Chapter Twenty-Three
As they walked up the hill, David couldn’t help but replay the Erlking’s words in his mind once again. Perhaps he’d been quite mistaken about Mrs. Jupiter, presumptuous in considering her a friend. Perhaps he’d been mistaken about everyone.
“S’pose that could’ve gone worse,” remarked Meredith, who seemed to have brightened up.
“Could it?” muttered David. “I didn’t hear you being demoted to Mister.”
“Oh, she’s never called me that,” said Meredith.
“Of course she hasn’t.” David might admit to a touch of jealousy at the way Meredith could immediately talk to everybody as though they were his best friend.
“Well, she did the one time, actually,” Meredith corrected, “when we first met. Must’ve made a face at that because she took one look at me and said”—here he slipped into quite a good impression of Mrs. Jupiter—“No, you’re not, are you?
and I said, No, I don’t think I am, and she said, Well, we’ll dispense with that, then. ”
David thought this over as Bianca stopped several paces ahead to look back at them, whining in impatience. “So he is all right, but Mister isn’t?”
Meredith gave a crooked smile. “Yeah, doesn’t make much sense, does it? I mean, I’m not about to go crying over it, just feels a bit…wrong somehow.”
David refrained from pointing out that Meredith had, in fact, cried over much smaller matters, and instead asked, “Is there a different title you like? If I were making introductions, for instance.” The scenario was likely to come up at the centennial auction on Saturday, with the higher-ups from both the Corner Store and Cartier’s offices in attendance.
(Recalling Cartier’s words gave David a warm glow of pride, but it soon faded, replaced by the image of Steve Corner.
For a moment, the whole thing seemed rather a sham, an ostentatious and self-aggrandizing pantomime of generosity.)
“Nah. Don’t want one, really.”
Now that David had gotten a glimpse into Meredith’s logic, it made a certain sense. “Because it’s another kind of label?”
“Exactly.” Meredith beamed. “Besides, the last time you introduced me to someone, you called me your pet magpie.”
“I never—oh. Yes. I, er—sorry about that.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. Maybe—” Meredith gave him that sideways searching look of his that David had come to recognize. “Maybe I like being your pet magpie.”
Of all the ridiculous statements to make him go red—
David was spared having to answer as they reached the top of the hill and Bianca ran ahead, yapping in excitement.
In the driveway was parked a dusty station wagon, and waiting for them on the back deck was Maurice Wolkowitz, reclining in an Adirondack chair with his paws behind his head.
At their approach, he rose, pushed up his sunglasses to rest against his pointed ears, and raised a paw in greeting.
“Schwarzy, hey! I was hoping I’d catch you. ”
“Maurice!” Meredith rushed over to embrace the wolf, managing to gracefully carry out the usual air-kiss in spite of his friend’s unwieldy snout. “I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“Been a while,” Maurice agreed. At his side, Bianca rose up on her hind legs, and he leaned down to return her high five. “Yeah, missed you, too, cousin.”
“Come in and stay for tea,” said Meredith. “David was just about to put the kettle on.”
“Oh, I was, was I?” grumbled David. (He had been, not that Meredith needed to know that.)
Straightening up, Maurice retrieved his bag from the floor and rummaged inside.
“Nah, man, I just stopped by to return this book my buddy Phil borrowed from you a while back.” He produced a dog-eared German grammar book and presented it to Meredith.
(It had certainly taken long enough, but David kept that thought to himself, as it hadn’t been his book to begin with.)
“Besides,” Maurice added, “I think I kinda freaked out your other roommate. Looked like he was about to have a heart attack when he answered the door, so I told him I’d wait for you out here.”
“Oh dear.” Meredith glanced toward the house. “That won’t do at all. I’m sure if the two of you met properly—”
Maurice waved a dismissive paw. “It’s cool. I have to get going anyway. Got a bunch to do—car needs washed, and errands and that, but we’ll catch up sometime soon.” He clapped Meredith on the shoulder, nodded his farewell to David and Bianca, and departed.
Inside, Meredith immediately abandoned his book on the coffee table, retrieved a bottle of nail polish from the bookshelf, started toward the window seat, and then stopped in the middle of the room—directly in David’s path to the kitchen.
Suppressing a sigh, David gently nudged him aside. “Do you mind?”
“I think perhaps I’d better have a word with Todd.”
“I wouldn’t be too hard on him,” said David. “He’s just had a bit of trouble with the—” He broke off as Todd himself appeared at the top of the stairs, eyes wild and face ashen, dragging an overstuffed suitcase. “Everything all right?”
“No. No, man, it’s not all right at all.
” Todd descended the staircase unsteadily, suitcase thumping after him on every step.
“I don’t know how the hell you guys do it, but I cannot deal with this anymore.
Not with—” He made a distraught gesture in the general direction of the Midnight Wood.
“Witches and werewolves and vultures and—and—” He broke off, hands trembling.
“Maurice isn’t a werewolf,” protested Meredith, “and you’d really quite like him if you got to know him.” He paused. “Wait, vultures?”
“You missed the vultures,” David told him. “Now, Todd, why don’t you just sit down for a moment? I’m sure once you’ve had a cup of tea—”
“Tea isn’t gonna cut it.” Todd dragged his suitcase toward the door; when he paused, Bianca ventured forward to inspect the floral-patterned luggage.
“Look, I’m real sorry. You guys are cool and all, even if you do have some shit to work out, but I’m not staying here another second. I’ll be back to get my stuff tomorrow.”
The front door fell shut behind him, and for a time, there was no sound save for that of a car engine receding down the lane.
“Oh dear,” said Meredith. “He didn’t last two weeks.” After only the slightest pause, he added, “I think I’ll paint my nails.”
As he took up his usual spot in the window, David went to the kitchen, made a pot of chamomile tea, and took a quick inventory of the fridge and cupboards.
By the time he returned to the living room with two cups of tea (one lightly sweetened, the other oversteeped to the point of bitterness), Meredith was collecting stray pens and paintbrushes from around the room.
At David’s footsteps, he turned. “Thought the place could use some ridding up,” Meredith said quickly. “I know how it gets on your nerves when I leave things lying about, and, well—s’pose I haven’t been pulling my weight lately.”
“You don’t need—” David paused. “Yes, I would appreciate that, actually. Thank you. And here.” He handed Meredith his cup.
Meredith nodded his thanks. As the two of them drank in silence, an unspoken tension hung over them once more. David had to say something, had to address what Meredith had said in the Midnight Wood.
David cleared his throat. “Look. About earlier. With the—in the Wood, I mean.” For a moment, his focus narrowed to the juxtaposition of freshly painted black nails against blue-and-white china; then he forced himself to go on.
“What he said—and what you said—I mean to say, if there’s anything on your mind—”
“Course there isn’t.” Meredith developed a sudden intense interest in his teacup before admitting, “S’pose it did get to me, just a bit, same as it did to you.” He looked up quickly. “Unless you—I mean, because he did say to you as well—”
“No, no, I’m quite all right.” There, David had made the effort and checked in. If Meredith said he was fine, then of course he was. There was no need to go pressing the issue. No need to say a single word more on the subject, in fact.
David said, “You’re not an insufferable fuckup.”
Meredith stared at him over his teacup. For once, he seemed to be taken totally by surprise. Just for a second, before his usual grin crept back onto his face. “Course I’m not, David.” He took a sip of his tea. “I am a delight.”
David was about to say, Let’s not overcorrect, but confined himself to making a vague sound of agreement as he raised his own teacup.
“By the way, if you don’t mind me asking—what exactly was it that you said to him back there?
I know it was this”—he briefly touched a hand to Meredith’s side—“but I thought you said you didn’t know any prayers. ”
“Oh, that was hardly a prayer.”
“I suppose I’d thought—that is to say, you spoke it as though it were.”
Meredith shook his head. “No, but I suppose one must have something to believe in. That one has always—meant something to me. It’s Goethe, too,” he elaborated. “I did tell you last night.”
“Yes, well, you’ll forgive me for having been a bit distracted at the time,” said David. “What does it say?” Then, recalling the last time he’d asked, he forestalled Meredith’s response: “In the English, please.”
Meredith looked down, fiddled with the shirttails of David’s too-large button-down that he still wore. Without raising his eyes, he recited, “Did you not achieve it all yourself, sacred glowing heart?”
Tentatively, David reached out and pressed two fingertips to the center of his chest. “They go together, these two.”
“Yes,” said Meredith. “Something like that. Though perhaps not quite so sacred.” He gave David a crooked little smile. “You’re the first who’s ever put that together, you know.”
Now, in a total reversal of their conversation from the day before, David felt as though he’d just been entrusted with something fragile, eminently breakable, with nowhere near a secure enough hiding spot to lock it safely away.