What Scotland Taught Me

by Molly Ringle

  “March twenty-first,” I said. “First day of spring.”

  “A long time yet. That’s good.” We entered the shadow of an ivy-covered wall. He bit my ear gently. “I’d not like to see you go.”

  Ordinarily that would have melted my American female heart. Tonight it created turmoil and confused emotions, ending in low-grade nausea.

  “Well,” I mumbled, “I better go. Getting late.”

  I endured his goodnight kiss, and hurried back to the hostel, hoping I wouldn’t see Laurence at the front desk.

  Chapter Thirteen: Nutrition Tips

  I got lucky and didn’t run into any of my friends that evening. Amber was working late, and Shannon was probably out with Thomas. Laurence might have been up in his room; I certainly didn’t check.

  But the reprieve didn’t heal me. I slept poorly, and survived work the next day only by force of will. Boosting my energy with an extra cup of coffee led to dizziness. Obsessing over my exposed betrayal in the harsh lights of Waverley Station drove it to nausea. I sipped herbal tea and nibbled crackers during my lunch break, hating Laurence, blaming him for it all.

  If no one had found out, I could have continued believing it wasn’t wrong, merely a little naughty. However, anything that merited such a shocked reaction from one of my so-called friends must be worse than I realized. What the hell did I think I was doing?

  If Gil called me today to arrange a date--a wave of queasiness rocked me at the thought of it--would I accept? Would I still have the audacity to hop on a bus with him and go home to his bedroom?

  The way I felt that day, I thought not. All that appealed was my currently unreachable bedroom in Wild Rose. I wanted to snuggle under my blue and pink patchwork quilt with my time-worn stuffed lion.

  I stared out the hotel’s kitchen window at the centuries-old stone courtyard with its bare trees rattling in the autumn winds. My thoughts migrated to my parents’ garden, which I was in charge of tending. I worked for a landscaping company during summers and had become the family expert on plants.

  Was anyone mulching the rose bed in my absence? Pulling up the spent dahlias? I nearly wept, homesick even for the plants.

  Gil did call that afternoon. The sound of his accent, rich with amorous intent, made me cringe and lean my forehead on the wall. However, he told me he couldn’t meet me that evening, as his mother was fed up with him missing family dinners, so he’d stay home tonight to appease her.

  Fine with me.

  On my way back to the hostel I stopped at a grocer’s and bought some bananas, which I thought might give me strength when I was ready to eat them. But by the time I pushed through the hostel doors, nothing sounded good except bed.

  Laurence sat behind the front counter. Too sick now even to hate him, I set the bananas on the desk and said, “Here. I thought I wanted these, but I don’t feel well enough. Take them.”

  “All right.” He looked the slightest bit sympathetic behind his characteristic smirk. “Late nights getting too much for you?”

  I nodded and went up the stairs to Room 17, where I climbed into bed.

  When I opened my eyes some time later, Laurence stood there, at eye level to my top bunk position. “Brought you your mail,” he said.

  I extended one hand from the blankets and took the envelope. Tony’s name graced the return address, and a cartoon smile decorated the back. I grunted and dropped it beside the pillow.

  “I’m making beef barley soup,” Laurence said, “from scratch; none of this canned stuff. If you’re up to it, I’ll bring you some. Looks like you need it.”

  “Why are you being nice?”

  “You’re not taking care of yourself. Someone has to.” He rested an elbow on the bed frame. “I knew it must be bad when you didn’t even have the strength to make nasty comments when you came in.”

  I curled my knees up, tugging the blanket over my neck. “I’ll come down later.”

  “Okay.” He went away.

  After a brief snooze, I decided I could face Tony’s letter.

  Dear Gargle-Imp,

  Hallloooo! I could have emailed you, but it’s fun to get real mail, isn’t it? Especially for me because I get to spend half an hour on the postal service website trying to work out how many stamps it takes to send something to Edinburgh.

  You wouldn’t believe how much it’s raining today. The wind brought down about 50 tons of leaves, which we had to clear out from the church gutters. I performed the heroic deed of climbing onto those really steep parts of the roof and scooping them out. Deacon Aldritch made me hook myself to the bell tower with a rope and bungee cords in case I fell. He was saying “Our-Fathers” the whole time, watching me from the courtyard. It was really reassuring.

  But you’ll never believe what I found! Up in the rain gutter under the cross--the side facing Southern Ave.--I found what was clogging the drain: the Mylar balloon with the Cool Angel on it from my birthday last year!

  This was a silly-looking balloon featuring an angel in sunglasses. I had brought it to his birthday dinner, having seen it at the grocery store and finding it too stupid to pass up. Within five minutes it was dubbed the Cool Angel, and we were all making fun of it.

  Remember how we let it go in the yard, and said, “I wonder where it’ll end up? Maybe California, maybe Japan”? Well, it got about two miles. Ha! Anyway, it was a neat coincidence, so, thanks, God!

  This was an odd quirk of Tony’s: he thanked God, literally, aloud, when good things happened to him.

  His letter went on in a similar vein: a lot of small-town details that made me homesick for Wild Rose, and at the very end an admission that he missed me--a lot.

  I opened the envelope and stuck my nose in it. It smelled faintly like his house, which made me sad. But I would have felt worse if he had sent some wrist-slashingly desolate missive begging me to come home, when here I was making dates with a Scottish barkeep.

  Conscience required a cringe at this point. I complied, slipping the letter back into its envelope. The idea of facing Laurence didn’t sound so bad now. With other people I had to pretend I was saintlier than I was. Laurence, by contrast, would make me out to look more evil than I was. Whatever abuse I took from him would be well deserved, and probably more than I required. I could walk away absolved, with some condemnation left over for later.

  I went down to the kitchen. Laurence stirred a large pot at the stove, wearing an old white lab coat in place of an apron.

  “You packed a lab coat?”

  “In case I found a science-related job,” he said, without looking up.

  “Thought you didn’t want one.”

  “Still.”

  “You realize you look like a mad scientist, cooking nitroglycerine to blow up the city.”

  “Good. I like to keep people wondering.”

  I sat at a table and sniffed the air while he dashed seasonings into his stew. I identified sage as one of the scents, from my many attempts at planting herbs over the years. My mouth watered; my hunger stirred at last.

  He brought two bowls of soup to the table, and sat across from me.

  “So, I have a theory as to what’s wrong with you,” he said.

  I almost snapped a bitchy reply at him. But, reminding myself of all the blackmail material he held against me, I restrained my tongue. “All right,” I said. “Do tell me what’s wrong with my inferior girly brain. I’m dying to know.”

  “My theory isn’t psychological. It’s nutritional. Why you’re sleazing around with a fashion-impaired Scotsman, I don’t pretend to know. Why you’re always tired and sometimes sick, like tonight, I can guess.”

  “Because I’m stressed and sleep-deprived.”

  “Yes, that’s part of it. Living in this unsanitary fever-ward doesn’t help either. However...” He lifted his spoon and nodded to the hunk of beef on it. “Real food. You haven’t eaten any lately. You can’t live on coffee, instant rice, and canned broth.”

  “I buy fruit sometimes.”

&n
bsp; “Not enough protein,” he said. “You’re subsisting on empty starch and useless chemicals. It’s no wonder you think you’re starving.”

  “Since when do you care what I eat?”

  “Since I have to deal with you.”

  “Thanks. Your concern is touching.”

  “Well, you’ll be healthier if you listen to me.” Laurence pulled over a newspaper and leafed through it. “You’ll even look better, for what’s-his-name.”

  “Gil,” I muttered.

  “Right. Gil. Call in sick with him tonight?”

  “Didn’t have to.” I ate a warm chunk of potato, savoring the saltiness. “He’s at home humoring his parents.”

  “Been, what, a month now?” Laurence turned a page.

  “Yeah. But what you saw last night, it isn’t our usual thing. That was the first time.”

  “Ah. Well, you’ll give in to temptation soon enough.”

  I seized my chance to turn the tables. “Speaking of which, what have you and Amber been doing all these nights?”

  “‘Speaking of which’? Me and Amber?” He lifted his gaze from the paper, looking confused, as if I had called him by a weird foreign name.

  “Cuddling under overcoats, I hear? And that’s just when you’re outdoors. Must be nice, having your own private room upstairs...”

  He snorted. “I don’t know what she’s been telling you, but you can chase that notion straight out of your blonde head.”

  “Gosh, Laurence, it’s just that we’re friends, and I’m concerned.” I drank my last spoonful of soup, and stood up.

  Re-immersed in the newspaper, he didn’t look at me. “You have no clue, and I’m not about to enlighten you.”

  “Strangely, that’s how I feel about you, too.”

  He said nothing, reading an article as if I weren’t even there.

  I probably should have amended my remarks with an apology, especially after he’d fed me dinner. But something in my nature wouldn’t allow it. I stomped away.

  Chapter Fourteen: Shakespeare Done Well; Love, Less So

  I went out walking with Gil again a couple of nights later. “Mum’s come down with a flu,” he said. “She’ll be hanging at the flat for a few nights yet, so we can’t go there.”

  “That’s okay,” I said glumly. “If I went to your house Laurence would never let me live it down.”

  Gil led me up a steep street paved with bricks. The smell of cigarettes and onion rings spilled from a club’s doorway as we passed. A remix of Pulp’s “Common People” thumped from within, warped by the walls.

  “No reason to tell him, then, is there?” he said.

  “I guess.” But wasn’t Laurence sort of right about friends telling each other important things? Like whether one of them was being a slut?

  Gil brought me into a quieter part of the city, not a particularly scenic district, but I was still tourist enough to be interested in any corner of Edinburgh. “Here,” he said. “I’ll show you where me studio was.”

  Just then a gaggle of voices burst into the night. Across the street, a group of eight or nine people emerged from one of the stone buildings packed along the block.

  Gil laid a hand on my arm, stalling me in a shadow beneath an awning. His eyes fixed themselves upon the group.

  “Who’s that?” I asked. “Do you know them?”

  He shushed me before the last syllable left my mouth, and kept watching.

  I assessed the small crowd sauntering down the sidewalk. A streetlight caught the dyed-red gleams in one young woman’s hair, and glittered on the buckles on a guy’s leather jacket. He carried a guitar case, and another guy whacked drumsticks on signs and mailboxes as he walked. Multiple earrings, streaks of bright hair color, and tight jeans seemed the fashion order of the day for most of them, male or female.

  Recognition struck me. “Oh, my God. Is that the Hammer Mountain Valentines?”

  “Aye. Shh. Those two at the front, that’s John and Shelly.”

  “Oh.” The two he referred to were an older guy in a suit, his wavy gray hair gelled back; and a woman in her twenties with a curvy figure, a short black bob, and a loud laugh. I squinted at them as the group strolled farther away.

  “Well.” His voice returned to regular volume as the group moved out of earshot, but it sounded hollow and glum. He collapsed onto a bench at a bus stop, and nodded at the door across the street. “That’s it there, that building.”

  I peered at it in the night shadows. It seemed another four-story stone building from last century or so, like its neighbors. “So that’s a recording studio.”

  “Aye.”

  I sat down beside him and tapped my feet on the pavement, alternating left and right. When he stayed silent, I ventured, “Do you still kind of want to run after her?”

  He smirked. “Can’t decide. I might only scream at her if I did.”

  “Yeah. I’d be pretty mad in your shoes. You shouldn’t have been fired. Maybe you can sue?”

  He scoffed out a breath. “That’s the American way, isn’t it? Nah, it’s not worth it. Besides, they know lawyers. I don’t.”

  Prickles of annoyance killed my sympathy. “I don’t know lawyers either, American though I may be.”

  He smiled. “Ooh, scary tourist. Are you going to pull a gun and shoot me? That’s the American way as well. Guns don’t kill people, Americans do!”

  “Yeah, it’s much better to kill them with alcohol and fried food, like you do here.” Then I closed my mouth, horrified to realize I had just thrown a Laurence remark at him.

  He only laughed. Like Laurence, he found my irritation ever so droll. He nearly sprained my neck with a playful hair-tousle, and jumped to his feet. “Come on, then. I’m freezing my arse off on this bench.”

  Another lesson to file away about Scotland: insulting other people in a childish manner was the national pastime.

  As Gil walked me back to the hostel, he chattered about bands he had met, as if seeing his old coworkers had opened the floodgates on his pent-up past. He didn’t mention Shelly at all, though. Did that signal indifference, or over-sensitivity to the topic? I had no idea. I only felt, more than ever, that I didn’t entirely know him and didn’t matter all that much to him, except as a trusted listener.

  I pulled some needles off a tree as we walked, and sniffed them. The Christmasy smell punched homesickness into my heart. “Douglas fir,” I said with a sigh.

  “What’s that?”

  “The tree, it’s Douglas fir. Pseudotsuga menziesii. They’re everywhere back home. I think ‘Douglas’ was a Scottish guy, a botanist. He found them in America and brought them to Europe.”

  Gil’s silence for the next five paces left me feeling like an absolute nerd. “Aye, lots of people named Douglas round here,” he said at last, gazing across the street at nothing in particular.

  Ugh. He name-dropped super-cool musicians in discussing his employment history, and in discussing mine I answered with what? Pseudotsuga menziesii??

  Cold and grumpy, I said goodnight to Gil outside the hostel and pushed through the front doors.

  “How are we this evening?” asked Laurence, who manned the front desk alone, rotating a pen in his fingers.

  “Mad at you.” I slumped against the counter.

  “Aw, you flatter me.”

  “You’re making me think of this whole thing as sordid. And when Gil made some anti-American joke, I snapped at him with a remark I must have picked up from you. So apparently your nasty attitude’s contagious.”

  “First of all, what you’re doing is sordid; and second, the world would be a better place if more people had my attitude. Now tell me these remarks you threw at each other.”

  I explained the conversation. Laurence only chuckled. “You let that bother you?”

  I growled and smacked my cold palms on the counter. It hurt, which frustrated me further. “He makes me feel inferior for being American. You make me feel inferior for feeling inferior. Am I never doing anything right?�
��

  “I never called you inferior.”

  “You think everyone’s inferior.”

  “Maybe, but I try not to say so out loud. Look...” Laurence set down his pen so he could steeple his fingertips like a psychiatrist. “The laddie obviously likes you. He’s just developmentally arrested at age five, when boys hit girls over the head with chalkboard erasers to show they care.”

  I glared, but the image tickled my anger away, and I burst into exhausted laughter. “God.” I rested my arms and forehead on the counter. “Why am I doing this?”

  “I’m guessing lots of twisted reasons. But I primarily blame Wilson.”

  I lifted my face. “Wilson? How come?”

  “He was a jealous butthead, right? Forbade you from glancing at anything male besides himself?”

  “Yeah.” Thinking, I studied the wall calendar behind the desk, a much scribbled-upon item with a photo of Highland cows on it. “He even got mad if I said Hugh Jackman looked hot in some movie poster.”

  “Right. He gave me the evil eye, too, whenever I sat next to you in class.”

  “Really?” Somehow I had never noticed or even considered the way Laurence and Wilson might have interacted.

  “All the time. So naturally that kind of behavior enticed you to look around. See what you were missing. The way Catholic schoolgirls do.”

  “Okay, I was with you until you compared me to those sluts.”

  He grinned. “Comparing you to sluts is my specialty, babe.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” I deserted the counter. “Goodnight, Laurence.”

  “Oh, Eva,” Laurence added, “Shannon wants me to reserve Friday night with you. We’re supposed to go see the play she and the English dude worked on.”

  “Okay. I’ll talk to her.” I shambled up the stairs.

  I brushed my teeth and washed my face in the drafty bathroom, shivering in my pajamas.

  I wanted Gil to admire me, American that I was, but instead he seemed to treat my nationality as a characteristic he was willing to overlook.