Chapter Two Satoshi #2
It was an awkward position for a hug. Fiona was contorted in a way that had to be uncomfortable, and the barstool beside hers dug painfully into my ribs.
But she was warm against me, like sunlight was caught beneath her skin, and when she turned her head to brush her lips against my cheek, I had the exact same feeling as when Birdie had dropped all those glasses and everyone had frozen except her: a sudden pop, followed by an overwhelming sense of relief.
‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ Fiona drew back. She was wearing a grey dress with a cowl neck: pretty, but unusually corporate for her. ‘I thought maybe you had the night off.’
I’d forgotten Isamu was there until he made a disapproving noise in the back of his throat. I opened my mouth to respond, but Fiona got in first. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Isamu! I didn’t mean to imply that I wasn’t happy to see you. But—’
One corner of my eternally unsmiling brother’s mouth twitched upwards. ‘It’s fine, Fiona. No offence taken.’
She put a hand on her heart. ‘Good. Because if you ever decide to ban me from drinking Bibliophile, I don’t know what I’d do.’
‘I would never,’ Isamu replied, at the same time as I said, ‘I wouldn’t let him.’
Fiona chuckled. Isamu gave me a long, inscrutable look before rapping his knuckles on the bar. ‘I’m heading out, Sato. I haven’t decided whether to go back to the vineyard tonight after dinner. If I don’t, I might crash on your couch.’
Fuck. That would put a cramp in my study plans. ‘No problem. Yquem will be delighted to spend some time with her uncle.’
He grunted. ‘Nice to see you, Fiona.’
‘You too, Isamu.’
Once he’d gone, Fiona turned to me. ‘Can I ask an impertinent question?’
‘Is it “Why is your brother always so rude about your precious angel of a cat, Satoshi?” Because I’d like to know that too.’
She laughed. ‘No.’
She slid her mostly full glass of wine across the bar. ‘Will you pour me something else? I don’t want to waste wine, but this one isn’t for me. Isamu doesn’t get my palate like you do.’
Had I just spent a year thinking I was in love with her? I was wrong. Now I was in love with her. ‘I think I can manage that.’
I sniffed the wine that Isamu had poured for her. It was an off-dry riesling – a sweeter style of wine that had its devotees, but Fiona was not among them. ‘Is there a particular vibe you’re feeling today?’
She twined a lock of hair around her finger, an image that was definitely going to replay like a GIF in my mind later. ‘Something fun. Light-hearted. It’s been a fucking day, and I just want something that will cheer me up.’
‘Fun and light-hearted. I can work with that.’
I regarded my wine fridges for a moment before I selected a bottle. ‘Let me introduce you,’ I said, taking two glasses down from the overhead rack, ‘to my good friend arneis.’
I took my wine knife out of my pocket, opened the bottle, smelled the cork, poured a splash into one glass, tasted it quickly to make sure it wasn’t faulty, then poured a tasting measure into the other glass and set it in front of her. ‘Tell me if you like this, or if you’d prefer something else.’
Fiona inhaled the bouquet. ‘Oh yes, this is much more my vibe. There’s pear, apple… maybe a bit of hazelnut? It’s nowhere near as sweet as the other one, but it reminds me of a fruit crumble.’
‘Exactly.’ She was so on the nose she might as well have been reading out of one of my textbooks.
She tasted it. ‘Oh, yes.’
One of the thoughts I usually prohibited myself from thinking slipped through the barricade. Fiona’s ankles locked at the small of my back, her arms wound around my neck, her voice breathy in my ear. Oh, yes.
I forced it away as I filled her glass. ‘Arneis is a difficult grape to work with. It’s a mischievous grape.
A trickster grape. The name literally means little rascal.
If you leave it on the vine even a day or two too long, it’ll lose all its acidity and you’ll have the most boring wine in the world.
But if you get it right, then it’s magical. ’
Fiona closed her eyes, but she didn’t pick up her glass again. Instead, she took a long breath, in and out, shoulders relaxing on the exhale.
‘Today’s been a lot, Satoshi,’ she said. ‘Like, a lot. And this is the first thing that has made me feel even a little bit better.’
‘Wine will do that.’
‘Oh, come on.’ She opened her eyes. ‘You know I’m not just talking about the wine.’
I didn’t know whether I wanted to thank or murder the customer who chose that moment to come through the door, just like I didn’t know whether Fiona’s words had delighted or tortured me. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Go, go.’ She saluted me with her glass, still smiling. ‘For once, I’ve got time.’
One year ago, I’d walked Fiona home at four-thirty in the morning.
The pre-dawn air was cold and the streets were quiet, the only sound the fall of our feet against the pavement.
She had her arms wrapped around herself, fingers clutching at her elbows, shivering, although I’d insisted she wear both her coat and mine.
This is me, she said.
There were some big, expensive houses in Bellerive, and given Matt’s finance bro money, I’d assumed they lived in one of them. Fiona’s home, though, was a modest brick number, a little table and two chairs on the porch, an abandoned hose snaking through a slightly overgrown front garden.
Fingers shaking, she unbuttoned my coat. Thank you, Satoshi, she said, handing it back to me. I’m so sorry to have dumped all this on you.
You don’t need to apologise. I clenched my fingers tight in the coat’s malbec-red fabric, resisting the urge to wrap it back around her, throw her over my shoulder, and carry her away. Anything you need – anything at all – I’m here. Always.
She nodded.
I’ll see you soon, okay? It probably wasn’t a good idea, but I couldn’t resist taking her hand and squeezing her fingers.
She squeezed back. Soon.
Then she let go, and I didn’t see her for four months.
When she’d finally come back to Tsundoku again in February, she’d had a pretty red-headed woman – her new sister-in-law Sadie, I would find out – in tow.
I’m sorry it’s been so long, Fiona had said, voice muffled in my shirt as I hugged her, lifting her off her feet.
It’s just been impossible to get away, with the kids and everything.
Not to worry. I’d allowed myself to stroke her hair just once before I set her back down. You’re here now.
In the months since I’d seen her, I’d tried so hard to talk myself into believing that what I’d felt that night last October had been an anomaly.
But the second Fiona walked through my door again, all the lies I’d been telling myself had gone out the window, because I felt it again: the pop of the cork, the hard knot of pressure released, the swift spread of relief.
After that, she didn’t come into Tsundoku as frequently as she used to, but she was in and out often enough to still be considered a regular.
Mostly, she came in with Lex during cafe hours so they could pick out some books.
Sometimes it was with Sadie or Jonah (also now regulars), while the other watched the kids.
Once, before she’d fired him and replaced him with a better one, she’d come in with her divorce lawyer, a conversation that had left her so despondent I’d made her take home an entire case of free wine.
This was the first time, though, since Matt had left, that Fiona had come into Tsundoku by herself.
The bar was starting to fill up for dinner service, so I could only watch her out of the corner of my eye as I worked.
She was sipping her glass of arneis slowly, one elbow leaning on the bar, hand wrapped around the nape of her neck, the cowl neckline of her dress pulled slightly to one side.
The expression on her face was weary, but not in a bad way, not like the pure exhaustion that was written all over it far too frequently.
Rather, she looked like someone who’d run a marathon and was finally getting to sit down: not quite relaxed, and not quite rejuvenated, but reprieved.
‘You’re really nursing that,’ I said, gesturing at her half-full glass once things started to quiet down. ‘I can pour you something else, if you’re not vibing the rascal anymore.’
‘Don’t you dare.’ Fiona pulled the glass towards her. ‘I love the rascal. I’m savouring it, that’s all.’
‘Can I top you up, then? Or do you need to get home to the kids?’
‘No kids tonight.’ She nudged her glass towards me so I could refill it. ‘They stay with Jonah and Sadie on Thursdays. Look.’
She showed me a photo on her phone. Her daughters were snuggled up on either side of Jonah on the couch, listening to him rapturously.
They were wearing fairy wings, while he was wearing a unicorn headband.
‘Sadie says he’s trying to get them started on A Midsummer Night’s Dream early, and that was the closest thing they could rustle up to a donkey’s head. ’
‘I see Lex is super engaged.’ Lex was curled up in an armchair on the edge of frame, absorbed in a book, ignoring everyone.
Fiona chuckled. ‘I bribed them this morning with the promise of coming in next week to browse the bookshelves, so…’
‘I’ll lay out some Lex-bait. What’s the bribe for?’
‘There was a mediation meeting today. Me. Matt. The lawyers. Lex wanted to come.’
She traced circles on the bar. ‘I said no, obviously. But then Matt turned up with Laura – who’s pregnant, by the way, with twins, because my girls just aren’t good enough, I guess, and…’
She stopped, swallowing convulsively. Tears were starting to slip down her face.
‘Oh, Fiona,’ I said softly. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, I’m sorry.’ She sniffed. ‘I didn’t mean to come in here and ruin the vibe by crying. It’s just… today was so fucking much.’
She scrubbed at her eyes with a serviette. ‘Oh god, all my makeup’s coming off. What kind of idiot doesn’t wear waterproof mascara on a day like today?’