Gigi, Listening, page 21
Zane turns to me. “You ready to keep going?” I notice how mossy green his eyes are, like the moors in Wuthering Heights, and his nose is slightly crooked. A wisp of his hair sticks up. I reach out to fix it, then pull my hand back.
“Mm-hmm,” I say.
We pedal along the path. Large trees drop light purple flowers. The air smells like syrup.
My phone pings, but I ignore it. It’s nearly noon, and I’m sure that it’s Cleo, catching up on my conversation with Dory while on her Peloton.
It pings again.
And again.
“Somebody’s popular,” Zane says.
“It’s my friends. They’re dying to know how the tour is going.”
“How is the tour going?” he asks.
“A lot better now,” I say. “Angus was great, too. But I like a plan—and I signed up because you were leading the tour.” It’s bold and it’s not exactly true, and the words just spill out.
“I get that a lot. I do know my stuff.” I want to know more. How many other women have been on this tour, hanging on Zane’s every word? And yet, the truth is, I actually don’t want to know.
“You must have to read so much,” I say instead. Stick to the facts.
“Mmm, not really,” he says, then taps his head. “It’s all up here. Heard my parents give the same information over and over again for sixteen years before I even started handling some of the stops. Osmosis. No need to read.”
No need to read? I know he means tour guides, not reading in general, yet it still startles me. There’s never a need to read, there’s just a desire. At least for me. I assumed he’d feel the same way.
But what about when we’re lying on the couch by the fire? Maybe I’m reading aloud to Zane while he gives me a foot massage. Maybe if he doesn’t enjoy reading, he’ll enjoy listening to me read. We don’t both have to love reading.
But I can’t let it go. “So do you like to read just for pleasure?” I say. The path curves beside the water. The waves crash into the rocky shore.
“Read for pleasure?” he says, as though I’ve just mentioned cleaning toilets for fun. “A bit, I guess. Usually non-fiction. War stuff. Facts I’m not sure of, if I have to. How about you?”
I titter. “Yes, I love to read. I get most of my facts from fiction, though.” He cocks his head. “Historical romances, that sort of thing. I do love ones set during war times. The Rose Code and Our Darkest Night are two of my favorites.” He gives me a blank stare, but his green eyes make me lose my train of thought. Whoever said opposites attract really knew what they were talking about.
Francis interrupts us, asking a question about the collection inside the castle, and Zane turns his attention to him.
I fall back beside Charlotte. “How’s that going?” she whispers. I know I’m blushing.
“What?” I say innocently, then remind myself of the big picture. Five days ago, if someone had told me I’d be riding my bike beside Zane, chatting easily about anything and everything, I would have told them to hit me over the head with a book to make sure I wasn’t crazy. This is everything I’ve dreamed of.
The path along the water leads us to a harbor dotted with racing yachts and dinghies, edged with brightly colored beach huts. We park our bikes and Zane unhooks the cooler bag strapped to the back of his bike. A group of people paddle by in kayaks. “It’ll just take a few minutes to set this up, so feel free to roam for a bit. At the word roam I laugh, remembering Taj on the first day, adamant that there would be no roaming. Zane turns and raises an eyebrow; it feels odd to explain to Zane why I’m laughing, and I push the thought away. “Need help?” I say instead.
“Sure,” he says as Violet approaches.
“Nelle and I are just going to take a little stroll down the beach,” Violet says. Zane nods and gives them a wave.
“Nelle and Violet like to walk. They usually walk every day,” Francis says into his recorder. “It reminds them of how they met.” I watch as they hold hands and walk closer to the water’s edge, their laughter carrying in the wind. Maybe Nelle wishes Jenny were around, but maybe it’s also nice for her to have time with Violet. Francis walks over to us. “I used to take my daughter for a picnic on the last day of school,” he says, hands on his hips.
I melt at the thought of Francis and his daughter, the two of them on a pink-and-white-checkered blanket, eating miniature sandwiches. “She’d bring those bubbles to blow. She’d make me run around the beach popping them. She said if the bubble didn’t pop, her wish wouldn’t come true. I’d be racing around like a madman,” he chuckles. “But oh, how I loved it.”
“Francis, that’s so sweet,” I say, so touched that I feel a bit teary.
But his expression changes in an instant. “Sorry, I’m going on and on about me. What can I do to help?” he says to Zane.
Zane points to the cooler. “Want to give me a hand with this?” he asks, and Francis nods, taking a handle on the end of the cooler. Together they carry it to a shaded spot under a large cotoneaster bush, and Zane pulls out several beautiful blue-and-white-checked picnic blankets. Francis and Roshi clear all the debris from the area, making a pile out of the way, under a tree.
“Come with me,” Angus says to Charlotte. “I want to show you something I think you’ll love.”
“Oh?” Charlotte says, then blushes. Her hair is in a tiny ponytail, her lips bare. She looks healthy and youthful.
Sindhi passes me the box of sandwiches, and I imagine I’m having a picnic for two. It’s not that weird. Francis was remembering his time with his daughter. Surely I can block everyone else out and pretend it’s just Zane and me.
After everything’s set, we all sit. Nelle and Violet return, shoes in hand, Nelle brushing off her feet before sitting down on the blanket. Roshi pulls out his crossword. Sindhi shifts a bit closer to him and points at the page. “Fireworks,” she says. Roshi looks like he might explode with joy.
Everyone else is having their own conversations, so it doesn’t seem odd to turn slightly toward Zane. “So you grew up on these tours—what’s your favorite stop?” I ask him.
“Ahh, they’re all great. Just sort of second nature to me, you know, I don’t even really consider them objectively anymore.” He passes around a jug of water and reusable cups. “Sometimes Dad and I will cross paths on the tour in this very spot,” Zane says to me. “We try to time the groups to have picnics here together. It’s nice to make sure we see each other without more than a few days passing. Family’s everything to me.” He pauses. “What about you?” he asks. “What’s been your favorite spot?”
An image of the clear, flat water, the bridge up ahead, gliding along in the punting boat comes to mind. “This island is really cool.” This island is really cool?
Charlotte leans toward me and asks me to pass her a napkin. When she goes back to her conversation, Zane nods. “That your mum?”
“Charlotte?” I shake my head. “No. My uh—my parents passed away.” Really, Geeg? Way to kill the conversation. “Oh, wow,” he says. “I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine. Family is so important to me,” he says again. He takes a bite of sandwich. I swallow his words. Family is so important to me, too, I want to say. It’s not like I chose for Mom and Dad to die.
“Mum and Dad are the life of this company. I don’t know what I’ll do if anything happens to them.” The way he says if strikes me as odd. Like, obviously something will happen to them at some point. Is he in denial?
“How is your mom?” I ask, trying to alter the course of this conversation.
“Mum’s OK,” he says, his eyes meeting mine. “She had a really bad cold and the doctors were worried about pneumonia. But she really gave us a scare. Thanks for asking.”
“It’s nice you stayed.”
“Of course, I could never leave Mum in such a state. I still live with them, and I haven’t gone more than a few days without seeing them, probably my entire life.”
“Oh, come on,” I laugh, because I think he’s joking.
When he gives me a quizzical look, I press my lips together. “Well, obviously you don’t see them when you’re on the tour. That’s ten days right there.”
“I often do the tour with either Mum or Dad. We’re all able to drive and guide, so we can swap roles. And if we’re not together, our tours cross paths a few times.”
“Oh,” I say, realizing that instead of Taj I might have gotten to meet his Mum or Dad on this tour. Even though, strategically, they’d be better off making sure there was a Wilkenson on every tour rather than two on one, the romantic in me thinks it’s sweet he’s so close to his parents.
“So tell me something about you, Gigi,” Zane asks, looking at me intently and smiling.
“Well I . . . own a bookshop,” I say. “It was my parents’, but I took it over.” I stop myself from going into the full story of the shop, the way I already did with Taj. I want this to feel different from that night in Brighton with Taj.
The rest of the group are completely engaged in their own conversations, and it really is like I have Zane all to myself. A romantic picnic on the beach, like something Jack and Mirabelle would do, in Their Finest Hour. I can hardly believe it.
“When they died?” he says softly. I turn back to him. Nod.
“That’s part of the reason why books are my thing. The thing I love most. It’s safe to say I love reading. But I also love listening to audiobooks,” I say pointedly. I can’t help myself. This is what I want to talk about. How he came to narrate Their Finest Hour. Why it’s the only book he’s ever narrated.
Zane nods. “Audiobooks, huh? I’ve listened to a few. And podcasts,” he says. “You ever listen to How I Built This?”
“Um, yeah, a few times.” I don’t want to talk about podcasts. I want to talk about audiobooks. The audiobook.
I remind myself of what Emily said. Just lay the groundwork. That’s all I’m doing. And in that case, things are going pretty great.
Chapter Twenty
Day 5, Thursday, 2 p.m.
West Bay
My skin feels windburned, my body’s tired and my heart is full when we step back on the ferry to leave the Isle of Wight and head back to the mainland. On the bus, after the ferry’s docked in Southampton, Zane slides into the seat beside me like it’s no big deal at all, and I want to turn and take in this moment—this very moment that I’ve plotted out and played out in my mind so many times—but I have zero control over my body. I feel like one of those inflatable stick figures you see blowing in the wind at car dealerships. Totally unpredictable. And then he turns to me, and his knee brushes my bare leg and it’s like a gust of wind bustles right through me. I’m filled with life, floating high into the sky, and it’s the best feeling in the world.
“You weren’t saving this for someone else, were you?” he says, and I manage to gain enough control over my body to eke out a weird sound that’s half laugh, half cough. “Erm, no.”
His leg is still touching mine.
I want to reach out and touch his knee, to run my fingers up his leg, to shimmy close into the crook of his arm. And because I don’t trust myself not to do that, I shove my hands between my legs instead and hold my breath, not wanting to do anything to make him shift farther away.
“Great,” he says, giving me a slow smile.
The sun is high in the sky when we arrive in West Bay, turning the sandy cliffs into mounds of gold. Taj lets us off the bus near a gathering of shops. We pass a fishmonger. The smell is overpowering but not unpleasant.
“Ten years ago,” Zane says, as we make our way toward the beach, “that cliff was a landmark, but now, some of you may recognize it as a prominent setting if you’ve ever watched—”
“Broadchurch,” Jenny interrupts. “This place is Murder ’n’ Makeup gold.” Her hand is still wrapped in gauze, but she waves her free hand around. “I’m off to do the tour.” She spins around. “Mom, do you want to come?”
Nelle puts a hand to her chest. She looks like she’s going to burst with happiness. “I’d love to come with you, Hon.”
“Go where? No one’s going anywhere,” Zane says. Jenny looks at him.
“We’ll see you back at the bus. C’mon.” She grabs Nelle’s hand. Zane looks to me.
“She sort of does this a lot. It’s probably better to just go with it,” I say with a shrug.
“Oh yeah?” he says. “So I should trust you?” His voice goes straight to my core.
I nod. “Yes,” I say.
“Alright.” His eyes are on mine and I’m unable to look away. Eventually, he winks, then turns back to the group. “Alright, let’s keep going.”
“You have to give Jenny credit,” Sindhi says to no one in particular. “For someone who didn’t want to come on this trip, she’s certainly done a lot of extra planning.”
“Would you like to do that tour?” Roshi asks. “You watched that show, too, didn’t you?”
Sindhi looks surprised. “Yes. Remember I tried to get you to watch it? But you didn’t have any interest.”
Roshi nods. “I actually did watch it, a few months ago.”
They slow. I slow. They may only be talking about a show, but this feels important.
“You did?” she says. “But, why?”
“When I booked the trip,” he says. “I knew about this stop on the trip. I thought it might give us something to talk about when we were here.”
Sindhi’s lips are in a hard, straight line. She looks angry. And then I realize, she’s holding something in—her lips the steadfast guard at the gates of her emotions.
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “It’s been so long, Roshi.”
“I know that I was busy with work,” he says sadly. “That I left you with the girls.”
“All the time, Roshi. In strange countries. I had no one. I was so lonely. I was so alone.”
“I’m trying to make it up to you,” Roshi says. “Not just the trip. This won’t end with the trip. This is just the beginning.”
The start of their story.
Sindhi shakes her head. Then nods. “OK,” she says. “OK.”
My phone pings and I move away from Sindhi and Roshi. I updated the group on the bus about the day so far, but now that they’re all caught up, they want even more details.
About to catch crabs.
Jacynthe texts back: Have we taught you nothing about using protection?
Zane clasps his hands together. “Alright, so our tour starts right here.” He waves an arm out toward the harbor, which is stacked with fishing boats and jet boats. “We’re about to engage in one of the longest-standing pastimes in the country—one unique to West Bay.”
“And the reason I asked you to pass along your leftover bacon at breakfast this morning,” Angus says. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a plastic bag of bacon and waves it around.
Sindhi wrinkles her nose. “That’s a terrific example of why I’m a vegetarian.”
“I understand completely,” Zane says with a wink. “You and I can use these.” He pulls a small container out of his pocket and hands her what looks like a plastic Lifesaver. And for the first time in my life I consider joining Team Vegetarian.
“You can take the tour guide off the tour . . .” Taj says as he passes by, trailing off.
“But you can’t take the tour guiding out of the tour guide?” I finish. But if Taj heard me, he doesn’t let on; he just looks both ways then crosses the street to a set of blue-and-white huts selling quick bites like fried fish sticks, ice cream and chocolate fudge. I look away before he reaches the other side.
“The people of West Bay are mad about crabbing,” Zane says. He leads us over to the cement ledge by the harbor’s edge, and I lean over to peer down at the black water at least fifteen feet below. Zane walks over to a wooden hut decorated in union jack flags, hanging baskets dangling from the eaves, and grabs a stack of clear plastic buckets from the pile out front. He hands them out to the group.
“I can almost see myself, a young lad, coming here after church with my folks,” Roshi says.
“What are you talking about?” Sindhi asks, shaking her head. “You never went crabbing or to church.” But her tone is kinder than usual.
“How do you know what I did when I was five?” he teases.
“Because I know everything about you, Roshi,” Sindhi says.
“Ahh, well, I suppose that’s true.” He smiles, then touches the top of her hand.
Angus demonstrates how to tie a small piece of bacon to the end of the string. “Now you toss that into the water and wait for the crabs to come.”
“Why wouldn’t you just use a net?” Sindhi asks.
“That’s part of the art,” Angus says.
“Crabbing is practically a national pastime in these parts,” Francis says into his recorder.
“It’s just for fun, my love,” Roshi says, giving her a kiss on the cheek. She doesn’t pull away.
“This isn’t just about catching crabs, it’s about passing the time,” Angus says. “Enjoying life. Taking things slow. Tradition. Doing.” He ties another piece of bacon to a string then hands it to Charlotte.
“Have you been doing this since you were their size?” I say, nodding to a trio of little kids sitting on the edge between their parents.
“Yep,” Angus says, handing me a string with bacon. I walk over to the edge, where Violet and Charlotte are already seated. Zane sits beside me.
“Does crabbing ever get boring?” Violet says, turning around to Angus, and I think about the bookshop—those days when it’s not busy, when I sink into the slow pace. Seems to me crabbing is like that.
“It is what it is,” Zane answers instead.
“Ten bucks!” I shout and slap my knee, then look around for Taj, but remember he’s not here. Zane stares at me, open-mouthed.
“Cripes, Gigi! You shouldn’t scare people like that, when we’re all teetering on a ledge,” he chides. “This is a calm pastime, remember?” My neck feels hot. I grip the string and swallow.
