Page 17 of A Curse for the Homesick

OXFORD

2017

When Kitty met me at the airport, she screamed.

I had planned something dignified and cute. Perhaps she had too. Instead, she screamed and I started crying and dropped my suitcases and we flung our arms around each other.

“You’re here!” she said. “You’re here, you’re here, and we’re going to do whatever it is people want to do when they visit England, like eat fish and chips or see those men with the stupid tall hats because you’re here and I love you and you’re never allowed to leave me again.”

Kitty gave me an abridged and entirely inaccurate tour of London as we swept through the city. “Piccadilly Circus really is a circus, you know, but only on leap years when there’s a full moon out. And you’ll want to see Paddington Station, obviously, since it’s named after the UK’s first ursine prime minister.”

When we got to , she started reeling off a list of restaurants at which we could eat, and I told her it had to be a pub.

“A pub!” she said. “A pub!”

“Palo Alto doesn’t do pubs,” I said.

“Perhaps Palo Alto is onto something.”

“I just want to order a pie and be brought something with meat instead of apples.”

“A pub. You are very lucky I love you.”

“I know.”

For the past few months, Kitty had been dating a fellow economics student named Georgia. I’d met her on FaceTime before, but dinner at the pub was the first I’d seen her in person. She was about a thousand feet tall, with olive-toned skin and curly hair and all black clothes. She surprised me as a match for Kitty, not because they didn’t suit each other but because she was so not like Linnea. At dinner, Georgia leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed and looked endlessly amused by Kitty. Every time she spoke, I marveled at her accent, which was the poshest I’d ever heard. I asked how they’d met, and Georgia told me she’d struck up a conversation in class with Kitty about cycling, to which Kitty had replied that she was an avid cyclist. Georgia had invited her to cycle to Aston, a couple hours away, and Kitty had showed up on a cruiser bike with no gears.

“I cycled quite convincingly,” Kitty told me.

“She didn’t,” Georgia said. “We made it to the edge of town, and I asked if she wanted a coffee instead.”

“And conveniently enough, I did want a coffee.”

Georgia sipped her beer, looking pleased, then said, “Kitty tells me you’re dating an absolute dick.”

“Georgia!” Kitty said. “We were supposed to ease into that. Over many weeks and with soothing tea.”

I waited for myself to feel offended on August’s behalf. It didn’t happen. It felt like I was hearing about someone else’s boyfriend—maybe the boyfriend of that action-film femme fatale.

“It’s not that I think he’s a dick,” Kitty said. “Here, eat more of my chips. It’s just—you never seem particularly excited about him when we talk, and he seems kind of manipulative when—”

“He’s not manipulative,” I said, surprised. It was hard for me to imagine August manipulating me into doing anything; it was hard for me to imagine him even having an opinion. “I actually think he adores me, for whatever reason.”

“Because you’re adorable,” Kitty said.

My phone buzzed, and I glanced down at it under the table. I smiled before I could stop myself.

“See,” Kitty said to Georgia. “He can’t be terrible if he makes her happy. What did he say?”

I cleared my throat. “‘How’s Kitty doing?’”

“Oh, he remembers me. That’s sweet.”

“‘Tell her,’” I read, “‘she still has my copy of Beowulf. ’”

“No!” Kitty said.

“You lent August a copy of Beowulf ?” Georgia asked. “I can’t say I see the point in owning one, except to tell people you do. He really does seem like a dick.”

“She’s not texting August,” Kitty said, giving me an evil look. “She’s texting Soren.”

Georgia looked mildly intrigued. “Soren your cousin?”

“Soren her ex.”

“Small towns seem amusing,” Georgia said.

“Since when do you text Soren, Tess? Care to share with the class?”

“Anyone want another beer?” I asked.

As I left, Kitty called after me, “We’re not done talking about this! And get me a cider!”

At the bar, I ordered three more drinks. While I waited for them, I took my phone out of my pocket again.

Me: Kitty’s girlfriend thinks you’re smug for reading Beowulf

Soren: “We are the companions of Hygelac; Smug is my name”

Me: Why would you assume I would understand that reference

Me: If you have passages of Beowulf memorized, I don’t want to talk to you anymore

Soren: I may have done a quick google

Me: This disappoints me somehow

Soren: It’s weird that we’re in the same time zone

Me: Yeah

Me: Not far at all

When he didn’t respond to that, I pictured him looking at airfare prices, then told myself to stop. As penance, I texted August.

Me: Meeting Kitty’s girlfriend!

August: Aw

August: I am sure she will love my sweet girl 3

I put my phone away again, feeling off-kilter in a way I hadn’t since my plane had touched down.

* * *

Academically, my quarter at was harder than anything I’d yet done at Stanford. I made the mistake of sharing this with Kitty, who proceeded to bring it up to everyone we met for the rest of the term.

My scholastic performance was not helped by the fact that I became suddenly and inexplicably extroverted in the third week of my stay. It was like a switch flipped on a circuit board. Georgia invited me to a house-warming party a few of her school friends were having; I surprised myself by saying yes. I surprised myself further by going out the four subsequent nights as well.

It rained all the time. My mum showed up unannounced on three occasions. Stenland was just one plane ride away. It was, in short, everything I had wanted to avoid when I’d gone off to college.

August was supposed to visit me halfway through the quarter and then again when classes ended. He had to cancel the first visit because he was supposed to go meet someone important about his upcoming internship with the DNC. When he told me he wouldn’t be coming, he had a bouquet of two dozen red roses delivered. There was some sort of mix-up, so they ended up going to the guy across the hall from me instead, another Stanford student studying abroad. Noah. When he knocked on my door with headphones around his neck and the massive bouquet in his hands, I said, “I didn’t know you felt this way.”

Noah handed me the bouquet. “Devastated to realize these weren’t for me.”

The note that came with them said We’ll be together before you know it. Romantic weekend in Paris? Love with all my heart, A.

“You can keep them, if you want,” I said.

He looked uncertain. “That seems weird.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”

I probably didn’t put them in enough water because they started to rot right away. The petals fell and got trapped behind my desk and made my room smell like musty potpourri.

August was going to show up on my last day and whisk me around Europe for the week before his internship started. It was unclear what I was going to do after that. Of the internships I’d applied for, only one had bothered to interview me before saying they’d chosen another candidate. A few had sent form rejections. What I really wanted was a place at a Formula One team, but none of them responded to me. When I told August about this over FaceTime, he said, “Oh, I think one of Connor’s friends ended up at one of those teams. Someone from his frat, maybe? I’ll make a call.”

The thought of August getting me a job was the most horrifying suggestion I could imagine, though I couldn’t have said why. “Please don’t.”

“This is how people get internships. I forget you don’t know how all this works.”

“Seriously,” I said. “Don’t.”

“It’s one call. It’s really no sweat.”

“I will break up with you,” I said, and I found that I meant it.

A pause. “Jesus. Sorry for trying to help.”

The end of the term came barreling toward us, and I still had no internship. I had drunk my weight in lager; I had learned how to ride a bike with clip-in pedals, courtesy of Georgia; I had spent nearly every night eating chips and doing readings with Kitty, whose friendship, it turned out, was not something I had ever come close to replicating in college. And yet.

Outside, the spring weather was tantalizing and the lawns were that deep shade of green California could never imitate. We were at a table in the library, Kitty and me, ostensibly working on our final projects, though Kitty seemed to be spending most of her time online shopping for the trip to Greece she had planned with Georgia. I’d assumed she was still looking at sundresses when she said, “Didn’t you say August’s uncle was killed by a skeld just before he was born?”

“Yes?”

She turned her laptop toward me. There was an Excel spreadsheet on it with dates and numbers, none of which meant anything to me. I shook my head blankly.

“My project,” she said. “I’m looking at the economic impact of skeld seasons. Like, does being in the news drive tourism up or scare people away.”

“And?”

She pointed at the 1996 column. “No one got killed by a skeld in ninety-six.”

“Well, maybe it happened earlier than that. He didn’t say exactly when.”

“I don’t think any tourists got killed by skelds in the nineties. A few locals. Some keepers, two husbands. I mean, I can pull up the names, but…”

I stared at the screen with a rising sense of déjà vu, as if I was being told something someone had already told me. When I texted August asking if he could remind me what had happened to his uncle, he didn’t respond for two hours. When he finally did respond, Kitty and I were leaving the library.

August: Wow

August: I know you didn’t mean it that way, but that’s a kind of crass way to ask about a family tragedy

Once, when I’d been ten or so, my dad had taken me camping. We’d bought a brand-new tent. It had been packed into this tiny little bag, and when we’d tried to put it away again, we couldn’t do it. It was like the fabric had expanded overnight, all the poles growing longer and more unwieldy.

As I picked through memories of conversations with August, that was what it felt like. Like once I’d taken them out and examined them, I could no longer stuff them back where they’d been hidden.

I found myself googling his name with every variety of story tacked onto it. August van Andel ski results. August van Andel kidnapping. Van Andel skeld. I found nothing and nothing and nothing, and I kept scrolling.

Me: Did your uncle actually get killed by a skeld?

August: Tess

August: Come on

August: What are you even accusing me of?

Me: Did your uncle actually get killed by a skeld?

August: Okay, I think you need some time to calm down

August: I’ll see you in a few days

August: I still love you, you know that

“Dump him,” Georgia said.

“What if he’s telling the truth?”

We were in the same pub Kitty had taken me on my first day in . The waitstaff knew us now; they brought me my beer without asking my order.

“Oh my god,” Kitty said. “He’s not telling the truth. You know in your gut that he is a slimy little weasel liar, and you’ve known it all along. Dump. Him.”

“I don’t want him to be lying,” I said.

“Why not?” Kitty demanded.

I leaned against the window. It was cool against my forehead. “Because then I’m an idiot.”

When my phone buzzed, I was certain it would be August, and I was certain he would say something apologetic and believable and confusing. When I saw it was Soren, I felt like I had just been pushed out of the path of a train and wrapped in something warm. It didn’t even matter what the message said; I couldn’t remember what we’d been talking about. Nothing important. What was important was that I had tried to convince myself I could be with a man who made me feel like I was, at all times, about to get hit by a train.

“I should dump him,” I said.

“Oh, thank god. Call him. Call him right now.”

“What if he says he wants to come here in person?” I asked. “What if he talks me out of it?”

“Text him, then,” Kitty said. “Refuse to talk to him.”

“Is that fair?”

“I don’t care! Want me to text him for you? Here, give me your phone. I’ll eviscerate him within an inch of his smarmy little life.”

Georgia looked at her admiringly. “Remind me never to break up with you.”

“I shall,” Kitty said. “Regularly. Give me your phone.”

“No,” I said, “I can do it.”

“Are you sure? I’ve always wanted to write a break-up message. Something eloquent but scathing. Something with just enough inside jokes that it really cuts to the bone, you know, but also doesn’t imply you’ll miss them too much? I’ve actually been brainstorming this for a while. It’s a little long, but hear me out.”

“Sent,” I said.

Kitty blinked. “Sent?”

Me: We’re done.

“Efficient,” Georgia said. “I like it.”

August did not.