Love Beyond Words (City Lights: San Francisco Book 1) (2 page)

“He may as well have been,” Natalie said, her words swallowed by the café’s emptiness, silence descending once again.

The hours dragged after that. Her book couldn’t compete with the memory of Julian Kovač’s gentle voice, or impossible blue eyes, or that last, wistful smile he’d given her.

At eleven o’clock she shut off the lights and locked the café doors. A night-owl bus rumbled down the empty street, burping and hissing its way toward her. She watched it go past, saw the tired-looking faces of its few riders. She wasn’t tired at all. In fact, she felt strangely awake. Her nerves hummed like the electrical lines that harnessed the buses from above and kept them tethered to their routes. She rubbed her fingers on her dress—she imagined she could still feel where they’d touched Julian’s hand—and berated herself for feeling so distracted over some strange man she was never going to see again.

From Niko’s threshold, it was a two-step walk to her own front door, as she lived directly above the café. She unlocked the white metal gate in front of the stairwell that led to her place and started up the dark, airless passage; her footsteps clapped hollowly on the old stairs.

She opened her front door and flipped on the entry light. Her bedroom—an area only big enough for a bed, a closet, and a nightstand—faced the front door and remained dark, closed off by a curtain. To the right of the entry, the rest of her apartment—a rectangle of living area, kitchen, and a bathroom at the far end—was illuminated faintly by streetlights. She’d decorated sparingly to keep it from being swallowed by furniture, but it was in danger of being overtaken by books instead. The entire wall facing the couch was dominated by bookshelves, and a homeless pile of hardcovers sat stacked at the threshold of the kitchen. Stalagmites of paperbacks ringed her desk by the window, but she couldn’t bear the thought of getting rid of any of them, not even those she’d read multiple times.
Especially
not those.

Natalie slipped between her couch and coffee table, past her one ratty chair, and stood at the curved window overlooking the street. She started to close the heavy, thick curtains she had installed upon moving here three years ago but paused, hands clutching the scratchy material as she replayed her conversation with Julian Kovač.

In her mind, she edited it like a script; every awkward moment smoothed out, every cringe-worthy snippet of dialogue reworked. She exuded charm and confidence, her dialogue witty, her demeanor self-possessed. The conversation ended, not with him walking out the door, but with an exchange of phone numbers, and then a date in which a maroon dress swirled around her knees as she and Julian danced swing—her favorite—in the dark of a small club.

She was smiling coyly at him over her cocktail when the phone rang, jarring her from her reverie. The machine picked it up and regaled Natalie with a lecture from Liberty Chastain.

“Nat. It’s Lib. You know how I feel about your ancient answering machine. I can just hear my voice bouncing around your place and I hate not being able to see my audience. Anyway, it’s possible you got hung up at work, but it’s
more
likely that you’ve got your nose buried in a book and can’t be bothered to speak to another living human being. So be it. It’s a Tuesday, you’re allowed.

“But tomorrow I have a show at the Kyrie and you must come because you haven’t been to one of my shows in, like,
an eternity.
And it’s possible I miss you, dummy, okay? I know Wednesday’s your night off so don’t give me any ‘I have to work’ bullshit. Get dolled up and be there by nine o’clock. Marshall’s coming because he understands the true meaning of friendship, and if you don’t come I’ll have to assume you’ve forsaken me and I’ll cry forever. Okay?
See you there.
Kiss, kiss.”

Natalie closed the curtains and sank onto her worn couch. The next day was to be spent finishing up her summer coursework at the university. She’d looked forward to curling up with “yet another book” as reward for completing the summer semester. Only one year to go and she’d have her Accounting degree, a feat that—given the circumstances—she’d never dreamed of accomplishing.

Natalie turned on the lamp next to the couch and opened her old flip phone to call Liberty. She eased a sigh of relief that it went to voicemail.

“Lib? It’s Nat. I’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it.”

She hung up, relieved to have avoided a conversation. Her pride still smarted from her bungling attempts at one with Julian Kovač. Moreover, sometimes she just didn’t feel like talking, something an extroverted performer like Liberty never understood
.
A voice spoke up in Natalie’s mind, sounding much like her gregarious friend:
Maybe if you weren’t so out of practice you’d have made a better impression on Julian.

Natalie brushed the thought away and eyed her coffee table where
The Common Thief
by Rafael Melendez Mendón sat, beckoning. She’d read it four times already but had decided to prepare for Mendón’s newest by giving his latest another go. She longed to pick it up and become lost in its pages, especially now that she wouldn’t be able to do so the next day as planned.

She quelled the resentment; if she missed any more of Liberty’s cabaret shows, her phone would stop ringing.
You have to go
.
Liberty and Marshall are all you have.

Against her will, her eyes strayed to a photograph on the bookshelf in front of her. A man, woman, and their thirteen-year-old daughter stood in front of a backdrop of jagged mountains, and what looked like a telephone pole but was actually a ski lift. All three wore barely-there smiles.

It had been a rough day, she remembered, full of first-time-skiing frustrations. But Natalie liked this photo better than any of the cheery ones that filled her albums. It was easy to remember her parents as loving and kind. Not so easy—and getting harder every day—was remembering the small details of their brief lives together. The strained moment captured in the ski photo was priceless; her parents were real and human and not perpetually smiling ghosts. And while she appeared as a typical, surly teenager in that photo, she hadn’t been. She’d been happy, and every day since she could speak, she’d told her parents she loved them.

She’d told them that day on the ski trip, and she’d told them that morning four years ago when a drunk driver plowed his car into the farmer’s market, knocking into people like pins in a bowling alley. Curtis and Tammy Hewitt were killed instantly. A perfect strike. Natalie had stepped away from them to get some green beans from their favorite vendor. She heard a scream, a screech of tires…Her memory of that day had shattered into a million pieces, becoming whole only in her nightmares.

The memory came to her now, broken but trying to put itself together. Panicked, Natalie turned her phone off and picked up
The Common Thief.
She held it for a moment, like a drowning woman might a life preserver, then dove in.

It took a full chapter for the beauty of Mendón’s story to work its magic, like a balm, over her pain. The clock read two a.m. by the time she forced herself to close the book. She slipped into her bed, apprehensive for her dreams, but Mendón’s writing continued its work: her sleep was dreamless.

At ten the next morning, Natalie rose sluggishly and with a twinge of guilt for having indulged so late in the Mendón book. But even with eyes burning and her jaw cracking with yawns, she wished she could burrow into her bed and lose herself for a few more hours. She fought off temptation and made coffee instead. She could have all she wanted at Niko’s but the café was always bustling in the morning, and she wanted to get in and get out before her Greek employers could smother her with their well-intentioned affection.

As the coffeepot burbled, she showered, dried, and then stepped into one of the many vintage dresses from the 1940’s and ‘50’s that filled her small closet, each painstakingly unearthed from one second-hand shop or another. She buttoned up the simple blue cotton dress, pinned her hair back from her face, and packed her bag full of accounting textbooks. Three hurried sips of coffee and she was headed for the door.
The Common Thief
sat on her coffee table.

Farewell, my love,
Natalie thought.
You were great last night.
An abashed laugh escaped her but faded quickly. She went out, closing the door softly behind her.

#

Niko’s Café was a different place in the morning: bustling, loud, full of conversations, burbling milk steamers, laughter, and the constant
ding
of the cash register. Louder than anyone was Niko Barbos. His booming voice filling the café as he talked and laughed with customers and two of the baristas who worked the day shifts. His apron hung from bony shoulders, and his salt and pepper hair looked as if it were trying to fly off his head. He appeared, Natalie thought fondly, more like a mad scientist than a café owner.

“Natalia!” He approached her with open arms and engulfed her in a hug before she could make it halfway across the café. “My little night owl. You’ve come for your schedule, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Petra!” Niko called, as they approached the counter. “Natalia wants her schedule.”

The baristas, Sylvie and Margo, waved hello. Sylvie—a light-haired young woman with a warm smile—thanked Natalie profusely for cleaning the grate under the icemaker. “That was on my list of cleanup duties and you know it,” she scolded cheerfully.

Natalie tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Um, yes, well…I had the time. You guys are so much busier.”

“Busier? Yes, let’s talk busy.” Petra Barbos’s voice boomed from within an expansive bosom as she emerged from the back room. The loose folds of skin under her arms jiggled as she flapped a piece of paper at Natalie. “Here’s your schedule,
glýka.

No changes, but you tell me if it’s too much for you to do alone. Too busy,” she raised an eyebrow, “or too dangerous. No one bothers you, yes?”

“Yes. I mean, no. No one bothers me,” Natalie replied. “And no, it’s not quite busy enough that I need help.” She smiled briefly at Sylvie and Margo. More than once, they’d asked her to join them for a movie or drinks, but Natalie had always declined. In another lifetime, they might’ve been friends—good friends even—but Natalie kept her distance. She worried that Niko would catch wind of any friendliness and conspire to pair her up with another barista on her shifts, and that was too horrible to contemplate.

Natalie smiled wider. “I don’t need any help. It’s definitely quieter than mornings, but business is steady.”

“I can see that.” Niko beamed. “Your registers are perfect, as always! Speaking of such numerical things, how are your classes? Studying hard? Of course you are, my good girl.” He patted her cheek. “Next week is month’s end. You help me with the books again, yes?”

Natalie glanced with longing at the schedule still clutched in Petra’s hand. “Yes. Of course.”

“Brilliant! Now, you eat. Come.”

“Oh stop, Niko, look at the girl. She’s itching to go.” Petra handed over the schedule. “Study time?”

“Yes, I’m off to school. Last day of summer courses.” Natalie skimmed the schedule, satisfied. It was the same as it ever. Five 4pm-to-closing shifts, Wednesdays and Sundays off. She tucked the paper into her bag. “Great, thanks. Um…Bye.”

She slipped out of the café, thankfully spared another of Niko’s fatherly embraces. But she could feel their affection—his and Petra’s—on her back as she left, like a warm wind. She hurried out into the unusual summer heat that was infinitely more bearable.

#

Natalie spent a few hours in the San Francisco State University library, working on tax preparations for imaginary clients. The library was quiet during the summer months; she saw no one from her classes, and no one spoke to her. She worked steadily, satisfied when her numbers added up in orderly rows. On her old laptop, she “filed” the tax documents with the school’s simulation program, and rested her chin in her palm, grinning as they were “accepted” with no errors.

Another A grade, another step closer to graduation. Natalie thought her mom and dad would be proud.

#

Club Kyrie was a tiny space under a sprawling bar called De Luxe. It had once been a prohibition-era speakeasy, a reputation its owners took great pride and care to sustain. Natalie, armed with a password from Liberty, approached a sly-looking bouncer in the alley beside De Luxe.

She showed her I.D. and murmured, “Velvetine.”

“Much obliged, baby cakes.”

He held the door for her that opened on a staircase leading down. Natalie descended carefully in her modest heels into a small, single room painted a conch shell pink and lit by fanciful sconces on the walls. Twenty small tables draped in lacy cloths, each with a little candle cup burning in the center, faced a minuscule stage while two waitresses circulated offering drinks. The atmosphere was secretive and knowing, each patron exuding a sense of privilege for being aware of Kyrie’s existence, or for participating in something illicit. As far as Natalie could see, there was nothing illicit about Kyrie except that it allowed smoking long after the state had banned it in public places. She found Marshall Grant front and center—broad-shouldered, ginger-haired, elegantly handsome in his expensive suit—and hurried to join him.