“Fine,” he said. “Somerset House, though I refuse to pretend to be pleased about it.”
“Good man.” Alcott smiled. Then, he said, “Oops. Looks like you missed a spot.” A cluster of soap suds still clung to Mark’s left thigh, and with a single finger, Alcott reached forward and flicked it off before shutting the curtain and exiting the room.
And thank God for that, Mark thinks now. Brushing soap from his leg was hardly the orgasmic equivalent of a highly skilled hand job (his assumption was that Alcott was highly skilled), but in terms of significance, of implications, it bore the same weight. What would Mark have done if Alcott had simply closed the curtain? If he had simply defended Paul’s awful suggestion, and then left? Mark doesn’t want to think about it, mostly because it’s a ludicrous impossibility. As if he’s capable of so woefully misjudging Alcott’s intentions—or, even less plausibly, his own.
Paul continues to revel in his own misfortune, and Alcott continues to indulge him. Mark finishes his Perrier and smacks his lips. Four steps in front of him, a tourist wearing a plastic backpack takes a selfie with a gold iPhone. Ah, Somerset House. Why does he hate it so much? He supposes it’s for the same reason that he hates places like New York, or Paris, or Venice, or Rome. Places that were once interesting and authentic, but have since forged some pact with Global Tourism to become picturesque caricatures of themselves. Well-lit dollhouses meant to be admired by the Other, instead of occupied by the native. Where else is there to escape to? Berlin, maybe, but that won’t last long; he’s read too many New York Times travel section pieces on the place to believe it has a chance of escape. Scandinavia’s headed for the same vulgar fate, too, he fears. All those Danish and Swedish television shows getting new, American treatments. A girl’s bloated body is found in a misty lake, except this one’s outside Portland, instead of on the outskirts of Copenhagen. It’s only a matter of time before hordes of fat Indianans in search of chunky sweaters do a bit of googling and start booking tickets to Denmark.
“That, Paul, is quite a story.” Alcott wipes a few tears from his eyes. Was Paul’s account of his catastrophe at the clinic really that funny? Had Mark missed something crucial in the initial telling of it? Or, is it possible that Alcott finds Paul genuinely and sincerely charming? Mark stops himself: he’s above jealousy. It’s a pedestrian emotion, one reserved entirely for the na?ve and the insecure.
“Isn’t it?” he says. “I get a kick every time Paul tells it.”
“And I can see why!” Alcott stands. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ve got to run to the loo. But once I’m back, why don’t we stroll around a bit? We’ve still got a few hours before I’ve got to take leave for that dreadful faculty meeting.” He appraises the buildings on each side of him. “It’s been ages since I’ve been to Somerset House. I’d forgotten just how gorgeous the old pile of bricks is.”
Mark says, “I think that’s a lovely idea.”
Alcott trots over to a visitor’s center, and once he’s out of earshot, Mark shifts his chair so he can face Paul.
“Great guy, isn’t he?”
“He is. Very accommodating.”
“And that accent.” Mark leans back, and the front two legs of his chair lift from the ground. “Christ, have you ever heard such a sexy voice?”
Paul’s peeling the label from his bottle of Perrier. He rolls the paper into a tight cylinder and drops it into the bottle.
He says, “Look, I know what you’re doing, all right?”
Mark lets the chair’s front legs drop back to the ground. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on, Mark.”
“Seriously, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“A little subtlety never killed anyone,” Paul says. He stands and gathers the three empty bottles. “That’s all I’m saying.”
Alice
July 2
The customs agent flips through Alice’s passport, first assessing her biographical information and then glancing at her photo. Alice wants to point out that she was ten pounds heavier when the picture was taken, and that she was going through an unfortunate flirtation with bangs, but she keeps her mouth shut. This woman’s seen worse, she tells herself, turning to glance at the line of haggard travelers behind her. She sees worse every day.
The agent examines the rest of the passport, and Alice thinks of her paltry collection of stamps: evidence of travel in exotic places like Canada, and Mexico, and the Bahamas. She clears her throat.
“It’s a new passport. My old one was practically overflowing with stamps,” she lies. “Qatar was my favorite.”
The agent tucks a loose curl of red hair back into her cap.
“Business or pleasure?” she says.
“Pardon?”
“Are you here for business or pleasure?”
Alice considers the question. She rolls her left shoulder back and feels the joint pop in its socket. Behind her she hears the tired, gray discontent of people who’ve spent twelve hours on a plane to wait in a line, a sound that she finds not entirely different than a hospital ward. The same squeaking shoes, the same cavernous halls.
“Well?”
“I’m here for a wedding,” Alice manages.
“So, pleasure.”
“I—”
But the agent’s through with listening. She stamps Alice’s immigration form and her passport, and motions for her to clear the line. Walking down a sterile corridor, she joins a growing trickle of other groggy, red-eyed travelers. This is the part of traveling she hates the most, she thinks, as she adjusts her purse. Not the crowds, exactly, but the stark realization that she’s just like everyone else. She passes a single mother wrangling a pair of screaming toddlers in matching Lacoste polos, and she considers nipping off to the bathroom for a Klonopin before remembering, with crushing devastation, that she’d stupidly packed the pills in her checked bag. On the opposite side of two glass doors she emerges into Heathrow’s international baggage claim, a labyrinthine mess of luggage and indecision against which Alice closes her eyes for a few stabilizing moments. She hears the dull thud of traveling bags and roller suitcases being belched onto conveyer belts; of achingly polite British women announcing flights arriving, flights boarding, flights departing; of people haggling for space in nonexistent lines; of a hundred different voices speaking a hundred different tongues, all homogenized by irritation and annoyance—those wonderful global neutralizers that, like smiles, transcend the binds of language. And then, within it all, her name: