Chapter Nineteen
In a surprisingly short time, Meredith returned, hopping down over the last few steps to land at the bottom of the staircase in a flurry of stripes and jingle of bracelets. A surreptitious glance at his now-bare arms assured David the hives were beginning to fade already.
“Shall I drive us?” he offered. “It looks like rain.”
“What, in your k-kidnapping van? No, thank you,” said Meredith. “I’d just as soon walk.”
“It is not a kidnapping van, I’ll have you know,” protested David, beckoning Meredith out the door, but secretly he was relieved.
“You bought it at police auction.”
“Yes, after it was seized from a business whose owner had been convicted of tax fraud. It was a Sound Financial Decision.”
“It was a Sound Financial Decision,” mimicked Meredith, and David nearly laughed as he shut the door behind them. (Still, he could not understand how Meredith, with his unsettling knack for impersonations, always went so far afield with David’s.)
They fell into silence as they started down the hill, no sound but the crunch of gravel beneath their feet and the plaintive birdsong in the distance.
By the time they reached the foot of the hill, the silence weighed on David, but he still didn’t trust himself not to make a worse mess of things.
Like the clouds above, it grew heavier and heavier, and when they reached the first stoplight at the edge of town, he couldn’t take it any longer.
As they waited for the light to turn, David leaned into Meredith’s space to lightly knock their shoulders together, a tentative gesture of affection.
To his relief, Meredith returned the gesture and offered the faintest attempt at a smile.
Although they continued their walk in silence, the tension had broken, and the discomfort bled away.
Thankfully, Steve Corner was absent from the Corner Store—David didn’t think he could abide the sight of Meredith giving Corner a kiss on the cheek, not today.
(In fact, David realized, he hadn’t done so to anyone all day, hadn’t been his usual overaffectionate self at all.) It was the work of a few moments to fill out the necessary paperwork and add the folder of drawings to the hoard of donated goods accumulating in a disused conference room, and then the two of them found themselves back on the sidewalk.
“So,” said David, “where to?” It would inevitably be the Rat Cellar, but he’d spend the rest of the afternoon there without complaint if it prevented Meredith from looking so unbearably tragic again.
When he received only a shrug in response, David said, “Rat Cellar it is, then.”
Meredith hesitated. “To tell the truth, I’m not really feeling it.”
That was a surprise, and a worrying one at that. David considered. “How about that new bistro down the street? I’ve not been there yet.”
“The Austrian place?” Another shrug. “If you like.”
Within minutes, they were seated at the outdoor patio of the nearly deserted restaurant, and David offered the wine list to Meredith. “I suspect you’re the authority here. I’m a bit out of my wheelhouse when it comes to wine.”
“You’ll want s-something on the drier side, I expect.” He perused the list with a thoughtful expression, then pointed to two entries. “Them two you might like. Those two,” he corrected. “Blauer Zweigelt, that’s a red, and Grüner Veltliner is a white.”
David glanced at the indicated listings. “So the blue is red and green is white, is it?”
That got him a small smile. “Yeah, bit confusing, isn’t it?”
“Which would you prefer?”
“Don’t make a difference to me.” Then, as his words caught up to him, Meredith groaned and hid his face in his hands. “Oh, David, please, you’re supposed to tell me when I go sounding ignorant like that.” He turned wide imploring eyes on him. “I want you to.”
“Er, yes, but—” As much of a habit as it had become—not that it had ever seemed to make much difference—today David couldn’t quite bring himself to do so.
He was spared having to reply when the waiter arrived, and his attention went to floundering his way through the pronunciations as he ordered.
“And sparkling water for me as well, thanks,” Meredith added.
Once the waiter had departed and David had had a moment to compose his thoughts, he said, “You’re not ignorant. You just speak—”
“I know,” interrupted Meredith. “I sound like I’m from where I’m from.”
#100: He does not sound—
No. It was true that he did not, in fact, sound like anyone from anywhere that David had ever encountered, but he’d come to find an odd charm in it.
Meredith dropped his gaze and fiddled with his bracelets. “Only I wish I didn’t.”
David suspected this had far less to do with the place itself than with the people—a few particular people—and couldn’t help but feel he’d just prodded at a psychic wound that was still raw in spite of its age.
(He also couldn’t help but notice the marked decrease in the frequency of Meredith’s stutter since his relatives had departed, but he wasn’t about to bring that up.)
David was still searching for the right words when the waiter returned to deliver a bottle of white wine and something along the lines of a charcuterie board that contained rather more paté and sausages than were necessary for a table with only one carnivore.
He poured a glass of wine and ventured a sip—dry, as promised, with a pleasantly bright citrus quality.
As Meredith mixed himself a spritzer, David considered how, at last, to address the elephant in the room.
He’d meant to take a roundabout approach and lead in gently, perhaps by thanking him for rearranging his schedule to be present that morning, or asking what came next in terms of wedding activities.
Instead, he found himself saying, “I’m sorry.”
“Hmm?” Over his wineglass, Meredith returned a puzzled look. “Sorry for what?”
“For today, for—” David made an all-encompassing gesture. “All of it. Offering up our place for this bridal shower without really asking you, and insisting—”
“What are you on about? You didn’t do anything.”
David stared. “But your family—they’re awful.” Perhaps he shouldn’t have said it straight-out, but he couldn’t keep the thought to himself any longer.
For a time, Meredith was silent, save for the clink of his rings as he drummed his fingers against his wineglass. Then, with a quiet, startling defiance: “They’re not my family.”
David’s heart broke. Had they not been sitting on opposite sides of the table, he would have hugged him, wrong impressions be damned. “Meredith—”
“ ’S all right, really,” he interrupted. “I’ve got my own family now, I’ve got you and Kinley and Mrs. J and Bianca and Bednarek—not necessarily in that order.” Then, with a glance around and a lowered voice, he added, “Only don’t tell Bianca she wasn’t first.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said David. He was not altogether sure how he felt about being claimed as a part of Meredith’s patchwork family, but he’d still gladly accept that over leaving him to the collection of people they’d spent the morning with, who were hardly deserving of the title.
Besides, he realized, it was true in a sense.
They’d lived together for years; they’d merged their record collections; they shared meals and in-jokes and, as of today, clothing; they each knew exactly how the other took his tea. What other word was there?
Returning to the matter at hand, David said, “But Bednarek doesn’t count. One’s landlord is hardly one’s friend.”
“We are friends,” Meredith insisted. “Who do you think I spend Christmas with?”
“What?” That was too sad for words, and guilt washed over David once more.
He always traveled at Christmas to visit his father, but he’d never made more than the most superficial inquiries into Meredith’s plans.
After what David had witnessed that morning, he couldn’t fault him for finding it preferable to spend holidays with his landlord rather than his blood relations.
With a shrug, Meredith picked up a slice of dark bread, turning it over absently in his hands.
“Kinley always invites me to his parents’, and I did go once.
They were all very kind, of course, but I couldn’t help but feel I was intruding.
And to be fair to Genevieve, she’s not all bad.
She tries getting me to come around every year, too, but it seems better for everyone involved if I don’t.
So now me and Bednarek get together and I make Glühwein and he puts on these old spy films he’s terribly nostalgic about.
I don’t understand the Polish, of course, but he explains enough to follow. ”
For a time, David occupied himself heaping a slice of bread with soft cheese and plum preserves, then finally voiced the question that had plagued the back of his mind ever since he’d found the remains of Meredith’s daisy crown. “What did Florian say to you earlier?”
Meredith spent a moment tearing off bits of his bread. “Nothing really, just reminded me of all I’ve forgotten after so long away.”
After which he’d immediately come in and changed—it wasn’t difficult to put the pieces together there. “I take it some of them have a problem with you being, er…unlabeled?” David inquired cautiously.
“It’s not exactly—” Meredith faltered. He looked away, took a sip of his drink, and then took another before continuing, “I don’t think they would, if I were more like you.
It’s just, you know, the rhinestones and such.
” He rolled the foot of his wineglass along the table, tilting it from one side to the other.
“S’pose if I really made up my mind to it—”
“No.” David reached out to place an arresting hand atop his and stop him before he tipped his glass too far and spilled it everywhere.
“Some people need to—” He made a vague gesture toward Meredith, searching for a descriptor.
“To sparkle. I don’t, but you do. Don’t let anyone take that away from you. ”