90 ~ Without A Net

What some saw as an enviable existence in the perpetual California sun was just another day in the life of Rachel Braden.  This particular day, like most of those that surrounded it, was filled with not only sun, but a boatload of work and San Francisco Bay Area traffic that should’ve made it a pleasure to go home.

Instead, the empty house was merely a relief from those outside forces.  It hadn’t been home since the week she and Jon had managed together after the band’s Vancouver shows last month.

After that, he’d returned to the East Coast and his kids for the remainder of the tour break, with the promise of a mini-vacation to Old Montreal before the Ottawa and Montreal shows at the beginning of May.  A vacation that they’d been forced to scrap when Rachel’s CEO determined that would be the ideal time to schedule a mandatory meeting with all department heads.

Needless to say, Jon wasn’t happy that her work was once again interfering with plans to spend time together.  Rachel wasn't thrilled about it either, but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of saying it.  Instead, she told him that it would get easier when he wasn’t touring.  They would have to be patient while they worked the kinks out of their schedules, but she assured him that it would all eventually come together.

It would’ve been more effective if she’d told him all that after telling him they’d also need to cancel this weekend’s getaway, too.  She’d originally promised to join him in New Orleans for his Jazzfest show and some alone time, but now she needed the time to prepare for the meeting that had cancelled the Montreal vacation.

Her lack of foresight made him unhappy a second time and, honestly, unhappy was a gross understatement for his level of displeasure.

Never before had he completely ignored her efforts at communication, but today there was no response from New Jersey to any of her two calls or three text messages.  It was completely out of character and, frankly, troubled Rachel.  He was never this petty about their disagreements, and that’s what prompted her to try another call – via FaceTime.

This one he answered and, Rachel was almost sorry he did.  His cheeks and eyes were sunken, the lines in his face were deeper than she’d ever seen them and he looked…  Weary wasn’t a strong enough word.  Drained, exhausted, fatigued and completely shattered came far closer to describing his condition.

“Jon, what’s wrong?”

Multiple scenarios were building in her mind even as she willed herself to remain calm and neutral.  There was no point in working herself into a panic before she knew what was wrong.  That old adage about borrowing trouble and all that.

It turned out that it wouldn’t have matter what she came up with.  No amount of speculation could’ve prepared her for the bomb he dropped.

“Richie’s going into rehab.  The day before Jazzfest.”

She had always chosen to exercise extreme caution when it came to voicing her opinion on the band members and their relationship with one another.  The world did not need another Yoko Ono and she frankly didn’t want that target pinned to her back by Bon Jovi’s fan base. 

Rachel reasoned that these guys had managed just fine for the better part of three decades without her input.  If they’d made it this far, she was sure they would always find a way to work out their differences, but it was a struggle to look at Jon’s face and not lash out with the spiteful wish that Richie could keep his act together. 

"So you'll have to postpone the tour?  For how long?"  With any luck, her face hadn’t betrayed her dismay and Jon would accept the casual inquiry as just that.

"No.  Absolutely not.  I cannot postpone shows!" he blustered, and she could see him throwing a hand in the air.  "There are hundreds of people depending on me to provide their paycheck.  There are hundreds of thousands of ticketholders depending on me to deliver a show.  And if all that isn’t enough, there are a bunch of legally binding contracts with my name on ‘em, decreeing that as long as I can sing, the show goes on.”

She understood obligation as well – or better than – anyone else, but Rachel was having a hard time processing how a Bon Jovi concert could go on without their lead guitarist. 

“How does that work?  Can you or Bobby cover his parts?"

"Hell, no!  That's part of the problem!"  His voice vibrated with all the tension and anxiety visible in his face.  "There’s a guy coming from California in a few hours.  We’ve gotta try and make it work with him."

"Does he know the songs?"

"No, he doesn’t know the damn songs!”  His eyes told that the loud outburst was as unexpected to him as it was to her, and Jon sighed before dejectedly breathing, “I just pray to God he's a quick learner."

That’s when Rachel understood the severity of the situation.  Jon wasn’t just having a bad day at the office.  Bon Jovi had just been diagnosed with an illness that could prove terminal if he didn’t find the right treatment.

Everything was on the line – and on his shoulders.

In five days, he would be taking the stage with a guitar player that wasn’t Richie.  A guy who was probably fine in his own right, but he didn’t know the songs and all the familiar cues and – worse than that – he couldn’t be Jon’s safety net the way Richie had.

The two of them had developed such a rapport over the years that they instinctively played off one another no matter what Jon felt like doing that night.  He told her more than once how much the crowd loved it when he’d sling an arm around his consigliere or work up some kind of shenanigans to mark the show as unique.  Some of them had their cameras primed for just that moment, and now…

Now it was all on Jon.  He didn’t have a straight man.  He couldn’t be the straight man.  He was the man shouldering full responsibility for… everything.

While he continued to relay details about the man in California who was riding in to save the day, Rachel only half-listened.  She was absorbed in trying to comprehend how Jon was going to do it.  How would he weather this immense pressure by himself?

Even if everything went off without a hitch, there would be ugly speculation from both media and so-called fans alike.  Jon wasn’t the same without Richie.  The white knight from California could never be Richie.  She couldn’t begin to imagine what all they would come up with, but she knew enough to recognize how vicious people could be when hiding behind both media and social media.

For every negative comment, there would be two positive ones, but Jon wouldn’t absorb those.  He would take the criticism and feed from it, determined to make them eat their words, even if he killed himself in the process.

Where was he going to find his peace?  Who was going to be a rock for the man who held everyone else up?

Suddenly, that job seemed a whole lot more important than the one that had her sitting on the opposite side of the country from her man.

“Jon, baby...  Get me a plane.  I want to come home."

                                                                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The hour was late – or early, depending whether one had been to sleep.   Rachel had not, making four in the morning late, and she fully expected to find their New Jersey home dark when the driver pulled through the gate.  She wasn’t disappointed.  All was dark and quiet on the property.

Next door, however, was another story.

Lights were blazing from the studio windows at High Point, and she groaned with dismay.  Knowing him, he was still formulating damage control, but how could he possibly still be up and functional?   He’d looked like he was about to drop seven hours ago.

Thanking the driver, she slid out of the car and unlocked the home’s front door, deciding that if he was still up and in the studio, that’s where she was going to be, too.  After she dropped her small travel bag on the foyer table, she made her way across the road separating the houses and up the stairs to the musical sanctuary where so much Bon Jovi history was made.

The cool night air was thankfully making her more alert than she should be at this hour, and as she reached the upper half of the staircase, it mingled with the smell of tobacco.  A quick survey revealed that there was smoking curling out of the open window, and that did not bode well.  Jon had supposedly quit smoking, but that wasn’t necessarily written in stone.  She’d known him to indulge in a cigarette once in a great while, either when he was feeling particularly good or particularly bad.

Rachel couldn’t imagine that this was a celebratory smoke.  

Easing open the squeaky door that led directly into the control room, she caught sight of Jon through the glass.  With his hair completely disheveled and looking a decade older than usual, he was slouched down in a padded folding chair.  With his knees spread wide and listening to something one of the half-dozen other men in the room was saying, he was drawing on the nub of a cigarette when his eyes found her.

In the instant he realized she was there, Rachel saw it.  It wasn’t a lot, and maybe nobody else would have even noticed, but she did because he couldn’t keep it from her.

For the span of a heartbeat, the strong, confident, in-control man that everybody knew… showed a crack in his façade.  It was miniscule, but through it she caught sight of a naked vulnerability she’d never known him to have.

Her heart cracked in exactly the same way as he blew out the smoke and rose from the chair murmuring, "Gimme a minute, boys."

Plodding steadily toward the control room, the footsteps didn’t stop until he was close enough to hook her neck in the crook of his arm and pull her close.  The other arm wound around her back, crushing their bodies together as he exhaled into the curve of her neck.  When he inhaled again, his body relaxed and Rachel took the weight.

She couldn’t help hold him up on that stage, but she could hold him up here – and would for as long as he would let her.

“It’s nearly four in the morning, Jonny.  You need to get some rest,” Rachel quietly coaxed.

“In a minute.”  Arms that had gone lax cinched tight again, and he lifted his head to press a kiss against the crown of her head.  “I need this more than sleep."