New York City, USA
May 2011
There's so many different worlds
Idly looking through Facebook as I walk, I scroll past pictures of Miranda's newest baking endeavours, of the lastest posh party Seraphina was dragged to by her mum and of Nan and Jerry picnicking in some park or another. Wondering whether the pictures warrant some teasing comment about how very 'bad romcom' a picnic in a public park is, I am suddenly stopped dead in my tracks by the notification that pops up next.
Betty Mead got engaged to Liam Crawford.
Betty? Engaged?
When did that happen?
Nan and her picnic immediately forgotten, my fingers fly over the screen as I type out a message to Betty instead.
Congratulations, darling! I'm so happy for you. You must tell me everything!
Life pulled us into different directions and we aren't in touch nearly as often as we both mean to anymore, but back during school, Betty and I were the very bestest of friends. I was the one who helped her dress for her first date with Liam, brother of our classmate Mollie. I was the one who covered for her when she first spent the night at his place (with his parents and Mollie out of town to see his grandparents). And I was also the one who took him to task about dancing two dances in a row with Cherry at our graduation. I'm rarely in Halifax anymore, but during the early days, I was definitely godmother to that relationship.
A beep of my phone indicates Betty's answer and I open it eagerly.
Thank you! It only happened last night. It was sooo romantic. I'm so happy it's unreal!
I bet she is. Liam is cute. Bit quiet sometimes, but the kind of guy you know you can rely on.
I demand an in-depth retelling! Just so we're clear ;).
While waiting for Betty's answer, I slowly start walking again. I'm happy for Betty, it's true, but I there's also a surreal quality to it. How can anyone I attended school with, already be old enough to be getting married?
Shaking off the thought, I look at Betty's answer popping up on my screen.
All the details, I promise! I have to run though. We're having dinner with his and my parents and I still have to get ready. Chat later tonight?
Looking up at my apartment building, to which my feet have carried me, I hesitate.
Busy tonight. I'll call you tomorrow. Have a great evening!
Betty's answer comes within two seconds.
Sure, no problem. Big hug! :)
I don't know how I came to deserve a big hug, even a virtual one, but Betty sounds as if she's ready to embrace the world, so it might just be that.
Slipping my phone into my bag and getting hold of my keys instead, I take up the usual fight with the front door, my mind still occupied with thoughts of Betty. Rationally, I know that she's twenty-two and he's twenty-four and that it's perfectly legal and possibly even sensible to get married at that age, but even so… marrying sounds like an awfully grown up thing to do.
"Marilla."
Startled, I whip my head around.
Mrs Weisz stands in her doorway and eyes me calmly.
"Hello Mrs Weisz," I greet, letting go of a breath. "How do you do?"
She inclines her head to accept the greeting, then steps back and invites me inside her flat with a wave of her head. "Come in, please."
She is, I have to admit, yet another person for whom I haven't been making as much time as I ought to ever since meeting Kenneth. I still get her groceries and keep her in romance novels from the library, but our coffee chats have become few and far between. It's just that Mrs Weisz, maybe alone among the people in my life, has never once complained about it, which why her sudden insistence confuses me.
"I'm sorry. I can't," I apologise, feeling genuine regret. "I'm expecting a visitor."
Mrs Weisz nods. "Your gentleman friend is already here and waiting for you inside," she informs me crisply.
I blink, now utterly confused. What is Ken doing in Mrs Weisz's flat?
(The morbid part of my brain can't help noting that, were Mrs Weisz not Mrs Weisz and this a thriller instead, I'd probably find Ken cut up and dead in her living room. But the rational brain part knows that his hitmen would never let that happen. At least I'm reasonably sure they wouldn't.)
Gingerly following Mrs Weisz into her flat and through to the kitchen, I indeed see a – very alive – Ken sitting at her kitchen table, coffee cup in front of him and wearing an expression as puzzled as I feel.
"Sit down, Marilla," orders Mrs Weisz and I plop down on a chair, too perplexed to argue.
As Mrs Weisz busies herself with making me coffee as well, I lean over to Ken. "How long have you been here?" I whisper.
"Couple of minutes," he murmurs back.
I nod slowly. "Why are you here?"
"I don't know," he mutters. "She told me to come inside, pointed me to a seat and gave me coffee. Then she stood by the window until she saw you come home."
Placing a coffee cup in front of me, Mrs Weisz sits down between us and looks from one to the other, appearing quite pleased with herself.
"Won't you introduce us, Marilla?" she asks after a moment.
I swallow heavily. "Um, Ken, Mrs Weisz. Mrs Weisz, Kenneth."
Mrs Weisz fixes her eyes on Ken. "Kenneth," she repeats, rolling the name on her tongue. "What does it mean? Kenneth?"
Ken's questioning glance finds mine, but I can only shrug. I have no idea what this is about either.
"It depends," he answers slowly. "It derives from two distinct Scottish names. One means fire, the other – well, the other means handsome."
Is it just me or do I see the back of his neck colouring slightly? Quickly, I take a sip of coffee to hide my smile, burning my tongue for the effort.
Mrs Weisz considers him very seriously for several moments before declaring, "Yes, yes. Good, good." Ken's neck becomes a little redder still.
(He's usually so suave in everything that, despite the oddness of this entire situation, I can't help feel amused that it's Mrs Weisz from Brooklyn, lover of good coffee and romance novels, who managed to make the Prince of Wales blush.)
"What are your intentions towards Marilla?" asks Mrs Weisz, voice entirely pleasant, and just like that, the smile is wiped from my face.
"Uh…" Ken trails off, his eyes meeting mine, a slightly panicked look in them. I can, once more, do nothing but shrug.
"Your intentions," Mrs Weisz repeats patiently.
Ken nods and visibly gulps. "Look, I… I mean…"
(Now she's not only made him blush but rendered him speechless as well. All in the space of a minute. Must be some kind of record. I'd laugh, but I don't much feel like laughing anymore.)
Deciding to jump to his aid, I pull the conversation back towards me. "Mrs Weisz, I really appreciate your concern for me, but it's really not… we're just… see, I'm much too young to…" But the word lodges in my throat, refusing to be spoken.
(And there's the unbidden thought in my mind that Betty, despite being a mere five months older than me, apparently is old enough to, well, get married, but I shove it resolutely to the side. It's not helping right now.)
"Of course you are," agrees Mrs Weisz, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and clucks her tongue at me. "Far too young."
I breathe a sigh of relief, and on the other side of the table, can see Ken's shoulders sack slightly as some of the tension leaves him as well.
But Mrs Weisz is suddenly peering at me suspiciously, "I hope you're not planning anything foolish?"
Anything - ?
Oh.
Oh goodness!
"No. No. Not at all. Nothing foolish," I promise, the words stumbling over themselves in my rush to get them out.
"Good." Mrs Weisz nods briskly, before turning to face Ken again. "I still want to ask whether your intentions are honourable. Marilla's parents are far away and someone needs to make sure you are not mistreating her, young man."
Young man?
Does she even…?
Startled, I sit up straighter.
Mrs Weisz, as I well know, doesn't leave her flat anymore and lives in a world created by her romance novels. She's mentioned before that she's too old for all the nastiness going on in the world, which is why she hasn't picked up a newspaper in years and only keeps a TV to dust it off periodically. It could very well be that she really doesn't know.
Doesn't know who he is. Doesn't know what he is.
"I… I'm not… mistreating her or anything," stutters Ken. His eyes seek mine, but I'm too distracted by my epiphany to react to it.
"Hmm," makes Mrs Weisz thoughtfully. "And do you have a job? You are not living off her, are you?"
With effort, I force down the hysterical giggle rising within me. Ken looks like he's wondering which rabbit hole he fell through when entering this flat.
"I'm asking, because I didn't miss how much time you spent here even when the heating was broken," elaborates Mrs Weisz, sounding very reasonable indeed. "It made me wonder whether you have your own place to stay?"
"I do," Ken quickly assures, obviously relieved not be grilled about his job anymore. "I do have my own place. I just like it here."
Mrs Weisz makes a dubious sound and peers at him closely. Ken moves slightly on his chair, before picking up his cup and emptying its contents in one go. I'm fairly sure he does it mostly to escape her scrutinising gaze, but the moment he sets the cup down again, Mrs Weisz snatches it up and gets to her feet to fill it up again.
Ken takes the moment to lean toward me over the table and murmur, "What's she playing at?"
"I don't know," I whisper back. "But I think she really doesn't know who you are."
He stares. Blinks. Blinks again.
When she sets his re-filled cup down in front of him, he looks at her as if at a revelation. Then, slowly, the most brilliant of smiles spreads over his face. "Thank you ever so much, Mrs Weisz!"
But it's not the coffee he's thanking her for. It's for a much greater gift. Normalcy.
Mrs Weisz looks a bit nonplussed at his sudden exuberance, but takes it in her stride. "You're welcome, young man."
Ken's smile, if possible, widens at being addressed such. He takes up the cup, takes a gulp, burns his tongue and not even that is enough to get him to stop smiling.
The rest of the afternoon passes in the blink of an eye. Ken is almost giddy in his excitement at being normal for once and it's really very endearing. He happily dissects the plot of her latest novel with Mrs Weisz in detail and empties the steady stream of refilled coffee cup she places in front of him without complaint. Mrs Weisz, thus mellowed, even stops needling him about his intentions or his earning power. In short, they get on like a house on fire.
When, after two and a half hours, I decide it's time to go, I actually have to struggle to separate them, finally almost shoving Ken out of the door. Mrs Weisz only lets him go after he promises to come back – and soon.
Ken makes it up two flights of stairs, before he stops suddenly and bursts out laughing.
"Enjoyed yourself, did you?" I ask mildly, watching him indulgently from three of steps above. (I don't think I want to know how much caffeine he currently has coursing through his veins.)
"I haven't had that much fun in a while," he admits and beams at me. "I've never had to justify how I earn a living before!" A beat, as he shakes his head incredulously. "She really doesn't know, does she?"
"No. She really doesn't know," I confirm, unable to prevent a smile at how gleeful he is.
"She's great!" Ken declares as he climbs up the last steps to be level with me, engulfing me into his arms. "I see why you care so much for her."
I snuggle closer to him. "She liked you as well."
"She did, didn't she?" he asks eagerly. "Despite not knowing who I am!"
He looks perfectly delighted at the thought, but I feel a tiny twinge, realising that whenever he meets someone, he must always be wondering whether they put up with him for him or just because of his position.
I wonder when he decided I wasn't just in it because of the title?
"The plot of that novel was bonkers though," Ken muses thoughtfully, a hand absent-mindedly stroking my back. "Are all romance novels this bonkers?"
"Mostly," I confirm. "In fact, they are mostly just similar, full stop. There's a formula to be followed with romance novels."
"Doesn't that make them terribly predictable?" he wonders, sounding puzzled at the thought.
I nod, shrug. "Yes. I think that's partly the point."
He mulls that over for a moment. "Curious," he finally decides. Then, nodding his head towards the rest of the stairs, he asks, "Shall we go upstairs?"
But I remain rooted to the spot, keeping him there with me.
"Actually…" I begin, trailing off almost immediately.
Ken peers down at me. "Actually?" he prompts.
"Actually, I was wondering why it is that we only ever stay at my place," I admit, feeling a bit nervous.
Because Mrs Weisz wasn't the first one to have questioned his decision to stay in my freezing flat back in January instead of just inviting me over to his place. Di did, too, when I mentioned it, and kept harping on about it until Nan told her to shut up.
"I said, didn't I? I like it here," answers Ken, frowning slightly.
"Better than at your own place?" I ask, feeling more than a little sceptical when I think of my tiny Shoebox with its dodgy heating and the trickling shower.
Ken nods earnestly. "It's cosy. My place… it's fancy, I suppose, but it came furnished and it looks the part. It feels like a hotel. Yours is a home."
It sounds so logical, the way he says it, and I silently curse Di for planting the doubt in my head in the first place.
"We can go there though, if you want," Ken offers, tapping a finger against the tip of my nose.
And part of me feels foolish at insisting after he gave such an easy, yet heartfelt explanation, but the other part… well, if my childhood friend is getting married, shouldn't I at least know how my boyfriend lives? (Not taking into account that over the pond, his life certainly looks utterly different again.)
So, I nod.
With a shrug, Ken lets go of me and takes out his phone. Taking a few steps downstairs again, he quietly speaks into it and for a moment, this puzzles me, but then I realise he has to inform his MATH about the change in plans.
When he slips back the phone into his pocket, he turns to look at me. "I'm taking the bike. You wait here for another ten minutes before coming out, alright? There's a blue Honda sedan waiting around the curb. The driver is called Hanson. He'll take you to my apartment."
I hadn't realised that us relocating to his place would be such an operation, but I suppose I ought to have. He might have gotten a taste of normalcy down there in Mrs Weisz's flat, but he isn't really. Nothing in his life is ever as simple as it's for the rest of us.
Reaching out a hand, Ken grabs hold of one of mine, raising it to his lips and pressing a kiss to it. "See you later." Says it, let's go of my hand, and bounces down the stairs again. (That caffeine high is still going strong, I see.)
Using my allotted ten minutes of waiting time to head upstairs quickly, exchange my college bag for a smaller handbag (stuffing my toothbrush and a clean pair of panties into it as I do) and set out food to an absent George, I still manage to be out on the street, rounding the corner, just when Ken told me to be. Just as he said, there's indeed a nondescript blue Honda sedan waiting for me. After a second of hesitation and with not a person in sight, I open the door myself and slide into the back seat.
The driver looks at me through the rear mirror. "Miss," he greets, tipping his head slightly.
"Evening," I reply, trying for a smile.
And these, for the entire journey to Downtown Manhattan, remain the only two words we exchange, with only the radio filling the silence in the car.
Watching the city go past through tinted windows, I try to imagine what Ken's place might look like, but whenever I picture him it's always my apartment he's in, standing at the kitchenette to whip up dinner, lounging on the bed while watching a show or sitting on the toilet lid to talk to me while I do my make-up. The mere attempt to imagine him somewhere else feels somehow weird to me.
When the driver – Hanson? – finally pulls into an underground garage somewhere in Manhattan where the buildings are dizzyingly high confectionaries of steel and glass, and where I don't usually have any business to be, I must admit to being slightly nervous.
Hanson stops the car down in the garage, indicating for me to get out. When I do, he's already beside the car as well, silently pointing me to a set of doors some steps away, which, after he types something into a keypad, reveal themselves to be hiding an elevator.
It's not the top floor we ride up to, but very nearly. When the elevator doors open again, Hanson points me towards a door down the hall. "Over there, Miss."
I nod, swallow. "Thank you."
He tips two fingers to his temple, steps back into the elevator and just like that, I'm alone in the unfamiliar hall. Slowly walking up to the indicated door, I hesitate before raising my hand and knocking gingerly.
I half expect it to be opened by a stranger, but it's just Ken on the other side, smiling at me, and I feel the tension leave my shoulders. The surroundings might be different, but he's still the same.
"Come in," he invites, stepping back to allow me to enter the apartment.
And what an apartment it is!
Like the building from the outside, the apartment is all polished steel and glass, with some monochrome leather here and there. It's also huge. The living room alone is several times the size of my Shoebox. And the view is… well, 'utterly breath-taking' wouldn't be an overstatement. We're above most other buildings in the vicinity and as I step closer to the large windows, Manhattan stretches out beneath my feet in a way I don't think I've ever seen before. (Or at least not since that time Mum and Dad came to visit and we went up the Empire State Building.)
Ken comes up behind me, nuzzling my neck. "See why I prefer your place?"
Can't say I do, no.
"Ken, this is…" Robbed of words, I raise a hand to indicate the view in front of us instead.
He raises his head to look outside the window as well. "Oh, well, I suppose this is quite nice. But they're just buildings and they don't ever change. It's the same old view every day. You don't really look at it anymore after a week or two."
I'm fairly sure that if I lived here, I'd spent half an hour a day just standing here and staring out the windows, but then, my windows face a grubby backyard and the grey backside of a hideous apartment block.
Ken drops a kiss on my neck and steps away from me, taking off my coat as he does. "Are you hungry? There's a pretty good Spanish restaurant down the road. I could send someone to fetch us some tapas," he suggests, as he hangs my coat over the back of a chair. Taking my handbag from me as well, he tosses it over to lie on a white leather couch that I hardly dare look at for fear of staining it.
"Tapas are fine," I agree, turning to face him. "Do they also have churros, by any chance? The real kind? Americans make them all wrong, but the Spanish kind are amazing. I practically lived on them when I was in Madrid!"
Smiling at my expression, Ken lightly brushes the back of his hand along my cheek. "I'll ask whether they have churros. The real kind, of course."
Feeling childish, I stick out my tongue at him, making him laugh. "I'll be back in a second," he promises, picking up his phone from a table by the front door and disappearing into what I think is the kitchen.
I just want to turn back to the windows to stare at the view some longer, when my own phone rings. For a moment, I consider letting it ring, but it sounds persistent, so I walk over to the very white leather couch, rummage through my bag (without actually touching the couch, mind) and pull out the phone.
Caller ID reveals it to be Shirley. Shirley, who hardly ever calls me.
"Shirl?" I ask, raising the phone to my ear. "What's wrong?"
"You're asking me that?" comes his voice. "What's wrong with you?"
Shirley almost never uses italics. That he's now used two in a row tells me that he must be agitated.
"Nothing is wrong," I assure. "I'm fine. But what's the matter with you? Why did you call? Are Mum and Dad alright?"
"You set off your alarm," Shirley answers, ignoring my other questions.
Huh? Which alarm?
"The app I helped you install back in January," he clarifies. "Remember?"
Oh. That.
I do remember it. In fact, I've used it a couple of times since then. I never set off the alarm though and I certainly didn't do it now.
But when I lower the phone for a second to look at the screen, I see the small dark blue icon in the upper corner, indicating that the app is, indeed, active. My only explanation is that the phone got jostled when Ken tossed the bag, activating the app – and without a finger to keep it quiet, it raised an alarm, to be heard all the way in Shirley's bedroom in Halifax.
"Sorry, Shirl," I apologise after having raised the phone to my ear again. "Must have been an accident. I didn't mean to alarm you. Literally."
On the other end of the line, Shirley makes a sceptical sound. "Are you sure? You haven't been dragged anywhere against your will? If you can't speak clearly, just tell me the name of Jem's dog if you're in any danger."
At this, I can't help laughing. "You've been watching too many spy thrillers, Shirley! I'm fine, I promise. No-one dragged me anywhere."
"You're in Manhattan," he points out. "In what seems to be a very expensive piece of real estate, I might add."
"Yes, I am," I confirm with a smile "And let me tell you, the view is amazing."
Ken choses that moment to walk into the living room again, raising an eyebrow quizzically as he sees me on the phone. I shake my head and give a small eye roll to tell him it's nothing serious.
"Well, if you're sure…" remarks Shirley, clearly still not totally convinced.
"I'm sure," I promise. "I'm as good as I've ever been." And then, with a glance at Ken, I add, "I'm nowhere I don't want to be, and with no one I don't want to be with. Just the opposite, in fact. Just the very opposite."
The title of this chapter is taken from the song 'Brothers in Arms' (written by Mark Knopfler, released by Dire Straits in 1985).
To AnneShirley:
Ah, choosing 'Revolution' for that chapter amused me greatly, so I'm glad you picked up on that ;). And Jake probably could overthrow a monarchy, but he also loves his Aunt Rilla quite a bit, so maybe that'll be enough to make him direct his attentions elsewhere.
I wouldn't necessarily trust Izzie's assessment of Ken's looks. They're both somewhat dark-haired, which to Izzie is likely resemblance enough ;). And you will be happy to know that, while she has no patience for baby dolls, Izzie has an entire armada of stuffed animals that take up about two thirds of her bed. Maybe three quarters. A lot, at any rate.
Actually, I didn't really think much about making Joy take Dan's name, because where I live, that's still very much the norm. But for the sake of the story, let's say it was mostly just Joy being stubborn. Everyone was already on her case about her early pregnancy, her opinionated ancestors most of all, so when she married, she took his name as a kind of f*** y to them, to show them she was doing things her way and they just had to deal with it.
I hadn't though about Jake resembling Walter before, but now that you mention it, he does have strokes of AoI-Walter, doesn't he? Which comes as a surprise, because I so have no handle on how to write Walter, but I love writing Jake ;).
I've since written the chapter with Gilbert and it turned out he didn't want to be as strict as I wanted him to be. But he employed a nice bit of reverse psychology on Rilla and I think it worked. She's enough of a daddy's girl not to want to disappoint him, which is something he can (and does) use to everyone's advantage.
Your friend was engaged to a real, proper prince? I need to know more about this!
To wow:
Thank you for reading and reviewing! And if you ever find something I don't have covered, please let me know, yes? :)
Ah, I wouldn't say Rilla doesn't value hard work and/or education at all. She isn't academically minded and given the choice, she prefers the "less work, more play"- approach, but she's still her parents' daughter. She can work hard if she has to (see further her raising of Jims in canon), but right now, she's overwhelmed with the demands placed on her and something had to give. Working less for university was convenient, because there was no-one there to complain about it and the results of her lack of work weren't immediately apparent. But they will be and she will have to take notice! As for Ken, he's a curious case. He's had his whole life presented to him on a platter, just on strength of who he was born to (and when). He never had to work to achieve his royal position, that's for sure. But he did go to school, to university and spent several years in the army. Chances are, at some point in all those decades, he had to work to achieve something (I'm especially looking at his army years here). So, he's living an uber-privileged life, but even he must have encountered situations where he hasn't had everything handed to him. Even if they were probably few and far between ;).
Joy was trying to be on her best behaviour for Rilla's sake! That she only needled Ken a little bit was actually her trying very hard to be good ;). Had she not resolved to be good, she probably would have made Ken discuss the inequality of the royal system with her - and you bet that Jake didn't come up with that tax money argument all on his own either!
Yes, we should meet Tristan at some point. I'm genuinely curious though - what makes you think Rilla's relationship with Carl was passive? I totally agree that she has taken the passive part in her relationship with Ken (at least for the moment), but I'm curious what makes you think the same about her relationship with Carl. It would be great if you could share your thoughts, as I'm really interested in hearing them :).
