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jonesyjonesyjonesy · 2 years

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Wildflowers (pt. xiv.i)

a john paul jones x fem!oc fic

summary: Julia Morgan knew nannying for three girls who had recently lost their mother would come with many challenges. But she never thought their father, the enigmatic musician John Paul Jones, would be causing her the most trouble. And while Julia is not in the business of saving broken men, her tenderness might be meant for more than little girls and wildflowers.

table of contents │ previous chapter

masterlist│ko-fi

notes: tropes, tropes, and more tropes

a/n: Text editor be damned. The girls need Julia Morgan. Part one of two. As a reminder, the tag list is opened. 🥰

pt. xiv.i, wild rose

"I’ve been watching and I just know, Julia. I just know that you are not alone in this."

The corner of my eye twitched. The band of the falsies Pat had given me kept dipping below my lash line. A tear started forming in my right eye.

“Bloody hell,” I spat and ripped them from the crepe skin of my lids. The release of the glue was a tiny piece of heaven.

I didn’t have the heart to toss them overboard and instead set them on the handrail. They looked like angry black caterpillars that were curling up, waiting to die.

A solemn summer breeze glanced over the lake and gave me goosebumps I rubbed my forearms for warmth. Wished I had a cigarette to accompany me. I had my sea legs by now and I undulated with the delicate waves of the current. But I was done with it. The romanticism I had built up from watching the boats trembling with people and music was kaput. I wanted to go back to the dock.

I coughed deeply once more, marijuana still scratching at my lungs. My head throbbed from too much alcohol. Hangover even before getting into bed. Getting old, Julia. I grabbed onto the rail, framing my little lash caterpillars between my hands, and looked out at the mountains ghosting over the glinting, winking water.

This night that had started out so promising was now miserable and here I was alone on the aft deck while up above people danced up above and inside –

I didn’t want to think about inside. She’d had her hand on the inside of his thigh last I’d looked. And he’d been so taken with her touch, whispering in her ear and making her laugh. Without my eyes, I’m sure it would make it easier for him to unwind just as I’d encouraged the night before. If I had stayed, he would have been slightly abashed and withholding and I could have stayed snug between Robert and –

“There you are.”

I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s hard not to when I think about it.

Where to start, where to start…I guess it’s inevitability. That’s the word. Like how the planets orbit the sun. It was inevitable in that heliocentric way. Around, around, around. Inevitable, inevitable, inevitable.

Although the night before I had refuted Pat’s (and Robert’s and Mr. Grant’s) impression of what was happening between John and I, I cherished that it was known. They saw, felt a potential. That night, rather than hopelessly reach across the bed, I clutched the question in my palm and dangerously imagined the next night. I had to wonder if anyone had bothered to say anything to him about me. I didn’t know habits of infatuation from the male perspective, but from what I could tell, it seemed men never said anything to each other unless it was coded in nods and coughs. Was he being told that there was an obvious quality about us? Did he feel an inevitable feeling about us? Or was he literal when he called me friend? Was our affection for one another deeply entrenched in his tragic desperation for connection?

The day of was a warm and lazy. Room service breakfast, basking on the great lawn, wasting the day away. The exact way to spend a life.

There were moments all throughout the day of that inevitable feeling tucked in pockets. A glance, a shared laugh, his accidental grazing of my hand with his which made us both hold our arms tighter to our sides. The way we intonated Tamara’s name in the same way when she was being indolent. The look we shared after that seemed like neither of us wanted the other to see. Am I making sense? These things feel universal and yet so impossible to put into words.

Inevitable, inevitable, inevitable.

Inevitable like in the goodbye John gave toward the end of dinner before he went upstairs to get ready. “Well,” he let a telling, paternal sigh to stand. “I’m off.” The girls all moaned as he stood and gave each one a kiss to the crown of the head. “Don’t be too upset, you’ll have an extra special night tonight.”

“A surprise? Is there a surprise?” Kiera eagerly asked, shooting up in her chair like a flagpole.

John leaned over her, one hand to the back of the chair and the other on the table. “Julia’s going out tonight. So…”

“I’m in charge?” Tamara smiled and batted her eyelashes.

John scrunched his nose and pinched her chin playfully. “You wish. No, you’ll get some visitors tonight I think you’ll quite enjoy.” He turned to look at me with a sneaking smile. “You want to tell them or should I?”

I smiled back although my thoughts garbled together when my eyes met his. “You can, if you like.”

He rolled his head back to the girls and grinned. “Or do you a have guess?”

Jacinda’s eyes flickered easily, quickly. “Pat and Bonzo?”

Kiera looked to her sisters, her mouth agape and smiling.

John shrugged. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Will they bring a surprise?” Kiera asked.

“Kiera,” Tamara tutted with a roll of her eyes. “They’re the surprise.”

Kiera frowned. “People aren’t a surprise. Presents are a surprise. That’s a surprise, daddy,” she said instructionally.

“You’re spoiled. And I love you dearly,” he replied with a saccharine tone and leaned in to give her a thick, wet kiss on the cheek.

“Where are you going, Julia?” Jacinda asked me.

I hesitated before replying, “I’m going to go watch your father perform tonight.”

The corner of her mouth turned up and her eyes glinted curiously. If I didn’t know better, I would have told her exactly what I said to Pat the night before: “I know what you’re thinking and no.”

“Why does Julia get to watch you and we don’t? That’s not fair,” Kiera pouted.

“Oh, you’d be bored to tears,” he said, gaze falling to his feet. Then, as if the devil ran his finger down his spine, he lifted his head and looked to me with a smirk. “Very boring stuff.” It was only a brief look, but long enough to send a flicker of feeling through my belly.

“Plus, much too late for little ones to be about,” I added.

John laughed, “Yes, there are too many unsettling and spooky characters around past your bedtime.” His eyes darted to his watch. “Alright, now I’ve got to be off. You all better be asleep by the time we’re back tonight, alright?”

A chorus of affirmatives from the girls.

“And I’ll see you later,” he said to me, drifting away from the table with slow feet.

“Yes, I’ll be one of the crowd. Holding a lighter maybe. Isn’t that what people do?” I teased.

John blushed on my behalf and chuckled, “Oh, Julia, you have much to learn.” He turned to go but stopped short and looked back at me once more. “Let tonight be the start of your real education.”

I returned his blush with a deeper shade of crimson. I had done the studying in the studio with him, listening to his records and his playing, hearing him talk about people and concepts I didn’t know. Or was our time together the studying and the night ahead the education?

The girls and I finished up our dinner, including a rather splendid dessert of ice cream sundaes (I’d have to apologize to Pat and Bonzo for the inevitable sugar high). By the time we returned to the suite, John was long gone, save the fresh scent of his aftershave wafting out from his bedroom. God, I was so used to him and his being, his presence. Only natural, considering I lived in his house and took care of his girls. It added to that inevitable feeling. It would just be so easy to pivot into something deeper than friendship. No worrying if the children would like me, no worrying that I wouldn’t be ready for the responsibility of motherhood.

And this is where I had to grab the emergency brake. This felt deranged. What was yesterday a crush was now a full-fledged life plan. I had to wind it back. Put my head down. Focus on what was in front of me and that was bath time, which ran extra-long that night. I hid my anxious, flying thoughts behind the cover of Where the Red Fern Grows while the girls listened with rapt attention as bubbles popped around them. Once they all resembled raisins rather than little girls, I sent them off to their room to put on their pajamas so I could disappear to change.

I had laid out the dress hours ago, tenderly, spread across the bed as if the woman wearing it had disapparated suddenly. The long, white dress, printed with lively poppies, purple bellflowers, and fern leaves, looked exactly like what someone in Montreux shouldwear. A partial wooden-buttoned bodice and tie at the waist. Almost tropical. I had bought the dress specifically for the trip, although it was more of an aspirational garment, something that I didn’t expect to pull out, but would be nice for an impromptu dinner or an evening walk alone along the waterfront.

As I did the ritualistic contortion, bending my arms around my back for the zipper, I started to question if the dress I had thought was so lovely in the shop window was at all fit for the night. I seemed to stick out like a sore thumb wherever I went. I thought of myself as a smart dresser, not necessarily stylish. I cared for my clothes and cared that they suited my figure, but I no longer obsessed over trends as I did as a younger woman. Here, the crowd of musicians and their sycophants dressed in trends that were exponential of what you would see on Carnaby. With so many people saying “look at me”, no one was at all unique.

7pm on the dot, the Bonhams and Robert arrived. Bonzo was markedly grumpy until he was greeted with a thrill of cheers and kisses from the girls and was unceremoniously ushered into a card game. That left me with Pat and Robert, both of whom shuffled me with eagerness into my room.

“That’s just a smashing little thing, don’t you think?” Pat said, pulling up the skirt of my dress and admiring the fabric draped over her hand.

“It looks lovely,” Robert replied as if it were consolation. “But have you got anything shorter?”

I balked, “Shorter? No.”

“Damn,” he grunted. “You see, John’s the type to check the boot of the car before the headlights, if you catch my meaning,” he said and pulled the skirt so it tightened around my backside.

Pat thwapped his hand away from the dress. “Oh, stop that.”

“I’m just saying, if you know where the eye will go, it’s something to capitalize on,” he said with a shrug and cheeky smile before plopping down on the end of the bed and spreading his legs out long.

“Don’t listen to him,” she said and put her hands up in front of my chest. “It makes your tits look great and that’ll be more than enough.”

I had to laugh at their comedy routine. “You’re being awfully presumptive about all this,” I said.

“About what, darlin’?” Robert asked, picking at his nails.

“That…you know,” I began sheepishly. “I don’t know what you all are seeing, but inside of it, it’s just a comfortable friendly sort of thing.”

Robert and Pat stared back at me like I was a child saying they hadn’t broken a teacup even though the handle was still between their fingers.

“And I work for him. So this – what you’re implying or trying to do through…the dress and the…it’s really all appreciated, but it’s altogether inappropriate,” I said with firm finality.

They blinked and then burst into laughter. I screwed my lips together to keep the pinprick of embarrassment from welling in my eyes.

“You’re so precious, Julia,” Pat gushed. “Just precious.”

“Show us the shoes now,” Robert demanded from his throne on the bed.

I tried to ignore their reaction and showed them the woven leather heels that seemed satisfactory, even though Robert remarked that they looked ginormous when I held them up. “Don’t talk about that, I’m sensitive,” I said dryly before clipping them on.

And then it was off to the vanity, which clearly had been on Pat’s mind. She plopped a large makeup case adorned with golden threaded elephants down and began to unload every little thing in her bag of tricks. Robert got up and came behind me, running his hand through my hair. “What are you thinking?”

“Well, I was just –“ I began.

“Just a slight curl, a little spray,” Pat rattled off.

“You’ve got to go big with the hair,” Robert replied.

I stared at my reflection, rendered speechless. The two of them squabbled over my hair as if I wasn’t there, just a form for them to style. It felt ridiculous to be prodded and preened by their fingers, evaluating the pros and cons of what hairstyle would suit the evening.

“Don’t worry, Julia. You’re in very good hands. You just need to sit and let me do my work, alright?” Pat said in her sweet way that now felt rather condescending given the moment.

“I just prefer something not too flashy, you know, I don’t want –“

I was silenced by Pat’s hands running over my face with some sort of balm or cream that had a sharp and unnatural floral scent. It was abundantly clear that I would not have a say in what was happening to me, so I kept my mouth shut and let them take over. As the saying goes, idle hands are the devil’s playthings, and it became too easy to let my love-addled brain turn to anxieties of the evening.

Meanwhile, Pat worked and Robert commented endlessly. Brushes and fingers, creams and powders, the heat of a curling iron at the back of my neck. I watched the mirror out of the corner of my eye in terror at what was becoming of my face and my hair. Glimpses of big, thick curls weighed down with product and shocks of frosted orange on my eyelid. I must have been paling pitifully because they kept arguing over if they should add more rouge.

After what felt like a lifetime of this torture, Pat spoke up. “Close your eyes.”

Her fingers drifted into my eyeline, holding the wispy lashes that would plague me later in the night. “No, no, no,” I held up a hand. “I haven’t worn those since the 60s, please.”

“Oh, come on, they’ll look nice,” she retorted, making no move of retreat.

“Everyone wears them,” Robert added. “And Pat puts them on perfectly, you won’t be getting that lazy eye look.”

“Shut up, Rob.”

I dodged left. “No, please, I don’t want them on.” Then right. “I don’t want to look all done up.” I shot up off the tufted stool and backed away from the pair. “I just want to look like me and I don’t wear those.” For the first time, I saw myself directly in the mirror and almost burst into tears. Pat had done a formidable job, but I hated it. I looked so young. I felt transported almost immediately to the time of my life that was just knee socks and wet knickers, when being bold and outlandish was my currency and despite all the risks I was taking, I felt so safe. Right up until I wasn’t. My reflection was just a little girl. I didn’t want to look like a girl tonight.

I grabbed at a lock of my hair and heard it crunch in my hand. “This is ridiculous. I look…ridiculous.”

“You look fantastic! What are you on about?” Robert said with brash enthusiasm. “You’ll be right up there with the best of them, Julie.”

“I’m not looking to be best in show,” I said, my breath quickening. “I don’t do this sort of thing. I feel like a fish in a fur coat.” I lunged for my hairbrush and began undoing the thick strains of curls. “I’m sorry, I know you worked so long, but this is just too much. I look like too much.”

Robert tried to retrieve the brush from me. “You’re spoiling it!”

“Rob, leave her alone,” Pat interjected and guided him toward the door. “Go wait outside, will you?”

They had a quiet conversation in the doorway that I ignored as I paced around the room, tugging on the crunchy curls with the brush. I had about half of my head done, curls softened as much as they could, when Pat spoke up. “Are you alright?”

“Fine.”

“Julia…”

“You’ve all made this such a big thing and it wasn’t. It wasn’t anything, Pat,” I replied tersely and returned to the vanity. I began working on a curl that had become extremely knotted. “And now I have to appease it unless I want Mr. Grant to eat my kidneys for breakfast tomorrow.”

“Oh dear,” she muttered and came up behind me.

I worked tirelessly on the hair, not minding the pain it was bringing to my scalp, until I felt her hand on my shoulder. The tension in my back melted and I dropped my hands into my lap.

“This is supposed to be fun,” she said apologetically. “And if it’s not then –“

“I’m nervous,” I blurted. “I’m so bloody nervous I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

A sympathetic smile crept onto her lips.

I dropped the brush onto the vanity and curled over onto my fists. “I don’t want this. This feeling. I just don’t want it anymore.” This was ostensibly the first time I had admitted to someone that I was feeling something for John beyond what was acceptable. An untenable, complicated, and illicit feeling.

Pat’s hand drifted down my back. She nudged herself onto the lip of the stool beside me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Julia.”

I looked up and found her looking right back at me in the mirror.

“If you don’t want to have them, then don’t go tonight.”

“What?”

“Don’t go. You don’t want to feel the things you’re feeling, don’t go.”

I looked at her incredulously. “I can’t do that.”

“You could,” she replied. Then, her lips curled up into a mischievous smile. “You just don’t want to.”

I let out a limp laugh. She was good at seeing right through me. “I don’t want to look foolish. I already feel so foolish.”

Pat didn’t reply at first. She grabbed the brush and began to work out the curls in my hair again. “Julia, I wouldn’t be here egging this on if I thought you were going to look foolish.” She separated the pieces of my hair into relaxed curls easily with her nails. “I know you feel like you’re sitting on your heels just watching everyone because you’re the outsider. But what you don’t know is that I feel the exact same way. I think most of us do when we’re around the lot of them. I watch and I listen just like you do.” She sighed and reached for a clean eye shadow brush. Gingerly, she pushed the brush into the crease of my eye and began to buff out the orange. “The only difference is…I know them much better than you do. Their mannerisms and habits. I’ve learned over the years how to read them.” The eyeshadow miraculously diffused into a color resembling the golden light of afternoon. “And you need to hear me when I say this.” She gripped my shoulders and locked her eyes in mine through the mirror. “You listening?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been watching and I just know, Julia. I just know that you are not alone in this,” Pat said. “I see the way he looks at you.”

I flushed desperately. “Pat, please.”

“I know, it sounds like fluff, but listen to me. I wouldn’t just say it to stoke your ego. This is too…this is too big for that. I know that. We all know that. I mean…we all know how huge this is for him,” she said, despondency inching into her voice. “I’m not going to play games when I know how important this all is.”

I touched one of her hands and leaned my head against hers.

Pat smiled, almost shyly. “And I’m sorry I made you look like a tart.”

“Not a tart, Pat, no!” I cried, enveloped in laughter.

“Well, the look on your face made it seem like I’d tarted you up completely!”

The two of us laughed ourselves silly and, once it abated, I conceded to the lashes now that the “tartiness” had been tamed. And I had to admit, she was right about them. They really pulled the look together and gave my eyes an allure that couldn’t be quite captured with mascara. The final touch was the lipstick. We agreed upon a dark terra cotta that added striking contour to the cupid’s bow of my lips. With a final fluff of my hair, Pat helped me to my feet and admired what had become of the past sloppy hour.

Pat clapped her hands together and squealed, “Oh, the girls will just die.”

Upon walking into the living room, the intense card game was only broken up by Robert’s cry of, “Wow, look at you!” The girls dropped their cards and gasped delightedly. “I’ve got to say, I had my doubts, ‘specially after that outburst, but you look just –“

“Winsome,” Bonzo finished.

“Winsome?” Robert repeated.

“Yeah. Means pretty,” he replied as if it were the most obvious fact in the world.

Kiera and Jacinda approached me, both touching the skirt of my dress and admiring it. “You look like a fairy,” Kiera said. “Like you sleep in a flower.”

“No, you look like the flower itself,” Jacinda argued.

“I’ll take both and then some,” I replied, leaning down and kissing each of them on the cheeks. “Be good tonight.”

Even Tamara, who was usually not one to offer a compliment unprompted, shyly added, “You look very pretty, Julia,” and that sent me over the moon.

“Thank god you came when you did,” Robert said, getting to his feet. “I was just about to get conned out of my ascot.”

I eyed Bonzo. “You better not be running a card table here. They’re too young for gambling.”

Bonzo gave me a toothy grin. “No card table, promise. Cross my heart.”

“Don’t listen to him. He’s got his fingers crossed behind his back,” Robert said, lithely dodging Bonzo’s hand going for his crotch. “Oooo…too slow.”

I gave Pat a pleading look and she nodded. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Boo…no fun at all,” her husband replied.

Robert bounded over to me with an eager smile. “You ready then, Ms. Morgan?”

“Yes, let me just grab my –“ Pat appeared at my side with my ivory beaded purse. “Oh, thank you.”

“You have fun and you don’t worry a pin about us, right, John love?”

Kiera had already made her way over to Bonzo, climbing over him to reach the pile of cards on the side table. “Yes, hurry back!” he grimaced.

“Don’t hurry back. Don’t for god’s sake,” Pat amended.

I smiled at her the way I would at Auntie Gin. With an uninhibited amount of adoration. She had mothered me as I had needed right in that moment. And now she had to let me go. “You come get me if anything goes wrong, won’t you?”

“Nothing will go wrong,” Pat waved me off.

“But I mean it, if anything –“

She started to scurry us out of the suite. “Go, go, go. Girls, say goodnight to Julia!”

“Goodnight, Julia!” the girls said in unison.

Robert and I were forced out the door by Pat. She paused, pretty eyes narrowing. “And good luck.”

I didn’t have time to respond before the door clapped shut in my face and Robert tucked his arm under mine. “Come on, love. We’ve got somewhere to be.”

Robert calmed my nerves immensly on the way over to the casino. Everything I said could be turned into a tongue-in-cheek joke and, for better or worse, he was doing a bang-up job of making me feel gorgeous. By the time we made our way into the venue, I held my head high amongst the overly-trendy crowd.

The concert, or jam as John called it, was being held in one of the smaller spaces. It was much more casual than I had anticpated, with cabaret style tables populating the space and a very lively bar scene in the back. The stage at the front was crammed with gear; a few men milled about double checking cords and microphones. And there was a distinct smell of patchouli and tahitian vanilla wafting about, heightened by the inescapable humidity of bodies in Swiss summer.

Moreso than ever, I realized the unrivaled power of Zeppelin. It was not just a word, but an aura. An aura that was hard to miss when it was embodied in the towering, golden-haired banshee, Robert Plant. We were borne quickly to a more secluded section for the artists and shown to a primely located table toward the front. Even amongst his peers, eyes followed him as if he was untouchable.

“Y’find this suitable, then?” Robert asked as he pulled a chair out for me.

“Me? I mean, it’s perfect.” We had the best view of the entire stage, set up and back from the crowd and all the way to the front of the VIP section.

He shrugged. “It’s alright.”

“Never good enough when you get the best, is it?” I murmured, taking a seat.

Robert didn’t respond; he was making eye contact with someone across the room, gesturing with his hand toward the table in a back and forth motion. I tried to follow his gaze but didn’t see anyone of note, but was distracted by the knot of anticipation in my stomach. There is something so special about the time before a show begins. All the instruments full of potential energy, the audience abuzz and waiting. At any moment, your idle chatter and drinking could be interrupted, exchanged for a musical catharsis.

“I want you to keep an open mind tonight, Julie,” Robert murmured in my ear as he settled into the seat beside me.

I glanced at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This is the bird then?”

Our table had been flanked by a stocky, beared fellow who carried a glass in either hand. His eyes were squarely on me, but the question was for Robert, as if I were a sort of specimen being observed in a lab.

“Richard, Julia,” Robert said as means of introduction. “Julia, Ricardo.”

“Hello,” I greeted timidly.

Richard’s blank look transformed into a knowing smile. “It’s a pleasure,” he said with a nod and set the drinks down in front of us. “Heard you’re a fan of the green fairy.”

I frowned until I caught his meaning and looked at the drink in front of me. A chartreuse, bubbling liquid in a champagne coupe. “You’re trying to get me knackered?”

“Best way to be under the circumstances,” Richard replied.

“Richard’s our tour manager,” Robert explained. “Responsible for most all the knackering.”

“Oh, brilliant.”

Richard laughed gruffly and crouched down at the edge of our table. “Well, it’s nice to meet you finally. Heard a lot about you.”

I looked to Robert and shook my head. “That’s what everyone keeps saying and it’s starting to –“

“Oh, hush, Julia. It’s a compliment,” Robert admonished me.

“Depends on who you’re hearing it from,” I said with pursed lips.

“Just good things,” Richard shrugged, eyes shifting every which way. “Good, pure things. Promise. Listen, after the show, head out to the docks. There’s going to be a yacht taking off right after the show, s’not gonna wait except for Maria and her crew.”

Robert nodded. “Got it.”

“You better be there,” Richard said to me with sharpness. “Alright? S’not an invitation. S’a requirement. No running off or tucking in early.”

I looked to Robert to see if I should laugh.

“Hey, cool it, alright?” Robert warned. “You’re scaring her.”

Richard seemed almost affronted. “I’m not scaring her. Am I scaring you?”

“I’m just not used to the way you all communicate,” I answered, trying not to let the nervousness permeate my voice.

“See?” Richard grinned. “Not scaring her. Not at all. Alright! I’ll be around if you need anything.” He stood up and jerked his finger toward the back. “Over there.”

Robert sighed. “Thanks, Richard.”

“Don’t mention it,” he replied and looked at me again. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yes,” I smiled and, as soon as he was out of earshot, added, “if I value my life.”

Robert laughed and put his arm around the back of my chair. “He means well.”

“And I thought Peter was bad…” I grumbled.

“It’s his job to keep us happy,” he replied, swilling his drink quickly. “By any means necessary.”

I swallowed. “Sounds like people who cross you end up with a bounty on their head.”

He snorted. “Yes, you could say that.”

I tasted my drink carefully, the anisey wormwood striking my tongue and hardening my jaw. “Don’t get me drunk.”

“Just enough to loosen you up, Julie Andrews.”

It was at that moment the stagelights shifted brighter while the house lights dimmed. There was a relative calming hush as the group of ragtag musicians filled the stage. I immediately straightened up in my seat and leaned forward. As if he was trying to hide in others’ shadows, there was John, crossing over to the bass guitar sitting on a stand at the edge of the stage. With his every movement, I noticed something new in him. The stagelights brought out the cherry undertones of his lucious hair, showed off different contours of his figure I hadn’t seen, gave him a clear confidence. While his stageclothes were rather tame compared to those hanging in the studio closet, they suited the occasion well: a yellow floral shirt with bishop sleeves, blue bell bottoms, a pair of sensible brown platforms (as oxymoronic as it sounds).

I drank in his every motion as if I was thirsting in the desert and he was water. John pulled the strap of the bass over his head, was distracted by another musician and looked over his shoulder with a laugh, and put his pick between his teeth to turn one of the tuners. Once he was done, he gave a look around, took a breath, and began to pluck out a woozy, cheerful set of notes.

God, he was so fucking dear to me up there.

I’d been so consumed in watching him, that I hadn’t even noticed the lady of the hour, Maria Muldaur, move to the front of the stage and begin her song. “Well, I tried to run my game. She said, ‘Man, that’s the same old thing that you’ve played before…’”

Her plangeant croon captured the attention of the room. The olive-skinned woman exuded ease and glowed in her rainbow wrap top. And though her bounty of dark curls adorned with a red flower were demurely seductive to the audience, my eyes were constantly enraptured by the slick and inconspicuous bassist in the back corner.

“Play something sweet…something mellow…Play something I can sink my teeth in like Jello…”

I couldn’t get my heart to stop racing. This was an education. The feeling of music pulsing and winding, right there in front of me letting my brain turn off from the world and just thrive in an aural imagination.

As they moved into the second song, Robert touched my shoulder. “Relax, Julia.”

I was sitting stock straight, hands encircling my drink, and a stupid little smile on my face. I knew John couldn’t see me, probably wasn’t even looking for me. But I hoped he could feel me. I was sending everything I had across the room to him. I relaxed into Robert’s hand and smiled sheepishly at him.

“Midnight at the oasis…”

Robert needled his finger into my waist and I laughed.

“Send your camel to bed….”

“Send!” Robert and I whispered to each other in unison.

I didn’t have much to compare it to, having never been to a concert where the main attraction to me was the bass guitarist, but I was enthralled watching John. He was focused and precise at every turn. His watchful eyes I had grown so accustomed to scanned the band as if it was his obligation. And every now and then, he let the fun he was having show on his lips in a smile, wondering at the surprising gifts the other musicians were giving him. I watched with wide of eyes as possible so it would be singed in my memory forever.

“Look at you. All starry-eyed.”

“I’m not starry-eyed.”

Robert wrapped a curl of my hair around his finger. “Yes you are. Glimmering.” He didn’t take his eyes off me, watching me watch the stage. “You know, it’s just John.”

I was in so deep I could have stamped on his foot for that remark. “And I’m just Julia.”

He tsked me. “No, no, listen, listen. Like I was saying earlier. You need to keep an open mind.”

“You propositioning me?” I asked.

Robert furrowed his brow, affronted. “Me? No.”

“Because I know you’re married,” I replied, yanking the lock of my hair off his finger. I’d done plenty of research since my humiliation with Jimmy.

“I said no, didn’t I?” he said with a well-humored smile popping back on his face. “’sides, would never do that to John.” His eyes narrowed. “Or, I should say, I wouldn’t do that to John in circumstances such as these.”

I guffawed. “You’re terrible.”

“All I’m saying is that you should keep your options open, love. You never know where the night can take you. You’ve got eyes on you already.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the section. “No, you’ve got eyes on you.”

Robert shook his head vaguely, curls bobbling. “Right over there, Emerson, Lake, or Palmer has got his eyes on you. I can never remember which is which. And over there –“

“I’m not interested.”

He leaned in closer, whispering in my ear, “You’ve been cooped up all this time with only one man like Adam and Eve and you don’t know the possibility beyond the Garden of Eden.”

“I don’t know the possibility in the Garden of Eden, either,” I remarked.

He raised an eyebrow, perpetual smirk twisting up to the side. “That’s true. That’s fair.”

“And ifwe’re to continue this comparison, you seem to be the snake,” I replied.

Robert sucked in his lower lip and stiffled a laugh. “I could make so many jokes right now and I’m holding my tongue because I’m a gentleman.”

I smacked his arm. “You’re anything but.”

“I try, at least give me that credit.”

I quietly watched John another few moments, my heart swollen and throbbing. “I don’t want to keep an open mind,” I said to Robert. Plainly, clearly. With no hesitiaton. Opening my ribcage and exposing my heart. “I know what I want.”

Robert’s eyebrows jumped as he took in what I said. He saw it now. “I understand what you mean. I know that feeling.”

The rest of the performance our back and forth was warm and well-humored. My glass seemed to be conspicuously full of champagne every time I reached for it. Whether that was the work of Richard or a trick of the mind, I still can’t pin down.

“You’ve been such a great crowd tonight,” Maria announced after a particularly rousing number complemented by brass and a swinging cadence. “It’s been just a dream to be here. Another round of applause for the band!”

The audience followed her instructions wildly and heartily.

“I mean…I’ve been around the block before but…” she leaned toward the audience and held her hand over her mouth as if it was a secret. “These guys are the real deal!”

Polite chuckles echoed around the room.

“Special thanks to Mr. John Paul Jones of the Led Zeppelin who came through on a whim last night when I called his hotel room completely gassed out of my mind,” she said with a gesture to John who seemed to sink further into shadow for his unassuming bow of the head.

Robert let out a whoop. “Thatta boy Stanley!” (I decided not to ask).

John eyes darted our way, squinting, most likely unable to see past the footlights.

“Mr. Jones. Oh, Mr. Jones...” she drawled. “Mr. Jones is responsible for our next selection.”

The pianist started a distant, tinkling tune.

Maria looked over her shoulder at John briefly. “He’s not too happy about it, though.”

John rolled his eyes and slunk into his corner as the audience laughed.

“This is for a girl I used to know in Connecticut. Or Vermont. One of those.”

Suddenly my brain attuned to the song plunking out of the piano. A descending jangle that I knew incredibly well. I thought my ears must being playing tricks on me.

Maria adjusted the mic and let it rip. “Bill…I love you so, I always will…”

“He hates this song,” I muttered in disbelief.

“Hm?”

I couldn’t keep from beaming. “He – John, he really hates this song.”

Robert cocked his head. “You look awfully happy about it.”

“And in your voice I hear a choir of carousels…”

‘Wedding Bell Blues’ – probably Laura Nyro’s most famous tune. Lyrically trite, musically uncomplicated. Maria sang it in her own way, lilting and light, not with the same bristling gusto, but it was still…perfect. I could have keeled over and died right there and felt like I had lived a full, beautiful life. Despite his loathe for the song, John played it adeptly and lithely as he had everything else, perhaps with a little more humor behind the eyes. The song, for everyone to hear, was a secret just for us. I couldn’t be alone in this.

“Is this one for you?” Robert asked softly in my ear.

I felt a swell of emotion in my chest. If I had uttered one word, I would have burst into tears.

“Oh, Julie Andrews, look at you,” he cooed and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “You sweet girl.”

Sweet, naïve girl. I was desperate to look like a woman in the mirror and yet I hadn’t felt this young and “starry-eyed” in years. There might as well have been no audience, no singer, not a single other musician.

This song was for me. The song, this whole night. All mine.

I had to take my chance.

to be continued...

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#john paul jones #julia morgancore #wildflowers #robert plant #john bonham #pat bonham #richard cole #led zeppelin

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