The Silver Thread (19 page)

“I just got this last night, so it’s still decent,” he remarked as he put the leftovers in the microwave. “You can have the rest, if you want.”

“Do you want the egg roll? It’s got pork in it,” she said, having noticed the distinct smell of cooked meat. After the episode with the bacon yesterday morning, there was no way she could forget that scent or the trouble it caused.

“So what? You always get the egg roll,” said Danny, giving her a weird look.

“Well, I think I’m a vegetarian now,” Annika explained.

“Yeah right. The girl who likes her filet mignon still mooing?”

“I’m serious.”

“Is
he
a vegetarian?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s just a coincidence,” Annika said, trying to soften the blow. Danny shook his head in disbelief and was quiet for a few moments until the microwave beeped.

“What did I do wrong?” he asked as she scarfed down the fried rice. “I just don’t understand why things weren’t good enough for you. I thought you were happy. Look at us. It’s like we never missed a beat, sitting here like an old married couple. On Sundays, you either get your hair done or you do foo-foo girlie things with James, while I watch college ball. And at breakfast, I know exactly how you take your coffee, and you know exactly how I like my eggs done. Is that really such a bad way to spend your life with someone?”

“There’s a lot more to a relationship than having a Sunday routine or knowing how I like my coffee,” she said, and took a big bite of rice.

“Oh really? I’ll bet Finnish doesn’t know how you take yours,” he said, looking like a know-it-all. He was pretty good at it.

“His name is Talvi,” Annika said, trying to be polite. She really wanted that rainbow skirt back. Patti had sewn it and dyed it by hand, and it was a birthday present from a few years back.

“Well, whatever you call your new euro-trash boy-toy, I’ll bet he doesn’t have a clue, does he?” Danny pointed out, but she refused to answer. “I think knowing all the little things about a person counts for a lot. I thought I did a good job of remembering holidays and birthdays, and all the other things a boyfriend is supposed to do. I just don’t get it. I don’t understand how you could tell me that you needed more time after two years together, and then you disappear for a few months and you’re already married to someone else that you barely know, that none of your friends or family knows. Charlie said it’s not even legal, which is probably for the best. I get a really sketchy vibe from Finnish.”

Annika knew she didn’t have the answers that Danny was looking for, because nothing she said would be good enough for him. Of course it sounded like an immature, poorly-planned thing to do, but he didn’t understand. She barely understood her relationship herself, when she started analyzing all the little details. Sure, it was intense at times, but all the little details were just that; little details. They would fall into place as time went on, and if she really was becoming an elf and samodiva hybrid with all their heightened capabilities, she had all the time in the world for Talvi to learn how she liked her coffee.

“Maybe you don’t need to understand everything,” Annika eventually said. Danny frowned a bit, and she knew what he was thinking with that analytical, scientific mind of his. Danny wanted to understand everything about the world around him. He needed to.

“Can you at least tell me what I did wrong, so I don’t make the same mistake again when I meet someone else?”

“You did everything perfect. You’re a great guy. But we’re like orange juice and toothpaste…they’re really nice by themselves, but it just doesn’t work when you mix them together,” she said, trying to keep her explanation simple. Danny gazed at her in a way that told her he thought a bit differently.

“If I had done everything perfect, you’d still be living here,” he pointed out. Annika wondered where all of this stubbornness was coming from. She felt her amulet warm up against her chest, and she slowly found the exact words she wanted him to hear.

“And if
I
had done everything perfect, we never would have gotten together in the first place. We would have stayed friends, and left it at that.”

He looked a bit surprised at her confession. After all, she had been the one to hit on him, and she had been the one who rationalized getting together with someone so different from herself. She thought she was doing herself a favor, bringing balance to her life by dating someone completely different than her. It seemed like a logical decision for someone as impulsive as her…but so much for logic.

“You’re a really sweet guy, Danny,” she said, meaning it with all her heart. “I really mean that. It’s just, you and I are so wrong for each other. You have that thing you always say, about never betting on the wild card. Well, I just can’t do that. I’d rather take my chances than play it safe.”

“It’s one thing to take calculated risks, and it’s another to throw caution to the wind and do whatever feels good, Annika,” he insisted.

“Yeah, and there’s a big difference between being a devil-may-care hedonist and trusting your instincts,” she said, putting her foot down. If Danny was going to trap her in this awkward conversation, then she had no choice but to level with him. “Talvi and I have a lot in common. We both love the same music, we both play guitar, and we even own some of the same books.”

“Those aren’t the only things you two have in common,” he told her with a wry smile. “When Jeff texted me this morning at the crack of dawn, I thought it was some kind of joke. But when Adam called me a half hour later, I went out in my robe and boxers in the rain to get the paper. I didn’t believe it until I read it myself.”

Annika wondered how long it would take for that scandalous and incorrect police report to become old news as Danny disappeared into the living room. She hoped he wasn’t fetching the article, and to her relief, he came back with a box instead. Sitting on top was a poufy tulle, silk and organza skirt, streaked with the colors of the rainbow and random strings of sequins.

He seemed hesitant for a moment, gazing at her with a funny expression before surrendering the very last of her belongings, the ultimate act of closure to their romantic past.

“I just have one question about that police report, but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“And what’s that?” she asked suspiciously.

He paused only for a moment and then blurted out, “If I would have done something crazy like that, would we still be together?” Annika looked right at him, at the man she had tried to convince herself to stay with for so long. He was smart, good looking, had a great job, a nice car, and a nice house. She even had to admit that she still cared about him a lot, but not in the wildly passionate sense. He didn’t like to go out dancing, he didn’t like hiking or picnics, he thought her sense of fashion was outlandish, but most importantly, he didn’t care for her music. She made him a CD of all her songs, yet he never remembered any of the titles. She knew that he’d never forget how she took her coffee, and that he would have been thrilled to have her stay at home and pamper him when he came home from work, but she wanted more out of life than a meal ticket. She thought long and hard for an answer.

“Danny, you never would have done anything crazy like that. That’s not who you are. You and I are so totally different. If either of us had changed who we were to suit the other, I would have resented it for the rest of my life.
That’s
why we’re not still together.”

She set the empty plate beside the sink, and when she looked up, a devilish spark that she had never seen had entered Danny’s eyes.

“How was I supposed to know?” he leaned forward, balancing the box on his hip with one hand. “You never told me that’s all it would have taken…” Annika’s stomach did a flip as his hand reached toward her, but he only rumpled her hair and stood up a little straighter, handing over the box.

“Did you say you were coming to see me at work?” he asked her. “What’s wrong? You’re not still drinking every day, are you?”

“No…” she admitted, looking at her feet.

“Well good. I was worried about you,” he said. “What else are you feeling?”

“I’ve been really tired on and off for the past few months, and I’ve also been getting something like food poisoning, but I think it’s because I can’t eat meat anymore. I also took a…um…a pregnancy test this morning and it’s negative, but Mom said she has a friend that they never worked on, so I should probably get one of those done too.”

“A pregnancy test?” Danny repeated, looking at her in a whole different way. “Is that the reason why you—”

“No, that’s not the reason why I got married!” she blurted out before he could finish his sentence. “That wasn’t even on the radar till a few days ago. I took six home tests, and they were all negative. I just think it wouldn’t hurt to get a blood test for it, since you’re going to be doing a workup anyway.”

“Oh, Ani…” he sighed, and rumpled her hair again. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Give me a nice discount for the lab work?” she winked, and Danny shook his head hopelessly.

“What time do you want to come in tomorrow? I’d plan for an hour, to deal with parking.”

“I work at noon, so how about ten-thirty?” she suggested.

“Sounds good. Maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll buy you lunch.”

“Oh, if
I’m
lucky, huh?” she joked as he opened the front door for her.

“Yeah. But seriously Ani, if your luck ever runs out and Finnish does something stupid like mess around behind your back, you let me know. I’ll make sure he regrets it.”

“Where the hell have you been? It doesn’t take that long to get your hair done,” James demanded when Annika walked into the kitchen back home. “Oh my god, we had so much fun shopping today! The girl at the checkout counter didn’t know what hit her when Talvi accused her of being too rough with his caulk!”

With a glass of wine in one hand, he grabbed one of Annika’s hands in his other as she balanced the box from Danny on her hip. Her eyes opened wide when they stepped into the living room, where music was blasting on the sound system.

Two shopping carts were parked off to the side. Inside of them were numerous bags of mulch and potting soil, along with some gardening tools. There were entire flats of flowers lying around the floor; petunias, impatiens, pansies and small daisies. There was plywood, sheetrock, two by fours, buckets of mudding and paint, bags of plaster, piles of cedar shingles and all other sorts of building materials strewn all over the floor.

There were all types of different power tools too. An electric table saw, a cordless drill, hammers, boxes of nails, a nail gun, tubes of caulk and a caulking gun, a tape measure, work gloves, protective goggles, and a tool belt all scattered about the room. Talvi and Chivanni were sitting in the middle of it all, laughing hysterically over the music. Annika set the box down slowly, and stepped over and around the mess until she was standing in front of them, where Talvi was flipping through the Japanese section of the user manual for the table saw while Chivanni sipped his wine and looked over his shoulder.

“I cannot believe how daft these instructions are. They make absolutely no sense, whether in English
or
Japanese,” he said, still grinning as Chivanni hovered beside him, full size. “Why, the bastards even wrote it in haiku!”

“They did
not
!” James argued, but Talvi cleared his throat a little, and read this directly from the manual:

“Troubleshooti
ng tips-

Make sure that ‘power
’ is on,

And
saw is plug
ged in!”

Chivanni did a back-flip in the air, as Talvi read out loud the exact same instructions again, this time in perfect Japanese, making Chivanni and James howl even louder.

“I don’t know what is more disturbing, that there are bastards who can’t be bothered to plug in an electric saw for it to work properly, or that there are manufacturers who are so inclined to provide instructions for these bastards!” Talvi said, reading more of the troubleshooting tips. His expression lit up once again. “Oh, Chivanni, you won’t believe this one!” He hooted, hamming up his accent to sound more cockney. “I do believe I’ve got another ‘aiku for you up me sleeve…wait for it!” He thought for a moment while a few sniggles continued to escape his lips, before he spoke again.

“This god-a
wful saw

Does not work und
er water

Well fuck me—I’m
hosed!”

Chivanni laughed so hard that he ceased hovering in the air, and instead fell with a soft ‘plop’ onto the bags of potting soil below.

“It seems like you guys have done some serious male bonding today,” Annika said, shifting her glance from her roommates’ rosy cheeks to the numerous empty wine bottles on the kitchen counter. James and Chivanni were still laughing, though Talvi managed to look up before he responded with:

“A love
ly vixen

Hath come into m
y vision

Oh, my heart be
still!”

He stood up and took her arm, slowly spinning her around in a circle before planting a kiss on her cheek with his wine stained lips.

“I’m so glad you didn’t cut off too much,” he said in relief. “I think you’ll look like a wood nymph even when you’re your mother’s age.” Her stomach lurched a little as she realized he had said nearly the same exact thing as Danny had earlier.

“What’s wrong, love?” he asked. “You’re probably just hungry, aren’t you? I noticed that you didn’t have much to eat at breakfast. Well, Chivanni has been cooking a lovely meal for all of us. Charlie and Patti are due back from the art museum any time now, and then we’re all going to have an early dinner before she goes to work,” he said cheerfully. “Aren’t you excited to see her again? I can hardly wait.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m just hungry,” she said offhandedly, still recovering from the uncanny remark. She took a confused look around the room. “Um, guys, I have an idea of how you got this stuff here, but how the hell did you
pay
for all of this?”

“Oh, I know we got a little carried away,” Talvi said, waving a tipsy hand in dismissal. “James said he would put it on plastic, whatever
that
entails, and I’ll pay him back my share after we straighten my finances.”

“Talvi, you can’t blow all of your money like this!” she cried. She didn’t know much about power tools, but she knew that they were not cheap. “You still have to pay back my dad for the bail money and the plane tickets, and there’s all those fines that will be coming in the mail, not to mention the fact that you said you’d buy Patti a friggin’
car
, and now you’ve gone and bought all this stuff? How much did it cost?”

“It couldn’t have been
that
much,” Chivanni said innocently. “James only used two little pieces of plastic to pay for it.”

“Yes, they were quite small, weren’t they?” Talvi agreed with a laugh.

“James!” she shouted towards the kitchen, where he was gathering the dishes Chivanni had prepared. “Please don’t tell me that you maxed out your credit cards to pay for this!”

“Of course not! How irresponsible do you think I am?” James said in all seriousness as he returned with silverware and set the table. He seemed very annoyed that she of all people could have thought so little of his financial management. “I still have sixty eight dollars on one of them.”

“
Sixty eight dollars
?” she screeched before turning back to her husband. “Talvi, I thought you were just going to buy some
shingles
! You’re not going to have any money left in a week at this rate! What’s all this other shit for, anyway? Since when do you need pansies to patch the roof? That’s not going to stop the leaks in this room. Or are you just going to plant flowers under them to soak up all the water?”

“Oh I like that idea,” Chivanni said, and with the flick of a wrist, he levitated one of the flats from the shopping cart to a soggy spot on the rug.

Annika was beyond exasperated. She didn’t understand how her husband could throw his money around like it was nothing. Sure, she had a few expensive toys of her own, but at least they were paid for. She was supposed to be getting out of debt, not getting further into it. And even though she and Talvi wore matching wedding bands, Danny was right when he pointed out that they were never legally married in America. Maybe she wasn’t under any financial obligation to his outrageous spending habits.

“Annika, why are you so upset?” Talvi asked her with a confused frown. “James has a lot of things that need repair around the house. I thought it would make you happy, to have me help restore this lovely place.”

The first few notes of “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie played overhead, and since Annika was at a loss for words, Talvi seized the opportunity to drape her arms around his neck and lead her into a loopy waltz around the room.

“Put on your red-feathered shoes and dance the blues,” he crooned to her, looking smug as he customized the lyrics.

“Talvi, you can’t waltz to this,” she protested as he guided her haphazardly one way and then the other, narrowly missing the petunia flats and buckets of mudding that lay precariously on the floor. “It’s in 4/4 time, and a waltz is in 3/4.”

“You’re absolutely right about that, my little dove.” He immediately switched to a tango as his left leg pushed between hers, guiding her backwards. She was afraid of him stepping on her feet or tripping over a bag of plaster in his inebriated state, but he miraculously managed not to. One hand pressed into the small of her back, coaxing her hips against his while the other hand caressed the length of her arm, sliding along her ribcage. With both hands, he dipped her low to the ground, letting her hair brush against the rug as he rocked her gently from one side to another.

“Let’s sway…” he sang softly while he pulled her back up and turned her until her spine was against his chest, and rested his cheek against hers. “…sway through the crowd to an empty space…
like your room
,” he sighed wantonly into her ear in his velvety smooth voice before nipping at her ear lobe. He continued to swing her around the room wildly, careful not to let her go flying too far.

“And if you should fall, into my arms…” Right on cue he let go of her. Just when she thought she would hit the floor, he caught her, grinning with from ear to softly pointed ear. Her heart was pounding so hard that she was trembling. That sexy tango might have been more enjoyable if she wasn’t worried about breaking her neck. She was so distracted she didn’t notice Patti trot into the room as the song ended.

“Hey guys, how’s it—” Her toe caught on the corner of a piece of lumber and she was about to face plant into a cultivator, lying on the floor with the pointed ends up.

“
No! Patti
!” yelled Chivanni, and instead of getting three new holes in her head, Patti remained safe in the air, hovering above the menacing garden tool.

“What the heck…” she stammered in disbelief from where she was floating, as the fairy and the elf rushed over to her. Chivanni made a motion with his hand, pulling the cultivator away, while Talvi lifted Patti out of the air.

“What the heck was that?” she asked him, before turning to look at Annika and Chivanni.

“That was your introduction to fairy magic, Patti Cake,” Talvi said, setting her gently on the ground. “I didn’t think it would be so dramatic, but then, seeing it for the first time is rather dramatic for most humans. That’s why fairies are forbidden from practicing it in front of them.”

“You mean,
you
made me float in the air?” Patti asked Chivanni. “I thought your wings were fake, but they look so real.” Chivanni glanced at Talvi, and then turned to Patti, taking a step closer to her.

“They’re real because I’m a real fairy,” he explained, letting his wings flutter until his narrow feet had left the ground. “I can’t hide what I really am.” Patti yelped at the sight of him rising closer to the ceiling.

“Oh my god! You’re
really
a
fairy
!”

“I
know
! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” he said a little impatiently, and fluttered down to the ground as gracefully as a feather. “Talvi said I’m not to do any of my magic outside of the house, or in front of anyone besides him and Annika, but I couldn’t bear to watch you get hurt. Neither could he. He’s really an elf, you know. You ought to let him mend the burn on your hand. He can heal you with his touch.”

“Does James know? Does Charlie know?” Patti asked, still wide-eyed at what she’d seen. She glanced at Talvi, who only seemed irritated with his friend for blurting out the truth about them.

“Pish posh, of course they know,” Chivanni said, waving his hand toward the pile of materials on the floor, until they parted to make a wide, unobstructed path to the kitchen. Patti looked on, dumbfounded, as he took her by the hand and led her out of the room, followed by Talvi and Annika. “It’s better that you understand these things sooner than later. I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing more of you around here.”

The four of them joined James and Charlie at the kitchen table, where the last of the silverware was being laid out beside the plates, complete with cloth napkins and wine. Talvi made it a point to sit beside Patti, and he watched her try to cut her food left-handed for all of one minute before turning in his chair to face her.

“Let’s get this parlor trick out of the way, shall we?” he asked, and offered his left hand to her. “I, too, have the feeling that we’ll be seeing more of you around here, so I may as well follow Chivanni’s lead and come out of the closet myself.”

“Huh?” Patti asked, scrunching her face in confusion.

“Just give him your hand,” Annika instructed. Patti was hesitant until she glanced around the table and saw the hopeful expressions on everyone’s faces. She held out her right hand, and Talvi painstakingly began to unwind the white gauze. A bright red blistering patch was revealed on her lower palm, and Annika winced at the sight.

“Patti, did you go to the doctor for that?” asked Charlie with concern. “That looks a lot worse than I thought it would be.”

“No,” she replied, letting Talvi cradle her hand between both of his. “I couldn’t afford the bill.” She looked on with the others as Talvi closed his eyes in concentration for a few long moments. Finally he opened them, and beckoned her to look. She glanced down at her palm, frowned, and held it closer to her eyes, tilting it this way and that.

“I can’t believe this,” she said, looking mystified as she showed her hand to her friends. “You really made my burn disappear!”