Chapter 7
NORA
I emerge from the tube station into a cold, pattering December rain. The high street is beautifully decorated for the upcoming holidays—each lamppost adorned with holly and cedar boughs, and most of the shop windows are cozily lit up and filled with sparkling ornaments and tinsel.
I jog across the street toward the coffee shop where I’m meeting Jude and Cap, holding my video camera against my hip, nerves dancing in my stomach.
I haven’t seen them since that awkward trip to my apartment, and with my last exam done, I’m ready to finally relax and try to enjoy my time with them.
It’s only few more days—I can stay strong for a few more days.
Plus, Jude let me know we’ve only got a couple of hours before they’re meeting up with Farrah today.
A couple of hours will be easy-peasy.
I can’t deny that I’m still upset with Jude.
After a whole year of dedicated avoidance, I was finally feeling mostly okay with my life without him.
Then in classic Jude style, he just had to come barging back into my life like a force of nature.
I still couldn’t believe he’d just shown up in London.
The least he could have done was tell me he was coming, full stop. Give me time to prepare.
To pretend I had a life outside school and the seniors center.
But he’s not wrong about how I would have reacted—that is to say, not well, given how we left things.
I approach the cafe fifteen minutes early, just as I planned.
I wanted to make sure I got a good seat near the back where we can talk a little more freely, and where I can mentally prepare to see them walk in.
I smooth down my rain-frizzed hair outside the door.
Maybe I should have listened to Sasha’s ridiculous advice.
“If you don’t want to be friends with him anymore, what about showing him what he’s missing?”
“What are you talking about?” She’d rescued me yesterday after my exam, when she’d heard Murray accosting me in the hallway to give me the all-important update about the laundry room opening changes over the holidays. She’d insisted on me telling her what my plans were with Jude while he was here.
“I mean, you should dress up!” she’d said when she saw my outfit.
“Let your hair down, wear a little lipstick, walk with a sashay. Talk about the most-promising archival student award you won, and that the school has already offered you a post-doc position when you’re not even done with your first year.
Don’t be the same girl who left home, Nora.
Be the new, incredible Nora I know you are now. ”
But I’m not a new, incredible Nora. I’m the same Nora who likes the smell of old books and eats the same salad for lunch every day.
Who wears wool tights and below-the-knee skirts and would probably get lipstick on my teeth if I tried to wear any.
So I didn’t do any of that. I’d told her no thank you, and put on my same old wool sweater, corduroy knee-length skirt, and flat boots for the rain.
Sasha sighed as I guided her out of the apartment when it was time for me to go.
“Fine, but I’m dressing you up for the party!” were her last words as I darted down the stairs.
I’m hoping she’ll forget.
When I push open the door to the sound of the little bell, I have to grip my camera strap to keep from gnawing on my fingernail.
The Sip is a gorgeous, expansive space with brick walls, dainty white tables, and right now, a fresh holiday arrangement of holly boughs on every table.
But apparently, I’m not first, because there, right in the middle of the cafe amongst the strains of Jazzy holiday music, soft murmur of conversation, and rich scent of espresso, sits the most adorable father-son pair in the world, a checkerboard between them.
Jude’s wearing a light blue button-down that I know even from here makes his eyes pop. His blond bun is loose, a strand of hair falling across his cheek, and he’s laughing as he reaches across the table.
He’s almost painfully handsome. And Cap—the way he looks adoringly at his dad, on his knees in his chair, his hands clasped together.
I’m thrown back to when I used to meet the two of them like this all the time.
I loved seeing them first, before they saw me.
I loved watching their easy dynamic; how Jude is so easy with his son, and Cap so like a little man.
I love them, is the truth of it. The anger I came here with is diluted with this thought. My heart squeezes, my throat aching with the unshed tears I’ve been holding on to for a whole year. How did I ever think I could exorcise myself so completely from their lives?
Even so, I can’t help the smile on my face as I see they’re in the middle of a game of attack checkers. It’s a game Cap made up last year when, after I taught him real checkers, he declared we needed to “jazz it up.” Jude and I had both lost it at that, particularly because he’d added jazz hands.
The game involves moving around a board your opponent has set up like an obstacle course.
You need to skip your pieces as fast as possible over the others while you undergo an attack.
The way this plays out is Cap, who as I watch, bangs his white pieces all around the board, which is dotted with black pieces in no semblance of order.
Jude, meanwhile, is tossing the other half of his black pieces like Frisbees into Cap’s giggling face, adorned with Jude’s sunglasses for eye protection.
The man next to them is staring at them with his mouth hanging open.
I can’t help it—I pull out my camera and film them, trying hard not to laugh.
It’s only when a large group comes banging through the door behind me—and Jude’s run out of pieces—that they both look in my direction.
“Nora!” Jude calls, in a voice far louder than necessary.
Cap, meanwhile, has leapt from the table, upending the board and nearly the table too as he barrels toward me like a miniature football tackler.
“Aaah!” I cry, lowering my camera just in time for Cap to throw himself on me, his little arms squeezing tight around my waist.
“Nora! Can we get hot chocolates now? Dad said we should wait for you, but I really want this one this lady got with THIS MUCH whipped cream on top.” Cap arcs his hands over his head.
I can’t help laughing. “That sounds amazing.”
Before I can even take a step in the direction of their table, Cap’s tugging me toward the counter.
Good, I can have a little breather before making awkward conversation with Jude.
But just then Cap freezes, slapping his forehead dramatically.
“Wait. I almost forgot.” Then he’s dragging me to the table, to where I land with a plop in the seat Jude’s pulled out for me.
Suddenly, here I am, directly in Jude Kelly’s orbit.
When he smiles at me, my whole body seems to flutter. I felt the same way I did back when he first walked into my library in Quince Valley. Like a gorgeous, larger-than-life celebrity had shone their light directly on me.
Like I might have a heart attack.
“Are you okay?” he asks, frowning.
I realize I’ve gone speechless. No, this isn’t like the beginning of our relationship.
This is worse. This is that, plus our years of friendship.
The closeness we’ve forged over movie nights and popcorn fights and fretting over a feverish Cap together.
This is me remembering how he sobbed when telling me about that year of his life when he lost his career, and later when Farrah told him he was going to be a father and disappeared.
How he always asked me about my day at the library, even when it was mostly the same.
How he drove me home from the eye doctor whenever I got drops in.
How he walked me out of a movie when it triggered a traumatic memory, held me out there in the lobby in a sea of moving people while I cried into his chest, not demanding I calm down.
This is the beautiful, kind, hilarious man sitting in front of me, his brows slanted in worry.
“Nora, hey, what’s wrong?” Jude reaches for my hand, which makes everything worse. It’s warm and broad and feels like coming home.
Tears brim and spill before I can stop them. I pull my hand from his to reach up, awkwardly, under my glasses to wipe them away. “I’m sorry.”
“What is it?”
Nothing. I’m just still hopelessly in love with you, Jude, and I don’t think any amount of time or distance is ever going to change that.
“It’s just emotional, seeing you two again.”
When I lower my hands to the table, both Jude and Cap reach for me.
My freaking heart.
I look up to the ceiling, breathing deep. “I’m okay, guys!”
“Dad, maybe she’s sad about…you know what,” Cap says in a loud whisper.
I’m not sure if I was supposed to hear that, so I just take a breath and come back to myself.
But when I do, I see Cap’s looking at Jude like he’s in trouble. “Dad has something to say to you.”
I raise my eyebrows.
When I meet his eyes, I bite my cheek so hard to be unaffected, I taste blood.
Being the center of Jude’s attention is intoxicating.
I learned to live with it when we became friends.
Now, it’s painful. I try to conjure up my go-to image for when this used to happen: that time I took care of him when he had stomach flu—pale, sweaty, his hair lanky and greasy; everything smelling vaguely of puke.
It doesn’t matter. He never stops being Jude.
“Right,” Jude says, his voice low. “Thanks for meeting us.”
Cap huffs, then gets out of his chair and walks around to Jude, cupping his hand over his ear to tell him something.
“I know! I was getting to that,” Jude says.
Cap stands beside his dad, hands on his hips.
“I’m sorry, Nora, for yesterday,” Jude says.
Cap whispers in his dad’s ear again.
Jude clears his throat. “We made you bonk your head and lose your glasses. And even though the librarian smashed them, that was our fault too.”
He checks with Cap, who gives him an encouraging nod.