Louder Than Love

by Topper, Jessica

  I was crying now, and he was, too, as we locked in a tangle of arms and long-overdue kisses.

  “You.” His voice shook. “You are the best thing that ever could have happened to me. When I thought I had lost you, I realized everything else I had been mourning for, that I thought I had lost—a good relationship with Natalie, my career—it had all been synthetic. Those things are still there in front of me, and I can do something about them if I try hard enough.” I felt his lips on my temple, and the warmth of his well-worn ring as it found my finger once again. “You and Abbey were the real thing, what mattered most. I know what we are. And you’ve shown me, Kat. It really is harder to prove something doesn’t exist.”

  My arms encircled him, pulling him closer. “I saw you,” I softly stated, “in those tapestries. Digger and Adrian. Abbey and I fell in love with that amazing creature. We were so sad for him, we wanted to protect him. But in the end, we knew he’d be okay.” I smiled and ran my hands up his arms.

  “Captured, but okay.” He smiled back. It was then I noticed two fresh tattoos.

  “Ah, yes. During my period of self-imposed house arrest. Too afraid I’d be a danger to myself if I went out. Luckily, my tattoo artist makes house calls.”

  I traced the cat. She had green eyes and was sitting serenely on his left bicep, wearing a key of gold around her neck. Trailing behind her was a smaller striped cat, one with wings. Her tiny paws splayed jauntily, midflight. In her mouth she carried a tiny heart. In true macabre Digger fashion, it wasn’t a cartoon heart, but a small-scale replica of a real one, valves and all.

  “You’ve got the key to my heart,” he said. “And then Abbey stole the whole blasted thing.”

  Ana’s man with the “bag of needles” had done an amazing job.

  I sighed and smiled with relief. Adrian leaned back to look me in the eye. “I’m going to LA in two weeks. I called Rick. We talked for hours. He’s flying in from Hawaii, and we’re going to see if we can get back some of that old magic. All thanks to you.”

  “That’s great!” I was truly happy to hear that, although butterflies of terror beat their wings at my heart. It was like looking into the bottom of a black mug and not being able to see what was coming next. That’s life, my mind echoed.

  “I don’t want you to leave my side till I go. Come stay with me in the city. Bring Abbey, too.” He smiled at the sound of her name.

  “Abbey spends this week with my in-laws. It helps me—all of us—get through September first.”

  Adrian gripped my hands, exactly like he had that first day we met. I remembered his words that first time: Bloody hell, Kat. He had been ready to jump into the trenches that day, without even hearing my war story. He was a fighter, and he was a victor. He had conquered a lot of demons in his lifetime, alone and with me by his side. It was time I gave him—and myself—the same chance and courtesy. I fixed my eyes on his. No looking away, no looking back.

  “Pete was my world. No matter where we were, when I was with him, I was home. Everything synched; everything made sense. Together we created this life, this great, great life. And just when I thought it couldn’t possibly be more perfect, we created life. Abbey. I couldn’t imagine her before her existence, how perfectly complete she would make us. How I could look at her and love Pete more than I already did. But one year. That’s all we had, the three of us. That hectic newborn first year, and there was no time to even tell him all of this. Because I was tired and I thought I’d have all the years in our lives to tell him.”

  I watched as Adrian swallowed hard. His thumb spun the ring on my finger by nervous habit as he continued to hold my hands.

  “It was a train wreck. Caused by a heat buckle in the tracks: a sun kink. A lot of people . . . were okay. But I knew . . . I knew he wasn’t going to be one of them. Like your blood oath story, like Ingeborg knew about Hjalmar the minute she saw his ring.” He gathered me into his arms, like he had that hungover morning in my kitchen after Marissa’s party. I recalled the thoughts I had held back from sharing then. Of the glass vessel, slowly turning, without end. “My world shattered, Adrian. Everything that made sense imploded.” I thought of my friends and family, Abbey. Everyone gathered around me, trying to sooth and smooth my jagged edges. “My mind, my body . . . everything was in shards, felt sharp. Dangerous. I didn’t dare touch anybody or let myself be touched.”

  “My desert flower,” he whispered, and I nodded. His fingers were on the hollows of my cheeks, touching my lips as I spoke. I leaned into his caress and closed my eyes as the tears began.

  “Time took care of the wound. Smoothed some of the edges.”

  “Just enough,” he breathed into my hair, arms encircling my waist. I gripped him tight. “Look how we fit.”

  I gulped a laugh, felt his lips find my temple. “Exactly. But you were like a sun kink, too. Blinding and bright, hot. Threw me right off course, but it was right where I needed and wanted to be.” I remembered that day at the Plaza, Adrian grabbing my hand. Being ready for, not scared of, the adventure. “It really was like jumping into the fountain.”

  ***

  Abbey was the first to see us emerge; she ran to hug him. I looked on as he talked softly into her hair; she looked at him and hugged him again. “I’m sorry I was the ogre under the bridge. Can I be the jester again?” She nodded against his chest.

  Next, he hugged Liz. I loved that she had him beat by a few inches, even when he was wearing his motorcycle boots. “Thanks, Red,” I heard him say.

  “Just so we’re clear, Doom Boy,” she said as she squeezed his shoulders, “I’m naming that cranbagel after you, and you won’t see a penny of royalties.”

  “Top notch!” He laughed.

  “His pop-ins,” Liz said, turning to me, “always result in a gaggle of Corpse fans straggling in after. Good for business.”

  “I don’t quite think the collective noun would be gaggle,” Adrian said, pondering, rubbing his goatee. “Kat?”

  “How about a grommet of metalheads?” I laughed.

  I thought it would be harder to introduce him to Luke and my in-laws, but he somehow made it easier. “It is an honor to meet you all.” Their smiles and open faces made it easier, too. My dreams of Pete and his assurance of “different kinds of love” rang true.

  In Touch

  “Rock stars only crash in little planes, not commercial jets. You needn’t have worried,” he teased me, calling the moment he landed in LA.

  “Hey. You do your job, and I’ll do mine,” I sassed back. “So what’s on your agenda?”

  “Meeting Rick in Hollywood. He just dropped the twins off at UCLA. Freshmen in college, I can’t believe it. We’re grabbing lunch and taking it from there.”

  “There” turned into renting a place in the Hills and writing together, catching each other back up on the last two decades. Sam, who lived and did session work in Los Angeles, was more than happy to come back on board. They did a few small club shows in LA under the name the Rotten Graves Project. What would you find in a rotten grave? he e-mailed me. A Corroded Corpse, of course! It was a clever loophole around Wren’s copyright, and for the hardcore fans to discover three-quarters of their favorite band playing under a secret moniker . . . a marketing gold mine. Word got out, the music industry was buzzing again, agents and managers sniffing around. We can perform all the songs; we own the publishing. Wren can collect his few pennies in royalties if he wants. But we are doing it this time on our own terms.

  We talked on the phone, e-mailed, and IMed every day. Abbey got into the action, too, offering up her latest Matt the Bat lyrics.

  K: So I have to find out from my fanboy BROTHER that RGP, aka CC, is playing a one-off show at MSG on Halloween? He is freaking. He said he’s flying here for the show and pissed that he missed the secret gigs in LA. Don’t worry, I didn’t let the kitty out of the bag.

  A: Sorry, luv—it was only confirm
ed today!

  K: Just kidding. It’s the Information Age. The fans get the info before the artists do.

  A: Curse that Internet!

  K: Yeah, what happened to Patience?

  A: And Fortitude. Speaking of which . . . we are holed up here, practicing till then. Jim is flying in—remember him from Dead Can Dream? He’s taking Adam’s place.

  K: That’s amazing!

  A: I have to run. Tell your brother not to bother buying tickets when they go on sale tomorrow. Looking forward to meeting him.

  That week, a FedEx package arrived. Its note read: The jewel of my collection. I usually take them, but never have I given one. Inside was a key. His key. I recognized it immediately, dangling from his Chelsea FC keychain. I’m coming home on the 25th but will be squirreled away in rehearsals and doing interviews and such. And I know you’ll be busy with Kev once he arrives. So I will see you and Abbey the night of the show. Love you, my Kat.

  * * *

  My brother arrived on the twenty-ninth, walking through the security gate wearing a vintage Corpse T and a smile so big, he could barely contain it. With his short bleached blond spikes and earrings, he looked more rocker than hot-shot chef. Liz had traveled to the airport with me after promising to sign over the Naked Bagel to me if she so much as breathed a word about Adrian.

  “Hey, Dooley,” he greeted her with a bear hug.

  “Hey, Underwood.” Her eyes shined clear and brighter than any of the green pressed glass in my mother’s china cabinet as the hug broke and she stepped away on unsteady legs.

  As we hit the outskirts of Lauder Lake in my Smurf, my brother began to snicker and point. “Lame-ass loser ex-boyfriend at ten o’clock!”

  Sure enough, there was Grant. Bent over his pussy wagon on the opposite side of the road. Karma couldn’t have dreamed up a more fitting scenario. He was struggling with the lug nuts of his flat tire as the first promising drops of a soaker of a rainstorm began to fall. We slowed to a crawl, and I beeped my horn, causing him to jump a foot. “Aw, nuts too tight?” Kev leaned over me and called in mock sympathy. I flipped Grant a righteous, defiant, and totally deserving middle finger out the open window as we sped off. “They don’t call you Treebird for nothing, sis!” Kev laughed.

  Kev reclaimed the boogeymen room. I had, with the help of friends and family, reduced the boxes up there to a manageable number. One box at a time. When Abbey was old enough, she would probably appreciate many of the items contained in them.

  With Kev came good meals. Abbey found his chopping hypnotizing. After a fabulous dinner and Abbey ensconced in bed, we stayed up talking into the night. I felt closer to my brother, or rather, more tolerant of him. I was dying to tell him everything, but was also having fun by not.

  “So tell me how this works again,” he wanted to know for the tenth time. “Are you sure we’ve got tickets?”

  “I’ve got a friend who knows some people in the music business, and he is giving us tickets.” I handed over the last pot for him to dry.

  “I hope they’re good seats,” he grumbled.

  “Liz is coming, too,” I baited, waiting to gauge his reaction.

  “That’s cool.” He began to slowly dry the pot, and I could tell the cogs in his noggin were turning. “Very cool.” A small smile played on his lips. “Now, your friend. He’s not going to stand there with his arms crossed the entire show, too cool for his own good, is he?”

  I tried to hide my amusement. “No . . . I think the music will . . . move him.”

  “Thank God, I hate guys like that. Fucking New York City hipster music snobs.”

  Big Night

  We rocketed down the Taconic State Parkway, an amped-up Kev riding shotgun and Abbey in the backseat, all sugared up from her earlier Halloween take. No one did much talking during the trip, all lost in our own thoughts of what the evening would bring.

  We snaked through traffic down Twelfth Avenue. “You can drop me at Eighth and Forty-deuce.” Kev was going to meet up with fellow fans for dinner at Virgil’s BBQ.

  “How are you going to know one another if you’ve never met?” Corroded Corpse’s extended hiatus had kept fans apart, but the Internet message boards had not. He was meeting with fans he’d been chatting with on a daily basis for years. In fact, he probably spoke to them more often than with all his family combined.

  “Believe me, we’ll know. This is like the Corpse family reunion. Everyone will be in black. Drinking heavily and singing at the top of their lungs.”

  I laughed. “Don’t forget, eight thirty. Meet me under the big clock on the corner of Eighth and 34th.”

  He gave Abbey a knuckle bump before jumping out of the Smurf, and we were free to cruise uptown.

  There was no waiting in the lobby, no doorman having to announce us; Abbey and I went right up with our key and entered the quiet apartment. Ten minutes behind you, Adrian’s last text read. Roses were waiting there for me on the kitchen island. A note lay next to them. Abbey, your present is in the library. We both tiptoed in, like kids on Christmas morning. In the farthest corner lay a cage, and a tiny striped tabby kitten was curled cozily in a fleece bed. Abbey squealed, but the kitten slept on.

  “So cute! Oh!”

  “Shh, let’s let her sleep. We’ll go get dressed.”

  I took Abbey upstairs to the room formerly reserved for Natalie’s visits. There on the bed was another item waiting for Abbey: a plush Maxwell doll with a card. “Abbey, it’s from Adrian’s daughter. She says thank you for the get-well card, and she heard you really loved Maxwell MacGillikitty.”

  “She sent him from English?” Abbey was astounded.

  “From England, yes. How nice, right?”

  I began to unpack our bags. In honor of the red-and-black outfit Digger was known for onstage, Abbey chose a red miniskirt, black and red–striped tights, little black boots, and a black T that said FUTURE HEADBANGER in red on it. Uncle Kev had gotten the shirt for her a few years ago, but he had no clue about kids’ sizes. Finally she had grown into it and had the perfect occasion to wear it. She topped the whole ensemble off with her black cat ears and tail. “For fancy dress, remember?” she said, twirling.

  Hmm, now what does the girlfriend of a rock star wear?

  By the time I figured that out, Adrian was home. California and the company of old friends had been kind to my lover. His skin had a healthy glow, and his eyes looked as if they had absorbed a bit of the Pacific Ocean into their blue during his travels. They practically danced as he shook his shaggy hair, considerably longer and lighter, from them. He hugged us long and hard. “So, Abbey Road. What are we calling the cat?”

  “Chelsea!”

  “Good girl,” he said, laughing.

  He barely had time to grab a shower before a call came, announcing a limo was waiting for us down front. Abbey’s first sitter, Ilana, was now in graduate school at NYU and studying child psych. We had been in touch throughout the years, and she had been my first choice when considering a caregiver for the evening. We swung by to pick her up before heading to the Garden. She and Abbey became quickly reacquainted, playing with every gizmo and button in the back of the stretch limo.

  Adrian rested a hand on my knee and smiled. He didn’t look nervous at all, considering he was about to step onstage in front of twenty thousand people.

  I hadn’t been in a limo since the funeral. As it passed by the very door into Penn where Pete and I had last stood, it was like watching a movie—time as another dimension. A young metalhead couple happened to be kissing under the doorway this time. I smiled, touched the window, and said a silent good-bye.

  Everything began moving at high speed. Doors flew open and uniformed men escorted our entire party to the side entrance door of the arena. A couple of the fans in line noticed the commotion, causing a flurry of excitement and outbursts from the crowd gathered outside. “DIGGER! I love you, Di
gger!”

  Backstage at Madison Square Garden. Heaven for most music and sports fans alike. I was in awe. And happy we had Adrian to lead us through the maze of security guards and road cases. All the cement-bricked walls backstage looked the same. Luckily, several doors had paper signs hanging from them, indicating catering, hospitality, and the production office. We sent a hungry Abbey with Ilana in the direction of food. The catering area looked strangely like a nice restaurant, complete with linen cloths on the tables and candles for ambiance. It was funny to see the burly stage crew and other tattooed hairy types breaking bread politely in there.

  Adrian led me past more curtains and cement walls until we came to a door labeled Riff—Practice Room. He rapped his knuckles on the door as he turned the handle. The first thing I saw was the headstock of a guitar, with its big silver keys. A chill ran up my excited spine. “Ay up Dig,” came a murmur before its owner turned. As he did, his eyes caught mine and brightened. “Ah, Kat . . . it is you, eh?” He quickly shrugged off the strap of his guitar and freed up his hands. Placing them on my shoulders, he pulled me close and announced, “Thank you. From the bottom of my doomed black heart.” I couldn’t help it. My goosebumps gave way to tears. We hugged. “You have brought my brother back.”

  He turned to Adrian, who was standing back with an amused smile. “And you pulled this bird at the library, you say?”

  “While drunk,” I added. “In front of a roomful of children.”

  “Nice, mate.”

  “Oh, and look, Kat.” Adrian pulled something from his pocket.

  We observe

  the ideals

  of how things should

  be

  the vastness

  of burrowing realities

  abridges our gaze

  dilating into

  a dry cut