Мэгги Стифватер - Lament

Luke lifted the flute. "After you."

I began to play "The Maids of Mitchelltown" again, and Luke jumped in immediately, recognizing the common tune. Funny how much difference two instead of one made. With both of us playing, the reel was so beautiful I could have gotten lost in the threads of melody we wove.

Luke's eyes were far away as we played, staring at the beech tree near the edge of the yard, though there was nothing there. I abruptly remembered the freckled kid again-- somehow, Luke's presence made me forget everything but Luke--but there was no sight of him. I didn't want to think about what could have happened if Luke hadn't arrived.

The tune ended. As if sensing my troubled thoughts, Luke lowered his flute and said, "Let's play something a bit happier, shall we? Something that makes you smile?"

You make me smile, I thought, but I obliged him with a crooked grin and began to play "Merrily Kiss the Quaker's Wife" instead. He joined in immediately, and turned his back firmly and deliberately toward the beech.

FIVE

 Thursday found me back at Dave's Ice, wearing the usual white T-shirt bearing the image of Dave the penguin. My coworker: Sara. We managed to avoid anything but trite conversation during the busy morning, but as the day wore on, the clouds began to threaten rain, and customers slowed to a trickle. I tried to fight off further contact by pulling the Thornking-Ash application out of my backpack. Leaning over the icy cold counter with my back to Sara, I began writing my name at the top, very slowly, hoping she'd get the hint.

It didn't work.

"So, you know you've got to dish." Sara's voice was ominously close. I wasn't sure how to respond. This was possibly the first time anyone had ever expressed interest in my personal life, and I wasn't sure if I should answer her or chronicle the event in my scrapbook.

"About this application?"

Sara snorted. "Duh. No. About the hottie you brought in the other day. Are you two going out?"

"Yes," I lied, without even pausing to think about it. I didn't want her getting the idea he might be available. I'd hate to have to punch her like I did Luke last night. Swallowing a laugh at the mental image, I wrote my address on the application.

"Whoa. No offense, but I never thought, like, you'd be the type to get a guy, so ..."

I turned around. It occurred to me, in a me-looking-at-my-own-life-from-outside-my-body way, that Sara was being condescending. I raised an eyebrow.

She said quickly, "Not that you're ugly or anything. You're just so ... ordinary. "

I wasn't ordinary. I was fascinating. "I guess he didn't think so," I said.

Sara tapped her shimmery pink nails on the counter and studied them as she did. "It was just a little surprising to see you come in here with this guy who was, like, wow."

I had to turn around again to hide the smile that was forming. "Yeah, he is pretty nice to look at, huh?"

"Are you kidding?" Sara burst out. "He is out-of this-world hot!"

I couldn't keep from laughing this time. "Yeah, he is, isn't he?" Which world was he from, I wondered?

The bell dinged as the door admitted two men, who ordered from Sara as she smiled encouragingly at them. Shaking my head, I told her, "I'll get one of them."

I took the opportunity to move to the other end of the counter and make the sundae. I hadn't lied when I told Luke I liked working here. Really, scooping ice cream was quite satisfying. Every flavor was a different color, and the feeling of the scoop cutting through the perfectly cold ice cream was as appetizing as actually eating the ice cream. I'd tried to explain this to Sara before, but she didn't get it. She just scooped ice cream into bowls and cones. I made ice-cold masterpieces.

"Whoa, that looks so good," said Customer Number One as he watched Customer Number Two take a sundae out of my hands. Of course it does, I thought. Each scoop is perfectly round and I made the syrup and whipped cream perfectly symmetrical. The brownie is square and covered just so by ice cream. The nuts are sprinkled with enough creativity to look random and yet not patchy. It should be on the cover of Ice Cream Today. Most gorgeous sundae ever. Created by yours truly.

Customer Number One accepted a substandard, Sara-made sundae with a slightly disappointed look. His was not symmetrical and would never find its picture on the front of a magazine. Sara had even slimed some chocolate ice cream from the first scoop onto the second scoop, which was vanilla. Quite unsightly.

Customer Number Two smiled warmly at me and stuffed the tip jar in front of my register full of ones. He flashed another smile, and his flirtations rolled gently off my back like water off a duck.

"Better hurry," I said. "The brownie will melt your ice cream."

"Your brownie's warm?" Customer Number One asked with dismay. They made their way out of the shop, with Number Two happily extolling the pleasures of his sundae. I returned to my application and Sara returned to my side.

"So, where did you meet?"

But I was staring at my tip jar. Stuffed in with all the ones and change that I'd acquired throughout the day was a leafy green edge that was out of place. I took the jar and tipped it out on the counter.

Sara jumped back as a few pennies bounced in her direction. "What are you doing? Are you mental?"

Sure enough, among the crumpled bills, half-crushed by a quarter, was a four-leaf clover. I picked it up and Sara stared at it, too.

"Whoa, aren't those really rare?"

I frowned. "I thought they were."

The bell dinged again, and both of us looked up. Sara made a soft noise and I grinned, because it was Luke.

He smiled back at me. "Hello, lovely." The smile on his face dimmed when he saw what I was holding. "Another one?"

My expression mirrored his. "It was in my tip jar."

Dropping his eyes to the pile of money on the counter, Luke shook his head. "I don't think you need that kind of luck."

"Every girl needs luck," Sara offered. "I'll take it if you don't want it." I looked at Luke, and he shrugged, so I gave it to her.

As I scraped the coins back into the tip jar, Luke said, "Rumor has it you're getting off soon. Can I drive you home?"

"Fifteen minutes. Will you wait?"

Sara sighed. "No one else is going to come in, Deirdre. It's about to rain. Just go. I'll close everything up at five thirty."

I was taken aback by her surprising display of selflessness. "Uh--thanks! Are you sure?"

Sara smiled at me, and then at Luke. "Yeah. Get lost. And take your tips."

"Half are yours," I lied politely.

Sara looked at the tip cup in front of her, filled with nickels and dimes. "Yeah, right."

So I stuffed the bills into my pocket and left the coins-- customers tipped better if they saw that there was already money in there--and followed Luke into the oppressive afternoon. From the tightly knit clouds overhead, it was obvious that rain was coming, but until it did, the air would only get more smothering. I was glad for the ride home; when I'd walked here this morning, the day had been bright and clear.

We stood for a moment, staring up at that churning sky, and then my nose caught the now familiar herbal scent. I thought Luke must smell it too, because he was frozen beside me, looking at the edge of the parking lot.

"Come on, let's go." Tugging my hand, he led me to the car. Inside, he turned on the airconditioning, but the scent of thyme blasted through the vents--stronger than it should have been from just one freaky guy. I didn't know what was going on, but the smell reminded me of the feeling the freckled guy had given me, circling around me.

"Let's go," I said urgently.

Luke didn't need any more encouragement. He reversed so fast that the tires scrubbed pavement when he stopped and shoved the car into first gear. With a wail from the engine, we tore out of the parking lot, clipping down the road at well above the speed limit. A mile away, the thyme began to fade. After three miles--past the turn for my house--it was nearly gone. Ten miles from Dave's, there was nothing left in the car but the faint clean odor that was Luke's.

I wanted to say something about it, but it would break the unspoken rule of pretending he was normal. Anyway, I knew now that it wasn't just him that was abnormal. There was some big storm, just like the purple tempest above, that was circling around me, waiting to break, and Luke was only one of its elements. The freckled guy was another, and maybe Eleanor from the reception as well. And all the four-leaf clovers.

"Damn!" Luke yelled suddenly, slamming on the brakes. A white hound leapt out of the middle of the road, and I gasped, "Rye?" But then another white hound leapt out from the brush by the side of the road, and then another, and another, disappearing after the first in the brush on the opposite bank. There must have been twenty--all copies of Rye, baying and howling.

"They all look like Rye," I said softly. For some reason it was the most supernatural thing I'd seen all week, and it was just a pack of hounds. Just a pack of hounds, all the same color as Rye.

They could have been littermates. A freaking lot of littermates. I had gone almost seventeen years without seeing another dog like Rye, and now there were twenty of them?

I became aware that Luke was looking at me. "You saw them?"

"There were twenty of them. Of course I saw them!"

Luke muttered something and made a U-turn to head back to the house. His fingers clutched the steering wheel. I didn't know what had disturbed him, but I knew I didn't like to see him upset.

I'd only known him a few days and already I relied on him to be even and understated; this barely hidden anxiety bothered me more than it should have.

I summoned up my nerve and reached over to his hands on the wheel. He let me pull one of them off and I just held it, our hands sitting on the console between us. We rode like that for the few minutes home--my heart pounding, he removing his hand only to shift gears, and then lacing his fingers again with mine.

We got to my parents' driveway too soon. Luke parked on the street and dragged his thumb over the back of my hand. Thoughtfully, he watched a silhouette move past the kitchen window.

Whoever it was didn't notice us, lost in dinner preparations maybe.

"Your mom can do just about anything she tries too, can't she?"

It was a weird question. Of all the things I thought he might say, I didn't think that was one of them. "I guess so. She never thinks she's good at what she does, but she is."

"So maybe that's all there is to it. Genetics. That's it. You're just from a family of insanely talented people."

I pulled my hand away. "Well, that's vaguely insulting."

Luke's eyes were trained on the kitchen window. "No, it's promising."

Screw the unspoken agreement. "Are you ever going to tell me anything? At all?"

His eyes darted past me to the car windows, and then to the rearview mirror. He reached over and touched my chin; the lightest of touches could drag away my protests. "Shh, pretty girl." I closed my eyes, letting him draw his finger toward my collarbone.