Letters of Love (Lessons in Love) (23 page)

The girls walked through a large green park as they made their way towards Buckingham Palace. They were now dressed for the weather, both in skinny jeans, boots and parka jackets. Even though they had hoods covering their heads, Ashley insisted on bringing an umbrella, which was proving difficult to manoeuvre on and off the busy underground train carriages.

“Do you really need the umbrella?” Alex asked as they descended the stairs from yet another underground station.

“Brolly,” Ashley corrected, loving learning all the local lingo.

“Fine, brolly, do you need it when we have our hoods?”

Ashley shrugged flippantly and looked at the umbrella she was carrying by her side.

“I think it gives us an air of mystery,” she concluded. “There is something romantic about walking in the rain beneath a brolly.”

“You’re mad.” Alex shook her head in amusement.

“But you love me anyway
.” Ashley laughed, leaning against her friend’s shoulder.

In spite of the rain
, the park was relatively busy, with clusters of fellow tourists collected under numerous umbrellas, the rain having refused to let up since their initial arrival in England.

As Alex and Ashley drew closer to the edge of the park
, they spotted some ornate golden gates, marking the end of the park, and beyond them stood the impressive architectural giant that is Buckingham Palace.

“Ooh, look at these gates,” Ashley cooed as they approached them. “The Queen has got taste! Do you think it’s real gold?”

“I doubt it.”

Ashley placed a hand upon part of the gold detailing just to check.

Walking through the gates, they crossed a road consisting of mainly black cabs and buses and found themselves standing at the front of the palace. Glancing up the mile-long road that led to the palace, there were numerous Union Jacks fluttering in the breeze. Despite the backdrop of rain, it was a beautiful sight to behold.

Alex rummaged in her rucksack for her digital camera, eager to take some pictures of the palace, aware of how much her mother would want to see them.

The building itself wasn’t that spectacular. It was flat and square in shape, with windows all the same size and width, reminding Alex of a Lego house. It was the trimmings which told of the royal inhabitants: the lustrous gates adorned with gold embellishments, the grand fountain beyond the driveway, where Queen Victoria sat at the helm, looking out upon London.

“There is so much history here,” Alex exhaled, impressed.

“It’s all so… posh and classic,” Ashley commented. Where she lived in Los Angeles, everything was new. Few buildings were older than fifty years, so it blew her mind to think that what she was currently looking at had stood there for hundreds of years.

Alex was busily taking pictures of the fountain, the statues, the gates and the palace itself. Around here, countless people were doing the exact same thing. She was so lost to her picture taking that she almost forgot herself. Then she remembered the itinerary of the day and quickly checked her watch.

“What time are we booked to go on the London Eye?” she asked Ashley, who was nearby gazing through the gates at a uniformed guard.

“Is it true they don’t move?” she asked, not hearing Alex’s question.

“What time are we going on the Eye?” Alex asked again.

“Oh, half eleven.”

Alex looked back at her watch in a slight panic. It was already eleven in the morning.

“We’d better go, Ash, as we’ve got to walk over there.”

“Really? Okay.” Ashley backed away from the gates, her face twisted with slight disappointment.

“I’ll go back there, right?” she asked as they now walked beneath the fluttering flags, steeling themselves against the continual rain.

“To the palace? Sure.”

“I mean, I’ll be living there one day
.” Ashley sighed wistfully.

“You will?” Alex asked, bemused.

“Yes, when I marry one of the princes,” Ashley said confidently.

“Ash, I think that only one of the princes is still available.”

“Then he will do.”

“Fair enough
.” Alex laughed.

“As long as I get to be a princess, that’s all I care about.”

“Ashley, you already are a princess!”

****

By noon the girls were enjoying a bird’s-eye view of London from their vantage point within a capsule as they rode the London Eye, which was essentially a giant Ferris wheel.

“Ooh, there’s Big Ben!” Ashley shrieked
, pointing; then she pivoted around and looked through the opposite side of the glass and cried out, “There’s The Tower of London! And Tower Bridge!”

Alex followed her friend’s frantic gaze, looking through her camera lens as she kept taking pictures, determined to capture every single moment of their vacation.

A nearby family kindly offered to take a picture of the two of them together, so Alex and Ashley smiled broadly, their hair flat and wet from the rain, the grand tower of Big Ben lurking in the background.

“I’m going to miss London,” Alex admitted sadly as she thanked the tourists and took back her camera.

“Me too,” Ashley agreed. “But we are going on to Paris!” The English accent was now dropped in favour of a French one.

“Your accents are awful
.” Alex laughed.

Ashley merely shrugged and smiled.

“Do you even know any French?” Alex asked a little anxiously. It suddenly dawned on her that they were next destined for a country where neither of them spoke the language. England had been easy, as English was their native tongue.

“I know some,” Ashley said
, looking a little uneasy herself. “
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?
”

“I don’t suggest you go around saying that when we get there,” Alex said, raising an eyebrow.

“Why not? French men can be very passionate. I have first-hand experience.” Ashley smirked knowingly, referring to her ex-boyfriend Pierre, who was French.

“This vacation is a man-free zone, remember?” Alex reminded her.

“Shame.” Ashley winked, though secretly the prospect of meeting French men scared her; it would only remind her of Pierre and reopen old wounds.

“
Au revoir
, London!” she called through the glass. “And soon,
bonjour
, Paris!”

****

Bags repacked, Alex and Ashley navigated their way through the underground system and out of London. Their next train journey would take them beneath the ocean, through the Channel Tunnel, over to France and, ultimately, Paris.

“I’m not sure I like the idea of it,” Ashley pondered as they sat on the train, the British countryside whizzing past the window in a blur of green.

“Of what?” Alex asked, momentarily glancing up from the book she was reading.

“Of the tunnel,” Ashley clarified, biting her lip and looking nervously out the window.

“Why not?” Alex closed her book, taking care to mark her current page, and focused on her friend.

“I don’t like the thought of going under the ocean
,” Ashley admitted, shivering slightly at the thought.

“It
’ll be fine.” Alex smiled. “It’s built to withstand water pressure.”

“Still…” Ashley didn’t look any less uncomfortable. “I mean, did you ever see that movie
Daylight
, with Sylvester Stallone? Where they get trapped in a tunnel?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“What if we get trapped in there?” Ashley asked anxiously.

Alex was starting to discover that despite her wealth of experience traversing the globe, Ashley was a nervous traveler.

“We won’t,” Alex answered with complete conviction.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I am.”

Ashley continued to look out of the window and drum her fingernails nervously against the table between them. In less than an hour they would be approaching the tunnel and making their way through it, beneath the waves. Alex knew that she needed to distract Ashley, to help her relax
, so she decided to talk about something she really didn’t want to, knowing it would pique Ashley’s interest and cease her worrying about the tunnel.

“I was thinking about sending Oscar a postcard from Paris.”

Upon hearing this Ashley’s nails immediately ceased their tap dance on the table, and she looked at Alex with a face contorted with stern surprise.

“A postcard?” she repeated.

“Yeah.”

“Whatever will you say on it? Dearest Oscar, hope hospital is okay, I’m busy living it up in Paris, kisses!” Ashley asked sarcastically.

“I thought it might be a nice gesture. He’s always said that Paris is somewhere he’d want to visit.”

“So you thought you’d rub it in his face that you’re there whil
e he’s in the hospital?” Ashley was being harsh but honest, a quality Alex had always admired in her friend; few people had the strength of character to do it.

“I suppose you’re right,” Alex conceded, aware that the approach to the tunnel was drawing ever closer.

“Besides, it’s a man-free vacation, remember?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I was thinking we could visit the Moulin Rouge,” Ashley buzzed excitedly. “Apparently it’s like a burlesque show now or something.”

“Sounds…
classy.” Alex struggled to find the right word to use.

“Don’t judge!” Ashley scrunched her nose in disapproval. “Burlesque can be extremely classy; it’s an ancient art form.”

“If you say so.”

“Alex, don’t be such a prude!”

“Is this your not-so-subtle way of telling me that you no longer wish to be president, that instead you feel destined to live the life of an exotic dancer?” Alex teased.

“That’s exactly what this is,” Ashley entertained the joke, smiling cheekily. “And my stage name shall be Regretta.”

“Because you’re so full of regret?”

“Exactly!” Ashley laughed.

“And what would my stage name be?”

“Prudella,” Ashley declared, sticking her tongue out.

“Regretta and Prudella, doesn’t really sound that sexy. Shouldn’t we be car names or something?”

“Like Prius and Bentley?” Ashley arched an eyebrow in confusion.

“Maybe exotic dancing isn’t going to be our forte,” Alex concluded, pretending to be sad.

“Oh well,” Ashley said flippantly, “least we’ve got our Princeton degrees to fall back on!”

Ashley seemed more relaxed, so Alex returned to her book. Though her decision to use Oscar to distract her friend had backfired, and now Alex was once more thinking about him, once more feeling as though she was covered in the thick mire of guilt, unable to shake it off. It felt like it tainted everything she touched, refusing to leave, determined to leave its indelible mark on all that she experienced.

And each time Alex thought of Oscar
, she thought of Mark. She wondered how he would be spending his summer vacation. Would he stay in Woodsdale; go back home up North? She didn’t know, but a part of her was desperate to find out. She’d consider messaging him but decided against it. It just didn’t seem a fair thing to do when Oscar was still in the hospital, licking his self-inflicted wounds.

Getting a book out of her designer satchel, Ashley also began reading her book of French phrases. She wanted to try to partake in the culture as much as possible.

“Will you try frog’s legs?” she asked aloud as she scanned through the phrases.

“No
.” Alex shook her head but didn’t look up from her own book. “Will you?”

“Urgh, no
.” Ashley shivered with revulsion. “Same goes for snails,” she added.

“What about a baguette? That’s French.”

“Baguette is fine.” Ashley nodded approvingly.

She continued to browse through her book, focusing on phrases she thought might come in
handy but struggled to pronounce any of them correctly. Giving up, she glanced at Alex’s book.

“What are you reading?”

Alex flipped the book up to reveal the cover. She was reading
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
by Victor Hugo.

“Isn’t that a Disney movie?” Ashley asked, confused.

“Yes, but first it was a classic piece of French literature,” Alex explained.

“Are you reading it in French?” Ashley queried in awed disbelief.

“God, no.” Alex laughed. “It’s been translated into English.”

“You’re really getting into the spirit,” Ashley complimented her friend.

“Here, why don’t you read a great French novel,” Alex said, delving into her duffel bag and pulling out a battered paperback. She tossed it across the table to Ashley, who picked it up carefully and scowled at the cover.