Morning Song Read online

  In total confusion, and because he was waiting for an answer, Lauren nodded. ‘O-okay,’ she agreed. And, still weak from his overpowering sensuality and the abrupt about-face, she sank nervously to the edge of the bed, anxiety and curiosity about what lay ahead moving her to new alertness.

  True to his word, Shane did not approach her, but took the only other available sitting surface, the chair arranged near the window, a few feet from the bed. Carefully removing Lauren’s clothes to the dresser top, he arranged himself comfortably in the chair, long legs crossed at the ankles hands linked across his chest. And he said nothing.

  ‘Well,’ she invited after a moment, clasping her hands in her lap and trying to look as casual as he did, ‘what do you want to talk about?’

  His grin was completely disarming, and he responded, ‘Sex.’

  She laughed, the tension and the nervousness draining away into the easy twinkle in his eyes. ‘Be serious!’

  ‘I am serious,’ he assured her. ‘I have just one final word to say on the subject, and then we’ll move on to safer ground. Don’t ever criticise a man’s technique, Lauren.’ he advised, and she could not tell whether the sobriety in his tone was real or assumed. ‘It does strange things to the libido, and has a positively devastating effect on the ego.’

  ‘I—I wasn’t criticising,’ she said, glancing at him and trying futilely to subdue a blush. She was not sure whether or not he was teasing, but she could not take the chance of letting him think she objected to his lovemaking—or anything he did. ‘I—I liked it, actually,’ she confessed, and his smile was gentle and encouraging.

  ‘I’m glad,’ he responded, and now there was no doubt that he was serious, ‘because I only wanted to give you pleasure.’ His eyes, steady and unreserved, held her with as much force as his hands had ever done, and the softness of his voice stroked her like a caress. The short distance between them was suddenly filled with sensuality, soft, inundating, magnetic. ‘You bring out that characteristic in me,’ he went on in a voice as smooth as silk, as mesmerising as a melody. ‘The need to give pleasure, to make you happy ... I think because there seems to be so little of either in your life right now, and because I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who needed to feel good more than you do. I just want to do that for you.’

  Lauren nodded, colour heightening, and said softly, ‘You do.’

  The atmosphere surrounding them had become subtly erotic, and, as aware of it as she was, Shane abruptly changed the subject. ‘And now on to safer ground. How have you been this past week?’

  She laughed a little, grateful for his command of the situation and the sense with which he handled it. ‘Okay,’ she answered. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Lonely,’ he replied immediately, and she was startled.

  ‘How can that be?’ she demanded. ‘You’ve been so busy, always with people—’

  He dismissed it with a negligent turn of his wrist. ‘Lonely in a crowd, isolated ... it’s one of the things I hate most about the music business. There’s no time to relax and be yourself.’

  Her smile was puzzled, tentative. ‘Do you ever do that?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ he responded cautiously, ‘with some people.’

  ‘But not with me,’ she added automatically, then glanced at him quickly, afraid she had overstepped the bounds of casual conversation.

  But his face registered no sign of offence taken. ‘I want to,’ he told her. ‘Sometimes I think I could, sometimes I even try. But you always push me away.’

  She shook her head firmly, recognising a mixed truth in what he said. Sometimes, through her clumsiness or uncertainty, she did push him away, accidently or deliberately—but it was mostly the defences he built which kept her at a distance. For the first time, their interchange had moved on to a new level of openness and honesty and she was determined to pursue it. ‘You won’t let me get close enough to push you away,’ she told him. ‘You’re always on the defensive. The other day you said we should get to know each other better, but you won’t give me a chance.’

  In his eyes was a reluctant admission that she was right, but he tried to dismiss it lightly with, ‘It’s probably just as well. If you knew the real me, you probably wouldn’t like it.’

  She refused to be deterred. ‘You won’t let me find out,’ she told him evenly. ‘Every time I ask you a personal question or talk to you about your music, or ...’ she glanced at him swiftly, ‘play one of your records, you get mad, or freeze up.’

  For a moment he was silent, but his eyes did not leave hers. And then he said seriously, ‘In the first place, my music has nothing to do with what I really am. If that’s all you want to know about me—if that’s all I’m worth to you—then read my album covers. But,’ he added on a more pleasant note, ‘in the interest of getting to know each other better, ask me a personal question—or two or three. I promise to answer them as well as I can without getting mad or freezing up ... providing I get the same privilege with your personal life when you’re finished.’

  She hesitated, then accepted his terms. ‘All right,’ she agreed cautiously. ‘We’ll start with something simple. Tell me about your family.’

  ‘That’s easy,’ he answered, settling back in the chair. ‘It’s all a matter of public record. My father is vice-president of an international corporation, they’re stationed in Japan now, I think.’ At her look of surprise, he admitted, ‘That’s right, I really don’t know. I haven’t heard from them in a couple of years. The other night,’ he added, looking at her with a strange expression, ‘when you mentioned your parents, even though you really didn’t say anything much about them at all, there was this look in your eyes ... of love, and happy memories. I was jealous.’ Lauren’s expression softened with amazement—both for the nature of the confession, and the ease with which he related it. Perhaps it was true that he had really wanted to share himself with her, but she had never given him a chance.

  ‘We were never a close family,’ he went on. ‘My brothers—there are three of us—keep up some, but not like we should. My older brother is in computers and his company transfers him so often that I usually don’t get his forwarding address until he’s already someplace else. My younger brother got into some religious movement a few years ago and may as well have dropped off the face of the earth as far as the family is concerned. Of course, we were all abysmal failures in my parents’ eyes. They raised us to be scholars, leaders, and corporate giants. My oldest brother has come closest to fulfilling their expectations, but he’s forty years old and hasn’t made vice-president yet, and they can’t forgive him for that. As far as my youngest brother and myself are concerned—well, I don’t know for sure, but I think we’ve been disinherited.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t guess I can really blame them.’

  ‘How sad,’ Lauren said softly.

  ‘I suppose so,’ he agreed, ‘to someone who’s known a real family. I never had it, so I never missed it.’

  She hesitated, then screwed up her courage to broach a more sensitive subject. ‘Would it upset you,’ she ventured, ‘to talk about your wife?’

  He looked at her for a moment, seemed to recall his promise to answer her questions while at the same moment debating whether her company or his privacy was the most valuable to him at that point. She was relieved when he smiled a little, as though to reassure her, and answered, ‘No, it won’t upset me.’ But then he shifted his gaze, his eyes turned inward, skimming across uncertainties and unresolved conflicts within himself, looking slightly puzzled and unsure. Lauren was not certain whether he was trying to remember, or trying to forget. ‘Emily was ... a nice girl,’ he said at last. ‘Bright and bubbly and fun to be with. She was a ski instructor,’ he added, glancing at her, and Lauren understood why skiing had become a sensitive subject with him—and perhaps why he so diligently avoided the snow now, which would always remind him of a lost happiness. Her heart ached, but she was not certain whether it was for him, or herself. ‘We were in love,’ he went on slowly, t
houghtfully, ‘for a while, and then it just sort of—faded away, like a cheap photograph that’s been left in the sun. She didn’t want to get married, but I suppose I thought having a wife, someone waiting at home for me when I was on the road, would give a focal point to my life, an anchor. Of course it’s stupid to try to be married in the profession I was in. I don’t know, maybe if I had been home, maybe if she’d tried harder to make me settle down, we could have salvaged something out of what we once had ... but the marriage went steadily downhill from day one.’ There was suffering in his eyes and Lauren experienced with him all the things he had left unsaid, all the pain, the regret, the guilt ... She wanted to draw him into her arms and comfort him, to tell him to put the past behind and try to forget what had gone before ... she wanted to make him forget, if she could.

  But, forcefully, Shane dragged himself from the dark mood and looked up at her, abruptly changing the subject. ‘Now it’s my turn,’ he announced. ‘Do you always wear those frilly nightgowns to bed, or do you sometimes sleep in the nude? And if you do sleep in nightgowns, do you wear anything at all beneath them? What is it that makes your skin taste like flowers? Do you—’

  She laughed, bringing up her hands to ward off his questions and hide her bright cheeks and sparkling eyes. ‘Unfair! You didn’t warn me you meant personal!’

  ‘I answered yours,’ he returned, his expression bland behind madly dancing eyes. ‘You answer mine.’

  She brought her hands down and folded them beneath her chin, meeting his challenge with laughter in her eyes and a demure smile on her lips. ‘Yes, no, and body lotion,’ she replied, and his eyes snapped with approval and amusement.

  ‘This is kind of fun,’ he admitted. ‘Shall we go on?’

  ‘I think we’ve gotten personal enough for one evening,’ she returned grimly, straightening the folds of her robe about her knees.

  ‘It’s just as well,’ he agreed easily. ‘Too much stimulating conversation this late at night can’t be good for the health.’

  ‘Is that right?’ she laughed.

  He stood and extended his hands to her, drawing her to her feet. ‘That’s right,’ he told her, his eyes as warm as his fingers upon hers. ‘Leading directly to too many cold showers, which, as we all know, are a primary cause of pneumonia.’ She laughed, and he brushed her lips very lightly with a kiss. ‘I’d better go,’ he told her his eyes twinkling, ‘before I catch pneumonia.’ And he kissed her again, more firmly. When he looked at her all signs of teasing were gone, and he said simply, ‘It’s been good being with you tonight, Lauren. Thanks for offering me shelter.’

  She smiled. ‘Any time,’ she answered.

  ‘Careful,’ he warned, touching her nose playfully. ‘I might just take you up on that!’

  Her smile followed him across the room. ‘Goodnight, Shane,’ she said.

  He turned at the door, his eyes warm and reluctant. ‘Goodnight, Lauren.’ And he added gently, ‘Sleep well.’

  The next day dawned cold and rainy, and the morning walk was postponed. It was just as well, because the house was in a flurry getting Angel’s group ready for the return trip to the airport. About mid-morning, the rain stopped, clearing abruptly into patches of sunshine and brilliant flashes of blue between banks of fast-moving, charcoal-shaded clouds. Lauren seized the opportunity to escape from the clutter and the frantic conversation of last-minute catching up and reluctant goodbyes, and stepped out into the cool air of the patio.

  Within moments, she heard the door close again softly behind her, and when she turned she was surprised to see it was Angel who joined her. She smiled to Lauren and came over to her, taking a deep breath of the cool, wet air and at the same time drawing a cigarette from the deep pocket of her hip-length suede vest. ‘Don’t tell on me,’ she said with an endearing grin as she brought the cigarette to her mouth and reached for her lighter. ‘I’m not supposed to, you know, and I feel like a ten-year-old every time I sneak away to have a smoke.’

  Lauren assured her her confidence was well placed, and she noticed Angel’s hands were shaking badly as she lit the cigarette. She couldn’t help staring, and Angel noticed with a nervous laugh as she drew deeply on the cigarette and replaced the lighter in her pocket. ‘Don’t let the shakes bother you,’ she said, ‘I’m not having a nicotine fit. My nerves are shot, that’s all; it’s a professional hazard.’ Her restless eyes wandered over the turbulent skyline briefly, jerkily, as she once again inhaled the smoke and added, ‘Shane had the right idea. He got out just in time.’

  Lauren did not know what to say. She smiled politely and shifted her gaze to the misty mountains in the distance. She could feel the other woman’s gaze, however, and when she glanced that way again Angel was looking at her with a curious smile on her face, her arms crossed over her chest against the chill, the cigarette poised lightly between two fingers. And she said, ‘We never got a chance to know one another.’ She laughed a little. ‘I travel in a portable zoo, as I guess you noticed, and there’s never, any time for anything.’ Then she added unexpectedly, ‘You’re Shane’s girl, aren’t you?’

  Lauren was startled. ‘Did—he tell you that?’

  Angel shook her head, scattering ash to the ground with a few quick taps of her index finger. Her smile was secretive and affectionate. ‘He didn’t have to. You get to know a person well enough, and you pick up on these things.’

  Shane’s girl. The sound of it was thrilling, a little overwhelming, and, of course, completely exaggerated. Lauren asked, ‘How long have you known him?’

  ‘God, for ever.’ Angel tilted her head back to the breeze and drew deeply again on the cigarette. The wind carried the smoke over her head in a crooked angular stream. Her expression grew thoughtful, almost troubled, as she gazed beyond Lauren at the mountains and said, ‘I owe him my life, I guess. Oh, he’d hate it if he ever heard me say that, but I don’t know what else you’d call it.’

  Lauren stared at her. ‘I don’t understand. What did he—’

  Angel shrugged a little, embarrassed. ‘It’s a real sordid story, and when you’ve been there you don’t want to talk about it. He just picked me up out of the gutter when I was sinking fast, and turned me around without even trying.’ She tried to make it all sound very casual, but Lauren could tell there was a deeply protected emotion behind the story. ‘When I thought I couldn’t make it, all I had to do was look at him to know I could ...’ And then she looked at Lauren, embarrassed again, as though suddenly realising she was talking to a complete stranger. ‘Well, anyway,’ she added on a brighter note, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get to know you better. I know Shane thinks a lot of you.’ She turned her head towards a call from inside the house, quickly grinding out the cigarette beneath her shoe. ‘Sounds like the last boarding call; I’d better get a move on.’

  She started back inside, then turned back to Lauren, a strange mixture of light warning and tender affection on her face. ‘Shane is very, very special,’ she said softly. ‘You be good to him, you hear?’

  Lauren could not help smiling, though rather uncertainly, in return.

  Strange, she thought, and wandered off the patio on to the soggy ground. A bare, wet bush brushed coldly against her jeaned leg and she stroked its stubbly branches absently. She wondered again what Angel’s relationship with Shane was. Protective, affectionate, but more sisterly than lover-like. She supposed Shane must have done her a favour at some time, something which had saved or changed her career, and she was eternally grateful. Well, that came as no surprise to Lauren. The man she knew through his music was generous, thoughtful, and cared deeply for the welfare of others. And what about the man she had recently come to know as separate from the musician? Not so different, she reflected with some slow surprise. Perceptive, sensitive, calmly observant ... most of the time. Often tender, unexpectedly sensuous, inexplicably haunted ... and by more, it seemed, than lingering grief for the death of his family. Given to startling bursts of temper and irrationality ... Lauren shook her head we
arily as she went back inside. How was she supposed to understand him when she couldn’t even understand herself most of the time?

  Silence lay over the house when she entered, unexpected and welcome. Like a sudden summer storm, they had burst upon the scene in a cacophony of colour and sound, then departed as abruptly as they had arrived, leaving the air refreshed and renewed and ... peaceful. Unconsciously, Lauren breathed a sigh of relief as she poured herself a cup of coffee, then, placing it on the breakfast table, went into the living room to find a magazine. Marie had left a plate of Danish pastries on the table, and Lauren intended to enjoy a leisurely, quiet mid-morning snack.

  As she rifled through the magazine collection on the bookshelf—mostly music and entertainment publications—Lauren’s eyes fell upon a heavy, over-stuffed scrapbook. Opening it, she discovered it was filled with clippings and little-known highlights about some of Van’s famous protégés and, her interest immediately captured, she took it back to the kitchen with her.

  She settled into a corner of the breakfast booth, sipping her coffee and nibbling on a Danish pastry, looking through the pages and idly wondering if Marie—for such meticulous work definitely bore the mark of Marie’s hand—had included anything about Shane. Lauren did not read music magazines (as a matter of fact, the only time she even read Variety was when she was out of work), and she found these clippings, about some of her favourite performers fascinating. She soon became engrossed in the private philosophies of the stars, the unexpected beginnings, the incredible behind-the-scenes endeavours that went into the making of a hit record.

  Then she turned a page, and stopped. There, filling two lengths of heavy black paper, Marie had lovingly placed every clipping, every notice, every review of every musical Lauren had ever danced in. Even if her name was not mentioned (which was often) Marie had saved the notice, writing on the side, ‘Lauren—May, 1979’ or ‘Lauren, Chicago, ‘78—marvelous!’ Tears of love and gratitude filled her eyes. Either Marie or Van had attended every opening in which she danced, ready with witty criticism or raving approval, and for the first time Lauren was struck by how fortunate she was to be so loved, so cared for.