Chapter 6
Lesson 6: Sometimes one’s eyes are bigger than one’s mouth, and sometimes they’re not.
Reading List: The Waverley Novels by Sir Walter Scott (unread)
Bridget Jones Tally:
bangers—2
questions about my life that I didn’t want to answer—3
third-degree burns—1
chances to be a billionaire—1
We all piled on to the bus and rode exactly one minute down the street to our next destination. With all the fussing and rearranging
that the ladies did, it was long enough for me to fish my notebook out of my bag and start a new list.
How I Loathe Thee, Let Me Count the Ways:
Rude. Unaccountably, unprofessionally, unforgivably rude.
Knocked my phone to the floor.
Flirted with the gatekeeper (revolting display).
Made inarguable points about ageism when I was angry.
Public humiliation/childish reoccurring name jokes.
Stupid, messy hair that he probably spends half an hour waxing and teasing into peaks each morning.
Goaded me into causing a scene in front of the ladies... twice!
Dead set on making my life a misery.
We arrived at the pub—the pub, thank God. Since that morning, I had gone from starving to nauseous to ravenous. I hadn’t eaten
in... well, I was too tired and hungry to calculate how long it had been in this time zone, but I was certain that it was
longer than the entire lifespan of many of Earth’s insects.
Could it be low blood sugar that’s making me grumpy? I considered this briefly and then huffed and crossed my arms. No, it’s the douchebaggery.
We all piled back out of the bus—surely it would have taken us less time to walk—and the ladies began their stretches and
ankle-rolling again. The German lady braced her feet, stretched way up, and then doubled over, reaching presumably for her
toes but only getting as far as the knees. The little dog ran to look for fallen scraps under the outdoor tables.
The pub’s interior was all black beams, red walls, and exposed stone, with a nicely glowing fire despite the season. We sat
ourselves around a large table with a view of the village, and I stayed quiet as the others chatted away. I didn’t want to
appear unfriendly to the ladies, but I was fuming, hungry, exhausted, and embarrassed. Hopefully they all had poor short-term
memory.
The artsy lady, Lorna, held her menu as far away as her arms would allow, stretching her neck back to get that extra inch, while her partner, Madge, had her glasses pushed to the very end of her nose and was peering over the top of them at the menu she was holding a hair’s breadth from her face. I wasn’t sure how either of them could read anything. I wondered if I should offer to read things aloud, but I didn’t want to risk insulting them.
“Just look at those prices!” said Agatha, the grumpy one, to her sister. “Eight pound for a jacket potato. Who’s ever heard
the like? This is daylight robbery here. We’re being robbed.”
“Are we really? Oh, how exciting!” The pleasant sister, Flossie, pulled her blouse down an inch and looked over each shoulder
with an expectant smile—on the lookout, perhaps, for dashing, swashbuckling highwaymen.
When the server finally arrived, I ordered the biggest things that I could find on the menu—bangers and mash with sage and
pork sausage from a local farm and mushroom and onion gravy, a pint of a honey beer called Waggle Dance that the server recommended,
followed by the sticky toffee pudding with ice cream. These were classic foods I’d seen on British TV and read about often
but had never had the opportunity to try.
While we waited for our food, our truculent tour guide engaged the group in a talk about The Da Vinci Code , and just like that, he turned lunch into a book club meeting. He seemed to be making them all laugh, but I couldn’t manage
to focus on the conversation. Following his accent took more energy than I could spare, and I didn’t want to run the risk
of finding anything he said amusing.
When the food came, I was convinced it was the best thing I had ever put in my mouth, and I zoned in and out of consciousness,
shoveling it into my body as quickly as possible, occasionally catching a snippet of conversation here and there.
“Be careful you don’t swallow the plate as well, dear,” Doris said good-naturedly, and then her glasses with the broken chain
fell into her steak and kidney pie.
“Leave the girl,” scolded Agatha. “This is a large part of American culture. We will be treated to this display of our cultural
differences at each mealtime, so we may as well get used to it.”
“Well, the poor thing, she must be starving.” Lorna joined in from across the table. “Look at you—you could snap in the wind!”
I took a couple of large gulps from my pint and let loose a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry—it’s been an incredibly long trip for
me to get here, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry in all my life. Plus”—I pointed with my fork—“this is delicious!
What’s a girl to do?” I bookended this with another wobbly smile that earned me a couple of grins and chuckles from around
the table, and a motherly pat on the arm from Welsh Doris, who had a sheen of gravy on her hand.
“That’s right, dear. You carry on.”
There was a little frustrated yip from below, so Doris dug her fingers into her pie, pulled out a glistening piece of meat,
blew on it, and then passed it to Percy under the table. I wasn’t convinced that this was proper support animal behavior,
but perhaps standards were different here.
I did slow down eating after that and made an attempt to listen to the conversation. I even answered a few questions. I had
assumed no one would want to talk to me after my public outbursts, and that was okay—I would start making a better impression
first thing in the morning. But it turned out I was wrong. These ladies were clearly a forgiving bunch, and the more they
talked to me, the more I felt my shoulders relax.
“What part of the US are you from?” asked Madge.
“I’m originally from Boston, but I studied in Connecticut, and now I live in Washington, DC.”
“Really?” asked Lorna. “Madge and I took a road trip around the US many years back, and we just loved it. I think Santa Fe
is one of my favorite cities in the world. I just felt an instant affinity with it, you know what I mean? When a place just
mirrors your innermost spirit? I hope to retire there some day.”
“We’ve already retired, my love, to North Berwick, remember?” Madge countered, but Lorna went on unhindered.
“We never did get to Boston, though, and I would so love to see it.”
“We’ve been to Boston,” Agatha informed us in her clipped tone. “I hope never to return to the place. The people there are
shockingly rude.”
“That’s rich,” Doris mumbled beside me, giving me a conspiratorial little elbow that made me smile.
“I met three of my lovers in Boston,” Flossie chimed in, with a dreamy look in her watery eyes.
Agatha’s face puckered like Maggie Smith tasting store - bought marmalade . “You did nothing of the kind! We were together every second of every day, as we always are. You are my constant burden wherever
I go.”
“A soldier, a barber, and a candlestick maker,” Flossie went on happily. “Do you think the water closet in this establishment
offers the services of a bidet? I pride myself on a fresh and fragrant undercarriage at all times.”
“If it does, I should wash your mouth out with it,” snarled her sister. “Now be quiet this instant, before you get us all
turned out for indecency.”
The beautiful lady—Helena, I think it was—had been deeply engrossed in a side conversation with my aggressor since we had
arrived, but I happened to notice his eyes light up as they flicked over the scene the ladies were making. His face melted
into a grin that confirmed that he had heard the best of it.
“I have traveled to twenty-three states,” Berrta said loudly to me. “North America is most excellent for birding. I saw sixty-four
species there in just four veeks. I have seen three hundred and seventy-two species this year, and I have most here on my
camera. I vould like to show you if any of you vish to see them.”
“A fascinating offer. Perhaps we will seek you out if we have any trouble falling asleep tonight,” quipped Agatha, but she had been quieted by the shame of the undercarriage comment, and luckily Berrta didn’t appear to have heard her.
“I’d love to see them, Berrta. Thank you,” I said. “Perhaps a little later when I can focus properly?”
I didn’t really have any particular interest in spending hours looking through her extensive catalog of bird photos, but no
one else had accepted the offer, and I didn’t want her feelings to be hurt. I was rewarded by a tight-lipped German smile
and a firm nod that made me feel good, even if it meant that future me would discover a new fear for Hitchcock’s The Birds .
Before dessert arrived, I was also asked how long I had lived in DC (five years), how long I would stay in the UK (just the
three weeks, and I would fly out of Edinburgh soon after the tour had ended), was I single (yes), how did I stay so thin (stressing
calories away, I guessed, and anxiety was a natural laxative), which Pride and Prejudice adaptation did I prefer (BBC), and did I listen to Barry Manilow (umm... sure).
While it was nice having a conversation with these ladies and getting to know one another, it was harder to talk about myself
than I had anticipated. It was not something I had ever felt before. I had always been proud of my achievements, rather than
ashamed of how my life was going. It was a sharp thing, with jagged teeth and a tight grip. I hadn’t been single for over
six years, and answering yes to that question felt worse than I had expected.
By the time we got to the question of what I did, I chickened out. I wasn’t ready to admit the truth, so I kept my voice even, and told them that I worked on the outreach team at a large nonprofit focused on ending poverty in the Global South. It was what I used to do and what I hoped to be doing again soon. I gave myself permis sion to bend the truth a little bit. I wasn’t really capable of anything else.
“Oh, how noble,” said Lorna. “I could just tell you were a good person.” She gave me a little wink, and I smiled back.
Doris hadn’t eaten her roll, and before they took her plate away, she wrapped it up in a slightly used paper napkin and snuck
it to me under the table like a drug deal.
“Here, love. Put this in your handbag for later,” she whispered. I thought about it for a second and decided that “later”
I was unlikely to want a stale dinner roll wrapped in someone else’s napkin.
“Oh. Good idea. Are you sure you don’t want it?”
“No, no, dear. That’s for you.”
I tucked it away in my bag with a covert smile.
The sticky toffee pudding arrived in a mass of glistening, golden goodness that smelled intoxicatingly of butter and burnt
sugar. I grabbed the spoon with childish glee and fed myself a portion the size of my own fist before spitting it out into
my napkin and launching into a spasmodic coughing fit. It was as hot as boiling tar. Molten toffee coated my mouth and continued
to cook it mercilessly even after I had spat it out.
Before I knew what was happening, the object of my contempt had rushed to the bar and returned with a glass of ice water—worried
about an American lawsuit, no doubt, lest I see an opportunity to make my fortunes via toffee injury.
“Be careful. It’s hot.”
“Thanks for the warning.” I gulped the water greedily.
“No trouble,” he said, and then quietly added, “It would be a terrible shame if you really hurt yourself and then found it
too painful to speak for a few days... or weeks even.”
After a moment of genuine deliberation, I came to the regretful conclusion that I couldn’t stab him in the leg with my fork in front of everyone, so instead I shot him a look of unfettered disdain I hoped would have the same effect. To my frustration, this seemed to amuse him, before he quickly changed his face back to the overdone mask of concern to fool the ladies.
I ignored the way his stupid little smirk made me feel like my entire body was a pinata filled with hornets and went back
to my magma cake. It was worth it. Sticky toffee pudding was my new favorite dessert, even with a side of third-degree burns.
The minute I slid onto my bus bench, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, the type achieved only through the consumption
of beer, copious amounts of mashed potatoes, and large, sugar-soaked cakes. I came to only after the bus had stopped, roused
by the haunting voice of my enemy. I appeared to have drooled a little. I checked his face quickly to see if he’d noticed
but could discern nothing.
“So we are now in the Scottish Borders, ladies, as I’m sure many of you have noticed from enjoying the stunning views of the
changing landscape as we drove south. In fact, this is one of my favorite drives in Scotland. Alice Cooper had her face pressed
against the glass the entire drive down. Would you like to share with us your favorite part?”
My stomach tightened. “Umm. Well,” I said with the voice of James Earl Jones. I looked out the window for an answer, any answer.
“I liked the hills.”
I don’t deserve this. Do I deserve this? Okay, maybe a little. But I just had a thirty-six-hour flight—what’s his excuse?
“Ahh, yes. The hills. A fine choice. Wouldn’t you agree, ladies?” he said with a smile. I scrubbed a hand over my face. This.
Was going to be the longest three weeks of my life.
Abbotsford, the stately home of Sir Walter Scott, was our next stop. It was a sprawling, baronial castle, the opulence and splen dor of which I had never seen in real life and only occasionally on-screen. The fairy tale was complete with spires and turrets and huge windows looking out upon what must surely be the most perfect garden in existence. Inside was no less breathtaking, Scott had had his home built with all the romance of a poem.
The library was enough to make a bibliophile weep openly. The elaborately carved wooden paneling, the painted ceilings, the
Gothic marble fireplaces, the mullioned windows, the walls of gorgeous leather-bound antiquated books—I loved every inch of
it. Even the smell was perfect: wood polish, old paper, and pipe tobacco.
I walked from room to room, selecting one favorite item from each that I would move into my bedroom after I inevitably bought
Abbotsford from the National Trust with my toffee-burn billions and moved in.
Voldemort gave us what was another excellent tour. Scott, it seemed, liked to collect curiosities, and his castle was full
of fascinating oddities—witches’ cauldrons, decorated human skulls, Rob Roy’s knife—and he had lots of stories and mysteries
to share.
We spent a couple of hours in the house and then another on the grounds and in the gardens. We were left free to wander of
our own accord, sans contemptuous Caledonian cretin, to spread out and explore the enchanted woodlands and converse with the
gentle babble of the picturesque River Tweed. I forgot my exhaustion and really enjoyed strolling around the gardens alone—and
later on, alongside the ladies. I learned about the plants and flowers from Lorna, Helena, and even Agatha, all of whom enjoyed
gardening at home. I took photos of everything from every angle so I could remember what it all looked like for the rest of
time.
A few hours later, we were at our bed-and-breakfast. As the hostess fixed us a roast supper, I looked at some of Berrta’s
bird photos and the ladies talked about what TV shows they were missing.
“That was a nice day, but I sure missed me Countdown at 2:10,” said Doris. “Although it hasn’t been the same since that sexy Richard Whiteley left.”
“Well, I missed Neighbours ,” said Lorna. “And today we were supposed to find out what’s been going on with Toadie! I’ll have to call my friend Selma
tomorrow to find out, but she’ll be asleep now, it’s nearly half eight.”
“Don’t get me started on Coronation Street ,” said Agatha.
I thanked Berrta, stood up, and backed away quietly. The roast smelled delicious, but I could no longer keep my eyes open.
Besides, I didn’t think anyone would commiserate with me that I was only halfway through Squid Game . My room called to me, where I could sleep the well-deserved sleep of the dead.
I spotted my Air Armor at the bottom of the stairs. Well, how could anyone miss it? I had opened it earlier to get to my walking
shoes, and now it was a blossoming bundle of ripped yellow tape, crushed and defeated, clothes of all colors spilling out,
a soldier after a brutal battle. A battle that I had also fought and looked similarly destroyed by.
I grabbed what was once the handle and tried to lift it up, but it was impossibly heavy. Gravity was against me, weighing
the heavy outer casing down to spread further open and spit my socks out onto the floor. Even if I was in a fit state to carry
the thing up the stairs to my room, which I can confirm I was not, I would inevitably leave a trail of toiletries and underwear
behind me. I tucked the socks back in and tried again, turning around and dragging it up the stairs backward, one step at
a time, while attempting to hold it together with my free hand.
The problem with this method: as the bag scraped each step, more tape was pulled off, disrupting its fragile integrity. It
was impossible. At this rate, I could carry my belongings to my room one bundle at a time, like a mother cat moving her kittens,
or I could just light the whole goddamn thing on fire. It was a tough choice.
Just when I was contemplating the latter, our detestable driver arrived. I’m sure this was an enjoyable still life for him—me doubled over, balancing the huge broken case on the steps, hair obscuring my face, rump raised high.
Anyone. Anyone but him.
He chuckled low when he saw me but moved quickly to help.
“Here, let me help with that.” He put a hand out to stop the case from falling, but I didn’t let go.
“I got it,” I said like a fool.
“Don’t be silly. I’ll bring it to your room.”
“No thanks.”
“It’s okay to accept help when you need it, Alice Cooper.”
“Accepting help from you would be like accepting a ride from Ted Bundy. I’d only regret it later. Thanks, but I got it.” I
knew I didn’t have it, but the words spilled out nonetheless, like I had no say in the matter.
He laughed. “Yes, I can see that. It’s quite a sight, actually. I was wondering if I could get a photo for the website. ‘Stubborn
American victoriously carries own luggage upstairs before trip to chiropractor.’” He laughed again, clearly enjoying his own
insufferable brand of humor.
“Only if I can get one of you. ‘Smug Scottish Neanderthal finds women incapable of looking after themselves.’”
“Oh, not all women.”
I shot him a look that would have eviscerated his manhood if it could have.
“Look, Gloria Steinem, I’m not offering to help because you’re a woman. I’m offering to help because you’ve had such a long
day that you’re barely even human at this point.”
We stood there in limbo, between war and surrender, the Air Armor between us, him at the bottom of the steps, leaning up to brace the case, me a few steps up, still bent over double. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was that drove me up the wall whenever he smiled that cocky little grin of his. No, I could put my finger on it. He had been goading me all day. On purpose. Like it was his job. And he’d been enjoying it. I blew the
hair out of my eyes and glared down at him before it swung right back into place.
“Look, your suitcase has become a comedy routine. Do you want to get up to your room now, or do you want to spend the next
half hour or so grappling with your own stubbornness? And the suitcase, of course.”
I turned and looked behind me up the stairs. They were infinite, like an Escher painting. I had only made it up about four.
A little bit of my heart died as I gave in.
“Okay. Thanks.” I sounded more like I was doing him the favor. He moved to grab the case and I tried to help him, thinking
to split the weight between us.
“Nah. You just go ahead and take it easy while I do the heavy lifting.” He saw the fight on my face, but before I could say
anything, he laughed and hoisted the massive bag easily up onto one broad shoulder, looping his arm around it to hold it shut.
“Show off.”
We got to the room, and he placed the case down on a chair. As he did, my lacy blue silk nightgown slithered out onto the
floor, moving like mercury and falling in a suggestive display. Oh, come on! Of all things! He swooped down automatically to pick it up, but I snatched it before he could touch it and stuffed it back in my bag. He
cocked an eyebrow at me over a set of dimples.
“Funny. I would have guessed you slept in a suit of armor.”
“Shut up.” I was too tired to think of anything better. A great comeback would probably come to me tomorrow, and then I’d
spend all day fantasizing about a repeat situation.
“Well, Alice Cooper, this suitcase is clearly not going to work. I’ve a bag you can borrow—I’ll shift some of my stuff around until you find another for the way home.”
“Nah,” I said like a child. “You can keep your trash bag. I’m sure they have others in the kitchen I can use without the irritating
commentary. I’ll figure something out.” He laughed at me and then went on to make the decision without my consent.
“You’ll have it tomorrow. Now get some sleep so that we don’t have to use the defibrillator on you in the morning.”
I tried to smile and thank him like a mature adult person, but it came out more like a pained snarl.
Oh well. Tomorrow I’ll be a mature adult, I told myself. But something deeper down knew it was a lie. With the ladies, sure—they were lovely. But this man was like poison ivy—the more I scratched, the more it spread, and the
worse it itched.