Almost Home: A Novel

by Pam Jenoff

  I could say no, I realized, explain that I could not get away from work. Though Sarah would not believe my excuse, she would understand. But it was Sarah who was there for me at college, ready to listen over tea, no matter how small the problem or late the hour, who had put me on the plane home from England at the end when I was so overcome with grief that I could barely walk, and who had traveled the globe three times to visit me since. She was that friend, loyalty unmuted by distance or the passage of years. Now she needed me, and not in that three-day-visit-and-leave-again way, but really needed me. Now it was my turn.

  I refold the letter and place it back in my bag, then reach across the futon and pick up a flannel shirt. Mike’s shirt. I draw it to my nose and inhale deeply, seeing his brown hair and puppy dog eyes. We’ve dated casually these past few months—drinks after work at one of the L Street bars between his assignments on the Vice President’s Secret Service detail, or, like last evening, a late visit when he returned from a trip. Physical comfort, warmth for the cold winter nights. Nothing serious, though I can tell from the way he looks at me that he hopes it will become so. I should call him, tell him that I am leaving. But I know that he will try to talk me out of going, and then, when he realizes he can’t, he will insist on seeing me off at the airport. No, it’s better this way. I fold the shirt and set it down. I’ll mail it back with a note.

  I stand up again and begin to pack my clothes and a few other belongings. Forty-five minutes later I am done. My whole life in two suitcases. There are other things, of course, dozens of boxes of books, pictures, and other mementos in government storage and my parents’ attic, things I haven’t seen in so many years that they feel like part of another lifetime. I think again of the photograph of my parents. Sometimes I wish I could live a normal life like them, full of backyards and dishes and plants. I wish I could be content.

  “If wishes were horses,” I say softly, “beggars would ride.” The expression of my mother’s, one I haven’t thought of in years, rushes back to me. Everything seems to be coming back today. I pick up my bags and head for the door, closing it without looking behind me. Twenty minutes later, I climb into another damp and musty cab bound for Dulles Airport. As the car pulls away from the apartment building, and the Washington skyline recedes behind me, my spirits begin to lift. I am on the road again, the only place that truly feels like home.

  chapter TWO

  EASY OARS,” I call to the crew, eyeing the tangled mass of boats that sits twenty feet ahead at the sharp corner underneath Chesterton footbridge. “Hold it up.” As the rowers touch their blades to the water, slowing the boat, low thunder rumbles from the darkening clouds that have gathered over the flat grassy fenlands to the east. “Damn,” I mutter under my breath.

  “Steady there, Jordie,” Chris soothes, facing me from the stroke seat. “Carnage?”

  I nod, craning my neck to see around his head and the seven sets of broad shoulders behind him. “Downing’s jackknifed at the corner. Looks like they have a substitute cox.”

  “Relax. There’s nothing to be done about it.” Chris’s voice is even, devoid of emotion. He is right, of course. Scarcely two boat widths’ wide and only three miles long from lock to lock, the River Cam was never intended as the superhighway of rowing it has become.

  I turn off the microphone. “You want to call it a night?”

  Chris shakes his head. “Not with the way bow four were catching on that last piece. It’ll clear in a few minutes.” I do not reply but wave at a swarm of gnats that has risen from the still water. Though the sun has dipped low to the horizon, the late spring air is warm and close. “Uh, Jordie,” Chris jerks his head to the right. “You might want to…”

  I jump, noticing for the first time that the current is pulling us sideways toward the riverbank. “Damn!” I swear again, as the bow of the shell angles into a docked houseboat with a thump.

  A round window on the side of the houseboat flies open, and an unshaven, shirtless man sticks his head out. “Fuck off and learn to steer your bloody boat!” he bellows, drawing laughter from the crews around us. I shift in my narrow seat, biting my lower lip and feeling my face go red. Then I turn the microphone back on. “Stern pair, back it down one.” The two rowers closest to me slide forward in their seats, arms extended. As they catch the water in unison, they pull the shell slowly away from the houseboat. “Easy oars,” I am forced to call again seconds later as we draw close to the crew behind us. I slump back in my seat. The current will surely pull us into the bank again, but there is nowhere else to go.

  A minute later, the shells ahead of us begin to clear. “All right, guys, let’s take it on.” As I prepare to give the starting commands, I hear a loud and sudden hiss. I spin around in my seat, causing the boat to wobble precariously. Three feet behind me looms a large swan, raised up on its haunches, wings open. “All eight, full pressure, go!” I shout, causing the microphone to screech. The shell lurches forward, but not quickly enough. The swan is inches behind me now, its breath hot and foul. I scream as the bird’s sharp beak cuts into my neck. The enormous wings envelop me and everything goes black…

  “…begun our descent into Heathrow,” the pilot’s voice, clipped and neat, crackles through the cabin. I open my eyes, my head jerking forward with a start. “Please return your seat to the upright position…”

  Blinking, I sit up and stretch, tuning out the rest of the pilot’s familiar mantra. Had I really slept the entire flight? I look at the television screen on the seat in front of me. A white line arches across a world map, tracing a line between Washington, D.C., and London, showing the trajectory of our flight. The tiny airplane is nearing the end of the journey, marking our imminent arrival. My stomach clenches.

  Easy, I think, pressing the power button on the armrest. The map disappears and the screen goes dark. I look around the cabin. My hastily booked seat is in the last row of business class, the space beside me mercifully unoccupied. From the other side of the flimsy blue curtain comes the clinking of flight attendants loading beverage carts in the galley, clearing the breakfast I missed. Across the aisle, a fiftyish man in a blue collared shirt reads the paper while his companion, a younger brown-haired woman (daughter? secretary? lover?) rifles through her purse, long red nails flashing into view every so often.

  Turning away, I push up the window shade. The sky is ominous, shrouded in thick fog. Streams of condensation trickle along the outside of the glass. I imagine the airport below, controllers guiding the planes in with strong arm gestures, luggage carts and food service trucks scurrying among the aircraft like ants. The generic images should be comforting. We could be landing anywhere.

  “Ma’am?” I turn to find a flight attendant standing in the aisle beside me, holding out a rolled hand towel with plastic tongs. I accept the warm, moist cloth and settle back in my seat. Ma’am. No one would have called me that the first time I’d taken this flight. Barely twenty-one years old, I had just graduated from American with an international studies degree that meant nothing in a recessed Washington economy. I was still looking for a job when the call came: the student who had beaten me for the fellowship to Cambridge was unable to go (pregnant, I would later learn). Did I want to take her place? For a moment, I hesitated; I had nearly forgotten about the scholarship, one of dozens I applied for the previous fall in a futile attempt to get over the boyfriend who had dumped me for my roommate at the start of senior year, taking all of our mutual friends with him. Still holding the telephone receiver, I looked around the cramped Adams Morgan apartment, which I shared with two girls I barely knew. There was nothing keeping me there. Three weeks later I was on my way to England.

  England. I wipe my face lightly with the cloth. As a child, the very word sounded magical. England was the place of legends, the land of King Arthur and Dickens and Mary Poppins. I ran home from school in fourth grade to tell my mother that we had to go there now, because Nostradamus had predicted it would be washed into the sea. We did not go, of course; my p
arents seldom ventured farther than our cabin in the Berkshires or an occasional summer rental on Cape Cod. Ours were quiet vacations where my father could work on the journal articles that established him as a leading microeconomics scholar, my mother on the romance novels that had in fact long supported us. It wasn’t until more than ten years later that I would board the plane for the land of my dreams, headed for Cambridge. I remember striding down the gate toward the door of the British Airways plane, my first passport crisp and new in my hand. My heart felt as though it might burst.

  That was a different England. That was before.

  I run my tongue over my teeth, fuzzy from sleep, pulling a half-empty water bottle out of the seat pocket, and take a large gulp. Then I reach for my bag, which sits on the seat beside me. A chocolate brown tote, it was a get-well present from my parents last year. “Coach?” I protested when I opened it. I was never one for labels and couldn’t imagine needing something so grand. But I quickly grew to love the soft leather, the versatility and size that let me put files in it one day, sneakers the next. I rummage through the side pocket, finding my compact mirror. My skin is dull and sallow, dark circles ringing my hazel eyes. I used to be able to travel for twenty hours on a cargo plane and step off ready for a meeting and now…I do not finish the thought as I work my dark curls into a ponytail low at the nape of my neck, using some of the bottled water to smooth the stray pieces.

  The aircraft seems to hover parallel to the earth for several minutes, its wings wobbling and dipping from side to side, as though they might accidentally brush the ground. There is a small bump as the wheels touch down, followed by a second one, then a momentary gliding sensation. I place my hand on the seat in front of me to keep from being thrown forward as the brakes come on hard.

  When we reach the gate, I remain seated as the other passengers fill the aisles and rush to pull their bags from the overhead compartments. I’ll just stay here a moment more, I think as they shuffle past. The once-cramped cabin, strewn with magazines and airline blankets, seems safe, a familiar refuge. But it is nearly empty now and the flight attendant at the front of the plane is looking at me expectantly. It is time to go. I stand and hoist my small carry-on bag to my shoulder. Taking a deep breath, I head for the exit.

  Inside the terminal, I follow the crowds toward immigration and customs. Bypassing the automated walkways, I stride down the corridor, savoring the opportunity to stretch my legs, stiff from the long flight. Familiar, brightly lit advertisements for West End musicals and duty-free shopping line the concourse. There are other signs, too, touting mobile phones and WiFi access, products that did not exist the last time I was here. As I advance through the terminal, weaving around the slower travelers, my gait grows long and purposeful. I smile inwardly, savoring the surge of energy that always comes from setting foot in a different country at the beginning of a new day.

  At the entrance to the enormous immigration hall, I hesitate, studying the yellow signs that direct European Union and Commonwealth travelers into one line, everyone else to another. I am always reluctant to exercise my diplomatic privileges, but the hall is a swarming mass of people lugging children and suitcases through endless roped stanchions, shuffling with painstaking slowness toward the twenty or so immigration officers who sit in booths along the wide front of the room. Approaching a woman in a blue jacket who is directing arrivals, I hold up my black passport and try to ignore the angry stares of the travelers in line as I am led directly to a booth.

  I hand my passport to the uniformed man behind the glass, who begins to leaf through it in a perfunctory manner. Then he stops and looks up at me. It is the stamps, I know, the pages and pages of markings from the countries I have visited, enough to give even a seasoned immigration official at one of the world’s busiest airports pause. I usually have my passport “scrubbed” before taking on a new assignment, removing most of my prior trips to avoid questions, but there wasn’t time. I offer a smile to the immigration official, who flicks the passport cover with his thumb before handing it back and waving me through.

  Proceeding to the baggage claim area, I collect my suitcases from the carousel and place them on a cart. I walk through the green “Nothing to Declare” lane and out into the main terminal, scanning the awaiting crowd and the dark-suited drivers holding up placards. Not seeing my name, I exhale with relief. Maureen did not send anyone to meet me because either she knew I preferred to arrive alone or there had not been time to arrange a pickup. Either way is great.

  I maneuver the cart through the crowded terminal, stopping at an ATM to withdraw a few hundred pounds, enough to last until I start work and have access to the embassy bank. The exchange rate will be better, I know, than going to one of the currency exchange kiosks. The smell of coffee wafts across the concourse, reminding me of the cup I missed earlier on the plane. I tuck away the bills that the cash machine dispenses, then follow the aroma to the Pret a Manger counter and order a small skim cappuccino. As the barista steams the milk, I eye the pastries behind the counter. But my stomach is still a rock, the prospect of eating unfathomable.

  A few minutes later, I make my way across the concourse, the cardboard cup warm and reassuring in my hand. Licking the foam that has bubbled up through the lid, I take a sip of cappuccino, then step through the automatic doors of the airport. The fresh air hits me like a wall.

  “Wow,” I say aloud, inhaling deeply. There was always something crisper about the air here, more alive. The sky is different too—it seems closer than at home, a cap pulled low and tight around the brow. In my memories, the weather here was eternally cloudy and gray. But the sky is a hypnotic field of intense, unbroken blue and the sun shines brightly now, mocking my fears.

  I force my gaze downward, getting my bearings as I finish the remains of my cappuccino in two large gulps and throw the empty cup in a trash bin by the curb. Immediately in front of me, black taxicabs and airport hotel shuttles race past. LOOK RIGHT! a sign painted in bright yellow letters on the pavement cautions. On the opposite side of the road sits a bus terminal, dozens of coaches pulling in and out of its stations. My eyes travel instinctively to the far left, where a handful of young people, college students, I guess from their torn jeans and slouched stances, wait to board a blue and gray coach. The bus to Cambridge.

  I step forward. What if I were to board that bus right now? I imagine stowing a rucksack beneath and climbing aboard, gazing out the window, my nose pressed to the glass as the bus makes its way up the M11 through the rolling fens of East Anglia, my eyes widening as the Cambridge spires break on the horizon. When I would arrive, I would walk the short distance from the Drummer Street bus station to my house on Lower Park Street to find Jared waiting me for there, joking with Sarah as he made me beans and toast for lunch.

  Jared.

  Stop, I think, but it is too late. The name rips through my lungs like a knife as his face appears in my mind.

  “Jordan!” A booming voice jars me from my thoughts. Damn it, I swear inwardly. Maureen sent someone after all. “Jordan Weiss!” The voice is female, I realize. Southern. I turn to see a large, familiar woman in a bright pink suit waving frantically at me from the other side of the road. Maureen did not send a car; she’s come for me herself.

  I feel the heads of the travelers around me swivel in Maureen’s direction as she starts across the road, red curls bobbing wildly. Horns blare as she strides through traffic in her impossibly high heels, not bothering to use the crosswalk but stopping cars with an outstretched hand. My mind races. It is unheard of for the deputy chief of mission, second in charge of the entire embassy, to greet new arrivals. And Maureen didn’t meet me when I arrived in the country for our two previous assignments together. What is she doing here?

  But there is no time to wonder. Maureen, moving surprisingly quickly for a woman her size, is upon me in seconds. “You!” she cries, oblivious to the stares. She throws her arms around me, enveloping me in a cloud of flowery scent. The strength of her embrace nearly
lifts me from the ground. “I’ve been waiting forever for this. Welcome to London!”

  “Thanks, Mo,” I manage, breathless from being squeezed. “But you didn’t have to come all the way out here…”

  “Don’t be silly!” Maureen steps back, waving a hand dismissively. “My driver is just pulling around.” I hold my breath, half expecting to see the pink Cadillac that attracted so much attention around Washington. But a black Mercedes appears at the corner. “They wouldn’t let me bring Bessie,” she adds, seeming to read my thoughts as the car pulls to a stop in front of us. “Wrong side of the road and all that.”

  I hand my bags to the driver and walk around the back of the sedan. I’d forgotten how strange it feels to climb into the right side of the car and find myself seated behind the driver. Sinking into the beige leather seat, I am surprised to see two cups of fresh, steaming tea nestled in the cup holders. I lift the one closer to me, smiling. Earl Grey, no milk or sugar. It’s been years since I last saw Maureen, and the woman still knows how I take my tea, or did anyway, when I didn’t need two cups of coffee to get out of bed in the morning.

  Maureen climbs in the back beside me. We exit the airport, passing a large Beefeater Gin display, an enormous bottle still touting the company’s sponsorship of the recent Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race. The Boat Race is the pinnacle of the rowing calendar in Britain, when the two varsity squads, the light Blues of Cambridge and the dark Blues of Oxford, face off in a twenty-minute race down the Thames. It is a grudge match with a hundred-and-fifty-year tradition, interrupted only by the two world wars. I look back over my shoulder at the retreating sign, wondering who won this year. My crew was a college boat, one of the feeder crews for the university squad. I never even considered trying out as a coxswain for the Blues, but some of the rowers could have made it. Jared, if he’d wanted to, and maybe…well, Chris was good enough, too. He might have had a chance the following year, if things had worked out differently.