Queen of Babble (10 page)

Granted, no one appears to be as vastly overweight here as many people back in America are. What makes Londoners so slim? Could it be all the tea?

And the ads! The ads they have on the walls of the Tube station! They’re so…interesting. I don’t really understand what it is they’re advertising in many cases. But this might be because I have never seen topless women used to sell orange juice before.

I guess Shari is right. The British are much less inhibited about their bodies—although they dress them better—than we are.

When we finally reach the stop where Andrew’s got his appointment—he says there’s a bank close by where I can change money—we scramble back out into the sunshine—and I catch my breath…

I’m in London! The town center! The place where so many significant historical events have taken place, including the introduction of the punk movement (where would we be today if Madonna hadn’t donned that first bustier, and Seditionaries on Kings Road hadn’t introduced the world to Vivienne Westwood?) and that black evening gown Princess Diana (still only Lady Diana then) wore the night of her engagement party?

But before I can really absorb the richness of it all, Andrew drags me into a bank, where I stand in line
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(or in the queue, as Andrew calls it) to exchange some of my traveler’s checks for British pounds. When I get to the teller, she asks to see my passport and I hand it over, and she eyes my photo suspiciously.

Well, and why not? I was thirty pounds heavier when I had that photo taken.

When she returns my passport to me, Andrew asks to see it, and he has a good chuckle over the photo.

“I can’t believe you were ever that fat,” he says. “Look at you now! You look like a model. Doesn’t she look like a model?” he asks the teller.

The teller says, “Uh, yuh,” in a noncommittal way.

It is always nice, of course, to be told you look like a model. But I can’t help wondering—did I really look that bad before? I mean, when Andrew first saw me that night of the fire, I was thirty pounds heavier than I am now, but he was still attracted to me. I know. I felt his stiffy.

And okay, I was dressed in a towel since the fire department wouldn’t let us back into the building. But still.

I am distracted from thinking about all this when the teller finally hands me my money—it’s so pretty! So much prettier than American money, which is just so…green. And it comes in so many sizes—the British pound coin looks and feels like gold in my hand.

I am completely excited to go out and spend some of my new British money, so I urge Andrew to hurry up and get his appointment over with so we can get to Harrods (I’ve already mentioned that this is where I want to go first. I don’t want to buy anything there, though…I just want to see the shrine the owner, Mohamed Al Fayed, has erected to his son, who was killed in the car crash with Princess Diana).

Andrew says, “Let’s go then,” and we head toward a very dull-looking office building with Job Centre (it’s so cute how the British spell everything wrong!) written across the entrance, where Andrew gets in a long line with a lot of other people because, he says, he has to “sign on” for work, or something like that.

I am very interested in all things British, of course, because once Andrew and I are married, this could become my adopted country, the way Madonna has made it hers, so I pay attention to the signs we are passing as the line moves along. The signs all say things like: Ask Us About New Deal for Jobseekers—Part of the Department for Work and Pensions and Thought About Working in Europe?

Ask Us How.

And I think how strange it is that in England they call Europe Europe like they aren’t a part of it, but in the U.S. we all think of England as part of Europe. Probably incorrectly.

And that the man behind the counter is asking Andrew if he’s looked for work, and Andrew says he has but he hasn’t found any.

What? What is he talking about, hasn’t found work? That’s all he’s been doing since I got here: working.

“But, Andrew,” I hear myself cry, “what about your waitering job?”

Andrew goes pale. Which is an accomplishment for him since he’s already so pasty. In a sexy way…like Hugh Grant.

“Ha,” Andrew says to the man behind the counter. “She’s kidding.”

Kidding? What is hetalking about?

“You were there all day yesterday,” I remind him. “Eleven to eleven.”

“Liz,” Andrew says in a strained voice, “don’t joke with the nice man. He’s busy working, can’t you see?”

Of course I can see that. The question is, why can’t Andrew?

“Right,” I say. “Like you were busy yesterday at the waitering job you had to get because the school thing didn’t pay enough. Remember?”

Could Andrew be on drugs? How could he not remember the fact that the very day I arrived for my first-ever trip to England, he was working?

A glance at his face, however, reveals that he not only remembers but doesn’t seem to be on drugs. Not if the look he gives me—a look that could kill—is any indication.

Well. It’s clear I’ve done something wrong. But what? I’m only telling the truth.

So I say, to Andrew, “Wait. What’s going on here?”

That’s when the man behind the counter at the Job Centre picks up a phone and says, “Mr. Williams, I have a problem. Yeah, be right there.”

Then he plops a Closed sign down in front of him and says, “Come with me, please, Mr. Marshall, miss,” while holding up the partition in the counter so we can pass through it.

Then he escorts us into a little room—empty except for a desk, some shelves with nothing on them, and a chair—in the back of the Job Centre office.

On the way there, I can feel the gazes of everyone else—both in line and working behind the counter—burning into the back of my neck. Some people are whispering. Some of them are laughing.

It takes a good five seconds before I finally realize why.

And when I do, my cheeks go as red as Andrew’s had gone pale a minute earlier.

Because that’s when I know that I’ve done it again. Yes. Opened my big, fat, stupid mouth when I should have kept it closed.

But how was I to know that a Job Centre is where British people go to sign up for unemployment benefits?

And what is Andrew doing, anyway, signing up for unemployment benefits when he ISN’T

UNEMPLOYED?

Except that Andrew doesn’t seem to see it that way—you know, as illegal. He keeps opening his mouth
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to bleat, “But everybody does it!”

But that’s not how the Job Centre people seem to feel, if the look the man gives us before he leaves to find his “superior” is any indication.

“Look, Liz,” Andrew says to me the minute the Job Centre man is out of the room, “I know you didn’t mean to, but you’ve completely cocked things up for me. It’ll be all right, though, if, when the bloke comes back, you just tell him you made a mistake. That we had a little misunderstanding and I wasn’t working yesterday. All right?”

I stare at him, confused.

“But Andrew—” I can’t believe this is happening. There has to be some mistake. Andrew—MY

Andrew, who’s going to teach the children to read?—can’t be a welfare cheat. That’s just not possible.

“Youwere working yesterday,” I say. “I mean…weren’t you? That’s where you told me you were.

That’s why you left me alone with your family for the whole day and most of the night. Because you were waitering. Right?”

“Right,” Andrew says. He is, I notice, sweating. I’ve never seen Andrew sweat before. But there is a definite sheen along his hairline. Which, I notice, is receding just a little. Will he be as bald as his father someday? “Right, Liz. But you’ve got to tell a little lie for me.”

“Lie for you,” I say confusedly. It’s like…I realize what he’s saying. I understand the words.

I just can’t believe Andrew—MY Andrew—is saying them.

“It’s just a white lie,” Andrew elaborates. “I mean, it’s not as bad as you’re thinking, really, Liz. Waiters make SHIT here, it’s not like back in the States, where they’re guaranteed a fifteen percent tip. I swear to you, every single waiter I know is on the dole as well—”

“Still,” I say. I can’t believe this is happening. I really can’t. “That doesn’t make it right. I mean, it’s still…it’s kind of dishonest, Andrew. You’re taking money from people who actually NEED it.”

How could he not realize this? He wants to teach underprivileged children…the very people that welfare money he seems to feel so entitled to is actuallyfor . How could he not know this? His mother is a social worker, for crying out loud! Does she know how her son comes by his extra cash?

“Ineed it,” Andrew insists. He’s sweating harder now, even though it’s actually quite pleasant, temperaturewise, in the little office. “I’mone of those people. I mean, I’ve got to live, Liz. And it’s not easy, finding a decent-paying job when everyone knows you’re going to be leaving in a few months to go back to school, anyway—”

Well…he’s right about that. I mean, the only way I managed to work my way up to assistant manager at Vintage to Vavoom is because I live in town year-round.

Also because I’m so good at what I do.

But still…

“And I wasn’t doing it just for me, you know. I wanted to show you a nice time while you were here,”

he goes on, darting a nervous glace at the open office door. “Take you nice places, have some nice meals. Maybe even take you…I dunno. On a cruise or something.”

“Oh, Andrew!” My heart swells with love for him. How could I have thought—well, what I was thinking about him? He may have gone about it the wrong way, but his intentions were in the right place.

“But Andrew,” I say, “I have tons of money saved up. You don’t have to do this for me—work all these hours, and…um, collect the dole, or whatever it is. I have plenty of money. For the both of us.”

Suddenly he doesn’t look quite so sweaty.

“You do? More than what you changed today, at the bank?”

“Of course,” I say. “I’ve been saving my earnings from the shop for ages. I’m happy to share.” I really mean it, too. After all, I’m a feminist. I have no problem supporting the man I love. No problem at all.

“How much?” Andrew asks quickly.

“How much have I got?” I blink at him. “Well, a couple thousand—”

“Honestly? Brilliant! Can I borrow a bit, then?”

“Andrew, I told you,” I say. “I’m more than happy to pay for us to go out—”

“No, I mean, can I borrow a bit in advance?” Andrew wants to know. He’s stopped sweating, but his face has taken on a bit of a pinched look. He keeps looking at the doorway where the man behind the counter’s supervisor is due to appear at any moment. “See, I haven’t paid my matriculation fees for school yet—”

“Matriculation fees?” I echo.

“Right,” Andrew says. Now he’s grinning sort of sheepishly, in the manner of a child with his hand caught in a cookie jar. “See, I had a bit of a cock-up myself just before you got here. Did you ever go to any of the Friday poker nights, back at McCracken Hall?”

My head is spinning. Seriously. “Poker nights? McCracken Hall?”What is he talking about?

“Yeah, there was a whole group of residents who played Texas Hold’em every Friday night. I used to play with them, and I got to be quite good…”

The British guy,Chaz had said about someone…someone I now realize was Andrew.The one who was running the illegal poker ring on the seventh floor.

“That wasyou ?” I’m staring at him. “But…but you’re an R.A. Gambling in the dorms is illegal.”

Andrew shoots me an incredulous look.

“Right,” he says. “Well, maybe, but everybody did it…”

If everybody suddenly started wearing epaulets, would you do it, too?I start to ask…then stop myself just in time.

Because, of course, I know the answer.

“Anyway,” Andrew says, “I got involved with a game here not long ago, and…well, the stakes were a bit higher than I’m used to, and the players a bit more experienced, and I—”

“You lost,” I say flatly.

“I told you I was a bit overconfident and thought I could clean up at that game I got into…but instead I got my arse kicked, and lost the money for my matriculation fees for next semester. That’s why I was working so much, see? I can’t tell my parents what happened to their money—they’re dead set against gambling, and they’d probably kick me out of the house…I’ve barely got a bed there as it is, as you well know. But if you can spare it…well, then I’m golden, right? I won’t have to work, and then we can be together all day”—He snakes out an arm, wrapping it around my waist and pulling me to him—“and all night, too,” he adds with a suggestive wag of his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t that bebrilliant ?”

My head is still spinning. Even though he’s explained, somehow none of this is making sense…or rather, itis …

But I don’t think I like the sense it’s making.

I blink at him. “A few hundred? To pay your matriculation fees?”

“Two hundred quid or so, yeah,” Andrew says. “Which is…what, five hundred dollars? Not so much if you consider it’s all going to my future…ourfuture. And I’ll make it up to you. If it takes me the rest of my life, I’ll make it up to you.” He lowers his head to my neck, to nuzzle it. “Not,” he adds into my hair,

“that spending the rest of my life making it up to a girl like you will be such a hardship.”

“Um,” I say, “I guess I can spare it…” Inside my head, though, a voice is screaming something entirely different. “We could…we could go wire it to the university after we leave here.”

“Right,” Andrew says. “Listen, about that…It might just be better if you gave me the cash and I sent it.

There’s a bloke I know at work, he can get it there for nothing, no fees, no nothing…”

“You want me to give you cash,” I repeat.

“Right,” Andrew says. “It’ll be cheaper than if we wired the money from here in town. They kill you with fees…” Then, hearing footsteps in the hallways outside the little office, he says quickly, “Listen, tell that wanker, when he gets in here, that you were wrong about my having a job. That you misunderstood. All right? Can you do that for me, Liz?”