Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [101]
Next, I hop a bus and head over to Richard’s shop. Although it’s after ten, the storefront is dark. I hang around for a while drinking coffee at the Three Goats, but when he isn’t there by ten thirty I walk over to his house a few blocks away. I could have just left the invitation in the mail slot, as I had Ruth’s—both of them already knew about the party anyway, so the invitation was really just a formality—but I’ve been worrying about Richard lately. He doesn’t seem himself. Throughout our relationship, Richard usually has been the one to call me, leaving clever messages on my answering machine, designed to make me think he is dying to speak to me, waiting by the phone for my return call. But lately my phone calls have gone unanswered or, on the rare occasions I’ve managed to catch him in, he has seemed distracted and fidgety.
Richard lives in a restored brownstone on Copeland Street, a tall, narrow house, painted the color of seashells, with a perfectly tended front garden, complete with picket fence. His car is parked on the street, so he must be home, but the house is dark and no one answers the bell. Richard’s cat, Katherine, is sitting in the front window languidly licking her paws. She’s undisturbed by my ringing, but when I try Richard from my cell phone—I can hear the phone ring inside the house—she jumps down from the window and heads for the phone. She likes to listen to the voices on the answering machine, walking rings around it while the message plays, nuzzling it with her fluffy face and purring. I’m surprised when Richard answers, his voice groggy and thick sounding.
“Richard?”
“Umm, yeah.”
“It’s Mira. Hey, do you know what time it is?”
There’s no response at first, and then a slow groan escapes. “Shit, is it really after ten?”
“Yes, it is. I stopped by the shop and got worried when you weren’t there. Is everything all right?”
“Fine. Fine,” he says, clearing his throat. “Where are you?”
“I’m standing on your front steps, as a matter of fact.”
Silence.
“Give me a minute. I’ll be right down.” He doesn’t sound thrilled.
“Okay. Take your time. I’ll run across the street and get you some coffee. You sound like you could use a cup.”
“Bless you, my child. Make it a double.”
When Richard lets me in a few minutes later, he’s dressed, but there’s at least a day’s worth of stubble on his cheeks, and his face has a droopy look, heavy in the jowls. He takes the coffee from me and then, without a word, turns and makes for the kitchen at the back of the house, Katherine at his heels.
“Aren’t you having any?” he asks, his head buried in the refrigerator from which, after some rummaging, he emerges with a container of milk. He pours the coffee into one of his own porcelain mugs, empties about half a carton of milk into it along with a handful of ice cubes, and downs it in a couple of long, thirsty gulps.
He doesn’t seem to notice that I haven’t answered him.
“No, thanks, I’ve already had mine,” I finally tell him, eyeing the two glasses in the sink, oversized wine goblets I recognize from Richard’s collection of crystal barware.
He reaches up with the back of his hand to wipe the milky froth from his mouth, and I notice that his hands are trembling. The tremor is slight, but because I’ve already figured out that Richard has been drinking, I’m alert for the tiniest change. He holds my gaze evenly, defiantly, as if daring me to say something.
I’ve known Richard for over twenty years and in the whole of that time I’ve never known him to take a drink. He went through hell to quit, I know, from stories he told me on several occasions when he thought I was being too hard on my mother, who had never been able to stop. Those were the only times I ever saw him get really angry. “You don’t know,” he would say, his voice low and cold with fury. “You don’t know what it is like.” And that voice and that look would be enough to stop me dead.
He stands in front of me, his arms outstretched on the kitchen counter, holding its rim in each fist, the knuckles white with effort. The rest