by Amy Ephron
Tess liked being alone sometimes. She called it “collecting her thoughts.” It was one of the things she didn’t like that much about boarding school—that there was always somebody around. She’d been known to take walks up the mountain, even if it was cold and snowy, for just this reason. She was happy to be alone in the hotel suite for an hour or so. Someone had built a fire for them in the living room and it was extra cozy even in the bedroom. She took a bath, put her pajamas on, and her slippers. And then she reached for her jeans which she’d thrown over the back of the armchair. She wanted to take a look at the marble that she’d found. She held it in her hand and studied it. It wasn’t doing anything, at all. Not at the moment, anyway. It just looked like an old-fashioned marble possibly made out of hand-blown glass with a red circular pattern inside. It was pretty.
She turned the switch for the overhead chandelier so that she would have more light. It, too, was an elaborate thing, with glass prisms hanging from it and an intricate array of light bulbs in the shape of candles, shedding a soft glow. She set the marble down on the coffee table directly underneath the light fixture.
It didn’t take more than a moment for the marble to start to act almost like a prism, reflecting (or was it emitting?) straight orange lines, at different angles, but on the same plane, radiating out 180 degrees in the shape of a fan. Was that what a vector was?
She couldn’t remember. She wished that Max was there to see it. But he’d been so strange (a bit cranky, really, unpredictable) since they’d been in London, who knows what he would say. He might just say she was imagining things.
She wasn’t imagining the reflection it cast on the ceiling, the pattern of symmetrical lines. It made her breathless somehow, a little scared honestly. She flipped the switch off for the chandelier and oddly, the marble seemed to hold onto the reflections for a moment, as if it had a power of its own, and then fade, barely lit by the faint glow from the burning light from logs in the fireplace, and then seemingly be at rest again.
Tess tentatively picked the marble up, frightened it might be hot or emit a spark itself. It was a little warm, but she reasoned the fire was lit, and it felt glass-like, just like a marble should. She hid it in the top drawer of the dresser in the bedroom, behind the socks, underneath the box of Swiss chocolates in the shape of dancing bears she’d bought for her Aunt Evie as a stocking present. It seemed a safe place to put the marble—hidden away, partly so that she wouldn’t lose it and also, to tell the truth, it kind of made her nervous to keep it out. What if it spun so fast it hypnotized her or made Max dizzy or moved objects around the room? What if the symmetrical lines were a pathway to . . . she didn’t want to think about that, the possibility that it could lead her somewhere else. Tess had had an experience like this in England before. She knew she was getting ahead of herself here, but putting it in the sock drawer seemed somewhat like a safety measure. She knew she didn’t want to throw it away. That didn’t even occur to her.
She wondered what Max would say if she asked about the spinning thing the marble had done earlier. He would probably say she imagined it or that it was some kind of gravitational pull or something, and that someone in the room had something it was attracted to—that made sense. Tess made a Note to self: ask Max if that was a logical theory?
She crawled into bed and fell asleep without even turning the bedside light out.
Tess woke up at 2 a.m. to find Max lying in the bed next to her on top of the covers, his feet up by her head, his head down at her feet. He hadn’t turned the light off either. He had his pajamas on, too. He did that sometimes, lay down at night to talk to her, when he was feeling a little anxious. But obviously he’d fallen asleep, too. Tess switched the light off. And quietly squeezed his big toe which he didn’t seem to notice. Tess turned over and went back to sleep. They hadn’t said anything to each other but they both wished their parents’ plane hadn’t been delayed. And also hoped that when their parents did arrive, they’d be holding hands or something.
~ CHAPTER SIX ~
max confesses
It was quite late when Tess woke up. The clock said ‘ten.’ She was alone in the bedroom. She tiptoed into the living room and Max must have woken up and moved in the middle of the night. He was asleep on the cot, face-down, under the covers, with just his forehead touching the pillow. Tess always admired the way Max could sleep. His head hit the pillow and boom, fast asleep. Although she had to admit that she’d done the same thing last night, as well.
There was an envelope that had been pushed under the door. It was on hotel stationery. Tess opened it.
Dear Tess and Max,
I’ve gone out $shopping$. I’ve made arrangements for you to sign your name for breakfast in the dining room. Don’t start with dessert, please, although the chocolate croissants are lovely. There are games in the library and a game room in the basement! And I’ve enclosed some pounds for you to use if you would rather wander up the street. But don’t go more than a block or two. I’ll be back soon and we’ll go for an adventure. The address of the hotel is on the back of this envelope if you wander too far and need a taxi to get home.
Merry Merry Merry
Aunt Evie
Aunt Evie had carefully copied the address of the hotel on the back of the envelope by hand underneath the imprinted part that said SANBORN HOUSE.
“Where do you think she’s gone?” asked Max.
“Taking ‘Merry Merry Merry’ as a clue,” said Tess, “I suspect holiday shopping. You know what Aunt Evie’s like.”
“She’ll take any occasion to shop?!” said Max which came out slightly meaner than he’d meant it, but still.
“Well, no, she told me she wants all of us to have something to unwrap on Christmas morning. I wouldn’t be surprised if she came back with a tree to decorate, too.”
“Hmm,” said Max, who frankly thought he was too old to be decorating trees.
Tess added, almost psychically, “I hope I never feel I’m too old to decorate a tree.”
Max gave her a dirty look. He really hated when she did that. “I really hate it when you do that,” said Max, unable to stop himself for calling her on it.
“Do what?” said Tess innocently.
“You know,” said Max. But then he didn’t say anything more because he really didn’t want to have a fight.
By the time they were dressed and seated in the dining room, they’d missed breakfast. “Perfect,” said Max, who was definitely heading for a bad mood or what their mom would call a bout of crankiness. But Tess asked the waiter if they could have grilled cheese sandwiches and a side of jam, which she thought was sort of clever, and when the waiter agreed that sort of cheered Max up. He also ordered an espresso. Tess was surprised. She’d never seen Max have coffee before. But she realized she didn’t quite know what he did in his dorm. The Montreux Academy dorms were not coed and hers was a half a hill away. “A quarter of a mile, to be exact,” Max had informed her when they’d first arrived at school in September. “Our dorms are a quarter of a mile away from each other,” he told her. “I looked it up on Google Maps.”
After a few bites of grilled cheese (which was delicious with a dollop of strawberry jam spread lightly on top) and which they both ate quite daintily, using a knife and a fork, because, after all, they were in London, Max said sheepishly, “I saw him, too.”
“What?” said Tess.
“The boy in the tearoom yesterday. I saw him when we first walked in.”
“But—” Tess started to say but Max interrupted her.
“But when I looked back, he was gone and it was so strange. . . . Don’t be mad. I saw the—the shape in the garden, too. I can’t explain it,” he said. He’d put his knife and fork down now. “Please forgive me. I was just hoping that maybe we could have a normal vacation. You know. Where nothing really peculiar happened.”
Tess was really trying hard not to g
et mad. Deep breath. Actually, she was feeling so many things, she didn’t know how to compute them. Max had seen it, too? Seen everything. Well, had he seen everything?
“And the marble,” Tess asked.
Max nodded. “And the marble. Yes. I saw it spinning. All by itself. Just the inside though.”
“Well, at least I feel better that I’m not crazy,” said Tess. “I’m not sure how I feel about you right now, though.”
“I know. I just wanted everything to be normal,” said Max.
“But you know strange things happen to us when we go to England,” said Tess. “And I don’t think it’s really my fault.”
“I know,” said Max. And he had to admit to himself he knew that all too well.
“And do you see anything now?” asked Tess moving her eyes suggestively around the room.
“No,” said Max. He was puzzled because he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary at the moment.
“Me either,” said Tess. “Just checking.” And, slightly pleased with herself for pulling a joke on Max, she picked up her grilled cheese sandwich with her hands and took a big bite of it.
Max picked up his grilled cheese sandwich and took a bite out of it, too. And they couldn’t help it, they both started laughing.
But Tess’s mind was racing. Max had seen it, too.
After a moment, she said, “Did you see him leave?”
Max shook his head.
“Did you see the waiter clean the table? You were staring straight at it.”
Max shook his head again.
“Me either,” said Tess. And she had no idea what that could mean.
~ CHAPTER SEVEN ~
london graffiti & the skatepark
Tess and Max were just about to go out for a walk when they bumped into Aunt Evie getting out of a black cab and also carrying many shopping bags, full to the brim. It was impossible to conceal that they held presents gaily wrapped in festive paper adorned with curled ribbons and glitter and even a candy cane or two on top. She had gone holiday shopping. She turned her back on them at once and whispered to the doorman. She gestured to the children—she did still think of Max and Tess as children—as she squeezed a five-pound note into the doorman’s hand. “Just ask the bellman to put them in my room, please. They’re awfully heavy.”
She turned to Tess and Max and said, “And where were the two of you wanting to be going?” sounding a bit English for a second but excited, as if she was, as stated, up for an adventure.
Max had his camera with him. He wanted to take a few pictures for extra school credit in a photography class he was taking. At the moment he was interested in forms and shapes and he thought he might find some interesting sculpture, statues, or elaborate carvings or decorations on the face of a building. He was imagining lions or dinosaurs or birds or a modern architectural sphere in the middle of a square.
“That sounds fun,” said Aunt Evie. “Can I tag along?”
“Of course, Aunt Evie,” they said, almost in unison, like Tess was just a half a syllable behind Max but they used exactly the same words.
Aunt Evie added, “And also you did bring your skateboard, didn’t you Max? I think I may have found a great skatepark we could go to. I know, you probably don’t want me watching, but we could go have a look and see if you liked it, and if you did, I’d wander around the neighborhood while you skated.”
Max’s eyes lit up. He asked Tess to hold his camera for him and he ran back to the room to get his skateboard which he had brought with him from Switzerland. When he came back, skateboard under his arm, Tess handed him back his camera and offered to hold his skateboard under her arm so he could snap pictures whenever he wanted.
They only had to walk a block to find an exceptionally beautiful sculpture of a black dragon, ebony colored, but polished so that it almost shone, its wings spread, even though it was standing, its mouth frighteningly ajar. A few blocks later, Tess pointed out two angels to him, elaborately carved, set above the threshold of a private house which Max grudgingly shot, too. Max rounded out his photo-taking with a shot of a white wall, the white barely visible, as it was practically covered in graffiti. And then across from it another wall with a different image and landscape.
Some of the graffiti they saw in London was more like street art, real art, rather than spray painted graffiti surreptitiously drawn in the middle of the night the way it was in New York. One of the walls was particularly striking, with a rendition of a snake, hidden, as if by tall grass, and a moonscape above. The opposite wall was filled with children. The images of the children were almost stick figures, but each had its own expression. Max showed the pictures to Aunt Evie and Tess. Aunt Evie squirmed when she saw the snake. “That was a scary wall,” she said.
The snake didn’t bother Tess particularly. It was the one with the stick figures that struck her to the core, as if it was something she should be frightened of, stick figures with their own expressions. Stick figures that seemed almost to have a personality of their own.
Max thought the pictures were pretty cool and Tess had to admit that was also true.
Aunt Evie stepped out into the street to try to hail a cab.
Tess looked back up at the wall behind her with the child-like stick figures Max had photographed. The sun was out now, and part of the wall was in shadow and part of it was shining brightly.
They quickly bundled into the cab with Aunt Evie who had already told the driver where they were going. It was a longer drive then they expected but they finally arrived at Victoria Skatepark.
Aunt Evie wanted to give them a little time alone. She said she was going to wander down the street, that there was a lovely confectionary store and they knew how much their mother loved candied ginger and also, she’d googled a bookstore. “But,” she added, “I won’t go far, and you can always call me on the phone,” she said, holding up her iPhone with its bright pink case which Evie insisted made it easier to find.
The park also had graffiti art drawn on it, so Max wanted to take a couple more pictures. Tess was still holding his skateboard.
She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around to see a British boy in shorts, who asked her if she wanted to race him. There was something taunting about the way he asked, almost bullying, and Tess didn’t understand why he asked her not Max, aside from the fact that she was holding the skateboard. Maybe it was because he was certain he could beat her. It was almost like a dare.
Tess took a good look at the skatepark. It was concrete and had a deep bowl, like an empty lake bed. There were banks and ledges and sharped raised edges outside the bowl which would be interesting (in the sense of difficult) to navigate. Especially if you’d never skated that park before. It wasn’t so much a place for a race as much as it might be for a competition, one that could involve tricks, but maybe he just meant to race her.
Tess was an excellent snowboarder and she could skateboard. She even knew a couple of tricks but she wasn’t sure this was a dare she could take. But then the boy’s friend came over and said, “Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t race him.”
And that was all it took. Tess never liked it when people doubted her.
She always wanted to say to them, Game on!
Tess studied Max’s skateboard. She knew it was a custom job. She’d watched him build part of it. The skateboard itself was covered in stickers and well-used. The wheels were a little small, which Max had insisted made it excellent for park skating, as opposed to larger wheels which are used for sidewalks and city streets. That was about where her knowledge ended. But the wheels were pure pro, so to speak, narrow, made out of white urethane with gold edging, the metal bearings looked as if there were steel, well-oiled, and high-grade, and Max had insisted, “probably the fastest wheels you could have.” Yeah, Max had made sure it was a custom job. Tess looked at him for his approval. Max shook his head but then he shrugged, which
wasn’t a “yes” or a “no.”
The two boys had made him a little mad, too. What was the worst thing that could happen? Max didn’t want to think about that—the possibility that Tess could get hurt—he figured the worst thing was the boy might beat her. Then Max thought his plan might be to ask for a rematch and beat him himself if he had to, just to keep the score straight. Max was still trying to calibrate his answer.
But Tess beat him to it. She looked at her opponent. His dark hair cut short, his eyes intently daring her, and she couldn’t help it, she answered, “Game on.”
Max rolled his eyes. He couldn’t believe what Tess had just gotten herself into, and, of course, it was half his fault. He didn’t want her to get hurt but he also didn’t want her to know that he had any doubts. He raised his pinkie in the air in a show of solidarity. And Tess raised her right hand and gave him an in-air pinkie swear back. And at the same time, gave herself a silent talking to. She knew she had to be brave, secure, and confident in order to win this race or even race it, at all, perfectly balanced, swift, and what her dad would call, “in the moment.” No matter what happened, what course the boy took, she would be right there behind him, next to him, and then, she vowed, she would be ahead. Game on.
Tess did know a couple of skateboard tricks, not that she wanted to pull them out of her hat. She knew how to kick flip—when you’re skating and you flip the board and land on it again—but she wasn’t sure she was going to show that. Their dad had said it was always a good idea to let your opponent underestimate you.
She jumped down to the first ledge and then into the bowl itself. She put the skateboard on the ground and put one foot on it and waited for the boy to join her.
She heard the sound of his skateboard hit the ground and without a signal of any kind, he just started racing. Game on.