Chapter 8
NORA
I cancelled my social media accounts when I moved away. I didn’t do much with them anyway, and I knew I’d be too tempted to scroll through photos of Jude and Cap, feeling sorry for myself. Fresh start and all that.
Except because I did that, I had no idea what the woman now walking over to us looked like.
And it’s not what I expected.
She’s tall and skinny and gorgeous, of course, making me feel at first like a fleck of dust in the wind, especially since my face still feels puffy from crying.
But the way she’s walking isn’t the confident strut of a model. She’s pulled into herself, her hands fidgeting in front of her as she comes over.
A group of people get up right in front of her and she has to pause, looking almost timid.
“She looks sad,” Cap says.
He’s right; there’s a sort of somberness to her that looks permanent. She’s pale, with brown hair so dark it’s nearly black, cut into a short bob. Her big brown eyes look slightly shadowed. She looks kind of like a long and lanky Wednesday Addams.
Jude’s jaw is working, his temple pulsing alongside it. But he stands as she approaches. I do too. Cap, meanwhile, rushes toward her.
“Cap!” Farrah says, brightening. She opens her arms.
But Cap comes up short. Then he looks back at me, chews his lip, and sticks out his hand. “Hi.”
No matter how I might feel about this impromptu meeting, I cringe at that. Farrah lowers her arms, her smile dropping briefly before she clearly works to hoist it up again. “I’m so happy to see you, Cap. And so excited about our trip.”
“Me too,” Cap says, pure and sweet and completely unaware of how that rebuff must have stung her. He throws a glance back to his dad.
God, this little boy is trying so hard to balance his parents’ feelings.
“Jude,” Farrah said, smiling warmly. She lifts her arms up—for another hug maybe? But Jude places his hands on Cap’s shoulders, bringing him in front of him. It looks very clearly to me like he’s using his son as a shield.
“I told you we were meeting down by the river,” Jude says, instead of returning her hello. “How did you know where we were, anyway?”
Suddenly, I feel terrible for this woman. She’s trying so hard. But her lip nearly wobbles as she takes in the two people who are probably the closest thing she’s ever had to a family, considering what I know about her parents.
“Oh,” she says. “I know this is the place with best hot chocolate near the Eye… I thought… I am sorry. I…I could not wait. I was excitement to see Cap. And I wanted to meet Nora.” She smiles hopefully at me. Her English isn’t perfect, but she’s trying there, too.
I never introduce myself first—I’m the furthest thing from an extrovert. But Jude’s hopeless right now, so I can’t wait for him to help out. I thrust out my hand across the table, proud of how steady it is. “It’s lovely to meet you.”
Farrah’s eyes are deep with relief as she grips my hand. What kind of life has this woman led?
“Cap and Jude tell me everything about you, Nora.”
When I look at Jude, his eyes are on mine, his jaw set hard. He’s being a jerk. It doesn’t look good on him. I tilt my head, throwing him a look that tells him so.
He looks down.
“Well, we’re finished anyway,” I say, my voice tight. “I should leave you three to—”
“No!” All three of them say it at the same time, shocking me to stillness.
“Oh…”
It’s Farrah who speaks. “Please, I interrupt your visit. Stay with us.”
This is so awkward, it’s like knots tightening in my stomach. But I sit down with them. “I…guess I can stay for a minute?”
Cap’s chewing his lip, and instinctively, I reach for his hand. He takes it, smiling gratefully.
Farrah sees, her big eyes blinking. “They are sad you have moved to here,” she says. “Yes.”
It’s not a question, just a statement. “Oh,” I say. “Yes, well, I couldn’t pass up this program I’m doing. It’s perfect for me, you know?”
“Books?” Farrah says.
I catch Jude’s little snort at her summation of my life in one word. I throw him a glare.
His mouth flattens. Has this always been what he’s like with her?
I can picture it, suddenly. They met right after his knee injury.
When according to him he’d fallen into a deep depression.
Started drinking heavily, risking a dependency on his pain meds too, until he flushed them down the toilet and switched to ibuprofen, the one-track determination that got him into professional athletics being the thing that saved him too.
But that was the only time, he told me, that he gave in to the brainless sex his teammates took part in.
He said all of that time was a blur, until Farrah came back to him with that little plus sign on a stick.
“Books,” I say to her in agreement. “What can I say? I love them.”
Farrah smiles widely. “And the camera?”
I look down. I’m gripping my camera strap with my free hand like a life preserver. “That too,” I manage. Oh how I wish I were behind the camera right now. Then I wouldn’t have to talk.
Jude clears his throat. “Well, what should we do?”
“The Eye!” Cap says. He’s talking about the giant pod-like Ferris wheel only a few blocks from here. “You promised, Dad!”
“Yes, good,” Farrah says. “And I am thinking to talk about the train trip, the activity and hotel?”
“Yeah!” Cap says, enthused. “I was looking at a book about Switzerland. And did you know the train goes faster than the fastest car? Let’s go, Farrah!” He takes her by the hand and suddenly we’re all up on our feet, Cap and Farrah walking out ahead.
Jude and I follow, a few feet behind.
“I should let you guys go,” I say again. “I don’t need to be a third wheel here.”
“Fourth wheel,” Jude says with a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. “Please don’t. Have you been on the London Eye?”
“No.”
“Then it’s perfect. Just stay for that. Then you’re free.”
Out on the sidewalk, the rain has stopped, though the clouds still hang low and dark. Cap and Farrah walk briskly ahead of us, chatting happily, hand in hand.
“Why are you being such a dick to her?” I ask Jude the moment I’m sure they’re out of earshot.
His jaw tightens and he jams his fists in his pocket. “Why do you care?”
“Because that’s not you.”
“I just don’t like being around her.”
“Cap can see it.”
Jude takes a deep breath. “I don’t know how to stop it.”
“Maybe try to let go of the anger you’re holding on to? Isn’t that what the therapist you saw said? To remember the past is gone. The only time now is the present.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t have to interact with her back then.”
I clutch my camera case against me as we walk, skirting sideways to avoid running into a rack of postcards outside a tourist shop. “She seems lovely.”
“She crashed our coffee date.”
“We were almost done.”
Jude scowls.
“I think you need to give her a chance.”
“I don’t—”
“Not romantically, Jude. I know you don’t do that with anyone.
” Jude looks sharply at me. He told me that a couple of years ago when we first met.
I thought he was making it clear he just wanted to be friends.
But he was just telling the truth. “Well, it’s not like you need to say anything.
Women hand you their phone numbers on the street and I’ve never once seen you do anything except throw those napkins out.
I might have even thought you were gay if you didn’t have that big crush on Gillian Anderson. ”
“The hottest woman alive.”
Jude’s crush on the X-Files actress was a constant source of amusement for me, given he was a baby when the show was on TV.
Up ahead, we’re already approaching the lineup to buy tickets. It’s long. Once again, I wish I’d had the guts to give them all a hard no. But they seemed like they needed a buffer, someone to tag along with them so they didn’t feel so alone.
Story of my life. I got dragged along to all kinds of social engagements my whole life because I had a rubber arm, and my friends always seemed to need a wing woman. Always a plus-one. Never just the one.
“You don’t date either,” Jude says now as we approach the line.
“I do too.”
Jude barks out a laugh. “Not since Blandface Breaddough.”
I gape. “Are you talking about Todd?”
“Yeah, or the one before him. What was his name?”
“You never even met Miguel. How do you know he was like Todd?”
Jude does an exaggerated head roll, landing on me. “Please.”
I hold back a laugh, even though it’s not funny, not really. I saw a therapist too, a while ago. She said I date predictable, boring men I don’t love because they’re safe. They won’t scare me; they won’t make me cry. They won’t rip my heart out.
They won’t look at me the way Jude is now, like he sees right inside of me.
“Fine,” I admit. “They had some similarities.” The truth was, they could have been the same man. They had the same outfits I was pretty sure they bought in bulk. They liked the same movies. They even used the same no-name soap. It was kind of uncanny.
“What you need is a real man, Annie.”
I twist my braid in my hand, my heart suddenly skipping. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Someone who knows what a privilege it would be to be with you.”
My stupid heart does a full-on high jump in my chest.
But Jude won’t look at me. He’s heading to the queue, where Cap and Farrah are deep in conversation. And I don’t know what else to do but follow.
As it turns out, the London Eye is pretty fun. More than that, I actually have a blast. The pods fit up to two dozen people, and we get paired up with a huge extended American family who of course are immediately star struck by Jude.