Kaitlyn and the Highlander

by Diana Knightley

I pointed to the middle shelf. “There's a Scottish ale here.”

  His eyes widened as he read the labels. He lifted three six packs, four liters, and a growler into the cart. “We just carry this all away with us?”

  “After we pay for it. Wait, did the bank give you a way to pay for things?”

  He swept his cloak aside, revealing a fur pouch hanging just below his waist. He opened it and pulled out a credit card, bright green, plastic. “I hae entrusted the bank with an entire fortune and in exchange they hae given me the use of this small green tile.”

  I grinned. “That's as good as money and better than carrying the gold around, I promise. I'll show you how it works.”

  I let him push because the cart was piled very high. Plus, I thought he needed something to do besides gawking at everything. Other customers made way for us as I led him to the register.

  The cashier said, “Katie? Katie Sheffield?”

  “Yep, that's me.”

  She scanned some ice cream. “I was ahead of you in school. When did you graduate?” I told her and she said, “I was three classes ahead of you.”

  “Oh, sure. I think I remember you.”

  She stopped scanning, her hand resting on the toilet paper. “I'm Sandy Adams, remember?”

  “Oh yeah, of course,” I lied.

  “That super sucks what happened to you. We were all so proud of our Katie making it big time in Los Angeles and then — that was crazy. My friend Stella, remember her, Stella Winger?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well she thinks you deserved losing everything, but I said, no way, that guy was a total asshole, oops, sorry. He deserved what you did to him. He posted a video today, did you know he still has marks on his face? Anyway, are you living here now?”

  Her eyes darted up to Magnus.

  I sighed, “I'm staying here for a bit, that's all.” I found myself looking around for an escape route, but sadly I couldn't leave Magnus here with a pile of food and a plastic tile he didn't know how to use. She finished scanning our food and then I slid his card through the machine and asked him for his PIN number.

  He answered, “One. Seven. Nocht. Two.”

  “Nocht means zero right?”

  We hefted the sacks of food into the trunk of my car. My mood had grown sour; the conversation with the cashier embarrassed me, and I hated that Magnus heard it.

  Why though? Why was I here, doing this. Sympathy? Charity? Because he was wearing a freaking skirt?

  I figured it was because he was the one guy in the whole universe who didn't know about my YouTube fiasco, but now, guess what? He knew.

  We lugged groceries up to the kitchen and Magnus made another trip to the car, while I turned on the refrigerator and loaded food onto the shelves. I had almost forgotten how much I loved this kind of thing, unpacking into an empty house. When I unpacked into my dorm room, it had been so exciting, my first time away from my parents. When I unloaded boxes of my things and Braden's things into our Los Angeles apartment, we were embarking on a life together. After the stress of a move it was fun to open boxes, unpack, and decide where to put everything, creating order out of chaos. Maybe this was a good life-calling for me, unpacking boxes — what would that career be, a mover?

  I found dishes, salt and pepper, and spread our meal on the kitchen island.

  “A cold wind is blowin' through.” He watched a plume of air blowing from a vent.

  “I turned your AC on before I left.”

  “Och, ye are Mistress Kaitlyn of the North Winds. I will invite ye here every day tae cool my castle.” We pulled legs off the roasted chicken and ate with our fingers. He ate as if he was starved, and followed each bite with big thirsty gulps of beer. His smile was warm and inviting.

  “So how did the American grocery store and food compare to your stores at home?”

  “The stores here lack much in the way of dirt and grime. A loaf of bread such as this would hae required a thorough dusting, perhaps a washing. And I dinna need tae argue for the price either. Just last week I had tae haggle with Auld Woman McGeene, she was fitful and ornery as a bear. Had a beard like one too.” I giggled as he licked chicken grease off his thumb with a content grin. “After this meal I might become more my former self.”

  “Might?”

  “Aye, my temples ache from the brightness of this eternal flame.”

  “Oh.” I glanced around the bottom floor of his house. It had soaring ceilings, giant windows, and though darkening now, with shadow and sunset, had been bright as the surface of the sun and almost as hot when I had walked in earlier that day. Now, this evening, I had turned on every overhead light I could find and pushed the dimmers all the way up. It was very bright.

  “Here, let me show you.” I led him to the light switches on the kitchen wall and showed him which dimmer worked for which lights. I turned them all down except for the under-cabinet lights. It was much nicer. Then I led him to the wall of windows looking over the beach. There, beside the sliding glass doors, was a control box. “Not sure how this works actually, but we'll push buttons until we figure it out.”

  I tried a few combinations until the windows tinted dark. Then I found another combination that caused screens to slide down.

  Magnus watched as the wall of windows darkened. Quietly he said, “Pray, shew me the buttons again, Mistress Kaitlyn.”

  I did the combination again. The screen slid up. I did it a third time, and the screen went down. He watched carefully each time. “This was past my understandin'.”

  I said, “No worries, Magnus. You try it.”

  He pushed the buttons, the screen slid up, and then back down. This time though he didn't watch it slide. Instead he stared at the box. His brow drawn. He shook his head. “You must think me as dim-witted as a bairn.”

  “A bairn?”

  “A child.”

  “Ah. You know, if you need to know something, just ask. I'll tell you. Without judgement. I love to show people how to do things. I'm quite bossy actually, and it's kind of what my job was before.”

  “What do ye mean, your job?” We returned to the kitchen island.

  “I used to make videos where I explained how to do things.” I glanced around the kitchen, took a big swill of heather ale, and assembled a few things for a demonstration. There was a microwave hidden within a cupboard. A cutting board in a drawer. I had bought a four pack of ivory soap bars.

  I arranged them on the counter, and paused first, like I was filming. “Hi, This is KatieMakeSTuff and today I'm going to teach you how to make an erupting lava magical soap cloud...” I grinned widely, held up the bar of soap, and slowly and enthusiastically peeled the paper off. “For this magic, Ivory soap is the only soap that works. I don't know why — I should probably research that, but trust me.” I held the soap up right by my eyes and did my trademark 'cute' grin. Then I placed the soap on a paper plate in the middle of the spinner, closed the microwave door with a slam, and set the power on high for two minutes. “Now watch the magic happen.” Magnus came beside me as the soap spun, bubbled, and then burst up in a puffing cloud. “Awesome, huh?”

  He peered through the window. “Tis extraordinary.”

  When the soap finished erupting, I pushed the cancel button and pulled out the plate. Magnus poked the cloud of soap. “What other magic can this box do?”

  “It heats up food.” I tossed a piece of bread in, warmed it for a few seconds, and gave it to him to eat. “Anyway, that's the gist of my videos — showing how to do things.”

  “I hae something — tis indelicate, but most imperative.”

  “Yes?”

  “Where does one relieve themselves here in the New World?”

  “Magnus, did you not have running water in your castle in Scotland?”

  He laughed. “You answered a question with another question. In a situation that requires action ye may wish tae speak more swiftly than this.”

  I jumped from my seat. “Follow me.” The bathroom closest to the
kitchen was, as my mom would have said, too tiny by half, so I rushed him through the downstairs master bedroom to the gigantic full bathroom beyond. He appraised the room as if he'd never seen it before.

  “Have you never been in here — wait, no more questions, here's how it works. This is the toilet. You relieve yourself here, standing, like this.” I mimicked how he would stand there, even pretending to hike a skirt, because I was feeling silly as hell, plus, pretty buzzed.

  He thought it was funny, so that was good.

  “Then you flush here.” I pushed the handle down. He watched dutifully.

  “If you need to do something more, or if you're a woman, like me, you sit like this. You flush the same though. Then you wash your hands here. And, oh wait, here's toilet paper.” I wound a bit and mimed wiping with it. I had heard that some Europeans used bidets so I felt safe assuming it was foreign to him.

  I really needed to look up Scotland and figure out why I knew nothing about how backwards it was. I had been living in LA for a while though; it was easy to forget every place on earth wasn't as cosmopolitan. Plus, I was on a self-imposed 'break' from looking things up. Whenever I went online something reminded me of that day with Braden when my whole world went to hell.

  “You put it in the toilet, flush it, and then wash your hands.”

  I paused for a second appraising the room and enjoying how awesome my explanation had been and how thorough.

  He asked, “I am expected tae do this with company?”

  “Oh no! Close the door, lock it for privacy. Here, on the handle.” I showed him the handle lock and scooted out.

  I was seated at the kitchen island, giggling, when he emerged a few minutes later because I had heard the toilet flush six times. I joked, “Everything turn out okay?”

  He chuckled.

  “Have you been holding it for four days Magnus?”

  “No, I haena the stamina, but we winna discuss the how or where of my earlier necessities.”

  I giggled again. “Sounds good. I will ask no questions, except — inside or out?”

  “Out.”

  “Well, it can't be helped. If anyone asks, tell them teenagers did it before you arrived. You'd be surprised how much trouble people will ignore if you say 'teenagers' with just the right amount of incredulousness.”

  “Teenagers?”

  “People aged thirteen to nineteen.”

  “Ah. Notorious troublemakers, but excellent fighters. They daena fear death. My cousin is aichteen, I am verra worried about him, that I am nae in London tae see tae him. How old are ye, Mistress Kaitlyn?”

  “I'm twenty-three.”

  “And you belong tae the man I met the other night?”

  I coughed out a spray of beer. “What? Who, James? Oh my god, belong? Magnus, I don't know how it works in the hinterlands of Scotland, but here in America women don't belong to men, we're equals.”

  He raised his brow with a chuckle. “I only meant are ye married tae him?”

  “God no.” I sighed. “No, just — I don't know… We used to date. We were very serious at one time, but no, not married. Can we put this on a list of things I don't feel like talking about? Let's change the subject.”

  Magnus nodded and swigged from a beer. “Pray tell me more about your job.”

  “Let's see, well, my videos would get millions of views. My most popular video was...” For a half-second I thought, to be truthful, my most popular video was when I leapt across the table full of sample wedding cake slices. They smeared all over my dress, but I didn't care, I was too busy aiming my fingernails at my fiancé's face. Instead, I told Magnus about my second most popular video. “I devised three questions to ask on a first date that will tell you all you need to know about someone. People loved that video. A lot of my viewers told me it helped them. So that was great.” I swigged some more ale and sighed. “You know, I don't really want to talk about it?”

  “Aye, Mistress Kaitlyn, your list of unwanted conversations is quite long.”

  “It is, embarrassingly long.” My phone interrupted us with a series of notifications, one after another, snapchats from Hayley and James.

  * * *

  Hayley's said: Are you coming?

  And: When will you get here?

  * * *

  Then: You promised!

  And: Where are you?

  * * *

  Until finally: Okay if you don't answer, I'm calling your mom. I'll tell her I saw you in a crop-top hanging out at Main Beach partying with some really wild Georgia boys and you'll be grounded for a week like the good old days.

  * * *

  James's said: Can't wait to see you tonight.

  * * *

  They were all at the Turtle already, Monday night drinking, their weekly meet-up. I had told them I would come and now it was 8:30 already.

  * * *

  I answered back: Something came up. Can't make it tonight. I'll see you later in the week?

  * * *

  James sent back: Friday night? I'd like to take you out to dinner. A date?

  * * *

  I glanced quickly at Magnus but there was no reason to feel weird. This was just a sympathy bedside visit while “someone's mom was sick” kind of thing. Not a date, of course. Whatever.

  * * *

  I answered back: I'd like that.

  * * *

  To Hayley, I sent a selfie, cross-eyed, tongue out, that said: Can't come, feeling too peculiar. Will call tomorrow.

  * * *

  When I glanced up Magnus was watching me closely his eyes squinted, confused again.

  I explained, “My friend Hayley is asking if I will come to the Turtle tonight. It's like a pub. I was telling her I couldn't come, the photo was to be funny.”

  “Och aye.” He chuckled. “It looked as if ye had gone like Auld Man McGeene. He is afflicted with one eye that rolls away, so his mind goes runnin' in search of it. Tis nae easy tae converse with him.”

  I giggled.

  Magnus said, “I like having ye here. I daena like being alone in this house. But you hae somewhere tae be, so I winna keep ye.”

  I blushed a bit. “It's not that important. Plus I've probably had too much to drink to be driving downtown anyway…” I changed the subject. “You aren't the biggest fan of this house?”

  “The biggest fan?”

  “You don't like it?”

  “Ah.” He looked up and around at the overly tall flat walls, the endless windows, the faraway ceilings, and back at me. “This house hae improved ten-fold since ye arrived. One hundred-fold since ye spread the table with food. Verra much more since ye taught me where tae relieve myself.”

  We both laughed, but his meaning was plain: this house didn't suit him at all. “I feel partly responsible for your situation with this house, because it was my mom who leased it to you. How about we make a list of what you need to make it livable?” I fished in a drawer for the pad I knew would be there — a notepad with a photo of my mom above her motto, “Buying and selling dreams!” I found a pen at the bottom of my purse. A bank pen. From Dad. I looked expectantly at Magnus. “What's wrong with this house?”

  “Hot as demon's breath with nae fire tae dampen.”

  I wrote too hot and placed a checkmark beside it. I liked to list things and check them off. It made me feel successful. “Too hot, we fixed that with the AC setting. Next.”

  “I had pain in my head because of the blaring lights.”

  “Too bright. Got it. Now you know how to close the screens and dim the lights.” I checked that off too.

  “I was most desperately starv'd.”

  “Check.” I grinned and gestured at the counter covered with deli food trash and empty beer bottles.

  He said, “Mistress Kaitlyn, ye hae saved my life.”

  “You sir, are over-dramatic.”

  He chuckled, low and rumbling. “Well, I need nocht else, but Lady Mairead will need someone tae help her dress.”

  My pen stopped in midair. “
To dress? Is she an invalid?”

  “She is used tae many comforts. Dressing is but one of them and I canna be the one.”

  I blinked. “Well, you probably need a staff, I mean, you have the money. Lady Mairead is used to having someone take care of her. Do either of you know how to cook?”

  “Nae need. I will ride tae the food stores each day.”

  “Ugh. I mean this is great mac and cheese, but I promise you won't be able to eat it for four days before you're sick and tired of it. It's the same as McDonalds, can't eat it every day. You'll need a personal chef. Also a maid. Do you clean house?”

  “Nae. I daena care for it.”

  “Exactly. So if you could hire a staff to give Lady Mairead the comforts she's used to, how many people would you need?”

  He listed on his fingers. “Cook, laundry, clean, tae market, dressing. I will need a man tae be in charge of the stables. Also, weapons. Would I be able tae find some men tae protect the walls?”

  “Security you mean? And hold on, a stable?”

  “For my horses. And security, tae protect Lady Mairead.”

  I dropped the pen. “Is she in danger? Who is she in danger from, her husband?”

  His brow furrowed. “I dinna mean tae worry ye. Twill take time for Lord Delapointe tae find us, but tis my duty tae protect her. I will need men day and night.”

  I added that to the bottom of the list and circled it. “But I'm safe here, right?”

  His hand rested on the handle of a long knife he wore at his hip. “Aye,” he met my eyes and held them. “Nocht will happen tae ye.”

  I looked away to count down the list. He would need at least five people, maybe more.

  “Hayley runs her family's temp agency. I'll call her and ask if she has any people.” I pulled up my phone and called Hayley right then.

  She answered, “Hey girl! You should come, I'm doing shots!”

  “What kind?”