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Of course, she thought. It was about the wedding. Her cousin Caitie was getting married in San Francisco the weekend before Christmas, and she and her parents were flying out to meet her brothers there in just a couple of weeks. Lucy had been looking forward to it. Not the wedding itself as much as being back in America. She’d fallen in love with Scotland in a way she hadn’t expected, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t excited to return to the familiar: peanut butter and pretzels, ci
She flipped the postcard over, expecting to find some sort of information about the rehearsal di
I couldn’t arrive in a new city without dropping you a line. It looks like we’ll be moving here for good once the semester is over. Hopefully this one will stick, but we’ll see how it goes.…
Hope you and Nessie are well.
P.S. We picked up a stray turtle on the way down here. I named him Bartleby. (There are a great many things he prefers not to do.)
The next morning, Lucy was waiting near the window in the front hallway when a black cab pulled up, and she watched impatiently as her parents stepped out. They’d barely made it up the steps when she opened the door, still in her pajamas.
“Hi,” Mom said, clearly surprised by the greeting. The natural follow-up to this would be something like Did you miss us?, but they’d long ago stopped asking that, and Lucy had stopped expecting it.
“How was your trip?” she asked as they walked into the front entryway. Dad set down his bags and gave her a fu
“What happened?” he asked, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose with a weary expression. “You’re reminding me way too much of your brothers right now. Did you have a party? Did something get broken?”
“No, it’s not that,” Lucy said, though she knew he wasn’t serious. “I was just wondering about San Francisco.”
“It’s a large city in California,” he said, and she rolled her eyes.
“No, I mean… we’ll have some free time when we’re there, right?”
They were heading toward the kitchen, and Lucy trailed after them.
“The wedding’s up in Napa, actually,” Mom said. “At a vineyard.”
“Napa: a wine region north of San Francisco,” Dad chimed in unhelpfully.
“We’re only in the city for a night to get over our jet lag,” Mom continued, setting her purse down on the counter. “Then we head up to Napa and meet up with your brothers for the wedding and Christmas.” She turned around. “Why do you ask?”
But Lucy was already gone.
One night, she was thinking, as she flew up the stairs. One night.
13
After three months of living above a Mexican restaurant, Owen would have been happy to never see another bowl of salsa again. But here he was now, waiting for Lucy with a basket of chips in front of him and the sounds of a mariachi band drifting from the bar area, while his leg bobbed nervously beneath the table.
He’d been relieved to find that their new apartment sat above a knitting store, which meant it was mercifully free of smells of any kind, except for the faint earthy scent of Bartleby, the little box turtle they’d found in a parking lot outside Sacramento. After nearly ru
“Week to week is fine,” he’d assured them when they called in response to an online ad. “It was my mother’s place. I’m just trying to collect some rent off it until I’m ready to sell.”
This suited them just fine, since they weren’t sure how long they might be staying. Dad swore they’d be here at least through the spring semester, so that Owen could finish high school in one place.
“I’m sure I’ll find something soon,” he kept promising. “I’m not worried.”
Owen knew this wasn’t true, but he didn’t mind. He was just relieved to hear the determination in his father’s voice.
The new apartment was near the marina, and from their window, they could hear the sounds of the boats bumping against the docks and the seagulls calling out to each other. Owen wondered what his friends from home would think if they could see his life now, which was so unrecognizable from what it had been in Pe
The last few mornings, while Dad sat at the computer, his eyes bleary as he sca
He wondered if that meant something. He supposed that magic could be found anywhere, but wasn’t it more likely in a Parisian café than a slum in Mumbai? He’d met Paisley on a starry night in the mountains. But with Lucy, they’d met in the stuffy elevator of an even stuffier building in the stuffiest city in the world. And yet…
He knew he shouldn’t be thinking this way. He picked up his fork and twirled it absently between his fingers. But when the waitress appeared at his side, he lost his grip, and it fell to the floor with a clatter.
“Can I get you some more chips while you wait?” she asked, stooping to pick it up.
“Sorry,” Owen said, flustered. He glanced at the basket in front of him, which was down to a few crumbs. He hadn’t even realized he’d been eating them. “I’m okay for now.”
As soon as she left, he straightened in his chair, craning his neck to look past the cactus decorations up front, wondering where she could be. In her last e-mail, she’d suggested a Mexican restaurant, since apparently there wasn’t much in the way of good tacos in Edinburgh, and he’d given her directions to this place, which was just around the corner from his new apartment. He had no idea where she was staying or what time she was supposed to get in. She didn’t even have a U.S. phone number anymore, so there was no way to call to see if her flight had been delayed. He sat back in his chair again and drank his whole glass of water in one gulp, then wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.