Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
Iris was having dinner with Roman and his boyfriend, James, at Gusto, a bar-bistro in the East Village where tables were tight, and Iris’s chairback was pressed against the man’s behind her.
Something in the couple’s overly solicitous negotiation of shared appetizers gave Iris the feeling that she’d been invited that night as a buffer.
When Iris asked about James’s family, Roman said that the search to find them an affordable apartment within any reasonable radius of the city had so far come up empty, and James fell uncharacteristically quiet.
She knew their home life was stressful right now.
As coveted as a reservation at Gusto was, she wondered whether trading tight living quarters at home for tighter ones at dinner had been the best idea.
Obliged to be the evening’s distraction, Iris made her stories from the last couple of weeks as juicy as possible. For once it didn’t take embellishment.
James snapped his fingers in approval. “Wash-and-fold me over, baby, why doesn’t that ever happen in my laundry room?”
“Because we send out,” Roman said.
“Iris, you got a new air about you, a new aura . I’m an empath, and as soon as I hugged you today, I said, something different about this girl.” James rotated his hand in front of his face and inhaled theatrically. “You know what I smelled?”
Had Roman told him about the perfume?
“Freedom!” James cried. “You finally got Ben out of your system. That L.L.Bean motherfucker was dragging you down, sapping your power. Now look at her! She’s open, she’s radiant, she’s magnetic, she’s read-dy !
” He swayed his body with the rhythm of his words, and Iris joined to match him.
They both ended in laughter, until James snapped his attention back to Roman.
“I just want to make sure you aren’t my Ben . ”
Iris had to take up for her friend. “Not possible.”
“No, I know, that’s right.” James put a hand on Roman’s shoulder before adding, “He’d never shop at L.L.Bean!”
She and James laughed. Roman looked irritated. Iris changed the subject. “How’s the new musical coming along?”
James had recently left his years-long gig leaping through Hamilton to be the head choreographer on a new musical based on the work of Langston Hughes. He lit up talking about it, and even his gesticulations possessed the grace and artistry of years of classical ballet.
As Roman listened, his face softened with admiration.
“I’m proud of you. I know you’ve been under so much pressure lately, starting this new project and then Veronica and her stuff at the same time, but we’ll figure it out.
And I know all your hard work is gonna pay off, this is your time.
Cheers to the first steps on a whole ’nother level. ” He raised a glass.
“Thank you. And to Iris’s new gig, too—to being booked and busy!”
The three clinked glasses.
“This musical has to work out, because I can’t go back to the touring contracts, the travel, always chasing the next gig, just a body for hire.”
“I’d hire your body.” Roman bumped his shoulder.
“You do, baby, you pay my rent. But it’s a new phase of my career, I want to be more settled, mature. It’s my personal life that’s falling behind.”
Roman shook his head. “Are we really starting this again now ?”
It appeared they had run out of Let’s have a nice night energy.
“Is it so terrible, my being ready to make a home with you?”
“We have a home together!”
“It’s your name on the lease, not mine. I’m a guest.”
“And so are your three relatives! The latest of the many ways I support you that apparently don’t count.”
James glared at him and the table fell silent.
“Which I am happy to do because I love you. Okay?” Roman gave a dry little laugh.
Suddenly all the lights went out in the restaurant. The diners murmured in surprise, the servers froze, and the bartenders groaned as the POS screens went dark. Only the small votives on the tables illuminated the restaurant.
The din of conversation and utensils resumed, as the patrons were happy enough with candlelight, but the staff looked increasingly agonized. Staying quiet felt like the lighting engineer equivalent of ignoring “Is there a doctor in the house?” Iris excused herself.
Iris passed a server carrying a trayful of lighted votives like a birthday cake and approached a man huddled with two kitchen staff members. She arrived as one said, “I have two hours on the fridge before I have to throw everything out.”
“Hi, I work in lighting, can I help you troubleshoot this?”
“Oh, thank God.”
The manager, Robert, explained the power outage’s extent, while Iris scanned the ceiling.
She zeroed in on the single cord snaking along the exposed beam ceiling, meant to power all the pendant lights in the dining room, including a striking glass chandelier.
It was a play on a traditional rustic antler chandelier, only each “antler” was a hollow curving horn of amber-colored glass with lightbulbs nestled among the pointed branches.
Even dark, it was an impressive piece, muscular yet irreverent. She loved it.
It was also likely the problem. “Is this chandelier new?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“You have all these pendant lights daisy-chained to one another, plus the chandelier with incandescents, that’s likely overloading the circuit.”
“Don’t tell me I have to take it down, it was a bitch to get up there.”
Iris shook her head. “Long-term, you’ll need more amperage, but I have a short-term fix. Do you have a ladder?”
“Yes! I’ll get it. And let me send your table drinks or dessert on the house.”
She thanked him and pointed to where her friends were sitting. Roman and James looked absorbed in conversation. Iris hoped they weren’t fighting.
The manager set to reseating those under the chandelier as waitstaff swept the tables and chairs out of the way, and a busboy brought a twin ladder and set it beneath the chandelier.
Iris began to climb, eyes fixed upward. Halfway up, she glanced through the ladder’s steps and was surprised to find a man’s face across from hers.
Sometimes Iris experienced her emotions like shifts in lighting, and the man across from her glowed, golden and warm, like someone holding a giant buttercup under his chin.
His dark eyes creased at the corners as he met her gaze smiling, with a bottom lip so ripe it made Iris bite hers just for looking.
Longish black hair that fell soft around a jaw sharp enough to cut glass, the sparkle of stubble making it look like it already had.
He gave her a small wave with a big hand, “Hey, I got this,” and climbed higher.
“Oh, no.” Iris too ascended. “It’s okay, I work in the field.”
The man tilted his head to peer at her through the slats, a boyish dimple appearing under regal cheekbones. “You’re the electrician?”
“No. Are you?”
“Definitely not.” He climbed another couple steps. “But it’s my fault, so I have to fix it.”
“How’s it your fault?”
“I never know.” He smirked. “So what is your field?”
“Ladders,” Iris deadpanned.
“How’s this one, in your professional opinion?” He took her pause to offer suggestions: “Tall, well-built, sure of itself but not cocky—”
“Crowded.”
His deep laugh made Iris feel like she’d won something. They were closer now, having climbed in tandem, and faced each other overtop the apex.
The manager addressed Iris from the floor, “Miss? You can come down, I’ll have one of my guys help Gabe get the chandelier down.”
“I’m Gabe.” He grinned and stuck his hand out across the top rung.
“Iris.” She shook it, and when their hands touched, a frisson of electricity coursed through her. “And we don’t have to take it down—” the we slipping out unintentionally. “You just have to unplug it from the daisy chain. I can tell you what to do.”
“Put me in, Coach.”
Gabe climbed as high as he could, until the ladder’s apex was at his hips, which put his crotch at the level of her face. Iris tried not to look.
She directed Gabe on where to disconnect and reconnect the extension cords.
He reached his muscular arms over his head, exposing a lean slab of lower abdomen upon which dark hair trailed down into his black jeans, belted low.
When he had completed Iris’s instructions, she told the manager to try the fuse box switch again.
For the next minute, they waited in suspended animation, Gabe on the ladder, Iris on the ground.
And then, voilà ! Every pendant but the chandelier illuminated at once.
The entire restaurant broke into cheers and applause.
Gabe descended, Iris beamed, and as soon as his foot hit the floor, without thinking, they hugged.
He smelled smoky, though not like cigarettes or weed, but some happy summer memory, a campfire or beach bonfire—an accord of woodsmoke, fresh air, and salt.
She could still smell it when they parted.
Rob clapped a hand on Gabe’s back. Iris craned her neck to check on Roman and James, but they weren’t at their table. She overheard Rob tell Gabe, “Don’t apologize, we could never have afforded that piece if you’d charged us what it was worth.”
Then Rob turned to them both. “What can I get you two, on the house?”
Gabe and Iris spoke over each other:
“Well, do you—?”
“I should find my—”
“Your friends?” interrupted the server who had waited on Iris. “They left while you were fixing the lights. But we comped your table anyway, so there was no bill.”
“Oh, okay, thanks.” They were definitely in a fight, she thought in dismay. She looked to Gabe, who had his hands in his pockets, bushy eyebrows lifted in expectation. “Didn’t you come with people?”
He shrugged. “They’ll find their way home.”
—