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Tristan came out of a bedroom and crossed to the telephone on the writing desk, an actual corded telephone from another decade, and lifted the receiver. “Are you hungry?” he asked.
“Famished.”
He dialed, waited, asked for dinner for two, and hung up. Looking me over, he asked, “How about a bath before dinner?”
He ran me a bath in the bathroom off my bedroom, and I soaked in the hot water, going over everything in my head, until he knocked on the door. When I went out in a heavy terrycloth robe monogrammed with a C, I found him at the dining table, pouring wine. Two silver domes waited on the table, a basket of bread between them, and two bottles of water stood near the domes.
Tristan looked up when I walked over. “Better?”
“A little.” I dropped onto a chair and reached for my wine. “What did they send us?”
“Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and grilled asparagus.” He removed the domes and set them on the sideboard. “I thought you might want some comfort food.”
“Thank you, this is perfect.”
The chicken was delicious, with a light gravy. The sound of the fire added another layer comfort to go with the soft robe. Outside the windows, the Virginia night was silent and full of stars.
“Tell me something ordinary,” I said.
He looked up.
“About yourself,” I clarified. “Something that has nothing to do with any of this. I need a distraction.”
Tristan considered this with the same seriousness he brought to everything, which made me want to smile. “I've been listening to the same Garth Brooks album for three weeks. I do this periodically—focus on one artist and listen to them until I'm sick of them before I move on to something else. I can get obsessive.”
“Country music?”
“I love country music—old to new. They have the best stories, and I like music as a method of storytelling. Nothing wrings emotions out of you like a country song—tears, laughter, and love. I have strong opinions about the different styles of country music that I've been told are insufferable.”
“By who?”
“Bart. He has equally strong opinions about what he calls real music, which turns out to be Jazz, which I find perfectly acceptable, but not worth the evangelism. I mean, I get it, Jazz birthed other music genres, blah, blah, blah. Everyone who truly loves music adores Jazz.” He rolled his eyes. “I think that's horseshit. There's no lyrics in Jazz! It ranks with classical in my opinion, and that's elevator music. No, lyrics make music into a song, and songs have the power to reach hearts. Jazz just makes me want to go to sleep.”
I laughed, and the sound of it surprised me a little—how easy it was despite what I'd learned earlier. “What else?”
“Poetry.” He shrugged. “I collect those I enjoy. Published collections, handwritten copies, single pages torn from periodicals. I have several hundred volumes and I've read all of them more than once. There's a first-edition Keats at the Georgetown house that I'm not certain I could part with under any circumstances.”
“Even fire?”
“I would go back for it.”
“That seems unwise.” My lips twitched.
“Deeply.” Tristan grinned. “I also have a good memory for historical events. I can tell you the exact weather on the morning of the Battle of Agincourt. I remember the coat of the man standing next to me, the sound the mud made when I walked through it, and the quality of the light at noon. None of it is useful to anyone, including myself, but it's there.”
“You were there.” The reminder of what he was landed gently rather than strangely. It was becoming ordinary, I realized. It probably should have alarmed me, but in light of everything else, how long Tristan had lived seemed minor.
“I was there,” he confirmed. “I have been in a great many places at significant times. My memory does not endure edits.”
I watched him over my wine glass as I sipped. “You also, apparently, have a tendency to show up at strangers' weddings.”
He paused. “How did you know that?”
“I saw all the wedding pictures and newspaper clippings in your, uh, collection.”
Tristan set down his fork slowly. “I have attended several hundred weddings over the years, yes. Some of them I was invited to. A significant portion I was not.”
I lifted an eyebrow at him.
