War For The Oaks Part 16

He had the grace to look embarra.s.sed. "I'm sorry. It's complex-and a little tense, I guess. My family's British, but I was born here."

"In Minnesota?"

He shook his head. "Western Virginia. But I left when I was young and did a lot of traveling." He fell silent for a moment, then added, "I'm the family oddball, you see. Not a black sheep, I haven't done anything dreadful. They just don't know what to do with me, exactly." He shrugged and gave a wistful little grimace. Then he turned his face away, his eyes on the darkening sky over the rooftops.

"I grew up in Winnipeg," Eddi offered in trade. "Moved here with my mother when my parents divorced, went to the U of M-where I met Carla-dropped out at the end of my third year, and been rock 'n' rolling ever since."

"Your mother still live here?"

Eddi shook her head. "She's out in Washington state, living in a cabin and being a forester." She made a face at w.i.l.l.y. "Why am I telling you all this?"

"'Cause I like to know," he said, and his smile made her skin tickle. "So no other family here? No brothers or sisters?"

"No. My brother stayed with my dad in Canada."

w.i.l.l.y nodded, as if this made some sort of sense independent of the words themselves. Eddi took advantage of his distraction to study him again. He looked elegantly underdressed in black pleated trousers, a black-and-white Art Deco print shirt, and a black chalkstripe vest, which he wore unb.u.t.toned.

His black leather jacket hung over one shoulder. His hair was rumpled and slightly damp, as if just washed, and Eddi caught an herbal-soap scent, rosemary and elder-flowers, when he shook his head.

"So," w.i.l.l.y said, "why no spring?"

"What? Oh! We just don't."

"Everybody has spring," he said, like a religious man chiding her for saying there was no G.o.d.

"The joke goes that we have two seasons: road repair and snow removal. Or is that snow repair and road removal?" To her surprise, he looked a little shocked. "Well," she amended quickly, "it's not always true.

Sometimes they run out of money for snow removal."

They were walking north toward downtown. w.i.l.l.y eyed the featureless backside of the Hyatt-Regency Hotel and said, "That's the kind of thinking that leads to buildings with windows that don't open."

If it did, Eddi decided it must be by a circuitous route. She studied his preoccupied expression. "Is something bothering you?"

A frown flew across his face and was gone: the apologetic grin that followed almost made her forget it.

"Not exactly. And nothing to do with you. It's"-his smile took on an ironic cast-"sort of a family problem."

"Does that translate as, 'None of your business?'"

w.i.l.l.y seemed to find this uncommonly funny. "Sort of," he said at last.

Eddi stared at him, wondering what to say. She knew she should be annoyed, and even had a vague notion that she was. But it seemed-inappropriate? "All right," she sighed. "I won't ask."

He caught her hand. "Didn't mean to hurt your feelings," he said, rueful and coaxing. Light caught in one of his eyes, edging the iris with pale green fire. The laughter melted from his face as he looked at her. The intensity that fascinated her so seemed to shine from him like candlelight through alabaster.

"You're very beautiful," he said softly.

That was confusing; she knew she wasn't. She shook her head.

"You don't believe me? For shame."

As a relief from his eyes, she looked down at the hands that held hers-long and pale, smooth, pleasantly cool, with neatly trimmed nails. Stuart had bitten his fingernails.

He raised her head with a finger under her chin, then put both hands around her waist and drew her close. He kissed her as if intending to burn the caution out of her.

She stepped back after a few moments and laughed shakily. "Do that again and you'll have to carry me downtown. That does funny things to my knees."

He laughed, and tucked her arm into his own.

They crossed over to Hennepin Avenue on Tenth Street. Hennepin was still changing from its daytime clothes to evening ones, from office bustle to party strut. Men and women in suits waited for buses that sucked them in and deposited suburban high school kids, dressed for Friday night, in their places.

w.i.l.l.y stopped in front of the painted scenic windows of the Rhine-haus. "Dinner?"

"This is a little steeper than I had in mind."

"I'm buying tonight, so it's my pick. German food." He held the door for her, and gave a little bow, which made her laugh. It also, annoyingly enough, reminded her of the phouka in one of his courtly moods.

"Something wrong?" w.i.l.l.y asked.

"No, why?"

"You frowned."

Eddi shrugged. "Just thinking about-my friend. Back at my apartment."

"Mmm."

The Rhinehaus was atmospherically gloomy. Hurricane candles quivered in their jars, isolating each heavy pine table in its own pool of uncertain light. The corners of the room disappeared, and the few clearly seen details took on the fascination of objets d'art. A painted-gla.s.s picture of a stag and hounds seemed to billow like a tapestry; an ornate cuckoo clock seemed as full of fluttering as a pine tree sheltering a flock of sparrows. In the dark air redolent of wine and unfamiliar spices, thought itself was muted and mysterious, and all its sharp edges were planed down.

They ordered things they'd never tried or never heard of, sausages with rich and silly names, hot salad, cold soup, bread as brown as the phouka's skin. They debated the merits of beer and wine with the concentration of executives planning a corporate takeover. They chose mulled wine. The waiter brought it well before the food, and the smell itself seemed to fill Eddi's head with a glimmering haze.

w.i.l.l.y stretched a hand across the table and laid it over Eddi's. She felt a pleasant nervous discomfort.

"So," he said softly, as befitted the dark room, "what about your friend?"

She stared at him.

"Back at your apartment," he added helpfully.

"Oh, the-right. What about him?"

"That's what I asked," w.i.l.l.y said, looking patient. "Am I stepping on any toes? Should I expect a nasty scene?"

Eddi wasn't certain, given the phouka, that she could deny the possibility of some kind of scene. But it wouldn't be the sort that w.i.l.l.y meant. For a moment, she wondered if w.i.l.l.y cared whether she would be subjected to an ugly quarrel. That, however, was surely splitting hairs. "He's a friend."

"An old one?"

Eddi had a ridiculous itch to tell him the whole thing. She shrugged instead.

"Just wondered. I mean, he does your dishes."

She felt an absurd irritation on the phouka's behalf. "Remember the women's movement? We don't always have to do the dishes nowadays."

That made him laugh. "Okay, I was just making sure. Wouldn't want him to gather his friends and go looking for me."

And his friends would amaze you. Eddie mentally a.s.sured him.

They ordered linzer torte and coffee, and Eddi asked, "What are we going to name the band?"

w.i.l.l.y winced and pushed both hands through his black hair. The white streak flashed between his fingers. "Dino Lessons," he said finally, grinning.

"Good G.o.d-like dinosaur? Where'd you get that?"

"Something I overheard."

"Well, I don't think so. But it's... arresting. How about Love and Rockets?" Eddi asked, thinking of t.i.tles in Carla's comic book collection.

w.i.l.l.y shook his head. "Already used."

"Are you serious? Dirty rats. Gargoyles? No, too metal."

"Mmm. So's Wages of Sin. I don't know. I still like Free Beer."

"No," Eddi said firmly. "The Sneakers?"

"Too..." w.i.l.l.y made a graceful gesture with shoulders and hands. "... frivolous."

"Behavior Modification."

"I kinda like that. Long, though."

"Too long." Eddi sighed. "And not quite it. Well, maybe something will come to us when we know what we sound like. Oh, did I tell you? Carla got us a job."

w.i.l.l.y looked impressed. "When?"

"Good grief, I didn't ask her. It's at MCAD, though, for a student show and reception."

"MCAD?".

"College of Art and Design. You'll like it. And better still, they'll like you."

"Well," he said, "of course. Artists have taste and refinement."

"And musicians have an ego problem."

"Me?" He grinned, and paid the tab with a couple of crisp bills.

Out on Hennepin, the evening had begun. Cars cruised-little imports, shiny pickup trucks, and big American cars with lots of rear suspension and very little m.u.f.fler. Dance music beckoned from the open door of Duff's. A boy with an enormous mohawk and a girl in a torn jean jacket and engineer boots were arguing with an earnest young man in front of the Church of Scientology. Three black kids in front of the Skyway Theater had a boom box with something funky overdriving the speakers.

"I love this street," said Eddi.

w.i.l.l.y shot her a quick look. "You mean that?"

"Too grungy for you?"

"Not quite, no. But love?"

Eddi stuffed her hands in her pockets. "At night," she said at last, "this is the heart of Minneapolis.

Uptown, where we were last night, is maybe its feet, where it dances. Hennepin Avenue is like an artery between them."

They'd reached the corner of Seventh and Hennepin. Eddi pointed at two high school girls in trendy haircuts and jeweled denim. "When the suburban kids come in for Friday night, or the outstate kids come to the city, Hennepin is where they go. When the college kids want to play pinball, when the guys on the north side want to hang around and check out the women and when the women want to hang around and show off their new clothes, this is it, this is the place to do it." She grinned and pulled her jacket a little closer. "With all those people, all that energy and emotion and-well, living, this place ought to have a life of its own by now." She looked at w.i.l.l.y. "Too much armchair mysticism?"

"No," w.i.l.l.y replied. He gave his head a little shake, as if to throw off a mood, and smiled. "Or at least, I don't think so. How much is too much armchair mysticism?"

"Good question. For all I know, it's like chocolate."

"You never have enough chocolate."

"Exactly."

City Center rose up before them, determinedly bland and blank-featured, hiding three floors of shopping mall under its pink ceramic-like hide. Across the street, Shinder's newsstand was a lively, noisy challenge to the impa.s.sive mall.

First Avenue and the street that gave it its name were just a block from Shinder's on Seventh Street.

Eddi and w.i.l.l.y shuffled in the outer doors at the end of a short line.

"Isn't this pretty quiet?" asked w.i.l.l.y, with a nod at the people ahead of them.

"It's early. I wouldn't want to be showing up at eleven."

Eddi showed her driver's license to the man at the head of the line, and he waved her through. There was something regal, but not haughty, about the gesture, as if it was backed up by an ungrudging n.o.blesse oblige.

The building was cinderblock painted high-gloss black in an effort to disguise its bus station origins. The double gla.s.s doors that faced the street were cloudy with the dust that even a few hours' traffic produced, and smudged with fingerprints. Inside the doors were more cinderblock and black paint, a middle-aged cash register on the counter of a bare, bleak-lit cashier's stall, and a long black wall studded with photocopied posters advertising next week's bands. A little video monitor hung from the long wall, showing rock videos, special color effects, and sc.r.a.ps of old monster movies without the sound.

"Ahem," said w.i.l.l.y behind her.

"Oh, so they let you in, did they?"

His mouth quirked at the corners. "I'm old enough to drink."

"What about dancing?"

"Too old. I'd better just watch."

Eddi laughed and tucked her arm through his. "Come along, Gramps. Check your coat and we'll test that."

Once around the end of the long wall, First Avenue appeared to have unfolded, or possibly transformed entirely, while the visitor's back was turned. The main room played improbable games with one's eyes; its black walls made the darkened room seem infinitely large. Three projection screens rolled down from the ceiling to curtain the front of the stage with enormous versions of what the monitor by the door had shown. A second-floor balcony wrapped around three sides of the room. The center portion, facing the stage, was fronted with a gla.s.s wall that reflected the light from the screen and blended it with the light from the balcony bar. Neon on the invisible walls seemed to float in midair everywhere. Over the dance floor was a tangle of colored lights, neon sculpture that ignited in quick rhythmic bursts, and flash pots like little short-lived stars. The sound system made the whole unmeasurable s.p.a.ce quake.