The Villa(71)

Cut yourself free, he’d told her on that sunny day by the pond. And she had.

She just hadn’t known how lonely that would turn out to be.

The waiter comes then, depositing a bucket on the table, a wine bottle inside, and Noel gestures to it. “I took the liberty of calling ahead to make sure they had this,” he says, and when the waiter lifts the bottle, Mari sees the familiar word curling across the label.

Orvieto.

Mari doesn’t say anything, doesn’t rise to the obvious bait as the waiter fills their glasses, and when she lifts the wine to her lips, her hand doesn’t even tremble.

She’s proud of that.

“A toast.”

Noel lifts his glass, still smiling that odd little smile.

“I’m not going to toast to myself, Noel,” Mari replies, her fingers wrapped around the stem of her own glass. “That’s your bag, not mine.”

His smile widens.

Curdles.

“To lost friends, then,” he says. “Pierce and Johnnie, the poor sods.”

Mari doesn’t lift her glass to that, either.

Her pulse seems to slow, heart beating heavily in her chest.

She’s always wondered if Noel knew. If he suspected the truth of what unfolded that night. In the six years since, she’s only seen him a handful of times, exchanged a few phone calls, maybe a dozen letters, but he’s never so much as hinted at anything.

Until now.

“What are you doing?” she asks him quietly, realizing that he is quite drunk, that the bottle of wine on the table is not Noel’s first drink of the evening.

He drains his glass, setting it back on the table hard enough that she winces, and then he takes the bottle of wine out of its bucket, water dripping onto the dark red tablecloth.

“Not sure, to tell the truth.” Noel fills his glass. “Feeling maudlin tonight, I suppose.”

The bottle sloshes back into the ice, and Noel studies her across the table. “I sometimes think I died that summer, too, you know. Nothing has been the same since.”

“That is maudlin,” Mari says, hoping they can change the subject, but understanding now that this is why Noel wanted to meet her tonight.

“Of course, you and Lara, you’ve both ascended to heretofore unknown heights, so I’m sure neither of you see it the same way.”

Mari doesn’t bother pointing out that Noel’s long slide had started before that summer, that what happened to Pierce and to Johnnie has nothing to do with where he’s ended up.

“Do you ever talk to her?” Noel asks. “Lara? I tried once, you know. Went backstage at her concert in Paris. She had security throw me out.”

Laughing at the memory, he slaps one hand on the table. “They didn’t want to, but I let them because, Jesus Christ, if she had the balls to do it, I deserved it, didn’t I?”

Pierce and Johnnie’s names no longer have the power to hurt Mari, but Lara’s …

“You know, I sometimes wish she’d had the kid,” Noel goes on. “I would’ve liked to have been a father, I think. And lord knows your sister was a handful, but she was pretty. Talented, too, turned out. Would’ve been a good mix of genes at the very least.”

Mari wonders if Lara told Noel she terminated the pregnancy, or if he’s just assuming she did, but the truth is that Lara miscarried two days after Pierce’s death. A loss and a relief all at once, for both of them, Mari thinks.

Now she only shrugs and says, “Last I checked, you’re not even forty, Noel. Fatherhood is still in the cards.”

He shakes his head, lifting his glass. “No, doors are beginning to close, Mistress Mary. I feel them slamming shut on all sides of me. Family?” He slams a hand on the table, their cutlery and glasses rattling. “Bam! Closed. Marriage?” Another slap. “Bam!”

Arabella divorced him in the middle of Johnnie’s trial, heaping scandal on top of scandal. Last Mari heard, she’d permanently decamped to her family’s country estate and gotten very interested in buying Thoroughbred horses.

“Friends? Bam! Rotten lot, all of them, though present company excluded, naturally. Music?” Noel continues, and brings his hand up to once again slam it down, but Mari reaches over, stopping him.

“That door will never close to you, Noel,” she tells him, and she means it. “You mustn’t let it.”

His hand goes limp in hers, and Mari has the strangest feeling he might begin to weep.

“You’re still seeing the best in us,” he says, pulling his hand free. “In spite of it all.”

Mari is grateful when their food comes because it derails this mawkish stroll down memory lane. Soon, Noel is regaling her with tales of how he found this restaurant, of other little holes-in-the-wall he’s discovered all over the world, and by the time the meal ends, Mari feels on much more solid ground.

The air outside is frigid after the warmth of the restaurant. Mari wishes she’d brought a heavier coat because even though the snow has stopped, the night has turned bitterly cold, the kind that slips underneath collars, making her eyes water.

Seeing her shiver, Noel unwinds the paisley scarf he’s wearing.

“Here.” He wraps it around her neck, but holds on to the ends, tugging her close and looking down into her face.

“Mistress Mary, quite contrary,” he murmurs, still smiling that odd little smile at her, and finally, Mari understands that it isn’t mocking or knowing at all.