Picture Perfect (10 page)

There are going to be so many things to stick in it.

Museum tickets and love letters and pressed flowers picked on our moonlit strolls in Central Park. The wrapper from a chocolate he unexpectedly pulls out of his pocket. A photo of us, playing with perspective so it looks like the Statue of Liberty is in our hands.

I’m just contentedly tucking the toy lion he bought me into the corner when my phone beeps.

H, I can’t make it to the airport! I forgot we have initiation day at college. I’M SO SORRY. Skype me when you get there! Love you so much. Nat xxx

I look blankly at the message, then text back:

No probs! Goodbyes are rubbish anyway, aren’t they? Speak soon! Love you too! H xxx

“Ready?” Annabel says as I pop my little shoebox of memories into my backpack, zip it all up and sling it over my shoulders.

“Ready,” I say quietly.

America, here I come.

ll I’m going to say about the ensuing journey is: two-month-old babies and long-distance flights are not a relaxing combination.

I have a lot of things to do.

Documentaries about turbulence to watch, crosswords to complete, key landmarks to look for out of the window, a long and confusing list of American spellings to learn.

Unfortunately, Tabitha has other plans.

I’d never realised she liked England so much, but she’s obviously quite attached. As soon as the air steward starts showing us the emergency exits, she starts yelling and doesn’t draw breath for the rest of the journey.

Apparently women in Ancient Greece made blusher from a mixture of crushed mulberries and strawberries. By the time we land, seven hours later, Annabel is so flushed it looks like she’s made a bath of it and jumped straight in.

“Tabitha,” she says firmly as we collect our bags from the overhead lockers. She wipes her forehead with her jumper sleeve. “I love you more than life itself, but if you scream again like that on public transport I will leave you in the hold, OK?”

Tabby blinks at her with wide eyes, hissy-fit over.

“Don’t give me that look, missy,” Annabel sighs. “I’ve had eleven years of practice with your father.”

Dad leans over Tabitha. “She’s
nailing
it,” he says approvingly, tickling her tummy. “That’s my girl. Work that twinkle.”

My sister squeaks and kicks her little legs like a frog attempting the high jump. An air steward stops by us in the aisle.

“Oh ma
Gahd
,” she says, putting a hand on her chest. “Your baby is
the cutest
. Isn’t she
just adorable
? I could
eat her up.
”

We look at Tabitha with narrow, exhausted eyes.

Dad put her in a Union Jack onesie especially for the journey. Her red hair is all curly and fluffy, her cheeks are all pink, the toy rabbit I bought her is propped on her shoulder and she’s blowing enthusiastic bubbles like a tiny goldfish.

Tabby does, indeed, look adorable.

They were obviously working in a different part of the plane twenty minutes ago. There was an entirely different word for her then.

“Please go for it,” Annabel says drily. “She goes well with ketchup and a bit of oregano.”

The air steward’s eyes get very round. “Ha,” she says awkwardly. “Hahaha. You Brits are
hilarious
.”

And then she hurries away as fast as possible.

This is
it
, I realise as we push ourselves through the enormous, shiny JFK airport.

It’s like we’ve just hit the restart button.

It feels like London, except bigger. Glossier. Cleaner. The floors are sparkly and everything is ordered and in neat lines. There’s a twang in the air, and the biggest American flag I have seen in my life is hanging from the ceiling.

We all stand and stare at it in silence.

“Well,” Annabel says finally, “at least we don’t need to check that we’re in the right country.”

“Unless it’s a trick,” Dad shrugs. “That would be pretty funny, right?
Welcome to Australia! Hahaha GOTCHA!
”

“You have a nice day, now!” a lady in an airport outfit says chirpily as she walks past.

“You too!” Dad shouts after her. “Thank you so much! How extremely thoughtful of you! Do you have anything fun planned?”

She looks in alarm at the airport security.

Well: safe-ish, anyway.

Dad signs a few bits of paper and then leads us in excitement outside into an enormous car park and towards a large silver car. It’s so enormous it makes our car at home look like something a toy drives.

“A
Dodge Durango
?” Dad says. “They sent me a
Dodge Durango
?” He starts running his hands along it. “Front engine, rear-wheel drive. Harriet, this is built on the same platform as a Jeep Grand Cherokee!”

This is possibly the only fact in the world I’ve ever heard that I’m not even vaguely interested in.

“Are we prepared for an adventure?” Annabel says, popping Tabitha into the car seat and winking at me.

“Of course,” I say with a deep breath.

And we start the drive into the bright lights of the Big Apple.

ccording to the internet, New York City has:

I don’t want to be rude, but frankly you’d think they’d be a bit more noticeable.

Fifty minutes into the journey I still can’t see any of them. I’ve got my nose pressed against the window and three guidebooks on my lap, but the roads are getting wider and the buildings are getting smaller and the people fewer, rather than the other way round.

There’s a dodgy-looking restaurant on the side of the road, and an enormous superstore with flashing lights on the other. There are some of the biggest trucks I have ever seen in my life, blowing their horns at each other.

So far, skyscrapers spotted: 0.

Parks: 0.

Little ladies with push-along shopping trolleys: 6.

The Empire State Building is 381 metres high. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to see.

Another twenty minutes pass, and then another thirty, and I’m finally starting to lose my brand-new shiny patience. I know I’m supposed to be acting like an adult now, but clearly my parents don’t know how to navigate America.

“Are we lost?” I say helpfully, leaning forward and sticking my head in between the seats. “Because if you need help reading a map, I have a Brownie badge that will confirm I’m quite good at it.”

Silence.

I look back at the guidebook. “I think we should have gone over the Hudson River by now. Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?”

Then I see my parents glance at each other.

“What’s going on?” I say as the car starts pulling into a tiny little road surrounded by small, solitary houses made out of white, blue or grey slats and shutters around the windows and pointy roofs. There’s a dog sitting on the porch, casually licking itself, and a ginger cat perched on the fence opposite, staring at it in total disgust.

One of the curtains twitches, and a small boy on a bike rides slowly past. Another silver SUV drives by with a family inside it.

At random intervals on this road there is a tiny hairdresser’s called CURL UP AND DYE, a small mechanical shop called JONNO’S AUTOPARTS and somewhere that sells chicken called MANDYS.

On the corner is a tiny church the shape of a box, with an enormous blue sign that says GREENWAY CHURCH OF CHRIST.

And then, in small letters underneath:

TRY JESUS! IF YOU DON’T LIKE HIM, THE DEVIL WILL HAVE YOU BACK.

Dad pulls into a driveway and with a quick flick of his wrist turns the engine off.

“Are we visiting someone?” I say curiously, rolling down the window. “Or maybe picking up the keys to our super-cool Manhattan loft-with-a-view?”

There’s another silence.

And then I can feel it: sticky alarm rising from my feet upwards until my whole body feels full of something explosively panicky.

“This isn’t New York,” I say slowly as Annabel and Dad open their car doors. We’re parked outside a small grey house with neat little hedges and a pointed window in the roof. “This isn’t New York. We’re nowhere near it.”

“Umm.” Annabel clears her throat. “Yes. About that …”

I can feel the panic starting to surge into my head until all I can hear is an incoherent, wordless roar.

“This is
our house
?”

Annabel inclines her head. Just slightly enough to mean
uh-huh
.

“But … you
said
.” The roar is getting louder. “You
said
your job was in New York, Dad.”

“My job
is
in New York,” he says, turning around in the driver’s seat. It’s a token gesture, because he’s not actually looking at me. He’s staring at a bit of car seat to the side of my left ear. “But the house … kind of isn’t.”

As if half of it is here, and half of it is situated in Central Park with a magic tunnel between the two.

“We’re not staying in a cool skyscraper New York loft apartment in the middle of Manhattan?”

“No.”

“With a doorman who always forgets our names even though we’ve told him lots of times?”

“No.”

“With our very own gold and glass elevator with a mahogany floor?”

“Umm.” Dad and Annabel glance at each other. “That’s not really how skyscrapers are, sweetheart.”