TOURIST ATTRACTIONS

by Molly J. Ringle

  My eyelids flickered open, and I stared at the patterns of streetlight on the dark ceiling of Room 17.

  Oh, dear.

  You want what you can't have, Eva, is that the problem? Is this what we're going to do for the rest of our life? chided the exasperated Psychology major.

  We would try not to. We swore it.

  * * *

  New-Age Nina invited Eileen to sleep at her place one night. She had a room that she used as a small library, with a sofa. And apparently this was such a surprisingly comfortable arrangement, so non-frustrating and pressure-free (unlike her nights in Laurence's fourth-floor bachelor pad), that Eileen wanted to do it more often.

  This is how it came about that, in the second week of January, Eileen moved out of the hostel and into Nina's flat. "The rent actually works out to about the same," she told me. "And of course Nina likes the idea of someone else paying half for the next couple months. Even if we end up getting tired of each other, I'll still be going home in March."

  It was good to know she expected to live to see March, at least.

  Standing with her bags at the door of the hostel, she cast a grim glance into the lobby. "And I'd just as soon be out of here, after the idiot I made of myself with Laurence," she added.

  "Ah, you weren't that bad," I said.

  "I pretty much threw myself at him," she admitted. "Even thinking he was gay, I gave him one last, completely blatant shot the other night. Said, 'Can I get in your bed? I think we're ready. And I'd really enjoy it.' But of course he said, 'No, thanks, dear.'"

  I winced for her. "Sorry to hear that."

  "It's a good thing," she said. She put on a brisk smile. "I feel much more free already. Hey, call me and we'll meet for lunch, and maybe do a movie, okay?"

  I said I would, and she strolled off to catch a bus to Nina's district.

  As I read the newspaper in the kitchen that afternoon, a voice behind me said, "So it's just you and me, sweetheart. We drove them all away."

  I looked up and smiled at Laurence. "Not quite all of them, unfortunately," I said, with a nod toward Cathy, who was sullenly stirring pasta at the stove.

  He glanced at her and gave a similar nod. Then he stretched, and said, "It'll be so nice to have the room to myself again. Living with a woman... oi. I guess I'm just not cut out for it."

  I bowed my head, to avoid exploding into nervous laughter. Fortunately, he was called away just then by one of his Aussie coworkers to investigate why the radiators had been acting up lately.

  But he invited me to lunch the next day, which was my day off. We sat in a sandwich shop and, at his prodding, talked about what a twerp Gil was being.

  "Any laddie who wanted to get a purple tie with pink fishes on it," said Laurence, "is clearly not worth it."

  "Or who's never left the island because it 'seemed a long way to go for no good reason,'" I added.

  "At least he's in the hands of an American. She'll get him out of here."

  "And keep him in all the purple ties he wants."

  "Yes. 'British fashion'--what a pitiful oxymoron."

  I chuckled, but his mention of fashion pushed the specter of homosexuality into my mind. Time to change the subject. "Is it nice to have Eileen out of your room?" I asked.

  Come to think of it, that wasn't such a good way to change the subject.

  He nodded. "Slept better than I have in weeks. You know what? I bet she won't even spend February 19th with us."

  "Of course she will. It's your birthday."

  "She's too tight with New-Age Nina. I bet you she won't want to see us cynics for a while."

  "She wants to do dinner with me at least once a week," I said.

  "Well, you, maybe. But she won't want to see me, not after I--well." He busied himself with folding up the checkered paper his sandwich came in.

  "After you turned her down the other night?" I said.

  He set down the sandwich paper and leaned back in his chair. "Yeah. Didn't know if she told you."

  "Why did you turn her down?" I asked.

  "Because I didn't want to do it," he answered calmly.

  "So you were never interested in a relationship? Not this whole time?"

  "Not with her."

  "Ah," I said, and began picking up strands of shredded lettuce from my own sandwich paper, and setting them in a pile on the side. If this was going to be his coming-out conversation, I wanted to seem benign and approachable.

  But maybe I only succeeded in looking scared, because he stayed quiet. And when I looked up, he was watching me thoughtfully, one arm across his waist, one finger resting on his cheekbone. He lifted his eyebrows briefly, and sat up in his chair. "Ready to go?" he asked.

  We went out shopping or walking together often in the next few weeks, as the only pair left from the original party of four. And with Gil safely in the ex bin, and Tony in his own new ambiguously holy category, I dropped most of my defensiveness and got along quite well with Laurence.

  When we argued, it was no longer about personal issues with my reputation at stake. They were usually political debates, debates for debating's sake, on issues I was only just beginning to learn. He ended up teaching me volumes, and once in a while allowed me to correct him on some rare point where I had the superior knowledge. But I could not, absolutely could not, bring myself to ask him if he was gay.

  One sunny, icy day in late January, we did some morning errands and then stopped on Waverley Bridge to consider lunch. Laurence named a few Italian restaurants, a chip shop, a Greek place, some curry places. We had our elbows on the railing and were facing the pillars on Calton Hill. He turned his head to look at me.

  His eyes, narrowed slightly against the sun, splashed onto mine with a vivid blue. The notion that I had not previously thought Laurence attractive struck me breathless with its absurdity. The sun blazed copper-colored in his hair; the wind stirred strands of it like silk; his eyelashes, dark at the base, were washed with gold tips in the bright light; his fair skin in this northern climate had paled to a flawless ivory. His lips looked delicious; his neck was graceful; even his ears were cute.

  "What do you want?" he asked, presumably referring to restaurants.

  To suck on your tongue and wrap my legs around your back, I thought.

  With an effort, I turned my eyes toward Calton Hill. "I--whatever you want. It all sounds good," I mumbled.

  I knew then that it was over for me.

  I knew exactly what Eileen had meant by, "He's probably the best person I know." I knew why she had tried so hard and so often to seduce him, so hungry for his notice that she sometimes seduced herself into thinking there was something there, like that time at the nightclub when she was convinced of his physical attraction.

  I thought insanely that if it had been me in that nightclub, he would have been unable to resist; I would have done it so much better. I wanted to pay someone a thousand dollars to have that chance.

  I lay in my bed that night, arms folded behind my head, and scrutinized the problem.

  He was not interested in females, and even if he was, he could not possibly have been interested in me. I was not good enough. How many hundred thousand times had he made this clear? How often had he teased me for choosing Psychology, the major with the least required credits to graduate? How often did he remind me that it was hardly a real science, and that I knew next to nothing about the hard stuff like atoms and isotopes? When did a day go by that he didn't snicker into his sleeve at some social gaffe or bungled fact of mine?

  And even if I had all of my academia and etiquette straight, why would he want to cozy up to me, the proven infidel, when he didn't even want to sleep with the gorgeous, fully available, and honest Eileen?

  And even if we got over that hurdle, what was to happen with Tony? And then what was to happen when we returned to Wild Rose? I couldn't live in Maine any more than I could live in Scotland; it was entirely too far away from everyone I loved.

  Almost everyone, I thought, echoing what
Sharon had said.

  Then I turned my face toward the wall and pulled the duvet up to my ears, for there was no need for anyone else in Room 17 to know that I was weeping over that Yank bloke Laurence who worked the front desk.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Night the Heat Went Out

  I was determined to improve myself.

  Pickings were slim in the so-called library on the fourth floor, but I pulled what reputable nonfiction books and magazines I could find from there, and spent hours reading each day. (I always had read, but it was usually fiction.) I asked my coworkers in the Dalrykirk Hotel if they had read any interesting things about science lately; a few of them had, and lent me their books. I sometimes walked all the way to the Edinburgh University library, where I had obtained a guest card for temporary use of the materials, and got into their computer lab so that I could read articles on Internet magazines and newspapers.

  After just a few days of this I was able to ask Laurence more intelligent questions than usual. After another week I became able to hold fast to one side of an argument, and sometimes got him to concede on a minor point. Other times he said, "Exactly," or "Well, of course," to opinions that I had only recently discovered; this made me feel particularly clever. It also showed that he credited me with more intelligence than I had previously suspected. And at the best of times he would look thoughtful and ask, "Where did you read that?", and whether or not I remembered the exact source, he would nod and say, "I'll have to look into it. Could be useful." Could this really be, that I could make Laurence more intelligent?

  It was probably counterproductive. It only made me more attached to him. But, I reasoned, improving my mind or helping Laurence improve his could not possibly be a bad thing.

  As for whether he was gay-- Well, I intended to pry it out of him some day, but was still working out what the best method was for doing so. Therefore, as of a particular snowy weekend in early February, I had not asked him, and he had not told me.

  The snow had been falling, in intervals, for a week. It really settled in one Friday afternoon; by nightfall there were six inches on the streets. The radiators in the hostel, having been worked hard since November, were starting to sound weak and unhealthy. Everyone was constantly chilly. When I left for work that morning, Laurence and two other hostel employees were going up and down the stairs to the basement, trying to see if they could fix the old furnace down there. One of them was on the phone with a repairman.

  When I got home, Laurence was behind the front desk, wearing a dark green wool scarf and a knitted hat. The tip of his nose was an unhealthy reddish-purple hue. "Is it me, or is it cold in here?" I asked.

  "Very good, Watson," he said sourly.

  "Did you guys not fix the furnace?"

  He was obviously in a bad mood. "The thing is a hopeless ancient beast that should have exploded five years ago. The repairmen said there's no hope. The hostel owners are scrambling to get us a new part. This after they made me spend four hours down there trying to fix it, because, as they said, 'You're good with science; you should know how.'"

  "I'm sorry, Laurence," I said, and meant it, though I admit I was grinning.

  "Yeah. Well, sweetie darlin', there's still hot water, but there's not going to be any heat tonight. And probably not tomorrow either. So bundle up."

  I nodded, to humor him, and left him alone with his bad mood.

  Sitting in the kitchen that evening, reading while other people came in and out and did their cooking, was tolerable enough. My fingers and nose became colder as the hours advanced, but there was no real danger. This was how the natives of Edinburgh used to live, I reminded myself, and without even the benefit of electric lights. They also had the added dangers of plagues and the possibility that you would be hanged for witchcraft by an angry mob. This current lack of a creature comfort was nothing to complain about.

  Of course, those old Edinburghers were long dead and gone, and there was plenty of reason for me to complain, I decided later that night, as I shivered in my bed. Because whereas most of today's modern citizens of Edinburgh were enjoying central heating at the moment, I was in a dilapidated hostel and was slowly freezing to death.

  Room 17 was shockingly cold. Whatever heat it contained had risen to the ceiling, a useless twelve feet above. People paired off and slept together for warmth, or else bundled on extra clothes. I considered the latter, but didn't think it would help much. I could swear that the camping experts had told me that someone sleeping in just her underwear got warmer in the sleeping bag than someone sleeping in too many intermediate layers.

  But I still didn't warm up. So finally I climbed out of bed, put on a sweater and wool socks, and took my pillow up to the fourth floor. I knocked timidly on Laurence's door.

  He didn't answer. The hallway was dark and I could see soft light glowing under the door. I tried the handle; it was locked.

  "Laurence," I whined. "It's me. Please?"

  I heard the creak of the bed, and a step on the floor. "You and who else?" he asked.

  "Nobody. Just me. I'm freezing. Is it any warmer up here?"

  He opened the door, and stood there in his navy-blue pajamas, bare feet, no glasses, hair adorably rumpled. A fire burned in the hearth behind him. He glanced back at it, then at me. "Just a bit warmer," he said. He stepped aside and let me in.

  "Thank you; thank you so much." I went over and sat on the carpet in front of the fire, my back against his bed. The sudden thaw from the fire's warmth made me relax my clenched toes. I put my pillow behind my back and sighed with pleasure.

  The bed rocked as Laurence flopped onto it. He threw the comforter over himself again, and moved forward on his stomach so that his head was near mine. "I thought it was pretty damn cold in here," he said. "It must be terrible on your floor if you think this is good."

  "It's inhuman. I could see my breath in the hallways. And outside it must be below zero, with the wind-chill."

  "Heard it was actually something like fifteen. With the wind-chill. Supposed to be like this all of tomorrow."

  I stretched my stiff fingers toward the fire. "My cuticles were turning blue," I observed. "The feeling's coming back now."

  He took one of my hands and pulled it to the bed where he could peer at it. "No frostbite damage, but certainly very chilly." He scooted sideways. "Here. You'll be too cold if you sleep down there."

  I looked over my shoulder to see if I understood correctly. Indeed, he was lying on his side, holding open the comforter for me. "You sure?" I asked cautiously.

  "I promise I'll try not to kick," he said.

  He didn't need to ask me twice. I hopped up from the carpet and slid into bed beside him, on my back. He let the comforter fall over me, then relaxed onto his side. "Now, don't tell Eileen. She'll just get all jealous."

  "Okay," I murmured, ready to agree with anything.

  "You working tomorrow?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "Good. Their heat's probably not broken. You'll be warm while you're there, at least."

  "Oh, yes, the kitchen's always plenty warm." My voice sounded sarcastic, I realized.

  "Not too pleased with our job, are we?" asked Laurence.

  "Why should I be? I'm a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, and I'm washing dishes and hovering near the poverty line."

  "It's only temporary. When we get home, you should talk to my dad. He could find a decent job for you at the lab."

  "Yeah, filing letters, I'm sure."

  "No, there are plenty of research assistant jobs for people who have a college degree and half a clue about science. Quit feeling sorry for yourself and just talk to him."

  I turned my face away. "What about you?" I asked.

  "You mean, what am I going to do?"

  "Yes. Maine? Is that really going to happen?"

  "Seems like it will. Dad was just telling me about it on the phone last week. I know the guy who's in charge over there; he used to work in Wild Rose, and he'd love to have me."

>   "Oh. Sure, just abandon us." I tried to make it sound lighthearted, but it sounded a bit melodramatic instead.

  He yawned, and threw an arm over me. "You'll never get rid of me entirely. I'll email you cake recipes and stuff." With a deep, satisfied sigh, he settled further into his pillow and seemed to be lapsing into sleep.

  Poignantly touched that he had nestled me under his arm and under his blankets, even if he was about to abandon me, I fell quiet. Holding onto his wrist, I turned onto my side so that we fitted together like spoons, my back against his chest. I closed my eyes and thought of falling asleep, like he was.