CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 34
When Kari ended the call with Indrid, Ian walked back into the parlor, seated himself beside Kari, and asked Connor, “Where are you?”
“Room seven-oh-one. Danny and Arthur came out a day early to scope the scene. Sylvie got fed up with me moping around the house and ordered me to go with them.”
“I know that’s not true.”
“She might have said it differently. Something about my needing to come early and take time to settle. But that’s what she meant.” A pause. “Buy you a drink?”
“Hang on a second.” He told Kari, “Connor is downstairs. He wants to meet in the bar.”
“Ask him up.”
“I don’t want to bother—”
“Ian. Really. You heard what Indrid said.”
“She didn’t say a word about my bothering you with my problems.”
She just looked at him. With those eyes of blue crystal and smoke. “He’s here because he needs you. This is your place as much as mine.”
“Kari—”
“Hush now and ask him up.”
* * *
The suite shared a butler with the other top-floor residences. Ian learned that when he called down for coffee, which arrived just as he opened the door for Connor. They stood to one side as a dark-suited woman wearing white gloves carried in the service for three on a silver palaver. She set it on the front table, asked if there was anything else.
Ian asked Connor, “You hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“Me too,” Kari said. She waited as Ian asked the woman for a tray of sandwiches, and then she approached Connor with her hand outstretched. “Hi, Connor. I’m Kari.”
“You were at the restaurant.”
“Several times.”
“I mean, for the show.”
“Both of them.” She smiled. “Lucky me.”
Ian said, “Kari is a newcomer to Miramar.”
“And now you’re here.” He glanced at Ian. “Lucky you.”
“It’s not like that. This is Kari’s suite. She’s . . .”
She liked how Ian hesitated over what to say. Honoring her confidences. Letting her decide. She told him, “It’s all right.”
Ian said, “This is Kariel.”
Connor did a double take. “The artist.”
“They’re doing a retrospective as part of the art fair. Which happens the same time as the concerts.”
“Kariel. Wow. My wife thinks you’re the greatest thing since her dad.”
“I saw the painting her father did of the midnight harbor,” Kari said. “Ian used that expression when he was talking about his aunt. The midnight harbor. I liked it so much, I decided to try to paint it. Then I saw her father’s work, and now I feel like he did it for me.”
Connor studied her a long moment. “You say that to Sylvie, she’ll probably break down and bawl. There’s a lot of history to that painting. Tales on top of tales.”
“I’d love to hear them.”
“Maybe we should leave that for another time,” Ian said. “Why don’t we get comfortable on the balcony?”
Connor took a long moment to study the starlit Atlantic, savoring the tropical breeze. When the doorbell chimed, Kari went back inside, took the trolley from the butler, and rolled it in herself. As she approached the open balcony doors, she heard Connor say, “I should go. You need to get some rest.”
“I never sleep before a live performance. It’s one of life’s defining traits. You’ll keep me from another few hours of tossing and turning.”
“Still, it looks to me like I’m interrupting.”
“I told you, it’s not like that.” Ian was seated with his back to the parlor. “We met less than a week ago. She’s dealing with her own set of personal issues. I offered to help. For the moment, that’s all it is.”
“For the moment.”
“We’ll get through these gigs, go home, see what happens. But I won’t lie to you. A guy can hope.”
Kari stepped through the doors, warmed by far more than the tropical breeze. “Come inside and help yourselves.”
They made plates and filled cups and took them back out on the balcony. From where they were seated so high up, they saw just starlight and silvery clouds and inky-black sea. Music and laughter drifted up, but they were immune to the city and the swirling crowds far below.
Finally, Connor set his plate on the low table and said, “Ever since I moved to Miramar, I’ve had these two lives. Home means the woman I love more than my own life. The twins. My music. You understand what I’m saying?”
Ian nodded. “I think so.”
Kari asked, “Should I leave?”
“I feel comfortable with the two of you.” A pause. Then Connor added, “Maybe it’s good to have a lady’s perspective here.”
Ian reached for Kari’s hand and said, “Stay.”
Connor went on, “The way things were, I chose the songs I love. I made them my own. When there was time, I invited friends to join me. We played in a setting that suited us all. A place filled with other friends.”
“A full house, or so it seems,” Ian said. “Every time. They love your work.”
“They should,” Kari said. “You play beautifully.”
“My songs,” Connor repeated. “My renditions. My stage. My friends. When it’s time, I go shoot my next picture. A hundred different people telling me what to do, how to stand. I speak the words they give me. I act. When it’s done, I go home.”
“Two worlds,” Kari said.
“And then I come along and mess everything up,” Ian said. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what? Giving me a taste of a lifelong dream I thought would never come?” Connor rose and walked over to the railing. “Nights after I get back from a shoot, I’m hollowed out. A long time lost, that’s how it feels. The chance to have those days with my wife and kids and home. It’s gone. Then, after a while, things steady up. And I get back into the rhythm of Miramar life. That’s how I think of it.”
“Miramar life,” Ian repeated. “A good place, a happy world.”
“There you go.”
Ian said it again. “Then here I come.”
“You. Danny. Arthur.” Connor gripped the railing, rocked back and forth. “My friends giving me the dream I thought was lost and gone forever.”
“I’d like to be that,” Ian said. “Your friend.”
“I don’t have any reason to feel as bad as I have.”
Kari surprised herself as much as the men when she was the one who said, “You have every reason.”
Ian looked at her a long moment, his smile illuminated by the interior lights. Finally, he told Connor, “Come sit down. Please.”
The actor walked back over, seated himself, and went on. “For a couple of days now, I’ve been surrounded by this huge looming shadow. This black nothingness. Thinking about here, Miami, leaves me feeling like it’s about to swallow me whole.”
Kari stared at the hand holding her own and felt the words rise up, a great hot balloon of emotions and memories and needs that forced itself out into the open. Finally. “I’ve spent my entire life in hiding. It’s the only way I knew to protect my gift, my one reason for wanting to keep on living. When I came to Miramar, I thought I was making a new hiding place. One I could call my own. Instead . . .”
Connor shifted in his seat. Leaned forward. Watching her. “What’s happened?”
“It’s all so new, I don’t know if I can put it in words. But I think . . . Maybe it’s time I grow beyond my comfort zone. Not stop hiding. But make room for more. More people, more experiences, more life. The thought absolutely terrifies me. I’m afraid I’ll lose my gift. That I’ll open myself up to attack. Something I can’t handle and still paint. The fears mostly strike in the middle of the night. Then I wake up, and I paint like I’ve never painted in my entire life. It just flows out, this huge torrent of colors and impressions and . . .”
Ian asked softly, “And now?”
She felt his power coursing through the hand holding hers, an electric current strong enough to help her say, “The fears and the joy. It’s this huge tumbling mass. Then something strikes, like the gala and my itinerary, and I feel like it’s all about to come crashing down around me.”
Ian’s gaze was as strong as his hold on her hand. “How can I help?”
“Be who you are. Do exactly what you’re doing. Shielding me. Showing me a way through. Keeping me safe.” She released his hand so as to wrap her arm around him. Leaned in close. “I’m such a mess, Ian. I’m this bundle of fragments that come together only when I paint.”
“I think you are the most amazing woman I have ever known.”
She hid her face for a time in the fold of his neck. Then, “Tell Connor about Indrid.”