Softer Than Steel (A Love & Steel Novel)

by Jessica Topper

  “Are you both sure you’re ready for it?” he continued. “I’ve seen Adrian on marriage.” Adrian didn’t speak of his ex-wife Robyn very often, but Rick knew the knife of that relationship still twisted in him every so often, especially when their daughter, Natalie, was involved. An old TV commercial popped into Rick’s head, of an egg hitting a sizzling frying pan. This is your brain . . . and this is your brain on drugs. Would “Adrian on marriage” appear any different to Kat than he did now, after four years of cohabitating?

  “I’m not Robyn,” she said slowly.

  “Thank the bloody Lord for that.”

  I’m not Simone, either, her eyes seemed to say, or perhaps it was his own imagination inflicting such cruel and unusual punishment. After all, he found new ways to torture himself daily, thinking about the way he had abused his own marriage. He’d give anything to take the wasted hours back: the affairs, the lies, the excuses. How he wished he could make it up to his loyal wife tenfold. But how could a sinner repent when his confessor had slipped from his grasp, languishing under her lover’s touch before he could fully redeem himself?

  Rick hurled a rock into the watery gray expanse. “All this talk of making it legal after four years of engagement, did this stem from Miles’s passing?” he wanted to know.

  Miles, the band’s longtime sound engineer, had passed away a few months before, leaving behind a wife, a girlfriend, four children, and a big heartbreaking mess. Married to one, living long-term with the other, children in both houses needing the benefits and life insurance that neither woman was willing to swallow their pride and share.

  Kat scooped up a handful of sand and let it sift through her fingers. “His death certainly made us reconsider our current arrangement, yes.”

  “So why not make it a quick, small thing and be done with it?”

  “Believe me, I suggested that. He’s the one who wants his mother and Natalie, and my family and all the friends, mutual and exclusive, together for one big shindig.” She squinted out to where the late-day sun was bouncing blindingly off the water before turning back to Rick. “Adrian may say it’s me who wants the fairy-tale wedding, but it’s really him.”

  “He always did like tales.” Rick smirked. “But they usually had bloodletting and gore and medieval weaponry of some kind.”

  “I don’t care if he shows up for the wedding in full chain mail, carrying a cat-o’-nine-tails. As long as he comes home with me at the end of the night as my husband.”

  Kat’s comment caused the tension in Rick to break like the tiny whitecaps rushing to the shoreline. An unbridled laugh escaped. “You really do love the hell out of him, don’t you?”

  She responded, just as Adrian had happily reported she had after he proposed to her using just a Sharpie marker, an antique emerald ring and two stone lions as his witnesses. “YES!”

  * * *

  25 May

  It’s evening, my love. I’m in bed in a stranger’s room, staring up at a photo collage of twenty-five-year-old me. It feels very odd—not so much that I’m in a strange bed; I’ve gotten used to that again. No, it’s the fact that I have no recollection of even being present when these pictures were taken, let alone printed in magazines for the world to see. I’m wearing that shirt you gave me, the loud tropical one I never liked, but you loved. As if you foresaw us destined for Hanalei one day.

  The purple naupaka on the mauka side of the house was blooming like mad when I left for our European tour. I hacked away the lot last year, but it all came back with a vengeance. Its half flower shape saddens me, and they still smell like you. Impossible to think a flower could mimic a person’s scent, but I swear on my life, these do.

  There’s a picture of you and me with Miles up here on the wall as well. Remember our sound engineer? We lost Miles this spring—prostate cancer took him quick. Did you know he was Jewish? I didn’t. We never talked about that kind of thing on the road. The family needed a minyan, so yours truly got a starring role. I recited the Mourner’s Kaddish, like I do for you each year. Yitgadal v’yitkadash . . .

  Fuck cancer in its motherfucking arse.

  I’ve almost filled a notebook, writing to you since the tour started. Ever since I found those postcards, I’ve felt compelled. I cannot believe you saved every single one.

  I should’ve written you more, Simone. Out of the blue, just because. Love notes for when just walls, not even continents, separated us.

  * * *

  Feck. It was happening again. Starting like a seedling. Nudging, itching at the back of Rick’s brain. Waking him with a jolt. Cold dread iced up his spine, nourishing the fear in his head until it became a reedy whip of a sapling. It smacked him with horrible thoughts of this may be it, this may be the big one, are you ready for this, you’re going to die, you’re dying alone, it’s here. When he tried to shake away the thoughts, his mind began to buzz like an amplifier. Rendered helpless, unable to think logically with all the static and feedback.

  Then the sweating began, flashes of toxic heat irradiating his entire six-foot frame. The bowels in an uproar. He vaulted from the attic bed to the bathroom and back again. Lie down. Calm down. It’s nothing. The doctor checked you out before the tour started. You’re fine. His heart blasting beats as quick as Lars Ulrich on the double bass drum pedals.

  Why me? Why now?

  Stress. Don’t they call it the silent killer?

  Rick cursed himself. He should never have stepped off that bus in the first place. He should be in Boston with the others, not stuck with the consolation prize of Adrian and Kat’s company as they talked nonstop for two days about their wedding plans.

  He tried to keep his breathing measured and deep. Focus, man. His eyes hit the ceiling, reeling in their sockets for a focal point.

  And there’s your wasted life, flashing before your ruddy eyes.

  Thoughts Rick relied upon to bring joy and comfort under normal circumstances—his children, his home, the ocean—cruelly magnified the panic. And now, faced with the time line of his career sloping down from above, he felt a double betrayal. You quixotic tosser, still tilting at windmills, chasing cheap thrills, the meaningless attention, and at what cost? Your wife, your sons? What are you doing here? What were you thinking?

  Each and every photo mocked him, accused him.

  You never should have boarded that bus. You should be home.

  “Home” was as empty as the porcelain bowl Rick hung his head over, dry heaving, burping, gasping. The twins were newly graduated; coming home wasn’t on their agenda this year. Their older brother, Paul, hadn’t been back for an age, and rarely called.

  The band. It’s what matters now. You run the show. It’s your gig.

  Madison Square Garden.

  The other band they had challenged was unapologetically huge. The masses loved them. But Corroded Corpse had always owned Madison Square Garden on Halloween in their heyday. And it had been the date and place of their first reunion show as the Rotten Graves Project. It was territory worth pissing in.

  If they got the date, and Adrian refused to play it . . .

  You left him behind before.

  You left him in jail. And the band played on briefly before spiraling down in flames. Some bandleader you are.

  Thankfully, the pulse pounding behind his eardrums drowned out the voice in Rick’s head. He felt dizzy.

  Their agent would be calling tomorrow with the outcome.

  Rick wondered if he’d last that long.

  Far below him, he heard the bells begin to toll from Kat’s father’s clocks striking two, over and over, as unsynchronized as his thoughts.

  He needed air.

  Stealth and silent, he descended the steep steps, mindful that Abbey was sleeping in the room at the foot of them. Just the action of moving, doing, seeking out sanctuary, improved his condition. He slunk past the menagerie of ticking clocks.

  Perhaps a good Bo-Peep on the lanai will do the trick, he thought. After more than twenty years of living on
Kauai, Rick’s British tongue had become Hawaiianized. It wasn’t unusual to mix Cockney rhyming slang with something exotically Austronesian. His lingo certainly elevated the status of his hosts’ musty screened-in porch, which contained a few potted plants and a lopsided futon.

  “Hey.”

  To his surprise, Kat had already beaten him there.

  “Bugger, you scared me!” As if his heart needed any more reason to knock like the clock hammers against their chime rods. “What are you doing up?”

  Kat laughed softly, but Rick could see the balled-up tissues in her fist, the reddened eyes. “Stupid insomnia. It always hits me before he leaves again.” She swiped at her eyes. “Like my brain has decided to not miss a minute of his furlough.”

  She shimmied over to make room for him, but he couldn’t sit. Adrenaline was flooding through him, and suddenly even the lanai felt claustrophobic. He began to pace.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have come . . . for the off-days,” he managed. “Spare you and Abbey . . .” He gulped. “The roller coaster.”

  Kat frowned. “You’re the one who looks like you’ve been through one too many loop-dee-loops. You okay?”

  “I think . . .” I’m dying it’s a heart attack aneurysm stroke I need to get to the hospital something’s happening I can’t stop it I don’t know how to stop it and it feels like—

  He stopped and pressed his cheek against the old porch screen. You’ve dealt with this before. Now breathe. “I’ll be okay,” he managed.

  “I think you’re having a panic attack.”

  Rick closed his eyes and turned the other cheek to the screen.

  “Anxiety isn’t a sign of weakness, Rick.” Kat paused a moment, then quietly added, “I’ve been told it’s a sign of being strong for too long.”

  He didn’t feel strong. He felt wiped out. It was as if all the miles logged had suddenly caught up to him, and he couldn’t fathom taking another step.

  “Maybe you should take—”

  Rick cut her off at the pass. “No drugs, Kat. No way.” He had made it through raising three teenagers on his own without “mother’s little helpers”; he certainly wasn’t going to start taking anything now as an empty-nester. He was only forty-four years old; wasn’t this supposed to be the prime of his life?

  “I was going to suggest taking a class. Meditation, Tai Chi, yoga, something. Find an outlet.”

  Rick smirked. “It used to be as simple as finding a wall socket and plugging an amplifier in.”

  “Promise me you’ll look into it?”

  “Yes, I promise.” He rolled his eyes. “In all my spare time, I will look into it.”

  “Speaking of time, you’ll know about that date in twenty-four hours, right?”

  “Less, actually.” Hence the sweating and the trembling panic.

  “I’ll give you your Garden date,” she began, and Rick braced himself for the conditions.

  “If?”

  “If the other band holding the Garden drops out and you get first hold, we will pick another date for the wedding,” she stated simply. “The world won’t end.”

  Rick nodded in agreement, grateful for the ability to breathe naturally and think clearly. The world won’t end. Fancy that!

  “But—”

  Ah, but here’s the rub, Rick thought. Behind every rock band, there were usually a half dozen women who thought they could run the show better than the myriad of agents, managers, and publicists hired for the very job.

  “But whatever date we end up with, you need to support him. And I need him home. No touring before the wedding,” she advised.

  “No problem there. We’ll be in the studio all summer.”

  “And no touring right after the wedding, either.”

  “Kat, we are releasing a new album. A street date’s all but set. We’ll need to tour it. I can’t promise you that.”

  “Then I can’t promise you the Garden date.” She hugged herself tight. “I’ve waited a long time. I can’t let the road take him.”

  He saw loss dulling the luster of her emerald eyes. It occurred to him that she, too, was versed in cruel and unusual punishment. For how could she not help but wonder whether each kiss good-bye to Adrian before a tour might be their last? Kat’s first husband had boarded a train for a quick business trip that ended up ripping a hole through her and Abbey’s hearts and well-being.

  “Deal,” Rick heard himself saying. “But I have one condition. You cannot tell Adrian about my panic attacks.” Kat raised her brows at his use of the plural. “I know you two probably share everything, but I beg of you. Please keep this to yourself, all right?”

  She gave him a small, tired smile and reached to squeeze his hand. “Deal.”

  “I think I’m going to sleep on the lanai tonight, if that’s all right with you.”

  Kat yawned and unfolded herself from the futon. “It’s all yours.” She paused at the doorway, turning back to look up at him. “I sleep out here sometimes, too,” she admitted. “If you really quiet your mind and listen, you can hear the lake. It’s no ocean, but . . .”

  “It’ll do.”

  Sidra

  Fighting Words

  Sidra carefully closed the quotation marks with two more strokes of the paintbrush and leaned back on the stepladder to observe her work. Not bad:

  “In life you only need to journey twelve inches.

  That is the distance from your head to your heart.”

  She had given the yoga room a sunny wash of pale yellow paint last month, with flowing pale green accents and trim. Now she was adding various quotes she had gathered over time to the walls for inspiration.

  If only twelve inches were necessary, why did she feel like the only loser who hadn’t left the city over Memorial Day weekend? Her classes were empty; the record shop was a ghost town. She should’ve checked in with friends, made plans. She climbed down the ladder and lugged it over to the far wall. Even a barbecue out on a postage stamp of a lawn in Queens would’ve been something. Sighing, she climbed back up.

  Seamus was gearing up for his journey through twelve states. He would leave next month and not return until late August. It had taken Sidra a week to let that sink in, but she accepted it now. If anyone needed to travel out of his head and heart for a while and do some living, it was Seamus.

  She was excited to paint her next quote, one by the famous Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar:

  “Yoga is a light, which once lit, will never dim.

  The better your practice, the brighter the flame.”

  She knew it would be a perfect complement for the wall where she demonstrated her poses, under the old exotic hanging lamp. That lamp must have a good history, she thought, wondering just what its origins were. She needed to ask her uncle if he knew.

  “Looks good.”

  Sidra twisted on her ladder to face her cousin. “Thanks, Mikey. Figured I’d do it while no one was around to smell the fumes.”

  Her logic received a curt nod. “You know Shay and Char are bailing on me?”

  “Yeah.” She often found herself resorting to monosyllabic Manhattanese tough-girl tone around her older cousin.

  “You’ll put in some hours for me up front, right?”

  Sidra painstakingly stroked the curl of a thick cursive capital Y onto the wall freehand. Dexterity inherited from her mother’s side of the family had been perfected through her formative years in Montessori school. Thousands of Downward Facing Dog poses kept her armpits strong as she leaned and stretched her entire arm’s length to finish the word.

  She hated working in the record shop, where hipsters and homeless guys were always trying to pick her up. Revolve Records was a haven for the weirdo and wayward population of the Lower East Side, who would linger for hours, hogging the listening stations and never spending a dime.

  “One night a week, Mikey. And a few weekend hours, but that’s it.”

  “All right.” He grinned. Mikey Sullivan was a huge trash-talking teddy bear of a guy. He didn�
�t even need a ladder to land his kiss on her cheek. “Thanks. You all set here?”

  “All good,” Sidra replied happily, and resumed her lettering. She loved her space and appreciated all the help her family had lent in making it come to fruition. Mikey and his dad had sanded down and refinished every floorboard, Seamus had expertly installed recessed dimmer lights and wide fans on the ceiling, and Fiona had sewn vibrant pillows in earthy fabrics for the small lounge area. Enduring a few hours behind the cash register in return wouldn’t be a hardship.

  Mikey’s large frame filled the doorway once again. “Hey, did you see the For Sale sign up next door?”

  Sidra lost her grip on the paintbrush, earning a pale green stripe down her leg as it clattered to the floor. “No! Shit. The dry cleaner’s?”

  “Yeah. Fuckin’ A, right?” Mikey said grimly. He swooped his arm down to retrieve the thin brush, like a grizzly bear swiping a fish from the river current. “And with the corner property still vacant, our asses are officially on the line.”

  Every couple of months, Mikey Senior—or Sully, as he was called by everyone who knew him—threatened to dip his toe into the sellers’ market that was skyrocketing around his family’s building. But Sidra had always assumed that, like his son, Uncle Sully was just a big trash-talker. Investors routinely came sniffing around these streets to snap up the last of the genuine New York up-and-coming, next-hot locales, trying to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse, but he had yet to really bite. However, if his building was sitting pretty with two ugly wallflowers on either side, it was bound to be the most popular girl at the dance.

  Mikey emphatically pointed the brush at her. “We gotta drum the shit up outta these businesses, okay?”