Beach Glass (32 page)

I shake my head. “No. If I call him now, I can cancel before he gets here.”

The front doorbell chimes, a sing-songy series of electronic bell tones. Bethy looks at me and smiles. “Too late,” she says. “For once, he’s right on time.”

I WAS RIGHT. Daniel is a stranger.

I look at the man sitting across the table from me, and I recognize him, yet I don’t. The Daniel I knew was boyishly cute, all scruff and bed head, jeans and sneakers and T-shirts and that cartoon mouse tattoo. The eternal college kid, a punk rock Peter Pan. And shy, almost completely lacking in confidence.

This man, this Daniel, is handsome. He’s older, nearly thirty now, but it’s not that he’s aged. He seems more mature. He’s decked out in Varvatos again, the rock world’s version of business attire, but tonight he’s wearing a dusty turquoise pinstriped shirt, a grey velvet blazer, dark grey slacks, and black leather boots. His hair is expertly shaggy, his face clean-shaven. And, I notice, he smells really good, like suede and a hint of some manly cologne.

Some things are the same. His eyes lift over his menu and meet mine. “Hey pretty Katy,” he says. Just the way he always used to.

I know I’m supposed to say
Hey Darniel
, my part of this game, but I can’t bring myself to do it. My smile is tight, and my eyes go quickly to the menu, but not before I miss the disappointment that flickers across Daniel’s face. In a quick save, I ask, “Is there anything here a vegan boy can eat?”

“My assistant called ahead,” he says, putting his menu aside. “You won’t have to sit through me quizzing the server for ten minutes and asking for all kinds of substitutions.”

Daniel has an assistant? The last time we sat down to dinner, Daniel
was
the assistant.

“You having the steak pizzaiola?” he asks, knowing exactly what I want. “And how about some wine?”

“Sure.” My eyes run down the wine list, knowing what Carson would choose, and I can almost hear his rich voice pronouncing the exotic names so perfectly. I push the list to Daniel. “You pick.”

“Mmm, quite a selection,” he says. “Should I use my patented Ouija Board method?”

I smile as this joke from our past surfaces and gently pushes aside my moments of anguish. “I find that method to be as reliable as any other I’ve seen.”

“Hey, let the spirits pick the spirits,” Daniel says. He closes his eyes, waves his finger in a small circle, and lets it land where it may on the list. He nods in satisfaction. “Oh,
excellent
choice.”

“What is it?”

He shrugs. “Hell if I know. It’s got a long French name, so it has to be good.”

I can’t remember the last time I giggled. It feels so nice.

Daniel shrugs off his jacket, and I see a hint of script on his wrist under the silver band of his watch. “Is that a new tattoo?” I reach over to push the cuff of his shirt back, but he pulls his arm away.

“Yeah,” he answers, “It’s nothing.”

I think to tease him about this, ask him if it’s a naked lady. Then it occurs to me that it might be a woman’s name. Another woman.

A woman he has every right to be with
, I think to myself, though I clench my teeth briefly. He never got a tattoo of my name.

The server returns to take our wine order and to let Daniel know that the chef was informed of his food preferences and of my allergy to avocado.

The wine turns out not only to be good, but a good idea. It eases the familiar unfamiliarity of being with Daniel again. We have an intimate history, but things have changed for both of us and between us. The catching-up conversation is a sign of that, but a surprisingly pleasant one. Before anything else, and thankfully before asking me about Carson, Daniel wants to hear all about Amanda.

At first I thought he was being polite, and I’d even mentally put a ban on kid talk at dinner, thinking child-averse Daniel would glaze over. But he brought her up, and his interest seems genuine as he asks how old she is, about the things she says, if she’s walking. He tells me again, with his schmoopie smile, how adorable she is, almost a mirror image of my baby photos.

When I ask him to fill me in on his life, I hear how much has changed for him, too. He started out by asking for a raise at the recording studio and then a promotion. When he had an idea about a production note, he spoke up. Apparently, the Wailing Walls liked what they heard, and they asked him to produce their ballad “Always.” It became their first number one song. When they asked Daniel to produce their next album, he took the leap and said yes.

He’s also produced albums for another major band and a crossover country-pop singer who’s gorgeous and notorious for dating people she works with. I feel a twinge of something unpleasant.

“Working with Delia was really cool,” he says, finishing his story and truffle ravioli. “I got to spend a few months in Eleuthera. Gorgeous island. Ever been?”

“Not yet,” I say, taking a sip of wine. “Sounds like you travel a lot.”

“Not really. Most bands want to record in New York.” He grins. “If I travel, Finster hangs out upstate as a therapy dog at this great pit bull rescue organization.”

“That’s really cool,” I say. “So does your girlfriend travel with you?”
Whoa.
Where did that come from? I quickly put down my wine glass.

Daniel’s eyes crinkle with quiet amusement. “Are you trying to ask me if I have a girlfriend, Katy?”

“No! No, of course not. I mean, I just naturally figured, you know, it’s been a few years. I moved on. You must have, too.”

The waiter chooses this exact moment to come over and chirp, “How’s everything over here?”

Daniel smiles. “Fine, thanks.”

“Can I get you another bottle of wine?”

“We’re good,” I say.

“And how was dinner?”

“Awesome, thank you,” Daniel says, giving me privately wide eyes that say
Can you believe?
I smirk, stifling a giggle.

“And would you like to hear what we have for dessert?” the server asks genially.

“You know what?” Daniel says. “We’re really good for right now, and I promise you, if we need something, you’ll be the first to know.”

To my credit, I wait until the server is far away before I snort a laugh so unattractive that if I were with anyone but Daniel, I’d be mortified. But because it’s Daniel, the snort only triggers his own guffaw. Both of us say “Server Interruptus” at the same time, another old shared joke.

Eventually, the laughter fades, but our smiles remain. We gaze at each other in warm appreciation. For a moment, Daniel and I are both exactly the way we always were.

“WANT TO HEAR some of the tracks I’m producing?” Daniel asks when we’re back in his car, a shiny little red convertible he’s renting. He hooks his iPod up to the dash. “The sound won’t be great through these speakers, but you’ll get the idea.”

We spend the drive back to Bethy and Ray’s house listening to edgy, melodic rock. It’s big and beautiful, with layers of airy, lacy guitar held steady by solid bass. At the breaks I tell Daniel how good the music is, but sometimes I can’t say anything, I’m so impressed. I just smile at him, and he grins back at me, pleased and proud.

When we get to the house, Daniel parks, but we sit together as the last song plays out. “There’s more to be done,” he says, turning off his iPod, “but it’s getting there.”

I shake my head. “Daniel, it’s amazing.”

“Well, they’re really good.”

“You’re
really good. I always knew you would be.”

“Thanks, Katy.” If it wasn’t so dark. I think I might see him blushing.

I might be, too, because we’ve arrived at the odd intersection of how to say goodnight. Or, more appropriately, goodbye.

“I’ll walk you to the door,” Daniel says, getting out of the car to open my door before I can say he doesn’t have to do either.

If we walked the few yards from the car to the front porch any slower, we’d be statues. I know Daniel. He’s being quiet and deliberately hanging back because he’s thinking. I hope he’s not going to try to apologize to me for anything. What happened between us seems so trivial now. A birthday party, an argument about engagement. That was a lifetime ago. Carson’s lifetime.

Slow as we are, we do eventually reach the front door. “Well, here we are,” I say.

“Here we are,” Daniel echoes, though he says it with happy wonder. His smile is sweet. “I still can’t believe it.”

The way he’s looking at me reminds me of the moment right before our first kiss. It was as though he was gazing at some quiet miracle. Like he couldn’t believe his good luck, but the good luck was staring him in the face. Just as I am now. My heart trembles at this familiar feeling, and my cheeks flush.

“I should go,” I whisper. “It was good to see you, Daniel.”

He reaches forward, his hands gently holding my bare arms to stop me. “It
is
good to see you, Katy. I’ve been wishing for this for years.”

I stop, the feeling of his warm touch sending a shimmer up my arms, and his big hands move down to take mine.

“I wanted to talk to you so many times,” he says. “There were so many things I wanted to share with you, things only you would have understood. Something amazing would happen, and I’d go to pick up the phone to call you, because you were the first person I’d want to tell.” His shoulders hitch in a small shrug. “Without you, nothing was ever as good.”

My throat goes dry, knowing exactly how he feels. Whenever I heard a song we loved, Daniel floated back to my mind, and I’d remember what we were doing when we heard it. Taking a drive, making love on a rainy morning. And I’d wanted to tell Daniel about writing my book. Carson was thrilled for me, but success came easily to him. Daniel knew of every struggling step I’d taken to get to that mountain, and he’d walked with me almost all the way. Reaching that pinnacle without him was bittersweet. And then, when I fell, he wasn’t there to catch me.

“Katy,” Daniel says, “You asked me something before. Sort of.” He smiles gently. “You wanted to know if I’m with anyone.” He squeezes my hands before letting go of them, and he takes off his watch and pushes up his sleeve. Then he shows me his inner arm, toned and sinewy with muscle.

On his wrist, the letter
K
is tattooed in large, bold script. Under that, the length of his forearm, is a single word.
Always.

My fingers move to touch the looping swirls of the words, feeling Daniel’s smooth skin beneath my fingertips. He draws nearer. And suddenly, I pull my hand back.

“That’s very nice,” I say crisply. “So you got a tattoo of my initial and a Wailing Walls song title. Is that supposed to mean something?”

“Yeah, it is,” Daniel states, pushing his sleeve down. “First of all, the Walls wrote that song
after
I got the tattoo and told them about you. That song is about us, Katy. And second, it means there’s no one else for me but you.”

I fold my arms. “You’re telling me you haven’t dated at all since we broke up.”

“I have. Well, I tried.” Daniel shrugs. “It never worked out.”

“Same old Daniel,” I scoff, “still afraid of marriage and children.”

He looks at me with quiet exasperation. “No, Katy. Same old Daniel, still in love with you. And I’m not afraid of anything anymore.”

The anger warming inside me crystallizes. Before this, Daniel’s biggest demonstration of love was letting me go. Why couldn’t he man up and show me something that mattered back then? Where was all this brave love when it would have been easy to accept? I don’t have the time or energy to test out Daniel’s new realizations about love and life. Being both parents for Amanda takes everything I have. He’s trying to get me to believe in him again, and I can’t. I can’t believe in people who always leave, or fate, or birthday wishes.