Love from London (12 page)

“For you, Miss,” he says and sticks out a shaky hand with a note. I swear the man is so crinkly and sweet I could cry. He’s been part of the school since it started as a place for the wealthy and titled to send their kids who couldn’t quite hack it in the traditional boarding school circuit or who had exceptional promise for the stage — I guess not much has changed on that front.

“Thank you,” I say and fight the urge to hug him like a grandpa. He looks at me and waits for a minute which makes me wonder if I’m supposed to tip him or something. I’ve never actually seen him outside of the mailroom, which is this tiny box with floor to ceiling files and air that smells like burnt wax and leather shoes.

He looks at me for one second longer and says, “I’m sorry.”

I look at the note and realize it’s actually two taped together. The Master writes down everything word for word that the person says to him on the phone.

Message for Miss Love Bukowski received via telephone at six fourteen in the evening:

Please could you tell her Shalimar de Montesse regrets to say the photo shoot has been postponed due to flooding in the ballroom. We’re rescheduled for Bank Holiday weekend and can’t wait to see her then. Ciao!

Fine — disappointing, yes, but not tragic — plus, Bank Holidays are long weekends here which means I’ll have even longer to enjoy the luxuries of Bracker’s.

The next note is altogether different:

Message received via answerphone at seven oh one in the evening:

Please have Love call home when she gets this message, this is very important but if you could use your discretion in telling her. I don’t want her to worry or to interrupt her classes but her aunt is gravely ill and will require surgery. But just don’t tell her that, if you could just say that she should call home I will do the rest. Thank you.

I don’t even bother to lock my door or get my coat. I just run to the phone corridor where thankfully there’s an empty one. I pick up the massive avocado green receiver and get the international operator who finally connects me to my dad’s office at school. The whole process from message to now feels like an hour.

“Dad? Oh my god, tell me what’s going on? I need to come home. Tell me.”

“Love, slow down,” my dad says. Just hearing his voice is reassuring and comforting. I start to cry and a couple of passersby nod at me. It’s a common sight around here to see the dramatics of the pay phones — boyfriend groveling for cheating, some dancer crying to her mother, students speaking foreign languages while the tears stream down their cheeks — we’re a very emotional group I guess.

“Please tell me what’s happening — the message sounded horrible,” I say.

“Did he just repeat verbatim what I said?” I can almost see my dad shaking his head. “I never should have done that. I should’ve just told him to tell you to call home. Oh, well.” Dad sighs. “Anyway, first thing’s first — you’re not coming home.”

“But Dad,” I say and cry harder.

“Mable’s okay — I’ll be honest with you — that’s what you want, right? She was responding quite well to the treatments, but the doctor is conservative and just feels that it would be prudent at this juncture…”

“Dad — quit it with babble — just say it.”

“She’s having a mastectomy on Tuesday first thing in the morning. They expect a full recovery and that this will really head her in the right direction.”

I take a deep breath and think of Mable. I think of driving with her, singing cheesy songs and sharing sweet potato fries at Bartley’s Burgers in Harvard Square, how she held my hand when I broke my leg at age seven sliding into home plate, how she picked me up when I was drunk last year and spoke to me without lecturing. I picture her wide smile and the ringlets of hair she no longer has, the way the sunlight used to bring out the gold hues, the strawberry blond on the top.

“I miss her,” I say. “I want to see her.”

“I know you do, Sweetie,” Dad says. I can hear him clicking, unclicking, and then reclicking his pen, one of his habits. “That’s why we’re planning a visit to see you when Mable’s in the clear.”

“Really? That would be so great,” I whine. “I am so whiny right now, sorry. I just feel like I need you and Mable and there’s no one here for me to even talk to about this and…” Dad laughs a tiny bit. “It’s not funny, Dad. This is huge —”

“I’m sorry, Love, I’m not laughing at you or the gravity of the situation, but you know Mable — she’s determined and upbeat and trying really hard to be positive, so she needs us to do the same.”

“I know. I will. Or, I’ll try to, anyway. But I still wish I had someone to talk to — Arabella’s away all weekend.”

“That’s a shame,” Dad says but sounds like he doesn’t get how alone I’ll be. “I did send a package over to you, though, so you should check and see if it got there.”

I shake my head even though he can’t see it and bite the skin on the side of my thumb where it’s flaking off. “I doubt it did — mail takes forever and I just got my messages, so it’s unlikely…”

In the background, I can hear my dad’s secretary paging him. “One minute,” he says to her and then to me he says, “Just do me a favor and check for it. At the front the front gates?”

“Mail doesn’t even get delivered there, Dad, you don’t know the way this place works — it’s just a step above horseback —

“Just do it, okay?” Dad says. “I love you — Mable’s expecting to have a call from you in her hospital room on Sunday, she’s lying low until then, but call her at noon our time.”

“Your time, you mean?”

“My time,” Dad clarifies and the words highlight that we’re miles and miles apart, time zones away.

“I love you.” I hang up and wipe the drying tears off my face and realize how cold I am. Central heating is still touch and go here, and the doors are always open to the outside, so the hallways are glacial. I’m about to head to the warmth of my room when I remember my dad’s package. So — to humor him — I head outside to the front gates. I can tell far from away that there’s nothing waiting for me, no cardboard care package, no poster tube filled with a print to hang in my dismal room. In the lamplight, there’s just the shadow of a lump.

Upon closer inspection, I find that it’s a canvas bag. Just as I’m about to investigate it further, I am scared shitless by a voice, “Don’t even think about touching that piece of luggage until you hug me.”

With a jolt I remember my self-defense class in gym sophomore year; go for the eyes, kick the groin, scream, run like hell. I’m about to take off when I focus harder and see that the face in the foggy night looks familiar, the curve of the chin, the slightly femmy stance.

“Chris? What the…What’re you doing here?” I ask.

He laughs then emerges from the shadows and hugs me. “I’m your package!”

We laugh. “You’re my package?”

“Not that kind — the care package kind.” We’re still hugging and Chris talks into my hair on the top of my head. “Your dad knew you’d be really upset, and I was planning on surprising you at some point anyway and he couldn’t come over, so we just…”

“Collaborated? Thank you, thank you.” I relax into his familiar hug and just when I think I’m about to cry about Mable and all my fears, I don’t. “I’m so psyched you’re here! Come see my room — but don’t Queer Eye me, okay?”

“I’m not making any promises I can’t keep,” he says.

Back in my hovel, Chris and I have rearranged my bed, hung two flat sheets up in the windows for curtains, stuffed my laundry piles in my miniscule closet and the room still looks like hell.

“I have some bad news for you,” Chris says.

For a second it doesn’t seem like he’s joking and I get that zing of panic. “Not more bad news — I can’t take it.”

“This place is beyond help.” Chris holds his arms out like a saint, which he is in my mind. “No quick paint job, no gelp is going to work.” Gelp = gay help.

I flop down on the make-shift rug we’ve laid on the floor — really it’s an oversized towel. “I wouldn’t mind it so much if it weren’t noisy, smoky,
and
disgusting. Two out of three would be fine.” Chris slides down from the bed and sits next to me. I look at him. “Maybe I should move in with Arabella.”

“What’s stopping you?” he asks.

“A solid combo of guilt, stubbornness, and fear of further suckage into the world of money. I don’t want to live better now than when I’m thirty and on my own.”

“I can see that,” Chris nods. “But right now’s right now.”

We look at each other and crack up. “Wow, that’s deep,” I say in mock reverence.

“Put it in your journal,” Chris says.

Chris, originally a native Londoner, drags me to the Tube and we spend forty minutes catching trains and wandering around before arriving at the restaurant he’s been talking about.

“Viola,” he says. “Osteria Bassilica. My favorite.”

The place is packed with late-night diners, the windows fogged, the heat comforting and enveloping as we step inside. We don’t have a table booked, but Chris seems to know the guy who asks us to wait a second before squeezing us into a two-top by the kitchen. We are practically lap-dancing with the next table, but the coziness and good smells make me relax.

“I can’t even tell you how good it is to be with you — someone who knows me and just…”

“Oh my god — there’s Gwenyth and Chris Martin with their fruity baby,” Chris pretends to scratch his top lip so he can point to the right of him where said celebrities are chowing on bruschetta.

I am transfixed. Even though I try to take my eyes off the flaxen hair and scruffy beard (on the Coldplay guy, not on Ms. Paltrow), I can’t. Chris slaps the back of my hand. “Stop!” he says.

I divert my gaze for a moment but then, magnetized, look back. So far they haven’t noticed my persistent stare, but it can’t be long before they bolt or glare back.

Trying to get my attention, Chris talks rapidly. “So, um, anyway, news from Hadley — what can I tell you? Did you get my letter?” I nod. “Did you deal with your dad and the Lindsay Parrish debacle?”

Still sneaking a peek I say, “No — I was too upset about Mable’s mastectomy to even remember to address the issue with my dad. I’m so going to have to call him back, though — she can’t live in my room.”

“She’s not in your room — she’s in the guest room, I think — at least that’s what I’ve heard, but it wouldn’t stop her from nosing through your things. Please, for the love of all things Hollywood, stop looking at them. Jeez, you’d think you’d never seen a blonde famous person before.” Chris shakes his head and bows his chin to his chest in shame.

It’s no use. I keep looking — it’s out of my control. So much for being aloof and cool like I am in my imagination. Chris tries again, “Okay — I didn’t want to tell you this way, but I can see it’s time to resort to drastic measures…I have news that didn’t make it into my letter. Last weekend was the winter carnival.”

“Can’t say I missed eating slushies and freezing my ass off,” I say, still staring. Gwenyth pierces a tomato with her fork and eats it with grace. Note to self: learn to eat vegetables without dropping them in my lap.

“Well, you didn’t miss much on that front — but what you did miss…” Chris turns my head so it’s facing him and not Gwynnie (I feel so connected to her that I allow myself the familiarity of a nickname — someone help me, please). “You missed Lindsay Parrish making a spectacle of herself, hooking up in the middle of the snow fest with…Jacob.”

All eyes forward on Chris. My mouth is half-open to object but Chris cuts me off.

“And before you say something inane like
not my Jacob
, I’ll tell you yes, your Jacob, your kind of sort of boyfriend, quiet sweet Jacob from Mr. Chaucer’s class. In short, Lindsay got further with him on the quad than you did in several weeks and a near trip to Europe with him.”

“I don’t know what to say.” My pasta arrives and I eat some of the tangle of thick noodles without once glancing at the table that held my attention for so long. “Are they like a couple now? That’s sick — I mean, the girl is the embodiment of all things Jacob detests.”

“You mean, what he
did
protest. You haven’t seen him in over half a year, Love. He was in Switzerland for god’s sake…”

“So, what, doing Swiss things makes people suddenly become superficial idiots who jump on the…”

“She is hot, you have to give her that.” Chris eats a mouthful of his entrée, an unidentifiable morsel of meat, and gestures at me with his fork. “What exactly were you expecting to happen while you were gone?”

I shake my head. “Not this, that’s for sure. I mean, I figured life would go on without me, obviously, but not him. In my mind it’s like he just stayed static — you know, at Mr. Chaucer’s table in English and he’d be…”

“…waiting for you when you got back?”

I blush. “Even though he was at Cordelia’s house with Lindsay when Arabella and I left to come here, I just assumed Jacob would see Lindsay for who she really is.”

“I guess you perceive her differently than he does.”

I push my plate away and wipe my mouth. “Or she’s just using him as a bitch-slap to me.”

“Either way,” Chris says, “it’s not like you guys have any hold on each other, right? He was off doing the European thing and you were ensconced with those Vineyard boys, anyway, so what are you complaining about?”

The Paltrow-Martins have left the premises and I didn’t even notice, too wrapped up in Hadley Hall gossip.

“You’re right, of course….” I’m immediately transported, however briefly, back to Martha’s Vineyard and can easily picture boat boy Charlie’s wry grin and preppy Henry’s sweet face. “I haven’t given much thought to those boys.”

Chris narrows his eyes and studies my face. “Wait a minute,” he says and smiles. He knows me too well to let anything slide. “Here I am feeling sorry for you and your pathetic insistence on rehashing the still-unresolved if not unrequited love fest with Jacob when it’s totally clear!”

“What?” I say and sip my water to hide a creeping grin. It’s been hell keeping all thoughts on this front hidden, so knowing Chris is about to pry open my web of delightful deceits, I’m nervous but elated.