Hitting the Right Note

by Rhonda Bowen

  “If he only knew how soon all of it is going to end,” JJ said dryly.

  Deacon shot her a knowing look. “You haven’t—”

  “No,” JJ said, shaking her head. “I gave you my word. I won’t.”

  Deacon nodded. “Good. ’Cause I suspect the label wouldn’t be signing this new contract with your boy if they knew what was coming up soon.”

  “So you’re going for certain,” JJ said. “Are you even gonna do the tour extension?”

  Deacon shrugged. “Not sure yet. Depends on what my lawyers say. But if I do, those will be my last shows with Sound City. Probably my last shows for a long while.”

  JJ shook her head. “Ticket holders for this tour have no idea how lucky they are, do they?”

  “Nope,” Deacon said, running his fingers over the keys. “It’s a shame that the fans are the ones who will have to suffer. That’s why I want to make these last shows the best possible.”

  And JJ could see he meant every word as they went through the rehearsal. He was more meticulous than she had ever seen him, going over every detail until their duet sounded perfect.

  “Hey,” he said, stopping suddenly. “Let’s try something. Let’s switch instruments. You play the lead and sing it. I’ll play the guitar.”

  JJ’s eyes popped open as he reached for her guitar.

  “Deacon, no!” she protested. “I told you, my piano playing is terrible.”

  “Yeah, I heard that,” Deacon said as he removed the strap of her Fender from around her shoulders. “But do it anyway.”

  Once Deacon had placed her guitar over his shoulders and began testing out the strings, JJ knew there was no point arguing. With a sigh she sat down in front of the piano and put her hands on the keys.

  It was a gently used instrument. The padding under the keys seemed to be worn down well enough that there was little resistance when she pressed down. That was good. It had been a while since she had played. At least she knew she wouldn’t have to lean into the keys to get a good, solid sound.

  “I’m gonna need some time to warm up,” JJ said. “It’s been a while.”

  “Do what you gotta do,” Deacon said distractedly as he played around with her guitar. She suspected that it had been a while for him also.

  She picked through the chorus until her fingers remembered the progression, then played through the whole song, humming as she did. When she finally felt confident, she started from the beginning. She didn’t try to play it the way Deacon did. There was no way she could do that. Instead, she played it the way she remembered and sang it the way she remembered. Deacon picked up the accompaniment on the guitar, coming in a bit cautiously at first, but finding his confidence around the second verse.

  The difference was baffling. With JJ singing and playing the lead and Deacon accompanying and picking up the harmony, it sounded like a totally different song. It felt like it too.

  “That was interesting,” Deacon said with a small smile.

  “It was,” JJ said.

  “I like it,” Deacon said, standing up as he removed her guitar. “Let’s play it that way tonight—you playing the lead on piano, me singing and playing guitar.”

  JJ’s brows furrowed. “Deacon . . . are you sure? I mean, my playing . . .”

  “Is fine,” Deacon said. “It’s not bad, it’s just different. And I like something different. Besides, I don’t know when I will be on tour again, so I’m going to enjoy it as much as I can.”

  JJ sighed as she realized that the same went for her. The way things were going, who knew if she would ever be onstage again after this. She might as well enjoy the experience.

  “Okay,” she said with a cautious smile. “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 41

  “Mum, where are you?”

  “I’m in here!”

  Simon shook his head and pulled the front door to his parents’ condo closed behind him. He could explain to his mother why “I’m in here” didn’t necessarily bring him any closer to finding her, but after thirty-three years he wasn’t sure what good it would do.

  Slipping off his shoes at the door, he padded through the terra-cotta tiled hallway to the lower-level living area. The room was immaculate, as always, with every plant looking lush and green and every cushion in place. A home décor magazine, a dozen paint swatches, and a thick, leather-bound day planner lay on the polished wood coffee table, but his mother was nowhere to be found.

  He continued on through the dining room, past the heavy glass dining table for six, and grabbed a banana from the bowl on the kitchen counter before heading up the carpeted stairs. He found his mother in her favorite place, a smaller upstairs sitting area that held his father’s large flat-screen television and his mother’s brown suede couch. A cream-colored carpet that only people without children would consider buying lay beneath another low, polished wood coffee table.

  “Hey, Mum.” Simon leaned down and kissed his mother’s cheek before settling on the couch beside her.

  “Love, come look at this,” Fiona Massri said, patting her son’s hand as she turned up the volume on the television. “That Mountain fellow is coming to town.”

  Simon looked at the screen and grimaced. “Hill, Mum. His name is Deacon Hill.”

  “Hill, Mountain, I can never remember,” Fiona said with a wave of her hand. “Your cousin nearly yapped my ear off this morning. She wants to come here and stay with us so she can go to this concert.”

  “Who, Melanie?” Simon asked, raising an eyebrow. “She’s thirteen. Uncle Fredrick’s letting his thirteen-year-old daughter come all the way to Toronto to go to a Deacon Hill concert? What is he—”

  “Shhh,” Fiona said, tapping him, “they’re talking about his show in Chicago.”

  Simon didn’t want to be shushed. He also didn’t want to see anything about Deacon Hill. But as he watched his mother’s green eyes focus with fascination on the TV screen, he knew that he had no choice.

  The screen panned over a packed concert venue with lots of screaming fans.

  “. . . Hill played to a sold-out audience last night at Chicago’s Allstate Arena. But that’s not all. Toronto music lovers will be glad to know that our city is getting a bit of the spotlight on this tour through homegrown talent JJ Isaacs, who sings a duet with Deacon during the show. ET Canada got a chance to chat with Isaacs last night and is here to bring you the exclusive.”

  The image switched, and suddenly Simon was looking at JJ as the host of the show held a microphone in her face. Her skin glistened under the camera lights and her eyes were bright and shining. Her hair, which his fingers could almost feel, was doing that tight curly thing it did sometimes when it was really humid and she was outside for long. The sight of her was like a dagger to his heart.

  “Deacon Hill’s new band, She-La, has been an unexpected high point for this tour, and you, JJ, have been a breakout star. How does it feel playing for thousands with Deacon Hill?”

  JJ smiled. “Honestly, it’s a feeling I can’t explain. Last week we played Miami, tonight Chicago. It’s been crazy travelling all over North America. If someone had told me a year ago that I would be doing this now, I would have laughed at them. But Deacon gave us all this great opportunity to be in this rocking girl band. And two of us from the band are from Toronto, so all I can say is Go Canada! I hope we’re making you proud.”

  “You definitely are. And will we be seeing you all in Toronto?”

  “Absolutely,” JJ said with a grin. “We can’t wait to play for all our family and friends less than a week from now in our home city. I know that’s going to be amazing—”

  Simon stood up from the couch. “I can’t watch this.”

  Without waiting for a response from his mother, he left the room and walked down the hallway to the second-level washroom. He splashed some water on his face, but it couldn’t wash away the ache in his chest or the image of JJ imprinted on his brain. It had been nine days since he had last held her in his arms, eight since he had s
poken to her, two since he had heard her voice on his voice mail. It felt like eternity. But it would have felt worse if they had allowed it to drag on to the inevitable end—to the part where she decided there was no space in her life for him.

  “Okay, you can come back now,” Fiona called. “She’s gone.”

  Simon sighed and wiped his face with a paper towel before trudging slowly back into the room with his mother. The TV was off and she was picking at strawberries on a plate on the table. He leaned against the doorway until she patted the couch beside her.

  “Still haven’t spoken to her, have you, love?”

  Simon shrugged as he sat back on the couch beside his mother. “What’s the point? You see where she is, what her life is like.”

  “What does that have to do with how you feel about each other?” Fiona asked.

  “Mum, it’s not just about feelings,” Simon said, feeling exasperated. “It’s hard to form a relationship with someone when you never see each other.”

  “Who said that relationships were supposed to be easy?” Fiona asked. “So both your lives are transient and complicated. If you both are willing to try, then shouldn’t you make a go of it?”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Simon grumbled.

  Fiona reached over and clapped him on the back of his head.

  “Oww!” Simon groaned, more out of shock than actual pain. “What was that about?”

  “To jog your apparently short memory,” Fiona said, her Irish accent becoming more pronounced with her stirring emotions. “You seem to have forgotten how little I saw your father when you were younger. I spent months alone with you while he was away on assignments. Before you were five years old, I doubt we ever spent more than five solid months together.”

  “But that was different,” Simon said. “You were already married, you had a child, you were committed to each other.”

  “Ha!” Fiona responded. “It was worse before we got married! Why do you think I got pregnant so fast? So I could guilt him into spending more time with me.”

  Simon grimaced. “Oh, Mum.”

  “Stop,” Fiona said with a laugh. She placed her hand on his arm. “I stuck it out because I knew who your father was from the beginning. He loved me. I was sure of that. But he needed to be out there. He needed to feel like his life had a purpose and he was fulfilling it. It’s not that he didn’t want to be with me, it was just that he didn’t know how to be who he was—to be the man I fell in love with—without being available to help others where he could.”

  She squeezed his arm. “You get that from him.”

  Simon sighed. “I was willing to stay here for her.”

  Fiona smiled. “For now.”

  He looked at his mother questioningly.

  “You couldn’t stay in one place if you tried, Simon Massri,” she said, touching his cheek. “At least not now, while you’re young and you have that driving force in your heart that makes you feel like you have to save the world. You would have stayed for a few months, a year even. But then you would be itching to be somewhere else.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he said stubbornly.

  “I do,” Fiona said. “And since I’ve known you before you knew yourself, you should trust my judgment.”

  Simon cracked a smile.

  “It’s not a bad thing,” Fiona said, leaning her head on her son’s shoulder. “It’s just who you are. But I’m guessing that’s not the reason you’re here sulking over Judith.”

  “I’m not sulking.”

  Fiona snorted. “Tell your forehead that. You have so many lines there, I could hang the wash.”

  Simon began to get up, but Fiona grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. He glanced back, surprised at how easily she was able to overpower him.

  “What happened with you and her?” Fiona asked.

  Simon let out a long, harried breath.

  “Her former boyfriend happens to be her current manager,” Simon said, frowning at the wall in front of him. “And this guy is a piece of work, Mum. Got a temper like an Irish drinker and he manipulates her life for his benefit. But she can’t even see this. She can’t see how toxic he is, how being around him and his lifestyle changes her, and not in a good way. And now she’s planning to sign a contract extension with him.”

  “Ahh,” Fiona said. “Now it becomes clear.”

  “Yes,” Simon replied with a nod. “You see now why this is so hard?”

  “I do,” Fiona said.

  “Thank you,” Simon said, sitting back with a sigh of relief. At least someone understood.

  “You think she’s going to be Elena all over again.”

  “What?” Simon jumped up. “No. It’s not that at all. It’s just that I am so different from him, as long as we’re together we’re going to disagree over him . . .”

  “Then she’ll eventually choose him over you.”

  “No, it will just be harder for us to work,” Simon said defiantly. “This has nothing to do with Elena.”

  “Okay,” Fiona said, holding her hands up in surrender. She reached for him, and he resumed his position in the couch. Nonetheless, threads of tension continued to run through him. He knew his mother, and she never gave up that easily.

  “You said she was planning to extend her contract?” Fiona asked.

  “Yes,” Simon responded. “Another two years.”

  “Hmm,” Fiona said thoughtfully. “So she hasn’t actually done it yet—she’s still thinking about it?”

  Simon paused. “Uh, yes.”

  “So you didn’t actually give her a chance to make that decision. You assumed she would, and so you ended your relationship with her based on that assumption.”

  Simon frowned. He knew his mother wasn’t finished.

  “Mum, it’s what would have happened anyway,” he said.

  “That must be interesting,” Fiona said.

  “What?”

  “Being God and knowing everything.”

  Simon rolled his eyes. He had walked right into that one. But his mother was right. He had jumped the gun with JJ. He hadn’t given her a chance to make a choice. “Okay, so I made an assumption,” Simon admitted.

  “Yes, you did,” Fiona said. “Furthermore, so what if she chose to re-sign with her ex-boyfriend manager? Don’t you think she’s smart enough to handle this guy on her own? After all, she was doing it before you came along.”

  “But, Mum.” Simon sighed. “He sucks the light out of her. When she’s with him, in that life, she’s so . . . lost. I just . . . I hate to see her like that.”

  “So you just give up on her?” Fiona asked. “Quit without trying? Leave before she does, so you don’t get hurt?”

  Simon rubbed his hands over his face. Coming over to see his mother might not have been his best decision of the day. He had been quite comfortable wallowing in his position of self-righteousness before he spoke to her. Darn her years of wisdom and her knowledge of him.

  “There are two things you need to realize, love,” Fiona said gently. “Firstly, every woman is not Elena McCullough. If you treat every one of them like they are, then you’ll always be alone. Are you going to give one woman that much power over your life?”

  Simon pursed his lips but said nothing.

  “Secondly,” Fiona continued, “Judith Isaacs is her own person. You have to let her make her own decisions. But if you’re serious about being with her, you can’t pull away every time you disagree on one of those decisions. Her choosing differently from what you would want for her—even when you think what you want is what’s best—doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care about you. It doesn’t mean that your relationship is over. It just means that you have to show her patience and compassion and care for her while she is being her own person. Just like she’s gonna care for you while you’re being your own stubborn person.”

  “What if I’m holding her back?” Simon asked.

  “What if you’re keeping her grounded?” Fiona replied. “Those are th
ings you can’t know unless you stick it out.”

  Simon put his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. He wished God would give him clear-cut directions on Judith. If there was ever a time in his life when he needed a voice-of-God-from-a-burning-bush experience, it would be now.

  Fiona chuckled and squeezed his arm. “This one has really got you, hasn’t she? I have never seen you turned inside out over any woman like you have been over this Judith. Not even Elena.”

  Simon turned to look at his mother, surprised. She nodded in affirmation of her statement.

  “Have you prayed about this, my God-fearing son?” she asked. “I don’t quite understand your intensity when it comes to your faith, but I admire how devoted you are to God. How dependent you are on his perceived guidance. Don’t you think he cares as much as you do about what Judith’s life is like when she is in this industry? Don’t you think you should ask for his direction?”

  Simon squeezed the bridge of his nose. Truth was, he was afraid to pray about Judith. He was afraid his prayers would end up with him begging God to bring her back to him. Just like he had prayed with Elena. But they hadn’t worked that time, and he wasn’t sure he could bear it if they didn’t work this time either.

  “You once told me that prayer wasn’t so much about asking for what you want but about drawing closer to God until you want what he wants for you,” Fiona said as if hearing his thoughts. “Maybe that’s what you should be aiming for.”

  Simon put his arm around his mother’s shoulders. “I thought you ignored me when I talked about my faith.”

  Fiona smiled. “I never ignore you, love. I just don’t respond to everything right away.”

  She squeezed her son as tightly as her slender arms would allow. “I love you, Simon,” she said. “I just want to see you happy.”

  “I know, Mum,” he said, hugging her back. “I know.”

  His mother was happiest when she was with his father, and Simon knew she wanted that same happiness for Simon. After Elena, he had started to accept the idea that maybe his happiness was to be found somewhere else, in what he could do for others, in the places where he could be God’s hands and feet for those who needed it most. But Judith had shown him that there could be more. And for a while he thought he could have both. Something in his heart, a voice that he tried to listen to, also told him he could have both.