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“I’m. Sorry.” I gasp. “Not. Laughing. At. Your. Pants.”
Pants! In her tutorial of British English versus American English, Ms. Foley had informed us that the English call underwear pants and pants trousers, and we should be mindful of announcing anything to do with pants to avoid any embarrassing misunderstandings. She went pink as she explained it.
I am doubled over now. When I manage to sit upright, I see one of the French girls coming back down the aisle. As she edges behind Willem, she rests a hand on his arm; it lingers there for a second. Then she says something in French, before slipping into her seat.
Willem doesn’t even look at her. Instead, he turns back to me. His dark eyes dangle question marks.
“I thought you got off the train.” The admission just slips out on the champagne bubbles of my relief.
Oh, my God. Did I actually say that? The giggles shock right out of me. I’m afraid to look at him. Because if he didn’t want to leave me on the train before, I’ve remedied that now.
I feel the give of the seat as Willem sits down, and when I gather up the courage to peer over at him, I’m surprised to find that he doesn’t look shocked or disgusted. He just has that amused private smile on his face.
He begins to unpack the junk food and pulls a bent baguette out of his backpack. After he’s laid everything out over the trays, he looks right at me. “And why would I get off the train?” he asks at last, his voice light and teasing.
I could make up a lie. Because he forgot something. Or because he realized he needed to get back to Holland after all, and there wasn’t time to tell me. Something ridiculous but less incriminating. But I don’t.
“Because you changed your mind.” I await his disgust, his shock, his pity, but he still looks amused, maybe a little intrigued now too. And I feel this unexpected rush, like I just took a hit of some drug, my own personal truth serum. So I tell him the rest. “But then for a brief minute, I thought maybe this was all some sort of scam and you were going to sell me into sex slavery or something.”
I look at him, wondering if I’ve pushed too far. But he is smiling as he strokes his chin. “How would I do that?” he asks.
“I don’t know. You’d have to make me pass out or something. What’s that stuff they use? Chloroform? They put it on a handkerchief and put up against your nose, and you fall asleep.”
“I think that’s just in movies. Probably easier for me to drug your drink like your friend suspected.”
“But you got me three drinks, one of them unopened.” I hold up the can of Coke. “I don’t drink Coke, by the way.”
“My plan is foiled then.” He exaggerates a sigh. “Too bad. I could get good money for you on the black market.”
“How much do you think I’m worth?” I ask, amazed at how quickly fear has become fodder.
He looks me up and looks me down, appraising me. “Well, it would depend on various factors.”
“Like what?”
“Age. How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
He nods. “Measurements?”
“Five feet four. One hundred and fifteen pounds. I don’t know metric.”
“Any unusual body parts or scars or false limbs?”
“Does that matter?”
“Fetishists. They pay extra.”
“No, no prosthetic limbs or anything.” But then I remember my birthmark, which is ugly, almost like a scar, so I usually keep it hidden under my watch. But there’s something oddly tempting about exposing it, exposing me. So I slide my watch down. “I do have this.”
He takes it in, nodding his head. Then casually asks, “And are you a virgin?”
“Would that make me more or less valuable?”
“It all depends on the market.”
“You seem to know a lot about this.”
