Whatever Life You Wear by Cecilia Kennedy

Author:Cecilia Kennedy
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55244-329-3
Publisher: Red Deer Press
Published: 2014-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

X

A T O A S T I N O X F O R D

Breakfast in Swindon was a more generous affair (real fruit) than it had been in London, but still no eggs. The boys grumbled about that. The girls grumbled about the gray morning and the possibility of rain. Around them, the few guests who hadn’t already left grumbled, sometimes audibly, about the disrupted night and the behavior of some people. Enough dagger looks were hurled in the direction of his flock of students that Nigel hustled them out to the bus with more energy than usual. He’d given into the pleas of a noisy few who wanted to sleep in for a change, and maybe avoiding the breakfast crowd had been partly why.

Kristen watched the luggage being loaded into the various caverns under the bus. By now she had a fair idea who each of the suitcases belonged to. The only rival in immediate recognition to her pink-bubbles luggage was Lily’s beige with red poppies. Like all things Lily, it walked a fine line between cool and questionable. Was it Zellers or was it Zanzibar? There were many solid colors: Lindsey’s lime green, Devon’s navy blue, Sonnet’s Roots red. But most of the cases were black and, in that sea, Ashley’s leather was the only one without a tie ribbon on the handle for easy identification, because, of course, leather needed none. The ribbons bore scrutiny as well. Mr. Robson and his strip of green garbage bag—that was so “guy.” It was fun to wonder what the variations might mean. Christian: a length of red yarn (my mother tied it on for me?). Sonnet: a floral bow (I’m a girly-girl?). Tim: a piece of white string (I’m just a basic kinda’ guy?).

The only suitcase that fit into no category was Josh’s old-school hard-sided brown suitcase. It looked like something out of the sixties, and the last thing you’d expect a party boy to be dragging around. The only suitcase on the whole bus without wheels and it must weigh a ton. Someone early on suggested he was carrying bottles, but Kristen didn’t think so. Josh seemed to have no difficulty keeping himself supplied.

Maybe, she thought, there’s something sentimental about it. It was the suitcase his dad brought to England when he was a kid. Or his granddad. Something like that.

Boarding the bus today was a low-stress event. They all fell into accustomed seats in accustomed pairs. She and Alan. Sonnet and Christian. Lindsey and Josh, Lily and Devon. Sienna, who she thought would have been one of the first snatched by a guy, seemed quite content to sit with Ashley.

First names only, she realized. All these bonds and ties in the moment, none with any of the strings that connected any single one of them to their real homes, families, siblings, lives outside a bus and series of hotel rooms in England. But then, of course, temporary was part of the traveling life.

Temporary. The thought led to another:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.