Moments In Time Page 5

  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 don’t have to do that… Fine… Yes, that would be fine… I’ll talk 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 goin
g 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?”

  “Hmmmmm?”

  “Kiss me good night.”

  He bent his head down to kiss her and was surprised to find her wanting more than just one kiss. He was extremely happy to accommodate her.

  The next morning he awoke and reached for her instinctively. She wasn’t there. He half panicked. Had he dreamed what he had thought to be the best night of his life?

  The sound of the hair dryer from the bathroom assured him that all was as he remembered. He lay back on the pillow, glad that he had followed his instincts and stayed with her, despite a few early awkward moments. She emerged from the bathroom, fresh from the shower, looking squeaky clean and fresh-faced. It took every bit of his self-control not to reach out and pull her to him.

  “Good morning. Sleep okay?” Her sunny smile dazzled him.

  “Fine,” he replied, though he’d hardly slept at all. He wasn’t used to going to bed so early, and besides, he’d never had feelings for anyone like the ones she brought out in him. They kept him awake all night, terrifying him and making him blissfully happy at the same time. “How ’bout you?”

  “Great.”

  She probably had. She looked rested and terrific.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  “Almost seven.”

  He groaned. “Middle of the night for some folks.”

  She laughed. “Actually, this is a late morning for me. I’m usually up before six to run, which I obviously can’t do until I get a little more strength back in my ankle.”

  “I have never understood why anyone would want to get up at the crack of dawn, use a full day’s worth of energy in the first hour, and then be exhausted for the rest of the day,” he said flatly.

  “It doesn’t exhaust me. Actually, I have much more energy when I run in the morning. It feels good. And it gives me time to sort out problems, think things over. It more or less pumps me up for the day, gets my mind and body in gear.”

  “Well, if last night was any indication of your body being in gear, then I say, don’t mess with success.”

  She laughed and moved to the closet to select her clothes for work, on the way picking up discarded items from the night before. He went into the bathroom.

  When he came out, she was sitting on the bed, chin resting on her knees, which were drawn up to her chest. Her robe had partially opened to expose her leg. He hesitated for a second, then sat down slightly behind her and rubbed her shoulders. He wanted to be near to her, to touch her.

  “Penny for them,” he inquired.

  She shook her head. He continued to massage her shoulders and felt the tension there begin to slip away. He could barely stand it, being so close to her. He felt the roller coaster take off inside him again and struggled to contain it. Finally, she turned herself around, put one hand on either side of his face, and drew his face to hers. Sweet Jesus, he thought, thank you for giving her the ability to read my mind…

  “Oh, my God, look at the time. I have to be out of here in ten minutes.”

  His eyes opened slowly, his peaceful near slumber disturbed. “Don’t go to work. Stay here with me.”

  “Can’t do it. I have a ton of things to do today.” She got up quickly, grabbed the clothes she’d earlier removed from the closet, and disappeared into the bathroom. Five minutes later, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, shaking him.

  “Jamey, you have to get up now if you want a ride to the hotel. Would you please acknowledge that you hear my voice?”

  “Yes. I hear you. I just don’t want to get up.”

  “Do you want to sleep for a while? I can drive back and pick you up at lunchtime.”

  “At least until lunchtime.”

  She laughed. “What time do you need to be back?”

  “Before we go on stage,” he mumbled into the pillow, and they both laughed.

  “Do you want me to call around four or five? I can pick you up after I’m done, at six. You’ll get back before the show, although it will be close.”

  “Make it five. That’ll give me enough time to get myself together. If you’re sure you don’t mind, I would very much like to stay and go back to sleep.” He pulled her close to him again. “Sweet Maggie. I don’t know what it is that’s happening here, but God, Maggie, it’s so good.”

  She smoothed his hair back from his face and kissed him and stood up. Reluctantly, he let her go.

  He listened as her footsteps faded on the steps, heard the downstairs door close behind her. He got up and went to the window and watched as she crossed the street and got into her car. He wondered if she had looked back before she pulled out of the lot. He turned back to the room and got back into Maggie’s bed. He wished she was still there, curled up next to him.

  It was a long time before he was able to sleep, tired as he was. There was too much to think about this morning, and the faint scent of honeysuckle on the pillow distracted him. Before falling asleep, he found the phone book and placed a call to the florist he’d called the day before.

  Funny, the way things go, he thought, you get into a routine and you just float along with it. Then in the blink of an eye, something changes, and everything looks different, feels different. The music’s good, the tour has been more successful than anyone could have predicted. And now there’s Maggie… He tried to remember the last time he’d felt this good about himself. Maybe the day Daily Times got its first recording contract. Maybe the day their first album charted. Nothing else had given him the satisfied feeling he had deep inside. For the first time in his life, all the pieces were there. He hoped he could put them together.

  5

  MAGGIE HAD BEEN TOYING WITH A PHOTOGRAPH she’d absent-mindedly picked up from the table to her right, pretending not to listen, though it had been impossible not to hear his voice. She glanced down at the framed image in her hand. She and Lindy. They sat on the beach at Cape May, New Jersey, back to back, Lindy’s long, white-blond hair wrapped around her by the wind, her expression cocky, sassy. Maggie was squinting from the sun, which pierced through the dark glasses she wore. The summer of 1974. The year before she’d met J.D.—and, of course, the year before Lindy had met Rick and the craziness had started. Maggie had always harbored a secret guilt, that had she not introduced them, if they’d never met, maybe Lindy’s life would have taken a different turn. And yet she knew with absolute certainty that disaster would have found Lindy one way or another. The woman was marked for tragedy just as surely as the beginning of every new day was marked by the dawn. And who could have foreseen it, back then when they were young and still awaiting something that would define their lives? Maggie was on cloud nine, caught up in a romance that had seemed to come from nowhere and to blossom overnight. Lindy had been there with her practically from the start of it…

  “Maggie, you have to be the most difficult person in the world to catch up with. I’ve been calling you for days.” Lindy’s voice on the phone was half teasing, half concerned. “You’re not avoiding me, are you?”

  “No, of course not,” Maggie reassured her, absent-mindedly shuffling through a file that lay open on the top of her desk. “And it hasn’t been ‘days.’ I spoke to you on Sunday morning.”

  “And have been unreachable since. I called your apartment last night about four times. The last time the
phone seemed to be picked up and hung up at about the same time. It worried me.”

  “No need to worry.” Maggie yawned, then laughed. “Excuse me.”

  “Oh, I see,” laughed Lindy knowingly, “sounds like a big night. Dare I be so presumptuous to ask if there was some action at the Callahan hacienda last night?”

  “No, you may not.” Maggie knew that Elena, whose desk was immediately behind Maggie’s and who had seen her leave the bar the night before with J.D., was hanging on every word.

  “Hmmmm, let’s see, I know it wasn’t Jake—I saw him this afternoon on Pine Street and he asked me if I’d spoken to you over the past few days. He’s been trying to call you, too. Let me think, who’s a likely candidate… Mitch? Not Mitch, Maggie…”

  “What’s wrong with Mitch?”

  “Nothing, except he’s just so serious all the time. Dull and dry and no sense of humor. He’s not a fun person, Maggie.” Lindy dismissed him.

  “Well, actually, I did have a date with him last night, but it slipped my mind,” Maggie admitted.

  “Then who was it?”

  “Someone I met over the weekend. On Sunday. I’ll tell you about it later…”

  “Wait a minute. Jake told me he was with you on Sunday, jogging down on the drive… said you had some sort of accident… Oh, your foot. How’s your foot?”

  “It’s fine. A little weak and sore, but okay.”

  “…and that he found you on the ground and carried you tack to the car…” Maggie could tell Lindy was replaying Jake’s conversation in her mind. “…and took you home… When did you have time to meet someone on Sunday?”

  “Lindy, give it a rest. I can’t really talk right now.” Maggie dropped her pencil on the desk.

  Elena was rummaging in a drawer of files immediately to her left. Maggie’s silence over her date the night before and he way she had tucked away the card from the florist’s delivery of another huge bunch of flowers that morning—a dreamy look on her face—was driving everyone in the office crazy.