Before Ever After (5 page)

S
helley hugged her fake fern. It offered as much sympathy as plastic leaves could—support that did not include making the escalator’s descent into the tube station less excruciating. A bicycle with two flat tires could have made a faster getaway.

The first drop of regret had hit her as soon as she stepped out of her office building. It snaked down her back. As she sprinted to the tube, the trickle of afterthought burst into a downpour. She hated being drenched with hindsight. It seeped through her skin and settled into her marrow, making her joints ache with cold. It was the very reason she made lists.

Some people carried hand wipes for emergencies. Shelley made lists. Since she was without a clear long-term plan, they were her best, though not necessarily successful, attempts to navigate life. Things to do. Things not to do. What to do if she did. The latter was particularly important, as she often found herself with a shopping cart full of chips and chocolates despite her best efforts to make a beeline for the yogurt aisle. Still, she tried.

Unfortunately, Shelley’s last list didn’t have an exit plan. She considered the upside of returning to the States and moving back in with her mother. Pressed clothing was always nice. No longer having to subsist on instant ramen was even better. The nostalgia over her mom’s grilled lamb chops, however, fell a dollop of mint jelly short of convincing her that heading home was for the best. She conjured a memory of rosemary baked potatoes. They smelled good, but not good enough. As much as her mother’s dinners were lovingly made, Shelley was all too aware that they came with strings of the thick apron variety. London was as far as she could run to avoid being ensnared in them while still being able to order takeout without needing a dictionary.

Shelley sighed. She knew she couldn’t blame her mother for her viselike grip. It was her father’s fault. He was the one who had died. She had been ten when cancer ate him away and her mother had started embracing her tighter. Shelley had learned two things growing up pressed flat against her mother’s grief: how to hold her breath and how to squirm away as soon as she had the chance. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her mother—she just couldn’t bear to listen to the echo inside her chest. Nothing was lonelier than the limping beat of half a heart.

A blast of Italian expletives knocked Shelley to the present. A young couple was manhandling a map of the London Underground a few steps below her on the escalator. She considered helping them but changed her mind.
Gelato al cioccolato
was the full extent of her Italian vocabulary and would not be of much use in getting them to their destination unless they wanted ice cream. The woman grunted, snatched the map, and threw it in the air. It flapped against Shelley’s face. The man hollered an apology Shelley’s way and chased after his companion.

Shelley pulled off the map, relieved to be irritated at someone other than herself. She scanned the map of multicolored lines, envying the order of preordained stops. She wished that making her way through life was as simple as tracing a thick blue line from Piccadilly station to a reasonable mortgage, a car, and a medium-size non-shedding dog and/or cat. Sensible. Straightforward. Allergen-free. The route itself wasn’t complicated, she admitted, except for her habit of jumping off trains. She
cradled her fern and remembered why it was in her arms. She had leaped off another one. She had not followed her list. Again.

Sit. Grin. Bear it. Damn
.

Advertising had been slightly tolerable while it lasted. And so was her fleeting stint at a golfing magazine before it. At the very least, these jobs had paid the bills. Shelley groaned into her plant. If only eating dark chocolate and running away were financially viable life skills.

She had become quite adept at the art of escape, and not just from jobs that required her to write about soy milk or golf balls. Since moving to London a year earlier, she had developed a talent for making a clean getaway from men who got too close. The last one was named Roger. Shelley had promised herself that she would never end up like her mom, and dumping men just before things became too serious seemed like a reasonable strategy. It followed the same principle as pushing away a dessert after a few bites. Guys like Roger were fun rides that were easy to hop off of miles before she was in any danger of having her heart split in two.

Meet. Date. Run. Check. Check. Check
.

(Shelley kept copies of this particular list in her pocket. She had always found accents particularly sexy, and in London there were many opportunities to get distracted.)

Shelley reached the bottom of the escalator. The Italian couple was kissing by a vending machine. She rolled her eyes and made her way to the edge of the platform. Paper rustled against her foot.

A yellow leaflet clung to her heel. Shelley tried to pry it free, stretching the pink tentacles that glued it to her shoe. The top half of the paper tore off. She teetered near the platform gap, hopping on one foot and trying to regain her balance without dropping her plant.

FANCY GETTING LOST?
The words leaped from the tattered page in Shelley’s hand.

The wind whipped in the tunnel. Her train was approaching. She pulled off the rest of the leaflet just as the train came to a stop. She stuffed it into her handbag and read it on her way home.

It was exactly what she needed—the chance to postpone reality. The fact that the tour was leaving the very next morning was even better. She needed to get out of London as fast as humanly possible. She dialed the number listed on the yellow paper. The phone rang six times.

“Hello! The Slight Detour Company.” The man at the end of the line caught his breath. “Max Gallus here. Sorry to keep you waiting. Was chasing after some chickens. How may I help you?”

“Er, hi. This is Shelley Sullivan. I know this is rather last minute, but I was wondering if I could still join the tour tomorrow?”

“You’re in luck, luv. It will be tight, but I think we can squeeze you in the boot. Log on to our website for details. You can pay by credit card.”

Pack bags. Lock up flat. Escape. Check
.

Shelley craned her neck to catch sight of the tour bus. Her hope that it would ever show up flickered along with the streetlamp she was standing next to. The website had said that the pickup time was 1:30
A.M
. That was twenty minutes ago. She shivered in her light coat. A vintage electric-blue Volkswagen van sputtered around the corner and put the brakes on her dismay. It stopped at the curb. Its driver stuck his head out of the window.

“Ms. Sullivan?”

Smiling at her was the scruffier, though no less charming, version of the fairy tale she had dreamed up when she still believed in happy endings and had married a hundred times over in her wedding finery of crocheted doilies and her mother’s high heels. Her heart, without any consultation with Sister Margaret, leaped. Shelley chewed her lip. This
was dangerous. She stuck her hand in her pocket and fumbled for her list.
Meet. Date
. She couldn’t remember what came next. She vaguely remembered it sounded like “fun.”

“Er, are you Ms. Shelley Sullivan?”

“I do. I mean, yes, I am. I am.” Shelley hoped her collar was pulled up high enough to hide the blush creeping up her neck.

“I do apologize for being late. The old girl was feeling her age this morning.” The driver patted the side of the Volkswagen. “But she’s raring to cross the continent now.” He stepped out of the vehicle. He towered over Shelley’s five-foot-four frame. “I’m Max, your humble servant for the rest of the tour. We spoke on the phone.”

Shelley shook Max’s hand as firmly as she could, battling the visceral human impulse to stick her tongue down his throat and have his children. “It’s, um, lovely to meet you, Max.”

“Likewise.” Max took her luggage and headed to the back of the van.

She followed him, admiring the ease with which he carried her suitcase.

He loaded her bag and took a step back. “Watch your step, luv.”

“Huh?”

“It took a bit of clever space management, but I managed to find a place for you next to the toolbox.”

Shelley willed her mouth to close. It would not.

“Joshing, luv.” Max chuckled, putting his arm around her shoulders and giving her a quick squeeze. “I apologize. I couldn’t resist.”

“Is this a preview of the rest of the tour?”

“Absolutely.”

Good
. Shelley smiled to herself and hopped aboard the van.

The inside of the van was roomier than Shelley had expected, though she still had to duck to avoid the disco ball hanging from the ceiling.

“Good morning” came a chorus from the back.

She twisted around. An elderly couple waved at her from the backseat. A gangly red-haired man was squeezed in next to them, his long legs tucked at an angle that made her heart go out to his knees.

“Oh, hi. Good morning,” Shelley said. “Didn’t see you there.”

“We’re the Templetons. I’m Jonathan and this is my wife, Rose,” said
the bear-size man. His thick white mustache and beard gave Shelley the distinct impression that he was of the polar persuasion. The way he circled his lips around vowels, however, placed his roots south of the Arctic Circle. Cardiff, perhaps.

“We’re on our honeymoon.” Rose twittered like the canary Shelley’s grandmother used to own, and was only marginally larger.

The young man seated next to Rose tipped his Red Sox baseball cap at Shelley and flashed a toothy grin. His smile was wide and came easily enough, but there was something about the way it was cast across his freckled face that made her wonder if it was boyishly lopsided or … broken. “I’m Dex,” he said with an accent to match his cap, “and not on my honeymoon.”

Shelley nodded back, undecided about Dex’s grin despite the lilting humor in his voice. “Hi, I’m Shelley. Recently unemployed and avoiding reality.”

“That’s lovely, dear,” Rose said. “We all need to take a proper break once in a while. Life’s too short.” She smiled and grew ten inches taller in Shelley’s eyes.

Max strapped himself into the driver’s seat. “Shelley, did you happen to see two other Americans around? They’re supposed to be meeting us here.”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“It will just be us five happy campers then.” Max turned the key in the ignition.

A tall figure appeared in the dark street. His sandy blond hair flopped over his forehead as he sprinted toward the van. A chestnut-haired man ran alongside him, his glasses jostling on his nose. Prada suitcases rattled behind them.

“Max, wait!” Jonathan said.

Max looked in the rearview mirror and grinned. He put the Volkswagen in reverse and met the two men halfway. He hopped out of the van and slid the dented passenger door open.

“Thank God!” The blond man slipped in next to Shelley. A Nikon camera swung from a black strap around his neck.

His companion took the seat beside him and closed the door. He panted as he nudged his glasses higher on his crooked nose. “Thanks for waiting.”

A wisp of peppermint drifted Shelley’s way.

“Wouldn’t dream of leaving without you,” Max said. “Didn’t think you’d fancy the swim across the Channel. The water can be rather nippy at this time of day.”

“I’m Brad and this is Simon,” said the man with the camera.

The group traded handshakes and hellos.

“Campers, may I have your attention, please,” Max said. “There’s a standard little speech I need to make before we get to the point of no return.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from the pocket of his khaki shirt. It was his little yellow leaflet. He flipped it around and cleared his throat. “ ‘Greetings, campers,’ ” he read out loud. “ ‘I do hope you read my little leaflet before you signed up for this trip; otherwise you might be in for a very, and I mean very, long trip. But just in case you did manage to do the unfathomably stupid feat of blindly signing up, allow me to give you one last chance to salvage your holiday. We don’t give refunds, but if you decide to drop out at this point, I want to leave you with the warm and fuzzy feeling that you will be making a young Cambodian orphan very happy with the generous donation that I will be making of your payment. For anyone who thinks they are climbing the Eiffel Tower, cruising down the Danube, or climbing the Spanish Steps, little Seng Kong Kea would like to say
“Awkun ch’ran”
from the bottom of his heart and hopes you can visit him on your next holiday.’

“As clearly stated in my leaflet, we will not make any stops of popular historical significance. For that, you can dust off your old history books or watch those highly informative BBC documentaries. Or, better yet, you can make a mad dash for the Go Europe! coach parked across the street.” Max looked around at the group. “So, does anyone have that cold knot of panic in their stomach yet? Ah, good. Looks like increasing the font size to fourteen paid off this year. I formally welcome everyone then to Whips, Welts, and Wenches, the U.K.’s premier sex tour. You can call me Master Max.”

Rose squeaked. She clutched her little peacock-blue handbag to her chest. Jonathan bundled her close.

Max grinned. “Anyway, for those of you who really didn’t read the leaflet and are now trying their very best to put on a brave front and make a go of this trip, I’m proud of you. I’m counting to ten before I turn the key and we reach the point where you’re stuck with me.”

The group stole glances at one another as Max counted out loud.

“Eight, nine, ten. We’re off!” Max restarted the van. “Oh, and don’t worry, I’ll still be making a donation to the Cambodian orphanage on your behalf even if you are joining the tour.”