Chapter Two
“I want you to promise me something.”
Anna flattened the last wrinkle from her neatly folded blouse, then rolled it with surgical precision.
The stack of clothes in her suitcase formed tidy, color-coded columns—whites together, pastels together, darks at the bottom.
She snapped the suitcase shut and glanced at her sister. “And what would that be?”
“Well, actually, two things,” Mallory said, looking quite serious. “First that you don’t once ask ‘what’s the point’ while on vacation—”
“Ugh!” Anna gasped, feigning offense. “I would never!”
Anna grinned while Mallory rolled her eyes, a familiar spark of loving exasperation in them. It was their usual dance.
“Yeah, but what is the point of me filling out my medical history online only to have the receptionist hand me the same forms when I get to my appointment?” Anna asked her sister, the first what’s-the-point example she could think of, since she’d just had that discussion with another teacher at school yesterday.
“Exactly! Just stop—don’t do that,” Mallory said, not amused by Anna making light of it. “I want you to enjoy yourself—let your hair down, be adventurous, have fun—”
“I will have fun,” Anna insisted, and then couldn’t help herself and had to ask, “What’s the point of a vacation if you don’t plan to have fun?”
“Oh, my God,” Mallory groaned, dramatically slapping her hands over her cheeks. “Okay, never mind. You’re not going to change in that regard at this stage in life. But can you promise me that you actually will allow yourself to have fun?”
Anna’s brows crinkled at this. “What does that mean?”
“Eat dessert. Buy the souvenir. Take all the pictures you want rather than conserving film to save money,” Mallory explained. “Flirt with a handsome Englishman.”
Anna resisted the urge to wonder what the point was of flirting with someone who lived across an ocean.
But she understood Mallory’s point. Anna wasn’t timid or shy; she was simply careful. Order and predictability were her armor against disappointment and anxiety, and she rarely took it off.
“I will try,” she said, and then clarified, “Not flirting, though, because what’s the poi—because I’m not going to England to find a guy. I just want to travel, to people watch from outdoor cafes, and see four different walls than my own house.”
In truth, she’d put off traveling over the years, despite being perfectly able to afford it.
She knew, deep in her heart, that she wanted to travel, but that it would be better with a partner.
She’d always imagined her first visit to Europe would be with someone beside her—a husband, perhaps, or at least someone she loved enough and wanted to share the memories with.
She was twenty-eight now and had decided a year ago when she’d started planning her 11-day trip to England, Rome, and Paris, that if she waited any longer—waiting for the phantom someone—she might never go at all.
“You’re just placating me,” Mallory accused, almost with dejection, as if she suspected her advice was being ignored.
“I’m not,” Anna said, plopping down on the edge of her bed. “I know how I am—and FYI, I’m okay with it. But you’re right, it is my first solo trip, my first Europe trip, and I should enjoy myself. I have every intention of doing just that.”
“Good. Now, I’m not saying you should go nuts and hook up with strange men or max out your credit cards,” Mallory qualified, “but Anna, who knows when you’ll ever get to Europe again, or take a vacation that isn’t with the family, where you think you have to be the perfect daughter or sister or aunt. ”
Mallory wasn’t trying to change her, Anna knew that.
They were as different as day and night.
Where Anna paid her credit cards off monthly and never missed a dental appointment, Mallory collected tattoos and unpaid parking tickets.
She’d made a life out of rolling with the punches, even the self-inflicted ones, and had somehow emerged as one of the few genuinely happy people Anna knew.
And Anna, whose life was a fortress built to avoid mistakes, couldn’t deny a sliver of envy.
“I will try my best to make you proud,” Anna said with mock severity. “I’ll make it my goal to be more Mallory than Anna in Europe.”
“Okay, don’t go that far,” Mallory was quick to caution. “I don’t want you coming back with tattoos and pregnant by some uptight Brit.” She tilted her head and grinned. “Knocked up by a swarthy Italian? Now that might be okay.”
Presently sitting inside a bistro on Museum Street in York, England, Anna smiled now, recalling that conversation with her sister from several days earlier.
So far, so good, she thought as she lifted her phone over the late-morning breakfast just delivered to her table.
Lemon meringue cheesecake brioche French toast sat before her, a dish that seemed to be daring someone to order it.
Thick slices of brioche layered with lemon cheesecake, toasted Swiss meringue, raspberry coulis, and shortbread crumble, all dusted lightly with powdered sugar.
It was the sort of breakfast Practical Anna would have dismissed as unnecessary without a pang of regret.
She slid her café latte closer to the plate, snapped a photograph on her phone, and sent it to the family group chat, unable to resist taunting her sister: What’s the point of French Toast if you’re not going to stuff it with lemon cheesecake?
The sun hadn’t risen yet back home, so she was surprised to have an almost instant response from Mallory: Atta girl!
Her sister’s words from before she left lingered still with Anna. She hadn’t been offended, but she imagined they kind of stayed with her because there had been enough truth in them to make ignoring them difficult.
She was careful—she had always been careful.
She’d never considered that a flaw. And yet, now she had to wonder if dependable and predictable had become interchangeable, something akin to boring.
Her given name was Anastasia, though she’d been Anna for as long as she could remember.
Anna suited her—sadly enough, she often thought.
Anna was practical and dependable. She had never quite lived up to Anastasia.
The name belonged to someone fearless, a woman with impossible confidence, the sort of woman who boarded trains without knowing their destination and fell in love beneath foreign skies.
Anna taught third grade, recycled religiously, and bought only sensible shoes.
No one looked at Anna and expected adventure, and she was certain she had never disappointed anyone in that regard.
At twenty-eight, she had long since accepted that she would never be the heroine of, well, anything.
Stop that! she told herself, knowing she didn’t want to spend the trip examining her psyche.
Before she dug into the decadent breakfast, Anna pulled her Instax camera from her bag and aimed that at her plate.
She loved her instant camera, loved that photographs emerged as small white rectangles that slowly developed before her eyes instead of disappearing forever into the thousands of images stored on her phone.
She had an entire scrapbook at home waiting for her Europe vacation photos.
She absently fanned the photograph the little camera had spit out, though she knew perfectly well it did nothing to speed up the development of the picture, then set it beside her plate and finally lifted her fork.
The first bite short-circuited something in her, and for a moment she simply stopped, fork still raised, eyes closed.
Tart lemon gave way to rich cheesecake, sweet meringue, and warm brioche.
She let out the smallest, wholly involuntary whimper of delight before opening her eyes again.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked quietly, hardly able to believe how good it was—before she glanced around nervously, hoping no one noticed her talking to herself.
The bistro was busy but not super crowded, and Anna was relieved to find no one gawking at her.
Half an hour later, Anna paid the bill, packed up her crossbody bag—except for the instant image, which she didn’t think was ready to be tucked away yet—and left the little bistro.
Actually, she arrived at the door at the same time a man did. They did that awkward thing that people do, both hands lifted toward the door, silently encouraging, You first. She grinned awkwardly at the man, who didn’t seem to find it amusing, and then made to step forward just as he did.
With what looked like a snarl, he kept going when she stopped and then surprised her by holding the door for her.
“Oh, thank you,” she said, lowering her head, tucking her hair behind her ear as she stepped out onto the street.
Must be one of those uptight Brits her sister Mallory had warned her against, she thought cynically. The man was gorgeous but obviously not happy gorgeous.
She felt his presence behind her more than saw it, each footstep echoing hers across patches of cracked pavement. The sidewalk bulged with pedestrians, strollers, and two electric scooters, while some people paused to consult their phones, tapping the screens.
Anna drifted right, brushing close to a sleek glass facade pulsating with holographic ads.
She stole a sideways glance at the man as he came almost level with her: dark hair thick and tousled, a jutting jaw, arms corded with muscle.
His eyes—emerald green at first glance—now struck her as sharp and impatient rather than smoldering.
She didn’t so much suspect that he was following her as she was interested in not getting in his way.
“Just headed in the same direction,” he said flatly, suggesting he’d caught her sneaking backward glances.
His voice was low and unaccented.
Anna’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re from America?”
Well, that made sense. He didn’t actually look British—not that she was sure what might signify, by appearance alone, that a person was British. But this guy looked American, like Hollywood American.