Finding Fraser (9 page)

Fortunate Foreigner…

6:30 pm, February 26

Edinburgh, Scotland

I’ve recovered a bit after the long day,
and decided in honor of my collection of blog friends, to summarize my trip to
Edinburgh Castle.

The trip started poorly, mostly because
the place was so freaking expensive. But when I dug out my old student card
from the University of Chicago, the girl behind the glass took pity on me.

“Ach,” she said. “This is three years
expired, Miss.” She looked around in both directions and leaned in on the
crackly mic. “But seein’ as it’s the low season and all, and as there are no
stewards on at the moment to tour you aboot, we’ll go with the student rate,
shall we?”

I beamed at her.

“Jes’ spend the extra in the gift shop,
love,” she said, and slid the ticket through the slot in the window.

As I stepped away, I saw she’d slipped in
a bonus voucher for a self-guiding audio tour.

Moments later, I clutched the audio guide
to my bosom and scurried off before she could change her mind.

And the castle?

Blew my mind.

I stood inside the blue sentry box at the
front gate, and looked down the road they call the Royal Mile. The air was
crisp and wintery, but most of the snow was gone for the moment. The bits that
remained were crushed into slush between the cobbles on the street. It
stretched all the way down to the Scottish Parliament buildings, just about
exactly a mile below, though I couldn’t see them, because the road leading away
from the castle was not exactly straight. I did get a glimpse of the roof of a
church I had passed on the climb up, its spire now below me; black against the gray
sky. I caught my breath from the hike up and thought about the more than two
thousand years of history that lay under my feet.

Two
thousand
years. I had no idea. But according to my audio guide——and I
held that audio guide in the greatest authority——there had been
settlement on this rock since at least nine hundred years before anyone thought
of following a star to see a baby in Bethlehem. The first fortress had been
built on the rock sometime around 600 AD and its walls were mortared in time
and blood.

It was breathtaking.

Determined not to let the girl at the
entry booth down, I listened to every option on the headset. I walked through every
storied room, stared at every tapestry, admired every sharpened death
implement. In spite of no sleep on the plane and severe jet lag, I spent the
entire day prowling the grounds. I stood under the razor-sharp points of the
portcullis gate, grateful that the thing appeared to be stuck open. I leaned
against the studded iron door. I caressed the cannons, and even wept a little
over the graves of the garrison dogs, buried in a tiny section of garden.

I don’t know what I expected, but those gray
castle walls won my heart completely. I wandered every inch of the place.

If Jamie (or his doppelgänger) was
anywhere to be found inside that monumental building, I would have found him.

He was not.

I did spend a lot of time smiling at
Scottish men, but most of them just averted their eyes and scurried off. My
flirting technique clearly needs work.

But tomorrow is another day, and for now
I plan to seek my dinner somewhere near the Royal Mile. Goodnight all my
wonderful new blog friends, and (since I am feeling generous) goodnight to you,
too, Sophia. Next time we chat, I will be in Inverness, the Highland location
of Frank and Claire’s second honeymoon.

 
- ES

Comments: 67

OzziGrrrl, Brisbane, Australia:

Cheerin’ you on Emma——root
them plaid laddies!

HiHoKitty, Sapporo, Japan:

All Scottish men wear kilts, yes? Or not
in daytime?

SophiaSheridan, Chicago, USA:

Are you inventing these so-called
followers, Emma? I wouldn’t put it past you. Anything to prove a point. But
fake followers are not going to help you find a job. Come home. And listen——there’s
this cute guy working IT in Paul’s office. He’s an actual human being, Emma.
Better than some Scottish figment of your imagination, right? Come home.

(Read 64 more comments
here
…)

I
thought long and hard about heading out for food after writing the last post.
The lack of sleep and the over-abundance of exercise had combined
to make me feel like a zombie. But in the end, the idea of eating yet another
packet of shortbread cookies drove me out the door. The little bed and
breakfast I was staying in was located in what the Edinburghers called the Old
Town, just up the hill from the train station on Princes Street.

That was, apparently, to distinguish it from
the New Town, which was the part of the city below the castle. The New Town was
first built before America was a country, and once I knew that, it pretty much
gave me a sense of the way Scots view the passage of time.

From the guide on my bedside table, it
looked like all the cheapest places to eat were to be found in the New Town,
just down the hill. It was a decent walk from my place, and after six hours of
climbing stone steps and slithering along icy cobblestones, my legs and feet
were just about done in. I had no idea if a bus could even take me in the right
direction, and cab fare would have been five pounds at least.

I learned this because I asked the lady who
took my audio guide back at the castle gate.

So, as I slid out of my little bed and
breakfast place onto the Royal Mile, I steeled myself to pay the cab fare. But
it was nearly seven-thirty, and night comes early to the gray Scottish
lowlands. There was not a taxi to be seen in the dark. A block or two down, the
road intersected with another that appeared to wind down toward Princes Street,
and I headed that way on my very sore feet.

On the winding road however, my luck turned
and I spotted a small pub, from which emanated the sounds of joy and frivolity.
Surely they would have a phone I could call a cab from?

In I went.

It turned out the price of a beer was less
than half the cost of a taxi ride to the New Town.

I learned this, because I asked the lady
taking beer orders behind the bar.

As I sank down on what appeared to be the
only open seat in the place, my feet screamed in relief. Or they would have, if
they’d had little mouths. Which they did not, I’m grateful to say, because how
weird would THAT have been?

The server who had so generously told me the
relative price of beer and taxi cabs reappeared seconds later with a golden
glass of ambrosia in her hand.

My table was a tall one and had a dangerous
tilt to it, which may have explained why it was unoccupied. I leaned back against
a wall in the corner and slipped off one of my boots. By the time I’d taken the
first few sips, I’d forgotten that I didn’t generally like beer, and had been
transported into the strange euphoria of exhaustion, hunger and the ecstasy
that came of being able to rub one’s sore foot in secret under a table in a
Scottish pub.

I decided to sit there for a bit and just
soak in the atmosphere, listening to Edinburghers enjoy their end-of-workday
cheer; and when my feet had sufficiently recovered, I’d walk down the hill to
find someplace to eat.

The plan was somewhat thwarted, though, when
I knocked my entire beer into my lap.

In truth, it wasn’t totally my fault. I’d
been watching the ruddy nape of a neck at the table beside me and idly
wondering if Jamie would drink beer in a place like this—if he lived in
the present day, of course.

Whoever the guy with the ruddy neck, was, I
could only see the back of his head. It was a nice head. Well-shaped, and
covered in a thick thatch of dark blonde hair, lighter at the tips and gelled a
bit northward, from the looks of things. His shoulders were square under the
cover of a heavy cable-knit sweater, and he was enjoying the company of a sweet
young thing, very blonde and blue-eyed. His hand lay proprietorially on her arm
as they talked.

A dark-haired girl beside the blonde who was
quite clearly the worse for the wine she’d been drinking suddenly shrieked with
laughter. “Ye slay me, Laoghaire,” she cried, practically snorting wine out of
her nose. “Ye fookin’ slay me!”

Okay, okay, so I
know
she wasn’t really saying “Laoghaire”.
Lawrie
vs
Leery,
right?
But, still, it’s pretty close.

Close enough to make a person jump a little,
bump the wobbly table and maybe spill their beer into their lap. I managed to
grab the glass as it teetered, but not before half the contents washed in a
golden wave that shone briefly in the low light of the pub before soaking the
entire crotch of my jeans.

I may have let out a little cry of despair.

But I have to say, in retrospect, that this
wasn’t all bad. Because the young man Not-Really-Laoghaire had been talking to
thought it was his fault.

One minute I was staring in disbelief as my
only pair of jeans—with me in them—took on a look usually
associated with severe incontinence. And the next, a large young man was
swabbing my leg dry.

Very large.

With fair hair that might have been reddish
before it was highlighted.

I had barely a moment to think that this was
the closest thing I’d had to a sexual experience with a man in more than a
year, when he spoke. “Ach, I’m so sorry, Miss. My chair must’ve hit your table …”

“It’s—it’s okay,” I said, unwilling to
cop to the fact I’d spilled my own beer onto my own self. “It’s a wobbly
table,” I added, in a tiny concession to honesty.

He paused at the sound of my voice, handful
of soggy napkins in midair. “Ach, worse still—and you a visitor, too.”
His forehead crumpled with concern.

“Really, it’s okay. It woke me up. I’m
massively jetlagged, and I need my senses about me to make it back to the place
I’m staying.”

“That may be true,” he said, his big brown
eyes boring into mine. “But let me at least buy you another beer.”

I shook my head, but he was already waving
at the server. She waved back and he placed his large hands on the table and
shook it critically.

“Righ’,” he said. “I’ll just have a look …”
and vanished beneath the table.

In a second he bobbed up again. “That’s seen
it,” he said. “The ol’ beer mat solution.”

I peered into the gloom under the table, and
sure enough, he’d folded a couple of cardboard coasters and jammed them under
one of the table legs. I gave the table a shake. “I think you’ve got it.”

He smiled and blinked both his eyes at me.
“Trust me, Miss,” he said. “Ah’m a mechanic.”

I laughed. “Really?”

“That I am. And you—are an American.
Are ye a student?”

I nodded, and glanced over his shoulder. The
two girls he was with seemed oblivious to the fact he’d moved over to sit beside
me. They were deep in conversation; the dark-haired girl who had, just seconds
before, been shrieking with laughter was now openly weeping, eyeliner streaking
down her face.

“Yes, American, but not a student. Just here
visiting for a while. Is—is your friend okay?”

He waved a dismissive hand. “Ach, she’s no’
really my friend. Friend of a friend, yeh ken?
 
And a wee bit pickled for my tastes, for
all that. But tell us about yerself—whereabouts in America are ye from?
New York City?”

“Chicago, actually. It’s further …”

“West. Yeah, I know it. Jazz and blues,
Charlie Parker and the Bulls.”

I ogled him. “You follow basketball? I
thought it was only soccer over here—and cricket.”

He looked pained, and slapped a hand to his
heart. “Ach, don’t paint us with that brush. Pansy Englishmen’s game, that one.
Now, rugby—there’s a game a man can sink his teeth into. But yeah, next
to rugby, it’s the NBA all the way for me.”

He leaned back on his stool and looked at me
appraisingly. If I hadn’t been sleep-deprived and stinking of beer I probably
would have fainted on the spot, but even as it was, I had to fight the urge to
lick him. Tall, fair hair in an over-grown crew cut, warm brown eyes. The
sleeves of his sweater were rolled back over well-muscled forearms. The server
returned and dropped two fresh beer mats on the table, followed by a
replacement of my half pint and a pint of Guinness for him. He held up the beer
to me.

“To Michael Jordan and charming American
visitors,” he said.

I tried to look away from his forearms and
clinked his glass with my own.

“So, what is it ye do in Chicago, Miss
Yankee?”

“I—uh …” I began, stalling a little,
when suddenly the dark-haired girl’s streaked face appeared over the shoulder
of my new tablemate.

“Hhayymissshhhhh,” she said, draping herself
across his back and wrapping her arms around his neck. “We’re lonely, man.
Who’s your new friend?”

He shot an irritated look at her and pushed
her arms off his shoulders. “Eilidh, behave yerself. We’ve an American guest
here—first day, aye?”

I nodded. Eilidh looked unhappy at being
pushed aside. “Ach, another tourist, no doubt.”

She leaned on the table and waved a finger
in the direction of my face. “I deal with the likes of you all shummer,” she
said, a trifle blearily. “I do the ghosht tour out of the Cathedral on the
Mile. Twishe a day—three times on Shundays. All day every day, Americans,
Japanese and the damned Germans. Always the damned Germans.”

The very cute Scottish guy scowled at her
again, and toyed with one of the beer coasters. He had a working man’s hands,
red and rough, but his nails were clean. His finger traced the logo on the
coaster.

“Eilidh …” he repeated, warningly, but she
ignored him, shaking her head sorrowfully.

I held my breath to see if she would cry
again, but her mood shifted abruptly and she brightened.

“It’sh only once a week, now though. Off
sheason.” She pointed the finger at me again. “Are ye comin’ out to join us
this week, then? We could use the coin.”

Both sets of eyes turned to me, but the
coherence that had returned with the beer dousing had begun to fade. “I—I’m
not sure …” I began.

“Jeremy’s here, Hamish.”

It was the blonde girl. Laoghaire. Laurie.
My head was spinning with beer and tiredness.

“Just texted, he’s stopped out front. We’ve
got to be off.”

The cute guy’s face fell. “Ach thought we
were stayin’ for the karaoke,” he said, patting his pocket. “Ah’ve got mah set
list all ready—Mellencamp, The Boss, Marvin Gaye.”

He leaned against my arm. “No one can beat
my version of ‘Sexual Healing,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

My internal organs rearranged themselves
spontaneously.

“I’d—I’d like to hear that,” I
managed.

Laurie tucked her arm under one of Eilidh’s
and gazed impassively at me.

The cute guy—Hamish—shot me a
crinkled, perfect and slightly regretful grin as he stood up. “Lovely talkin’
to yeh,” he said. “But I need to hop this pink Cadillac. I’d stop longer, but
it’s my only hope of a ride north, sadly.”

My brain and body began to work in concert
at last. “You’re not leaving?” I began, but he didn’t hear me.

He took Eilidh’s free arm and circled around
to lead her toward the door.

“
Hitchin’
a ride
,” she sang into his face, and giggled.

“Nice to meet you,” I called out, a little
desperately. I tried to get to my own feet, but my stool was jammed in behind
the no-longer-wobbly table.

The blonde shot me a look over her shoulder
at the sound of my voice. “Another American, eh, Hamish?”

She and Eilidh roared with laughter as they
stepped out onto the street.

And that’s how I met—and lost—my
Jamie Fraser on the very first day in Scotland.