the door to Kevin, Jon’s brother, and his wife, Sarah.

Naomi rose from her chair with a sigh and rubbed her cheeks. “Get the steaks, Jon,” she said. “They’ll be hungry.”

S
he was listening to the conversation with only one ear, her mind on the empty chair where Joshua should have been sitting. Ethan, Kevin’s son, wasn’t there either. It made Naomi feel old, forlorn, left behind. Listlessly she picked at the steak on her plate; normally her favorite food, but now she couldn’t eat it. She watched some moths dance around the candles on the table and breathed in the humid
summer air. It had a wet, stuffy smell to it, like an
old cellar, hot as a sauna, heavy like clay. It hadn’t even cooled off now that it was night.

Jet lag was pulling on her limbs. Not even traveling in a private plane, on their own itinerary, eased the exhaustion of crossing all those time zones.

Jon, beside her, looked tired too. In the murky light she could see fine lines around his mouth, and the skin under his eyes looked gray, smudged.

“So we’re throwing this party,” Kevin said, “to celebrate our
anniversary, and we were wondering if we could make you come? We would like the family there too.”

There was a brief pause before Jon replied.

“Sure,” he then answered. “Yes, right, darling? Of course we’ll be there.”

Kevin opened another beer. “I realize it’s not something you usually do, Jon. There will be a lot of people you don’t know, and you being who you are…” He handed the bottle to Jon, who took it with a nod of thanks. “But after all is said and done you’re still my brother, and we want you and your family there. Twenty-five years of marriage is a big deal.”

“Yeah, it is.” Jon took a sip.

“We considered going on a cruise but then decided to throw a really big party instead,” Sarah added. “I wanted that. Everyone goes on a cruise. I want a ball at an elegant hotel.”

“Which one did you pick?” Naomi hardly dared to ask, and Sarah replied, “Oh, your parents’ place, of course! Actually it was Joshua and Ethan who had the idea, and your father was delighted. And the setting, Naomi, just think! We’ll be overlooking the Met!”

“Yes.” Sadness as deep as the ocean and as cold as new frost, threatened to overwhelm her.

“I’ve been meaning to ask this,” Kevin went on. “Jon, do you even have any friends outside show biz? Do you meet other people besides the ones you work with?”

“You asked me nearly the same thing last year,” Jon replied, his voice quiet and deep. “Funny you should return to this. No, I don’t have any friends outside show biz.” He stopped and stared out into the darkness of the yard. “Naomi’s cousin Ferro and I were talking about this the other day, in his studio. He said his life was gradually getting lonelier. There is the family, some fellow artists, and that’s basically it. I know what he means; I know what he’s talking about.”

“What do you mean?” Sarah watched him curiously, her head tilted and her mouth pursed, making her look even more bird-like than usual.