The Case for Jamie (Charlotte Holmes #3)(86)
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: Uni
It’s called chemistry, Watson.
And I’m enrolled in seven summer courses, in point of fact. I suppose they only required me to take four, but they had classes in biochemistry and music theory and statistics and poetry that sounded interesting, and so we’re currently configuring my schedule. I may or may not be meeting my Poe tutor at midnight on Tuesdays.
The summer program also offers a fiction writing workshop which confers one semester of university credit. It begins two days after Sherringford’s graduation and runs for six weeks.
They offer scholarships.
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] > TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: Uni
1: Please tell me that you aren’t meeting said Poe tutor in a catacomb, at midnight, on Tuesdays.
2: Are these, like, Leander Holmes rugby scholarships?
3: Also, wait—poetry?
4: Also, is this your weirdly formal way of asking me if I want to do this summer program thing with you?
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: Uni
1: Possibly. Would it make a difference?
2: Possibly. Would it make a difference? (A joke, Watson. Of course they are.) 3: I’ve been writing quite a bit of poetry recently. It’s very bad. I think in fact it might be the first time I’ve been terrible at something and still enjoyed it. Other than being your best friend, of course.
4: Please come. If it sounds at all appealing to you, or if you’re still casting around for something to do. I miss you.
5: I miss you enough to say: please don’t let me bully you into doing anything you wouldn’t want to do.
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] > TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: How long until I see you?
Stop. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and you’ll always be. Unless you decide to Reichenbach on me again, in which case, we need to talk.
Someday your uncle is going to get tired of paying to send me to school. But I’ll never stop being grateful. I’ll give him a call tomorrow to say thank you; it’s late there.
I just checked with my dad, and he’s surprisingly gung-ho about me going. (Well, not surprisingly.) So yeah, I’m in! Twist my arm. Honestly it sounds kind of amazing and I’ve always wanted to spend time in Oxford and it’ll be nice to try out a college writing workshop if I really want to make a run on this whole novelist thing. Did you tell Lena about this? Today at lunch she was talking about it too. Tom went a little pale and was looking at flights on his phone.
I miss you too. I miss you like breathing. Have I already said that? I do, though. I miss you like naan pizza and builder’s tea. Like you’re the home I never knew I had.
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Four weeks, two days, three hours, seventeen minutes and forty-two seconds Also, please don’t use Reichenbach as a verb. xxxx