I slide onto a tall wooden barstool and perch at the edge of the seat, feeling like a bird desperate to take flight. The wood is cool against my thighs. My skirt inches up my legs, the fabric scratching my skin.
Usually, I’m comfortable here. There’s something soothing about faded plaid curtains, old wood furniture, rough stone walls, and the dingy, worn appearance of an old-town pub. Even the pickle and beer scent is familiar and soothing.
But not tonight.
I glance back at the dark wood of the front door. The students left, their chanting and chugging complete. A small group of Hungarian tourists congregate at a blocky table nearby, arguing over their guidebook and a crumpled city map. An older French-speaking couple hold hands while watching football highlights on the screen over the bar. Two stools down a bald man with bushy ear hair silently nurses a glass of port and a fragrant plate of fish and chips. The pub is quiet. The homey feel wraps around me.
Vinny slides a tall glass of pilsner across the bar, condensation dripping down its sides.
“Thanks,” I murmur, gripping the cold glass. I take a long, desperate swallow and let the malty, cold sweetness bite at my tongue.
I’m having second thoughts. I’m changing my mind. I can’t do this. I’m not a terrible person, nor a cruel one, I’m just driven and determined. I’ll tell Henry I’m not interested and that’ll be that. None of this other-man nonsense—that was panic, not logic.
“Vinny,” I say, clinking my beer glass to the bar. He’s at the other end, pouring the bald man more port. I’ll tell him to abort the plan but that I’ll still take the cat.
Behind me the door to the pub opens. I feel the cool spring breeze rush through the pub. It strokes over the bare skin of my back and rustles my hair.
Slowly, I turn on my stool and look over my shoulder as the crisp mountain lake breeze blows in. My fingers grip the hard edge of the wooden bar.
The late-evening sun, dipping behind the stone buildings and weaving through the cobblestone streets, fans through the open door, spilling light across the wide-planked wood floor. I blink at the brilliant sunshine, then Henry steps inside and the door shuts behind him, closing out the light.
He pauses at the threshold, blinking into the dim interior, and slowly scans the pub, first looking to the booth where he found me last night and then to the table of Hungarians.
My chest pinches, my heart skips a beat, and then it thumps along again, almost happily. My stomach has the opposite emotion to my heart. It rolls nervously and dips, making me wish I hadn’t sipped any of that pilsner.
I forgot the impact of him. How my breath catches, my heart pounds, and my skin tingles. Can you forget the impact of someone in less than twenty-four hours? I did.
His dark golden hair is wind-blown, his cheeks are red, and he’s in jeans and a navy cashmere sweater, which makes his eyes appear more blue and less gray. When he doesn’t see me right away, his shoulders slump a bit and a little line appears on his forehead.
The pinch in my chest becomes an ache.
I study him in the dim light of the pub, taking in the freckles on his cheeks, the smooth-shaven line of his jaw, and the energy and life radiating off him. I take him in and let myself imagine an alternate dimension where we . . . Never mind. There’s no point in imagining something that doesn’t exist.
Vinny shouts an order of bangers and mash back to the kitchen, and at the noise Henry looks toward the bar. My breath hitches. I grip the edge of my stool, suddenly feeling as if it’s spinning and I’m going to fall off at any moment.
Wow.
The smile on Henry’s face.
When he sees me, the doubt, the worry that he’d been stood up, it fades like a cloud skittering across the sky, and in its place his smile appears, as bright as the sun.
He grins and walks toward me, his gait sure, his gaze direct. There’s relief there, and then the relief is wiped away and replaced by pleasure and knowing and a happy light. I can read his expression as easily as I can read my own. And right there in his smile? It’s there again. The thing that had me running away last night.
I take a split second to feel it. Starlight and cedar, night breezes and love. This’ll be the last time he looks at me like this, and it’ll also be the last time he’ll have any reason to.
Henry stops next to me, the warmth of him wraps around me, and when he leans down, I catch the fragrance of his shaving soap.
“You’re all right?” he asks, his accent crisp, his voice low and concerned. “Your emergency? Everything is okay?”
I nod. “Yeah. I’m good.” My voice comes out husky from the tightness in my throat. I clear it, and then before I can say anything Henry takes the barstool next to mine.
He’s big, tall, and long-legged. The bar area is so tight that his legs brush against mine, sending sparks up my thighs and to my core. A low heat starts to build between us. The dangerously magnetic pull draws me closer.
“I was worried I’d scared you off,” he says, his voice low, the edges of his eyes crinkling with his confession. “I’ve never said what I did last night. My only excuse is that I—”
“Hey, British,” Vinny interrupts. He smacks his hand against the wooden bar and leans on the counter, placing himself in the middle of our conversation.
I discreetly try to convey “abort, abort” by shaking my head and chopping my hand. Vinny notices but misinterprets, because he gives me a subtle thumbs-up.
Henry frowns at Vinny’s posturing, his wide-shouldered stance, and his antagonistic expression.
“Um . . .” Henry wrinkles his brow. “I’ll have a London Pride, thank you.”
Vinny levels a hard stare on Henry and then smooths down his ponytail. I clear my throat and make another cutting motion with my hand.
“I don’t care what you have,” Vinny says, “as long as it isn’t my bella Serena. Not tonight, my friend.”
Oh no.
“What?” Henry asks, shaking his head in confusion. “Is that a lager? I’ll have a London Pride. That’s fine.”
I slump down in my seat when I realize Henry doesn’t know my full name. He thinks “bella Serena” is a beer. He has no idea Ducky is actually my middle name and Serena is my first name.
“Okay,” I say, interrupting what I’m sure will be Vinny’s eloquent elucidation, “that’s fine. He’ll have a London Pride.”
Vinny shakes his head. “My bella Serena, why be so coy? Does this man not know your name?”
Henry turns to me and gives me a look like “can you believe this guy?”
Unfortunately, I can. I put this guy up to it.
“Ducky?” Henry says, sensing my discomfort. “Do you want to go somewhere else?”
“Not with you,” Vinny says, puffing his chest. “Tonight my bella Serena and I make love. Sweet love, as beautiful as an Italian opera. With heaving breasts and passionate screams.”
What?
My cheeks go hot and the rest of me goes cold.
Unfortunately, Vinny has adopted his role of lovesick swain and continues. “Her pussycat is eating my sausage. Always the sausage. Do you see, British? It is my sausage, not yours.”
Holy. Freaking. Cow.
The sausage?
I’m stunned into immobility.
Henry blinks.
That’s it. He blinks.
I think he’s wondering if he heard correctly.
Actually, I’m wondering if I heard correctly.
Then Henry turns to me slowly and asks, “Ducky? Do you need me to . . .?”
He nods at Vinny like if I ask, he’ll punch him in the face or crack a beer bottle over his head.
Henry may have a PhD in physics, but clearly, he’s not afraid to get dirty.
This is one of those moments where a multiple-choice question would come in handy. For example:
1. Ducky, would you like me to punch this guy for insulting you?
a) Yes, please knock the crazy man over the head. I’m Ducky, not Serena, and I love you too.
b) Yes, please knock the crazy man over the head. By the way, I’m Serena and I don’t want a relationship with you, so please stop smiling at me like that.
c) No, please do not knock my friend over the head, he’s just doing what I asked. By the way, I’m Serena and I don’t want a relationship with you.
Well, as every test wizard out there will tell you, when in doubt, choose C. That’s life lesson number one.
So, C it is.
I shake my head no. Then I say to Vinny, “Hey. I’m good here. Okay?”
Vinny crosses his arms. “Okay. You’ll come by tonight for the pussycat and my sausage?” He waggles his eyebrows.
Oh gosh.
You know that saying, “You reap what you sow”?
Yeah.
This moment.
I nod yes, because of course I’ll come for the cat, but when I do, Henry stiffens.
Vinny swaggers away, tossing a white bar towel over his shoulder.
I can feel Henry’s gaze on me. His confused, shocked, probably disturbed gaze. It’s like when you’re a kid happily digging in the sandbox and you think you’ve found a neat rock, and then you realize it’s actually fossilized cat poo.
Yeah.
He thought he found a woman to love, and instead he found . . . Serena of the sausage.
“Look,” I say, shifting on the hard wood of my barstool. I look into Henry’s eyes, and when I see the lines on his forehead and the corners of his mouth turned down I quickly look down at my hands gripping the bar’s edge. “I’m Serena. Not Ducky.”
I’m only Ducky to my family—to the people who love me most. I guess I should’ve known something was up when I introduced myself as Ducky to Henry.
“And you . . .”—Henry holds out his hands in a “what?” gesture—“are with the bartender?”
“No,” I say, not willing to let him think I was cheating last night. “Well, I mean, tonight—”
Henry stands suddenly, thrusting his barstool back.
“Right,” he says, stepping back, putting distance between us.
And that look, the one he had when he first saw me, the one that made my heart thump happily in my chest, it’s gone. Wiped away.
It hurts, and since it does, I decide to pound a few more nails into the coffin. For my own good.
“Henry,” I say, licking my dry lips and forcing myself on. “Yesterday? It was just a bit of fun. That’s all.”
I smile at him—a wide, vacuous smile—and my stomach clenches at the lie.
“Fun?” he repeats, looking at me as if I’m a theorem he has no idea how to solve.
I nod. “Fun. Don’t make something of nothing. It was fun. We had fun.”
Then that determination, that drive I knew was there, comes out. He steps forward, his blue-gray eyes blazing, and says, “It wasn’t just fun. It was once-in-a-lifetime—”
My throat clenches. I almost jump off my stool and into his arms at the expression on his face, but instead I say, “Exactly. Once-in-a-lifetime, meaning you only do it once. Otherwise it gets boring.”
And that . . .
That moment?
That’s when I realize I am cruel. But just like any sword, it’s double-edged. It hurts.
Henry stands still for a moment, the low rumble of the Hungarians’ conversation flowing around him and the light of the TVs flickering over him. He’s making theories in his mind—I can see his thoughts racing, throwing in variables, discarding hypotheses, until finally he comes to the only conclusion possible.
“I’m sorry,” he says stiffly, his voice cold, absent of emotion. “I mistook the situation.”
At that moment, Giovanni bursts from the kitchen, a plate of bangers and mash in his hands. When he sees Henry still standing next to me, he says gruffly, “My Serena. You and me. A date this Friday.”
I keep my eyes on Henry and see his jaw clench. At the same time, the bald man down the bar says, “Serena? Isn’t that the woman who slept with my football team? It was bad luck! They lost because of her!”
All right.
That one.
That one is partially true.
I slept with all of two guys from Geneva’s football club. Different weekends though. And I didn’t realize they were on the same team. And it’s not my fault one of them always wanted to try sex on a ski lift and then when he fell off and broke his ankle—well, that’s not my fault, is it? Also, it’s not my fault the other one got all mopey and sad when I told him his favorite planet Pluto wasn’t actually a planet. And I’m not superstitious, and I don’t believe I had anything to do with their subsequent losing streak. But apparently, locker-room talk says I did.
“The football team?” Henry asks, looking shell-shocked.
I shrug. “Fun,” I say lamely, realizing the bald guy is inadvertently helping my cause.
At that Henry nods, his jaw tight, shoulders bunched.
“I’m going to go,” he says.
I nod, my throat tight, and then I paste on a smile and say, “Sure thing. By the way, I have your coat—”
“Keep it,” he says curtly. Then, with a last dismissive, steel-eyed glance, he turns and strides from the homey interior of The Cock and Bull and doesn’t look back.
I sigh and drop my head to the bar, thunking it against the wood.
Well, it worked.
He hates me.
He thinks I’m a sausage-eating, football-devouring, fun-seeking, pants-losing man-eater.
On Monday, when he sees me at work, he won’t think what he feels is love. Probably, he’ll feel nothing at all except embarrassment, and then even that will fade.
But he won’t smile at me, he won’t laugh with me, he’ll just . . . leave me to pursue my dreams.
My stupid, self-destructive, expedient plan was a success.
Although success has never felt so wrong.
Hours later, I stand in the dark in the narrow cobblestone alley behind the pub. The dumpster is full of half-eaten dinners, French fries, steak, and sausage toad. There are bags of empty beer bottles giving off a bitter scent.
The night breeze barely whispers through the old-town alley, and only the quietest of city noise carries through the thick stone.
I hold the stray cat tightly in my arms and press my face to his matted black fur. He’s large-boned but scrawny. One of his ears has been half-bitten off, and his green eyes have a swashbuckling rakish light.
He was skittish at first, but as soon as I fed him a plate of sausage and chicken he let me hold him in my arms. I’m sure he has fleas and probably other injuries from his life of dumpster-diving and alley-fights. Tomorrow I’ll take him to the vet and buy him all the kitty delights he can imagine.
I wonder if he’ll appreciate me, like me, or even love me. Or if he’ll resent me for taking him from his life as a free-roaming, adventuring tomcat and turning him into a pampered house cat.
I look up at the stars, their dull light barely visible through the purple glow of the city sky. Starlight seems farther away than ever. I remember suddenly what my dad once said. “We can yearn, but we’ll never find what we’re yearning for.”
I sigh and the cat wriggles in my arms, meowing plaintively.
“I’ll name you James Tiberius Purrk,” I tell the black cat, “after one of my heroes. Did you know he reached the stars?”
And someday so will I. Metaphorically, of course.
I take one last look at the sky. It’ll be okay. It’ll work out. Someday all this will be worth it.
I push the thought of another kind of starlight out of my mind and out of my heart. It’s over now. There’s no way I’ll be swept away by love again. I won’t ever have to give up my life for love.
I squeeze Purrk to my chest and then I walk down the alley, onto the old cobblestone street that leads to my centuries-old apartment building.
I walk through the dark with a stupidly aching chest, and I tell myself over and over that sometimes the right thing feels like the wrong thing. And sometimes doing the right thing hurts.
And then, because I’m feeling a little lost and a whole lot down, I look up at the sky and say in a solemn voice, “Little did she know, her ordinary life was about to change.”