Softer Than Steel (A Love & Steel Novel)

by Jessica Topper

  Sidra plucked it from his hand. “Hell yeah.” She didn’t know how or to whom she was going to drum the shit up out of yoga, but going down without a fight wasn’t in the Sullivan vocabulary.

  “Come up front for a second, I wanna show you something.”

  Ever the gentlemen when he wanted to be, her cousin swept his hand and let Sidra take the lead up the long corridor to the front of the record store. Over the PA, Dropkick Murphys were blasting out their own brand of pirate punk, and Fiona was sitting on the counter, swinging her legs to the beat as she flipped through one of her fat fashion magazines.

  “When can I borrow your new shoes, Sid?” she hollered over the music.

  “When you grow a size-five foot,” Sidra quipped, earning herself a playful kick in the butt by one of Fiona’s Doc Martens, easily a size eight. She hadn’t even worn the fancy footwear herself today, opting for ratty tennis sneakers in case she splattered paint.

  “Mikey, will you buy me sandals like Sidra’s?” Fiona batted her eyelashes his way.

  “If you want a sugar daddy, go date someone over at Doughnut Plant,” Mikey teased his girlfriend. “Now get your ass off the counter and rotate some of the end displays, wouldja?” Holding the door, he motioned impatiently. “Letting all the AC out, Sid. Come on.”

  Out on the sidewalk, Mikey adjusted the brim of his flat black cap and squinted upward. “Well, what do you think?”

  Under the old Sullivan and Son Bicycles sign now hung a sign for Evolve, in equal billing with the one for the record store.

  “Oh, Mike. I love everything about it!” And she did, from the yellow swirling motif to the orange flaming sun. “Thank you!”

  Mikey allowed himself to be hugged. “Thank Seamus. He painted. I just hung it.”

  Sidra had figured as much. Whether it was a paintbrush or a drumstick, Seamus itched to create with whatever was in his hands. “It brightens up the neighborhood,” Sidra observed.

  “Yeah. So let’s not give my dad any good reason to tear it down, okay?”

  As Sidra stepped back toward the curb to get a better look at her new sign, a flash of the sun’s glare off a moving windshield caught her eye from down the block. Her pulse rate quickened at the sight of a sleek black limo sliding down Rivington’s narrow passage. Mr. Import had crossed her mind more than once since he had hailed that cab to JFK.

  “Someone must be lost,” Mikey muttered under his breath, watching the tinted windows as the car slowed to a crawl past them. Sidra felt heat rise to her cheeks, no doubt matching the red of the luxury car’s taillights as it braked to a smooth stop. She chastised herself for even fantasizing that it could be the handsome stranger who had come to her rescue with a wheelchair.

  Yeah, like he’s gonna pop out of that car with a dozen roses and a glass flip-flop for you?

  “Forget what I said,” Fiona breathed. Now she was the one letting all the air-conditioning out, her curvaceous body propping the shop door open. “Mikey, I want you to buy me shoes like those.”

  A spike heel, capped with silver, speared a candy bar wrapper in the gutter as its owner swung her other leg out of the limo and stood to full height. She surveyed the block from behind large sunglasses, her lips pursing slightly as she brought manicured hands to her hips.

  “Loubies.” Fiona’s worshipping tone brought Sidra out of her trance, but lit a flame under Mikey’s temper.

  “Christ almighty, Fi! I’m not paying to cool the entire East Side. Close the friggin’ door!”

  “Yeah, well, wipe the drool from your chin, Mike,” Fiona snapped. “She’s clearly outta your league . . . and I doubt she’s here to trade in her used records.”

  The woman cast a furtive glance in their direction before sliding back into the car. Long nails flicked the candy wrapper from her heel to the curb as if it were a cockroach before the door slammed and the limo sped off.

  “Nah, she’s probably one of those bendy, trendy yoga bitches.” Mike pulled his cap from his head, wiped his sweaty brow, and grinned at his cousin. “Looking for you, Sid. There goes the freakin’ neighborhood.”

  * * *

  When one went poking around in Uncle Sully’s backspace, there was no telling what one might find.

  “Uncle Sul?”

  Sidra’s foot came down on something soft and pliable. It protested with a baritone squawk, causing her to jump about a foot. She picked up the old bike horn and laughed to herself. Although the bicycle shop had been closed for years, her uncle’s inventory mysteriously seemed to keep growing.

  She stepped deftly over snakelike coils of bicycle tubing, but stopped short when she heard a strange, staccato hiss coming from her left. She backtracked around a pile of shipping cartons and spotted her uncle kneeling on the cement floor. Sunlight streamed through the open roll-up door behind him, yet it was the cascade of soldering sparks that caused her to squint.

  A masked figure stepped into her path, causing her to yelp.

  “Boo.” Seamus laughed, flipping up his welding mask. His gloved hands plucked the bicycle horn from her grasp. “Hey, I’ve been looking for one of these. Thanks!”

  Sidra watched her brother circle around their uncle. Sully passed him the blowtorch, and they both bent their heads with the concentration of surgeons conducting a delicate operation. Sidra stayed at a safe distance until the iron’s flame was extinguished and both men stepped away, lifting their masks triumphantly.

  “Oh Shay, it’s beautiful!” Sidra gasped. “I can’t believe you finally finished it.”

  Seamus had a knack for Frankensteining spare parts together into something functional. This time, he had taken one of the frames left to languish in the back of the bike shop and turned it into an aesthetically pleasing, aerodynamic riding machine.

  Sidra ran her hand over the ruby leather seat. Gold ornamentation against the black frame gave it an elegance that far surpassed any other steampunk-inspired bike she had ever seen. And she had seen many, as Seamus insisted on thrusting magazine photos and blueprints under her nose regularly. This one had a coachman’s lamp mounted on the front, and ample gears, clocks, springs, and wooden rims to complete the look.

  “I used old army ammo boxes for storage in back,” Seamus explained, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. “Steam-pimped my ride.” He grinned.

  “Your grandfather—God rest his soul—would be proud, Seamus.” Uncle Sully pointed upward at another Sullivan and Son sign, this one hanging over his workbench, and then touched his heart with as much reverence as making the sign of the cross. “Bikes,” he announced, gathering up his tools. “Bikes are in the Sullivan blood.”

  Or, in Mikey’s case, in the Sullivan blood alcohol content, Sidra thought wryly. Several years ago, her uncle and cousin attempted to get in on the rickshaw craze. Sully blew a wad of dough on a fleet of pedicabs, and then had to spend a bundle to bail out Mikey for drunk driving (drunk pedaling?) when he crashed into a cab coming off the Brooklyn Bridge. Luckily, no one was hurt and he had no fare in the rickshaw at the time, but it was a dark period in the evolution of the Sullivan bicycle business.

  “I bet you could sell it for a mint,” Sidra mused, running a finger along the sleek handlebars.

  “The hell with that! I’m riding this old girl. Come with me.” Seamus threw a leg over the frame and pounded the seat behind him. Sidra gave him a withering, skeptical look, then turned to her uncle.

  “Hey, Uncle Sul?”

  “Yes, angel?”

  She was about to recite a litany of reasons why selling the building would not be in the family’s best interests, but when he looked down at her with those watery blue eyes so much like her father’s, she lost her nerve. “What’s the story with that light?”

  “The one in your space?”

  “Yeah. Does it ever turn off?”

  Sully polished the tip of the soldering iron thoughtfully. “Your grandfather”—he gave a heavenward jab, this time with the torch—“God love him. He always said not to mess
with it. That’s all I know.”

  It was a nonanswer at best. Which was rare, since Sullivans rarely minced their words.

  Seamus gave the mounted horn an impatient squeak. “Gitawnup!”

  Sidra threw her own leg over the bike with a laugh, and her uncle gave her a boost to land her on the seat.

  “Hang on,” Seamus warned, shoving off with one foot and catching a pedal beneath his other. Sidra squealed as they bumped out the roll-up door and into the bright light, shooting through the alleyway. “Lean with me,” he instructed. “I won’t let us fall.”

  Brother promised, and sister trusted. And off went the two siblings through lower Manhattan on a bicycle built for one.

  Rick

  Son Knows Best

  “Don’t be daft, mate. We move to the lake house for the summer as soon as school’s over next week. The apartment is yours for the asking. All the comforts of home.”

  Rick hadn’t remotely considered asking. Holing himself up for the past two weeks in generic well-appointed anonymity had eased the anxiety triggers. “Eh. I don’t know, Dig. There’s something to be said for hotel living.”

  He had to practically grind his mobile into his ear canal for Adrian’s response to register over the din of Bedford Avenue. Cripes, Brooklyn is just as loud as Manhattan. Rick had assumed the outer boroughs might be a bit more laid-back.

  “Spending your summer in a hotel sounds downright depressing. And like a waste of bloody cash.”

  “Yet clean towels and a well-made bed every day,” Rick countered.

  “Right, well, you wouldn’t have my housekeeper every day for that.” Adrian laughed. “But Ana does come once a week to keep up with things. And think, you’ll be close to the park, to the studio.”

  Truth be told, the appeal of the Benjamin was wearing thin. He had chosen the luxury boutique hotel as his home base during the band’s recording session before remembering how much he loathed Midtown East. The location was convenient for meeting his in-laws out at an occasional dinner, but little else. Simone’s parents tirelessly tolerated him, but he wondered how many more East Side dinners he could handle out with the Banquets before taking a fork to his eyes. They felt the need to return, item by bloody item, everything he’d ever given Simone that had stayed behind in her childhood shrine. Bad enough he had found the letters she had saved back home. Now he had possession of dusty stuffed animals, bad poetry he’d written her, and a crate full of warped record albums.

  He’d beg off embarrassingly early after each meal, not exaggerating when he used the early morning schlep to the recording studio as an excuse. West 54th might as well have been the West Bank and Gaza Strip, for all the trouble it took him to get there.

  Rick cracked his neck from side to side, catching in his peripheral the loping stride of his eldest son. Paul was twenty minutes late for the brunch date of his own making.

  “Gone are the days of just kipping on the studio floor, I reckon?”

  “Not advisable at our advanced age.” Adrian tutted.

  “Thanks, mate. I’ll consider your offer.”

  Adrian’s spacious flat on Central Park West certainly trumped that attic bedroom at the lake house; its ceiling, held together by the cello tape of broken dreams and wasted years, appeared to sink lower to Rick with each visit.

  “Oh, and Kat insists you continue to join us upstate on the weekends.”

  Bugger and blast.

  American hospitality. Bah. Simone would’ve offered the same thing for any of his bandmates, left to their own devices in a rented town. But for some reason, this got under his skin. The last thing Rick wanted was Kat examining and fussing over him. He hoped she was at least keeping her promise not to reveal his panic spells to Adrian.

  “Right, mate. Isabelle’s clicking in. Cheers!”

  “I found your little match girl,” Isabelle opened with. “A hop, skip, and a jump from skid row. Rivington. Under the Bowery.”

  “You sure?” A stir of excitement, followed by a pang of something else he couldn’t quite define, shifted inside him.

  “Of course I’m sure. Do you want me to draw you a fucking map?” She hung up before Rick had a chance to thank her or tell her to piss off.

  “Ready for the best breakfast in Brooklyn, Dad? They serve it until five o’clock in the evening!”

  Rick clapped a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “So you’re still four hours early then, not a half hour late?”

  “Sorry, got held up printing our boarding passes.” Rick’s blank look prompted his son to add, “Ilana and I leave for Greece tomorrow, remember?” Paul gripped his father’s forearm and pulled him into the closest thing resembling a hug between them in the last six months. “Good to see you, Dad.”

  They entered the narrow, glass-fronted space of Egg and squeezed their way to one of the few unoccupied tables. Paul signaled for a pot of the restaurant’s signature French press, giving Rick a chance to survey his son. The dark Rottenberg hair tamed to a hip, shaggy swoop, the Banquet blue eyes slightly magnified behind chunky-framed lenses. The beard was new. “What’s this?” Rick gestured. “You’re looking a bit Orthodox.”

  Paul laughed, slowly preparing their coffee. Rick envied the patience it took, along with his son’s youthful elegant nonchalance in performing the task. “Williamsburg certainly has its fair share of Hasidim, but the hipsters are slowly outnumbering them.”

  Rick wondered whether he could channel his own inner Grizzly Adams, don the serial killer glasses, and pull off the look. Nah, too old for it. And he certainly wasn’t ready for the Professor Calculus look just yet. He noticed the ladies were giving Digger dewy-eyed looks whenever he succumbed to his reading glasses on the road, more and more so these days. Rick still preferred to stumble around like Captain Haddock, blind on too much Loch Lomond, like in those old Belgian Tintin comics he used to read to his sons during those rare nights he wasn’t on tour.

  “So, Greece?”

  Paul nodded. “We’re backpacking around the islands for a month before I’m due in Thessaloniki. My second summer at ISSON.”

  Now Rick remembered. “The nanosciences and nanotechnologies summer program. Right, blimey. A doctor in front of me,” he marveled as his son grinned from behind a mouthful of candied bacon. “And doctors behind me.” His own parents boasted PhDs in art history. “How did all that brilliance skip a generation?”

  “Come on. You’re the mastermind behind a legendary band, and you managed to raise three normal children despite all the rock and roll craziness. No easy feat.”

  Simone was owed most of the credit, Rick felt. The children were raised out of the spotlight and under her maiden name of Banquet. My legacy, she would jokingly boast, my greatest hits.

  “Thessaloniki.” Rick cleared his throat. “Beautiful, beautiful city. We played the Theatro Dassous in ’86, if I recall. Digger drank enough ouzo on that run to put hair on both our chests.”

  Paul smiled, his eyes shining behind those thick glasses. He and his younger brothers had loved the stories of their road warrior father almost as much as they had loved Tintin. Rick couldn’t recall if he had ever shared that tour tale before.

  “How is Adrian these days?”

  “Fine. Better than fine.” Rick busied himself separating the Grafton cheddar oozing from between his omelet using the tines of his fork. “Marrying soon.”

  “Wow, that’s so great!” Paul scraped the front legs of his chair up off the floor in a “Hi-ho, Silver” move, as if to physically display how taken aback he was by the news. Rick wasn’t fooled.

  “And not at all a surprise to you.”

  “Well.” Paul gave a sheepish grin. “Ilana babysits Abbey now and then. She and Kat do talk.” He folded his arms, still tipping confidently back in his seat. “I figured I’d let you bring it up. You okay?”

  “Of course I am okay! He’s my best mate. And Kat is wonderful. I’ve her to thank for reconciling us in the first place. It’s just . . . timing, that’s all. Dig’
s at the top of his game right now.” Rick bit into one of the sticky buns Paul had insisted upon ordering. He felt his jaw lock in protest and worked to wrench it back into place. “Musically,” he said with a wince.

  “And emotionally, wouldn’t you say? It’s all woven together.”

  Rick concentrated on chewing. He fixated on Paul’s fingers, staring as they tapped against their owner’s elbows now. He has my hands, Rick marveled. Long capable fingers, a dusting of dark hair at the knuckles, flat square tips. “Doctor’s hands,” Rick’s mother often remarked, as if she could channel a self-fulfilling prophecy with an oft-repeated compliment. He turned his own hands over to study them now. Where Paul’s were probably kept smooth in academia, Rick’s were permanently calloused, grooved from years of hard play and heavy-gauge steel. They weren’t doctor’s hands; they weren’t helping hands. Sure, they had helped themselves to a fair number of women over the years. But they had no power to heal. To Rick they felt heavy, useless now. Scraping the bottom of the barrel. Nowhere near the top of his game anymore.

  “I just thought . . . maybe they’d wait a while longer. Hold off till we really got the band back on track and sorted. I guess it would be too much to ask . . .” He drifted off, shifting his jaw back and forth. Crikey, he thought. I’m like the bloody Wizard of Oz tin man in need of oil.

  “Ask him to give up what he loves, to choose between the two?” Paul supplied the words Rick didn’t dare speak. “What purpose would that serve? Mom never made you choose.”

  Rick did little to hide his pained expression. Having the rusty jaw of a tin man didn’t hurt as much as knowing the cavity where his heart used to beat was empty by his own making.

  “Dad. Fourteen years is a long time. More than half my lifetime.”

  “Don’t.”

  “It’s okay to hold on to your memories . . . but don’t let them hold you back.”

  Rick gritted his teeth, swallowed hard. “Again, how did you get so bloody brilliant?”

  “You and Mom raised us well,” Paul replied, gently righting his chair to solid ground. “You did a good job.”