“Rachel!” Brian Delacroix materialized by Lander’s left shoulder, slid past his hip, and was suddenly standing beside her. “I’m so sorry. I got hung up.” He gave Lander a distant smile before turning back to her. “Look, we’re late, I’m sorry. Doors were at eight. We gotta go.” He took her vodka off the bar and downed it in one easy swallow.
Brian wore a navy blue suit, white shirt with the top button undone, black tie loosened and slightly askew. He remained quite handsome but not in the way that made you think he’d hold up the bathroom every morning. His look was more rugged, his face just on the right side of craggy, his smile a bit crooked, his wavy black hair not fully tamed. Weathered skin, crow’s-feet around the eyes, strong chin and nose. His blue eyes were open and amused, as if he were perpetually surprised to find himself in situations such as these.
“You look spectacular, by the way,” he said. “Again, sorry I got held up. No excuse.”
“Whoa, whoa.” Lander squinted at his own drink for a moment. “Okay?”
This could easily be a scam perpetuated by the both of them. Lander played the wolf, she was the unwitting sheep, and the part of the shepherd was played by Brian Delacroix. She hadn’t forgotten that weird vibe he’d given off that day at the Athenaeum and found their just happening to find each other on the day of her divorce a bit too coincidental.
She decided not to play along. She held up her hands. “Guys, I think I’m just gonna—”
But Lander didn’t hear her because he pushed Brian. “Yo, bro, you need to step off.”
Brian gave her an amused cock of the eyebrow when Lander called him “bro.” She had to work at it to keep her own smile from breaking out.
He turned to Lander. “Dude, I would, but I can’t. I know, I know, you’re disappointed, but, hey, you didn’t know she was waiting on me. You’re a fun guy, though, I can tell. And the night’s young.” He indicated the bartender. “Tom knows me. Right, Tom?”
Tom said, “I do indeed.”
“So—what’s your name?”
“Lander.”
“Cool name.”
“Thanks.”
“Honey,” he said to Rachel, “why don’t you pull the car around?”
Rachel heard herself say, “Sure.”
“Lander,” he said, but he met Rachel’s eyes and flicked his own toward the door, “your money’s no good here tonight. Whatever you imbibe, Tom will put it on my tab.” He flicked his eyes at her again, a little bit more insistently, and this time she moved. “You want to buy a round for those girls over there by the pool table? That’s on me too. The one in the green flannel and the black jeans has been looking at you since I came through the door . . .”
She made the door and didn’t glance back, though she wanted to. But the last look she’d caught on Lander’s face was of a dog waiting, head cocked, for either a treat or a command. In under a minute, Brian Delacroix had taken ownership of him.
She couldn’t find her car. She walked block after block. She cut east, then west, turned north, retraced her steps south. Somewhere in this collection of wrought-iron fences and railings and chocolate or redbrick townhouses was a light gray 2010 Prius.
It was Brian’s voice, she decided as she headed up a side street toward the lights of Copley Square. It was warm, confident, and smooth, but not huckster-smooth. It was the voice of a friend you’d been hoping to meet your whole life or a caring uncle who’d left your life too soon but had now returned. It was the voice of home, but not home the reality, home as a construct, home as an ideal.
A few minutes later, that voice entered the air behind her: “I won’t take it personally if you think I’m a stalker and pick up your pace. I won’t. I’ll stay planted to this spot and never see you again.”
She stopped. Turned. Saw him standing back at the mouth of the alley she’d crossed thirty seconds before. He stood under the streetlight with his hands clasped in front of him, and he didn’t move. He’d added a raincoat over the suit.
“But if you’re open to a little more of the evening, I’ll stay ten paces back and follow you wherever you’ll let me buy you a drink.”
She looked at him for a long time, long enough for her to notice that the sparrow had stopped flapping in her chest and the base of her throat had come unblocked. She felt as calm as she’d felt since she was last safe behind closed doors in her own home.
“Make it five paces,” she said.
10
LIGHTS UP
They walked through the South End, and soon she realized why he wore the raincoat. There was a mist in the air so thin she didn’t notice it until her hair was damp and her forehead was wet. She raised her hood above her head, but of course it was damp now too.
“Did you send over the vodka?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Honestly?”
“No, inauthentically.”
He chuckled. “Because I had to use the bathroom and I wanted to make sure you’d still be there when I got out.”
“Why not just walk up to me?”
“Nerves. It’s not like you’ve seemed elated the times I’ve initiated contact over the years.”
She slowed then and he caught up.
“I did like getting your e-mails,” she said.
“Odd. You didn’t respond like it.”
“It’s been a complicated decade for me.” She gave him a smile that felt hesitant but hopeful.
He removed his raincoat and draped it over her shoulders.
“I’m not taking your coat,” she said.
“I know you’re not. I’m lending it to you.”
“I don’t need it.”
He stepped back, got a look at her. “Fine. Give it back.”
She smiled, rolled her eyes. “Well, if you insist.”
They walked on, their footsteps the only sound for a full block.
“Where are you taking us?” he said.
“I was hoping the RR still exists.”
“It does. One block up, two over.”
She nodded. “Why do they call it that? There are no tracks near it.”
“The underground railroad. They used to run most of the slaves out through that block. This building here”—he pointed at a redbrick mansion tucked between a row house and what had once been a church—“was where Edgar Ross set up the first black-run printing press in the early 1800s.”
She shot him a sidelong glance. “Aren’t we a font?”
“I like history.” He gave her a shrug that was somehow cute on a big man.
“Left here.”
They turned left. The street was older and quieter. A lot of the garages or garage apartments had been livery stables at one time. The windows were thick and leaded. The trees looked as old as the Constitution.
“I liked your hard news stories better than the soft ones, by the way.”
She chuckled. “You didn’t feel sufficiently informed when I did that story on the cat that barked?”
He snapped his fingers. “Promise me it’s archived.”