Persimmon Kiss

Chapter 2: Nothing Says I Love You Like Red Velvet Cake

Chapter 2: Nothing Says I Love You Like Red Velvet CakeAfter the dust had settled at Split, I went upstairs to our home, to check up on Derek.

Inside our Old Port loft, I dropped the torture device people called a cell phone on the table by the door and tossed my shoes off. It smelled like Irish Spring soap in the air, so Derek was probably just coming out of the shower. Eager to see his face, I went looking for him, walking across the huge open space that was our living room, dining room and kitchen, knowing I’d find Der in the back room, where the light was best. That was where he’d set up his atelier. Passing the kitchen, I spotted the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he’d made for himself but hadn’t eaten.

Not a good sign. Was he having a bad day?

I found him in his sunny workshop, standing at the huge window. He seemed to be staring at the shops that lined the narrow cobblestone street beneath him. It was strange how Derek couldn’t hear me sometimes—how deep his imaginary world was. Standing in the doorway, I watched him for a second, my stare lingering over his cherry red hair, so thick and dazzling in the winter light. He wore light blue jeans and a white smock stained with his favorite colors: Prussian Blue, Orange Vermilion, and Chrome Yellow. The way he stood with his head slightly bowed, his lovely mouth ready to smile—well, he was my very own renaissance painting, both mystic and musing.

But I needed to see his eyes. Then I’d know just how bad the headache was today.

He must have felt my gaze on him, because he looked over, and at the sight of me, his green eyes lit up. “Hey, you. How long have you been standing there watching me?”

I’d known this man for over twenty years, and yet, every time our eyes met, I discovered something new in his.

“Long enough to get high on the solvent fumes,” I joked. I walked over to the easel. “This is incredible, by the way. Wow.” I stared at his new painting, a luminous landscape of stormy skies. It blew my mind how talented of an artist Derek was turning out to be.

In the first year following his motorcycle accident, we’d both thought he’d recovered from his brain injury, but in the last months, Derek’s symptoms had returned in full force. Stress, the doctor said. A migraine had kept him in bed for three days, and he’d been forced to take a break from the insanity of running a restaurant. Bored, he’d bought some paint supplies. Oil paint.

Painting took his mind off the pain. The frustration. The setbacks he was having in the last month.

He pointed his thin brush to the corner of the medium-sized canvas. “I’m gonna do swirls of red and gold in the field and maybe the sunlight will tear through that cloud right here.”

I could see what he meant. What Derek expressed on the canvas was a manifestation of his inner world, a world I’d helped create through the years. We’d known each other since we were kids. It was hard to tell which memories were his or mine. We were like the colors on that pallet of his.

Blended, yet different in our composites.

He eyed me. “My God, you look so good in that shirt, Nick,” he said, touching the collar of the striped blue shirt I’d found at the back of our closet this morning. “You don’t wear it often.”

“We didn’t do the laundry, so I didn’t have my usual stuff to wear.”

“Oh, crap. I totally forgot.”

“It doesn’t matter. Not like it’s your job. Hey, you didn’t eat your gourmet Jiffy sandwich. Lemme make you something.”

“I don’t think I can eat.”

I touched his face. “That bad today?”

“No, I’m fine.” Derek rarely complained about the massive headaches, memory loss, and general confusion he suffered each day. I knew it was because he thought I’d suffer if I heard him suffer. He was right. I was weak that way. He was the strong one.

He studied his painting for a second and then slipped his frock off, tossing it on the windowsill. The room was full of propped up paintings and white sheets covered most of the floor. “How was it down there today?”

Down there, yes, the place we owned. Before the nausea and migraines, Derek had been my floor manager, my accountant, my wing man. “Everything’s all right,” I lied. Why tell him he’d messed up the only two orders he’d been responsible for? It would wound him. I’d rather have my tongue cut out.

We filed down the hall and into the kitchen. The place was really coming along, looking nice. Pretty snazzy, I thought. Derek had flair. He was fantastic at picking out pieces for our home. I supposed painting wasn’t such a leap away from the artistry he’d put into our place.

Looking pale, he stood over the kitchen island counter. I plucked the fridge door open to get started on his soup. Forget cans.

“Oh, my God, Nick!” he cried, leaning over my shoulder. “Spencer’s lunch box!”

Damn it.

“I forgot to put it in his—” he patted himself, “—where’s my phone? I have to call the school. What time is it?”

“He ate already. It’s cool. The school called.”

“The school called you? Why are they calling you?”

I tossed an onion from hand to hand. Kept my big mouth shut. They were calling me because I’d asked that pretentious elitist school his mother insisted our son attend, to stop bugging Derek with their tedious calls and emails about every little stupid rule Spencer ever broke. Did we really need to know he hadn’t worn his mittens at recess or had been a minute late for his music class?

He was in primary school, not doing time in Folsom Prison.

“I can’t believe I didn’t pack his lunch,” Derek whispered, staring off into space.

Here was a man who’d grown up basically alone, emotionally neglected by his parents, a kid who’d survived on Spam and popcorn, who used to sit on his balcony waiting for one of us Lunds to let him into our crazy house—and now he was hating himself for forgetting to pack the lunch he’d meticulously fixed Spencer last night? A lunch so nutritionally balanced, it should have been in the Canadian Food Guide?

“He doesn’t even have a cafeteria card.” Derek was wringing his hands. He walked off and sat in a chair at the dining room table. “He’ll think he’s not important enough. I know what that’s like.”

I went to the entrance and picked up my phone. Sat in front of Derek and put the phone to my ear. “Uh, yeah, hello, Child Services? I’d like to report my husband. That’s right. Yeah. He plays video games with my son, and another thing, sometimes he lets him stay up late, and the other day, he actually put avocado in his sandwich and it stained the bread and I think my son might have some permanent emotional damage from witnessing the touching of green and—”

“Nick. Stop it.” But Derek was smiling a little. “It’s not funny.”

I stood and messed up his hair. My phone rang for real. “Yeah?” I answered it, pulling ingredients out of the fridge.

“What’s Mona gonna think?” Derek asked softly, behind me, and maybe for himself.

Mona was Spencer’s mom. “Who cares?” I mouthed, dropping the rinsed celery on the cutting board.

“Nick, this is Ed from CIGC. Do you have a minute?”

With the phone in the nook of my shoulder, I sliced a few celery sticks. “Make it quick, Ed.”

“You haven’t returned the addendum. It’s been a week. Nick, man, sign the damn thing and send it over, please.”

“I don’t know if I’m happy with the cut, Ed. I told you, it’s costing me more in production every year, and meanwhile, my f*****g return has been stuck on the same digits for three years.”

“Oh, is that Ed about the Lund’s Blue Dinners contract?” Derek asked. “Tell him that number is about as outdated as an Emilio Estevez movie.”

“Ed, my accountant is telling me things.” I winked at Derek.

“Well, tell your account—your husband—that he’s the one who agreed to that number last week.”

I felt a little hot under the collar. s**t. f**k. “Okay…”

“What’s he saying?” Derek was staring at me with a concerned expression.

“Nothing. Nothing.” I cleared my throat. “Look, uh, let me call you back later, all right, Eddie?”

“No, Nick, listen—”

“I’ll call you back.” I ended the call and put my phone down. For a second, I didn’t know what to do.

“What is it? What did he say?”

I kept slicing, eyes cast down. Derek was my business partner. I depended on him. I relied on his skills to keep the restaurant and the Blue Dinners company afloat. That was his thing. He was an accountant. A very good one, too. “We’ll look at the new clause later, okay?”

“Did I make a mistake? Did I mess up, Nick?”

“No,” I said, without a doubt. He wasn’t making mistakes. He was ill. It wasn’t the same thing. “Don’t worry about it. Nothing we can’t fix.”

He kept looking at me, seeing right through my act, but for some reason, didn’t call my bluff. “Mona will give me s**t about the lunch box,” he said, after a while. “You know how particular she gets about his food.”

“Oh, gimme a break. You have more parental skills in your little finger than Markus, Mona, and me have in our whole body.”

“That’s not true. And you all contribute something.”

“Oh, we contribute all right.” I tossed the celery into the simmering butter. “Can’t wait to see how much therapy he’ll need to fix those contributions.”

Derek peeked into the pot. He could never resist my food, and I loved to cook for him, no matter how tired or pissed off I was. “It smells nice,” he said, leaning over my shoulder.

I grabbed his arms and wrapped them around my waist. He had to get better. He just had to. But in the meantime, I needed to keep him out of the loop, without hurting him.

He leaned his forehead against my shoulder and sighed. “I’m gonna go downstairs and work a little.”

I tried not to tense up. “Everything’s pretty good down there. Under control.”

“I have some numbers to look over in the office.” Derek moved away. “Anyway…I’m bored. Uninspired.”

I stirred the vegetables and put a lid on. He was headstrong. Couldn’t argue with him. “All right…”

“Oh, wait, what day are we?” He frowned and his cheeks flushed darker. “Oh, it’s your father’s birthday tomorrow. I need to get something for him.”

“Red, it’s cool, we took care of it. Boone and me.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” I said, the expression on his perfect face breaking my goddamn heart. He was the one who usually took care of the gifts, the cards. “Got him the Lund crest. It’s pretty awesome. A lady sewed it all in velvet and silk.”

He was quiet for a few seconds. “Well, we paid for it, right?” he finally asked. “Boone and Kenya are tight with money and Lene has Violet-Rose to think of.”

“Baby, hello, of course we paid for it. As if I’d ask my brother and sister to pay for anything. You can get the card.”

He stared at me and tipped his head, frowning. “I’m useless, Nick. So useless.”

He and I were very much alike and well paired. That was the reason we’d been so successful in business together. We weren’t the type to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Hell, we were the ride.

He fiddled with a newspaper. “I’m not even your partner anymore. Andy’s taking over.”

“Okay, hey, first of all, Andy’s not taking over. He’s smart, and he can fix a great drink, but that’s if he’s awake and sober.”

“He’s pretty, too.”

“Whatever.”

Derek bit his lip.

I walked up to him and put my nose in his hair, inhaling dark cherry and a hint of lavender. “No one’s gonna take your place.” I grabbed his face. “Okay? O’Reilly, you have grace. You have style. You have finesse and timing. People miss you downstairs.”

“But my brains are gone.”

“That’s okay. I can finally follow a conversation with you, see? I don’t feel like a dumb blond anymore.”

He shot me a hard look, green eyes flashing at me. “Don’t call yourself that.” He moved away and went back to the couch.

What could I do for him?