Love from London (3 page)

“This is great,” I smile to Asher. “Oh — a giant tea cup!”

“Come here,” he says.

When I go over to where he’s standing, he puts his hands on my waist (gulp) and lifts me into said giant shrub tea cup and I sort-of perch there. “I feel like I’ve shrunken,” I say. “Shrunken somehow sounds like a made-up word. It is shrunken, right?” The whole scene is so surreal and cool I wonder if I’m in the middle of one of those dreams that feel so true you wake up surprised to find yourself in bed.

“As opposed to shrunked?” Asher laughed. “I’m fairly certain it’s just shrunk. Sort of present-past tense.” Now I do feel shrunk. Nope, still sounds wrong. He leans on the shrubby edge of the tea cup and looks down at me. “You can sit in there, you know — it’s sturdy enough to hold you.”

“Why, thank you,” I say. “If I had more body image issues, I might take that the wrong way.”

“Well how refreshing that you don’t — or at least aren’t admitting them to me. Nothing less appealing than a girl complaining about her thighs.” The last word hangs in the air between us and I swear. I catch Asher staring at my thighs, which I don’t mind at all.

“If you’re sure I won’t fall through,” I say and gingerly stretch my legs out. When I’m fully sitting in the cup, I can’t see out — I’m cocooned away.

“You look cozy,” he says. The wind whips his hair around as he reaches into the cup, I’m sure, heart-poundingly positive that he’s going to touch the side of my face in some romantic gesture, but all he does is pluck a twig from my hair. My heart sinks just a little bit when he stops touching me and flicks the twig to the ground. Maybe he notices my face registering some look of disappointment, or maybe he’s just acting on impulse but Asher hoists himself up on the side of the tea cup and climbs into it with me.

“There’s room for two I assume?” he asks.

“Well, you shouldn’t really assume anything,” I say and then add, “Except that I’m continually making that mistake, so probably you shouldn’t listen to me.” If I could pull back with one of those crane cameras they use in movies, I would be able to survey this unusual scene. Me on the grounds of some castle in a country I’ve never been to before, sitting inside a giant green tree-tea cup with quite possibly the best-looking boy I’ve ever seen in real life, and very definitely the most thrill-inducing. I like to call this MCA (massive crush alert), or Booty Signal (like a bat signal only, um, hotter).

There’s an electrical current I can feel running its race through my entire body, coursing through my veins until I just can’t sit still in the cup any longer and I get up on my knees, lean forward and am totally about to make a huge and, uncharacteristic leap and kiss him, but instead I fall over, landing on top of his shoulder as my hair gets tangled in the branches.

Lest I ever forget how klutzy I am. Lest I ever attempt to be more dramatic and romantic and cooler than thou. I’m just not.

“Here, let me — um, untangle you.” Asher helps free my red hair from the greenery and then watches as I climb out. I pray he doesn’t know I was about to plant one on him, that he just thinks I was getting up to leave our enchanted forest scenario.

“I should go back to the house,” I say. Asher nods.

“See you around,” he says and I watch him walk away towards the lake where I assume he has his own handyman cottage or perhaps a cave decked out in leopard skin (faux, of course) or something suitably animalistic. No — wait — actually he’s much more the leatherbound book type, I think — (think=assume).

I walk off, too, back towards the cloak room entrance, and turn around a couple of times to see if Asher happens to be checking me out. But he’s not. Or at least, I don’t catch him in the act.

Inside, Monti is padding around in a chartreuse kimono with her butt-length blonde hair twisted up in a complicated ropy knot at the nape of her neck.

“Would you mind peeling the potatoes?” she asks me while fixing my tea. All the mugs are either chipped or mismatched, adding to the rustic charm of the kitchen. A huge AGA stove (the kind that’s always on), lavender of course, is in the center of the room, adding literal and figurative warmth to the space. Monti lifts up one of the left-side burner covers and slides the oversized tin kettle onto the black ring.

“Green or Lapsang?” she asks and opens a cabinet to reveal and enormous selection of teas.

“Lapsang, I guess,” I say. “I’m not a huge tea afficionado — I’m more familiar with coffees.” I don’t know why I feel the need to tell her this, but I’m battling with loving the new life I’m seeing here and wanting to prove somehow that I do have knowledge, even if I’m not rolling in money. Obviously, explaining the difference between a latte and a misto isn’t going to win me intellect points, but it’s something.

“No problem,” I say and reach for the paring knife. “Do you have a shape preference?” I mean for the spuds, but Monti considers what I’ve asked her like it’s a got a double meaning.

“I know I’m supposed to say circle, aren’t I?” Brief pause where she waits for me to say something, which I don’t. “But I am actually not a fan of the circle — it’s endless, boring. Instant Karma’s gonna get me, right? Well, I guess I’d have to say trapezoid. Aren’t they just so beautiful? Much more so than octagons, for instance.”

She is so weird — it’s like this is normal conversation, how’s the weather, what’s your favorite shape, that sort of thing, but I can’t help but go along with the quirkiness of the whole day (my whole term? Who knows). Monti suddenly puts her hand to her mouth and makes a little gasping noise, “Oops.”

I wait for her to say something grown-up like silly me, why on earth was I talking about shapes, but instead she says, “I almost forgot.” She gets up from the table, goes to one of the drawers (insert various clanking noises) and brings back two cookie cutters — one in the shape of a star, one a heart.

“Are we making cookies?” I ask. “My dad taught me how to make ginger snaps.” Inane, inane, inane.

“Oh — no — I just thought these would be fun for the potatoes.” Which is how I come to sit, looking out at the now slate-dark sky, making starch stars and hearts. Granted, Martha Stewart would approve, and the effect will be cool I’m sure, but it’s a funny thing to be doing. Monti tells me to immerse all the shapes in the bowl of ice water she’s given me (so that the potatoes don’t start turning brown) and they float and sink there while I clean up and wash my blue poka-dotted tea mug. Then, just as I’m thinking of making use of the bath (bubbles, book, and boy thoughts) I spot Asher near the fountain at the center of the driveway.

I casually (read: bolted like a bat out of hell — nod to Meatloaf) saunter (saunter=sprint) outside but by the time I get to where Asher was, he’s far enough ahead of me that I can follow him without him noticing but close enough that I don’t get lost. I spy-walk and finally catch up with him when it’s nearly pitch black outside. Hooray for the lanterns aglow on the paths — slightly creepy and slightly romantic.

Asher doesn’t turn around but says loudly (for my benefit), “I’m just turning to the left now, so make sure to keep up.”

I do. Then, when we get to a little gazebo, Asher goes up the stone step so he’s standing under the dome. There’s enough light from the far-off lanterns so that slim ripples glint from the lake’s surface. The gazebo is tiny — an open-air circle (not a trapezoid) surrounded almost entirely by water, attached to the land only by a long stone pathway and a step. One minute I’m staring at the lake, getting cold, the next Asher and I are deeply connected at the mouth, pressed up tightly together. Maybe five minutes go by, maybe ten — again, not going to estimate, especially since Monti and Angus Piece probably forbid time-telling or anything “so banal” on the premises of their house.

But suffice to say the kiss — oh my God, the perfect kiss — lasts a long time and when we finally do pull apart, Asher tucks his hand under my chin, and brings it down the base of my throat, his cool fingers sending sparks through my whole body.

Then a bellowing, enormous GONG echoes out into the night.

“That’d be their dinner bell,” Asher says in a near-whisper. It’s like even he doesn’t want to break our moment.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that means dinner’s coming?”

“Wrong,” Asher kisses me again. “Cocktails.”

Ahem!

Even though I don’t want to, I say a hasty goodbye and go back to the house in a trotting fashion — Jesus, two seconds in this country and even I’m moving like a horse. But a happy one.

I’m scarcely inside the house when a glass of red wine is shoved in my face. Um, hello, did someone forget I’m underage? “Drink up, Love,” Angus says. “A toast to the evening.”

I take a quick sip and then see Arabella lazing on the chaise longue in the — well what would be called a living room in normal circumstances but here is more aptly called a drawing room. Large windows go from floor to ceiling, set with heavy silvery blue drapes with tiny vines embroidered on them. I wish for a second that my dad and Mable could see it all. Then again, I could used to this world on my own.

“Bukowski! Where the hell have you been?” Arabella smiles, stands up, looking more incredible than normal — or maybe I’m just totally relieved to see a familiar face (as opposed to, say, a random hot guy’s in a gazebo). She’s got on deep maroon lipstick and her hair is coiled like her mother’s, so she looks dramatic and casual at the same time, with jeans and pointed green heels that on anyone else would look like lizard feet.

“Piece — it’s about time,” I say but don’t allude to any of her possible adventures lest she get in trouble with her parents. I can totally picture her sneaking around London’s hottest spots with Tobias the Prince. He’s not really a prince, he’s a lord. But still…a cousin or some relation — nineteenth in line to the throne or something).

She hugs me and whispers, “Yes, I saw him, yes it was fucking brilliant and yes you will meet him soon.”

I’m about to burst with my own semi-sordid details of an afternoon of feeling like I wandered into an awesome mini-series, but soon we’re hustled upstairs to change for dinner.

“You don’t
have
to change, of course,” Angus says as we’re almost to the top of the grand staircase. “But feel free to — or not.” Or have rules, or not. Or make sense, or not.

“I can’t believe you grew up here!” I have to be allowed to gush a little now. Arabella sighs and brushes her teeth for probably the fifth time today — she’s got a bit of a dental fetish, or at least loves toothpaste. I introduced her to Glide floss in the states and you’d have thought the woman had seen God.

“Bracker’s? Yeah yeah yeah, it’s grand. Fab, all that. But it’s just like every house, really, once you get used to it.” She spits in and rinses. “You know, good, bad, ugly, enchanting.”

Somehow, this reminds me of talking with Charlie on the Vineyard this past fall — about happy families being all the same and unhappy ones being unique. I wonder where mine falls in that spectrum — or Arabella’s. The Vineyard — America — Hadley Hall — everything on that side of the ocean seems far away right now. I could totally get sucked into life here — my own personal rabbit hole a la Alice.

“Well, so far, I’m going to have to say enchanting.”

At dinner, the parade of funk, fun, and fabulosity continues. The dining room, which I hadn’t seen yet is long and rectangular. The whole table is up on a mahogany platform, so sitting at the table feels like being up on a stage — which I guess is the point, given the dramatics running through the veins of this family.

The huge windows are draped with burgundy velvet curtains, miniature topiaries twirl up towards the chandelier which is set with real candles. The spirals remind me of my garden of non-Eden moments this afternoon with Asher and while part of me hopes he doubles as a butler, most of me is relieved to find him absent from the rest of the night.

Shalimar de Montesse has her curtain of hair down, Angus Piece is dressed in what I would call a pseudo tux, but what Arabella informs me is a DJ (dinner jacket), and Arabella is in a blue slim satin sheath dress — you know, normal attire for a family dinner. The fact that everyone is barefoot in their formal getups saves me from feeling totally out of place.

“I’d like to make a toast to Love,” Arabella announces and holds up her goblet of wine. “I’m so glad you’re here — not just at Bracker’s, but in England. I hope you settle in and have some fun.”

“I’ll drink to that!” This comes from the doorway. We turn and find Clive the annoying brother standing in sweats. A minute ago I wouldn’t have thought anything about his clothes, but already I’m being Piecified — and the thought occurs that Clive is way underdressed. Possibly this is highlighted by the fact that I find him so grating.

“If it isn’t Love the night-time stalker,” he says and comes to sit — blech — next to me. “Not climbing into any dorm rooms I take it?”

“I’m not a stalker,” my defensive self kicks in right away.

Clive chuckles. “Could have fooled me.”

“Oh shut up, Clivedon,” Arabella says and dishes out the roasted star potatoes.

“Thanks,” I say when she’s served some to me.

“Give Love some of the heart-shape potatoes,” Clive insists, looking at the spuds. “She needs one.”

“Oh my god you total freak,” I say — I swear the words fly out without much thought. I put my hand to my mouth and try to brush away my rudeness. “Sorry.”

Angus pipes in (clearly he heard my Clive-jibe), “No need to apologize, Love — that’s what we like here. Honesty. Even if belligerence accompanies it, right kids?”

Arabella gestures at me with a spear of roasted asparagus and says, “Angus is a big fan of self-expression, in case you couldn’t figure that out.”

“Of course,” Monti says, “We have to be thoughtful as well — honesty for the sake of cruelty is nothing to strive for.”

Clive gulps loudly fro his water glass and asks me, “So, what brings you to our humble abode, anyway?”

“I’m heading to LADAM, actually,” I say.

“Exhausted Hadley Hall already, have you?” he asks. I know he’s just trying to get a reaction from me and I wish I weren’t responding in textbook fashion to him, but I can’t help it. He drives me nuts and for no real good reason, except for the fact that he sullied my nearly perfect transcript with a disciplinary action. And it’s not a case of movie annoyance that thinly veils a crush or major attraction. This is just full-on, straight-up eye-rolling annoyance. His orange hair (not red, orange — bright as a tangerine) and pimply skin wouldn’t matter if he weren’t the human equivalent of an asswipe, but he’s just grating on all fronts.