The Key to Happiness #2
Kate led him off the floor and scored some eye drops from one of the contact-wearing bridesmaids, but Mark kept closing his lid whenever he tried to apply it.
“Jesus, you’re worse than my three-year-old nephew,” she said.
“I -I – It’s my eye, you know,” he whined.
“Now you’re sounding like him, too.”
She ordered him on to his back on the floor and was pleased to see him submit without a complaint. Then she told him to close his eyes.
“The last time this happened,” he complained, “I ended up with a bad case of crabs and someone else’s shoes.”
“You’ll be pleased to know you are in danger of neither tonight.”
“I don’t know if ‘pleased’ is the word I’d use,” he muttered slyly, and she gave him a look.
She had to hang over practically on top of him to get the right angle.
He smelled like the really expensive French-milled soap she once found in the bathroom of the re-election campaign’s biggest donor.
She wondered if she’d ever smell as good.
“Now, close,” she ordered, and when he did, she let one eye drop fall into the inside corner of each eye. “Open.”
“What? Now? There’s stuff on them.”
“Do it.”
“Arrrrrrrggghhh.” The drops floated glossily over his eyes and down his temples.
“There. Feel any better?”
“What I feel is strong-armed,” he said in a mock sulk. “Misused and strong-armed.”
“Maybe write your congressman.” She helped him to his feet.
“Don’t think I won’t.” He test-blinked his bad eye. “You know there’s a name for someone like you.”
“Hero?”
“I’m too polite to say it.”
“Why do I doubt that? Is the eye better?”
“A little.” He smiled. “Thank you.”
“Bouquet!” cried Bethany, a junior bridesmaid in bare feet and a borrowed sweater, racing by. “C’mon, Kate!”
“Oh, crap.”
Mark stopped his eye rubbing. “Not a fan of the bouquet tradition?”
“Ranks right up there with the pencil in the eye tradition.”
“I could provide an excuse.” He gave her an interested look. “Cover, as it were.”
“Are we back to the crabs and shoes?”
“I was thinking a stroll in the courtyard, but, hey, I’m always open to suggestions.”
“Oh, that’s you, a real people pleaser.” She had to admit she was tempted, but she could just see Carly’s face if she wasn’t there. “I’m going to have to pass. The bride’s my best friend. I’m afraid I owe her this one last blow to my ego.”
“Ah, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve said that.”
She laughed. “Wish me luck.”
“Would that entail catching it or not?”
“I’d settle for avoiding the woman with the ninja scarf.” She picked up her skirt, but he caught her hand.
“Kate?”
“Yeah?” His eyes were a clear, bright blue.
“I’d really like to see you later.”
A marvellous tingle shot up her spine.
“Kate! C’mon!” The junior bridesmaid was back, clutching Kate’s other hand and pulling.
Kate shrugged, gave Mark an encouraging smile and scurried off after Bethany.
At the gathering for the bouquet, Kate found a spot at the back, close enough to look engaged, but far enough to the side for the possibility of actually catching the accursed thing to be remote.
Carly appeared, beaming, and turned to toss the bouquet. But Carly had been a shot-putter in high school and somehow managed to put enough English into the release to send it spinning towards the speaker mount where, with a tink, it careened straight towards Kate.
Kate flung up her arms to ensure the arrival didn’t come with the double humiliation of getting smacked in the face and, an instant later, a rousing cheer rose from the crowd.
Kate opened her eyes. Bethany clutched the bouquet giddily, aloft in the arms of Mark’s room-mate.
“I figured you wouldn’t mind,” he said and swung Bethany to the floor.
“Kate, look!” Bethany held the bouquet just like she’d seen Kate do it in the ceremony. The bouquet was half as big as she was.
“Amazing,” Kate said. “You look like a princess.” She gave P.J. a smile.
Mark was in the distance, chatting with other guests. He’d made an interesting offer, one she could spread like fresh blueberry jam
over the toast of the evening, savouring the crisp, sweet scent and glossy mounds of purple and blue whether she decided to partake or not.
“Are you staying for the foosball championship?” Kate asked Mark’s room-mate.
Carly’s husband, Joe, was a foosball fanatic and had arranged a midnight tournament in the adjoining game room for those willing to stay the extra hour, and Kate could see Joe across the room, tie loosened, making the starting bracket on a sheet of paper taped to the wall.
“I agreed to collect the tuxes. I’ll be here until they lock the place up.”
The band started to play. Kate lifted a glass of champagne off a roving waiter’s tray, considered jumping into a conversation about the new light-rail line being considered in the city but elected instead to return to her seat, kick off her shoes and spend a few minutes rolling that blueberry taste around in her mouth.
Beside her, the seat was empty. She was reminded of the incident with the man – Patrick – who hadn’t come with Mark and P.J. as he’d claimed.
Weird.
She stretched her legs and let the strains of Billy Joel’s “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” roll over her.
This time she felt the emptiness beside her fill. She knew it was him, even without looking, though this time his presence seemed tinged with a different sort of emotion.
He didn’t speak, which surprised her and, when she gave him a sidelong glance, he seemed intent on the bottom of his wine glass. At last she straightened. “Great band, huh?”
“Yes. Good covers. I hate to say it, but they remind me a bit of the White Stripes – the guitar playing mostly, not the song choice.”
Kate smirked inwardly. Her freshman room-mate had managed to bring every musical conversation back to the White Stripes. She hadn’t thought of that in years, though it struck her as odd that a middle-aged man would make a White Stripes comparison.
“I never took my eyes off your purse, by the way,” he said.
“What? Oh. Thanks. I appreciate that.”
Suddenly, he pushed his glass away and looked into her eyes. “Kate, I need to ask you a favour?”
“Me? Sure. What?”
“Take my hand.”
Instantly, she retreated a few centimetres. “What?”
“I swear, I’m not a weirdo, but I need to tell you something and I can’t do it unless I’m holding your hand.”
She didn’t want to. She’d had enough bad experiences with men, but he looked so harmlessly earnest, she relented. Nonetheless, she was glad there were still a number of partygoers circulating.
Even after she nodded ‘yes’ though, he didn’t offer his hand.
In fact, he appeared to be gripping the tabletop as if any movement on his part might scare her away.
So Kate extended her hand. He took it gently, and she immediately felt a light charge, like the one she got touching her tongue to a nine-volt battery, only more pleasant.
“You gonna read my fortune?” she said with a nervous smile.
But however pleasant the current she was feeling, it was clear he was feeling something else. He gazed at her hand, face tight with emotion.
“Patrick?” she said after a beat.
“Sorry, it – do you feel it, too?”
“Yes.”
“It’s OK, though?”
“Yes.”
His hand was cool and dry, and he let her do the gripping.
“Kate,” he said, “I know things about you.”
Kate’s heart seized. He was going to try to get her to join his church or his cult or his drive to eliminate the secret magnesium vapours the government was putting in our food.
She began to pull away. “Ah, Patrick, um –”
He caught her. “You have a dog named Klondike, your sister’s name is Liz and you hate the White Stripes.”
Kate blinked, alarmed. He was right – on all counts. He saw her attempt to cover the surprise. “Anyone could have told you that,” she pointed out carefully. “Besides, doesn’t everyone hate the White Stripes?”
The flecks of green danced in his eyes. He liked her sense of humour, which lowered the creep-out quotient considerably. She’d let this go on a little longer. “So, you’ve been asking questions. This is election year. You’re, like, what? Part of the opposition?”
He relaxed his grip, flashing an apologetic look. “In a sense. But this has nothing to do with politics.”
“My sister and my dog. Not exactly Harry Houdini stuff, OK?”
The corner of his mouth rose, buoyed by her challenge, and his eyes narrowed in a calculating squint. “I’m walking a fine line here between trying to convince you and trying not to scare you,” he said after a long pause.
“Oh, you passed that line a few minutes ago, my friend.” She gazed at the bronze of his skin and the intricate pattern of hairs peeking from his sleeve.
His was a fine hand to hold, she noted objectively, strong and generous, and that odd tingle of connection still burned pleasantly across the surface of her palm.
That, more than anything, made her curious enough to continue.
He gestured to her clutch. “Are your keys in there?”
She nodded.
“You stuff your purses with Kleenex to make them hold their shape, you always carry some kind of lime-green-coloured lip balm, and your keychain has a Powerpuff Girl on it – Buttercup, I believe – which, for a reason I have never understood, seems to represent both empowerment and revolution to you.”
He picked up her purse. “May I?”
She was too shocked to do anything but nod. He gently shook out the contents of her bag: about a dozen crumpled tissues, Buttercup on the ring that held her keys, Bonne Bell Kiwi Lip Smacker lip balm, a twenty, a Triple A card and her cell phone. He picked up the keys with his free hand. “More?”
“You had access to my purse,” she pointed out. “I left it on the table.”