If she was there right now, and he had to face her, he'd deal with it as best he could. But Mike was hoping Bonnie wouldn't be there, not yet, so she'd have a chance to read the letter he'd written on the plane, and maybe let it sit for a bit before deciding what to do. If she snapped shut the minute she saw him, Mike knew he probably wouldn't stand a chance this time to persuade her to open up again. He wanted to stand a chance, probably more than anything else he could think of wanting in his life, though he knew the odds against it were long. He added that to the mental list of things that he knew had Changed Since Before, in case Pete didn't cover that one. He knocked on the green door and waited.
"Come in, already!" Ari hollered from his "other" office. Nobody knew where to find him unless the staff told them, and the staff didn't tell anyone they didn't trust. But the knock came again. "Manners, manners, everybody gotta have manners," he muttered as he went up the hall to open the door. When he saw who was waiting, he understood.
"Well hello again, Mike. I think maybe someone forgot to tell me when you were coming." He stood aside to let his visitor enter, but the tall young Texan only stepped into the doorway after hastily removing the sunglasses he'd apparently forgotten he was wearing.
"Uh, that's okay Mr. Lowenstein. Sorry I didn't call first, I was kind of in a rush."
"No need to peer around," Ari advised as he noticed Mike failing to be subtle, "she isn't here right now. Went out with Lulu, from the club. They have lots of catching up to do. And my name is 'Ari', in case you forgot." He doubted that. His doubts were confirmed when Mike shifted uneasily.
"Well, I thought maybe I'd lost the right, y'know, for that." When Ari took him by the sleeve and pulled him inside, he didn't resist.
"Look, Mike, and I am not going to call you anything else, my name is Ari. And stop looking like a bandit, I'm inviting you into my home, so you will show me the respect of coming in and calling me by the name I ask. Do you think you can do that, Mr. Rock Star?"
"Yeah, yeah. Sorry, Ari. It's just… well didn't she tell you?"
"She told me, yes. Here, sit." He practically shoved Mike into an upholstered armchair and sat down on another nearby. "She told me lots of things. About herself, about her life since she left here, about how you two tripped over each other and never got up again. So yes, she also told me she couldn't find you when she thought she should. And there ends my interest."
"I don't know what she told you, but I'm really trying to…" Mike began, but stopped when Ari held up a finger and shushed him.
"This is between you and Siobhan. She is like a sometimes-errant daughter to me, but her life is her life. I invited you to visit, and you are here. Anything else is a matter for you two, and not for me."
"I get what you're saying but I just want you to know," he protested, "because I know how close you are. I'm trying my best to do this right, to treat her like she deserves, and I screwed up. I'm not turning back into… never mind. I'm sure she told you about that, too, and it's all true. I don't wanna go back to that. Don't worry, I'm not asking you to tell her anything." He reached into the inside pocket of his denim jacket and handed Ari an envelope. "Here. She'll think clearer if she doesn't have to think with me standing here. Understand? I mean, she's got every right to say anything she wants to me, and decide any way she wants to deal with this. But I figured if she had a little time, maybe…" He trailed off.
"Maybe she won't make a rash decision." It wasn't a question. "Without butting in… do you think I've never sat where you're sitting? Screwing up, oy! There are many kinds, big and small." He threw his hands in the air. "My Ruth, sometimes I wonder why she didn't kick me out! But she didn't. So I'll give you this much… I think you're right, and at times Siobhan must be forced to stop and think or sometimes she doesn't think at all. You're looking confused."
"Well, yeah, kind of. You think maybe she won't tell me to go to hell and get lost?"
"A mind reader, I'm not. Tell me, have you ever tried to dance with her? No, I'm not a crazy old man, there's a reason I'm asking."
"Yeah, once. In Paris, I took her out to dinner at a nice place. She didn't want to dance, but I made her do it." At this Ari's eyes widened and Mike acknowledged, "Right on, that's not a victory I expect to repeat. But in the end she was okay with it."
"So, did she step on your feet?" He was relieved to see Mike roll his eyes, and laugh. Good. He knows I'm not the judge of anybody.
"You could say that. In fact you could say that a lot."
"And you didn't send her packing for that, did you? Of course not. Well let me tell you… any two people, their life together is a dance. From what I can tell, you stepped on her feet last night, and pretty hard. But I'm still thinking you want to be the best dancer you can be, for both of you. When you came here a few months ago not knowing what to do but doing it anyway, if you were faking then you wouldn't be sitting here in front of me now, looking like you look. Right now, maybe Siobhan isn't seeing it that way. Right now she just sees your screw-up, not your trying." He gestured with the envelope. "If this comes from your heart, and she thinks, and then listens, maybe she'll see everything she needs to see." Ari glanced at his watch. "And you need to leave now, or Siobhan won't take the chance to think or see when she finds you here."
They went to the door together, and Ari opened it for Mike.
"Thanks, Ari, thanks a lot," Mike shook his hand. "I'm gonna get a hotel room soon as I leave here, I'll call with the number."
Ari snatched back his hand and slammed the door before Mike could leave.
"I invite you into my home, I share my heart and my knowledge, and you repay me with such an insult!" Mike looked so taken aback that Ari dropped his show of outrage. "You'll stay here, my young friend, upstairs." He pointed a finger upward and declared, "Never let it be said that Ari Lowenstein refused hospitality to a man just because he stepped on a lady's feet. Annie will give you a key, ask for number three. Don't worry, I won't tell Siobhan you're here, I'll just give her this," he held up the envelope, "and I'll tell her where to look for you when she has had time to think."
Mike shook Ari's hand again and slapped him on the back for good measure. "You're the best, man!"
Ari gestured dismissively. "You think you're the only person who knows that two mistakes don't cancel each other out? Go downstairs, ask for number three. And while you're down there, check out our stage." He winked and added, "I intend to get you up there before you leave. You should have a little practice first."
"I'll take you up on that. I figure I owe you at least a full set!" His smile disappeared. "Either way." He looked Ari in the eye and saw the older man nod in understanding.
"Something else that Siobhan told me, that you were honest with her about your failings. To be honest with her, you had to be honest with yourself. This I respect, this reassures me that you're the same man who first came here looking for a way to make Siobhan smile again. Nothing she decides will change that. Now go, see how your music sounds in my club."
Ari went back in the apartment and laid the letter on the kitchen table, noticing there was no name written on the envelope. Instead there were the words "Please read this - Nes".
On the way down the hall to his office he gestured toward the ceiling and said, "Yes, Ruth, don't worry, I'll stay out of it. l'll stay out of it! I'll walk away, I won't even watch to see if she opens it!" Even as he spoke he could hear the words of his dearly beloved late wife echoing in his head:
"And you think you're kidding, who?"
5pm
"What can he say that'll make sense to me? Ari, he swore he was just gonna make some peace, him and Peter, they were gonna get together and put it all behind them like grownups, but what did he do? He spent the night with her, at the house! And I'm telling you, they were not divvying up the record albums."
Living up (or down) to his beloved Ruth's expectations, Ari advised Bonnie, "You don't know that."
"Yeah, well you don't know him." She tossed the envelope toward Ari where he sat across the table from her.
He didn't pick it up. "Maybe not him, but I know you. I know how when you don't want to listen you close up and back away and shut everything out. Like you did when Benjamin died. You closed up, and backed away, and left."
"I'd been planning that for a long time before," she argued.
Ari wasn't buying it. "Sure, planning, you started planning the minute he left for North Carolina. But leaving, that was different. You waited here, planning and not leaving, until you knew he was never coming back. Then you left. After you closed up tight, like a turtle. You went to where you thought you'd be able to stay that way. But it looks like someone found a way in, and now you're trying to pull in your head and close up tight again. Well let me remind you, my sweetheart darling, people aren't turtles. When they make mistakes they deserve to be heard before you pull in your head. The young man who flew all the way to my club a few months ago, he told me how you were closed up, not in so many words, but from what else he said, I knew. No matter what he told you he used to be, he was not acting like a man who wanted to stay that way. The young man who came here, then and now, who wrote this," Ari shoved the envelope across the table at her, "he wants something different. Don't make that face at me, young lady. Read."
So she did, reading aloud because she wanted Ari to know she really was reading every word.
Bonnie,
I'm not just copping out by writing this instead of saying it in person, because it's not fair to expect you to read and think and answer at the same time. We both know that wouldn't go well for either of us. Looking at you, I'd be trying like hell to say the 'right' thing when there's no right thing to say. And you'd go right into the armadillo roll, and that would be that.
You were right, the past is a powerful thing. I wasn't careful enough, or else I wasn't smart enough to know that being careful isn't enough. Turns out you can make old mistakes for new reasons and I won't lie, I came damn close. I can tell you as much as you want to know, later, about what happened and didn't, but I know that's not the biggest thing on your mind. Who I really am, that's what you're thinking about, who I am and how much of it is the same as who I was, and can I be different no matter how much I want to. I won't try to answer that here, because even if I never lied to you about what I've done before, what reason do you have to believe what I'm saying now?
I can say I'm sorry, I can say 'te amo siempre'. That's not enough to keep you with me even if you believe it. But before you make up your mind, talk to Peter. Ask him what's different this time than before, he's been here all along and has seen everything. He'll know what it means when you ask him and he'll tell it like it is and if you don't believe anything else, believe he will not lie to save my ass. Maybe then you can find a reason not to walk away.
So even though I have no right to ask, please try not to roll up tight and walk away for good. If you give me a chance to fix what I broke, I swear to God I will find a way to deserve it.
Michael
She laid the note on the table. "How did he look?"
"'How did he look', Miss Turtle asks?" Ari blew out a sharp breath. "Like he knows what he did, and he wants to do better. So now, it's up to you. Be a human being, or be a turtle."
"Not a turtle," she answered quietly, "an armadillo." Ari waited, eyebrows raised, so she explained, "He calls me 'armadillo', sometimes, like he says here. Says I roll up in an armor shell when I get mad or scared, like you said. Won't talk, won't listen. Like that first time he came out here." She didn't tell him about the nights when Nesmith had to coax her out of her shell even while she was asleep.
"So, he knows you too. You're not as big a secret as you think, not to the people that love you."
"Whose side are you on anyway?!" She shook her head and pointed at the letter before declaring, "If he loved me, this wouldn't have happened. If he really loved me, he wouldn't have had to write this."
Like a parent who decides he's been patient for too long, Ari stood over her and spoke in a stern voice.
"Siobhan Maureen Morris. You know I love you, and I loved Benjamin, both of you like my own, like the children my Ruth and I were never blessed with. She would have loved both of you too, if she'd still been alive to meet you. And she'd tell you what I will tell you now: grow up. You are almost thirty-five years old and you know life is not a fairy tale, so stop talking like fairy tales. Human beings aren't perfect. And take it from one who was married for thirty years, love isn't perfect. If Mr. Mike Nesmith didn't love you," Ari paused to pound the note several times with a stout forefinger, "he wouldn't have bothered to write this. He wouldn't have come, not now and not the first time. Will it kill anything but your pride to call your friend Peter? What you told me about, what you and Mike have, even if it came to you by accident, that's not something to throw away without even listening."
She was surprised by Ari's insistence. "Okay…" Then she changed her mind. "No. No I'm not gonna put Peter in the middle of this. If Nesmith wants me to know what's 'different' he can damn well tell me himself."
"Aha. It seems you're a little different now, too. You want to listen, and not shut up like a turtle."
"Armadillo," she sighed, giving up the battle against hurt and anger, and not a little fear. "And okay, this time I'll listen even though I'm scared to. If he can come out here and face me, I can listen."
"What scares you so much?" he wanted to know.
"What scares me is I love him!" she burst out, and continued in a rush of words, "What scares me is he's twenty-seven years old and I'm close to thirty-five, that he's just beginning to try to act like a decent human being for the first time in years, he tells me that over and over, but he's angry at the world most of the time and the rest of the time he's trying so hard to make everything right for me… I swear he just astonishes me sometimes, how he knows me and what he does for me just because he knows I need it or want it, but Jesus he's a rock star, Ari, and it's no joke, he's famous and everyone's watching him and wanting a piece of him, and every girl's wanting 'that' piece of him and God knows he was always willing to get it on with them, he told me that himself." She looked at him as if pleading for him to make sense of it. "I don't get it, I feel right finally, with Nesmith I feel like myself for the first time since I lost Benny, but I'm balanced on this tightrope with him and he's juggling what he was and who he's trying to be. And man, the whole world is shaking both ends of the wire. It all scares me."
"Sweetheart. Love is supposed to scare you. You think nobody else is scared? You think my Ruth and I, we weren't scared? Scared of falling in love, scared of not being worthy, scared of being wrong? Scared that the 'worse' part of better or worse, we couldn't survive? Scared of losing each other?" He leaned down then and kissed the top of her head, speaking more quietly than before. "If love doesn't scare you, you're not paying attention. Don't lose it when you don't have to. Listen to Mike, then talk, both of you. A mind reader, I'm not, and a psychiatrist, even less. But sweetheart, darling… if that young man doesn't love you then I've never been right in my life about anything. And scared? I saw it in his eyes, he's shaking in his heart, but he came here anyway."
"Where'd he say he's staying?"
Ari snorted. "At a hotel, he said. The gall. I told him no, I sent him down to the club to get the key to number three. I'm not such a judge of men's mistakes that I would send him away to a hotel." He patted Bonnie's hand. "He said he was going to see how his guitar sounded on the stage. He's probably still there, it hasn't been long. Nobody will be coming back for oh, an hour or more. Go." He shooed her to the door. "Go be human beings. 'Perfect' is not required."
By the time she'd gotten down the stairs and to the door at the end of the bar, Bonnie still didn't have any idea what she'd say. Hell, she didn't even know what she was feeling, except confused and hurt and yeah, scared. In spite of all that she also felt tempted to ignore it all if he'd just give her that smile that reached his eyes, and tell her in that honeyed drawl that it was all gonna be just fine. She'd have to believe him if he did that, wouldn't she? She always did before.
Just as she got to the door she could hear it, a cascading guitar riff, the tune sounding distantly familiar. As she entered she realized it was the tune he'd been humming in her ear, that night on the deck when he'd told her how great her trip would be. How everything was gonna be just fine, just before he'd teased her about her French-accented Spanish. That night when he was doing all the little things he did that always made her feel warm and right, lots of little things that crowded out the big things she couldn't control. The cold, sharp ball of glass in her gut disappeared the moment she saw him, that emotional parasite that had arrived along with Phyllis Nesmith. It was replaced by a flicker of longing, fanned by a familiar rush of butterflies.
He was standing on the small stage at the far end of the room, turned three-quarters toward the back wall, focused on his music. One eye on the controls, as always, looking for that perfect sound. From across the room he still looked impossibly tall, even with head bent and one leg shot out to the side as he maneuvered up and down, as if gravity itself would help him find that elusive groove he was always reaching for when he played. He was wearing his signature slim blue jeans, the hated wide "hipster" belt replaced by narrow black leather with silver conchos, and that pale denim shirt with the cuffs rolled back exposing strong wrists and agile hands. Cowboy boots this time, making his long legs look even longer. She could see he hadn't shaved in awhile, and knew that when she got closer she'd notice that the careless beard would be bringing out his dark eyes and making him look younger and softer to her than the face he usually showed the world.
Bonnie was about ten feet from the stage when Mike turned his head halfway to look at her, an uncertain gaze from around the edge of that smooth dark wave of hair. It took everything she had in her not to race the rest of the way to him, to throw them off balance and bury herself in him, surrounded by Ivory Soap and long strong arms and promises in Spanish that he was trying so hard to keep.