Читать книгу Claim of Innocence - Laura Caldwell, Leslie S. Klinger - Страница 13

T he restaurant was called Fred’s. It sat atop the Barney’s department store like a little sun patio hidden amidst the city’s high-rises. The roof had a geometric shape cut into it so diners could gaze up at the sky-scraping towers blocks away, their lights twinkling against the blue-black sky arising from Lake Michigan behind them.

Fred’s was more formal than Sam usually liked. I wondered what this meant. He had decided the rendezvous point.

I watched Sam across the table from me as he searched the room for the waiter. It was as if he could hardly look at me. Was that because being together was overwhelming, emotionally speaking? Because he was nervous? What? I used to be able to read him so well. I understood him in ways he didn’t even see himself. Like the fact that he had been wounded by his family, even though his mother and siblings were all very nice people. When an abusive dad finally moves out, and you’re the oldest and only son, some male instinct kicks in and you become the dad. You take over. And that will wound. Nobody’s fault.

Finally, the waiter arrived, and Sam ordered a Blue Moon beer.

“Sorry, sir,” the waiter said congenially. They didn’t have any.

“A different Belgian white?” Sam requested.

The waiter apologized and helpfully offered other options, but Sam stalled, seeming a little off-kilter somehow. I jumped in and placed my order to give him time.

“I’ll have vodka and soda,” I said. “With two limes.”

Sam’s eyebrows hunched forward on his face. “When did you start drinking that?”

I thought about it. “A few months ago? My friend introduced me to it.”

Sam searched my eyes. “Your boyfriend.”

I nodded.

He laughed shortly, gruffly.

The waiter still stood at attention. “Sir…?” he asked Sam.

Sam looked up at him. “Patrón tequila. On the rocks.”

“When did you start drinking that?”

“Just now.” He smiled a sardonic grin. “You inspired me to change.”

A few moments of silence followed. They felt like a settling of sorts, a shifting into us with a recognition that us wasn’t the same. But somehow, it felt okay. It felt normal.

“I don’t want to screw things up with you and your boyfriend,” Sam said. I could tell by the way he pronounced boyfriend, in sort of a lighthearted, almost dismissive way, that he didn’t think much of my new relationship.

“Very little could disturb our relationship,” I said, giving a little more weight to Theo and me than might be accurate.

Sam looked at me, blinking a few times.

When I said nothing, he spoke. “I’m just gonna put it out there. Alyssa and I decided to move out of the city. And that was okay with me, because…” He drifted off. Then he slowly nodded. “It was okay because sometimes it’s hard to be here without you. Because Chicago is you. And me.”

He looked at me, and this time I didn’t hesitate to save him. I nodded back. I knew exactly what he meant. Sometimes Chicago without him was not exactly the city I knew before. It was a little more exciting. A little more dangerous. Less consoling than it used to be.

“So anyway,” Sam continued, “we decided to move. Then somehow we started looking for engagement rings. But we couldn’t figure out what we wanted. Everything she sort-of liked, I didn’t. Everything I kinda liked, she didn’t.”

I nodded at him to continue.

“I just kept thinking about our engagement ring,” he said, swiftly unloosening the bolts of my heart with the words. Our engagement ring.

“Remember?” he said.

“Yeah, of course. You saw it in that jeweler’s window.”

“I couldn’t find anything better. Not even close.” He stared at me with a heaviness in his eyes, which momentarily made me sad for him. For me. For us both.

But then I thought of something. “You found a ring eventually, right? Because you’re engaged.”

“Yeah. Sapphire cut.” Sam rattled off a few more specifics that made it clear that a hell of a lot more money was spent on Alyssa’s ring than mine. But the truth was, I couldn’t have cared less.

Sam spoke up. Just one raw sentence that filled me with warmth. “It doesn’t feel the same with her.”

We nodded in silence. Kept nodding. And nodding.

Finally, I spoke. “A minute ago, you said I inspired you.”

Sam nodded.

“Meaning?”

“I want to take a page out of your book. I want to be able to start all over like you did, with grace.”

The emotional warmth I’d felt at his statement—It doesn’t feel the same with her—turned into an angry heat. I could feel my face turning pink, then ruddy, then redder still. Instead of being embarrassed, I let it lift my anger up until I could really feel it. “You think I started over with grace? Do you think I could possibly handle you disappearing two months before our wedding gracefully? I know by taking off you did what you felt you had to. You were fulfilling the dying wishes of a man you thought of as a father. You made a promise. But don’t forget that you’d also made me a promise when we got engaged, and do not assume I handled it well. Do not assume that, Sam.”

I took a gulp of the cocktail, the taste reminding me vaguely of kissing Theo after he’d been out with friends. I wanted that right now. I did not want to be assumed— assumedly fine, assumedly good-natured, assumedly graceful, assumedly a roll-with-the-punches kind of girl. I wanted to be consumed. And so I stood from the table, tossed back another gulp and I left.