004

“Say hello to the new member of the Bon Jovi PR team!”, John stormed into the kitchen, lifted his sister up from the stool she was sitting in, and spun her around in the air as he kissed her forehead. June made her astonishment evident by letting out a nervous giggle. What the hell was going on?

“What? How?”, his mother left her coffee cup on the kitchen island and stood up with a  furrowed brow as she observed the brother and sister’s interaction in front of her eyes.

June’s father, on hearing the noises coming from the kitchen, left his spot by the fireplace in the living room and joined the rest of his family.

It was the first week of January, 1989. Judging by the way it was starting, that year would be one of deep changes in June’s life, starting with John’s announcement. And it didn’t even end there: he’d be moving to New York City to be closer to the band’s headquarters.

Once John was finished explaining, his father was the first to speak. “Congratulations, son. As long as you’re happy, we are, too”.

“Speak for yourself”, June’s mother couldn’t hide her displeasure.

“Mom”, John spoke patiently. “You can drive there, it’s a while, but there’s no need to fly…”, he approached her and rubbed her arms as he continued patiently “…and I promise I’ll come back as often as I can”. Even when their mother vocalized her objections to their decisions, in the end she always ended up accepting them and adapting to the new circumstances. This time it wouldn’t be any different.

“How did we manage to do this?”, later that night June stood by her brother’s door, leaning against the frame and crossing her arms as she spoke with a soft and meaningful voice. “You’re suddenly changing jobs, moving to another city and I didn’t even have a clue?”

John chuckled softly as he lay on his bed, legs crossed at the ankles and one arm under his neck. Without moving a hair, he opened his eyes and looked askance at his sister, then padded on the space next to him on the bed. June obeyed and laid down, imitating her brother’s position. They both remained silent for a couple of minutes, looking at the ceiling. Their lives were about to change forever.

“I dunno…it was just part of my job at the beginning, another band, another concert, another backstage party. But they were different, Jon is different. He’s a really cool guy”

“What, you felt attracted to him?”, June teased her brother trying to keep a straight face, only when she felt him turn his head to look at her lips curled into a mischievous smirk.

“Whatever…we started talking and then we met at-“

“And when did you kiss?”, June was not able to keep it serious this time and laughed out loud.

“OK, you wanna hear the rest of the story or not?”, John asked with mock annoyance.

“Yeah, yeah…”, June giggled again and took a deep breath to recompose herself, “I’m sorry, go on”

John waited for a long moment until he made sure his sister would be taking it seriously. “Anyway, then we met at a football game when I was in New York for another event and he asked me to come to a party that night”, this time John chuckled, “Man, that was one hell of a party”. John paused and continued. “Then we just kept in touch, with his touring and my job and all we met at different places. He explained a lot of things to me about the music business, ya know? Despite the madness, his head’s in the right place if you ask me. He might be a musician and a rockstar, but he’s a business man at heart, he knows what he’s doing”. John sighed. “And he’s not precisely happy about the way things are going right now, they’re kinda getting…out of control. Out of HIS control”.

June listened carefully and nodded or hummed from time to time to let her interlocutor know that she was following.

“He’s planning on doing some changes, and he wants people he can trust by his side”.

“Enter John, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess. But your lips are sealed”

June made the gesture of turning a lock at the corner of her mouth and throwing the key away, then asked with a slight frown. “What about your job…Mr. Miller?”, June moved to lay on her side, supporting her upper body on her elbow so she could look at her brother’s face. He corresponded by looking into her eyes.

“He’ll have to understand. This is what I’ve always wanted”, John emphasized by lifting the hand he had placed on his stomach, “I can’t miss this opportunity”, he turned his face back to the ceiling, as if looking through a window into the future. “It’s now or never”.

June nodded silently and sighed. After a long silence she finally spoke. “I’m gonna miss you, asshole”

John smiled warmly and lay on his side, too, then hugged his sister. “I’m gonna miss you too, crazy girl”.

The first two months without John at home proved to be tougher for June than she’d expected, but she adapted quickly, always keeping in mind what time zone John was in and talking on the phone for hours when they could catch up, which didn’t happen as often as they’d like to. June’s dad was a grounded and positive person and thankfully enough, Michael was there for her. Her mom, on the contrary, was having a much harder time, but in the end they all helped each other pull through.

One day on April over the phone, John convinced June (and their parents to allow her) to come over and stay in California with him for a few days. He knew she’d always wanted to go there and see the beach, and he’d be there for a Bon Jovi show in L.A., so it was the right time and place.

June was thrilled by the opportunity, but she needed Michael by her side, though. It took some convincing, anyway, since Michael wasn’t adept to traveling, but despite his reluctance and with the hope of acting in June’s interest, he finally agreed. So did her parents, on the grounds of John keeping an eye on the young couple and taking responsibility for their safety.

The couple arrived in L.A. the day before the show, so John, as part of the PR team, was all over the place: on the phone most of the time, coming and going to the venue, radio and TV stations.

Even when Michael had been insisting on having sex for a while now, June wouldn’t budge about waiting until her 18^th birthday. Of course she loved Michael, but she wanted it to be meaningful and special, not in a car parked in some dark corner of the park by the lake. At the hotel in L.A., Michael would be sharing a room with John, and June would be in a separate room.

That afternoon, though, while she was taking a nap to overcome jetlag, Michael knocked on her door. June sleepily padded towards the door in her pajamas, and before Michael even uttered a word, by the look on his face and her own feelings, she knew it was time. He silently took her in his arms and kissed her passionately. After pulling away, they looked into each other’s eyes, she took his hand and silently invited him into her room.

At 8.42 in the evening the phone rang.

“Hello?”, June reluctantly answered.

The tone in June’s voice was all the clue John needed to realize what was happening. He cleared his throat before he asked as casually as he could.

“What’s up? I thought you’d gone out since Michael’s not in the room, so I take it he’s with ya now”. There wasn’t a reply and he didn’t wait for one. “Will you guys come down for dinner?”

June hesitated for a second and thanked God Almighty for the close bond she shared with her brother.

“Yes, we’ll join you in maybe…half an hour?”, June tried to keep it natural as well and looked at Michael, who was laying by her side with his eyes closed. He nodded silently.

“Sure, just let me know when you’re ready, OK?” John answered breezily.

“Yeah, OK”

Before hanging up, John couldn’t help himself. “You OK, June?”

“Yes, John. I’m perfectly fine. We are perfectly fine”.

“Good”, John nodded and hung up.

During dinner and thanks to their good relationship, John and Michael were able to surf through any discomfort the afternoon situation might have provoked. That night, however, Michael slept in the room he shared with John. They were both grateful that nothing in their relationship had changed after the afternoon events, but as soon as he turned off the lights, Michael spoke with a grave voice.

“I love her, John. I promise I’ll take care of her”.

John chuckled softly. “Sonofabitch. You’d better”.

003

During the course of the year, Adrianna and June became inseparable, they could be seen riding their bikes all over town and June was happy that she could keep with fairly good balance the bonds with both her old and new circle of friends. It turned out that Adrianna also shared some of June’s musical preferences so they spent more than a few rainy afternoons listening to Adrianna’s father‘s old vinyl records collection.

June got quickly used to the concert drill, the girls seemed to be always thrilled by the newest rock band of the moment, their allegiance changing as fast as the number one song in the Billboard charts. At one point she ended up joining then just out of companionship instead of actual will, but most times ended up enjoying herself and even sharing her friends’ excitement. The backstage scenes repeated themselves time and again, except for some times every once in a while when Adrianna’s father dispatched them back home right away after the lights onstage went out, evidencing that what was going on backstage wasn’t precisely suitable for a group of innocent 16 year-olds. Most bands sounded and looked more or less the same and some band members were nicer than others, but in June’s head they soon begun to blend into each other. June’s musical taste, despite her age, was already refined enough to be able to tell with a decent degree of certainty which ones would make the cut and which wouldn’t. She stuck the most to those who showed exceptional good lyrics, outstanding showmanship or instrumental expertise, which could be counted with the fingers in one hand. At the end of the day, however, none was able to make a noticeable dent in her preferences – she stuck with the classics.

There came a day when Adrianna fell head over heels in love with a tall, thin, long haired boy, Paul, that she’d met at a birthday party. Fortunately and thanks to the tight bond the girls had created, this change in circumstances didn’t take a toll on their relationship. Far from it – Adrianna’s love interest was part of a hiking group and both girls loved outdoor activities, so there was no hesitation when Paul invited them to join his group for a weekend excursion along the shores of Lake Michigan. That’s where June met Michael: gold- blonde feathered hair, the widest and whitest smile she’d ever seen, tall, broad shoulders and thin waist, responsible, gentle and modest despite his in-your-face good looks. Michael: nothing but a complete sweetheart.

That was it for June. She’d never been struck so hard in her life. And she soon found out it was mutual.

Three months later she took him to her cousin’s wedding, making their relationship finally official. The two couples of best friends often went on hiking, biking, trekking or camping excursions together. The first half of the last year of high-school passed in this manner, with no unusual events.

The second half, however, would bring some surprises along. For many years now, it had been a no-brainer for June what she was going to study in college. As most ordinary girls she’d kept a journal during the first years of adolescence, which helped her cope with the issues that arose during that troublesome phase. At one point she found herself feeling the need to write other kind of stories, stories that flowed in her head and strived to come out, sometimes with such intensity that prevented her from sleeping, keeping her up for many an hour at night until she was able to empty her thoughts and drop dead asleep. While she was writing it was as if her mind and her fingers did all the work, only after finishing she was able to read with some degree of objectivity what she had written and find that most of her stories were based on actual people she cared about that were going through a hard time. In those universes in her mind, she invented happy-endings for them, as a way of sending her good wishes, so she didn’t show them to anyone, though, and kept them to herself instead. After all, who was she to go around “fixing” other people’s lives?

That experience did, however, made her really good at opinion essays, reason for which she was offered a weekly column on the local newspaper. Her wit, abandon and sense of humor beyond her years to talk about what bothered her as a teenager became a huge hit, even amongst the adult readers.

There was something else that itched inside of her, too, and that was traveling, so besides English, then, she’d take up a couple of foreign languages as well. Her first choice was Italian so she would be able read her favorite author in the original version, then maybe even some Chinese, just out of curiosity.

Deciding what to study was easy, but where was a different struggle. Anybody would call her crazy for not studying at the University of Michigan, but Kalamazoo had become small for her, and June needed a change of scenery. She’d never questioned the fact that she’d be studying in another city, maybe on the West Coast, someplace warm, with nice beaches. That had been her default resolution throughout her high-school years, but some factors in the equation had changed now: there was Michael, and he would be studying Economics at UM. It was time for June to make one of the first big choices that would change the course of her life.

After his college graduation, John had started working in Adrianna’s father’s catering business and even though his interest was directed to the entertainment business, it was a good place to start with and in a way allowed him to begin setting up a contact network in the music business. At this, he was tremendously successful, and seeing the young man’s commitment and potential, Mr. Miller relied on him and put him in charge of more and more events. John hardly ever stayed put at home for more than two days in a row due to his constant traveling - and he loved every minute of it.

In John’s absence, June’s mother adopted Michael as another son, that and her mother’s insistence in her not moving so far away, did the rest of the work when enrollment period came. UM was, after all, one of the top universities in the states, it wouldn’t be that bad, now would it? Postponing her traveling was a small sacrifice in comparison to staying by the man she was thinking about spending the rest of her life with. June sometimes took her time to relish on how lucky she’d been to have found such a good man at such an early age, he was a keeper, there was no need to look any further.

As much as he loved his job, however, there was one thing that John wouldn’t leave unattended: his football team, and despite their age difference, John and Michael became good friends due to their common interest (or better put, common obsession).

One December afternoon, while she waited for John and Michael to come back from their weekly match, June lay on the sofa absorbingly reading the last pages of the newly released “Foucault’s Pendulum”- by who was quickly becoming her favorite author Umberto Eco - , which Michael had given to her for her 17th birthday. The story and the build-up towards the end was so tense and intriguing that her heart increased its pace with every turn of the page, she was almost biting her nails. Apart from the classic rock radio that was on at a low volume, silence reigned in the house - her parents were out for lunch at some friends’ house -, so when the phone rang, June gasped in fright. By the second ring she recovered and marked the book with her finger without releasing it from her grasp, then by the third ring she jumped up from the sofa to get the phone. The voice on the other end spoke in a correct but casual tone.

“Hello? May I speak to John, please?”

“John’s not home right now”, June hesitated, in a flash she went through her brother’s friends’ voices in her head and this wasn’t one of them, but she could swear she’d heard it before. “Would you like to leave a message?”

“Nah, just tell him Jon called, he knows how to reach me”.

June let out a sharp blow of air out of amusement from the name coincidence but forced herself to hold her composure. “Sure, no problem. I’ll tell him”.

“Yeah, thanks”

Less than a quarter of an hour later she was already done reading the book when her brother and her boyfriend stormed inside the living room through the front door, smelly, sweaty and dirty from the exercise. June blew her handsome boyfriend a kiss and pointed with her finger in the direction of the bathroom.

“Towel and fresh clothes on my bed”, she grinned and went back to the TV set that was playing re-runs of her favorite TV show “I dream of Jeannie”.

“Thanks, hun”, Michael replied, and in spite of her concentration on the show, the thought of how lucky she was to have such a dreamy boyfriend lingered in the back of her mind.

With the corner of her eye she caught her brother walking down the corridor to his room, and remembered she had a message to deliver.

“Oh, wait! John!”, she exclaimed and made the attempt of standing up from the sofa in case her brother hadn’t heard her, but she slouched back down when he turned his face to her. “Some guy Jon called, he wanted to talk to you”.

John’s brow furrowed, startling June - whatever that call meant, it seemed important, because he immediately ran to his room and re-emerged a couple of minutes later with a card in his hand, then picked up the phone and dialed.

“Geez, could you wash your hands at least?” June patronized her older brother and ended with a tone of defeat and a tsk once she noticed it was too late – John was already waiting for the other person to answer. It took some moments but somebody picked the other end.

“Hey buddy!”, John started.

June was intrigued, who was this mysterious person whose call her brother couldn’t wait to answer back, but whom, at the same time, he addressed with such confidence and familiarity? Her eyes were on the TV set, but her mind and ears were focused on the communication going on at the corner of the living-room.

“Just coming back from the game, yeah…uh-huh…yes, I remember…wow, that would be…but you know-….yeah…well you know I can’t say no to that...sure, sounds great. Listen, Jon, whadda ya say we-…yes, I understand, pal, but I need to sort some things out with the company first…yeah, cool, thanks, yeah…talk to you soon, then”. John suddenly burst out laughing. “You’re insane. Lions rule, man! Ha ha, yeah…Buh-bye”. 

Gosh, it dawned on June how severely out of contact she’d been with her brother lately. Their recent conversations had been rather short, often over a hurried meal, and covered either her decision making and his busy schedule or absolutely random ordinary things, neglecting the more personal topics. They were becoming adults now, and they didn’t share as many things as they used to.

“What was that?”, she asked her brother once he hung up and started heading back to his room. He continued walking despite his sister’s question, but answered cryptically.

“I don’t wanna jinx it! I’ll let you know as soon as it’s a fact, promise”, despite his loud voice, his last words were lost when he closed the door of the bathroom.

As she turned her gaze back to the TV set, June made a mental note of spending more time with her brother in the near future.






.

002

“Woo-hoo!” shouted June from the top of her lungs, clapping her hands as she held her arms up in the air. The concert was truly memorable, and since the songs were new to her she couldn’t sing along, but joined some of the popular chorus’ like Never say goodbye or Livin’ on a prayer. It was a warm spring night, and her skin was glowing with sweat from jumping and shouting. The band was incredible, and both the lead singer’s showmanship and his chemistry with the guitar player (together with both men’s good looks) seemed to deserve the credit for the success of the show. It usually took June more thorough listening to a band’s song to really get to like them, but this was a good start: the lyrics seemed honest, meaningful and fun at the same time. 

By the time the concert came to an end, June felt as close to the other girls as if she’d known them for her entire life, specially Adrianna. They exited by one of the service doors, outside of which they had arranged to meet Adrianna’s father, who, because of having to take care of the rest of the service backstage, couldn’t take them back to Kalamazoo personally, but instead, had arranged one of his employees to take the girls back to their hometown.

They waited for a few minutes until Adrianna's dad appeared through another service door, hands casually in his front pockets.

“Did ya have fun ladies?”, he addressed the group but clasped his daughter’s head and kissed her crown as she, in turn, wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Yes!” the girls answered in unison. “Thank you, Mr. Miller”, June’s voice could be faintly heard among the screaming and squealing of the rest of the girls, whose tall hairdo’s had become more and more damp and consequentially flat during the show. Except for Adrianna’s naturally curly hair that seemed to always be in perfect state.

“Don’t thank me yet, I have a surprise for you all”, announced Mr. Miller. “Wanna meet the ba-”

The last word of his question was masked by even louder and higher-pitched screams. June couldn’t help but laughing out loud, both out of excitement and amusement caused by the girls’ reaction to Adrianna's father's words. She could still feel the adrenaline running through her veins, her cheeks still bright pink and her eyes just a tinge glassy. Seeing the other girl’s runny makeup, she secretly patted herself on the back for not having worn any that night or she could have looked like them. She raked a hand through her damp thin hair and whirred it with both hands in order to make it dry faster, what caused the strands to stand pointing in all directions. As the sweat began to fastly dry on her body, and noticing that her T-shirt was damp as well, she put on her hoodie and pulled the zipper up until it covered the whole length of her neck. On their way to the backstage area she put both her hands inside the jacket’s pockets.

To describe the scene backstage as “hectic” would be a serious understatement. One person after the other flashed by them along the corridor at such a speed and with such hastiness that for safety purposes they decided to walk in Indian line behind Adrianna’s father. It took them between 15 to 20 minutes to make their way through the maze-like corridors to the room were the band was resting.

Just as she crossed the door, June stopped and took a few minutes to evaluate the scenario in front of her. The L-shaped room (some sort of huge locker room) was in itself quite depressing, but the lively attitude of the people that filled it made for the whole warm atmosphere. The band was clearly split in two, bass player, drummer and keyboardist on one of the wings, singer and guitar player on the other. Both teams equally taking pictures, hugging and kissing the swarm of beautiful women that surrounded them, but naturally one of those teams took up most of the attention both in quantity and in quality. Jon’s beauty and charisma were even more undeniable and imposing up close and personal, he was naturally the center of all the attention and played the part as a professional. June could tell that his smile hid a tint of tedium, but she wouldn’t judge her perception since she had the habit of putting herself in other people’s shoes, and in this case, she definitely didn’t want to be the human being that carried on his shoulders the responsibility for the operation of the gigantic machine that band was becoming.

A glimpse at the guitarist’s bare torso was about all it took for June to find herself forcing her eyes to look away. He was so beautiful she felt embarrassed for not being able to take her eyes off of him. Across the room, her deep stare seemed to have reached the tall brunette, since he looked up and found her eyes from the other end of the room. June couldn’t look away, his deep brown eyes were just exquisite, and the distance that separated them seemed to disappear for a few moments, until he turned his eyes to look into a photograph camera. He was charming and goofy as well, but that attitude seemed to be some sort of façade that shielded his probably more sensitive inner self.

The real clown seemed to be the keyboard player, whose deep laughter echoed throughout the room every few minutes. The drummer, however, struck her as a perfect gentleman in a rockstar outfit. His deep manly voice was mesmerizing and reminded June of her own music heroes like Johnny Cash or Leonard Cohen. In the meantime, the bass player was all over the place and in no place in particular at the same time, moving around and never staying put in one place for more than five minutes. In total, there were easily more than 40 people in that room, between band members, press, service staff and visitors - which included a considerable number of hardcore groupies.

There was also all kinds of food and alcohol, but the band members could only manage to take a sip from their bottles every once in a while. Their eyes looked tired, their cheeks red and long hair still dripping from the hot showers they had taken. After that long, lingering look, June admitted to herself that she wasn’t particularly excited about meeting the band, what was the point? They must be exhausted and she didn’t want to add to their stress. She felt happy for her friends, though, who looked genuinely thrilled, and were already approaching the singer-guitar player duo. June, instead, decided she’d rather sit back this time.

“June!...June!...June!...”. In fact, June was so deep in observation that it took Adrianna three attempts to finally get June's attention. Then she gestured with her hand indicating for her to come over and join the group that was lining up for a picture.

“Oh nononono I’m fine”, said June, leaning against the door frame and crossing her arms.

“Come oooooonnnnn” replied Adrianna with a sheepish smile, smile that June couldn’t resist, since they were waiting for her and she didn’t want to make anybody uncomfortable or wait any longer than they had to. Adrianna had one arm around Jon’s waist, he had his left arm around Adrianna’s shoulder and the other around Shirley’s. Adrianna pulled June closer to her and Jon included her in his embrace. June could feel the warm steam that oozed from his arm reach her skin through her clothes, and his masculine smell made its way straight through her nostrils and into her brain.

As any teenager she was baffled by the sensorial experience she was subject to. And as any regular teenager, she’d too had her share of dates and boyfriends, but none of those experiences could compare to this one, the warm touch, the charisma, the masculinity. She felt awkward beyond the point of bearable discomfort, so as soon as the picture was taken she resumed her position by the exit door.

…

“You sure this is it?”, asked John with a frown as he stared at the four boxes that contained every material thing that June truly valued in life besides her book collection.

“Yup, that’s pretty much it”, nodded June, shrugging her shoulders.

“Alrighty then…” John squatted to pick the first box and his sister followed.

As they both carried the boxes to their parents’ car, June inquired casually:

“Remind me why are we doing this first thing in the morning? Mom and dad are leaving late in the afternoon”.

“Is it OK if I’m not here to see mom and dad off?” John closed his eyes tightly in anticipation of his sister’s reaction and quickly added “I have to meet Jon for dinner tonight”.

“John!” June complained, stopped and waited for her brother to turn his back and look at her.

“June…”, John tilted his head to aside and turned around reluctantly with an apologetic look on his face.

“You know how mom’s gonna be…this is tough for her, I thought you’d be backing dad and me up…”

“Yeah, I know, but I can’t. Jon arrived a day earlier than expected and I need to meet with him, the album’s coming out next week…and you know how he is”, explained John before adding, “…he said it was urgent…”.

That was enough for June to understand her brother’s choice.

Once breakfast was over, June spoke with a teasing pout as her brother kissed her goodbye, “When will I see ya again then?”. They lived fairly close to each other, less than an hour’s drive, but the fact that this was going to change in the near future and despite the turmoil that had been her life recently, had caused June to feel a little more anxious than usual when it came to spending time with her brother.

“You gotta be kiddin’ me” John chuckled and knocked on her sister’s head as he spoke, “Tomorrow night? Dinner party at my place?”

“Geez!” June exclaimed and covered her mouth with her hand, “I completely forgot, I’m so sorry”, she added with a sheepish smile and an apologetic grimace. That was nothing but the truth, and she knew exactly why she’d forgotten – she had different plans for Saturday night.

“S’alright, just be there, OK? Bye mom, dad” John answered and kissed both his parents, then headed for the door, but halfway through he turned around and looked at June “And Jon’s comin’ too, so you guys can catch up”

“Oh, good…sure”, nodded June with a careless and faint voice that poorly disguised the way her blood sizzled when she heard Jon’s name, though she didn’t appreciate the suspicious undertone in her brother’s comment. “Say hi to him from me”, she managed to say above her effort to hide her excitement.

Abrupt changes of plans from Jon weren’t unusual at all, and unlike others, this one sounded like fun. Of  the dangerous kind.

“Will do!” said her brother a second before he closed the door behind him.