Completely Smitten Part 18

Ariel sat with her back to the wall near the kitchen door and watched the restaurant go through its late-afternoon rituals. In the front, the maitre d', a slender middle-aged man who looked comfortable in a tux, spoke on the phone. The bartender sliced limes behind the bar, and three different waiters set tables for the dinner crowd.

The mess that had been the dining room half an hour earlier was long gone. The ambulance had come, the paramedics complimenting her on her quick thinking as they strapped the man to the gurney and plied him with oxygen. His family left with him, their meal unfinished, the bill not paid.

How did this place make any money?

Blackstone didn't seem concerned by any of it. He had been the picture of calm beside that dying man. It almost seemed as if his touch had awakened the guy.

In fact, once the ambulance left, Blackstone and Nora seemed more concerned about Ariel. They sat her at this table, and Blackstone gave her some of the best stew she'd ever had in her life. When she found out it was rabbit, her stomach didn't churn as she would have expected it to. Instead, she felt like asking for more.

The man really was a magician with food.

She was eating the last of her French bread and leaning back in her chair. It felt good to be off her feet. Those high heels did not agree with her ankle at all.

From the conversations she'd already overheard, she realized the first reservations of the evening were for five, and by five-thirty, the place was going to be full. The kitchen was bustling, with prep cooks and regular chefs and dessert chefs and people who specialized in foods she'd never heard of.

Blackstone was supposed to be cooking tonight, but he seemed unconcerned. Nora had said that once he figured out the rabbit stew, he felt his work for the evening was done-- even though it wasn't. He was sitting across from her now, a frown on his face. Nora sat next to him, her hand casually resting on his knee. The two of them looked so affectionate together that it was hard to believe they'd been together as long as they had.

It was, obviously, true love.

"Ariel," Blackstone said, staring at the side door, "I'm going to hire you."

She blinked, startled at the turn in the conversation. She had thought he'd do something to recognize her quick thinking, but not this. "You haven't even checked my credentials."

He smiled. "Credentials are a c.r.a.pshoot. What matters in restaurant work is how people handle themselves when the boss is not around. You weren't even hired yet and you dug right in."

She set down her bread. "To be honest, I would have dug right in if he'd fallen on the street."

"I know," he said. "That's what I like."

"You don't know why I'm out of work or what I've done for the past few years or anything."

He faced her, put his elbow on the table, and rested his chin on the palm of his hand. It was a lazy movement that reminded her of Darius. "So tell me."

She glanced at Nora, who was frowning. For some reason, Nora didn't approve of his actions. And that seemed odd, because just a few moments ago, Nora had been very accepting of Ariel.

Ariel took a deep breath and decided to start at the beginning. She told him about the triathlons and the rotator cuff. She didn't tell him about the broken ankle, though. Just the need to rethink her future and the way she had come to Portland for a job that disappeared out from under her.

"I remember that merger. Even though I've lived in this country for..." Blackstone paused, as if choosing his words carefully. Nora gave him a sharp glance. "... what seems like hundreds of years, I still don't understand the need to merge and get larger. People contact me all the time with offers for the restaurant, ways we can make it a national chain, and I keep explaining that Quixotic is me, and I can't be franchised. No one seems to understand that."

"I do," Nora said, smiling at him. "I don't want you to be franchised. I'd have to share."

"And you don't share well." He smiled back at her. They stared at each other lovingly for a moment, and Ariel had to look away. She felt as if she were intruding on a private moment.

He leaned over and kissed Nora, then slipped his arm around her back.

"So you'll work for me, Ariel?" Blackstone said.

Ariel started. "I--I don't know."

"That's what you came here for."

She nodded.

"That and Andrew Vari."

She froze. What was Blackstone doing? Attempting to manipulate her somehow?

"Yes," she said. "Is he here yet?"

"He left." Nora's tone was flat, as if she were deliberately keeping emotion from it.

"When?" Ariel felt her shoulders tense. She already knew the answer.

Nora's gaze met Ariel's. "When he knew the man having a heart attack would be all right. An--" and she hesitated briefly, as if she were about to say something else "--drew didn't want to see you."

"Why?" Ariel asked, although she already knew the answer.

"He wouldn't say." Blackstone's strangely colored eyes met hers. "In fact, he'd never mentioned you before. Is there something I should know about?"

She looked away. Then she set her plate aside, her hands shaking. But she was the one who had brought it up. In fact, she was the one who started the whole thing by coming to Quixotic in the first place.

"This is embarra.s.sing," she said.

"What is?" Nora asked.

"I've been a real pest." She shook her head, amazed at her own behavior. "I don't blame him for avoiding me."

All the good humor left Blackstone's face. "What happened?"

Ariel took a deep breath and then told him.

Darius was lying on the huge sofa sectional that filled his TV room. The leather upholstery stuck to his bare legs. He was wearing a pair of gym shorts and a torn T-shirt, having given up completely on his usual sartorial elegance.

The big-screen TV was on. He was surfing through the 100+ channels he got on his digital cable system and thinking of Springsteen's lament: 57 channels and nothing on. Or was that some other group? He couldn't remember anymore, and he didn't care.

The not caring was the toughest part. He usually cared about being accurate in all things. But he had run away today, from his job, his best friend, and everything he cared about--all because of a woman.

And, if he told the truth to himself, he had also run from the contempt in Blackstone's voice.

The TV room was in Darius's bas.e.m.e.nt, a s.p.a.ce he had designed especially for solitary entertainment. The bas.e.m.e.nt had no windows. He'd carpeted the walls, put in a fireplace for rainy days, and set up a theater-quality surround sound for the huge television set. He had a high-end DVD player as well as two VCRs, every movie channel in existence, and most movies available on video.

He had lived alone for almost 3000 years. He knew the importance of a comfortable hole to hide in when he was down and discouraged, like he was now.

He had run away from Quixotic. Sure, it had been in a moment of pique, but still. His stability for the past ten-plus years had been that restaurant. He had no idea what Blackstone would think when he realized that Darius had really quit, but he doubted his old friend would approve.

Darius had to find something new--somewhere else to go, some new city in which to reinvent himself. The problem was that he didn't want to leave Portland. He loved it here, and he loved the house.

He had built it to his own specifications. Everything in it was designed for a person less than five feet tall--including the stairs. In fact, he had insisted on making the stairs just right for him. Most staircases were designed for six-foot-tall people, and he tripped on them.

The staircases in this house were fit for his little legs, just like the shelves were in proportion to his little arms and the counters were in easy reach. Even the stove was artificially short.

Blackstone liked to call it Andvari's Playhouse, which in some ways it was. One of the reasons Darius left for his full-size two weeks was that he didn't fit in his own house anymore.

Suddenly he paused in his surfing. One of the pompous get-an-education-by-watching-too-much-TV channels was running a special on the facts behind Greek mythology. What caught his eye was a very famous statue of the Fates, as they had once appeared to Homer (the time Darius had dragged him along to one of his meetings).

As the announcer gave the Fates' names, the TV screen showed ancient portraits of the three of them in their long flowing robes. They were always depicted as they examined the thread of someone's life. Clotho held the spindle of thread, Lachesis carried rods, which she shook to decide a person's fate, and Atropos held a tablet on which she wrote the decision.

"Any good or evil men experienced in their lives," the announcer said, "came from these stern, gloomy, elderly G.o.ddesses."

"Oh, G.o.d," said a voice behind him. "Let's hope they never hear that description."

Darius didn't have to turn to know the voice belonged to Blackstone. Even though the house was locked as tightly as possible and the alarms were on, Blackstone had gotten in. He must have spelled himself to whatever place Darius was at.

"They've heard it before."

"And you wonder why they're mad at you," Blackstone said. "You bring Shakespeare to them and he portrays them as the witches in 'Macbeth'. You take L. Frank Baum and he makes them the prototype for the Wicked Witches of the West and East."

"They were mad at me before that," Darius said.

"Oh?" Blackstone came around the sectional. He sat on the other end and stretched out his long legs on the leather. Then he peered at Darius as if he had never seen him before. "What happened to your clothing?"

Darius looked down at his shirt. The T-shirt was stained as well as ripped, and its logo had lone since flaked and washed off. The gym shorts dated from the 1970s and were made of pilling polyester.

"It's the perfect couch-potato clothing," he said. "You know I always dress for every occasion."

Blackstone laughed. When it became apparent that Darius wasn't going to laugh with him, he stopped.

"Time to change, my friend. We have work to do tonight."

Darius shook his head. "I quit."

"You can't."

"I did."

"You run the restaurant."

"You can find someone else."

"You're good at it."

"I was good at it. I decided I don't want to be anymore."

"Because of the woman?"

"Because you were going to make me talk to her."

"What's wrong with her?"

Nothing, Darius thought. She was the most perfect woman he'd ever met.

"Is it because of your meeting in Idaho?"

Dar's breath caught. "She told you about that?"

"She says you lied to her when you got off the plane."

Darius sat up straight. She had recognized that? She knew him? Was that why she was pursuing him?

"She says that your friend knew things about that house of yours that no casual observer would know."

Darius leaned back on the couch. He grabbed a throw pillow and hugged it to his stomach.

"I certainly didn't know anything about it." Blackstone picked at the leather fabric. "I didn't know you had a house in Idaho, one that's apparently been in your family for a hundred years. Careless of you, Andvari, letting people take pictures of you for that length of time."

Darius clutched the pillow tighter and stared at the blank TV screen. Maybe he should just turn it back on and ignore Blackstone. Maybe he should tell his old friend to go away.

Blackstone was watching him closely. "You never told me you knew Hemingway or that you even liked the wilderness."

Darius closed his eyes.

"You never told me you knew Darius." Blackstone shifted his weight on the couch.

The movement went through the sectional, and Darius nearly lost his balance. He had to open his eyes, let go of the pillow, and brace himself with one hand.

Blackstone had a strange look on his face. "I always thought Darius and his inability to finish his sentence was a legend, you know. To teach us all a lesson. Like Sisyphus."

"Sisyphus is still rolling that rock uphill," Darius said.

"You're saying Darius does exist."

"All legends are based in fact. You know that, Aethelstan." Darius sat up and tucked his legs underneath him.

"Why didn't you tell me you knew him?"

"Why should I?" Darius looked at him. "You clearly hold him in contempt."

"I don't know him."

"This afternoon you said--"

"I know what I said." Blackstone ran a hand through his thick hair. "I've always thought he had it easy, considering what he'd done. All he had to do was put people together who loved each other."

"It's not easy." Dar's voice rose. "It's d.a.m.n hard. People don't pay attention. They don't like to be united. They'd rather fight. Or pick the wrong lover. Or find an excuse to stay away from their beloved for ten years."