“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 bo
unce 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.
OMG—I think u might be right about ur MTB! It’s F8.
We need 2 talk ASAP. Skype? —P
The bus speeds down the M40, passing towns with names that sound like they’ve come straight out of a Harry Potter novel, like Boltmore End and Tiddington. Mile after mile of vivid green rolls by. I can barely sit still in my seat. I even have to put my book back in my bag. For the first time in my life, I can’t concentrate on Pride and Prejudice. Every time Mr. Darcy goes and says something smarmy, my memory flashes to Jason, then to the moment high over the Thames when Jason and I shared … what? A long gaze? An almost kiss?
Jason hasn’t acknowledged me, other than to hip-check me out of the buffet line this morning to get a second slice of French toast. Despite Mrs. Tennison’s directions to sit with our buddies on the bus, Jason skipped my seat and instead sat down in the row behind me, next to Sarah. Which means I’m stuck with Evie instead. Jason and Sarah have been tossing notes back and forth, giggling to each other and otherwise being obnoxious.
“No freakin’ way!” Sarah exclaims with another explosive giggle.
“I wish they would just get back together already,” Evie mutters into her copy of British Cosmo. “I mean, holy sexual tension!”
“Wait, what?” I can’t tell what’s more confusing: that Evie is talking to me (or at me), or what she just said. “What do you mean, ‘get back together’?”
“Hello? Catch up, jeez. They used to date. Freshman year, remember?” Evie says, rolling her eyes with a “you don’t know anything” scowl. She throws her feet up on the back of the seat in front of her and lazily flips a page. “And from the looks of things, a reunion is in the cards.”
No wonder Sarah has been sending snarky texts all week! She wants Jason back and thinks I’m in the way. I’m so not, though. I am in no one’s way when it comes to Jason.
Sure, sometimes Jason is nice, like when he sings Beatles songs in the park or dances in the aisles of a bookstore. But that’s only about 10 percent of the time. The other 90 percent, he’s making fun of me or—even worse—pretending I don’t exist.
Still, the idea of Sarah and Jason together makes my stomach churn.
And that 10 percent … I mean, Jason was singing to me and dancing with me. Right?
I spend the rest of the bus ride with my thoughts careering over the past few days of our trip. Even though Jason and I have been searching for Chris and I know that Mark is my MTB, I can’t stop thinking about Jason and Sarah together.
I close my eyes and command myself to think about Mark and his golden smile or even Chris, sitting in the café and casually pushing up his glasses as he pages through his pocket Shakespeare, but I’ve lost total control of my brain. I feel like I’m watching a movie of the last few days with Jason while someone holds the fast-forward button. The flashing images are starting to make me feel ill.
Thank God the bus soon shudders to a stop. One deep breath of fresh country air and a look around me, and it’s hard to stay stressed. The town is absolutely beautiful in that quaint, British-countryside kind of way, and I’m not going to let Jason (or anyone else, for that matter) stop me from enjoying it.
The bus has let us off near the Royal Shakespeare Theater, which is surrounded by cute little shops and gorgeous views of the River Avon. Unlike during most of our time in London, which has been stereotypically gray, the sun is shining brightly today, and the feeling of excitement I had when we left London this morning returns.
We make our way to Henley Street, where we find ourselves in front of an old half-timbered dwelling, surrounded by bright bursts of pretty wildflowers and lush gardens.
Shakespeare’s home. It’s what I’ve been waiting to see since the trip was announced, and now I’m so excited I seriously might wet my pants.
Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), Shakespeare’s birthplace appears to be a pretty popular tourist destination. Throngs of people crowd every
path through the gardens and spill out onto the street. A family of five are having their picture taken near the door to the house, and a large on-deck area is packed with people holding cameras, waiting to do the same.
Mrs. Tennison waves us in the direction of the entrance, where yet another tour guide is waiting for us. I race to the front of the group. I’ve visited plenty of old historic sites in my life, and I know they tend to be pretty small and cramped. I’m not going to be the schmuck stuck in the back of the room straining to see and hear. I whip my notepad and a newly sharpened pencil out of my bag.
Our guide is a tall, thin man who looks to be in his midfifties. When he speaks, an odd tremor creeps into his voice, as though he is overtaken by nerves.
“Hullo,” he says, clearing his throat. “My name is Bertrand. Welcome to the birthplace of William Shakespeare. I’m delighted to be giving you this tour today, as it’s my first ever.” He’s trying his best to seem dignified, but he keeps giggling nervously.
My classmates start to snicker, but I resolutely ignore them. I’ve been obsessed with Shakespeare since I found my mother’s heavy, dusty gilded copy of his collected works in sixth grade. I flipped straight to Romeo and Juliet. I’d heard of Shakespeare before, of course, but never read a single line of his plays.
I knew even then that writing like his was somehow important. I remember stumbling through the lines, having to read and reread them to make sense out of the language. Still, it took my breath away. I wanted to devour the play over and over again, followed by everything else he’d ever written.
Bertrand gestures for us to follow him inside, where he launches into a brief history of Shakespeare’s life. Our guide might have appeared nervous at first, but as soon as he begins his speech, he becomes a different man. It’s almost like Shakespeare himself, clad in an argyle sweater-vest, is leading us through his own home. Bertrand spouts stories about Shakespeare’s lost year, gossips about his marriage to Anne Hathaway (maybe a shotgun wedding?), and peppers his presentation with quotes from some of Shakespeare’s greatest works.
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