Chapter 4 #2
Except as I watch her, all I can see is Jude.
While Sasha chats about how her travel-agent sister booked their flights and a whole Christmas itinerary throughout the Scotland Highlands over the holidays, her arms gesticulate elaborately the way they always do when she starts talking.
And my mind goes straight back to my best friend.
The truth is, I miss him so badly that sometimes I stare at his name on my phone, my thumbs hovering over the messages he sent when I first got here.
He’s given up on me responding the way I used to though.
My last message from him was from a month ago, when he asked without preamble or niceties if I was coming home for Christmas.
When I told him I was staying in London, he didn’t say anything else.
I’ve read the message a thousand times, as if looking at it might change it.
The only time I find out about what’s going on with him now is during my weekly video chats with Cap. The calls were my promise to my favorite little guy when we said goodbye.
Cap’s grown so much over the past year; I swear, he’s a different boy each time I see him. Jude never joins us on the chats, though sometimes he’ll walk by in the background, or Cap will talk to him off-screen.
Each time feels like a tiny cut.
But things are better like this. Maybe, after Jude’s happily settled down with Cap’s mom—or if that doesn’t work out, some other perfect, beautiful woman with a vibrant personality to match his—maybe then we could be friends again. Nothing like we were of course, but maybe more than this.
But it sounds like things with Cap’s mom might actually be happening. At least back in the summer they did.
“She came to our house for dinner!” Cap had told me excitedly back in July.
“Oh!” I’d said, smiling, hoping it looked as bright as I was trying to make it. “That’s great, Cap!” It was what I wanted, after all.
“We went on a walk together after, and tomorrow I’m going to Aunt Chelsea’s house so they can go have a grown-up dinner.”
My heart ached. I’d smiled and repeated how great that was. Like an unfeeling robot.
Only I wasn’t unfeeling. I was dying inside.
That’s when I knew I wasn’t over Jude.
My vow, over my second half of the program next year, is to cut back on those calls with Cap, too.
It feels like death to think of it, but I know I’m standing in the way of Cap building a relationship with his mom, even from way over here.
He should be sharing his excitement about life with her, not me.
It’s fine—the archival program intensifies next year, and I’ll need to spend all my time studying.
Like I’m trying to do now.
“Nora?” Sasha’s leaning forward, her brows quirked.
I blink, realizing I haven’t retained any of what she’s just said. Shit.
“Nora, were you even listening? I told my brother you’d be there!”
“Sasha!”
“Don’t worry, it’s not Sam.”
Sam’s the Wall Street shark. Her other brother is much more subdued. A finish carpenter apparently. Handsome, of course. He sounds great, but I do not need to be set up with him. Or anyone.
“No pressure, but he’s arriving the day before with my parents anyway, and since you don’t seem to be into any of the English guys I’ve been throwing your way, you’re available. Just for a fling.”
I push my glasses up my nose, exasperated. Finally, I sigh. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”
“Nope.”
I let out a long breath.
London Nora takes risks, remember?
“Okay. I’ll come to the party for a few minutes. But no matchmaking!”
Sasha squeals, then throws her arms around me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! Also, I didn’t really hear that last part.”
I gasp.
“But don’t worry, he’ll be absolutely drawn to you without interference from me. You’re just his type.”
My stomach turns, though I smile, if only because she’s happy.
But what about me and my type? Is he tall and blond and silly and fun?
After firming up details, Sasha walks backward, blowing me kisses.
“Watch the water!” I call after her.
Sasha laughs, then backs smack into the stodgy librarian, who lets out a whoosh of astonished breath.
“Young lady!” he exclaims.
“Don’t worry,” Sasha says in her sweetest voice. “I’m the problem, and I’m leaving.”
The librarian scrunches up his nose, but finally stands aside with a warning look at me as Sasha disappears around the corner.
I smile as I take a moment to stretch my legs. But instead of heading back to the desk, I stand there a moment, realizing I’m next to the tiny section of “juvenile texts.”
The closest thing this library has to a children’s section.
“You’re really moving away?” Cap had managed to squeak out the last day I saw him in person. We were in Jude’s car, on our way to the airport after Jude told me he’d sent my taxi away.
I’d reached back with my throat thick with tears and held his hand. “It’s not forever,” I promised. “Just two years.”
Of course, there was the possibility of a post-doc certificate, and work in London too. But I didn’t need to tack anything onto two years. To a six-year-old, two years was an eternity.
This is what you want. You need to spread your wings.
With the sound of planes roaring and airport announcements echoing in the icy wind around us and Cap rolling my suitcase back and forth up the sidewalk, Jude had turned to me, his expression serious.
I thought he was going to talk about the kiss.
That it was an accident. Or it was no big deal, and he didn’t care.
But he just shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat and said, “Are you sure this is what you want to do? This archival thing?”
I’d blinked. “Of course, it’s what I want.” It was. It was perfect for me, and it meshed my hobby of documenting things on film with my librarian skills.
More importantly, it was a nice surgical removal of me from their lives.
Then I realized what he was really asking me. If leaving him was what I wanted.
To that question, I didn’t have an answer. So as usual, I said nothing, just fiddled with my camera, which I hadn’t turned on at all. I didn’t want to preserve the pain of that day.
Jude had studied me for a moment, then pressed his lips together. “Okay.”
Normally, I’d have told him that okay didn’t sound okay. I would have poked at him, demanding he tell me what he was really thinking.
But I knew what he was thinking. He knew my story, how I set my expectations low, and ducked and covered when things got hard. He was shocked to see me sticking my neck out and doing something risky.
“You’ll thank me once I’m an archivist,” I’d said, as if that was really the question at hand. “I’ll be way better equipped to actually solve this hotel ghost mystery.”
The ghost story—less so a story of haunting than a cold case over a hundred years old—was what had brought us together.
Jude had come into the library with Cap and had casually mentioned how he wondered if there were any books or articles about a woman called Eleanor Cleary.
Though I’d been sweaty-palmed at having to talk to the Jude Kelly, I’d immediately perked up.
The hundred-year-old murder at the Rolling Hills was a local legend.
Her husband George Cleary—a cruel oil baron with a bad business reputation and apparently a woman in every port—had discovered her body. But the killer was never found.
Over the weeks, as Jude kept returning, I’d learned that he and his siblings had not only found Eleanor’s room walled-up in the hotel’s closed-off east wing, but that they’d found a secret diary kept by George Cleary’s driver hidden in the grate.
Jude and I started our friendship researching everything we could about George, Eleanor, and the mysterious driver, identified only as JEQ in the diary.
But research had turned into park dates with his adorable son, and hangouts at his place. Then movie nights and long phone calls and daily texting. We still talked about the cold case, but we talked about everything else too.
We’d become friends.
It had never become more than that, simply because Jude was way out of my league.
Our ghost-hunting had eventually led us to finding a cache of papers buried by the resort’s golf course, where JEQ confessed his private love for Eleanor.
The last pages in that diary ended with mention of both of them accompanying George on a year-long trip to Switzerland. Jude and I were convinced that was where the affair had started, and if we could prove George had discovered their affair—it would be clear George had the motive for murder.
Only we never talked about what we’d do once we found proof of all this—I don’t think either of us thought we’d really bring this story to its conclusion.
Jude always talked about following the trail to Europe, but by then I’d already felt like I couldn’t see the point. Finding those papers had broken my heart.
In truth, they were the catalyst for me applying for this program. I knew what it was like to love someone from afar. And I didn’t want to know more, because Jude’s and my story wouldn’t lead to what my heart cried for. Jude and I are just friends.
And we aren’t even that anymore.
I pull my cap down hard on my head, turning from the scant assortment of children’s books. This party will be good for me. Maybe Sasha’s brother will be wonderful. Maybe I’ll fall in love with someone new.
“Dad!”
I was on my way back to the study table, but now I freeze at the sound of the child’s voice, loud for the library.
“Shh!” the parent gently shushes. “You can’t yell in the library, remember?”
I smile. Yes, it’s the books I miss from the children’s library, but mostly it’s the kids.
Mostly, it’s Cap.
The tourists must have wandered into this section of the library.
I’ll get my chance to tell them about the children’s books, after all.
They’re so close to them. I turn around and begin walking down the long aisle adjacent to the shorter rows.
They’re somewhere in here; I can hear whispering now.
I smile, my chest light. But as I get closer, I can make out their words.
“Dad, she has to be here. The guy said she always goes to the library on Friday nights.”
I go completely still. There’s something about the tone of that child’s voice; the cadence of their words.
No, it’s impossible.
I take a tentative step, then another. But when I hear the rustle of rain clothes, I chicken out and duck into the row beside me.
It could be anyone. There are lots of American tourists in London. Thousands, at any given time.
But how many come to the archive library? And stick around after the librarian practically gave them an escort out?
“Cap, she’s not here, okay? We need to get back to the hotel. Your lips are blue.”
My chest seizes. I back up.
It’s them.
Jude and Cap. Here, in my library. Some unbelieving part of me still thinks it could be someone else. Some other kid coincidentally named Cap…
But my heart knows.
My back hits the bookshelf, and several books come sliding out, clapping on the ground. I whir around, trying to catch them, but my foot hits a puddle of water.
My legs fly out from under me.
For a long moment, I’m airborne. Then I land, hitting the hard floor with a crack straight on my back, unable to stop my head from thwacking hard after it.
Then everything goes black.