Meant to Be (24 page)

“What’s tomorrow?”

“It’s the Stratford-upon-Avon trip,” I say, shocked that he doesn’t remember.

“Oh yeah. Right. What’s so great about visiting Shakespeare’s old
crib, huh?” Jason asks. He slurps broth from his spoon with such force that bits of it spray back onto the table.

“Shakespeare is probably
the
greatest writer of all time,” I say. “It’ll be inspiring to see where he came from. Maybe he wrote some of his sonnets there. ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day—’ ” I break off, embarrassed.

“I guess so,” Jason mumbles before tilting his bowl into his mouth to finish off the broth. I make a face at him.

“I know
you
don’t believe in love, but I do,” I reply, lining my chopsticks up neatly next to my empty bowl. “And Shakespeare knew exactly how to write about it. Chris would understand. I bet
he
appreciates Shakespeare.”

“Why, because he’s British? I think that’s racist.” I look up to see the edges of his mouth turned up. He’s teasing me. That’s a good sign. He looks up from his noodle bowl. “Hey, I never said I don’t believe in love. I just don’t think it comes in perfect, predictable packages.”

I roll my eyes at him for the ten zillionth time, and he ignores it for the ten zillionth time. It’s an exchange that’s starting to feel routine, and almost comfortable. Even with the soup slurping and the teasing, I’m much happier now than I was this morning, though I’m sure that’s mostly to do with my bespectacled text friend and tomorrow’s Stratford trip.

“So what’s next, Book Licker?” Jason asks as we make our way out onto the street.

“Well, first of all, you could can it with the ‘Book Licker’ stuff,” I reply. “I lied to a teacher to come take you out to lunch. The least you can do is call me by my real name.”

“Okay, okay. I didn’t realize you were such a rebel,” he says, laughing. “So what’s next,
Julia
?”

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I dunno, whatever you want to do, I guess. I really need to pick up another phone card. I don’t know how much these texts are costing, but they can’t be—”

“London Eye,” he says, cutting me off midsentence.

“What?”

“The London Eye. I want to go on a ride,” he says. I hesitate and he cocks an eyebrow. “You
said
whatever I wanted to do, and that’s what I want to do.”

It takes me a minute, but I finally cave. It’s not like I’m
afraid
of heights, but … Okay, so I’m a little afraid of heights. The London Eye is mentioned in each of my five guidebooks (and in the three I left at home). It’s the largest Ferris wheel in Europe, and each book mentions that the views are breathtaking. I was kind of hoping to take in its majesty from the ground, but it looks like that’s not in the cards.

My dad always lamented that the Eye hadn’t been built yet when he and Mom were here. He always said that on their next trip, they would take one ride for each year of their marriage, and Mom would smile and say, “We better get there before we’re old and gray, then.” I guess this means I should take ten rides in their honor, but one will have to suffice.

When we get to the London Eye, I realize it’s not exactly a Ferris wheel—more like a Ferris wheel on steroids. Each windowed pod can fit at least twenty people, and the entire contraption creeps along so slowly it takes half an hour for it to complete a full revolution.

Jason pays for my ticket—“My idea, my treat,” he says firmly—and we step on board. The pods are made up almost completely of windows, which the inhabitants can crowd around to view the Thames below and all of London laid out before them. A wooden bench takes up the middle of the space, but only one woman sits on it and I think that’s because she genuinely
is
afraid of heights. She keeps taking deep breaths and periodically putting her head between her knees. I hope she doesn’t barf, because I’m not sure I could take being trapped in a glorified hamster ball filled with stranger puke.

As we rise, I take in the view. It is truly spectacular. I’ve seen videos, bird’s-eye views from past riders, but nothing can begin to compare. It
reminds me of the scene in
Willy Wonka
when Charlie escapes the factory and flies high over the city in a glass elevator. The sky is clear blue. Fluffy animal-shaped clouds drift across the clear blue sky. I feel like we’re going to end up straight in the belly of a fluffy cloud kitten. The tour boats cruising down the Thames look like toys as we get higher and higher. Even Big Ben starts to look tiny as we approach the peak. I almost expect Jason to make a joke about it.

“I used to love this thing when I was a kid,” Jason says instead, and I look over to see him gazing out over the people on the ground, who are now little more than specks. “I think I was one of the first people to ride it. I haven’t been back in ages.”

“I didn’t realize you’d ever visited London before,” I reply, keeping my gaze, like his, on the city below us.

“Well, technically I haven’t
visited
,” he says, shrugging. “I’m a British citizen. My mom is English. So I guess it’s not like I’m a tourist.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I ask, taking my eyes off the view to stare at him in shock.

“It’s a formality, really,” he says, not meeting my eyes. “I mean, I have dual citizenship. I’m still an American.”

I don’t really know what to say. I never knew anything about Jason’s real mother, but I figured she was your typical upper-middle-class Boston suburban mom. I never would have guessed she was British, and I certainly had no
idea
Jason was, too. I think about what he said the other day:
There’s a lot you don’t know about me
. He wasn’t kidding.

I watch him closely, trying to judge how much I should pry, but he’s completely distracted. He’s staring over the Thames toward a small cluster of buildings to the left of the expansive green Buckingham Palace Gardens.

“See that little spire over there?” he asks abruptly. “The blue one that looks like it could almost be a little crooked? On top of that church?” I follow his finger to the spot in the distance, and sure enough, there’s a
little blue spire that has such an odd design it looks almost bent. I spot it as he drops his finger. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a leather wallet that’s so old it’s now mostly made of duct tape. He flips it open and extracts a small crinkled picture from inside. It has been cut and cropped to fit snugly next to his Newton North ID card.

It’s a picture of London, taken from the roof of a building somewhere. The whole frame is jammed with roofs and chimneys. He holds the picture up to the glass, and the scenery in the picture begins to line up with the view. The picture was taken from a much shorter distance than our spot up in the sky, so everything is larger, and I can easily make out the small crooked spire. He points to a little green roof about three over from the crooked spire.

“That’s where I lived until I was five,” he says. “Before my mom left and my dad moved back to the States.”

There is a moment of stunned silence as I take in what he just said. So not only is Jason’s mother British, but he actually
lived
in London? I always thought Newton was small enough that everyone knew everything about everyone else, but no one’s ever mentioned Jason’s living in the United Kingdom.

“What was it like living here?” I try to guess which of the little chimneys belonged to him.

“I don’t remember everything,” he says, a slight smile creeping into the corner of his mouth, “or anything, really. Our house was pretty small, but I remember one Christmas how we still managed to wedge a giant Christmas tree into the corner. I made my mom string popcorn like I’d seen in the movies, and she kept poking herself in the finger. And while she was stringing popcorn, I was eating it off the other end. We never did get any popcorn on that tree.” He’s laughing to himself now.

“That sounds like a great memory,” I say, thinking of my own Christmas memories from when my dad was alive. He always told me that kids who don’t believe in Santa don’t get any presents. On Christmas Eve,
he always arranged for a neighbor to come ring our doorbell, and when I’d answer it, I’d find a pillowcase with a few wrapped gifts inside. Dad always made a big show about how Santa would come visit the especially good little girls and boys early. I believed in Santa, really believed, all the way up until Dad died.

“Yeah, those were the days,” he says, though his chuckle now sounds a little harsh. He wedges the picture back into his wallet, then shoves the wallet into the back of his jeans. “Funny, now the only holiday memories of my mother are the Christmas cards she sends each year. I don’t even know if she’s the one signing them.”

There’s a moment of thick silence between us before he gestures again toward the little crooked spire. “Forty-two Ebury Street,” he says. “Just thataway.”

I glance at my watch, realizing we’ll have plenty of free time once our ride is over before Tennison and the others make it back to the hotel. “Do you want to go over there and see it?” I ask. “We totally have time if you want to go check out the old neighborhood.”

“Definitely not,” he says, his tone suddenly sharp. I don’t push any further. I want to say something to break the tension, but I can’t come up with anything that isn’t just plain silly. Instead, I fidget with my watch.

Suddenly, the London Eye jerks to a stop, our pod dangling midway over the river, and our little capsule shudders for a moment. A few people stumble, losing their footing slightly at the sudden stop in movement. Jason, hands buried in his pockets, stumbles into me. I try to jump back, but the couple behind me is in the way, and I bounce like a pinball back into his chest. I put my hands out and grab for his shoulders, but he’s too tall and my hands end up on his waist.

I don’t let go right away. I tell myself it’s because I don’t want to fall again, but the couple behind me has moved toward the middle of the capsule. There’s plenty of space.

Jason’s head is tilted straight down, and now, at last, he is looking
at me. He holds my gaze for what feels like a full minute. There’s heat coming from somewhere between us, and I shift awkwardly, feeling like I might start sweating. I finally let go of him and quickly look down at my shoes.

I open my mouth to say something, maybe apologize, but before I can find the right words, the pod shudders again and resumes its descent. I’m just as unprepared for this jolt as the first, but I push my weight back instead of forward. I’d rather fall on my butt than accidentally hug Jason again.

As I fall, though, Jason jerks his hands out of his pockets and reaches out. His arms circle
my
waist this time, and he pulls me upright with enough force to bring me back to his chest. The shock pushes some of the air out of my lungs. I have to breathe deep to fill them again. Our pod is gliding gracefully toward the ground, but still Jason doesn’t let go. The feeling of his arms around me is becoming way too familiar, from the dancing at the bookstore to the spooning this morning in bed.

I’m losing my balance again; I start to tip backward, but Jason tightens his grip, pulling me upright and even closer. If I look at him, we’ll be face to face, nose to nose. Instead, I focus on my sneakers, on my double-knotted laces, afraid of what might happen if I look up. After a few moments, his hands drop away, and I sense them shifting back into his pockets.

As our pod makes its way back toward the ground, I finally find the courage to glance up. He has turned away so that he’s standing next to me again, looking out over the river below.

As we inch closer and closer to the ground, Jason turns back to me. “Do you think you might actually meet up with this Chris guy?”

I’m not really sure how to respond, partly because I don’t know the answer myself and partly because I’m still stunned by what just passed between us. Because something did pass between us—I’m sure of it. I finally settle on an answer that seems honest and true.

“If it’s meant to be, we’ll find each other,” I say before hopping off the still-moving capsule at the bottom. I trot up the path through the little park leading to Belvedere Road, and Jason is close behind me.

“Julia, I need to tell you something. I think—” he starts, but his phone buzzes in his hand. He glances down at the screen.

“What?” I ask. “What do you have to tell me?”

He studies his phone for another beat, absentmindedly pushing his bangs under his ball cap. “Never mind,” he says. He tucks the phone back into his pocket. “It’s nothing.”

“You sure?” I study him, trying to see if I can decode his expression. He’s already arranged his face into that crooked smile.

“Yup,” he replies, taking off his hat and swiping a hand through his hair: casual, easy. “So that Stratford trip. That’s tomorrow, huh?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“So, little Miss Guidebook,” he says, patting the bag that’s on my hip. “Tell me some fun facts and trivia about Mr. Bill Shakespeare’s birthplace.”

“For real?” I say. Jason shrugs.

“We’ve got nothing else to do,” he says.

I dig out my guidebook and flip to one of the many multicolored Post-it notes hanging out the side. We settle on a bench in the shadow of the London Eye, a line of trees overhead, and I start reading passages to him. As I read, Jason tilts his head back, his face pointed directly at the sky while he takes long, labored breaths. I worry he’s using this opportunity to take a nap, but he blinks a few times, so I know he’s awake.

I want to ask him about the stumble on the Eye, the tilt, the look, but I don’t know if I want to know the answers. Instead, I plow ahead, reading about Henley Street and Shakespeare’s birthplace. If he’s going to ignore it, I will, too.