"Sorry for the wait Mrs. Knight, I'm all ready for you now." Angie took a few steps closer to her new customer. "Mrs. Knight, all set." Still no response. She consulted her appointment card again to double check. "Maura?"
Finally a name clicked, and Maura snapped from the Boston Globe in which she'd been buried. She turned her attention to the plump curly-headed young woman who stood in front of her. "Oh? Great, no problem. I'm not in a hurry."
Nick had been out and about several times among his new acquaintances from the video store and, by extension, Ernie's bar. Maura on the other hand had been fairly task-oriented in her travels: grocery shopping, discussing with a local woodworker the design of some furniture she and Nick were having made. She'd been friendly but not very forthcoming, and certainly not inclined to socialize. She'd never been all that great with strangers except under duress or desperation. In the end it had taken a "casual" (in reality cleverly calculated) observation from Nick to drive her out of the house and into town for something more than a quick errand.
"Mm, the racing stripes are fading a bit, Sweet," Nick had observed one night. "There must be someone around here who can keep your head fine-tuned."
You bastard, she thought. While not typically a slave to appearances, Maura was unfortunately a slave to her hair. She'd liked the look she'd achieved when Nick had left her on her own. Even Schanke had expressed some enthusiasm for it. But everything was different now, and it felt like time for a change. If her hair was demanding maintenance, so be it. Having no better inspiration she'd decided to return to her original color, however distantly recollected.
"You must be a newlywed," the stylist observed as she directed Maura to her station. "The new name just doesn't register for awhile, right?"
Maura covered her embarrassment with a smile and a nod of agreement. "I guess not. We've been together awhile but the name takes getting used to." She extended her hand, remembering Nick's advice to connect with her new neighbors. He'd been making a far greater effort and she was finally being shamed into following suit. "I still think of myself as Logue."
"Well I'm Angie Lawrence, nice to meet you. So tell me, what would you like today?"
"Wipe out the streaks to start," Maura told her. "I'm feeling a longing to return to my original hair color."
Angie expressed some surprise. Though her professional instincts informed her of some obvious "technical enhancements" in this newcomer's hair, some shade of red would seem to be the natural. "What was that, then?"
God, it had been so long… Maura had settled on red at a very early age and never relinquished it. Gazing around the salon, she saw a little boy who was getting a basic little-boy haircut. "That one, there. That's about it." It was a toasty brown color, just a hint of auburn.
"Really? Well you sure picked a good shade as an alternative, it goes great with your complexion."
"Irish-American covers a lot of ground, I guess. I just think it's time for a change… or a return."
Sorting through her color swatches Angie commented, "New life, new look, makes sense."
Sitting up straighter in the styling chair Maura inquired, "Has word been getting around already, or are you just psychic?"
Angie blushed a bit at Maura's blunt inquiry. "Sorry. Small town, news travels."
"Sherry Nadeau?"
"Yeah, we go back a bit." Looking suddenly concerned she added hurriedly, "no gossip, really. She just said your husband had told her about how you came here, and it sounded a little harsh, and well changes bring other changes…"
"It's okay, Angie, I get it. Nick's a lot better at getting established than me. Sherry seems to have been first contact, so to speak."
As she combed back Maura's hair Angie assured her, "Oh I hope you didn't get the wrong idea! Sherry's real friendly but she'd never put the moves on a married man."
It was hard to disagree without shaking her head. "It really didn't occur to me, he told me all about her from the first time they met. If it's one thing Nick's terrible at, it's doing the wrong thing… he'd be the world's worst philanderer."
First impressions settled, Angie's professionalism kicked in. "So is color the only change? Your ends are a little ragged."
"Now that you mention it…" Maura's hair had grown a bit longer than she liked, but the just-below-the-shoulders length hadn't quite gotten to the point where it got all frazzled and stringy. Nick seemed to like it, but it was more trouble than it was worth. "Yeah, give it a good cut." She turned herself sideways to the mirror. "How about something smooth, just a bit of layer near my face, cut just above shoulder length and curled under? I'm sure I can get an iron somewhere around here."
An approving nod. "That would work real nice. Okay, Maura, just relax and we'll give you a new look for your new life. Your Nick will love the new you."
Well, maybe "love" was too strong a word.
"What do you mean, your 'natural' color? It's always been red, with or without stripes!" Nick was fairly stunned when he came upon Maura, who'd gone out long before he woke, and was confronted by her new 'do. "I mean, I like the new style," and he ran his hand through the newly shortened and thicker softness to prove it, "but this can't be your real color?"
Maura gaped in disbelief. Three-plus years of living and sleeping and use-your-imagination together… he had to be kidding. Or blind.
"You can't be serious!" she exclaimed. "You mean after all the stuff we've, well, done," she rolled her eyes suggestively, "you never noticed I wasn't 'natural'? Christ Nick, I figured out you were a natural blond the first time we got below the neck!"
He was undeniably caught out. "I'm sorry, I guess I was too distracted by 'stuff'," he gave her a smouldering bedroom look, "to notice the important details. Anything else you care to divulge? False teeth, colored contact lenses?" He stalked closer to grope her, then peered in her ear. "Digital surveillance devices?"
Laughing, she pulled away. "Very funny. I guess there are some things even blood won't tell you." When the phone rang Maura reached it first, shooting Nick an "aren't you proud of me?" look as she answered, "Knight residence." Responding to Nick's concern that their new life as a married couple should be more convincing, she'd backed off on her "maiden name" use without bothering to debate his old-fashioned instincts.
"Hi, you must be Maura. My name is Sherry Nadeau."
"Oh right, hi, just a minute he's right here," she was about to hand the phone off to Nick when the voice on the other end called, "Hey wait a minute, I called to talk to you too. We're having a d.j. at Ernie's tonight, charging a cover to raise some money for the animal shelter. Nick's been getting used to us here, but I don't think he should have to dance alone. And he said he's looking for a new career, everybody will be here, lots of connections."
"Who is it?" Nick mouthed silently.
"Your girlfriend from the video store," Maura mouthed back with a wink. Then she said into the phone, "I don't think so, I'd love to meet you guys sometime, but I'm not much of a mixer. I'm sure Nick's told you…"
"He told me you'd be a hermit if you were left to your own devices. So you're not going to be."
Just then Nick snatched the cordless phone from Maura's hand. "Sherry? Hi. Whatever you're proposing, as long as it's decent," it was his turn to wink, "the answer is yes. It's time the princess descended from her tower," he stared forcefully at Maura, who could tell that her chances at remaining a hermit had just run out. She gestured a surrender.
"That's queen," she shouted for effect, and could hear Sherry's laughter coming through the phone.
"Lemme talk to her again," Sherry told Nick, who handed the phone back to Maura. "So, tonight at 9:15, because I lock up at 9:00."
Maura was shocked. "Even on a Friday?"
The loose laughter rang out again. "Honey, especially on a Friday! You just come as you are, climb on that fancy 'cycle behind your sociable husband. Unless you want half the women in town hitting on him."
"You mean the half that haven't hit on him already?" Uh-oh, that didn't sound right. "Whoops, I didn't mean you."
"Don't give me too much credit… it's not like I started out with pure intentions! See you tonight." The line went dead, and Nick looked questioningly at Maura as she laughed and replaced the phone on the antique candle stand she'd picked up in town a few days ago.
"What?" he wanted to know.
"Oh, nothing," she walked by Nick casually, pausing to run a hand around his waist, then pressed against his ear to whisper, "Your friend just told me about her impure intentions toward you."
"Oh, sure."
Maura sighed in mock frustration as she headed for the kitchen. "Why are hot looks always wasted on the clueless?"
Nick followed her into the kitchen and stood by as she rummaged through some of the still-unpacked boxes of odds and ends that she'd shoved into the mud room closet. "D.J. dance party, sounds like, just after 9. Raising money for an animal shelter…" she re-surfaced and blew some hair out of her face, then went to look through the painfully-well organized cabinets for the sixth time that day.
"Sounds like you might have fun if you're not careful," Nick observed then finally had to ask, "What are you looking for? Maybe I've seen it somewhere… whatever it is." True to his promise before they'd left Toronto, he'd been content to stand back and let Maura arrange things to suit herself. Not surprisingly, the results also suited him.
She shut the last drawer and turned to him with a furrowed brow. "I can't find any of it, Nick, I even looked in the cooler in the studio." The walk-in closet sized cooler was stacked with bottled blood, and another cask under the bottom shelf, enough to hold him for a while until they figured out how to get a local source. The empties they stored in the barn.
"Find what? What could be so important?"
"The magic elixir. You know, your custom hot sauce-thermostat control. I never really paid attention to where you kept it before, but even if Natalie made huge batches of the stuff it couldn't last forever. I never thought of that… what's gonna happen when you run out?" The prospect of him returning to his swings from cold to fiery depending on feeding schedule wasn't appealing, and it would complicate his coexistence with other mortals as it had before. She couldn't understand why he was just standing there, smiling at her. Smiling? Was he crazy?
"What are you smiling at? Do you like the idea of running hot and cold again? I kind of got used to you being warm and, well, if you must know… cuddly." She almost felt embarrassed to say so. Even if she found the stuff now, they'd never find another source for it… her mania returned and she was about to set off on to search the rest of the house when Nick caught her in his arms and nuzzled her neck.
"Cuddly, huh?" he teased, "I wonder what the Enforcers would think of that?"
She pulled back. "Nick this is not funny. When you run out of that stuff…"
"I already have," he admitted, managing to keep a straight face.
"Ah, shit! How long ago?" Maura was mentally gauging how many nights before the Big Freeze Out returned.
"About a month and a half." The only response he got was bugged eyes and an open mouth.
"You did not."
"Did too." He buried his face in her again then looked her in the eye. "Any complaints?"
The wheels spun in Maura's head, along with thoughts she didn't have to express aloud. If after a couple of years of steady consumption Nick didn't need to consume the elixir mixed with blood to regulate his body temperature, that had to mean that his vampire metabolism had somehow learned to manufacture its own. Which meant… his physiology was capable of adaptation and change. "Like a homeopathic remedy," she did speak the last thought out loud. The wonder of it was written all over her face, and a million unspoken questions rushed through her head.
"I know, Sweet, it raises a lot of complex possibilities and questions."
"You didn't tell me."
He touched her face gently. "There was a lot going on at the time, remember? And before you ask, I didn't have to tell Natalie, did I? She's the one who made it for me, so of course she knew."
Of course she knew. What else could have given Natalie the added incentive, a catalyst to revive a long-dead hope that Nick might become what she wanted him so badly to be? It didn't take long, even with "a lot going on", for her to recognize the possibilities. And how it must have jumpstarted Nick's long-slumbering desire for mortality. Maura knew him well enough to know the desire could be mastered, but never vanquished. He was right, though, about all that had been happening, and Maura couldn't fault him for not telling her at the time. Still, she turned away and headed toward the stairs, hoping Nick hadn't had the time to read her consternation. This kind of bell not only could not be un-rung, the echo could last forever.
"Where are you going?"
She stopped halfway up and turned with her most winning smile. "To find the proper descending-from-the-tower attire, that's where. If you can become warm-blooded, the least I can do is become sociable."
Much as she hated to admit it, Maura was recognizing some truths about their relationship that only fear could bring into focus. The knowledge of Nick's changed chemistry put a whole new perspective on his and Natalie's last night at the loft and wakened a fear Maura had never felt before. There were, in fact, things Natalie had given Nick that she could not. And that last night proved there was a point of no return for Nick, where the longing that would never abandon him could erase Maura from his mind entirely, if only for a few moments. It was jarring to discover that things between them would not necessarily "find their own way", no matter how often she and Nick had told each other they would.
Nick quietly dialed the number of the video store. When Sherry answered he stepped into the kitchen and told her, "Well done. I don't know what you said, but it worked."
"I just told her half the women in town would be hitting on you if you showed up alone. So she's really coming? Great! It's no exaggeration that more than a few people were beginning to think that wedding ring is just shark repellent. Or worse, that you have an imaginary playmate."
Out of jokes, Nick confessed, "Really, I appreciate this. Maura's never been very good at what she calls 'starting from zero' with new people. Not shy, exactly… I don't know."
"Why ask why? If she could show up in Toronto on her own and meet you, and make friends like you told me about, I think all she'll need is a jump start. See you guys later."
Maura trotted downstairs dressed in the same jeans and green v-necked t shirt she'd been wearing when she went up. She missed Nick hurriedly switching off the phone and nearly throwing it back on its stand.
"Wow I never noticed how similar your outfits are," he cracked.
"Yark, yark. I'm figuring out that this is the first time maybe ever that I'm just meeting people, well, just because they're there, you know? No agendas, no survival mode. Sherry said come as you are, so here I are. And why are you grinning like a loon? Somebody's gonna lock you up and then you'll be in serious trouble!"
Nick swept Maura into his arms and landed them both on the sofa (the one she couldn't bear to part with that fit perfectly, if incongruously, in the living room across from the fireplace). "I was in serious trouble from the moment Janette introduced us," he admitted. He gave her a kiss, then a nibble under the ear, then jumped to his feet and looked himself over. "I think maybe it's time for me to come as I 'are' too. Or how I'd like to become again… be right back." He flew up to the bedroom. The only drawback to their new home, Maura mused, was that they couldn't fly extravagantly upstairs as they did at the loft, from the living room to the gallery outside the bedroom. A worthy tradeoff, she decided as she looked around the room at the new environment that was gradually taking shape. This time she hadn't inherited it, it was being built from who they were together.
"From city cop to country…" Nick's voice preceded him down the stairs.
When he appeared and came to stand in front of her Maura finished in a weak voice, "Studly hunk-muffin?"
"I believe that's 'hunky stud-muffin'," he corrected, doing a slow turn and asking, "so do these jeans make my butt look big?" His favorite line -- and move -- to flip her switches.
She was speechless. Or maybe she was breathless. True to his word after their return from Boston (a lifetime ago?) Nick had held onto his "blue collar couture", though he seldom wore it. She was so grateful now that she'd persuaded him to bring it with them. For their casual night out he'd changed into faded jeans and a soft blue chambray shirt with turned-back cuffs, well-unbuttoned (be still my heart) to reveal the top of a smooth white three-button "long-john" undershirt, likewise unbuttoned. And brown leather work boots, what Maura considered the male equivalent of stilettos in that they that lifted him an inch or two taller and made his long legs look even longer. The universal working man's uniform, not a stitch of black in sight. As good as Nick looked to her wearing anything – or nothing – at all, Maura firmly believed if he never wore anything but Working Man's Uniform she would die a happy woman. After she had her way with him six ways from Sunday, that is.
"What say we stay home tonight, and I'll measure your inseams," she nearly drooled on her feet as she stood and reached for him. He dodged back and away with a teasing smile.
"Oh, no, I'm not that easy. You gotta take me out dancing first!"
It was just after 8:30. "Look, you'd better go feed yourself because it could be a long night," Maura advised.
Nick wrapped a denim arm around her and used his other hand to tip her head to the side. "My pleasure," he growled. This time it was Maura who jumped away.
"No way, you gotta take me out dancing first!"
"Hoist by my own petard," Nick lamented unconvincingly. "Get your leather, we're taking the bike. I'll be back in a flash." He strode out the front door and went across the dooryard to the studio where his blood supply was stored. They planned to set up a concealed fridge in the kitchen of the main house, but for obvious reasons it would have to be a do-it-yourself affair. They hadn't gotten round to it yet so Nick visited the studio for feedings that didn't involve Maura, occasionally bringing a bottle back to enjoy late at night.
Maura had grabbed both their jackets from the front hall closet when the phone rang. She answered it, not bothering to glance at the caller i.d. After all, only a bare few of the locals had their number.
"Maura Knight," she announced pleasantly. She'd been practicing her new name in order to get in the habit. Aristotle had done some complex work to create their digital "marriage" and what with immigration concerns (the Canadian border being less than 75 miles away) Maura figured it was best to bow to at least a minimum of tradition. There was no response from the caller beyond an intake of breath. "Hello? This is the Knight residence, who are you looking for?" Not so strange to get a wrong number at a new address, but obscene phone calls after barely three weeks? It was then she took a look at the caller i.d. display, and very nearly dropped the phone.
"Maura. So it's true, you're married?"
After taking a second to catch her own breath, Maura replied, "On paper, or should I say on microchip. Aristotle set it up to beat immigration." Another span of silence. "You sure didn't waste any time, Natalie. How did you find us?"
"It wasn't all that hard, since you did it the mortal way. Metro, city and provincial records, U.S. I.N.S., I just connected the dots. But Nick didn't exactly leave a forwarding address."
"I know. He told me all about it, the letter and everything else." She couldn't resist sharing that. No more secrets, she knew Natalie had heard that before from Nick and her both but didn't want to leave the impression that even that last near-miss at the loft was an exception. The truth was he hadn't actually told her what was in the letter, just that he'd tried to say goodbye as gently as possible.
"Is he there? I just wanted to, that is, I wanted not to leave things misunderstood." As if there was even a razor-thin bit of room for that, Natalie thought ruefully. But he'd had the last word, after all that had happened, and it wasn't fair. He should know how she felt about it, too.
For half a heartbeat Maura moved to transfer the call to the extension line in the studio. No, for a quarter of a heartbeat. For a nanosecond.
"He's stepped out for a bit. What do you need, Natalie?" She honestly hadn't intended to sound the way it did, but at least it was close to the truth.
"I need to talk to Nick. When will he be back?"
It's been said that the space between right and wrong can be measured in the time it takes to choose truth over lies. The time it took Maura to choose the latter was too small to measure as she told Natalie, "I don't know." Well still technically true, she convinced herself. For a nano-heartbeat. She knew the difference but finally, driven by her recent loss and newfound fear she continued, "He just went out for a while." Sensing Natalie was about to force an even more obvious choice, Maura blurted, "For god's sake Natalie, give him at least some time to get his balance! Can't you do that?" Give us time, she thought, give me time to get his feet so firmly planted that his present can withstand the past without a struggle.
Natalie ventured, "Maura, I want you to know…" but she didn't know what she wanted to say.
"Want me to know what, Nat? Why you gave it one last shot, why it almost worked, why I should believe it can't ever happen again?" Maura nearly shut off the phone, waving it in frustration instead as if Natalie Lambert were standing before her and could read the gesture. "Look," she said urgently, "just please, please, leave him alone for a while, will you? Let him settle the loose pieces, let the jangling die down, okay? I can't stop you from calling again, I can't erase every message you might leave, even if I wanted to try. But for christsake, think about it! Would Nick have packed up, taken off, and left the goddamn country, with me or anyone else, if he figured it could all just get sorted out with a little chat a few weeks later? He knows where to find you. Let him decide when it's time."
"You're asking me to back off. To wait until… whenever. That could be any time, or never!" Natalie could discern Maura's desperation because she was awash in her own. "But you're asking me to just let it go."
This time Maura seized the truth, if only for a second. "Not asking. I'm begging you to." She was hoping that might trigger the kind of empathy that had arisen between them before, albeit fleetingly. What she got instead was as uncertain as what she was suggesting.
"This was a mistake. I should have hung up when you answered. Goodbye."
After the line went dead two women, hundreds of miles apart, trembled under the weight of the same question: what now?
As Maura laid the phone down, still struggling to process the conversation, Nick bounded in the door flushed by his feed and grabbed his jacket from where Maura had dropped it on the hallway bench.
"C'mon, woman, suit up! It's time to become part of the new landscape."
She put on her jacket and followed Nick out to the bike where he'd rolled it by the front walk. Before he could mount up, Maura seized him by the jacket front and pulled him to her. "Tell me you love me." He answered with a laugh, thinking she was extending their silliness.
"I told you, you gotta take me dancing first!" Then she yanked harder on him and the look on her face wiped the grin from his.
"Tell me! Tell me it's gonna be all right, tell me this is where we belong, where you belong, with me!"
He thought he understood. "It's gonna be more than all right, Sweet. We belong wherever we're together." He took her hands and unclenched them from his jacket, kissed each of them in turn, then wrapped her up in a hug. "I belong wherever you are, and nowhere else, no matter where we go." This at last seemed to satisfy her, and she looked up at him.
"Tell me." This time it was nearly a whisper.
"I love you, Maura Knight."
She smiled then, feeling more at home in the name than she could ever have expected. "Okay, then. Let's go raise some hell with the locals."
As they rode the few miles into town Maura locked tight behind Nick, around his waist and against his back, as if trying to forge them into a single organism. Natalie was a distant echo, for the moment washed from her mind by the rush of the wind.