Lineage (24 page)

“All bullshit aside, I do want to ask you something,” Lance said, leaning forward and cupping his mug of coffee. “What was actually going on when you got to the house yesterday? You didn’t want to say anything, but in light of last night, you need to be straight with me.”

Andy sat back from the table and folded his arms. He regarded Lance for a long moment, and then leaned forward again.

“I felt cold.”

“Cold?”
Lance asked.

“Yes, cold. When I drove up and saw the place, something seemed off to me. I couldn’t figure out what it was—maybe the house needed some TLC or I didn’t like the location, I don’t know. But when I got out of the car, it was oppressive, like something was pushing down on me from above, and I felt cold. I felt …” Andy stopped and looked around. The closest people on either side of them continued talking, oblivious to their conversation. Andy leaned closer. “I felt as cold as I did when I woke up last night after being in the lake. I wanted nothing more than to drive the fuck away from that place and never come back. After you came out, it passed, it just went away. I don’t know.”

Andy picked up his coffee and sipped it, clearly irritated. The waitress arrived, balancing a large tray on one hand and holding a fresh pot of coffee in the other.

They ate amidst the din of voices, neither broaching the subject again. Instead, they chewed in an unspoken but agreed respite, both of them digesting their thoughts as well as the eggs they consumed.

Twenty minutes later they stood on the sidewalk outside. The morning sun warmed the air and the fresh smell of the lake blew in on a northeastern breeze. Traffic was light with only a few cars passing occasionally. The town appeared to be self-absorbed, each person pursuing his own agenda either behind closed doors or well outside of the city limits.

Andy stopped by the driver’s-side door of his car and turned back to Lance, who had followed him to the edge of the curb, his hands shoved deeply in the pockets of his jeans.

“I’m going to go back home. I don’t think it would be a good idea if I stayed another night, you might be fishing my body out of the lake in the morning.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Lance said, frowning. Andy studied him for a moment before walking back within a few feet of the curb. His lips were pressed together as if he was struggling to keep the words he wanted to say within.

“I’m not superstitious; you know that better than anyone.” Andy waited until Lance nodded in agreement. “So I feel stupid even saying this: get your novel finished and get out of that house. I would tell you to leave now—leave with me, for fuck’s sake—but I know you won’t. There’s nothing good there. I’ve relied on my instincts for most of my life and they haven’t steered me wrong before. Everything inside of me is revolted by that place.”

Lance looked at his best friend standing the bright morning light. Andy had never lied to him—he might even be incapable of it—and now he had told him to leave the one place that inspired him. Lance grimaced.

“The funny thing is, right now I’m probably two-thirds of the way through the novel and I’m clipping right along; in fact, it’s faster than I’ve ever written before. But you know what? Right now, standing here talking to you, I cannot for the life of me remember the ending of the story. I can remember everything I’ve written so far, but the resolution?
Gone, like it never was.
There’s not a bone in my body that tells me if I drove away today I’d be able to finish that story. It might actually fade away completely.”

“And could you live with that?” Andy asked.

“You know I couldn’t. How could you even ask that?” Lance said, as he put his hand against the warm hood of Andy’s car.

Andy looked at the street like he hoped to pluck an answer from the nearly spotless gutter. “I know” was all he replied. Andy turned from Lance and pulled his car door open. He stopped before sliding into the driver’s seat, looking hard at Lance, closer than he ever had before. “Be careful. If you need anything, call me. I’ll be waiting for a draft,” Andy said.

Lance exhaled through his nose and smiled halfheartedly as he listened to the soft thump of the car’s door shutting. He didn’t look up from the pavement until the Audi had vanished from the town’s main street.

He turned, meaning to walk to his own
vehicle,
unsure of what he intended to do after that. A body collided with his shoulder and he reeled, anger flaring within him as he staggered and turned, words aching to fly off his tongue at the person who had ran into him so carelessly.

Mary stood in the middle of the sidewalk, a half dozen books pressed to her chest. Her mouth curled up in a smile that instantly forced away his anger.

“I’m sorry, are you okay?” Lance said, stepping forward.

“I’m fine, although you should keep an eye out for people smaller than yourself.”

Lance smiled, heat blooming in his face. He rubbed the back of his neck and started to apologize again, but instead, Mary cut him off. “The answer’s yes,” she said, and the whole block seemed to go silent.

“Yes?” Lance asked, his mind jumping several steps ahead and paving a path of sheer joy at what he hoped she was suggesting.

“I’ll have dinner with you if the invitation is still open.”

The air was gone from Lance’s lungs, and he struggled to think of something witty to say as excitement danced a two-step in his stomach. “Great! I, ah, where …” he sputtered, glancing around at the surrounding buildings.

Mary grinned. “The Lighthouse is a good place. A little progressive for the locals, but everyone seems to go there when they want to dress up and act like adults.”

Lance laughed and felt his mood pull out of the nosedive it had been in since the night before.
“Sounds good.
I’m sorry I haven’t stopped in lately, I’ve been writing and—”

“Oh yeah, I know.
Deadlines to meet and fans to appreciate, all that.”
She waved her hand in a prima
donna
sort of way, her smile disarming in the light of the sun.

Lance beamed like the idiot he knew he was. “What time should I meet you, or pick you up?”

“How about six thirty? That’ll give me time to get pretty after I close up shop. I’ll meet you there. It’s that trendy-looking place made of stone a few blocks north.”

“Great! Okay, I …” Lance trailed off, and stared at her. The foreboding of his conversation with Andy, and even the events of the night before, paled as he looked at her. Only after a few moments of silence did he notice she had her eyebrows raised in an expectant expression. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said at last.

She laughed and shook her head as she walked away in the direction of the bookstore. He watched her go, reveling in the feeling that flooded him. It wasn’t that he was new to women or relationships, but the fact that they had been few and far between held sway.
Especially as pretty and smart as the one who now walked away from him.

Lance turned and moved toward his car. He made a promise to himself before reaching the SUV. He would make a conscious effort to really try with Mary. He would let her in and not hold her at arm’s length. He would reveal himself to her, even if she turned away and fled.

A new sensation blossomed within him as he started the Land Rover and backed out of the parking space. It was unfamiliar and took him almost two miles of driving before he recognized it. It was hope, and he liked how it felt.

The afternoon stretched out like a desert road—straight, narrow, and immeasurably long. He tried to write, but the sentences would begin and then stall as his thoughts slipped to the evening ahead of him. Mary’s face kept appearing in front of the words on the screen, and after an hour of start-and-stop progression, he flipped the monitor off in exasperation. He looked out at the lake and watched the waves roll into the shore for a while, the rhythm beckoning him to retire to a nap upstairs. Instead he decided to get a workout in, the whole time telling himself he wasn’t exercising for the sake of the date he was about to go on.

An hour and a half later he strode into the downstairs bath, sweaty and blood flooding the muscles he’d punished with pushups, squats, and crunches. The shower helped wash away the perspiration he had accumulated but did nothing for the nervousness brewing in the pit of his stomach like a noxious stew.

As he dried off, he looked at his reflection in the fogged mirror, his outline smudged by the condensation on the glass. “Calm … the fuck … down,” he said to the mirror, as he leaned on the counter and stared into his distorted eyes.

His eagerness for 6:00 p.m. to arrive became irritating. His ego cried out to him from the small corner it resided in, telling him there wasn’t a need to be nervous or excited.
It’s just another date,
the voice said, and this time he tried to agree with it.

He lay down in his bed after dressing in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, the softness of it welcoming him like an old friend. He set an alarm on his phone for six o’clock and set it on the table beside his bed. His breaths were deep and calming, the fatigue of the night before catching up and enveloping him. He tried to think of nothing, to clear his head of all concerns, while he imagined a field before him. It was an old exercise Dr. Tyler had taught him. The field unfurled, the grass a perfect length and absent of weeds. A patch of flowers grew on one edge, but besides that, the open ground was empty. A deer walked out of the forest on the perimeter of the clearing and began to feed. Lance could see every hair on its back, each fiber outlined in the bright light of the day. He focused on the hairs and began to count them. He reached thirty-one before he fell asleep.

The intermittent vibrating and squawking of his phone ceased as he stabbed it with a pointed finger. Excitement poured through him. It was time to go.

He dressed in a pair of trendy jeans and a black button-up shirt. His hair remained mediocre; no matter what he did, it seemed to return to its natural disarray. A spray from an almost-full bottle of cologne and he left the house in silence.

The Lighthouse was the restaurant he had observed his first day in town. It sat at the northern end of the street on the right side, facing the lake. The parking lot of the low, modern building wasn’t crowded as Lance pulled in a few minutes before six thirty. He inspected each vehicle, wondering which belonged to Mary, but couldn’t identify any of the models with her forthright personality.

A high ceiling in the entryway met him with light stained wood floors and rock layered into the walls in every available space. The restaurant opened up into a comfortable seating area that faced an expanse of windows, allowing for a brilliant view of
Superior
. Thick rock pillars shot up out of the wood floor sporadically, adding to the semi-modern rustic setting. Lance could see a few couples lounging at the bar at the far end of the room, but couldn’t make out Mary’s petite form among them. He started to walk farther into the restaurant, past the podium that said
Please Wait
To
Be Seated
, when a young man in a black vest appeared from behind a nearby counter.

“Just one, sir?” the host asked, grabbing a menu from a holder on the side of the podium.

“No, actually I’m meeting someone.”

“Ah, right this way, sir.”

Without another word, Lance followed the boy in the uniform. The restaurant became darker as they wound their way between mostly empty tables. At the far corner, closest to the windows, Lance spied Mary seated at a small table by herself. Her hair was pulled back, leaving two delicate strands hanging over her face. She wore a modest skirt and a blouse that hugged her frame, and Lance could see a diamond pendant flash at her throat in the light from the single candle on the table.

He didn’t know if he’d ever seen something more beautiful.

She looked up as they approached, Lance stepping around the young host and to the table. Mary smiled, and already he could see the wheels turning for a witty greeting.

“Hello,” he managed before his thoughts floundered in the light of her eyes.

“Hello yourself,” she said as he sat in the chair that the young man pulled out.

“Anything to drink?” the host asked.

“A Honey Weiss,” Mary said.

“The house Cab,” Lance said, his eyes never leaving Mary.

The host vanished in search of their drinks and they were alone. Lance couldn’t lie to
himself,
he’d imagined this for some time during the weeks since he had met the woman across the table from him. Now that they were here, he only hoped he wouldn’t ruin the chance.

“You look great,” he said.

Mary smiled. “You clean up well yourself.”

“Thanks, I just picked this up off the floor when I was leaving. It’s nothing really,” Lance said, flipping the collar of his shirt and looking out the window with a bored expression. Mary giggled and Lance grinned. He had made her laugh again. If all else failed tonight, at least there was that.

“Have trouble finding the place?” Mary asked.

“No, actually I spotted it the first time I drove through town. It’s really nice,” Lance said, looking around again.

“Yeah, like I said before, it’s our trendy spot when we want a dinner that costs more but doesn’t necessarily taste better.”