The Last Little Blue Envelope (5 page)

Boxing Day

Boxing Day. Ginny had heard this term before, but it seemed so ridiculous. Boxing Day sounded like the day when everyone beat the crap out of one another. Richard explained that it was the day that you . . . put things into boxes. Or moved boxes. Or did something with boxes.

Richard had been very concerned about leaving her alone again, but he had no choice but to go in to work. Apparently, Harrods after Christmas was about as bad as Harrods before Christmas, and Boxing Day was his own personal Armageddon. He was up and gone long before Ginny was out of bed. She had the entire day to herself, and no particular agenda. Tomorrow, she had to go to Paris with Oliver. She had no way of preparing for this trip. She had no information. Today, there was nothing to do but wait. Wait and think. And work on the essay.Outside, England was being English—it was raining. Rain here wasn’t that bad. It made being inside all the more cozy. Ginny drew a hot bath, got a pad of paper, and decided to soak, listen to the rain, and think brilliant thoughts that would get her admitted to college. She spent several minutes setting up a towel and arranging herself so she could write notes without soaking the paper, but the second she moved to write something down, she splashed the notepad and soaked it completely. She tossed it over to the toilet and sank lower.

Describe a life experience. Well, how about this? How about coming back to England to find the guy you love dating someone else and some other random guy holding your dearly-departed aunt’s letters and her art hostage. How about that, admissions committee?

They would never believe her. They would think she was a fantasist. They would put her picture on the corkboard with a note under it that just read:
PSYCHO. DO NOT ADMIT
.

The bathwater cooled almost as fast as her desire to work on the essay, so she got out and dressed. Her timing was excellent, because as soon as she pulled on her shirt, there was a brisk knocking on the door. She jogged downstairs, shoeless, her hair still damp and straggly.

Keith stood on the doorstep, bundled up in a big army-green coat, a heavy black scarf wrapped several times around his neck. He stepped inside, dropped his umbrella in the hall, then yanked off his coat and scarf and threw them on a hook.

“It’s pissing down,” he said.

He walked straight back into the kitchen. This was how he used to come over in the summer—just walking in like he was fully expected, like he didn’t have a girlfriend he’d kept secret from her. Ginny was too surprised to react in the moment, so she shut the door and followed along.

“Present,” he said, setting a CD-shaped object on the table. “Go on, open it!”

The present looked like it had been wrapped in repurposed paper, full of telltale white crinkle lines and old tape marks. For some reason, this made Ginny open it very carefully, like the paper needed to be kept for another mission in the future. Inside, there was a homemade CD, complete with a fancy designed cover from the
Starbucks: The Musical
poster.

“Properly recorded,” he said proudly. “So you can listen to it every day. So, what have we here?”

He examined the many containers piled on the kitchen counter and turned to Ginny with an expression of intense interest.

“We have a lot of leftovers,” she said. “If you’re hungry, there’s a lot more in the fridge . . .”

He was already rooting through the fridge and pulling out the tins.

“What is this?” he said, pulling off a lid. “It’s not turkey. . . .”

“Pheasant,” Ginny said. “Richard got the fancy Harrods Christmas dinner . . . because he works there.”

Ginny passed him a plate, and he started piling it up with food. Keith could always eat, anything, anywhere, in any amount.

“So,” he said, “I got the impression the other day that something brought you over here, but you didn’t say what.”

Ginny filled the kettle and said nothing for a moment. Her brain was still trying to catch up with the fact that Keith was here in the kitchen with her, that she was unprepared and wearing pajama bottoms . . . and now he was asking about the letters. But if anyone could take this weird story, it was him. And he had been there since the beginning. He had a right to know.

She set the kettle on its base and switched it on. Keith took a seat at the table to eat.

“Someone found the letters,” she said. “All of them. Including the last one.”

“Someone from Greece?” he asked. “Isn’t that where they were stolen?”

“Yeah, but the person who found them is from here. He’s English. He bought the bag. He used the information in them to track me down. The last letter, the one I never got to read before—it has more instructions in it. There’s another piece of art. There’s something else I have to do. I have to go to Paris, tomorrow.”

“Always the same with you,” he said, shaking his head and taking a bite.

“There’s kind of a problem.”

Keith was chewing, so he waved his fork, indicating that she should elaborate.

“He won’t give me the letters.”

“What do you mean he won’t give them to you?” he asked, swallowing hard.

“He’s keeping them, because he wants half the profit from the last sale. He bought the tickets to Paris. He’s the only one who knows where we’re supposed to go or what we’re supposed to do.”

Said out loud, it sounded even crazier and much, much worse. Keith set down his fork and tapped his fist lightly against his mouth in thought.

“You just made that up, right?” he said.

“Nope.”

“So, you’re saying that a complete stranger bought your stolen property, and is now demanding half your money . . . and that you are going to Paris with him. Because that is the sane thing to do.”

The kettle clicked off. She busied herself with making the tea.

“What choice do I have?” she asked, yanking out two mugs. “He’s not dangerous. He’s just . . . he just wants the money. I need to get the pieces. I’ve had to do worse.”

“Who is this guy?”

“His name is Oliver Davies.”

“That tells me nothing. What’s he like? How old is he?”

“He’s, like, our age or something. It’ll be fine. I’ll just go with him. I’ve traveled with people I didn’t really know before. I did with you.”

“It’s not exactly the same.” His voice was rising. “We went to Scotland together once. We both happened to be in Paris at the same time. And I didn’t steal your stuff and ransom it back to you.”

“I didn’t mean . . .”

“Gin, listen. Sit down.” He was more serious than Ginny had ever seen him before. She picked up the two mugs of tea and sat next to him. “I’m all for weird stuff as a general rule, but you can’t do this. What you’re describing is some kind of travel horror story waiting to be written. In the best-case scenario this guy is some kind of a con artist, and that’s me being optimistic.”

“I know it’s a problem,” she shot back, unable to hold her frustration in any longer. “What choice do I have? If I
don’t
do this, I never get the letter. I never find the piece. I never finish. And it’s not like anyone can help me. What am I going to do? Call the police and tell them that someone stole my
mail
? He’ll just disappear, and I can’t let that happen.”

Keith leaned back in his chair and pushed the front legs off the ground, sighing heavily. He stayed balanced like that for a moment, then brought the chair down with a thud.

“You said you’re supposed to go tomorrow, right?”

“Right.”

“Explain to me how this is supposed to happen.”

Ginny took a long breath. She was shaking now.

“I’m supposed to meet him at St. Pancreas. . . .”

“St. Pan
cras
, you mean. That’s where the Eurostar leaves from. You said he wants you to take the train to Paris?”

“He got us two tickets. I’m supposed to meet him at ten. He’s even set up the sale. He took me to see Cecil. Whatever it is we’re getting, it’s going to be auctioned off on the second, and I have to be there. So I guess he can’t kill me, right?”

She tried to laugh, but it didn’t quite work. Keith did not join in. Keith resumed eating for a moment, spearing a huge piece of pheasant that Ginny couldn’t believe he actually managed it fit into his mouth. He chewed it to nothingness, his eyes flicking back and forth a bit in thought.

“It seems to me that all you need is the letter,” he finally said. “Correct?”

“Right. But he’s not going to give it to me.”

“But he’ll have it with him tomorrow, right?”

“He’d have to.”

“All right then. We have a solution.”

“We do?”

“You forget,” he said. “I am a man of many abilities.”

He stretched out his hands on the table and wiggled his fingers.

“You play piano?” she said.

“Do you forget my shameful previous life? I’m a thief. I nick stuff.”

“I thought you mostly vandalized stuff.”

“I stole a
car
,” he said proudly. “And many other things.”

“But you quit. You don’t do that anymore.”

“I gave up thieving for gain, but there’s nothing wrong with using my skills for good, now is there? Everybody loves Robin Hood. And I haven’t lost my touch. Oliver Davies takes the letter out, I steal it from him. Easy.”

He scooted his chair closer, until they were directly side by side, his arm up against hers. Every hair on her arm stood up in unison, goose bumps everywhere. It must have been like leaning against someone who had pineapples for limbs.

“This is easily fixable, Gin,” he said. “This is nothing. We will get the letter back, and you can get your aunt’s art. Come on, now. No one messes with my mad one.”

Oh god. She was tingling all over. She was going to become hysterical. She was going to grab him by the face and make out with him. There was nowhere she could look at him that made it any better. The way his new haircut revealed his ears a bit more, the way his T-shirt stretched across his chest, the string bracelets he had around his wrists . . . everything highlighted something about him that seemed unbearably wonderful. Her hands shook a little. She quickly pulled them down into her lap.

“Thanks,” she said. She turned her head partially in Keith’s direction. She could not look at his face. She had to find a dead zone somewhere on him that produced no feeling. She tried for the armpit, which she could look at easily because he had his arm extended, but even that made her pulse go faster.

“I have to go,” he said. “I was just stopping in. But it’s sorted now, yeah? I’ll come by at eight thirty tomorrow and we’ll go over to the station together to work through the details.”

He got up and pulled on his coat and scarf. The fact that he was leaving without saying why, or where he was going, or inviting her along told her all she needed to know. Ellis. They were going out somewhere. Or maybe she was already at his place for a cozy night in.

She commanded her brain to stop this train of thought. Keith was here now. He was going to help her. They would get the letter back. It wasn’t exactly like before—it would never be exactly like before—but it was something.

“Tomorrow,” he said, as he stepped outside. “We’ll get it. Remember, I have never failed at anything.”

“Never,” she said.

He reached up and gave her new haircut a shake with his hand.

“Still have to get used to this,” he said.

“Me too,” she replied.

Very wisely, he said nothing else, and jogged down the steps and to his car.

It Takes a Thief

St. Pancras train station is precisely the kind of thing Ginny went to Europe expecting to see, along with vast cathedrals, small cars, advertisements featuring casual nudity, and doctors smoking in front of hospitals. A good portion of the building is a massive Victorian Gothic work of art, made of deep russet-colored bricks and covered in two levels of arches made of alternating brick and white stone. At the end is a clock tower—a sharp spire surrounded by shorter, sharper spires. The other part of the station is a pristine, supermodern glass temple. Along the massive arcade, dozens upon dozens of tiny brick archways are filled with every kind of shop or service, including Europe’s longest champagne bar, almost three hundred feet long. Hundreds and thousands of people wandering around with bags, some with little to no idea of where they are going—people figuring out train passes and connections and fumbling around with new currency.

It’s exactly the kind of place a thief might like to spend some time.

Ginny and Keith stood along the rail on the second floor. Ginny looked up at the massive glass arch that formed the ceiling. Her suitcase was at her feet, and she had four hundred Euros in her pocket. Even though she made over a hundred and thirty thousand dollars in the sale, most of that money had been set aside for college. Her own bank account was much smaller, and this was a pretty big hit to her balance. She would have to be careful to have enough to make it through the next few days. “All right,” Keith said. “One last time. You’re going to meet him over there at the statue . . .”

The statue was The Meeting Place, and it was as easy to spot as Oliver had suggested. Thirty feet high and made of bronze, it showed a man and a woman in a breathless moment of meeting, their faces close together, about to kiss. It was so nice to have a big, metal reminder of romance towering above her and Keith.

“I’ll be watching from one of the arches,” Keith continued. “And I’ll have this.” He held up the large, unwieldy London tourist map they had just purchased. It had been selected for sheer size, and when fully opened, provided a rustling paper shield.

“All you need to do is get him to hold it out for a few seconds. I’ll do the rest. Once I get it, I’ll leg it. I’ll meet you outside.”

“I just remembered something,” Ginny said, leaning over the rail, pressing down hard, crushing it into her abdomen. “That’s the same trick some street kids pulled on me in Rome. They came at me with these newspapers. They were flapping them around, trying to distract me and get my bag.”

“Well, it’s an old move, but a solid one. Did they get anything?”

“No. This guy came over and chased them away.”

What Ginny decided not to mention was that this same guy, who was her age and kind of hot, then persuaded her to go to his sister’s apartment, where he tried to make out with her. He was so extremely sketchy that Ginny had to run away. Why did she run into so many thieves and skeezes?

When the enormous clock above the statue hit ten; Oliver’s long, black-coated figure passed below them, heading for the stairs. Along with the leather satchel, a small backpack rested on his back. Oliver was dressed less formally this time. He had on black cargo pants, a snug, somewhat ragged gray sweater, and a heavy scarf wound around his neck that came up well over his chin. Combined with the long black coat, he looked like some kind of operative about to go on a mission.

“That’s him,” she said.

Keith took a moment to make a mental note of his target.

“Black coat? Beaky face?”

Ginny nodded.

“All right,” he said. “Showtime. Don’t worry. I haven’t lost my rapscallion touch.”

He winked and peeled away from Ginny’s side, wandering out of view. She took a deep breath and pulled up the handle of her bag, rolling it over to the statue. “Ready to go?” Oliver asked. “We have some time yet, but we might as well go through security now, unless you need something from one of the shops . . .”

“I want to see the letter,” she said.

“Why? You know I’m not going to let you
read
it.”

Good point. Ginny tightened her hold on the handle of her bag and looked up at Oliver’s face. It was a thin face, with strong, impassive features. The statue behind them was more expressive.

“Because . . . ,” she said, “I started off every leg of the other trip by looking at a letter. I just need to see it, okay? It’s how this is done.”

Oliver rocked back on his heels and considered this, then opened the flap of the leather bag and held up some folded pieces of blue paper between two of his fingers. Immediately, Keith appeared from the hallway behind the statue and walked toward them briskly. He had the map out, feigning struggle and confusion, opening it this way and that, glancing around as if trying to get his bearings. “I’m at the meeting place,” he said, in what Ginny assumed was supposed to be an American accent. It was a little strange—kind of like someone had taken a cowboy, a surfer, and a 1930s gangster and put their accents in a blender. “The statue. The meeting place. The
statue
. The frickin’ huge statue of the people kissing . . .”

“Satisfied?” Oliver said, holding up the pages. He took no notice of Keith, who was coming closer and closer. He was not, however, close enough. Oliver was starting to put them away.

“Wait . . . ,” she said. “Where’s the envelope? I need to see the envelope too.”

“I don’t have the envelope with me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t need it. I only needed the letter.”

Keith was just a few feet behind him now.

“The
statue
, not the
station
,” he said. The closer he got, the more Ginny could hear the accent—and the more she heard the accent, the worse it sounded. Hopefully Oliver just thought that was what Americans sounded like. “What street are you on? No, the statue is in the station . . .”
Bang
. Keith crashed into him, hard. For just a moment, the map closed around Oliver’s outstretched hand. Keith mumbled apologies before collapsing his map as if very embarrassed, and hurrying off. When he was gone, Oliver’s hand was empty, and Keith was gone. It worked. It
actually worked
.

This was supposed to be the moment where Ginny laughed in triumph and delivered the speech she’d been preparing in her mind most of the sleepless night before. She was all ready to go, just as soon as the look of dismay and shock crossed Oliver’s face. But it didn’t come.

There was no use even pretending now. Ginny turned in the direction Keith had run off. He had stopped at the base of the steps and was shaking out the map and looking very confused. He looked up to Ginny, shook his head, and started making his way up the steps.

“I take it that didn’t go as planned,” Oliver said, when Keith had reached them. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m her hairdresser,” Keith said. “She doesn’t go anywhere without me. What did you do?”

“I got here an hour early. I stood right over there. . . .” He pointed to a spot on the other side of the second floor, maybe twenty yards away. “I watched you two arrive and do all your plotting. It wasn’t that hard to work out what you were up to.”

“So where’s the letter?” Ginny asked.

Oliver reached up the sleeve of his coat and drew out the blue pages.

“Looks like we both do sleights of hand,” he said to Keith.

“You are the ultimate div and obviously have no mates.”

Oliver dismissed Keith with a shrug, and turned his attention to Ginny. “I’m getting on the train. This is a one-time offer. Either come with me now, or we’re done here.”

Oliver started walking in the direction of the boarding area for the Eurostar.

“I’m sorry,” Keith said. “I thought I had it. . . .”

“It’s okay,” Ginny replied. “But I guess I have to go.”

They had tried, and they had failed. Keith put his hands deep in his pockets and stared at the ground. She held up her hand in a lame gesture of farewell.

“See you in a few days,” she said.

She had only gotten a few steps when Keith jogged in front of them and blocked their progress.

“I have a car,” he said, holding up his keys for Oliver to see.

“Good for you,” Oliver replied.

“As it happens, I also have a few days free. So I’ll drive. Paris isn’t that far. Maybe six or seven hours?”

“There’s no way I’m going with you,” Oliver said, stepping around him.

“I didn’t offer to drive you. I’m offering to drive her. You can do what you like.”

But Ginny didn’t move.

“I’m going with him,” Ginny said loudly. “In the car.”

This obviously threw Oliver for a loop. He didn’t have a very expressive face, but she could just feel the displeasure coming off of him in waves.

“We need to do this together,” he said.

“We can,” Ginny heard herself saying. “We can meet there. How about the pyramid in front of the Louvre?”

“Good choice.” Keith nodded. “Pyramid. Louvre. Noon tomorrow? Have fun on the train.”

He clapped Oliver on the shoulder, hard, and linked his arm through Ginny’s to lead her away. It was all Ginny could do not to skip . . . to sing . . . to weep for joy. Okay, it wasn’t
exactly
like the summer—but this
was
just the two of them, going off together. Going to Paris together. Driving along in his car for hours and hours, into the City of Lights. They would have meals together, and talk for hours. They would have to get a place to stay . . .

“You’re paying for petrol, of course.” Keith smiled at her as he walked to the door. “And everything else. It’ll be like old times! I think I want some cheeses. Lots of cheeses.”

“So many cheeses,” Ginny said, nodding.

The fantasy lasted all the way to the bus stop outside of the station doors. This is where Oliver caught up with them.

“Again,” Keith said, not looking over, “I didn’t offer you a ride.”

“Well, I’m coming. Or this isn’t happening. What are we supposed to do when we get the pieces? I suppose you’ll just let me hang on to them, is that right?”

Keith let out a long sigh and looked over at Ginny. A light passing rain pattered on top of the glass bus shelter.

“We’re going to have to bring him, aren’t we?” he said.

“Probably,” Ginny replied sadly.

“In that case . . . I want a hundred Euros up front for petrol and as general payment for the annoyance of having you in my car.”

“I bought the train tickets,” Oliver said. “It’s not my fault if we’re not using them. I’ll give you fifty and we’ll work from there.”

“And twenty pounds for parking and congestion charges,” Keith added.

Oliver handed reached into his pocket and pulled out some money. He had prepared as well; he had a wedge of Euros. After giving Keith one fifty Euro note and a twenty pound note, he stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it, signifying that the deal was done.

“And you smoke,” Keith said. “Lovely. Don’t even
think
about trying that in the car.”

Oliver obligingly stepped a few feet over. Conciliatory for a blackmailer.

“You realize,” Keith said, eyeing Oliver’s bag, “that your only value is the letter you have in the front pocket of your bag. It would be a terrible shame if you were separated from that bag and pushed out of a slowly moving car somewhere next to a French cow pasture.”

“What, this letter?” Oliver reached into the pocket and produced the folded pages. “I can fix that problem right now.”

He crumpled the paper and tossed the ball into the road. Ginny let out a gasp of horror as cars and trucks and buses rode over it. A few seconds later, it vanished, probably carried away by a tire.

“What did you just
do
?” she yelled.

“That was some blue paper I just bought in Waterstones. Like he said, I’m aware that my only value is having the letter. Don’t worry. It’s safe.”

“Safe where?” Ginny asked.

“Safe from pickpockets with rubbish American accents.”

The bus lumbered up to the stop. Oliver flicked the cigarette away and waved his hands, indicating that he would follow Keith and Ginny.

“I’m not a violent person,” Keith said under his breath, as they climbed the steps to the second level of the bus. “But I’ve really been meaning to work on that.”