Chapter 29
Nelle is on a plane back to New York when she has the dream, brought on by a double shot of vodka.
She is surrounded by smoke. From the haze comes a rumble like hundreds of people murmuring.
Two recognizable voices cleave through. Quill and Penelope, holding each other, calling out for her.
She can see only their faces, distorted in pain.
Nelle snaps awake, snorting. She drifted too close to the woman on her right, who has been dutifully reading an Amish romance novel since the microwave meals were served. Nelle apologizes softly and sits upright.
Back in London, it hit her like a bus. An epiphany that plopped into her mind while she sipped a hot latte and stared out an overlarge window at a gray street.
She misses James.
She did everything she set out to do, and yet the last three months left a sour taste in her mouth.
Every mystery novel, evening drive, glass of wine, and forgettable man carved her out, scooping until she was hollow.
It all felt pointless without James. Who cares what that crackpot Chika said?
Kissing James again would heal Nelle’s heart instantly.
So she hopped on a plane to New York.
Her plan was to show up at Jessie’s apartment and tell James that she wants him back, but now she can’t stop thinking about Penelope and Quill, screaming like coyotes in her dream. Quill she couldn’t care less about, but she can’t shake her great-grandmother’s anguished shrieking.
If James is in New York, he can wait. Nelle needs time to prepare for their reunion, anyway.
Answers to his inevitable thousand questions.
A pang hits her as she thinks over what she will ask him.
Did he get into school? Can she read his novel?
Has he started seeing someone else? She pushes the thought aside.
What if Penelope is in trouble, and Nelle’s the only one who can help?
Though she hates to admit it, her great-grandmother’s forewarnings have come to fruition. Wreckage follows Nelle. Flooded cities, shattered vertebrae, heartbroken men.
Even if her dream is just a dream, she needs to forgive Penelope, face to face.
The plane drops below the clouds, and Nelle presses her nose to the window. Below, James’s new home sits like a city made of silver dimes, swelling into the East River. Bridges stretch across the water like spiderwebs. Nelle turns away. She doesn’t want to see what she can’t have.
It’s torture, waiting for the jolt of the wheels hitting ground. The plane taxis to the gate, and disembarking begins. Nelle shuffles off the claustrophobic exit ramp in a line of slow-footed passengers, turns around at baggage claim, and books a seat on the next flight to Edinburgh.
She lands at midnight. Takes a cab from the airport.
Dark stone houses rise like hedges on either side of the road, interspersed with parks and restaurants and cafés.
Edinburgh has a coziness that other major cities lack.
Shops along the street sell wool sweaters, cafés serve pots of tea and beans on toast, print shops and publishers operate from centuries-old buildings.
Her favorite parts of the city are closed at this hour, of course, and when the cab lets her out at the bus station near the city center, she discovers that there are no routes to Scourie, and none near Scourie, until tomorrow.
She runs back out to the street and flags down the cab before it pulls off.
“Where to now?” asks the driver.
This part she hasn’t thought through at all. “Any suggestions?”
“You’re asking me? Er, there may be a couple of small spots open still. Were you wanting more of a pub or café?”
“Café.”
Nelle’s eyes shut after she is buckled in. Exhausted from back-to-back transatlantic flights, the thought of coffee sends her into a dreamlike state . . . espresso, cinnamon on foam, and black, aromatic beans.
“It’ll be ten minutes, all right?” says the driver as he pulls away.
She lets her forehead rest against the cool glass until her thoughts spin away.
The cab snaps its brakes. Nelle’s head jerks forward, and the driver yells out a stream of curse words in a Scottish accent so thick, it’s like hearing another language. The car in front of them has stopped abruptly, red taillights shining guiltily.
She peeks out the side window and sees a random Edinburgh street, the stone facades blurry in the dark.
Iron railings line the balconies, window boxes full of dead things.
The buildings are more uniform than in Old Town, so she judges that she is probably in the aptly named New Town, just across the North Bridge.
The cab driver points. “Under that place there is a wee spot I like. The owner’s nice if you talk to him.”
“Thanks.” Nelle pays him and climbs onto the curb. The bottom of her camel coat hangs around her ankles, dangerously close to the puddle she’s standing right in the middle of.
“Cheers.” The driver wheels off.
A hot-pink poster with bold black letters catches Nelle’s attention: Eye Care.
A shudder races down her spine. You’re shitting me.
No sign for the Underground Café, but she knows the spot. Surely it’s not open this late. She creeps down the steps, into the damp, and waits until she sees motion through the fogged window to pull open the ice-crusted door.
“Well, well, well,” says a familiar voice behind the espresso machine. “If it isn’t the reporter. Where’s your friend?”
Nelle says nothing and slides onto a wooden stool at the end of the counter. The rest of the café is empty.
“Can I have a hot latte?” she asks. “With an extra espresso shot.”
She opens her journal in her lap, shakes her pen, and writes a description of the British pound.
Hears the crinkle, smells the paper, feels the smooth glossy texture.
She writes down each sensation, and a little more than the amount she needs pops into her hand.
Crisp. Real. She places the money on the countertop as if she pulled it from her bag.
While he counts out her change, Terry says, “How was Christmas?”
“Fine.” Nelle opens her hand for the coins. Drops two pounds in his tip jar. She doesn’t want to talk, doesn’t care about anything but getting to Penelope’s house in Scourie, ensuring that her great-grandmother is okay, and then finding James.
Terry passes her the latte in a ceramic mug. She starts to ask for a to-go cup instead when she sees that the toasted foam is swirled into a four-leaf clover, and he has placed a little spoon on the saucer by the mug.
“Thank you,” she says. Steamed milk coats her throat, cut through with bitter espresso. Hints of dark chocolate, but thinner. Sharper. Tangier. The milk gives it a heavy comfort, like wool on a cold night. “This is the best coffee I’ve ever had.”
Terry beams.
Once she is warm, she leaps. What does she have to lose, after all?
“Terry . . .” she begins. “You have a car, right?”
He frowns and scratches his scarlet beard. “I do.”
“A license?”
“Yeah?” he says, a skeptical crease between his brows.
He will need more warming up before I introduce the idea of a road trip to Scourie.
Nelle drags a finger along the countertop and speaks casually. “I need to get my license replaced, and I was wondering if you knew how to do all that.” She shrugs. “I have no one else to show me.”
“Is your license . . . American?” he asks, frowning further.
She winces. “Never mind that. How was your Christmas?”
“Seen my ma.” He slings a rag over his shoulder.
“Hm.” Nelle sips her drink. “What’s the problem?”
“I love making coffee more than money.” He leans over the counter with his own mug, eyes roving across the empty tables and booths. “She thinks I’m wasting my life away. No children, no future.”
Nelle takes another sip. “At least you’re good at what you do.”
Terry tinkers with his espresso machine. “If only she saw it like that.”
“I feel you,” Nelle says. “My mom . . .”
Terry flicks down his rag and wipes the counter. “Yeah?”
“Well, I never had a mom.”
He sad whistles. “I’m sorry.”
“And my dad . . .” Nelle realizes she has no right words to describe the man who raised her. “He’s pretty awful.”
“Same here,” Terry says. “Yelled at me every day till I was thirteen.”
“What happened?”
He cocks his head. “Well, he hit me. Then he left. Think my ma kicked him out. Never saw him again. What happened with you and your da?”
Nelle laughs and scratches her throat. Where to start? “I guess . . . well, I have a laundry list of grievances against him.”
“His most recent offense?”
“He shot me.”
“Oh.” Terry stops wiping. “Oh shit, wow.”
“It’s okay, I’m fine. We’re not, but . . . we never really were.” The fragmented words spill out. Five months ago, she blazed out of Lincoln as fast as possible, raced through weeks and weeks of pure high, and now she’s crashing.
Nelle is so lost in her head, she doesn’t hear the café door open. Doesn’t notice Terry sweep away to welcome the new customers. They chat for a moment, their voices garbled.
Then one voice cuts above the rest, and her instincts kick in.
Shrink, cower, obey.
Her eyes beeline to Quill, sitting beside Penelope under a soft hanging lamp. Until this moment, Nelle was still holding out hope that her dream was just a dream. She whirls back to the bar before they see her face.
Terry circles back, fiddling with the espresso machine. “You’ll never guess who just walked in. Wallace Quill. Why’d you kids say he died? I told everyone I know the bad news.”
She squeezes the edge of the countertop for support. The last time she saw Quill was in the dark of the cottage, slinging that pistol like a maniac. Seeing his profile now, under soft lighting—sharp jawline, strong nose, graying hair—is like seeing a panther in a swimming pool.
Nelle isn’t naive. That bullet was never intended for her. It was James whom Quill had been set on murdering, and if she hadn’t jumped in the way, he would have succeeded. James wouldn’t be a forsaken lover, but a dead one.