Louder Than Love (32 page)

Information Dissemination

Grant’s bomb sat ticking in my chest as I sat in my living room, surrounded by the ticking of time.

Washed-up junkie. Has-been. Not the only one.

Bad enough Adrian had had to endure Grant’s barbs and misleading sexual rumor-mongering that day; he had had to come home to my neuroses. For every time he opened himself to me, I had rattled my cages shut. No wonder he let our relationship give up the ghost . . . because I hadn’t trusted it enough to let my ghosts go.

I stared at the magazine and at the picture of Rick. I remembered my promise to Adrian, how I would try to find his childhood friend. It was time to step into his world.

Rick Rottenberg, aka Riff Rotten, consider yourself researched.

I worked fervently through the evening, one hand scrolling through LexisNexis while the other scrawled as many leads as I could find on a legal pad. It turned out Rick’s paper trail was far easier to find and follow than Adrian’s had been. Then again, Adrian had given me a lot of fuel to find Rick.

“Go Gang Green” was a slogan for the Oregon Ducks. Why would an aging rock star wear a college team’s T-shirt . . . unless his kid went to school there?

• Son Paul = Natalie’s age (twenty)
  
• No Rick, Richard, Paul, or Simone Rottenberg in the Oregon directories. (It would have been ironic had my brother’s idol been living mere miles from him.)
  
• Maybe they’re listed under Simone’s maiden name?
  
• 1982
  New York Times
  wedding announcements: Simone Banquet
  
• Nothing under the name Banquet. Divorced?
  

I turned back to the magazine to see if I could spot a wedding band on Rick and reread the last line:
Until I see a death certificate for one of them . . .

• Simone: Twenty in 1982, DOB 1962. Adrian said she was American. Check Social Security Death Index.
  

Oh, poor Simone.

It had to be her. Died in 1994. Last known address: Hanalei, Kauai, HI 96714

• No Rottenbergs listed in Hawaii directories. No Banquets.
  

I had hit a dead end. Back to the Oregon Trail.

• U of O student directory: Paul Banquet, junior. Major: Nanoscience.
  

Could it be? Only one way to find out. I shot an e-mail off to him.

“Mommy, I found these.”

Abbey was clutching her Father’s Day crafts in her fists. Someone had been snooping in my room. Adrian didn’t take them that day. He also never cashed the check from the library, according to the inquisitive phone message Gwen had left earlier that day.

“I know, sweetie. He forgot them when he rode his bike to the station.” I fingered the paper tie that proclaimed her acrostic poem for him.

“Doesn’t he want them?”

“I think deep down . . . he does.”

“Can we mail them?” Her look was so genuine and so hopeful that nodding was all I could do to keep from crying.

Date: Thursday, August 19, 2004 2:05 p.m.

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Friend of Digger Graves

To: [email protected]

My dad is the Rick Rottenberg you are looking for. He doesn’t believe in e-mail. But I speak with him daily, and depending on his mood, he may be receptive to talking to you. I will pass along your number.

PB

The call did come, but not exactly as I had expected. I picked up the phone during dinner with Abbey and got an earful of Cockney curses. “How
dare
you harass my son and track him down at school? If I had a dollar for every reporter who tried to worm their way in—”

I quickly moved to another room. “I’m not a reporter . . . just a really good researcher. I’m a friend of Adr . . . Doug Graves. Digger.”

“Dandy. I am sure Billy No-Mates needs all the friends he can get. Please refrain from—”

“Wait . . .
að blanda blóði saman
. The blood oath. I know about that. And the misericorde. Please don’t hang up.”

There was a silence. I held my breath and prayed. “You are quite the wealth of information, aren’t you?”

“Just a librarian with a really good memory. He said your last words to him were ‘See you in hell, me old China.’”

“Now
that
I don’t remember. But I’ve been told I have a flair for the dramatic.” I heard a clinking of what sounded like ice into a glass. I pictured him pouring himself a fistful of fingers’ worth of scotch over those rocks in preparation for the rest of our conversation. “So, Katrina. Care to catch me up on the last sixteen years?”

“You can call me Kat. And in all honesty . . . Adrian—he goes by Adrian now—he came into my life four months ago.” Saying it out loud made it seem so insignificant, and therefore even less possible. Could it really only have been four months? Did it really happen at all? Some nights I have dreams that span longer periods of time. “Corny as it sounds, I feel like we’ve lived a lifetime together.” I ignored Rick’s snort and plowed on, thinking of what Adrian might want him to know. “He’s been clean for over a decade. He’s still making music, some great music. More for himself and for those around him than for mass public consumption . . .” I chose my words carefully. “He’s found some peace with his past, and love . . .” I swallowed hard. “I know he’s still hurting, though. He feels a lot was left unsaid with you . . . with Simone. He shared a lot with me . . . but I know there are some things he wants to tell you, and you alone. I told him a while back I would try my best to find you.”

“A for effort, luv,” came his gruff reply.

“God, I know this must seem out of left field. A complete stranger out of the blue telling you things about you that you yourself haven’t thought of in years—”

“Who says I haven’t thought of them? Who says I don’t spend each day of my life wondering what I could have done differently? If Simone were still . . . You know about Simone, I’m assuming? Stomach cancer. Ticked her off your tidy little research list, I reckon?” His voice was caustic, causing me to cringe.

“Yes . . . I . . . He doesn’t know. I can say I . . . I know how you . . . I lost my husband four years ago. I still flounder, lost at sea daily.”

Rick backed down a bit, his voice resuming its normal octave. “It doesn’t get any better after ten years, I’m sorry to say.” We both paused to reflect on this. “Have you ever been here?”

“Where’s here?”

“Hawaii, Miss Marple.” He chuckled. “Here on the island of Kauai, there’s a beach called Polihale. It’s the westernmost point in the United States, actually. Miles and miles of beach, mostly deserted; there’s no swimming or surfing there, as the currents are just fierce. Simone and I were on holiday, right after that blasted last tour finished. I stood on that beach for, I don’t know, hours it seemed. It’s got these incredible sand dunes, like a hundred feet high, and in the distance you can see the beginning of the cliffs of the Na Pali.”

“It sounds incredible.”

“It’s the kind of place that makes one realize how insignificant one really is in the grand scheme of things. Pulled my ego down a few pegs and got my priorities in line straightaway. We relocated here with the children shortly after; family became my number-one priority, and it still is to this day. After Simone died, I went off of my head. The locals talked about the powerful Polihale heiau just north of the beach, a sacred site. It is believed to be one of the points from which the souls of the dead depart the island into the setting sun. It sounded so beautiful, so peaceful. I wanted to go and die there, to travel with her. The kids were the only things holding me back.”

“My daughter, too, she was the only thing that kept me sane.” I curled my legs up under me and switched ears. Abbey was eating ravioli and singing a song to herself in the kitchen.

“How old?”

“She’s turning five soon. Adores Adrian. He’s so good with her.” It took an effort to stay in the present tense.

“Really. I remember his Natalie at five. Damn shame. I hope he’s managed to salvage that wreck of a relationship.”

“He’s been trying.” Silence buzzed through the line.

“So if I call him . . . it’s not going to spell instant reunion of the band. Just so we’re clear.”

“I think you’re of the same mind on that front.”

***

The phone cut through my dreams the next night. Twelve thirty a.m.
Please. Just let it be him.
I picked up the phone and tried my best to mask my startled and sleepy salutation as one that exuded casual and confident. “Hi?”

“Where did you say you and Digger met again?” It was Rick.

I rolled onto my side. “I don’t think I did say. At the library.”

“The library, seriously?” He laughed.

“It was a case of mistaken identity, I suppose.” I yawned.

“The phone numbers you gave me, luv. They’re both out of service.”

My heart sank into the futon mattress, where I could feel it struggling to beat. “Shit.” I couldn’t help it. I was so tired. The tears came too easily. “Damn him.”

“Ah, luv.” Something was being poured into a glass. “How did it end? Did you piss him off, fuck him off, scare him off?”

“The hell if I know. He never let me in on the punch line.”

“I’m so sorry you’re sad, luv.” And he sounded as if he truly was.

“I was sad. Now I’m more angry than anything. How could he just remove himself like that? Why was it so easy to walk away?”

“Because it’s easy to live with your eyes closed . . .”

“And to misunderstand what you see,” I automatically replied before I knew what I was doing. I saw Adrian in my mind’s eye, leaping over the Imagine mosaic and into my heart.

“The problem with Digger is that everything was always so black-and-white with him. He was never able to accept the gray matter. Either the hero or the victim . . . he couldn’t seem to find a way to exist in between. He’s always been like that, since I’ve known him. Hero to victim in three seconds flat.”

I pondered that for a moment. If I had been beyond fighting for, did that mean I was the enemy?

“Got a pen, luv?” I scrambled through my bedside table drawer to find one, and took down the digits he dictated. “If you talk to him . . . you can pass him this number. You take care, now.”

Handle with Care

Dear Adrian,

I once told you how proving something didn’t exist was infinitely harder than proving something did exist. Well, you haven’t replied to any of my e-mails or my calls, so I guess my theory has been blown out of the water—you have proved there are things that really don’t exist. I thought we had stumbled upon something, the two of us. And that we were beginning to explore it together. But as the days go by and the silence in this house becomes unbearable, I am convinced there must’ve never been anything there. And I can’t continue to exhaust my resources trying to prove it otherwise.

Here is something that is real: your friend Rick. He’d like you to call him. And Abbey wanted you to have these.

There’s been enough grief. I wish you only joy.

Kat

I closed the letter with Rick’s phone number, slipped it into Abbey’s handmade card, and placed it in a small box with the pencil holder she had made. With a heavy heart, I worked Adrian’s ring over my knuckle and dropped it into the container.
WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE,
it twinkled its reminder at me once more as I reached for the packing tape.

“Anything fragile, perishable, or potentially hazardous?” the postal worker asked as she reached to take the box that now contained my hopes, dreams, and fears about the future.

All I could do was shake my head and let it go.

A Man Said to the Universe

A man said to the universe:

“Sir, I exist!”

“However,” replied the universe,

“The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation.”

— Stephen Crane

Better Man

“Soho. Rhymes with
ho-ho
.”

“And don’t forget
yo-yo
.”

Abbey and I were playing games as we walked toward Luke’s photography gallery. We hadn’t strolled together on a city block since July Fourth. It was on my mind, but I hoped it wasn’t on hers.

“Wooster. Rhymes with . . .
rooster
!” she crowed triumphantly, pointing at the street sign.

“Now that’s a silly but good one.”

“Silly . . . rhymes with
Philly
!”

Abbey was excited to see Unkie Luke and the rest of my in-laws, but she was especially excited to travel with Pete’s parents to their house in Philadelphia after the opening. They were both high school teachers and they enjoyed spending the last week of their vacation each year with their only granddaughter.

“Here’s Spring . . . rhymes with?” I prompted.

“Spring!
Ring
and
sing
 . . .”

The scent hit us both, seemingly at the same time. Peppery, with a hint of bergamot. Maybe basil.

“Spring Street smells like Adrian,” Abbey said matter-of-factly.

My head had jerked up, pivoting around to every quadrant in search of him. “Oh, look.” I pointed to Molton Brown, a shop well known for their luxurious grooming products. “That must be where Adrian buys his cologne.”

It’s amazing how a simple scent can heighten all the senses. One whiff and I was lost. My eyes wanted to search for him; I longed to hear his voice. And the thought of his touch ignited me. A thousand memories and moods flooded my mind.

The large double
L
sign ahead was like a beacon. I ushered Abbey into the cool confines of Luke’s gallery. All year long he had exhibits and installations of photographers from around the globe, but it was the first time he had the entire place filled with his own work.

We were immediately enveloped by Veronica and Ben, my in-laws. Several other relatives and friends of the Lewis family were on hand as well. Kimon and Luke both looked suave and artsy in crisp white buttoned shirts and linen khakis. They each took Abbey by a hand and led her toward a display of color shots from the trip to the Cloisters and large black-and-whites from their Cape May weekend.

Liz had arrived through the back door, a covered tray of food in her hands. “Tree? A hand, please?” I helped her slide the mammoth tray onto a long table and followed her down the long hallway to the service door. “I brought an assistant,” she announced, stepping aside and allowing me to peer out the square of mesh wired glass.

Adrian was slouching and smoking against the open back end of her catering van, cigarette barely leaving his lips as he puffed anxiously. I jumped away from the window before he could spot me. “How in the hell . . . ?”

She shook her bob of red hair, a small smirk on her lips. “He was waiting at the shop when I arrived this morning. What a sight.”

“Was he . . . high?”

“Drunk. Tenacious. Tearful.” She began a one-woman dialogue alternating between a British accent worse than Marissa’s and her own fly girl–speak. “He got up in my face with ‘I know you didn’t approve of me, but,’ and I was like, ‘Get out of town,’ and then he was all, ‘Just tell me wot I need to do to get ’er back. I don’t give a flying monkey’s wot she did.’ And I go ‘What
she did
? You’re delusional if you think she did anything but love you, warts and all!’ And he was like, ‘Come again?’ So then I got Doom Boy some coffee, sobered him up, and told him he was coming with me.” She smiled proudly.

“Does he know it’s me . . . that I’m here?”

“He’s about to.”

Before I could protest, Liz pushed open the door and marched toward him. He barely reacted as she went through the motions of scolding him for smoking near the food. I watched the scene play out like a comical silent movie as she plucked the cigarette from his fingers, smoked the rest of it, and directed him to grab another tray of food to bring in. He did as he was told. And found himself face-to-face with me.

“You can bring it right in to the table here.” I tried to keep my voice even.

I turned quickly, not wanting to linger on his shocked expression for fear it might morph into something even more unfamiliar to me. The corridor felt as endless as a cathedral aisle. I could feel his eyes on me as my heels clicked manically, but I didn’t dare turn to look or speak any more. He deposited the tray as he was instructed. I watched his hands, normally so dexterous and assured, shake slightly. The Shakespeare ring was back on his left pinky finger.

“You’re drunk again,” I said softly.

“And you’re still beautiful.”

I felt my heart surge with love, even as it was breaking apart. I had dreamed of him before I met him and had fallen for him the moment he had stumbled into the library that April day.

“Tree, is everything okay? Do you know this guy?” Luke had left Abbey admiring the photographs with Kimon and warily approached us. Behind him, the quizzical faces of my extended family looked on.

“Oh, she knows me. But do I know
her
? And do you?” He gulped a half laugh. “Ah, Kat. And Schrödinger’s cat.” He poked a stunned Luke in the chest. “Are you in a superposition of states? Are you alive or dead? Do
you
even know?”

“Quantum physicist?” I heard my father-in-law ask Liz.

“No. Rock star,” came Liz’s stage-whispered reply.

The entire room was staring at the scene now, the art forgotten. Kimon and Abbey rounded the corner, and stopped in their tracks. I tried to keep my voice calm and controlled. “Everyone, excuse me. Give us a minute. Please.” To Abbey, I said, “Stay here, baby. I’ll be right back.” She said nothing, just gaped at Adrian as I pulled him into Luke’s office.

Staying calm was not working; I was so relieved to see him, I wanted to cry, to yell, to push him and hold him all at once. “Tell me what made you feel you had to rip apart my life and my daughter’s life all over again? After all we had lost! What possessed you?”

He immediately began pacing the small room, hand running through his hair. “I did what I thought was best, but it killed me to walk away from you.”

“Best?
Best?
Putting Abbey and myself on a train home that day was the
worst
thing I’ve had to go through since . . . since . . .” Tears strangled my words.

“Since what, Kat? I don’t
fucking
know because you wouldn’t ever tell me!” He punched his heaving chest in emphasis.

“Since Pete died! He got on a goddamn train and left me!” I thought of the bullet holes engraved across his heart, hidden from view. I felt each word rip through both of us, riddling us with the sorrow, the knowledge . . . the burden and the relief. “And then . . . and then you left me,” I choked out quietly, my hands finding my face.

“I had to. After seeing you that day. With him.” I jerked my hands away to stare at him. Biting his lip, he continued. “England, my family . . . the bloody fans and press coming out of the woodwork, they all mucked about with my head, and I missed you so terribly. I wanted to whisk you away somewhere beautiful and peaceful. I wanted to show Abbey the Cloisters. Even without crenellations, it’s the most castlelike, amazing place in the city. And there are these unicorn tapestries there, they tell a story of a creature in captivity. The poor beast has magical powers, does great things, and
everyone
wants a piece of him. They hunt him down. Trick him and attack him. Destroy him! Does that sound like anyone you know?” His voice gained a hard edge. “In the end, he is miraculously reborn. I wanted to show you that. But you refused to meet me and you wouldn’t tell me why. But there you were,” he spat. “With him. And the three of you looked so goddamned happy.”

“I can explain—”

“
Now
you can explain? I
never
forced you to talk about Pete. I used to see the bleedin’ picture every day I entered your damn house; I tried to make peace with the fact I was competing with a ghost. I tried to be there for you, but you refused to be pried open. Time, you said to give you time. And I did, because I thought you loved me like I loved you and we would have all the time ahead of us. Then I leave for three weeks and you bring a bloody carbon copy of him into the picture?”

Picture.

I calmly, quietly walked behind the desk and picked up a frame. Putting it in his hands, I then turned to walk to the window, my back to him.

It was my wedding picture. I could see it in my mind’s eye. Smiling with Pete, surrounded by my parents and Kevin, Pete’s mom, dad, and Luke. The photo was almost a decade old. Luke was scrawnier back then, perhaps with a bit more hair, but other than that, he looked the same . . . and so much like Pete.

“His brother. Luke. The three of us spend every July Fourth together. Pete’s birthday. This party . . . it’s Luke’s engagement party. His partner, his parents, Abbey . . . they’re all in the next room. But I’m going to stay in here with you until you hear what I have to say.”

I turned. Adrian seemed rendered speechless. He put the picture down. Picked it up again, put it back down.

“I opened my heart to you . . . but not my heartbreak. I was afraid, so I kept it private. To deal with on my own. Because I do love you . . . but I am always going to have moments when I miss him. And when I miss him, I am not the same person you know. So, yes, I am probably as flawed as you feel everyone else in your life is. That’s life! I never wanted to be your saint!”

I was crying now, and he was, too, as we locked in a tangle of arms and long-overdue kisses.

“You.” His voice shook. “You are the best thing that ever could have happened to me. When I thought I had lost you, I realized everything else I had been mourning for, that I thought I had lost—a good relationship with Natalie, my career—it had all been synthetic. Those things are still there in front of me, and I can do something about them if I try hard enough.” I felt his lips on my temple, and the warmth of his well-worn ring as it found my finger once again. “You and Abbey were the real thing, what mattered most. I know what we are. And you’ve shown me, Kat. It really is harder to prove something doesn’t exist.”

My arms encircled him, pulling him closer. “I saw you,” I softly stated, “in those tapestries. Digger
and
Adrian. Abbey and I fell in love with that amazing creature. We were so sad for him, we wanted to protect him. But in the end, we knew he’d be okay.” I smiled and ran my hands up his arms.

“Captured, but okay.” He smiled back. It was then I noticed two fresh tattoos.

“Ah, yes. During my period of self-imposed house arrest. Too afraid I’d be a danger to myself if I went out. Luckily, my tattoo artist makes house calls.”

I traced the cat. She had green eyes and was sitting serenely on his left bicep, wearing a key of gold around her neck. Trailing behind her was a smaller striped cat, one with wings. Her tiny paws splayed jauntily, midflight. In her mouth she carried a tiny heart. In true macabre Digger fashion, it wasn’t a cartoon heart, but a small-scale replica of a real one, valves and all.

“You’ve got the key to my heart,” he said. “And then Abbey stole the whole blasted thing.”

Ana’s man with the “bag of needles” had done an amazing job.

I sighed and smiled with relief. Adrian leaned back to look me in the eye. “I’m going to LA in two weeks. I called Rick. We talked for hours. He’s flying in from Hawaii, and we’re going to see if we can get back some of that old magic. All thanks to you.”

“That’s great!” I was truly happy to hear that, although butterflies of terror beat their wings at my heart. It was like looking into the bottom of a black mug and not being able to see what was coming next.
That’s life,
my mind echoed.

“I don’t want you to leave my side till I go. Come stay with me in the city. Bring Abbey, too.” He smiled at the sound of her name.

“Abbey spends this week with my in-laws. It helps me—all of us—get through September first.”

Adrian gripped my hands, exactly like he had that first day we met. I remembered his words that first time:
Bloody hell, Kat.
He had been ready to jump into the trenches that day, without even hearing my war story. He was a fighter, and he was a victor. He had conquered a lot of demons in his lifetime, alone and with me by his side. It was time I gave him—and myself—the same chance and courtesy. I fixed my eyes on his. No looking away, no looking back.

“Pete was my world. No matter where we were, when I was with him, I was
home
. Everything synched; everything made sense. Together we created this life, this great, great life. And just when I thought it couldn’t possibly be more perfect, we
created life
. Abbey. I couldn’t imagine her before her existence, how perfectly complete she would make us. How I could look at her and love Pete more than I already did. But one year. That’s all we had, the three of us. That hectic newborn first year, and there was no time to even tell him all of this. Because I was tired and I thought I’d have all the years in our lives to tell him.”

I watched as Adrian swallowed hard. His thumb spun the ring on my finger by nervous habit as he continued to hold my hands.

“It was a train wreck. Caused by a heat buckle in the tracks: a sun kink. A lot of people . . . were okay. But I knew . . . I knew he wasn’t going to be one of them. Like your blood oath story, like Ingeborg knew about Hjalmar the minute she saw his ring.” He gathered me into his arms, like he had that hungover morning in my kitchen after Marissa’s party. I recalled the thoughts I had held back from sharing then. Of the glass vessel, slowly turning, without end. “My world shattered, Adrian. Everything that made sense imploded.” I thought of my friends and family, Abbey. Everyone gathered around me, trying to sooth and smooth my jagged edges. “My mind, my body . . . everything was in shards, felt sharp. Dangerous. I didn’t dare touch anybody or let myself be touched.”

“My desert flower,” he whispered, and I nodded. His fingers were on the hollows of my cheeks, touching my lips as I spoke. I leaned into his caress and closed my eyes as the tears began.