“Me and your mom talked for a minute about what I found out about Shorty and the fuel. Then I said, ‘I love you’ like I did fifty times a day, and she said she loved me too, like she always did, only—” He stopped messing in the sink, turned to face Rob, braced his hands on the countertop. “Only she was lying.”
Rob shook his head emphatically. “No, Dad, you can’t assume the readout was accurate. There are a hundred other possible explanations.” Frantic, he tried to generate some, stammered for a moment before his brain kicked into gear. “Maybe something else was bothering her, and the stress came through in her voice when she answered.”
Lorne shook his head. “The thing is, it was bothering me so much, I asked her about it, and she admitted it.” Rob wanted to tell his father he didn’t want to hear this, that most of the other pilings that kept his life steady had already torn loose, and he needed the few that remained. But it was clear Lorne needed to tell this, maybe more than Rob needed to believe his parents’ love was true and perfect.
“She said she cared about me, but never felt that thump-thump that I feel for her.” Lorne turned around, grabbed a towel off the rack. “We had a rough time for a while after that. Finally, she said she could only feel what she felt, and that it was enough for her. Always had been. And she hoped it was enough for me.” Lorne cleared his throat, then cleared it again, violently, as if there was something barbed down in there. “In the end I decided it was. But it was a hard lesson.”
Rob wasn’t sure what to say. He looked down the hall, at the closed door to his parents’ room. His parents’ love for each other had always been something so tangible he could almost point to it, almost roll it around in his hand, feel how smooth and perfect it was.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
His dad considered. “We tried to keep things simple for you, but nothing’s simple now. I thought you might as well know the truth. It’s never as clear as it seems, no matter who you are. No matter who she is.”
Lorne rose, disappeared down the hall for a moment, returned carrying Rob’s lute. He handed Rob the lute. “You worked hard for your music. Harder than I’ve ever seen anyone work for anything. Now play, damn it. You can’t have Winter, no matter how hard you work.” He went into his bedroom, leaving Rob clutching his lute.
48
Veronika
I slimmed you down by twelve pounds, Veronika sent to her client, whose name was Harmonia. Any more than that and men will know the clips are altered once you go IP.
I have a state-of-the-art system, and I’m good with it. I’ll make sure they see the skinnier me IP, Harmonia sent back.
For thirty years? And will you insist he wear his system during sex? You’ve got to think ahead.
Someone pinged her, and her hierarchy of hopefulness kicked in as she checked who it was. She’d only recently become aware that there was a clear hierarchy as to whom she hoped was pinging her. It was Rob, who was tied for second in her hierarchy.
She pinged back, and Rob opened a screen in her apartment. It was so much more convenient to be friends with Rob now that he had a system again.
“Where are you?” Veronika asked, while keeping up the consultation with her client.
“I’m just coming out of a Zen Buddhist service.”
“Can I ask why?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Can we meet IP?”
“Pick a place,” Veronika said.
She could barely see the priest from their seats, which were way up in the nosebleed section, two hundred feet above, and a hundred away, from the dais. They had the whole section to themselves, well out of earshot of other worshippers, even with the cathedral’s outstanding acoustics.
“Can I trust you to keep this to yourself?” Rob asked.
“If that’s a condition for hearing what this is all about, I have no choice but to say yes. I must know what’s going on.” Everyone knelt on the little cushions set on the floor. Rob and Veronika followed suit. “What is it about?” she added.
Rob shrugged, his head bowed. “It’s about love.”
For an instant, Veronika thought Rob might be about to profess his love for her, then realized how dumb that thought was. “Transfer a dollar to me.”
Rob looked confused. “Why?”
“Because I’m a professional. Contract me to give you relationship advice and I’m obligated to keep it confidential.”
Rob seemed amused by this, but he made the transfer. “So now it’s official?” He took a deep breath, as if he was going to say something else, then stalled.
“Go ahead, spit it out. I’ve heard it all.”
Rob smiled wanly. “You haven’t heard this one.”
Now she was curious. She waited patiently while Rob worked out what he wanted to say. “I’m here because I’m hoping I’ll bump into Winter. She goes to a different religious service each week.”
Veronika groaned. “How could I have missed it?” She was slipping—how had she not picked up on it sooner? All the pain Rob was going through when it looked like Winter was going to be buried. How ironic. How perfectly, achingly romantic. How utterly hopeless. “Does she know?”
They rose and returned to their seats along with the rest of the congregation.
“I think so. I told her I loved her, that day I thought I was seeing her for the last time.”
“That might have tipped her off.”
“She told me she can’t ever see me again.” He looked crestfallen.
Veronika reached out and rubbed his back for a second. “Shit, Rob, that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. Do you want my advice, or just a sympathetic ear?”
He looked at her, eyes like a wounded puppy. “I might as well hear your advice. I paid for it.”
“Yes, you did.” She folded her hands as if in prayer. “So here it is. Two thoughts. First, I think it’s possible some of what you’re feeling is situational. She was totally reliant on you, totally helpless. You were her knight in shining armor. It would be surprising if some transference and countertransference hadn’t occurred.”
Rob stared at the vaulted ceiling, arms folded. “I promise you, what I feel isn’t because she needed me. And stop using words I have to look up to understand.”
“Sorry. I’m not suggesting your feelings aren’t real. I’m saying the situation magnified them.”
“What’s number two?”
“Hopefully this one will be worth the whole buck, right?” Veronika waited for a laugh, didn’t get one. “This is a mess. There’s nothing ahead for you but pain. Move on. Find someone else, even if you’re not—” Veronika stopped, because Rob was squeezing his palms over his ears. “What?”
“Don’t even suggest it. There’s no way I could be with someone else.”
“Rob, you don’t have a choice. Things can’t possibly work out, even if she feels the same as you. Do you even know if she does?”
“No. And I understand what you’re saying—I know we can never be together. All I want is to be friends with her.”
Organ music swelled, filling the church. Everyone rose for the second hymn.
“Being friends with her would just make you more miserable.”
“Does being friends with Nathan make you miserable? Maybe you’d be happier if you cut off all contact with him?” Rob asked, his eyebrows raised.
“It’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
She struggled to answer, knowing it was different, but not able to pinpoint why. When the answer came, it startled her, because she hadn’t fully realized it until that moment. “Because I don’t really want to fall in love. Nathan is safe because he’s unattainable.”