asteralison | Chapter 2

Chapter 2

He paced his room. As he saw it, he had three options. One. Go knock on Melissa’s door early the next morning, before she was awake. He didn’t like that idea. It felt too stalkerish. Two. Get up early and wait in the hotel lobby for her. Hopefully, she’d show up and he could talk to her then. Three was of course to call or text his dad and either beg for her number, or more probably, ask Martin to text Melissa his number and hope she’d text or call back. He didn’t like that idea at all.

He paced for a while longer. She had gotten to bed late last night too. Most places seemed to open at about 10am. If he was in the lobby by 8am surely he couldn’t miss her?

If felt important that he not.

He ended up not being able to sleep. He read for a while, then at about 5 he gave up and went on a run. He showered when he got back and headed down to the lobby. It was 7:30. He found a spot with a view on the elevators and set out to wait.

She got off of the left elevator shortly after 8am. He stood and walked towards her. She was wearing black jeans, a blue sweater, and was carrying a black jacket. He noticed her shoes, the heels less towering than the ones she’d worn the night before.

Feeling a sense of déjà vu, he called out “Melissa?”

She stopped and turned towards him; her eyes crinkled with a smile.

“Good morning,” she said, and he felt intense relief.

“Will you have breakfast with me?”

She seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second and he opened his mouth to apologize.

“I’ll have tea. I’m not sure I’m up for, you know actual food.”

They walked together towards the hotel restaurant.

At the table he picked up the menu, she did not.

“You will feel better if you eat.”

“I dunno about that.”

“Trust me?”

She’d just taken off her mask and he caught the expression on her face but could not identify it.

She nodded. “OK. Order as you will.”

He ordered full English breakfasts for each of them. She asked for tea, he coffee.

“Tea drinker or tea drinker when in Great Britain?”

“Tea drinker.”

“I did not know that. Dennis— No wait, of course you know that, right?”

“I’ve known your dad and Dennis for a long time,” she answered. “Since you were, what? 12 or 13?”

“Oh.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I know. I met Martin when I got hired, his lab was next to mine. He helped me a lot.”

“I didn’t know that. I just remember your coming to dinner a few times.”

She nodded. “I remember that too. You were pretty obsessed with video games.”

“Oh god, I’m sorry. I did ramble at length about those. And since we’re talking about video games, I will say I still have the Minecraft socks you made me for Christmas one year.”

“I hope they’ve served you well.”

“They have. Thank you again.”

Their plates were set in front of them, and Melissa eyed the eggs, bacon, and grilled tomatoes dubiously. “Maybe the toast,” she said.

In the end, she ate almost everything on her plate.

“Feeling better?”

“Actually, yes I am. And I’m going to take some Motrin now that I don’t have an empty stomach.”

The waiter came over to bring her more tea and fill up Jonathan’s coffee cup.

He stared as his coffee for a while, unaccountably nervous. His dad’s friend, he reminded himself.

She pulled out her cell phone to check the time and looked at him apologetically. “I need to get going” she said.

“Of course. I suspect I do too.”

“What are your plans?”

“I have tickets to the British Museum. At opening, 10am.”

She looked at him. “This is awkward,” she said.

“What and why?”

“Me too. Tickets I mean. Same time same place. How do I ask if you want to hang out with me without sounding stalkerish?”

He smiled. “Let’s hang out. And I don’t want to hear about stalkerish. I sat in the lobby waiting for you to get off that elevator.”

“Good point.”

“My initial idea was to bang on your door, that didn’t seem like a good one. The worse one, I spared both of us.”

“Oh?”

“Calling my dad and begging him for your number, which I know he wouldn’t give me, or asking him to text you and ask you to text me. And I’d have been on pins and needles waiting to see if you would.”

She let him help her with her jacket. Not that she needed help, but she didn’t want to be looking at him, didn’t want him to notice the blush on her cheeks, above the mask.

“I’d have texted back,” she said.

She felt him still for a moment.

“I’m glad to know that. But please, pretty please, can you give me your number and I’ll give you mine?”

“You bet. You promised me Iceland photos and dinner when you get back, I’m holding you to that.”

His eyes, she noticed when she looked up at him, were a mix of blue and grey and green.

Outside, he asked. “Bus? Tube? Or cab? I’d suggest walking, but it’s about 3.5 miles. I ran it this morning.”

“Oh wow. You were out early.”

“Couldn’t sleep. Ran through Hyde Park, it was a good run.”

“You are going to crash later today.”

“Probably yes. What did you want to do after the museum? Can we go for lunch?”

She didn’t comment on the assumption that they’d spend the day together. It felt hopeful rather than coercive and she had been wondering how to ask him to do the same.

They took a cab, and Melissa looked over to the younger man. For a second, he leaned back, his eyes closed, and he seemed so very still for about ten seconds. Then his eyes popped open.

“So, rest of the day?”

“Well, I’d like to buy a bathing suit if I have time and a trip for goodies for everyone. Aside from that, I was planning one of those bus tours, hopping off here and there.”

“What heres and theres did you want to see?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I figured I’d play it by ear. My initial plan had been to go to the Victoria and Albert, but I wasn’t able to get tickets. What about you?”

“I was going to the British Museum, lunch, and then planning on running the London Marathon route.”

“Ok, sweetheart, let’s make this clear right from the start of whatever we do today. I. Do. Not. Run. I just do NOT.” She was laughing and he smiled back of her. She liked the way his eyes crinkled above his mask.

“Right, right, I get it! No marathon this afternoon! Plus I already ran for two hours this morning, so I’m calling it good. Let’s get lunch, run your errands, do the bus thing, and finish at the London Eye?”

“The Eye?”

“I know it’s probably awesome during the day, but I love seeing cities at night.”

“Ah.”

She gulped. She had not been planning on ever going on an enormous Ferris wheel that might stop at any second and leave her stranded up in the middle of the sky. Or collapse into a pile of steel beams. Collapsing was bad but being up there was worse. She was afraid of heights. Well, not heights, she always claimed, but edges. And sshe was pretty sure the London Eye qualified as a major edge. But still. Just because she hadn’t planned it didn’t mean she couldn’t do it. Right. She could. Really, she could. So she nodded.

“Any thoughts on lunch or dinner? Or where you want to shop?”

She shook her head. “No. By the time my Victoria and Albert plans fell through I was too tired to think about anything else.”

“How about we do the goodies shopping tomorrow morning before the airport? We should have about an hour or so. You remember we’re going together?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I need to pick up some stuff for my trip as well. Nobody does ginger cookies like the Brits.”

“You and my dad say the same thing. He’s been trying to duplicate his Canadian grandmother’s recipe for half his life. His mother tried before him. I suspect my great-grandmother just replaced half the flour with ginger and left it at that.”

“Mmmm….”

He checked something on his phone. “Lunch then bus tour, London Eye, and dinner.”

She suppressed a wince. She could do it. “Sounds like a plan. Any specific places you want to eat?”

“I’m not picky. You?”

“Anything is good.”

“Have you done Indian since you’ve been here?”

“Nope. Bistro after bistro after bistro. Indian sounds great.”

“Dinner?”

“Planning ahead?”

He nodded. “I’m going to call my friend France…. Or rather, considering the time of day, one of her people. She runs a concierge service and she’ll get everything booked for us.”

She gaped.

“Yeah, I know, too much money, too young. But seriously, this is not what you think. France was my grandfather’s assistant. He left her some money, and she took the opportunity to start a concierge business. Dad and I basically have free concierge services for life. If I don’t ask her for help often enough, she books things for me that pop up on my calendar.”

Melissa laughed, “You’re kidding.”

“No. So far it’s been silly stuff, but she keeps on threatening to sign me up for a dating service. That said, I’m an excellent ballroom dancer.”

She laughed again. “Signed you up for classes?”

“And sent a Lyft to pick me up, yes.”

He was still typing on his phone as they got out of the cab.

“Jonathan, you have to let me pay for some of this!”

“Knit me a pair of socks?”

She nodded slowly. “All right. You can check my yarn stash up in the room for what I have with me, if nothing appeals, you’ll have to come check out what I have at home.”

They smiled at each other.

The line to get in was socially distant and they waited. The weather was grey, but not raining or even misting, and it wasn’t even too cold.

Jonathan got a text, which he read quickly. “France’s people actually suggest lunch in the British Museum Courtyard, and then Indian tonight. Sound ok, should I have them book?”

“I am not going to complain, ever, about someone doing those things. That sounds great.”

It was almost 2pm before they sat down for lunch. They’d taken the longer tour and had spent a bit of time at the museum store.

“Keychains? Why?”

“Because my friends have kids and every single kid and tween I know are collecting keychains this year.”

“Really? I’ve not seen that.”

“Apparently the trend started this summer, as travel picked up and people wanted to bring back little things, and for some reason, everyone brought back keychains for the kids. It started a craze in at least Washington and Oregon. At least that’s what Mags tells me.”

“Mags is your friend who is also friends with Cate, right?”

“Good memory. Yes. I’ve known them both since college. We were M6.” She looked up with him, her eyes narrowed in mock threat. “Note M6, not MI6, so please no James Bond jokes!”

“Never! Why M6?”

“We were in the freshman biology class, and the teacher divided the whole gigantic class into discussion groups of three, running us all off alphabetically. He passed ‘Liu’ and said ‘Oh this is too great. Mr Lowry, if you’d like to join Ms Navarro and Mr Nesheim.’ They got up and moved, and I was a bit confused, because I should have been there. And he said “Melissa Maitland, Magdalena Martinez, and Michaela Meyer, you’re a group, all 6Ms of you!’ He came over later to apologize for singling us out, but I owe him my best friends. We decided on M6 rather than 6M later. Collectively we call ourselves the Ms. I mean, rather than you girls it’s ‘hey Ms’!”

“But Cate?”

“Yeah. Cate hated her name. Her dad was Michael and he divorced her mom and left them, so she was ready to change it. We -Mags and I- went down to the courtroom to help her with that. She was Michaela Catherine, she’s now Catherine Miriam, after her mom’s mom. We all did name things. Mags picked her nickname, she’d always been called Magdalena, and felt it didn’t fit her, and I ditched my nickname!”

“Oh? What’s this about a nickname?”

“Use it and I’ll knit you a straight-jacket. My parents called me Missy, as did most of my high school friends. The only advantage of not getting into UW was going out of state and not having high school friends insist I drag on that awful name!”

“I get it. You don’t look like a Missy. Or act like it.”

“Thank you!”

They ordered and the waiter brought Jonathan his coffee. He added sugar and stirred.

“Didn’t get into UW?”

“Nope. I was devastated at the time. Landed on my feet ok, but I still feel a bit sad that I didn’t get a Husky undergrad.”

“Where did you go?”

“Stanford.”

“Wait. You got into Stanford and not UW?”

“I know, I never figured that out either myself. When I was first back in the Seattle area after undergrad and PhD, I got a masters in biostatistics from UW while I was doing my first post-doc. Made it all better.”

“You should have written a nasty letter to the admission committee.”

“I can just see them getting that. Ah well. I just remain in awe of those of you with UW undergrads.”

“Not like I had much choice.”

“I suppose not. It must have been both exhilarating and terrifying, starting college at 14.”

“13, actually.” He made a face. “It was. But it was ok because Robin and I were together.” He was staring down at his cup. Robin, his best friend, they’d gotten through it all together. Robin who had graduated at the same time. Melissa remembered the graduation party, in Martin’s backyard, and tall blond Jonathan always with the much smaller red-haired young man alongside him. She’d assumed they were lovers, but Martin had once told her that they hadn’t been. Robin had been killed that summer in an accident, a drunk driver had hit him as he was driving home one night. He’d died at the scene. He’d not quite been 19 years old.

She reached out and gently touched his forearm. “I’m sorry. I know I told you at the time, but it was devastating, and I’m sorry you had to have that happen to you.”

“Thank you. It was hard. He was… he was so bright, Melissa. We were rarely in classes together after our first year, he got a history degree, he was headed to Harvard for law school, he’d have been brilliant. He wanted to be president, or Senate Majority Leader, or on the Supreme Court one day! I remember when he looked up who the shortest US president was: James Madison at 5ft4 and he said he’d be the second shortest at 5ft5. He would have been too. He was so bright, and witty, and kind.” He shook his head. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m listening. I only met him a few times, but your dad talked about both of you a lot.” She smiled. “I remember many ‘Jonathan and Robin want to go bungee jumping’ or ‘Jonathan and Robin went and bought a trampoline and set it up in our yard, and now Jonathan has a broken arm and Robin a sprained ankle’ and ‘Jonathan and Robin want to hike the Enchantments solo. Den says they’ll be fine, what do you think?’”

He was laughing now, the sweetness of the memories pushing away at the loss. “Oh god, that trampoline. We ordered it from Amazon, his parents said no, nope, not in our yard, and Den was fishing in Alaska, so we installed it in mine and had a blast until we hurt ourselves and Dad got home from work. Double flips, baby!”

“And you were lucky on the Enchantments. I had permits for the following week, and your dad tried to convince me to go with you guys, since it’s what, 10? Per permit. I told him no way was I trying to do a 4-day-25-mile backpacking trip with two male teenagers! And he said ‘Well, Robin is really short’ and I was like ‘Yo Martin. I’m 5ft tall. Robin is still taller than me. They probably take one step to my three!’”

“That was a nice trip. Shame you weren’t there!”

“I suspect 16-year-old you would not have been thrilled with 30-year-old me tagging along.”

“Hum. Maybe not.”

Their lunches came and they ate quietly. His phone buzzed. And buzzed again. He apologized and checked it.

“France has dinner reservations for us at 9pm. Is that ok? I know it’s a bit late. She also has the bus tour set up for 30 minutes from now, and suggests -suggests, mind you- we do our shopping by hopping off at Piccadilly and sending stuff back to the hotel, then getting back on the bus for the Ferris wheel. She’s booked the London Eye for 8pm. Dinner at 9 at a place called Kutir. After that -are you exhausted yet? - she will have a car waiting for us for a quick -no longer than one hour- tour of London by night, then back to the hotel by midnight.”

She knew her mouth was open.

“Now, here’s the reality. It is all doable because she’ll have lined up Lyft drivers who will be waiting to take us wherever we need to be. But anything you don’t want to do, we can skip.”

“I thought we’d do the shopping tomorrow morning,” she said, feeling almost helpless.

“I did too. But tomorrow at 9am she has a tour scheduled for us at the Victoria and Albert Museum.”

“But. It doesn’t open until 10. And there are no tickets available anyhow.”

“Apparently one of the curators is giving us a bit of a private tour,” he said, sounding apologetic. “If you tell me what you specifically wanted to see, I’ll let France know so she can pass it along. Anyhow, after that, airport. You will get an upgrade to Saga Class so they’ll feed you on the plane. You can either sit with me, or if I’ve completely scared you off, you can tell me to fuck off and sit somewhere else in first class,” he finished with a grin.

She just kept on staring at him, before starting slowly, “Jonathan, I can’t accept—”

He reached out a finger almost touching her lips to quiet her. “I haven’t had this much fun in as long as I can remember,” he said. “Please.”

She shook her head slowly, overwhelmed. Who the hell got private tours at the Victoria and Albert? Then she looked at him and noticed the hesitancy and nervousness on his face. He didn’t… He didn’t know what was happening either. And she agreed. It had been a while since she’d enjoyed herself this much. He was good company.

Finally, she nodded, “Thank you, but you’re getting a sweater too to match those socks.”

He smiled and she smiled back at him.