Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Besides, David thought, his spirits sinking, he himself was entirely unremarkable, just as Charles had told him. Nothing special, in the words of the Erlking. This had never bothered him before, true, but a person like Meredith would hardly settle for someone ordinary.
Then, too, there was the matter of the daffodils. Perhaps the mysterious individual Meredith was pining after returned his feelings after all. He’d certainly been cagey enough when asked about it. In person, David might have chanced pressing him further, but as it was—
Of course it was always possible that he knew who had sent the flowers and it was a different person entirely, one whose interest flattered him but remained unreciprocated.
(Steve Corner came to mind, but a man like Steve Corner would not send a gift anonymously.) So there remained at least a glimmer of hope.
Wiping sweat from his brow, David let himself back into the house and trudged to the shower.
There was no reason to panic, he told himself severely.
He was a sensible and rational man. He need not go making any grand declarations, but only to raise the perfectly reasonable question of their respective intentions if he and Meredith continued sleeping together, daffodils or no daffodils.
David just needed to frame it carefully so he could get an idea of Meredith’s inclination without making things too awkward.
Besides, if he could forgive the list, surely a degree of misplaced affection was nothing in comparison.
Simple enough, then. David would do exactly that, as soon as things settled down a bit, as soon as he’d had time to calm his nerves and get his thoughts in order and work out what to say.
He wouldn’t hold out until the wedding, but just until the auction had concluded.
That gave him twenty-four hours, and then no excuses.
Satisfied with this plan, David changed into a soft T-shirt and pajama trousers, intending to go to bed. It was early, but he was tired and needed the sleep.
Instead, he went to the living room, silent and empty save for Bianca on the center cushion of the sofa.
“Think you could spare some room for me?”
Bianca deflated with a sigh and rested her head on her forelegs.
“I know the feeling.”
David paused. Now here he was, holding a conversation with a Chihuahua. He sat up to reach for the television remote, but on second thought picked up the grammar book that had remained on the coffee table all week in spite of the bookshelves being only a few feet away.
He paged through it idly; there were a handful of words he recognized from the few weeks of a German course he’d attended long ago in university, before the complexities of grammar had scared him off and he’d switched to French.
To his surprise, this book appeared quite advanced, and the more technical portions were interspersed with a selection of footnoted literary texts.
On a hunch, he checked the index and turned to “Die Lorelei,” with its familiar opening lines:
Ich wei? nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Da? ich so traurig bin.
Between the footnotes, the glossary, and his own memory, he was able to piece together a rough translation.
Ich wei? nicht, he remembered: I don’t know.
A consultation of the glossary yielded him the next few words.
“I don’t know what it means,” he recited aloud, “that I am so—” He broke off with a frown.
Traurig had escaped his memory. Since Bianca failed to volunteer an answer, he began to turn back to the glossary when it came back to him:
“That I am so sad.”
David slammed the book shut. It was only a poem. A bit of imagination, no more accurate than Bianca’s supposed favorite song casting her in the role of the mad dog.
All the same, it would do no harm if he waited up for Meredith to come home.
—
David awoke on the sofa with Bianca snuggled into the crook of his arm and a crocheted blanket draped over him. The table lamp next to him had been turned on, and subdued sounds of activity came from the kitchen, where he found Meredith rolling out pastry for a piecrust.
He started toward David as though to embrace him, but stopped short, glanced down at his own flour-covered hands, and turned back to the counter to take up his rolling pin once more.
David should have been glad of the consideration, as he did not particularly wish to be dusted with flour, but his heart sank in disappointment.
Nonsense, of course, but now that the idea had been put into his head, after a solitary and stressful week, the prospect of being hugged by someone—and by Meredith, in particular—was something he wanted badly.
Pushing away the thought, David grasped for something to say, and came out with the inane observation “You’re later than usual.”
Meredith lifted the pastry with care and draped it over the pie tin.
“Yeah, I rearranged a few appointments, what with everything coming up this weekend, and now the whole bridal party is doing brunch on Saturday morning, and I’ve got to redo that portrait as well.
Really, I’ve been rescheduling far too often anymore,” he confided.
“People are going to start thinking I’m unreliable. ”
“I’m sure they won’t,” said David. Meredith gave him a strange look, and David kicked himself. That had been the perfect setup for a playful jab, and now he was the one who’d missed his cue. “Wait, Adalynn’s portrait? How come?”
Meredith heaved a sigh and left off crimping the edges of his piecrust. “I was nearly finished, and Florian wanted to have a look, so I sent him a photo.”
“And?”
“Well, he wasn’t pleased.” At David’s expectant look, he elaborated, “Might have been a bit Magritte-influenced.”
“But you’re a surrealist,” David pointed out. “You told him that.”
“Yeah, well—” Meredith shrugged and wiped his hands on a tea towel. “The beard suits you, by the way.”
Disoriented by both the leap between topics and the compliment itself, David didn’t reply. Instead, he leaned in to peer over Meredith’s shoulder as he spooned a yellowy-green substance into the pie shell. “What’s this?”
Without waiting for an answer, David reached around him and swiped a finger through the filling, narrowly avoiding Meredith’s attempt to rap his knuckles with his wooden mixing spoon.
“You just keep your big brutish paws out of my gooseberry tart.”
“You’re a gooseberry tart,” muttered David. Ignoring Meredith’s sound of indignation at that, he tasted the dollop of stolen pie filling. “Not bad. But gooseberries aren’t in season yet, are they?”
“Nah, this is preserves. I got a jar off of Mrs. J earlier. Told me she was glad enough to part with it if I’d go make a pie and keep myself out of trouble.
And she said she’ll bring us more of her healing salve once the next batch is ready.
Oh!” He lit up with excitement. “I almost forgot the best part.”
“About Mrs. Jupiter?”
“No. Well, not exactly.” From the refrigerator, Meredith retrieved a small covered container, which he opened and presented in a conspiratorial manner.
“She gave me bit of moon meringue to go with it.” In response to David’s raised eyebrows, he explained, “The Night Horse brings her some every week. It’s the real thing, you ever tried it? ”
David shook his head. Meredith, in spite of his own admonition of only a few moments earlier, collected a quantity of meringue on his fingertips and offered it to David. “Go on, then.”
David leaned in to have a taste of meringue from his hand and tried to banish the ludicrous feeling that he was being treated as a tamed animal in a petting zoo.
Though the texture was what one would expect for meringue, the flavor was strong, and not as sweet as he would have imagined. “Bit sharp, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, thought it’d be a nice contrast.” Meredith licked the rest of the meringue from his fingers, leaving a spot of it on his lower lip. Whether deliberate or not, David couldn’t tell, but he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity, and kissed him.
Meredith broke away far too soon. “Now, you just leave off with that till I’ve got this in the oven, or—or—” He brandished his mixing spoon at David.
“Or feel the wrath of your spoon?”
“Yeah,” said Meredith. “You will.”
“Your weapon of choice, is it.”
“It is, thank you. You’ve seen the damage I can inflict.”
Though the remark was lighthearted, David’s thoughts traveled in a darker direction. As Meredith turned to pick up the pie tin, David said abruptly, “I’m sorry about Jean-Marc.”
“Not your fault,” said Meredith, but David could read the tension in the line of his shoulders.
“It was, a bit. I shouldn’t have brought somebody like that into the house.”
Meredith occupied himself making unnecessary adjustments to the edges of his piecrust. “Yeah, well, how were you to know he’d try it on with me the moment your back was turned?”
“But the way I reacted, it was awful.” David had wanted somewhere to lay the blame, other than upon himself for misjudging someone he’d liked very much.
(Jean-Marc himself would have been the logical option, David now reflected, but at the time, he hadn’t wanted to go there.) “You weren’t to blame, and I behaved as if you were, and it was—wrong of me. ”
At last Meredith faced David. “But you still came running when I needed you, and you still threw him out. You still believed me.”
“That,” said David, “was never in question.” No other option had ever crossed his mind, even as he’d stormed away and slammed his door and left Meredith alone in the kitchen without ever bothering to check on him.
The pit of David’s stomach dropped. “I hope he didn’t—I mean to say—I never even asked what he did, or if you were all right. ”
Meredith shrugged. “Yeah, well, could’ve been worse. It’s hardly the first time somebody has grabbed my ass without permission.”
“I should think that’s bad enough.”