Free The Haunted Heart: Winter by Josh Lanyon

The
waitress apologetically carded me, to Kirk’s amusement. Kirk
ordered the Steak Frites, peppered hanger steak, fried potatoes,
roasted shallots, watercress salad with blue cheese and wild
mushrooms, and a bottle of pinot noir.
    “Man does not live by juice alone,” I
commented as the waitress moved away.
    “He could if he had to.” Kirk shook out his
napkin and placed it over his lap. For some reason that struck me
as funny, but there was no reason Kirk shouldn’t have good table
manners. He knew his way around a wine list, for sure.
    He asked, “So how long have you been in the
antiques business?”
    “Officially? Three years. I used to help out
summers at Old Mill Antiques when I was a kid. I guess I kind of
had a knack for the business. Anyway, I liked it a lot, so Mr.
Gardener took me on as his apprentice when I got out of college.” I
really didn’t want to think about that time now. Sometimes I felt
stupid for not having known that that kind of happiness couldn’t
last, was only temporary at best.
    For the first time I wondered how Mr.
Gardener was doing. He was getting up there in years and he had
relied on me more and more. I hoped he was doing okay. I hoped he’d
found someone reliable to take my place.
    The waitress arrived with our wine. I sipped
my glass while Kirk went through the routine of sniffing the cork
and tasting. He nodded, totally serious about the whole procedure,
and the waitress poured him a glass.
    As the waitress withdrew, I said, “Anyway,
it’s boring talking about myself. What about you? You’re a
writer?”
    “Playwright.”
    “Have you had anything published?”
    “Produced, you mean? Yeah. One of my plays
was produced Off-Broadway. It ran for a whole three nights.”
    “That’s amazing.” Kirk’s lip curled, and I
said, “I’m serious. I bet almost no one ever has a play
produced.”
    He made a huffy kind of sound, not quite a
laugh, not quite a snort. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
    “What way do you look at it? Your play only
ran three nights?”
    “That’s what it amounts to.”
    “I think it’s amazing. I’ve never known a
playwright.” I smiled at him. “How come you don’t live in New York?
Wouldn’t that be a better place for a playwright?”
    “Connecticut is practically the home of
summer theater. There are plenty of working playwrights here.
There’s the Eugene O’Neil Theater, Long Warf, Yale Rep. Hell, Good
Speed Opera House is right up the road.”
    “I didn’t know that.”
    He shrugged. “If I could live anywhere, I’d
live in Los Angeles. There’s a growing revival of interest in the
theater, plus you’ve got some of the finest actors and directors in
the country permanently located there. Production costs are a
fraction of what they are in most theater cities.”
    “Yeah, but the theater is just a novelty
there, right? It’s all about Hollywood and the movies.”
    “There are some top notch playwrights
earning a living on the West Coast. Plus, there’s the beach. I mean
the Pacific Ocean.”
    “Oh, well there you go. What you really want
is to be a surfer. You just don’t want to admit it.” I was teasing,
but I realized I didn’t like the idea of Kirk leaving for
California. Well, good tenants were hard to find. I hoped that
California was a dream and not a plan. “So what was your play
about?”
    “I…it was about Afghanistan. The war.” He
said it a little defensively. There was a tinge of pink along the
sharp ridge of his cheekbones. “It was called Act of
War .”
    “You were in Afghanistan? In the army?”
    He nodded. Then said reluctantly, “Yeah.
Well, I was with the Rangers. 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger
Regiment.”
    “Rangers? You mean like black ops
stuff?”
    Kirk’s eyes narrowed, his mouth thinned.
“You’re thinking Special Forces.”
    “They aren’t the same thing?”
    “No.” He added, “I don’t like talking about
myself either.”
    “Got it.” I took another mouthful of