Emerson came to where she was standing by the window—looking out at the River Thames, which snaked through the city of London and just happened to pass by them. How different was this sight, really, from her view of the mighty Mississippi back home? Their towns were different sizes, sure, and the histories of the cities they became were far from similar. But the people weren’t so different. They all needed to interact with their environment and each other. They all needed to find meaningful work. They all needed to deal with challenging relatives (even well-meaning ones). And they all needed to learn the skill of knowing themselves well enough to make their own best choices.
“Do you like the view?” he asked.
“It’s pretty,” she said. “But we’ve seen a lot of lovely views. They’re all beginning to run together for me now. My memories of our adventure. I’m not so sure anymore what will stay a real solid memory and what’s just a blurry snapshot that I never looked at closely enough. Half the trip could have been an illusion of things I thought I saw.” Or of emotions I thought I felt, she added to herself.
Emerson put his arms around her, warming her shoulders. “Look outside. It’s hard to see the stars here with all the lights of the city, but nature has a way of finding us, even here.” He pointed at some indistinct portion of the night sky. “I know the stars are there and the galaxies exist, even when I can’t see them. My senses don’t have to keep proving to me that they’re real.” He let go of her and pulled out his cell phone. “I keep this certain quote on my mobile. Just a moment, and I’ll find it.”
“What? You don’t have it memorized?” she said, unable to hide the tinge of snarkiness.
He stuck his tongue out at her like a four-year-old. “It’s too long. But it’s from my namesake, and it addresses your question. Because, really, what difference would it make? Do you need to count everything, see everything, substantiate everything in order to believe it all exists? Isn’t the perception of its existence enough for it to matter?”
Gwen thought about this. Was it enough to have had the illusion of being on an amazing, wonderful trip where she was kind of falling in love with someone—even if the relationship didn’t hold up to the reality of everyday normal life when she got back home?
She’d never had the experience before, so she couldn’t be sure. Emerson, however, quoted from the original Emerson and, apparently, shared his outlook. “Listen to this, Gwen. ‘What difference does it make, whether Orion is up there in heaven, or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul? ... what is the difference, whether land and sea interact, and worlds revolve and intermingle without number or end ... or, whether, without relations of time and space, the same appearances are inscribed in the constant faith of man? Whether nature enjoy a substantial existence without, or is only in the apocalypse of the mind, it is alike useful and alike venerable to me.’ See? It’s irrelevant. Ralph Waldo says so,” he said, a tad too cocky, in her opinion.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s fine and good for ‘nature,’ but what about people? What about relationships?”
He grinned. “Why is it that you always think nature and people don’t operate under the same principles? It’s connected. We’re connected. To the air molecules that vibrate around us. To the tiny particles we exchange without even touching. To our bodies in gravitational relation to our spinning, pulsating planet. Gwen, what’s true for nature is, likewise, true for humankind.”
“As it is in physics—” she began.
“Yes!” he said.
“—it is in life,” she finished.
“Yes, it is.” He shot her a triumphant look. “Now that we’ve finally got that settled, shall we walk some more?” He motioned toward the door. “We can stroll though Covent Garden. I can show you a few spots. If you’re hungry, we can have a bite first and then go out. Or stay in and watch a few naughty British comedies.” He grinned. “If you’re tired—I know you have a long flight tomorrow afternoon—we could take a taxi back to your hotel and I could brave your aunt’s displeasure at not keeping you out all night.”
“Yes, you’ve neglected to take me to Scotland.”
“She is going to be very discontented at the news,” he said with mock seriousness. “But I believe we’re strong enough to weather her wrath.”
Gwen laughed. And because she had a choice, because she really understood the many possible choices available to her in that moment, she weighed each option and—independently—se-lected the one she most wanted.
“I wouldn’t mind walking around and seeing more of this part of London,” she told him. “But I could save that for my next trip to Europe. I can be patient, too. I’m not done sightseeing here. Not by a long shot.” She ran her tongue over her lips, which were inexplicably parched. “We have curries to feed each other. Some British TV to watch. Other things I think we could do ...” she said, her pause laden with meaning. “So, if you don’t have any objection, Emerson, I’d rather stay here. With you. Tonight.”
Emerson wet his lips, too, and said, “Oh, love, I have no objection whatsoever.”
As they embraced each other and their no-longer-dry lips met, Gwen’s heart soared as if in midair. She decided that she didn’t know or care whether this was reality or perception. All of her senses were engaged. She saw the swirl of the Milky Way around them. Tasted the delectable sweetness of creamy gelato. Smelled the fragrant zest of sauce-drenched linguini. Felt the supple smoothness of a silk scarf. And heard the music to her favorite songs—one in particular.
Love did change everything ... and nothing in her world would ever be the same.
13
Got the World on a String
Wednesday, August 1
Sometime in that netherworld between sleep and awareness—sometime before her flight back home and after she and Emerson made love for the first time—Gwen awoke in London to a new day, a new month, a new chapter in her life.
She glanced at Emerson’s face, still sleeping next to her on this August 1 morning, and she saw the man he was right now.
But time was fluid.
She could imagine the boy he had been just as easily. Imagine the years melting away until his sleeping face matched those six-year-old handprints she’d seen at his mother’s house in Surrey. Time had been slipping around on her, more so in Europe than it ever had at home, tricking her into disturbingly vivid visualizations. She had no sooner blinked away the mental imprint of Emerson as a child, when his features rearranged themselves into that of an elderly man. It was as if she could view the full spectrum of his life floating across his face, from childhood to old age, just by watching him in slumber.
She slid out of bed, tiptoed over to the window and peered out at a city where people had lived and dreamed and perished for centuries. And also loved. She fingered her mother’s earrings then glanced back at Emerson.
Humans were temporal. They aged and, eventually, died. And while she could have dwelled on her tendency to morbidly fixate on this quality, she chose instead, in that moment, to let it go ... To let it rise like the sun. A dancing veil of light being lifted off the water.
Lifted, so as to see all the world more clearly.
And with the film gone from her eyes, she could better appreciate the hazy delights of the night that came before.
Her day of departure would surely be filled with endless possibilities, alternatives and opportunities to make decisions. So, with the glow of the London sunrise behind her, she looked to the West and made her first choice of the day. Gwendolyn Reese, with a song on her lips, tiptoed back into bed with Emerson. Who was now awake—and waiting for her.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
A SUMMER IN EUROPE
Marilyn Brant
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included to
enhance your group’s reading of Marilyn Brant’s
A Summer in Europe.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Who is Gwendolyn Reese? What is her pe
rsonality like and how has it been shaped by her early experiences?
2. Who are the people inhabiting Gwen’s world at home? What are their roles in her life? When she travels to Europe, she enters a new world filled with new people and situations. How does she handle the change? How would you handle it if you were in her position?
3. The first line of the book says, “The thing no one understood about Gwendolyn Reese was that she was three ages at once: thirty chronologically, forty-five intellectually and fifteen experientially.” Do you believe a person can be at one age chronologically but also have different intellectual, emotional, social, etc. ages? What about you? Are you one age ... or multiple ages?
4. A number of strategy games are referenced in the novel—which games do you most like to play, and have you ever applied the rules of your favorite one(s) to a social situation?
5. In 1908, E. M. Forster wrote the novel A Room with a View. Are you familiar with it? If so, do you notice any parallels between Forster’s novel and A Summer in Europe?
6. The author has created a musical soundtrack for this novel by mentioning several songs throughout and focusing largely on stage musicals, particularly those of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Are you a fan of musical theater? Are you familiar with the songs referenced in the story?
7. In A Room with a View, E. M. Forster wrote, “The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected.” What does this quote mean to you?
8. Have you traveled to countries other than the one you grew up in? What have your experiences been? Have you visited any of the sites and cities mentioned in the novel? If so, what were your impressions of them?
9. Are you familiar with Albert Einstein’s attempts at finding a “theory of everything” or the physics doctrines mentioned in the book, like string theory or Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle?
10. What is the relationship like between the Edwards brothers, Emerson and Thoreau? How has their mother’s behavior influenced them? Do your family dynamics ever resemble that of a soap-opera clan?
11. What did Gwen need to learn about herself in order to understand the people on the tour better—particularly Cynthia, Louisa, Hans-Josef, the Edwards brothers and Aunt Bea? Her personal reawakening begins in Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance. Coincidental or not? Discuss.
12. What are your thoughts about the love triangle at play between Gwen, Richard and Emerson? Is there a love triangle (from the literary, music or film world) that calls to you? Have you ever been a part of a romantic love triangle? If so, who did you choose?
13. Zenia asks Gwen and then Gwen, in turn, asks Richard, “What is your art?” As an individual, how would you answer this question?
Please turn the page
for an extra feature
from author Marilyn Brant... .
Learning to Play Mah-jongg at the Steak-n-Shake
Author Marilyn Brant and friends get their first lesson in the game.
A couple of years back, I got this idea for a story that had a Sudoku and Mah-jongg Club in it. But, while I had a working knowledge of the former game—and several half-completed workbooks at home—I didn’t know the first thing about the latter. So, I did what most writers do when they’re stumped: I turned on my computer and started surfing.
I found pictures of the mah-jongg tiles online (so pretty!) and hoped I’d soon come to understand how they were used. But, no matter how many websites I looked at, I seemed to come across only convoluted explanations of the rules, which had me squinting at the screen, perplexed. And I couldn’t determine the correct usage for the odd accessory items necessary for the game (annual cards?), which looked a whole lot like objects I’d find in an advanced calculus class—interesting but incomprehensible.
I spent the majority of a workday puzzling over this and, honestly, I hadn’t been so confused by a set of instructions since the one time I tried to write an undercover spy novel with a drug-dealing antagonist. I spent several days attempting to make sense of the step-by-step directions on “expert joint rolling” and “growing weed in the basement” (seriously, the Internet has everything), but I found the pages so unintelligible that I just gave up working on the project. I wasn’t about to give up working on this new book, though.
So, I did the next thing writers do when they’re stumped: I whined to my friends via e-mail.
“Do any of you have ANY idea how to play mah-jongg?” I typed. “I don’t get it at all.”
My good friend Simone Elkeles, a New York Times bestselling author of young adult fiction, called with an immediate reply to my plea. “Don’t worry, Marilyn,” she said in a deceptively calm tone, which was why I believed her. “I was in a mah-jongg league for years. I’ll show you how it works.”
And that was how it came to pass that, after one of our Chicago-North RWA meetings in 2010, Simone and I were sitting around a table at the local Steak-n-Shake, at 10:30 p.m., setting up the game with our fellow writing friends Karen Dale Harris, Erika Danou and Pamala Knight.
The waitress looked at us suspiciously. “Um, do you ladies want anything to eat?”
“We’re learning to play mah-jongg tonight,” I piped up enthusiastically.
The waitress gave me a tight-lipped smile and crossed her arms.
“And, uh, yeah ...” I scanned the menu. “I’ll have a burger. With cheese fries.”
Karen opted for a patty melt. Erika and Pamala went the burger route. Simone, who’d been fighting a bad cold and found out later she was also running a fever, wanted only something cool to drink. “And napkins,” she added, sniffling. “I’m out of Kleenex.”
Simone asked me if I’d learned anything more about the game in the week since we’d spoken on the phone.
“Just the stuff my husband told me,” I said. “But, you know, he’s a world history teacher, so his focus is kind of different... .”
I didn’t need to explain to a table full of writers how this might be a problem. While my husband’s fondness for Asian art and Chinese history was apparent by his eager responses to my questions, his resulting lecture on the pieces and the background of mah-jongg wasn’t the particular angle I was looking to find. I needed to learn how to play mah-jongg as an author. I didn’t need to be an expert. (And I suspected from the beginning it would be futile for me to attempt it, anyway.) I didn’t have to be able to recite anything about the history of the game or even know the rules beyond the most rudimentary. No. But I was in desperate search of something very particular: metaphors.
“Basically, what I need most is to know what things mean in the universe of the game,” I told my friends, “and how they can be applied to the wider world. So I can connect mah-jongg to life.”
“No problem,” Simone assured me. “It’s easy to play.”
Well, after two hours at the Steak-n-Shake, with 144 tiles, mah-jongg cards with tiny print and these little colored disks (for betting?) that I didn’t even know existed beforehand, I’m here to tell you it is not easy.
Simone passed out a rack to each of us first. In her boxed set, they were long, plastic thingies that reminded me of the ones used in Scrabble to hold those tiles. The sheer familiarity of them lulled me into a false feeling of recognition. So far, so good, I thought.
But then she started pulling out the tiles themselves. And she began grouping them. And naming them. And did I mention there were 144 of them? Yeah. That’s right. A lot. There were winds, bams and cracks. There were dots, flowers, jokers, cardinal directions. . . and dragons.
“Are there lions, tigers and bears, too?” I murmured, my head swimming with names I was trying to assimilate.
Simone ignored my remark.
Karen and I exchanged baffled glances, and I ate a few cheese fries in hopes that this would help my memory. It didn’t.
“Maybe it’s kind of like dominoes,” Pamala suggested hopefully.
I liked that idea, but, with the little I’d gleane
d about the game online, I didn’t think it was remotely that straightforward.
“Okay,” Simone told us, after running through the names of the various suits again. “Now that you know what all the tiles are, I’m going to test you.”
“Test us?” Erika said, appearing inexplicably delighted. “Oh, good.”
Oh, good?
I stared at her as Pamala and Karen laughed.
“It’s okay, Marilyn,” Pamala whispered. “We can work on it together.”
I nodded, grateful, but shot a panicked look around the table when Simone got up for a moment to throw away some crumpled napkins. “Do you guys remember any of these?” I hissed, pointing to the tiles.
Erika smiled modestly. I wanted to fling a cheese fry at her.
Pamala looked pensive—less certain than Erika, perhaps, but far more confident than me.
Karen shrugged. “Not all of them,” she admitted. “But I think once we see them in action, they’ll be easier to remember.” I had my fingers crossed that she was right.
“I hope you’ve been paying attention,” Simone said upon her return, “because we’re going to play a game. First thing we need to do is to smoosh the tiles.”
“Do you mean smush?” I asked.
“No. Smoosh,” Simone said.
This step was surprisingly easy and just involved flipping over the tiles so we could no longer see any of the suits, and then mixing them all up with big, swirly motions in the middle of our table. This made a lot of noise, however, and earned us a rather alarmed look from our waitress.
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