The bomber jacket, p.9
The Bomber Jacket, page 9
“A classmate.”
“I see.” His gaze was still leveled at Iain.
“You wanted to talk to me?” she prompted.
“Yes, yes. Sorry. It’s just, well, I realized that we didn’t make any plans at dinner to visit another of your grandfather’s recommendations. I was wondering if you’d want to take a spin to Stirling and the William Wallace monument, this Saturday?” he asked enthusiastically.
When Beth didn’t reply, he added in a less enthusiastic voice, “It’s on your list.”
Beth’s immediate reaction was delight, but an image of a young man in a leather jacket scrambling out of a bomber on a cold morning got in the way. She said somberly, trying to convince herself, “I do want to visit the places on my grandfather’s list.”
Her uncertainty must have come across to Robbie because he said in a more serious tone, “Yes, and getting you off campus. That’s good for your mental health.” Then he added in a teasing voice, “And having lunch. One has to eat.”
“Yes, one has to,” Beth intoned, wondering at his statement about her mental health and trying to erase the pleasant memories of their recent dinner together. Robbie was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, wearing a puzzled frown. He was clearly confused by her hesitation.
With a sigh, she nodded and said cautiously, “Sure. It’d be very thoughtful of you. But you’ll let me pay for lunch and the admission.”
“I have a membership, so the admission is already free. If you insist, you can pay for your own lunch, but you don’t have to pay for mine. After all, I’m earning money at this institution, and you’re dishing it out.”
Beth’s uncertainty increased at his offhanded reminder of their unequal status. She replied flatly, “You’re right. Look, I have to go. Ah, how about if we meet like we did when we went to Traprain Law.” She started to walk away, but his hand stopped her.
“I was also wondering… well.” To Beth’s surprise, Robbie looked nervous. “Well, how about if we take in a movie Friday night?”
She was speechless. What was this? Saturday was a kind gesture, a ride to a historical site. A movie was a date. “A war documentary?” Beth asked, knowing she was being ridiculous.
Robbie snorted. “No. I like to take one night off from history. A movie. Like made in Hollywood. Not Holyrood.” He laughed at his own joke.
Beth sighed inwardly. So, a date, then. And last week’s dinner wasn’t? A voice taunted her. Yet the thought of another Friday night alone in her room was almost unbearable. Besides, it isn’t a date; he’s only being kind. He’s a professor. He wouldn’t date a student, she shouted back to the objections in her head.
“That’s very nice of you,” she said, voicing some of her thoughts. “It certainly beats spending Friday night in the dorm.”
Robbie looked startled, then laughed ruefully. “Beth, you’re good for me. You constantly bring me down to earth. I’ll meet you in front of the movie theater on Leith Street at half six.”
“Right-oh,” Beth blushed, realizing she had sounded rather rude. “See you then.” She walked back to a frowning Iain who was watching the whole time.
“Who’s that?” Iain asked, watching Robbie stroll toward the exit. “You called him professor?”
“Yes, Professor McLeod. He teaches history. He’s… ah… helping me with… research.”
“Oh, I see.”
Beth didn’t like Iain’s tone. She replied, “Well, I have to go and…”
“Wait, no, I wanted to ask you something.”
Beth tried not to sigh. He probably wanted her study notes.
“I was wondering if you’d want to go out Friday. Get a drink.”
Absent-mindedly, she shook her head. Was she hearing this right? “Out?”
“Yeah. You can tell me about the U.S.; I can tell you about Canada.”
“But you’ve been to America.”
“Only a couple places. Have you been to Canada?”
“No. I haven’t been anywhere. Except Scotland. And London.”
“So, great. We’ll have an educational discussion,” he said innocently at first but spoiled it with a smirk.
Beth snorted, about to say yes just because he was so amusing. She had a sense Iain was majoring in fun, rather than focusing on his courses. Then he added, “Besides, I bet you need to get out more.”
Beth bristled at his insinuation. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just I can tell you’re a serious student. A scholar, my mother would say. What she wishes I was. You’re away from home. It can be lonely. I noticed you kind of keep to yourself.”
Beth was unnerved both by his insight and the fact he had been observing her without her noticing. And how could this be that two guys were asking her out for the same night? This just didn’t happen in her life. She’d only ever dated one guy, Jason, and that was as platonic a relationship as possible.
“I… I… well, I can’t. I mean I have something I’m doing Friday night.”
At his disappointed look, she wavered. Iain had a very appealing nature. Younger, but the first student who made any effort to reach out to her. Hesitantly, she said, “But maybe another night?”
Iain perked up. “Great. Saturday?”
Beth nearly rolled her eyes. “Ah... I’m going on a trip on Saturday and don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Well then, Sunday.”
Sunday was the night she wrote her grandfather at her favorite campus building, the Law and Europa Library which overlooked a cobblestone courtyard surrounded by a quadrangle of medieval-looking stone buildings.
But making excuses for three nights in a row would probably send an “I’m not really interested” signal, and the fact was, she was interested. She could write her grandfather Sunday afternoon.
At her hesitation, Ian asked, “What? You don’t go to bars on Sundays? You’re a religious type?”
“No, no,” Beth couldn’t help laughing at his conclusion. “It’s fine, I can go out Sunday.”
“Whew, I was beginning to think you were giving me the brush-off.”
Beth was startled by the obvious relief in Iain’s voice. She replied, “No, no, really, I’m just… I don’t usually go to pubs. I mean, back in the States, a lot of the college students I hung around with were underage."
Iain looked at her blankly. “Are you opposed to drinking?”
“Ah, no, it’s just I don’t do very much of it.”
“No problem. I’ll show you how. It’s easy to learn.”
Beth shook her head in amusement.
Iain added encouragingly, “You’ll have a great time. I promise. Can I come by your room Sunday night and get you? Are you in Pollock Hall? I am too.”
They made arrangements, and Iain said as he left, “See you Sunday, if not before. Maybe I’ll see you in the dining hall.”
Beth nodded, bemused. She thought it was going to be a typical quiet weekend, and now she had the entire weekend booked. She must be dreaming. That thought brought her up short.
Because she wasn’t dreaming the dreams that mattered.
Three days later the biting February air nibbled at Beth’s cheeks as she made her way through the jostling Friday night crowds on Leith Street.
She spotted Robbie before he saw her. He stood beneath the movie marquee in a tweed golf cap, his heavy woolen pea coat, a tartan scarf, corduroy slacks, and western boots. His beard added to the sophisticated look. She wondered if someone had told him a beard would make him look like a professor, just as someone had once told Abraham Lincoln that growing a beard would make him look more like a president. She thought Robbie looked distinguished, though he’d hate that descriptor. “That’s a word for my father,” she could hear him say.
The rowdy teenagers laughing and pushing at each other in front of the cinema formed a barrier of noise and bodies. She stood curbside, shouting Robbie’s name, but he didn’t hear her. A sense of distance and isolation seeped into her mind, and for a moment she thought of going back to the dorm. What am I doing here in this country so far from my family, meeting a professor, of all things, for a date?
No, it’s not a date, she reminded herself harshly for the umpteenth time. Especially not today. It’s Valentine’s Day. Maybe his sweetheart is too far away to take out tonight.
A sudden feeling of dislocation overcame her. The buzz of the marquee lights filled her head, and a disorienting sensation of moving through time and space jarred her sense of reality. Last night’s dream, the first about Colin in more than a week, reappeared before her eyes.
Colin was away from the airfield, and it was evening. He was surrounded by laughter and raised voices. In a crowd. The people weren’t distinct, but she sensed them. She knew that he was looking for someone. That he was anticipating, yet nervous. A night not unlike tonight. Feelings not unlike hers.
“Beth? Beth!”
Beth blinked. Robbie stood in front of her with a puzzled smile.
“You look like you were a thousand miles away. Didn’t you hear me calling?”
She shook her head gently; any movement intensified the vertigo.
Robbie took her arm, for which she was grateful, and said, “Come on, we’ll miss the opening. I’ve got tickets already. It’s nearly sold out.”
The smell of buttered popcorn on a rush of overheated air made Beth’s stomach rumble loud enough for Robbie to hear.
He chuckled. “Well, something to tide us over a wee bit. How about a snack?”
She nodded. She hadn’t eaten supper. She had spent the afternoon watching an old documentary on World War II in the library’s media center and had rushed to shower and change and hop the student shuttle bus, all while last night’s dream played over and over in her head.
Robbie made his way to the concession stand while Beth stood at the edge of the lobby assessing him dispassionately. He was nice-looking. Not drop-dead handsome, but very easy to look at with brown, thick, wavy hair that he wore long enough to touch the collar of his shirt and his full face with its high cheekbones and fair skin and neatly trimmed beard. She was often tempted to reach up and brush his thick, bushy eyebrows into order.
Then there were his deep brown eyes, curious and bright like a bird’s, even when he put on his reading glasses. His easy smile always brought a response from other people, who seemed to warm instantly to his attentive, friendly manner. He had a self-confident but not arrogant manner, which she appreciated; and she admired his strong, athletic build that she had learned came from his daily morning jogs.
He was not only easy to look at, but also easy to be with. He never made her feel stupid or awkward, even being a world apart in sophistication and experience.
He motioned with his head from across the lobby for her to join him and they went into the theater. Finding it full, they settled in seats down front, surrounded by jabbering teenagers.
“By the way,” she nearly shouted over the noise, “what are we seeing? I assume it’s not an art film with the crowd that’s here tonight.”
Robbie laughed. “I’m sorry. I thought I said. It’s a new release with Pierce Brosnan. An action-adventure, disaster-type movie. Dante’s Peak. I like an escapist movie now and then, and this is set in the States, so I thought you might appreciate it.”
“Who wouldn’t appreciate Pierce Brosnan?” she asked rhetorically, which made Robbie laugh. Disaster movies were not her favorite genre, but she was relieved he hadn’t picked a romantic comedy. That would have been embarrassing on this day set aside for lovers. She munched the heavily buttered popcorn, sipped a Diet Coke, and lost herself in the movie.
As always, Beth sat silently in her seat after the film ended, watching the credits, oblivious to the commotion around her. A touch on her hand startled her and brought her attention to Robbie, who sat looking at her with a bemused expression.
“You really lose yourself in the movie, don’t you?” He said with an undertone of teasing.
She sighed and shrugged. “Well, this movie was diverting. Not like some that I really get lost in. I just like to read the credits. Gives me time to… ah… come back. The same thing happens when I read. I feel like…” She stopped. She sounded odd.
“Like you’re really there,” he ventured.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I’ve always loved stories. My grandpa read to me at bedtime when I was a little tyke.”
“Your grandpa?” he said as they stood. He helped her find her hat and scarf, which had slipped to the floor. “Isn’t that a grandma thing?”
She made a disparaging noise. “Well, maybe it is, but my grandmother isn’t the stereotypical grandmother. Maybe because she had to be more of a mother…” Beth’s voice faded as she turned to follow Robbie out of the theater.
He held the door for her, “Let’s get something to eat. We can go to the Black Bull. It’s nearby. Too chilly to walk much further.”
“I thought you Scots all had ice water in your veins,” she teased.
Robbie hooted at her suggestion, shivering when a blast of cold air hit them. “I despise this sleety rain,” he said, pulling the collar of his coat up around his neck and tucking her arm in the crook of his.
“Showery rain. Sleety rain. I love the way the weathergirl on the radio describes the forecast. Gale force winds in the west. Winds fresh from the east. But brighter in the north with some sunshine as well.”
“That’s amusing, is it?” Robbie asked, smiling.
She nodded. “It’s just so flowery for the weather. Makes it seem so much less harsh.” He chuckled at her description.
The pub was a short walk. Inside it was smoky, dim, and crowded, but deliciously warm and dry. Robbie took Beth’s hand and led her into a far corner where he found two tall stools at a bar table that a group of college-aged boys was just vacating. Beth felt a moment of panic, wondering if Iain might be among them.
“Hey, professor,” one said, giving Beth the once-over. She felt heat rise on her cheeks at his keen interest and disengaged her hand. “Out on the town?”
“Looks like it, Mr. McMaster. Thanks for the table,” Robbie replied, ignoring their obvious curiosity and their attempt to wrangle an introduction. “Better get back to your dorm and prepare for Monday’s lecture. I’ll be sure to call on you.”
“Sure thing, Dr. McLeod,” the boy named McMaster said in a knowing voice.
Beth tried not to look embarrassed. After the young men left, Robbie said, “That’s the problem with a small city like Edinburgh. You run into your students everywhere. It’s hard to have a private life. What do you want to drink?” He was practically shouting to be heard over the din of the crowd and the throbbing rock-and-roll emanating from the nearby jukebox.
Beth never knew what to drink in a bar. Out of desperation, she said, “A rum and coke.”
Robbie nodded and headed to the bar. Beth took off her jacket and looked around. The pub was paneled with dark wood and festooned with brass fixtures. Cigarette smoke hung heavily in the air. Beth wished they would ban smoking in bars. She hated the way her clothes and hair smelled the next morning.
Above the front door was the tavern’s signature Black Bull’s head with flashing red eyes. Black and white photos of rock-and-roll legends covered the walls. Around the corner was an alcove with a pool table and some gaming machines.
As she sat there, Beth again felt the pull of last night’s dream in which Colin had walked into a room from the cold, winter night. The smoky, noisy atmosphere of this room was similar, but the music was all wrong. It should be Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. Music her grandfather played on his record player. Old, scratchy 33s and 78s that Naomi said were rubbish.
Something told her, sitting here in this smoky, crowded, overheated bar, that her grandfather would have been more comfortable out on a Friday night at her age than she was. But if he did hang out at bars in his youth, it was surely before he and Naomi were married, for Beth was unable to imagine her grandmother in a pub or tavern.
By the time Robbie came back with their drinks, her head had begun to ache from the pounding music. To hear anything Robbie said, she had to lean very close to him across the small table, a position that created a heightened sense of intimacy. It sent her pulse into an uncomfortable erratic rhythm and the unexpected reaction gave her pause for thought. She felt oddly breathless and confused.
“I ordered a plate of fish and chips; hope that’s okay with you.” Robbie said, casually dropping his free hand over the one she had laid on the table.
Beth looked up. Robbie's face was only six inches from hers. His nose was slightly crooked. Without thinking, she took her other hand from around her drink, and reached out, gently running her forefinger down the ridge of his nose. His eyes grew intense, the brown of his irises almost black in the dim light.
“I broke it in a biking accident.” He took her raised hand and slid it by his lips, kissing her fingertips with the lightest touch.
Beth sat back with a sudden jerk, pulling her hand away and knocking her drink over.
“I’ll get a towel,” Robbie jumped up. He returned with several napkins. As he mopped up the spill, Beth held her glass up in both hands, her face flame-red. Jason’s words fluttered back to her from a Friday night two years ago.
"Don’t worry; you’re gonna blow some guy away someday. He’ll fall head over heels in love with you.” Robbie? Was this happening?
Robbie didn’t say a word as he took the nearly empty glass from her back to the bar. A few moments later, he returned carrying a creamy-looking drink and a basket of fish and chips.
“There’s a table in the back where they’re playing pool. It’s a little bit quieter. Why don’t you grab my beer and follow me?”
As they settled at a table in a far corner, he said, almost to himself, “You are a strange creature, Susanna Elizabeth Schmidt.” He took a forkful of the crunchy fish. “Careful, it’s hot.”
“I… I didn’t… I wasn’t trying to... flirt,” she said, finally getting the words out, swallowing compulsively as he stared at her intensely, his fork paused on its way to the next bite. She felt stupid as she realized how provocative her gesture had been.
