Girls Who Travel (27 page)

58

I
WAS
ALREADY
half seduced by spring in London, I realized as I closed my door with a clack and walked toward Aston's house. Spring had come while we were away, and baby green and butter-yellow buds had begun to fatten up the trees.
It's too bad I'll never see the season in its full glory.

The night before, I had decided I would tell Aston what I knew about Chantelle. I still wasn't sure if I would admit to my feelings for him, though. I dragged my feet along the pavement.

The girls had just left for their early-morning choir practice before school, and the neighborhood was still wrapped in a thick quiet.
God, I'll miss it here.

Because I was looking up at the trees, I wasn't watching where I was going, and I almost bumped into someone.

“Oh!” I stopped short.

When I saw who I virtually collided with, I was charged with an ache so potent that I staggered backward. I blinked a few times hoping she'd go away. But there she was, Chantelle Benson-Westwood. And she had just emerged from Aston's front door at this early-morning hour.

Why? Because life's like that, that's why.

When Chantelle saw me, she smiled deeply. I pressed my nails into my palm, leaving a constellation of crescent moons in my flesh.

She flattened her hair and flashed me a long, proud look but put on a show of being embarrassed.

“Kika! My, my, I hadn't the slightest idea that I'd encounter anyone at this hour of the morning.” She folded her coat over her body as if gift wrapping herself and then blotted the smeared mascara from under her eyes.

“I'm afraid you caught me on a bit of a walk of shame,” she confided with a nasty twinge.

The crescents grew deeper. “So the gossip rags were true,” I said with no inflection. I told myself that I wouldn't believe that Chantelle and Aston were a couple until I saw it with my own eyes, but now I wished I had just believed it to have spared myself the agony of seeing Chantelle leaving Aston's with a postcoital glow.

Chantelle nodded demurely. “Oh, so you've heard, then? Aston and I are a couple now.” She wiped the sides of her mouth in a sexual but restrained gesture that was not lost on me.

“Were you going in?” She motioned at his door. “You may want to give him a moment. He just went into the bath. We had
quite
the night,” she said with a hateful smile.

I flinched.

“Well, I think he'll want to hear what I have to say,” I said, stalking past her, the gift of movement finally restored to me.

“And what's that, Kiki?”

I knew she said my name wrong on purpose. I whipped back and fired: “I know you're using him. I know there's no money left!”

Chantelle didn't speak for a moment, and we stared at each other in a showdown. But then she threw her head back and laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world. The alarm clock–like cackles grated on my very soul.

“Deny it all you want. I know on good authority—”

She reeled in her laughter. “Oh no, dear, you're quite right, the money is gone. I can't believe you thought it was some big secret. Aston is well aware.”

I shook my head in confusion. “Well, he's certainly not dating you for your sparkling personality, so what the hell is going on?”

Chantelle squished her eyes into vicious little slits. “What you don't understand is that the Benson-Westwood family has been a member of the English aristocracy since before your silly little country even had a flag. Our name, our heritage, our lineage is something no one can buy, no matter what size the fortune,” she boasted. “What I have with Aston is a partnership: He has the means and I have the name. I don't expect an
American
to appreciate the significance of this.”

She said “American” in the same way that stuffy intellectuals said “Kardashian.”

“I don't believe you,” I said, but my words lacked the punch and gave me away.

She coolly shouldered past me and clacked down the street.
“It's over, Kika,” she said, sliding on a pair of designer sunglasses in a melodramatic way. “As you Americans would say, ‘Get over it.' Good effort, though. Let's try and be friends, shall we? I'm practically your neighbor now,” she said cheerily as she stretched her fingers into cropped leather gloves.

I turned and watched her flounce down the tree-lined street, looking like she'd just won. (And hadn't she?)

Was Aston really that shallow? Were she and Elsbeth right about his need to be with someone of proper breeding? I smacked Aston's red door with the flat of my open palm, but Chantelle was right: He didn't answer.

59

T
RYING
TO
GET
my shit together was a mini-tragedy. There was a lot of throwing of clothing and slamming of drawers. I spent the rest of the day in the special hell that is being made to leave before ready to. I felt like a thuggish bouncer was jostling me out of the VIP room.

I kept going back to Aston's house, but he wasn't there. Or maybe he was there, and he just didn't want to see me. I distracted myself by taking a long, heated walk to Celestynka's flat to say good-bye to her. But her weeping was more than I was prepared for.

“But Kika,” she said with black mascara tears, thankfully keeping her voice down because the babies were asleep. “This is not fair!”

I shrugged.
No, it isn't fair. But the world likes to screw with
my best-laid plans.
I didn't bother to say this aloud, because I didn't know how to explain it to Celestynka.

“I am so sad that my good news is no longer good enough,” Celestynka said, nursing a kiddie cup of iceless vodka.

I stared at the drink she poured for me in a cup decorated with clowns and considered guzzling it in one go. “I need some good news now more than ever,” I told her. “What've you got?”

“Well, because of your teaching, I received a job.”

I snapped awake. “You got a job?” I had recently helped her with her CV, but I didn't realize she already interviewed and got the job.

“Celestynka!”

She gnawed at her fingernail, testing out a smile, though her eyes were still gloomy.

“I didn't want to stress you out,” she said, sounding like a native English-speaker, now. “It is at a bank. I start next week. Full-time.”

I threw my arms around her. “I'm so proud of you,” I beamed, squeezing her tighter. This tiny lift of joy reminded me that things would be okay.

Things would get better, wouldn't they? Even if I had to leave, I would look back on this experience and think it beautiful after I had the distance that came with time, wouldn't I?

Damn it, I was starting to sound like my mom.

•   •   •

U
NFORTUNATELY
, I
LEFT
all the mirth at Celestynka's. I got home to find that the last few days I had intended on dragging on unmercifully. Elsbeth instructed Clive to pick up the girls from school this week, so I had little to do but mope.

“The girls are going to have to get used to you not being here,” she told me.

I boiled over with rage at her for not giving me the chance to say good-bye properly. Elsbeth said that they'd be distracted at school all week if we told them now, but I knew she was just doing it to spare herself the fuss. I was dreading Friday when I'd have to tell them good-bye and then leave right after. What a cruel surprise.

There was only one last chance to get Elsbeth to change her mind: The card up my sleeve was to tell her about Mina being bullied. Surely that would convince her to take the girls' desires into consideration?

But I gave Mina my word that I would not tell. So I shoved the opportunity away with hard determination.
I won't betray her. Not even now.

As for Aston, with heartsick resignation I concluded that there was no longer a reason to tell him how I felt. But I wouldn't leave without telling him what I knew about Chantelle—I didn't believe her when she said Aston knew about her lack of funds. And because of all the times he helped me, I felt like I owed him this at the very least.

My plan was to catch him at the Zetland Arms. He played there on Thursdays, so with any luck, I would find him there tomorrow. He couldn't avoid me then, and I couldn't leave without telling him.

I waited for the girls to come home from school, and I thought,
Damn it. I'll miss them most of all.

60

T
HURSDAY
TOOK
ITS
sweet-ass time to arrive. I approached the Zetland Arms as the setting sun bronzed the city, skipping gold against the pub windows and cobbled streets.

When I saw Aston sitting at a high-top table toward the back of the pub, my heart squeezed with greedy want. It was like looking into the lit-up window of a pretty house and wishing you lived there.

Look at him sitting there by himself, brooding and miserable
, I told myself to egg myself on.
That's what dating Chantelle Benson-Westwood will make you look like.

I whipped through the door, all business, before I lost my nerve.

“You're avoiding me,” I said as I plopped down at his table, rattling his pint glass.

A ray of dying sun sliced through the smeared window,
setting him aglow. He looked up at me sparkle eyed, and for a moment, I was sure he was going to smile at me.
Oh God, please do it!
I pleaded.

But he didn't smile. His stoic features stayed unmoving. He stared at me like an impenetrable statue, and suddenly I felt less poised. I gulped hard and gave myself a terse nod of encouragement.
You have to tell him
, I implored.
Tell him now.

“Kika,” he said without emotion. I expected him to contradict me, but instead he said, “Yes, I have been avoiding you.”

I leaned back in my chair. “Well, too bad. I have something to ask you.” I whacked my palms on the sticky tabletop. Before I squandered my spurt of courage, I asked, “Why are you with Chantelle? She's just after your money!”

Aston moistened his lips and looked at me, but he quickly traded it for looking out the window.

I used the chance to examine him. His lips were full and glistening. I couldn't help but stare at him, at his lips, and think about how they'd feel on my—
God, Kika, pull it together.

“Say something,” I insisted.

In his resigned manner, Aston took his time speaking. “We'll get to that, but there's something I have to ask you first. Is that quite all right?”

“Okay . . .” I said, already feeling my pluck ebbing, disarmed by how much I suddenly craved to touch him, to press against him.

“What does it even matter to you who I'm with? Haven't you a boyfriend?” he asked, scrutinizing my reaction.

My tongue stumbled, caught off guard.
Why does this always happen to me when I'm around him?

I watched myself from above: A brave hand reached for his
pint glass. I found myself taking a massive gulp of his beer. I was horrified to find myself still gulping away like a frat boy. Oh my God, by the time I set down the pint, it was nearly finished. I snatched back my hand appalled at myself. What did I just do?

“Aston, I am so sorry, should I get you another—” I started to apologize, but he shifted his feet on the ground and leaned forward onto the edge of his high stool.

“Just answer my question,” he stated firmly, ignoring the beer that I had just emptied down my throat.

“Well, that's part of what I came here to tell you,” I said with flayed hands and a bit of a beer buzz now. “After that night in the garden when you . . . came to my rescue”—I shyly flicked my eyes up, and I swore Aston's expression softened for a split second—“Lochlon came to the house first thing that morning. I was so worried he was going to wake up everyone that I agreed to talk to him at the coffee shop, just to get him to go away, you know?”

“Kika,” he cautioned, tilting forward. “He could have
hurt
you—”

“I know,” I interrupted, but for the first time I saw his point.

With shaken confidence, I continued. “I shouldn't have gone with him. But he was sober and wouldn't leave, so I agreed to listen to his bullshit. It was stupid; you're right.”

I didn't look at Aston as I said this next part: “But his apology made no difference to me—I was done with him. I've been done with him for a long time. I guess I just didn't want to believe it.”

I flicked my gaze up. “But that morning he saw you pass by the café, and he deliberately made it look like we were back
together just to mess with you—with us—but Lochlon and I resolved
nothing
that morning. I promise.” I said this with real energy, piercing my own pupils into Aston's. “It's over.”

I added quickly but quietly: “Not like you still care or anything, but I wanted you to know. I tried to tell you sooner. As soon as I understood what Lochlon did, I went to your house trying to find you, but the Darlings were waiting for me to go to the airport for their holiday. They took my phone—it was this whole no-technology trip. And I tried to contact you while I was in Italy. But then I saw the papers.”

“What papers?” he asked.

“Some society column that showed pictures of you and Chantelle together.”

Aston's face darkened.

“I hoped it wasn't true, and so I tried again to tell you when I got back to London.”

Aston didn't speak, so I continued.

“But as soon as I reached your house that morning, I ran into Chantelle leaving. And I just figured you obviously didn't care anymore, because . . . you know, because you and Chantelle were having . . . s . . . sleepovers.” (I apparently was not old enough to use the word “sex.”) I stopped talking abruptly.

Aston surveyed his near-empty pint before opting to kill the last dredges. He shook his head then.

“What is it?” I asked.

He placed the empty pint glass down like he was positioning a chess piece, and then he looked up at me.

“Kika,” he said with a tinge of annoyance shading his tone. “It appears that we both fell for the same rather stupid trick.” He fingered the clammy paper coaster.

“What?”

“Chantelle pulled a Lochlon, I'm afraid,” he explained.

“What do you mean? I saw her leaving your house the morning after.”

Aston gave a chesty scoff. “That's precisely what she wanted you to think she was doing: leaving after staying the night. But she had most likely just arrived moments before you did.”

“But she made it seem like—”

Aston interrupted me. “But she didn't, don't you see? She came over first thing that morning because she had gotten my message that I wanted nothing to do with her, and she was making a final effort to change my mind.

“But of course I rebuked her again. And as far as those pictures of us together, well, they must have been taken ages ago. The Benson-Westwoods are in media, so she must have had them planted so that people would assume we were together.”

“So it's true that she was after your fortune? I heard it from Celestynka that her family lost all their money.”

Aston swiveled his head, affronted. “Well, I'd hope she was after me for more than just that. It isn't like I'm Quasimodo after all.”

I laughed too loudly at this, but I was just so relieved.

“When I confronted Chantelle about being after your money, she said that she had the pedigree, and you had the fortune, and it was the perfect arrangement.”

Aston grunted. “She tried that with me as well. After she realized she couldn't, shall we say, ‘seduce me,' to put it politely”—he rolled his eyes—“she then pitched the power-couple idea to me.”

“So you turned her down?”

“Of course I turned her down! Can't stand the woman. And my granny thinks her ghastly as well.”

“Your granny?” Immediately, I pictured a pearl-clutching, tea-sipping matriarch with a Norman-Bates's-mother-like grip on Aston.

Like Aston could hear my thoughts, he added, “But not to worry. Granny likes you.”

“She does?” I asked, astonished. “You told her about me?”

“Yes, of course. Granny knows everything about this town. She's at the Harrington Gardens School for Girls, and she said since you've arrived, the Darling girls have never been better.”

I grinned.

“Besides, you're rather likable, you know, for a Yank, that is. And Granny doesn't ‘give a toss about Chantelle's aristocratic bloodline.' This is a direct quote, mind you.”

I couldn't help but let the corners of my mouth raise at the mention of him telling his granny about me. I immediately redrafted the image of her in my head. This was a lady with spunk!

“I cannot imagine that you believed Chantelle. What era do you think we're living in, Kika? This isn't
Downton Abbey
.”

“Well, I didn't know,” I protested. “And you
did
tell me straight-out that you went to Oxford. So I thought that crap meant something to you.”

Aston blinked his eyes briskly. “Fair enough.”

I let out a little burst of air, unaware that I was holding my breath this whole time.

“So then, Kika, you have yet to answer my question fully:
Why does it matter to you who I'm with?” He rested his chin atop his knuckles.

I used the moment to gather my feelings. Now that I knew Chantelle was out of the picture, things were suddenly different.

“Well, you know, I didn't want to see you with someone who was after you for all the wrong reasons,” I said, running my nail along the wood's grain. I picked up the coaster, cool and wet like a basement.

I felt his eyes blazing on me. “Was that it, then?”

“Yup,” I peeped, too quickly. “Well, there's also the fact that there's me,” I added.

“And what about you?”

“Aston,” I whined, trigger shy. “You're really making me work for it, huh?” I said under my breath. My heartbeat accelerated, the confession building like a drumroll.

“I haven't the slightest idea of what you're talking about, Kika,” he said with unconvincing naiveté.

I fluttered my lips. “I guess there is the fact that
I
like you, Aston.”

He glided the beer coaster away from me. “Do you, now?”

With nothing to distract me, I nodded without lifting my eyelashes.

“Kika?” he asked with the stern menace of a headmaster.

“Of course I do!” I stumbled out.

Aston reached across the table and lightly used his thumb to tilt my chin up so that I was forced to lock eyes with him. “I've always fancied you, Kika,” he told me.

I could feel my pupils widening. “Always?”

“But you must know! Why do you think I was avoiding
you? I feared you were too silly to realize that you felt the same way about me.”

Before I could say anything, he leaned over the small expanse of table. The conversation was far from over, but in that moment it didn't matter. His lips touched down on mine in a kiss that, moments before, I thought to be impossible.