Finding Fraser (29 page)

Faraway Fellow…

8:00 pm, June 21

Nairn, Scotland

Well, here it is, my favorite day of the
year, because it’s the longest. At home, we call it the first day of summer,
though here (or so I’ve been told) this day is considered Midsummer. Anyone
care to refute this bit of lore?

I would be spending it with my stalwart
Scots boyfriend, but he is once again on the road, delivering auto parts all
around the north. I miss him!

But now I am late for work, so I will
save news of any celebratory bonfires and so on for another post.

- ES

Comments: 23

HiHoKitty, Sapporo, Japan:

Your love is all we speak of in our book
club, Miss Emma-san. You are an inspiration to us all. But still you have not
shared the truth of how the fire burns between you. This we long to hear.

Gerald Abernathy, Fort William, Scotland:

Well, girl, I think maybe your dreams
have actually come true. From your email it sounds like he’s certainly big
enough to be Jamie, and a good kisser, too. Don’t sweat the blonde tips and gel——nothin’
wrong with a California boy wanna-be! And maybe all that singing will land him
a spot in a boy band!

As for me, I am out of the rest home, feelin’
fine. I’ve decided to stay on here in Scotland for a while. My nurse——you
might remember him?——has a sweet little B&B, and when he’s not
nursing people back into the land of the living, he’s cooking full English
breakfasts in his little cottage. He’s been showing me around a bit, and as
there is so much more to see, I’ve decided to stay awhile.

Stay happy, Emma! I am.

Gerald

Jack Findlay, Edinburgh, Scotland:

Well, I will certainly defy anyone who
dares to step forward and refute! For you are most well-informed. When measured
properly, summer runs from May Day to Lammas on August first, with the end of
June therefore being midpoint.

It’s clear from your other commenters at
least, that your quest has been successful. In that regard, I wish you both the
best. If you plan to be down near Stirling any time soon, I will certainly be
delighted to do so in person.

Jack

(Read 20 more comments
here
…)

I
logged off and looked around.
Up front, Katy was
just packing up her things. I checked my watch. Right on schedule. Now that I
wasn’t blogging as often, she didn’t seem to mind seeing me in the library, as
long as one or both of us was on our way out when we met.

After getting to know Hamish a little
better, I’d learned that he didn’t even own a computer. I was a bit sad to hear
he wasn’t interested in reading anything, but at least I didn’t have to worry
about him seeing my writing online. I just—I just wasn’t ready to give it
up, yet. I felt so connected to my online community. They were all, to a
person, completely delighted for me—well, perhaps not to a person. Jack’s
comment had sounded a bit stiff and formal, but I put it down to
pre-occupation. He must be getting ready for his new book to come out. And
since Hamish had been away, I had been reading my way through his backlist.
Katy had a whole shelf devoted to Jack Findlay titles, right up at the front of
the library, near her desk.

I gave her a wave and leapt onto my bike to
head back to Morag’s. Nothing good came of dwelling on my absent boyfriend, so I
spent the ride trying to think cheerful thoughts about Gerald. Staying at a
B&B run by a cute English nurse? It sounded to me like he was definitely on
the road to recovery.

But try as I might to focus on Gerald and
his happiness, my mind still turned magnetically to Hamish. I aimed my bike at
a pothole in the road and bounced through it viciously. What could I say to
HiHoKitty and the other commenters who demanded details of our first night
together?

Up to that point I’d managed to avoid
admitting how little time we had actually spent together, but things were
getting ridiculous. I wanted to be with him. I knew he liked me back from the
way he’d kissed me. And riding at high speed over the rutted lanes on my bike
was a poor substitute for what we could actually do with some decent time alone
together.

I decided to make plans for the next day. I could
just whip over to the garage on my break, and all of this worry would be put to
rest. We were both consenting adults. We just needed enough alone time to let things
develop naturally. My stomach clenched with anticipation. Things were going to
work out just fine.

I’d reached a good rhythm, driven by these
pleasant thoughts, as I pedaled past the cafe. I’d almost ridden right on by
before I noticed the black smoke pouring out the front door. Screeching the
bike to a stop, I didn’t even bother to flip out my kickstand, but hopped off
and tipped the bike against a wall. I ran to meet Ashwin, who was walking out
the front door.

“Is there a fire?” I gasped, as he stepped
out to meet me.

He rolled his eyes. “The percolator blew up.
I told Da it was on its way out, but you know …” His voice trailed off, and
even through the closed door of the cafe, I could hear his father yelling into
the phone. Ashwin nervously pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

I peered into the front window. Sandeep was
in the back, a pall of smoke hovering above his head in the kitchen. Nothing
else appeared to be damaged.

“We had only one couple in the place, so I’d
nipped out back for a fag,” muttered Ashwin in my ear. “It turns out, the
coffee machine boiled dry without anyone on hand, which was probably a good
thing, seein’ as it shattered into murderous shards that snowed down over
everythin’.”

I couldn’t help feeling relieved my shift
was long over and there was no way I’d be blamed. “Everything?”

He took a long drag, his eyes slitted and
staring into the distance. “The sink, the big bin of sugar, the vat of
chocolate powder—ever’thin’.”

“How mad was your dad?” I whispered.

Ash shuddered. “If he could’ve actually
flayed me alive using only his voice, I would have no skin left. He yelled for
about an hour, then he closed the place down, kicked me out and cleaned the
kitchen himself.”

His fingers trembled a little as he lit a
new cigarette. “This whole ‘family business’ thing …” He shook his head.
Through the window I could see Sandeep slam down the phone and grab his
raincoat. Seconds later, he came storming out the door, jamming one arm into
the coat. He caught sight of his son and stopped in his tracks.

I could see Ash physically brace himself—eyes
half-closed, shoulders hunched.

Sandeep took a deep breath and looked at me.

“Set yer alarm, Emma. I need yeh to consult
on the new equipment. We’re headin’ tae Edinburgh in the mornin’.”

He jammed a catalogue into my hand and
stabbed a finger in his son’s face. “And yer driven’, if ye can manage it
without blowin’ up the fookin’ van!”

Sandeep’s van was parked at the foot of
Morag’s driveway by the time I emerged at eight the next morning. With all the
bus travel, I had become completely used to driving on the wrong side of the
road, though the roads seemed so much narrower when driving in the van. Still,
it turned out keeping my eyes closed meant I shrieked less at the sight of
giant trucks bearing down on us on the impossibly narrow roads, so I mostly
tried to nap.

In all, the trip went very smoothly. The
roads were clear, Ash kept his head down and his speed under the limit, and his
father spent most of the time ignoring the fact I was trying to snooze, and
waxing rhapsodic about the new espresso machine he planned to buy.

Once we passed Fort William, I gave up
trying to sleep. Sandeep seemed a little disappointed that I didn’t know the
difference between the brand names. I explained that I knew how to run the
machine, but the relative manufacturing merits were beyond the scope of my
barista experience. I’d read through the catalogue and picked out the one that
I thought would look nicest in the shop, which managed to thoroughly disgust
Sandeep.

In the end, he decided that since I would be
no help in the decision process, I would be allowed an hour to explore Princes
Street while the men went and collected the new equipment.

No argument from me. I didn’t have any
available funds, but at least I could window shop. And besides—hadn’t
Claire spent time in Edinburgh looking for Jamie on her return in DRAGONFLY IN
AMBER? It wasn’t technically an OUTLANDER detail, but trying to puzzle out the
location of Jamie’s print shop would be a fun way to kill time.

As we drove toward the city over the Forth
Bridge, Sandeep had Ashwin pull off and took over the driving. Ash grinned at
me and slid into the back seat.

“It’s a madhouse drivin’ this city,” Sandeep
muttered, and I had to agree. It took us almost an hour to get into the heart
of the city, mostly due to construction and slow-moving traffic.

As we wove through the city streets, I kept
my nose glued to the window, watching for a glimpse of the castle. Soon enough
there it was, looming through the misty day like a huge guardian on its mammoth
pile of granite above the city. I craned my neck to look for the bar where I’d
first met Hamish, but it was lost in a puzzle of streets running off at strange
angles. I was pretty sure I’d never be able to find it again.

Sandeep’s van pulled up to a red light right
beside a huge, soot-blackened structure on Princes Street. He pointed out the
window.

“Tha’ ugly thing is the Scott Monument,” he
said. “This should only take me an hour, but with traffic it could be as long
as two. So how about we meet right here at four, to be safe?”

“I’ll be here,” I said, and hopped out of
the van. He honked moodily and rolled forward a couple of feet before stopping
again. I walked by his open window.

“Damn tram lines,” he said, and shook his fist
at the sky.

I waved goodbye and headed along Princes
Street. It was Edinburgh’s main street, filled with shoppers despite the dreary
day.

I stared at all the lovely spring outfits
and shoes that I could not afford in the shop windows and thought about Hamish,
delivering car parts today somewhere far north of me. We both were in the same
boat, in a way, earning money to go to America. Except he was desperate to go,
and I—I wasn’t so sure any more.

I didn’t want to think that way. I’d found
my Fraser, right? A big, beautiful Scot—not really a red-head, but close
enough. And if he wanted to see my homeland, too—all the better. After
all, Jamie and Claire had ended up in America, and for both of them it had been
the most foreign of lands.

I leaned against the cool stone of a shop
exterior, and pulled my copy of OUTLANDER out of my pack. Flipping open the
cover to look at the map, I was horrified when it came away in my hand. I stood
there on the street, staring in blank shock at the naked book in one hand and
the torn cover in the other.

“Ye can git another jes’ oop the street,
lass.”

The man speaking to me was sitting on the
ground, leaning against a pole. His dog was asleep on his lap and propped
against one knee was a sign that read Destitute and Hungry. I took a moment to
be impressed with his facility with the written word, Austenesque
capitalization and all, but then he spoke again.

“Wha’za matter? Ye deef? THERE’S A BOOKSHOP
JES’ OOP THE STREET.”

The sheer volume made me jump back a little.
“Yes—ah—thank you, sir,” I babbled, backing away. I jammed my hands
in my pockets and hurried off, embarrassed that I hadn’t had the presence of
mind to drop a coin in his cup.

Two doors up I discovered the well-educated
panhandler was correct. It was a bookshop. I stepped inside, feeling just as
torn as my copy of OUTLANDER.

Of course I could buy another copy. But this
copy had brought me all the way here from Chicago. It was filled with my notes.
It held Gerald’s map, folded neatly in between the pages. Inside the torn
cover, it held my own travel plan in passionate purple ink, alongside the
signature of the author Herself.

I couldn’t bear to give it up.

But maybe one of the clerks would have some
tape I could use. I wandered over to the front desk, to find the cashier
talking on the phone.

“An God, he was SO drunk, I tell ya I
laughed me arse off …”

She caught sight of me and put her hand over
the receiver. “Can I help yeh?”

“I’ve just torn the cover off my book—do
you have any Scotch tape?”

“Nah—sorry. Got some cello, if ye want
it.”

She slid a roll of what was clearly Scotch
tape over to me and turned back to her phone call. I spent ten minutes
carefully repairing the damage. When I was done, it looked like it might hold,
but most of the tape was gone. As I slid the dispenser back across the desk to
the cashier, I remembered Claire’s quest.

The cashier was still talking, but I finally
caught her eye and she replaced her hand on the receiver again.

“Thank you so much,” I said, handing her the
dispenser. “Listen, I’m looking for an old book makers nearby here. Do you know
of one?”

She paused, twisting her mouth in
concentration. “Dunno,” she said at last. “But this here is a book sellers, no’
a book makers. Cheers, aye?”

She showed me her back and returned to her
call.

“Eh, sorry, Gert. So he’s drunk, mind, and
I’m right tipsy meself, and ‘e says ‘have another’, and I’m like, ‘don’t mind
if I do, luv,’ and he’s like, ‘fair play to yeh’ …”

I cleared my throat.

This time she was glaring as she swung back
to face me. “I’m sorry, d’ye still need summat?”

“Look, I know you sell books. That’s why I
came in here. But I’m looking for a place that makes books— binds them,
and so on. Like with a printing press.”

“Oh! I thought you was havin’ me on, and you
were lookin’ for the bookies—them guys you make bets with, yeah?”

“No. It would be an old shop, you know, or
an old collection of buildings where they bind books.”

She shrugged and chewed the end of her
ponytail. “Most of the books we sell is printed in China, from wha’ I can see,”
she said. “Bu’ if ye look on that shelf ower there—unner the plaid
banner, see? There are books about Edinburgh neighborhoods. Historical-like.
Maybe that’ll do?”

I nodded and she smiled with relief before
turning back to her phone. I headed over to the shelf she’d indicated and
propped my hands on my knees in the universal technique for reading spine
titles on low bookshelves.