Chapter Seventeen #2
David occupied himself slicing and arranging a selection of fresh fruits on one of the serving platters Genevieve had brought, though doubtless she would adjust them to her own exacting standards.
Outside, engines started, then receded down the lane, signaling the departure of Florian and Jayceon.
David started a fresh pot of coffee, then peered outside to check the progress of the decorations: pastel yellow bunting draped the deck rail, and matching tablecloths and centerpieces of tulips adorned the tables.
As the hands of the clock crept closer to ten thirty, new vehicles began to arrive. As no one knocked on the front door, David surmised that Genevieve had waylaid the guests and ushered them around back through the yard.
He went to the bay window for another peek outside, and as he took in the transformation of the deck and back garden, uncertainty began to creep in.
What was he playing at, insisting upon hosting a bridal shower for a woman he barely knew?
If one took an uncharitable view of the matter, why, he’d practically forced her to go along with it in spite of her protests.
Perhaps he was no better than Steve Corner, with his obscene lingering glances, always just within the bounds of plausible deniability.
Ordinarily, David tried to devote as little thought as possible to the repugnant general manager, but upon contemplating Corner now, a new and dreadful vision of the future opened up before him.
This particular future involved neither a Cartier nephew in a seaside hotel nor a new house with a wide bay window and hedges along the walkway.
In this one, David saw plainly the course his life would take if he continued down the same path he was on—though, at times, it felt as if he were standing stationary, not moving along any path at all.
Never leaving Midnight Cottage or the Corner Store, drifting still further away from everyone in his life, chasing fruitlessly after those who did not want him.
Ending up a pathetic and grotesque figure like Steve Corner, who at nearly forty was unmarried and still taking a room in the boardinghouse on Rutherford Street, who stank of expensive cologne and cheap vodka, who dyed his hair to hide the gray at the temples.
(Some people, of course, were perfectly content to remain single all their lives, but David could not count himself among them.
He supposed there was nothing all that wrong with dyeing one’s hair, either, except when Steve Corner did it, because it was him.)
If that was where David was destined to end up in ten years’ time—well, it didn’t bear thinking about.
He tore his gaze away from the window, turned around, and nearly had a heart attack at finding that Meredith had crept up on him yet again. Then, when David got a proper look at him, he could only stare in disbelief.
“Better?” asked Meredith.
David opened his mouth and closed it again. Not at all, he wanted to say, but that would hardly help matters.
Meredith had changed into a loose pair of threadbare, paint-spattered blue jeans he must have dug up from somewhere, along with David’s borrowed button-down worn open over a white undershirt.
(It came as no surprise that he’d had to fold over the cuffs of the sleeves more than once.) It was clear at once why Meredith avoided light colors—he looked terrible and washed out in them, and David couldn’t understand why he’d chosen to dress that way on purpose.
He’d even removed his ubiquitous black nail polish, and still carried with him a faint whiff of acetone.
No, this was all wrong. Meredith didn’t look himself at all. No nail polish, no black, no clashing patterns, no foolish grin, no visible jewelry—
Correction: no visible jewelry aside from the single brass bangle on his wrist, the locating bracelet given him by Mrs. Jupiter.
David gestured toward it. “Just the one?”
Meredith glanced down and adjusted his shirtsleeve to conceal the bracelet. “That one’s important.”
“Is it.” David didn’t follow his logic at all.
“Yeah. Supposing you needed me for something—”
“What are you talking about?”
“Which you wouldn’t, of course,” said Meredith meekly. “You never do. S’pose I’d just like to think so, just on the chance of it.”
Before David could try to make any sense of that, the door to the deck slid open. Adalynn stepped inside to greet him with a hug, while Meredith shrank back behind him.
“It’s so good to see you both!” she said. “And thank you so much, again, for letting us have this here.”
“Oh, it’s no problem,” David reassured her. “No problem at all.”
Genevieve joined them in the open doorway.
“All right, guys, here’s the plan. We’re still waiting on a few more—” She broke off as she caught sight of Meredith and gave a quizzical tilt of the head.
“Why’d you change? I thought that dress you had on before was cute.
” Without waiting for an answer, she went on, “Anyhow, I’ve got a game to start things off in about ten minutes, and then we’ll give everybody some time to help themselves and mingle.
We’ll do gifts at the end, and then I figure the guests will all be out by two or so. Sound good?”
Adalynn nodded, and Genevieve turned her attention to David. “I’ve been trying to get everybody to come around through the yard, but if you don’t mind, we’ll leave these doors open so it’s easier to restock the buffet. Speaking of, Dave, you got those fruit plates ready yet?”
“One, yes. I’ll get started on the other right away.”
“You’ve done plenty. Hey, Mere, how about you try doing your fair share for once, huh?”
“It’s really not—” David began, but Genevieve was already gone, pulling Adalynn along with her like a moon in orbit.
After carrying said fruit plate outdoors and helping to set up the last of the chafing dishes, David returned to find Meredith not in the kitchen, but crouched down to eye level with Bianca, where she lay on the window seat, apparently trying to reason with her.
“Of course not, precious, you know I’d never let anybody step on you, but this is a different matter altogether.”
Bianca gave a whine and sank down to rest her head on her outstretched forelegs.
“Yes, I know it’s your favorite collar. I’m only asking you to take it off for a bit, you can have it right back after.”
When he reached for the Chihuahua, she shied away from him with a growl of disapproval. Meredith heaved a sigh and ran a hand through his hair, disarranging it even worse than usual. He looked suddenly very tired. “Yeah, I feel the same, only you’ve got to be reasonable, don’t you?”
David quietly collected Meredith’s untouched cup of cold coffee from the end table and emptied it down the kitchen sink. By the time he returned with a fresh cup, Bianca had retreated to her hiding spot behind the sofa, and Meredith stood gazing out the window, idly rubbing at one wrist.
David nudged him and held out the cup in offering. When faced with Meredith’s blank stare, he explained, “Thought you might want this since you never drank your first one.”
“Oh. Yes, thanks.” He took a sip and turned back to the window as a pair of young women came through the yard carrying a number of shopping bags.
These, David guessed, must be the other bridesmaids. “You’ll have to tell me who everybody is. More cousins?” He nodded toward the pair outside, a tall redhead in a blue dress and a muscular brunette with box braids and gossamer-delicate wings in the palest shade of lavender.
“Not of mine,” said Meredith. “The one in blue is Adalynn’s cousin Aurora, and the other is her friend S-Sonia. I think.”
“Sophie?” asked David.
“Oh, yes, that’s right.”
“And those?” Now a blond woman with a pair of small girls rounded the corner of the house.
“That’s Genevieve’s older sister, Lucille, and her twins, forget their names, and that coming up behind them’s my cousin Jana, and—oh, kill me dead.”
David craned his neck to get a glimpse of what had provoked this reaction. “What’s the matter?”
“Auntie Lisl,” whispered Meredith. “And my mom.”
“I expect you’ll want to go see them, then.”
Meredith’s hand flew to his one remaining bracelet. “Yeah, I will. In a bit.”
Genevieve, however, had other ideas. “Mere!” she called from outside. “Get out here and say hi to your mom!”
Meredith froze, and then, with the look of a prisoner about to face a firing squad, drifted out onto the deck. David hung back, watching from the doorway. He couldn’t deny a certain degree of curiosity as to what sort of parents had produced the two wildly different siblings.
“Meredith.” His mother was, at a guess, in her fifties, with sensible tortoiseshell glasses and short ash-blond hair beginning to go silver.
One glance at her face was enough to remove any doubt of her relation to both Meredith and Genevieve—and to the woman who stood next to her, presumably Auntie Lisl.
“Hi, Mom.”
It was an oddly lukewarm greeting from both sides. Neither seemed to know quite what to do with the other, and eventually, she pulled him into a sideways one-armed hug. Meredith tensed his shoulders at the embrace but voiced no protest.
Mrs. Schwarzwelder released him and said distantly, “We really must catch up sometime.”
“Yeah,” echoed Meredith. “S-sometime.”
Then, catching sight of Adalynn, she lit up and swept off to greet her, calling, “Adalynn, dear!”
“Well,” said Lisl, casting a critical glance over Meredith, “I haven’t seen you around in a while.”
“No.”
“You get yourself a real job yet, or are you still a hairdresser?”
“I’m not a hairdresser, Auntie Lisl,” said Meredith patiently. “I’m a tattoo artist.”
“Guess that explains this mess.” She reached up to swat a lock of wavy hair away from his face. “Letting it get long enough, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Meredith, leaning back out of her reach. “I have been.”
Lisl’s eyes narrowed in disapproval. “What’s this?”