A Brit on the Side (Castle Calder Book 1)

by Brenda St John Brown

  Today, though, I don’t want to play and I shrug. “I don’t know. Whatever you think is fine with me.”

  Lou sets down the rolling pin. “I don’t mind if you don’t want to tell me what’s bothering you, but I do expect you to participate.”

  I’m pretty sure I’ve been told off and I’m still new enough here that it stings. I feel my eyes fill and I turn my back quickly so Lou won’t see, pretending to check the temperature on the oven. When I speak my voice is steady but too soft to be convincing. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep well. Um, let’s see. What would kids go for?”

  Lou doesn’t say anything and as I’m about to turn around to ask again, she’s at my elbow. “Let’s have a cup of tea before we start. You make it and I’ll get the biscuits.”

  Damn biscuits. Before my brain catches up with my mouth, my voice rises an octave and I say, “No. I don’t want biscuits. Or bread sticks. Or anything. That’s the problem.”

  “Biscuits are the problem?”

  “Yes. I mean no.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “I can’t eat that stuff, or at least I shouldn’t. But I am and I need to stop.”

  Lou’s eyes scan me from top to bottom and I see the understanding dawn on her face like she saw me naked coming out of the shower. She nods and says, “Well, a cup of tea then. We have herbal if you don’t want milk.”

  Christ Almighty. She’s not going to get back to work until we do this, so I grab two tea cups out of the dish drainer, setting them down a little too hard on the countertop. I make Lou’s tea – milk only – and my herbal peppermint and take a sullen sip as Lou perches on the stool. She doesn’t say anything at first and I wonder if she’s waiting for me to apologize again.

  It probably wouldn’t hurt. I let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. My day got off to a bad start.”

  “Right. You didn’t sleep well, you said.” Lou knows this is bullshit and her tone proves it.

  I shake my head so my hair hangs into my eyes. It makes it easier to say, “I’m frustrated with myself and taking it out on you.”

  “The biscuits and the bread.” It’s not a question.

  I glance at Lou through my hair and nod. She and I are a similar build, although she’s probably about twenty years older than me. Still, her size certainly doesn’t seem to bother her. “I haven’t been paying attention to what I’m eating and I can’t afford to do that.”

  “Because you need to be a certain size.” Also not a question.

  “Yes. No.” I put my tea cup down. “I don’t need to be anything, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to be.”

  “You’ll never have a figure like Scarlett’s. That sounds harsh, but I don’t mean it badly. She’s built differently than you.” Lou’s eyes are steady on mine.

  “I know she is, but I’d still like to have a figure.” I shake my head. “It’s fine. I’m fine. I just need to run more and cut down on the wine.”

  “A glass of wine is approximately two hundred calories, give or take. You burn that off and more doing your bits in the kitchen.”

  “It’s obviously not enough.” I feel my frustration mounting again. “I need to get back on track and I’ll be fine.”

  “You keep saying you’re fine like you expect me to believe you.” Lou’s tone is surprisingly gentle. “A glass of wine has two hundred calories. The biscuit you refused has seventy-three and a breadstick has anywhere from two hundred to four hundred. Ask me the calorie count of anything and I can probably tell you because I used to be fine, too. I think the year I turned twenty I never ate more than seven hundred calories a day and I was proud of that.”

  “I’m not that bad,” I start.

  Lou shakes her head like she doesn’t even hear me. “I was terrified of gaining weight when I got pregnant the first time. But the doctor told me if I didn’t start eating properly, I was putting my baby at risk, so I had to unlearn everything I thought I knew about nutrition and so-called healthy eating.”

  “Trust me, I know plenty about nutrition.” Thank you, Theo Dasanti.

  “The point is,” Lou pauses and her mouth tightens, “Once I stopped fighting so hard for something I was never going to be, my life got a lot easier. Your body can do amazing things. As a woman who’s gone through childbirth twice, let me assure you of that. And it is no less amazing because you’re not a UK size six, or a size zero as you Americans seem to aspire to.

  “I’ve never been a size six, let alone a size zero.” I smile a little.

  “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Lou says. “And neither is beating yourself up about it.”

  “It’s a hard habit to break.” I’ve had a lifetime of either watching my mother lament her weight or mine.

  “I know. So I’m going to make a deal with you.” Lou pauses like she’s waiting for me to protest, then continues, “We’ll put aside a healthy lunch option and a few snacks for you so you can get out of the habit of thinking about calories so much, and then you eat whatever’s on the table at dinner.”

  I draw back like Lou suggested I swan dive off the Brooklyn Bridge. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Breaking a habit means breaking the cycle of behavior.” Lou leans in. “You’re exactly how I was when I was your age and I wish I’d known then what I learned the hard way later.”

  “Honestly, Lou, I’m --”

  “Fine. I know.” She sticks a hand out as if she expects me to shake it. “Try it for twenty-one days and I’ll drop it forever. Think of me like your personal nutritionist.”

  I weave my fingers together. “Why? Why would you do this? You have enough to do with managing everything here.”

  “Because the worst thing about my lifelong belief that I needed to be thin to be happy has been passing it on to my daughters.” Lou’s mouth tightens. “And if you can learn your worth is not your dress size before you have a daughter who starts ‘dieting’ at thirteen because it’s all she sees at home, it will be the single best gift you can give her. Trust me.”

  I see my mother’s expression in Lou’s and I wonder for a minute if she’s ever once thought of the influence her dieting and body consciousness has had on me. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, but somehow I doubt it. How can she see it when she’s so wrapped up in it herself? That a woman I’ve only known less than three weeks, half a world away, sees the impact isn’t lost on me.

  It’s enough for me to extend my hand to Lou’s and grip it firmly. “Okay. You have yourself a deal. I’ll do my best.”

  Lou smiles as she shakes my hand. “That’s all I can ask for. Thank you.”

  No, Lou. Thank you.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Letting go of almost fifteen years of a diet mentality isn’t easy, but I’m getting used to making healthy lunches out of dinner leftovers that top out at four hundred calories, making it easier to hold up my end of the deal with Lou. Extra peas, green beans, and broad beans – which remind me of lima beans but aren’t as gross – mixed with quinoa make a great cold salad. Cold chicken breast with rocket --aka arugula-- and tomatoes make a quick wrap that almost tastes as good without mayonnaise as it does with. Almost. I still mentally try to tally up my total daily calories, but I’m definitely better than I was.

  It helps, too, that I feel more settled into the routine at Castle Calder and I know which days I have more time to make myself something and which days I’ll be eating on the run. Mondays are free days, with everyone keeping to themselves after the intensity of the weekend. Tuesday is a prep day and I spend most of it in the kitchen with Lou. Wednesday is the first day of the week the dining room is open for dinner, so it’s also a light day. But Thursday through brunch on Sunday? It’s manic. For two weeks solid, the rooms are fully booked with a combination of families and couples looking for a romantic break, which means creating very different experiences for both, yet making the whole thing appear seamless.

  Today, for example, Scarlett’s got a group of kids painting bunting for tonight’s Fourth of July barbecue – in
my honor, thank you very much – while I’m in the kitchen with Lou, Claire, and Hannah helping to make up picnic baskets for the couples and providing input on party games as the resident American “expert.”

  “I don’t know what kids do on the Fourth of July. Run around, eat hog dogs, and drink too much soda?” I say.

  “We’ve got the food and drink sorted, but surely there must be some kind of games they can play?” Hannah asks. She’s been asking the same question for the last twenty minutes, obviously hoping for a different answer, but I’ve got nothing.

  “The only thing I can think of is we used to have a softball game if we went to the park.” I shrug while I wrap a chicken sandwich for one of the baskets. “Or we played Bloody Murder after fireworks.”

  “Bloody Murder?” Lou asks.

  “It’s basically hide and seek. I have no idea why we called it Bloody Murder except for the screaming,” I say.

  “We probably want to avoid screaming if possible, since we have a few children who are quite young,” says Hannah. “But we could have a game of rounders on the field?”

  I nod. From what I understand, rounders is sort of like baseball, but with fewer rules. “That would be fun. And there’s always tag. We could even divide whoever wants to play into red, white, and blue teams to be patriotic.”

  “Oh, good idea,” says Hannah. She puts the sandwich she’s wrapped into the pile. “Okay, let me go find Paul and Jasper and I’ll make sure they know they’re in charge of sport.”

  “Don’t forget, Jasper said he wanted to set up the speakers, too,” says Lou. “It doesn’t look like rain and music would be nice.”

  “Yes, great idea. We can get some American music going.” Hannah smiles at me. “I suppose it’s too much to hope for that you have the quintessential American playlist on your phone we could plug right into the dock?”

  I laugh. “I’m sure I have something, but Jasper’s better at that sort of thing than I am.”

  Because even though Jasper and I have exchanged only perfunctory conversation since that day in the library, he’s been around enough for me to observe and learn things I’d never know about him unless we were in close proximity day after day. Like, he runs. A lot. He constantly misplaces his phone, so when he’s working around the castle, he leaves it in his room. And he’s put himself unofficially in charge of the soundtrack of Castle Calder, which is unexpectedly eclectic. For dinner last night, which was mostly families with kids, he put on a mix of Simon and Garfunkel and The Weekend, which totally worked, even though Scarlett acted horrified when “Sound of Silence” first came on.

  “Will you track him down and maybe you can guide him in the right direction?” Hannah says.

  “Me?” I twist wax paper around the sandwich. “I’m not sure Jasper needs my direction, honestly. He’s great at the music stuff.”

  “I know, but reminding him it’s a party couldn’t hurt,” says Hannah. “He tends to steer towards the melancholy if left to his own devices.”

  I continue wrapping the same sandwich until Lou says, “We’ve got this sorted if you want to find him.”

  “Great. Sure.” I try to give Lou the evil eye, but she doesn’t look at me and I can’t manufacture anything to keep me in the kitchen now that I’ve been given a free pass to go. Sometimes I think Lou suspects my mixed feelings about Jasper, which have swung back to yes-please-may-I-have-another, despite us not talking. Or maybe because of it. He’s been more easygoing, nicer in general, and I find myself smiling around him, even if I’m not smiling at him. Lou’s seen through my façade once, so this would be equal parts expected and appalling.

  I give the sandwiches a final longing look and hang up my apron before leaving the kitchen. The first place I check for Jasper is in the bar. No luck. Nor is he in the dining room, the lobby, or the garden. My next guess is either the tennis court or the St Juliens’ apartment, and I’m closer to the apartment than the tennis court, so the apartment wins.

  By the time I get to the door, I’ve talked myself out of coming up here at least three times because seeking Jasper out at home feels a lot more intentional than in the common spaces, and even though I’m not doing it for personal reasons, it looks personal. But the sooner I get it done the sooner I can get back to making potato salad or whatever Lou’s got planned for this afternoon. I knock on the door and a smile plays on my lips because I can’t believe I’d rather be in the kitchen than anywhere else in the castle.

  The door opens and Jasper stands on the other side, wearing a long-sleeve blue button down and his requisite baggy shorts, khaki this time. His bare feet are white in contrast to his legs, which are lightly tanned. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been trying not to look at him these past couple of weeks or because I genuinely haven’t noticed, but his tan surprises me enough to momentarily forget my apprehension about coming up here. “Hey, there.”

  “Hi.” Jasper stands staring at me and then shoves his hand through his curls. “Sorry, come in. If you’re looking for Scarlett, I think she’s with the kids somewhere.”

  I step inside and Jasper shuts the door behind me. “I know. They’re making bunting, apparently.”

  He nods and says, “Right. Okay. Well, would you like a cup of tea or something?”

  I shake my head. “No. I don’t mean to intrude, but your mother asked me to check with you about the music for this afternoon. I told her I was sure you had it sorted, but she thought I might know some hidden American classics you shouldn’t miss.”

  Jasper laughs with such genuine pleasure, I laugh, too. He keeps laughing and it’s infectious, and for a minute we both stand there laughing. It feels like such a relief after our weird silence that I laugh some more until it feels like maybe I could start crying and I have to force myself to take a few deep breaths so I can stop. Jasper takes his glasses off and wipes his eyes. As he puts them back on he says, “You’re going to need a cup of tea if we’re going to dive into hidden American classics. Come on.”

  He doesn’t wait for me to agree or disagree, but starts towards the small kitchen. I follow and watch as he makes my tea with milk and one sweetener – which is how I like it – without asking. I try not to read anything into the fact he remembers my preference, when I realize I know he takes his with milk only. But when he hands me the mug and the only way I can take it is to lift it out of his hands, I read into that even as a little voice inside my head tells me I’m ridiculous.

  Yet, when Jasper says, “Come on. My laptop and music are in my room,” the little voice in my head doesn’t feel so ridiculous. Especially when I follow him in and he closes the door.

  Jasper’s room is messy, but his bed is made and the pile of clothes on the floor is folded. The desk where his laptop sits is covered in papers and a stack of books spills off the nightstand. If I walked into this room, I’d assume it was his – and not only because a hand-drawn version of the periodic table is framed over the desk. It feels like the kind of place where he might take refuge.

  I walk over to inspect the frame above the desk. As I thought, Scarlett’s signature is barely visible in the lower left corner. “Scarlett drew you a periodic table?”

  “It was my Cambridge acceptance pressie. Ace, isn’t it?” Jasper says as he sidles up beside me. He’s close enough that the cotton of his shirt brushes my bare arm.

  “If it’s so ace, why is it here, not there?”

  “I put my furniture and stuff in storage, but I didn’t want to leave anything personal behind whilst my flat is getting fixed, so I brought it home. I doubt Scarlett has more than one periodic table in her repertoire, so I need to guard it carefully.” Jasper grabs his laptop and sits on the bed, his back against the wall. “Besides, I hear she’s got bigger fish to fry these days.”

  “Does she?” I raise my eyebrows. Scarlett and I haven’t talked about Bradley Waring-Smith since that day we played tennis, except for her to say she’s been in touch with him.

  Jasper nods. “One of the guests last
week talked to her about doing a series for his restaurant in Cheshire. I was on the bar that night and I may have eavesdropped a bit, but she asked me what I thought and it sounded promising.”

  “Oh, wow. That’s great.” Scarlett hardly ever talks about her actual art commissions until the contract is signed, but it feels weird she didn’t mention it, and weirder still she mentioned it to Jasper instead.

  “She’s super talented, so it’s great she’s gaining some interest.” Jasper grins up at me. “So, about these American classics you’re supposed to be introducing me to…”

  “Oh, God.” I perch on the edge of the mattress. “I’d say if you’ve got The Beach Boys, Elvis, and “American Pie,” you’re good.”

  “Slow down.” Jasper’s fingers move over his keyboard. “‘American Pie.’ What else?”

  “Umm…” I open my mouth, then close it again. “Elvis? I have no idea. Can’t you Google it or something?”

  “I could, but this way is more authentic. I’m sure between the two of us we can come up with at least twenty songs.”

  I blow out a long breath and let myself scoot back a little on Jasper’s bed. By the time we’ve got twenty songs, I’m sitting cross-legged and our legs are two inches apart. “How about Miley Cyrus? “Party in the USA?’” I ask.

  “Do I even want to know how you know that song?” Jasper asks. He brings it up on iTunes and nods as the refrain plays. “Okay, that will work. What else have you got, Miss America?”

  “Uh, uh. I came up with the last four. Your turn to do some digging. Use your brilliant mind I hear so much about.”

  Jasper grins. “You hear I have a brilliant mind? What else do you hear?”

  “Oh, you know.” I poke him in the arm. “You fish for compliments like you’ve never gotten one before.”