It Takes Two

by Judith Arnold

  “That sounds…” Brianna took a sip of her tea. “Practical,” she said. “But not terribly romantic. Marriage is a practical step, but it should be romantic, too.”

  “See?” Will’s face brightened. “This is why I need your help. I never would have thought of that.”

  Fortunately, Will didn’t take her laughter as an insult. He laughed along with her. She’d never minded the occasional obtuseness of men, as long as they maintained a sense of humor about how obtuse they were.

  “I take it your mother’s boyfriend hasn’t thought of that, either.”

  “Probably not.” He leaned toward Brianna. “So he has to romance her, huh.”

  “It doesn’t have to be over the top. But I think telling her she should marry him for his health insurance won’t be all that persuasive.”

  “What should he do? Bring her flowers? Scatter rose petals across the floor and then kneel on top of them when he proposes?”

  “That seems clichéd,” she said. “He should do something that relates specifically to her. What does she like?”

  Will mulled over the question. “She likes a good joke. She likes sports. But she doesn’t have any hobbies or anything. It’s not like she knits or bakes brownies or paints with watercolors.” He thought some more. “She works long hours. She loves bartending, seriously. She loves the tavern.”

  Will’s mother was a lucky woman, to make a career of something she loved that much. Was there something about the Faulk Street Tavern that her boyfriend could offer? What made the tavern special?

  The jukebox. “A song,” she said. “Maybe he should play her an old rock-and-roll song, like what the jukebox plays.”

  As soon as she said this, Will’s gaze locked onto hers. Her head filled with a memory of the song that had transfixed yesterday evening at the tavern, when she’d been reviewing her presentation for the town meeting. If Will had asked her to marry him while that song had been playing, she might have said yes, even though she hadn’t even known his name at that point.

  “‘It Takes Two’,” he said. Evidently, his head had filled with the song, too.

  “Well, not necessarily that song.” She didn’t want to dwell on the odd effect “It Takes Two” had had on her that evening. Even as she’d spoken at the town meeting, the song had lingered in her thoughts, glowing faintly but steadily as she’d discussed ramps and elevators and storage space.

  “No, it couldn’t be that song. My mother heard the song when you and I heard it, and it didn’t do anything for her.”

  It did something for us, Brianna almost said. She wasn’t sure what, but something.

  Was the song’s power a topic she and Will could discuss? It seemed so weird. He was a computer scientist. She was an architect. They were analytical, logical people. What was logical about believing an old rock-and-roll song had bewitched them?

  If it had, in fact, bewitched them, why hadn’t it bewitched Will’s mother? Or anyone else in the tavern, for that matter?

  “It would have to be a song that’s special to her and her boyfriend in some way,” Brianna said. “Do they have a song they really like? Something they dance to whenever they hear it? Something they think of as their song?”

  Will chuckled. “They’re in their fifties, both of them. He’s a police detective. She runs a business. The last time my mother danced was probably at my brother’s wedding, when she took the floor with him while the bride danced with her father. When she was a little girl, her mother tried to make her take ballet lessons when all she’d wanted was to do sports. Dancing never felt right to her.” He thought for a minute, then added, “She looked gorgeous at my brother’s wedding, though, even when she danced with him. She cleans up well.”

  “So they don’t have a special song.” Brianna considered the options. “There are beautiful love songs, though. Maybe if her boyfriend serenaded her…”

  That notion seemed to amuse Will, who shook his head and laughed.

  “All right, so he doesn’t have to sing. If he could get the jukebox to play a song that would make her smile, or make her believe in the future, maybe be just a little less practical and a little more idealistic… Like that Beatles song. ‘All You Need Is Love.’”

  “Or…there’s a song I’ve heard my mother sing along to when the jukebox plays it.” He sang, in a sweet, well-pitched voice, “‘Darling, you-oo-oo-oo send me.’”

  An oldie, but Brianna knew it. She imagined everyone knew it. “That’s perfect! Very romantic. If…what’s her boyfriend’s name?”

  “Ed,” Will told her.

  She nodded. “If Ed sang that to your mother, she’d probably melt at his feet.”

  “My mother never melts. Believe me, my brother and I tried to melt her many times when we were growing up, but she’s as tough as steel.” He ruminated for a minute, sipping his beer. “Yeah, that’s a good song. There are probably others, too. Songs from their era. We need to talk to Ed about it.”

  There Will went again, using the word we. Brianna let it pass. “If the jukebox played that song—‘You Send Me’—while Ed and your mother were in the bar, that might convince her to marry him.”

  “The problem is, no one can control what comes out of the jukebox,” Will pointed out.

  “Really? Can’t you push the buttons?”

  “You can push them all you want. The jukebox plays whatever it wants to play.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “It’s a strange jukebox.” Will rotated his glass of beer, staring at the amber liquid, thinking. “It would be a total waste if Ed put his quarter in the machine and it played ‘Love Stinks.’”

  Brianna knew that song, too. It was a classic like ‘You Send Me,’ although not at all appropriate for a marriage proposal. “Is there any way to get the jukebox to play the song you want it to play?”

  Will leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers together, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. After a long minute, he directed his gaze back to Brianna. “Not that I know of. But I’m a computer geek. I could probably come up with something. I wouldn’t mess with the jukebox itself—it’s an antique, and its peculiarities define it. You don’t mess with mojo like that.”

  “But?”

  “But maybe I could rig something. I could download the song Ed wants—or the three songs, since the jukebox plays three songs for a quarter—and hide the speakers somewhere that would make it seem as if the songs are coming from the jukebox.” He frowned slightly. “I hope that wouldn’t be tempting fate. The jukebox is what it is. Trying to fake someone out might make it lose its power.”

  Brianna started to laugh, then realized Will wasn’t joking. The fact was, she couldn’t disagree with him. The jukebox did have some sort of power. If not for its blasting out “It Takes Two” yesterday evening, she wouldn’t be sitting here with Will right now. She wouldn’t have gone to the Lobster Shack with him last night. He wouldn’t have kissed her outside her office that morning. She wasn’t sure how she knew this, but she did.

  To her surprise, he reached across the small table and gathered her hand in his. “Will you help me with this?” he asked.

  She had to help him. He’d helped her by alerting the town manager that Rollie was playing fast-and-loose with the cost estimates for his new Town Hall building. Now she owed him.

  But she wouldn’t help him because she felt obligated to repay a debt. She’d help him because of the way his fingers felt, intertwined with hers. Because of the earnest intensity of his gaze. Because he was smart and handsome and so easy to talk to.

  Because it took two.

  Chapter Ten

  Gus could really use some assistance. The tavern was packed, the noise level high, the servers swooping back and forth like seagulls above the ocean. Manny had gone down to the basement to fetch another case of vodka, and he still hadn’t come back upstairs. It didn’t take ten minutes to fill a case and haul it upstairs.

  She knew she shouldn
’t depend on Will, who’d been helping her behind the bar only on a temporary basis. But there he sat, at a booth with Ed and a woman—the woman who’d been in the tavern yesterday, nursing a glass of white wine and leaving most of it behind. The three of them huddled, their heads close together, talking about God knew what. So near and yet so far. Too far away to help her.

  She was going to have to hire another bartender, once Will left for Seattle. Someone who wouldn’t pester her about adding exotic cocktails to the menu. Dark-and-Stormy? Forget it. It would take too long to mix those drinks, and on busy nights like this, she didn’t have a spare minute.

  Where the hell was Manny?

  She poked celery sticks into the two Bloody Marys she’d just prepared and set them on a tray. Turning, she spotted Manny entering through the kitchen door, lugging a carton. Finally. “What took so long?” she asked.

  He set the carton down on the back counter, the bottles inside it rattling, and nodded at the server who’d shouted for a pitcher of Harpoon IPA. “Something’s screwy with the inventory,” he informed Gus as he grabbed a clean pitcher and held it under the Harpoon tap. “The numbers for Stoli and Absolut were all screwed up. I know we entered them right when the shipment arrived.”

  “How could they have gotten screwed up?” Gus asked. “The bottles come in, we enter them into the system.”

  “I don’t know. Software snafu, maybe?” He handed the pitcher and a bowl of beer nuts to the server, who was busy stacking a half dozen beer mugs on her tray. “Ask your kid. He’s the software genius.”

  “I would, if he’d get his butt over here,” Gus grumbled. What on earth was he discussing so intently with Ed? She was glad her son and her boyfriend got along, but she doubted Will could be all that interested in hearing about whatever business Ed had pursued today. No major crimes had been committed in town, as far as she knew. Ed was mostly occupied with older cases these days, finalizing the files and sending them on to the D.A.’s office. At least, that was what he told her. Surely Will didn’t need to hear Ed launch into one of his rants about tedious paperwork.

  And why was that woman with them?

  She’d ordered a glass of wine again, but tonight she appeared to be drinking it. She was pretty, and Will’s eyes glowed whenever he looked her way. They’d heard a song on the jukebox yesterday, Gus recalled—but Will was on his way out of town, and unless he was planning to bring the woman with him, nothing was going to come of that.

  She reminded herself that whatever Will was up to was none of her business. She’d raised her sons and sent them out into the world, and so far they were fending well enough for themselves. They didn’t need her questioning them or second-guessing them, or wondering whether a song from the jukebox had influenced them. Her older son had met his wife in college, without any help from the jukebox. And Will… Gus had explained the facts of life to him, imparted her values, and emphasized the importance of condoms. Beyond that, he was on his own.

  Someone slid a quarter into the jukebox, and an old Rolling Stones hit began to play—the one about spending the night together. That song always struck Gus as blunt, even crude, nothing seductive about it. But it certainly filled the tavern’s dance floor in a hurry.

  While so many patrons were dancing, she was able to catch up on the orders her servers had been shouting to her. A tequila sunrise. Two gin-and-tonics. A carafe of sangria, garnished with citrus slices. An order of flatbread pizza—she passed that along to Manny, who hustled back to the kitchen to heat up one of the prepped pies.

  Pausing to catch her breath, she saw Ed standing across the bar from her, smiling. “More coffee?” she asked. “You won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

  “No, I’m good. Just came over to say hello. You look frenzied.”

  “I am frenzied. Why isn’t Will back here, helping out? You’ve been monopolizing him.”

  “Just chatting a bit.”

  “What’s the story with the woman?”

  “Her name is Brianna Crawford. She’s an architect. She submitted the one of the Town Hall proposals. Not the flashy modern design, the one that would renovate the old building.”

  Gus peered past him at the table where Will and Brianna still sat, leaning toward each other as they talked. “She’s convincing Will to change his vote? Oh, wait—he can’t vote. He never changed his voter registration when he left Boston.”

  “He’s been telling us about the Innovation Center in Cambridge’s Central Square. After his company got their first infusion of cash, they rented a space there.”

  “That building with all the small tech companies in it?”

  “It’s a cool place. The rents are modest, so start-ups can afford them. And all those brainy inventors and scientists can hang out in the lounges and share ideas, brainstorm, cross-pollinate. Brianna knows the place. The two of them are talking shop. They’re cute.”

  Gus glanced their way again. Cute wasn’t the word she’d use to describe them. They emitted a sultry, hungry vibe. Despite the mass of people dancing and drinking and swarming through the pub, she could practically smell the pheromones emanating from them.

  “He’s hot for her,” Gus said.

  “Can you blame him?”

  Gus snorted. She hoped Will wasn’t stupid enough to get involved with a woman just weeks before he left town.

  Then again, he was a guy. Guys could be stupid, especially when a beautiful woman was involved.

  ***

  “I think Brogan’s Point could support something like the Innovation Center,” Will said. He’d scribbled so many notes on his cocktail napkin, he’d be hard-pressed to read what he’d written once he got home. Notes about the songs Ed would like the jukebox to pretend to play. Notes about how Will could set things up to play the songs when the place wasn’t as crowded as it was now, so his mother would be able to hear them, and then to hear Ed’s proposal. Notes about sneaking in some wireless speakers and secreting them behind the jukebox. Thank goodness the technology for wireless speakers existed.

  “The place in Cambridge is a cool research space,” Brianna said. “But you couldn’t build a big glass-and-concrete tower in the middle of Brogan’s Point. It wouldn’t fit in.” She sighed. “Then again, Rollie’s Town Hall design wouldn’t fit in, either.”

  “There are people in town who think it would fit in,” Will warned her.

  She shot him a look. “You being one of them, right?”

  “I think…” He sighed. He wanted to be honest with Brianna, but he wanted her to think kindly of him, too. “I think the town has room for the old and the new. Besides, an innovation center in Brogan’s Point wouldn’t have to be a big high-rise building. There aren’t enough tenants here to fill a place the size of the center in Cambridge.”

  “Are there enough people here who think the town has room for the old and the new?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’m not that much of an oddball,” he joked. “Lots of people in Brogan’s Point like new things.”

  “I’m going to lose the Town Hall vote,” she muttered, lowering her gaze and steeling herself with a sip of wine.

  “No. I don’t know. Lots of people in town love the old Town Hall building.”

  She shook her head, and he felt something slipping away—her trust in him, perhaps. Her affection toward him. During the time they’d spent together today, no matter where they’d been or what they’d discussed, he’d kept thinking about their kiss that morning. He wanted to kiss her again. Hell, he wanted a lot more than that.

  If she thought he favored Davenport’s design, she’d never go to bed with him. But Will wasn’t the kind of guy who’d lie just to get a woman into his bed. Maybe he was as old-fashioned as the old Town Hall building, but there it was.

  “What would be great,” he said carefully, “was if we could have both buildings—the new one and a renovated old one.”

  “That would break your town’s budget even if Rollie’s numbers were legitim
ate,” she argued. “Which they aren’t.”

  “True.”

  A gust of deafeningly loud laughter blew over the banquette from the adjacent booth, where three rowdy couples were crammed onto the benches, shouting bad jokes at one another. Brianna winced, then emptied her wine glass with a long, final sip. “I think it’s time for me to go,” she said. “I’m glad we’re able to help your mother’s boyfriend, but it’s just too noisy in here for me. And I’ve got to get an early start tomorrow. I’m on a mission to find green granite.”

  He had no idea why anyone would need to find green granite, but her claim made him laugh. “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said. He wondered, as they rose from the table and he waved away her wallet—for God’s sake, his mother owned the place! Brianna didn’t have to pay for her wine—whether she’d be willing to have dinner with him again tonight. Surely her search for green granite couldn’t keep her from eating, and it was already well past six. Nearly seven, he realized after a quick glance at his phone. The pretzels he’d snacked on at the Ocean Bluff Inn had fended off starvation, but he was more than ready for dinner now.

  The relative quiet that greeted them as they stepped outside felt almost like a blanket dropping over them, muffling all sound. After a moment, he heard the low, rumbling hum of cars cruising down Atlantic Avenue, and the rhythmic whisper of the waves breaking on the beach beyond the sea wall. He’d grown up with the ocean as his soundtrack. It was practically white noise to him, almost unnoticeable. But seeing the way Brianna’s face lit up at the sound sharpened his awareness of it. “That’s so soothing,” she said. “The whoosh of the ocean.”

  Seattle abutted a sound, not the ocean. And it was a huge city. He wondered if he would be able to hear the ocean there.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked as they strolled down the sidewalk to her car. “We could grab something to eat before you leave.”

  “I’m not going to have you buy me dinner again,” she said, then thought for a moment. “I could buy you dinner.”