The Geography of You and Me(61)

“Summers are too hot in New York anyway,” Mom had said. “You’ll like London a lot better.”

Lucy knew this was probably true. So far, she loved everything about this city: the street markets and the colorful buildings, the twisting lanes and expansive parks and the way most everyone sounded like a version of her mother. She even liked her classmates at school, who were not just from England or even America but from all over the world: India and South Africa and Australia and Dubai. In New York, she’d stood apart, and in Edinburgh, she’d stood out; but here, she just stood alongside everyone else, and there was a comfort in that, in fitting in for once.

She liked the weather here, too, which was always gray and damp, never too cold and never too warm. It was the in-betweenness of it that she’d grown to appreciate. She had no doubt that she’d enjoy the summer here. But even so, as her mother complained about all those years they’d suffered through the high temperatures in New York, Lucy had been jolted by the memory of that night on the roof, where she and Owen had lain beneath a stagnant sky, sticky with heat and grinning at every limp breeze that managed to reach them, and for a moment, she found herself wishing they’d go back.

But there was no reason to make the trip.

Until yesterday, when she got Owen’s e-mail and decided that in this case, anyway, the lie was a lot more exciting than the truth.

And so she’d written back: I’ll be there. What’s the plan?

It had taken him a full day to respond, and she spent the hours in between with a knot in her stomach, stunned by the possibility of it. It wasn’t that she thought she’d never see him again, because she had more faith in the world than that. But they’d done so much zigging and zagging over the past year, had missed so many chances and squandered so much time, that it seemed hard to believe they might just get another shot at this.

She knew it might not turn out well. It might end up like San Francisco again. It could be a complete and total disaster: They might argue or be overly polite; they might be awkward or nervous or both; they might realize they were better from a distance, better as friends or pen pals or nothing at all.

But they had to see each other again to find out.

When he finally responded late the following night, Lucy was lying in bed, staring at her phone and attempting to calculate the hours between San Francisco and London. As soon as she saw his name appear at the top of the screen, she sat up to read his note, which was a measly seven words.

The lobby at noon on June 7.

The light from the screen seemed to pulse in the dark room, giving the ceiling a whitish glow. She stared at the note for a long time, amused by its matter-of-fact tone, then typed her reply—Not the top of the Empire State Building?—and hit Send before she could think better of it.

Once again, she sat in the dark, awaiting his response, hoping he knew she was only kidding. They were accustomed to corresponding by postcard, where there was endless time between letters rather than endless space on a screen, and they hadn’t adjusted their style just yet.

Finally, after what felt like a very long time, a new e-mail arrived.

How about the Statue of Liberty at midnight? it read, and she laughed, picturing him at his computer, leaning back in his chair with a crooked grin as he waited for her reply. She propped a few pillows behind her, sitting up again.

Or better yet, she wrote, a rowboat in Central Park at dusk.

A taxi on Broadway at sunrise.

A horse-drawn carriage at the Plaza at high noon.

Colonel Mustard with the rope in the study, he wrote, and she laughed again, the sound loud in the quiet house.

After that, it was easy again. For hours, they wrote back and forth, a conversation punctuated by short periods of waiting, where Lucy held her breath and kept watch over her phone, resenting the constraints of technology, the limits of distance.

All night, they wrote to each other, an endless volley of thoughts and worries and memories, the information pinging this way and that across the globe. She told him about breaking up with Liam, and he told her more about what happened with Paisley. He apologized again for what happened in San Francisco, and she apologized right back. As the night crept toward morning, Lucy’s fingers flew across the screen, and she had to reach for the tangled wire of her charger to keep the light from going out, to keep the flame of conversation from dying as they joked and teased and reassured each other, as they talked all night from opposite ends of the world.

Why did we never do this before? she typed eventually, as her eyelids grew heavy and the screen started to swim in front of her.

We wanted to support the local postal service? he replied. We’re old-fashioned? We couldn’t ever figure out the time difference?

Or we’re just idiots.

Or that, he wrote. But at least we’re idiots together.

Later, when they’d said almost everything, the only thing left was good-bye.

See you soon, Bartleby, she wrote.

Can’t wait, Colonel Mustard.

As she set her phone on the bedside table, she realized there was only one thing she hadn’t told him: that she didn’t actually have any plans to be in New York.

But it didn’t matter. As she drifted off to sleep, fuzzy-headed and heavy-limbed and unreasonably happy, she knew that she’d find a way to get there.





41


Until the Day of a Hundred E-mails, Owen wasn’t completely sure he’d follow through with it. There was still time to back out, to say that his trip was canceled or that his plans had changed. But last night, after so many hours and e-mails had flown by, the rain stopped and a gray dusk settled over Seattle and he finally came up for air, blinking and disoriented and grinning like an idiot, and he’d known for sure then that he would be going to New York.