Alligators in the Trees (16 page)

“Would you like another?” Philip asked as the clatter of ice caught his attention.

“Only if you’re having one,” she said, setting the glass back down.

“I think I’ll switch to wine, if that’s all right with you.”

“Oh, sure.”

Philip handed the menus to Marcello, who dispatched their request post haste. “Well, that’s settled. Now all we have to do is sit back and enjoy.”

There was enough activity at their table to make conversation avoidable. The sommelier came with Philip’s wine, followed by a waiter providing an unusual quantity of utensils to accompany the imminent onslaught of courses.

Priscilla’s first challenge was a pair of tiny crostini, one topped with a mousseline of duck liver, the other with a fried quail egg garnished with flakes of shaved white truffle. She waited until Philip ate his before she tackled her own. The flavors were so strong and foreign, she didn’t dare let them linger on her tongue. She managed to consume both with copious swallows of wine in between, which was harsh and almost burnt tasting to her uneducated palette.

The second food obstacle was fairly tame by comparison: a small teacup of fish bouillon with threads of zucchini and parsnips and a dollop of langoustine meat. Again, Priscilla took her cues from Philip, who gingerly spooned off the solids before drinking the broth.

The third course was pan-roasted slices of monkfish served over a bed of braised kale with pancetta. Mistaking the greens for spinach—which she hated—Priscilla picked at the fish, and was forced to concede that it wasn’t so horrible. The fourth course, however, was a different story.

“Squid in its own ink,” the waiter announced with a proud flourish. Priscilla felt all the peculiar edibles churn threateningly inside her. She turned white with trepidation as she stared at the dish before her.

“I can’t do it,” she said finally, putting the napkin to her lips. “I’m sorry, I just can’t do this anymore,” she said, her voice low and faint. Philip, who was inordinately fond of squid—ink, or no ink—was slow to pick up on Priscilla’s distress. “I’m sorry, Phil—I just can’t stay here,” she said, as she pushed her chair away from the table.

“Oh…oh, I see. Yes, of course. Let me get the check.”

Priscilla’s hue had worsened from white to a pale sickly green. She lurched out of her chair as Philip signed his check, heading unsteadily toward the exit. He caught up with her as she passed through the front door, where she paused to take in great gulps of fresh air.

“I’m sorry, Priscilla. I thought you liked Italian food,” Philip said.

“It’s not your fault, Phil. I’m just not cut out for this kind of scene. I’m more of a jeans and beer and pizza person. All that exotic stuff—nice as I’m sure it is—is wasted on me.” Philip looked at her, the way she had fixed herself up for the evening, obviously going to great lengths in order to fit into his scheme of things. A wave of shameful regret washed over him.

“It was wrong of me to bring you here. I completely lost sight of what would make you feel comfortable and happy—”

“Really, it’s no one’s fault—”

“Let me make it up to you,” Philip said earnestly.

“That’s not necessary,” Priscilla said. Now that she had extricated herself from her ordeal by food, she was impatient to have the whole experience behind her. She glanced out at the street, hoping to spot a free cab.

“I know, but I want to. Let’s go have some pizza—that sounds like a much better idea to me.” Philip’s unwavering optimism was starting to grate on her nerves.

“No, I couldn’t possibly face food right now,” she said, feeling queasy all over again. The only thing she wanted to do was return home for one final night in her grungy apartment and prepare herself for her life-altering trip to Florida.

“Well, let’s go have a drink—a beer—somewhere.” There was a tinge of desperation in his voice that made Priscilla clench her teeth.

“Phil…look, this isn’t going to work. Date or no date, we’re simply not compatible. It has nothing to do with you or me. We’re too different. It was just a bad idea.”

“How can you say that? You haven’t given it enough of a chance yet.”

Priscilla snorted and shook her head. “I’ve never seen anyone so devoted to lost causes as you, Phil,” she said. Philip chewed his lower lip; her accusation was more accurate than she could know. “I think we should say goodnight, good luck, have a nice life and chalk it up to experience.”

“No, I can’t do that.” Philip’s earlier eagerness was replaced with an adamant conviction that Priscilla found hard to debate. “There is something about you I can’t turn away from. I don’t know what it is—chemistry or a sixth sense, or whatever. But I
know
with every fiber in my body that we are meant to be more than casual acquaintances in a coffee shop.”

Priscilla looked him steadily in the eye and took his measure. There was zero chemistry on her end, and as far as sixth senses were concerned, he didn’t strike her as the type to have one.

But on the other hand, he wasn’t a lunatic; she’d bet the farm on that. He wasn’t one of those emotional jellyfish she had encountered so many times in her life, either. He was a man who had made his own way in life, made a success of himself, so he could hardly be classified as a flake. He was merely confused about his feelings for her. It happens. Lord knows, she had made the same mistake herself more than once.

“Have one drink with me,” he said. “If you still feel uncomfortable with the idea of spending time with me after that, I’ll personally put you in a cab and send you safely home, and I promise to never push myself on you again. Scout’s honor.”

Priscilla shifted from foot to foot as she debated this offer. It wasn’t like she couldn’t use a proper drink, and she knew she had absolutely nothing to fill that need at her place.

“One drink,” Philip lobbied.

Priscilla sighed and consented. “All right. You win. One drink.”

Philip, attuned to Priscilla’s sensibilities by this time, chose a bar that was neither too uptown nor too low-rent, one in which almost anyone could feel comfortable knocking back a drink or two. There was a good crowd, so it was plenty lively, but it was still possible to be heard when speaking.

They found a booth in the far corner of the main room, which allowed them to observe those around them while gradually becoming accustomed to one another’s company. Philip nursed his double scotch on the rocks while Priscilla settled her nerves with another vodka tonic. Philip made light conversation, intentionally benign enough not to scare Priscilla away. Eventually, she relaxed her guard, and after about half an hour, they had begun to converse almost companionably.

“So, by the time I was eight, I knew I’d be an architect when I grew up,” Philip said, as he recounted for her the history behind his infatuation with building design. The enthusiasm in which he detailed the chronology of his love of architecture intrigued her. She tried unsuccessfully to imagine having such a concrete sense of purpose.

“You never thought about doing anything else? Never thought of being a pilot or a Peace Corp volunteer, window washer?”

“Nope. Never even considered being anything but an architect.”

“Wow.” Priscilla shook her head in wonder. What a neat, tidy world Philip had. It struck her how abnormal normality was these days. Philip had managed to defy the forces of accident and adversity to stay a course he’d chosen at the age of eight. She could think of no one else she knew who had enjoyed such stability of purpose. She had personally never conceived of an idea that lasted more than a week.

“How about you? What did you dream of being when you were a kid? I have a hunch it wasn’t waiting tables.”

Priscilla smirked. She stirred her drink while she tried to recall that far back. “Honestly, I can’t remember wanting to be anything specific—probably a nurse or a princess, or something totally unrealistic like that,” she said, as she thought back to her childhood.

“I guess I always harbored the belief I’d be a writer or a reporter one day. It wasn’t something I consciously decided to pursue, it was just something I assumed would happen. I suppose that came from the sheer volume of newspapers I’ve pored through every day since I was ten.”

“Really? What gave you such an interest in reading newspapers?”

“It wasn’t something I started doing on my own. It was my uncle’s notion of educating me without benefit of the local school system.”

“Why was that?” Priscilla regarded Philip for a moment before speaking. Conjuring up her uncle’s way of life before Philip struck her as being hilariously incongruent.

“My uncle traveled constantly with his band—heavy metal/grunge rockers. I suspect they would’ve been hippies in an earlier era. They lived like hippies, with the converted school bus and the communal living and all that. But the music and the clothes and the attitudes were different.

“It was a pretty interesting lifestyle for a kid, hanging out with a bunch of crazy musicians, always touring or rehearsing. There was no such thing as a normal schedule. Our lives seemed to revolve around whatever gigs they could line up. Now that I look back on it, I’m surprised we got away with it so long.”

“How do you mean?”

“Avoiding the school situation. It would have changed everything for my uncle if schooling had been a constant consideration, and I probably would’ve been sent to live with my Aunt Jane a lot sooner. But we managed to duck the issue for six years, until my uncle finally came to the conclusion that dragging me around the country with a bunch of loadies probably wasn’t the most ideal upbringing for a teenage girl. Of course, my aunt agreed whole-heartedly. It turned out she had been trying to track us down for years.”

“Am I to take it you lost your parents?”

“Yes. They were both killed when I was ten.”

“What a tragedy. I’m so sorry,” Philip said softly, his eyes full of sympathy.

Priscilla shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“Was it an automobile crash?”

“No, it was a freak accident. One of those improbable scenarios only my parents could pull off.” Priscilla hoped no further elaboration would be necessary. Philip, however, was too distracted by her touching revelation to pick up on her discomfort.

“How did it happen, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Priscilla shifted uncomfortably in the black vinyl booth, wondering if it was fair to give Philip what he was asking for. She allowed her gaze to drift into middle space, as if she were looking back over a long passage of time.

“It was one of those completely avoidable errors. The kind of careless mistake you’d assume everyone knew not to do—you know, like sticking your hand in the garbage disposal or whacking open a hornets’ nest.” Already, Philip was watching her with mild alarm. Priscilla tried not to smile as she continued to relate the sad tale of her parents’ horrible demise.

“My father, who was
not
handy with tools, was replacing a rung on the ladder that led up to my tree fort. A nail had worked its way out and the step had broken free when I was coming back down one day. It was the second step from the top, so it was pretty high off the ground. The thing went right out from under me and I sort of glanced off the other steps on my way down. My chin was split open and my left leg was broken in two places, which is why I was in a cast to my hip the day of the accident.

“Anyway, I was lying on the living room floor one Sunday afternoon, reading the funny pages to my cat, and my mom was in the kitchen baking a cake—a German chocolate cake. I can remember licking the beaters.

“My dad, who was a famous procrastinator, had finally decided to fix the step, after six weeks of my mother pestering him to take care of it. My cast was coming off the next day, and she didn’t want me going up and down with the step missing, which I would have been inclined to do.

“I was reading Pogo out loud when my mother started to scream. She flew out the kitchen door faster than I’d ever seen her move. I pulled myself up on the sofa so I could see what was going on through the window.

“I saw my dad a split second before my mom reached him. He was sprawled out on the ground, twitching violently. I knew instantly what had happened. I saw the puddle of water, the chainsaw, with my father’s hand still gripping it. I also knew at that same second my mother would not know what to do. I knew what to do because we had seen a safety film in school.

‘“Don’t touch him, Mom!’ I yelled at the top of my lungs. ‘Unplug it!’”

“But it was too late. She grabbed hold of the chainsaw, instinctively wanting to take it out of my father’s hands. Immediately she began to jerk violently, as if under the control of some demented puppeteer. Then she fell down on top of him, quivering until she too was dead.” Priscilla stopped and took a long sip of her vodka tonic, lost in thoughts of that seemingly benign day when her world hit a brick wall.

“I’ll never forget that smell,” she said, her voice so low, it seemed to come from a great distance. “Even over the chocolate cake, I could smell it.” She glanced over at Philip, whose mouth was hanging open in horror and disbelief.

“Like I said, it was a long time ago.” She cast her gaze away from Philip. She wasn’t sure what had prompted such open disclosure. Though it was not her custom to reveal that part of her past, either to astound or shock, she couldn’t help feeling a perverse pleasure in his discomfort. She took another sip of her drink as he grappled with her frightful revelation.

“That’s one of the most horrifying stories I’ve ever heard,” he said at length. Priscilla smiled blithely for his benefit. “How incredibly horrible to witness something like that so young. And to have to watch your own parents…”

He chased away the unwanted image of Caitlin discovering him and Marianne in the throes of death, the last traces of life being rattled out of them as she watched on. He covered his mouth with his hand, as if to hold back the unspeakable.

“Are you all right?” Priscilla asked. Perhaps it was callous and a touch cruel of her to subject a sensitive guy like Philip to such a grisly story.

“I feel so awful for you, what you had to endure…” Philip appeared on the verge of tears.

“Phil, it’s okay. That’s all in the past now. It doesn’t have the power to devastate me any longer.”

Philip did not seem convinced. “But…what did you do? A little girl…with a broken leg…?”

“I hobbled out and unplugged the saw.” Philip wore a fresh look of astonishment. Priscilla shrugged. “Then I called 911. Then I cried a lot. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you all this.”

“No, no—I’m glad you did,” he said, taking her hand in his, a gesture that startled her. “It just makes me admire you all the more.”