Truthseeker

Five

“I haven’t stayed up this late in months. I won’t be able to see the pins tomorrow.” Lara frowned at her feet, having difficulty focusing on where to place them, much less the more dubious prospect of fine needlework on the morrow. The steps leading down from the restaurant seemed distinctly more treacherous than they had upon arrival. “How much wine did you give me?”

“I believe you asked for that fourth glass,” David Kirwen said in amused self-defense. “Careful, now.” He offered his elbow and Lara clung to it gratefully as he escorted her down the stairs. Kelly and Dickon waited at the bottom, neither of them as impeded as Lara. She scowled lightly at Kelly, who made a dismissive sound.

“I drank as much as you did. I just have a lot more body weight to slosh it around in. You okay?”

“I think so.” Lara released Kirwen’s elbow and smiled up at him. “It was a lovely dinner. Thank you.”

“My pleasure. I hope we can do it again sometime.”

“Saturday.” Kelly put on a winsome smile so transparent that Lara laughed. “Pizza after moving day. You don’t mind, do you?”

“How could I resist such a heartfelt plea? We’ll be there.” Kirwen arched his eyebrows at Dickon. “Won’t we?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Despite his grumble, the cameraman didn’t sound at all put out, and shook first Kelly’s and then Lara’s hands. “It was nice to meet both of you. We’ll see you Saturday.”

A chorus of farewells followed, and Kelly took up David’s position of balancing Lara as they made their way down the sidewalk toward Kelly’s car. The instant they were out of earshot, Kelly began singing, “Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes!”

“Hnf. The laws of physics don’t allow for stars in the eyes, Kelly.” She glanced over her shoulder as they climbed into the Nissan. “He is awfully handsome, though, isn’t he?”

“If you like skinny blond boys with exotic accents, sure.” Kelly grinned as they pulled into traffic. “You liked him. After all that fuss over his name this afternoon, you really liked him, didn’t you?”

“He’s interesting. No, I mean it!”

“Of course you mean it. You don’t say things you don’t mean. Define interesting, by Lara Ann Jansen’s standards.”

“He doesn’t tell lies, but he’s very careful about what he says. He never said he was from Wales, did you notice?” Lara folded her arms around herself and scooted down in the seat like a much younger girl. “I hate it when people lie to me, Kel. Not about the small things, you can’t help that. But bigger things, it just feels so wrong. But he’s not lying, he’s just …”

“Interesting,” Kelly finished triumphantly. “Who knew it would be the man she couldn’t see right through who would catch her eye?” She pursed her lips, then shrugged. “Of course, if I put it that way it’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? Although, really, Lara, I think if you were trying to get him to slip up, you probably should have been pouring the wine into him, not into yourself.”

“But I wasn’t! I was just having a good time.” Lara caught Kelly’s fingers, squeezing, then released her so she could put her hand back on the wheel. “Thanks, Kel. I never would have gone if it weren’t for you. I had fun. Thank you. And what about you? You and Dickon seemed to hit it off.”

“It’ll be a double wedding,” Kelly said cheerfully.

Lara sang, “Slow down, you move too fast!” then laughed at Kelly’s expression. “What? You started it with the stars in your eyes song, and how often do I get to sing something true?” When she could, or when she heard songs performed with genuine integrity, they always seemed strikingly powerful to her, but it was a rare occasion that either happened. Lara shook her head, smiling out the window. “I don’t want to think about weddings, Kel. I’m just looking forward to Saturday.”

“You remember how you were looking forward to this?” Kelly crouched beside another box as Lara put her hands into the small of her back and pushed forward, trying to pop her spine. A series of small clicks rattled her and she gave a breathless oomph, bending forward to touch her toes and finish the stretch.

“I wasn’t talking about the heavy-lifting part, Kelly. But they say many hands make light work.” Lara craned her neck, watching Rachel and her girlfriend stagger out the door carrying precariously balanced hatboxes. The four women would have been enough, but Dickon and David’s presence sped things along: it only took the two of them to move things that all four women would have had to cooperate on.

“And it must be true right now, or you’d be saying too many cooks spoil the broth. Except there aren’t any cooks or any broth here. God, you’re literal.”

Lara’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t say a word, Kel. That deconstruction was entirely on you.”

“Oh. Well, fine. Going to help me with this?” They took the box up together—filled with clothes, it was only awkwardly large, not heavy—and Kelly led the way toward the door. Dickon’s shadow warned them to stop before a crash ensued, and he leaped aside, flattening himself against the door as best he could when he saw them.

“Want me to get that?”

“Hm.” Kelly peered past the box toward the living room. “So far you’ve gotten the television, the computer, fifteen boxes of graphic novels, all the canned goods in the house, and an oak bed frame. I think we can manage one box of clothes. Go on.” She jerked her chin, indicating he could go past them. He did a credible scurry for a man of his bulk, getting out of the way. They careened through the door and Kelly yelled a curse as she ran into David, who flattened himself more successfully and shot an apologetic look over the box. Lara grunted and they pushed past him, taking the stairs faster than wisdom dictated.

At the bottom, Kelly gave Lara a breathless grin. “Well, at least you can now say you’ve been in a tight space with him.”

Lara pulled a face. “Not that I ever would. Kelly, I don’t work like you do. It’s all right, really.”

Kelly laughed, guiding them out to the moving truck. “No, you wouldn’t, but you could! I know you don’t, Lar.” They shoved the box into the truck, Kelly scrambling up after it to maneuver it into a tight spot. “I’m just afraid you’re not having any fun, all hunched up there at the shop with your needle and thread. I want you to live a little.”

“Your idea of living a little is throwing yourself off a bridge,” Lara pointed out, relishing the opportunity to make a melodramatic and also absolutely honest statement.

“That was only the once! And I had bungee cords!”

“I know, but my point stands. He’s nice, Kelly. He’s interesting. You got us set up on a date. Let me take it at my own pace from here, okay?”

Kelly jumped out of the truck, arms akimbo and expression triumphant. “As long as you’re actually going to, no problem.”

“You,” Lara said as severely as she could, “should quit the bra shop and go into matchmaking. Has anybody ever told you you’re a busybody?”

“You do, regularly. And if I quit working there I’ll lose my discount and will have to start going braless because buying them will bankrupt me. Nobody, least of all me, wants the girls bouncing around unslung. I’d say ‘Ow, know what I mean?’ except you don’t.”

“‘Some of us have fast metabolisms,’” Lara reminded her.

“I don’t think that actually has anything to do with the difference between a B cup and a Q cup.”

“You do not wear a Q cup.”

“Well, you don’t even have Q-tips!”

Lara threw her head back and laughed. “That’s not true. All right, fine, don’t quit. But if you’re not taking up matchmaking full-time maybe you should stop pursuing it at all!”

“Lara, the only other excitement in my life is measuring women for bras.”

“And jumping off bridges. And robo-rally racing or whatever that was you did a few weekends ago. And—”

Kelly ignored her, clearly not to be undone by minor details like truth. “I like a well-fitted bra as much as the next girl, but measuring acres of female flesh doesn’t hold a candle to interfering in my friends’ love lives. It’d be one thing if you could be trusted to it yourselves.”

“Trusted to what?” Dickon and David came out of the stairwell, staggering under the weight of a king-sized mattress. Lara and Kelly scattered away from the truck, guilt staining Lara’s cheeks pink. They’d only stood outside bantering for a moment or two, but others had been working while they played.

She wrinkled her nose. Kelly was right: she was too serious. Easier to admit than to change, though. Kelly’s adventuresome streak had yet to rub off on her, and they’d been friends since college. “None of us can be trusted to run our own love lives, according to Kelly. But she won’t give up her day job to become a matchmaker.”

“The day job? Didn’t you say you sell bras?” Dickon shoved the mattress the last few inches into the truck, then turned, panting, to Kelly. Lara clapped a hand over her mouth, cutting off a laugh. David appeared at her side to cock a curious eyebrow, and she let a smile slip through.

“Oh, Kelly’s so …” She made an hourglass figure with her hands. “People would say she’s the kind of woman men pant over. I thought it was funny to see someone actually doing that. I know he’s just breathless from working, but—”

“People would say. But not you?”

“Well, I’ve never seen it really happen.” Lara shifted her shoulders uncomfortably, and Kirwen’s expression grew curious.

“And you only report what you see?”

Lara folded her arms under her breasts, keeping her eyes on Kelly and Dickon, the latter of whom was enthusiastic in his opinion that Kelly shouldn’t give up her day job. “Kelly told you the other day. I have a knack for hearing the truth, so I don’t like to stretch its boundaries. People don’t usually literally drool or pant over one another. They might admire or gawk or be distracted, but actual drooling?” She shook her head.

“That’s quite extraordinary.” Kirwen sounded distant. Lara turned a concerned frown up at him, and discovered his gaze was as inaccessible as his voice. He seemed to be looking into her, through her, and beyond her, seeing something so far off as to be forever lost to him. “No wonder you have such a fascination with the precise meaning of words. Has it always been thus for you?”

Lara’s eyebrows shot up. “Been thus? Rapscallion’s one thing, David. Now you’re getting all Middle English.”

“Even Old, I should think,” he said absently, then shook himself. “Sorry. It’s a habit left over from a long time ago. But you’ve always known the truth when it was spoken to you?”

“Ever since I can remember. Kelly’s right.” Lara sighed and finally turned from the moving truck to go back upstairs. “It’s annoying. I don’t know if it’s more annoying for me or my friends, but it’s annoying.”

David fell into step behind her, speaking so quietly she might have thought she imagined his words, but for the ring of truth in them: “No, Lara, it’s a gift.”

Lara’s heart knocked in her chest, a dull thud that carried sorrow with it. She stopped, then pressed up against the wall to let Dickon and Kelly pass before turning to look down on David. “It’s not much of a gift. Maybe if I could know what someone was lying about, or somehow make them tell the truth, it would be a gift. At least, if I wanted to be a lawyer, or some kind of advocate like that. But as it is, I’m a seamstress, and it just makes everyone, including me, uncomfortable.”

“Gifts,” David said quietly, “are rarely comfortable, and I believe truthseekers never are.”

The word hit her skin like ice water, shivering and playing there. Lara caught a breath behind her teeth and held herself still, staring down at the weatherman. “What did you—Why did you call me that? Truthseeker. I’ve never heard that before.”

“No.” Sympathy colored his voice, warm and sad. “But it’s what you are, isn’t it? You’re drawn to the truth. Drawn to its flawless lines, to the points it makes between one being and another. You live in a world made of truth’s song, cradled by music, all the time. And it sounds so appealing,” Kirwen murmured. “It sounds so appealing, when it’s phrased that way.

“But what people forget is that music has a power all its own, doesn’t it? A life beyond any granted to it by notes written on a page. Music, unleashed, can uplift and create and destroy, stripping away pretenses and leaving raw, exposed vulnerability behind. It’s a gift, but not one to be envied.” Kirwen’s hands were knotted, urgency in them belied by the softness of his voice. His brown eyes were filled with helpless compassion, as if he understood what it was to know, always know, whether someone spoke the truth or not.

And he did. He understood in a way most people never did, not even Kelly. Lara’s chest hurt, breath forgotten as Kirwen grasped truth in both hands and laid it before her unrelentingly. The music of his words soared, carrying hope that caught in her throat. This was a man who wouldn’t lie to her, not for her sake, not for his own.

This was a man she could make a life with.

The thought was so unguarded Lara backed up a step and wrapped her arms around herself in unrealized defense. “Who are you? I don’t even know you.” The protest was more for herself than for the man who stood before her, a warning that she shouldn’t trust a flighty thought of lifetimes, for all that her every impulse was to step forward and hide her face against David Kirwen’s chest.

“I can tell you,” he said, “and you’ll believe me because you’ll know I’m not lying, but it would be better if I could show you. I have so much to explain to you. So much to ask of you. And no right to do either, but I’m desperate, Lara. I’ve been searching for you for nearly one hundred years.”