by Unknown
Which, I’d faced years ago, I was not. By definition.
“Classical, maybe,” I said, and laughed a little bit. Lucas would have thought that was funny, but Matt just watched me without moving. I stopped laughing. “I mean, I play in an orchestra. The Second Symphony. Classical music . . . ”
“I thought you wanted to play in the New York Philharmonic,” Matt said, as if maybe I’d forgotten the big dream of my college days.
“Everyone wants to play in the New York Philharmonic,” I replied with something perilously close to a snort. “I’d also be thrilled to get a seat with the Philadelphia Orchestra, which is just as unlikely.”
“At least you still play the cello,” he said.
“Of course I still play the cello.” I laughed. “It’s my only skill. What else could I do? Become an accountant?”
“So you’re basically still a band nerd,” Matt said and grinned at me. “But as, like, a profession.”
“Basically,” I agreed cheerfully. “The upside is, I make a living playing music. What about you?”
He set his Coke can down by the sink, with his fingers that had once coaxed poetry from a beat-up acoustic guitar.
“This and that. I keep busy.”
“Oh.” The awkwardness rolled over me then, like a truck. “Sounds exciting.”
“It can be.” He pushed away from the sink. “It’s nice to see you, Courtney. It’s been a long time.”
“It has.” Six years, you jerk.
“I thought I was dreaming when I pushed open the door,” he continued without looking away. “Because why would you show up on my doorstep after so many years?”
I didn’t know what I might have said then to address that odd note in his voice that sounded a bit like yearning. It unsettled me too much.
In any case, I didn’t have the chance to find out, because a figure appeared in the kitchen doorway the way actresses appeared onstage. With a sudden flourish, as if she expected the orchestra to cue her entrance. Both Matt and I turned to look at her.
“To see her big sister, of course,” Raine said, answering Matt’s question with a toss of her head. “Or was that rhetorical?”
Chapter Seven
Raine and I had the same eyes and the same chin. We shared both features with our father. Our eyes were brown and deep and tilted slightly in the corners. Our chins were a little too pointed, in my opinion, but noticeably the same.
That was where our similarities ended.
Raine was small and curvy. She had looked particularly good in the burgundy bridesmaid’s gown, even drunk. Back then, she’d had hair of several different colors that, because she was Raine, had somehow worked with the flower tiara so that she looked almost okay in it. At the moment, she’d opted for very short and dark, to highlight her delicate bone structure. It gave her a kind of ethereal, almost elfin look. The Liv Tyler/Cate Blanchett sort of elf, obviously, not the Keebler kind.
Even her sleepy expression this morning and the raggedness of the sweats that clung low to her hips couldn’t detract from how pretty she was. Nothing ever could. Norah was good-looking in a severe, sometimes cold sense. I was cute at best, with all the freckles and the red hair. Raine, on the other hand, was so pretty it was almost like a handicap, or a weapon, depending on how she played it. Men stopped her in stores to tell her she was lovely, and waiters gushed about her smile. No one could believe that someone so pretty could be anything but sweetness and light to match.
She held her position in the doorway for an extended moment, and then she let out a little squeal and launched herself at me. All five feet two inches of her hurtled across the room and caught me hard in what was half a hug, half a tackle against the kitchen table.
“Little Courtney!” she cried. “I’m so glad you’re here!”
She stood back and held both of my hands, and then gazed at me. I could feel a blush across my cheeks and suspected my grin was sort of goofy, but I couldn’t quite contain it.
“Hi,” I said, feeling foolish. And happy.
She sighed, delighted, and then dropped my hands. She pirouetted around and then made a beeline for the counter.
I had forgotten how small she was, and how gargantuan she made me feel in comparison, as if at any moment I might lumber into something perilous while she skipped along unscathed. She was a light, bright creature and I was content for the moment, savoring the fact we were in the same room.
“Don’t tell me there’s no coffee,” she said to Matt, frowning at him, which did nothing to mar her pretty face. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“Don’t look at me. I don’t drink it.”
“But your sweet little Bronwen does.” Raine batted her lashes. “Whole pots of coffee.”
“She’s not my anything.”
“No one cares about your private life, Cheney. Could you just make me some coffee?” She threw a wink over her shoulder at me, inviting me to join the interplay between them. I remembered how it felt to be their co-conspirator, and felt myself glow a little bit.
“Why do I have to make it?” Matt asked, grumpily. But he was already reaching for the pack of filters in the cabinet.
“You know you make it better. Mine’s always weak and useless.”
They shared a private look, while I stood there and watched how they interacted with each other. There was an unhurried intimacy in the way they spoke. They even moved together, anticipating one another’s movements. Matt handed Raine a coffee mug just before she turned to reach for one. Raine did the same with the carafe.
I understood how Norah had refused to believe that this relationship had ever been platonic. It seemed too impossible. Of course they were sleeping together, or had slept together, or wanted to sleep together. They seemed so connected.
I had never believed it. Raine had told me that she and Matt communicated on a spiritual level, and I’d believed her.
It occurred to me that maybe I just wanted to believe her, but I quickly shoved that thought aside, and then spent a few seconds wondering what it said about me that that was what I was thinking about after six years.
Raine left the coffee-making in Matt’s hands, and turned to look at me.
“You look wonderful,” she told me. “You have so much more energy than you used to, Courtney. It lights you up.”
“She’s engaged,” Matt contributed without turning around. “To be married.” As if there were other forms of being engaged.
“Mom told me,” Raine said. “She says he’s wonderful.” She didn’t seem to care that Matt had turned and was glaring at her. She just waved him away. “Did you bring him?”
“Not to the house,” I said, stating the obvious and feeling awkward. “But he’s in town. He has business. So.”
This conversation wasn’t making sense to me, no matter how pleased I was to see her. It seemed to me that we ought to have been talking about the six-year gap, not Lucas, who was the good thing that came long after they’d disappeared without a word. It seemed as if explanations should have been the first order of business. Instead, Raine was acting as if she’d been hanging around waiting for me to visit, which was quite a different thing than her taking off and remaining incommunicado, I thought. But I tried to go with it. I had to blink a few times, and after a moment I produced a smile, but I still felt odd.
“You’ll have to bring him by tonight,” Raine said in her confiding, conversational tone.
“Tonight?” I sounded idiotic even to my own ears.
“The bar I work at? Very chilled out. I think you’ll like it. Just tell the guy at the door you know me.” She elbowed Matt and let out a peal of laughter. “Right?”
He sighed. “The guy at the door is me.”
“You’re a bouncer?” I was flabbergasted. What a waste of him. Of that smoky voice of his and his guitar.
“He’s a bouncer and I’m a barmaid,” Raine said wryly, flinging out a hand to sketch a dramatic bow. “We’re very glamorous around here.”
“
Raine.” I tried to sound very matter-of-fact. “I don’t know about—”
“I want to hear everything,” she interrupted me. “I want you to tell me every single thing that happened to you since I saw you last. I can’t wait! But I can’t do it right now.” She turned to Matt. “See? I’m already getting emotional and we’ve barely said hello!”
“You’re fine,” he told her. It was sort of gratifying that she ignored him, too.
“I need to be completely emotionally centered to confront the past,” Raine told me earnestly, lowering a hand to her belly as if to hold herself still. “And that’s not something I can do when the past shows up in my kitchen without any advance warning on a Saturday morning. I have to get in the right headspace, okay?”
“I just wanted to talk to you.” I felt very young suddenly.
“And we will.”
She looked sincere, and yet I had the sudden, sinking feeling she had no intention of talking to me at all. Then I dismissed it, because why wouldn’t she? I was being silly. And she was right. I’d appeared at her door without any advance warning. I’d had months to psyche myself up for this meeting. She’d woken up to discover me in her kitchen, and knew herself well enough to know she needed time to reflect. How could I not respect that?
“We’ll just do it later, sweetie,” she promised.
“It’s okay,” I assured her then. “I understand.”
After Raine kissed me on the cheek and flitted off upstairs, Matt eventually following in her wake, I wandered out of the house. I had my cell phone already in hand and dialing, started walking, and now had absolutely no idea where I was. Every now and then I would catch glimpses of sparkling blue water beyond a hill or between pretty houses, but it didn’t help me orient myself. Happily, I was too high after seeing my long-lost sister to care.
I left Verena a long, probably crazy and incoherent message, mostly centering on how great the whole thing had been, if also stilted and bizarre, and then I kept wandering.
I tucked my phone back in my bag and looked around, as if I were just coming awake. I’d been walking for a long time. It looked like I was nearly to the top of a hill, so I staggered onward, cursing the incline the entire way. Why would anyone live in such a hilly city? It was murder. The people streaming past me in cars, on bikes, in trolleys and buses had to be nuts.
Then I made it to the crest of the hill and realized why so many people overlooked the strain in the thighs. And created whole songs and counterculture movements to celebrate the place.
It was gorgeous.
An enchanted city straight out of some modern fairy tale. In front of me, trolley lines snaked down the hill I’d just climbed, headed for the sparkling water. The trees were green, the sun was bright up above, and there were islands in the blue bay. Granted, one of those islands was—I was almost positive—Alcatraz, but even so, there was no getting around the fact that I was standing in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
I leaned my head back and let the light dance over my face. I breathed in the urban magic all around me and let myself relax. Then I breathed out the confusion and tension and let it dissipate in the early summer sunshine. I felt the city come alive around me, like it was welcoming me in with each swell of breeze and warmth.
It felt like music, and like music, washed the world away.
Lucas found me in the bathtub again, neck deep in bubbles.
“Don’t tell me you spent all day in there,” he said, coming inside and standing by the edge of the great big tub. His eyes danced when I wiggled my toes at him. “I can’t let myself imagine what your skin looks like. It’s too horrible. Let me see.”
“I’m not pickled,” I told him, lifting my face up into his kiss. He tasted like San Francisco sunshine. “I walked across the entire city. Possibly more than once, I’m not sure.”
“Was it a fun, touristy walk or a terrible-mood-brought-on-by-family-trauma walk?” he asked.
“There was no trauma, exactly, but there was a whole lot of walking. I had no choice but to retreat back into the bath to make sense of it all.” Not that I’d gotten too far on that front. Even after a whole day’s reflection, I still felt that it had gone much better than I could have reasonably expected. Everyone had been polite enough. No one had yelled. Or cried. Or really even referred to actual past events.
All things considered, I’d decided, it was the best uncomfortable estranged family/ex-boyfriend reunion I’d ever heard of.
“You’ve convinced me,” Lucas said.
I watched him as he shrugged out of his clothes, and then eased his way into the tub to face me. I let my eyes fall and play over him while he settled in the steaming water. I loved his body in an uncomplicated way I couldn’t imagine loving my own. I had too many failed hopes and dashed expectations wrapped up in my own reflection. But Lucas I adored, and so I adored every inch of his skin as well. I lusted after his broad, sculpted shoulders, the sweep of his torso, his cute butt. I frowned over scratches and slapped his hands away from the blemishes he sometimes picked at. No matter how he saw himself—and generally speaking, he saw himself as someone who ought to hit the gym more often, which was as close as he got to body issues—I saw only love, safety, and the world’s best hug when I looked at him.
“What are you looking at?” he asked, smiling.
“You.” I smiled back. “It takes a man pretty secure in his manhood to sit in a foamy bubble bath.”
“First of all,” he said at once, “I’m sitting in a bubble bath with a girl. Hello. It’s sexy in about ten different ways.”
“Oh yeah?”
“And anyway, you have no proof this ever happened, or that I’m even here. My manhood is secure.” He leaned back and sighed. I could almost see the tension ease from his bones.
“I could have a hidden camera,” I pointed out. “Spies documenting your every move. You don’t know.”
“That would be unwise,” Lucas said without opening his eyes. “Don’t make me get all ninja on your ass, Courtney. I’d miss you if I had to kill you.”
We entwined our legs around each other and soaked for a long moment.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly. “Was it a mistake?”
I considered, playing with the washcloth.
“We could talk about it,” I said slowly. “That’s an option.”
Lucas opened his eyes then and waited. I could feel that I was practically vibrating with excitement, and grinned at him.
“But Raine has invited us both to go and hang out at her place of business tonight, which is located in a neighborhood with the unlikely name of Cow Hollow.” I swatted a mound of bubbles away from my chin. “It happens to be a bar. Matt Cheney is the bouncer at that bar. So option two is that instead of my sitting here and telling you, you can just see for yourself.”
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
“It’s entirely your decision,” I said grandly. “I can go either way.”
Lucas thought about it for a second or two.
“Okay,” he said. “I pick Option Two. I say we hang out with the prodigal daughter. But you have to pick the dinner place, Court, and none of that ‘I don’t care what do you want’ crap or we’re having a fight.”
“Oh,” I said, pretending to glare at him, “we’re having a fight all right. Consider it on.”
“Bring it,” Lucas said and splashed water directly into my face.
I screamed bloody murder. And then it was time to retaliate, which left no room to think about anything else.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but Cow Hollow has a serious lack of cows,” Lucas said when we stepped outside the cute little restaurant where we’d had dinner. There were adorable Victorians and sweet little shops and galleries, all threaded through with the famous San Francisco fog that had rolled in while we were eating, but no cows.
“In the absence of cows, I was hoping for a few fields,” I said, tucking my arm into his. The night was
chilly, and not at all the way I thought California—or summer, for that matter—ought to have been. “Maybe even a dairy.”
“You heard the waiter.” Lucas made a face at me. “There used to be dairy farms here, sometime in the 1800s. Hence the name. I thought he might actually lend us a history book so we could catch up.”
“You know, I get that it’s exciting to be a native Californian. Manifest Destiny, pioneers, whatever. But at one point I was pretty sure that he was claiming to have been here himself during the Gold Rush.”
“That’s when you choked on your fries!” Lucas laughed. “I knew it!”
We made our way down a sidewalk made dreamy in the drift of the fog. It breathed around us, muffling the sounds of the city and making the streetlights into halos. I supposed it was the perfect sort of night to introduce my new life to the one I’d left behind. Or, more accurately, the one that had left me behind.
According to Matt’s terse directions, the bar he and Raine worked at was within walking distance—a claim I was beginning to understand San Francisco residents made about any address within the city limits. It’s a walking city! our concierge had assured us in his aggressively cheerful manner, back when I’d still had the use of my thighs. The fact that one could walk, it seemed to me, wasn’t necessarily reason enough to do so.
But a few blocks that weren’t vertical seemed fine, and we marveled at the art galleries and the little stores tucked away beneath street level, always drawing closer to the bright neon that glowed high above a patch of light on the upcoming corner.
Lucas and I had dressed for the evening. I was in a shimmery sort of tank top over my favorite pair of black pants, the ones that made my butt look divine. Lucas was wearing his favorite button-down and khakis. I thought we looked especially good, though neither one of us had admitted we were making an extra effort to look fabulous.
I decided that the tension in my neck was a perfectly natural response to the unknown, and didn’t mean that I was particularly worried about Lucas meeting Matt. I sort of wished there was a way for Lucas to meet him and thus be able to discuss him without actually meeting him, but I was at a loss on that one.