by Piper Banks
I learned quite a bit about Henry, mostly by playing his Top Three game. I found out, for example, that his top three favorite bands were Coldplay, the Raconteurs, and the Killers. His top three foods were gingerbread, potato chips—or crisps, as he called them—and an Indian dish called lamb vindaloo. His top three favorite things to do in his free time: listen to music, hang out with his friends, and play soccer. Henry was an only child, like me, and his favorite things about being an only were that no one messed about with his things, his parents had taken him on a bunch of trips to really exotic locales, and there was no one around to tattle on him. And his top three least favorite conversations to overhear: anything involving childbirth, anything involving a woman’s menstrual cycle, and anything that involved adulation of the Beatles, who were, in his opinion, a good band, but highly overrated.
“Sadie would have a coronary if she heard you say that,” I said, as we emerged from the High Street Kensington Tube stop, where I’d met Henry that morning.
“Why do you call your mum that?” he asked.
“What, Sadie? That’s her name,” I said. But I knew what he meant, so I shrugged. “She prefers it to Mom, which she says makes her feel old.”
“She is old,” Henry said, so bluntly, I laughed. “You know what I mean. Old enough to be a mum.”
“Will you do me a favor and tell her that the next time you’re over? When I’m around? I’d love to see the expression on her face when she hears it,” I said.
“So you’re inviting me over, then?” Henry said.
Suddenly, I had the weirdest feeling that he was going to kiss me. I don’t know what it was. He hadn’t moved at all; he was still just standing there while people bustled past us, doing their last-minute Christmas shopping on the high street. But there was something about his eyes, which a moment ago had been filled with laughter, and now seemed to be looking at me more intently. Or maybe it was his mouth, which wasn’t quirking up in a smile anymore.
Then again, maybe I was just imagining it. Because I am not— and never have been—the sort of girl that inspires cute guys to kiss her. Except for Dex, of course, and it had taken him ages to work up to kissing me.
Dex. The thought was like a virtual slap across the face, waking me out of my Henry trance. I couldn’t kiss Henry, because of Dex. And as amazing as Henry was, and as much as I liked him, and, yes, as much as I would probably enjoy kissing him, I couldn’t do that to Dex. I just couldn’t.
I don’t know if it was guilt or panic that was motivating me, but I suddenly took a giant step backward, away from Henry. . . . And right into the path of a woman pushing a little metal shopping trolley in front of her. The woman managed to stop short, but the trolley rolled forward and slammed into my ankle.
“Ouch!” I said.
“Real-ly,” the woman said, pulling herself upright and infusing as much disapproval as she could into the two syllables. “You should watch where you’re going.”
“Yes, I will. I’m sorry,” I said, hopping on one foot, as though this would lessen the pain shooting up through my ankle.
The woman stalked off, and I thought I heard her muttering something about drugs under her breath.
“I’m not on drugs,” I said, offended. “I’m just clumsy! Really!”
Henry, meanwhile, was obviously trying very hard not to laugh.
“Is your ankle okay?” he asked, reaching forward and touching my arm.
“Yes, fine. I’m fine,” I said. And then, worried that he might still try to kiss me after all, I blurted out, “Home.”
Henry looked at me blankly. “What?” he asked.
“Home,” I repeated. “I have to get home. Sadie will be wondering where I am. She’s probably worried.”
This was an outright lie. Sadie had probably already left for her dinner party. But Henry didn’t know that.
“I thought you said your mum—Sadie, I mean—was going out to dinner,” Henry said.
Okay, maybe he did. When had I told him that? Of course, we’d been talking about everything and anything all day, that way you do when you meet someone new whom you don’t really know, yet have a weird instant bond with.
“Oh, right.” I glanced at my watch. It was only five, although it was already so dark out, I’d thought it was later. “I’m sure she hasn’t left yet. She’s probably waiting for me to get home before she does.”
“Right,” Henry said. “Do you know the way home, or shall I walk you?”
I actually wasn’t sure I did remember the way back to Sadie’s town house. On my way to the Tube stop that morning, I’d been so excited at finally being out and about in London, that I hadn’t been paying close attention to landmarks or street names.
Then again, if I had been right, and Henry really had been on the verge of kissing me, then letting him walk me home would only give him another opportunity to try.
“No, thanks. I know the way,” I said, with more bravado than I felt. “Thanks for taking me around today. You were an excellent guide.”
“I enjoyed it. I haven’t been to Westminster Abbey since I was a kid,” Henry said. “We had a field trip there with school. One of my mates tried to dare me into opening one of the tombs to see if there was a skeleton inside.”
“Did you?” I asked.
“Nah. You couldn’t get close enough, and even if you could, those things are heavy. I wouldn’t have had the arm strength.” Henry grinned. “At least not back then. I’m a bit bigger now. Perhaps I should have tried again today.”
“You would have gotten us both arrested.”
“And you would have had a great story to tell your mates back home,” Henry said.
I laughed. “That’s true. I love how you call them my ‘mates.’ It’s just so . . .”
“So what?”
“So English,” I said sheepishly, realizing how stupid this sounded.
“Well, I have to confess something,” he said, and he leaned toward me, so close his mouth was only inches away from my ear. “I happen to be English.”
Goose bumps erupted up and down my arms. I was glad I was wearing a coat and that Henry couldn’t see the effect he had on me.
“Thanks for clearing that up,” I said, struggling to keep my voice light.
Dex, I told myself sternly. Remember Dex.
Henry leaned back. “We should do this again. You’re here for two weeks, right?”
“Yes . . .” Dex. “I mean, yes, I’m here for two weeks. But I should probably check with Sadie before I make plans. I’m sure she’s going to want to spend a lot of time with me while I’m here,” I said.
“Sure, check with her, and let me know,” Henry said easily. “I’ll call you in a few days. Bye, Miranda.”
“Bye,” I said. And I turned, and started to walk down the street.
“Miranda!” I heard Henry calling my name, and—my heart thumping in my chest—I turned back around. Why was he stopping me? Was he going to kiss me after all?
“Miranda, you’re going the wrong way,” he called out. Really much more loudly than necessary, even considering the noise from the traffic. Several people passing by turned to smirk at me, the lost girl, and I felt my cheeks burn with humiliation.
I retraced my steps back to where Henry stood.
“Your mum lives in that direction,” Henry said, pointing in the opposite direction from which I’d walked. “Take a right just past the pub, walk up to the next road, take a left, and it’s three streets up on your right.”
“Right. I knew that,” I said.
“Clearly,” Henry said.
I punched him lightly on the arm, and then, smiling to myself, headed off again, this time in the right direction.
Despite Henry’s directions, I still got lost. I took the right past the pub, and then took a left, and a right, but that didn’t look familiar, so I turned back and went up to the next street, but that looked just as strange, so then I tried to get back to my original route so I could start over, and somehow
got turned around and couldn’t find it.
Here’s the thing about South Kensington: Every street looks the same. They’re all lined with white town houses and fronted with the black iron fences I’d found so charming at first. It makes it really confusing and difficult to find your way around.
“Like it’d kill these people to paint a few of these blue or red, so you’d know what street you were on,” I muttered resentfully.
It had gotten colder out now that the sun had set, and my feet felt like they were encased in ice. I never had gotten around to buying gloves and a hat—oh, no, I’d been too busy playing Top Three with Henry to do something sensible like track down gloves—and my hands and ears were so cold, it felt like they’d never be warm again.
I know what this is, I thought, as I turned down yet another strange street and looked around helplessly. This is the universe punishing me for spending the day with Henry and thinking about kissing him. I finally have a nice boyfriend at home—okay, fine, an almost-quasi-boyfriend, anyway—and at the very first opportunity, I let my head be turned by a cute accent and a pair of dimples.
I spotted a bench on the sidewalk, and slumped gratefully down on it. My feet were killing me. My shoe had rubbed a blister on the back of one of my heels. I hadn’t noticed it until about an hour ago, although now that I had, the pain was so intolerable, I had to limp. And the ankle on my other foot was still throbbing from where the mean woman had nailed me with her shopping trolley. But despite the pain, walking had at least kept me warm. Now that I was sitting, my earlier belief that I couldn’t possibly be any colder was quickly proven to be a mistake. The bitingly cold wind hurt even more as it whistled against my cold cheeks and exposed ears. I shuddered and hunkered down, wrapping my arms around myself for warmth.
I was cold and lost and generally as miserable as I could ever remember being. This was worse than listening to my parents yell at one another in those terrible months before they separated for good. Worse than being taunted by Kimmy Shelton on the school bus back when I was in fifth grade. Worse than falling flat on my face in front of Emmett Dutch back when I had a crush on him. I could feel hot tears burning in my eyes, and a strangled sob catching in my throat.
That’s just great, I thought bitterly. On top of everything else, I’m going to cry. I hate crying. It always gives me a sore throat, and makes my face red and puffy. And when you have a nose as large as I do, you don’t want to do anything that makes it look even larger.
But I couldn’t help it. The tears were coming, and my breath was ragged and noisy. My nose started to run, and the only tissue I had was an old tattered one I found at the bottom of my coat pocket. Miserably, I blew into it. And it had been such a good day, too. Right up until Henry and I said good-bye, and I’d gone and gotten lost.
“Is everything alright, miss?”
I turned, and saw a policeman standing there. He was wearing a rounded hat and a long dark coat.
A bobby, I thought, recalling a picture book I’d had as a kid. That’s what they called the policemen here.
“I’m lost,” I managed to croak. And then because I thought more explanation was probably necessary, I said, “My mom lives around here somewhere. On Tulip Street. But I’ve been walking up and down and I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Tulip Street? I know where that is,” the bobby said kindly. “Come with me, miss. I’ll show you the way.”
Amazingly, Sadie was home when I returned. She was too busy pulling me into her arms and saying things like “scared to death” and “Henry said he’d left you hours ago” to remember to flirt with the bobby who’d delivered me to the doorstep. But then once she saw that I was all in one piece and hadn’t been mugged or taken hostage, she turned one of her beaming smiles on the policeman and tried to bully him into coming inside for a cup of coffee.
“No, really, ma’am, thank you, but I must be off,” the bobby said for the fourteenth time, before Sadie finally gave up trying to coax him inside.
“Thank you again!” she called out as he fled, looking relieved. “Good night!”
She closed the door and then turned to look at me. “How on earth did you get lost?” she asked. “And why didn’t you call me?”
“My cell phone doesn’t work here,” I said. “So I didn’t bother bringing it with me.”
“You could have used a pay phone,” she said.
“I couldn’t remember your phone number,” I mumbled. I hated to admit this. People always assume that because I’m good at math, that I should be able to automatically memorize all phone numbers. Which, okay, that was actually true. I usually could memorize number sequences pretty easily. But the phone numbers here had one more digit than American numbers, and the different dialing rhythm threw me off.
“I’m just glad you’re back safe,” Sadie said, hugging me again. “I was worried sick. Oh, you’d better call Henry and let him know you got in safely.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, you were so late, I called Henry’s house to see if the two of you had gone back there. Henry said that he’d left you at the Tube stop ages ago. I think he’s feeling badly that he didn’t walk you home. He even called a half hour ago to see if you’d gotten home yet,” Sadie said.
“Oh,” I said, while conflicting emotions lapped over me. Partly, I was dismayed that I would now have to call Henry back tonight to let him know I’d gotten home, especially since I’d already decided it would be best if I didn’t see or talk to him again. Partly, I was pleased that Henry had cared enough to call back. And partly, I was really annoyed at Sadie for telling Henry I’d gotten lost. It made me sound like a complete idiot.
The phone rang then.
“That’s probably Henry now,” Sadie said brightly. Before I could stop her, she plucked the portable phone up off of a sideboard. “Hello,” she said. “Oh, hello, Henry. Miranda was just about to call you. Yes, she’s finally back. Can you believe she got lost walking home from the Tube stop?”
Sadie stopped twittering on for a moment to laugh gaily. My heart gave a great lurch. It felt like it was trying to tunnel its way out of my chest cavity via my throat. What? What were they laughing about? Me?
“Yes. Yes! I know,” Sadie chortled.
“Mom,” I hissed, and made a grab for the phone.
“Wait a minute, Miranda’s right here, and she’s dying to talk to you,” Sadie said. “Hold on, here she is.”
I grabbed the proffered phone from Sadie’s hand, while simultaneously fixing her with the evilest evil look I could muster. I may have zero dating experience, but even I know you never tell a guy you’re dying to talk to him. It makes you look desperate and sad. I wasn’t interested in Henry—at least, that’s what I kept telling myself—but I still didn’t want him to think I was swooning around over him like a lovesick moron.
Sadie just looked amused at my annoyance.
“Teenagers,” she said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes heavenward, as she turned and strolled back to the kitchen.
I kept my hand over the phone until she was safely out of ear-shot, and then took a deep breath, and said, “Hi. It’s me.” Then, as though he could possibly have me confused for someone else, I added, “Miranda.”
I braced myself for his response. I knew he’d probably tease me for getting lost. It’s what I would have done, had our positions been reversed. And I also knew that if he did, it would bother me immensely. I was cold and tired, and up until a few minutes ago, had been very, very scared. Irrationally scared. I wasn’t just worried that I wouldn’t find my way back to Sadie’s tonight, I was worried that I would be lost forever. That no one would ever find me. That I’d spend the rest of my life wandering the streets of London.
My fears sounded silly and overblown now that I was in Sadie’s safe, snug house and my body was slowly defrosting. But the after-effects left me feeling prickly and on edge, and not at all ready to be teased about my ordeal.
But Henry surprised me. He didn’t tease m
e about getting lost, and he didn’t tell me I should have let him walk me home. Instead he said, “So what’s 9,528 times 1?”
And I couldn’t help it: I laughed.
Chapter 6
Dex didn’t e-mail me the next day, nor the day after that. I tried not to let it bother me. In fact, I tried not to think about him period. After all, I had plenty to keep me busy. True to her word, Sadie cleared her schedule to spend the days leading up to Christmas with me. We went to the National Gallery to look at priceless works of art, took high tea at Brown’s Hotel, and drove way out into the countryside to see the standing stones of Stonehenge, which were really very cool in person. We decorated the short, fat Christmas tree Sadie had ordered with tinsel and round metallic-hued balls, and even baked little mincemeat tartlets topped with pastry stars.
But the truth was, the more I tried not to think about Dex . . . the more I thought about him. I found excuses to check my e-mail ten times a day, and every time I saw that he hadn’t written, a thud of sour disappointment would settle in my stomach. And then I brooded over his silence.
Had I somehow misinterpreted it when he kissed me? I didn’t think I had, but, then again, guys weren’t exactly predictable. Who knew what they were ever really thinking, or why they acted as they did? I’d heard the stories: girls who were left bitterly confused after the guy who had swept them off their feet suddenly stopped calling without a word of explanation.
It’s just, Dex didn’t seem like the sort of guy who would do something like that. He’d always seemed so nice and so thoughtful. Or was that exactly what every girl who’d been abruptly stood up also thought?
I was fretting over this possibility late Saturday morning, after checking my e-mail and yet again finding my in-box empty, when the phone rang. I picked up the extension Sadie kept on her desk.
“Hello,” I said.
“Miranda? Hi, it’s Henry.”
“Hey, Henry,” I said. Despite the pledge I’d made to keep my distance from Henry, I was pleased to hear from him.
