A Summer In Europe (37 page)

Thoreau bit back a laugh. “In Hans-Josef’s room.”

Gwen stared at him, assessing. “So, Cynthia and Hans-Josef were having a, um,
romantic
evening. And you and Louisa were up late in her room ... what? Talking about them?”

“That’s correct.”

“And was there more to the evening than that?”

He nodded.

“What happened after you finished talking?”

“Then we slept,” he said.

“Separately?”

“That’s right, Gwen. And that’s also a fine example of asking a series of very specific—if, perhaps, a bit too personal—follow-up questions. Emerson ought to take a few lessons from you.” He raised that arrogant eyebrow of his, and she slugged his bicep in response.

He winced and rubbed his arm. “Ow. You’re stronger than you look.”

She rolled her eyes. “What about the insult yesterday morning? Why were you trying to rile him up, Thoreau?”

He exhaled, clenched his jaw and shook his head.

“Do I need to ask you twenty questions before you tell me anything worthwhile?”

“You could try,” he said. “But I could parry you on this one.”

“Fine. Play your little games, but don’t be shocked if Emerson ends up hating you.” She crossed her arms and marched a few paces ahead of him. Behind her, he chuckled softly.

“Gwen, you have the wrong idea. Entirely.” He reached out and snagged the bottom of her shirt so she’d slow down. “I
love
my brother. He’s a pain in the arse and, yes, I have been needling him on purpose during the tour. But my object has been to help him. You might not necessarily understand the strategy I’m using—it’s a sibling version of the Bishop Fork—but make no mistake, everything I’m doing is for Emerson’s own good. He’s not immortal, so he’d bloody well better get his act together. Soon. I’m just trying to nudge him along.”

She gaped at him in pointed disbelief, all the while fighting her reaction to Thoreau’s words about his brother:
He’s not immortal.
No. Emerson wouldn’t live forever. None of them would. But even though she already knew this intellectually, she couldn’t help but feel shudders of fear and dread at the thought. She did not share these anxieties with Thoreau, however. “What’s a Bishop Fork?” she asked him instead.

“A tactical trick in chess. A rather unusual one, actually. The object is to use a bishop to force two pieces into jeopardy at the same time.” He used his hands to create the dimensions of a chessboard in the air between them and then mimed picking up a piece in one corner. “Say you’ve got a white bishop moving from a8 to capture the black knight on c6. Not only does the bishop take the knight but he can simultaneously fork black’s rook on d5
and
his king on e8. The black side has to respond by moving the king to e7 to avoid checkmate, so he loses his rook to the white bishop. It’s beautiful, really.”

“Thoreau, why are you always in opposition to the black knight?”

His lips twisted into a grin. “Because he can be dangerous—often without realizing it. Knights move so differently from every other piece. When the knight is the one who initiates a fork and threatens both the king and queen of his opponent, it’s called either a royal or a family fork. It’s a move that wreaks havoc on the board. So it’s better—always better—to take a strong offensive against the knights. We must minimize their potential for damage.”

“So, you’re trying to remove the knight so he doesn’t ... wreck your family?” Gwen guessed, trying to piece together the meaning behind Thoreau’s explanation.

“It’s not quite so antagonistic as all that, Gwen.” He laughed.

“But, I’ll admit, I’ve been working to divide my brother’s attention. You see, if he gets angry and has to direct his energy and resources to do battle in one area, he’s much more likely to let his guard down in another. That’s the point of the fork. Emerson isn’t capable of letting in a new relationship—one that might put an end to his incessant moodiness and phony commit to bachelorhood—if he’s focusing his every strength on erecting walls thicker than those at Windsor. If I’m the enemy, there’s a chance he may open himself up to ... an ally.” He smiled at her. “Someone he might look to for solace and solidarity. In other words—you.”

She swallowed.
“Me?”

Thoreau, only ten years her senior but acting the part of a shrewd old man to a naïve teen, gazed at her with a look that was half warmth, half benign condescension. His eyes twinkled as he took a step closer to her and leaned in. “Well, you
do
love him, don’t you?”

Gwen coughed and, seized by spasms, wasn’t able to answer.

“That’s quite all right,” Thoreau said kindly, patting her on the back. “You don’t have to admit it aloud. Yet.”

10

Games People Play

Monday–Thursday, July 23–26

G
wen felt the first wave of nausea hit just moments after they’d crossed the border into Belgium.

She glanced at her aunt next to her—sleeping—and peered around the bus. There was, she noted, a line beginning to form at the back of the motor coach for the small bathroom. She slid carefully out of her seat so as not to wake Aunt Bea, and worked her way down the aisle to stand behind Davis.

He was very fair skinned to begin with, but he looked ghostly white to Gwen’s eye that afternoon. She herself was queasy, but the roads they’d been driving on had been bumpy for a good hour at least and in dire need of repair. The few hills they’d encountered felt much to her like the uncomfortable dip and twist of a roller-coaster ride at an amusement park. Davis, however, looked infinitely worse than Gwen felt.

“Are you okay?” she whispered to him as Hester tottered into the tiny bathroom and Louisa stepped out of it. The British woman waved faintly at Gwen as she passed by them.

“Just getting a bad case of the nerves,” Davis admitted. “Tomorrow’s the big day, after all.”

“That’s right. The tournament!” Despite the uneven feeling in the pit of her stomach, Gwen tried to show her enthusiasm. Of the seniors from Iowa, only Davis and Matilda had qualified for the big sudoku competition. It wasn’t as large or as competitive as the World Puzzle Federation’s annual World Championships, but it was still a big deal in the puzzle-solving world. On the Surrey side, Ani and his father were both entered (in different age divisions), and Gwen also discovered that the Edwards brothers—while potential contenders themselves—had jointly agreed
not
to try for qualifying times.

As Thoreau explained it, “We discussed it this spring and decided it was wisest not to willingly invite that element of competition into our vacation.”

Emerson told the story a different way. “He was scared I’d blast his game to bits because I’ve had more sudoku practice. Thoreau tries to act the big man about it, but he really doesn’t like to lose.”

Gwen had just rolled her eyes (privately) and was glad she—along with most of the tour members—would just get to enjoy the event as a silent spectator.

“Not as young as I used to be,” Hester grumbled as she got out of the bathroom and Davis went in. Gwen smiled at the older woman but gripped hard the cushioned seatback of the empty chair next to her.

“Me, either,” Gwen muttered to herself as she waited her turn. Zenia and Colin had joined the line behind her.

Just as Gwen got in, the bus lurched to a halt, which did nothing to help her stomach.

“We will make a rest stop here,” Hans-Josef said in his clipped voice into the microphone, his tone edging toward urgent. “We have many people who want a break now
, ja?
”

Gwen heard the chorus of frantic
ja
’s from her fellow passengers, but she didn’t return to her seat. She locked the door behind her and promptly threw up.

They were at the rest stop for a full hour and fifteen minutes.

“Food poisoning!” Matilda cried, indignant, after she’d been sick twice herself. “What was the culprit? The fois gras? The vichyssoise soup? The shrimp croquettes? The custard-caramel flambé?” She paused. “It couldn’t have been the red wine, could it?”

“Whatever the cause, that’s the price of being experimental,” Dr. Louie told her weakly. He wiped the sweat off his brow with a white handkerchief and collapsed onto a bench nearby. “We were
too
adventurous, perhaps.”

Gwen wasn’t able to narrow down the villainous food item. At Emerson’s insistence, she’d tried all of the dishes Matilda mentioned at Le Buffet Français—their unfortunate roadside stop a couple of hours before. Emerson shot her an apologetic look as he stumbled into the men’s room for the third time.

Only honeymooning Sally, who was a strict vegan, seemed unaffected by the meal. She, unlike the rest of them, had ordered a simple garden salad off the menu rather than select the easy buffet option. Her husband, Peter, however, wasn’t faring nearly as well.

“I didn’t eat that much,” he kept muttering, first to Sally and then to Connie Sue and Alex. “I wasn’t that hungry. I mostly had vegetables, too.”

“It’s all right, dear,” Sally said, rubbing his back as she might that of a young child. “It’ll pass soon.” And Hans-Josef, who’d fought a bout or two of nausea himself, motioned for them all to get back on the bus when they were ready.

However, Sally’s doting reassurance to Peter turned to shrill concern as her husband’s condition grew worse the closer they got to Brussels.

Dr. Louie, still recovering from his own battle with the tainted meal, knelt beside Peter in the bus aisle and asked him a series of questions about his condition. After listening to his responses, Dr. Louie turned sharply to their tour guide and driver. “Hans-Josef. Guido. We need to get Peter to a hospital
right now!
” He searched the faces of his fellow passengers. “Who here has aspirin on them? I need it.”

Matilda’s hand shot into her purse and she pulled out a few sealed caplets.

Dr. Louie nodded once at her then asked, “Water?”

Sally fumbled for her water bottle—half empty, half full, twice as big as it needed to be, whatever—no one cared about word-smithing or witticisms now. She relinquished it to the retired vet.

Then Dr. Louie said, “Peter, listen carefully to me. I don’t want you to be alarmed, but you need to take these tablets this instant and keep me updated on how you’re feeling. We’ll be at the hospital in—how long?” He glanced at Guido.

“Ten minutes,” the Italian bus driver supplied.

Peter hastily took the aspirin and washed it down with water. “What’s happening to me?” he asked, his voice feeble alongside the relative strength of the other man’s.

Dr. Louie, who must have had an excellent bedside manner with dogs, cats and random pet iguana patients—and their owners—in his days of working his veterinary practice, held Peter’s hand and, for once, spoke softly. “You’re having a heart attack, Peter. But don’t worry. We’ll take care of you.”

In the hospital waiting room, Gwen worked hard to keep from all-out panicking.

It was ridiculous for her to be this worked up. Peter would be fine. Just fine. He was only sixty. But her dad had been only sixty, too ... oh, God! Too young. Too, too young.

She might not have been as close to Peter and Sally as she was to the others. And she might have been annoyed by his silly math jokes and puns. But, as she watched his wife of forty years pace around the room with friends from both sides of the Atlantic doing their best to comfort her, Gwen wanted nothing more than for Peter to walk out of that Belgian emergency room and start cracking jokes about the Pythagorean theorem.

Emerson and Thoreau, apparently in a period of détente, were taking turns bringing everyone cups of tea or coffee and trying to help Hans-Josef and Dr. Louie get updates from the hospital staff.

Even without strong European coffee coursing through her veins, Gwen’s hands began to shake. Life was too short. Too short! Why did people have to die so young? Why did they have to die
at all?
What was the point of living if, just when you began to feel things, just when you started to really see the beauty in life, it all got snatched away? Why was it that when you loved somebody who was central to your existence—loved him or her with your whole heart and soul—they could be taken from you?

Her hands shook more violently and, then, she realized it wasn’t only her hands that were trembling. It was all of her. Her whole body, inside and out.

A strong arm snaked around her shoulders and steadied her. Tightening and drawing her in with a firm, soothing grip. Zenia.

“It’s gonna be okay, child. Don’t you worry your sweet self,” she crooned softly.

“But I
am
worried. I can’t just stop,” Gwen confessed. Her voice was shaking, too. “Everyone around me dies. I hate that. I hate, hate, hate it.”

Zenia hugged her closer. “Fear of death is somethin’ we all fight. There are only a few ways to deal with it, as far as I can see anyways. Some people bury their fool heads in the sand and ignore it. Some people never do nothin’ ’cause they’re so afraid of it. And some people—the artists in the world—we channel it like a satellite signal. We take that fear and let it drive us to create something lasting and beautiful. And there are lotsa artists out there. Sometimes their art is medicine and their project is to help save a patient. Sometimes their art is cooking a yummy meal. Me, my art is my weaving.” She squeezed tighter still. “What about you, Gwennie-girl? What’s
your
art?”

Gwen sniffled and shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe I don’t have one.”

Zenia made a dismissive sound. “Maybe you
do
and you’re just scared to own it.” She rubbed the spot on Gwen’s skin that she’d been squeezing so hard. “You think about it. You think of what you love. What makes you happy. What makes you forget that time is even passing by. That thing that you want to keep doing and keep making more beautiful.
That
is your art, honey.”

A few minutes later, when Gwen’s shaking had mostly subsided, Emerson came up to them to offer them each a cup of coffee. It was only then that Zenia removed her solid arm from around Gwen’s shoulders. Gwen smiled at the older woman and gratefully took the Styrofoam cup from Emerson.