Louder Than Love

by Topper, Jessica

  “Oh, I’ve never been good with accents,” she drawled with a wave of her hand, and I couldn’t resist giving Adrian a light kick under the table.

  “We’re meeting Grant. Better grab a table while we can. You’re looking great, Tree. Really good to see you.”

  “Enjoy your stay.” I let my smile linger until Chad had ushered Diane safely out of earshot. “Yiiiiikes. Homecoming king and queen, back in town. Haven’t seen them, or that hairdo, since prom. Wild.”

  Abbey flattened the dough with her palm. “Mommy, can I go see the fish?”

  “Let’s wait till we order, Abb.” Our server, Christa, appeared with the wine Adrian must’ve requested while Chad was smearing his stinky stubble against my cheek. She was the younger sister of a classmate, and we had spent several torturous figure skating lessons together as preteens.

  “I’ll take her, Tree.”

  “Thanks, Christa.”

  She smiled, expertly uncorked the bottle, and poured a sampling for Adrian. After he nodded his approval, she filled our glasses, took our orders, and then took Abbey by the hand to visit the big tropical fish tank near the kitchen.

  “I like how everyone knows you,” he confided, leaning in with a smile. His warm fingers brushed a stray curl off of my cheek that had escaped from my barrette.

  “Please. I miss the anonymity of New York City sometimes.” I threaded my foot between his under the table, and we held each other’s gaze for longer than most people would find comfortable. Adrian finally broke it and settled back with a grin as the back waiter swooped in with bread. We left our feet entwined in intimate privacy below.

  “Pardon,” Adrian murmured, “my mobile.” He had his phone to his ear before I could place the familiar-sounding ringtone. “Wotcha, mate? Actually, yes . . . I’m out to dinner . . . yes, with a living, breathing lady friend.” He smiled at me. “Two, as a matter of fact.”

  Our table, positioned a few steps up from the rest of the dining floor, had a central vantage point. As I kept my eye on Abbey, I couldn’t help notice when Grant came breezing in, his head careening around like a bobblehead doll. Just keep walking, I silently willed. Go find your friends and refrain from trying to turn this town into your own personal Peyton Place.

  “Sorry, luv. My mate Sam. He can gab, given the opportunity. Normally he’s the jammy git, out with more ladies than he can handle.”

  “Oh? Are you having a hard time handling us?” I teased, yet peripherally I was focused on Grant. His head jerked in surprise as his eyes landed on our table.

  “You,” Adrian began, a delicious tone to his voice as he curled his fingers around mine, “are a pleasure to handle. And spending time with Abbey is a delight.”

  I watched Grant’s confusion and shock quickly morph into arrogance as he swaggered over. Giving Adrian’s hand an advance apologetic squeeze, I internally braced myself.

  “Hey, Tree. Sorry I didn’t call you like you asked me to.” Grant made a point of completely ignoring Adrian. His patented lazy grin flashed a little too big.

  I remained unfazed; allowing so much as an eye roll would appear as juvenile as his behavior. “No problem, Grant. Diane and Chad are over there . . . we got to say hi.”

  He turned on his heel at the mention of his friends and joined them without another word. Abbey got an unrequested hair tousle from him on her way back to the table as she passed him.

  “Dare I ask . . . who’s the rude bloke?”

  “He was Mommy’s boyfriend,” Abbey supplied simply, climbing back into her chair and reaching for her apple juice.

  “Whoa . . . ho ho. Let me clarify. We dated in high school for a couple of months. End of story,” I assured them both. “Love can be blind . . . but puppy love is deaf, dumb, and blind.”

  “Ah, a high school sweetheart . . . At least you stayed in school long enough to have one.” Adrian paused. He took a gulp of wine. “I dropped out when I was all of fifteen, stubborn as I was stupid. Met my wife in the ‘real world,’ if you want to call it that.”

  Abbey practically did a spit-take with her apple juice. “You had a wife?”

  “Hard to believe, yes,” Adrian replied.

  She looked worried. “Is she in the stars now?” Whether a typical four-year-old contemplated the living versus the dead on such a regular basis, I wasn’t sure. My child may have been a bit more inclined to, given her limited body of experience. “Mom says it’s a nice place to imagine people.”

  “No, she’s in Belgravia.” Adrian’s tone implied the ritzy section of London was in his mind akin to the fourth circle of Dante’s Hell. “With her new husband. Leopold. The banker,” he finished flatly. I was secretly glad Abbey was asking the questions, because I didn’t dare.

  As tactfully as he could in front of young ears, he told us his wife had decided she’d be happier married to a “dreary sod with a bloody dull job he witters endlessly about” rather than to the father of her child. Abbey quickly lost interest in our conversation, despite her attempt to hang on to and decipher some of the more colorful adjectives in Adrian’s vocabulary. She began to manufacture a dozen tiny doughnuts across the table, rolling the spongy dough into a snake under her hands and pinching the ends together.

  “Once upon a time, he was the family’s accountant. He lured her with promises of domestic security and the material bliss she craved, all the while funneling my funds into various accounts to ensure it. All tidily tucked under ‘ancillary relief’ when the decree absolute came down. What he lacks in personality he now makes up for in pounds sterling, which in Robyn’s world counts for substance.” I was at a loss for what to say, but gave a grim little smile of empathy. “Put it this way,” he said, reaching for the sealed bottle of San Pellegrino left on the table for those so inclined. He spun the pale green bottle until the label was facing me. “She liked to think she was this, whereas I”—he took a sip from his glass filled with tap water and tilted it toward me in a toast—“consider myself more like this.”

  “So she was overpriced and pretentious and you were the real deal.”

  His laughter fluttered down on me like a ticker tape parade. “Spot on, Kat!” He refilled both of our wine glasses, killing the bottle.

  “How old was Natalie when you split?”

  Across the room, Grant was guffawing embarrassingly loud over something, or nothing.

  “Two. God, she was just a babe. We shared guardianship until she was eight, and then . . . well. We need another bottle of wine before I get into that.”

  “Skeppi, no neatball.” Christa had arrived with many plates, reciting Abbey’s order exactly as she had requested it. Adrian had played it safe with the chicken Marsala, and I, too, had steered clear of seafood, opting for the pesto tortellini. “Can I get you three anything else?”

  “Another bottle of wine?” Adrian turned to me.

  “Sure, what the heck.”

  “And let’s send one to the loud git at the booth down there on the left, all right?” he suggested with a gleam in his eye.

  “Adrian! Don’t you dare.”

  “Come now, let’s toast the prom king and queen . . . and the class clown.” I couldn’t help but laugh at his keen observation. “And another apple juice for the young lady,” he added with a wink.

  “You’re crazy,” I said, bumping his knees under the table. We watched as the bottle was presented with little verbal explanation but quite a bit of gesturing. Heads turned in our direction, and we reciprocated by raising our glasses in a silent and amused mock toast. Abbey saluted them with her kiddie cup of juice. Diane was all teeth and probably would have shouted, “Thanks, y’all!” had she not been so busy sucking down a healthy first glass. Chad gave us a dorky thumbs-up, then looked to Grant for reassurance. Grant looked like he had just swallowed a bug.

  I helped Abbey cut up her spaghetti. “What’s that saying about revenge? It�
�s a dish best served cold?”

  “Or a wine best served chilled?” Adrian chortled.

  “Eh. I have no beef with him. Life’s too short. But he does have a way of making this town feel claustrophobic.”

  Wine and endorphins had us giggling and bumping into each other on the way out to the parking lot. “You all right to drive?” he asked, but then answered his own question. “Cripes, we’re not going anywhere with that tire.”

  “Oh . . . sugar,” I said as Abbey swung on my hand over to the car. “A flat?”

  “I thought all Minis were equipped with run-flats?” Adrian bent to inspect it.

  “I opted for regular tires,” I replied, cursing the salesman for not coming on stronger with the pros of having the fancier tires.

  “Honestly, I don’t think a run-flat could have survived this. Christ, someone did a bloody hack job on it. Screwdriver, maybe?” He straightened up. “Tell me you have a spare in the boot?”

  “Spare in the boot,” I affirmed, popping it.

  “What’s a spare? Do cars wear boots? What makes a tire flat? Can people die from flat tires?” Abbey had a million questions and kept a running commentary while Adrian removed the tool kit and spare and began to jack up my Smurf.

  “I’ll have this fixed in a jiffy. Why don’t you wait inside?” Abbey and I headed back toward the restaurant. In the vestibule, I sat in a black padded chair while Abbey sat on my lap, wistfully staring at the bubble gum machine. I could hear Grant laughing his brain out of his head. What an idiot. I felt bad for all the diners still in the restaurant.

  Adrian was back to fetch us in what could still be considered a jiffy. I hiked a sleepy Abbey up on my hip and took his hand. He had smears of grease across his knuckles and a satisfied smile on his face. “My dad was a mechanic. Never taught me to kick a football, but he taught me how to change a tire. I worked at his garage to save up for my first guitar.”

  “Lucky for me.”

  I began the slow drive to the train station, heeding Adrian’s warning about driving under fifty on the spare and savoring the last moments of what had been a fairly perfect day. The Magical Mystery Tour on the stereo comfortably replaced conversation. Abbey and I primarily listened to the Beatles and Broadway show tunes while in the car. Safe stuff. Nothing that would cause me to veer off the road in a teary mess.

  “Abbey, who’s your favorite Beatle?” Adrian asked, twisting around in his seat to face her.

  “Ringo.” She shrugged. “Rhymes with bingo,” she added logically.

  He turned back to me. “Pretty heavy album. Has she asked who the walrus is yet?”

  “No, but she does have a lot of questions about how one can sit on a cornflake.”

  “Bright girl.”

  “Hey, Abb,” I called back to her. “I’m just stepping out of the car with Adrian for a minute. I’ll leave the music on.” Abbey nodded, her eyes glassy. It was rare for her to see the inside of the car at nine p.m.; usually she was tucked snug in her bed before the streetlights came on.

  “Good night, Abbey-like-the-road.” I watched them smile at each other. Adrian reached his hand back as if to shake hers, although the distance and car seat buckles made it impossible. He pumped her foot instead, eliciting laughter that could be heard even after we had closed the doors.

  Adrian and I leaned against the car, delaying the inevitable good-bye. Adrian began to speculate whether the sabotage of the tire had been random or deliberate.

  “I’m the only person in town driving a blue Mini with an I love my library and I vote bumper sticker on it. I doubt it was a case of mistaken identity.”

  “And to think I bought him wine, the prat,” Adrian fumed as I shared my suspicions. Grant had arrived late for dinner with his visiting friends. His car, I now recalled, had been parked diagonally in front of mine. I thought of the random tools he had shoved under the seat, and the look on his face when I had blown off his cocky dinner invitation a few weeks ago. . .

  “Was he your lover, Kat?” I felt Adrian’s lips graze my earlobe.

  “He was the . . . the first. Once.” Thoughts of the old boathouse by the lake, long torn down, surfaced. I could still smell the damp wood, the mildew from the life jackets hanging on the walls. I remembered looking up to the rafters, watching two balloons left over from a neighbor child’s party bob gently above as I left my childhood behind. “I wanted to get it over with.” I rested my head on Adrian’s shoulder, and he gave my forehead a gentle kiss, right where my widow’s peak began.

  “I wish it could’ve been me. Although I was already a dirty old man by then . . . What were you, sixteen?”

  “Fifteen. Come on, you aren’t that much older than me . . . seven years?”

  “I was a different animal at twenty-two.” He wrapped his arms around me. “Come meet me in town. Would Wednesday work again?” I nodded. “My turn to pick the place.” The distant whistle of his train could now be heard on its approach into the station. He opened Abbey’s door once more to say good-bye. Then he turned to me. “I have a place riddle. Nothing is real there.” He rocked back on his heels, pleased with himself.

  “That’s not much of a clue.”

  “Abbey will be able to tell you.” His sole perplexing hint got the wheels in my head turning.

  “You’ll feed me grapes and read me poetry?” I whispered as we hugged long and tight.

  “Darlin’, I’ll grow the grapes for you . . . and write the poetry.”

  I sighed. That was poetry to my ears right there. I watched as he took the stairs to the station two at a time, but couldn’t bear to stay as his train pulled out. Abbey perked up slightly as I hopped back into the car. “Is he coming back soon?”

  “I think so.” The compact front cabin of the Mini felt cavernous. Something vague was creeping through my brain and my body. An emptiness, turning more tangible by the minute as we crept home along darkened roads on our uneven tires. It was an ache. I ached for him. Was this all too quick, too soon? I glanced at Abbey in the rearview mirror, wondering if she detected the loss. She was gazing out the window as the blackened foliage whizzed by. I tried to shove the feeling into the junk drawer section of my brain, a place to harbor it safely until it could be dealt with at a later time. And I concentrated instead on the riddle that would lead me back to him in three days.

  Nothing real.

  Made up.

  Imagined . . .

  As we pulled onto our street, Abbey began, as if on cue, to softly sing along with “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

  Cerebral Citations

  I adore lists.

  It must be the librarian in me.

  Alphabetical, chronological, with numbers or bullet points. I like the tracking and the order of things and delight in ticking items off any sort of checklist. The morning after my ten-hour date with Adrian, I found myself creating a brain bibliography as I gave Abbey a bath, based on what I knew of Adrian’s story so far. Like a dutiful librarian, I mentally cited my sources. Most were primary, directly from things he said or did.

  Born in 1963 (from driver’s license)

  From Hampshire (note: look at a map)

  Dad was a mechanic

  Mom ??? (made him take piano lessons)

  Likes soccer (Chelsea football)

  He’s got at least one sibling (half sibling) Kev’s age

  Dropped out of school at fifteen

  Moved to London at seventeen

  Has a daughter who is twenty, divorced when she was two, so . . . marriage ended around 1986?

  Married AND divorced by age twenty-three (no subsequent marriages?)

  Lost wife and money to Leopold the banker (and seems slightly bitter, understandably)

  Moved to NYC in 1994

  Lives on Central Park West (according to driver’s license)

  Wrote a kid
s’ cartoon theme song in 1998 (for a laugh, apparently)

  Good with kids (although not with his own)

  Hasn’t been in a relationship in the past year (or at least, hasn’t gotten laid)

  Rides a bicycle and smokes cigarettes

  I wasn’t very satisfied with my mental pathfinder. There were ten years between his divorce and relocation to the States that I knew nothing about. And he never did say why he lost custody of Natalie. He can’t just smoke and bike around Manhattan all day. Way too many holes. But, I reasoned silently as I soaped Abbey up, we’ve only had two dates . . . three if you count the dinner with the side of epinephrine. How much did he know about me after three dates? That I have a kid obsessed with a cartoon cat, a dead husband who I can’t bring myself to talk about, and an ex-boyfriend who might possibly be a tire-slasher but is most definitely a wanker? That I am game for afternoon delights in five-star hotels and am putty in his capable hands?

  I sighed and slicked back Abbey’s hair, flattening her mass of ringlets. She was an amazing mix of Pete and myself. My dominant widow’s peak was apparent at her hairline, and my curls bobbed to the middle of her back. Pete’s big brown eyes had been perfectly replicated, brows, lashes, and all. It was too soon to tell whether she would inherit my nose, which was on the longer, thinner side, the tip turned down. Or whether her baby teeth would give way to Pete’s wolfish adult ones. Her smile did remind me of his. When I looked at her, I understood why couples must go for baby number two, if only to see what the next stunning custom blend would be.

  “Abbey,” I ventured, “what do you think of having Adrian Graves visit again?”

  Her little eyebrows flew up. “Today?” She grabbed her rubber seal squirt toy from the watery depths and inspected it.

  “No, today is Mother’s Day. But soon?”

  Abbey seemed to like that idea. “Is he your best friend?”

  “No . . . he’s a new friend. You know Aunt Miso is my best friend.”