5.
The phone was ringing. Daniel rolled over, reaching automatically for his bedside table on the left. The phone rang again, and his hand kept waiving in empty air where his night table should be. He opened his eyes. He was in the dark, odd shadows of neon-navy light dancing before him while his hand continued reaching benignly. He took a breath and noticed the air was different.
Sound: steps pounding on stairs above him, coming down, the phone rang again, and Daniel remembered he was not at home. It was not base calling for him to assist in a translation that had to be done to solve or save or understand NOW. It was Rupert's phone, and Rupert had tucked Daniel soundly in his guest room, and, now, Rupert was descending from his loft to answer his phone. The phone rang once more, and then Daniel made out the indistinct tones of Rupert speaking.
Daniel rolled onto his back from his stomach, folding his hands over his chest, looking blindly at the Rouault ink-blot shaped iron-colored shadows moving over dark walls. He remembered; how he was on vacation, how they had come home from the restaurant and Rupert had decanted several fingers of amber scotch in a low ball cut glass for each of them as they'd talked for another hour or so.
The scotch had been beyond Daniel's limit, it seemed, as it had drawn opalescent curtains over his memory of their evening. Still, his stomach was agreeably full and the night scented with gardenia and cut grass, and he was wrapped in crisp sheets on a firm mattress.
Daniel decided this was his best vacation to date.
He relaxed, feeling as if floating over the firmness of the mattress, the sheets comfortably cool against the heat of the night.
Thru the walls, Rupert's voice continued, and Daniel wondered if this is why he looked un-slept. This, Daniel reached right and lifted close his travel alarm clock in deference to his myopic vision, this two : forty call…
Who was calling at two : forty? The woman… Jenny?
Daniel shifted, listing to the sheets snap and rustle with his limbs, unfolding his fingers from the travel alarm as he carefully placed it back on the night stand.
Silence descended, and Daniel supposed Rupert had hung up. He listened closely, and made the sounds, in a bit, of ascent on the wooden stairs, much softer than the descent had been. Well, there was no hurry, no ringing phone, hurrying Rupert forward.
Daniel let his mind drift, and his mind noticed the tightness of his bladder. Daniel huffed, considering if he really needed to rise.
He pondered, watching the shapes in the dark, and decided he could sleep more comfortably afterwards. So he swiped off the sheet, it rustling aside, and settled his feet on the cool tiles, which felt nice. Despite his blurred vision, he let his glasses lay, and used a hand to navigate the doorway to the hall to the bathroom.
Here, he shut the door and flicked on the light. Looming before him was a white target of a blurred porcelain, keeping himself steady by marking the wall above the toilet ank as if giving the wall behind his benediction.
His urine hit the water with a loud, echoing, cascade and Daniel was pleased. His bladder empty he flicked off the light with a swipe, staggering in the darkness even as he found his guiding wall, a bit more drunk than he'd realized.
Morning might hurt at this rate.
Daniel let his feet return him to bed, falling into it and drawing the sheet over himself, falling back into sleep.
Morning arrived with a cacophony of birds and the bitter aroma of dark tea. And light, bright washed clear light, morning sun light was blinding him.
Daniel rolled off his back onto his stomach with a moan, flexing to stretch muscles. He felt heavy and deeply rested and slow in a rather delicious, parched way.
Daniel flung out a hand, pulling his glasses onto his face, and that hand rubbing the stubble of his jaw, the shadow of growth an irritation as he bent the follicle the wrong way in his scrubbing grope. He grimaced, and swallowed, flipping to sitting, his throat sandy and dry. He hoped he hadn't snored.
He had popped his antihistamines before taking to the air, and he was due for his next dose at breakfast; but he did know, thanks to his team, he did generally grizzle out a consistent snore no matter what dosage he partook.
The two : forty a.m. call surfaced in his memory, and the dinner preceding, the conversation in the middle coming last. Daniel flung wide his arms, working to stretch and open the muscles and joints of his shoulders, arms, and upper back now that he was upright.
He heard noise about the kitchen. Daniel took to his feet, praying his English Host had coffee, in any form; he'd even take instant at this rate.
Daniel shuffle into the brightly sunlight living room, his bare feet whispering millimeters above the floor with every step, taking in each sight as if he were assessing a dig:
Rupert was in a cleanly starched oxford, white with thin brown stripes, and a sweater vest and tie, his shoes beating softly over the floor inside the alley of his kitchen. There was a plate of cut fruit, three kinds of jam, and a jade cup filled with tea all resting on the breakfast bar.
Rupert found Daniel as soon as he entered his view, giving the man a brief once over, nodding to the stool on the outside of the pass thru, "Do you like eggs?"
Daniel altered his path a degree to end at the high chair and nodded at the voice. A few more steps and he sat, a glass of orange juice appearing near his left hand.
Daniel wrapped the glass in his grasp, pulling it closer over the tile, and considered the orange juice in the green glass on the moss glazed tiles.
"I'm due in in twenty minutes. If it weren't for Herr Snyder I'd not care, but he takes a rather peculiar enjoyment from catching me in the wrong and I'm loathe to give him any munition."
"Herr Snyder?" Daniel repeated, grabbing a piece of toast and taking a bite, finding it agreeably buttered as he stared at the array of jams, considering picking one.
"Yes. The man lives down to ever utterance disparaging him."
The bright bite of the Englishman's tongue helped to wake Daniel further. He washed back the toast with a slug of juice, and Rupert scrapped half a skillet of eggs onto the empty plate between them, turning his back to dump the end of the skillet on a plate by the stove. Rupert turned around, standing opposite Daniel, taking up his own fork and spearing a knot of cooked egg on it's tongs.
Daniel followed, burrowing his fork under a rounded mounded mass of lightly yellow egg, lifting it to his mouth, tasting egg, salt, pepper, … and onion… He chewed, using his toast to move more egg about his plate.
"Take what ever texts you please. I can leave campus around ten : forty-five, and needn't be back until quarter after noon."
Daniel nodded, watching Rupert polish off his plate and upend his tea, and walk briskly around the counter and behind him to reach the door. Still feeling slow, Daniel regarded his friend readied for work, slinging a tweed, elbow patched jacket over his arm with his briefcase, and nod in the shadow of the door.
"I'll see you about eleven, then? Call for anything."
Daniel must have nodded because Rupert was out the door, truly blinding light shunting his pupils for an instant, and Daniel's sight came back to the plate before him, the toast in his hand, and his craving for good, black coffee.
He needed a shower. Then he needed to fine a coffee shop.