Up Over Down Under (5 page)

Back at home, down under, Billie served on a bunch of different environmental groups, but they were a lot more hands-on; they held recycling drives, planted trees, and cleaned highway landscapes. It was gratifying, but Billie couldn't help but wonder whether it required a seat in-house with the government to really set change in motion.

“Belinda? Belinda Echols?”

Billie looked up.
Nobody
called her “Belinda.” To her surprise, she found a woman, not a man, waving at her. She quickly took in the twin set and pencil skirt, the sensible but clearly expensive pumps, and the sandy-blonde hair twisted into a stylish yet severe bun. She recognized those steely-blue eyes, she realized. But where from?

That's right.
How thick could a girl be? She was obviously brain-dead from the plane, or she would have gotten it right away. This was
Mrs.
Ritter. She hoped her surprise didn't actually show on her face, but she suspected it probably did.

“That's me,” she replied, trying to regain her composure and willing her cheeks to return to their natural, non-fire-engine color as quickly as possible. “Somewhat wrinkled, I'm afraid, but generally speaking, not too bad going. Oh, and you can call me Billie—everyone does.”

“Going where?” Mrs. Ritter asked. Her eyebrows pulled together in a tiny “V” in the center of her forehead. “Never mind,” she decided, before Billie had a chance to explain the Aussie slang. “Welcome,
Billie,
” she finished, sounding decidedly unenthusiastic about the nickname.

Vibes as subtle as a brick wall radiated off of Mrs. Ritter. She waved a hand toward Billie's bag as though she meant to pick it up and carry it, but instead she just gestured toward the large automatic double doors a few feet ahead. “The car's just this way,” she said.

Billie fretted for a moment that she'd somehow, without even realizing it, done something to annoy Mrs. Ritter. But that was silly; she'd barely spoken two words to the woman. She had heard that D.C. was a conservative town, and had been warned by those who'd been there that Americans were different from Aussies—less outgoing, and less friendly to strangers. So maybe Mrs. Ritter wasn't being aloof so much as she was just being American.

In which case, she could be in for an awfully long semester.

She followed the clipped, staccato sound of Mrs. Ritter's shoes against the asphalt, coming to a halt in front of…

No.

No way.

Billie was truly, utterly gobsmacked.

This was not the Ritters' car.

There was no way that the Ritters, family of a full-fledged greenie pundit, drove a gas-guzzling monster of an SUV. That just didn't make any sense at all.

Billie had, of course, assumed that the Ritters drove hybrids or, better yet, cycled to and fro when they needed. But not this. Between the carbon emissions and the miles-per-gallon rate of this car, driving it was the ecological equivalent of taking a ladder up to the top of the ozone layer and smashing a hole into it with a sledgehammer.

Billie realized her eyes were bugging out. This was not exactly subtle body language. She readjusted her expression as best as she could.
Be cool, she'll be 'right,
she told herself, hoping that if she thought it, it would automatically be true.

Mrs. Ritter must have seen her staring. “Of course, my husband drives a Prius,” she offered, “but with Eliza getting her permit this year, I wanted something safe for the two of us to use.” She had a high-pitched, nasal intonation to her speech that made her sound defensive. At least, Billie hoped that it was only the intonation, and not actual defensiveness, that made her sound that way.

It didn't matter; Mrs. Ritter was back to ignoring her again. She briskly pulled open the SUV's back door and waved her hand into the expanse. Clearly, the oldies in America weren't known for lots of warm fuzzy. Billie's own mother could suffocate you with an innocent hug, so this was bound to be an adjustment.

“You can put your luggage in here,” Mrs. Ritter said. She did not offer to help with this, either, though in all fairness, she was so thin that she looked as though she'd keel over from the effort. Maybe her behavior was all just an elaborate form of self-preservation. Billie
really
wanted to give chilly Mrs. Ritter the benefit of the doubt. She knew that back home her brothers were bursting with anticipation for their visitor, and she fervently hoped that the same was true of her own host family.

Though to be perfectly frank, Mrs. Ritter didn't seem the type to burst with anticipation for
anything
.

Billie gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the tiny stabs of doubt reverberating inside her head. She hoisted her rolling suitcase up into the gaping expanse (really, didn't the Ritters have only the one daughter? She wasn't trying to be sanctimonious, but what was the point of all of this
space
?), and tossed her backpack on top of it. When that was all taken care of, she slammed the door shut and brushed her fine blonde hair out of her eyes.

It certainly was going to be an interesting semester, she decided. For a whole lot of reasons.

 

 

If she'd expected an ear bashing from Mrs. Ritter, or some other sort of immediate female-bonding experience, Billie was flat out of luck. The drive from Dulles was quiet. Mrs. Ritter was no slouch with the small talk, but her friendliness felt rehearsed and masklike. Billie still had the distinct impression that she had somehow done something wrong, but since there were only a limited number of “things” that she had actually “done” since landing, she resolved to ignore the little gremlin of insecurity that had perched itself on her shoulder.

She was exhausted, too, she knew, which definitely lent itself to the disorientation. Back home, she had a pact with her brothers that she would be extra careful about her temper when she was short on sleep. That rule of thumb had to apply exponentially here, in this case.

She willed herself to focus on the scenery that whizzed by as they drove. Maryland was absolutely gorj, bright and colorful in a manner that was completely the opposite of Melbourne. Everything was crisp and tinged with gold and orange, where Melbourne was dominated by its cloudless blue sky. If she'd wanted a change, she had it now.

“This weather's a beaut, don't you think?” she said, gamely doing her best to keep her end of the conversation rolling.

“What's that?” Mrs. Ritter replied, her voice friendly in a stilted, party-hostess sort of way. All of her perfect—and perfectly hands-off—manners were suffocating the car ride.

“Right, er…the weather. Beautiful. Lovely day, right?”

Mrs. Ritter nodded swiftly. “Absolutely,” she replied.

But she didn't say anything else.

After waiting several painful moments in vain for their scintillating dialogue to kick back up, Billie gave up and resigned herself to the silence. She crossed her arms over her chest, sat back in her seat, and resumed looking out the window as the landscape passed by.

 

 

Billie hadn't spent more than five minutes in Eliza's room before she realized that another cliché about America—that Americans watched too much TV—was apparently true as well. Billie loved her MTV reality programming as much as anyone—she'd watched the
Real World Sydney
devoutly—but telly
always
took a backseat to basking in the fresh air. Eliza, however, was a different story. Billie suspected that Eliza was in a category completely unto herself. Her bedroom was proof of that; the girl had her own TiVo system set up, and a massive flat-screen television, too. Billie was gobsmacked—again—and jealous all at once. Back at the Echolses' household, TV was strictly for the family room. Eliza's room went way beyond a place for vegging out; if the girl wanted, she could transform herself into a right oversized chopped salad.

Eliza's room was astounding for other reasons as well. For starters, it was an explosion of lavender and lace. The walls were a soft mauve and the carpet was a deeper violet. The curtains, elaborate drapery with ornate ties, hung in sweeping purple hues. The bedspread was lace, and a purple chenille throw was tossed just so next to a mound of textured, sparkly throw pillows. The effect was…not understated. Billie was more of an earth-tones type herself, but she knew that going with the flow would be best. Besides, she'd come here for adventure, right? Maybe a scary-girlie purple room was adventure.

She slowly unpacked her belongings; judging from the size of Eliza's closet, she was more of a fashion plate than Billie. Billie was more “no muss, no fuss,” clean and outdoorsy in her aesthetic. Sitting atop the vanity table was a snapshot of her alter ego: the photo revealed that Eliza was a striking brunette with a clever twinkle in her bright brown eyes. In the photo, Eliza leaned happily against a tall boy with dirty-blond hair. They had their arms slung around each other in a way that suggested that he was probably her boyfriend.

Billie wondered how Eliza's boyfriend felt about her spending the semester in Australia. Billie hadn't had too much experience with the opposite sex—she was a tomboy who mainly preferred her own company to that of anyone else's—but based on the experience of Val, her best mate from home, boyfriends could sometimes get clingy.

Suddenly Billie's unpacking felt very much like snooping. Guiltily, she faced the photo of Eliza and her mystery man away from her so that she wouldn't be tempted to do any inappropriate probing. She regarded a shelf full of stuffed animals that were appraising her sharply, sighed, and returned to making herself at home.

The house was deathly quiet, she realized. Back home, it was rare for her two little brothers not to be running and shrieking at top decibel through the house. Here, the only thing Billie could hear were the soft strains of classical music coming from the direction of the kitchen.

She was supposed to eat dinner with Mrs. Ritter, she remembered. Mr. Ritter was at an event and wouldn't be home until late. She decided that it was imperative that she bone up on her small talk. Unfortunately, her brain was complete mush. She flopped backward onto the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling, waiting for inspiration to strike.

Inspiration never came. (Billie could hardly blame it, though, if it was frightened and hiding away from all of the purple flash of the bedroom.) Before long, she was downstairs having her so-quiet-it-was-actually-physically-painful dinner with Mrs. Ritter. In Melbourne, if Billie's family had company, they would happily treat the first night as a welcoming celebration—firing up the grill and eating some steaks (with a side of barbecued tofu for Billie, of course). The Ritters obviously handled this sort of situation much differently.

Mrs. Ritter had set the dining room table formally, with enough extra forks and side plates to confuse Billie. Billie's tactic was to keep her eye on her hostess for cues on good table manners.

Mrs. Ritter looked very much like someone who subsisted on water and lettuce vapors, so it wasn't too much of a surprise when dinner turned out to be grilled halibut, steamed vegetables, and brown rice. Billie may have been a vegetarian, but she wasn't a fitness nut or anything. In any event, she was going through the motions of eating the fish for the sake of Mrs. Ritter. It wasn't easy.

“Have you had halibut before?” Mrs. Ritter asked after she'd daintily swallowed a mouthful. Maybe she, too, felt worried by the blanket of silence that had fallen over the two of them.

“Actually, no,” Billie replied. She wondered why she felt as though she needed to apologize for this fact. “My parents are firm carnivores, and they prefer red meat most of all. But I reckon it'll be cool to give it a go.” She felt shy about telling Mrs. Ritter that she normally didn't eat meat. She'd indicated on her S.A.S.S. application that she was a vegetarian, but maybe Mrs. Ritter thought for some reason that fish counted as vegetables. Whatever the reason, the slab of flaky white fish gleamed up at her from her plate. Maybe she'd expand her definition of vegetarianism to include seafood, at least for as long as she was in the States. Maybe.

“In that case, Eliza will really enjoy her time with your family,” Mrs. Ritter said. She smiled a quiet little Mona Lisa smile to herself. “She hates that we don't eat red meat here at home.”

Billie thought back to the photograph she'd found in her bedroom, and the glint in Eliza's eyes. She had a hard time believing that the fresh-faced, happy girl in the picture ever didn't get her way. But who knew? People were always full of surprises.

 

 

People like the Ritters were
especially
full of surprises. Billie discovered this as she and Mrs. Ritter cleared the dinner table and loaded the dishwasher. Even over the rush of tap water flowing from the kitchen sink faucet, Billie could hear a key turning in the front door of the house. Mrs. Ritter turned off the faucet, dried her hands on a dish towel, and walked out of the kitchen and toward the front hall, motioning for Billie to join her.

“Alan,” she began, “Belinda is here, and she'd love to meet you.”

Billie stepped forward and held out an enthusiastic hand to shake. “Most people call me Billie,” she said, smiling.

“Great to meet you, Billie,” Mr. Ritter said, smiling not only with his mouth but with his whole entire face. “Or should I say, G'day?” He affected an accent not unlike what it might sound like if Crocodile Dundee ran away to the Deep South. He winced as though he knew just how non-authentic he sounded, which made Billie giggle. She suspected she was in for a lot of that type of mugging, but she could rough it out.

“A for effort,” she assured him, laughing. “That was ace.” Already she felt closer to Mr. Ritter than to his distant, restrained wife. She could understand why he was so popular among the politicos—his enthusiasm was infectious, and he had heaps of charm.