A Summer In Europe (29 page)

Louisa nodded. “Hard to believe, I know,” she told Cynthia. Then, to Gwen, she added, “My husband. We’d come here once in our second or third year of marriage. It was just for one of his business trips. I spent the days at the hotel or wandering around a bit downtown, but when he was done with his meetings for the night, we’d go out to dinner or to see a show. It was so, so ... pleasant.”

Gwen smiled warmly at her. Although Louisa’s memories were tinged with bittersweet edges—like a white carnation with pink-rimmed tips—the unevenness of the color pattern only added an unusual dimension to the flower, giving it more character than it might have had otherwise. And she realized with a start that she was, herself, adding memorable moments to her formerly untouched snowy petals of inexperience. When it came to world travel, speckles of pink now permanently decorated the white. Each dot a place she’d now visited.

How very much she’d seen and done in just this first half of the trip. She would carry these memories with her forever, or until—like Colin—they were lost to the calamities of illness or the blockages of old age. But these were the memories of
her
life. Had she collected enough of them for someone who’d lived three whole decades already?

In the momentary silence between Louisa’s comments and Gwen’s thoughts, Thoreau’s distinctive voice snapped the airwaves and reached their ears. “The hell I will,” he said to his brother in a tone so incredulous that Gwen couldn’t begin to guess what Emerson had suggested. The latter replied with words far too hissed and low for them to hear, but she gathered they were not complimentary phrases.

Guido had the bus engine running just outside of the building. Just before Aunt Bea hopped onto it, she pulled Gwen aside and whispered, “You got your keycard for the hotel room, right?”

“Yes, of course,” Gwen said.

“There’s still time to slip it to me,” her aunt said, her mischievous eyes darting around the lobby to take in the tour members who remained. “You could pretend you lost it. Or left it in the room by accident. Then those handsome boys will insist on letting you stay with them in their room tonight. You wouldn’t want to wake up your dear old auntie too late now, would you? She needs her beauty sleep, you know.”

Gwen stared at her. Shook her head.

“Well, c’mon, honey! Quick. Hand it over.”

“No, Aunt Bea.”

The older woman rolled her eyes and sighed. “You are so stubborn, child,” she mumbled just before ambling toward the bus. “Can’t say I didn’t try to help you.”

If this was what passed for
help
these days, Gwen could only imagine the magnitude of disaster that woman could create when trying to be
un
helpful.

“Good night, Aunt Bea,” she called after her, unable to keep from chuckling slightly in spite of herself. Forget Cynthia or even Emerson. Her aunt was the
real
piece of work.

Beatrice just shrugged and started muttering something to Hester as they boarded Guido’s bus and found their seats. There were only a few other tour members that followed them as most everyone else was already prepared to depart. With the very notable exception of their tour guide.

Hans-Josef was not at all anxious to leave the Vigadó. After having a lively discussion with a couple members of the orchestra, he emerged from the concert hall and strolled toward Gwen and the other two women in the lobby. It was obvious that the happy German melodies were still scampering through his Austrian brain because he walked with a distinct dance in his step, his smile positively luminescent.

He inhaled, deeply and dreamily, drawing the dry lobby air into his lungs as if it were aromatically scented. “This is a night I do not want to see end,” he said.

Cynthia, with a gift for taking matters into her own hands, shot an exasperated glance at the Edwards brothers and turned the full force of her grin on Hans-Josef. “Why should you see it end?” she inquired, beaming at him. “I think you should come out with us.” She hitched her thumb at Emerson and Thoreau. “Those two are debating restaurants to take us to and, by the time they decide on one, every place in Budapest will be closed. I just want to go to a bar. To grab some pub food and a nice drink or two and talk about the performance. Doesn’t that sound like a far superior idea?” she entreated. She glanced first at Louisa then at Gwen before returning her attention to Hans-Josef for confirmation that, yes, her idea was indeed the better plan. And while their reasons for agreeing with Cynthia differed, all three of them were unanimously in favor of it.

“Brilliant!” Cynthia said, only a tad smug. “Do you need to go back to the hotel first with Guido? If so, we can wait for you. If not, perhaps you can help us select a good place to go and we’ll follow your lead.”

This suggestion was met with a tremendous amount of enthusiasm on their tour guide’s part, but Gwen didn’t know if it was Cynthia’s flirtatiousness, the continuation of an enjoyable evening or the prospect of wrestling the leadership role away from those pesky Englishmen that was the greatest allure.

“I do not have to ride back with the group,” Hans-Josef insisted. “Let me just inform Guido of our plans.”

And before the Edwards brothers had any notion at all that their control of the situation had been usurped, they found themselves dragged along by Cynthia to a hopping Budapest bar of Hans-Josef’s choosing and forced to contend with far less complicated menu items than they had planned.

“My apologies, Gwen,” Thoreau murmured, studying the bar menu. “They do seem to have a rather large selection of bratwurst, however.”

She laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not that hungry. What could you and Emerson have possibly been arguing about for so long, though?”

He studied her for an endless moment. “I suspect you’d rather not know.”

She blinked at him. “Yes, I would.”

But he just shook his head and changed the subject, a simple task given their new circumstances.

With Hans-Josef among them, there were now three pairs and three native countries represented. The group dynamic had been considerably altered with just that one additional person, and the setting was markedly different than anything they’d encountered together as a group. To Gwen, it was all a bit surrealistic. The bar was loud, smoky, dark and unmistakably foreign to her eye, not having been one to go clubbing in big cities when in the States. It was also overly hot due to the crowds, necessitating Cynthia’s almost immediate removal of her flimsy black shawl, an action that created an instantaneous response around the table.

“It’s dreadfully warm in here. Am I the only one in a cover-up?” she demurred, fanning her face and fluttering her eyelashes prettily as she untied the little bow holding the garment around her.

While her dress was already plainly low-cut, the shawl had managed to cover not only Cynthia’s bare shoulders but it also fell across both sides of her chest, adding a density to the fabric in that location, which was gone the second she lifted it away. It was clear in an instant that the woman wasn’t wearing a bra—a discovery of some interest to the men at the table. It was also impossible for any of them to ignore the two new guests they had joining them: Cynthia’s very visible nipples.

Louisa exhaled on a laugh, smiling at her friend’s triumphant expression. Gwen, realizing that this was no unintentional wardrobe malfunction, caught herself before she giggled and, instead, watched as the three guys reacted in dramatically different ways to the same visual stimuli:

Hans-Josef’s jaw dropped and he actually
turned his chair
to face her, his eyes riveted to her lips while she spoke to him, but very much focused on her chest when she was speaking to anyone else. The tour guide actively tried to engage her in conversation, even going so far as to let it slip that he was a man interested in committed relationships. Cynthia smiled winningly at him and fiddled with her plunging collar just to torment him a little more.

Thoreau pointedly avoided looking anywhere below Cynthia’s neck and embarked with Louisa on a spirited discussion of some eighties British TV series called
Lovejoy
about a scruffy antiques expert who managed to get into these scrapes with a variety of unsavory sorts. Gwen was quickly confused by their detailing of certain episodes—was it a comedy, a drama or a mystery?—and she tuned them out after five minutes.

Emerson didn’t look at Cynthia at all. He studied Gwen silently and with a tense jaw for several minutes, downed his Pilsner in record time and announced that he was going to the bar for another one. He asked if he could bring her back anything, but she’d already gotten both a drink and a brat and had barely touched either, so of course she said no. He strode off as if being chased by an invisible Vajdahunyad vampire.

Gwen immediately felt that fifth-wheel feeling again. Amazing how that happened no matter which four other people were involved. She couldn’t deny that
she
was the person who didn’t quite belong, and this was only heightened by the fact that Hans-Josef was all but drooling over Cynthia, Louisa and Thoreau were laughingly reminiscing their way through several seasons of that weird antiques show and Emerson—the person who should have completed her pair at the table—was across the bar, trying desperately to escape from the situation. She knew enough to know there were reasons beside her presence for this, but that didn’t keep her from feeling left out. And it didn’t keep her from admiring his swift and decisive exit. Perhaps she should do the same.

“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, rising softly from her chair. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Hans-Josef nodded pleasantly at her and continued to ogle Cynthia, who was having such an enjoyable time that she waved cheerily at Gwen and ogled Hans-Josef right back.

Thoreau shot her a sharp look. “Ladies’ room?” he guessed.

She shook her head. “Outside. I just need some fresh air.”

“It
is
smoky in here,” Louisa observed.

Thoreau motioned to stand. “We could join you, if you’d like.” He glanced at Louisa for agreement and she nodded.

Gwen appreciated the gesture. It was nice that they tried to include her. The fact that she didn’t fit in despite their efforts wasn’t their fault. “No, don’t get up. You two look comfortable where you are, and I won’t be gone long.” She smiled at them both. “Thank you, though.”

Thoreau winked at her. “As you wish. But we’re here if you change your mind.”

She appreciated that, too, but she had no intention of changing her mind. She’d needed a breather from the group—literally, figuratively—for several hours and had been long looking forward to a moment when she could collect her thoughts.

The swirl of cigarette smoke followed her out of the bar, but the night air helped to dissipate the worst of it. The sky was a cloudless indigo with even a few very faint star patterns detectable above the slowly extinguishing city lights. She located the Big and Little Dippers, marveling that the constellations she could view from home were, likewise, visible these thousands of miles away in Hungary, however dimly. This familiarity was comforting. It was, perhaps, a smaller planet than it had felt to her as of late.

She remembered a night not long ago when she and Richard had been strolling past dark and they had gazed into the evening sky, connecting the starry dots to form those distinctive outlines. Pinpointing the sacred position of the North Star. In space and through time, it remained constant. Her mom and dad had seen it as children. Someday, if she ever had kids of her own, they could gaze upon it, too.

This knowledge was also comforting.

And Richard. The certainty of him—her familiarity and knowledge of him—this was the most comforting of all. Especially given the strangeness of these past few weeks. The many unsettling events. The collection of new and challenging personalities.

She had, perhaps, needed a breather from her life back at home but, having been granted the time away, she’d come to appreciate many things about her real life even more. The constancy of it. The calmness. The competence with which she navigated the ins and outs of her day. Not only did she lack fluency of speech here in Europe, but her actions lacked the confident smoothness she craved. She worked so hard to be precise and well prepared at her job and in her life. Here, she was ever hesitant, faltering, inarticulate. She wouldn’t miss these flaws in herself when the tour ended. Not at all.

She would, however, miss Emerson. And Thoreau. And maybe even Louisa, Hans-Josef and Cynthia. Yes, even
her
—albeit just
a little
. It was hard to believe that in a couple of short weeks their trip would be over and she’d probably never see any of them again. Would it be enough merely knowing they existed somewhere in the world, even if they never spoke or even e-mailed each other? Would knowing her have any lasting impact on their lives in the way she was certain knowing them would have on hers—even if their paths never again crossed?

She inhaled fully and tried to hold the fresh foreign air in her lungs for, perhaps, a few seconds longer than necessary. Long enough to tease out the memory of her breathlessness at being kissed by Emerson. The warm, floaty feeling of it. The peculiarity of it, too. It was a dichotomy she felt increasingly discomfited by the more hours and days that passed since it happened. She had never been one to weigh the kissing techniques of one lover against another (she had also never dated more than one man at a time in her entire life), so this odd opportunity to compare and contrast left her even more unsure of herself and her judgments than her deficiencies in European traveling experiences and her overall lack of sophistication.

She desperately wanted to go back to feeling capable and proficient in some aspect of her life once more.

As she released the last of the air and inhaled again, she became aware of a silky, languorous tune drifting down the block and caressing her with its melody. She could spot the man—a gypsy violinist—playing soulfully for himself and a handful of passersby on the street corner across the way. The song, however, she did not recognize, but she found herself swaying to it nonetheless.