The English American (14 page)

I
THOUGHT WE’D SHARE MY ROOM
,”
Billie says, pulling my suitcase along the corridor toward her bedroom in Adler. “This way we can lie in bed at night and talk, like girlfriends.” After sharing dormitories for seven years, I hate lying in bed and talking “like girlfriends.” I’d rather sleep in an airing cupboard.

But the simple fact of my sharing a room with her seems to make Billie so happy, and I’m relieved to be back in Billie’s home after the torturously long security check at Heathrow and the cramped flight back to America. So I climb into my side of her enormous bed and fall asleep to the sound of Billie’s voice telling me she’s thinking of writing a book. “There you were longing to be a writer all your life,” she says. “And now you’ve inspired me to become a writer too.”

The next morning, after a breakfast of Slim-Fast, a kind of chocolate milk that Billie shows me how to make with ice, in a blender, I go into the sitting room to be officially introduced to Billie’s creativity counselors, or, as she prefers to call them, art buddies.

My job will be to publicize Billie’s workshops, because it’s through the workshops that she gets most of her clients. For a fee, clients who have taken one of Billie’s workshops can call Carol, Marvin, or Tom to talk about how their work is going. Billie determines who she thinks would be a good fit for them. If they’re feeling insecure, their counselor will encourage them. If they’re feeling blocked, their counselor will lead them through a series of creative visualizations, either in person or on the phone, until they are unblocked again.

Marvin is thirty, bald, skinny, and shakes my hand with the enthusiasm of a born-again Christian, because he is a born-again Christian.

“When Marvin’s not counseling clients he acts as my secretary,” Billie says. “Without him I’d be lost.” She smiles at Marvin, who clearly has a crush on her.

Tom is about fifty and looks like the kind of well-worn New Yorker you read about in books. I like the way he dresses. His corduroy pants are scuffed at the knees and his lumberjack shirt is too big for his frail body. His eyes are young. It’s only his body that looks old.

“I was introduced to Tom by his psychiatrist,” Billie tells me. “He kept drinking and then blacking out in the middle of Manhattan. Then I gave him a job working for me, and the rest is history. Tom helps our clients with their time-management issues. All artists need structure. Isn’t that right, Tom?
And
he’s a world-class Scrabble player.”

Tom and Billie play Scrabble every lunchtime, on Billie’s bed. While they play, Billie makes phone calls to clients. Tom drinks strong black coffee with six sugars out of a dark green travel mug. He smokes two packs of Marlboro cigarettes a day.

Billie’s clients are mostly people with regular jobs who want to learn to express their artistic side. She’s very inspiring when she speaks. Tom tells me she could make Karl Rove believe he could jack it all in and become a sculptor if he just put his mind to it. His voice is deep and raspy. I notice his hand shaking as he puts his coffee down.

“And this is Carol,” Billie says. “She came to dinner one night and told me she wasn’t happy working at the library. So—ta da! I made Carol president of my company and made myself chairman of the board! All world-beaters need someone like Carol behind them, overseeing the organizational side of things.”

Carol has an open, kind face and the clear skin and bright eyes of someone who works in a health-food shop. She’s wearing a dark green pinafore dress with a light gray shirt underneath and a pair of flat brown shoes.

“My daughter’s just like me, Carol! We’re going to be one helluva team!”

“Good to meet you, Pippa,” Carol says.

Billie is at the front door now, ringing a bell.

“Heathcliffe! Pandora! Mandlebeam!” At the sound of the bell, Heathcliffe and two large cats I’ve not met before come running up the stairs, cross the sitting room, and dash into the kitchen. One of the cats is orange and white, thin, and silky. The other is a fat tortoiseshell, with a weak hind leg and a gummy eye.

They run into the kitchen, jump onto the kitchen table, and start guzzling cat food from a cereal bowl next to someone’s half-eaten bowl of Cheerios. Billie lets the cats eat off the kitchen table, rather than the floor, because she says it’s easier to clean up that way.

Billie comes back into the sitting room holding a fork with a glob of cat food on the handle.

“My daughter’s smart as a whip and as talented as I am, so she’ll pick up most of it through osmosis.”

Surrounded by Billie, Ralph, and my new colleagues, I think of the last time I heard the word “osmosis” and vaguely remember Miss Arbuthnott teaching it in biology. We used to call her Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle because she was round and motherly and used to scuttle from the biology lab up to the main school.

Billie’s voice brings me right back.

“Pippa’s background is in sales, so she’ll be in charge of drumming up new business. I know she’ll have some wonderful ideas.”

Billie is so sure I’ll be a great asset to the company, I’m starting to believe her. Carol and Tom shake my hand.

“That just leaves Cole. He’s out getting supplies. We met at a conference a couple of months ago. He’s going to oversee the financial side of things. He’s a wonderful painter, and very spiritual.”

As if on cue, the doorbell rings. In walks a tall man of about forty-five, with dark black curly hair and cobalt blue eyes, wearing a light blue vest and blue jeans. He’s good looking, in a worn way. Sexy, even.

“Cole!” Billie says. “Meet my daughter!”

The phone rings. Billie goes to pick it up. I can hear her talking in the background.

“So you’re Pippa,” he says. “Your mother has told me all about you.”

He’s looking at me intensely. I feel naked. There’s something about him that I instantly mistrust.

“Stop talking everybody and listen up!” Billie says, rushing back into the center of the room. She’s put on a black sweater with a blue cat on it and is speaking as if she is performing for an audience. We all stop talking. Then she drops her voice. As I’ve told you before, you absolutely have to listen to Billie when she drops her voice like this.

“We have a crisis,” she says.

Oh no.

“I’ve got to get back to Georgia right away.” She pauses, to make sure everyone is ready to hear what she has to say. We are. Then, “Malice is holding Daddy prisoner. She’s hidden Daddy’s car keys, insisting he’s too sick to drive up the mountain!”

“What are you going to do?” Tom says.

“I’m going to have Daddy back up that mountain by tomorrow afternoon.”

Within minutes, Cole is helping Billie put her suitcase—and Heathcliffe—into the car. I watch Cole kiss Billie good-bye. I can’t tell what kind of a kiss it is, because his long back is blocking my view. Maybe that’s something Americans do to be friendly. Like the French. I’m not referring to a French kiss. The kind that involves tongues, etc. I’m referring to the cheek-to-cheek thing the French do when they say hello. Cole’s kiss is sort of in the middle.

The other counselors clean up the coffee cups. Marvin hovers around me. He’s obviously moved by my arrival. Finally he says, “God has brought you here, I’m convinced of it.”

I cringe inwardly, as embarrassed by easy talk of God as I am by people I’ve only known a short while telling me they love me, and make an excuse to go into the kitchen.

“So, Pippa,” Carol says, after Billie has left. Her voice is kind. “Welcome to the Billie Parnell Show.”

T
HE NEXT DAY
,
Marvin sells me his brother’s ’86 Buick for five hundred dollars. I call it Earl Grey, because the name Typhoo’s already taken. Following Marvin’s turn-by-turn instructions on how to get there, I make the forty-minute drive into the heart of Manhattan, excited to be exploring New York City for the first time.

I know I’ll probably be all right once I get into the city, because it’s supposedly built on a grid and therefore quite straightforward—unlike, say, Canberra, in Australia, which is built in a circle and impossible to find your way around even if you’ve lived there for decades. I traveled around Australia when I was seventeen, in my year off between school and university. It’s where I fell in love for the first time. With my cousin. We didn’t have sex or anything, but I did learn about kissing lying down.

That’s one advantage of being adopted. It’s absolutely fine to fall for your cousin, because you’re not blood relations. I’ve often thought it would have been nice if our love had lasted. Because then, if we’d got married and had babies, the babies would be blood relatives of mine and Mum’s. Which would make me really related to Mum, if you see what I mean.

But the romance between Drew and me didn’t last. I went back to university in England, and he became a park ranger in the Australian bush. Poor Drew. He really loved me, I think. And I loved him. And then I didn’t. As I drive, I wonder if other people remember every detail about the people who stopped loving them first—and very little about the people they left brokenhearted.

The sound of horns hooting brings my mind back to the present. I read somewhere that it’s illegal to hoot your horn in Manhattan. If that’s true, then there are a lot of people breaking the law when I hit midtown.

I’m not a particularly good driver at the best of times. But when something makes me nervous—well, forget it. I try to do a three-point turn, just as my driving instructor taught me back in Kew. But this is not a peaceful, tree-lined street in West London.

I stall in front of a huge metal dumpster next to a barbed-wire fence. I get out and apologize. The horns hoot louder. Finally a parking-lot attendant takes pity on me and guides my car, backward, into his lot. I am surprised to note that he is wearing a bow tie, particularly considering the fact that his parking lot is nothing more than a forty-foot-square piece of concrete, surrounded by graffiti-covered walls, under open sky.

He tells me he wants forty-four dollars to park my car there. I check his face to see if he is joking. He isn’t. But I’m grateful to him for rescuing me and impatient to see the city, so rather than spending hours trying to find a meter, I pay him. Then I sling my handbag over my shoulder and take my first walk through the streets of Manhattan.

I’d much rather walk through the streets below famous buildings than visit the buildings themselves. So, on my first trip into New York City, despite the fact that it’s January and bitterly cold, I start walking. I head up Eighth Avenue, past the porn shops and the theaters and the subway signs with the letters
A, C,
and
E
. I stop for a few moments on the corner of Forty-fourth and Eighth. A subway train is passing beneath me, massaging my feet as it rumbles below.

The wind is fierce, and I’m grateful for the thermal underwear Mum sneaked into my suitcase and the Australian Ugg boots I’ve brought with me from England. My ears, however, are freezing, and I wish I’d brought a hat.

New York is alive with people selling things. Newspapers, umbrellas, coffee, gloves, watches, jewels. I stop at the Broadway Diner for a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows floating on the top.

An hour later, heading along the famous streets toward what has to be Times Square, I notice a number of signs on a wire fence with Post No Signs stamped on it. “Jesus Saves,” “Adali Snapple, the Best Flavors on Earth,” “Thee Nail Salon—Manicure, Pedicure, for the Best Nails on Earth.” I can hear Charlotte and Mum’s voices in my head: “Why does everything have to be the ‘best’ in America? Why can’t it just be good enough? Hmm?”

I stop at a pretzel stand and buy an enormous salted pretzel, which I cover with mustard from the squeezy yellow mustard container. It feels exotic and very American in comparison with Grey Poupon.

I’m fighting against the wind, passing a dark, narrow alley, finishing the last bite of my pretzel, when I’m startled by a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and see a tall, strong-looking man in a long black coat and black face mask staring down at me.

I won’t mind giving him what little money I have, but I’d rather not be bundled into the back of a car and dumped dead somewhere north of 160th Street without my coat or my shoes, like the woman in
24.

The man is holding my arm. I tell myself to stay calm.

“Hallo,” I say.

The wind is blowing fierce and sharp, and I can’t hear what the man is saying above the traffic. My scarf is flapping in the wind and I’m trying not to panic. His other hand comes toward me. He’s holding something. A drug dealer. Stay calm, Pip.

“No, thank you,” I say, “I don’t take drugs, except for a cold. Sorry.” I smile politely at him, pull my arm away, and start to walk in the opposite direction. Maybe he’ll like my accent and let me go? He catches up with me, puts his arm around my shoulders, and pulls me into the alley.

I mean it when I say I won’t mind giving him my money. When I was about fifteen, I had my bicycle stolen. I knew the boys that took it—I saw them at the playground with it the following week. The white seat had been painted red, but it was definitely my bike. I went home and told Mum about it. She said, “Don’t make such a fuss about it, darling. If they went to all the trouble of stealing it, they probably need the bicycle much more than you do.”

Ever since then—well, I’ve seen her point. The only thing I’d really mind being stolen would be something I was in the middle of writing. Or my really comfy slippers. Everything else can be replaced.

We’re protected from the wind by the alley, and I can now hear what the man is saying. “Your wallet,” he says.

My first thought is to wonder why Americans insist on calling a purse a wallet and a handbag a purse. In England, a purse has a little metal clip and is used, mostly, for change. A wallet is flat. You keep your credit cards in it. They’re completely different. Some Americans even go so far as to call a handbag a pocketbook, which is not part of the vocabulary in England. An educated guess might lead your average Brit to assume it refers to an A–Z, perhaps. Or one of those minibooks full of inspirational phrases that you can read on the loo.

My second thought is to remember that a magazine article I once read said that if you’re approached by a mugger, just give him what he wants—don’t put up any kind of fight, it’s not worth risking your life. I reach into my coat pocket. Maybe if I give him the money, he’ll let me keep my driving license. It would take me weeks to get another one, and I don’t want to risk having to take a driving test in the U.S. It took me five tries before I passed my British test, and I’m sure the only reason I got through it is because I took Charlotte’s advice: I resisted all urges to speak to the instructor, put my hair up in a bun, and wore a conservative-looking skirt with heels.

“Oh dear,” I say, reaching into my pocket to give my purse to the man standing over me. “It doesn’t seem to be—”

“Your wallet,” he says.

I look into his outstretched hand. He’s not holding drugs or a gun. He’s holding my purse. “You dropped your wallet two blocks back. You gotta be careful, this is New York City.”

“Oh!” I say, waves of relief washing over me. “Oh! I thought you were a mugger! Oh! Thank you!”

The man is taking off his face mask, which, upon closer inspection, isn’t a face mask at all, but appears to be a balaclava, hand-knitted out of thick fluffy wool.

He has brown hair, beautiful soft brown eyes, and a kind, craggy, interesting face. He’s lean and tall—about thirty-five or so—and he’s laughing.

“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to scare you. My mom gave me this. She thinks I’ll get frostbite if I don’t wear it. I forgot I had it on.” He smiles at me awkwardly.

“Here,” he says, handing me his balaclava. “Take it. It’s the least I can do after scaring you like that. Anyway, you shouldn’t be walking around New York City in January without a hat.”

His accent is gloriously, unmistakably from New Jersey.

“But I can’t take your hat!”

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’ve got three more of these at home.” His grin is impish and infectious.

I’m not sure which hole to put my head through. He takes off his gloves and helps me get it on. His hands are warm and big and steady. He stands back and looks at me. In my bright yellow coat and black balaclava, I look like an M&M.

“You look mean!” he says, smiling. “No one’s gonna mess with you now.”

My voice is muffled from inside the man’s hat, which feels surprisingly soft against my freezing-cold face and smells pleasantly of man and aftershave.

He reaches out and tucks a strand of my hair into the hat. Then, he puts his gloves back on again and looks at his watch.

“I gotta get to work,” he says.

“Oh,” I say. “Well, thank you so much! My purse has everything in it. My driving license, my passport. British driving licenses don’t have photo ID, at least mine doesn’t. That’s why I carry my passport with me. For ID. I need it when I go to the bank.” I know I’m giving him too much information. I should let the poor man go.

“You’re British, right?”

“Yup,” I say. “Well, sort of.” I stop myself before I start in on the whole story. “My name’s Pippa,” I say instead.

“Well, hi, Pippa,” he says, smiling. “I’m Jack.”

The wind is blowing his hair off his face, which I note is alive with merriment.

“I’ve got to get to work, but…well…look, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to pick you up or anything…”

“Oh, good.”

“But Friday nights are British night this month. Down at The Gold Room. I work there. It’s between Third and Bleecker. Why don’t you come on down sometime?”

“I’d like that,” I say. “The Gold Room. Right. Got it. And…well, thanks for the…uh…gear!”

“You’re lucky,” he said. “I could have been wearing the hat with the little yellow duckies on it.”

The wind has picked up again, and we part, waving heavy gloves at each other.

When I get back to Adler, Carol is waiting for me at the door. Billie made it to Georgia in time to tear her father away from a strongly protesting Molly Alice and drive him up to his cabin on the mountain. Earl died later that afternoon, lying in his recliner, looking out over the creek. The daughter he loved most was holding his hand.

My long-lost relatives have already started gathering. I am to get on an airplane and join them on Buck Mountain in the morning.