An American Witch in Edinburgh
Scotland, 2007
If there is no end to Paris, there is no beginning to Edinburgh. Its ramparts reach out from the center at Edinburgh Castle as far as a man can walk in a day, as far as he can roam in a year, as far as light may course beyond the sun; you will not find a wall to separate it from the world. Edinburgh is a free and open country. Nothing can contain it. No badge or definition or family crest, no rule or government or martial law. It is a growing, folding, dividing thing and the moment you try to pin it down, it becomes something else. Did not Heisenberg develop his great principle while having a pint at a street café in Edinburgh? “Ah-ha!” he famously said, as he lifted the glass to his lips. “When I try to take the measure of Edinburgh it changes to become not Edinburgh. But that not Edinburgh is Edinburgh, still. Therefore, I cannot know both Edinburgh and Edinburgh at the same time. This is why,” he reasoned, “when I measure the position of a photon of light, I cannot know its velocity. And when I measure its velocity, I cannot know its position. Beautiful. I will call this phenomenon, let me see, yes, The Edinburgh Principle.” He later swapped the city with his own name to give himself credit. Didn’t he? But no matter. Edinburgh is still and has always been Edinburgh even as it is not Edinburgh, and light in all its velocity and positions will illuminate the stone walls of its castle forever.
Now that I’ve got that bit of romantic exaggeration out of my system, let me tell a story about Edinburgh and an American witch who, like a black cat, happened across my path while I was traveling in Scotland with my old friend, Scott. On our way north to climb Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland, we thought it wise to stop off to see The City that so many people dither on about. I’m not much for cities. At least not in the way former women I’ve nown (biblically) claim to be from the city, of the city, and for the city, and that any wonderful city will do. Oh, you know, the shopping, the restaurants, the museums and galleries, the people watching. It’s all so wonderful to be in a city. Are you kidding, I protest. Cities are dirty and ugly and they smell bad. People pissing in alleyways and sleeping in doorways and eating from dumpsters. Cats and rats and pigeons eating each other, and shitting on everything? Meanwhile the people with money are locked away in little rooms on floors in high buildings afraid to go outside for the pollution and crime and high prices. What’s good about a city?
Then as I stepped off the train in Edinburgh, the weather turned around. Edinburgh, I sighed. It’s not so bad.
So there we were, my pal Scott and I, checking into the Edinburgh Backpackers Hostel, just a short hop from the train station up the winding slope of Cockburn Street leading on to the Royal Mile. The cheaper prices are for larger rooms with more beds, and since this was an adventure, we took two beds in a room with eight. Who knew what we might find there, who we might meet. Aye, there’s the rub. So we shouldered our packs, the signature of the American traveler in Europe, and climbed the stairs looking for the door that fit our key.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Sabrina.”
“Hello,” Scott said, reaching out his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
She had taken on the bottom bunk across from us, and had most of the contents of her two bags spread out over every square inch of the mattress. Long, black hair, a little clumpy and stringy, a pleasant face, warm smile, a little plump, but a nice looking girl all the same, and dressed in long black flowing robes, or a dress, or several massive silky shirts, one piled on top of the other, it was hard to tell. It was the kind of arrangement you find on larger women trying to hide what’s under it, so it seemed, in which you can’t quite be sure if the blouse is part of a dress or the dress is part of a flowy pair of trousers. She seemed a little fantastic, or just over-tired, maybe a little at loose ends. And yet, we both noticed something familiar about her too, something comforting, something down-right homey.
“Where are you from?” Scott asked.
“Portland,” she said.
“What?” I said.
“Oregon?” Scott said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Oregon.”
“We’re from Portland too,” Scott said.
“Or at least we used to be,” I added.
“That’s right,” Scott said. “Went to high school there.”
“What da-ya-know,” she said. “Well, nice to meet you.”
And after other pleasantries, she said, “So, you boys are just out on a little journey?”
“Exactly,” Scott said. “How about you?”
“Yep, same here.” And then, “I’m married,” she offered, “and on this trip I’m traveling alone. My man is back in Portland. He’s a musician. Part of a band. And he’s always traveling with the band. We live very independently, though, but we’re close too. Of course.”
“Of course,” Scott said, thinking of his own marriage.
“But,” she said, and we all heard the drum roll in the background, “I have a license to cuddle.”
A little silence forced its way into the room.
“My husband has given me a license to cuddle,” she said breaking it, knowing we would ask for clarity, but this time she said it as if “a license to cuddle” was an object she brought with her in her luggage, a little doll or wooden box or some other trinket.
“Yeah,” she said. “You know. No sex with other guys of course, or girls for that matter, but it’s OK to cuddle.”
“It’s OK to cuddle,” Scott said, as if she had hypnotized him.
“Right,” she said. “Nothing wrong with a little cuddling, so long as it doesn’t slip over the edge into sex. That’s what we’ve agreed.”
“That’s great,” I said. “Sounds very clear between the two of you.”
“It is, yes,” she said. “And it’s so wonderful to be able to cuddle.”
“And can he cuddle too?” Scott asked.
“Of course he can,” she said. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be fair. But I don’t think he does, not much anyway. Me? I like to cuddle.”
“You like to cuddle,” Scott said, and now I knew she had hypnotized him.
“That’s right,” she said. “I like to cuddle.”
Our conversation turned to other subjects, none of them very interesting after this, until the urge to get out and walk around took over, and Scott suggested we all meet up later for a drink.
“Great idea,” she said. “I bet we’ll see each other back here this afternoon or evening, and then we can go out and find a drink together.
No problem. I’d like that.”
“All right then,” I said. “See you around.”
“But if we don’t meet up boys, don’t worry about me.”
“If we don’t meet up,” Scott said.
“All right,” I said. “We won’t worry over you.”
“See you around, boys,” she said.
Back out in the world, the first order of business was to have a look at the castle. Not the inside—we’d make that tourist commitment in the morning—but the view of the castle from the outside, the featured image of the city. We followed Cockburn Street back the way we had come, and out onto Waverly Bridge spanning the train tracks. Edinburgh Castle rose up in front of us, the site where in just a few weeks the Military Tattoo would kick off the great summer festival.
Staring onto those strange and beautiful stone walls, visions of Braveheart flashing in my head, Sabrina somehow appeared in there too, abracadabra, the shape of her and her flowing clothes, there in the room, speaking to us and her words lingering in the air like a smoke, like a cloud shaped as a camel, like hot breath in the porches of the ear: “I like to cuddle. I like to cuddle. I like to cuddle.” In my mind, Sabrina took on a most pleasing form. Her body and face and hair and lips morphed into my private vision of perfection: Uma Thurman rising from a bivalve as Venus in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,or any number of gorgeous porn stars that none of us have ever seen.
Well, I thought to myself, this isn’t so bad. In fact, who knows, maybe a license to cuddle is good. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe a good long successful marriage is dependent on such non-threatening freedoms, like cuddling, so that neither party feels controlled or owned by the other. Maybe cuddling is a way to relieve sexual tension and whatever other kind of tension, to take a married woman or a married man to the brink of bliss without plunging over, so that the choice to remain monogamous is offered once again, willingly, not by force of law, and then accepted, a husband privately renewing his vows to his wife, and a wife privately renewing her vows to her husband by cuddling. Or, maybe Sabrina and her man were on the rocks, and this is how they were dealing with it?
Not two years ago, I had met Thomas, a “cuddlemaster” from Germany. He facilitated cuddle parties, wherein a group of people in their nightgowns gathered in a neutral space to cuddle. There were certain rules, put forth by the originators, Reid Mihalko and Marcia Baczynski, who claim that cuddle parties are about “compassion, affection, and touch.” They claim it’s a movement, a movement that takes place in those more liberal European countries, and stateside in places like California and Colorado, certainly not Texas. You can read all about it at cuddleparty dot com. Anyway.
“Well look at that,” Scott said. “Jimmy Chung’s.”
We had discovered Jimmy’s Chung’s Chinese Buffet up north in Inverness, and for just a few pounds it was all you can eat Chinese. If we planned our day right, we could catch the tail end of the lunch buffet when the price was at its lowest, stuff ourselves for an hour or so, and that was dinner. It allowed us more money for beer.
“Excellent,” Scott said. “Let’s come back after we walkabout.”
“Let’s do it,” I said.
As I had been thinking about Sabrina, her license to cuddle, her long black hair and long black robes, I said, “You think that’s her real name?”
“No,” Scott said. “I think she made it up. She’s a witch, of course.”
“Just what I was thinking,” I said. “She’s a witch.”
“Yeah, she’s a witch,” he said. “For sure. Black hair. Black clothes. Black cat. Black magic. The whole thing.”
“And there are a lot of witches in Oregon,” I said. “I hardly know what I’m talking about, but you remember that night out in the gorge.”
“I certainly do,” Scott said.
“Jesus,” I said. “That was nearly twenty years ago.”
“No,” Scott said. “That was twenty years ago.”
I meant that fall night back in high school on the east fringe of Portland when Scott and I joined forces with our pal Brad to buy a little beer from the local grocery. The TV news had been reporting for months, well, years really, that some weird shit was going on in our woods. Farmers had been waking up to missing cows, sheep, and goats, and sometimes they found pieces of them scattered in their fields.
People were saying it was black magic, animal sacrifice, ceremonies to the underworld. Whatever. Since Brad worked at the neighborhood grocery, he went ahead and carried twelve 25 oz. cans of Foster’s Lager through the check stand. The checker, who knew Brad of course, asked for his I.D. Brad handed it over, as a line formed behind him. Then the checker said, “Hmm. You must be about seventeen?” Brad nodded that this was true. “OK,” he said, and rang up the sale. So we drove out the Columbia Gorge toward Crown Point with our spoils in the wild abandon of our youth, and thought we’d park somewhere with a view of the great river to the Pacific and drink beer. Three underage dudes drinking imported beer on the rim of one of the greatest rivers in the world. It can’t get much better than that. But an hour dragged on and we discovered a little dirt road that led away into the darkness.
We decided to walk it, down the side of the gorge and through the dark trees occluding all light. We walked and drank, drank and walked, until we came to a little clearing where the moonlight shone through. “Hmm,” Brad said. “What’s this?” We all felt something strange and squishy underfoot. “This might be a dead sheep,” I said. “No,” Scott said. “This is a dead sheep.” Then in the haze of that spooky light we spotted a platform in the trees, a wide table, an altar or something. “What’s that?” Brad said. “Yeah, what’s that?” I said. “That’s an altar or something,” Scott said. “You know. That’s where they killed this dead sheep we’re standing on.” And then we turned and ran like hell. “That was a good night,” Scott said, scanning Edinburgh, plotting our next move.
“Yeah. A good night,” I said. “And we probably just met the chick who sacrificed that sheep.”
“Naw,” Scott said. “She’s Sabrina. The nice witch. Do evil witches like to cuddle?”
“Good point,” I said.
We traveled on, Scott and I, under the shield of our former youth, exploring the streets and shops and pubs of this gorgeous city. At the Writers’ Museum, tucked away in Lady Stair’s Close, we explored little trinkets and papers belonging to Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, and Robert Louis Stevenson. There really wasn’t much to it. A few hand written manuscripts. Some musty books. A pair of spectacles. It’s hard to remember. But I do remember the bliss of Stevenson’s lines, the passages pulled from his travel writing that so stirred me as to return me to the wild energy of that dark night again in the gorge, the exhilaration of running up the steep dirt road through the trees from the terror of black magic, an open can of contraband imported beer in my hand, my friends close beside me, and really doing it, taking it all in, straining at the edge of experience, straining at the edge until our lungs burned and our legs grew woozy from going uphill and we reached the little brown Volkswagen Rabbit, the ship I commanded in those days, as it appeared suddenly out of the night, and we leaped in and drove back down the winding canyon road to the pizza shop in town where our classmates usually gathered, laughing hysterically all the way, to spread the story of our adventure. Well, this is what Stevenson wrote that brought all that back: “. . . to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.” Amen, brother!
The museum was a tribute to Stevenson’s travels, or so that was all I could see, and as Scott and I were on a journey of our own, I thought of it also as a tribute to us. Stevenson’s travels seem to have determined his life, transformed the way he thought, transformed the way he imagined the world, the way he wrote. And so in the close rooms and passageways of the little museum, I claimed the same path for myself, because nothing feels better that knocking about the world in adoration of the faithful, the changing, the fantastic. After that, we took our turn through the National Gallery of Scotland, a slow meander through the paintings. My growing love for all things pastoral alerted me to “Shepherd Boys in the Roman Campagna” by Martinus Rorbye (1835), “The Sheepfold” by Alexander Mann (1905), “Pastoral” by Sir James Guthrie (1885), and finally, “Wandering Shadows” by Peter Graham (1878). The latter painting, oil on canvas, a muscular landscape of the Scottish highlands, looking up a glen against the flowing water of a broad creek. The shoulders of two huge mountains, one bespeckled in sunlight where a side-stream flows into the main, the other, farther off, in the darkness, ringed by misty clouds that swirl and cradle it, an impending storm. The mountain faces are rocky and hard, and in the sunlight a deep fold, like a gyrus in the brain. Below, among the quiet bones of the earth, a few sheep, five all told. Two lying together, sheltered by a monolith, as another looks on. One grazing farther off. And the last, maybe a lamb, lying with its front legs over the edge of a stone. You can see a figure approaching the creek where the waters tumble over a stone obstruction. The shepherd, of course. But then, perhaps the shepherd has gone home, leaving his sheep to the weather. The figure’s left arm is raised up, as if he is fishing. A fisherman, perhaps, among the ewes.
What will he catch in those waters?
Well, we wiled away the rest of the day, ducked into Jimmy Chung’s for our early supper, and then swaggered out drunk on grease and MSG.
“I could use a beer,” Scott said.
“That’s the whole point,” I said.
We found a little place and ordered up two pints. Then another. Maybe one more, and it wasn’t long before the sun was down and the streets darkened and the city whispered its history to the dingle stars. We certainly were not drunk, but we’d had a few, and decided to turn in for the night. Now, here is where the story really begins. We had almost made it to our hostel when we happened by another little place, the Arcade, just across the street and a little down from Fleshmarket Close. It looked inviting. Scott stopped there at the door and hesitated. We were in Scotland after all, and there was no telling when we would travel together again.
“Just one more,” Scott said. “Wha-da-ya-say?”
So I said, “Why not?”
In we went, and no sooner had we come through the door when a voice called out from the mist.
“Hi-ya boys,” Sabrina said.
“Sabrina,” Scott said. “What a surprise!”
Sabrina was under the spell of some great quantity of alcohol and a certain Spaniard upon whose lap she was now sitting. She had only just come up for air, and as we pressed our way to the bar, she went back down fishing for his tongue with hers.
“Goodness,” I said. “Now that’s the way to cuddle.”
“It certainly is,” Scott said, and ordered us a couple of pints.
“You lads know her?” asked a stubby little man to our left. He was balding, wore jeans and a T-shirt, maybe in his late 40s, and looked a couple days out from a shave. Maybe a couple days out from a bath.
“We met only recently,” Scott said.
“So you’re Americans,” he said, hearing Scott’s accent. “So it is.
I’m Jordie,” and he stuck out his hand.
A fellow as friendly as this wants something for sure, especially this time of night in a small pub next to a blitzed American witch sucking face with a Spaniard. We shook hands with him anyway, but noted to keep on our guard.
Our beers came up, and Scott nodded and raised his glass. We made a little toast to nothing as Jordie made a little argument against us.
“Now look,” Jordie said. “You bloody Americans are a belligerent lot. Going into Iraq the way you did. A bloody belligerent lot. And I don’t mean just the invasion. You’ve been going about the world doing it for decades. Decades,” he said again.
“I see,” Scott said.
“You certainly do,” Jordie said. “A belligerent lot, going into Iraq the way you did.”
I wondered if he’d forgotten the violent history of his own country, not just Scotland, and its wars with England and the like, but well, you might remember the British Empire, an Empire based on belligerence and bullying on which once upon a time the sun did never set. Not to mention that it was the British Empire that cobbled together a few disagreeable cultures into the thing called Iraq in the first place. It was not, in the beginning, a country, but rather the British idea of mopping up their mess.
“We’re just here for a pint,” Scott said.
“Well you’re gonna get more than that lads,” Jordie said.
“Which brings me to the truth: the people in Iraq don’t want you there. Anyone can see that. My countrymen don’t want you there either. And my countrymen don’t want to be there themselves. It’s you Americans who got us into this war. You bloody Americans. And it’s that cowboy Bush who muscled Blair into following. That little fop has no stones of his own.”
“Really,” Scott said.
“Really,” Jordie said. “And if we pull out, if the British pull back, you’re fucked,” he said. “You’re fucking fucked. Ya see it tells the world that you done wrong. That you shouldn’t have gone in in the first place. So you need us, see. In fact,” he said, “you need us more than we need you.”
“I see,” Scott said. “We need you more than you need us.”
“That’s right,” Jordie said. “And I’ll tell you another thing—”
Then we heard a sound from Sabrina, whose cuddling had increased in pace and vigor and it seemed she’d tipped slightly over the edge into some kind of preliminary stage of sexual arousal, what with the moaning and all. She was still inside the limits of her licensure, Scott and I agreed, but it was clear that there wasn’t much wiggle room there anymore.
“Fuck me,” Jordie said, his lips all shiny from his beer. “That chick is ripe. She’s really coming on now. Tell you what, fellas. I’m gonna shag her. I’m gonna fuckin’ shag her.”
A redundancy, I thought, for sure.
Sabrina made a little moan again, and then she lifted her head up from the Spaniard’s mouth and hopped off his lap, no worse for wear. She came in-between Scott and me, sorta forced her way in, rubbing up against both of us a little. I could smell her breath. Yep. Really really drunk.
“You boys have a good day?” she asked us.
“I’m gonna shag ‘er,” Jordie said in a dark little whisper. “I’m gonna fuckin’ shag ‘er.”
“I had a really great day,” Sabrina said.
I could feel her hot body against me, and she leaned in a little too close, a little too much, not sensually really, but rather, she needed help standing up.
“Well? Did you?” she said.
“We did,” Scott said. “A very fine day.”
“Ooohhhh,” she said. “That’s nice,” and then stumbled off to the water closet.
“That’s right lads,” Jordie said. “I’m gonna shag ‘er.” And then, “Now where was I?”
“You bloody Americans . . .,” Scott said.
“Right, you bloody Americans need us more than we need you. We don’t need you at all. We don’t give a damn about you. But you need us.”
“OK,” Scott said. “Whatever you say.”
“Bloody Americans” Jordie said.
Now, Scott is a big man, a good six-two carrying 230 pounds. He could squish little Jordie between his fingers. But Jordie seemed not to notice his disadvantage because he was drunk too, and he probably had something else there hidden in his jacket. A sharp blade. A Ruger.357 mag. A wounded heart left over from his mother’s sexual betrayal of his father, which caused him at the tender age of nine to blame himself for their divorce? It was hard to tell.
“I’m gonna shag ‘er,” Jordie said watching Sabrina as she returned from the pissour. “Hi love,” he said to her. “You gonna ride down with me tomorrow like we said?”
“That would be really great,” Sabrina said. “Really great. I don’t wanna have to buy a train ticket, you know. Not a lot of money left. I’d appreciate the ride,” she said.
“That’s right, love,” he said. “You’ll appreciate the ride. Lads,” he said now turning to Scott and me, “I gotta make a delivery down in Manchester tomorrow, and this bitch here is gonna ride down with me.Now that’s how you get things done, lads.”
“Yeah,” Sabrina said. “He’s got to make a drug delivery down there.”
“That’s right love. Got some biz-nuss down there. And you’re gonna ride down with me, aren’t you? Won’t cost you much at all.”
“Oh good,” Sabrina said. “I don’t have much money left.”
“Not much at all,” Jordie said.
Things seemed to be spinning out of control for Sabrina. Here she was, an American witch in Edinburgh with a license to cuddle, drunk off her head, and she had a Spaniard all worked up on the stool over there, and Jordie the drug dealer ready to drag her into Fleshmarket Close and lift up her skirt.
“You on your way back to your room?” Scott asked Sabrina.
“You boys going that way?” she asked.
“We are,” Scott said.
“I’ll walk with you,” she said. “Two nice boys like you.”
“All right, we’ll walk with you,” Scott said.
“Not just yet,” Sabrina said. “Just one more round for me.”
“We’re done here,” Scott said. “We’re headed back to the room.
If you want to come with us, come with us now.”
I appreciated this move in Scott. It was obvious Sabrina needed a little help, and if we could just get her out of that bar, it would probably be better for her in the long run.
“Not just yet,” Sabrina said again, and abracadabra, she somehow slipped away unnoticed, nearly vanished before our very eyes, and when we looked again she was back on top of the Spaniard.
Then Jordie started in again. What else was he to do?
“That’s right lads,” he said. “I’m gonna take that bitch down in Manchester. I’m gonna shag ‘er.”
“Nice talking to you,” Scott said.
“Leaving so soon?” Jordie said.
“That’s right,” Scott said. “You enjoy your evening.”
“Nice talking to you,” Jordie said. “You lads take care out there.
You never know what can happen.”
We turned to go, and we would have coaxed Sabrina down off the saddle, but the bar stool where she had mounted the Spaniard was empty.
Outside in the night air, Scott worried over her safety. “Man,” he said. “She’s gonna end up raped and murdered in some alley somewhere.”
“God,” I said. “Horrible. Maybe we can look around a little for her. She can’t have gone far.”
“Yeah, let’s have look,” Scott said.
Making our way back to the hostel, we cased Jackson’s Close and then Fleshmarket Close as we passed by, but nothing.
“She is a grown woman,” Scott said. “I mean, are we now responsible for her? What if we’d never met her? I mean she is a grown woman. Doesn’t she know what she’s doing?”
“She is,” I agreed. “But of course, she’s drunk. I don’t know, man. I doubt we’ll be able to find her.”
“Right,” Scott said.
At the hostal, we readied for bed, and the four Chinese women sharing the room with us were doing the same. I hopped up onto the top bunk, and Scott sat down on the lower bunk.
“Don’t forget I’m down here,” Scott said. “Don’t be firing off any rounds up there.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
“I sure hope she’s OK,” Scott said.
“Yeah,” I said, looking over at Sabrina’s empty bed.
Scott went across the room to the light switch, and indicated to our four roommates that he wanted to shut out the light. They nodded it was OK, and the room went dark.
And just then, Sabrina walked in. “Hi boys,” she said, seeing me still upright on the upper bunk.
“We’re happy to see you’re all right,” Scott said.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about me,” she said.
“Well, we did,” Scott said.
She came in close, leaning in against the upper bunk where I sat with my legs hanging down. Scott stood there beside her. She was drunk, of course, but it appeared that she could manage it. She leaned in and took up my left foot in her hands, and began to work it over. She pressed my foot in against her chest.
“This,” she said finding a particular pressure point, “is your liver.”
“No,” Scott said. “That’s his foot.”
“Very funny,” she said. “No. It’s his liver,” and she pressed in on the place and it felt really nice.
“I can tell you one thing,” Scott said, exercising his signature humor, “his liver is in better shape than yours.”
“Very funny,” she said, leaning in on my foot, pressing it between her heavy breasts. “Very funny.”
She worked my foot a bit, and I felt so suddenly happy and relaxed. But I resisted.
“We’ve got an early day,” I said. “Right Scott? Off to bed now?”
“Yep, that’s right,” he said.
“All right, boys,” she said. “I’m pretty tired too.”
“I’m sure you are,” I said.
“Yeah and you’re gonna have a headache in the morning,” Scott said.
“Whatever,” she said.
Scott and I settled into bed, and Sabrina went out to the facility, came back, and then settled into bed herself. Our Chinese roommates were either asleep or pretending to be asleep. Who could say, but the room was still, very still, and I was just dropping off, when Sabrina got up wearing her night clothes, some kind of long gown, and came by our bunk. I could see her down there pacing at the foot of the bed in the darkness. She walked in little circles, around and around, back and forth. Around and around. Her pace seemed to quicken, until, she took hold of the end of the bunk and climbed in on top of me. “I just wanna cuddle,” she said.
I have to admit here a certain rise in my interest, as she was a warm and pleasant presence, stretched out fully on top of me, her shapely curves palpable along my body. She sorta worked her way in and pressed in against my pelvis and put her nose against my chest and kissed me.
“What are you doing?” I said, rather lazily.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Just cuddle with me. That’s all I want.”
The Chinese woman closest to us leaped out of bed in terror and hurried over to climb in with one of her friends at the farthest reaches of the room.
“Sabrina,” I said. “We really do have an early morning.”
“I just wanna cuddle,” she said
“I know but I’ve got to get some sleep.”
“I just wanna cuddle,” she said again.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I do have to get some sleep, and this is a very public room.”
“Oh, gosh, oh god,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I hope I haven’t offended you.”
“Oh, no, no,” I said. “No.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“No, don’t worry about it,” I said.
“Oh gosh,” she said, and hurried down over the end of the bed and went out of the room.
A little silence filled in the space behind her. Scott took hold of the edge of the upper bunk and pulled himself up just as I leaned over and our faces met in the darkness. “You’re killing me, bro,” he said.
And then, just as you expected, “Can I come and cuddle with you?”
And we laughed and laughed.
When Sabrina returned to her bed, I do not know, for I must have been fast asleep. And in the morning, Scott and I rose early and made our way out into the city. Sabrina was there in her bed now, sleeping heavily, re-establishing the balance of the four humors, and it was doubtful that we would ever see her again. We walked up to the head of the Royal Mile where you could get an early coffee at the corner shop—yeah, Starbucks, what else—and sitting there together with those lovely morning lattes, the Edinburghness of Edinburgh spread out before us, and a world of possibility opened with the rising sun.
I said to Scott, “I wonder what’s going to happen next?”
“I do too,” he said. “I do too.”