CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 12
Kari finally stopped work at five that afternoon, exhausted and famished and eager for the evening ahead. As she showered and dried her hair, the kitten remained sprawled on her pillow, as close to pouting as a cat could possibly come. Kari carried the beast into the kitchen, fixed another half bowl of granola, then sat, settled the kitten in her lap, and ate with one hand. The night held an electric promise, at least for her. It was not merely that she was meeting her favorite musician for a drink. Kari had grown up surrounded by stars and their oversized egos. There was something distinctly different about Ian Hart, a vulnerability that suggested he might actually be one of those rare gems. The sort of people she hoped might populate her new world. Individuals who were the same inside as out. Impossible as that might seem.
She dressed and left for town, impatient and hopeful. The drive was made more special still by the echoes of her creative flow. As the hills gave way to Miramar’s outskirts, yet another idea struck, one with such potency that she halted on the roadside and opened her sketchbook and worked. The waning light finally warned her she was beyond late. Reluctantly, she closed the sketchbook, restarted the car, and continued on. Quietly ecstatic.
As she started along the downward-sloping central avenue, the phone in her purse rang. She received so few calls, she had forgotten it was even there. She pulled into a space opposite the restaurant and answered. “Hello?”
Graham demanded, “Are you so important now that you don’t bother to check your messages?”
“I’ve been painting.”
Graham said in an aside, “She’s painting.” To Kari, he replied, “In that case, all is forgiven.”
Kari spotted Ian as he stepped out of the restaurant’s entrance and searched the street. She said, “Just a minute, Graham.” She rolled down her passenger window and called, “Ian, hi. I’m sorry.” She held out her phone, then added, “Three minutes.” To Graham, she said, “I’m back.”
“And who, may I ask, is Ian?”
But she wasn’t ready to talk about that. “I’m working on two new canvases. I think they’re good.”
Graham said to Rafi, “She changed the subject. Something about new work.”
“They’re really, really good, Graham.”
“She says they’re special works, both of them.” To Kari, he said, “When can we see?”
“I should finish them in another day or so.”
“What, both?”
“I’ve worked all day. Things are going well.” She studied the restaurant’s empty doorway. “I like it here.”
Graham’s silence was punctuated by Rafi’s whine. “I’m happy for you, Kari. Truly. We both are,” Graham told her.
“Thank you, Graham.”
“You’ll send us pictures?”
“Soon as they’re finished.” She used her free hand to caress the sketchbook’s cover. “And I’ve started a third.”
“Wonderful.” To Rafi, Graham said, “Hush now, else I’ll banish you to Starbucks. Yes, of course I’ll ask her.”
“Ask me what?”
“Oh, it’s a silly nothing sort of thing. Rafi, just stop. It’s only that we’ve been contacted by Miami’s premier art fair. They’ve heard about your coming-out here at the gallery. Don’t ask me how, but I suspect it was that television journalist who would not let you go. They want to showcase your work.” He paused while Rafi hit a high note, then went on, “Apparently, several of their biggest clients collect your work. They’re offering to put on a retrospective. I told them no, of course.”
She knew Graham expected her to refuse out of hand. Which was no doubt why he was making the call and not Rafi. But the day’s exhilarating rush, the sense of entering a new life chapter, made her pause. She shut her eyes, trying to bring back the fearful reserve. Instead, she saw herself standing there at the gallery’s front door. Only now it was a portal, open to the night, leading her to . . .
What, exactly?
“Kari?”
She opened her eyes. “From Rafi’s song and dance, I assume he wants me to do this.”
Graham huffed a laugh. “Add a double measure of sheer desperation and you might have an idea of what I’m going through here.”
“Why Miami?”
The fact she had not responded with an immediate rejection caused Graham to accelerate. Zero to ninety in one sentence flat. “Rafi has been six times. Six. Trying to insinuate himself into the event. Everything but walking the carpet on his knees, doing penance for being a successful Beverly Hills gallery. They have never given space to one of our kind before. But here they are, contacting us. Being the ones to beg. Literally.” He waited through a pair of audible breaths, then said, “Kari?”
She was already in the process of opening her car door. “I have to call you back.”
* * *
Ian returned to the restaurant bar and ordered a glass of wine. He sat staring at the orchestral beauty of a Miramar sunset, set within the bay window’s varnished frame. He could have been seated in the aft cabin of some great sailing vessel, bidding farewell to another mysterious dusk. He was meeting a lovely and talented artist. He was tired from the unexpected pile of events. Exhausted, really. A red-eye flight, a drive north, a first recording session, followed by an evening on the restaurant’s cramped stage. No single night’s sleep could erase all that. Not to mention today’s long session.
But none of that was what had left him so hollow.
Kari rushed through the entrance and hurried over. “I’m so sorry to be late . . .” She inspected his face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing at all.” He slipped from his seat and fashioned a salesman’s smile. “It’s so nice to see you. What would you like to drink?”
“I don’t care.” She pointed at his glass. “What is that?”
“A local pinot.”
“Fine.”
Ian signaled to a waitress, and when she made her way over, he ordered another glass.
Kari waited until they were alone again, then demanded, “Ian, tell me.”
Hours later, lying in a bed too large for the narrow room, Ian wished he had deflected. Told her something else. Taken a different path. One that carried them away from the intimate moment that honesty revealed.
But what he said was, “I’ve been lost for almost a year now. Since I’ve gotten to Miramar, things have been better. Nice, even. Today was great. But the moment ends, and I’m left . . .”
She took his hand. Held it while the waitress deposited her wine. Then said again, soft as the gathering dusk, “Tell me.”
Ian looked at her. This woman with the power to isolate them in the heart of a restaurant. Make an island of light and warmth. All with the touch of her hand, the look in those impossibly clear eyes. Kari Langham was not a beauty in any standard sense of the word. She was tall and strong, with a face drawn too sharply for today’s taste. But to him, she was as lovely as the night. Her pale blue eyes struck him as too frank and open and intense for this world. Hers was the clearest gaze he had ever seen.
“There was a time . . . ,” he said. Hearing himself shape the words, he took hold of his glass, set it back down. Watching it all from the distance of fatigue and something else. A lonely man calling out from the depths of his sad cave. “I never took it for granted. Not really. But it was just a part of me. The only time I was alone, the most important moment before a concert or session, I shut myself away and ran through a practice routine. I’ve done it ten thousand times. More.”
He knew he wasn’t telling it well. Part of him, whispers from his own dark corner, cried for him to stop. Be silent. Keep it hidden away. Nothing good would come from this barstool confession. He heard himself continue, “Before every session, I’d keep at it until I just . . . disappeared. Me, the guitar, the place, the audience, the recording studio, all the outside things that didn’t matter. When it was just the music flowing through me, I was ready.”
He stared at the fingers resting on his. “Now it’s gone. My playing is a lie. Even on a day like this, as special as I’ve had in months. I’m performing. I’m doing what I need to do. Getting it out there. But inside . . .”
Kari’s hand retreated. She whispered, “That’s terrible.”
Ian looked up and realized that her expression had gone from concerned to horrified. “You understand.”
“Ian, I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know what to do.” Even the plea was not enough. “I said I wanted to take a year off. Now I’m dragged back in. Only I didn’t fight it. A couple of studio sessions, playing here, and now Miami.”
She jerked upright. “What?”
“Connor thinks I should agree to play in Miami’s annual music festival. My former manager committed me to it. They’re probably desperate to find . . . Kari, what’s the matter?”
“When is the festival?”
“Five days.”
She opened her mouth, but no sound came.
“My manager signed me up, then forgot to tell me. Or maybe he did, but I wasn’t listening. The events definitely weren’t in my calendar. Two performances. Now he’s gone, and—” Ian stopped his rambling discourse because Kari was off her stool and backing away.
“There’s something . . . I need to be going,” she said.
“Kari, I’m so sorry. I should never—”
“I asked. You said.” She was already heading for the door. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just . . .”
She was gone.