13 Little Blue Envelopes(44)

Love,

Your Runaway Aunt





Charlie and the Apple

Amsterdam was damp.

For a start, the central train station was smack in the middle of some kind of inlet and surrounded by water, which seemed to Ginny like somewhere a train station shouldn’t be. A canal even separated it from the busy main road that curved past. Ginny made her way over this. From there, countless tiny bridges spanned the canals that spidered out and cut through every street.

Plus, it was raining—a slow, steady drizzle that she could barely see but that soaked her through in minutes.

Paris had been wide, with big, white, wedding-cake-perfect buildings and palaces and things that looked just like palaces even thought they probably weren’t. Amsterdam looked like a little village in comparison. Everything was red brick or stone and low to the ground. And the place was swarming—it was a hive. Backpackers, bicyclists, people, streetcars, boats . . . all making their way through the mist.

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Westerstraat wasn’t far from the train station. (This was according to the free map she had just picked up in the train station. The rules said she couldn’t bring one but nothing about getting one when she was there. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized this before.) To her amazement, she found the address with little difficulty. (This was what having a map could do.) The house was one of a row of houses on a canal, with huge front windows and no shades or curtains to hide what was going on inside. Three little pug dogs chased each other around the floor, and she could see massive abstract oil paintings hanging on the walls, a room full of overstuffed furniture and thick rugs, and cups of coffee on a low table. Hopefully this meant Charlie was home, because if Charlie was home, she would soon be warm and dry.

As she knocked on the door, she could almost feel the

change of clothes. Socks first, then maybe pants. Her shirt was still somewhat dry under her fleece.

A young Japanese man answered the door when she

knocked and said something in Dutch.

“Sorry,” she said slowly. “English?”

“I’m American,” he answered, smiling. “What can I do for you?”

“Are you Charlie?”

“No. I’m Thomas.”

“I’m looking for Charlie,” she said. “Is he home?”

“Home?”

Ginny checked the address on the letter again, then looked at the number above the door. They matched. But just to be certain, she held the paper over to Thomas.

“Is this here?” she asked.

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“That’s the right address, but nobody named Charlie lives here.”

Ginny wasn’t quite sure how to process this information.

She stood dumbly in the doorway.

“We just moved in last month,” he said. “Maybe Charlie was here before?”

“Right.” Ginny nodded. “Well, thanks.”

“Sorry.”

“Oh, no.” She did a quick check of her face to make sure she didn’t look like she was going to burst into tears. “It’s not a problem.” Few things Ginny had ever experienced seemed gloomier than slogging back alone from Westerstraat with no particular destination in mind, in what was rapidly becoming actual rainfall. The gray sky seemed to hang about two feet over the tops of the low buildings, and every time she swerved to avoid one bike, another seemed to take aim for her. Her pack grew heavier from the soaking, and little

rivulets were running down her face and over her eyes. Soon she was so wet that it ceased to matter. She would never be dry again. This was permanent.

The point of being here in Amsterdam appeared to have just slipped away, aside from a short trip to a museum. Whatever wisdom that Charlie was supposed to impart was gone.

There was no shortage of hostels in the area around the station.

They were all a little sketchy looking, with signs that looked more like they were for skateboard shops than places to stay.

She tried a few, but they were all full. Finally, she went into one called The Apple.

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The front of The Apple was a small café. There were several old sofas, along with lawn decorations—plaster cupids, bird-baths filled with hard candy, pink flamingos. There was a reggae album playing, and the sweet tang of cheap incense hung in the air. A bright stripe of green, yellow, and orange—the colors of the Jamaican flag—ran along the wall, along with several posters of Bob Marley hung at odd angles.

It was like living in a stoner’s locker.

This café also served as a front desk. They did have room, as long as Ginny was willing to pay for two nights up front.

“Room fourteen,” the guy said, scrawling something on an

index card. “Third floor.”

Ginny had never seen a set of stairs this steep in her life—

and there were about a million of them. She was completely out of breath by the time she reached her floor, which was only three stories up. The room numbers were each inside pictures of pot leaves painted on the doors. It was only when she was standing in front of room fourteen that she realized that she hadn’t been given a key. She soon knew why—the door had no lock.

What hit Ginny first was the powerful smell of mildew and the uneasy knowledge that if she touched the carpet, it would probably feel damp. There were way too many beds in the room, each covered with a plastic overlay. A girl was standing at one of these, hastily shoving stuff into her bag. She pulled it onto her back and made her way quickly to the door.