Fortunately for them, none of them are poor.
I have never been poor before. I had everything I needed on Melei, with a private tutor to teach me the hard consonants and neglected vowels of this language. Mama wouldn’t even let me speak Melenese at home. She sent me to classes on the manners and social customs of Albion. My friends got to learn traditional dances from their grandmothers while I was forced to memorize the stiff measures of this country’s music, the stilted, passionless steps to their waltzes.
Sighing, I pull out a paper and, balancing it on top of the library’s mathematics book, compose another letter to Mama, as always writing lies and telling the truth in my head.
Dear Mama,
I hope this letter finds you well. It contains all my love and affection. (It also contains all my questions about how you could ever have loved a man like Professor Miller.)
You asked about where I live. I cannot believe I haven’t mentioned it, but I suppose I’m so used to it now I don’t think of it. The dorms are small and plain, but as a student I don’t need much more. (I cannot afford the dorms. I do not live in them.) The food is dreadful, all heavy meat and sauce. I miss fruit! (I am always hungry; a supper with a strange man was the fullest my stomach has been since I got here.)
As I have mentioned in every letter, my professors are all interesting and I take copious notes during lectures. (If you do not bring up my father, I am certainly not going to offer you information on that louse of a man.) The course work is challenging but I am excelling. (I have to be perfect so they can find no excuse to dock my grades.)
I have delivered Aunt Nani’s package to Jacabo. He was so happy to receive it, and I take tea with him once a week. It is a great comfort to speak Melenese with someone. (I live in the hotel where Jacabo works. He saved me when I realized I could not afford room and board at the school. I work long, hard hours in the evenings to earn a tiny hole of a servant’s room and whatever scraps of food are left over.)
Please give everyone my love and tell them how much I am learning to bring back to the island as a teacher. (I will not fail, and I will use everything I learn here to make Melei better.)
Your affectionate daughter,
Jessamin
A large black bird lands on the bench beside me, brazenly close. “Hello there,” I say as it considers me with flat, yellow eyes. “Where I am from, you’re known as an acawl for that awful noise you make.”
It cocks its head reproachfully.
“No disrespect, Sir Bird. You cannot help your harsh voice any more than these Albens can help their love of ugly words and sounds.”
A boy walks by, not bothering to hide his snicker at the quaint island girl talking to the local wildlife. Sir Bird caws sharply at him. I approve.
“Anyone who shares my distaste for the men of this country can also share my lunch.” I break off the stale heel of my bread, crumble it in my palm, and then toss it onto the bench next to my friend. If birds had eyebrows, I’d swear it was raising them at me. “Spirits bless you, you arrogant little thing. I suppose I wouldn’t eat it if I didn’t have to, either. Good day, Sir Bird.”
Unaware it has been excused, Sir Bird continues to sit and stare until I have to report for my next lecture. Even the birds here are strange.
Two days in a row of the sun breaking through clouds, and while it isn’t anywhere near what a rational person would deem warm, it feels as though the whole city has sighed in relief. Everyone is shedding their outermost layers of clothing to sit outside and soak in the light they can.
I elect to stroll through Haigh Park, a lonely jewel of green adjacent to my school. Humming to myself, I wander a twisting path and play with the lines in the park, tracing imaginary triangles between points and calculating their areas based on estimated lengths.
“Why, Jessamin, are you following me?”
I look up, shocked, to see Finn sitting on a slatted bench ahead of me, his arm draped over the scrolling ironwork along the back. The sun catches in his hair, hat discarded next to him, and I’ve never seen anything quite so lovely as those shades of gold.
I blink rapidly, feeling like I’m coming up for air from the swimming hole behind the village. Speak, Jessamin. “I could ask the same of you, sir.”
“Ah, but I was here first, which makes you the follower and me the followee.”
“Following requires intent, and I can assure you that I have none where you are concerned. Good day.”
I hurry past, my boots kicking up gravel, and pull my most recent letter from Mama out of my bag for something to do. A few seconds later, he appears at my side, matching my determined stride. I read with a scowl, hoping to communicate how busy I am.
“Bad news?”
“No.”
“You seem unhappy with the contents of the letter. What does it say?”
I glance over and my resolve to be distant drifts away. I really am a shallow thing if a handsome face affects me so. “It’s from my mother. She informs me of the minute goings-on of a man she had hoped I would marry.”
“Aren’t you a bit young for matrimony?”
“On Melei, I was an old maid. It’s safer to be married.”
His eyebrows draw closer together. “Safer is an interesting word for marriage. But you did not want to marry this suitor.”
I wave a hand, but he is not Melenese and will not understand that it’s an unspoken gesture for “it doesn’t matter.” “Henry was a friend I tutored. I do not wish to wed him or any other Alben on the island she had her eye on. That’s why I left.”
“So.” His face is solemn, but an amused tone undercuts his voice. “You left your home to avoid being married to an Alben man and came to a country entirely filled with them.”
I’m torn between offense and amusement. Amusement wins, and I laugh at myself. “It made sense at the time.”
“I’m certain it did.”
We walk in silence, and I go back to the letter, waiting for him to bid me good day. He doesn’t. “I’ve never been to this park before.” He swings his cane at the tip of a bush. “It’s rather filled with children, isn’t it?”
As if on cue, a small, round thing runs in front of us, legs flying to keep from falling forward with momentum.
“Charlie! Oy, Charlie, you get back here before I tan your hide!” A harassed nurse runs past us, skirts held in her hands.
“Do you dislike children?” I ask, entertained at the little one’s cleverness in dodging capture attempts.
“I don’t dislike them, nor do I like them. I’ve never understood why one must love children simply because they are children. I don’t love people because they are people; in fact, I rarely like any people at all. If a child is somehow deserving of admiration, I certainly won’t deny it, but why hand it out like candy on Queen’s Day?”
I laugh, surprising him.
“Do you think me terribly cruel, then?”
“Actually, I agree. It is another great fault of mine my mother endeavored to correct. Children in general I’ve never cared for, though individual children I love very much.”
“I knew you had taste. Though your lack of hat is rather shocking.”
“Oh, fie on this country and its inordinate affection for hats. I would sooner love every child alive than I would wear a hat. My head is perfectly covered by my hair.”