In the Time of Kings (2 page)

“The same for you, miss?”

“That’s misses,” I say. Happy doesn’t begin to describe how I feel these days. Claire’s my wife now. My
wife
.

“Ms.,” Claire corrects politely, winking at me. She had kept her maiden name. Before the wedding, we took bets on which of us would get called by the wrong last name first. I’d lost when the DJ at our wedding introduced us during our first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Forbes.

How lucky I’d been to grow up next door to this gorgeous creature. We started as friends, two kids passing the summer wading in the creek, turning over rocks to hunt for crawdads. We shared our dreams and finished each other’s jokes. Her secrets were mine, mine were hers.

The day she announced she was moving away during our freshman year in high school, as nonchalant as I tried to be about it, the news had left me feeling like some evil superhero villain had just sucked my intestines out through my belly button and danced on them.

It wasn’t until I cracked a filling and dragged myself to my dentist’s office one Monday morning, writhing in pain, that we reconnected almost fourteen years later. The regular dentist was out with bronchitis, they told me. ‘No problem,’ I mumbled, clutching my jaw, ‘anyone will do.’ I had to defend a research grant request to the head of the Biology Department in eight hours and it wasn’t going to go well if I had a screwed up look on my face. Not that mumbling through the proposal with a numbed tongue was going to go that great, but at least I could do it with a smile of relief.

When Claire —
Dr.
Claire Forbes — walked in, I suddenly forgot my agony. Five minutes later, I asked her out. Five months after that, we were married beneath the sandstone overhang at Ash Cave in Hocking Hills, the waterfall so close I felt its mist on her lips when I kissed her. It might have seemed like a short engagement, but that connection between us had never truly been severed.

Our parting, in a way, had been a blessing, because when we saw each other again it was in a very different way. Still friends, yes. But ... suffice it to say that at the age of fourteen I had never looked at the freckled, pig-tailed tomboy Claire and said to myself, “God, I want to wake up next to that hot body every day for the rest of my life.”

“Oh, no, no,” Claire says, yanking me out of my reverie. “Ham and eggs, please. They smell great.”

The stewardess lays the cellophane-covered plate on Claire’s tray. “I’ll have to bring the fruit later. I’m sure we have some. Meanwhile, would you like some juice?”

“Grapefruit?” I unwrap the plastic utensils on my tray and arrange them on either side of my plate: fork on the left, knife and spoon on the right.

“I’m sorry. We only have orange. Will that be all right? Or would you prefer coffee?”

My fingers tighten around my plastic fork. Coffee and orange juice. Another painful reminder of my father’s senseless rituals. I slip my fork beneath the tray and grip the handle so tight it bends, threatening to snap. Quickly, I place it back on my tray. I’m a grown man now. On my own. I really need to stop letting that kind of crap bother me. “Hot tea. Earl Grey if you have it. Extra hot. Plenty of sugar. Hold the milk.”

“I’ll take an orange juice.” Claire shoots me a sideways glance and shifts her plate over to make room.

“What? I was going to ask for a spiced chai.”

She rolls her eyes at me.

After our drinks are served and the stewardess is a few rows back, Claire spears a forkful of scrambled eggs. “You’re
so
particular.”

“Yet you still love me.” I plant a kiss on her cheek, then blow a puff of air into her ear.

Giggling, she jerks her shoulder up and leans away. “I do. God knows why. You’re a cat-loving, meat-loathing botanist — and there’s irony there, if you think about it — who’d rather spend his Saturday afternoon snorting paper dust at the university library, than go dancing with me.”

“That’s not true.” I tap a finger on her tray edge. “We danced at our wedding, remember?”

“Oh ... yeah.”

“Sorry about your toe.”

“You didn’t break anything. It was just a bad bruise. But the cake —”

“My fault for stepping on your foot. Besides, the icing matched your dress perfectly.”

“I promise never to ask you to do the chicken dance again.” She kisses the tip of my nose, smiling. “But you’ll still slow dance to Sinatra with me, right?”

“Every chance I get. Although we never seem to make it past the second song before things ...” — I wink at her — “well, you know.”

“Why do you think I keep a playlist of him?” She pulls her iPod out of her purse and flips through the icons. But instead of song titles, she’s staring at pictures of her dog, Dahlia.

Dahlia is a wicked smart Border Collie who likes to unnerve me by staring at me as if trying to transmit ESP messages while getting hacked off that I can’t understand her. What really perturbs me is that Claire can tell the difference between her ‘I need to go out’ look and her ‘Throw the ball, you moron’ look. They all look the same to me.

“Oh Ross, do you think Dahlia and Pirate will get along when we get back and you move your things in to my ... I mean,
our
house?”

“If they don’t, you and I will have to split up.” Pirate is the one-eyed cat I found in the dumpster behind the science building four years ago. He was probably ten then and frankly I’m concerned about how he’s going to adjust to new surroundings, never mind the dog. I wink at her, but she’s not laughing. “I’m kidding. We’ll figure it out. So will they. Anyway, this is going to be the most romantic, adventurous honeymoon ever. All your hygienists are seething with envy at this very moment. In a few hours, we’ll be landing in Glasgow. I’ve got it all planned out. By tomorrow afternoon, we’ll be on our way through the Highlands. Then, a short ferry ride around the Orkneys. A jaunt or two to some historic sites. I’ve even booked us a stay in a castle along the coast later.”

“Yes, I saw your itinerary. It sounds a little ... exhausting.” She arches an eyebrow at me. “Was it necessary to plan it down to the quarter hour, Ross? I mean really, a little spontaneity wouldn’t hurt.”

“Neither does a little organization. We only have so many days and I want to make the most of them. Remember all those hours I spent on the genealogy site? Well, I’ve run into some dead ends and I’m hoping this trip fills in some gaps.”

My internet contacts had put me in touch with a man named Reverend Murray, who is in charge of the archives in a little village outside of Berwick. I’d traced my roots all the way back to the fourteenth century and a less prominent branch of the house of Sinclair. Given the history of the time, I thought I might learn some interesting facts about my ancestors that I could one day tell our kids about. We still aren’t in agreement about the number of kids we’ll have — Claire wants two, I want three or four. But we can tackle that detail later. I might change my mind after the first one.

“Look, let’s just have fun,” I say. “Take it all in. If you feel worn out at any point, let me know and we’ll slow down, alter our plans, okay?”

“Now that’s why I love you, Ross Lyndon Sinclair. You know when to give in.”

She’s more forgiving of me than I deserve sometimes. “You couldn’t
not
love me.”

“You’re right.” Faking a stern look, she points at me. “And remember I said that. I don’t plan on repeating it often in the future.” She reaches across the armrest and laces her fingers inside mine, then lays her head on my shoulder, sighing. “Isn’t it funny how we were parted and then found each other again later, totally by accident? Almost like we were meant to be together.”

I squeeze her hand and turn my face toward her, my lips brushing her hairline. “Yeah, what are the odds?”

After we finish eating and the flight attendants collect our trash, the speakers crackle and the captain’s voice emanates from all around us: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re now beginning our descent towards Glasgow. Today’s forecast is a warm twenty-seven degrees Celsius here on this sunny July day. Or for those of you from the west side of the pond, shorts and sandals weather. You know the routine: trays up, power down your electronic devices, and strap yourselves in.”

Claire bristles with excitement like a five-year old seeing Main Street in Disney World for the first time. “It’s really happening, isn’t it? We’re almost there.”

“Yeah, babe. Almost there. The beginning of the rest of our ‘forever’.”

HERE & NOW

Glasgow, Scotland — 2013

B
y the time we land in Glasgow, it’s late morning and we’re both charged with adrenalin. The jet lag will hit us later. Like all the other impatient travelers, we rush to the baggage carousel only to stand around for twenty minutes watching the conveyor belt spit out somebody else’s black bags. Finally, the neon green shoestrings I’d wound around our luggage handles signals that our wait is over. Claire grabs her pull-along and I collect the other three — two of them hers. No matter which way I arrange them, I’m weighed down unevenly on one side. I scan for a cart, but they’re all taken.

Somehow, we straggle to the curb, me working up a sweat and her clipping along at a brisk pace. Claire hails a taxi, and I heave the bags in the car with a grunt of relief. Apparently, when I suggested that she pack light, I neglected to define what that meant.

“Holiday Inn Express, Riverside,” I tell the driver.

He peers at me through the rearview mirror, his bushy black eyebrows rising up to meet the brim if his tweed cap. “You must be American.”

It’s a statement, not a question. I’m not sure whether or not I should be offended. Before I’ve even leaned back in my seat, the driver punches the accelerator and the car jerks forward.

By the time we step out of the taxi, my breakfast is one brake-slam away from decorating the vinyl upholstery of the backseat. The taxi peels away, leaving a trail of exhaust in its wake. I grab a lamppost to steady myself. Claire grips my arm so tight I wince. “Ow!”

“Do you think he was trying to kill us?” She lets go of my arm and extends the handle on her pull-along.

My glasses have so many fingerprints on them from trying to keep them from sliding off my face whenever he took those wild turns that I fold them up and slip them in my pocket. As long as I don’t have to read any road signs or fine print, I’ll be okay until I have time to clean them. “I think he figured that a couple of tight-fisted Americans weren’t going to tip him much anyway, so he might as well set a land speed record and get back to the terminal for more passengers.”

“We’re taking the train from now on, right?”

“Right.”

––––––––

A
fter checking in and taking a quick shower, we head out to look for lunch. With Claire’s arm hooked around mine, we wander down Argyle Street. We cross a few busy streets and turn too many corners to count. Claire calls out the landmarks to help her remember the way back, while I clutch a photocopied map and trace our path with a pen so we won’t end up completely lost. All the while I keep thinking there’s probably an app for getting around Glasgow. For now, it’s fun going wherever our feet lead us.

By 2:00, I’m starting to feel my blood sugar level drop. We stagger around a corner and are confronted by a congested street lined with narrow shops and international take-away.

“There!” She points at a doorway with a little sign swinging over the street that says: ‘Jeet, Good Indian Cuisine.’

“Just ‘good’?” I quip. “Why not hold out for ‘great’ or ‘excellent’?”

“Do you want to eat or not?”

She spins on her size five ballet flats. I grab her hand before she can disappear into the press of Glaswegians and hang on for the mad dash.

We duck through the doorway and nearly plow into the back of a wide-shouldered man in stained coveralls reeking of engine oil. He wheels around, and I snatch Claire’s arm to hold her back, expecting a scowl and a terse reminder to heed his personal space.

Instead, he flashes a gap-toothed smile at us. “You should blow in at a proper mealtime. Line goes out the door and around the corner.”

“So we’ve come to the right place?” Claire stands on tiptoe to get a clearer view of the menu posted on the wall. The man in coveralls shoves a beefy arm between the patrons ahead of him and pulls a smaller printed version of the menu from beside the cash register.

“‘Ere y’go.” He thrusts the rectangle of paper at Claire. “Bit spicy for me, but the wife likes it.”

Unfortunately, there are only four stools and one small counter in the place and those are filled with what look like college students. I need to sit down and soon, before I fall over. My stomach rumbles every time someone drifts past with a paper bag filled with takeaway. I can smell the spices through the containers. After we get our food, we take our little paper boxes and a couple of Cokes and make our way to George Square. It’s evidently a gathering place for indolent students, young mothers pushing prams and business people needing a break from their cubicles, although half of them are texting away on their smartphones.

“Look at those two, would you?” I poke Claire in her ticklish spot, at the base of her lower back.

She flinches, then smacks me on the arm so hard it stings. “What? Who?”

Canting my head to the left, I smirk at the teenagers making out on the park bench: the girl with pink hair sitting on the boy’s lap, her tight-fitting miniskirt inching up as she scoots herself up over his groin. They’re all over each other, hands roaming, tongues rammed down each others’ throats.

“Where are the cops, anyway?”

“Oh come on, Ross. Are you that big a prude? Just a couple of teenagers doing what comes naturally.” Stopping in front of me, she gives my butt a suggestive squeeze. “They’ll probably be doing the same thing later on that we’ll be doing.”

“They can’t be more than sixteen.”

“Yeah, well, I was sixteen when —”

“Claire, don’t.” I stop her before she can spill the details. I don’t want to be reminded that I wasn’t her first, even though she was mine. In fact, she’s the
only
woman I’ve ever been with.