49 - It Came to Me in a Dream

From the doorway in his parents’ living room, Tony could see that the Christmas tree was lit in the same white lights he had known since his childhood.  His mom loved those white lights.  She said they looked classier than the colored ones.  Elegant.  Carol Bongiovi adored those touches of elegant in her home. 

Brightly wrapped gifts in a variety of shapes and sizes were piled beneath, and his younger niece and nephews ran amok through the house laughing and playing.   Looking to the far side of the room, he could see the older ones on the sofa engaged in conversation with the adults.   It was one of the rare holidays that the whole family was together. 

“Anthony.”  His mother’s voice captured his attention from behind and he turned with a smile. On her hip was a baby, less than a year old and with no more than a downy fuzz of dark hair.  At least, he assumed it was a little girl from the red stretchy bow on her head that matched the little plaid pants and shirt.

“Yeah, Mom?”

“I changed her diaper, but now she wants Daddy.”  Laughing, she tightened her grip around the little girl’s waist when she threw the full weight of her body toward Tony, pudgy little arms waving in the air.   “Don’t you sweet girl?”

He had no idea who this baby was, but he was certain Jon hadn’t had another child, so she must belong to Matt and his wife, Desiree.

“Matt’s right over there,” he told her, nodding toward the group on the sofas. 

His mother’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling with an aggravated.  “Is that supposed to be funny?  Here… take your daughter.”

Tony jerked awake at the first strains of Coldplay’s “Clocks” blaring out of his phone.  Open palm groping blindly, he finally found the offending instrument and squinted one eye to zero in on the slide bar that would deactivate the alarm.  One quick swipe and his room was blissfully silent again – leaving nothing but his thoughts to break the quiet.

Dropping the phone onto his stomach, he thought once again how he hated that dream.  He’d had it probably half a dozen times since they’d been on tour, and despised the pointed reminder of his offspring shortage.  

As soon as the tour finished, he was headed to the Sturgis Bike Rally for a week or so.  After that, he needed to schedule some time with his brothers’ kids.  Uncle Tony would bring them all to California so they could go to Disneyland or something.  A few days with six kids ranging in age from three to eighteen generally killed any wayward parental longing he might have.

Now, though, it was time to hit the road again. 

He snatched the phone off his stomach and threw back the covers to sit on the side of the bed.  It only took seconds to tap out a text to Lilah. 

[7:03 AM]TONY: I’ll be at the Intercontinental before noon.

Returning the phone to the bedside table, he stood and stretched before grabbing a cigarette and some clean clothes.  Tonight he would be too tired to dream.  Lilah would make sure of that.

✧✧✧

Lilah turned over, heart racing, blindly searching for the chiming, vibrating phone.  It couldn’t be more than five or six in the morning, and a recurring bad dream had kept her awake off and on all night.  She was seriously not finished sleeping yet. 

Narrowing her eyes against the bright screen that lit a spot in the still-black hotel room, she enjoyed a little jolt of happy adrenaline when the blurry letters came into focus.  It was a nice change from the terror-induced adrenaline variety.

That explains six in the morning.   He’s an hour ahead of me right now.  He must be getting ready for the airport.

[6:05]LILAH: What’s on your agenda after that?

No immediate answer came, and she perched the iPhone in the center of her chest while her still-sleepy eyes drifted shut to wait.  He was probably in the shower or packing. 

The day was overcast.  The clouds weren’t ominous, but they were in a pale, sun-dampening shade of gray that cast an ugly pallor over the entire stadium.  The existing puddles looked thirsty, and in hopes that Mother Nature would soon feed them again. 

Looking out into the crowd that had been here as soon as the gates opened, Lilah saw they had their thin, plastic rain ponchos at the ready, in case the heavens should reopen.  This European crowd let nothing deter them from their shows.

She stepped back out of sight and retreated to wander through the back stage area, finally feeling it was okay to be there.  If she wasn’t welcome, she was at least tolerated.  That had been proven by Jon’s friendly smile and wave as he passed into the Underworld to check his quick change room.

David and Tico nodded as she prepared to follow Jon under the stage, and gave their own congenial waves as they wound their way back to the dressing rooms.  She knew that because Richie had gone ahead of them in the same direction, carrying a garment bag.

She found herself at Tony’s desk, somehow knowing he’d answered the call to come and  take care of a problem somewhere else in the stadium.  Sitting in the high-back office chair, she spun around to face the board and intently studied all of the little buttons and switches.  There was a sea of them.  She couldn’t imagine anyone would know what they all did

Pushing the chair to the right, her foot bumped into one of the huge, oversized electrical plugs and pushed it into a puddle.  Electricity zoomed from her sandaled foot, up her leg and into her chest….

“Lord a’mighty,” she gasped, rising up off the bed and clutching at the vibration against her sternum.  “Friggin’ dreams!”

It was similar to what she’d been experiencing all night.  Sometimes it was her that got electrocuted and sometimes it was Tony, but the end result was always the same.  One of them ended up on the ground, unconscious.  That was how she described it to herself, at least.  She refused to consider that either one of them actually died.

A flat palm came to cradle her curdling stomach and she had to swallow back the bile that wanted to make an appearance. 

Stop it Lilah Jane.  It’s a dream, not a premonition.

Swiping her finger across the screen, she really hoped that was true.  What if her ‘intuition’ had started taking on a different medium?  The dream had played in one form or another at least four times that night.

[6:22 AM]TONY: Stadium later tonight to look over the setup.  Nothing specific other than that.

Put it out of your mind.  You’re gonna have a fun day, if he goes along with your plan.  Focus on that.

Determined to do just that, she went a step beyond texting.  Lilah scrolled in her contacts for his number and tapped it to dial.  His voice would drive the Boogey Man away faster than anything.

“Yo.”

Tension melted at the single syllable that was so very Tony.  It was enough to infuse an added warmth to her own greeting. 

“Yo yo’sef,” she returned with a small laugh.  “How are ya this mornin’?”

“I’m okay.  Just throwing my stuff together to get out of here.  How about you?”

“I’m fine, thank you.  Do you have a minute to talk, or do ya need to get goin’ to the airport?”

“My gear is just about packed.  I can spare a coupla minutes.  What’s up?”  As though to confirm his statement she heard the long rasp of a zipper – presumably the one on his black duffel. 

“Well…  I did a little research last night and found somethin’ I’d like to do today.  But it would involve you, so I wanted to see if you had a few hours to spare this afternoon.”

Lilah might have fudged the truth a little bit.  In a serendipitous moment, she thumbed through the hotel’s local area guide and happened upon a motorcycle rental company.  While it was true that she would enjoy herself and make a few more cherished memories, it was more about his pleasure than hers. 

“Probably.  What did you have in mind?”

A sleepy smirk creased her left cheek.  “Don’t sound so leery.  It’s not shoppin’ or anything like that.”

“How ‘bout you stow the psychic tendencies and just tell me, then?”  Taken at face value the words could have been harsh, but they were liberally laced with humor, so Lilah didn’t take offense.

She did, however, shiver briefly at his mention of psychic tendencies.

Move along, Lilah Jane.

“How about you stow the attitude and let me?” she bantered back, with the same liberal dose of humor.

“Baby, I’m from Jersey.  They issue attitude with your birth certificate, and there ain’t no stowing it.  I can play civilized when the occasion calls for it, but that’s as far as it goes.”

Honestly, she thought that was a load of crap.  His attitude was so subliminal that it almost didn’t exist.  He was quietly confident and determined, but he didn’t get up in anybody’s face with it – that she’d seen anyway.  Not like his brothers, or his buddy Mike. 

“Mm,” she murmured noncommittally, keeping that thought to herself.  “Did you know there’s a place to rent motorcycles here in Dusseldorf?”

“Can’t say that I did.”

“They have a lot of different ones,” she threw out, feeding off the hint of interest in his voice.  “But there’s a large selection of Harleys, which I thought you might like.  Would you wanna take me on a ride this afternoon?”

“I thought you hated riding a bike?”

Hate an opportunity to wrap my arms and legs around you?  Not likely.

“I didn’t hate it at all.  The mere thought of a motorcycle scared the beepers out of me at first, but by the time we got back, I was lovin’ it.  You made it a lot of fun.”

“Beepers??”

Of course he would fixate on her eclectic redneck-isms.  No, that wasn’t true.  It had nothing to do with being redneck, it had to do with being Lilah Jane Bennett.  It was a Lilah-ism, and one of many.  Andrew didn’t even laugh anymore at her made-up words and unfit usage of real words.  They were simply “Mom’s weirdness”.

“Beepers,” she confirmed, a little embarrassed.  Sometimes being quirky wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.  “So do you wanna ride, or would you rather relax before your back-to-back shows?”

“Hell yes, I wanna ride.  I was just surprised that you did.  Consider yourself warned, though…  I don’t know any enchanted forests in Germany.”

She smiled at his gruff caution.  “Enchanted forests aren’t a prerequisite for me to enjoy ridin’ a motorcycle.  I’ll see if I can find us someplace interestin’ to go.”