"Heading home tomorrow," I said. "Flight booked and everything."
Eric nodded and inspected my mostly still full flute of bubbles. "You're not drinking?"
"Sorry," I said. "Champagne has never really been my thing."
Slowly, Eric shook his head. "You disappoint me. But okay. I'll get the beers."
"Thank you," I murmured.
"I'll help." Joe pushed back his seat, giving me a grim, distinctly unhappy smile. "Back in a moment."
Another nod from me.
Oh, lovely. The couple hanging over by the bar were dancing. How sweet. Not so far away from them, Eric and Joe seemed to be having a heated conversation. It involved quite a bit of gesturing. First Joe pointed at the unlit lightbulbs dangling artfully from the ceiling, then at the bottle of champagne abandoned on top of the bar. Next Joe gave Vaughan still crooning away onstage a middle finger salute. It only made the guitarist grin. Eric just shrugged at his cranky bearded brother and pointed toward the kitchen.
"Here we go." Lydia slid our pizza onto the table with a flourish. "I'm Lydia, by the way. We didn't really get to meet properly the night of Eric's party."
"Alex. Hi."
"Are you enjoying yourself?"
"Sure." I picked up a napkin, twisting it into a knot. "Wow. The pizza's in the shape of a heart. That's really something..."
Lydia bit at her lip. "Nell has really taken to the idea of you and Joe together. You might have noticed."
"A little."
"Want my advice?" She didn't wait for my response. "Just roll with it. Smile. Nod. Then do what's right for you. Nell's great but she doesn't know everything."
"I've only ever talked to her briefly on the phone. She was too busy to say hi when we came in." I calmly continued throttling the napkin. "This is all a bit overwhelming, to be honest."
"Try dating her brother." Her chin pointed to the guitarist. "I had to stop her from organizing a surprise wedding for us last week."
"How could that be legal?"
"It isn't. Not even remotely." Lydia gave the guitarist a longing look. "I love that man. But this music is godawful." As if to prove her point, Vaughan launched into a rendition of Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing".
"I feel like I'm stuck in a bad nineties prom."
She shook her head sadly. "Yeah. She bribed Vaughan with promises of huckleberry pie. He's a total whore for it, unfortunately."
I had nothing.
"He was only supposed to do a few love songs. Keep the music low-key and atmospheric," said Lydia, with a scowl. "I have no idea why he's chosen to perform every horrible, sappy song ever written."
"He certainly seems committed."
She shrugged. "It's probably his idea of a joke. Or maybe he's punishing Joe for lying to you, or something. I don't know. Men work in mysterious ways. Too bad all of our eardrums have to pay the price."
"Yeah."
"For the record, I wanted to let you eat in peace. But I got outvoted," said Lydia. "Eric's too afraid to go against Nell no matter how crazy the idea. And Boyd just stayed silent, same as always."
"Boyd?" I hadn't really heard much about him.
"He works in the kitchen."
"Ah."
"I think it's the pregnancy hormones," Lydia continued. "Now that Nell's in the second trimester she's just so hyper. She doesn't know what to do with all the love and extra energy, so she's funneling it into other people."
Lucky me. "Here comes Joe. Enjoy your pizza." With a parting finger wave, Lydia wandered off in the direction of the teenager and his parents. His parents seemed to actually be enjoying the music. But someone should probably stop the kid from trying to saw his head off with a butter knife. It couldn't be hygienic.
With two beers and a frown, Joe returned to our table. He took one long look at the pizza and hung his head, mumbling the kind of obscenities that would have taxed even the mightiest of imaginations. I highly doubted goats were actually that flexible, though.
"Right. That's it," he announced. "We're out of here. Can you carry the pizza? Just because my friends are insane doesn't mean we should waste good food."
"On it." I stood up, putting on my wool coat. Then I lifted the wooden board our heart-shaped carb, bacon, tomato, and melted cheese goodness sat upon. "Lead on."
Up onstage, Vaughan abandoned Aerosmith for a rousing rendition of "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston. It was disturbing, to say the least.
"Walk faster," I urged Joe as we headed toward the kitchen.
He did as told.
Back here there were lights, white tiles, and plenty of stainless steel. A big guy was stacking plates while a petite redhead checked on something in one of the industrial-size ovens. Nell's burgeoning belly was only just visible beneath her white chef's coat. The room smelled divine. A combination of every savory and sweet yumminess you could imagine. All of the goodness clearly came from right here.
"Say goodbye to Nell, Alex." Joe lifted a beer in the redhead's direction.
"Hi. Bye. And thank you!"
"Wait," Nell yelled, pretty face panicked. "You can't leave. You haven't had the strawberry shortcakes. Boyd was just about to whip the fresh cream."
"We have to go," said Joe. "The, ah, candles are setting off Alex's head cold. Real shame."
I forced out a cough.
"Later, Nell." God love Joe, the man didn't slow down in the least. "Thanks for the food."
I gave her my sickliest smile. "Thanks again!"
Down a hallway and past a small office, out a heavy back door and into the cold night air we went. Already I felt freer, saner. Without the evil love songs filling the air, the world seemed a brighter, happier place. Even the heart-shaped pizza didn't bother me quite so much. I could almost laugh about the Whitney impersonation.
"Up we go." Joe started up a sturdy set of metal stairs, climbing the back of the building.
The Bird Building was a two-level brick beauty from the twenties housing a music store, a tattoo parlor, a couple of empty shops, and the Dive Bar. Midtown had none of the tourism glam of downtown, where I'd been staying. In this area, things were a little shabbier, quieter. Peeks of modern and hip were slipping through, however. Rejuvenating the area. Across the road was a slick-looking hair salon, and the tattoo parlor below exuded cool and professional.
As we went higher I
could see the roofs of houses, the bare limbs of massive trees spreading out beneath the stars. We were pretty much surrounded by suburbia.
"We're going up to the old offices and storage rooms?" I asked, following.
"You might as well see them before you go." Keys jangled and Joe opened a door, letting us inside. He flicked on a light. "Plus, we're free from nineties ballads and nosy friends up here. Come on in."
It wasn't much warmer inside and the air smelled stale, dusty.
"They all run off a hallway that goes pretty much the length of the building," he said, indicating left and right with the beers. "The main entrance for this level is beside the first shop. They just shut it up and filled the space with shit when business got quiet in the eighties. Only ones using these spaces were shop owners needing storage. But the staircase and everything is still there. It just needs clearing out."
It was all wooden floors and dirty old white walls in desperate need of cleaning and repainting. What looked to be original polished wooden doors with beautiful old-style silver handles appeared at regular intervals. Joe opened the closest, flicked on another light, and ushered me in. Nothing inside except more dust and a few cobwebs. But the space was big, beautiful. God, actually being here, checking it all out, sent my imagination into overdrive. The things you could do. What this place could be. It got me way too excited.
I did a slow turn, still holding our heart-shaped pizza.
I faced windows in a similar style to those below, only smaller. Someone had already pulled off some wall paneling to expose the brickwork. Off to the side was a small room, which I assumed was the bathroom. An ugly old kitchenette from the seventies came next. Gorgeous old plasterwork decorated the ceiling, framing the ancient light shade, and running around the edges of the large room.
"What do you think?" he asked, setting the two beer bottles down in the middle of the floor.
"I still think this would be a great project for you."
He paused in the act of taking off his coat. "As long as the apartments all sold, it would pay off well. Couldn't do it on my own."
"You did downstairs."
"I had a lot of help," he said, laying the coat down on the dusty wood. "Nell and Pat, her ex-husband, came up with a lot of the style and ideas. I mostly just swung a hammer. Andre, the guy that owns the building, he loves the idea of doing something with up here and he's up for helping as much as he can. He'd definitely give me a fair share of the profits. But still, it's a bigger job than I'm used to. Guess that's part of the draw of it, the challenge. Come and sit. Floor picnic."