Chapter 21
Walking to the café, the butterflies in Nelle’s stomach turn into hawks, growing talons that yank her intestines like loose threads.
The red nylon hood of her new coat is pulled over her head, halving her view of the rain-soaked street.
Cars slosh water onto the curbs, steam floats off the concrete, heavy-duty rain boots shuffle on the sidewalk.
Finding Quill’s childhood cottage could easily be a fool’s journey, but she’s not ready to face that possibility.
If this lead ends up a dead end, who is to say she will find another?
“It should be around here somewhere.” James holds up a map of Edinburgh, wet from the rain and crumpled from his back pocket. “He said it was called the Underground Café.”
Nelle squints through the misty drizzle. In this part of New Town, every building is tan and rectangular and smooshed up to the others in rows. Picturesque, with window boxes full of wet flowers and ivy hanging off trellises.
“Let me see the map,” she says. “You probably took us down a wrong—”
“No, it’s right here.” He pauses beside a building with a hot-pink sign on the window that says Eye Care.
Nelle peers up. “I don’t think this is it.”
He points. “Down there.”
She follows his finger to a descending staircase at the base of the building.
Hence the name, genius.
James takes out the journal and scribbles, and Nelle follows him down into the belly of the building, steadying herself on the cold iron railing. At the bottom of the staircase, yellow light glows through the window of a blue door.
The Underground Café is all wood tables and warm, cushiony booths.
A few patrons are scattered across the establishment, though most of the tables are empty.
Along the back wall is a long, lacquered coffee bar with a silver espresso machine atop it.
Behind the bar, hundreds of mugs hang on hooks.
The walls are exposed brick, decorated with colorful surrealist art.
Nelle is captivated by a painting of a red sky over a glass tower. It reminds her of New York.
They find a back corner booth, the lantern over the table catching them in its honey glow.
A waitress comes by. “How can I help you today?”
James taps the table absentmindedly. “We’re meeting a friend. Any chance you know a Terry Nolan?”
The waitress’s smile vanishes and she screams, “Terry!”
A head pops up behind the coffee bar. A wiry man with a thick red beard holds an espresso shot with his long fingers.
His brows twitch. “Yes, dear?”
“Visitors,” the waitress says in a knife-sharp tone. She plasters back on her smile. “I’ll bring your menus.”
Nelle reaches under the table for James’s hand, grateful to be sitting on the same side of the booth.
Terry downs the espresso shot in one swallow, shivers, and circles the bar. He removes his apron and folds it as he walks, tucking it in the back pocket of his khakis before he slides into the booth across from Nelle and James.
Her heart pounds as James sticks out his hand. “Hi, I’m James Finch, and this is my, uh, associate, Nelle . . . Finch.”
She blushes. What’s the implication there? she wants to ask. That we’re siblings, cousins, or married?
Terry lifts a dust-red brow, his eyes like blue lagoons. “Young for reporters.”
An observation, not a question.
“We’re actually aspiring reporters,” James says. “Wallace was my distant cousin. When I heard about his passing, I took it upon myself to write his obituary, seeing as he has no immediate family.”
“Ah, yes,” Terry kneads his hands on the table. Nelle’s chest seizes . . . is he going to buy it?
“I was sad to hear about his passing. It’s been so long since he was in the media. I heard about what happened to his wife and daughter all those years ago, though. Tragic stuff.”
Nelle tenses. She pulls a miniature yellow legal pad and a normal pen from her coat pocket, ready to take notes, to distract herself from thinking about Quill and the lovely family he had before she came around. The daughter he devoted his life to doting over.
“He wrote one hell of a book, though,” Terry says.
James clears his throat. “I want to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right. Whatever you remember about Quill—Wallace.”
Terry blinks at the quick turn of the conversation.
Even Nelle is taken aback. Of course they want answers from Terry, but he won’t give them valuable information if he is uncomfortable with them.
She places a hand on James’s thigh, smooths it down to his knee, a signal she hopes conveys, Chill out.
Advice she should probably take herself. Her hummingbird heart hasn’t stopped since they left the hotel this morning.
James sweeps in, “Sorry for my curtness. It’s only that, well, the paper printing his obituary wants it done as soon as possible.”
Terry shrugs. “Sure, I get it. Deadlines.”
The waitress returns, and Nelle lifts up her head, hoping to quench the grumble in her stomach.
But Terry waves her away. “No time for food, they’re in a hurry. Three coffees should suffice.”
Nelle’s shoulders sag. Her stomach might start eating itself soon, but at least she will get coffee.
“Ask away,” Terry says.
She poises to take notes.
“How did you know Quill?” James asks.
“We were boys together.” Terry’s voice scratches like sandpaper.
“Where?”
“Scourie,” Terry says in a tone indicating that James should already know that.
Nelle scribbles on the legal pad to disguise her nerves as the drinks arrive in red mugs, the same bright scarlet as her coat.
“Oh right, you’re from Wallace’s dad’s side,” Terry says. “American. Scourie is this little village on the northwest coast. We went to school together as lads. Wallace was my only friend, really.”
“How much time did you two spend together?”
“Every afternoon we’d swim in the pond behind his house, play with the animals, climb trees. Anything to pass the time after school. Quill was always reading, though I didn’t care for books much, or learning at all, to be honest, so he didn’t really read much around me.”
“You went to his house a lot?”
Nelle stiffens. This is it.
“Sure,” Terry says. “His folks were a little strange. His da, Thomas, was American, no offense, and always gone. Lily, his ma, usually had her nose stuck in a book, though sometimes she’d smoke pot out on the patio.
But it meant we got away with anything, really.
Little Sammy, bless his soul, would follow us around everywhere. He wanted to be like the big kids.”
“You knew Sam, too?”
Terry sighs. “Devastating stuff. Sammy and their mother buried not even a year apart. Though Sammy’s grave is more for memory’s sake, innit. They never did find his body, even after the ice cleared.”
“We’d like to see where Wallace grew up. We think it’ll help us feel more connected to him as we write.”
Terry sips his coffee. “Naturally.”
Nelle’s heart screams with anticipation. Tell us where it is! Her face feels hot, but she keeps her cool, glued to her pad as she writes every word Terry says.
“But . . .” Terry lets out a long, wistful sigh before he drops the bomb. “You can’t. Just before I moved to Edinburgh, the house burned down.”
Nelle’s heart falls through her rib cage, hits every bony rung, and splatters in her stomach.
“It . . . burned down?” She can’t feel her face or her hands or her feet. “Completely?”
“The chimney’s still standing.” Another sip, then Terry wipes his red mustache on a cloth napkin.
“Oh.” James stares in shock.
Nelle can’t stand it. She needs to excuse herself to cry, to remind herself that it’s okay, that she doesn’t need to go to the cottage. That this pressing compulsion is an illusion she conjured in her head.
But it isn’t. It’s as real as she is.
She swallows and taps James’s leg under the table, trying to get his attention.
She needs to leave, and he needs to write for her to do that.
If she stays here another minute, she is going to burst into rage tears.
Her pokes turn frustrated. If she goes any harder, Terry will notice her odd convulsions under the table.
But James is still staring at Terry, ignoring her. He pulls out his map of Edinburgh, flips it over, and flattens it out. On the back is a map of Scotland.
“Show me how to get to Scourie,” he says, ever the man on a mission. “Nelle, your pen?”
She passes it over—not the one filled with her ink—and Terry draws a jagged line northwest into the highlands, following a major road. Then he veers off toward the coast, where he sketches a small star.
In the corner of the map, he writes out a phone number. “If you have any other questions, I’m always happy to answer.” He slides the map across the table. “Good luck to you both. I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” James says as Terry walks away, tying his apron back on.
Nelle feels her tears subside as she stares at that little star.
Scourie.