The Tour (draft 2)

The Tour

Margaret ordered the Coq au Vin for the both of them.  She had commanded the situation since the beginning, and Alvin was comfortable with that.  He asked the questions.  She gave the answers. 

          “Tell me again about Scotland, Margaret.  I can’t get enough of it.”

          “How about I tell you about my last day there?  I don’t think I was able to get to that this afternoon, but it was my favorite part of the trip.  It was summer, as you know, and the afternoon was delightful.  The sun shone, the mountain-tops were clear, the lake glittered in the valley behind us, and the stream of Glen Coe flowed down to it glittering among the trees…”

          “It sounds otherworldly.”

          “It was.  It is.  I am so glad that you actually listen to my stories, Alven.  No one else wants to listen to them.  All my friends and family have heard it before.”

          She smiled at him and took a sip of her pinot noir.  He was handsome, to be sure.  His hair was flecked with grey at the temples, but maintained a vibrant shade of chestnut from there.  Whatever time had done to him had done it well.  He wasn’t old, but he wasn’t young.  To Margaret he was physical perfection embodied.  She barely knew anything about him, but she knew- she just knew- that this guy was different from the rest.

          “What stories do you have of Europe, Alven?  I feel like I have been doing all the talking since we sat down, and I would love to hear some of your stories.”

          “I really haven’t been anywhere worth mentioning.”

          “Come on, you have to have traveled somewhere.”

          “I did make it to Quebec a few years ago with my ex-wife.  The most exciting part about it was the carriage ride, though, really, all we saw on it was a cannon ball stuck in a tree.  All the roots had grown around it.  Kind of strange, actually.”

          “But it’s a piece of history.  I like it.  I’ve never been to Quebec before, but I hear that it is wonderful.”

          The waiter came out with their meals and laid them out on the table.  She gradually coaxed him into telling her a story about his trip to Quebec while they ate dinner.  He seemed genuine.  The way he spoke was genuine.  She really liked that.  She wanted to know more about him.  He had asked her out to dinner tonight after talking for hours in the library.  It was the first time she had been out with anyone for a very long time.  He finished his story and she started trying to figure him out.

          “You know, when you walked up to the front desk with that book yesterday I was wondering why you would pick up such a thing.  Not many people sign out Mary Wollstonecraft’s tour book” said Margaret.

          “Hah.  The last date on the sign out card was April of 1942.  I guess you are right.”

          “I own a copy myself.  I love European tour literature from the eighteen-hundreds.  I’ve just never met someone who shares that affection.”

          “Well I just recently found myself interested in Europe.  I wanted to find the best places to visit.  One of my buddies from the Yale English department told me to look for some travel books.  That was the only book I could find in your library.  Thinking about it now, I think he meant something more modern.  I looked through everything and this was the only book I could come up with.  It looks really old.”

          “Tour books are a rarity in libraries nowadays.  You’re lucky you came to the Glenhaven Library.  They have two tour books, and only because I work there and requested them as personal reading material while I sit and monitor the overzealous grad students for hours.  That particular book that you have was written in the early eighteen hundreds.”

          The waiter came over and asked them if they would like a dessert menu.  Margaret politely turned him down and he picked up their plates.  She asked for more wine before the waiter left.   

          “Now Alven, tell me, I’ve heard that the food in Quebec is wonderful.  Is it really as good as it is made out to be?” she asked.

          “Well really it all depends on where you go…”

          Look at those teeth.  Perfectly polished.  Did he just spit on my hand?  Never mind.  Don’t let him see that you saw.  Smile and nod.  Look down.  Look up. Bat your eyes a couple times.  God I hope my mascara isn’t running.  I can’t remember how to do this, it’s been so long.

          They continued to talk until the check was paid for.  They walked together towards the entrance of restaurant.  Before they parted ways Alven asked if he could see her again the next morning for coffee.  His excuse was to hear about Dumbarton Castle, which she hadn’t had time to get to that night.  She agreed and they got into their cars and left.

         

As she walked through the door she tossed her keys into a basket on the side table and let her coat drop to the floor.  The cold stiff from her heater-less car drive home started to melt away in the warmth of her apartment.  Reaching down, she unzipped her boots and stepped out of them.  A small puddle of water was beginning to form around them from the dirt caked snow they had collected. 

          She made her way to the living room, and sat on her cream-colored love seat amidst stacks of books.  No flat surface in the house was left without a book or two.  Stacks of books rose from floor to ceiling, and made the house look more like a cave with paper and leather stalagmites.  Each book was part of Margaret’s collection.  She traveled around the state to old library book sales, using her savings to purchase any and every European tour collections she could find.  When her bookshelves were filled she went on to putting the books on the coffee table.  And then onto the desk.  And then beside the desk.  And then near the couch.  After that they started creeping into the kitchen.  Into the cupboards.  On top of the fridge.  Into the bathroom closet.  Every corner of the house became filled with books.  Once, she found a book in the freezer, crisp and crinkly as a bag of frozen green beans.  She couldn’t recollect how a book made it into the freezer.

          Margaret, the collector, picked up her current read, flipped the book open to a dog-eared page in the center of the book, and began to engross herself in the text.   She started to re-read the previous page before going on:

Beyond we had the same intricate view as before, and could discover Dumbarton rock with its double head.  There being a mist over it, it had a ghostlike appearance.  Right before us, on the flat island mentioned before, were several small single trees or shrubs, growing at different distances from each other, close to the shore, but some optical delusion had detached them from the land on which they stood, and they had the appearance of so many little vessels sailing along the coast of it.  I mention the circumstances, because, with the ghostly image of Dumbarton Castle, and the ambiguous ruin on the small island, it was much in the character of the scene, which was throughout magical and enchanting…

“It sounds so beautiful. I wonder if it would still be like that today,” she thought.

The phone rang and Margaret laid her copy of Dorothy Wordsworth’s  tour book down with a wide red ribbon to keep her spot.  The phone rang a few times before she could reach it in the kitchen.  When she picked up her mother’s voice came through the other line.

          “Margaret Anne Fitchburn, why do you never call your mother?”

          “Mom.  I just called you yesterday.”

          “No.  You didn’t call me yesterday, Margaret.”

          “Mom, I did.  You just don’t remember.  Is Eddie there still?  He can tell you that I called yesterday.  He picked up the phone when I called.”

          “Eddie is a two-timing do-gooder.  I sent him home last night.”

          “Eddie is perfectly nice, Mom.  He’s only there to help.”

          “Yeah, well, I don’t need any help Margaret.  I get along just fine.”

          “You say that now, but what will happen when it gets worse and you can’t remember where you are or what you were doing?  What is going to happen, Mom?  You know you need him around.”

          “I don’t want to talk about me anymore.”

          “Fine.  What do you want to talk about?”

          “Margaret, I want you to go abroad.”

          “Mom, you know I can’t do that.  I don’t have the money, and besides, what how could I leave you?”

          “You have always wanted to go to Europe, and I think that now is the perfect time.  I have a few things I could sell.  It could get you at least halfway there, Marg.”

          “That’s very… kind… of you mom.  Even then I couldn’t make it over there.  I barely make enough money to pay the bills.  I’ve resorted to stealing silverware from local restaurants, Mom.  I can’t afford to purchase a ticket to get overseas, let alone pay for anything if I even made it there.”

          “Well then sell those goddamn books.  Lord knows you’ve spent a fortune on those damn things.”

          “I couldn’t.”

          “You could.”

          “Mom, listen.  Thank you so much for trying to help.  I appreciate it, I really do, but I don’t know if I will ever make it to Europe.  I’m not as young as I look.  I’m 38 and feeling twice my age.  And as much as I talk about going over there, it is not going to happen right now.  Maybe someday, but not right now.”

          “Then I don’t want to hear another word about Europe until you have finally made plans to go there.  I want to hear, for once, a story about Europe that you have experienced and not one from those damn books.  And I want to hear it before I lose my mind, Margaret.”

          “I’ll see what I can do, Mom.  I’ll talk to you later, okay?  Give Eddie a call.  See if he’ll come back and keep you company tonight.”

          “Yeah, yeah.  Goodnight.”

Margaret hung up the phone and slumped against the wall.  He eyes darted back and forth between the stacks of books, and she considered, for only a moment, a life without them.

Alven met Margaret at the Café de la Gente with a single rose.  She was taken back by the gesture, but happily received the affection.  They sat and drank hot coffee for a few minutes, chatting about this and that.  She found out that he was recently divorced and had a daughter in junior high school.  He owned a small company out in California, but had recently moved to the east coast to get away from the messy divorce.   He decided to sell his house and get away by touring Europe, like he’d always wanted to.  He said he was so glad to meet someone who shared such a passion.  She agreed.

          “Would you want to go back Margaret?”

          “I don’t know,” she said, “I don’t know if I could afford to pay for my mortgage and a trip overseas right now.  In this economy, I just don’t have the means to do that anymore.”

          “Maybe I could help.  If I offered to help pay for the trip would you take me on a tour of Europe?  I think that traveling Europe with someone who knows it so well would be an eye-opening experience.  And I trust you.  I don’t trust a lot of people, but I trust you.”

          He took her hand in his, and pleaded with her.  When she pursed her lips and nodded okay he was ecstatic.  They excitedly made rough plans to travel through France and Italy, then onto Switzerland and Germany.  They would end in England, spending the most time touring around the Lake District and Scotland.  Their time for coffee was coming to a close and they still had a lot of planning to do, so Margaret and Alven made plans to go to dinner that night and continue planning their trip.

          She walked through the door of the Glenhaven Library and made her way through the rows of sky-high bookshelves to the elevators.  In the elevator she pressed the round button for floor three and leaned against the cold elevator wall.  It jerked awake and groaned as it pulled her weight up three stories.  She walked out of the elevator and pushed open the heavy glass doors of to the Special Collections room.  Her desk was at the front and already there was an impatient grad student lurking around it to ask her questions.  She sat down into her stiff wooden chair and looked up at him through her glasses. 

          “Can I help you?”

          “Yes, but first I need to know the way to the bathroom.”

          “Take the stairs to the second floor and it will be on your right as you enter through the doorway.”

          “Thanks, I’ll be right back.”

          With the grad student gone for the moment she could relax.  She unpacked her bag and settled into her space with a hot cup of tea.  After doodling on the post-it pad for a couple minutes she impatiently huffed and got out her cell phone to pass whatever time she had before the grad student returned.  She dialed a number and listened to the tone.

          “Hello?”

          “Hey Eddie, its Marg.  Can I talk to Mum?”

          “Yeah, give me a second, I have to find her.  She keeps running off saying something about ‘two-timing do-gooders’ and patting the staircase.  Then she runs off cackling.”

          “Check the library.  She’s probably planning your demise as we speak.”

          “Isn’t she always?”

          “True.”

          Margaret heard a clunk as he put down the receiver.  She thought about the last time she told her mom about a guy.  Kent had just ended their five year relationship one week before taking off for their planned backpacking trip- the trip to Europe they had been planning for over a year.  She hadn’t talked to her mom about guys since.  Things weren’t quite the same after that happened. 

          “Margaret?”

          “Hey Mom.  I have some news!”

          “Well, spill it.”

          “I met someone.”

          “God, I hope it’s a guy.”

          “Yes, Mom, it’s a guy.  His name is Alven.”

          “Go on.  I know that isn’t the end of it.”

          “He offered to pay me as a tour guide over in Europe.  So I am going over there, all expenses paid, with an incredibly handsome man.  No need to sell off my books now, eh?”

          “How long have you known this guy Marg?”

          “That doesn’t matter, Mom.  He’s really great.  You’ll love him, I swear.”

          “I don’t know about this.  Maybe you shouldn’t go.”

          “You were the one who was, just yesterday, telling me that I needed to seize the day and go now.  And now that I finally have the chance you are telling me that I shouldn’t do it?”

          “Yes.”

          “Mom.  I’m going.  I don’t need your blessing.  I just thought that after yesterday, you would be happy for me.”

          “Margaret, you haven’t called me in weeks.”

          “Mom…”

The grad student walked back through the glass doors.

          “Mom, I’ve got to go.  I’ll talk to you later.”

That evening Alven picked up Margaret and brought her to a neat little Italian restaurant on the other side of town.  He treated her to dinner while she talked of Dumbarton Castle.

          “We went beyond the trees and saw Dumbarton rock with its double head.  There was a mist hanging over it giving a ghostlike appearance.  In front of us, on the island I just mentioned were several small single trees or shrubs, growing at distances from each other, close to the shore.  Some optical illusion had detached them from the land they stood on and so they appeared as little boats sailing along the coast of the island.  With the mists and Dumbarton castle in the background the scene was magical… enchanting.”

          “Lovely.  Margaret, we must go there.  It sounds too beautiful to miss.”

          “I would love to take you there.”

They finished dinner and added many places to their tour.  He held her hand as they walked to the car, and opened her door when they reached it.  The car ride was silent, though the air around them buzzed.  He pulled up to her apartment building and parked.  His hand came off the stick shift and grasped hers.

          “I really like you, Margaret.”

          “Um…”  Margaret didn’t know what to say.  She hadn’t been in this situation for years.  She had been taking the lead in their newly found friendship, but she found that slipping away in this moment.  She was quiet.  And unsure.  

          “I’m sorry.  It’s too soon.  I just… I thought…”

          “No, that’s okay.  I have a bottle of wine I can open.  Let’s sit and relax for a bit up in my apartment.  I could use a drink after all that planning anyways.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand, not wanting him to leave but also fearing how he would react to her apartment.  He was so clean cut and perfect.  She swallowed her doubts and led him to her door.

          Once inside she could see that he was overwhelmed by the amount of books.  He stood there with wide eyes surveying the rooms.  There was an earthy smell to the apartment: musty paper, decaying leather, a hint of peppermint.  Smells he recognized from being around her.  His eyes roved around and caught hers.  She quickly apologized, but he just laughed at himself and walked into the living room.  It was overwhelming, but seemed to suit her. 

          “I didn’t realize you were so into books.  I mean, you did tell me, I just didn’t realize the extent.”

          “I am so sorry.  You must think I’m a freak.”

          “It’s okay, don’t worry about it.  It’s a little …overwhelming.  But only because I’ve never seen so many books outside of a library. ”

          “I’ll be right back.  Let me go find that bottle of wine.”

She hurried to the kitchen and he settled in on the love seat.  He could hear her shuffling things around in the kitchen.  The clock ticked on the wall.  He picked up a book that was lying beside him with a wide red ribbon as a bookmark.  The book fell open and he started reading.

Beyond we had the same intricate view as before, and could discover Dumbarton rock with its double head.  There being a mist over it, it had a ghostlike appearance.  Right before us, on the flat island mentioned before, were several small single trees or shrubs…

He paused.  He moved to the next page.

The afternoon was delightful, the sun shone, the mountain-tops were clear, the lake glittered in the great vale…

He heard the sloshing of the wine as she poured it and slipped the book between his hip and the loveseat.  She walked in with two glasses of white wine and sat beside him.  He took his glass and downed it before hers reached her lips.  He wanted no more of her lies, and gave her a stern look.   Nervous now, she started to finger the lace on her sleeve, she didn’t know what to expect.  Could he be upset about the apartment, even though he said he wasn’t?  

          “Margaret, I don’t think I can do this.  I have to go.”

He placed the glass on her table, on top of a stack of yellowing books, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and left.

          Margaret stared into nothingness as the realization that her only chance to make it to Europe just walked out the door.  She licked a salty tear from the corner of her mouth.  She shuddered.  She shook.  She rocked back and forth on the couch clutching her ribs.  And then everything stopped.  Her face glazed over in nothingness; her spirit- broken.  She walked to the door and locked dead-bolt.  She walked over to the windows and shut the blinds.  Then she sat back on the loveseat and started to whisper to herself.  The book was open where he was sitting, with the wide red ribbon still marking her place.  She took a sip of her wine, and began to read.