Under the Same Sun (Stone Trilogy) (10 page)

“When we were there,” she said, “and I went shopping on my own, when I walked up and down the streets alone, and not only on Park Avenue but also down on Canal and in Soho, I realized that I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the whole wide world—and I’ve seen many places, Jon. But there, right there among the noise and the dust of Manhattan, I felt life sing to me. I want to be there with a yearning that almost hurts.”

He stared at her over his coffee cup, speechless.

“I want to hear that hum from the city and walk in the shadow of the skyscrapers. Have lunch at Carnegie’s with the tourists and drive over to Flatbush Avenue to buy cheesecake at Junior’s, and I want to go to the Met every weekend.”

With a sigh, she looked out across the bay. “For the first time in a long while, when I was in New York I felt alive. If I could, I’d live in a tent on Times Square.”

“My wife is crazy,” Jon stated slowly. “I’ve married a raving lunatic. Next you’ll say you want a house in Jersey City.”

Her eyes were bright and curious like a bird. “What’s in Jersey City? Do we have to go and see it? Did I miss something?”

That made him laugh. “Ha, totally not. You don’t want to go there, baby. Don’t even think about it.”

Naomi, still in a hotel bathrobe, pursed her lips. “Now that you say it like that, I think I’ll have to go and take a look. Is it pretty there?”

Jon, smirking, got up to get more coffee from the kitchen. “Yeah, it’s pretty. As pretty as the devil’s armpit. Oh, no fear, I’ll take you there. I’ll even take you all the way to Newark and shock you properly, my dove.”

It felt almost like when they had lived here a year ago, but only just.

So often during the long time she had needed to recover from her wounds, Naomi had thought of fleeing and returning here, had dreamed of finding peace and healing in her old life; but now that she was here, she knew she had left in more than one way. She watched Jon as he moved around in the confined space of the apartment, recalling how he had come here to find her and how, for a brief while, they had hidden themselves away from the rest of the world here. She shook herself out of her reverie. It was time to get dressed and visit Solveigh.

In the wardrobe she found some of her old clothes, jeans and a couple of shirts, things she had not thought to take with her when she left for good, things she would not need in her new home in glamorous LA. They were a little loose—she had lost weight during the time she had spent on the roof garden of Jon’s mansion recovering—but good enough to wear. In fact they made her feel younger and somehow, as if she had put on a magic cloak, a lot more carefree. Her hair back in its usual braid, in a white cotton blouse and faded jeans, she returned to where Jon was waiting by her Steinway, bent over some music sheets, studying them.

“Hey,” he greeted her, “look at these. I forgot all about them. Why in the world did we leave them here?”

Because, Naomi wanted to reply, they were old and sad and had nothing to do with the musical they were working on, because they were from a time in her life she did not want to think back on.

“Those are stupid,” she said instead, and took them from his hand. “I don’t want them anymore, Jon. Just let them lie here and gather dust.”

He snatched them back. “Ah, no, not stupid. Sad, yes, stupid, no. None of your lyrics are stupid. These are lovely.”

She had written them, Naomi knew, after a trip to the supermarket, a spur-of-the-moment thing when she wanted ice cream late one evening and did not feel like wrestling with the huge containers in the kitchen. Standing in line to pay, watching the rain beat against the picture window of the store, she had listened with one ear to the music coming over the loudspeakers; and there he had been, the voice she knew only too well, the song he had written with the words she had given him so long ago. The ice cream had ended up on the counter, not bought; and she had driven home, tears and rain blurring her vision, alone.

It had been cold and silent in the apartment, and she had sat down at the desk where she kept a picture of him in a frame and dashed down the lyrics: a plaintive, heartbroken lament, a statement of loss. The next morning, reading her own words, she had been on the point of throwing them away but then stopped. Somewhere in the world, she was sure, there were people feeling the same way, feeling just as deserted; and maybe, someday, they would read them and relate.

“All your songs have this underlying sadness,” Jon was saying. “They break my heart, make me want to cry every time I read them. All those songs you wrote while you were alone are a tapestry of loneliness.”

“Well, I was alone,” she admitted softly, “it was a lonely time.”

When he didn’t reply she looked up to see him gazing steadily at her, all the regret for the lost time in his eyes.

“Kiss me, Jon,” Naomi said, “and then throw away the sad songs.”

T
hey bought flowers for Solveigh, a huge bouquet of yellow and pink roses that, Jon thought, looked like the light on sunrise water; and he made the girl at the flower shop tie a big satin bow around them.

“She’ll like that,” he explained when Naomi raised her brows at him. “It looks like Hollywood. Trust me. Solveigh is a true LA chick now.”

He had laughed when Naomi had told him the baby’s name. “Spanish. How far away from Norway can that girl get?” had been his comment, “We’ll have a hard time convincing Russ to come to New York to work with us.”

Inside the hospital lobby though, Jon became serious, and very quiet. “Here, Naomi?”

She nodded, her head lowered.

Slowly he looked around, taking in the stark, simple surroundings. There was not much more than a small reception, an elderly woman sitting behind it doing a crossword puzzle; a few chairs in a row along the white walls, a Munch painting over them. Gratefully Jon noted that at least it wasn’t
The Scream
but a Madonna. The image reminded him eerily of Naomi, with the long, black tresses and the shuttered, sad smile.

“Please, Jon.” Naomi tugged him forward. “Please, don’t dwell.”

He didn’t budge. She felt his hand clamp around hers, as if even now he wanted to protect her from being alone and scared that night when Joshua was born.

“It wasn’t so bad,” she said softly. “They took good care of me, and it was an easy birth. Please, Jon.”

Gradually, he relented. His arm came up around her shoulder and he pulled her into a tight embrace, his cheek on her hair.

“He started screaming right away.” She wanted to stay in that embrace forever, safe and loved. “And he looked just like you. Raised his little hand and waved it in my face and yelled so loud the nurses came running.” A smile flitted across her face. “Just like his father. Wants the world to know who is master from moment one. And a killer voice.”

“You shouldn’t have been alone. I should have been here for you. You should have called me, Naomi, love or not.” His grip around her tightened. “I feel bad about it even now.”

“Yes, but you can stop. Joshua is seventeen, and we’re married. Snap out of it, Jon, and let’s go see Solveigh.”

Up in the white, short hallway of the maternity ward, Naomi stopped in shock when the nurse told her the room number.

“Here?” Jon asked again, and again she nodded. His hand on the doorknob, he waited until she had gathered herself enough to speak.

“The same room,” Naomi whispered. “Jon, I did not mean this to happen. I’m sorry.”

He pressed his lips together, hurt in his eyes, but opened the door and stepped in.

Naomi, seeing the tableau that presented itself, sobbed softly and hid behind Jon’s back.

This. She had always imagined it to be like this. She tired, happy,
content in the bed, and Jon, their baby in his arms, standing by the window, counting his son’s fingers in wonder and gazing into his black eyes.

Only it was not Jon now, with a child and the expression of rapture, but Russ; and it was Solveigh in the bed, eating breakfast and laughing at her new family.

Silently, her heart breaking, Naomi fled back to the lobby.

chapter 9

J
on found her outside, on a bench in front of the hospital, where she sat looking out across the bay, nursing a cup of coffee and a cookie.

He didn’t go over to her right away but stood in the shade of the entrance for a moment, watching her. She looked so young in the jeans, and he could have sworn the shirt she was wearing was the same one she had worn when they had met for the very first time. It almost seemed as if no time had passed, as if it was that summer day in Geneva and he again a young musician, naive and excited about his blossoming career, overwhelmed by his success and the fact that he was a girls’ magazine centerfold.

Naomi, his one and only love, and here she sat, her head bowed, the paper cup between her hands like a candle meant as an offering.

“You should have been here.” She made room for him when he sat down beside her. “You had a right to be here and see your son born, and I took that from you. It was my fault.”

The old, well-known pain tugged at his soul. “Yes. Should have, could have. We’ve been over this a million times, Naomi. It’s over and past.” He thought for a moment before he went on. “When Solveigh told me she was pregnant, when she was on the point of leaving Russ because she was afraid of the future, I told her that it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t. You did what you thought was best when you ran from me in LA; you were scared by the life there and of what was to come. I told you I accept that. Please stop breaking your heart, and mine. I’m happy to have you and Joshua in my life now. It’s way better than not having you at all.”

The wind ruffled his hair. Jon had almost forgotten how beautiful it was here in summer, how every ray of sun seemed like a gift, how the landscape seemed to bloom and blossom with a vengeance in the brief period of warmth. Even the cold waters of the bay looked inviting, frisky, the little white-capped waves like the curls on a baby’s head.

“We could have another child.” He said it carefully, tasting the words on his lips.

A small, sad laugh shook her shoulders. “It’s not as if we are trying to prevent having a baby. It isn’t from the lack of trying. I guess I’m just too old, and too hurt.” She turned his hand over in hers so she could see his narrow wedding band. “You have the right to see a child of yours grow up, Jon. You’re young enough to have another. Maybe…”

“No!” He gripped her fingers hard. “No. Don’t even say it. Don’t you dare say that, Naomi!”

A tear dropped from her cheek, landing on his thumb.

“I will not set you aside for a younger, healthier woman just because she can give me children. There were many who would have loved to do just that, and you know it. Look at me, Naomi. Look at me!” Gently, he dried her face with his fingertips. “I have exactly what I want. I’m in the place I want to be, with the woman I love and my son—my wonderful, talented, and beloved son. I’m a happy man!” A grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. “And hell yeah, let’s try for another baby. If there isn’t one, at least I’ll have all the pleasure I can think of with you in our bed.”

“Oh, Jon, you’re never serious.” It came out as a tired sigh, a joyless statement.

Jon rose and dusted off his trousers, then held out his hand to her. “Yeah, I’m serious. Can’t you see? I rented a bloody jet, again, to come here to you. Sal had a fit, asked me why I couldn’t have gone with you in the first place and did I have so much money that I thought I could throw it around like that? And yeah, I do have that much money. But even if it had been the last dollar on my last credit card, I’d have spent it to be with you last night. So there. I’m that serious.”

Slowly they walked down the hill toward the dock and the hotel, first along the gravel road that led to the hotel, meadows to the sides, and then when they reached the first houses of the little town, on the cobbled streets.

“I’m so serious about you,” Jon went on, “I came here for these few hours with you before I have to go to Frankfurt and then Geneva. I’ll have to leave soon.”

They stopped outside the little bookshop where Jon had always picked up his
New York Times
, imported especially for him while he lived here, generally two days late but nevertheless presented to him with pride, wrapped in a plastic cover. The owner greeted them with friendly surprise, asking if they had come back to stay, and even offered them a cup of coffee.

Jon remembered enough of the Norwegian he had picked up to thank him and tell him they had to hurry, so no coffee but thanks.

“And I want you to come with me.” The entrance door to the hotel stood open, letting in the sun and the fresh air, but in the lobby it still smelled tantalizingly of Andrea’s cooking. Jon breathed in. “Ah. She’s making those meatballs in brown sauce. God, I think I’ll have to stay for lunch; I could kill for those things. Maybe if I ask nicely she’ll share the recipe. What do you think?” With a pat on her behind he left Naomi standing by the counter and walked into the kitchen, calling for Andrea, offering her diamond earrings for meatballs.

Naomi smiled, the sad mood gradually leaving her.

The place seemed strange and empty without Solveigh. It was just as well kept, that much was true, but it was no longer her home.

She could see her own shadow standing in the dim spot by the elevator, right beside the stairs that led down to her apartment, holding that tray of plates, and Jon entering the lobby from the snow, come all the way from California to find her. Now she could smile at the spectacle of the crashing dishes, Solveigh’s outrage, and Jon looking on as if he had walked into a madhouse.

She could hear his and Andrea’s voices from the kitchen, joking, debating, and finally Andrea shouting, “No, no, no, Mr. Jon Stone, you will not get that recipe. Out of my kitchen, now!”

Without waiting for him, Naomi went to pack the few things she wanted to take along.

F
rankfurt greeted them with an overcast sky and a mugginess that reminded Jon a lot of Brooklyn in August. It made him regret for a moment that they were going to move there soon and endure those New York summers. Waiting for their few belongings to be transferred from the plane to the limo, he wondered if someone had thought to install central air in the old house or if they would have to live with the ugly, dripping boxes in every window. Absentmindedly, he stared out toward the runways where a 747 was getting ready for take-off, its wings shuddering with the power of flight. He wondered where it might be headed, homesick and tired of being on the road after only a few days.

This was different from before; then, alone, he’d always been hungry for the stage, for the fans, for the cooing of the girls when he got off the tour bus or gave them three minutes before sound check, and, often enough, for a willing body in his bed after the show.