Meg Cabot - Queen of Babble

“Bullshit,” Grandma says.

Startled, I say, “W-what?”

“You’re going to get a boyfriend,” Grandma says. “Only unlike your sisters, you’re choosy. You’re not going to marry the first asshole who comes along who tells you he likes you, then knocks you up.”

This is a very sobering assessment of my older sisters’ relationships. It has the effect of drying up my tears instantly.

“Grandma,” I say, “I mean, really. Isn’t that a little harsh?”

“So this latest one turned out to be a dud,” Grandma goes on. “Good riddance. What are you going to do, stay with him anyway until your flight leaves?”

“I don’t see what choice I have,” I say. “I mean, I can’t just…leave him.”

“Where is he now?”

“Well,” I say, “he’s back at the Job Centre, I guess.” Would he have come looking for me?

Yes, of course. I have his five hundred dollars.

“Then you already left him,” Grandma says. “Look. I don’t get what the big deal is. You’re in Europe. You’re young. Young people have been going to Europe on a shoestring for a hundred years. Use your head, for God’s sake. What about your friend Shari? Isn’t she over there somewhere?”

Shari. I forgot all about her. Shari, who is right across the English Channel, in France. Shari, who actually invited me, just last night, to come stay with her at-what was it called again? Oh yes. Mirac.

Mirac. The word might as well mean heaven, it sounds so magical right now.

“Grandma,” I say, climbing out from my chair, “do you really think…I mean…should I?”

“You said he gambles?” Grandma asks.

“Apparently,” I say, “he has a fondness for Texas Hold’em.”

Grandma sighs. “Just like your uncle Ted. By all means stay with him if you want to live the rest of your life trying to bail him out financially. That’s what your aunt Olivia did. But if you’re smart-and I think you are-you’ll get the hell out now, while you still can.”

“Grandma,” I say, choking back tears, “I…I think I’ll take your advice. Thank you.”

“Well,” Grandma says flatly, “this is an occasion. One of you girls actually listening to me for a change. Somebody needs to break out the champagne.”

“I’ll toast you in absentia, Grandma,” I say. “And now I’d better call Shari. Thank you so much. And, um, don’t tell anyone about this conversation, okay, Grandma?”

“Who would I tell?” Grandma grumbles, and hangs up.

I hang up as well and hurriedly dial Shari’s number. Shari. I can’t believe I didn’t think of SHARI! Shari’s in France. And she said I could come see her. The Chunnel. Didn’t she say something about taking the Chunnel? Can I really do this? Should I?

Oh no. It goes to Shari’s voice mail. Where is she? Out in the vineyard squishing grapes between her toes? Shari, where are you? I need you!

I leave a message: “Hi, Shar? It’s me, Lizzie. I really need to talk to you. It’s really important. I think…I’m pretty sure Andrew and I are breaking up.” I flash back to the expression on his face as he was telling me about his friend from work who could wire my money to the States with no fees.

My heart twists.

“Um, in fact, I think we’ve definitely broken up. So could you call me? Because I’m probably going to need to take you up on your France offer. So call me back. Right away. Well. Bye.”

Saying the words out loud makes it suddenly seem much more real. My boyfriend and I are breaking up. If I had just kept my mouth shut about his waitering job, none of this would have happened. It’s all because of me. Because of my big mouth.

Really, I have put my foot in it before. But never this big.

On the other hand…if I hadn’t said anything, would he ever have told me? About the gambling, I mean? Or would he have tried to keep a secret from me for the rest of our lives together-as he seemed to have done, pretty successfully, for the past three months? Would we have ended up like Uncle Ted and Aunt Olivia-bitter, divorced, financially insolvent, and living in Cleveland and Reno, respectively?

I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.

I can’t go back to the Marshalls’ house. That’s all there is to it. I mean, obviously, I have to, in order to get my things. But I can’t sleep there tonight. Not in the MDF bed, the same bed Andrew and I made love in…the bed I gave him that blow job in.

The blow job I want back.

And, I realize, I don’t have to sleep there tonight. Because I have somewhere to go.

I stand up so suddenly that I get a head rush. I am staggering around, clutching my head, when Jamal comes back with a glass of water for me.

“Miss?” he says worriedly.

“Oh,” I say, seeing the water. I snatch it from him and down the glass’s contents. I don’t mean to be rude, but my head is pounding. “Thanks so much,” I say when I’m done drinking. And hand the glass back to him. I’m feeling better already.

“Is there someone I can telephone for you?” Jamal wants to know. Really, he is so kind. So attentive! I almost feel like I’m back in Ann Arbor. Except for the English accent.

“No,” I say. “But there is something you can help me with. I need to know how to get to the Chunnel.”

I’m pulling my wheelie bag down the aisles of the Paris Souillac train, and I’m trying not to cry.

Not because of the bag. Well, sort of because of the bag. I mean, the aisle is very narrow, and I have my carry-on bag over my shoulder, and I sort of have to walk sideways, like a crab, in order not to bang people in the head with it as I search-apparently fruitlessly-for a front-facing first-class seat in a nonsmoking car.

If I smoked and I didn’t mind facing backward, I’d be all set. Except that I don’t smoke, and I’m afraid if I ride facing backward, I might throw up. In fact, I am sure I will throw up, because I have felt like throwing up ever since I woke up in Paris-having conked out in my comfy seat on the train from London, like Grandma after too much cooking sherry-and realized what I’d done.

Which is, pretty much, set off by myself through Europe, with no idea whether I am actually going to find the place, much less the person, I’m looking for. Especially since Shari still isn’t answering her cell phone, much less calling me back.

Of course, part of the reason why I feel like throwing up might be that I am so incredibly hungry I can hardly see. All I’ve had to eat since breakfast is an apple I bought at Waterloo Station, since that was the only nutritious food I could find for sale there that didn’t have tomatoes on it. If I’d wanted a Cadbury bar or an egg and tomato sandwich, I’d have been all right.

But since I didn’t, I was out of luck.

I’m hoping there’ll be a dining car on this train. But before I can go look for it, I need to find a decent seat where I can dump my stuff.

And that’s proving difficult. My bag is so wide and awkward that it keeps bumping people in the knees as I go by them, and even though I’m apologizing like crazy-“Pardonnez-moi,” I say to them, when I’m not “Excusez-moi”-ing them-nobody seems to appreciate my apologies very much. Maybe because they’re all French and I’m American and no one here seems to like Americans. At least, judging by the way the kid next to me in the backward-facing smoking seat I found-but consequently had to abandon-had gone, “Etes-vous americaine?” in a disgusted voice when he overheard me leaving yet another message for Shari on my cell.

“Um,” I said, “oui?”

And he made a face and pulled out an iPod, inserted his earphones, and turned his face to the window so he wouldn’t have to look at me again.

Vamos a la playa, screamed the song I could plainly hear from his earphones. Vamos a la playa.

I know that song is going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day. Or night, I should say, since it’s already afternoon and my train won’t be arriving at the station in Souillac for six hours.

That’s another reason I’m going in search of a new seat. How am I supposed to spend six hours next to a snot-nosed seventeen-year old in an Eminem T-shirt who listens to Europop, hates Americans, and smokes?

Of course, now it’s looking like that seat was actually the last vacant one on this train.

Can I stand for six hours? Because if so, I’ll be golden. There’s plenty of space for me and my gargantuan bags in the spaces between the cars.

How can this be happening to me? It all seemed so simple when Jamal, back at the bookshop, explained what I’d have to do to get to France. He’d been so knowing and kind, it had sounded as if getting from London to where Shari is was going to be a snap.

He didn’t mention, of course, the fact that the minute you open your mouth to speak to anyone in this country and they realize from your accent that you’re American, they just answer you in English anyway.