This Love

by Hilaria Alexander

  It was really too bad, though. I should have checked him out, I should have googled him. I would have recognized his face. And what a face. I remembered seeing a picture of him years ago in some magazine, but he used to keep his hair really short, and had more of a boyish face. At least that’s how I remembered him. But now he looked nothing like the picture I was thinking of. The long hair and the stubble on his jaw made him look entirely different; he was definitely grown-up.

  His eyes looked so bright and different now, compared to a little while ago when he was telling me about his divorce. He seemed to be enjoying this. Good for him, I thought.

  “I have to go.” I took the guitar from him. “I can’t believe I have been talking this whole time to Lou Rivers. What an idiot.”

  He grabbed my wrist and said, “Ella,” making me turn to look at him and those beautiful, dangerous green eyes. Ella. Just the way my name rolled off his tongue made my knees buckle. And it was a completely foreign notion to me. It was so strange. I had felt more attraction toward Lou Rivers in the last three days than to anyone else in my life.

  “This was fun. Will you let me walk you home?”

  I nodded, unable to say anything smart.

  Lou Rivers was walking me home. No big deal. Ally was going to flip when I told her. Ever since we left the café, I hadn’t been able to say a single word that made any sense and I couldn’t even look at him, except for the furtive glances I shot his way every so often. I drifted further away from him than earlier today¸ and started being self-conscious about everything regarding my appearance, especially my hair. Stop messing with your hair.

  The problem was, I had never met anyone remotely famous, let alone a musician. A Grammy award nominated musician that I had just had coffee with…holy crap.

  Well, once I saw Hugh Jackman outside the Broadway theatre where he was doing a play, but he was surrounded by fans. That encounter paled in comparison to this.

  And on top of everything, I was rude to him. Oh my God, I was rude to Lou Rivers.

  I glanced at him again, and my face gave me away.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I was rude to you and then I also accused you of potentially wanting to steal my crappy guitar. I feel awful.”

  He stopped and started to laugh. The sound of his laughter was warm and hearty. I turned around to stare and he was almost folded in half. I didn’t know I could be this entertaining. When he finally recovered, I gave him a skeptical look. He smiled and seemed to be stifling a laugh.

  Pretty soon we reached my destination, and for a moment I wished I had an excuse to walk somewhere else with him, just for a little longer.

  “This is me,” I said, pointing to the pancake shop.

  “Amsterdam’s Best Pancakes?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  Yes, that was the name of Johan’s pancake restaurant.

  “Amsterdam’s Best Pancakes” were ironically Amsterdam’s best-kept secret. The pancake house was in the center of the town, but it was right past this fork in the road and slightly hidden from the main street. Therefore it was usually missed by most tourist.

  The locals, however, knew all about Johan’s place, and it had quickly become a favorite spot.

  “I’d be a fool if I didn’t try them, then,” he said, leaning closer to me. I caught a whiff of his scent. He smelled good—fresh and minty, which wasn’t always the most popular smell with tourists. I wanted more than just a whiff. I wanted to lean in closer and inhale him. Then I remembered I probably smelled like greasy breakfast food.

  “You smell like vanilla,” he added.

  Shut. Up. My eyes widened in shock, and a lopsided grin showed up on his face. I tried to regain control of myself, ignoring his words, shrugging it off. I couldn’t really think of anything to say. I guessed it wasn’t that terrible to smell like breakfast food, after all, as long as you didn’t smell like bacon grease.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ella,” he said, walking backwards. “I’ll be right across the canal.” He waved goodbye, and I waved back, still processing this whole scenario. I watched him walk to the bridge, then step cross the canal, to a tiny hotel right on the other side from where I was standing.

  The next day, I was taking Lieke to school, and as I opened the door of the bakery and turned to grab her hand, I walked right into Lou Rivers’ chest. What were the odds, huh? He grabbed me by my shoulders and told me good morning. I looked up into his beautiful, dangerous eyes.

  “Hey!” I smiled. “I was on my way out. I have to go, or Lieke is going to be late for school. I’ll see you in a bit, okay?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be here. See you in a bit.”

  He turned to Lieke and waved, “Doe-doei, Lieke.”

  She waved right back, unfazed. The little girl was used to being around a lot of people.

  “Bye. See you later.” I shut the door behind me and walked away.

  He was going to be there when I’d get back. Would he be waiting for me?

  “Who’s that?” Lieke asked.

  “A friend,” I replied. “His name is Lou.”

  Lieke’s school was not very far away; it usually took us no more than ten minutes to get there. After I dropped her off, I started walking faster than I usually would. He’s just a guy, I told myself. Chill.

  When I got back to the restaurant, he was sitting on a stool at the bar. He saw me and smiled. I waved at him, my smile big and a little too eager. I had to get a grip on my excitement.

  I went back to the kitchen, took off my coat, tied my hair in a ponytail, and put an apron on. I was so nervous, and I knew it was stupid. I asked Helga if she needed help in the kitchen. I wanted to avoid seeing him, and yet I was dying to talk to him. She told me to help Johan out on the floor.

  I got behind the bar and started helping. Johan wasn’t out there, which was unusual. He’d never leave the floor unattended like that. I grabbed some dirty dishes and put them on a tray to take back to the kitchen.

  “This is a cool place,” Lou said from the other end of the counter. “It looks like a bar, though.”

  “It used to be one,” I told him, lifting my eyes to meet his. “It’s been in Johan’s family forever.” I got closer to him, grabbing more things that Johan had piled up. Johan had made no mystery of the fact that his dad was an alcoholic, and he told me when he inherited the bar he refused to run a business that would encourage other people’s addiction. He’d told me he’d feel less guilty running a business that provided the comfort of food. I wasn’t sure if it was my place to tell Lou the story of the pancake house; a moment later, Johan came out from the back. He placed a CD and a sharpie in front of him.

  “Of course you knew who he was,” I huffed, giving him an annoyed look. “It took me three days to figure it out.”

  Johan just shrugged, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Lou grinning. He took the CD and signed it. Johan bowed slightly and shook his hand, before looking reverently at his own autographed copy of Lou Rivers’ latest album.

  Lou stuck around for a while. After finishing his breakfast and telling me to give my compliments to the chef, he told me once again how much he loved the place and how cool Johan was. He said he could see the resemblance between him and Lieke.

  “Now I know what you really meant when you told me, ‘she looks like her dad,’” he added with a grin.

  “I know, right? Aren’t they almost identical?” Johan was a burly, tall man with broad shoulders, but Lieke sure got his curly blonde hair and his eyes. The cheekbones and the nose, though, were from her mom. Eventually, Helga came out of the kitchen and was introduced to Lou by her husband. She blushed a little and mumbled something in English to him. She was usually so poised, so it was kind of cute to see her act like that, fidgeting with a strand of her straight hair, tucking it behind her ear.

  Breakfast rush hour was over so Johan, Helga and I settled into a slower pace.

  “Another coffee?” I asked Lou.
r />   “Yes, please.”

  “What are you going to do today?”

  “I’m not sure. Do you have any recommendations?”

  “Did you do any of the tourist places yet? Van Gogh Museum? Anne Frank House?”

  “I went to Anne Frank House the other day. And the Rijks…”

  “The National Museum,” I interjected, understanding he meant the Rijksmuseum.

  “Yeah, I loved Anne Frank House of course. As for the museum…I hate to admit Dutch Masters are really not my thing,” he smiled.

  I laughed, understanding what he meant. I wasn’t really into that period. I preferred the Italian Renaissance painters and the post-impressionists, like Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec.

  “You’ll like the Van Gogh museum, it’s really cool. I go there at least once a month. Figured I might as well, since I’m here,” I told him with a shrug. I always loved Van Gogh’s paintings, and even in college, I had this picture of “Orchard in Blossom” on the wall of my room. It was just a photo of the painting I got from a magazine. I became obsessed with it, but could not find a poster or a better reproduction anywhere. Apparently, it was part of a private collection. I wondered many times if that was the reason why I could not find any print of that particular painting for sale or if it was because it was one of his lesser-known paintings. I set aside any thoughts about my beloved “Orchard in Blossom” when Lou mentioned something that brought me back to the present: he mentioned he was going to Florence in a few days. Florence. Italy. Renaissance painters.

  “Wait a moment,” I held up a hand. “What are you going to Florence for again? Did I hear that right?”

  “Yes,” he replied, stifling a laugh. “You heard that right. I’m going there to record my next album.”

  “In Florence?” I asked, my eyebrow raised. It seemed like an odd choice. “Not L.A., Nashville or New York, but Florence?”

  “It seemed like as good of a place as any other to get away,” he answered with a slight shrug.

  Get away. He was trying to get away from his past too. We weren’t so different after all, Lou Rivers and I. Damn, Florence. It was definitely on my list. I wanted to go, badly, but after I got settled here in Amsterdam it seemed selfish to ask my bosses to take a few days off. Especially after all they had done for me.

  “Johan told me you’re a pianist. You didn’t tell me yesterday,” he said with a genuine smile. He seemed interested to know more about it. I was going to have to shut this conversation down.

  “Jeez, Johan,” I hollered at my boss who was standing on the other side of the room. “I leave you alone for thirty minutes and you go around telling all my secrets. Why don’t you go write them on the board out there with today’s special?” I asked him, pretending to be upset. He made a pouty face, and I rolled my eyes playfully at him.

  “All your secrets?” Lou chimed, giving me a teasing look. “How many have you got?”

  I stared at him, serious, and his face broke into a smile. Every time he did that, I could see those damn dimples: it made his smile even more endearing, and it made my not-so-credible indifferent façade instantly crumble.

  “I do have enough secrets to fill that chalkboard out there.”

  I tilted my head toward the entrance of the store. The doorbell rang, and two new customers took a seat at a table. I greeted them and took their order. I was busy for a few minutes, then I went by where he was sitting again.

  “So let’s talk about the fact you didn’t tell me you play the piano.”

  “What about it?”

  “You specifically omitted talking about it.”

  “What did you want me to say?” I asked him. I leaned on my right arm, moving my shoulder as close to him as I could with the bar still between us; I was being deliberately flirty, batting my eyelashes. I cleared my throat, and the sound that came out was a babyish, girly voice. I pouted too.

  “You know, Lou, I play the piano. Come on. Did you really want me to say that?” He laughed at me, but I could see his cheeks redden ever so slightly. “Why would you care?” I asked. “It’s irrelevant. Besides, I’m done with playing the piano.”

  He frowned, and a puzzled expression appeared on his face. A line formed between his eyebrows. I was fighting the impulse of running my finger on it.

  “What has the piano done to you?” he asked. He sounded like he wasn’t ready to move past the subject. Too bad I had no desire to talk about it.

  “It’s not the piano itself, it’s me. I’m not into it anymore.”

  “That’s stupid,” he blurted. I made a face, and now I was the one frowning.

  “Why is it stupid? I don’t want to play anymore. My heart was not in it anymore,” I added, the tone of my voice tense, wishing he’d drop the subject, wishing we could just talk about anything else. I turned around, but I could feel his eyes on me. I knew what he was trying to do: he was trying to decipher me, to understand what was wrong with me. I could feel the blood in my veins pumping faster. This wasn’t going to end well.

  “So, you’re telling me you won’t play that beautiful looking piano over there?” he asked playfully. I turned around to glance at him; he was referring to the piano in the corner, and he looked so innocent, so charming. He had no idea he was pissing me off.

  Since the pancake house was once a bar, it came with an old ass piano. It was almost a hundred years old, and although no one played it, Johan didn’t have the heart to get rid of it. It was some sort of gigantic, useless family heirloom. It was beautiful though, with carved details all over the front and on the edges. No one played it in the family, and when Johan found out I used to play, he even had it tuned, but I could never bring myself to touch the keys. I felt bad he had gone to such great lengths just for me and I apologized to him profusely. I felt horrible about it. He and Helga even tried convincing me to give Lieke piano lessons, but I couldn’t do it. It made me feel even worse that they didn’t seem remotely upset about it. I felt so guilty, but I had made the decision months ago. I was done playing the piano. It was not what I wanted to do.

  “I’m not going to play that,” I told Lou, eyeing the piano.

  “Well, I play the piano too,” he replied, a tone of amusement in his voice.

  “You do? Then, by all means, it’s all yours. I’m sure Johan is not going to mind,” I said abruptly. He seemed startled by the change of tone of my voice, and the playful expression was gone from his face, replaced by the same tight-lipped smile he gave me the first time I lashed out at him. Razor Tongue strikes again.

  I scanned the place looking for a reason to get out of the conversation. I walked away without saying a word.

  Soon after, Lou left without saying goodbye.

  CHAPTER 4

  I thought I would never see him again, but he came back every morning that week. We didn’t speak as much as before, but he did talk a lot to Johan and Helga, and pretty much everyone else there. He would avoid sitting at the bar and even take a seat with perfect strangers. He was trying to avoid me, and I knew I deserved it. Having him around certainly didn’t help. I thought about him way more than I wanted to. After a couple days, he had asked Johan if he could start playing while he was there.

  I didn’t want to care about him, but every day I found myself caring a little more.

  He wasn’t deliberately unpleasant, just a little more distant than before. He probably figured out just how ticked off I was last time he was trying to convince me to play the piano.

  If it was hard to be indifferent to him before, it was damn near impossible the moment he touched those keys. He played so differently from me. His style was so fluid; he played with abandon, while I had been taught to play with restraint. Every time he played, it looked like he was pouring his heart out. When I heard him sing for the first time I thought my heart had stopped completely. He had such a beautiful, soulful voice. If I had to compare his voice to a feeling, I’d say it felt like sunshine on your skin, like a warm spring day, when the air is just perfect,
and you can’t get enough of it.

  When he sang, you’d believe everything was right in the world. His voice had the ability to sound so comforting. It was warm and soft and clear as a bell. His voice alone would have been able to make an atheist believe in God and all the angels. I never wanted to stop listening to him. He sang so softly, yet you’d feel the weight of every word.

  Nothing could have prepared me for the reaction I had when I heard him sing and play the guitar a couple days later. Simply put, I was floored. It was just so fucking beautiful. Musically speaking, everything he did was gold. As a musician, I couldn’t help but be attracted to everything I saw him do. Even though I was technically trained, I had never been able to play with such passion in my entire life. Probably because it wasn’t there. You could tell he played from the heart and I didn’t; it had been that way for many, many years. Day after day, I found it harder and harder to suppress the warm fuzzy feeling that filled my heart every time he was around.

  Not only was he gifted, but he would also completely slay me when he’d play American classics. He liked to play songs by Otis Redding, Ray Charles, and Sam Cooke, mostly. Some Billie Holiday, some Nina Simone. A few modern tunes I wasn’t familiar with and a few of his own, when Johan asked him to. Our clientele loved him, obviously, and they tended to stay longer just so they could hear more.

  Amsterdam’s Best Pancakes was busier than ever before.

  The fourth day after our argument, I apologized to him, again.

  “I see a pattern,” he told me, grinning.

  “I’m sorry, okay? It’s kind of a touchy subject.”

  He went back to playing a song, but then added, “If you won’t play, you should at least sing with me. You have a nice voice.”

  I just nodded and walked away, unable to say anything. I figured pretty soon he would have to leave, right? No one stayed in Amsterdam more than a week. Usually, people coming to Europe tried to go to as many places as possible. For some reason, I thought that was his plan too. In reality, though, I had no idea what his plans were, nor did I dare ask him. I thought pretty soon we would be saying our final goodbye. Or maybe he’d just stop coming around, and I’d never see him again. I didn’t understand why the thought bothered me so much. Being around him was so nerve-wracking, part of me was ready to see him go so that I could just go back to the quiet normality I had grown accustomed to. The other part of me, though, wasn’t ready to say goodbye. All my nerve endings seemed to tingle in his presence; it was as if my body wanted to respond to him, while my mind kept trying to shut down any thought I had of him. I liked him; I couldn’t deny it. I had to keep reminding myself he was a stranger, and it didn’t matter I had gotten to know him a little over the last few days. On top of that, he was a famous musician. Crushing on him was the last thing I should have done.