Love from London (23 page)

Galen French gives a wave and then makes his way back down the hall to my friend, to give her a…tutorial.

“Which is better, like this? Or this?” Arabella pivots to show me her two options.

“I like the blue one,” I say. “The straps are sturdier.”

“Love,” Arabella sighs. “It’s sunbathing, not lifeguard training — I don’t think sturdiness counts.”

“Fine — then opt for the halter thingy.”

“This one?” Arabella displays a yellow barely-there tankini. I nod. “You’re right. It’s good with a tan. Which I will so have.”

“I never tan,” I say. “It’s the curse of the fair-skinned. I always loved that sun-kissed look, but it just ain’t gonna happen.”

“Yeah, you’re more the reading in the umbrella shade girl.”

“Yup.” I try on one of Arabella’s sarongs over my jeans. “Is this cool like I’m so cutting-edge or lame like some girl at the back of the magazine demonstrating how not to dress?”

“The first, I think. You’re cooler than you think.”

I roll my eyes at her and tie the top of her string (and by string I mean floss) bikini and watch her inspect all sides before she commits to bringing it to Nevis. The trip’s not for another month, but she’s insisting on making sure everything’s perfect.

“Do you want to try on some swimming costumes?” she asks and drops the suit in her bag. Then she looks at my face for signs of travel trepidation. “You are still coming, aren’t you?”

“Totally,” I say. “I just have to convince my dad. Plus, it’ll take me all of ten minutes to throw my stuff in a bag.”

“Just let my parents cover for you,” she says. “You know they will.”

“Arabella…I’m sure they would, but I can’t just leave the country without telling him. I mean, what if…”

“What if something happened with Mable?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Whether you go to Nevis or not, something could happen. It’s not decided by your actions.”

“Thanks, Sartre.”

“I’m just telling you to take a breather — just forget the cold dreary London of winter and come away with us.” Arabella tries parting her hair on the other side, considering its merits.

“Who is this
us
, anyway? Aside from Toby.”

Arabella plops down next to me on the floor, pulling a turtleneck sweater (AKA poloneck jumper) over her cold self. “Here, try this one on. I picked it up for you at One oh One.” 101= Arabella and her set’s latest love, a sort-of fashion emporium meets lounge where you can plan on meeting for coffee and wind up leaving with hundreds of pounds worth of scarves, pants, or, in this case, “resort wear.”

I shimmy into the suit — it’s a two piece, cotton candy pink surfer-style shorts, with a top that’s a darker pink, almost raspberry. “Hey — this isn’t bad.”

Arabella agrees, “You look really good.” She picks at the peeling polish on her toes. “So to answer your question — you, me, Toby, Bettina Grimly, Tim Webber, Googie, Flask, Wormy, and Anastasia, though she might beg off due to exams.”

“Do you realize how many of those people have whacked out names?”

Arabella nods. “Seriously. But Wormy, you know, it’s not like she wanted that name or anything.” Wormy got the moniker after wearing unfortunately too-short short shorts one summer, and the string of her tampon escaped and was spotted dangling, swaying in the beach breeze. The rest is history. Flask is a no-brainer (both in name and in reality), always swigging from his engraved flask. I’ve met Bettina in passing, half-Italian, beautiful, the usual. Anastasia’s a duchess or something, studying at St. Andrew’s in Scotland, and has that UK mix of glamour meets Welly boots.

“Sounds like fun,” I say.

“Oh — and, Nick Cooper, who could forget him? He’ll be there.”

I change back into my winter clothing, straight-legged jeans, Irish jumper that itches if I don’t wear a layer underneath — today’s layer is the Brown University tee-shirt I got when visiting Lila Lawrence — it’s already so faded from multiple wearings and washings. “He seems really…”

“Nice? He is. We’re all going for lunch at his place on Sunday. You should come.”

I pull my hair out from the sweater, trying to calm its static. “Don’t you have rehearsals? And a paper?”

“Yes, Mummy, I do, but the lunch is only for two hours.” Arabella undoes the bathing suit top and slides it out from under her top without disrobing. “I’ll RSVP for you, okay?”

I nod. “Why not?”

“It’s me,” Mable’s voice on the other end of the phone is a welcome surprise; worth rushing through the door into the flat after a long afternoon of Choir practice.

“Mable, how are you…” I’m out of breath, and let her talk so I can put my bag down, kick off my shoes, and stop panting.

“Good. Really good, actually. Your dad is busy looking on Expedia as we speak, trying to hunt down the best fare.”

“So you’re coming?” I stand up and dance around the empty flat, flicking on lights and smiling as I go. “I’m so excited —when? Where will you stay? And for how long? You have to stay long enough to…”

“Wait — slow down, there. I think…let me just check.” I can hear her paging through her planner, “It’s either the first or the second week of April. It depends on your dad and Louisa.”

“Louisa?”

“Uh-oh, did I slip up?”

“No,” I say, “I know my dad’s been ‘seeing someone’…I just forgot her name temporarily.”

“Ah, Freudian.”

“No, memory lapse is more like it. Anyway, is she nice? What’s she like?”

Mable exhales deeply. “Louisa’s very good for him. Really. She’s soft-spoken and sweet, with a wacky sense of humor — the kind of person who could laugh hard enough during a sermon or a play that she’d have to leave — your type of person. And she loves books.”

“She’s the one with the bookstore?”

“It’s on Craigie Street, behind that restaurant we went to once.”

Silence. It’s weird to think of this whole new person in my dad’s life, that Mable knows, that I don’t — that probably Lindsay Parrish has met at our house. But Louisa can’t be worse than Ms. Thompson my shitty ex-math teacher slash Dad’s old girlfriend — or his evil prepster from last summer.

“I guess I should meet her — Louisa, that is,” I say.

“I’m sure you will — she’s not coming with us in April or anything — that’s just for us, you know, for family.”

“April’s still so far away…” Then I realize how whiny I sound. “But still, that’s great and just tell me as soon as you know. You’ll miss Damn Yankees, Arabella’s play, not like that’s why you were coming, but…so you’re feeling well, for real?”

“Yes, for real. It’s amazing how good you can feel when they stop filling your body and bloodstream with poison!” She laughs. “Yup, I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things. I have a compression sleeve on, which I have to wear for a while…and Miles has been a huge help, taking care of Slave to the Grind for me, dealing with the distributors. Things are good with us, too. He likes my peach fuzz.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to see your hair!” I say. “It must be really soft.”

“It is…but it’s so cold here I’ve been wearing that red cashmere hat you sent me. It’ll come in handy on the ferry. Miles and I are heading to the Vineyard this weekend to check on everything there.”

I sigh and sink into the cushy couch, tucking a velvet throw pillow behind my back. “The Vineyard…say hi to it for me — the island, the café…”

“Those cute boys…?”

“Mable!” I pretend to scold her. “I wasn’t even thinking about that aspect of island life!”

“Well, I was,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

She sips at a drink, probably green tea as she switched from her beloved coffee during the radiation. “Did Chris tell you we went for a burger?”

I nod like she can see me. “He mentioned it in an email.”

“So, the low down is — we met at Bartley’s, of course, and in the middle of my meatfest, I saw this guy sitting in the corner of the room.”

“At the small tables?” I prop my feet up on the coffee table and proceed to knock a stack of magazines onto the floor.

“No, it was a four-top, but the place was empty. He was there alone.”

“And?” One by one I pick up the magazines, pausing to stare at one of the Travel and Leisure ones, with its full-color shot of a white sandy beach; Nevis.

“And he was reading some book about the mythology of wealth in America. A real laugh-riot, no doubt.”

“Okay, fine, but why is this relevant?”

“Sorry, right. So Chris and I look at him and I’m positive — totally sure — that I’ve seen him before. Poor Chris had to spend the entire meal with me going through the ways I could know the guy.”

“So what’d you come up with?”

“That guy — the one from Edgartown. Labor Day? The gorgeous boating guy?”

I feel my breath catch in my throat. Lurch. Stomach twist. “Charlie,” I say. “His name was Charlie.” Charlie who wouldn’t take my dad’s money after rescuing us when our sailboat got stuck. Charlie who kissed me and made me forget myself. Charlie who talked to me all night by the fireside.

“
Is
— his name still
is
Charlie. And he said to say hi.”

“Oh, no — you didn’t — you actually spoke to him?”

“Jesus, it’s not like he’s the president or something. I waved and he came by the table when he was done. He knew who I was.”

“What was he doing in Harvard Square, anyway?” I ask.

“Oh, what, first you can’t believe I deigned to speak to the guy, now you’re wondering why I didn’t give Charlie the third degree?”

“No. No. Never mind. I don’t care what he was doing. He deserted me at that dinner, remember?”

“Oh, I remember,” Mable says. “I’m glad you’re not pining for him still…but he is something.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Something.”

“So,” Mable says, “This calling card is good for eighteen more minutes. Tell me what else is going on.”

“Well,” I start. “The record company that’s coming to my singing performance or the guy I’m falling for? Which first?”

“You pick,” she says and it’s all so normal, so easy, I forget she’s even been sick, it’s like I have her here with me, and nothing else matters.

Six hours and twenty minutes spent in one position, and not the fun kind. I stretch my back and try to uncrink my neck. My twenty pages (that’s about nineteen minutes a page — not bad — granted, it includes footnotes) concerning Ophelia, Cordelia, and Helena, and Hermia (AKA Shakespeare’s girls) is finally completed. I didn’t want to do the procrastinatory route with Nick Cooper’s lunch party on for tomorrow, my clandestine photo shoot with Asher planned for later, and the Bank Holiday Weekend coming up.

I leave the library feeling like a mole, emerging into the sunshine. I shield my eyes, open a can of Coke, and make my way to the flat to shower with clear academic conscience. On my way, I swing by the academic buildings and drop my completed paper in the faculty lounge, lest I loose it or forget it somewhere.

Inside, the door which is usually locked on the weekends, is half-open (note my optimism — it’s not half-closed — I am so centered. Thank you, Body.). I can hear Galen French’s voice, animated even though he’s attempting to speak quietly. “That’s not the point, Paul!”

“Yes, it bloody well is,” says the other voice — Paul — which could be a) a Paul I don’t know or b) Paul Trambly, one of the drama profs, or c) Paul Isaacs, the head of the entire LADAM-St. Paul’s combined program. Any of the three are enough to keep me from doing more than sliding my paper into the collection box, and pausing long enough to tie my sneaker (read: eavesdrop just a tad).

“She’ll be expected to leave permanently,” voice of Paul says.

“And you think that’s reasonable, considering,” Galen French answers.

“Yes. It’s the rules — and whether we agree to the measure of her guilt, she’s still broken trust. She’s crossed the line.”

Oh my God. Sounds like Keena’s foray into faculty relations have gone terribly wrong. I walk home, opting to stretch my legs and get my ass to wake up from it’s butt nap. Should I tell Keena what I heard? She must know. And what would happen to Poppy Massa-Tonclair if her daughter were to be expelled for bedding down with a voice teacher? Now that’s a novel right there.

With the hot water on full blast, I stand underneath the rainfall of the shower and pick a song to sing. It’s always interesting what song pops into your head, like a book I read once in which a girl deciphers people’s emotional states by what songs get stuck. What pops out of my mouth is Stevie Wonder’s version of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” It’s a good song, and one he makes better, I think. It’s one of the songs I got from the mix that Jacob made for me last year.
Like a fool I went and stayed too long, now I’m wondering if your love’s still strong…
I sing it and try to disconnect it from Jacob, for whom it would have more meaning now than when he first put it on that mix. It makes me feel sad and wistful to think about Jacob. He’s this person I could have had so much with, but the truth is that we’ve spent more time apart than we have hanging out. And the Jacob I knew as a sophomore probably isn’t the same after a summer away, a term in Switzerland, and a brief but torrid affair with super-swine Parrish. But I guess I’m not the same, either. But I am, sort of — so who knows. Plus, we haven’t has ANY contact since I’ve been here. After our emails last semester I would have predicted otherwise — but I’m not about to start the hellos, especially not after the dirt Lindsay’s no doubt spewed.

I dry off, sitting on the edge of the bathtub while I towel my hair so it’s only damp, not dripping. It’s fine, as far as red hair goes, less the coarse kind, more like an Irish setter’s (yes, I take pride in comparing my hair to that of a canine), and it doesn’t take long until I’m ready to go. I’m supposed to meet Arabella by HEL, where she went for coffee with Toby and Clementine. For some reason, I can’t picture the upper crusty Tobias with the rise-up-from-nada Clem, but I suppose now that she’s been “in society” not to mention famous, he’ll buy it — it seems like without those two key items of cache, Toby would have no interest whatsoever.

Tobias drives us in his Aston Martin to Nick Cooper’s house. Nick is at Cambridge University and lives there, but from what I gather has frequent weekends at his parent’s house at St. George’s Hill in Surrey, which is about twenty-five miles from London.