Kiss in Time 6 page

I repeat this to Jack. “Are you kidding?” he says. “This is worth thousands.”

The man must understand because he tells me, “I can’t sell fancy stuff like that. This isn’t an antique store.” I am about to tell him that my ring is no antique. Then, I realize it is. Indeed, I am an antique.

“Ask him if he can do any better,” Jack says.

I do, and he says, “Two hundred. That’s it.” I give him my sweetest look, the one that almost always persuaded Father to do my bidding, and I say, “Please, sir.

If you could make it four hundred Euros for my poor, dear mother.” And when I think of Mother, Mother whom I may never see again, whom I have disappointed, my eyes begin to tear up. “You know you are getting a bargain.”

“Three fifty,” the man growls. “Now, if you were for sale, for that I would pay a thousand.” Are all women for sale now? In my current attire, I can certainly see how one might think I was such a woman.

But I say, “I will take three hundred seventy-five Euros, monsieur. ”

The man opens a cash box under the counter, hands me 126

a wad of money, which he does not bother to count, then whisks away my precious ring before I have time to bid it good-bye. I note that he is chuckling, pleased with his bargain. I bite my lip and resist the urge to sob.

“Hey, you weren’t a total disaster in there,” Jack says, counting out the money as we leave.

I understand this is a compliment, and I manage a smile, accepting it.

Our next stop is a door with peeling green paint. Jack knocks upon it, and a man who might be the twin brother of the last man answers.

“What do you want?” he asks in French.

I look at Jack.

“Jolie sent us,” he says in English.

The man nods and allows us to pass.

“You have money?” he says in English.

“How much for a passport?” he asks. “For her?” The man gives a price, which is almost all we have, then says, “Let’s see it.”

“I am quite sorry, sir, but we only have one hundred fifty,” I tell him.

He nods. “If you were to only have two hundred fifty, I might be able to do it. Can you find that?” I rather enjoyed bargaining with the last gentleman. It made me feel like Father negotiating treaties, so I say, “I can find two hundred.”

“Very well,” the man says.

I look at Jack. He nods and hands him the money, taking care not to show all we have.

The man takes it with dirty hands. “What is your name?”

“My name? My name is Her Royal Highness, Princess Talia Aurora Augusta Ludwiga Wilhelmina Agnes Marie Rose of Euphrasia.”

“It’s Talia . . .” Jack interrupts. “Talia . . . um . . .” I grasp his meaning. “Brooke. Talia Brooke.”

“Is that your final decision?” the man growls.

“Of course,” I say. “It is my name. The other name was in jest.” I laugh. “Ha, ha!”

“Stand here.” He pushes me toward a paper board hanging from the wall. When I stand before it, he takes out a small, square object, rather resembling Jack’s telephone.

“What is . . . ?”

A bright light flashes. “Good! Wait here.” He disappears into another room.

I stand quite still, attempting to touch nothing in the dark, cramped, dirty room.

“Ludwiga?” Jack asks.

“Father was sad at not having a male heir, so he attempted to name me after several great Euphrasian kings—Augustus, Ludwig, and Wilhem, alphabetically so no one would be offended. The other names—Agnes, Marie, and Rose—

were Euphrasian queens.”

“How about Aurora?”

“She was my grandmother on my mother’s side, and she 128

was named for the goddess of the dawn.” I glance around, spying a millipede making its way across the wall, dangerously close to nesting in my hair. I move closer to Jack.

“Why are we here?”

“Getting a passport.” At my blank look, he adds, “Travel documents. So you can get around, travel. I got this guy’s name from a girl I met through a guy I met at the Gap.” Travel! The idea is wonderful and terrible at the same time, to be aboard a boat to a strange new place with this strange, messy-haired young man I met only yesterday. I shiver slightly.

“So I will go with you?” I ask Jack.

“With me? Look, I’m helping you out, getting you set up. But after that, you’re on your own.”

“On my own? But how can I . . . what will I do?”

“Sell some more jewels. I don’t know.” I cannot do that. How will I know where to go, how to sell them? How will I obtain food or even know what to wear? Even in Euphrasia, I handled no money. I do not even know how Jack paid for the bus. And if I am on my own, I can never make Jack fall in love with me.

“Will you help me a bit, just with getting money and a ticket for the ship and such?” After he helps me with that, I will talk him into the next thing. And then the next.

Surely, when he sees how much I need him, he will let me stay with him. Mother always said that men like to feel needed. I gaze up into his eyes, letting my lower lip quiver just a bit. It is not difficult.

He sighs. “I guess I can help you a little.” Now that I have achieved my goal, I clap my hands to show that I am keeping my chin up. “Thank you! It is my fondest wish to travel!”

Chapter 7:

j Jack

As soon as we get the passport and are out the door, my cell phone rings.

It’s my mother.

“Jack, where are you? They said you ran away from the tour.”

“Who is this?” I say.

“You know very well who this is.”

Talia’s still with me. I feel bad about just ditching her, but what else can I do? Right now, she’s staring at the photograph on the passport. Every few steps, she touches her own face, like she’s trying to see if it’s really still there.

“Well,” I say, “it sounds like my mother, but my mother never calls.”

“Very funny. Don’t change the subject. Where are you?

Amber says she called earlier and some girl answered the phone.”

“Amber? She didn’t call me. We broke up. She broke up with me. ” I see Talia’s hand fly to her mouth. “Hold on a second, Mom.” To Talia, I say, “Something you need to tell me?”

She purses her lips in thought before saying, “I am dreadfully sorry . . . in the excitement, I forgot. A person named Amber called. She sounded angry.” Amber? In my hand, my mother’s voice keeps buzz-ing. “Jack? Jack? Where are you? Jack, did you hang up on me?”

I let her wait. “Amber called? What did you say?”

“I told her we ran away together,” Talia says.

“You told her what?”

In my hand, Mom’s voice says, “This girl told Amber you’d run off together.”

Talia looks like she’s about to burst into tears. “Was it wrong to say that? I am unfamiliar with telephones!” Nah, you’ve just totally ruined any possibility of getting back with Amber. But she looks so cute, like a little girl who’s afraid of getting in trouble. “No, of course not.”

“Jaaaaaaaack!” the telephone shrieks.

Then my father’s voice, loud but business-as-usual.

“Jack, speak to me this instant.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

“Sorry? Your mother’s crying.”

“Why’s she doing that?”

“Because she thinks you’ve run off with some girl you just met!”

Funny thought. “Oh, yeah. I guess I did.”

“What?”

I’m enjoying this. It’s the first time they’ve paid attention to me since the time I flunked science and crashed my car in the same week. It might be fun to mess with them more.

“Yeah, I met her yesterday. You’ll like her, Dad. She’s real pretty. Oh, and she’s a princess. We eloped.” That’ll get their attention.

No answer from Dad. Maybe the call dropped. Maybe he passed out.

But no. Mom’s there now. “What do you mean you eloped? I want you on a plane back home this minute. This minute!”

“Okay. Wire me some money, and I’ll buy a ticket.” This is fun. But as soon as I give them what they want, they’ll start ignoring me again.

“Don’t you get smart with me, young man.”

“I wasn’t—”

“I’ll wire you the money, and you’ll buy a ticket on the next flight.”

Isn’t that what I just said? What would happen if I just kept messing with them?

“All right. But I’m bringing Talia with me.” I hadn’t planned on saying that, but it just pops out. It’ll really drive them nuts.

When I get off the phone, Talia says, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For saying I can go with you.”

I shrug. “At least I get to go home. Who wants to travel around and see all this junk?”

“You do not like to travel.”

I shake my head, then smile, thinking about it. “Boy, are my parents going to freak when they see you.”

“Much as my parents, er, freaked when you appeared.

Will it be a long journey? How many weeks will it take?

I have so many questions. Will we need to acquire more clothes in order to conduct our journey in style? What if the ship sinks? Or there is an outbreak of cholera? I might never see my family again.”

I start laughing.

“What is so funny?”

“Weeks? Try a day.”

“What sort of ship can journey to the other side of the earth in a day?”

“The kind that can fly.”

Mom works like a fiend when she’s freaking out. Within twenty-four hours, Talia and I are at the airport.

“Remember what I told you,” I say to Talia as we wait in line for security.

“My name is Talia Brooke. I am from Belgium. And if anyone questions my jewels, I am to say they are part of the new Royal Euphrasian line of . . . what is it called again?” 134

“Costume jewelry.”

“Costume jewelry, which I am going to South Beach, Florida, to model. But how would anyone believe that such lovely jewels are false?”

“Because no one wears real jewelry that big anymore, not even the Queen of England.” We had to sell another one of Talia’s rings to buy her plane ticket, but that doesn’t help much with the weight. “Can you remember that?”

“Yes. Costume jewelry.”

A few minutes later, we reach the front of the line. I think I’ll hold my breath until we’re on the plane.

I show my passport. The woman barely looks at it. Just another boring American student. When she gets to Talia’s, she examines it more carefully and begins talking to Talia in rapid French. Does she know Talia’s passport’s a fake?

Talia responds in French, and a lot of it. What is she saying? Why didn’t I take French?

What am I, kidding myself ? If I’d taken French, I’d have only learned the swear words, like I did in Spanish.

The conversation goes on for approximately eight hours, but finally the employee lets Talia go.

“What was that about?” I ask her when we’re safely past.

“She noticed my passport was new. It only has the one stamp, from when we crossed into France. So she asked if it is my first time traveling outside Europe.”

“To which you said . . . ?”

“I said, yes, as a matter of fact, it is. I have been sleeping 135

for three hundred years, so I have never been on an airplane before. Oh, and, by the way, I am heir to the throne of Euphrasia.” She sees the look on my face. “Lighten up! I was joking.”

“Don’t joke about that. It’s not funny.”

“It is so.”

I whisper, “I was sure we were going to be busted . . .

um, get sent to the dungeon.”

“But you would not be going, in any case. It would be only I who was in trouble.”

“You think I’d let you take the fall for it, that I’d just leave you and go home?”

“We barely know each other. And you hate me.”

“Still, I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t.” I hadn’t realized it before, but it’s true. Could I be falling for Talia? No. It’s just that I feel responsible for her, since I kissed her and ruined her life and all.

I point to two seats by our gate, but Talia’s looking at me. “What?” I say.

“You are a wonderful person,” she says. “In Euphrasia, everyone was kind to me because I was a princess. But I always wished . . .” She stops and sits down.

“What?”

“Lady Brooke used to take me on long rides through the Euphrasian countryside, since I was not allowed to go anywhere on my own. Once, on a very cold day, I happened to spy a peasant couple. Each wore a thin, threadbare coat, and the woman shivered. The man took off his own coat and 136

put it over her shoulders, even though this left him quite exposed. When the woman tried to stop him, he refused to take it back. He allowed the coat to fall to the ground, then placed it again upon her shoulders, until finally, she accepted it. I could see that he was trying to walk more rapidly to get to shelter, but he did not complain.”

“Wow. What did you do?”

“What I did was of no importance.”

“But you did something?”

“I suppose.” She glances down. “I made the driver stop the carriage and then asked Lady Brooke to give the couple our cloaks.”

“That was nice.”

“It was a small sacrifice for me. I had numerous cloaks at home. The man made a much greater sacrifice. I always wanted someone to sacrifice for me, as that man sacrificed for that woman, not because I was royalty, but simply because he lo . . . liked me. And you have.” I shrug. “It’s not a sacrifice.”

And it’s true. It’s not. I wanted to go home early, wanted to try and get back together with Amber or, at least, be able to spend my summer sleeping and going to the beach instead of touring the Museum of Napoleon’s Nose Hair.

Talia gave me a great excuse. If I’d known running away would work, I’d have tried it sooner.

The fact that my parents are completely riled is just an added bonus. Of course, they didn’t believe the truth about Talia.

“Jack, that’s not funny,” Mom said when I told her to prepare for visiting royalty.

“I’m not trying to be funny.”

That’s when Dad picked up the phone again.

“This has gone on long enough, Jack. Your mother’s all upset.”

“It’s true, Dad. She’s a princess. Why would I make that up?”

“I have no idea, but I don’t think—”

“Okay, Dad, you win. She’s some girl I picked up on the street. You never should have chosen a teen tour that went through Amsterdam’s red-light district.” That pretty much ended the conversation.

Since then, I’ve decided it’s probably better if I don’t tell anyone that Talia’s a princess. I mean, who’d believe it?

Now they’re calling us to board the plane. I check to make sure that Talia has her boarding pass. She does, and she’s making a minute examination of the bar code. I nudge her. “It’s time to get on.”

Her eyes widen. “Onto the flying ship?”

“Onto the airplane. It’s called an airplane.” She stands, then looks at all the people jockeying for space in line. “Will the ship . . . er, airplane, leave without all of them?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, is it necessary to push and shove, as these people are doing, or can we wait patiently?” I never thought about it. People just usually do push 138

and shove to get on the plane, but then you just end up waiting on the runway, anyway. “We can wait,” I say. I would have thought she’d expect to go first, being a princess and all.

“Good. I do not like to shove.”

She takes her place at the end of the line, behind an elderly woman. “This is my first time on an airplane,” she tells her.

“Are you frightened, dear?”

“I am excited.”

And the woman looks excited for her.

We finally reach our seats. I give Talia the window, even though it means I’m stuck in the center.

“What is this?” Talia asks, holding up a plastic-wrapped package.

“Slippers. They’re to keep your feet warm.”

“How nice!” She starts to put them on. She’s got the cutest little feet. They look like they’ve never walked anywhere. Probably, she has servants who spread cream on them every day. She had a complete spaz about the blis-ter she got walking. A moment later, she holds up another package. “What is this?”

“A mask. It’s to cover your eyes so you can sleep.” Talia takes out the mask and examines it. “I have slept quite long enough already.” She tucks it into the seat-back pocket.

Hoo-boy. I remember last night at the hotel in Paris—a hotel with two queen-size beds with down comforters—

Talia refused to sleep at all, instead running to the window over and over to look at the city lights. “Well, some people like to sleep,” I tell her, “so you’ll have to be quiet.” She pouts for a full ten seconds before holding up something else.

“And these?”

“Earbuds, so you can listen to music or watch a movie.”

She purses her lips in this weird way she does. “What is a movie?”

“It’s like television.” She saw TV last night at the hotel.

“You watch it to kill time on the plane.” Please, please, let her at least watch a movie.

“Kill time?”

“You know, make it go faster.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Because it’s boring, sitting and doing nothing.”

“But you are doing nothing in the sky! How can that be boring?”

I shrug. “To most people, it is.”

“Try being asleep for three hundred years. Then you will know what boring is.”

I don’t say anything. I’m one of those people who wants to sleep.

“Everything is boring to you, isn’t it?” she says.

“That’s not true.”

Is it?

“Oh, no?” She tips up her feet to look at the airline 140

slippers again. “Let me see . . . your parents sent you on a tour of Europe for . . . how long?”

“A month. I’ve been gone three weeks. But I don’t know what that’s got to do—”

“Three weeks at great expense. And during that time, you’ve visited how many countries?”

I count on my fingers—England, the Netherlands, France, Belgium . . . “I’m not sure. Five or six, maybe. It’s all a blur.”

“It’s all a blur,” she mimics, then laughs. “But in any case, you have viewed great masterworks, marvels of archi-tecture, historical sights, and you have generally found it to be, on the whole, quite dull. Is that the case?” When she puts it that way, it does sort of make me sound like a jerk. But she’s not getting the reason why I didn’t want to go.

“Look, you don’t understand. My parents, they just sent me to fulfill some fantasy they have about having a son who’s into that stuff. I never get any choice about what I do in the summer. After I get home, they’re going to want me to take an SAT course and get a job. It’s all about them.”

“I do not understand about not getting a choice as to how to live one’s life?”

I shrug. “Besides, the tour bus sort of sucked.”

“Ah. So, in order to get away from the sucking tour bus—”

“Sucky.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Sucky. You would say the bus was sucky. That’s what Americans would say.”

“Thank you. So, in order to get away from the sucky tour bus, you sneaked off, found a lost kingdom, entered a castle, kissed a princess—an incredibly beautiful princess who had been asleep for centuries due to a curse placed upon her at birth by an evil witch—caused a fracas, were thrown into a dungeon, escaped, and traveled cross-country with that same incredibly beautiful—”

“Not to mention modest.” I know I shouldn’t interrupt her or I’ll never get my earbuds in, but it’s tempting.

“Incredibly beautiful and intelligent princess. And still, you are quite bored, Jack, so bored that you cannot wait to put in your earbuds and be done with this conversation and this voyage.”

I fumble with the earbuds guiltily.

“So my question to you, Jack, is what is it that you do not find boring?”

She stops speaking and looks at me. I look at her. If anyone else, my friends from school, even Amber back when we were dating, had asked me such a question, I’d have blown them off, said something like, “partying” or “raising hell,” just to end the conversation. But with Talia, I know that won’t work. She won’t think it’s funny. She’ll think I’m stupid.

So instead of saying the first thing that comes to mind, I think about it, really think about the last time I wasn’t bored with something, the last time I was excited. She’s 142

right. It’s been a while. My life has been this long series of hoops to jump through—school, activities Dad thinks would look good on my college apps, whatever, so I have to think back a long time.

“I apologize.” Talia interrupts my thoughts. “Do people not talk to each other in your time, then?”

“It’s not that. I was trying to think.”

“Obviously an activity of great difficulty for you.” She giggles.

Difficulty. That makes me remember something.

When I was a kid, I used to be in Boy Scouts. I quit the year Dad started talking about how good being an Eagle Scout would look on my college applications. But back when I was still in Scouts, one of the projects we did was this park.

“I like to plant stuff,” I say.

She looks surprised. “Plant? You mean, like a farmer?”

“More like a gardener. This one time in Boy Scouts, we did a project, a park in a bad neighborhood. It was all overgrown with weeds, and we pulled them out and planted flowers and trees. Most of the guys sort of fooled around, didn’t do much, but me . . .” I stopped, picturing it. “I really liked making it look better. I liked the work, putting my hands in the dirt or whatever.” I shrug.

“I do not think I have ever handled dirt. How does dirt feel?”

“Clean,” I say. “I mean, not clean like it’s been through the laundry, but . . . honest. And when we finally 143

finished and saw how it looked, I felt really—I don’t know—proud.”

It was true. I’d gone back to look at that park after I got my driver’s license, even though I’d quit Scouts by then. I’d even pulled some weeds.

“I think I’d really like to be a gardener or maybe a landscaper.” I’ve never thought about it before, but I realize it’s true. When I think of what Dad wants me to do—wear a suit all day and sit at a desk—it just sort of makes me want to cry. “It would be cool to spend every day out in the sun, making things look beautiful.”

She smiles. “Then I think you should do so.” I laugh. “Yeah, right. I can just see me telling my dad I want to plant stuff for a living. He thinks gardening’s for losers. He hires people to mow the lawn.” Once, after the Boy Scout thing, I said I thought it would be cool to get a summer job at Disney World, working in their gardens. They have these beautiful gardens with topiaries. Dad said working outdoors was for illegal aliens.

“You should tell him that that is what you wish to do.”

“Yeah? How would that work with your parents?” She shrugs, then smiles. “They cannot keep an eye on us all the time, can they?” Then she yawns. “My! Perhaps it is the power of suggestion, with the slippers and the sleep mask, but I am, indeed, rather tired.” She places her sleep mask over her eyes and, in a 144

moment, she is sawing wood, her head drifting sideways onto my shoulder. I know I should take the opportunity for a nap of my own, but instead I take out a sheet of paper and pencil and start drawing a plan for a garden.

That was the problem with the tour: lots of buildings and paintings but no gardens. I draw one, a big one with roses and ivy.

A garden perfect enough for Talia’s castle in Euphrasia.

The plane starts to taxi. Talia jolts awake.

“Jack? Jack?” She peers out the window, then at me, then back out the window. “We’re flying. Oh, my!”

“It’s okay. It just took off. They do it all the time.”

“So you have told me. But I need to know something else.”

I put down my pencil. “What?”

“Where is Euphrasia?”

I look past her out the window. The plane climbs higher.

It is a clear day, so I can see pretty far, but I don’t even know what direction Euphrasia would be in. “I don’t know.”

“But surely . . . we can see so far away.”

“I don’t know.”

But then I do see it, a little wilderness near the shore, almost out of sight. I know it’s Euphrasia because, through the trees, only visible if you know it’s there, is a spire. The castle.

“I think that’s it.”

“That?” She stares where I’m pointing. “So small?”

“Yeah. Everything looks small from an airplane. You 145

can’t even see people from here. It’s not a big deal.”

“But that is impossible! It cannot be so small! It was my whole world.”

And then she leans her forehead against the window and doesn’t say anything for a very long time, just stares at that tiny spire until we’re high in the clouds.

Chapter 8:

j Talia

Iwake due to Jack’s repeated nudging.

“We’re here,” he says.

“In America? Your country?”

“In Miami.”

I cannot speak. Does he mean to say that we have completed our entire journey? It seems barely longer than the time spent walking to the Euphrasian border. I wonder . . .

if everything can be accomplished in so little time, does that mean people live longer?

“How long was I asleep, then? Three months? Six?” Jack laughs. “The flight was long, but not that long—a few hours.” He hands me a crinkly object, which I now know is a plastic bag. “Here. I got you some pretzels.” I have no idea what a pretzel is, but I take the bag.

“Thank you. It is lovely.” I gaze at it. It is blue and says 147

AMERICAN AIRLINES . “I shall treasure it forever.” He shrugs. “I thought maybe you’d eat it.” So I do. It takes a few attempts to open the bag, but once I do, the pretzels are crunchy and salty. I wonder if all American food is like this. If so, it is a bit dry. Still, I eat them politely. “Lovely.”

Jack points to the window. “There it is.” I look. There are strange sorts of trees, tall with no leaves save for little hats on top, and there is water all around. I remember that we have been flying in the air all this time, ten hours, and it should be nighttime, yet it is daylight, glorious, sunny daylight, and I am free to go out into it if I please.

And suddenly, the pretzels taste not like salt but like freedom.

“I need my hairbrush,” I tell Jack.

“What for?” He opens his travel trunk.

“We shall be meeting your family, shall we not?” When Father returns from a voyage, Mother and I and all the members of court meet his ship with flowers. If this is to be like that, I should comb my hair. In any case, a princess must keep up appearances.

I take out the simplest hairbrush I own, silver with hardly any jewels. Jack was appalled when he saw it. Modern hairbrushes, he says, are made of plastic. I know what plastic is now, and I must say that it has none of the appeal of silver. I threw out the plastic shoes Jack purchased for me, which pinched my feet so that I could barely walk.

Now, I have cloth shoes which tie in front. Still, I yearn for my own shoes, made of the finest kid and fitted exactly to my feet.

I miss my lady’s maid, who brushed my hair one hundred strokes each morning and night. I miss being a princess.

But then I remember Father’s anger. That I do not miss at all.

“Nah, no one will be there,” Jack says, recalling me to the time and place.

“Beg your pardon?”

“My family. They’re all busy. You’ll meet them later on, I guess.”

“But surely someone—”

“Nope. We’ll take a cab.”

I took a cab to the airport in France, and the most I can say for it is that it is not a bus. I shake my head but keep a civil tongue inside it. It seems incredible that a young man could journey across the ocean and come home to no fanfare whatsoever. I examine Jack’s face. His lips are pursed, his brow furrowed, and I suspect that his thoughts on the subject are similar to my own. It strikes me that Jack and I suffer from the opposite problem: While my parents kept me too close at hand, Jack’s do not keep him at hand at all.

Suddenly there is a giant bump that causes my seat, my body, my very bones to jump, and there is a sound like a thunderclap.

“What was that?” I cry.

Jack laughs. “Relax, silly. We just landed. We’re on the ground.” He takes out his telephone and turns it on.

“We are?” I glance out the window. It is true. We are.

The trees and ocean are no longer visible, replaced by dull, gray land. But a moment ago, I was in the clouds! Me.

Talia. After three hundred sixteen years isolated in a castle, apart from everyone, in three days I have met a boy, run away, and crossed the ocean in a magical flying machine.

Who would have believed it possible?

Certainly not my father.

Chapter :

9

j Jack

It takes a while to get off the plane with Talia’s fifty-pound carry-on. But finally we make it.

I love when you enter the jetport in Miami, and you’re met with that first blast of hot air through the cracks that reminds you you’re home. I watch Talia’s face as we walk off the plane.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 522