What Scotland Taught Me Read online

  I chewed at a dry patch on my lip. “Possibly.”

  “Laurence?” said Amber. “Your vote?”

  He slid a glance at me from behind his titanium-frame glasses, a smirk lingering on his lips. As I glared back, the amusement in his green eyes shifted to malice. “Wouldn’t want to juggle too many guys at once,” he said. “Your eggs might get scrambled.”

  While Amber and Shannon snickered, I whacked him again harder.

  Chapter Two: Hostel Beginnings

  The four of us grew up together in the little town of Wild Rose, Oregon, and we’d been friends since kindergarten. But life was poising itself to split us up after this transatlantic jaunt.

  Laurence had a clutch of expensive, nerdy schools like MIT and Cal Tech lined up to snatch him away. Shannon and I reckoned we’d attend a university or community college in Oregon. Amber, diffident on higher education, claimed she wanted to go straight to some exciting career involving travel, fashion, or the supernatural. (No, I didn’t think many people got paid for that last one, but she kept hope alive.)

  Chances were, once we settled into our new lifestyles we’d form other attachments, and start losing touch with each other despite our best intentions. This six-month trip was, in short, our final guaranteed adventure as a foursome, and we were determined to create some never-fading memories out of it. Plus, we hoped to make a little money overseas so we wouldn’t return home completely broke.

  We still hadn’t found our Edinburgh jobs, but we’d tackle that issue tomorrow. Settling into our accommodations came first. And I can’t speak for my friends, but when I staggered out of the Edinburgh Airport on stiff legs, my shoulders laden with bags, dropping into bed was the only prospect that appealed to me.

  A cab brought us into the city and left us on a sidewalk with our luggage. The smell of fresh, cool September rain filled my nose, the same scent here as in rainy Oregon. But the similarities ended there. On a jagged black cliff a few blocks to our left loomed Edinburgh Castle, towering over the treetops. A massive relic from the Middle Ages, there it still stood as the city’s centerpiece, skirted by green public gardens and narrow lanes of traffic. It was more sinister and more gorgeous than any building I had ever seen. Staring at it both exhilarated and nauseated me. We were definitely not in Oregon anymore.

  I turned away and peered up through the misty rain at the exterior of our youth hostel, a five-story stone building rich in decorative brick with tall windows.

  Amber bounced on her heels. “Can you guys believe it? We get to live here!”

  “The outside’s pretty at least,” I admitted.

  She picked up her suitcase. “You guys have nice houses. You don’t understand. This is huge for me; I grew up in a trailer.”

  We followed her through double glass doors. “But it’s a pleasant trailer,” I said. “Not a trashy one.”

  “Yeah,” Shannon said. “I mean, it’s a double-wide.”

  We fell silent as we looked around the lobby, waiting our turn behind other new arrivals.

  We had cased the joint via the Internet, of course. We knew we’d be sharing a big room with several other travelers, and that the furnishings were sparse and shabby in a weird 1700s-meets-1970s kind of way. But it was cheap and temporary. And anyway, in questioning the hostel staff via email, we’d been tickled by their use of spellings like “humour” and “centre” and phrases like “you and your mates.”

  We thought those were examples of British usage. You know, this being Great Britain and all.

  Turned out they were Australian. No mistaking the accent on that long-haired guy manning the front counter with a cheery grin, or the tall redheaded girl who dashed in to ask him a question and then dashed out. Aussies overseeing our Scottish accommodations? I felt cheated.

  And while I knew there would be other lodgers in the hostel about our age and from all countries, I guess I had pictured them studying maps, learning about architecture, and traipsing the city with tidy haircuts and a healthy glow to their cheeks.

  I didn’t picture the alcohol-fragranced young man with a two-day beard, leaning on the end of the counter and talking in French to the barefoot pasty blonde chick with a nose ring. Or the dreadlocked white girl with an unfamiliar accent, whining to her friend that she was so wasted last night.

  The Australian behind the counter was busy helping two Japanese travelers ahead of us. They barely spoke English, and the Aussie’s broad accent wasn’t helping. After waiting beside them and listening to the confused exchange for a minute, Laurence contributed a phrase in Japanese. He had learned it in high school, and practiced it with foreign colleagues of his father’s. The two Japanese kids beamed at him and nodded.

  Laurence asked them something else, then told the Aussie, “They want to know if there’s a place to store their luggage.”

  The light dawned on the Aussie’s face. “Ah, right!” he said. “Thanks, mate. Yeah, there are lockers upstairs, but you’ve got to pay for ’em. There are closets in the rooms, but it’s first-come, first-served.”

  Laurence translated this. The Japanese travelers consented, paid their fees, and hauled their stuff up the stairs.

  “Show-off,” I muttered as we took their place at the counter.

  “Nah, man, that was great!” The Australian grinned at Laurence. “You want a job here?”

  Laurence shot him an “Are you kidding me?” look, and moved straight to the main topic. “We have reservations. Hawthorn.”

  The Aussie located us in the logbook. “Laurence Hawthorn, Amber Willock, Eva Sonneborn, Shannon Stover,” he said. “I put you all in number 17, on the third floor. That’s a twelver, so there are eight others in there when we’re full up.”

  I had been prepared to room with my friends and any congenial strangers, but having glimpsed the clientele, my enthusiasm nose-dived. I’d always had a room of my own till now. My one sibling, Gina, hadn’t been born until I was eight, and we had separate bedrooms from the start. Jumping from that to sleeping alongside a bunch of drunk, foreign twenty-somethings? Ick, in a word.

  My three friends shared my dismay, to judge from their expressions, but we weren’t about to go gallivanting in the rain again with all our luggage.

  Amber squared her shoulders and put a smile back on. “Well, it’s still a gorgeous building.”

  “It’ll be an adventure,” Shannon agreed. Easy for her to say. She had four younger siblings back home, two of whom shared her room. Being free of them, and their babysitting and tailoring needs, would be a godsend no matter who she had to bunk with.

  Laurence, meanwhile, probably felt as nettled as I did. He lived in a spacious old house with only his dad. His mom had died of cancer when we were freshmen.

  Whatever his regrets now, Laurence unfolded some British bank notes and dropped them on the counter. “All right. I’m too tired to argue.” He put away his wallet and told us, “That’s for tonight. You can pay me back.” He hefted his duffel bag over his shoulder and trudged up the stairs.

  “Confusing place,” I said as we climbed to the third floor.

  The staircases zigzagged up and up, and each floor had an unnecessarily high ceiling but limited living space. It seemed that in the UK you didn’t rent one level of a building; rather, you rented a vertical slice of the whole thing. We shoved through four swinging doors before we reached the third floor corridor, at the end of which a set of stairs went up and then stopped at a blank wall.

  “Hel-lo, Winchester Mystery House,” said Shannon.

  “Must have been remodeled,” Amber said. “The outside of the building matched the rest of the neighborhood. Georgian, you know, couple hundred years old. They must have cleared the insides and divvied it up. Wonder what it used to be.”

  “Don’t know, but if it’s 200 years old, someone probably died here,” said Shannon. “You might be able to see ghosts in our very room.”

  Our very room, number 17, had no lock on the door.

  “Another bad sign,” Laur
ence muttered, leading us inside.

  The room was the size of a large classroom, painted in a pale greenish shade, with fluorescent tube lights on the high ceiling. These buzzed when Amber hit the switch, and we all looked up and cringed.

  “What a waste of potential chandelier space,” she said.

  Sets of bunk beds stood around the walls, along with two inadequate wardrobes. Clothing already spilled out of these, and open suitcases on the carpet were clearly being lived out of. The smell of over-breathed air and cigarette smoke clung to the curtains--cheap scholastic style, thick and brownish. The hostel forbade smoking in the rooms, but people obviously disregarded that rule judging from the lingering smell and the cereal dish on the windowsill holding several extinguished butts.

  Laurence nudged Amber. “How’s that trailer looking now?”

  She swung to face us, setting her face into its bravest lines. “This is only temporary. Remember?”

  I pulled my foot away from a blackish-brown stain on the carpet. “Not likely to forget.”

  “We’ll work something out,” Shannon said. “We just need to get our bearings.”

  Rather than contribute to the optimism, Laurence blew his nose.

  Amber marched forward and slung her bag down next to an empty bed. “I claim the top bunk.”

  Shannon slid her backpack off. “Bottom’s mine.”

  I trudged to a neighboring bed and dropped my luggage on the floor.

  The room was too hot. I pulled off my coat and went to the window, hoping to God it would open. It did, and furthermore, it had no screen. Suicide would be a cinch here, I thought wryly, peering down at the traffic and concrete four stories below. (What they called the third floor was actually the fourth, in American terms. They counted the ground as Floor Zero, not Floor One.)

  A few breaths of the rain-cleansed air eased my nerves. To steady myself further, I gazed at a park nearby, an expanse of grass with oaks, pines, and other trees marching up a steep slope. On top of the ridge sat a crowded line of pointed church spires and dark medieval buildings. I stuck my head out the window to see around the edge of our hostel. Sure enough, at the high end of the slope stood Edinburgh Castle, gray and grandiose in the rain clouds.

  Okay, so the view was nice. I hopped down, found my digital camera in my suitcase, and leaned out the window again for a shot. Click-click. I examined the photo on the camera’s display: dim and gray.

  “I’m going to take a nap,” Shannon said behind me, yawning.

  “Me too,” murmured Amber.

  I switched off the camera and drew my head in. “Same here.”

  On the bunk below mine, Laurence already breathed like one deep in slumber, covered in the slate-blue duvet the hostel provided.

  Before I could climb to my bunk, the tall redheaded Aussie chick dashed into our room, holding a slip of paper. “Which of you is Eva?”

  I raised my hand.

  She brought me the paper. “Forgot, down there. You had a phone message waiting.” Out she dashed again.

  I unfolded the note.

  Tony says call as soon as you get in.

  I grimaced at Shannon and Amber, who, having read it over my shoulder, retreated with smiles--sympathetic on Shannon, teasing on Amber.

  I stuffed the note into my jeans pocket. “Guess I better go see if it’s serious.”

  While my lucky friends climbed into bed for a nap, I trudged downstairs to find a pay phone and figure out how the hell to use it.

  Chapter Three: Enter Gilleon

  Imagining some calamity to my family in the past twelve hours, I dialed Tony’s cell number, even though it was four in the morning in Oregon.

  Scarier yet, he answered.

  He sounded sleepy. “Oh, good. I left the phone on in case you called.”

  “What is it? Is anything wrong?”

  “No, I just wanted to say hi, and I miss you,” Tony said. “I told them that, at the hostel. Didn’t they put that in the message? Silly people.”

  Ugh.

  We only spoke for about five minutes. The cost of the call staggered me as it reeled away in pounds and pence on the little screen, and besides, I required a nap in a dire way. So, darn, no chance to bring up that open relationship thing.

  Could I be more of a coward?

  The next day I stood with my three companions outside a mobile phone dealer on Princes Street, the city’s main shopping drag. The rain had given way to mild autumn sunshine. As pedestrians flowed around us and tall red-and-white buses whooshed past, we thumbed intently at our new devices, swapping them like playing cards.

  “Okay, Shannon, give me yours.”

  “There. My number’s entered. Got Amber’s?”

  “Here, I’ll put in Laurence’s.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now, ladies,” Laurence said, as we all recovered our own phones, “I got the best plan I could, but international calls or texts are still going to cost limbs. Accessing the email app isn’t cheap either. Use sparingly.”

  “Okay, Dad,” I said.

  “Or you’re grounded,” he added.

  “Are you done? Some of us need to go job-hunting.”

  We three girls had dressed for interviews--blazers, button-up blouses, dark pants, neutral tints of eye makeup. My pants, like most pants, were too long on me, and the hem kept snagging on the stitching of my leather oxfords. My white shirt rumpled itself up inside my jacket every time I moved, making my armpits itch. Amber and Shannon, in contrast, looked like models out of the work-abroad brochure. Shannon stood slim and straight like a Hitchcock blonde in her gray suit. Amber wore a burgundy jacket over a rose blouse, somehow making those tints not only work together, but set off her tan skin.

  “You should come, Laur,” Amber said. “You need to find your chemical-free career.”

  He waved us away. “Not today. I’m going to brave that grocery store we passed earlier. See you at the hostel.” He strolled off, tweedy blazer flapping open in the breeze. He’d worn jeans, anyway. Totally not the thing for interviews.

  Shannon, Amber, and I dashed across the street to Princes Street Gardens, the vale of green below Edinburgh Castle, and claimed a park bench, where we immediately got down to business: checking and sending messages.

  Naturally I had email from Tony.

  Good to talk to you last night, Mutton-Feet, it said. We had a running contest to come up with unflattering pet names for each other. I miss you hugely and tons--or is that “tonnes” now? Eat a scone for me. Love, Tony.

  I smiled and started tapping keys in answer.

  Dear Horse Breath: Yay, we have phones! So first, here’s the number.

  As everyone knows, typing email on a cell phone is a bitch. It took me at least twenty minutes to compose the normal arriving-in-Edinburgh part of my message. My fingers were cramping up by the time Amber stretched and said, “All right. Let’s hunt us some jobs.”

  “Hang on a sec,” said Shannon, deep within a message.

  “I’m game,” I said. I typed, Gotta go. Tell my folks I’m OK, then sent the email.

  I felt bad for not emailing my parents first, but they would understand. They loved Tony, which was handy. For a teenager, I harbored remarkably little family drama. My sister and I argued over stupid things every week, but we didn’t draw blood. Dad taught third and fourth grade, and Mom taught high school science, so they witnessed worse kids than us on a daily basis.

  “Having examined this map for at least fifteen seconds,” Amber said, “I think I can guide us to the student employment office.”

  Shannon finally set down her phone with a sigh. “Good. All right, I’m ready.”

  “How’s the fam?” asked Amber.

  “Not bad. They’ve survived a full forty-eight hours without me, so I have hope.”

  “Shannon, darling,” I said, “I think one of your goals for Scotland should be ‘Quit worrying about what’s going on in Wild Rose for ten minutes each day.’”

  She smiled as she
tucked her phone into her practical gray-and-black purse. “Well, I get to be in Scotland, and they don’t. I feel kind of sorry for them.”

  “Damn straight.” Amber stuffed the street map into her pocket, and glanced at me. “Asked Tony if he’ll sanction a fling with a Scottish hottie?”

  “Not yet. Jeez. Emailed your dad?”

  Her eyes widened. Instantly I felt bad for throwing a sensitive question back at her. It wasn’t her fault I was such a wimp.

  But she smiled, stretched her arms behind her neck, and answered in a perfect echo of my voice, “Not yet. Jeez.”

  * * *

  I clinked a tumbler of Irish cream against Amber’s shot glass, and then leaned across her to tap it against the paper umbrella in Shannon’s cocktail. “To us. To jobs in bonnie Scotland.”

  “To us!” Amber downed half her whisky. “Mm. Smoky.”

  “To pubs and hotels for hiring us.” Shannon sipped her drink, sticking out her pinky.

  I lifted my glass, enjoying the ice chips and milky sweetness that slid into my mouth. In my limited experience so far, Irish cream was one of the only alcoholic drinks I had not wanted to spit out.

  The webpage for the work-abroad program had contained a gallery full of photos of triumphant young Americans at their British jobs. Wearing crisp business suits, they beamed out at us from posh offices and majestic government buildings, promising a world of happiness and high-paying work in the UK’s temporary-job market. Well, good for them. But when we opened that notebook of available employers at the actual work-abroad agency, we found it brimming with pizza parlors, pubs, and hotels--the tourism industry, all the way.

  “Most high-school graduates do take an entry-level job at first,” Shannon had pointed out.

  “And it’s still a Scottish entry-level job,” conceded Amber. “That’s what counts.”

  So, hoping future employers would only notice the ultimate coolness of the Edinburgh address behind the title “kitchen assistant” on my resume, I had accepted the only job offered to me today after six hours of visiting the candidates.