The Last Little Blue Envelope (2 page)

Delusions of London

Ginny tried to process what she was seeing. She had been drifting in and out of sleep, so the line between dream and reality was a little unclear. She blinked a few times and looked out the window again.

Nope. This was not a dream. They were really there. Two massive, inflatable snowmen—fifty feet tall or more—hovering two stories up, their leering smiles pointed toward the street below. Big, white monsters of cheer, floating like clouds. It was unclear whether they had come for good or ill, whether they were ascending or descending. They were as wide as the road and blocked out the sky.

She pointed at them dumbly.

“Those are the giant snowmen of Carnaby Street,” her uncle Richard explained. “Festive and disturbing, just the way we like it here. Don’t look them in the eye.”

Ginny and Richard were in a black cab making its slow way through the streets of London. They turned onto Regent Street—a seemingly endless line of stores large and small. The sidewalks were packed to capacity, easily five to ten people across. Strings of lights poured down over storefronts, waterfalls of them in red and silver and blue. Overhead, intricate patterns of lights and wire had been webbed between every streetlight, forming pictures of musical notes and sleighs. The bleary film of exhaustion over Ginny’s eyes added to the sparkle.

“It was probably a mistake coming this way,” Richard said, looking out the window at the traffic. “But I thought you should see Oxford and Regent streets during the holiday rush. I don’t recommend actually shopping here. Today’s bad enough, but tomorrow, Christmas Eve . . . it’s going to be a mad day for us.”

By “us” he meant Harrods, where he worked. Harrods was the biggest, baddest, most famous store in London. Richard ran a department that mostly dealt with rich and famous people. He was the guy who had to make the arrangements when the Queen wanted to go shopping, or when TV stars or rock musicians or people with titles needed to send out a bunch of complicated baskets full of improbable things. Since Christmas was the hardest time of year for him, it was probably not the best time to have his American niece drop in, but he didn’t seem like he minded. When she had called him and asked if she could come over for Christmas, he’d accepted instantly.

It had been a tricky negotiation on the New Jersey side of things, but she approached it with a confidence that she had never known before. She pitched the idea to her parents: Going to England was an extremely educational and culturally-expanding experience, and she could spend it with her
relative
. Wouldn’t that be better than sitting around in Jersey for the two weeks that school was off? One phone call from Richard, with his smooth do-not–worry-I-will-take-care–of-everything delivery, sealed the deal. Everything was easier when you had a responsible adult with a fancy accent involved.

Ginny had uncovered the fact that she even had an uncle late in her stay in England over the summer, when Richard revealed that he and Aunt Peg had gotten married right before her death. Richard definitely didn’t look like he was someone she would be related to—this tall, suited English guy who knew exactly how wide ties, collars, and lapels were currently being worn, probably down to the millimeter. Yet, he was so warm and easygoing, so weirdly apologetic about everything. And handsome, with his softly curling dark hair, his wide eyes, and arched brows. Even his gently receding hairline added to the soft openness of his face.

“I’ve arranged for a proper roast dinner on Christmas,” he went on. “I’m not making it. That would be a disaster for all concerned.”

“Roast dinner?” she repeated. The jet lag was just creeping in at the sides of her thoughts, making everything a little hard to process.

“Oh, roast dinner . . . that’s the best part of Christmas. You have your turkey, your roast potatoes, your carrots, that one Brussels sprout, the bucket of gravy . . .”

The cab driver was nodding along to this with an expression of almost religious contemplation.

“. . . anyway I ordered the whole thing from work. I’ll bring it home with me tomorrow. They do a good job in the food halls. And I have some time off in a few days. We should go and do some more holiday things. Are there places you want to see? Tower of London, or . . . I don’t know. Do you want to ride on the London Eye? I’ve never done that. I never go anywhere that visitors might like, except for Harrods. Do you want to go to Harrods? Please say no. You’ve been there, anyway. Anywhere else . . .”

Ginny nodded contentedly. As they drove farther north and east into Islington, she started recognizing more and more. There was Angel Tube station, here was the street full of shops, the little pub on the corner. . . .

“It’s right here, second one in with the black door.”

Richard was talking to the driver. She had fallen asleep again, her face mashed against the window. They had arrived at the house with the six steps leading up to it, the lightning bolt–like crack running down them. The plant pots were still there, full of twigs and dusty soil. She immediately reached for her purse, but Richard was ahead of her, holding out a few twenty-pound notes to the driver.

Stepping out of the car snapped her back to reality. It wasn’t that it was any colder than it was at home, but there was wetness in the air as well. Richard’s house still had that strange, blank quality, that feeling like it had been furnished from an office-supply warehouse. The plain pine furniture, the low, industrial carpet. There was a large new television but not much else of note in the living room. It had the air of a house that was waiting for its occupant to show up. There were no decorations.

The kitchen was in a mild state of disarray—take-out containers, bottles stacked on the counter waiting to be recycled, piles of bags sitting on top of the trash. All the signs of a man on his own who had been running nonstop for weeks.

“I’ve got to get back to work,” he said. “I’m sorry you’re going to be alone for the rest of the day. Here’s your key—you probably remember, the square one is for the top lock. Genuine Harrods key chain, enjoy that. And there’s plenty of food. . . .”

He indicated the kitchen with a general sweep of his hand. Ginny caught the little silver glint of a wedding ring on his left hand. Ginny had managed to miss that ring when she first met him. God, she’d been clueless the first time she was here.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Promise. Sorry I’m busting in when you’re so busy.”

“Don’t be. I’ll be back around eight. Maybe nine . . . but I’ll try for eight.”

As soon as he was gone, Ginny dragged her suitcase up the steps. It was not an elegant trip, banging and clunking, smacking into the wall. The door to her room—Aunt Peg’s room—was open and waiting for her. It would always be strange coming into this room. The pink walls had an odd glow in the pale morning light. The glint of the wrappers and various pieces of trash that Aunt Peg had collaged on the walls stood in stark contrast to the large poster print of
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
, Aunt Peg’s favorite painting. Richard had stacked towels and extra blankets on top of the patchwork quilt Aunt Peg had sewn.

Ginny dropped the suitcase under the window and sat on the floor with her back against the bed, looking up at the walls, the ceiling, taking it all in. There were two things she had to accomplish while she was here. Thing One: Get the letter. That was all arranged. She would meet Oliver at a coffee shop tomorrow at two and he would hand it over.

Which meant that she had today to accomplish The Other Thing.

In the two weeks that she had planned this trip, Keith had spent less and less time online. Their conversations, when they had them, had been short. Normally, this would have devastated her, but since she was on her way back to England, she had decided to use this to her advantage. The thing about her Keith seemed to like the most was the fact that she sometimes just turned up out of the blue, with some very unlikely story. So she hadn’t mentioned that she was coming. Today, she was going to appear on his doorstep.

This was a maneuver that required preparation. She had managed, through some creative questioning, to find out that he would be at home this afternoon. The timing was right. She also brought the proper tools. She reached over and unzipped the suitcase. Her favorite outfit was on top—a new black dress with white dots. With her new black boots and a pair of silvery tights, it was by far the greatest outfit she had ever owned.

Time for a shower, which required a wrestle with the shower-spigot attachment in the bathroom. She had soaked the ceiling many times with this contraption over the summer. Richard had also kept all the toiletries Ginny had purchased on her last visit and had stacked them on an empty shelf in the bathroom. One quick and not-too-serious spray-down of herself and the bathroom later (already an improvement on her previous technique), and it was time to get dressed. She made sure the seam of her tights lined up perfectly along her toes (an often-neglected detail). Then the boots. She examined the final product in the mirror. It was . . . good. She looked good. Not like a tourist. Not like someone who was trying too hard. She looked like herself . . . maybe just a little dressier than normal.

Quick hair check. When she got home from England in August, she felt the need to change herself a little. She had worn her hair very long for her whole life, and 80 percent of the time, she wore it in braids. The braids had become her signature, and the signature felt very tired. She impulsively chopped four inches off the bottom and dyed it a deep shade of auburn. Everyone loved the hair, but she still wasn’t used to it. She kept looking for it, expecting it to hang down lower, to get in her way when it was windy out, to be there to twist and curl when nervous. Still, it had a nice, deep shine. It was more . . . mature.

There was one more thing to get out of the suitcase—a small present wrapped in red paper. She carefully examined it to make sure the wrapping had not been ripped. The present had been tricky. She had to get something meaningful, but not
too
meaningful. Something personal, but not
too
personal. She had searched long and hard for it, and finally found it.

During the summer, Keith found her in Paris. They had kissed once. That had happened in a graveyard, on a stone monument shaped like an open copy of
Romeo and Juliet
. Copies of
Romeo and Juliet
were common, but the one she’d found was antique, from 1905. It had a blue leather cover and was illustrated in bright, jewel-like colors, with gold endpapers. It was the kind of thing you could give to a theater student, just because it was a nice thing for a theater student to have. And it was the kind of thing you could give to someone as a way of remembering your first kiss.

The paper had made the trip with no damage at all. She wrapped it in a plastic bag to protect it from any rain, put it in her messenger bag, and grabbed her coat and her keys. It was time to make her second entrance into Keith’s life. This time, she was ready.

Surprises and Explanations

The route to Keith’s house was perfectly preserved in Ginny’s memory—past Indian restaurants and dozens of newsagents, down street after street of rows of houses, all in various stages of repairs. Unlike New York, which was a city of big buildings and apartments, London was a city of houses, rows and rows of houses with little gardens in the front, houses that had known many families, known wars, known different eras and levels of wealth.

And there it was, the house she remembered so well, the house she thought about so often. There were the cheap black blinds, askew as always. There was the gold plastic window in the front door, the trash bin out front that was always overflowing, the little stone wall, and the shabby, tiny front garden, which always seemed to grow a thin crop of crumpled candy wrappers. As a little nod to the season, a string of Christmas lights was draped somewhat haphazardly around the upper windows, strung from one window to another across the front of the house. It blinked in an irregular pattern, one that suggested to Ginny that it probably wasn’t supposed to be blinking at all.

Out front was Keith’s small, battered white car. She peered inside the front window to see if it was as trash filled as ever. It wasn’t. He’d obviously given it a cleaning recently. Aside from two plastic bags and a few script pages on the front passenger seat, it was clutter-free. The first time Ginny saw this car, it had been stuffed with an entire theatrical set, including an inflatable palm tree (deflated, thankfully).

There were lights on in the two upstairs windows, and the muffled beat of music escaped the glass.
Someone
was home. It might be Keith, or it might be David, Keith’s lovesick roommate with the horrible on-off girlfriend, Fiona, the human cotton swab. She got closer and listened carefully. The noise was coming from the window on the left—that was Keith’s.

For the first time since she’d cooked up this idea, she felt a surge of nervousness. This had all felt so hypothetical up until this point. In the time between turning out her light at night and going to sleep, she had imagined this moment, the exact way she would knock, his face when he opened the door. . . . Now she was
really
here, and in a minute, she would
really
see Keith. Imagination was about to collide with reality.

“Relax,” she told herself. “You have the advantage of surprise. Just
be normal
.”

Of course, the first step toward normalcy probably didn’t include sneaking around in front of the house, looking through the car windows, and talking to herself.

She reached up and knocked hard on the plastic panel. One of the windows above slid open a little bit.

“THE DOOR IS OPEN!” Keith yelled out.

Ginny looked up to see if he was peering down at her, but there was no head sticking out of the window. He was just letting whoever it was come in. While that didn’t seem especially safe, it did work to her advantage. She pushed the door open slowly.

Instantly, she was overwhelmed by the familiar smell. Detergent, a spicy incense, some kind of dish soap, wet clothes, theater dust . . . it was Keith smell. The door opened onto a hall and a set of stairs. The little foyer area was crammed with things—plastic bags full of newspapers, Keith’s sneakers, umbrellas, books. There was, for some reason, a hammer in the middle of the floor and rolls of toilet paper piled in the corner. T-shirts and boxers were spread over the heater on the wall to dry.

“Top of the steps!” he called. “Just come up!”

Ginny steadied herself and quickly checked her warped reflection in a cheaply framed poster for Keith’s last show,
Starbucks: The Musical
. Someone’s black scarf had fallen just at the foot of the steps, marking the line she had to cross to continue. She stepped over it and made her way up the steps.

Keith sat on the sofa, his legs stretched out and his feet balanced on a plastic crate. The first thing she noticed was his hair. It was a little shorter, and not quite as shaggy as it had been over the summer. The haircut made it look darker and brown, not quite so reddish blond.

He was half-scowling at a computer screen, squinting a bit as he typed away feverishly. He was so intent that he didn’t notice her standing in the doorway. He turned and opened his mouth, ready to call out again, and caught sight of her in his doorway.

He actually jumped back an inch or two.

“Hi,” she said, grinning. “Remember me?”

For almost ten seconds, Keith did nothing but stare. Ginny clung to the door frame.

“There is something terribly, terribly wrong with you,” he finally said. “And I intend to have you put in a home. Are you going to come in, or are you going to hang in the doorway like that?”

He pushed some papers off the sofa to make room for her. She came in and sat down carefully, barely able to look at him directly at first. The sensory overload took some time to get used to. He wore a black sweater, ragged jeans, and a pair of bright socks with visible holes. She smiled at his toes poking out.

“Why didn’t you say you were coming?” he asked.

“I wanted to surprise you,” she said. “Do you let every weirdo who knocks come into your house? You didn’t even look.”

“I thought you were here to audition,” he said. “People have been coming here to read for the last few days.”

“Audition?”

“New play about the financial crisis. It’s called
Break the Bank.
It’s the evolution of something I started a while ago called
Bank: An Opera of Greed
.”

“Aren’t you in that . . . panto thing?”

“Ah,” he said. “I had an . . . artistic disagreement with the director of the panto. As it happens, I take issue with the objectification of women in
Cinderella
, and the reliance on shoes as a means of identification. Surely you understand.”

“You got fired?”

“Fired is such an
accurate
word. Also, I didn’t like being the back half of a horse.”

Ginny smiled and sat back into the couch. Rain was coming in through the half-opened window, but Keith didn’t notice or care. She reached into her bag and pulled out the present.

“What’s this?” he asked. “Is it a lump of money? Did you bring me money? You want to back my show again, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s a lump of money.”

Keith held the gift for a moment and squeezed it lightly.

“You’re embarrassing me.” He looked down at the package. “I didn’t know you were coming. I don’t have anything for you.”

This was definitely a first—Keith,
embarrassed
. His cheeks even flushed a bit.

“Open it!” she said.

He tore through the paper, revealing the blue cover. He looked puzzled for a moment, then ripped off a few more strips until it was fully revealed. For a moment, he said nothing at all, just opened it and looked at the pages, the illustrations. When he finally looked at her, his eyes were wide and his expression raw and open.

“I don’t know what to say, Gin. It’s . . . it’s lovely.”

His embarrassment was catching. Ginny felt her face get hot, and she found that she was gripping bunches of her skirt in her fists.

“I know it’s one of your favorites,” she said.

“Well, who doesn’t like a romantic suicide pact?”

“Only bad people,” Ginny said.

“Exactly.” Keith looked up partway, avoiding her face, instead tracing the outline of her new haircut. “Your hair. You changed it. You look like a news presenter.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Clearly you don’t know about my childhood obsession with the woman who did the weather. My heart still flutters when I hear the word ‘precipitation.’ I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without braids. I thought your hair just grew that way.”

He turned back to the book and flipped the pages for a few moments. From the way his eyes were flicking across the pages, Ginny could see he wasn’t reading. He was thinking. The moments ticked on. Ginny managed to inch her way closer to him, until she was right at his shoulder. He didn’t turn to her directly, but he was moving toward her in barely perceptible increments. This was it. Her whole body was tingling. She could feel a kiss coming, the way you could feel a heavy rain approaching.

The door opened downstairs, causing them both to start a bit. A female voice called up a muffled hello. Keith glanced toward the noise, set the book on the coffee table, and stood up. Ginny assumed this horrible interrupting person was here for an audition until a voice called from the downstairs hall.

“It is foul out there! David had better thank me! I stayed late for him and got stuck in the rain!”

“Fiona?” Ginny mouthed.

“No.” Keith shook his head and crossed the room. “She’s gone. Been gone for ages. They split up right after you left. That’s why the grass out front started growing again.”

“He’s got a new girlfriend?” she said quietly. “Thank god. You must be happy.”

“Yeah. He does. It’s a relief. She’s a lot nicer. But then, your average angry snake is nicer than Fiona. I’m sure she’s happier wherever she is now, burning orphans or whatever she does with her time.”

There was a quick footfall on the steps and then a girl appeared in the doorway. The new girl was extremely pretty. Like David, she had very dark black skin. She was a few inches shorter than Ginny, with skinny jeans, scuffed-up brown boots, and an enormous, slightly ragged gray sweater. She wore no makeup, but her cheeks glowed brightly from the cold and damp. Her hair was a free-flowing halo of spirals that rose up high, at least six inches or more, all around her head. Moisture from the rain was trapped in the tips of her hair, which she was rubbing in disgust.

“Remind me to never . . . oh! Sorry! I’ll go wait downstairs until you’re done.”

“It’s all right,” Keith said. “It’s not an audition. This is Ginny. The famous Ginny Virginia.”

“No!” the girl exclaimed. “Was that you, with the letters? Your aunt is an artist?”

“That’s me,” Ginny said, oddly flattered that David’s girlfriend had heard of her.

“Oh! Keith’s always talking about you!” The girl came in and sat next to Ginny. “I’m Ellis. So nice to meet you! Did you just . . .”

“Kind of a surprise visit,” Keith said with a proud smile. “As is her way.”

“This is so exciting! What are you doing here? Just visiting for Christmas? Sorry I’m such a mess. Just had my last day of work. I took a Christmas job at H&M and now I am
finished
!”

She threw her arms into the air in triumph before collapsing on the sofa in the place Keith had just vacated, pulling off her boots. Ginny forced a polite smile. David’s new girlfriend was nice, but she was also settling in. She had no I-have-just-interrupted-a-personal-moment radar at all.

“People are so horrible when they shop for Christmas,” Ellis continued. “They do things you would not believe. David wanted me to pick up a shirt for his sister. I got the last one and a woman tried to rip it out of my hands, and when I didn’t let go, she pulled her hand back, like this. . . .”

She demonstrated.

“That looks more like a punch,” Keith said. “Are you sure this was H&M you’ve been working at, and not some ultimate fighting league?”

“It’s hard to tell some days. But I got the shirt. He had better appreciate that.”

Keith began pairing his socks, putting them into little tucked bundles. Ginny had never seen Keith do his laundry before, but he certainly never struck her as a sock bundler. He placed each pair onto the mantel, making a little pyramid out of them.

“What’s this?”

Ellis picked up the copy of
Romeo and Juliet
and started paging through it. This was too much—the book was private. Keith glanced over, but he didn’t ask Ellis to stop. His pyramid of socks was getting out of control. It was going to fall apart at any second. Yet he just kept folding and piling.

“A Christmas present from Gin,” he said finally. “It’s brilliant, isn’t it?”

“It’s so lovely,” Ellis said, replacing it. “You have to tell us all about your plans for while you’re here. We’ll have to go out and show you around. There’s loads to do in London at Christmas.”

“Holly-eating contests and Christmas tree fights . . .” Keith’s voice was a low mumble. Ellis picked up a spare sock and threw it across the room at Keith. He half-smiled and pulled it off his shoulder. Suddenly, all in a second, Ginny understood everything. . . . Why Keith was off-line so often, why the door was really open, and what “kind of something” actually meant.

Ellis wasn’t David’s girlfriend. She was Keith’s.

The room was unbearably hot. The rain at the windows far too loud. She needed to get out of here, to get some air, to sleep . . . to do anything. She just had to get out.

“You know what?” she said. “I’m . . . I didn’t sleep on the plane. I think I . . .”

“Would you like a cup of tea?” Ellis said quickly. “Or a coffee?”

“No.” Ginny stood. She was unsteady on her feet.

“Oh, look at you!” Ellis said. “God, you’re exhausted. You should just take a nap right here.”

Keith finally reentered the conversation, a bright expression pasted on his face. “The lengths you’ll go to for a ride in my magnificent automobile! I can hardly blame you. Come on, then. I’ll take you back.”

“It’s really nice meeting you,” Ellis said, hugging Ginny. “Feel better. Some sleep will help. And we’ll see you again, right? We’ll make plans!”

One of the small mercies in all of this was that the ride from Keith’s to Richard’s only took about five or ten minutes. Keith was very chatty when they first got into the car, rattling on about his plans for
Break the Bank
. Ginny nodded and tried to act interested in “the collaborative writing process, you know, based on our collective disillusionment with the traditional financial structure, you know, hearkening back to the communal voice in theater that we haven’t had since, you know, the seventies.”

The rain had let up a little. Now it was fine and misting. Ginny fixed her gaze on the view—the rain, the glimpse of Christmas trees through open windows, the guy with the shopping bags of wine hanging off the handlebars of his bike, begging for disaster. When they pulled up to Richard’s, Keith let the engine run for a second, then reached for the key to turn off the car.