“So what about your trip?” he asked, rattling the bag of chocolates, then offering it to her. “You must be excited to see your brothers.”
“I am,” she said. “It’s been way too long.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to San Francisco.”
“The wedding’s in Napa, actually.”
“Ah,” he said, glancing over at her. “So you won’t get to see any of the city while you’re out there?”
They’d been angled toward each other, but now Lucy turned to the screen with a shrug. “Not really,” she said, and left it at that.
But throughout the movie, she found herself sneaking sideways glances at him, studying the sharp line of his jaw and his neatly trimmed hair, his steady, straightforward gaze. Deep down, she knew she was comparing him to Owen, but the differences were so obvious there hardly seemed to be a point. Besides, Liam was right here. With Owen, the details were a bit foggier. He was a voice in the dark. A presence beside her on a kitchen floor. A series of letters across the back of a postcard.
Liam was a possibility. Owen was just a memory.
So why was she still thinking about him?
Even now, sitting beside him on the bench, she couldn’t seem to keep hold of her thoughts, which were skittering around in her head like marbles. It was only when their eyes met that everything went still again, and a familiar ease settled over her. Just being with him like this again—it was almost enough to make her forget it was only temporary.
As they ate, they filled in the gaps.
From him: stories of the road trip (the cities getting smaller as the spaces between them got bigger; the cheap motels and fast food restaurants; the endless cornfields and far-flung skies; him and his dad and the ribbon of highway and a good song on the radio), and of Tahoe (the blue lake and the ring of mountains; the tiny apartment and the restaurant below; the luckless job search; the short and unremarkable stint at a school there); and, finally, of San Francisco (where things might be different).
And from her: stories of New York (the packing and the leaving and the strange mix of feelings that came along with it), and of Edinburgh (the foggy mornings and the fairy-tale castle; her father’s new job and their family’s new town house; the smell of stew and the early darkness; the constant presence of the sea, which was not so very different from the one laid out before them, sprinkled with boats and the occasional bird).
As they talked, the sky went from pink to purple to navy, and the empty tinfoil husks on the bench between them had to be pinned down when the wind picked up. Lucy pulled her cold fingers into the sleeves of her jacket, listening to Owen tell the story of Bartleby, the stray turtle they’d picked up on the way here.
“I keep trying to teach him to fetch,” he was saying, “or at least come when he’s called, but he doesn’t do a whole lot of tricks.”
Lucy smiled. ‘He’d prefer not to.”
“Exactly.”
“And your dad doesn’t mind having him around?”
“He’s always tripping over him,” Owen said with a shrug, “but it’s kind of nice for it to be more than just the two of us, you know?”
Lucy swallowed hard before managing a small nod.
“Even if it is just a turtle.”
“Turtles count,” she said. “And it’ll be nice for your dad to have some company next year. Have you heard from any schools yet?”
He shook his head. “It’s too early.”
“Where’d you end up applying?”
“Everywhere,” he said with a hint of a smile, but there was something behind his eyes that didn’t quite match up. “But I’m not sure I’m going.”
“Why?” Lucy asked. “Because of missing so much school this year?”
“Nothing like that,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of credits. It’s just…”
She twisted her mouth. “Your dad?”
He nodded.
“But I’m sure he’d want you to go.…”
“I can defer a year,” he said. “Wait till we’re more settled.”
Lucy gave him a long look. “And he’s okay with that?”
“He doesn’t know,” Owen said, and his voice cracked over the next words. “But how can I leave him, too?”
He looked so sad, sitting there, folded over like a comma, his eyes dark and his face pale. Lucy had no idea what to say. For her family, separation was as normal as togetherness, though if it really came down to it, and if you really needed them, she knew they would be there. Still, how could she possibly tell a boy without a mother that it was okay to walk away from his father, too?
“I don’t know for sure yet,” he said, before she could think of a response. “I guess there’s still time to figure it out.”
“Yes,” she said, because it was all she could manage.
He gave her an uneven smile. “Thanks.”
“For what?” she asked, surprised.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But just… thanks.”
At some point, they’d moved closer to each other on the bench, and she realized only now that their knees were touching. Between them, someone had carved the word MAYBE into the wood in uneven letters, and she wondered if Owen saw it, too. She closed her eyes for a moment and let the word expand in her head: maybe. Maybe it was the cold, or maybe it was the conversation, or maybe it was something else that had pulled them so close. But here they were, angled together like this, their faces suddenly too near, and she lowered her eyes, afraid to meet his gaze. The quiet between them had gone on for too long now to pretend it was anything other than what it was. There were no more words; all that was left were two faintly beating hearts.
For a moment, as they leaned toward each other, Lucy forgot about Liam so completely it was as if he’d never existed at all, as if he hadn’t kissed her hundreds of times, as if it didn’t mean a thing. Her mind was muddled and blurry, wiped clean by the boy on the bench with the magnetic eyes.
But somewhere in the midst of it all—the steady tilt toward each other and the sudden flutter of anticipation—she remembered herself, and almost without meaning to, she found herself leaning back, just slightly. It was barely noticeable, only a fraction of an inch, but it was enough to shift everything from slow-motion back into the awful, mundane speed of the everyday, and just as suddenly, Owen pulled back, too.
They stared at each other. Something in his eyes had changed, and it caught her off guard. She’d been the one to stop it, but there was a look of relief on his face that made her cheeks burn, and she blinked at him, reeling from what had just happened: the nearness of him, and now, just as quickly, the distance.
“Sorry,” he said, and she sat up a bit straighter. It was true that she was a little fuzzy on the etiquette involved with an almost-kiss, but it seemed to her that if she was the one who pulled away first, then she should be the one to apologize.
“No,” she said, shaking her head, inching even closer to the edge of the bench. “It’s my fault, I didn’t—”
“I shouldn’t have even been—”
“I didn’t mean to—”
They were talking over each other again, and they both stopped at the same time. In another conversation, they would have been laughing about this, or at least smiling, but there was too much still hovering between them right now.
Owen raised his hands, a helpless gesture. “I should have told you earlier,” he said, his words measured. “There was this girl I was seeing in Tahoe.…”
“You have a girlfriend?” Lucy asked, unable to stop herself. She could feel her mouth hanging open, and she closed it abruptly.
He shook his head, then nodded, then shook his head again. “No, I mean, sort of. I don’t know. It’s…”
“Complicated?” Lucy asked, her voice colder than she’d intended.
“Yeah,” he said. “Now that I’m down here, I’m not exactly sure where we stand. And I’d hate to do anything that would—”
“Nothing happened,” Lucy said, even while
she was thinking just the opposite: that everything had happened. “So you don’t need to worry.”
He ducked his head. “I’m really sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I have a boyfriend anyway.”
“You do?” he asked, looking up sharply.
She frowned. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“No,” he said, swinging his head back and forth. “Of course not. It’s just—”
“We’ve been together pretty much since I got to Edinburgh,” she said, and then, though there was no reason to continue, she added, “He’s a really great guy.”
“That’s great,” Owen said, a wounded look in his eyes. “Then I’m happy for you.”
“You too,” she managed to say, though she felt like crying. “What’s her name?”
“Paisley,” he said, and a short laugh escaped her.
“Seriously?”
He bristled. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” she said lightly. “I’ve just never heard it before.”
“Why, what’s your boyfriend’s name?” Owen said, practically spitting the word boyfriend.
Lucy hesitated, surprised by his tone, which was full of resentment. “Liam,” she said quietly, and he snorted.
“Liam and Lucy?” he said. “Cute.”
“There’s no need to be a jerk about it.”
“Does your boyfriend know you’re having dinner with me?” he asked, his eyes flashing.
“Does your girlfriend?” she shot back.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“She just wouldn’t want you trying to kiss other girls.”
“You tried to kiss me.”
“No,” she said. “I was the one who stopped it.”
“This is ridiculous,” he said, standing abruptly. “I’m not going to sit here arguing about this.”
“Fine,” Lucy said, jumping up as well. Another wave of frustration washed over her, and she grabbed the foil wrappings from the tacos, pounding them into a ball, which she held in her fist. “Say hi to your girlfriend.” It was a stupid, childish thing to say, but she couldn’t help herself. He smirked in response, and though this should have only made her angrier, she felt suddenly deflated instead. The wind was blowing his hair so that it fell across his eyes, and he was standing with his feet planted wide, his arms crossed tightly in front of him. It was hard to tell if he was upset or jealous or both.
“Yeah, send my best to Braveheart.”
“William Wallace,” she corrected automatically, “and he’s not—”
“Forget it,” Owen said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I should get going.”
Lucy pressed her lips together, stunned by how quickly the evening had unraveled. Finally, she shrugged. “Me too, I guess.”
“Fine,” he said.
“Fine,” she said back.
He stared at her for what felt like a long time before finally lifting his shoulders. “Thanks for coming.”
She nodded. “Thanks for the tacos.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice hollow. “Have fun at the wedding.”
And with that, they parted like two strangers, setting off in entirely different directions, just as they had before, as if it were some kind of bad habit, or maybe just a curse.
PART III
Everywhere
15
In Napa, Lucy went through the motions.
She made small talk with her relatives and admired her cousin’s dress. She smiled for photos and raised her glass whenever someone toasted. She ate her cake and humored her father with a dance and drank the champagne her brothers sneaked for her, happy to have their company again, even if it was only for a short time.
When they asked, she told everyone what she loved about Edinburgh and what she missed about New York, though in neither of those two conversations did she mention the two names that would have told the real story.
When she thought of Liam, she felt her heart wrench in one direction. And when she thought of Owen, it was tugged in the other.
On their last morning in Napa, after a week of celebrations, after the wedding and Christmas, the various tours of vineyards and the many meals with relatives, Lucy stood outside the house they’d rented and watched a flock of birds moving over the fields, flecks of pepper in a salt-white sky. Without warning, they shifted direction, all coordination and grace, a winged ballet. But there was one that kept missing the cues, a little slow to turn, a little low to fly, and that was the one that held her gaze.
All that day, through the drive back to San Francisco and the hours in the airport, the long plane ride—first to New York, then to London, and then finally up to Edinburgh—Lucy kept thinking of that one little bird.
Others must have seen it, too, a flock so big it colored the dishwater sky. They must have stopped what they were doing and tipped their heads back to marvel at it, astonished by the harmony of the group, the graceful turns and the wheeling circles, all those wings beating in time.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about the straggler, the missing beat, the odd one out. The single speck in the emptiest part of the sky.
She hoped that wherever he was, he’d be okay, that little bird.
16
In San Francisco, Owen walked.
Day after day, he crisscrossed the sprawling city. Dad stayed behind, scouring the papers and mining the Internet in search of a job, while Owen continued his odd trek, witnessing the backdrops to a thousand postcards, real or imagined. Not just the great red bridge, but other things, too: cable cars and twisty streets, Fisherman’s Wharf and Chinatown, Golden Gate Park and the Haight.
The only place he didn’t go—the one place he worked hard to avoid—was the little strip of grass along the marina, where a wooden bench sat looking out over the water, contemplating the possibilities with a single word: maybe.
If someone had asked him why all the walking, Owen wouldn’t have been able to answer. The reasons were too hard to articulate, too personal to explain. He wasn’t walking because there were things to see or because he had places to go. It was far simpler than that. He was walking because it was better than staying still, and because it seemed the best possible way to escape his thoughts, which crowded his head like the fog over the bay, thick as fleece and impossible to see around.
Whenever his mind drifted in Paisley’s direction, he was quick to shake it clear again. But that only left room for Lucy, who was somehow much harder to cast aside. He always allowed himself to linger there for a moment, lost in that one unlikely New York night, until the memory of their recent fight startled him alert again, and he’d blink fast, then grit his teeth and hurry on.
One evening, he paused at the top of a street on his way home. The sun was already halfway gone, the light a soft winter orange. For six straight days, he’d come to this intersection and turned left, where at the top of a hill, in a tiny apartment, his father would be waiting with dinner on the table.
But tonight, on the seventh day, he found himself moving in the direction of the marina instead. For better or worse, it was the last place he’d seen her. And that was reason enough for him.
17
In Edinburgh, Lucy slept.
At first, her parents chalked it up to jet lag. But as the days wore on, they began to worry. She slept late and went to bed early, her hours matching those of the elusive winter sun, and in between, she padded around the flat in her pajamas and slippers. Whenever she showed up downstairs, Mom insisted on laying a cool hand against her forehead, but it was obvious she didn’t have a fever.
“Let her sleep,” she heard Dad say when she left the kitchen one day. “She’s on her break. And it’s nice to know where she is for once.”
On New Year’s Eve, there were dangerously high winds, and the street party was canceled for fear that the rides would get blown away. So instead her parents made an enormous pot of chili, and the three of them spent the evening playing board games while the win
d rattled the windows of the town house.
But Lucy couldn’t concentrate.
Liam would be getting back to Edinburgh the next day.
He’d e-mailed her several times over the past ten days—about his holiday in Ireland on his grandparents’ farm, but also about how he couldn’t wait to see her, how much he missed her, how he was thinking of her often—and she hadn’t written back once. It didn’t seem fair when she was suddenly so uncertain about everything.
She still had no idea what she was going to do when she saw him.
All morning, she’d been keeping an eye on her phone, assuming he’d text her when he was back in the city. But she was still in her pajamas when the doorbell rang.
From her bedroom, Lucy strained to listen to the voices downstairs, and after a moment, her father yelled up. “There’s a young man named Liam here to see you,” he said, raising his eyebrows as she appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Thanks,” she said, shuffling down in her polka-dot pajama pants and purple NYU hoodie. Liam was standing in the open doorway, the lingering Edinburgh night sprawled out behind him, inky and cold, and he looked impossibly rugged in a woolly sweater. When he smiled up at her, she nearly tripped.
At the bottom of the stairs, he stepped forward as if to kiss her, but she held up a hand, glancing back down the hallway toward the kitchen, where she was certain her parents were lurking, and then pulled him into the library instead, shutting the glass doors behind them.
“Aha,” he said, reaching for her. “Privacy.”
Lucy managed a nervous laugh. “You’re back.”
“I am,” he said, moving close so that their faces were only inches apart. “I missed you.”
When he kissed her, she felt momentarily woozy, all of her resolve floating away like champagne bubbles, light and fizzy, popping only when she finally managed to pull back. For a moment, they just stared at each other, and her stomach did a little flip. It would be so easy to continue this way, to lose herself to this guy with the chiseled jaw and the easy charm. They could just keep going as if nothing had happened in California. Because it was true; nothing had.