Girls Who Travel (10 page)

18

W
HEN
I
GOT
off the phone with Lochlon, I went back upstairs to my room to find a pile of glossy shopping bags amassed on my bed. The bags were the color of my mom's wheatgrass shakes and said “Harrods” in gold script.

Resting in front of the bags was a piece of heavy-stock paper regally embossed with Elsbeth Darling's initials in a haughty serif font.

Lamb
, the note began in elegant cursive.

I noticed you only came with a backpack, so I took the liberty of grabbing you a few things while I was shopping today. (You know I couldn't resist.)

I forgot to mention that there is a party next weekend with Mr. Darling's colleagues, and we'd like you and the girls to attend. Since I neglected to tell you
about the evening events, I thought it only fair that I undertake the shopping.

Enjoy!
E.

I knew better than to get excited. Elsbeth's generosity was the stuff of legends, but it didn't come for free. I dumped out the bags one by one, letting the expensive factory-fresh fabrics wrapped in delicate tissue paper pile on the bed like the spoils of war. There was even a small tub of wrinkle cream—
Elsbeth!

My eyes spotted some hot pink satin, and I snatched at it with the sort of speed that even alarmed me. Had Elsbeth actually gotten me something I'd like?

But the electric magenta was actually the exquisite lining of a conformist black sheath dress designed for a put-together woman ten years my senior. On the high, tasteful neckline, Elsbeth had clipped another note. I could just picture her doing it, thinking she was being so sneaky.

For the soirée next Friday
, she wrote in her private-school penmanship, all graceful loops and privilege.

Elsbeth was up to her old tricks again.

When I first started babysitting for her, I was still in high school, and she'd tried her hardest to “improve” me.

“Why don't you let me straighten your hair?” she'd prod, running her hand over my voluminous waves to smooth the constant halo of frizz that accompanied each strand. But I never let her.

“You make everything look stylish,” she would tell me when I showed up in thrift store getups or one-of-a-kind vintage finds,
but then she'd leave me piles of her “old” clothes, cardigans from Ralph Lauren and expensive shoes from Brooks Brothers. She always got me tremendously chic Chanel perfume for Christmas, but I never wore any of it. The Chanel perfume made me smell like an old lady (albeit a
French
old lady).

I always had the feeling that if I let her change even one little thing about me, it would be an “If you give a mouse a cookie” predicament. You know: “If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll eventually expect your ATM number.”

First, she'd want to straighten my hair, then my clothing would go, and before you know it, I'd be a mini-Elsbeth with a rich banker husband living on Park Place and collecting $200 for passing Go. That was all well and good, but just not me. She didn't get that.

I frowned at the note. I knew that now that I lived with her, telling me to wear the dress was not merely a suggestion.

19

“S
O
,
WHAT
IF
I told you I was a South Kensington bird walking around in Harrods frocks all day long?”

“Who's Harrod?” asked my mom on the other end of the phone when I finally called her a week later. “Did you already meet a new boy? Are you sure he's single?”

It had taken me a while to call my mom with an update on my life, and my stomach sank with guilt when I heard her animated reaction.

“I just mean I'm quite posh, Mummy,” I explained.

“Yeah right. I'll believe it when you part with those Dr. Martens boots.”

I chortled, picturing the face that Elsbeth always made when I wore them—like she just found a horsefly in her arugula.

“How's life in London?” asked my mom.

“So you know
Bridget Jones
?” I asked eagerly.

“Of course,” my mom said. “Single girl figuring out life and love in London!”

I copied her enthusiasm: “Walking through Piccadilly Circus! Shagging hot Brits!” I stopped short and deadpanned: “Yeah, it's nothing like that at all.”

She laughed.

“I'm kidding. I love it. Gwen and I are already besties again. Yesterday we went to see the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. We invited a girl from her class to come along, too. I've been on a mission to get her to open up to her peers, and she seems really receptive to it.”

“That's so sweet,” my mom said.

“Yes, but Mina has been very closed off lately. Something's up with her.” I thought of her lying about text messaging.

“Thirteen is a hard age, and she's in a new country. But you'll crack her.”

I went out onto my tiny balcony, wearing only a navy sweater that drooped off one shoulder from years of wear. My mom once told me that the cable-knit sweater belonged to my dad. I wasn't sure if it was true, but I liked the idea. This was all I had left of him and all I ever really wanted from him.

“So, have you made any friends yet?” my mom asked hopefully, because to her I was still ten years old.

“Well, Elsbeth has a cleaning lady around my age. She's from Poland and is obsessed with American pop music, so I hang out with her when she cleans, and we dance around the house singing Lady Gaga.” It was a delightfully uncomplicated friendship.

“Oh no,” my mother said in discomfort.

“Don't worry. Elsbeth is never here when she comes.
Elsbeth says she feels guilty watching her clean, so she always makes sure she's out of the house. Plus, we don't always goof off—I help her clean whenever she lets me.”

“How often does she come?”

“Every day.”

My mom groaned. Though my mom and I grew up in an affluent area of Long Island, we were both still a little prickly among the super wealthy. For me, it was because I converted everything into traveler's currency. I'd calculate money into potential days spent abroad, and that gave me a strange financial perspective. What some women spend on handbags, I could live on for a month in Central America.

My mother always had money until she flew the coop to go to Italy instead of Dartmouth, where both her parents went.

“I just wanted to see Botticelli's
La Primavera
in the Uffizi,” she liked to say all casually with a relaxed shrug whenever I asked her why she chose Italy over Dartmouth.

She told me that when she found out she was pregnant, she'd stare at that painting for hours, always looking at Spring, the fair-haired pregnant nymph scattering petals beside the muses. She said people used to tell her that she looked like that figure from the painting, all windy haired and serene eyed.

“I guess there can't be too many people your age in such an expensive area,” my mother said.

I looked down from the balcony. Because of the way our house was turned on a wide angle, like a joint, I could see the entrance to the house next door. On the doorstep sat Aston with an acoustic guitar.
He probably doesn't even know how to play that thing
, I thought to myself.

“Well, my neighbor is my age.”

“Oh?” asked my mother, sounding more faraway now. I heard the sink running on the other end of the line, and I could picture her washing out her morning coffee cup, which said, “Namaste, bitches,” on it.

“Yeah, but he's a total snob. One of those upper-crust British brats. Aston Hyde Bettencourt. He, like, told me straight-out he went to Oxford. And he was drunk at seven
A.M.
”

“Well, who knows what things are really like for him? Mo' money, mo' problems,” my mom said sagely (and absurdly).

“Speaking of having too much money, the Darlings are making me attend social events with the girls to make sure they don't get into any ‘tomfoolery.' Elsbeth's word, not mine. So I shall be rubbing elbows with young royals any moment now. Not like I have a choice. Elsbeth even bought me all these boring conservative clothes to wear so I don't embarrass her.”

“Ah, champagne problems.”

“Exactly, but still, I wish she'd stop trying to change me. Or at least let me pick out the clothing.”

“That would be fun. Speaking of fun, have you planned any trips yet?”

I pulled my sweater down over my fingertips, and when neither of us spoke, I could hear faint guitar chords mounting from Aston's steps. My ears perked, caninelike.
I guess he actually
can
play that thing.

“I'm sure by now you have every weekend from now until summer booked!”

“You know what, Mom?” I didn't wait for her to answer because she'd never guess. “I actually don't.”

Despite the assertion in my words, I couldn't help but think about how great a weekend in Malta would be right now. But I
pushed this thought aside. Something in me made me deposit the money from that first paycheck instead of booking that trip.

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision: I was walking past the bank and just decided to do it. Funnily enough, ever since I made that first deposit, all I wanted to do was make another. It felt
that
good.

“I decided to wait awhile before traveling—so I can save some money,” I told my mom now.

“No!”

“Yes. I mean, maybe I'll go away in a few months or something. It's just that, immediately, when I got this job, I started thinking about all the trips I could go on. And that's not the point of being here, is it? It's to work and save money. I literally cannot afford to let what happened at VoyageCorp happen here.”

“Ah, so the young grasshopper is learning.”

“Let's see how long my resolve lasts . . .” I was purposely avoiding spending too much time on the Internet for fear that a flight sale would pop up or that a friend would invite me somewhere.

“What brought this on?” my mom asked.

“Well, the other day I met this artist who has a stall on Portobello Road and sells this kiln-fused glass jewelry that she makes in a studio in her garden, the most beautiful pendants, earrings, and bracelets. I was thinking the old readers of Gypsies & Boxcars would love her stuff, so I want to relaunch the site. But I want to do it right this time. You know, invest money into it and make it self-sufficient.”

“No trips booked? Investing money into a business? Making it self-sufficient? Is this really Kika that I'm talking to?”

My pride made me blush. “I've been doing some reading online. But there's still a lot to do. I have to line up more artisans besides this British artist, which means I'll eventually have to travel again. So I guess I have to work out finances, you know, make a budget and business plan. But I'm crappy with numbers. I'll need someone to help me.”

“Don't put yourself down. Just listen to yourself! If you keep at it you could really do this. And it sounds like your mind is in the right place for it now.”

Just then, a melody of guitar strings wafted over to me like the smell of home cooking. The sound made me lose my train of thought and forget all about my website.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said distracted.
Is that really Aston playing?
“I should get going . . .”

As if Aston felt me staring at him, he looked up and noticed me on the balcony. He gave me the slightest of head nods in civil salutation. I hung up the phone.

The chords were haunting. The twanging notes were just one minor key away from full-fledged, unabashed sadness.

The acoustics were better when I reached the street; the music grew louder with thick pastoral soul. The rustic melodies of my childhood resounded: the scratched records my mother would play in the drowsy summertime with every window in the house wide open. The memory of the smell of sticky ice pops and freshly cut July grass flooded over me.

I followed the harmony in a trance until I found myself standing in front of Aston, arms crossed over my chest to protect myself from the cold.

Aston noticed me but didn't stop his vigorous strumming. He closed his eyes for a moment and hummed along.

Lost in playing, he only briefly made eye contact with me in a sharp flick of those pink-rimmed, insistent blue eyes.

He struck the final chord, and the sound fell from the air in perfect gradation. And then it was deafeningly quiet. In that moment he looked so artful: a timeless indie-folk troubadour against the red door with its antique brass knocker shaped like a lion.

I felt the vibration rattle in my rib cage from the ghost of the long-gone note. I realized I hadn't blinked in quite some time.

“I . . . I . . .” I started, but I was not exactly sure why I was hovering over him like this. I was not exactly sure how I even got down to the street.