The Anglophile (4 page)

“Run with me,
sweetheart.
We have to tootle outside
or the little lady will get pissed off not to mention frostbitten.”

Kit nods okay. The cheeky British bastard's hand is practically on my ass as he guides me out the door.

I catch Kit's eye and smile ever so slightly. Given the tiny go-ahead he actually shocks the slut in me when he pinches my butt right through my coat. Most self-respecting American women would give the guy a miss right there. But in my reading of the moment, I'm going with raffish over chauvinist, and I pinch his flat Anglo butt right back.

When Kit opens the door, it's even colder than when we ditched the tour. “Oh damn. I've lost one of my new gloves,” I mutter out loud before we introduce ourselves to Gary's gal.

“Put this on,” Kit says as he slips one of his soft brown leather gloves off and offers it to my gloveless palm. My hand has never had it so good. “I'll go back in the shop and check for you.”

“Shari this is Sally,” Gary introduces me to his quarry.

“Hi!” she says pertly.

“Hey.”

“I haven't seen her in seventeen years, since college graduation.”

“Really?”

I nod. “But we write sometimes, and e-mail.”

“And now she's blessing me with her presence because the Volachuks are in town.”

Sally looks confused, so I take over Gary's mangled explanation. “I'm writing my dissertation on a language called
Volapük.
I'm presenting at a conference tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she says, without an ounce of interest.

“You know how we became good friends?” Gary says, rescuing us both. “I kidnapped her my freshman year.”

“Excuse me?” Sally says a bit prissily.

“Our junior year,” I say. “The year we got our own apartments off campus. Gary tricked me by saying we should stock our fridges before the storm.”

“The central New York storms are brutal,” Gary says, smirking.

“He knew that I didn't have a car, and that I would jump at the chance for a lift to Wegman's, which is a mammoth New York state supermarket chain where you can pick up anything edible in bulk.”

“Anything! Frosted Mini-Wheats, Tootsie Rolls, spinach pasta shells—” Gary puts in.

I nod. “We zipped past the supermarket as Gary so solemnly explained that yes, well, he lied and we were in actuality going on an eighteen-hour road trip.”

As proven by Kit's reaction just minutes ago,
everybody
loves this story.

“That's terrible,” Sally says. “You never told her she'd be away for a day? That's just
mean.
”

“Truth is,” I say, surprised, and a bit desperately, “I ended up having tons of fun. We were bound for South Bend, Indiana for a big football game at Notre Dame.”

“I went there,” Sally says matter-of-factly.

Gary is ecstatic. “You went to ND? For a visit? Isn't it effing great there?”

“Yes, and I wasn't visiting. I went to school there. My father and grandfather went, too. I was a legacy.”

You'd think that legacy tidbit would hurt, but I can
tell Gary is even more interested than before. Gary wants in the country club, too. He may taunt me about my proclivities, but he's just as much a sucker for the upper classes, the All-American kind.

The Woman in White speaks again: “Since your friend from England is still looking for your glove, I'm going to race inside and freshen up. I should have done that before.”

Gary and I are alone. He sighs loudly. “She's gorgeous. I'm not out yet.”

“What about the bitter girl you're dating?”

“This from a girl pinching someone's ass while her boyfriend waits by the phone?”

“Shit, you actually saw that?”

“That's what I like about you. Used the big words in school, but push comes to shove, you're just as loose as the townies. Worse.” We share a vice-ridden laugh. “So, what are you going to do with him?”

“Do? He pinched my ass, he didn't ask me out. It's tour sex. A dead end after the flirtation.”

“You sound like you've had it before.”

“When you go to conferences a lot, it happens.”

“Bullshit, I've never had tour sex. You have?”

“Two conferences ago I had a great touchy-feely conversation about Gorgonzola cheese with a man from Milan at Niagara Falls, and then the boat docked and he introduced me to his stunning fiancée.”

Gary snorts, and I do too—I've never told that anecdote out loud before.

“I actually think Lord Faggot really likes you.”

“I'm having a big flirt, that's all. To be honest, I'm
thinking you should give up on Doris Day's niece. I'm not sure about her—”

“You spoke to her for two seconds. And I'm supposed to listen to you? You who hates all women who are naturally blond?”

I laugh. Gary has a point.

“So you don't want these then?” Gary fans the Bulls tickets in front of my face.

Has hell frozen over? “
You're
not going?”

“I live here. I work with them. I'll see them again. And no bullshit, this girl might be the one.”

“One little kitty chicken pock and the other poor girl is completely out of your running?”

“Three dates, that's all we've had. Hailey is a nutjob anyway.”

Who am I to make a value judgment? Even Gary sees the mutual charge I have going with Kit. Am I about to cheat on Kevin? I'm not sure that I'm not.

“The master plan is you have to say you're going back to the hotel unexpectedly so I can drive her home. You can use those tickets for your own bait.”

“I have a boyfriend in New York, remember?”

“You look pretty interested in the man to me.”

Sally pushes open the Dunkin' Donuts door.

“Hi!” Sally says cheerily. Maybe she is liking Gary. Her full lips are even pinker than before. Why is this woman possibly the one? Is it her nose, the exact button nose shared by so many of the one-night stands Gary had paraded down our dorm floor?

“Hi again!” Gary says.

“Hi!” I say with extra perk, and Gary shoots me a
quick frown to let me know my condescending tone is not appreciated.

Kit emerges a few seconds later. “I searched everywhere. Your glove is missing in action.”

I shake my head sympathetically. “Don't worry, please. It was so nice of you to look.”

Gary can now introduce Kit to Sally.

“How long are you here?” Sally says.

“A week. Than I'm off to New York.”

Gary inconspicuously kicks the back of my ankle in delight. “I can't believe I have to give up my ticket to the Bulls,” he says. “They're mind-blowingly close to the court.”

Kit's face brightens enough to notice, but he seems careful not to pitch his hopes too high. “Why can't you go?”

“I have an early morning meeting I have to prepare for.”

I zoom in for the kill. “Kit, you think you might want to come on the extra ticket?”

A big American-sized grin from Kit. “Bloody hell I will.”

Gary's prey is next, although I'm not giving him good odds.

“Can I drive you home?” Gary says to Sally. “If you live near Lincoln Park, that's where I'm going. And I'm parked a block away. Will you keep me company? It's one cold, windy block.”

Sally's apology rambles: “I can't. I told my boyfriend I'd meet him back on South Michigan. I hope I didn't give you the wrong message. I told my mother I would finally take the tour, but it was just
too cold, that's all. I'll have to do it again when the city warms up.”

Despite her awkward
Oh-did-I-lead-you-on?
delivery, I'm surprised Gary hasn't snatched the tickets back.

“You have a boyfriend?” he says to Sally. “You're breaking my heart.”

Sally sways her head with another guilty grin. She's a good girl with a voice of conscience. Unlike the New York floozy standing a few feet from her.

While we all say our goodbyes Guy says in an extremely low voice, “Go for it, I'll go next week.” Then, loud enough for Kit to hear he says, “You need me to draw you a map back to your hotel? If I was you I'd hop a cab.”

“I'll find it. Don't worry.” I give Gary a forehead kiss. “But let's have a drink before I leave. What's the name of that bar you wanted to go to again?”

“There's a place you'd like more. The Red Lion. Very British. Right up your alley.” Gary shambles away with one last cry behind him, “Call me when the conference is settling down!”

“British pub, eh?” Kit says, when Gary is partway down the block. “So you make a habit of hanging out with the likes of me?”

I improvise: “He means because as an undergraduate I majored in English Literature. He grabbed my study notes once and couldn't believe I knew what
machicolations
were.”

“What are they?”

“Medieval openings in the floor for attacking enemies.”

“Well, that's new to me. But I read English at Trinity. So feel at home here.”

I bob my head in appreciation. He
read
English at
Trinity.
I last heard that phrase during a documentary about Salman Rushdie.

“How many hours to the Bulls game?” Kit reaches in his pocket and removes his tobacco and rolling papers.

I look at one of the tickets I'd shoved in my bag as he rolls his own cigarette in the cold air. “Five,” I say.

Cigarette in mouth, he reaches for a shiny gray lighter with red jewels on the engraved snake's eye. Once his tobacco is lit, out pops a cell phone and a business card he must have requested from a previous taxi ride in Chicago. “How shall we kill that time? Or should we meet later?”

“Would you like to come back to my hotel for a drink?”

He holds my gaze. “Where's that?”

“The Hyatt.”

“You got a room there? I couldn't get a room there. As I said, so many bloody conferences going.”

“It was booked for me two months ago. It's busy, but they have lots of restaurants. We could get a nosh.”

“A
nosh?
You use that word, too? That's rather English of you.”

It is? I laugh a little, confused. I thought nosh was a Yiddishism. “Everyone says nosh in New York.”

“
Really?
They say
nosh
in New York City?
Nosh?
I can't believe that. A nosh, then. Shall we?”

 

“Did you know that Tony Blair will be here next week?”

“Where did you hear that?” Kit says after he's refused any cab money from me, even the tip.

“On the way to my hotel from O'Hare. He's staying here—”

“In the Presidential Suite,” our driver pipes up.

Feet on the curb, Kit tightens his argyle as another brutal prairie wind gushes through to our bones. I point out the fluttering Union Jack on one of the hotel flagpoles. He frowns. “They have the flag upside down.”

“They couldn't—”

“A major insult to the crown, unless one is signaling distress.”

After a nervous laugh I say, “Well then, you'd better talk to the concierge before Blair gets here.”

“You think so?”

“I'm sure anyone you talk to will be appreciative for the heads-up.”

The young woman serving as the lunch-break concierge noisily shuffles through papers and brochures, giving us no heed until Kit coughs politely.

She shrugs her shoulders at the bad news. “I'm sure our hotel knows what it is doing.”

“Maybe not,” I say emphatically.

She hates me already. “Does it really concern you? Do you have a specific problem about your room?”

“Ma'am, doesn't it concern you if your hotel is reflected badly?” Kit says more diplomatically.

She huffs and gets the older Indian manager with a pale brown face and bushy eyebrows. He's apparently been clued in to the problem couple—after a raced hello he says, “Sir, I am well aware of how the British flag should fly. My father lived in England for some time.”

“Sir, I really think this is not a matter of pride. You have a head-of-state coming, and I think perhaps you should fix your mistake.”

“
Sir,
I have not made a mistake,
sir.
”

Kit pulls out his flag-emblazoned passport holder and shows the manager where he's gone wrong. The manager's nose wrinkles as his error sinks in. He angrily hits a pylon next to the check-in desk; his punch causes a particularly ugly piece of corporate art, a lithograph of green and blue rotary telephones, to bounce a bit on the wall.

“I'll leave you a diagram,” Kit says. The manager remains silent as Kit tears a bit of paper out of his spiral memo book. Out comes the expensive silver pen from the architectural tour. “The United Kingdom flag isn't symmetrical. When you are facing the flag, you have to look at the white diagonals. On the left-hand, the hoist side, the white bands
above
the red diagonals are wider. On the right-hand side, the fly side, the wider white bands sit
below
the red diagonal.”

“Thank you, sir,” the manager says coldly. “We'll fix it right away, sir.”

“It was the right thing to do,” I say comfortably from my new seated position in a plush lobby armchair.

Kit takes the seat opposite. “But I knew he was mad as hell, and I felt badly about his resentment.”

I felt a little badly, too, but I'm impressed how Kit kept to an unpleasant task until it was done. “Yes, an uncomfortable moment there, but you had to do it,
sir.
You might have saved his job. I'd speak up if the American flag was flying wrong.”

It's hard not to compare what Kevin would have done—that is, nothing, as much from timidity as from a sense of
for godsakes, give the small guys a break.
Like my mother, Kevin does not like to offend anyone, which makes him well liked by men, but gives him that nice-guy whiff that turns a good number of women off even considering his boyish good looks.