Girls Who Travel (11 page)

20

I
STOOD
THERE
feeling clumsy and uncool, with a cow-eyed stare on Aston. Though it was freezing, I felt a hot bead of sweat slide down the arch of my spine like a tear.

“Right,” he said, fracturing the trance. “I suppose I'm disturbing your sensitive ears and you want me to piss off inside with my offending racket.”

I bristled at his brittle delivery, scowling reflexively.
Why does he have to be such an abrasive asshat?

“That's quite fair,” he said. He hoisted himself up with his palms on his knees and then tousled his already messy hair.

I opened my mouth to correct him. But then he shrugged off the guitar strap from his threadbare merino wool sweater. His shirt followed his arm upward, and the motion revealed a band of taut lower stomach just above his loose, low-slung jeans.

My belly did a little flip at the sight of the pristine skin of
his lower abdomen, striped with a line of fine blond hairs that led my eyes lower and lower and lower.

“Yes, what is it?” he asked, tugging down his shirt over his belt buckle.

When I realized I was blatantly ogling his waist, just above the button of his jeans (dear God I hope he didn't think I was staring any lower than the button of his jeans!), I shook my head violently so that my bangs tumbled into my eyes. “Nothing. Nothing,” I said overbrightly.

He turned from me and walked up his short stoop and into his house, closing the door behind him with a clank that banged me back into consciousness.

21

“N
O
! I
DO
.”
Celestynka butted me out of the way with a radioactive-yellow Lycra-clad hip.

Unable to think of a better comparison, Elsbeth prepped me for meeting Celestynka by telling me: “Celeste likes to dress like . . .”—she rolled her eyes thoughtfully before settling on an adjective—“like . . . Vegas!”

“It's just a cereal bowl. I can wash it, Celestynka.” I jockeyed for a spot in front of the sink.

“
Cele-STEEN-kah
,” she corrected. “No
Cele-STINK-kah
.”

“Maybe I should just stick with calling you ‘Celeste,' like Elsbeth.”

“No, you call Polish name. Is better,” she insisted with both hands, waving them with silent-movie gestures.

I vaulted onto the countertop as Celestynka diligently
washed my single cereal bowl with disturbing robustness. (You'd think it wasn't about to go into the dishwasher.)

“I see you talk yesterday with Mr. Bettencourt from the next house. Is nice boy, ah?”

Celestynka was my age but already married with twins, and she was obsessed with the fact that I wasn't. Of course, you'd never know she was a mother with her rail-thin hips, which were always attired in a smattering of tooth-achingly bright, candy colors.

“You know Aston?” I asked her.

“Yes. I clean for him, too. This is why Elsbeth employees me. She knows of me from him. You see?”

I felt terribly lazy as she began to mop the kitchen floor. “Do you need any help?” I asked her.

“No. I clean. You mind babies,” she ordered, sloshing the sudsy water around.

“The babies, as you call them, are in school right now.” Celestynka was under the impression that Mina and Gwendy were the same age as her own newborn twins.

“So tell me what you know about this Aston character,” I said.

“I don't know nothing. I only clean. Always clean. For him and
Babcia
.”

“Who the hell is Babcia, his girlfriend? Babcia?” Just saying the name left me with an icky taste in my mouth. “Is she some graphic artist from Reykjavík with that name?” I stopped myself then, realizing I was babbling.

“No, she
Babcia
,” she stated louder as if saying it at a higher volume would help me understand. Celestynka looked at me
impatiently, as if my Polish language studies were not moving fast enough for her taste. She tapped her temples and closed her eyes to think. “The mother of his mother.”

“Oh, he lives with his
grandmother
.” My tongue unfurled from the roof of my mouth.

“Yes.” Celestynka looked pleased. “His
Babcia
. This is what I tell you!”

“Where are his parents?”

“I do not know. I only clean. You like him, eh?” she asked hopefully with a little spark in her eye. “
Babcia
good lady. She open many schools for girls. And she know everything about everyone. Aston very kind boy.”

“Actually, I think he's a bit of an asshat.” I unsealed a bag of organic trail mix and started fishing out the chocolate chips. It was like World War II with the sugar rationing in this house. I had to get Elsbeth to stop being such a tiger mother when it came to chocolate.

Celestynka looked confused, and I knew it was because of the word “asshat,” but I kept talking.

“He's kind of an elitist. But I saw him the other day playing guitar, and it was, I don't know, nice. I guess. Surprising.”

Celestynka stopped mopping a moment but then quickly resumed. “Ah, you think he is nice looking? See, I tell you.”

I snorted at Celestynka's encouragement. “I just liked his
guitar playing
. And stop trying to marry me off. I do have someone, you know.”

“You do not.”

“Oh, but I do,” I said with an exaggerated coquettish pout.

Celestynka wrinkled her nose up and down like a rabbit.
The mop clattered onto the marble floor. “Why you no tell me you have boyfriend?”

She looked genuinely affronted, and I couldn't help but laugh. Celestynka raised her eyebrows and haughtily picked up the mop.

I quickly explained: “Well, he's not exactly my boyfriend. But it's this Irish guy, Lochlon. I met him when we were traveling. He's coming to visit me soon.”

I couldn't help but let the corkscrews of excitement spiral and swirl into my voice. My mouth eased into a woozy smile. I hopped off the counter to distract myself from the rush of feeling going straight to my cheeks.
He is just coming to visit; it doesn't necessarily mean anything significant, does it?
Still, I couldn't help hoping that this would be the first of many visits that would result in our relationship officially resuming.

As if Celestynka read my thoughts, she asked: “You will marry this man?”

The question plunged me into a preteen hypersensitivity. “Oh, I think it's too early to tell,” I tittered.

“Is not. You know sometimes. Yes? This is a very American way of believing, I think.”

Celestynka thought of herself as a very modern girl because she married for love. I got the impression that where she came from, a small fishing village on the Baltic Coast, this didn't happen too often. She was braver than a lot of people gave her credit for. She first traveled to London alone and then met her Polish husband here.

“I'm just ready for Lochlon to come. I'm worried that I may jump the next guy who plays folk guitar,” I joked, momentarily
remembering seeing the straits of Aston's lower stomach, mere inches from his—I ousted the unnerving thought from my head and refocused on the conversation.

“Lochlon is my first real love, though. He was my
real
boyfriend, anyway.”

Though Celestynka's English wasn't perfect, her comprehension was usually spot-on. “Is good thing. Aleksander is my first love. And Lochlon, you are his first love as well?”

“Well, I'm not his first girlfriend, that's for sure. Once, he mentioned a girl from his hometown who he broke up with before he left to travel. But they just grew up together, you know? They, like, got together by default.”

He only ever brought up his childhood sweetheart, Bernadine, once, in blasé sort of way, which made me think it wasn't a sloppy or weighty breakup.

Still, I had secretly wondered if he had run into her since returning home. I knew his town had more sheep than people. But I didn't dare ask him about her. I knew I wasn't supposed to remember her name.

“Yes, I know how this is. At home, many people never leave. They stay in the same town all of their lives; they wed the boy in the house next door. Then you live next to your mother. Done. Over. A whole life in one town.” She hacked down her forearm, the gesture reminding me of an axe splitting wood.

“Yeah, that's the same impression I get with Lochlon's town. All he said about the breakup was that they were two very different people.”

“Some people want the world. And some people want home,” said Celestynka.

“Lochlon and I want the world. He's home in Ireland at
the moment, but just temporarily. He's going back to Asia, and maybe I'll meet him there when I save enough money.”

Of course, I hadn't mentioned a word of this to Lochlon, but he obviously planned on living his whole life traveling, doing odd jobs and writing along the way. And I could fit into that life just fine while working on Gypsies & Boxcars.

“Aleksander does not like travel,” said Celestynka unexpectedly.

“He doesn't? But he's in London,” I said.

“Yes, is here like many Poles, for better life, more money, nah, nah, nah.” She swished a bucket of clean water over the already sparkling floor, and I leaped onto the counter again to avoid the incoming tide.

“But not you. You came for exploration and love.” I didn't know how she could be with someone who didn't like to travel. I could never be with someone who didn't appreciate adventure.

“Is true. My mother says, ‘Celestynka, you are not right in the head!'” She knocked her skull forcefully. “She no like that I do not marry the butcher's son.”

We both laughed.

“Is only funny because I left.” She shrugged.

22

“S
O
YOU
'
RE
GOING
to be on your best behavior tonight, right?” I asked Gwen as I knotted the oversized bow on her frothy party dress. She looked like a tulle cupcake.

We were getting dressed in my room since Mr. Darling, Elsbeth, and Mina were out to dinner already. Gwen and I would meet them at the party later. Elsbeth and I had decided that a fancy dinner followed by an even fancier party would be pushing Gwendolyn's attention span and our luck.

I wasn't sure I had the attention span for it, either. Not to mention the last time I went to some prissy, white-tableclothed restaurant with Elsbeth, I made a blatant fool of myself:

“Where did that sommelier go?” Elsbeth had inquired aloud.

And then, I had stupidly asked: “How do you know that guy's from Somalia?”

I still recoiled thinking about it. Even Mr. Darling let out a yap of a laugh, and he
never
laughed.

I smoothed my hair in the Venetian smoked-glass mirror and inspected the boring black dress one final time, seriously tempted to defy Elsbeth and change into a different one.

“Hey, Gwendy? Did you hear me?”

When she still didn't respond, a flurry of motion behind my back caught my attention, and I turned around to find her half buried in my wooden wardrobe between the hanging clothing.

“Whatcha doing in there?” I asked, burying my head into the closet beside her.

She knocked against the back of the wardrobe:
clack, clack, clack
, then put her ear to the wood to listen intently.

After an inpatient pause, she said, “Oh, you know, I'm just making sure you didn't get the wardrobe with Narnia in it. If you did, I'd be super jealous.”

I nibbled into my bottom lip to keep from smiling.

“Should we get this show on the road?” I asked, passing over her velvet coat.

We both shrugged into our coats and made our way outside to wait for Clive with the car. He was supposed to pick us up after he dropped off the rest of the Darling clan at the party.

I gingerly steered Gwen down the icy front steps.

Just then, a voice from the street yanked my attention up: “You look, erm . . . clean.”

It was Aston, lurking right in front of our stoop. I sighed.
Fuck off, Aston Hyde Bettencourt.

I was about to say something in response when I noticed the
same thing about him: He was cleaned up, too. His mop of dirty blond hair had been slicked back, and he appeared to be wearing a tuxedo under his overcoat. Maybe this is what South Kensington boys wore to the bar on a Saturday night, for all I knew.

“Excuse me?” Aston said.

Oh shit, did I really tell him to “fuck off” out loud?

“Hello!” Gwen said cheerfully. “Fuck off, Aston Hyde Bettencourt!”

My face went crimson, but Aston laughed. It was the first time I had ever heard him laugh, and it sounded genuine, not at all hollow or pretentious. But then he ruined the unassuming laughter by speaking.

“Fine job you're doing there. Really making her into a model citizen,” he said to me snarkily.

I ignored him and crouched down next to Gwen. “Listen, Gwendy. I'm a total potty mouth.” I heard Aston snigger again, and I exhaled loudly through my nose. “But you cannot repeat what I say. Even
I'm
not supposed to talk like that. Got it? You have to swear to be on your best behavior tonight.”

Gwen offered her little finger for a pinky swear. After we had linked pinkies, we pounded fists.

I stood back upright and met Aston's gaze again. His glacial blue eyes were so forceful that I had trouble meeting his stare head-on. I looked out into the night for any signs of Clive with the car.

“Right then. I just meant you look different. You don't often dress like this,” he said a bit softer.

I looked down at the plain black dress and tugged my coat around me, ashamed. For the first time, I felt like hired help meant to be unnoticed—unlike in daily life when the
Darlings treated me like part of the family. At least I managed to keep my hair wavy and wild, even though Elsbeth practically chased me around the house with a flatiron earlier today.

“Yeah, well, this is what working people have to do,” I lamented into the night.

“So because I live in South Kensington, I've not worked?”

I stopped for a moment. Before I could come up with a snapping retort, I remembered him playing folk guitar the other day, and it dawned on me that all I'd been doing since I'd met him was making assumptions.

“Um, Aston, the guitar the other day—” I began, realizing that I never told him that it didn't bother me, and I actually
liked
his playing.

“Yes. Point made. No more guitar.” He about-faced.

“No!” I said more fiercely than I meant to just to get his attention back. “It's that—”

“Kika, I need to pee like an effin' racehorse”—Gwen yanked at my coat—“but I'm trapped in my party dress!”

I took her hand in mine. I knew she was copying my language again, and Aston deliberately laughed in my face once more.
Why do I have to have the mouth of a pirate hooker?

“Don't worry, Gwendy, I'll help.” I turned back to Aston to finish my thought, but he had walked into the street to hail a passing black cab.

Gwen started doing what she called “The Wee Dance,” so I shuffled her back up the steps and unlocked the front door, so that there would be no accidents in overpriced party dresses.

By the time we finished and got back downstairs, Clive was waiting with the car, and Aston was long gone.