I decided that would be too insulting. It could wait until another day. So I explained: "A lot of the time, we were talking about Eileen. We were both worried about her, but we didn't want her to know. And when I spent the night up there in October, it was because I was sick, remember I told you I had food poisoning? He looked after me, that's all. I wasn't even thinking about him that way." I paused, and added, "The kiss on the bed, though, that the Canadian saw... that was exactly what it looked like."
"Wow." He let out his breath in shock. "And that was before the 19th?"
"Yes," I said. "I would have told you, honest. But then you had your experience, and I didn't want to sound spiteful by telling you right then... oh, I know this doesn't make sense."
"It does," he said slowly.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't want to tell you this way. I intended to do it later, when you got back to Wild Rose."
He chuckled sadly. "And see him secretly until then?"
I made a lame, hopeless gesture, not that he could see it over the phone. "I didn't want to upset you," I mumbled.
"I think I would have guessed even if Cathy hadn't told me," he said. "I suspected it, even the first trip. There was something odd about how you were acting; how he was acting, too."
"But there was nothing going on then," I insisted. "Back then, I was-- Laurence was dealing with Eileen. The tension was between them."
"I see."
"Why did Cathy tell you?" I asked. "Was she being spiteful? I know she didn't like us, but that's just cruel. It's cruel to you, if nothing else."
"No, actually, she told me as a courtesy." He gave another soft chuckle. "She said, shortly before we got to London, 'Listen, you may be throwing away your life by going into that Papist institution, but you're a good person and you believe in God and you deserve to be told about something.' And so she told me."
I rested my forehead on the wall. "What a way for you to find out."
"Yeah. Truth comes from all sorts of directions."
"Can you forgive me?" I asked.
There was a surprised pause, then he said, "Of course. Wasn't I just saying that to you the other day? Of course, all is forgiven." He chuckled in that wonderstruck way again. "We're an unusual story, aren't we?"
* * *
Half an hour later, I went slowly up the stairs and found Laurence in the kitchen.
"That was Tony on the phone," I said to him.
"Oh?" Laurence stopped scrubbing a plate to look at me.
"He's been told."
"About everything?"
"Not about Gil, but about you." I made a face and looked away. "Cathy found us out. She told him."
"How the-- how did she know?"
"I guess we're not as crafty as we thought."
Laurence sighed, and wiped off the plate with a dishtowel. "Oh well. So that leaves Eileen."
"And Sharon, and my parents. I want to tell them."
"Go to," he said.
"What about your dad? Will he be happy?" I asked, apprehensively.
"Oh, hell, yeah." Laurence smirked, drying his hands on the towel. "All these years it's been, 'Why don't you date one of those Sonneborn girls? I just love that family. Beautiful girls.' Thought I was going to have to kill him if he said it one more time."
"Ha-ha," I crowed. "Father knows best."
"As I believe you once told me, bite me." He snapped the dishtowel at me.
* * *
I telephoned Sharon the next day. She had been bursting with impatience to know what was going on. When she and Thomas had met Tony at the train station and taken him to dinner, he had told them about the incident in the church, and revealed that he was going to enter the seminary. Sharon, of course, had been seized with anxiety for her supposedly jilted sister, but Tony quickly assured her that I was all right.
"He said, 'In fact, she'll be well taken care of, but I think she'll want to tell you herself,"' Sharon said, over the phone. "And, damn it, I tortured him every way I knew how, but he would not tell me! What does that mean?"
"He means, my dear, that a certain Mr. Hawthorn will be a prominent fixture in my life from now on."
Huge gasp from Sharon. "You and Laurence?"
"Yep. How's that for a recent development?"
I quickly held the receiver at arm's length while she squealed with happiness. Then I brought it back to my ear.
"You two are so perfect for each other, I have always said so!" she gushed.
"Get out of here. You have never said so."
"Well, not to you, stupid. Think I have a death wish?"
* * *
My parents called me the next evening.
"Eva, darling," said my deeply sympathetic mother. "Rhonda Pavelich told me about Tony! A priest! Oh, Eva, are you okay?"
I tried not to laugh. "Mom-- yeah, I'm fine. Really. We expected this."
"I didn't," she protested. "He's a good kid, yes, of course, but a priest? Nobody that young wants to be a priest anymore!"
"I think he'll be a good priest."
"Of course he'll be a good priest, but what about you?"
"Well...actually...while we've been over here...it's a strange thing, really. I've spent a lot of time with Laurence, and I've managed to stop arguing with him so much, and...it seems we actually like each other."
"Oh!" Mom gasped with joy. Sharon had picked up that exact trait from her. "Well, of course, of course!" she said, as if it all made sense now. "He's worshipped the ground you walk on for years. Oh, I'm so happy you got together!"
"Worshipped? Heh. No. He's told me himself that he's often wanted to kill me."
"Which is an obvious sign that you meant quite a bit to him."
I laughed. "Is that so?"
"Think I haven't learned a little about men in 54 years?" Mom said archly.
"Sure, Mom. Whatever."
* * *
Laurence had been out with Eileen that evening, and I was waiting impatiently in Room 17 for his return. Finally he came in, still wearing his overcoat, spread his hands before me, and said, "It is done."
I set down my book and sprang from the bed. "You told her? How'd she take it?"
He glanced around the room at the lingering travelers, and beckoned with his head toward the door. "Come on up," he said.
As we went up the stairs to his room, he answered, "I think she was a little insulted, but mainly she wishes us well. I assured her that none of it was your fault."
"Except that whole Gil thing," I said. "Which I imagine you didn't tell her."
"No, I left that out. Does make the story trickier, doesn't it?"
"She must hate me," I sighed. "When I think of all the times I told her that she shouldn't get together with you..."
"She mentioned that." He went into his room and bent to switch on a lamp. "I promised her that you didn't like me at all, back when you said those things."
I flopped down onto his couch. "That's true."
"And you were trying to make her feel better about my obvious lack of interest in her," he added. "Which I also pointed out. And apologized for." He hung up his coat and sat beside me.
"She was so sure you liked her," I mused.
"Yes. Says she feels stupid about it now. Says she can't believe she failed to catch all my hints." He frowned, and turned to me. "She also said she thought I fancied her because of something that happened in a nightclub between her and me. But I couldn't figure out what she meant, and she only said, 'Ask Eva. That's her territory now.' What is she talking about?"
"Oh, good Lord." I shielded a hand over my eyes, and started laughing. "Okay. Umm. See...there was this time..." As delicately as I could, I explained the juicy gossip she had once related to me. I even threw in the detail about the gay boy in titanium silver pants.
"No, no," he objected. "No, no, no. You want to know what happened that night? She was drunk off her ass-- excuse the expression-- and after worming her tongue in my ear, she tried to jump me. We were up against a wall; I don't know what she hoped to accomplis
h, but she tripped over my feet and would have fallen flat on her face if I hadn't caught her, so I did. Which she apparently interpreted as lust." He took a couch cushion onto his lap and folded his arms around it petulantly. "I feel violated now. What do I get for saving her from a concussion? Nasty, evil, totally untrue gossip!"
"So," I asked, "what she felt, it wasn't there?"
"Whether it-- I don't know." He lifted the pillow and hid his face in it for a moment. "I can't believe you're asking me this. Look. I'm still young; it's possible. Honestly, I don't remember."
"Oh, I know it's possible," I said, wisely.
"Yeah." He tossed the cushion back to the edge of the sofa. "Rapist. Both of you, rapists!"
"Yes, you've got things pretty rough, I know."
"I do. Nobody knows the trauma of being me."
I scooted over and wrapped my arms around him. "Well. You're moodier than Tony, but you're not as bad as Gil."
He snorted. "Until I start fawning over green suits with pin-stripes, I will never be as bad as Gil."
"Still, we owe a lot to him. Think any of this would have happened if you hadn't shared my little secret?"
"Perhaps not," he mused, leaning his head back to look at the ceiling. "But I find there's never any use in playing 'what if'. The way it happened is the way it happened."
"Yes." I rested my cheek comfortably against his shoulder. "So now everybody knows."
"Everybody who ought to know."
"So guess what that means we can do."
He lifted his head from the sofa cushions and smiled shrewdly at me. "Haven't the foggiest."
"Need I remind you?"
"Yes. Why don't you?"
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Last Two Weeks of Exile
Two hours later, under the blankets on Laurence's bed, both of us half-dressed, he spoke and roused me out of my doze. "Are we free tomorrow night?" he asked.
"Hell, yes," I said, and propped myself up to kiss him deeply.
"Mmm." He waited until the kiss was over, then added, "Well, I ask because Eileen wants to go ghost-hunting with us. Just to make sure she can't see them anymore."
"Oh. But if you were along, I thought she never saw them anyway."
He shrugged. "Maybe she thinks my 'aura' is weaker now that my virginity's shattered."
I conceded, and lowered my eyes modestly. "Your virginity technically isn't shattered."
"No, but she thinks it is; that's all that matters."
"She thinks I'm easy? She should know better."
"Yeah, and she should at least know that I'm not easy," he said. "From experience. But we don't care what the peasants think, do we now?" He leaned up and kissed me again.
"So where does she want to go ghost-seeing?" I asked.
"Canongate Cemetery," he said, adopting the spooky tone of the ghost-tour guides. "Where else?"
* * *
Predictably enough, there were no ghosts to be seen in the cemetery.
It was chilly and damp, and we were huddled under the overhang of the very tomb that had supposedly seared Eileen's name into the air in letters of fire, but even Eileen ceased to find this spooky after an hour of nothing happening. By ten o'clock she was asleep, her head on a balled-up extra coat she had brought.
Meanwhile, Laurence and I spread a blanket over ourselves, and began nuzzling noses and massaging fingers for warmth. To expect to stay chaste while doing things like this, under a blanket, the day after your first sexual adventure together, is to have very naive expectations. Even the severely proper Laurence was whispering things like, "She's asleep; it's okay," and even I, the blush-prone, was shamelessly unbuttoning and unzipping his clothing beneath the blanket for convenience.
When we saw a decidedly non-supernatural light come bobbing across the cemetery, we exploded in a flurry of re-fastening, and gave Eileen a shove to wake her up.
A raincoat-clad policeman shone a flashlight into our faces, informed us that we weren't supposed to be here this late, and escorted us back to the gate. He was mildly sympathetic at the story about Eileen's former ghost-seeing abilities, but somehow didn't see it as a good enough reason to break trespassing laws. He agreed not to write us a ticket, though, as we were foreigners and clearly were just awestruck at the majesty of their old town.
"No drugs on 'em, then?" asked his companion, back at the gate, emerging from a police car.
"Nah. Just this one, she sees ghosts, and them two were on the verge of indecent and lewd public behavior, but I think they'll be back to their homes now; is that not so?"
It was so. We babbled our thanks and retreated back toward Princes Street. Laurence and I fell abashedly silent. Eileen kept smirking at us and shaking her head.
I had lunch with her later that week. "You're honestly not jealous?" I asked, wincing.
"Of course I am." She rested her temple on her knuckles. "But you're a better match for him than I am, so I'll get over it."
"I had no intention of stealing him from you, or standing in your way."
"Shut up, stupid. I know that."
I nodded, and ate a few bites of my salad. "So how do you want to do our flight back in March? We were thinking, since it leaves from London, we might spend a week down there first. Visit Sharon, you know, since she's not coming with us."
Thomas Chester-Brighton's family had very good connections, and Sharon had acquired a decent job with a tailor, which came with permission to stay in the U.K. for another year.
"Actually," Eileen said, setting her fork down carefully, "I'm not coming either."
"You're...not?"
"Mr. MacIntyre, at the pub, says I can stay another six months if I want. He's supposed to get the forms finalized tomorrow. And Nina says I can go on living with her."
I just stared at her, stunned.
I must have looked funny, because she broke into a smile and added, "Well, this isn't Siberia. It's a gorgeous place, I actually feel useful at the pub, and I never see a single ghost anymore. Why shouldn't I stay?"
"Well... there's your mother," I said.
"She can come visit. I'll pay for half her plane ticket. It's cheaper than her having to buy food for me all year."
"And...your dad?" I asked delicately.
She shrugged, and arranged her silverware on the paper napkin. "Last letter Mom got, he was in France. Could be he'll actually come up here to see me. I could make peace with that issue, finally."
"I hope you do," I said softly.
* * *
The final days of our U.K. stay were blowing by faster and faster. Laurence and I were living a week in the future, preparing ourselves to return home, making sure we weren't forgetting anything.
There was, of course, one person I needed to see before we left.
And on a mild, windy day in March, Gil and I approached one another on a sidewalk in Princes Street Gardens. His purple coat was gone; he now wore a wool pea coat in dark gray, and black soccer shoes instead of his white-and-orange sneakers. His hair had been trimmed to chin-length. He was not up to Laurence Hawthorn fashion standards, but he was surprisingly acceptable.
When we met, he reached out and hugged me, and his coat fell open to reveal a black shirt covered with red and gold Oriental dragon patterns. I began giggling in his lapel.
"Ah, silly toureest," he said. "Silly me. Said we'd see one another before ye left, and hav'na for weeks."
"My fault," I said. "I was mad at you about Shelly. Then I got caught up in other things. How have you been?"
"Fine; couldnae be better. Yourself?"
"Same here. Some interesting things have happened to me."
We sat down on a park bench, much as we used to, but without entwining ourselves, and I told him all about the recent events with Laurence, Tony, and Eileen. He seemed unruffled.
"Aye, I rather thought you two were close," he commented. "'Twas the way he spoke of you, that day we were oot shopping."
I gazed at the flowers along the sidewalk, and sm
iled to think of Laurence speaking well of me so many months ago.
I asked how he and Shelly were doing; he said everything was grand. Said in fact he might visit the States with her in the summer. She was from California. I invited him to come up to Oregon while he was there, and he blithely said, "Aye, no problem," surely having no idea that it was a five-hour drive from Wild Rose, Oregon, to the California border, and that most Californians lived several hundred miles beyond that border.
TOURIST ATTRACTIONS Page 21