What Scotland Taught Me

by Molly Ringle

  “Um.” I turned and lifted my eyebrows at Gil.

  He took my bag from me and stacked it with the other one in a corner. “They’re recording at two. You’ll meet them.”

  “The Hammer Mountain Valentines?” I said. “They’re coming here?”

  “Aye. Some retakes on the new album.”

  I touched my hair, and glanced at my travel-wrinkled jeans. I couldn’t meet rock stars looking like this.

  Shelly laughed her cackling laugh, apparently reading my mind. “Don’t worry. You’re much cuter than most of their groupies. Here, sit down.” She hauled over an extra rolling desk chair for me, and we all sat.

  “Eva needs a gift for someone who took off in a huff,” Gil said. “A peace offering, like.”

  “I do?” I said.

  “Does he like music?” he asked.

  “Sure. Yeah.”

  “The Valentines?”

  “Umm, I think so. Yes.” I remembered seeing a Hammer Mountain Valentines CD in his room back home.

  Shelly swallowed another bite of sandwich. “I see the idea here. Aye, we’ll ask them for a favor. They’re quite nice.”

  “They’d record a wee song for ye, I imagine,” Gil said.

  “Seriously?” I handled this idea in my head, more thrilled by it each second. “But I can’t write music. Or lyrics.”

  He chuckled. “Nah, you’d leave that to them.”

  “Well--if you ask them, and they’re willing, then yes, totally.”

  “No problem, cowardly tourist.”

  Fee stuck her head into the room. “Valentines are here,” she droned.

  “Great!” Gil jumped up. “I’ll bring ‘em in.”

  It’s a sad thing to admit, but even when consumed with the uncertainty of recovering my lost love, I felt a thrill to meet and shake hands with the Hammer Mountain Valentines.

  The band members had some type of English accent that, combined with all the vernacular they used, made it almost impossible for me to follow their conversation. But with Gil and Shelly interpreting, I communicated my pathetic tale to them, while the fiddle and keyboard player, a girl with black braids and purple bangs, jotted notes.

  “We’ll improvise after our touch-ups,” she said when I finished the story. “See what we get.”

  “Thank you. I can’t tell you what this means to me.”

  The lead guitarist flicked his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes, winked at me, and said, “No problem,” before strolling into the recording room, his boots clicking on the tiles.

  The rest of the band followed, and I sat back in the office and listened to the stops and starts of their music.

  Shelly and Gil, fussing with the control panels, told me I could surf the web or do what I liked. I checked my email, but found nothing of interest.

  What if this didn’t work? What if Laurence didn’t want to be found, or won back, and I didn’t see him until some chance meeting at the grocery store in Wild Rose?

  My nerves went into a frenzy at the quandary, but I quelled them and focused on the hours at hand.

  “Right, Eva.” Gil’s voice intercepted my panic. “They’re ready to try your song. Come watch.”

  “Oh. Gosh.” I rolled my chair closer to the window and peered at the band through the glass.

  The lead singer was a curvy woman wearing faux leather from head to toe, with layered red hair that obscured her face to mid-cheek. She mumbled something into the microphone. I caught only a few words.

  “What was that?” I whispered to Gil.

  “This is a tune they haven’t used for anything yet. They’ll try adapting it for ye.”

  This they did, which amazed me enough. But it grew better still. They played with the tune, introduced scraps of music discarded from other projects, and, with take after take, pieced together something gorgeous. My favorite part was the strings: the girl with the braids laid down four different fiddle tracks so it ended up sounding like they had a whole violin quartet in there.

  While Gil and Shelly replayed the song on their equipment, tweaking levels and adding enhancements, the fiddle player wrote something on the notepad and brought it out to me. “Your own copy.” She smiled and strolled back to her band.

  I smoothed out the sheet and read the final version of the lyrics as the song played through the speakers, swelling and twinkling and becoming more beautiful with each adjustment Shelly and Gil made. At that moment the music felt perfect, part love ballad and part sweeping theme song for my life.

  Tourist Attractions

  You drew out my secrets

  Like vapors from beakers

  You showed me leaf and flower

  Would bloom under my power

  You’ve seen me at my worst

  Made soup to drown my thirst

  But I showed fear and you showed pride

  And now our bonds have come untied

  CHORUS

  Call me up to the Highlands

  Or come back down to my lands

  I swear my words will come out right

  And the fireplace will burn for us tonight

  Edinburgh’s ghosts are with me here

  They say my love for you is clear

  I’ll tell Scotland and Oregon

  It’s you I choose, my lovely one

  (CHORUS)

  To lie and cheat was never wise

  I found the truth in your green eyes

  You’ve charmed me with your chemistry

  So engineer a place for me.

  I blushed in both pride and self-consciousness. He’d tease me for the cheesiness of some of these lines, but he had to appreciate the gesture. I hoped.

  “Shall I put this on mp3 for ye?” Gil asked.

  I nodded.

  He emailed it to me as an attachment. It arrived on my phone, and I forwarded it to Laurence’s email.

  Dear L,

  With the help of Gil, Shelly, and the Hammer Mountain Valentines, I offer you this. I mean every word and several more, all of them humble and sincere. Tell me where to find you and I’ll be there.

  Love,

  E.

  P.S. They say they’ll put the tune on their next album, and list us in the liner notes, no matter what happens. That’s something, at least.

  The band packed up their equipment and put their coats back on. Buckles and instrument cases shimmered and clinked.

  As they filed out, I thanked each one of them, falling over my own tongue. The guitarist, who was generally acknowledged as the hottie of the group, kissed my hand--weird, but charming--and mumbled something that I think was, “Let us know how it goes.”

  “Seriously, I cannot thank you enough,” I told Gil and Shelly after the band had left.

  Shelly made a raspberry sound with her lips. “You can, and you already did.”

  “See?” Gil spun his chair back and forth. “I always improve your life. You can’t deny it.”

  So. What about tonight?

  I scrolled through my phone numbers and found the one Amber had given me, at her coworker Nina’s flat.

  I dialed, and Amber answered. “Hello?”

  “Hey. I have a very outrageous request.”

  After a second, she said, “Hi. Okay, what’s the request?” A bit chilly, but curious.

  “I was wondering if an old friend could stay at your flat tonight, if that friend brought like a cubic buttload of Cadbury Fruit and Nut bars.”

  Amber sighed. “You are such a tard. Yes, come over.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five: To Inverness

  My reunion with Amber went more smoothly than I had any right to hope. She opened the door looking prettier and better-rested than I’d seen her in months, her eyelashes glittering with sparkle mascara, her boobs awe-inspiring in the turtleneck sweater I’d given her for Christmas. After taking in the disheveled sight of me, she sighed and pulled me into a hug. Not a tight one, but a sincere one.

  “I’ve thought it over,” she said as we sat at the small kitchen table wit
h a pot of green tea and a pile of Fruit and Nut bars. Nina was out, working the day shift at the pub. “There were lots of signs Laurence liked you. He talked about you, he defended you, he kept his eye on you whenever you were around. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

  “Besides,” I said, “it made no sense, right? I was taken, as far as you knew. And I didn’t even know I liked Laurence.”

  “Yeah.” She broke a chocolate bar into its designated mini-squares. “It was screwed up fifty different ways. It still is, honestly.” She handed me a square of chocolate, a raisin sticking out of its edge. “But I bet he’s been kicking himself in the ass this past week for making that pledge to keep away from you.”

  I chewed the candy bar, raisin and melted chocolate sticking to my teeth. “Hope so. If not, I’ll be on the wrong end of a restraining order soon.”

  “Doubt it.” She sipped her tea, gazing at the twilight and traffic signals outside the kitchen window. “If he didn’t take one out against me, he probably won’t against you.”

  I chuckled, but my mood plunged into melancholy. The combination of fading daylight, Amber’s voice, the taste of chocolate, and the prospect of spending the night in yet another borrowed bed or sofa all did me in. My throat swelled in sadness. “Things are going to be a lot different this time next year, aren’t they,” I said.

  Amber went on gazing out the window, holding her warm teacup to her cheek. “Sure. But different doesn’t always suck.”

  My night on the sofa passed almost sleeplessly. I kept my phone on, and checked for some response from Laurence every few minutes. At dawn I gave up and let half-dreams parade through my exhausted mind, to the tune of the Hammer Mountain Valentines song I had helped to create.

  I opened my eyes when either Nina or Amber pushed beeping buttons on the microwave, on the other side of the wall from my makeshift bed. I dug out my cell phone from where it had fallen between couch cushions.

  My heart and brain jolted to full awareness when the name Laurence Hawthorn appeared, new and boldfaced, on my list of incoming messages.

  I opened the email with my ears ringing from my frantic pulse.

  It was a response to the song; my original note lay below his.

  March 1, 2:00 PM, white footbridge, Inverness.

  That was all he’d written. But it was a summons. A location, a time. Laurence.

  I carried the phone into the kitchen, where Amber took a bowl out of the microwave. Steam rose from it.

  “Hey.” She yawned. “Instant oatmeal?”

  “I don’t know. I might be about to hurl from nerves.” I showed her the message.

  Maybe I expected her to be enthused for me; I’m not sure what I was thinking. But her response threw me. She turned away and went to the table, dragging a spoon around in her oatmeal. “Well. I’d get a ticket if I were you.” She spoke with her back to me.

  “Do you...” I hesitated, sensing too late that this development would hurt her, that she still had tender feelings to consider. “Do you think he’s even forgiving me? I mean, it doesn’t exactly say that.”

  “Like he’d invite you up if he didn’t want to see you.” She sat, and picked up a shaker of sugar. “You can get train or bus tickets online pretty easy. That’s what I’d do.”

  I kept her words in mind as I sat at Nina’s computer while Amber was in the shower. I at least ought to make a reservation at a B&B for tonight, I reasoned. March 1 was tomorrow, and if I left today, I’d need somewhere to stay tonight. And it was fairly clear Amber wanted me gone. That stung, but the hope kindled by Laurence’s message kept me from total depression.

  Having made reservations for both the B&B and my train ticket north, I packed, then ambled down the hall and stuck my head into Amber’s room. “So, um, my train leaves in a couple of hours. I figure I’ll head out now and get something to read on the way.”

  That translated into “I’ll get out of your hair ASAP,” which surely she knew. But she just nodded, pulling a sweater over her head, and said, “Cool. Let me know how it all goes down.”

  “You sure?” I couldn’t help asking it.

  “Yeah. I do want to know. Hey, at least we’re all alive and sane.” She smiled wryly, but still a smile.

  We hugged, and I stepped out into the brisk morning air and walked to Waverley Station.

  As I rode my train north, I thought about how Amber must view the world lately. Before February nineteenth, she thought it likely enough she wouldn’t even be alive by now. Instead her fate had been nothing but the gift of mental peace--with a sting in the form of her friends coupling up behind her back.

  And if that coupling turned out not to be in the stars, I vowed as I watched fir trees blur past the windows, I would do my best to make sure we all remained friends. Failing that, I’d at least be thankful we were all still alive.

  Easy to form that statement. Impossible to make it stop the swarms of butterflies, moths, locusts, or whatever exactly assaulted my stomach at the thought of seeing Laurence again.

  The scenery offered a bit of distraction. When I’d traveled south through England, I’d seen very little that anyone would call wilderness. Countryside, sure: sheep fields, agriculture, small villages isolated on hills or in valleys. But the towns and cities lay close together down there, never more than a few miles apart. I’d assumed it was that way for all of Britain.

  Not so. After our train escaped the northern suburbs of Edinburgh, low hills took over, all gray rock, short brown grass, and scrubby heather, snow lying in the highest and coldest patches. Low clouds blew across the landscape and broke into beads of mist when they hit the ridges. Dark fir forests loomed up in clumps beside the railway tracks and sped away again. Shaggy orange cows chewed grass on a steep slope. The train stations became smaller and farther apart, and their signs spelled out the town names in both English and Gaelic.

  The Highlands. How beautiful. Good choice, Laurence.

  A few hours after entering this wild country, the train pulled into Inverness, where a cold mist still reigned, lying especially thick near the river. With my luggage I stepped onto the platform, and wandered out into the city.

  Calling Inverness a “city” was a stretch after experiencing Edinburgh and London. Despite housing over 70,000 residents, it felt only a little bigger than Wild Rose back home. Inverness, however, had lots more in the way of cobblestones and three-hundred-year-old churches. I rolled my suitcase along the stones and bricks, the reverberations buzzing my arm up to my skull. My heart pounded at the knowledge that Laurence was within a mile or two, and might have walked these sidewalks this very day. I glanced at pedestrians and restaurant windows, breathless at the possibility of seeing his face--which I didn’t, of course.

  I found my way to the River Ness Guest House, a few blocks from the station. As promised by the online photos, the bed and breakfast was a modest three-story stone house, its front covered in ivy. It faced the river, separated from it by only a lawn and a sidewalk.

  I hauled my stuff through the front door and checked in. The young woman at the front desk wore her brown hair razor-straight across her forehead, and a striped dress shirt with not a wrinkle visible. “Here’s your key.” She pushed a key with a big maroon plastic tag across the counter to me. “Number thirty-eight. Top of the stairs, and turn to your left.”

  “Cheers.” I took it and withdrew, noticing only as I climbed the stairs that I had said “Cheers” instead of “Thanks.” I’d been in this country too long.

  After my bath and reapplication of moisturizer and lip gloss, I put on my most flattering sweater (stretchy black wool with green stripes) sponged the travel grime off my jeans, and went out into Inverness.

  I only intended to wander, see the sights. I knew chances were slim that I’d run into Laurence. But, just in case, I brought the stack of postcards I’d written to him, and slipped a stick of wintergreen gum into my mouth because I just might turn a corner, trip over him, and immediately start snogging him.

&
nbsp; Well, you never know.

  I couldn’t relax, through all the shops I browsed, all the locals and tourists I exchanged small talk with, or all the ancient stone spires I craned my neck to look at. My eyes combed the people for a tall copper-haired guy in glasses and a brown overcoat, and my pulse jolted every time someone resembling him wandered by. But by the time the afternoon mist melted into a bright haze, and the breeze turned mild, if not quite warm, I still had not found him. I tromped back toward the B&B, my thumb riffling the postcards’ edges in my pocket.

  I walked the path beside the River Ness, its waters splashing gently, a soothing and natural sound I hadn’t heard for ages. It reminded me of dear old rainy Oregon. The footbridge ahead caught my eye, a mini-Golden-Gate in white. Though it lay past my B&B, I kept walking toward it, deciding I’d better familiarize myself with tomorrow’s meeting spot.

  Not until I turned onto the bridge itself did I notice the figure standing at its center, gazing into the river, his elbows on the railing. His hair glinted and glowed in the hazy winter sun.

  Before I could decide what to do, Laurence turned and spotted me. He straightened up, staring. From this distance I couldn’t make out a facial expression, but it didn’t matter. He recognized me. No sense running away now.

  With my veins tingling in a mix of joy and desperation, I walked out onto the bridge to meet him.

  Chapter Fifty-Six: Speeches On The Bridge

  Oh, he was beautiful. I wanted to throw my arms around him and never let go.

  But his face daunted me with its mix of conflicting moods. I could have sworn he was tamping down a hopeful smile and merely trying to look angry, but in the event that he actually was angry, I stopped a foot from him and waited.

  I wanted to let him, the invaded party, speak first. But he said nothing. He only examined me up and down like the weirdest specimen of bug he ever saw.

  So I launched into my speech.

  “Okay, I know this is actually February twenty-ninth. But you’ll notice it would be March first if it hadn’t been a leap year, so it’s not like I’m completely incapable of waiting. Besides, I meant to find you tomorrow, not today. This was an accident. I swear.”