Chapter 26 Vivian
Vivian
February
The manager comes over to greet Peter, the bartender serves them a complimentary glass of champagne, and no menus are handed out (“They’ll take care of us,” Peter assures Vivian).
She takes a sip of her dirty martini—they’re already on their second round—and notices how, despite there having been a line of people at the door, the surrounding tables remain empty.
They are in their own private dining room, and her favorite one here at that: the Library, where the ceiling is artfully covered with book pages.
The chef comes over to give a preview of the menu: lobster Cobb salad, tenderloin with mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach.
The whole time she’s nodding politely at the chef, she’s acutely aware of Peter’s leg brushing against hers beneath the table.
And how he holds his own martini with long, strong fingers.
She finds herself stealing glances at them and wondering: How would they feel inside her?
“Now tell me, who is Vivian?” Peter asks, once the chef has left, and the server brings out the salad. Vivian gives him a puzzled look, and he adds, “Who—or what—has been keeping you from me all these years, when the whole time you’ve been right around the corner?”
Vivian tells him about the people in her life, or most of them: Her mom.
Rachel, whom she met at an outdoor antiques market over a decade earlier, when a sudden rainstorm forced her inside a random tent with other strangers.
She omits how, that very same day, she and Rachel also met Xavier.
Given the warning Xavier gave her at the masquerade ball, she thinks it’s best not to bring him up to Peter.
Vivian briefly mentions her goddaughter, Lucy—her late college friend’s daughter. How she and Kat were randomly paired up as roommates her freshman year. Tabard, the secret society the two of them were in together at UPenn.
He smiles. “A secret society. I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
Somehow they move on to discussing a new local wine bar that has recently opened—and Vivian realizes she missed an opportunity to talk about his friends, his secret society. The whole reason she’s meeting him tonight: to uncover more about the Knox. Or mostly the reason.
When he happens to mention a recent Celtics game he and Michael went to, she interrupts.
“Are you and Michael close?” she asks, assuming he’ll say yes. He did bring him up, after all. And he and Michael were roommates, like she and Kat.
“I have a lot of people I’m close to,” Peter says, and she sees a shift come over him, like the closing of a window.
He’s very good at steering the conversation back to her.
Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the current disarray of her life, or maybe it’s him, but she’s talking a lot this dinner.
Much more so than she normally does. She even tells him about her mom’s illness.
But she quickly realizes it’s impossible to convey to Peter who her mother—let alone Kat—really was, and then she feels almost disloyal for trying.
As if cherry-picked details could possibly encapsulate, or even intimate, their spirits.
This might be the reason Vivian’s going through these drinks like they’re water.
Peter makes her feel reckless, a little untethered.
Like he’s capable of uncorking the emotions she’s so carefully bottled up over the years.
“Antiques suit you,” he remarks at one point.
“What do you mean, they suit me?”
He gives a subtle shake of his head. “I don’t know. They just do.” When he stares intensely at her, it feels all-consuming. As if he’s pulling little bits out of her, sticky notes of information, to piece together a narrative. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“You barely know me,” she says.
“I think I do.” His leg presses more firmly against hers, and her body awakens. “You know, I saw you, a few years ago. And I’ve never been able to forget you.”
She laughs. “Peter, that’s a bad pickup line. I think you could do better.”
“It’s true.” It was the month of April, he says. We were both at a fundraiser for the Institute of Contemporary Art, in the Seaport. “You were wearing a long pale pink dress, that had these strappy black ties.”
Vivian stares at him. How could he know this? But then, she realizes. “Very funny. You googled me. You saw my picture. I was in Boston Magazine from that event.”
He shook his head slowly. “I wish I’d seen that photo. I would have printed it out and carried it around with me. I was there, at the event.”
“No.”
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“How…Why would you remember me?” But even as she’s saying it, something stirs inside her.
“You were looking at the silent-auction items. You were alone.”
This was true. She was using Rachel’s ticket; her friend had come down with a cold and had urged Vivian to attend in her place. After grabbing a drink at the bar, Vivian busied herself by walking over to the table of auction items lining the far wall of the event space.
“You were drinking a cosmopolitan. You almost backed up into me.”
Vivian had been standing there, considering what, if any, items to bid on, when a person suddenly shoved past her. She stepped back reflexively. And felt someone else’s hands on her shoulders, steadying her.
“Whoa,” a man whispered in her ear. His hands lingered on top of her arms for a moment too long. His touch felt oddly familiar, she remembers. But when she turned around, the man was gone.
Staring at Peter now, Vivian wonders: Is it possible this story is true?
“I went to get you another cosmopolitan, because I thought you’d spilled your drink.
But when I returned from the bar, I couldn’t find you.
I thought maybe I’d imagined you, conjured up the perfect woman.
But here’s the crazy part,” he continues.
“I swear I saw you again, six months after that. It was at a Celtics game; the Celtics were playing the Golden State Warriors. And I saw you, on the Jumbotron. It was a just a second or two, but it was you. I think it was you. Was it?”
She’s wordless; there was one time that she and Rachel were at a Celtics game when the camera apparently turned to them. “Look! We’re on the screen!” Rachel had squealed, but by the time Vivian glanced up, it was already featuring another person.
“Your hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and you were wearing these large gold hoop earrings.” He reaches over and touches one of her earlobes, sending a shiver through her. Then he sits back and looks at her earnestly. “Was it you?” he asks again.
“Maybe,” she admits. Inside she thinks, Careful, Vivian. You could fall in love with this one.
“I knew it. And then you walked into the Knox, into my life. I think I’ve just been waiting for you, all these years.” He smiles, and it fills every inch of her.
“What did you mean in your note when you said you’re ‘new to this’?” she asks. The question suddenly seems important.
“If I tell you, then you have to come home with me.”
A heat flares inside her. “Oh?” she manages.
“But by home, I don’t mean my Back Bay apartment. A pipe burst, and I wasn’t around to realize. Apparently even penthouse apartments can flood. Who knew.”
Penthouse apartments. “Oh, that’s terrible, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay; that’s what insurance is for. Besides, things are things. They’re not people.”
“Things are important,” she protests teasingly. “Don’t forget, I’m a collector of ‘things.’ ”
“Ah. I stand corrected.” He grins. “And I build things, so I, too, think things are important. Isn’t that a funny pairing?”
“What?”
“You and me. I like to build beautiful things, and you like to collect them.”
“I’ll give it to you, but it is a little simplistic.”
“Vivian,” he says, rather throatily, “there is nothing simple about the idea of you and me.”
He stares into her eyes, and Vivian feels caught in his gaze, like a net has entangled her. She parts her lips for a response, but none comes. His gaze moves to her lips, and then he leans across the table to kiss her.
“Come back with me to the Knox. I’m staying there tonight.”
“All right,” she whispers. Christ. What is she doing? Maybe this is exactly what she needs to be doing. She’s hot and cold, intoxicated and sober, fearful and fearless. She’s everything, at the same time—no. They are everything.
Peter smiles adoringly at her. “What I meant was: I’m new to love at first sight. Or third sight, in our case.”