The Last Little Blue Envelope

by Maureen Johnson

  He took the hint and let it go.

  “Anyway,” she said, “the center bit of the city is pretty small, and the main canals are around it in layers, a bunch of half circles. It won’t take that long to look around the main tourist areas. Maybe a few hours. I mean, we’re looking for a big pink boat. How many of those can there be?”

  “This is Amsterdam. There could be a small fleet of pink boats here, for all we know. But I take your point. Should we start this way? We’re pretty much at the top of this street, anyway.”

  They began to stroll down the canal, under the bare trees. The lights and the moon reflected off the canal in a way that would have been romantic if she had been with just about anyone else.

  “You couldn’t bring anything the last time you came over,” he said. “No guidebooks. No maps. No computer or phone or anything. Those rules, they were a bit mental. Did you follow them?”

  “Yes,” Ginny said, scanning the boats along the canal. It was getting darker by the second, and harder to determine exactly what color they were.

  “Why? I mean, who would have known if you hadn’t?”

  “I would have known.”

  “Yeah, but . . . all that time on planes and trains with nothing to listen to. No internet. Nothing. It sounds like torture. I would have brought everything.”

  “You’re not me,” Ginny said.

  “Did you ever think that she expected you to break some of them?”

  Remarkably, that thought hadn’t occurred to Ginny before. She stepped out of the way of a bicyclist and directly into the path of another bicyclist, who expertly steered around her.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe you like all the rules, the backtracking, the games. I think it’s annoying.”

  “This isn’t for you.”

  “I think it’s annoying in general. She should have just given you the paintings. This traipsing back and forth is such a pointless exercise.”

  “Look,” Ginny said. “We’re not discussing her, okay? You do not talk about her, or what she did.”

  “I’m just saying, it seems like she was a rule breaker, so maybe she expected you to break the rules.”

  “So,” she said, “is this how you justify what you’re doing?”

  “What I’m doing is maybe a little unethical. . . .”

  “Maybe a little? You’re stealing.”

  “I’m not stealing,” Oliver said firmly.

  Ginny stopped. They were on the unguarded edge of one of the canals. The water was high, and two swans and a few ducks drifted past and regarded them curiously.

  “How is this not stealing?” she said, mostly to the swans.

  “Someone stole your bag,” he said. “Not me. I purchased the bag, not knowing it was stolen. Inside, I found some property. I used my time and resources to track you down to return your property to you. In return, I asked for a percentage. You agreed.”

  “Or you were going to walk away with my stuff,” Ginny said. “My stolen stuff. Don’t you legally have to return that to me anyway?”

  “I’m not an expert on Greek law, and neither, as far as I know, are you. All I have of yours, anyway, is a bag . . . which I did offer to return . . . and a few pieces of paper. The paper wasn’t in any kind of sealed envelope delivered by Royal Mail, which would be illegal to tamper with, so there’s no problem there. And I have agreed to return these pieces of paper to you on completion of our agreement. Do you want to take me to court for a few pieces of paper worth less than a pound?”

  “How come,” she said, mostly to herself, “I only know two English guys and both of you are . . . well, one was a thief and the other is you.”

  “I think it says more about you than it says about us.”

  “About me?”

  “About the people you attract.”

  “It’s not me,” she said. “It’s my aunt.”

  “It is you,” he said. “She’s not here, in case you haven’t noticed. You are the common denominator in all of this. And don’t lump me in with him. I’ve never lied to you. I’ve been very careful about that. I hate lying. I’m not a thief, and I’m not a liar.”

  This was the first time Ginny had heard anything that might have been considered an emotion in Oliver’s voice.

  “So what are you?”

  “An opportunist.”

  “What does that even mean?” she asked.

  “I saw an opportunity, and I took it. That’s what it means. I’ve been completely up front about it, and I’ll continue to be up front about it.”

  “You’re delusional.”

  “I’m not. I know what I’m doing doesn’t make me a great person, but I don’t tell lies.”

  “Well I guess that makes it okay,” she said. “I mean, as long as you’re being honest.”

  Oliver got the stupid cigarettes out again. He had a new lighter. It was just cheap and plastic, not like the fancy Zippo he had before. He drew in and exhaled slowly, blowing the smoke to the side, away from her. Now that she thought about it, he was the only person she knew who smoked. It was just such a ridiculous habit. The cigarettes were his prop, his way of avoiding anything he didn’t feel like dealing with, putting distance between himself and other people.

  She was being too deep about that, probably.

  “You hate my smoking,” he said.

  “Does it matter? Are you going to stop because I don’t like it?”

  They were coming up a few steps leading down into the canal. Oliver stepped down to the very edge of the water and dipped in the tip of the cigarette, extinguishing it. He held it up to show her.

  “I’m not unreasonable,” he said.

  “Of course not,” she replied.

  A Night of Vice

  They walked for two hours. In the open windows, she saw Christmas trees and lights, a few ornate menorahs. Ginny was pleased to find that she had a fairly good memory of the layout of Amsterdam. The canals varied in width, from perhaps one car-lane wide to six or so lanes wide. They radiated throughout the city like a spiderweb, with boats parked along the sides, all kinds of boats. Long, traditional houseboats were next to sleek new cruisers, which might then be followed by tiny, flat rowboats that looked like they would sink the second a person sat down in one. Every once in a while, they would pass a boat that had met a bad end, half submerged under the water, tipped sideways, ducks looking at it mockingly.

  They passed into the red light district—Amsterdam’s legal prostitution zone. There were long windows dotted between houses and shops, each with a thin frame of red light. Those windows either had someone standing in them, usually female, or a closed curtain, indicating the little shop was currently busy. The windows were bizarrely cozy. Sometimes the women would sit and read or paint their nails or just wave. Ginny had a fondness for those windows and the women in them. They had completely freaked the Knapps out.

  “Know what I was thinking?” Oliver said. “When I read that we had to find a window in Amsterdam? I thought we were going to have to find one of those.”

  She had to admit, Oliver had a good point. Aunt Peg would have had a lot of fun decorating one of those windows.

  “This is pointless,” she said.

  “But fun,” he said. Ginny had no idea if that was supposed to be a joke. He was utterly inscrutable. He just gazed around, his hands buried in his pockets.

  Along with the red windows, there were several coffeehouses on this street. These were the pot-smoking cafés. They looked like they existed mainly for tourists, with neon signs and pumping music. They passed a quieter one that looked like a regular little café. They had two menus out front—one of various pot concoctions, and another of food. Mostly pizza.

  “I want to go in,” she said.

  “You want to smoke?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m hungry. They have pizza.”

  “Lots of places have pizza. It’s fine if you want to smoke. I’m not going to judge you.”

  “I don’t,” Ginny said fir
mly.

  “Then we can go somewhere that has good food. There’s lots of it about in Amsterdam. These places aren’t known for—”

  “I just want to go here, okay?”

  Oliver raised his hands in surrender.

  Truth be told, Ginny didn’t want to go in to the coffee shop—she felt a perverse need to go in. The Knapps (at least, Mom and Dad Knapp) wouldn’t go anywhere near the coffeehouses, and there was something inside of Ginny that compelled her to do everything the Knapps disliked. And if she was being very truthful with herself (it happened on occasion), Ginny would have admitted that the coffee shops scared her too. Even though they were legal and clearly full of tourists, they had the air of the forbidden . . . literally. And Richard had just asked her if she was walking around in a haze of legal marijuana. Here she was walking into a cloud of it. She pushed the door open with much more force than necessary and marched in.

  A cursory glance around the room revealed that the coffee shop wasn’t that much different from any ordinary café. It was a little darker, maybe. The air had the distinct, sweet tang of pot smoke. But there was nothing particularly scary going on inside, unless you counted the tacky decorations. The place looked like a stoner’s dorm room—cheap cushions and basket chairs, black light posters of smiley faces, and dozens of votive candles in bright glass holders, right out of the IKEA catalog. The menus, both for food and drugs, were written in neon purple and green on an illuminated board. It was a bit sad, really. Aunt Peg could have done an amazing job with a place like this. Her paintings would have really messed people up.

  Had she been on her own, Ginny would have turned around and walked out; but since she made such a bizarrely big deal of coming in, now she had to stay here and eat some pizza. She and Oliver took a seat at a wobbly little table, half of which was taken up by a massive ashtray.

  “Here you go,” Ginny said, pushing it toward him. “A present.”

  “I don’t smoke indoors.”

  The coffee shop wasn’t very crowded, but that didn’t mean that service was prompt. Their waiter, when he finally showed up, was openly confused by the fact that they had come there for the food—but being mellow and stonerish, accepted this and ambled off. She and Oliver were the only people sitting completely upright. They looked stiff and unnatural. She tried to relax in her chair, but the slouching was even more unnatural. Oliver pushed a votive candle back and forth and eyed her across the table.

  “So,” she said, “what do you do?”

  “Meaning what?”

  “For . . . life?”

  “I went to university for a year,” he said. “For political science.”

  “And you don’t go now?”

  “I left.”

  “Why?”

  “There was no point in staying.”

  This kind of thing always amazed Ginny—people who just walked away from institutions. People who left school when they didn’t see the point. Aunt Peg had done that. Ginny knew she never would. That either made her someone who worked hard and finished things, or someone who didn’t have the guts to break away from the pack. Maybe both.

  Of course, if she never wrote her essay, this would not be an issue.

  The two pizzas were slipped down in front of them, along with a beer for Oliver and a soda for Ginny. They weren’t great pizzas—kind of floppy and damp—but she’d had worse. She was going to eat it, no matter what, since she’d brought them here.

  “How did you memorize that whole letter?” she said, cutting hers into pieces. She didn’t even need a knife—the fork went right through the spongy crust.

  “You really like asking questions, don’t you?”

  “You said you’re honest.”

  He eyed her for a moment as he cut a large piece of the pizza and picked it up for a bite. It flopped around too much to be handled, so he set it down and continued with utensils. “I’m just good at memorizing things. I don’t even mean to memorize them, half the time. I just do.”

  “You mean you have a photographic memory?”

  “No,” he said. “Because that would be useful. It’s far more random than that. I can recite the entire first chapter of every Harry Potter book. I can recite all forty-seven pages of my school handbook. I can re-create eight episodes of season two of Doctor Who, with the Tenth Doctor, word for word. I memorized the driving manual. I just seem to memorize things that have some kind of significance to me—”

  He cut himself off abruptly.

  “It just happened,” he said. “No control over it. Came in handy, though.”

  “You can recite all the first chapters of Harry Potter?” she asked.

  “Yes, well . . . I can recite chapters one through four of book one, chapters one and two of book two, chapters—”

  “Okay, wait,” Ginny said. “I want to hear this. Because I don’t believe you.”

  “Which one do you want?”

  “The first book.”

  “Can I finish my pizza?”

  She nodded graciously. Oliver continued eating, wiped his mouth, took a drink of beer, and sat back in his chair. He assumed the position—eyes closed, head tipped back.

  “Okay,” he said. “Book one . . .”

  And so he began. Ginny didn’t actually know Harry Potter book one by heart, but what he was reading sounded right. Normally, Oliver had a deadpan manner of speaking. When he recited the letters, his voice went completely flat. When he read the book, his face relaxed and his voice deepened. He was a very good narrator, actually.

  After a few moments, they had attracted the attention of some very stoned people sitting two tables over. They openly stared at Oliver, their jaws hanging slightly open, their eyes bloodshot and full of wonder. They began to approach, sliding their chairs closer and closer, inch by inch. The waiter began to hover as well. Oliver seemed to enjoy having an audience—he continued on for a full three chapters, growing more and more expressive.

  “Was that Harry Potter?” one of them asked.

  “What makes you say that?” Oliver replied.

  “You kept saying ‘Harry Potter,’ ” the guy replied seriously. “And it sounded like it. It sounded like you were reading it. How did you do that?”

  Oliver drew his black coat tight around himself, leaned right into the guy’s face, and quietly said, “I’m Dumbledore.”

  Ginny burst out laughing, despite herself.

  “Are we still trying to find this boat?” Oliver asked, as they left the coffee shop. “Or have we given up?”

  “I think we give up,” Ginny replied.

  “Good. So we can take the same way back.”

  It was a cold walk, but a pleasant one, through the canals, over the bridges. They didn’t talk, but the silence between them was peaceful. Oliver smoked, and Ginny wrapped her scarf around her face. It was only when they had almost reached the Koekoeksklok that Ginny remembered why she left—or how long ago.

  “Oh god,” she said. “I didn’t tell them I wasn’t coming back.”

  “So?”

  “What if they’re worried?”

  “I don’t think they’re worried,” he said, dropping his cigarette to the sidewalk and stepping on it. Whatever lukewarm feelings of tolerance the Harry Potter reading had provoked were instantly chilled by this offhand remark.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

  “Never mind,” he said quickly.

  Oh, but she could never never mind now. Her mind was already flying. What he meant was that they wouldn’t be worried because they were glad she was gone. They were busy.

  “You keep saying things like that,” she said, unable to hide the emotion in her voice. “What’s your problem? You mean something.”

  “Listen,” he said, holding out his hands defensively, “I don’t think you want advice from me, that’s all.”

  “I don’t want advice from you. I want to know why you keep saying this stuff.”

  Oliver sighed deeply and stopped walking.
/>   “This is all I have to say about the matter,” he said. “I have been stuck in the car with the three of you. I have nothing to do but watch. I don’t know what went on between you and . . . Keith . . .”

  He clearly didn’t like saying Keith’s name.

  “. . . but I know something did. I’m also guessing it was left somewhat unresolved.”

  “How do you . . .”

  “Because it’s obvious,” he said. “It is the most obvious thing that I have ever seen. He flirts with you. You flirt with him. . . .”

  “He’s not flirting,” Ginny said. “I’m not either.”

  “No guy drives all the way to France for a girl he just wants to be friends with.”

  “Oh,” she said, “you’re one of those people who thinks guys are never friends with girls. . . .”

  “I said you don’t drive to France for someone you just want to be friends with.”

  “He has a girlfriend,” Ginny said defensively.

  “Yeah. I noticed that too. I don’t think that changes much. As I said, I don’t think you want my advice, but I’d be . . . careful.”

  The insanity of this had come full circle. She was out with Oliver, who was telling her to watch out for Keith. Oliver, the extortionist. She pushed past him, disgusted with herself.

  And, as it happened, Keith and Ellis were in the lobby, trying to make sense out of an ancient Dutch board game.

  “Where’ve you been, mad one?” Keith asked. “You said you were going out to make a call.”

  Ginny cast a rueful look at Oliver, who followed her inside.

  “We looked for the boat,” she replied.

  “We looked for the boat?”

  Keith looked Oliver up and down. Oliver shook his head and went for the stairs. For a moment, conversation was impossible because of the creaking noise. These were the loudest steps in the entire world.

  “I was out,” Ginny said simply. “Walking. He was out. We looked for the boat.”

  “Did you find it?” Ellis asked.

  “No.”

  “No surprise there,” Keith said, turning back to the game. “Want to play? We have no idea how this works, but we’ve decided if you get five hundred points, you win. It’s up to you how you get the points. I’ve been getting points by hiding Ellis’s pieces down my shirt.”