Love from London (9 page)

I stand up. Keena clears our pizza tray and waits for me by the door. Asher, who has barely acknowledged my presence leans down, his lips to my ear. I can feel his breath. “I won’t take no for an answer either.”

The next day, my chills have yet to fade. Just remembering for one second the tone of Asher’s voice, the way his mouth was so close to my ear, is enough to make everything else fall away. But of course, everything else is still right here.

Here being my grotty (love the London lingo) room in my crappyesque in my crumbling dorm. Not crumbling as in castle-like and cool, more as in rotting plaster, presumed asbestos, and moldy carpets the odor of which no cleanser can full of bleach nor incense can mask.

“How can you live here?” Arabella sniffs and perches herself on my bed like it’s the only safe place to sit without fear of contamination — which, to be fair — it might be.

“Don’t be such a snob,” I say. “It’s real.” I sweep my arms around, trying to show her the finer points of communal student living. “For starters, it’s right by half my classes…”

“Yeah, but the St. Paul’s ones are closer to the flat,” Arabella contests.

“Hey — I figure that living here gives me a better feel for the struggling artist’s way of life.”

“Whatever.”

“Oh, good comeback. You spent too much time with Chris at Hadley.”

“Oh, speaking of which, I got an email from him — I think he might — possibly — maybe — have a boyfriend. Or at least a crush. Long-distance, though. Shame.”

I want to find out who the lucky guy might be but suddenly realize I haven’t heard from Chris and he’s supposed to be one of my best friends. “How come you got and email and I didn’t?” I ask and then laugh. “Oh my God, could I sound any whinier? Pathetic.”

“The only reason he emailed me was to find out why you hadn’t emailed him. I’m not going to get in the middle of your Will and Grace fandango but will you just write to him already?”

I flop next to her on the bed, which sends up a cloud of dust which makes me cough and causes Arabella to wave her hand in front of her like someone’s at the mercy of digested cabbage or beans. “Gross. May I reiterate how revolting this place is.”

“Yes, you may,” I tell her, then get up and open the tiny window. All the students keep containers of milk for their tea and coffee wrapped in plastic supermarket bags and dangle them out their windows so when I open mine, I can see a whole row of Sainsbury’s bags blowing in the breeze. It’s a creative — if unsightly — answer to the lack of refrigerators. “I would have emailed Chris but the dial-up here takes forever and by the time I get back from St. Paul’s, the computer center — if you can call it that — is locked.”

“Yet another reason to abandon ship and come live with me.”

“Stop!” I say. “If you ask me too many times I’ll either stay here to prove a point or pack up right now and leave.”

After I say this there’s a giggle from the next room.

“Don’t forget us — we’re close by — aren’t we selling points enough?” Keena yells from sixteen-b. She and Fizzy can hear everything since the walls are so thin. And I can hear everything — including Fizzy’s late-night exploits with a stunning variety of musicians, actors, and Sloanes (the uppercrusty boys). Long-haired drummers, classical singing baritones, even an opera singer have given their silent hello to me in the morning when I’m up early to get across town to my Brit Lit class.

“Right!” I say louder for their benefit. “Plus, Keena and Fizzy are the ones who make this place tolerable!”

“Cheers!” Fizzy says, her way of saying thanks for not dismissing the entire student hall experience as grim.

“Well, anyway,” Arabella says and links her arm through mine once we’re in the relative fresh air of London traffic. “I wish you’d come live with me.” She pauses for a minute and then, without looking at my eyes adds, “It’s free, you know. I wouldn’t charge you or anything.”

I’m at a loss for words. Just when I think I understand people’s personal issues with money — the lack of it or the astounding mass of it at Hadley, the uppercrust royal old guard show of it, something comes up that reminds me I live in (or at least vacation nearly full-time in) the world of extremes. Either the scholarship kids at Hadley talk about how the dorms and institutionalized food is better than their home lives, or — now — Arabella’s unintentionally (I assume) pointing out that if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have the choice of living anywhere but the filth and squalor of the dorms.

“It’s not like it’s that uncommon,” Arabella is saying when I tune back in. “Tons of people rent flats for the whole time at LADAM. Boarding school is the norm here, people don’t all go to college, and living on your own isn’t that massive.”

“But you’re not talking about boarding school,” I say, defensive as hell. I start to cross the street and Arabella yanks me back. I have yet to master the look in the opposite direction skill required to avoid being squashed by a double-decker bus. “You’re talking about playing house — living like an adult in an apartment and food-shopping and paying electricity bills…except not.”

Arabella tosses her hair off her shoulders, her haughty gesture, and pouts. “Look, all I meant was that I’m lucky enough to have this flat at my disposal — to live in for as long as I want. I know it’s silly and it’s a luxury and all that. I just want to share it with you.”

We leave it at that because we’re at our class, but while Arabella sheds her coat, scarf, and shoes, revealing her boot-cut brown yoga pants and skin-tight light pink ballet top, I stand still in my winter clothes, hiding from something. It’s not that I want all the wealth — if I could snap my fingers and have a wish granted, that’s not what it would be. It would be to make Mable healthy. I try to keep myself in check with all this, but it’s getting harder and harder to remember life outside of all the Hadley Hall/London elite ways of life.

I’m shaken from my monetary moodiness by Sally Yarmouth (who has, thankfully, lessened her name — real moniker = Lady Sallicious Vermeer Ponticle Kara Yarmouth. It’s breathtakingly annoying and posh and — if you were inclined — enough to make you long for a hyphen or an umlaut or something to set your name apart).

“Disrobe!” Sally Yarmouth commands me. I’m the only one without dancer-gear (what Chris calls flounce-wear).

I strip down to sweat pants and a double-layered tee and get the fish eye from half a dozen dance-a-bees (the dance major equivalent of the drama queens). The DABs, as a collective, are pro-ana, starving, and thus have an abundance of arm hair — one of the side-effects of being anorexic, and generally mean. They have two modes of dress: the flowy, fairylike ones keep their ringlets cascading down their backs, wear floral skirts over their leotards, and have a healthy supply of legwarmers that they wear earnestly. The other dancers, the non-flowies – are modern, lean, with bunned hair and broad shoulders, slightly andro, sexy, too, I might add, but very closed off from the other students. They take their meals (if you can call sipping a cup of water or nibbling carrots a meal) together, work out together, and walk in clumps from dorm or flat to the classes. And they all — every one of them — worship Sally Yarmouth because she was not only the prima ballerina with the London Ballet Corps, but also danced with Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, and anyone else you can think of, all the while being a titled debutante.

Plus, she’s gorgeous with big tits and a tiny waist and a hot Sir or Duke husband who comes to class with her and sits watching us (pervy!).

“And we’re becoming the ground, breathing from our bellies, pressing our hips into the floor…” Sally croons. Apparantly, after her years as the prima, she spent time in an ashram and found her soul, which she then feels the need to inflict on us.

I try to do all that. I try to be the ground or press my hips down. Really. But my mind races each time I come to Body. That’s the official name of the class — just one word. “Are you going to Body?” someone might ask. Or, “I’d love to not eat with you, but I can’t be late for Body.”

I sometimes make bad poetry out of the BODY letters; Barfy Odorous Dumb Youth, Belittling Or Delicate Yarmouth, But Oh Don’t Yelch (yelch=yell and belch combo, which happens frequently at the student pub here). I’m not at my poetic best, but it does waste class time while keeping me still enough that Sally Yarmouth and her Man-Duke think I’m so relaxed I’m sleeping. Once, she had him kick me with his ankle boot.

Arabella lies next to me, following instructions, but pinching me when Sally Yarmouth’s not looking. I try to stifle a laugh, and the resulting sound is a cough.

“Might I remind you,” Sally intones right above my head. If I look up, I have a clear view of her nostrils. “That if one is feeling ill, that coming to Body puts everyone at risk. It’s simply not fair to jeopardize the health of the dancers.”
The dancers
comes out like they’re her brood, and I’m clearly not a part of it.

“I’m not sick,” I say, forgetting that sick in England means vomit, and ill means sick. “I’m doing fine,” I add, but we both know that’s not entirely true. In the movie version of Body, this is where the soundtrack would kick in and there’d be shots of me falling on my ass as I try to dance. As the movie soundtrack progressed, so would my dance and yoga-pilates-breathing-self. Soon I’d be jumping and pirouetting or alouetting or whatevering with such grace that Sally Yarmouth would kick herself in the butt (literally — she can do this easily) for doubting my potential as the next best ballerina.

Instead, I follow Sally Yarmouth’s direction as we all arch backwards until we hit the floor and everything appears upside down.

“That is a colossal waste of my time,” I say to Arabella when we’re back at her flat.

“I know. But — I have to say — I kind of look forward to it.” Arabella clicks the automatic kettle on the kitchen countertop and readies two mugs for tea. “Don’t you find it relaxing?”

“No.” I hoist myself up on the counter, letting my legs dangle onto the washer/dryer, which is built-in underneath. “The dancers stress me out. They’re so judgmental, which then makes me judge them back, which bums me out. I don’t like to do that. Plus, I have other work — real work — that I have to get done and it’s like…”

Arabella pours the water and adds a teaspoon of sugar to hers. “You know what’s interesting?”

“Tell me,” I say. We take our tea to the livingroom; a large, vaulted-ceiling room with cozy over-stuffed couches, tattered oriental rugs, and piano. Whorholeqsue images of Monti in day-glo colors adorn the walls, holiday cards from Sting, Madonna, Moby, those Keane boys, Mick et al are placed casually on a Victorian-style letterboard. They will wind up in the trash soon, just like the ones sent to Bracker’s.

“Well, you say that your dream is to be a singer, right?” Arabella asks. I nod. “But all the training classes are the ones you loathe.”

I think for a second. “Lying on the floor and becoming a tree…”

“Trees don’t lie on the floor,” Arabella corrects.

“Fine. Maybe I just think that it’s less to do with all the side stuff like Body and just being focused.”

“But everyone trains — you know that breathing is essential for having a good voice and being able to sustain a song.”

“I never said I wanted to be the next classically trained diva.” I sip my tea. She has a point, but I’m not ready to concede.

“All I’m getting at is that for someone who claims to…” She swallows and takes a minute to figure out what she wants to say. Or, she knows what she wants to say but thinks it will hurt my feelings. “You have a great voice, okay? But are you sure you have the drive to go down this road?”

“I don’t know,” I say. For some reason, tears well up in my eyes and I sink back into the comfort of the couch, the warmth of the flat, the cozy closeness and quiet. “I’m self-aware enough to realize that I make fun of a lot of the things I’m supposed to revere. But I feel like an asshole lying on the ground focusing on my inner core, you know? I feel more in tune, more…I don’t know — engaged — when I’m talking or thinking about something.”

“Like with PMT?”

“Exactly. I love that class. I know more already with her than I ever would on my own. Brit Lit at least demands my mental energy and, even though she is overly critical and challenges every damn thing I say, at least I’m getting something out of it.”

Arabella nods and shrugs. “I guess it’s just something to think about.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Especially with the tryouts for The Choir.”

“Oh, shit — is that today?” Arabella asks.

I look at my watch with a sudden jolt of panic. “It is.” I’ve been trying my hand at playing cool, like the whole Piece family. They all seem to walk the earth as if the planet would stop on its axis for them if they needed a minute to tie their shoes or something. “Actually, I gotta go.”

Arabella stands up and gives me a kiss on both cheeks, a gesture that is now so familiar from being in this country that I don’t even think about it — hugs are gone — double-kisses are in. “I won’t see you until next week!” Arabella grins. “I’m so excited.”

“Tell Toby I said hi, handsome. Or however you say that in Dutch.”

“Begroeting, goeduitziend,” Arabella quips. She seems to know useful lingo in so many languages. Then her smile fades for a second. “Did you ever talk to Asher about that paparazzi thing?”

I’m suddenly nervous, like she might know about my seeing Asher in HEL (heh). “No, I haven’t. And he’s going to Bracker’s this weekend for your mum’s photo shoot.”

She perks up. “Oh, you must go! Please? Please?” She pokes me and makes her sad baby face until I give in.

“I was semi-invited anyway,” I say hoping this sounds like a viable excuse. “By Clementine.”

“Ah, the photo spread extraordinaire…should be a riot. Literally.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll go to your house without you. It just feels weird.”

“Don’t let it — you’re one of the family now,” Arabella says. Um, yeah, but I want to jump on your brother. “Just don’t let Asher try any tricks on you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask when I’m halfway out the door. Arabella stands with one leg balancing on the other, her hand above her head, the tree pose in yoga.