Queen of Babble

4

Idon’t see any sheep. It turns out Heathrow airport isn’t exactly that far out in the country. As if I can’t tell I’m not in Michigan anymore from the way the houses look (many of them are attached, like in that movie The Snapper…which, come to think of it, was actually set in Ireland, but oh well), I definitely know it from billboards that flash by us. I can’t tell, in many cases, what the product is that they’re trying to sell-one of them shows a woman in her underwear with the word Vodafone beneath her, which could be an ad for a phone-sex service.

But it could just as easily be an ad for panties.

But when I ask, neither Andrew nor his father is able to tell me which it is, since the word panties causes them to dissolve into peals of laughter.

I don’t mind that they find me so (unintentionally) hilarious, though, since it means Andrew’s mind has been taken off being in the backseat.

When we finally turn onto the street I recognize as Andrew’s from the care packages I’ve been sending him all summer-boxes filled with his favorite American candy, Necco wafers, and Marlboro Lights, his preferred brand of cigarettes (though I don’t smoke myself, and assume Andrew will quit well before the first baby is born)-I’m feeling much better about things than I had been back in the parking garage. That’s because the sun has finally put in an appearance, peeking shyly out from behind the clouds, and because Andrew’s street looks so nice and Europeany, with its clean sidewalks, flowering trees, and old-fashioned town houses. It’s like something out of that movie Notting Hill.

I have to admit, it’s something of a relief: I had been wavering between picturing Andrew’s “flat” as being as high tech as Hugh Grant’s in About a Boy, or a garret, like in A Little Princess (which looked very cute once that old guy fixed it up for her), only in a seedier part of town, overlooking a wharf. I’d just been assuming I wouldn’t be able to go walking around his neighborhood by myself after dark for fear of being set upon by heroin addicts. Or Gypsies.

I’m glad to see it’s actually somewhere between the two extremes.

We are, as Mr. Marshall assures me, just a mile away from Hampstead Heath, the park where a lot of famous stuff happened, none of which I actually remember at this current time, and where people go today to have picnics and fly kites.

I’m happily surprised to see that Andrew lives in such a nice, upscale neighborhood. I didn’t think teachers made enough to rent apartments in town houses. No doubt his flat is at the top of one-just like Mickey Rooney’s in Breakfast at Tiffany’s! Maybe I’ll get to meet Andrew’s wacky but bighearted neighbors. Maybe I can have them-and Andrew’s parents, to thank Mr. Marshall for the ride from the airport-over for a small supper to show my American hospitality. I can make Mom’s spaghetti due (pronounced doo-ay). It tastes complicated, but nothing could be simpler to make. It’s just pasta, garlic, olive oil, hot pepper flakes, and Parmesan cheese. I’m sure even England would have all the ingredients.

“Well, here we are,” Mr. Marshall says, pulling into a parking space in front of one of the brown-brick town houses and turning off the ignition. “Home sweet home.”

I’m a little surprised that Mr. Marshall is getting out with us. I would have thought he’d have dropped us off and gone on to his own house somewhere-well, wherever Andrew’s family lives, a family that consists, from what I remember him saying in his e-mails, of a teacher father, a social worker mother, two younger brothers, and a collie.

But maybe Mr. Marshall wants to help us with my bags, seeing as how Andrew probably lives on the top floor of the charming town house we’re parked in front of.

Except that when we get to the top of the long flight of steps that leads up to the front door, it’s Mr. Marshall who takes out a key and unlocks it.

And is greeted by the inquisitive gold and white muzzle of a beautiful collie.

“Hello,” Mr. Marshall calls into what I can clearly see is not the foyer of an apartment house, but the entrance to a single-family home. “We’re here!”

I am lugging my carry-on bag while Andrew pulls my wheelie bag up the stairs, not even bothering to lift it, but dragging it up one step at a time-thonk, thonk, thonk. But I swear I nearly drop the bag-hair dryer be damned-when I see that dog.

“Andrew,” I whisper, whirling around, since he’s coming up the steps behind me. “Do you live…at home? With your parents?”

Because, unless he’s dog-sitting, that’s the only explanation I can think of for what I’m seeing. And even that isn’t a very good one.

“Of course,” Andrew says, looking annoyed. “What did you think?”

Only it comes out sounding like, What did you fink?

“I thought you lived in an apartment,” I say. I am really not trying to sound accusatory. I’m not. I’m just…surprised. “A flat, I mean. You told me, in school last May, that you were getting a flat for the summer when you got back to England.”

“Oh, right,” Andrew says. Since we’ve paused on the steps, he seems to think (fink) this is a good time for a cigarette break and pulls out a pack and lights up.

Well, it was a long trip from the airport. And his father did tell him he couldn’t smoke in the car.

“Yeah, the flat didn’t work out. My mate-you remember, I wrote you about him? He was going to loan me his place, since he got a gig on a pearl farm in Australia. But then he met a bird and decided not to go after all, so I moved in with the parentals. Why? Is that a problem?”

Is that a problem? IS THAT A PROBLEM? All of my fantasies about Andrew bringing me breakfast in bed-his king-size bed, with the thousand-count sheets-crumble into bits and float away. I won’t be making spaghetti due for the neighbors and Andrew’s parents. Well, maybe his parents, but it won’t be the same if they just come down the stairs for it, as opposed to from their own place…

Then I have a thought that causes my blood to run cold.

“But, Andrew,” I say, “I mean, how are you-how are you and I going to-if your parents are around?”

“Ah, don’t worry about that,” Andrew says, blowing smoke out of one side of his mouth in a manner I have to admit to finding thrillingly sexy. No one back home smokes…not even Grandma, since that time she lit the living-room carpet on fire. “This is London, you know, not Bible Belt America. We’re cool about that kind of thing here. And my parents are the coolest.”

“Right,” I say. “Sorry. I was just, you know. Sort of surprised. But it really doesn’t matter. As long as we can be together. Your parents really won’t mind? About us sharing a bedroom, I mean?”

“Yeah,” Andrew says, sort of distractedly, giving my suitcase a yank. Thonk. “About that. I don’t actually have a bedroom in this house. See, my parents moved here with my brothers this past year, while I was in America. I’d told them I wouldn’t be coming home summers, you know, but that was before I had those troubles with my student visa…Anyway, they figured, you know, I’d basically moved out, so they only got a three-bedroom. But don’t worry, I’m-how do you say it in the States? Right, bunking up-I’m bunking up with my brother Alex-”

I look at Andrew on the step below me. He’s so tall that even when he’s standing below me, I still have to tilt my chin up a little to look into his gray-green eyes.

“Oh, Andrew,” I say, my heart melting. “Your other brother’s given up his room for me? He shouldn’t have!”

A strange look passes across Andrew’s face.

“He didn’t,” Andrew says. “He wouldn’t. You know kids.” He gives me a crooked grin. “But don’t worry, though. My mom’s a whiz at do-it-yourself projects, and she’s rigged up a loft bed for you-well, for me, actually. But you can use it while you’re here.”

I raise my eyebrows. “A loft bed?”

“Yeah, it’s fantastic. She’s made the whole thing out of MDF, in the laundry room. Right over the washer/dryer!” Andrew, seeing my expression, adds, “But don’t worry. She’s strung a curtain up between the laundry room and the kitchen. You’ll have plenty of privacy. No one goes back there anyway, except the dog. That’s where his food bowl is.”

Dog? Food bowl? So…instead of sleeping with my boyfriend, I’ll be sleeping with the family dog. And its food bowl.

That’s okay, though. That’s fine. Educators like Andrew’s dad-and social workers like his mom-don’t make a lot of money, and real estate in England is expensive. I’m lucky they have any room at all for me! I mean, they don’t even have a room for their own eldest child, and they’ve found a way to squeeze in a bed for me!

And why would one of Andrew’s brothers give up his room for me? Just because back home I always had to give up MY room for whatever out-of-town guest was coming to stay doesn’t mean Andrew’s family necessarily does things the same way…

Especially since I’m not even an important visitor. I’m only Andrew’s future wife, after all.

Well, in my mind.

“Come on now,” Andrew says. “Get a move on. I have to change for work.”

I’m about to climb another step when I freeze all over again. “Work? You have to go to work? Today?”

“Yeah.” At least he has the grace to look apologetic. “But it’s no big deal, Liz, I just have to do the lunch and dinner shifts-”

“You’re…you’re a waiter?”

I don’t mean to sound pejorative. I don’t. I have nothing against people who work in restaurants, I really don’t. I did my stint in food service just like everybody else, wore the polyester pants with pride.

But…

“What happened to your internship?” I ask. “The one at the prestigious primary school for gifted children?”

“Internship?” Andrew flicks ash off his cigarette. It falls in the rosebushes below. But ash is often used as fertilizer so this doesn’t necessarily count as littering. “Oh, that turned out to be a disaster of epic proportions. Did you know they weren’t going to pay me? Not a fucking cent.”

“But-” I swallow. I can hear birds singing in the treetops along the street. At least the birds sound the same here as they do back in Michigan. “That’s why it’s called an internship. Your pay is all the experience you get.”

“Well, experience won’t pay for pints with my mates, will it?” Andrew jokes. “And of course it turned out they had two thousand applications for the position…a position that doesn’t even pay! It’s not like it is back in the States, either, where you’ve got an edge over everybody else if you’ve got a British accent, since you Yanks are convinced anyone who says ‘tomahto’ over ‘tomato’ is somehow more intelligent…The truth is, Lizzie, I didn’t even bother applying. What would have been the point?”

I just stare at him. What happened to taking on a job for the pure challenge and experience of it? What happened to teaching the children to read?

“Besides,” he adds, “I want to work with real kids, not posh little geniuses…kids who actually need positive male role models in their lives…”

“So,” I say, my heart lifting, “you applied to teach in some inner-city schools for the summer?”

“Oh, fuck no,” Andrew says. “Those positions paid shit. The only way you can make ends meet in this town is in food service. And I’ve got the best shift, eleven to eleven. In fact, I’ve got to run right now if I’m going to make it there in time…”

But I’ve just gotten here! I want to cry. I’ve just gotten here, and you’re leaving? Not just leaving, but leaving me alone with your family, whom I’ve never met-for TWELVE HOURS?

But I don’t say any of these things. I mean, here Andrew is, inviting me to stay, rent-free, in his family’s home with him, and I’m freaking out over his having to work-and the kind of work he’s doing. What kind of girlfriend am I, anyway?

Except I guess my expression must have given away the fact that I am less than enthusiastic about the situation, since Andrew says, reaching out to wrap an arm around my waist and bringing me up close against him, “Look, don’t worry, Liz. I’ll see you tonight when I get off work.”

Suddenly he’s grinding the cigarette beneath his heel and his lips are against my throat.

“And when I do,” he murmurs, “I’m going to show you the best time you ever had. All right?”

It’s very hard to think properly when a cute guy with a British accent is nuzzling your neck.

Not that there’s anything to think about, really. My boyfriend obviously adores me. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.

“Well,” I say, “that sounds-”

And the next thing I know, Andrew’s mouth is on mine, and we’re making out on the front steps of his parents’ house.

I hope the Marshalls don’t have any easily startled little old ladies as neighbors, and that if they do, they aren’t actually looking out their windows right now.

“Fuck,” Andrew breaks off our kiss to say, “I have to go to work. But look, I’ll see you tonight, yeah?”

My lips are still tingling from where his razor stubble chafed them. They’re probably about as swollen as Angelina Jolie’s by now, from all the pressure on them.

Not that I mind. I don’t have a lot of experience in the kissing department.

But I think Andrew may just be the best kisser in the world.

Plus I can’t help noticing that there appears to be something going on in the vicinity of the crotch of Andrew’s jeans that I also like very much.

“Do you really have to go to work?” I ask him. “Can’t you blow it off?”

“Not today. But I’ve got tomorrow off,” he says. “There’s something I’ve got to do in the city. But after that, we’ll do whatever you like. Oh God.” He kisses me a few more times, then rests his forehead against mine. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. You’ll be all right, yeah?”

I stare at him, thinking how good-looking he is, in spite of the hideous jacket, and how sweet and unassuming he is as well. I mean, he’s just so determined to follow in his father’s footsteps and teach all those children to read. Only he’s not going to settle for just any situation. He’s waiting for the right one to come along…

I am so lucky that I was taking a shower at the exact moment that girl’s potpourri caught on fire and that Andrew happened to have been the R.A. on duty at the time.

I think of the first time he kissed me, outside McCracken Hall (with me in my towel and him in those Levi’s that were faded in just the right places), his breath smoky-but from cigarettes, not the fire-and hot in my mouth.

I remember all the phone calls and e-mails between us since. I remember the fact that I blew all my money on a plane ticket to England, since I’m not moving to New York with Shari and Chaz, so I can live at home and be near Andrew in the fall instead.

And I say with a big smile, “I’ll be fine.”

“Cheers, then,” Andrew says. And gives me one last kiss.

And then he turns around and leaves.