Silver Dragon

by Zoe Chant

  I know! “What kind of music do you—”

  “How long have you—”

  Their voices clashed again. She said to the table floral arrangement, “You go first this time.”

  “You told me before you’ve been here a number of years,” Mikhail said. “Is this where you grew up?”

  “No. That was up in LA. I moved down here when I got married, and stayed in the area after that ended.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Bird rushed to change the subject, blurting out the first question that came to mind. “Um, do you like music?”

  Ugh, she thought. What a stupid question. Who doesn’t like music?

  But Mikhail replied with a considered thoughtfulness, “I do. Though I’ve a preference for the older forms, whatever the culture.”

  It occurred to her that he was working as hard as she was at this stilted conversation. That made her feel a little better.

  “I love classical music,” she said, toiling on. “Though I’m no expert. I also like to listen to female vocalists, especially folk singers, but any will do.”

  He leaned forward. “My favorite is Maria de los Angeles.”

  Bird gasped. “Her version of Madame Butterfly is so devastatingly beautiful. If only I could have seen her sing.”

  “I saw her once,” he murmured, eyes half shut, and the silvery glimmer was back. “It was a transcendent experience. So much so that I find I avoid the opera if anyone else is singing it. Unfair, I know.”

  “Oh, I wish I could have seen her,” Bird said. “Have you ever heard her sing Maurice Ravel’s Kaddish?”

  “You know that piece?” His eyes widened.

  “Only on records,” she admitted. My other favorite is Ravel’s—”

  “Shehérézade?” The soft way his voice caressed the word, the echo of the beautiful singing sent shivers through her. She sucked in a breath to invite him over to hear it, then remembered her shabby place, her cheapo stereo, her old LPs.

  Instead she asked what other operas he liked. They went on through Mozart, Rimsky-Korsakov, and back again to Puccini, until the waiter appeared, breaking the spell by asking if they wanted coffee?

  She realized that they’d lingered long after they’d finished eating. But she refused to feel guilty. No one else in her life liked opera.

  They both ordered tea. Such a small thing to have in common, but one that pleased her.

  “I began reading a Bertie Wooster book last night,” Mikhail said. “I found it at the book store on the main street.”

  “Which one? Do you like it?”

  “The Code of the Woosters. It’s very amusing, though it seems to depict a world that doesn’t exist anymore. If it ever did.”

  Bird laughed. As they talked about P.G. Wodehouse’s world of primeval aunts howling over their teacups from swamp to swamp and young men in spats, Bird found herself wishing this lunch would never end. But the tea was all drunk, and the check arrived, a silent hint that the restaurant needed the table that they’d kept for . . . almost three hours!

  Embarrassed, she picked up the armful of roses and walked out quickly, as if that would make up for using up three hours of his life.

  “Thank you for lunch,” she said at the door.

  “No, I thank you,” he said with that lovely smile that made her feel outlined in light. “I look forward to our investigations on the morrow.”

  She started to stutter a good-bye, then realized he was politely walking her to her bike. But before things could get awkward, he gave her that quaint, grave little bow that made her feel like a queen, then he walked away.

  Bird gazed after him, completely conflicted. She had been afraid he’d ask where she lived, or want to take her home. She knew better than to give our her address to a guy she’d just met, even if her place had been a showcase. It was sensible and responsible . . . and yet her strongest emotion was reluctance to let him go.

  She was so scared she was reading this situation all wrong. After all these years of living alone, she was crushing on a perfect stranger.

  Even as her brain listed all the reasons why she was totally crazy, she gently, carefully laid the roses in her bike basket. Then she remembered that she’d been hired to do those drawings, and her inner teenager rejoiced, You get to see him tomorrow! Another chance!

  Another chance at . . . what? Godiva would say something like, Toward another adventure. You’re never too old for adventures.

  That was certainly true for Godiva, Bird thought wistfully. Godiva’s life had been wilder than any of her books. But she was smart and not afraid of anything.

  Well. Climbing into a cave with a handsome man might not be an adventure compared to Godiva’s life—Bird was taking a sketchpad and pencils, not a harpoon or a gun, and the man would no doubt vanish as quickly as he’d appeared once he obtained his drawings—but she could enjoy every second of his company until he vanished, couldn’t she?

  When Bird got back home, she hesitated over the phone, but decided not to call her friends. She knew that they wouldn’t laugh at her, or scold her—they were wonderful friends. But she couldn’t bear the idea of them warning her to be sensible or practical—or conversely, building castles in the air about this man’s intentions. And if he disappeared as soon as his job was done, as she fully expected him to do, she knew she would hate it if they sympathized by talking about what a rat he was.

  Mikhail wasn’t a rat. If, no, when he moved on, it would be perfectly natural. Bird knew she was not any Helen of Troy! And she was perfectly okay with that. So there.

  Realizing that she was arguing with herself, she sighed and hunted out a vase, and set the flowers in with water and an aspirin to help them last longer.

  Then she returned Bec’s call. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to answer.”

  “Mom!” Bec laughed. “I do not expect you to be answering the phone 24/7. That’s why we have answering machines! Have you got a minute?”

  “I certainly do,” Bird said, quashing the impulse to talk about her morning.

  “I’m not going to bitch about Father. I’m sure you know what he wants, always the best for us. But his best isn’t my best, that’s what I keep trying to explain. And nothing is certain. I can’t walk out on these cases, but every minute I find myself researching schools . . .”

  Bird listened with heartfelt sympathy as Bec weighed the pros and cons of leaving her lucrative job that she hated, for training in something new that would never make her rich. Bird suspected the decision had already been made, and so her role was to be supportive. And she was, with that cherished “Mom” still ringing in her ears, after twenty-seven years of silence.

  Another restless night of what-if scenarios, both disastrous and wonderful, brought dawn at last. A hot shower and a strong cup of English Breakfast did the wake-up job, leaving her excited and nervous as she dressed in sturdy clothes.

  She looked in the pantry and remembered she was nearly out of food. She’d meant to go to the grocery store that morning. Then a great idea occurred to her: she would give in to reckless impulse, just once, and go to Linette’s to get fresh pastry for breakfast. For both of them.

  She packed her sketchpad and pencils as well as chalks into her ratty old backpack. The sun was well up as she biked to the bakery.

  The moment she walked in, she sniffed the heavenly scent of fresh bread and pastry being pulled from the oven. Happiness thrilled through her at the day, the food, the prospect of seeing Mikhail again.

  When it was her turn, she froze. She had no idea what kind of pastries he liked! So she got one each of her favorites. Whatever he chose, she would enjoy the others.

  “Please let me pay,” she said earnestly. “These aren’t just for me, they’re also for someone else.”

  Linette grinned.

  Bird said suspiciously, “Why are you smiling like that?”

  Linette chuckled evilly. “I’m just picturing what you’ll look like with money stuffed down your shirt if you dare take out your w
allet.”

  “I feel I’m taking advantage of you,” Bird protested.

  “Hah! Besides, sharing my pastry is good publicity,” Linette said, wrapping up the bag. “Go! Have fun!” she added in a very meaningful voice.

  What was that about? Bird thought as she walked out. It was a perfect day, the air scrubbed clean after the previous night’s rain. Her spirits soared as she put the pastry bag in her bike basket, then cruised in the cool morning breeze toward the beach.

  She stepped onto the sand, thinking that Godiva would love this. A pulse of guilt rang through her for not calling—but she would, if a miracle happened and everything went well.

  So here she was.

  And nobody except her knew she was here. Odd, how until two days ago it never would have occurred to her to put herself in a position of being alone with a strange man. But he felt so safe. Though as Bartholomew had always said that her judgment was terrible.

  “Yes, the proof is, I married you,” she muttered aloud.

  Maybe the victims of serial killers felt safe, too, right before the killer pounced—

  “Good morning, Bird.” Mikhail was just a few feet away, silver eyes shining with good humor. “Did you bring your phone with you?” He set down a gear bag held up his own cellphone, his handsome cane in his other hand.

  “Yes,” she said a little breathlessly, patting her backpack.

  “Good. I really don’t expect there to be any trouble, but it’s always good to have a backup, just in case. I also have a first aid kit. And I dropped by the bakery because I have a weakness for hot scones with good tea. Have you eaten?”

  Did serial killers make sure there was a safety backup, and treat you with fresh scones? she thought as she held up her own bag.

  Mikhail laughed. “Which ones did you choose?”

  “I wasn’t sure what you liked,” she said, that brief flurry of worry vanishing. “So I got four different ones.”

  “I did the same!” Mikhail replied.

  She had to laugh. Was that why Linette was giving her that significant grin? Her crush must have been really obvious to the book group. Well, Bird was not the least bit sorry, right now, when he was smiling at her that way.

  He opened his bag, the heavenly scent of fresh pastry wafting out. “Shall we combine our haul and have a feast as we walk? I can share out the tea.”

  Mikhail reached into his gear bag and pulled out one of Linette’s paper sacks, along with a thermos. He had also brought two porcelain cups, into which he poured a delicately tinted tea that filled the air with a fresh scent.

  Bird sniffed, and exclaimed with growing pleasure, “That smells like Dragon Well tea!”

  “Longjing, is what we call it. My hotel room offers a microwave, which boils water well. Do you know this tea?”

  “It’s one of my favorites,” she said, taking the cup he handed her. Their fingers touched briefly, and once again those sparkly butterflies shot straight to her core.

  His smile flashed. “You are fond of tea?”

  “It’s my one indulgence, good tea. Dragon Well—I never knew how to pronounce its name in Chinese.”

  “Long. Jing,” he said slowly, emphasizing the tone, and she repeated it exactly.

  “Long Jing. Long Jing,” she repeated with the correct tone.

  Both of them had bought blueberry scones and Linette’s famous cinnamon rolls, which made them laugh. They talked easily about pastry favorites as he broke a lemon bar in half, sharing it with her, and she split the cheese Danish that she’d brought.

  They walked side by side, munching still-warm pastries and sipping the fresh, astringent tea, which balanced perfectly with the sweetness of the food. His bringing tea and pastry was such a thoughtful gesture her throat tightened. She wasn’t used to that kind of consideration, ever. Food and caretaking had been her jobs during her marriage.

  It occurred to her that she was absurdly, even dangerously happy. Dangerous only because those sensible, adult what ifs insisted on reminding her how horrible she would feel when this job finished, and he went back to whatever he did.

  So enjoy it while you can, silly, she admonished her adult self.

  She told him her favorite green teas, then asked for his.

  “My family is involved in the business of exporting teas. I grew up drinking a variety of them.” He told her the names in Chinese. How beautiful they sounded when spoken in their proper accent! Then he gave her a glance of concern. “I trust your daughter did not have an emergency? Please feel free to tell me that it’s none of my business.”

  “No, no. That is, I don’t really know Bec that well.” She stopped herself there, and finished a last bite of scone. The buttery goodness filled her mouth with warmth.

  Rip the band aid off, she thought recklessly. The sooner she made a mistake the better, if he was going to vanish soon anyway. “Bec only came back into my life recently.”

  “Was that separation something you wanted?” Mikhail asked gently.

  “No.” It came out in a rush of breath. “No. It wasn’t. Not to get into a dreary story, but I lost custody in my divorce.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” Mikhail said gravely, his eyes suddenly a thunderstorm gray, the pupils reflecting the sun rising behind them.

  He looked angry—even a little frightening—but she was not frightened, she realized, as the force of his gaze shot into the distance. There was an inexplicable but deep conviction that he was not angry with her. She stared at those mesmerizing eyes, the bag of pastry forgotten in her hand until he said, “I am not very conversant with the laws in this country, but are parents not permitted visitation rights?”

  “I was given two Saturdays a month, and Christmas and birthdays every other year. But somehow I was always too late, or came on the wrong day, or I’d forgotten that we’d changed the schedule weeks ago. I . . . well, I was so depressed that I went on medication, and in those days what they gave you didn’t do much but mask the pain a little. I got so confused, and I did everything wrong and I couldn’t seem to stop it...” Bird broke off. “But it wasn’t really me. Have you ever heard the word ‘gaslighting?’”

  “I know the term.” His voice was soft, low, husky, almost a growl. “It is when some cruel person deliberately makes you believe that everything is your fault or your mistake or your false belief, until you think you are going mad.”

  Bird nodded, trying not to choke up. She hadn’t even told him the worst part, but he already sounded like he understood. “My ex-husband didn’t want me in my children’s lives. So he gaslighted me into thinking that I had forgotten the date, or had arrived at the wrong time, or there was some crucial school event scheduled, and I didn’t want be selfish and force them to miss it, did I? Always reminding me that I had failed so badly as a wife and a mother that the children didn’t want or need me. After two years of that, I only managed to see them twice, and both times they arrived having been told that my insistence on seeing them had robbed them of a trip to Disneyland or Knotts Berry Farm. Finally, I gave up. I thought I was only hurting them to keep trying.”

  She added hastily, “I don’t want you to think he’s a monster. He made sure they went to the best schools, had the best lessons, and so forth. And though his parents never cared for me, they did seem to care about the children. They took them on expensive vacations that I could never have given them.”

  The gray eyes were back again. Then Mikhail looked away toward the sea as he said, “Your parents, they were not there?”

  “Oh, they would have been, I know that. I was born very late in their lives. Dad had a heart attack six months after my wedding, and Mom didn’t make it a month after he died. And as they had both been onlies, I didn’t have relatives to offer my kids.”

  “But now your children are back again in your life?”

  “Yes, I’m glad to say.”

  “That is excellent.” His smile brightened, and there were the warm silver eyes again. “It was your daughter, then, who fou
nd you?”

  “It was my son, actually. He refused to follow in the tracks his father had designed for him—prestigious university, meeting the right people, a lucrative career—and went into the Marine Corps. Before being posted overseas he had to fill out papers for next of kin. When he went to write my name in, he didn’t even know if I still used my husband’s name or if I had gone back to Worcester. He decided to find me, and to ask why he didn’t know, if I had abandoned them in truth. At first it was . . . difficult, but he listened to me.”

  “I trust it was a good reunion?” His eyes were warm and silvery again. That angry slate gray had to be a trick of the light.

  “It was wonderful. Wonderful. He came back again, and that time he brought Bec. They chose to visit me last Thanksgiving, and, well, here we are.” Conscious that she had been talking for a long time, she said, “I hope you were more successful with Fei Zhan?”

  “Not really.” Mikhail’s smile twisted. “There was no battle for custody. His mother and I parted amicably and remain cordial. I have only myself to blame for my lack of success. I traveled so much when he was small that when I did return, and brought him something, it always seemed to be out of date. Something he’d grown out of. I did not know him, and seemed an intruder in his life. We were . . . distant... for a long time. But when he became a young man and joined the family business, we reconnected. He had the generosity of spirit to forgive my absence in his life. We have a good understanding now, for which I am grateful.”

  “I’m so glad,” she said, handing her empty cup back. “Knowing my kids is such a joy. Their father might be disappointed in their life paths, but I’m very proud of both. Skater’s a career Marine, and he’s dating a wonderful young woman who makes him happy. Bec is going back to school to study what she always wanted to do, which is music therapy for autistic kids. She was . . . pushed toward corporate law, worked at it for three years, and hates it.”