“Come on, sweetie, let’s keep walking,” I said, nudging her out of her stupor.
She blinked and nodded. “Thanks.”
“That was close,” I muttered, knowing that if Robin actually went into one of these stores, she’d leave with her credit card sizzling.
Back to her old self, she said, “Would you mind if I take your mom and dad on a ghost tour this week?”
“Oh, they’d love it. You should do it.”
“But you won’t be joining us.”
I shuddered. “No way.”
“I could contact a different tour than the one you used.”
“I don’t even want to think about it.” I would never be able to take a ghost tour again without half expecting Kyle to be one of the ghosts.
We stopped at a corner and Robin looked around. “Where are we going, by the way?”
“Dinner. There’s a good restaurant another block or two from here.”
“Great.” She shoved her hands in her pockets as we maneuvered along the cobblestone sidewalk. Robin’s heels were wobbling over the ancient stones, and she looked almost drunk as she walked. “I was reading about Deacon Brodie’s Tavern. It’s supposed to be good.”
“Sort of touristy,” I said. “It’s back toward the castle a few blocks.”
She turned to look up the street. “Do you want to go there?”
I shook my head and winced. “I made the mistake of reading about it. Brodie was this upstanding citizen-a deacon, as you might’ve figured-who took up burglary at night. So they hanged him-or maybe he escaped. Since this is Scotland, the legends go both ways, depending on the day of the week. But he was supposedly Robert Louis Stevenson’s inspiration for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
“You know way too much history for someone who never liked high school.”
“It’s a curse.”
“Maybe I’ll take your parents there tomorrow.”
“Don’t tell them about the icky Mr. Hyde part.”
“I think they might like that aspect.”
I chuckled. “You’re probably right.”
We passed through the long shadow of the Tron Kirk spire and crossed the High Street.
I’d heard that many people in Scotland considered Glasgow, not Edinburgh, to be the garden spot to visit, because Edinburgh was rife with counterculture, drugs,
AIDS and crime. But the public perception outside Britain was that Edinburgh was the jewel in the crown of the British Isles. In that regard, it reminded me a lot of San Francisco, and maybe that was why I loved it so much. It was the scruffiness around the edges that appealed to me, as well as the fact that, to my mind, the view from every direction was picture-perfect.
I pointed out a cheery, wide-windowed pub with flowerpots hanging from the tops of each of the tall columns. “That’s where we’re going.”
“The Mitre. Looks nice, but what about that place?” She pointed to another pub two doors down.
“Do you really want to eat at a place called Clever Dick’s?”
“Depends,” she said with a grin.
Do I know how to pick a best friend or what?
“I’m stuffed,” Robin groaned as we walked out of the Mitre. “Let’s walk for a while.”
“You didn’t have to order dessert,” I said, as we walked east along the Royal Mile, in the opposite direction of the hotel. It was cold, but the air felt good. The sky was studded with stars and the sidewalks were crowded with people out looking for a good time.
“It’s not every day you get to eat spotted dick.”
“You can say that again,” I said, as we passed the aged, turreted Tolbooth. It had been a wretched prison in the sixteenth century, with public hangings and all that fun stuff, but now it was a museum, with its ten-foot-high fancy clock hanging five stories up above the street. “And I guess you could say the same for tatties and neeps.”
“Oh, my God, don’t remind me. That waitress was trying to terrify me on purpose.”
I laughed at the memory of Robin’s expression when the waitress suggested tatties and neeps on the side, then gave her a break and explained that it was the local name for potatoes and parsnips. We figured she did that to all the tourists. At the end of the meal, Robin asked for the recipe and the chef himself came out to recite it, basically mashed root veggies with a touch of this and that-and tarragon, the secret ingredient.
When Robin invited him to move to San Francisco to cook for her, I knew it was time to leave.
“Look, puppets!” Robin cried, and hurried over to a storefront display of numerous stringed puppets in intricate costumes, all standing and ready to perform. There was a bagpiper, a ballerina, a golfer, three soldiers, all in different uniforms, a harlequin clown and a pirate. Their oversize faces were carved from wood and their cheeks were splotched with bits of red paint-to make them appear happy and healthy, I supposed.
“Kind of creepy, huh?” I said, struggling to keep a steady foot on the wily cobblestones after having shared a bottle of wine with Robin.
“I think they’re pretty,” Robin said.