Page 22 of Scotlander

Snippets of their conversation hung in the air like wish lists.

Men in kilts who did housekeeping.

Men in kilts who were strippers.

Men in kilts who would defend your honour no matter how vile the enemy.

There were many fantasies about men in kilts.

One of whom was sitting among them. Baltimore Jeff, who gave a detailed explanation about his kilt’s warrior tartan (of the McSnood clan), was married to Arizona Rosa. They were late forty-somethings who lived in Tucson, which, they announced with pride, had an excellent selection of burrito bars and about a dozen of Rosa’s nieces and nephews. At the apex of his career as a structural engineer (‘Jeff can put his hands to anything and come up with magic!’) and hers as a glassblower, they devoted their out-of-work hours to their passions in the following order:

1) Their shared tantric sex needs

2) Renaissance faires

3) Outlander

They’d married late, ‘missed the children boat’, but had found one another. Soulmates brought together at the Sherwood Forest Faire in Texas. Rosa had been fleeing a group of masked bandits when Jeff had scooped her up on to the back of his horse as if she’d been made of air ‘and that was that’. He was, to this day, her knight in shining armour.

Jennifer and Jules Brookland were a mother-daughter pair from the south coast of England. Jennifer looked, in her own words, ‘completely mumsy despite Jules’s many attempts to do something hip’ with her but was hoping this trip would give her some inspiration. Jules had a unicorn-coloured mane of hair, was a loud and proud lesbian but open to pansexuality, and had studied medieval history at Bristol. They were the best of friends, superfans of both the Outlander books and the show, and had been saving all year for this – Jennifer from her job at a local Tesco and Jules from her job as an assistant outreach officer at a bakery founded and run by women who’d been through the prison system (and, no, Jules had not been arrested unless you counted the numerous Extinction Rebellion marches when she’d been corralled into police vans to clear the streets). They both wrote fan fiction and were beside themselves with excitement.

Then there was Fenella O’Callahan and ChiChi Orakwe, friends from an online Outlander study group who’d met in real life for the first time at Glasgow airport.

ChiChi was originally from Nigeria but had relocated to England to study first at Oxford and then at Cambridge. She was in the throes of completing a PhD in astrophysics.

‘What’s your thesis?’ asked Jeff, completely enthralled.

‘Time travel?’ Rosa asked, dropping a wink to the group.

‘In a way,’ ChiChi replied. ‘I’m looking at supersymmetry and its relationship to observation. I’ve been focusing on the constraints imposed on dark matter and statistical issues.’

‘I can help you make that short and sweet,’ quipped Jules with a laugh.

‘How do you mean?’ ChiChi asked in her lovely lilting accent.

Jules clapped her hands together, then placed them on the tops of her thighs. ‘Well, how about this?’ She changed her voice to sound lofty. ‘For centuries men have gathered the statistics and as such, they are men-centric. Ergo . . . skewed. Ergo? Wrong. The end.’ She grinned at the group and they all, including ChiChi laughed, saying she’d save a fortune on printer ink if she chose that approach.

Fenella was Australian born and bred to ‘an Aussie-Irish dad and Thai mum’. She’d grown up on her dad’s family’s cattle station ‘back in the ass-end of nowhere’. She said her goal was to leave Balcraigie with a ring on her finger. ‘I plan on taking advantage of Gretna Green’s loose marital laws.’

‘Outrageously exploitative laws, you mean,’ said Jules with a huff. ‘What sort of heathen country passes a law saying it’s okay to marry twelve-year-old girls? Oh, wait – would that be a country with men in charge?’

ChiChi raised her hand. ‘Actually, I think you’ll find underage marriage is still prevalent in a number—’ she began just as Jennifer launched into a detailed explanation about how the law in Scotland had changed some time ago and, if Fenella was serious, she’d have to register an intent to wed straight away because Scotland required fifteen days’ notice. To which Jules, horrified, asked, ‘Mum? Why would you know something like that?’

Jennifer said nothing more on the matter.

‘And what about you, honey?’ Rosa cut in before the awkward silence grew too long. She gave Willa a little pat on the knee. ‘What brings you to Scotland?’

This was the part of these getting-to-know-you sessions that always sent Willa into a panic. She didn’t like people to know things about her. Not because she had a collection of skeletons waiting to tumble out of the closet or anything, it was more . . . at twenty-nine years of age, she still wasn’t a hundred per cent sure who she was. In LA no one cared, they just wanted to know what you did, so . . . up until now she was what she did: an entertainment news producer. But here, far away from the studios and junkets and floodlights criss-crossing the sky at yet another premiere, she found it impossible to describe herself.

One solitary word fell into her head with a thunk.

Lost.

It was a start. But how else to describe herself? Shameless? She’d already flashed this group her boobs, nearly killed her maybe/maybe not lawfully intended and acted like a show-off with her subdural haematomas after Finn had unwittingly flicked her please-don’t-talk-down-to-me switches.

She definitely wasn’t going to admit she was here because of her and Val’s ongoing feud about whether or not being an Outlander superfan was a waste of valuable time. Now, more than ever, Willa wished she could pull the spent calendar pages out of the trash so they could boxset binge together. Something, anything, to get back those precious hours she should have spent with Val. She’d never get a do-over for that decision and, frankly, deserved the shame that came with it.

‘Well . . . erm,’ she stuttered, glancing up at the front of the vehicle where Gabe was still asleep. To her surprise, Finn’s eyes were flicking up to the rear-view mirror as if he too wanted to hear why she was here.