Neanderthal Marries Human: A Smarter Romance (Knitting in the City)

by Penny Reid

  “Hi.”

  “I, um…hi. What’s going on?” I glanced down the hall behind him and saw Stan just outside my door.

  “Can I come in?” Desmond asked.

  “Oh, yes…yes, of course. I’m sorry.” I moved out of the way, gestured that he should enter. I thought about telling Stan to intercept the dresses, but I decided against it. If I re-routed the dresses, it would feel dishonest, like I was trying to hide something. Quinn’s dad wasn’t a talker and wouldn’t likely stay very long. My mind was reeling as I tried to remember whether he’d said he would stop by this morning. Had Katherine sent him to pick up something for the wedding? I had nothing.

  With very little time to contemplate the best course of action, I merely shut the door and followed Desmond to the sitting area.

  He walked to the coffee table and set a bag on top of it, and scanned the room. “Place is nice.”

  “Yes. It’s a nice hotel. I like that they have large bathtubs.”

  He gave me a very small smile. “Katherine likes big tubs too.”

  “They’re excellent places to think.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me in a way that reminded me of how Quinn looked right before he was about to tease me. “Do a lot of thinking, do ya?”

  I nodded, because I did think a lot, but I said nothing else.

  I wanted to tell him about brain usage and related myths, but decided against it. Quinn may have appreciated my random bouts of information, but I didn’t want to force his family to sit through it.

  “What?” He gave me a sideways look. “Did I say something wrong?”

  I shook my head. “No. Not at all. I do a lot of thinking. You are correct.”

  His mouth tugged to the side and he hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his pants. “You look like you want to say something else.”

  I shook my head, rolled my lips between my teeth.

  He grinned. “Come on. Out with it.”

  I’m sure my expression betrayed how difficult it was for me to keep from spewing the random information all over him, because my voice was tight when I admitted, “It’s weird. I’m weird. And I don’t want to bore you.”

  “Tell me.”

  I considered him for a split second, then let it out, “Okay, fine. You shouldn’t believe the myth that humans only use ten percent of their brain. Most people don’t consider the fact that the brain is only three percent of a human’s weight—on average—yet uses twenty percent of the energy.”

  He lifted a single eyebrow. “Really? I’ve heard that, about people only using ten percent of their brain. It’s not true?”

  “No. Not true. Some people attribute the durability of the misconception to Einstein; he said something along those lines when people asked him why he was so intelligent. I think he was just trying to make them feel better about their own stupidity and limitations—like, if they could tap into more of their brain then they would be able to understand higher-level concepts. The fact is, we use almost every part of our brain every day, maybe just not all at once. You get the brain you get, and Einstein was both blessed and cursed.”

  “So there is no hope for stupid people?”

  I paused, considered how best to answer this overly simplistic question. I was about to respond with a rephrasing of the question that would hopefully break the issue into several silos defining the types of stupidity and how one might rise above each.

  However, before I could, another knock sounded on the door to the suite. I flinched, turned, bolted to the door and opened it.

  Standing in the hall was a woman—a very, very stylish woman—dressed in a black business suit with red piping. Her clothes were stunning. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bun, and she wore matching black stilettos with a red triangle at the toe.

  “Janie Morris?” She asked, lifting a markedly perfect eyebrow.

  I nodded. “Yes. I am her—she. She is me.”

  “Oh yes. You are quite lovely.” She smiled; her eyes moved up and down my body and came back to my face. “It’s too bad about the freckles. Photographers hate freckles.”

  I could only blink at this statement.

  She didn’t wait for me to invite her in. Instead, she turned and said to Stan, “You there, please help me with this.” She gestured to a garment rack on which were hung five large garment bags. Then she turned back to me, linked our arms together, and pulled me into the suite.

  “Niki is absolutely fantastic. We love her. Adorable. So when she called and explained the situation, Donovan simply had to help. She promised us that you were stunning; of course she was right. But, no matter either way, we would have helped—of course. However, you can imagine how convenient it is for us that we’ll be able to shoot the wedding.”

  “Shoot the wedding?”

  “Yes. Is this the groom?” She stopped in front of Desmond, eyeing him up and down.

  “What? No. No, this is my father-in-law.”

  “Oh.” She smiled at him.

  He frowned at her.

  Then the woman turned to me. “That’s excellent news, assuming your groom looks like his father. Well done. Now where will we do this? I’ll need light, lots of light.”

  “Uh….” I glanced at Desmond. He was watching me, and his face was devoid of expression. I closed my eyes, sighed, and lifted my hand to the bedroom. “In there. I can try them on in there. The room has a large window.”

  “Fabulous!” She said, air kissed both my cheeks then turned back to Stan. He was loitering by the door with the portable garment rack. “You, darling, come with me. Just bring it in here.”

  I watched her disappear into the bedroom with Stan close behind, and I listened as she called out instructions on where everything should be placed.

  Hesitantly I turned back to Desmond. His expression was inscrutable. I felt the deluge of my explanation pressing against my throat, and I couldn’t hold it back.

  “Quinn saw me in my wedding dress, and it was terrible—not Quinn, the dress. It isn’t actually terrible, but it’s made from very practical synthetic fibers. Really, it’s lovely, but Quinn had no reaction. None. And I was disappointed so I….”

  “You called for more dresses?”

  “No. I visited my sister in prison and asked for advice, if you can believe that. They have her on medication. I looked it up, a neurotoxin derived from snake venom. It seems to be working for her.”

  “And your sister…helped you find a dress?”

  “No, she said that I should stop worrying about what I think I should want and just do what I actually want. I agree with her in some respects. But I believe, as an overall life philosophy, that it can’t be adapted to one hundred percent of situations.”

  He nodded. “I agree, with her and with your application of her advice.”

  I smiled at this statement, feeling better for some reason that he’d given me his blessing. “Thank you. That means a lot to me. I just…I just want to be beautiful for Quinn. I want to look my best.”

  His eyes moved between mine, and I got the sense that he wanted to say something. At length, he exhaled a large breath and said, “Can I give you some advice?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, please do. I could use some advice.” My head was bobbing up and down because I really, really wanted someone to give me advice. My whole life I’d been advice-bereft, except for the ladies in my knitting group. I loved advice. It was like free data.

  “I’ll tell you what I told Shelly when she was going through a hard time in middle school.” He returned my smile with a small one of his own. “Be beautiful for yourself, Janie. And only if you want to. If a man is worthy of you, he’ll see more beauty in who you are than in what you look like.”

  I thought about this, saw an enormous amount of wisdom in his words, and subsequently started to cry.

  This only made him smile wider. Then he pulled me into his arms and gave me a hug.

  “Why are you crying?” he asked softly. I could tell he was still smiling.


  “I don’t know,” came my watery reply. I shrugged, but pressed my face closer to his chest, my hands gripping the back of his shirt. “I guess because that was such a good dad thing to say, like how they show dads in TV shows and movies and in great books, and it felt nice.”

  “Didn’t your dad ever give you advice?”

  “He likes to forward me funny emails every month or so.”

  “Not even when you were a teenager?”

  I shook my head. “He told me to ask my therapist.”

  I felt Desmond’s chest rise and fall, his arms squeeze tighter just before his hands moved to my arms. He set me a little distance away so he could look into my eyes.

  His gaze was impossibly kind as he said, “Then, daughter dear, call me Dad.”

  I burst into a new bout of tears. This made him laugh. He brought me forward and hugged me again. He let me hug him for a long time. He even hugged like I thought a dad would hug, all soothing and wise and a little awkward because he was so big; like he didn’t want to crush me with his ginormous Boston police detective arms, so he held me carefully.

  “All right, that’s enough,” he said at length, setting me away again. “That crazy woman in there will be back any minute, and I have something for you.”

  I wiped my eyes with the back of my hands and sniffed. “You don’t have to give me anything.”

  He reached for the bag he’d brought and took out a small wooden box. The outside was carved with what looked like Celtic symbols.

  “I want to,” he said, handing the box to me.

  I twisted my mouth to the side and gingerly opened the little treasure box. Inside was a yellow-gold Claddagh ring. I gasped, my eyes lifting to his.

  He wasn’t exactly smiling, as his mouth was flat. But when I saw the crinkling around his eyes, I knew that for him, this was probably a smile.

  “It was my mother’s ring, and her mother’s before that. Quinn should have used it when he proposed, that’s the order of things, the tradition in my family. I’m not asking you to replace your engagement ring. I’d just like it if you wore it and carried on the tradition when the time comes, with your son.”

  “Of course.” My chin wobbled.

  His smile was plainly visible as he said, “Don’t cry.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not crying. I just have something in my eye.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “Darling!” The woman in black poked her head out of the door. “Everything is ready, and I’m bursting to get started! Tell your daddy-in-law to wait here. We need an audience for our fashion show.”

  I nodded, plucked the ring from its home, and slid it onto my right hand middle finger. It fit perfectly.

  I whispered to him, “You don’t have to stay. This will be boring for you.”

  Desmond shifted on his feet, glanced at the door, then studied me for a short moment. Abruptly, he turned and sat in a nearby chair. “Nah, I’ll stay until after lunch.” He swallowed, and I noted he looked resigned. “What am I going to do instead? All I had planned was a pastrami sandwich.”

  I gave him a closed-lipped smile and tried not to cry or laugh at how uncomfortable he looked. But I decided to accept this gift he was offering me. I crossed to the room service menu and plucked it from the table.

  “Here.” I handed him the folder. “We’ll multi-task. Order two pastrami sandwiches.”

  ***

  Desmond stayed and helped me pick out my wedding dress.

  To his credit, and perhaps even our mutual astonishment, he was a tough critic and voiced his opinion when I came out in each of the seven options. Of course, his opinion was curt, blunt, and less than ten words. This was glorious for me, because where I would have been polite, he spoke up and insulted some of the more ridiculous elements of the gowns.

  Ramona, the woman in the black suit, pretended to be offended, but I could tell she was enjoying the challenge.

  I’d read several articles in wedding magazines about the phenomenon experienced by brides when they found The Dress. It was like angels singing, they said. A dress that might look unremarkable on a hanger would be put on the bride-to-be and the clouds would part, the heavens would open, and little cherubs would sprinkle magical rose petals from their place in the sky.

  I thought this was ludicrous wedding propaganda. Weddings were big business; billions of dollars a year were spent trying to create a fairy tale day in a consumer-driven world. The perfect dress didn’t exist. It was a myth, like Bigfoot or string theory—which everyone but wackos knows is more of a philosophy than a science.

  That was, I thought it was a myth until I tried on the fifth dress.

  The heavens opened, the sky parted, and the cherubs must’ve gotten rose petals in my eyes because I had trouble believing the reflection in the mirror was me. It was the perfect dress.

  My suspicion was confirmed when I walked out of the room and Desmond glanced up from his cell phone, poised to insult with as few words as possible whatever travesty Ramona had put me in now.

  Instead, he did a double take, started, stared, his eyebrows meeting his hairline. Then he whistled, but not a catcall. He whistled a single note, low and long.

  “Whoa.”

  Ramona grinned. “Yes. Well said, you beastly man.” Then she turned to me. “We have two more to try on, but this one I think will be it.”

  Then she pushed me back into the room and we tried on the other two dresses while I gazed longingly at my number five.

  When all was decided and number five was the winner, Desmond ordered lunch for three.

  To me it tasted like maybe the best pastrami sandwich in the entire world, but this impression might have been caused by the lingering scent of magical rose petals.

  CHAPTER 27

  Desmond and I drove to the restaurant together. We swung by home to pick up Katherine on the way.

  A funny kind of standoff occurred when Stan tried to insist that I should drive with him.

  Desmond didn’t respond with words. Instead, he just stared at Stan for a beat, reached for my arm, and said, “Let’s go.”

  On the way over, I called my dad for the fourth time that day because he hadn’t yet contacted me. Each time I’d called before the phone had gone to voicemail. I hoped this meant he was on a plane. He knew about the dinner, and he’d said that he would come. But he never sent me his flight information so I had no idea when he was getting in.

  This time my dad picked up his phone just as we were pulling into the parking lot.

  “Hello?”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Hi, Dad. It’s Janie.”

  “Hi.”

  “We’re just pulling into the restaurant.”

  “Okay.”

  I waited for a second then asked, “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the airport.”

  “Was your flight delayed?”

  “No. It was ten minutes early. I’m getting my bag. I checked it because I don’t like having to lift it into the overhead bin. The charged me $25. Will you be able to reimburse the cost?”

  “Yes, no problem.”

  “Do you need a receipt?”

  “No. No, just tell me how much you need.”

  “Okay. When can you give me the money?”

  I swallowed, tried not to sigh again, and kept my eyes lowered so I wouldn’t have to meet Katherine and Desmond’s eyes. “How about tonight at dinner?”

  “Sure. I’m hungry anyway. Where?”

  “You know, the dinner. We’re having a dinner tonight so you can meet everyone.”

  He paused, and I thought I heard him exhale. He sounded irritated when he spoke. “I’d forgotten about that. Is that celebrity guy going to be there?”

  “Nico? Yes, he’ll be….”

  “Then I’ll be there. Text me the address. I’ll be there in a few hours.”

  “Okay.” I gritted my teeth and tried to concentrate on suppressing the heated blush of embarrassment creeping its way up my neck. My
eye caught on the hard plastic nob of the car radio. I started thinking about early plastics, tried to pronounce polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride in my brain. It helped.

  “Fine. See you later.” Then he hung up.

  I held the phone to my ear for just two more seconds before I pulled it away and placed it in my purse.

  I really hated cellphones.

  “Everything okay?” Katherine asked. She’d twisted in her seat and was giving me a small, sideways smile.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “He’s just running a little late. We should go in and order.”

  She nodded. “That’s too bad.”

  I shrugged, and the volcano of trivial information spewed forth before I realized I was talking. “Early plastics were created by accident. A scientist by the name of Dr. Baekland was trying to find an alternative for shellac—which at the time was made from the excretion of lac bugs.”

  Katherine frowned at me, and my eyes moved to the rear view mirror where Desmond was watching our discussion.

  “Bakelite was the first synthetic thermosetting plastic ever made. It was referred to as the material of a thousand uses. I have no citation for that claim, but I did read it in a textbook, and it seems likely that they would refer to it as such. Because it was nonconductive and heat resistant, they manufactured everything from kitchenware to electrical insulators, and radio and telephone casings out of it.”

  He studied me in the mirror.

  I continued speaking my thoughts as they tumbled through my brain. “It must be nice to be a plastic—being nonconductive. Some people talk about being cold like ice or numb as ice, but ice is conductive, and it can melt. True numbness is being a synthetic thermosetting plastic…and it’s so useful.”

  They stared at me as I bit my lip to keep from talking. I wasn’t making any sense. I glanced down at my lap then lifted my chin to apologize.

  But Desmond had turned in his seat, and he said as my gaze met his, “I think we have an old clock made out of Bakelite. Don’t we, Katherine?”

  She nodded, glancing between us. “Yes, I think so. I have buttons, too. They might be celluloid, though.”

  “We should get inside, Janie.” Desmond glanced at his watch. “On the way you can tell me what the difference is between celluloid and Bakelite.”