Page 57 of Guy's Girl
The group trickled in slowly that morning—Clay first, then Adrian, then Tristan, then Finch. According to Clay, Ginny was up the earliest but left right away to go on a hike. Adrian wonders why she didn’t wait for any of them to accompany her; going alone feels distinctly un-Ginny.
Now the boys sprawl out on the boa constrictor of an L-shaped sofa in the living room. Adrian sits at the angle of the couch, taking long drags from his mug. Finch reads the news on his phone. Clay calls the patisserie down the road. Tristan lies with his head on a pillow, hands behind his head, yelling pastry orders at Clay.
The front door bangs open. Seconds later, a red-faced Ginny emerges into the room, ponytail matted to her sweating neck. Her breath is deep and heavy, the way Adrian’s sounds when he finishes a run over the Brooklyn Bridge.
“Did you just”—Tristan pauses—“go for arun?”
Ginny bends double, hands atop knees. She nods.
Tristan looks aghast. “But... it’s a fuckingmountain, Gin. Sheer uphill and downhill.”
She nods again, eyes never leaving the floor.
“Dude.” Clay sits up, swinging his feet around to set them on the coffee table.
“You’re a psycho,” adds Tristan.
Finch, noticeably, keeps his face buried in his phone.
“Shower,” Ginny coughs out. She stands and limps toward the stairs, leaving the boys to finish the coffee without her.
Tristan’s father’s car is a red five-seat Audi convertible. When he pulls it out of the garage, Ginny feels no surprise or excitement. She feels nothing really, having just eaten four of the pastries he ordered and thrown them all up afterward.
No one was in the kitchen when she found the box. The boys were all off showering, shaving, or otherwise getting ready for the day. She intended to eat only one. Only half of one, actually. But, similar to what happened the night before, the second that chocolate croissant hit her tongue, she couldn’t stop.
She polished off the croissant. Then she moved on to a muffin. Then she cleared away a coffee cake. Only when the final pastry, a sort of cream-filled roll, was gone and the box was empty could she cease chewing. She shut the box, shoved it into the garbage, and ran straight up to her bathroom.
Now all she feels is the cool, even buzz that follows a good purge.
They pile into the car, Clay in shotgun, Ginny squished between Adrian and Finch.
Great.
As the car crunches down the driveway and out the front gate, Ginny shifts closer to Adrian, careful to ensure her thigh doesn’t touch one slice of Finch’s bare skin. She might imagine it, but she thinks that Adrian scoots closer to her, too. Up front, Clay plugs in his phone and puts on something called Friday Beers Tasty Licks playlist. The convertible rolls down a road called Béla király út, passing one gated mansion after another until they round a bend and the houses disappear altogether. They’re left with an openview of Budapest, all the way from one side of the Danube to the other.
Clay whistles.
“The view is even better when you fly in on a helicopter,” Tristan says.
“Shut up, Tristan,” says the rest of the car.
***
During the forty-five-minute drive to town, Finch tries to engage Ginny no less than twelve different times. Ginny deflects each attempt, offering one-word answers, singing along with the music, talking over him, or just ignoring him altogether. She has decided to deal with this situation the mature way: by pretending he doesn’t exist.
As it turns out, the Tasty Licks playlist is quite good. Ginny dances in the back seat—arms above her head, pelvis twisting, air rushing through her fingers. A few times, she even grabs Adrian’s hand and pulls him into the dance. She doesn’t care if Adrian finds it weird. She has nothing to be embarrassed about anymore. She has already endured the greatest humiliation of all.
The drive is gorgeous. Hegyvidék is all curving gravel roads and leafy green trees. The pavement winds through the valley like a snake at the center of the earth.
Soon enough, they reach Buda Castle. Tristan parks the car in the all-day lot, saying they’ll pick it up later, after the pub crawl.
“You mean... when we’re fucking hammered?” Clay asks.
Tristan waves a hand. “If we have to leave it overnight, so be it.”
Ginny and Clay exchange glances, wondering what it must be like to be comfortable leaving such a ridiculously expensive piece of machinery lying around.
Buda Castle is named after the side of the river upon which it sits. As Adrian explains on their way inside, Budapest is divided into two areas: Buda to the west of the river and Pest to the east.To Ginny, it looks less like a castle and more like an enormous library, or perhaps an ornate prison, all grey stone with a long army of windows and greenish neobaroque roofing.
