We wanted to see the same second-string cities because we liked to spend our time seeing things others might skip over or miss. We were not scared of the road less traveled, but then again, we weren’t too cool to take the path well-worn. Above all, we weren’t afraid to get lost, to be without a plan, to be without the things that everyone else thought they needed. Our lives weren’t something to be slogged across, but marveled through.
Aston paled against the distinct articulation of what Lochlon and I had.
But here I was, out with him on a Saturday night, drinking English lager and talking about my dreams. I lowered my eyelashes thinking about the near-kiss.
“You’re judging me, aren’t you? You think it’s dreadful. Look at you—you can barely stand it,” Aston said with a curious lilt. He looked tickled by my reaction.
“No! I . . .” I wasn’t expecting him to call me out. But then I shrugged. “I guess I am judging you a little.” In the moment of honesty, I let it all out: “It’s just that I don’t really understand people like . . . you.”
When I said that aloud, I heard how outlandish and condescending it sounded. He was his own person; he could do whatever he wanted. He wasn’t my problem. I had Lochlon. And it was easy to love someone who loved the same thing as you.
In the meantime, I tried to be civil. “I guess it is silly for me to judge you. Lots of people don’t travel. I mean, isn’t there some statistic that says most Americans don’t have passports?”
Aston shoved out a bark of laughter at my audacity. “Oh, is that supposed to be a consolation?”
My mind refused to come up with anything better, but I didn’t care anymore.
“I do like skiing in Zermatt, but it’s the skiing I like, not the traveling bit,” Aston added.
The gap between us was obvious now, and I knew there’d be no coming back from it. But that was okay, because on my side, on my team, was Lochlon. The rosy validation of my feelings for him swelled inside me like a deep secret. No one could touch what we had.
34
LEAVING THE CAB, the night air enveloped me, and I suddenly didn’t feel tired even though it was 2 A.M. Aston dug out his wallet and waved me away when I tried to pay. I gave in easily.
“I really had a good time,” I said, looking down at my purse.
“So did I. Really.” Aston took one step closer. I felt as if he was trying to bait my gaze upward. I stayed firm and studied the ground.
He came in closer, moving tacitly and confidently.
I didn’t move away, but I wanted to. Now that he was close, too close, he leaned toward me and bent down a bit, invading my space. But I still didn’t take a step back. He was so close to me that his heated, exhaled breath mingled with mine. I held my breath so it wouldn’t happen again.
Step away, I commanded myself.
He flicked his eyes over my lips.
I clenched my teeth. Oh my God, he’s going to kiss me. Move away, Kika. But there it was; the same desire from earlier in the night cracked through me and surfaced again: I want him to kiss me.
“Aston,” I whispered very softly in protest. Before he leaned in further, I took a step backward—finally. I drew the line and then placed myself determinedly behind it. “I can’t, Aston.”
“Why can’t you?” He protruded his chin toward me without faltering. He wasn’t at all uncomfortable or deterred, but he seemed very aware of the imaginary line I drew. I knew he’d never cross it without my permission.
The night wind breathed between us, inhabiting that physical space that I had just carved out. I fished my fingers into my pockets and took out the shiny keys.
“Is it because I don’t like traveling?”
Despite myself, I produced a bold laugh that pinballed off the ancient houses. I was thankful that he broke the tension.
“No. It isn’t. Although that is distressing,” I admitted. “It’s Lochlon. Sort of, anyway.”
“That one who’s visiting you? He’s your boyfriend, then? I apologize, I didn’t realize.” Aston took another step backward now and put more chilly space between us that the night rushed to occupy.
“No, it’s my fault. I should have said.” I rattled the keys. “It’s just that, truthfully, he’s not my boyfriend. I don’t know what he is, but I have to see. I owe it to him—I owe it to what we had—to see.”
I heard the tinge of regret in my tone, and I tasted my own oily guilt. It wasn’t that I regretted that Lochlon was coming—God, no—I was excited, but I felt disloyal for not making this clear before.
Aston nodded. He kept looking at me unabashedly. He looked distractingly handsome in this lamplight. And it destroyed me to notice it.
“It was good of you to hear me play tonight.” He took his hands out of his pockets.
“It was great. You were—” I started, but I stopped myself. My words were coming off as cheap.
“Good night, then, Kika.” He turned around and climbed his steps.
At the door, he turned. “Go on inside. I couldn’t leave you here on the footpath. It’s quite late to be out here alone.”
I parted my lips to speak, but I stopped when I saw Aston’s face, which seemed to say, “Just don’t.” So I turned and walked to my door, deep matte navy like a passport. I felt him watching me.
He didn’t leave the steps until he saw the light go on in my bedroom window above. I waved to him before pulling the curtains, but he didn’t wave back. I left the curtains half open.
Before getting into bed, I remembered to check my phone. The text from Lochlon from hours ago sat there like a forgotten present: “Was just thinking about you. Wanted to let you know.”
I didn’t respond right away.
“Just one week! X” I eventually texted him back. He didn’t respond, having long been asleep.
35
NORMALLY, ELSBETH ARRANGED for Clive to pick up Mina from school, but I had a surprise for her today.
Gwendy had a karate lesson after school, so I was going to take Mina to All Star Lanes, an American-style bowling alley and burger joint, where we’d have some good, old-fashioned, American fun. I felt a bit homesick myself, and there was nothing like greasy burgers and stinky bowling shoes to make you feel like you were in the good old US of A.
I heaved the front door closed behind me and galloped down the steps. I hastily glanced at Aston’s house, but he wasn’t around—thankfully.
With Lochlon coming this weekend, I hoped that I wouldn’t run into him. I had tucked the memory of the night at the bar in a dusty corner of my mind not often visited. Aware that Aston could appear at any moment, I left the vicinity as fast as I could.
As I approached Harrington Gardens, I could hear the girls twittering like a flock of wild parakeets. They congregated in the garden just opposite the brick school. Is there anything more uplifting than a gaggle of squawking schoolgirls at the end of a long day? I asked myself.
I was early, so I whipped on a pair of sunglasses and leaned against the redbrick garden wall. I scanned the schoolyard garden, recalling the rapturous feeling of being done with school for the day and having the whole afternoon unrolled before me like a magic carpet.
I finally spied Mina in the midst of a crescent of girls. Ah, the little queen bee. But as I watched her a moment longer, I noticed she wasn’t talking. All the other girls were laughing, except her; instead, her head was bowed as if in prayer. Wait a minute. She isn’t the queen bee; she is being teased!
Just as I understood what was happening, Mina stood and walked away from her tormentors with her head held high. But the jeering girls—indistinguishable from one another in their uniforms—followed her, hissing at her back.
I was about to run to her when she looked up and noticed me watching. Even from where I was standing beyond the wall, I could see her face drop. She knew that I saw. And she looked absolutely devastat
ed.
Before I could react, she abruptly about-faced and dashed inside the school. The gaggle of bullies hooted cruelly as she fled.
“Silly American cow,” I heard one of the girls yell at her. My diaphragm tightened with despair, but just as quickly the sensation was swamped over by a surge of wrath.
Without thinking, I found myself swinging my legs over the wall and charging over to the crew of mini mean girls, though Mina was now long gone and out of sight.
“Who did you just call an American cow?” I demanded in my loudest, most obnoxious American accent. I strained my neck out at each of the girls, challenging them to speak. “Do you not get that it’s an offensive thing to yell at people?”
“Oi, we weren’t talking to you, were we now?” ventured one of the girls with a smack of her gum.
The others laughed—but a lot lower and shakier this time.
“Well, that’s the problem with having a big mouth. Everyone hears you.”
The girls stared at me slack-jawed. I bet these rich brats never got disciplined in their whole lives.
“Listen to me, you bitches—actually, you’re not even tall enough to be bitches; you’re like, junior bitches.” I laughed at my own gall. “You may think you’re something cool, bullying other people, but I get what you’re doing. You need to bully people so you’re not the one getting bullied. You talk a big, mean game, but you’re all terrified little girls . . .”
They didn’t speak, but they appeared to be hanging on every word.
“Let me give you a life tip: Don’t treat other people like shit. Because when you treat other people like shit, you get treated like shit in return. Get it?”
No one spoke. The ringleader clicked her gum, but with her mouth closed this time, muffling the cracking. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a teacher approaching us.
Get the hell out of here, I told myself. Still, I took the time to look each of them in the eyes with the most withering anger I could muster.
“Am I making myself clear?”
The teacher neared. “All right, junior bitches. I’m watching you,” I said as I reversed, slung on my sunglasses, and sped out of the schoolyard.
Behind me, I heard the teacher reach the girls. She assaulted them with questions: “Who was that? What did that lady say to you?”
But all they did was mumble in response, “Nothing, miss. Nothing.”
I made a quick left onto Gloucester Road, where I would be hidden from the school, and I settled in at one of the wicker café tables outside Café Forum. And I waited.
36
“SO I GUESS the secret is out.” Mina sunk down into the café chair under the shade of the coffee-colored awning. I had texted her to come meet me whenever she was ready.
“That you go to school with a bunch of bitches?” I placed a hot cocoa in front of her. It was still cold in London, and it was looking like spring would take its sweet time to arrive.
She didn’t touch the cocoa and instead rounded her scarf around her neck.
“No. That I have no friends.” A small tear slid down her face when she finally took a sip of cocoa.
I wanted to hug her and tell her everything would be okay, but I also didn’t want to spook her. She blinked back the tear with bravado and clumsily set the cocoa down, accidentally overturning it on the wobbly table.
“Oh no,” she told the widening spill. Instead of trying to stop it, she started full-on crying.
I grabbed some napkins and alternated between giving one to her and one to the spill.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I intoned as I mopped up the table.
“I know it’s okay,” she barked. But then she sniveled and fixed her school uniform skirt over her knees. “Sorry. Sorry. I can’t believe I’m crying over spilled hot chocolate.” She stared at the sugary confections piled high in the café window behind us.
“Hey, the waste of chocolate is a serious and terrible thing,” I said only half joking, which got a good-mannered smile out of her.
“It’s so stupid.” She sniffed.
“I get it.” I showed her my upturned palms. “Once I cried because I finished a chocolate bar.”
Mina choked out a laugh. “But why?”
“Because I was sad it was done!” I protested, my steadfast assertion making her laugh out loud.
“When you were little?” she asked in disbelief.
I cocked my eyebrow. “It was, like, last week.” Taking advantage of the moment, I switched subjects.
“Listen, Mina. I’m sorry you had to go through that bullshit back there.”
Mina puffed up her cheeks. “They are bitches, aren’t they?”
“Well, junior bitches, but ‘bullies’ would be a better term for them.”
“It’s that Peaches Benson-Westwood! She’s the ringleader. Everyone hates whoever she says to hate.”
“So Peaches isn’t your best friend, then?”
“She’s horrible, but she’s the most popular girl at school. She has three Louis Vuitton bags and a picture of her with Prince Harry in her logbook.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Don’t tell my mom. If she finds out that everyone hates me, she’ll, like, faint or make me join a croquet team or whatever.”
“Ha! She totally would. And she’d join with you.”
“Because that’s the way to make friends,” she added.
I snorted a laugh.
“Promise me you won’t tell her?” she asked with wet eyes. “No matter what?”
“Of course, I won’t,” I assured her.
“So, what did you say to them?” Mina asked in a different tone.
“I called them junior bitches.”
Mina widened her eyeballs. “You didn’t really!”
I shook my head, brushing it off. “They had no idea who I was. Don’t worry.”
“They’ve been teasing me since I started school. I don’t know why—”
“Because they’re insecure. Listen, it’s all kill or be killed at your age. They’re Hunger-Gaming you because if you don’t tease others, you could be teased. They don’t get that if they all stop playing the game, everyone would win.”
I paused to drink my own hot cocoa before gliding it toward Mina like a puck on ice. “Aim for your mouth this time, okay?” I teased.
The frosty wind nipped up the busy street and urged me to raise my jacket collar. It was too cold to be sitting outside, but neither of us minded.
“So what should I do?” But then her face lit up. “If I can get my mom to get me a Louis Vuitton bag, then—”
I cut her off there. “Mina, that’s not going to solve anything. You can’t just get a new designer handbag to fit in.”
She folded her arms. “Maybe I’ll ask my mom.”
“Yeah right, Elsbeth told me she thinks logo monogram bags are gauche as fuck. Obviously omitting the word ‘fuck.’”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure my mom has never said that word in her life,” she added. “Can you just come to school with me and curse them out whenever they start?”
“I honestly would like nothing more. But no, I don’t think I can pass for thirteen . . .” I gave Mina my most youthful smile. “We’ll think of something,” I told her, hopeful that it was the truth.
37
“WELL, WHAT WOULD happen if it were a movie?” I asked as I laced my ice skates in the waning dusk light. Mina and Gwen were ready to get on the ice (thanks to me). They eyed me impatiently, their legs in a wide straddle and hands on their hips in classic cheerleader stances.
“Hmm,” Mina pondered aloud. “I guess if it were a movie, the most popular boy in school would become my boyfriend and then everyone would want to be my friend.”
“That’s a great plan, except you go to an all-girls school,” I reminded her.
&n
bsp; I swung Gwen over the partition, and she went flying onto the ice with little more than a “Whee!” The tiny nugget was fearless.
Notes of carnival music flurried around us. It was a bright, frosty evening, and we were at the ice skating rink in front of the Natural History Museum, which glowed violet and gold behind us. We were trying to come up with ideas to solve what we were calling “The Peaches Predicament.”
I explained the situation to Gwen, because although I thought it was amazing that she adored her older sister, I wanted her to know that Mina’s life wasn’t perfect, either, and that even she could have trouble making friends.
“I’ll punch Peaches in the baby-maker!” Gwen said, scissoring the air with sturdy karate chops.
“You most certainly will not!” I retorted while doing my best to hold in my laughter. While Gwendy went off to teach herself double axels, Mina and I tried to find a real solution. (Although punching bitches in the baby-maker was by far our best option at the moment.)
“Isn’t Aston’s grandmother the headmistress of the school? I could talk to her privately, or you could talk to a teacher. Is that out of the question?”
Mina skated away from me, which answered that question. “I don’t want to give Peaches an actual reason to hate me, Kika,” she said when I caught up to her.
I tugged on my gloves; my hands were slapped red by the cold wind. Children squealed, and hundreds of fairy lights glittered around us. I tried not to get distracted by all the mirth—we had problems to solve.
I thought back to instances in my own life when I was bullied or teased. Isn’t being thirteen shitty for every girl? But then I thought of my mom—the best person I knew—and I asked myself what she would do.
Well, that was easy: She’d kill them with kindness. We had these nasty older neighbors who she won over by plying them with homemade juices and teaching them stretches made to relieve arthritis.
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