13 Little Blue Envelopes (9 page)

Not surprisingly, she couldn’t speak. This wasn’t just her normal nervous reaction—it was because Keith had slid over on his knees and was now leaning over his coffee table box, his face only a foot or so from hers.

“That’s it,” he said. “Isn’t it? Command performance?”

He was smiling now. There was some kind of dare in his eyes. And for some reason, the only impulse Ginny had was to reach into her pocket, clutch the money in a tight grip, and drop it on the table. It slowly unballed itself, like a small purple monster that had just hatched. Little tiny pictures of the queen sprouted everywhere.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“It’s for your show,” she said. “Or whatever. Another show.

It’s just for you.”

He sat back on his heels and looked at her.

“You’re just giving me . . .” He picked up the money, flattened it out, and counted it. “One hundred and forty pounds?”

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“Oh . . .” She reached into her pocket and fished out two pound coins. It had to be one hundred forty-two. As she reached for the table to add these to the pile, she realized that the entire atmosphere in the room had just changed. Whatever conversation they might have been going to have was now canceled. Her strange, sudden gesture had shorted it out.

Clunk. Clunk. She added the two pounds.

Silence followed.

“I should probably get back,” she said quietly. “I know the way.”

Keith opened his mouth to speak, then rubbed at his lips with the back of his hand, as if wiping a comment away.

“Let me drive you,” he said. “I don’t think you should go back by yourself.”

They didn’t speak on the ride. Keith turned the radio up loud.

As soon as she was on the sidewalk in front of Richard’s house, she said her goodbyes and got out as quickly as she could.

Her heart was going to explode. It was going to blast itself out of her chest and land on the sidewalk like a heaving, desperate fish. It would keep beating as long as it could, bouncing along the discarded wrappers and cigarette butts until it had calmed itself down. Then she’d go and get it and reinstall it. She saw the whole thing very clearly. Much more clearly than she could picture what had just happened to her.

Why . . . why in the middle of what was possibly her first real romantic moment . . . had she decided that the correct response was to throw a handful of money on the table? Sweaty, balled-up money and coins? And then ask to leave?

Miriam was going to kill her. Either that or she was going to 87

haul her off to the home for the incurably stupid and romantically hopeless and leave her there forever. And that was fine. That was where she belonged. She could live with her own kind there.

She looked up at Richard’s windows. The lights were off. He had gone to bed early. If he had been awake, she might have even talked this over with him. Maybe he could reassure her, explain a way to undo what she had just done. But he was asleep.

She dug the keys out of the crack in the step, wrestled with the locks, and let herself inside. She went to her room and, without switching on any lights, dug the packet of envelopes out of the front of her bag and pulled out the top one. She held it up to the streetlight’s glow coming in through the window. This next letter was covered in a pen-and-ink drawing of a castle high on a hill and the small figure of a girl on a path at its base.

“Okay,” Ginny said softly. “Forget it. Moving on. What’s next?”

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#4

#4

Dear Gin,

Ever see one of those kung fu movies where the student travels to the remote outpost where the Master lives?

Maybe not. I only have because my sophomore-year roommate was kung fu obsessed. But you get the idea—Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts, Luke

Skywalker goes to Yoda. That’s what I’m talking about. The student goes off to get schooled.

I did it myself. After a few months in London, I decided to go and meet my idol, the painter Mari Adams. I’d wanted to meet her my entire life. My dorm room in college was covered in pictures of her work. (And pictures of her. She’s very . . .

distinctive.)

I don’t know exactly what made me do it. I knew I needed help with my art, and I suddenly realized that she wasn’t that far away. Mari lives in Edinburgh, which is grand and spooky.

Edinburgh Castle is a thousand years old or so and sits high up smack in the middle of the city on a big rock called The Mound. The entire city is ancient and strange, full of twisted little alleys called wynds. Murders, ghosts, political intrigue . . . these things permeate Edinburgh.

So I got on a train and went there. And she let me in. She even let me stay for a few days.

I want you to meet her too.

That’s the entire task. I don’t need to be more specific. You don’t need to ask her anything. Mari is the Master, Gin, and she’ll know what you need even if you don’t. Her kung fu is that powerful.

Trust me on this one. School is in session!

Love,

Your Runaway Aunt

The Runner

Some people believe that they are guided by forces, that the universe cuts paths for them through the dense forest of life, showing them where to go. Ginny did not believe for a second that the whole universe was bending itself to her will. She did, however, entertain a slightly more specific and far-fetched idea—Aunt Peg had done this. She had known the unknowable. She was sending Ginny to the very place that Keith had to go to anyway to work out some details for his show.

This sometimes happened with Aunt Peg. She had a weird way of knowing things, an uncanny sense of timing. When Ginny was a kid, Aunt Peg had always managed to call whenever Ginny needed her: when she had a fight with her parents, whenever she was sick, when she needed advice. So, it wasn’t a complete shock that she would have somehow plotted for Ginny to go to Edinburgh, that she would have known that 93

Ginny would somehow blow the whole thing with the money and give her a second chance.

But did this really
mean
anything? Sure, in a purely hypothetical sense, she could even ask him if he wanted to go with her. If she were someone other than herself, that was.

Miriam would do it. Lots of people would do it. She wouldn’t.

She wanted to, more than anything, but she wouldn’t.

For a start, the mysterious benefactor task was done. She had no possible excuse for seeing Keith. Plus, she’d already made things weird with the money. And besides . . . how did you just invite someone to
go to another country with you
? (Even if it wasn’t really that much of another country. It sounded like going to Canada. Not that big of a deal. Not like David and Fiona and the whole Spain thing.)

She spent the entire day at the house, debating the issue with herself. First, she watched TV. British television seemed to consist mostly of makeover shows. Garden makeovers. Fashion makeovers. House makeovers. Everything relating to change. It seemed like a hint. Change something. Make a move.

She turned off the television and looked around the living room.

She would clean, that’s what she would do. Cleaning often relaxed her. She did the dishes, brushed the crumbs off the table and chairs, folded the clothes . . . anything she could think of.

She spent a good half hour examining the strange machine with the small glass window and the alphabetical dial that was under the counter in the kitchen. At first, it looked like a very odd oven. It took her a while to realize it was a washing machine.

By five o’clock, the feeling wouldn’t leave her. That was when 94

Richard called to say he would be home late. She couldn’t sit anymore.

She would just walk. She would walk just to prove to herself that she had learned the way there. It wasn’t far. She would walk there, look at the house, and then walk back. Then at least she could tell herself she had gone. It was pathetic, but it was better than nothing.

She wrote a quick note to Richard and headed out. She carefully retraced the route as best she could. Newsagents . . .

yellow cones in the middle of the road . . . the zigzagging lines in the street . . . it was all there, somewhere in her head. But soon, the houses all looked the same. They all looked like Keith’s house.

She turned a corner and got the sign she needed—namely, David. He was on the sidewalk, clutching his cell phone against his head. He was pacing back and forth in front of the gate and he didn’t sound very happy. He just kept saying “no” and “fine”

over and over in a way that seemed very ominous.

Ginny was close to the house by the time she realized it was him. She thought about backing away and waiting until he’d gone back inside, but he’d seen her approach. She couldn’t just run. That would be weird. She could only keep walking, slowly, cautiously, toward him. As Ginny reached the gate, he went silent. Then he hung up with an angry, snapping gesture and sat down on the low front garden wall and put his head in his hands.

“Hi?” she said.

“That’s it.” He shook his head. “I’m not going. I told her. I told her I don’t want to go to Spain.”

“Oh,” Ginny said. “Well. Good. For you.”

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“Yeah,” he said, nodding heavily. “It is good. I mean, I’ve got to start my life here, don’t I?”

“Right.”

David nodded once more, then broke down into heaving sobs.

There was a rustling noise above, and Ginny saw the crooked black blinds on Keith’s window rocking back and forth. A moment later, he was down on the sidewalk with them. Keith glanced over at Ginny. She could see his confusion at the two things in front of him—the fact that she was there and that his roommate was dissolving in tears in front of his own house. For a second, she actually felt guilty, until she remembered that this wasn’t her fault.

“Right,” Keith said, striding over to his car and opening the passenger door. “Get in. Come on.”

Ginny wasn’t sure who he was talking to. Neither was David.

They looked at each other.

“Both of you,” Keith said. “Brick Lane time.”

A few minutes later, she was part of this little group, speeding deeper into East London, where the houses got a little grayer and the signs were written in curvy, totally unknown languages. Indian restaurants lined both sides of the street, and even the air was permeated with the odors of heavy spices, and they all seemed to be open, even at midnight. Colorful lights were strung from building to building, and hawkers stood in doorways, offering free beer or snacks to whoever would come inside. Keith, however, knew exactly where he was going and guided them to a small, very neat little restaurant where there seemed to be four waiters for every customer.

Ginny wasn’t hungry, but she felt the need to participate. She had no idea what to order, though.

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“I guess I’ll have what you’re having,” she said to Keith.

“If you had what we’re having, you’d die,” Keith said. “Try the mild curry.”

She decided not to challenge him on that one.

Keith ordered a whole list of foods, and soon their table was covered in bread baskets full of big flat things that they called papadams. There was a selection of vividly colored chutneys with large pieces of hot pepper floating in them, and beers. As soon as she saw the spread, Ginny understood. Keith was giving David a tragedy meal. She did the same thing with Miriam when she broke up with Paul last summer, except that her version involved a half gallon of Breyers, a box of Little Debbie snack cakes, and a six-pack of blue raspberry soda. Guys would never be satisfied with that kind of comfort. If they were going to have a tragedy meal, they had to make sure there was a painful, masculine component to it.