"Thanks. It's all yours. But I did get you a real present, you know."
"Got one for you, too," he promptly said. "Want to wait till tomorrow, or would you like it now, to cheer yourself up?"
"Oh, hell, give it to me now." I dropped my hands open on the counter. "Why should I have any reason to be alive tomorrow?"
"Always enthusiastic. That's what I like about you." Laurence opened a drawer, moved aside a guest log book, and pulled out a small paper bag. "Close your eyes. Keep your hand out."
I obeyed. He chose my right arm, pushed the coat sleeve up, and rustled in the bag. "Going to give me a manicure?" I asked.
"No, dear, a tattoo. One that says 'Republican Scientists Do It Better'. Actually, this is kind of funny, considering what our Gillie got for Miss Davis." He lifted my hand, and even in the depths of my self-pity I experienced a girlish warmth at that rare touch of our fingers. Laurence, the germ-warfare god, was fastidious about not touching anyone's hands if he could avoid it. Then I felt cool metal on my wrist, heard a click, and opened my eyes as Laurence said, "There. I was right. Goes with your skin tone. Good Lord, not with that sweater, though. Wear something else when you wear this."
It was a gold bracelet, old-fashioned and solid and hinged with a clasp to fit a lady's wrist perfectly. And, I chuckled to notice, it was engraved with curling rose-vines. In fact, at first glance I thought it was just like the ones Gil bought for Shelly, only in gold instead of silver. And in place of the embarrassing rock-band logo was a tasteful pearl, surrounded by deeply carved leaves.
"That's really gorgeous," I said, impressed out of my bad mood for the moment.
"Seemed all right," he said, tilting his head to look at it. "Once in a while I come across a half-decent find in the antique junk shops. Sharon helped me choose it. We thought it would suit you."
"Thank you." I beamed at him. I was startled to realize that, if the counter hadn't been between us, I would have jumped up to kiss him on the cheek. Imagine the recoil that would have provoked. I toyed with the bracelet, and commented, "I hope you got her something, too."
"Of course. Sterling locket, for a picture of her Redcoat boy."
"And Eileen?" Asking that question reduced my spirits. Stop it, I told myself irritably. He doesn't belong to you. Nobody belongs to you.
Laurence smirked at the question. "What do you get for the girl who has nothing to live for? All the same: got her a perfume she was drooling over at the chemist's."
"Ah." Jewelry beats perfume, I exulted in my head. Or did it? Were they equal? "Well..." I said, "I'll bring down your present, too, if you want."
"All righty." He relaxed into the chair behind the counter.
I jogged up to Room 17, found Laurence's gift, discarded my coat, and paused a moment to admire the bracelet on my arm before returning to the front desk.
He pulled the layers of tissue paper away from the bundle I brought him, and then hefted the little steel gun in his palm. "Now, I know they don't sell these here," he said. "Not legally."
"No, not real ones. I'm sorry about that. But I thought it would be a more stylish way to get the gas stove working. Since you're always cooking."
Laurence turned the muzzle upward, pulled the trigger with a smart flick, and smiled at the inch-long flame that appeared. "Always did want one of these. Yet I never smoked, so what was the point? Good thing we're in a primitive country where you still need fire to light the stove." He clicked off the flame. "You're right, that will be more stylish. Danke schoen."
"You're welcome." Feeling suddenly shy, I began to retreat. "I better wrap that sweater for Eileen."
He aimed the gun at me, closed one eye, and sparked a flame into existence. "Ciao, bella," he said.
* * *
I awoke on Christmas morning with no stocking to dig into, no tree to sit under (unless I felt like sitting in the lobby), and no family member to get a kiss from. Not even a boyfriend.
It was still dark outside, and I could hear something clinking and chiming in the wind: the holiday decorations strung over the street, perhaps. I experienced a pang of loneliness, and knew I would not be sleeping again this morning.
I climbed down from the bunk, slipped on some shoes and a sweater, and padded downstairs to the phone booths in the lobby. It was 6:00 a.m. in Edinburgh, therefore 10:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve in Oregon. Mom and Dad might have been asleep; they weren't huge on staying up late on the 24th.
But the Pavelich family--now there was a good Catholic brood. I dialed a long line of numbers, most of them from the calling card my dad had handed me in college, and finally heard the phone ring.
Tony's little sister Amy answered. I could hear carols being gaily thundered on the piano behind her, and half a dozen Pavelich voices rose in raucous song. She went and got him for me.
"Hello?" Tony said. "Eva! I thought you'd be asleep!"
I woke up early. Sounds like you guys are still awake."
"Yes! We're about to leave, actually... midnight mass."
Christmas midnight mass at St. Mary's in Wild Rose actually started sometime between ten and eleven. "Oh. Forgot about that," I said.
"You should call me tomorrow, though. Or later today, for you. You know what?" he went on. "It was snowing earlier. Might even snow tomorrow. White Christmas, can you believe?"
"Damn. And I'm going to miss it."
"Ah, don't worry; it'll probably only be slush. You know how December is. Oh, you know what else? I've been talking to Father Jim and some of the priests at school, and I'm actually considering going into the seminary."
"To become a priest?"
"Yes, can you believe it? Probably just a wild notion. I imagine I'll get over it. But the peace of mind, the sense of purpose they have... it would be great. I could use that, you know?"
I turned my face to the window to hide my expression of shock. "This is an interesting thing to tell your girlfriend."
He laughed. "Oh, you know me. I get over-zealous on the holidays. Listen, it's Christmas Eve. Don't you worry about a thing. Have a wonderful day! I have to be going. Oh, and tell Eileen I'm praying for her."
"Yeah. All right."
"Is she okay?"
"Yeah, she's fine."
"Thanks, Moss-Butt! Merry Christmas! Okay, I'm coming, Amy. Tell Dad to grab the matches. Sorry, I--what? For the candles, stupid. Okay, I'm really going now. Bye!"
"Bye," I said, but the line was a clatter of noise as Tony hung up the receiver, then came silence.
Was this tragic, or was it hilarious? Surely that was up to me.
I decided to shelve the notion of Tony becoming Father Anthony; it was true that he got over-zealous at Christmas and Easter. The ceremonial robes and altar hangings and extra candles just worked him into a holy fever.
So I took a moment to sit at the window in the phone booth, looking at the floodlit Edinburgh Castle and thinking about snow in Oregon. I had seen about ten days of snowfall already in Scotland, not to mention endless frost and sleet, so I could safely say that the novelty wore off quickly.
But the rare white wintry day in Wild Rose: snow piling up on the fallen maple leaves; the dog gingerly tiptoe-ing down the steps from the deck; the kids trying to sled on Lincoln Hill; my mother frowning through the window at the squirrel-feeder to make sure the critters could still get to their seeds and nuts... Yes, that was a beautiful thing. That was a thing I wanted right now.
Cold black rock, everything made of ancient stone, ghastly murder staining so many streets that it became tedious to hear about, and a million citizens who didn't notice or care about any of it. This could never be home, not permanently, not even if Gil changed his mind and decided he loved me madly.
Not even if marrying him meant hobnobbing with the most popular bands in Britain. How could knocking back pints in a Scottish pub with shaggy-haired musicians compare to hot chocolate in a warm Western farmhouse with snow sweeping the mountains?
To be honest, on several nights per year, it would comp
are quite well, actually. But not on Christmas morning. Not a chance.
I looked away from Edinburgh Castle. The sky was dark and would still be dark for at least another hour. Might as well head up to the kitchen, make some hot chocolate, and read a book. I did so, with quietude of soul and steadiness of hands that had not been mine for months.
I had nobody, no one loved me best, and I could not rely on anyone but myself. So be it.
I turned to the kitchen window, lifted my mug of hot chocolate to the Castle, and saluted Scotland for teaching me this about life.
Chapter Twenty
Ice
Having withdrawn into a submissive state of cold impartiality as to my own fate, I was able to minister more humanely to Eileen's fears over her own.
At the time, I didn't realize I was miserable. I was able to look at Eileen and then say to myself, See, you're not doing so bad. At least you didn't get a scheduling appointment from the Great Beyond.
I confess I didn't seal the tomb door on my affection for Gil until the next time we spoke, four days after Christmas.
"Strangest thing," he had mused. "Ah gave the bracelets to Shelly, and she kissed me and said, 'That's to say thanks, and because it's Christmas.' And then yesterday she asked me did I ever consider dating someone older. Or someone American."
"Told you," I had said, in a dry tone.
"Aye, so ye did. Honest, I never thought it! But we're to go oot, see a film tonight."
"Have a good time," I had said.
And the little twerp had giggled and answered, in a very bad American imitation, "Have a nice day."
Slam! went that door. For the life of me, I could not remember why I had ever thought cheating would be fun, romantic, or sweet. Idiot girl. I was lucky it had all ended before anyone found out.
Correction: before anyone untrustworthy found out. However, wounded by others and constantly convinced of my inferiority to Laurence, I did not entertain excessive thoughts of my secret-holder.
"Tony says he's praying for you," I remembered to say to Eileen shortly after Christmas.
She smiled. "Your boyfriend's not so bad after all," she said.
"He's a regular saint," I said. "In fact, he might be a sanctified, signed, sealed, certified man of God."
That made her look at me with puzzlement. "Did you guys have a fight?"
"Oh, no. I'm just agreeing with you."
And in truth, I was not angry with Tony. He was too sincere and too enraptured to make a decent person angry. He merely served as yet another reminder of my insignificance.
Eileen appreciated me more as the days brought us into January. I listened very well. She could talk and talk; she could lie on the floor of Room 17 with wild hair and a face full of woe; she could sit on benches in the frost at night; and I would always come along. Laurence and I seemed to have tacitly agreed to take turns doing this kind of thing; he had nights and any hours I was at work; I had the remainder of the time so that he could get some sleep.
It is notable that she had not seen a single ghost, or supernatural message, since the night in Canongate Cemetery. Though the silence at first seemed ominous, it eventually served to make the tomb-inscription seem like a bad dream. It dissipated with the increasing sunlight.
"Maybe you guys are on to something," she finally said in early January. "I mean, I'm going to be super-careful and completely jumpy on February 19th, but it's starting to seem unlikely that anything that bad will happen."
"Exactly. And worrying won't help, anyway," I said. "Everyone's number comes up someday. No point in ruining today by fretting about tomorrow."
"Carpe diem," she agreed.
"Now say it after me: I refuse to live in fear."
"I refuse to live in fear!" she shouted, right there on the sidewalk in the Grassmarket, and laughed when people glanced at us. It was the first laugh I had heard from her in weeks.
She had other influences besides Laurence and me. At the pub where she worked, there was a thin Scottish woman of about 40; single, pantheistic, perpetually tranquil, fond of zodiac-sign earrings and long beaded necklaces. While mixing drinks for the quiet elderly customers who frequented the place, Eileen had poured out her troubles to this lady.
And New-Age Nina (as Laurence called her, behind Eileen's back) had given Eileen the same do not fear lines that we had been pushing, but with a deluge of soothing, healing propaganda. God would not hurt Eileen; the elements would not hurt Eileen; neither Buddha nor Ra nor Kali nor the moon in Scorpio would hurt Eileen, not if she reached peace with them and with her fellow beings.
That was all well and good; under this interesting tutelage Eileen was even calling Tony things like "peaceful" and "gentle". But New-Age Nina's most remarkable influence was in the way she interpreted Eileen's failure to bed Laurence.
"I was talking about him with Nina," said Eileen, as we sat in her pub after work one afternoon. "And she made a suggestion, and you know, it just all came together. It makes so much sense now."
"What's that?" I asked, involved in trying to get the teabags out of the pot without sloshing tea on the tablecloth.
"He's gay," she said, and I sloshed tea on the tablecloth.
"No he isn't," I said.
"Why not? Think of it. Dating girls we hardly knew or never even met-- he could have made up half of them. And the others? Just for show. Never leers at girls; never brags about sex." She squinted sagely at me. "Like he's hiding something."
"Couldn't he just be shy?" I asked.
"Of course he's shy, living with that kind of secret. And think of how fussy he is with cooking, and with clothes. He knows fabrics better than you and I do. Probably even better than Sharon does."
I thought of how he had taken Gil shopping, slapped his wrists for choosing the wrong colors and fabrics. And--oh, dear. Was there another reason--besides protecting me--that he had so readily volunteered to go off for the day with a good-looking Scottish lad? "Oh. My. God," I murmured.
"See?" said Eileen, calmly. "And naturally that explains why he won't sleep with me, or even say he cares for me. I'm a little disappointed, but it's actually a relief to know it's not me."
"But-" A thought flared into my mind. "But what about at that club? When you hugged him, and you felt the... that he was... you know..."
"Oh, the erection. Well, I could have been mistaken. Or else, you know what I remembered? A really hot, and obviously gay, guy had just walked by a minute earlier and had totally been checking Laurence out. I know he noticed, too, because I commented on how I liked the guy's silver pants, and Laurence said something about titanium; I forget. But that could be why."
"Oh. My. God," I said again.
"Poor boy probably has tons of issues. That conservative front, when secretly he's longing for a masculine companion. How it would disappoint his father..." She sighed, and began unwrapping a package of chocolate biscuits. "I just hope he turns to one of us when he's ready to come out, and doesn't try to live his whole life in denial."
I left Eileen at the pub that evening, as she and Nina were going to cook dinner at Nina's flat. When I got back to the hostel and encountered Laurence at the front desk, I managed a cool, "Hey," and proceeded quickly toward the stairs.
"Evening," he answered, lifting his eyes to me innocently, unaware of the intimate details I had just been dissecting with Eileen.
And maybe because I was an established representative of perversion in the human female, or maybe because I was mixing and matching memories in an unfortunate way, whatever the reason, I had a dream about him that night.
"Eva. Turn around," he said.
I turned, at the top of the stairs.
"Open your coat," he said. He stood three steps down from me, one hand on the railing, wearing tighter jeans than he ever wore in the waking world.
I opened my overcoat, exposing a short red satin dress.
"Undo another three buttons," he said.
I looked down; three were already undone and almost showe
d my bra. I obeyed and unfastened three more. Nothing to worry about--I wasn't wearing a bra. No underwear or stockings either. I shifted my legs and felt skin on skin.
He came up a step. "Another," he said.
I tried to obey, but the button was stuck. The next thing I knew he was on the step below me, pushing my hands away and unfastening buttons himself. The dress and coat fell open. His hands were on my stomach and then my thighs, and the stairwell melted gently up, and even the hard tiled floor felt soft as a mattress against my back, and I was impressed at the amount of detail you could feel through tight jeans.
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