Louder Than Love

by Topper, Jessica

  “Hey,” he greeted me weakly. Followed by, “Where’s my guitar?”

  “Locked safe in my car.”

  “My friend Randy gave me that, I can’t lose that.”

  He let his head fall back against the raised half of the hospital bed. The way his voice drifted off at the end of the sentence made me realize how thoroughly drained he was. “They told me you saved my life. I seriously thought you were trying to kill me.”

  “Nah, I don’t try that until at least the third date,” I joked lamely. I still lingered with my back against the curtain, not exactly certain what my role should be at this awkward point.

  The attending physician breezed in, carrying a handful of familiar white-and-yellow boxes. “Ah, this is the knight in shining armor, then?” he queried. “Your friend here is highly allergic to shellfish. If you hadn’t given him that first dose of epi and gotten him here so fast, I think we’d be having a much different conversation right now.”

  “Cripes. Good to know my neurotransmitters cooperated—Lord knows I have mistreated them over the years,” Adrian commented, carefully scratching the back of his hand. I noticed it was all taped up and realized they must have started an IV line there.

  “He’s all right then? Does he have to stay?” I had Abbey on my mind. Although I knew she was in the capable hands of Marissa, I was beginning to feel anxious about being away from her for so long, and under such strange circumstances. The clock over Adrian’s bed read 7:28. Usually we were in pj’s and reading stories in the big beanbag chair by now.

  “Given his medical history and age and the limited oral exposure”—the doctor was studying the chart and thankfully wasn’t privy to our embarrassed expressions—“and taking into consideration the swift administration of meds, I don’t think he needs to be admitted. However, I’d like to keep him here for a few more hours to make sure he doesn’t have any secondary reactions.” He turned to Adrian with the EpiPen boxes and began to instruct him on proper usage, should the need arise in the future. I excused myself and went out into the cell phone area to call Marissa.

  “Hey, how’s it going?”

  “Well, I kissed him—”

  “Woo!” Marissa whooped. “Rob, you owe me five bucks!” she yelled away from the mouthpiece. I heard a distant and amused grunt from her husband in reply.

  “—and I almost killed him.”

  “What? Get the hell outta here.”

  “We are at the hospital.” I explained the whole mess, from the amazing dinner to the futile search for personal information to the additional three hours of observation.

  “I can keep Abbey here overnight, Tree. Right now they’re watching a movie and she hasn’t mentioned home once.” I wasn’t surprised, as Marissa’s kids and Abbey were frequent overnight guests at each other’s respective houses. Our closets and car trunks were stocked with surplus Aerobeds and booster seats just for that purpose.

  “Are you sure? I feel like I should stay and make sure he gets home all right.”

  “As long as you feel comfortable. Do you want me to send Rob down to keep you company?”

  “No, no. I’m fine. How was T-ball?”

  “Cute. They weren’t keeping score. You know . . . the whole ‘everyone’s a winner’ thing. But Joey’s first softball game is at ten tomorrow, and that’s the real deal.”

  “Cool. I’ll come get Abbey long before that so you can all get ready.”

  “I want a full report, you know,” Marissa informed me.

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. My future juju mojo depends on it.”

  “Was it at least a good kiss?”

  I smiled into the phone. “Ask me tomorrow when my pulse rate returns to normal.”

  Celestial Charm

  “Absolutely not. I won’t have you driving into Manhattan at all bloody hours of the night to get me home.” We were standing in the hospital parking lot, arguing. Adrian wasn’t given his walking papers until close to eleven p.m., and the last train back to New York had departed ten minutes prior. “I’ll take a taxicab.”

  “A cab’ll cost you over a hundred dollars, that’s ridiculous. And you can’t just hail one up here. First you’ve got to call a car service. Then you have to tell them where you are and where you want to go. And then you have to wait and hope they show. I can drive you and be back home before twelve thirty. It’s not a big deal.”

  “And what if you were to break down at the side of the road? No. If I can’t get a taxi to the city, then drop me at a hotel. Preferably one close to the train.” He sucked the last bit of nicotine from the cigarette clamped between his fingertips and then flicked it toward the streetlight. It bounced across an empty parking spot, sending orange sparks cascading. “Or I will walk to one.” He exhaled over his right shoulder as he glanced into the car to make sure his precious guitar was still present and accounted for.

  I was exasperated and exhausted. “Look. It’s late. We are both tired. And you’ve been through a lot. I trust you. You can stay the night at my place, no funny business, and I will drive you as much or as little as you want me to tomorrow morning.”

  He fixed his gaze on me, expelling one final tendril of smoke from his nostrils like some great pissed-off leviathan. His eyebrows crumpled in, and I caught the hint of a sheepish smile. “Are you sure? That’s awfully kind.”

  “I got you into this mess in the first place, didn’t I?”

  “You’re underestimating the power of free will, Kat.” I enjoyed the way my newly acquired nickname rolled off his tongue, as if he had perfected it over years of enjoyable conversation. I, on the other hand, was having a hard time thinking of him as Adrian, now that I had learned his given name was Douglas. Douglas Graves . . . Doug Graves . . . Dug Graves? I wondered if that had been his parents’ idea of a joke, or perhaps it hadn’t occurred to them at the time. I wrestled with the decision of whether or not to ask him about it. I was curious to know more about him. Yet I had put the poor guy through enough for one night without the additional insult of learning I had dredged through his personal belongings.

  He climbed into the Mini and was promptly asleep before I got to Route 6, leaving me no choice but to wonder.

  The house loomed dark and still as I coasted silently into the drive. The motion-detector lights my father had installed last summer suddenly blinked wide-eyed and alert, greeting us as we neared the front door. I was reminded of my mother. From the time I was old enough to have an after-dark curfew, she would wait up for me. It used to drive me nuts, but now as a mom myself, I understood her logic. Attempting sleep was futile when your child was out at, as Adrian would probably say, “all bloody hours.”

  I glanced over at the slumbering stranger in my passenger seat and wondered what my parents would think of the present situation. No doubt it would warrant a lecture about “stranger danger” and include the latest sex-crime statistics. Lauder Lake hadn’t had a murder since 1973, but seeing as I had imported this unknown personality in from the boroughs, all bets were off.

  Adrian was snoring slightly, his lips pursed as if to blow out birthday candles. There was something angelic and forlorn about him that kept me from thinking he was plotting any dastardly deeds. “Hey.” I nudged him gently. “Adrian. We’re here.”

  “Wow. Those antihistamines are kicking my arse.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose and outward across his eyes, yawned, and proceeded to follow me in.

  “Careful, there are a lot of boxes.” Many of Pete’s and my marital belongings, too important for deep storage yet not important enough for daily access, lived in a few dozen cardboard banker’s boxes stashed in various corners of the house.

  “Did you recently move?”

  “No . . . just taking our time settling.” Abbey and I had learned to live around them or, in some cases, repurpose stacks of them as end tables and staging areas for various Barbie play scenes. Seeing the boxe
s through the eyes of an unfamiliar bystander gave me a queer feeling.

  “Whatever became of Abbey?” he thought to ask, gingerly setting his guitar case near the piano as I flicked on lights.

  “I called Marissa from the hospital. She’s keeping Abbey overnight.”

  Adrian was studying the pictures that spanned across the top of the piano, mostly Abbey in various stages of child-chub. There was one picture of Marissa, Leanna, and me taken at someone’s basement rec room Halloween party during high school. We were dressed as three blind mice, complete with ears, tails, whiskers, dark shades, and canes. “These are the ladies I met today,” he commented. “You’ve been friends a long time.”

  “Yeah, since forever. I never imagined we would all end up back here.”

  “Once I hit London, I vowed never to go back home,” Adrian murmured. “Onward and upward.” He was now standing in front of a trio of frames by the stairs. “Do you miss the city?”

  The words caught in my throat. “More than I know how to say.”

  It pained me to look at what I called the Carousel Prints. Yet not a day went by that I didn’t.

  I never did make it to B&H that day, as Pete had asked me to. As many times as I relived our final conversation because he never could, the task of picking up those photos never dawned on me. His last request unfulfilled. An entire year passed before Pete’s brother, Luke, showed up at my doorstep with them. As a professional photographer, he was a regular customer at the photo center, and a thoughtful employee took the time to make sure the neglected prints had ended up in the right hands.

  Luke had taken the negatives and made enlargements in black-and-white, giving them a timeless look. The trio of prints portrayed a sequence of events occurring mere minutes apart, but they spoke volumes on a lifetime of emotions: fear, trust, and joy.

  The first photo was all Abbey. Pete’s disembodied hands, his fingers looking huge as they spanned her rib cage, placed her on the wooden saddle molded to the body of the carousel horse. Her tiny head was bowed so she was all cheeks, lashes fanning across them and little mouth drawn up like a young rosebud. What is this new creature? Hands instinctively reaching for the pole jutting from the horse’s mane.

  The next photo is Abbey’s face in protest, and Pete’s bending close in consolation. Her eyes are flashing, betrayed by the daddy person and looking toward the lens for the mommy person’s help. Pete’s lips are pursed in a half smile, frozen in mid-coo. His lashes, in profile, mirror hers. Dumb cow eyes, he used to call his big brown ones, with their impossible lashes.

  The third photo is absolute rapture. The realization of her eleven-month-old world spinning, with its methodical ups and downs and Daddy safe next to her, has brought a gleeful, gummy smile to her face. Cheeks wide, eyes shining, and the hint of two bottom front teeth at her gumline about to break through. Pete is absolved, vindicated, rewarded. Grinning point-blank at me as I manage to capture, unknowingly, our little unit’s final experience of jumping into the great unknown together. The photos speak volumes, yet they say nothing. The moment, like the ride, was too short.

  A cacophony of bells fractured my reverie. Along with 80 percent of their furniture, my parents happened to have left behind a half dozen of their noisiest antique clocks. Abbey and I no longer noticed them, but to the unsuspecting visitor, midnight arrives in quite a jarring fashion. Adrian marveled, surrounded by grandfather, wall, and mantel clocks with their chime rods and tubes pealing in their splendor. They weren’t quite in synch, so midnight arrived at 11:58 and continued until about 12:03. “Sorry, I should have warned you . . .”

  “No, no, they’re brilliant! I hear the Winchester chimes: ‘O Art Divine, exalted blessing! Each celestial charm expressing!’ Makes me feel like a kid again.” He cocked his head. “And there’s the Westminster, and the Whittington chime. It’s like time-traveling back to London and being in two places at once.” I loved the way his smile came so quickly and naturally that it almost surprised even him.

  “My dad owned an antique shop,” I explained. “I sort of inherited the house when they moved, along with a lot of the inventory.” While most of the heavy antique furniture was out of both my price range and my scope of style, I still enjoyed the history each piece had. Not only its history from whatever period it happened to have been created in, but also the history it played in my own life. It was somewhat comforting to serve Abbey dinner at the Horner solid quartered oak dining table, round with its full-winged griffin carved base. My family had celebrated countless Thanksgivings at that table; it was where I had wished over numerous birthday cakes, and where Pete and I had first announced our engagement.

  “It’s . . .” He scanned the room, stalling for the right words. “Quaint. Homey.” His eyes rested on me, and it seemed like he wanted to add another adjective, but instead fell silent.

  I hastily flipped on the attic light at the bottom of the stairs. “Um . . . the spare bedroom is upstairs. You can smoke up there if you want, just make sure you open the window. Towels . . . extra toothbrushes . . . all that stuff is in the linen closet in the bathroom up there.” Liz had recently stayed with us over Easter weekend, so I knew the bedding was freshly laundered and the dust couldn’t have settled too much since. It was no Four Seasons, but it would have to do.

  Standing back, I allowed Adrian to proceed up the stairs. He paused three steps up, hand lingering on the railing, and turned. “Thank you. I know this is . . . weird and unexpected. Thanks for being a good sport.” He disappeared up the rest of the stairs.

  My nightly bedtime rituals were performed, albeit with slightly racing heart and shaking hands. I tried hard not to be aware of every little creak and moan from the floorboards above me. Brushing my teeth, I reflected on when the last time was that I had been on my own in the house overnight with another adult. Certainly well before Abbey was born. It felt strange yet natural, all at the same time.

  Footsteps approached the top of the stairs. “Erm . . . Kat?”

  “Yes?” I called. He didn’t answer me right away. “Everything okay?” I hiked halfway up the steep staircase before he came into sight at the top. His black shirt was unbuttoned, and I caught a glimpse of a plain white T underneath. His hand was cupping an unlit cigarette.

  “Just curious. Was this . . . your room growing up?” he asked, appearing slightly flustered.

  “God, no! It was my brother Kevin’s.” I hopped up the last few steps. “I know it looks like a shrine, but don’t worry, he isn’t dead. He’s just in Oregon.” I laughed, casting a sweeping glance around the room and trying to imagine seeing it for the first time. Posters of metal bands lined the walls and slanted ceiling like a claustrophobic cocoon. His bed was directly underneath the largest poster, which appeared to pulsate with flames, Marshall stacks, and men pounding on their guitars. Light from the stage spotlights in the picture bounced off the crotches of their tight spandex pants, creating an almost three-dimensional effect. “Abbey calls it the boogeymen room and won’t come up here.”

  “Cripes. I don’t blame her.”

  My eyes lingered on the forgotten high school track trophies in one corner and the milk crate full of dusty vinyl albums in another. “My parents never made him clear out his stuff, and now he’s halfway across the country. I should take matters into my own hands. But he’d probably kill me if I so much as breathed on the tape holding these posters up.”

  Adrian heaved the small dormer window frame a few inches, lit up, and gazed at the silk Iron Maiden tapestry tacked up above it, serving as a curtain. “Older than you, or younger?”

  “Two years younger. Kev lived and breathed Iron Maiden, KISS, Judas Priest . . . all those bands in high school.” I sat on the bed and stared up at the huge Corroded Corpse poster. “He never forgave my parents for not letting him see these guys, though . . . his favorite band. We weren’t allowed to go to concerts until we were sixteen, and the band split up
that year, so he never got to see them play live.”

  “Hmm, that’s a shame.”

  “Sixteen years later and he still bitches about it.”

  “My brother is the same age. Well, half brother. We aren’t very close. But he loved Corroded Corpse, too. Gutted when they broke up.”

  Adrian tapped his ashes carefully into a small tin ashtray left behind from Kevin’s Marlboro-smoking days. Big Blue, his favorite bong, was still parked behind the old couch on the opposite wall, as if waiting for its faithful master to return and spark it up once more. Kev’s room had been a virtual no-mom’s-land during his teen years. I remember her insisting on a once-annual fumigation, but beyond that, she never stepped foot in there to see what he was up to. Whenever my parents came to visit now, I usually camped out up here and let them have my room; technically, their former master bedroom. No sense in popping their blissful bubble of domestic denial after all these years. Abbey was in my old childhood room. Thankfully, the Pepto-pink walls and Tiger Beat posters had been replaced with a fresh coat of lilac paint.

  “So what about you?” Adrian asked, his steel blue eyes twinkling. “Were you a metal chick growing up?”

  “Nah.” I absently pulled a curl from my ponytail and twirled it. “I was more of a hippie chick. I liked the classic stuff, Doors, Hendrix, Beatles . . . peace and love and all that.”

  “Peace and love, eh?” He had finished smoking and ambled toward where I was perched on the bed.

  “Yeah . . .” I watched as he took my hand in his. “Hey, no funny business,” I lamely joked, my heart hammering.