Louder Than Love (6 page)

“Yes . . . pigtails in the front?”

“Do you talk for Maxwell in the show? Your voice sounds like him.”

“No . . . I just wrote the opening song.”

“Do you know if Maxwell escapes from the Wild Bird Hospital today?” Abbey persisted. My child obviously inherited her maternal grandmother’s interrogation skills.

“Honestly, I don’t,” Adrian admitted, thoughtfully strumming his guitar. He looked desperate to begin playing and stop talking. “But I bet he finds a way out; he always does.” With a wink, he rolled right into the Maxwell theme song. “Feel free to get up . . . dance about,” he murmured.

Marissa leaned close. “Sexy man, entertaining our children.” I breathed a sigh of relief. Many of the kids were up and dancing in their spots . . . so far, so good. I found my eyes gravitating toward his fingers as he formed various bar chords with ease. He wore no wedding ring, only a thick silver band around his left pinky. I instantly chastised myself with the reminder that this was a cultural opportunity for the local children, not a vehicle for jump-starting my own sad social life.

“Awright, I was saving that for my encore,” he joked as he wrapped up that first song, “but it made a good icebreaker.” He took a sip from the bottle of water I had supplied for him. “Now . . . how about a request from the audience, a sing-along, perhaps?”

The kids suddenly all went shy, peeking out from behind their hands. Karen, sitting on the floor next to her toddler, got the ball rolling by raising her hand and suggesting Jasper’s favorite song, “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider.”

“Erm, yes but . . . that one’s a bit naff, isn’t it? How about a song about another spider? One named . . . Boris?” He began to pluck at the lower strings of his guitar, and pretty soon he had all the kids calling out the creepy crawly chorus of the Who’s obscure song. Even Karen, shocked at first by his rebuff, was singing along. I couldn’t believe he was really pulling it off. More kids and parents, lured by the sounds emanating from the programming room, came in and sat. Dylan had abandoned his Game Boy and was staring, fascinated, as Adrian did a few Pete Townshend–esque pinwheels on his guitar for effect.

In keeping with the animals theme, he launched into a song I remembered from my own childhood, “At the Zoo” by Simon and Garfunkel. Another interesting choice, especially considering the line about the zookeeper’s fondness for rum. Leanna leaned over and whispered, “Yeah, the zookeeper’s not the only one.” I gave her a raised eyebrow and a smirk but said nothing.

The man of the hour was beginning to look less drunk and more relaxed as he sailed through one song after another. He handed out the egg shakers, and the kids formed a conga line for “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song).” He even had the kids from Rainbow moving and shaking eggs and singing. I loved how he began to change the words on the fly. “Stand on one foot and stick out your tongue . . .” The kids were happy to oblige. “Dance like a monkey, and talk on the phone . . .” Gwen was in the doorway with a wide smile of approval on her face.

For his final song of the hour, Adrian had the kids play a guessing game, asking them what number he was thinking of between one and twenty. “Right then, Dylan. Your prize is accompanying me on tambourine for my final song. I was thinking of the number three. And why three, you may ask? Well, because three . . . is a magic number.”

I found myself having to step out of the room for a moment to compose myself. Pete and I, both children of the seventies, had grown up with fond memories of Saturday morning cartoons and
Schoolhouse Rock!
This was a song we had sung to Abbey from the time she was in utero. A song I hadn’t actually thought of in years but, from the moment he began the first verse, sent the memories and visions flooding back. After several deep breaths, I was able to slip back in and catch him singing the final line.
“A man and a woman had a little baby, yes they did . . .”

He was singing barely above a whisper, but his lips were communing with the microphone in a way that made it almost like an extension of his body. His eyes were turned down as he warbled:
“They had three in a family . . . and that’s a magic . . . number.”
I listened to him hold that last note as if he were trying to prolong some sort of magic himself, perhaps an enchantment he alone experienced while he was up there performing. Then I happened to notice all of the audience members over the age of twelve were, like me, holding their breath. And all of those under twelve were staring, completely enraptured, until someone started applauding, and then, simultaneously, the spell was broken for both the entertainer and the entertained.

The kids began swarming around Adrian. I watched him shaking hands, grinning, and slapping high fives. One mother walked up and hugged him, much to his amazement. “My son hasn’t spoken or smiled in five months.” Her voice choked with emotion. “Now he is singing. Thank you.” She looked fondly at her son, a heavyset boy of about ten, who was still waving an egg shaker and singing, “Day-O! Da-a-a-y-o.”

“That was truly awesome,” I told Adrian when I was able to get within earshot. “Thank you.”

“It was fun, my pleasure.” Parents and kids began filing past us like a demented wedding receiving line, thanking both of us and shaking our hands.

“So you wouldn’t mind signing some CDs for the kids, then?”

“Sure, sure.” He hastily zipped his guitar case and joined the group of kids crowding around the table as I passed out copies of his music. Gwen brought him a Sharpie marker, and he went to work.

“Thank you thank you, Mommy, that was the best!” Abbey trilled, dancing around me and grabbing my hands. She was one of the last to finally fall into line and have her CD signed. “It’s spelled
A
-
B
-
B
-
E
-
Y
, with an
E
, like the Beatles album,” she informed Adrian. She had heard me recite this same line of explanation to people many a time.

“Ah yes,
Abbey Road
. I know the album—and the road—well.” I stationed myself near the door to see people out but kept one ear listening to their exchange.

“My dad liked the Beatles, but then he passed out.”

“She means passed on,” Joey supplied. “Passed
on
, Abb, not passed out.”

“Hey.” Marissa placed her hand on my shoulder. “I’ve got to get Brina to her T-ball game. How about I take Abbey with us so you can finish up here? You can swing by later to get her.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” I glanced over at Abbey. She was quoting Maxwell lines to Adrian and doing her best cat impression.

“Have you ever been to Mousehole?” she was asking him.

“Yes, indeed I have. It’s a real fishing village on the south coast of Cornwall, very lovely.” I liked the way he considered each of her questions, no matter how far out of left field they seemed, and gave her legitimate answers.

“Do I mind? Come on!” my best friend scoffed. “I love your daughter. She nicknamed me after salty soy soup and I
still
love her! Go on. Take him to dinner or something.”

“Or something,” Leanna chided, much more wickedly than Marissa had intended it. Leanna had an uncanny way of pulling naughty thoughts out of your head you didn’t know were there. I always thought she had missed her calling as the next Dr. Ruth. Or a dominatrix. He was entering earshot range, so I gave them both the stink-eye.

“Adrian, this is Marissa and Leanna. Oh, and Karen.” She had just come over with a wiped out–looking Jasper in her arms to say good-bye.

“Nice to meet you . . . that was fabulous!” Marissa enthused. “Truly the best thing I have ever witnessed at this library. Not that I come here a lot. Only when Tree drags me here. But seriously, so great.” I rolled my eyes at her, and she took the hint. “Okay, off to the T-ball fields. Abbey, you’re coming with us, honey.” Abbey came running over to give me a kiss.

“Good-bye, Adrian Graves,” she said solemnly.

“Cheers, Abbey-with-an-
E
Lewis.” They shook hands.

“Bye, Tree. I’ll talk to you soon. Nice to meet you, Adrian.” Leanna waved. She and Karen walked out together with their kids, leaving me and Adrian and a bunch of chairs pushed all willy-nilly.

“I’ll give you a ride back down to the train,” I offered as I busied myself straightening the room back to its original order. Without fail, every time I found myself within five feet of a man in close quarters, my mind would race to the point of virtual incoherence. Like with Grant in his car last week, and now with Adrian. After living exclusively with a four-year-old for so long, my small talk was limited and my flirting mechanism had rusted up beyond belief.

He began to help me push the tables back to their original spots, apparently not too keen on much conversation either. “You don’t have to do that,” I assured him, but he didn’t pay me much mind. “Listen, you were really great with the kids today. Sorry I doubted you.”

“I’m sorry I gave you a reason to. In all honesty, I was nervous as hell playing and needed a couple of drinks to steady my nerves. I haven’t played in front of anyone in a long time.” He rubbed his temple. “A
really
long time.”

Gwen breezed in, gushing with compliments and waving a check cut from the programming budget for Adrian. I watched as he slipped it into his back pocket without so much as a glance at it and nodded his thanks. Then I hustled him out before Gwen could begin her usual tirade about how my talents could really be of use around the branch full-time. I quoted the train timetable as an excuse, and we escaped onto Main Street as the late afternoon sun began to dip behind the buildings.

Fight or Flight

There is something inherently cool about a guy walking down the street with a guitar case in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Especially on our sleepy little Main Street. He had lit up immediately upon leaving the library, which didn’t surprise me since his singing voice had that nicotine-laced tone.

I was secretly glad my car was not parked right out back, as it was pretty thrilling to walk with him. There was a feeling of innocent camaraderie as we fell into an equal pace. As we passed the antique shop, I caught sight of Grant standing inside, broom in hand, watching us. Jake had not been present at the program, and I wondered if Grant had even bothered to mention it to his son’s mom.

“Here we are.” I touched Adrian’s arm to indicate where my car was, enjoying the contrast between his soft cotton shirt under my fingers and his solid biceps.

“Smashing color,” Adrian complimented as he stashed his guitar behind the seats and climbed into my Mini Cooper. When it had come time to buy the little bulldog of a car, I had gone with the electric blue/white top combination, figuring I would never lose it in the mall parking lot.

“Thanks . . . Marissa’s husband, Rob, calls it my Smurf.” I laughed.

“My first car was a 1975 Mini 850 in British racing green. Loved that little gem.” We both reached for the automatic window buttons that resided in the middle of the dash and our fingers collided. The electric zing of physical contact reverberated through my hand and made a beeline right for my pleasure points. As Leanna would say . . .
holy crow
. If pheromones actually existed, mine were out of Rip Van Winkle mode and ready to make up for lost time. It took all of my faculties to remember how to put the car in drive.

“I like the feel of your town, how it isn’t too posh,” he commented as I waited at the light to hang a U-turn. “So many small towns in the States seem homogenized by the influx of yuppies and Starbucks opening on every corner.”

“We’ve managed to keep a lot of the charm. Although it has definitely changed since I was a kid. I love that it’s far enough from the city to not have the trash and overcrowding, but close enough to have many of its perks: a diverse ethnic population, cultural outlets . . .” I cringed, fearing I sounded too much like a tour guide. “Oh . . . and the best Thai food in the tri-state area.”

“Oh, nothing beats this little Thai place I know on 48th,” Adrian insisted. I knew exactly which place he was referring to, as it had been my favorite in Manhattan as well. “How about we grab dinner,” he suggested when I respectfully disagreed with his opinion, “so I can judge for myself? The trains are plentiful, despite what you told your boss.”

“Ugh, bite your tongue . . . that woman is
not
the boss of me! I volunteer at the library, so technically, I don’t really work there. I lied about you having to catch your train because she has the tendency to talk and talk and not shut up.” Realizing I must’ve sounded like the pot calling the kettle black, I cut myself off by simply nodding and throwing the car into park in front of Saigon Spice.

The restaurant was cozy and inviting, with dark walls and a plethora of bamboo accents. Adrian escorted me to a corner table and went so far as to pull the chair out for me. His display of chivalry was certainly making up for the crude potty talk he had begun our acquaintance with. In fact, the dim and sophisticated atmosphere, coupled with his soft-spoken demeanor, made him seem like a different person altogether.

I ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio, relishing the opportunity to be out at a restaurant that did not have crayons and butcher paper on the table. Adrian pulled a pair of reading glasses seemingly out of nowhere and began to study the extensive menu. He decided on the panang curry chicken and a Singha beer. I debated but ended up with my usual favorite, pad Thai.

Our drinks were delivered and we were left on our own, no menus to hide behind. “So, um . . . what part of England are you from?”

He took a swig of his beer. The thick silver ring encircling his pinky gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight. It had some lettering etched on it that I couldn’t decipher from across the table. “Hampshire . . . about two hours from Londontown, southeast. Until seventeen . . . then I moved to London with my two best mates.”

“And how long have you called New York home?”

He had to think for a moment. “I was in and out of the States a bit for work,” he began slowly. “Mostly in the eighties. I moved here permanently in 1994, so . . . crikey, it’s been ten years!” He swished the remainder of his beer around in the bottle. “Imagine that,” he added, more to himself than to me.

“So how did the whole Maxwell MacGillikitty song thing happen for you? Have you done any other jingles for TV?”

A nervous bark of a laugh flew out of his mouth, followed by a more subdued but still amused titter. “No, no . . . not my scene at all. My cousin . . . he works for the BBC and was involved in the development of the show. I think it was around 1998, we were down the pub, boozing it up on one of my visits home. He was telling me all about this brilliant kids’ show and this cat, so for a laugh, I started throwing out silly song lyrics. Before I knew it, I had an offer from the producers to submit a song, so I figured, what the heck, I’d have a go.”

He leaned forward then, elbows on the table and arms crossed. “So Katrina—”

“My friends call me Tree.”

He smiled. “I think I’ll call you Kat.”

I let out a laugh. “My grandma used to call me that. Okay. I’m fine with that.”

“Have you always lived here, Kat?”

“Born and raised here in Lauder Lake . . . moved to Manhattan at eighteen for school . . .” Neat and tidy short version or long and painful torturous version? I decided to go with the former. “. . . and moved back here with Abbey in 2000.”

I hadn’t really noticed his goatee until he began to rub it musingly. It was slightly darker than the hair on his head and started with a little soul patch under his bottom lip. I had never been a fan of much facial hair, but I decided I liked his.

“So . . . Abbey’s dad. He . . . he’s gone, then?”

“Just before her first birthday, yes. I . . . It’s hard to talk about it. We’re doing okay,” I managed.

Instead of the usual head-tilt/auto-reply of “I’msosorryforyourloss” people tended to offer before moving on to a safer topic, Adrian actually gripped both of my hands across the table, riveted his eyes on me, and murmured, “Bloody hell, Kat. How old was he?”

I let my hands be held as I answered, gazing at them intently. If I stared and didn’t blink or look away, I could possibly stave off the tears.

He shook his head, sighing. “Twenty-nine is no age. How do you go on?”

“There are times when my grip on reality gets slippery,” I admitted. I still couldn’t look up at him for fear I would lose control.
New topic,
my brain screamed. I concentrated on his fingers gripping mine. “Can I see your ring?” I asked, grazing my right pinky against the ring on his left.

“This? I’ve had it for yonks.” He slowly extricated his hands to pull off the ring and plunk it into my palm. “Picked it up in my travels somewhere.”

I
turned the band around to read it.
We know what we are
circled the outside. On the inside was inscribed
but know not w
hat we may be.
I recognized the quote from
Hamlet
. “It’s a nice thought . . . taken delightfully out of context,” I pointed out, sliding it back across the table to him.

“Oh?”

“Sure, considering Ophelia was a raving lunatic at that point.”

“I’m impressed.” He held the ring to his eye and looked through it as if it were a spyglass before slipping it back on. “No one I know has ever placed it.”

“Don’t be.” I laughed. “I was the understudy for Ophelia in our high school play. Never actually had to go through with it.”

Adrian ordered a second beer. “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, eh?” he joked.

“Always a playground instructor, never a killer,” I quipped back, raising my wine glass.

“Now wait . . . I know that one—Morrison?” He pointed his fork at me. “I can’t believe you quoted Shakespeare and the Doors in the same breath.”

“Yeah, I’m kind of a walking
Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations
. Probably why I became a librarian in the first place.”

“I must confess . . . when you wrote me and told me you were a librarian, I thought you would be much older.” I giggled, not daring to tell him I’d imagined he’d be much younger. “You know, that dowdy Marian the Librarian stereotype. You definitely shattered my expectations.”

I blushed. “It’s all right; it’s not the first time I’ve heard that.” Two matching hipster hairstyles bobbed past the window, and my neighbors Chuck and Kyle entered, waiting in the frosted glass vestibule to be seated. The restaurant had been steadily filling up while Adrian and I were busy chatting, but I had hardly noticed anything beyond our intimate table. “It took me a while to make my peace with it. I’d practically hide under bar stools in college when guys asked me about my major. You know, those types of questions that always come up on that first date.”

“Brits normally don’t use ‘So what do you do?’ as a breaking-the-ice kind of thing,” Adrian explained, draining half his beer in a smooth fluid swallow. “We’re too worried about sounding impolite. And it’s not terribly imperative in the grand scheme of things.”

“That’s actually refreshing to hear.” I dabbed my lips with my napkin and made a mental note not to ask what else he did besides sing about cats. “One thing I loved about my job was being able to find out about anything. I loved the challenge. Being able to prove the existence of something, that was cake. But having to prove something
didn’t
exist, well . . . that was infinitely harder.”

Adrian pondered that notion for several moments. I enjoyed watching his eyes, amused and intelligent, flicker across my face as he intently absorbed what I had to say. “I get that,” he mused, rolling up his sleeves as our entrees were brought out. Four black paw prints were tattooed on his arm in an uneven pattern, as if a cat had walked through paint and then tiptoed up his forearm. He saw me sneaking glances at them. “I’ve got a thing for cats, as you may have guessed. Osirus, a cat I had back home, inspired these.”

I proudly displayed my own feline-inspired ink, tilting out my right ankle for him to inspect. “My one and only. Inspired by an illustration from a children’s book,
Catwings
. By Ursula K. Le Guin. I got it with my first library paycheck, in fact.” I remembered my chipped toenail polish then and hastily pulled my foot back under the table. “It’s now one of Abbey’s favorite books. ‘Mrs. Jane Tabby could not explain why all four of her children had wings. “I suppose their father was a fly-by-night,”’” I recited, laughing. “It’s sweet and quirky.”

“Your Abbey seems sweet and quirky. How old is she again?”

“Four and a half. She’s a character! I marvel at her every day.” I couldn’t resist listing some of her unique qualities with pride. How she could draw for hours, with her favorite subject being rainbows and her medium of choice being the scented marker. How she had a love for seventies soul tunes and Christmas songs in June. “How about you, any children? Is Natalie your daughter?” I noticed a muscle twitch in his jaw and hoped I hadn’t tread into dangerous waters.

He contemplated an ear of baby corn that sat quivering on the tines of his fork. “That she is. I wanted to call her Chelsea after my favorite football club, but my ex wasn’t having it a bit.” He gave a short laugh. “So Natalie it was. My only child . . . twenty this year, believe it or not.”

“That’s nice you dedicated an album to her.”

“Well . . . I wasn’t around much when she was young . . . always working. Away a lot. I wasn’t too keen on writing letters, so I used to write her these songs. You know, just funny, queer little songs to make her laugh, and I would send tapes to her.” He sighed, fiddling with his ring. “The album was an homage, I suppose . . . but a little too late. We really have never had a close relationship. I was a bit taken aback, I guess, when you told me you had copies of it. Wherever did you find them?” I explained the secondhand store and he nodded. “I recorded the songs on the fly in a friend’s home studio. The resulting CD was never for sale or anything . . . I think I had to order a minimum of a hundred for the manufacturer to press it. This was before most people had the ability to burn CDs from home, of course. Spot of luck they—and I myself—fell into your hands.” He smiled a weary smile, the wrinkles around his eyes creasing like Asian paper hand fans. I wanted to reach out and trace the delicate lines with my fingertips, to flutter down his cheeks and across his lips. The urge hit me quick and sharp, dragging me back to my reality: longing and desire such strange bedfellows with sadness and loss. My hands remained in my lap.

“How’s the food?” I remembered to ask. He held up his hands over his spotless plate to admit defeat, and we both laughed. “I told you so! Would you like to try some of mine?”

“No, thank you, I am practically too podged to walk as it is! Everything was ace. Good call.” He discreetly signaled for the check. “Don’t you dare,” he cautioned as I reached for my wallet. “Please just humor this poor geezer, will you? I’m in your debt for getting me out of the city . . . hell, out of my flat! Left to my own devices, well . . . drunkenness would have been the order of the day, I reckon.” His tone was joking, but his eyes reinforced at least a modicum of truth in that statement.

“I’m glad I spared you from that.” I smiled. “Well, thank you. For agreeing to play this afternoon, and for dinner.”

The front vestibule was now three rows deep with eager diners waiting for empty tables. A hand rested tentatively yet somewhat protectively on the small of my back as we threaded through the crowd. I was glad Adrian was behind me so he couldn’t bear witness to the silly grin that insisted upon gracing my face.

Back in the car, we watched as the sea of briefcased commuters poured from the station toward Main Street. “If we hurry, you can make the 6:35.” I was suddenly very aware of the intimate quarters once again and had trouble finding the ignition with my key.