“It’s not that bad,” she snaps. Dares him to complain.
“Yes it is,” he says. “It really truly is that bad.” He takes a sip of his tea. “And the milk has gone off, too.”
He seems so astonished at this that she can’t help it. She bursts out laughing. This astonishes him, too. And just like that, they aren’t fighting anymore. They spend the rest of the day feeding ducks at the frozen pond, going in and out of horror movies, action movies, cartoons—all the movies except the romantic comedies, because why rub salt in the wound?—at the cinema. He doesn’t try to hold her hand. She tries not to imagine that it is snowing outside, that it is Fenny sitting in the flickering darkness here beside her. Imagining this is against the rules.
* * *
Miranda finishes out the term. Packs up what she wants to take with her, boxes up the rest. Sells her sewing machine. Leaves a note for her aunt. Never mind what’s in it.
She knows she should be more grateful. Her aunt has kept her fed, kept her clothed, given her bed and board. Never hit her. Never, really, been unkind. But Miranda is so very, very tired of being grateful to people.
She is sticky, smelly, and punch-drunk with jetlag when her flight arrives in Phuket. Stays the night in a hostel and then sets off. She’s read about how this is supposed to go. What you can bring, how long you can stay, how you should behave. All the rules.
But, in the end, she doesn’t see Joannie. It isn’t allowed. It isn’t clear why. Is her mother there? They tell her yes. Is she still alive? Yes. Can Miranda see her? No. Not possible today. Come back.
Miranda comes back three times. Each time she is sent away. The consul can’t help. On her second visit, she speaks to a young woman named Dinda, who comes and spends time with the prisoners when they are in the infirmary. Dinda says that she’s sat with Joannie two or three times. That Miranda’s mother never says much. It’s been over six months since her mother wrote to either Elspeth or to Miranda.
The third time she is sent away, Miranda buys a plane ticket to Japan. She spends the next four months there, teaching English in Kyoto. Going to museums. Looking at kimonos at the flea markets at the temples.
She sends postcards to Elspeth, to Daniel. To her mother. She even sends one to her aunt. And two days before Christmas, Miranda flies home.
On the plane, she falls asleep and dreams that it’s snowing. She’s with Joannie in a cell in the prison in Phuket. Her mother tells Miranda that she loves her. She tells her that her sentence has been commuted. She tells her that if Miranda’s good and follows the rules very carefully, she’ll be home by Christmas.
* * *
She has a plan this year. The plan is that it will snow on Christmas. Never mind what the forecast says. It will snow. She will find Fenny. And she won’t leave his side. Never mind what the rules say.
Daniel is going to St. Andrews next year. His girlfriend’s name is Lillian. Elspeth is on her best behavior. Miranda is, too. She tells various Honeywells amusing stories about her students, the deer at the temples, and the girl who played the flute for them.
Elspeth is getting old. She’s still the most beautiful woman Miranda has ever seen, but she’s in her sixties now. Any day she’ll be given a knighthood and never be scandalous again.
Lillian is a nice person. She tells Miranda that she likes Miranda’s dress. She flirts with the most decrepit of the Honeywells, helps set the table. Daniel watches everything that she does as if all of it is brand new, as if Lillian has invented compliments, flirting, as if there were no such thing as water glasses and table linens before Lillian discovered them. Oh newfound land.
Despite all this, Miranda thinks she could be fond of Lillian. She’s smart. Likes maths. Actually, truly, really seems to like Miranda’s dress, which, let’s admit it, is meant as an act of war. Miranda is not into pretty at the moment. She’s into armor, weaponry, abrasiveness, discomfort—hers and other peoples’. The dress is leather, punk, studded with spikes, buckles, metal cuffs, chain looped round and around. Whenever she sits down, she has to be careful not to gash, impale, or skewer the furniture. Hugging is completely out of the question.
* * *
Lillian wants a tour, so after dinner and the first round of cocktails, Miranda and Daniel take her all through Honeywell Hall, the parts that are kept up and the parts that are falling into shadow. They end up in one of the attics, digging through Elspeth’s trunks of costumes. They make Lillian try on cheesecloth dresses, hand-beaded fairy wings, ancient, cakey stage makeup. Take selfies. Daniel reads old mail from fans, pulls out old photos of Elspeth and Joannie, backstage. Here’s Joannie perched on a giant urn. Joannie, her mouth full of pins. Joannie, at a first-night party, drunk and laughing and young. It should hurt to look at these pictures. Shouldn’t it?
“Do you think it will snow?” Lillian says. “I want snow for Christmas.”
Daniel says, “Snowed last Christmas. Shouldn’t expect that it will, this year. Too warm.”
Not even trying to sound casual about it, Miranda says, “It’s going to snow. It has to snow. And if it doesn’t snow, then we’re going to do something about it. We’ll make it snow.”
She feels quite gratified when Lillian looks at her as if Miranda is insane, possibly dangerous. Well, the dress should have told her that.
“My present this year,” Miranda says, “is going to be snow. Call me the Snow Queen. Come and see.”
Her suitcases—her special equipment—barely fit into the Tiger. Elspeth didn’t say a word, just raised an eyebrow. Most of it is still in the carriage house.
Daniel is game when she explains. Lillian is either game, or pretending to be. There are long, gauzy swathes of white cloth to weave through tree branches, to tack down to the ground. There are long strings of glass and crystal and silver ornaments. Handcut lace snowflakes caught in netting. The pièce de résistance is the Snowboy Stage Whisper Fake Snow Machine with its fifty-foot extending hose reel. Miranda’s got bags and bags of fake snow. Over an hour’s worth of the best quality fake snow money can buy, according to the guy who rented her the Snowboy.
It’s nearly midnight by the time they have everything arranged to Miranda’s satisfaction. She goes inside and turns on the Hall’s floodlights, then turns on the snow machine. A fine, glittering snow begins. Lillian kisses Daniel lingeringly. A fine romance.