Glancing at her watch, Carla saw it was 2:45 p.m. Damn it, she hadn’t replied to Adam’s message, and her decision whether to meet him or not had been taken out of her hands. She could see from his gig list that he was performing elsewhere that evening, so she wouldn’t get to see him again before she left Portugal. She sent him a brief text to apologize and to explain she’d been busy.
Carla noticed she’d placed her damp towel on the bed, and water had bloomed across the corner of the family tree, making the paper translucent. She tutted at herself, gently picked it up and tried to blot it with a tissue. The paper was now so fragile that she placed it inside her travel journal for safekeeping and to allow it to dry flat. As she stroked it with her hand, she noticed some very faint lettering had appeared next to Lars’s name. She couldn’t be totally sure because of the sloping handwriting, but it looked like his surname was Aakster.
Carla promptly looked it up online, discovering it was based on the old Dutch word ekster, which meant “magpie.”
She immediately thought about the birds strutting along Silverpool pier and she scratched the back of her neck. Could they have been some kind of omen or sign, connecting Myrtle’s prediction to the family tree, or was she just being silly?
Carla usually relied on maps, flight times and logistics to inform her where to travel next, but she couldn’t ignore a sensation deep inside her telling her to go to Holland.
Perhaps her journey to trace a mystery man from her past was also about finding out the origins of her family curse, just as she now sensed her own mother had been trying to do.
Without any further consideration, Carla traced one of her exes, Ruben, to the University of Amsterdam and sent him a quick email, asking if he’d like to become reacquainted.
Fifteen
Pancakes
Carla growled when she saw her flight to Amsterdam had been delayed by several hours. Her body sagged and she patrolled the shops and duty-free at the airport, spraying perfumes she wasn’t interested in and browsing the extortionately priced chocolate. If this had happened while she and Tom were traveling, they’d have checked into an executive lounge where they could read posh magazines and eat freshly made guacamole and tortilla chips. It was a stark contrast to her gap year, when she’d curled up on airport floors to sleep, using her sweater as a pillow and hugging her backpack in case anyone tried to steal it.
As a middle measure, she bought coffee and a grilled cheese, and perched on the end of a hard-plastic chair until both food and drink cooled to a consumable temperature. She watched fellow disgruntled passengers huffing and milling around her.
She messaged Ruben to say she’d be late arriving in the city and he replied with a text that made her wilt further.
That is understandable. I will adjust our itinerary accordingly, dear Carla.
A flash of copper-colored hair caught her eye and she watched as a girl wearing hiking boots and a yellow dress strolled past her. Something fell from her backpack, a soft toy, but she didn’t notice and carried on walking. Carla jumped to her feet, leaving her coffee and sandwich on her seat as she picked up the limp fabric rabbit. She hurried after the girl and touched her shoulder. “Hey, you dropped this.”
The girl spun around and they faced each other. At first, Carla thought she was looking at her own reflection. The girl had similar hair and a Roman nose, except she was twenty years younger. Carla could see their resemblance, but she doubted the girl would notice it. She’d probably only see a random mature woman who’d picked up her toy.
“Oh, cheers. I didn’t hear him drop.” The girl kissed the rabbit and stuffed it into her pocket. “He tries to escape from me now and again.” She smiled, turned and walked away.
Carla’s eyes trailed after her, thinking about her own youth and how easily life had since slipped from one year to another, one decade to the next, gathering pace until it felt like a blur. She wanted to shout after the girl, Have fun, be adventurous and don’t get boxed in.
Instead, she sat down on the departure lounge floor, on top of her sweater, and ate her grilled cheese.
Carla had forgotten how pretty Amsterdam was, and her old photos didn’t do it justice. Tidbits about the city’s architectural history started to come back to her—most of which she’d learned from Ruben. She recalled that the merchant’s houses built along the side of the canals were called grachtenpand. They were tall and slender to avoid high taxes in Medieval times, and their bricks were the color of cocoa, terra-cotta and white chocolate. Their gabled roofs were shaped like bells and funnels, or stepped like staircases to historically signify warehousing and trade.
Many had been converted to houses over the years and Carla’s Airbnb took up the entire second floor of a mahogany building with neat white mullioned windows stacked on top of each other. She dropped her luggage there, then set off across the city on foot to meet Ruben.
It was one of those perfect late afternoons, sunny but not too hot, people out and about but not on top of each other. There was a sound of fountains sprinkling and boats chugging along the canals.
During her gap year, Carla’s main focus had been locating good-looking people in the city who knew the best bars and hostels. Now that she was older, she appreciated all the bicycles, the green spaces and tulips, even though she felt a bit motion sick after her flight.
She walked past a woman juggling bean bags and spotted a little bistro that reminded her of the place she and Tom had enjoyed their first date. After connecting through Logical Love, they’d shared texts and a couple of calls, so they already knew a lot about each other before they met.
They’d both ordered ham served with a fried egg and shared a portion of battered onion rings. They’d agreed that chunky chips tasted better than skinny fries.
Their mutual joys had included getting more than one question right on Jeopardy, playing Monopoly (though they both got bored if the game lasted more than one hour), cafés that served breakfast all day and feeding ducks in the park, even if the weather was drizzly. Neither of them could stomach watching horror films and preferred cheesy action movies instead. They’d agreed on the futility of superstitions and would both happily wander under a ladder, unless someone was standing at the top of it.
After they’d left the bistro together, Tom had opened the taxi door for her and placed the belt of her coat across her lap so it didn’t dangle in the rain. This thoughtful act and their high match statistics had made Carla think she could possibly fall in love with him.
She hadn’t witnessed the side of her fiancé that saw him jump on a plane to America at a moment’s notice, or drink with strangers and an ex-girlfriend in late-night bars. If she was honest, she wasn’t sure she liked it. Similarly, Tom had never encountered Carla the Adventurous Traveler, someone she herself hadn’t known still existed.
And now they were in separate cities, on opposite sides of the world. Did inviting another woman to use his bathroom show that Tom was kind, naive or foolish? She was sure she could trust him, but what about Sara?
What about herself?
Carla watched bicycles whizzing around her and paused to read a plaque that said bikes outnumbered cars in the city by four to one. Eighty percent of Amsterdammers owned a bike, traversing the towpaths of the one hundred and sixty-five canals. During her gap year, she’d developed muscles in her legs from cycling that she hadn’t known existed, and her skin had turned nutmeg brown in the sun.
She turned a corner and saw Ruben standing on a bridge waiting for her. He was as lean and angular as she remembered him, reminding her of a wooden toy soldier hanging on a Christmas tree. He now wore round wire glasses that made him look even more intellectual.
When they’d dated, he’d been studying for a master’s degree in sociology, which she’d found clever and sophisticated. He was a few years older than her and had engaged Carla in highbrow discussions on gender, sustainability and diversity. They’d watched so many foreign films together that she’d started to see subtitles when they talked.
She’d loved how Ruben squinted one eye and wrinkled his nose, deep in thought, while he considered her views, making her feel like her opinions were valid and interesting. He’d dissect and analyze her discussion points, challenging her to question her own thoughts. Carla wasn’t quite sure if she ever fancied him physically, but his mind had made her stomach flip.
When he spotted her approaching the bridge, Ruben raised a finger in the air, as if he was in class. “Hoi, Carla. It is very good to see you.” His long limbs moved mechanically toward her, and he pecked her on alternate cheeks three times in a row. “You are looking super healthy. I am delivering lectures tomorrow, so we should utilize our time together prudently. Remember how we once took a bike ride around Amsterdam and I taught you the trading history of the city?”
“Um...” Carla frowned, struggling to recall this.
“You found it most fascinating, so I thought you’d appreciate an updated version.” He set off walking and she had to skip a little to keep up with his stride.
“How long will it take?” she asked, now jogging to catch up with him. “Should we get a coffee together first, to catch up?”
“Perhaps two or three hours. I do not want you to miss out on anything, my dear Carla. I know you are a voracious learner.”
She couldn’t tell if his smile that followed was a bit patronizing or not. When Ruben slowed his pace a little, she was reintroduced to his habit of touching her elbow to steer her in the direction he wanted to go in.
“Do you remember how we spent hours in the Rijksmuseum?” Ruben asked her as they walked. “Do you remember we were asked to leave the Van Gogh Museum because we did not know the closing time? It was very amusing.” His guttural use of the letter g sounded like he was gargling, and he said hoor rather than um to punctuate his sentences.
