Her Immortal Love (5 page)

“Most people believe it was painted by Katsushika Hokusai.”

“What? Not the Hokusai who painted...”

He nodded. “
The Great Wave at Kanagawa.”

“But, but,” she sputtered. “Why would he paint such a...a...”

A corner of one of Tristan’s dark brows quirked. “Degenerate painting?”

“Well, yes.”

He smiled. “I understand. To western eyes, a painting like that looks more like pornography, but in Japan of that period most would have understood the cultural influences surrounding it.” His smile dimmed. “I sometimes forget—” He stopped and released a breath.

“What do you forget?”

He looked over at her, his gaze pensive. Then he shook his head and smiled. “Nothing. It’s not important.”

Lydia had a sudden feeling it was important, but she certainly didn’t know him well enough to pry. “So, tell me, what cultural influences am I missing?”

“Well, there’s a translation of the text that’s on the painting. A conversation the woman has with the octopi.” He quickly held up his hands in a warding gesture. “I know. Sounds weird.”

“What do they say?” Lydia wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to hear, but that was the allure of such things. It was like driving by an accident. You didn’t want to look for fear of what you’d see, but you also couldn’t look away.

Tristan cleared his throat. “Well, the larger octopus says something to the effect that it, um, has been waiting a long time to...” He glanced around, leaned closer and lowered his voice. “....to suck on her. And that her insides have swollen, moistened by the warm waters of lust.”

Lydia’s throat tightened and she nervously touched her neck. “And, um, what does...the woman say in response?”

She tried to imagine having had such a conversation with Douglas. No, it would never have happened. Not in a million years. Her ex-husband had been very straitlaced about sex. Missionary position or nothing and sex only when he wanted it. Which he had started to want less and less as the years passed.

Tristan absently scratched the side of his nose, an embarrassed look on his face. “Well, at first she calls him a hateful octopus. But then she...well, she starts to enjoy its...attention.”

“Oh, I see.”

He smiled. “No, you don’t. But that’s okay. As I said before, the painting is very controversial.”

“How is it that you know so much about it?”

“I collect
shunga
artwork. Many do. Picasso did.”

“He did?”

“As did many other artists. I’ve been collecting it for a long time.”

“A long time?” Lydia couldn’t help but laugh. “What? Since you were in middle school?” She gave him a teasing smile. “How did your parents feel about that?”

He only shook his head and smiled. “How about we change the subject?” He glanced around. “Did you know that Charles the II once tried to have all the coffeehouses in London closed?”

“Really? Why?”

“To him they were nothing more than hothouses of treason. Places where rebellious and traitorous subjects met to spread rumors about his majesty’s conduct and that of his ministers.”

She glanced around the coffee shop. No one looked the least bit rebellious here. Well, maybe that young man talking on his cellphone. He wore a black t-shirt imprinted
with the words
Occupy Everywhere
.

“Did the king ever succeed in closing the coffeehouses?”

Tristan shook his head. “But they continued to be seen for a while as seditious establishments where dangerous ideas were likely to be hatched.”

Lydia tucked her hand under her chin and leaned closer. She’d always loved history in school and Tristan seemed to know a lot about it. “Dangerous ideas? What kind of dangerous ideas?”

He glanced at the young man wearing the
Occupy Everywhere
t-shirt, his lips quirking. “Freedom. Equality. Democracy.”

Lydia smiled. “Did you study history in school?”

“You mean university?”

She nodded.

“No. I, um, read a lot.”

“You do?”

“You sound surprised.”

She shrugged. “Most of the people I know don't read that much.”

“Do you?”

Lydia didn't want to tell him that lately her reading consisted mainly of romances. Not that she felt any shame in reading them, but Douglas had always dismissed them as pornographic trash. She could only imagine what he would think of the more sexually explicit romances she was reading now.

“Yes,” she replied. “But not as much as I liked to. Or should,”

The stroller behind her jolted hard against the back of her chair. She glanced around. The father had put down his textbook. He and his wife were having a quiet but obviously heated discussion. The baby whimpered in its stroller. The toddler had wandered over to a nearby table. His mother distractedly grabbed his shirt and pulled him back.

“How long have you been working at the store?”

She focused back on Tristan. “Not long. Just a few months. Saffron told me about an opening there.”

“Saffron?”

“A friend. I was with her the night we met.” Lydia shook her head and laughed. “She practically had to drag me to that club. It was the first time I'd been out in years.”

“Why is that?”

Lydia hesitated. “I was married.” She waved her ring-less left hand. “But now divorced.”

“Children?”

She quickly shook her head. She’d wanted children. God, how she had wanted them. But she’d been unable to have any.

“And you and your former husband didn't go out when you were married?”

She focused back on Tristan. Going out with Douglas had meant attending tiresome social functions or equally mind-numbing parties at the homes of men like himself. Self-styled masters of the universe with their huge, extravagant homes and emaciated trophy wives.

“No, we didn't go out that much,” she said. “At least not to places like that club.”

Tristan leaned towards her, his hand just inches from hers. “I'm glad you decided to go there that night or else we might never have met.”

He said it so smoothly, so charmingly, that Lydia wondered if he was some kind of hustler looking for lonely, older women to prey upon. He certainly was good-looking enough to be a gigolo. She did have some money but certainly not enough to warrant the attention of someone as attractive him. With his stunning looks he could easily seduce women of greater means than she. And if he was some kind of gigolo, why had he been trolling a campus bar?

“Do you go to that bar often?” she asked. “Are you a student?” He could, at the very least, possibly be a grad student since he looked to be in his mid-twenties.

“Not a student and that was my first time in that bar. I'd gone out to see a movie and decided to stop in for a beer before heading home. I was about to leave but then I saw you.”

“Me?”

He smiled. “Don’t act so surprised. You were the loveliest woman in there. I’d been working up the nerve to approach you. Then I saw that creep harassing you.”

“And you stepped in and rescued me.”

His smile widened. “Something like that.”

“Like Sir Lancelot.”

“What's that?”

“Sir Lancelot? In the King Arthur stories? Elaine calls you that.”

“Does she?”

Lydia nodded. “Why were you in the store earlier?”

He moved his hand across the table. “I had ordered a ring.”

She looked down. On his ring finger was a huge silver ring. She leaned closer. “It’s a dragon.”

“Yes. The
Y Ddraig Goch
.”

“The what?”

He chuckled. “It's Welsh. It means
The Red Dragon
. It's on the national flag of Wales.”

Lydia looked closer at the ring. It was quite handsome and the dragon on it seemed to writhe angrily, its ruby-eyed gaze fierce.

“Are you Welsh?”

“In a manner of speaking. My...ancestors were from Wales.”

“What made you decide to buy the ring? If you don't mind my asking.”

“I don't mind you asking me anything, Lydia. But as to why I bought it…” He shrugged. “Let's just say that sometimes it's a good idea to look back to where one has come from in order to get a bearing as to where one needs to go.”

Lydia nodded. “I can relate to that.”

“Really? Why?”

“I guess because I'm sort of in that situation myself.”

“Because of your divorce?”

She nodded.

“How long were you married?”

She stared at him. If she told him she'd been married for almost twenty years what would he think? Would it only serve to emphasize the differences in their age? But what was the use of hiding the truth. She was older than he was. No use pretending that she wasn't.

Just as she was about to answer the toddler, who had escaped his mother's arms, stumbled and fell against the table she and Tristan were sitting at. Her mug flew off the table, the contents spilling onto her clothes. Fortunately her coffee had cooled so it didn’t burn her.

The toddler wailed from where he lay on the floor. His crying woke up the baby, who started howling.

Lydia swiftly knelt down and picked up the toddler. His big brown eyes swam with tears as he stared at her.

She closed her eyes, reveling in the warmth and scent of him as she gently patted his back. “There, there, sweetheart. You're all right. You're fine.”

“Lydia, were you burned?”

She looked over at Tristan. He was squatting next to her.

“No, I wasn’t. But he's had a bit of a fright.”

Tristan looked over at him. “Hey there, big guy.”

The toddler gave him a shy, watery smile. His mother, who had handed the squalling baby to her husband, moved next to Lydia.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’ve got yourself quite a handful,” Lydia replied, envy once again stabbing her heart.

The woman gave her a weary smile as she watched her husband put the baby back into the stroller. “That’s for sure.”

Lydia let go of the toddler. His mother picked him up and gestured for her husband to take hold of the stroller and the family was soon making its way out of the coffeehouse. Three middle-aged women sat down at the table they had vacated.

Lydia looked down at her clothes. Coffee stained the front of her slacks and her shirt. “Oh, dear.”

“My condo isn’t far,” Tristan said. “We could go there and you could use my washer and dryer.”

Lydia stared at him.
His condo? Now?
Could she trust him? Should she? Was she about to make one of those rash decisions her mother had accused her of making when she divorced Douglas.

His eyebrow quirked. “I have some things you can wear until your clothes are dry.” He held up his hand and grinned. “And I promise not to ravish you.”

She wasn’t sure if that was a promise she wanted him to keep necessarily. She hesitated as her mind ruffled through her options. She could just go home, but then she’d have to leave him, and she didn’t want to do that after having found him again. But she didn’t know him that well either. Go to his place. Be alone with him. Trust him. “I don't want to intrude.”

“You won't.” He took her hand. “Please, my lady, allow this humble knight to rescue you once more.”

Lydia smiled. “And how could any lady refuse such a gallant offer of assistance.”

Tristan helped her on with her jacket. She felt his hands rest on her shoulders for a moment. She shivered.

“Lead on, MacDuff,” she said in an overly bright voice, hoping to distract herself from the sensual yearnings stirring deep within her at the thought of going with him to his place.

Tristan laughed as he took her elbow and guided her towards the coffee shop's front door.

“What's so funny?” she asked as they stepped outside and she accompanied him down the sidewalk.

“It’s actually, 'Lay on MacDuff.' It's from the last act of
Macbeth
.”

Lydia's face warmed. “Oh, really? I didn't know that.”

He peered anxiously down at her. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to embarrass you.”

“Oh, no, you didn't. Not at all.” She shrugged. “I'd actually heard that line in some movie. At least I think I did. Is there more to it.”

“The passage?”

She nodded.

He still had his hand on her arm as he led her down the street. “It comes near the end of the play. Macbeth's goose is pretty much cooked. He's confronted by MacDuff, who has come to kill him. This is what Macbeth says in response:

'I will not yield,

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,

And to be baited with the rabble's curse.

Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,

And thou opposed, being of no woman born,

Yet I will try the last. Before my body

I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,

And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'

His voice took on a melodious ring as he spoke. When he was done, Lydia couldn’t help clapping. “That was wonderful.”

He grinned and bowed.

“You should be an actor.” A thought occurred to her. “Are you?”

“No. Not anymore. But I do love the theater.”

“Not anymore? Then you used to act?” He was so young she assumed it had to have been when he was in college.

“Yes. Once.”

She waited for him to say more but he didn’t. They soon arrived at one of the newly constructed high-rises downtown that housed what the newspaper had advertised as million-dollar condos.

“You live here?” she asked as they walked toward the entrance. He nodded and opened the huge glass doors that led into the spacious lobby.

She wondered if his family had money. He looked too young to have made the kind of money to afford a place like this. Or maybe he was one of those internet wunderkinds who made a trillion dollars in a year creating some app or software or some other technological doodad.

A gray-haired security guard sat at a circular station in the center of the lobby.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Drake.” The guard then looked at Lydia, his eyes lingering on her coffee-stained pants and shirt. He discreetly drew his eyes away and looked back at Tristan.

“Afternoon, George,” Tristan said. “How's the family?”

“The wife’s got that stomach flu that’s been going around. Spent all last night worshipping at the porcelain altar. Then the diarrhea on top of it.” He mournfully shook his head,