by Alana Lorens
“Now, don’t be putting down arugula. I’ve got a great patch of it out on the farm. We eat it all the time.”
The word “we” echoed in her ears, reverberating like an overhead clap of thunder, the kind that rattled the windows of the house. Who was “we”? Dare she ask? “Must be a big farm,” she managed.
“Probably a hundred acres.” He leaned back in his chair companionably, still holding his unopened candy. “Working with a couple of seed companies to try to cross-pollinate some different strains of lettuces, make them a little more hardy. We sell to several local restaurants. The fruit orchards are all fully working, too—oranges, avocados, lemons, and so on.”
“We” again. Skirting the issue like it was a puddle and she was in bare feet, she asked, “You don’t do all that work yourself?”
He laughed. “Not and keep up a touring schedule. I’m booked till, I think, October.” He leaned closer. “I gave up the only three days off I had this month for this little adventure.”
Guilt zigged through her. “Oh, no. That’s hardly fair.” She couldn’t bring herself to apologize, though, with her mind consumed by the “we” issue.
“Don’t you worry, hon. It was so worth it.” He studied her from his slouch in the seat. “I’d have given up the whole month, if that’s what it took. Or more.”
He slipped from the chair, ending before her on one knee. Her heart stopped for a split second as panic set in. He took her hand, kissed it softly as it trembled in the nest of his fingers. He looked into her eyes. “Leyla, I—”
She jumped up, pushed away from him, cut him off, her blood pressure racing. She didn’t even know what he was going to say. Panic took over. Even Tim hadn’t done anything that romantic when they’d gotten engaged. It was too much, too soon… “Arran, look, I don’t know what you thought, but I’m not ready for—”
His eyes were wide with surprise. “Dinner?”
“D-dinner?” She blinked, off balance.
“Yeah.” He straightened slowly, watching her with more than a bit of curiosity. “You thought… Oh! You thought I was going to propose.” His face shifted to a warm understanding. “I can see why you… Oh, man. No, that’s not it at all.” He blushed to his hairline.
That’s who “we” was. He was already married. Her heart plummeted into the miasma of her gut. “Arran, you’ve found me, right? So we don’t have to do this whole dinner-and-date thing, you know? If there’s somewhere you’d rather be, someone you should be with instead—” She forced herself toward the door, reaching for the door handle.
“Don’t you dare!” His voice was sharp, an edge drawing it in an upward arc. He stood, frozen, his knee half bent as if he intended to spring in her direction but was afraid she’d vanish. The vehemence of his words told her volumes about his feelings. He wanted her—no, needed her—to stay.
She dropped her hand to her side. “Arran, what do you want from me? Why try to find me after all these years?”
He took a step back, shook his arm, releasing tension. “I was going to wait and tell you later, somewhere with candles and…” He trailed off at a knock on the door.
“Mr. Lake, your limo’s here.”
“Thanks, pal.” Arran cleared his throat and studied her.
“Mr. Lake. That sounds so formal,” she said, repressing a nervous urge to giggle.
He shrugged. “Mostly, when someone says it, I look around for my dad. But there wouldn’t be enough booze here to interest him.”
Neither broke the uncomfortable silence that followed for a minute or so. Leyla’s mind had gone blank. He’d said something about dinner. Trying to remember where this dinner was supposed to take place, she finally recalled it was Lamont, a place she’d never been into but had walked by plenty of times. The award-winning restaurant was supposed to have a wonderfully romantic view overlooking the city from Mount Washington. At night, it would be even more spectacular.
“So, dinner,” she said.
“Yeah. Mike picked out some place over by the streetcar thing.” Arran shrugged.
She glanced down. She’d worn a soft summer dress in peach, but she didn’t know if she’d pass the dress code. Arran wouldn’t. But then, they might make an exception for him. “Neither one of us is really dressed for that place, you know.”
“Got a better idea?” His eyes lit with mischief. “If I’m really a star, I should be able to change my plans. We’ll throw off the paparazzi.”
That made her smile. “Ever hear of Primanti Brothers? They make killer sandwiches—fries and coleslaw right on the sandwiches. It’s amazing. Like Luella’s back home.”
His eyes widened for just a moment. “Really? That sounds incredible. Let’s git.” He grabbed her hand, and they ran for the door. He helped her into the limo, where she slid all the way across the seat next to the opposite window. He stayed on his side, giving her space. They waved goodbye to Mike Chandler, closing the window before they told the driver where they were going.
“You think he’ll be mad?”
Arran laughed. “Only if he has to give back the fifty bucks the Enquirer gave him for the tip.”
Leyla leaned back against the cushioned seat, still feeling a bit like Alice in Wonderland. “I’ve never been in a limo.”
“They’re all right. I’m usually real glad to have one in a city where I’ve never been. Those guys always get me where I need to be.” He gawked out the window as they drove through downtown, past the illuminated PPG castle. “Never been out here in public before. It’s pretty at night.”
“It’s okay. At least in the summer. The winters are kind of rough. I miss Asheville a lot, those mountain views in the fall, the mist on them…” She peered along with him, remembering when she’d seen all this for the first time. Tim hadn’t been much of a tour guide; he’d bitched about everything. Too many cars. Ugly buildings. Icy crust on every road. If it hadn’t been for the money, he wouldn’t have found anything useful about this city. Well, except Ashtray. Or Ashley. Or whatever her name was.
She couldn’t let that distract her now, not when she was caught in the whirl of a magical dream. She could feel his gaze on her, and her hand automatically slipped up to tuck a loose hair behind her ear. He wanted to tell her something. Over candlelight, he’d said. Even if that drop to the knee hadn’t had anything to do with marriage…what could he want to tell her that was so important?
“I hope I’m not interrupting other plans you had,” he said gently.
“What?” She glanced up at him. “No! I mean, no, there wasn’t anything particular. I spend most nights, um…” Suddenly her little scribblings seemed an embarrassment.
“What?” he asked, his eyes warm and interested, inviting her to share.
“Writing. I’m writing a novel,” she said.
“Get out! That’s wonderful!” His grin threatened to pierce the edges of his face, and he scooted close, taking her hand. “See, I knew you had that in you. What’s it about?”
She started to tell him, but they arrived at the South Side, Carson Street bustling at this hour on a weeknight. She would wait till they’d pushed their way inside through the crowd of college students, retired steelworkers, and young urban professionals out with the working class, to grab a small wooden table in a corner. The patrons chattered happily, armed with frosty mugs of beer and sandwiches stacked high with meat, cheese, and assorted toppings. Leyla wondered if they might be mobbed, uncomfortable in this crowded space, but this crew was much more Springsteen and Mellencamp than Arran Lake’s softer rock offerings. Arran ordered the Pittsburgher Cheese Steak sandwich, which came, as she’d told him, with fries, sweet-and-sour coleslaw, and tomatoes. She chose the capicola, loving the salty, spicy pork slices. When he would have ordered an upscale beer, she stopped him.
“No, no, you’re on the South Side now. You need to drink the local stuff. Two Yuenglings,” she told the waiter.
“Good choice, miss.” The waiter winked at her and elbowed his way toward the ki
tchen.
“So go on, tell me about this novel.”
Arran was quite insistent, and listened patiently as she described her heroine’s life and loves. He added comments as she explained the bumps in her narrative, suggesting changes based on a man’s point of view.
“Yeah, see, your guy wouldn’t react like that. Guys are programmed to act, to fix things. But we don’t usually like to talk about what’s wrong, or what happened. We like the surgical strike.”
“Well, that makes sense, then.” Thinking back on that night Tim broke up with her, it was pretty much just like that. And Ashtray watching. “What about when they meet at the store?”
“Huh.” He actually stopped to consider a response, unlike Tim, who’d dismissed the whole endeavor as a waste of time. “He’d have a gun.”
“Really?” Her followup question was interrupted when their beer came, then their food, but they talked on, moving from her field of creativity to his and back again. Even as they sat in the middle of all the talk about the Steelers and the economy and the hot girls with the too-short skirts sitting at the edge of the bar, the two of them were set apart, in their own small world. It seemed like that night in her apartment, back in Asheville, where they lay just before dawn, as the pale pink and gray light came through her window and reflected off the mirror, and she’d thought it was the start of something truly special…
But then he’d left.
And now he’s back…
While they waited for the check, she studied his face, seeing little lines, little telltale signs that he’d gotten older. She had some very similar. The passing of time did that to you. The question was, did the passing of time put some dreams to death?
“What was it you wanted to ask me?” she said suddenly, intending to catch him off guard. The restaurant was too crowded for him to get on his knees without being trampled.
“Hang on a minute while I get the car,” he said, texting with one hand. The waiter came by, picked up the check and the credit card in Arran’s hand, and vanished. “It’s too loud in here. I want you to hear me.” He smiled and reached for her hand across the table. “I can’t believe it’s really you.”
Leyla wanted to protest that she was the one in disbelief—who would have supposed that she would be out of her lonely hermit apartment and out on the town with a fantasy from her past? She tried not to act like a fool. She squeezed his fingers. “Well, I can assure you it’s really me.”
The waiter passed back through, setting down the check for Arran to sign. His attitude had subtly changed. “Your card says you’re Arran Lake,” the waiter said.
Arran took the man’s pen and signed, then handed it back, taking all his copies and the card to tuck back into his wallet. “It should.” He smiled at the guy, who only got more flustered.
“Man, if I’d have known—”
“No worries, man.” Arran stood, pulling Leyla to her feet too, before the server could cause a fuss. “Thanks again.”
Leyla hurried for the door, winding through clumps of raucous patrons. Outside, the evening air soaked her face, the September night thick with humidity. Arran scooted up next to her at the edge of the sidewalk. “It’s so great here. Not like Los Angeles,” he said. “Too many people there.”
Jostled on all sides by people determined to have a good time, Leyla was pretty well convinced there were too many people here, too. Carson Street, late night, was not her kind of scene. Bumper-to-bumper traffic, horns blaring, neon lights everywhere. She began to feel a little overwhelmed. “Look, I can catch a cab home from here.”
“No!” Desperation tinged his eyes, making them a sad blue, the color of a rainy sky. “Please, Leyla, I want to talk.”
The limo pulled up next to the curb, and he opened the door for her.
“Please give me a chance to talk to you. We’ll drive, and it’ll be quiet. Then when I’m done, if you want to go home, we’ll drop you right at your door.”
Inside, she was wondering how a limousine might negotiate the dangerous curves of Mount Washington, but all the same, there was a part of her that didn’t want this night to end. Arran was, after all, the one who got away, right? Might as well spend whatever time he wanted before he winged off back to his farm in California and his glamorous rock star life. She climbed into the limo, sliding all the way across the seat.
This time Arran sat across from her, not next to her. The space was wide enough that their knees didn’t even touch. “Just drive,” he said to the chauffeur. Then he closed the window between the front and back of the car and turned his attention to her as he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. His expression, intent and serious, gave the impression he was focusing everything he had on her.
“You know, I went back to Asheville to do a show a couple of years ago. Played at the Orange Peel.” Reflected in the lights of passing cars, his smile was a ghost of emotion. “I’d have stayed a few more nights if I hadn’t had a tour demanding my attention.”
He studied her. She didn’t know what to say. “The Orange Peel is… It’s a cool place to play. I-I bet you were great.”
He sighed. “That’s not what I… No. The point is, I went there hoping to find you.”
“Me? In Asheville?”
“Yeah. I went to the Biltmore, to the gardens there. I went downtown, and stood right where the stage was that day at Bele Chere. It all came back to me, so clearly.” He closed his eyes a moment, then looked at her again. “I know now you’d already moved here.” He shifted in the seat, leaning back, hands steepled in front of him as he searched for words. “One year I was on tour at Christmastime, I think in Atlanta, or Birmingham, somewhere like that. After the show was done, I was sitting in my dressing room, the door partly open, and listening to the women outside, their Southern drawl—it sounded so much like home. It sounded like you.”
His voice echoed with pain. She just listened, afraid to speak, wondering whether this was another dream, or how this could be real. What was it he really wanted to say to her, what had brought him here, what could have driven him to concoct the evening’s concert?
“Leyla, I’ve regretted so many times that I let you slip away. I don’t know… I guess I thought you’d be waiting, you know? Right where I left you.” He laughed, a dark and unhappy sound. “Right, like you didn’t have anything else in your life. I didn’t mean for you to just put yourself on hold. Once I took that call, and got on that plane, a whirlwind took over my life. We were recording, we were traveling, we were meeting people and going places… All of a sudden, it was a year later. Then two. I tried to call, but your phone number wasn’t good any more. Letters I sent to your address came back. I didn’t know how to find you.”
He paused, and she considered what he’d said. It certainly sounded plausible. Hurt by Arran’s perceived abandonment, she’d hooked up with Tim much too fast. She’d known that at the time but was so wretched she’d just ignored any alarms and thrown herself into it. They had moved away not long after. It could have happened like he said…
“That Christmas, I sat there, alone, thinking about getting on yet another plane and going home, where I’d be alone, too.”
She started to protest, but he held up a hand. “Oh, I know, people think the rocking life is a party all the time, housefuls of people, music blasting, all that. And it can be. People who like that kind of thing can have it rolling twenty-four/seven. But that’s not me. On the road, there are always too many people, too many cities, lights, noises, and I can’t wait to get home. I’ve got a little studio there, where I can play around, make music. Like I said, it’s a working farm. Everything is natural, quiet, breezy. It’s home.” He was quiet a long time as the limousine drove on.
She glanced out the window, saw the driver had taken them onto the interstate. Probably the easiest place to get around this time of night. So much to say, but she didn’t know what would be right. Maybe best to charge straight on. “I always wondered… I mean, you see the gossip magazines, and th
ey say that people make all these fabulous hookups, you know. I loved that picture of you and Cynda Jones, for instance.”
He looked up sharply. “Cynda?” His eyes narrowed a moment. “When did I see Cynda?” After a moment’s thought, he slapped his knee. “Oh! That.” He started to laugh, a full, round, amused laugh this time. “Yeah. We’d both gone to the music awards. I was rumored to be ahead in the polling, and her publicist wanted to kick her up in the ranks, so she dragged Cynda over and persuaded us to ‘look like a couple.’ All the cameras went off. I thought I was going to be blind for a month.”
“So you weren’t a couple?”
“Oh, heck, no. I mean, she’s okay. Drinks too much, in my book. I think she did go on to win the next year.” He shrugged. “But the only girl who waits at home for me is Ginger.” When Leyla didn’t respond, he added, “The cocker spaniel.”
“Oh, I saw her picture on your page. She’s great.”
“She’s yours. I mean, I got her for you. I remember how you said you’d always wanted one.”
That raised her eyebrows.
“Anyway, back to that Christmas. I realized then I wanted someone at home, someone I wanted to see at the end of the day. Someone I wanted to share everything with. And, Leyla, I realized I wanted that person to be you. I made the worst mistake of my life by not following up with you immediately after we’d gotten settled in California. I should have sent you a ticket, I should have called every night… I should never have let you think you weren’t the best thing that ever happened to me.”
He looked at her with such earnestness, her eyes burned with tears.
“I know we didn’t spend a long time together, but that night when we loved and talked and held each other— I have never felt as safe and secure in my whole life as in those twelve hours. We connected, Leyla. It’s a deep connection, and for me, it’s never broken.”