As Far as the Stars

As Far as the Stars Virginia Macgregor Praise for Virginia Macgregor:'I defy you not to fall in love' Clare MackintoshHow do you change what’s already written in the stars?Christopher is the sort of guy that no one notices, yet when Air catches sight of him making intricate paper birds in the airport, she can’t look away. But their worlds are about to collide in ways they never expected. Someone they love is on Flight 0217 from London Heathrow. And it’s missing. Convinced that her brother was on a different flight, Air drives them hundreds of miles across the country, on a trip that will change their lives forever. But how do you tell the person you’re falling for that you might just be the reason their life has fallen apart? VIRGINIA MACGREGOR is the author of What Milo Saw, The Return of Norah Wells, Before I Was Yours, You Found Me and the young adult novel Wishbones. Her fifth novel for adults, The Children’s Secret, will be out in the UK in November 2019. Her work has been translated into over a dozen languages. After graduating from Oxford University, she worked as a teacher of English and Housemistress in three major British boarding schools. She holds an MA in Creative Writing and now writes full time. Virginia is married to Hugh, who is Director of Theatre at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. They moved to New Hampshire from the UK in July 2016 and live at St. Paul’s with their two daughters, Tennessee Skye and Somerset Wilder and by the time this novel is published, they will have a new little boy too. Copyright (#ulink_51fef56c-4796-5b29-8603-75459af5ad8a) An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019 Copyright © Virginia Macgregor 2019 Alice Feeney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9780008217334 PRAISE FOR VIRGINIA MACGREGOR: (#ulink_d20c982f-f1e2-55f8-98a4-7c1074ce6b83) ‘I defy you not to fall in love’ Clare Mackintosh ‘Warm, wise and insightful’ Good Housekeeping ‘Sharp, funny and hugely moving, this is a must-read’ Fabulous ‘Impossible not to fall in love’ Stylist ‘Touching and poignant’ Cathy Hopkins ‘Might restore your faith in human nature’ Bella ‘Will delight you but break your heart several times over’ The Sun ‘This wonderful story will tear at your heart’ My Weekly ‘Original, poignant and heart-warming’ Sadie Pearse To my beloved husband, Hugh, who never stops believing in what I do. Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie Contents Cover (#ufb8c1490-9636-521b-b5c1-f1428cbb2d10) About the Author (#u9c491cf8-2b3c-558b-9e5a-4d81b13f1418) Title Page (#u12130715-c8e6-5fa4-8653-9de229515b95) Copyright (#ulink_576c7b76-8dd4-59c9-895a-47bf700c3d32) PRAISE (#ulink_38569523-efc8-563d-9f19-b37ac93555c5) Dedication (#u94306da9-0de9-5dc7-8f83-a28b5bca116c) Epigraph (#u8ff7d77a-4237-566c-b9d8-e3ed338581ea) DAY 1: SATURDAY 19 AUGUST, 2017 (#ulink_9c45ff83-8340-5817-ad26-0a7bca7bbce0) Prologue (#ulink_7bc243ec-524a-5f73-97e1-19c7288ca95a) Chapter One (#ulink_9f0e6551-e680-5a13-89eb-08718b7cfa15) Chapter Two (#ulink_fbda95d4-1001-5b68-9d50-c283e1cc103f) Chapter Three (#ulink_a1581c31-6759-57f1-a78d-0628cb9d9a84) Chapter Four (#ulink_5596852c-dbfd-5a7f-a4c1-0456b185bd65) Chapter Five (#ulink_cceb3797-b841-58cd-b2d5-1d77afd35120) Chapter Six (#ulink_5d8f7b40-fc40-5d53-8d69-91583bfc60b3) Chapter Seven (#ulink_826b5aae-1241-5545-a056-cc4a0cfe59d2) Chapter Eight (#ulink_6585123b-c2f8-5a43-b356-d98428482ad8) Chapter Nine (#ulink_b61ee66c-4721-56de-9fce-0ca436c7606f) Chapter Ten (#ulink_766fb695-67c0-5dd0-bfb8-91d398be2462) Chapter Eleven (#ulink_c440e68a-3c4b-5d01-ab0e-fb380868ae62) Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo) DAY 2: SUNDAY 20TH AUGUST, 2017 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo) DAY 3: MONDAY 21ST AUGUST, 2017 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) DAY 4: TUESDAY 22ND AUGUST, 2017 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo) One Year Later (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) DAY 1 (#ulink_930d66cb-3715-583e-89c0-0710dde22eeb) SATURDAY 19 AUGUST, 2017 (#ulink_930d66cb-3715-583e-89c0-0710dde22eeb) Prologue (#ulink_b514efc4-d779-571d-97a0-e34ffc5d5fca) On the I-81, heading for Nashville, a yellow Buick comes to an abrupt halt. A girl swerves onto the hard shoulder and hits the brakes. Then she checks the message on her phone again. Damn it! She thumps the steering wheel. She checks the clock on the dashboard, takes a breath and then puts the car back into gear. She takes the next exit, gets back onto the I-81 and heads back to DC, praying that her brother’s plane will be on time. A continent away, a pilot looks at the paper model sitting on the dashboard in his cockpit: a warbler, a tiny bird that can fly for three days across the Atlantic without landing. He never takes it for granted: how miraculous this is, to be up here, hundreds of miles from the earth. And at night, to see the stars, up close. He thinks of his son, who made the paper bird. In a few hours, they’ll be together and then a holiday, just the two of them. He’s going to try harder this time. Beyond the paper bird, through the thick glass windows, the sky is that endless kind of blue. His eyes aren’t big enough to take it all in. It’s morning. The day is starting. It’s going to be a beautiful day, the pilot thinks. A beautiful flight. Not a whisper of wind. A smooth parabola through the sky from one continent to the other. He’s done this route hundreds of times. Sometimes, he jokes that he could do it in his sleep. He cranes his neck and looks down. They’re passing the west coast of Ireland. In a few more minutes they’ll leave behind the land and then, for thousands of miles, it’ll be just him and his passengers and crew, flying between sea and sky. There are times when he’s so happy up here that he wishes he could fly for ever. That there was no land to go back to. The plane is flying steady now. He switches the controls to autopilot; there’s no more need for his intervention, not for a good while. He sits back and looks back out at the sky. Across the Atlantic, at Dulles International Airport in DC, a seventeen-year-old boy waits by the arrivals gate. He sits on the floor, his back pressed into the wall. It’ll be hours before his father’s plane lands, but he doesn’t mind waiting. Airports are like home for him. He’s good at blocking out the noise and the people. All those comings and goings. He pulls a scrap of paper out of his backpack and starts folding. A few miles off the coast of western Ireland, where the sea is so deep it’s black, a fisherman stands in his boat, pulling in a net. He’s been out since before light. He hears the drone of the engine before he sees the plane. He lives under the flight path, so over the years he’s become used to the sound, to how the rhythm of the planes weave between the currents of the sea. But still, it takes him by surprise: to see them up there, those big metal birds, carrying all those people through the sky. The sea he understands: a wooden raft floating on the waves is as ancient as the world. But the planes, they never seem quite right. He holds up his hand and waves. He knows that it’s too far for the pilot to see him, but still, he likes to do it. The sun’s so strong – the sky so blue – he has to close his eyes. Behind his eyelids, there’s darkness and then stars. And when he blinks them away and tries to adjust again to the brightness, he thinks the plane will be gone – far off on its journey through the sky. A few moments peace until the next one. But the plane hasn’t gone: it’s still there. He’s familiar with this trick of time and distance, how it seems as though the planes are not moving at all, when really, they’re tearing through the sky faster than anything on land or sea. He keeps staring at the plane, a straight, white arrow piercing the blue sky. But then the plane seems to change direction. Its angle shifts. Its wings tilt to one side. Maybe it’s steading itself, he thinks, having reached altitude. But usually the planes climb higher, especially the big airliners. He blinks again. Strangely, now, it looks like the plane is slowing down. The fisherman rubs his eyes. I’m getting old, he tells himself. And I’m tired. I was up early; I’ve been staring at the sea for too long. He thinks of going home. Of taking off his wet clothes. Of washing the salt from his skin and then climbing into bed for a few hours’ rest. His eyes adjust. He can see clearly now. And then something makes him stand up in his boat and tilt his head up to the sky and wave frantically, even though he knows that no one can see him. He’s not just tired. And his eyes are fine. Something’s wrong. The plane is no longer ascending. And it’s not adjusting its position. Its tail is too high in relation to its body; its nose is dipping. And though the force of the engines keep propelling the plane forward, there’s a strange stalling sound, a grinding through the air that echoes across the sea. He watches and watches as the plane tilts and dips and slows. And starts to fall. Chapter One (#ulink_095bf32b-d9ba-562b-b000-bc18f91defeb) 12.25 EST Dulles International Airport, Washington DC Even before I step into the arrivals lounge I see the chaos. People push in and out of the sliding doors, their cells clamped to their ears. Cars crowd the pick-up zone. Everyone’s walking too fast. I knew it would be busy: it’s the end of the summer and people are flying in for the solar eclipse. But this is insane. As we get closer to the airport building, Leda lets out a long whine like someone’s stepped on her tail. Ever since we turned off the highway, she hasn’t let up: barking and yelping and doing that high-pitched whimpering thing. Leda’s my brother’s dog. A small, scrappy, caramel-coloured mongrel with shiny black eyes and stiff, worn fur. She looks more like an old-fashioned teddy bear than a dog. She’s cowering in the footwell like something’s spooked her. And I can’t shake the feeling either: something’s wrong. But I push the feeling down to the pit of my stomach. I can’t go there, not now. I have to focus. Leda whines again. ‘Pipe down,’ I call back to her. ‘You’ll see him in a second.’ Leda’s been missing Blake all summer. I told Blake he should take her with him to London but he said Leda would be better off with me. Which is probably true. Just because Blake loves her, it doesn’t mean he remembers to feed her or walk her or let her out to pee. I park the car a bit too close to the main walkway but it’s so busy it’s the only space I can find. And who’s going to moan about stumbling over a 1973 mustard yellow Buick convertible, right? I should charge a viewing fee. Leda jumps up and down on the back seat, her ears flapping. ‘Okay, okay.’ I lift her out and then throw my telescope over my shoulder – it’s the only thing I’d mind being stolen from the car. In fact, I’d be delighted if someone stole the two dresses spread out across the back bench. One’s for the rehearsal dinner (yellow), one’s for the wedding (sky blue): both sewn by Mom. They’re the kind of dresses I wouldn’t be caught dead in, not in real life, but my big sister, Jude, is getting married, and that’s a big deal, so I gave in. For the past year and a half, everything’s been about my sister, Jude’s, wedding. At least all this will be over soon and we’ll be able to go back to our normal lives. As I walk to the terminal entrance I get out my cell and text Blake: Hurry. You can smoke in the car. I hate it when Blake smokes when he’s driving, but if we wait for him to have a smoke outside he’ll end up talking to someone and then he’ll want to take down their cell number (Blake’s got more friends than any sane person can remember), and then he’ll notice the colour of the sky or a sad-looking piece of trash on the sidewalk and feel inspired to write down some lyrics. And then he’ll find a reason to have a second cigarette and he’ll suggest we take a detour somewhere, for the hell of it, and before we know it, we’ll have missed the whole wedding. And, besides Jude and Stephen, the bride and groom, if there’s one person this wedding can’t go ahead without, it’s Blake. He’s singing the song. The song. When I step into the arrivals lounge, things look even worse. The people clutching the flowers and Welcome Home banners don’t look like they’re meant to look: bouncy with excitement about seeing whoever it is they came to collect. They look stressed out. A red-faced man has one of the airport staff by his shirt collar and is yelling into his face. The something’s wrong feeling pushes back up my oesophagus and I get that biley taste at the back of my throat. It has nothing to do with you, I tell myself. Just focus on finding Blake. I breathe slowly in and out until I feel better. I check my phone again and read Blake’s last message: ETA: 10.15am. Followed by another message a few minutes later: See you at Dulles. Dulles! As in Dulles International Airport in Washington DC. DC is where we live. And Dulles is the airport Blake’s flown in and out of a million times. I’ve lost track of the number of Heathrow-Dulles flights I’ve booked for him. I joke that I’m the one who always brings Blake home, to our small apartment in Washington, to our family. You’re my guiding star, Air, he jokes. Only it’s not a joke: if it weren’t for me, God knows where Blake would end up. Which might be the reason he got confused – maybe he thought he was just flying into Dulles, coming home, as usual, and that I’d pick him up and that we’d drive to the wedding together. But that wasn’t the plan. And I’d told him the plan a million times: Mum, Dad and Jude were driving down to Nashville a week ahead to make preparations for the wedding. I’d follow a few days later. And I’d pick him up at Nashville airport and bring him to the hotel. Book a flight to Nashville, I’d told him, over and over, knowing it would take a while to sink in. Nashville is where the wedding is taking place. It’s the city where Dad grew up and took us for every holiday when we were kids. And it’s the city Blake loves more than anywhere in the world. It made sense for him to fly straight into Nashville: it allowed him to squeeze in a few extra gigs in London before the wedding. He’d already complained about having to cut his UK tour short. I look at my phone again. I still can’t believe that he flew into Dulles. Seriously? The airports are 700 miles apart, in totally different states – in different time zones for Christ’s sake. It’s not like they’re easy to mix-up. Though I shouldn’t be surprised. Blake is mess-up central. Two days ago, I got this random voicemail from him. It wasn’t even from his phone – which is why I didn’t pick up. He explained that he’d lost his cell and that he was borrowing a phone. There was so much noise in the background that he was shouting. He was probably at a gig. Then he landed the bombshell: Can you book the return flight for me? Run out of cash. Thanks sis, got to go. Love you. Casual. Totally casual. Blake only ever books one-way tickets. His plans are constantly changing, so it doesn’t make sense to book more than a few days ahead. And he’s always short of cash. So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Only, this was different: it was forty-eight hours before our sister’s wedding. And I’d reminded him – like a thousand times – that he had to book a return flight well in advance. But had he listened to any of my very clear instructions about the wedding? About where it was taking place and when and at what time and which airport he had to fly into? No. Obviously, no. And, two nights ago, when he left that message, saying that he hadn’t booked his flight yet – like it was nothing – did I bail him out, again? Yes. Obviously, yes. So, even though it was three in the morning and I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, I got out the debit card Mom and Dad set up for me, and booked the flight from Heathrow to Nashville, as planned. Jude, Blake and I all have a card with separate accounts set up in our names. It’s Mom and Dad’s way of teaching us to be responsible with money. Only Blake keeps maxing his out and then I have to bail him out with my card. The thing is, Mom gets alerts when any of us spend more than $50 so I texted her, explaining that Blake had forgotten to book a return ticket and that he didn’t have any money but that she didn’t need to worry, I was on it. Everything was going to be fine. Blake messing up is a scenario she’s familiar with. She answered with: OK. Just get him here. Mom never blames Blake for anything. She never even blames him for maxing out his debit card. She’s got this massive blind spot where he’s concerned. Being pissed off at how Mom is totally soft when it comes to Blake is one of the few things Jude and I bond over. Then I sent a text message to the phone he’d called from with the flight details for the totally overpriced last-minute ticket. That I’d meet him at Nashville airport and take him to the hotel. I sent him a few other texts too, not caring what stranger would read them first, telling him how pissed I was that he’d woken me up and how expensive the flight was and that he’d better be on time. He never answered any of my texts. I don’t really believe in praying: I don’t think anyone out there is listening. Except, perhaps, some life form on a planet we haven’t discovered yet. But not a God-like figure. Not someone who directs our lives. That night, though, I found myself begging that if there was some force out there who decided whether things work out or get fucked up, that Blake would get my messages. That whoever he’d borrowed a phone from would pass them on. That he wasn’t some random guy off the street that Blake would never see again. I guess I begged – or prayed, or whatever – because I knew that this time Blake had to get his shit together. That he had to make it back for the wedding. The next time I heard from him was the text he sent me when I was halfway to Nashville saying that he was landing in Dulles. The text was from a different number, probably another phone he borrowed. You mean Nashville! I’d texted back. No. Dulles. See you soon, sis. And then nothing. Had he not received any of my messages when I booked his flight? Did he end up booking a flight on his own? He was always borrowing money off people; maybe he’d found a way to pay the airfare. And then he’d got it wrong: he thought we were meant to meet up in Dulles and drive down to Nashville together. But that had never been the plan. I’d explained it to him. But then Blake’s not good at listening. Not when it comes to practical, everyday stuff. So, this was another typical Blake fuck-up. Only worse: a fuck-up on top of a fuck-up. I clench my hands, digging my fingernails into my palms. Focus, I think. Just focus on finding Blake. I’m really late. Two hours late. So, I guess all these stressed-out looking people, they’ve been here for a while already. There’s a toddler screaming. But besides him and the red-faced yelling guy, everything’s a weird kind of quiet, people walking around with wide, glazed eyes like they’ve lost something. I’ve been to this airport more times than I can remember – I’m Blake’s personal taxi service – and it’s never felt like this. And when I see how lost those people look, I feel bad – like I should be asking them if I can help or something – but I don’t have time to be helpful in other people’s lives right now: I’ve got to find Blake, get him into the car and start driving. That’s if he’s even here. Knowing Blake, he’s probably got on a plane to Hawaii or Iceland or bloody Timbuktu. I check my phone again. No. Dulles. See you soon, sis. Though, in the grand-Blake scheme of things, his message doesn’t really mean much. I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s told me where he’s planning to go, only to find out that he’s ended up somewhere else altogether. Maybe his brain went into autopilot; maybe he thought he was coming home to DC, like he usually does. Or maybe his brain was tired or hungover or in its general state of Blake-like distraction and he texted Dulles because that was what he was used to texting. Maybe, at this exact moment, he’s standing at the arrivals gate of Nashville International Airport – like he was meant to all along. God, I shouldn’t have turned the car round. I should have gone to Nashville as planned, assumed that he was on the plane I’d booked for him, ignored his random text. If you made me drive all the way to Dulles for nothing, I’m not doing anything for you ever again, I say to him in my head. And this time, I mean it. Dulles. Nashville. Dulles. Nashville. The words crash around in my brain. Where the hell are you, Blake? He should have some kind of electronic tag. I take a breath. I’ve got to concentrate on one thing at a time. Assume he’s here. Then work out from there. A clear, logical method. I search the area around the arrivals gate. Blake’s hard to miss. He’s really tall and skinny and has this crazy black hair that stands up a mile with all the gel he puts in it – it’s longer than mine. It’s a bit of a family joke – how Blake’s hair is longer than mine, and how many products he has in the bathroom, and how long he takes grooming himself. When we tease him, he says it’s part of his brand. Blake’s been honing his brand since he was five years old when this music teacher at school told him he had a talent – and that he was cute, which, she explained, was a winning combination. When I can’t find him, I scan the arrivals screen for his flight. Within a few seconds, I’ve found it: 10.15 UKFlyer0217 From London Heathrow: DELAYED. Chapter Two (#ulink_3dabf970-1200-57b5-8859-31b79890bb70) 12.40 EST I look back at the screen to make sure I’ve got it right. But the word’s still there: DELAYED. It doesn’t make any sense. Blake texted me before he got on the plane. If it had been delayed, he’d have known – and they wouldn’t have let passengers get onto the plane, not that early. Though sometimes they get everyone on and then pull everyone off again. If there’s a technical error or something. That could have happened. But who cares what happened? If we’re late for any of the wedding stuff, Mom’s going to kill me. I go up to a guy wearing what I recognise as a UKFlyer uniform: ‘Excuse me—’ He spins round. His eyes are wide and kind of jumpy. UKFlyer officials have this way of looking totally calm. Like, even if the airport was on fire, every hair would stay in place. Mom says it’s a British thing. But this guy doesn’t look calm, not at all. Which is weird. Like it’s weird that everyone around me is acting so stressed out. It’s not like they’ve all got weddings to go to – or Moms like mine. Planes get delayed all the time. ‘The plane – the one that’s been delayed,’ I say to the UKFlyer guy. ‘I was meant to pick someone up.’ I pause. ‘Or I think I was. It’s complicated. Could you check the passenger list for me?’ He stares at me and blinks like I’m not speaking English. I rephrase, trying to calm myself down enough to get the words out in the right order: ‘I need to check whether my brother was meant to be on the plane that’s been delayed.’ ‘I’m afraid we can’t release that information.’ ‘I’m his sister.’ ‘We still can’t release that information. Not at this point.’ ‘What point?’ He looks at me like I’m about two years old – or totally crazy – or both. I mean, shouldn’t I know if the person I’ve come to collect was on the plane? And if I don’t, isn’t that weird? Yeah, it’s weird. But then he doesn’t know Blake. Infuriatingly unpredictable Blake. ‘I’m sorry I can’t help,’ the guy says, his eyes still darting around. ‘I’ve got to go.’ My heart starts doing this weird arrhythmic pounding thing. This can’t be happening. If I screw up even the tiniest part of this wedding, Mom will never forgive me. She’s planned every last detail. It’s been her life for like a year. On the surface, my allocated job for the wedding is simple: Blake. Get Blake to Nashville. In good time. Get him to the family breakfast and then the rehearsal dinner and then, crucially, the wedding, wearing a morning suit: top hat, coat and waistcoat, like Jude wanted – and ready to sing. After Jude and Stephen have said their vows, during the eclipse, Blake is going to perform the song he’s written for their big day. The song that Jude – and Mom – and every guest at Mom’s perfectly choreographed wedding, would remember for the rest of their lives. I reckon most of Jude’s friends accepted the invitation just so they could drool over Blake Shaw’s big blue eyes and gravelly voice. Not that I’d tell her that. The only one who’s heard the song is me; I practised it with him over a million times before he left for London. And I made him promise to keep practising while he was away – This time, the charming-Blake-improv, won’t cut it, I told him. It’s my job to give Blake a hard time – to balance out the rest of the world that thinks the sun shines out of his butt. My body tenses up. If he messes up the song, I’m going to kill him, like properly kill him. I take a breath. Yeah, on the surface, getting Blake to the wedding was meant to be simple. But Blake’s never simple. Which is why I was given the job. Managing Blake is always my job. Besides working my butt off to get a higher Grade Point Average than the boys in my Advanced Physics class and looking at the night sky through a telescope, sorting out my big brother’s life is my primary occupation. When one of his songs hits the charts and he makes millions, I’m so taking a cut. Leda won’t stop fidgeting so I put her down and rub my eyes. The world blurs. I blink and look over at the people who are here to welcome the passengers off the Heathrow flight. And that’s when I see him. Scruffy, tangled blond hair falls over his forehead. His hair’s longer than mine. Way longer. Though I guess that isn’t hard. A year ago, I chopped all my hair off: went for a pixie. Blake loved it. Mom freaked. Jude looked kind of pleased, like now I definitely wouldn’t be competition in her daily one-woman beauty parade. At first, Dad didn’t say anything, he only kind of smiled with that twinkle he gets in his eye when he knows I’ve done something that’s kind of out there. Later, when Mom was out of earshot, he told me he thought it looked modern, which I guess was a compliment. Anyway, this guy’s hair is long and tangled and looks like it’s been hacked at by a pair of kid’s safety scissors. It brushes the top of his round tortoiseshell glasses, which make his eyes look huge. They’re light grey, like when the sun’s fighting to get through the clouds. He’s skinny and pale in that fade into the background kind of way. In other words, he’s the kind of guy, that, unlike Blake, people walk right past. But that’s what makes me notice him – the fact that he’s sitting on the floor, really still, out of everyone’s way. When you’re part of my family, the quiet-keep-it-to-themselves types seem to belong to a different species. Even Dad, who’s this bookish Classics professor, can be kind of loud and overexcited when he talks about his favourite (not very famous) Greek goddess, Pepromene. Anyway, the quiet guy’s head is bent over a piece of paper that he’s folding over and over. He’s totally lost in what he’s doing – it’s like all this craziness isn’t even touching him. For a second, looking at him and how calm he is, my heart stops hammering and I think that things might turn out okay. That they’ve made a mistake. That – with the proviso that Blake did get onto the flight to Dulles – any second now, he’s going to walk towards me, his guitar case slung over his shoulder, waving and looking guilty for having messed up his flight – but smiling too. Because that’s also part of his brand: the massive smile that makes his cheeks dimple; the smile that takes over his entire face; the smile that makes whoever’s looking at him think it’s just for them. Someone shoves past me and I’m snapped back into the present. Leda jumps up and down like a mad thing. And then an announcement blares out through the terminal speakers: Attention please ladies and gentlemen, this is a call for all those meeting passengers on Flight UKFlyer0217 from Heathrow. Please come to the information desk. Chapter Three (#ulink_32deff9a-c091-53ec-8ad6-a71c6b1d6d3f) 13.31 EST We’re in a room now, behind the security gates. It’s all taking too much time. And it’s making me nervous. Why couldn’t they simply tell us what they had to tell us over the speakers or put a note on the arrivals screen? Why herd us all together like this for a plane that’s been delayed? I shouldn’t be here. I should get back into the car and drive to Nashville. Just tell me where you are, Blake! I say through gritted teeth. I look up at a digital clock on the wall. The wedding starts in less than forty-eight hours. By 9 a.m. tomorrow we’re meant to be having this family breakfast, some special family time before all the mad preparations for the wedding day start. It’ll be the last time it’s just the five of us. Mom’s booked a table at Louis’s, a diner-cum-bar on Music Row, near Grandpa’s flat. It’s open twenty-four hours a day, acknowledging that most musicians, like Blake, don’t really follow the same waking and sleeping cycles that the rest of us do. There’s a small stage where people can get up and play or sing. Blake loves it. Grandpa would take him there when he was little. He’s always going on about how, when he hits it big one day, he’ll buy it up from the owner who’s like a hundred years old. So breakfast at Louis’s was meant to be a big deal for Blake too. And if he’d arrived at DC at the time he was supposed to, and we drove through the night, stopping a few times to stay sane, we might have made it. Just. Now, it would take a miracle. And then the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night. We absolutely have to make it in time for that. My head hurts at the thought of all the wedding stuff I’m going to have to get through in the next two days and how, right now, I’m hundreds of miles away from where I should be – with no sign of Blake. I just wish someone would tell us whether the plane has been delayed by an hour or ten or if it has been cancelled altogether. To sort out this mess, I needed facts I could work with. I look back at the clock. 13.33. Right now, Blake and I should be in the hotel in Nashville, going through the song, steaming the creases out of our wedding clothes, keeping Mom from having a nervous breakdown, and trying really hard to bite our tongues about the fact that our sister, who graduated from Julliard and had this amazing glittering career ahead of her as a concert pianist, ditched it all to get married and have babies. The security checks took for ever. Even though none of us are flying, the airport staff still had to scan our bags and our bodies – and everyone was carrying all the wrong stuff, like liquids and nail scissors and lighter fluid – because it’s not like we were prepared for any of this. My telescope beeped like a hundred times when it went through the X-ray machine, and even when I took it out and explained what it was (and reminded them that there was an eclipse happening tomorrow so carrying a telescope around was totally normal – that, in fact, not carrying a telescope around when there’s an eclipse is what should concern them), they still looked at me suspiciously. And then I had a row with them about Leda coming through with me – especially as she wouldn’t stop jumping long enough for them to scan her properly. In the end, I said she was a service dog and that I’d start fitting if she didn’t come with me, so they let her through. It’s a trick Blake uses all the time. Then they took ages writing down everyone’s names and numbers. Which, I wanted to tell them, was double standards; taking my information and not giving me the information I wanted. Like whether Blake was on the plane. And now we’re waiting for someone to tell us something – anything – about what’s going on. I’ve got this massive headache from all the waiting and the stressing about Blake not being on time and the fact that this room doesn’t have any windows. It should be illegal: rooms where you can’t see the sky. I’ll be there, no matter what, Blake said to me like a zillion times. And I know he will. He gets how important this is. And he’s never broken a promise to me – not once. Sometimes his promises take a while to materialise; sometimes, his promises have to go through an obstacle course of fuck-ups like this one – but Blake always comes through for me in the end. Which makes me think that I’m wasting time hanging around with all these people rather than finding out where he really is. If Blake was on the plane and it was delayed, he will have found another way to get to the wedding. So, I check my phone again. Still nothing. There aren’t enough chairs so I’m sitting on the floor with Leda on my lap. She’s finally gone to sleep, knackered from all that whining and jumping. The guy I saw at the arrivals gate is sitting on the floor again, leaning against this massive backpack he’s been lugging around. And he’s folding another bit of paper, some old flyer he’s picked up. I think he’s recreating the Washington Monument, though the model he’s making is so tiny it’s hard to tell. I remember how, when we moved from London to DC, and Dad took us round all the tourist stuff, the first thought I had when I saw the monument was that it looked like a rocket about to shoot off into the sky. But then my brain has a habit of shaping everything it sees into some kind of space-related universe. I look back at paper-folding guy. It’s cool, how he’s made this really accurate model out of a bit of scrap paper. And I’m about to go over and tell him that when he sighs, stands up, scrunches the model up into a ball and throws it in a trash can. Blake does that too – when he’s frustrated with how a song’s going. You can tell whether his composing is going well or badly by how many bits of balled up notation paper there are on his bedroom floor. Except the model the guy made was good – like amazingly good. I think about going to rescue it from the trash, but then people around me start shifting and shushing and I get distracted. I look up in time to see a short, bald official in a UKFlyer uniform climbing onto a chair. He tries to get our attention, but everyone speaks over him, shouting out questions. So, I stick two fingers in my mouth and whistle. A few people give me a dirty look, like what I did was inappropriate. But it works: the room goes still. The paper-folding guy looks up at me, his eyes big and grey behind his glasses, and smiles. Everyone else turns to face the UKFlyer representative. ‘I’m sorry that we haven’t been able to give you more information about the flight—’ ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ It’s the man I saw earlier, the one with the red face. ‘If you bear with me—’ But he’s lost us. We all know that he hasn’t got any more of a clue about what’s going on than we do. Which totally pisses me off. I need to know what’s happening so that I can work out, for sure, whether Blake’s going to make it to the wedding or not. Unless Blake shows up right now, we’re already too late to make it to the family breakfast, news which will cause a minor earth tremor when it reaches Mom. My heart sinks. It’s the middle of the summer vacation and everyone’s coming over to see the solar eclipse: it would take a miracle for him to find a seat on another plane. And if Blake doesn’t get onto another flight – and soon; if he ends up stuck in Heathrow, he’ll miss the rehearsal dinner too. God, he might not even make it to the wedding on time. And it’s not as if we can delay the wedding – like we usually delay things for Blake being late. Because the whole point of the wedding is that it’s meant to happen during the eclipse. And the eclipse isn’t going to hang around for anyone – not even my brother. On Monday 21st of August 2017, between 13.25 and 14.26 (there’s a time-zone change between the states of Virginia and Tennessee), the moon’s shadow will rush across Nashville at 1,800 mph, and Jude will marry her high school sweetheart, Stephen. And they’ll live happily ever after. Or that was what was meant to happen. Before this – whatever it is – got in the way. I look at my phone. Mom’s left another message. Did you pick up Blake’s suit? I text back quickly: Yes. Then I put my phone away. You want to know the really ironic thing? It was my idea. Having the wedding during the eclipse. It was genius. A kill-two-birds-with-one-stone kind of genius. Four birds, actually. Bird One: the solar eclipse is a big deal for me. Skies and planets and stars – basically, everything that’s not on earth – is what I spend all my time thinking about. This is the first total solar eclipse to sweep across the entire USA in ninety-nine years and Nashville is the largest city in the path of the totality. Having a special family event connected to it felt cool. Bird Two: Mom wanted a wedding that trumped all her friends’ daughters’ weddings – and none of those got married or are planning to get married during the eclipse. The idea totally got me into Mom’s good books. Bird Three: Nashville’s kind of a home away from home for us. When we were little we’d visit all the time, squeezing into Grandpa’s tiny flat on Music Row. Grandpa was Blake’s hero. He played the electric guitar and they’d jam together for hours. Gran passed away before we had the chance to meet her so we were Grandpa’s only family. Blake was the one who made sure that Grandpa never felt alone. Anyway, all our happiest family memories are from that time. When Grandpa passed away, Dad decided to keep the flat, for all of us but for Blake mainly, who totally loves Nashville. One day Blake wants to live there – there and London, his two favourite cities in the world. Anyway, that’s kind of Bird Four: holding the wedding in Music City was a way to guarantee that Blake would show up and that he’d buy into the whole wedding thing. Blake loves Nashville. He sees himself as the blended reincarnation of Johnny Cash and Jimi Hendrix – with a bit of Dolly Parton thrown in for good measure: Blake’s got this kind of hip androgynous thing going, which is also part of his brand. When people ask him if he’s gay or bi or something, he says: You fall in love with a person, not a gender. Which gives him this sexy, mysterious vibe that make girls – and guys – even more into him. Anyway, when I suggested the eclipse, just for a moment, Mom and Dad looked at me like I was the special one. Like they do with Blake because he’s this really talented musician with good looks and has this totally magnetic personality. Like they look at Jude because she’s pretty and because she’s marrying a guy who’s going to law school, like Mom did, and is going to give them a million grandchildren. So, I’d done well. Only I didn’t factor in the fact that Blake might not show. I start to feel dizzy, like the ground is falling away from under me. The UKFlyer guy looks out across the room, like he’s hoping that someone’s going to save him so that he can get down and not have to do this anymore. A woman with a baby asleep in a sling walks up to the counter where the guy’s standing and looks up at him, her eyes bloodshot. ‘Please tell us what’s going on.’ She says it in this really quiet voice, but we all hear her. The guy stares down at her kid, like he’s never seen a baby before. His eyebrows scrunch together and his shoulders slump. ‘Please,’ she says again. And then it’s like something clicks. He rolls back his shoulders, tilts up his head, opens his mouth and says it, the thing that no one in this room is ready to hear: ‘It’s missing.’ He clears his throat. ‘The plane’s missing.’ Chapter Four (#ulink_eb10ebcf-57ae-5f44-9579-f23305ea8b1c) 15.23 EST It’s been two hours since the UKFlyer official told us that the plane is missing. The plane with 267 crew and passengers on it. And Blake. Possibly. Or possibly not. I’m not sure what’s worse: knowing for sure that the person you’re waiting for is on a plane that’s vanished into thin air or not knowing whether the person you’re waiting for even got on the plane. I guess I do know. I guess that being on a missing plane is worse. But still, you get my point: this whole situation sucks. I text Blake for like the millionth time – on both the numbers, the one from the other night when he asked me to book the flight and the other one where he told me that he was heading to Dulles. And I get that it’s stupid because he’s probably nowhere near either of those phones right now, but I don’t know what else to do. Where are you? I wait a beat. Still no answer. So, I text his actual cell in the hope that he found it: Hi Blake, please tell me where you are – got to get to the wedding. I shove my phone into the back pocket of my shorts and look around at the people who’ve been waiting with me for more news. They’ve gone quiet, like they’re scared to say anything out loud. How can a plane just disappear? It’s not like Mom’s car keys or Dad’s hairline. We’re talking about thousands of tons of aluminium with hundreds of people on it. And it’s not like it’s an obscure route – planes from Heathrow land in DC all the time: it’s a clean, well-worn journey over the Atlantic. And they’d have been in contact with air traffic control the whole way, wouldn’t they? Ground crew from the airline hand out water bottles and meal vouchers, like we’re the victims of some kind of natural disaster. Then they let us go back to the arrivals lounge where the cafes and restaurants are. Whenever someone from UKFlyer talks to us, they say the same thing: We’re on the case. We’ll keep you updated on any developments. Try not to worry. So, we wait. And wait. And wait some more. Which is driving me totally crazy. Because waiting is the one thing I can’t afford to do right now. Blake’s going to be fine. He’s always fine. Being fine is in his DNA. Born under a lucky star and all that. What’s not going to be fine is him ruining our sister’s wedding. The arrivals terminal has got even busier. A few people managed to get chairs. Most of us are standing or sitting on the floor. I notice the toddler who was screaming earlier, sprawled on his dad’s lap, asleep. And I notice the quiet, tangle-haired guy. He’s making another paper model from a sheet of newspaper, some kind of small bird, its wings spread wide. It’s totally amazing how quickly he makes those models. And how they go from being this big piece of paper to a tiny representation of something, like he’s creating a miniature world. He brings the newspaper bird over to the woman with the baby, who’s been crying for what feels like the last hour. She’s taken him out of his sling and is bouncing him on her knee to calm him down. It takes her a few seconds to notice the guy standing there, with his paper bird. He holds it out to her. She looks up at him. ‘For your baby,’ I hear him say. The mom takes the bird from him, places it in her open palm and stares at it, as though she’s waiting for it to flap its wings and take off. When the baby notices the bird, he stops crying and starts swiping at it with his chubby fingers. ‘Thank you,’ the mom says. The guy gives her this nod, accompanied by a little bow, and then goes back to sitting on the floor and takes another piece of scrap paper out of his backpack. And then a new wave of people pours through the arrivals gate. That’s the worst thing about all this: the fact that other planes are landing all the time. Planes full of people – including planes from Heathrow. I keep scanning the passengers coming through, hoping to see Blake’s crazy black hair sticking up over everyone’s heads. I’m totally ready to storm up to him and make a scene, to lay into him for, well, being Blake: late, disorganised, unaware of anything else that’s going on in the world besides himself – and infuriatingly loveable with it so that just as I’m yelling at him I’ll want to hug him too. Because I’ve missed him this summer. I miss him whenever he’s away. I get my phone out to text him again but then realise how stupid it is when I don’t even know what number to call, so I put it away. Blake probably lost his cell on purpose. He gave up his smart phone a few years ago, claiming that it interfered with his creativity. The one he’s got now only texts and calls and rarely has much connectivity. Mom makes him have it for safety reasons – and so we can stay in touch with each other as a family. But if he had a choice, he’d toss it in the trash. We get weird looks from the people who come to collect the passengers from the other planes: they’re wondering why we’re all hanging out here in the arrivals lounge. But then they find whoever it is they came for and walk off and we get left behind again. I sit with my back against the wall. My phone buzzes. I grab it out of my pocket thinking that, at last, Blake’s getting in touch. But it’s a message from Mom. Has Blake landed? Tried to call him, no answer. I get that stomach-acid taste at the back of my throat again. I texted her when I left DC – the first time. Before I got halfway to Nashville and had to turn around again because my brother messed up his travel plans. Which I haven’t told her about. What Mom thinks is happening is that I’m standing in Nashville International Airport waiting to pick Blake up and that we’re going to drive to the hotel together and that we’ll be showing up anytime now. Not yet I text back. What’s going on? She texts back, almost as soon as I’ve sent my message. Plane’s late I write back. And then my phone starts ringing. It’s Mom. Obviously. She wants more information. I don’t answer. Because I’m a coward. Because I can’t face having to explain it all to her: Blake getting on the wrong plane and me having to drive all the way back to DC and that there’s a chance we might not make it for the family breakfast. That if I don’t get some answer soon, we might not make it for the wedding itself. All the saliva in my mouth dries up. I can’t let myself go there. He’s going to make it. He has to. Can’t talk I text back. She’ll think I’m driving. That will buy me some time. She sends another message: Remember we’re having breakfast at Louis’s. Okay. I text back. I’m really feeling sick now. I should tell her what’s going on but she’ll implode. And then she’ll tell Jude and Jude will fall apart. And Dad will have to deal with it and Dad’s a crisis-avoider so he’ll panic and then go into hiding somewhere, which will make Mom even more mad. Telling them that it’s even worse than me and Blake being late for the wedding stuff – that his plane’s gone off radar, that no one knows where he is – isn’t even an option. I screw my eyes shut to block out the world. This is the last time I’m covering for you, Blake, I say to myself. The last damn time. I was nine the first time Blake disappeared. The first time I had to lie for him. He snuck into my room in the middle of the night, his guitar case and a holdall slung over his shoulder. ‘Tell them to let me sleep in.’ I was still asleep myself – it was three in the morning – so I wasn’t registering what he was telling me. ‘What?’ I asked. ‘Tomorrow morning. Tell them not to disturb me. Tell them I’m sleeping.’ I sat up and rubbed my eyes. ‘Mom and Dad?’ I asked. He nodded. ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Not sure yet.’ Blake’s words didn’t make sense. At age nine this was how the world worked: when you left one place you did so with the express intention of going to another specific location. So I changed my line of questioning. ‘Why are you going?’ ‘To play.’ He tapped his guitar case. ‘Why can’t you play here?’ ‘I need inspiration.’ Blake was always going off to find inspiration. He was always going off period. I have a restless soul, Air, he’d say, sounding like he was thirty rather than thirteen. That didn’t make sense to me either, not then. ‘Why can’t you find inspiration here?’ I asked. He raised his big black eyebrows. ‘Really?’ ‘Yeah, really.’ ‘I need some space, Air.’ He’d said it before. That the music – and the lyrics – wouldn’t come here, at home. I thought that it was a mean thing to say. Like being with us was stopping him from doing what he loved most. ‘When are you coming back?’ I asked. He shrugged. ‘You can’t sleep in for ever.’ He grinned in that goofy way he had that made me feel warm and happy and like everything was good with the world. ‘For ever? It won’t be for ever, Air.’ ‘So why are you taking a holdall?’ ‘In case.’ ‘In case what?’ ‘In case I need some of my stuff.’ I sat up taller. ‘People don’t need their stuff if they’re coming back quickly.’ ‘Just cover for me, Air – will you do that?’ ‘What if Mom goes into your room and finds out that you’re not there?’ He tilted his head to one side. The gel in his hair had worn off, so long dark strands fell into his eyes. ‘You’re the smart one in the family, Air, you’ll find a way to cover for me.’ Then he kissed the top of my head and walked off to my window – the one that had access to the street below. ‘You are coming back, aren’t you?’ I asked. I was worried that one day Blake would go so far that he’d get lost – or decide that coming back was too much hassle. He loved Mom and Dad and Jude and me but that didn’t mean he was going to live with us for ever. And he didn’t like DC. Blake was always going on about how he couldn’t wait to be eighteen, how then he could do anything he wanted. When his body was halfway out of the window, he turned around and smiled: ‘For you little sis?’ He smiled. ‘I’ll always come back.’ He blew me a kiss then pulled his guitar case and holdall through the window. ‘And even if I don’t –’ he went on. I leapt out of bed, ran up to the window and leant out. ‘Even if you don’t? What’s that’s supposed to mean?’ He put his fingers under my chin and tilted my face up to the sky. ‘They’re always there, right?’ It was a clear night so although the light pollution in DC was bad, the sky still looked amazing: like someone had pierced a thousand holes in the black canopy of the sky letting the light that lived behind it shine through. ‘Yeah, they’re always there.’ ‘Well, so am I – like your stars.’ ‘My stars?’ He nodded. Blake knew how much I loved them, even then. When I was nine years old, I’d thought that was a wonderful thing to say: that he’d always be with me, because the stars were always with us too. But when I got older and understood about how old the stars were and the whole light years–distance thing – and the fact that it’s basically impossible to measure the distance between us and the stars – I realised that what he told me that night wasn’t anywhere close to wonderful. He was basically telling me that even if I could still see him, he might be millions of light years away. Nothing’s been confirmed yet. Any moment now I might get a text from Blake saying that he got a flight to Nashville after all. Which means that he’ll make it for the family breakfast – that it’ll just be me who misses it. Which won’t be a big deal. Or that he was late for the flight and got onto one that’s arriving later. Which, depending on his arrival time, will at least give us enough time to get to Nashville for the rehearsal dinner. Whatever happens, we’d be there for the wedding. And, in the end, that’s all that matters. Or that bald UKFlyer guy who’s in charge of keeping us up to date will tell us that the plane’s back on radar, that air traffic control got it wrong, and that the UKFlyer0217 has landed. That the passengers are coming through passport control and that, in a few minutes, they’ll be with us. ‘Can I borrow your phone?’ Leda’s head shoots up from my lap. She thumps her tail against my thigh so hard that I put my hand on it to press it down. I look up too. He’s standing there, the pale, tangle-haired, paper-folding guy. And he’s staring at me, his eyes wide behind his tortoiseshell glasses. ‘My mobile’s out of charge,’ he explains. Yeah, he definitely sounds English, like Mom and our relatives back in the UK. Mom’s got a bit of a Scottish lilt because that’s where she lived until she was ten and all her family come from there, but mostly she sounds English. The guy adjusts his glasses and keeps staring at me. ‘Sure.’ I hand him my cell, relieved that I don’t have to keep looking at Mom’s messages popping up. When he starts swiping at the screen, I notice that his fingers are shaking. I’ve been so swept up with thinking about my family and the wedding and what’s going to happen in the next forty-eight hours if Blake doesn’t show up, that I kind of forgot that all these people around me are also waiting for news about those they came to collect. Blake could be anywhere right now, but they know that their loved ones are on the plane. And maybe they don’t have families like ours – or moms like our mom – to hold them all together. While he’s using my phone, I look past him at a TV screen on the far side of the room. And then I notice some of the people who’ve been waiting with us, getting to their feet and turning to look at it too. Which makes the guy look up from my cell and turn to the TV screen as well. It’s the ABC news feed that’s been on this whole time with weather reports and the latest from the Yankees– Red Sox game and details about tomorrow’s eclipse. Except none of those things are on the screen. Instead, there’s a grainy picture. It keeps wobbling out of focus: a large piece of metal, floating on the sea. Chapter Five (#ulink_37b6ee52-846d-5302-9931-159182a19e17) 15.37 EST It’s when I see that bit of grainy footage on ABC News that I know for sure. Blake wasn’t on that plane. He can’t have been. He didn’t know what he was texting: he’s probably in Nashville, wondering where the hell I am. I shouldn’t have turned around so fast. I should have kept going to Nashville, stuck to our plans. And if he’s not in Nashville, then he’s probably somewhere else altogether. Like still in London, playing in a hip bar somewhere. ‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ I say, taking my phone back. I swing my telescope onto my back, grab Leda and head towards the terminal doors. She makes her body go limp so I have drag her along the floor. ‘Get up,’ I say to her, yanking harder. As I walk, I send Mom a text. Blake messed up. We’re not going to make it for the family breakfast. Please don’t worry, Mom, we’ll be there soon. I put my phone in the pocket of my shorts and try not to think about the bomb I’ve just landed on Mom. I yank Leda again but she won’t move. Her head is twisted back towards the group of people we’ve been waiting with, the ones who came to meet the UKFlyer0217. That’s when I notice the guy again and suddenly, I feel bad for walking away like that and even though I totally don’t have the time for this, I walk back to him. Leda follows, suddenly cooperative. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say to him. My eyes well up. ‘For whoever…’ I look back at the screen. The bit of metal floating on the sea. Then I look at my watch. ‘But I’ve got to go.’ I don’t know what’s going on. With the plane. With where Blake is. But I’ve made a decision: I’ve got to get to the wedding. Whatever it takes. I have to be there for Mom and Dad and Jude. If Blake doesn’t show, I’ll find an excuse for him. Jude needs this: her perfect wedding, getting married to Stephen. Mom needs it. We all do. And if Blake doesn’t show up on time, I’ll sing the damn song. I can’t play the guitar and my voice is totally average and I get shit scared of standing in front of even one person and performing. But I’ve been practising it with Blake ever since Jude announced she was engaged, so I know the words. Yeah, I’ll sing it. And it won’t be great. And Jude will be sulky as hell about it. But hopefully all the other wedding stuff will distract her and everything will sort of be okay. And when Blake does turn up – like he always does – he’s going to owe me, big time. More than he’s ever owed me. For a beat, the guy keeps staring at me, and then he says: ‘Don’t you think you should stay?’ He shifts nervously from foot to foot. ‘I mean, there could be more information. We’ve been told to wait.’ He blushes like saying even these few words to me is painful. ‘It’s better to stay together at times like this,’ he adds. ‘At times like this?’ ‘Yeah.’ He makes it sound like this is the kind of situation that people find themselves in more than once in their lives. And like he’s some kind of expert. ‘I’ll keep checking my phone,’ I say – because I can’t tell him the truth: that I don’t need to stay because that bit of metal floating in the sea has nothing to do with my brother. I feel bad for leaving him. He looks like he could do with having someone stay with him, but I’ve got to get on the road. Chapter Six (#ulink_443be3ab-454f-57ee-8641-5c008793c170) 15.48 EST Except, when I get to the car, it’s not there. Blake’s car. The mustard yellow 1973 Buick convertible that he loves like it’s a living thing. The car which has my rehearsal dinner dress in it, and my bridesmaid’s dress and Blake’s suit and Leda’s food. The car Dad was going to drive Jude and Stephen to the airport in after the wedding, to catch the flight to Florence for their honeymoon. The car that was my one chance of getting to the wedding on time. Leda barks at the empty space where I parked it, like she’s seeing a ghost. My head spins. I look around and then spot a parking notice taped to a post next to where I left the Buick. I peel it off but I already know what’s happened. Shit. Shit. Shit. It’s been impounded. Obviously, it’s been impounded – it’s what happens when you leave a car illegally parked in the pick-up zone for close to three hours. I’ve given Blake this lecture before. Blake who parks anywhere, anyhow, thinking he’ll get away with it because he’s Blake Shaw and that somehow makes him untouchable. I put Leda down. She pees against the post where the parking notice was taped and then starts whimpering. I feel like screaming. At the sky and the sun and all the planes flying overhead. At whoever it is who decided to land me in this shit storm of a situation. I think of Blake’s car on the back of some horrible truck being carted to an impounding lot miles and miles from here. I think about how much money it will cost to get it back – money I don’t have. And I think about how long all this is going to take. But instead of screaming, I take my telescope off my back and sit down on the sidewalk. I slump my shoulders and all the oxygen goes out of my body. Leda lies down beside me and rests her head on my lap. I stroke the spot she likes to have rubbed behind her ears: a soft, silky bit, the colour of gold, amongst all the rough, straggly fur. ‘What are we going to do?’ I ask her. She looks up at me with her dark, glassy eyes like she’s asking me the exact same question. I wrap my arms around her and close my eyes. Chapter Seven (#ulink_796c2969-4196-57fd-8fa7-779d62d50d36) 16.14 EST I don’t know how long I sit there on the sidewalk, staring at the tarmac, willing my brain to work out some kind of plan to make all of this okay. But by the time I look up again, the sun’s so low, it blinds me. Which is why I don’t notice him, not at first. I put my hand over my brow to block out the sun, which lights up his hair – the tangled strands look like comets. The sun reflects off his glasses too, so hard that I can’t see his eyes. Leda gets up and runs around him, which makes him look nervous so I pat the space beside me to get her to sit down again. For a second, I let myself believe that the fact that he’s standing there – the fact that he’s coming out of the airport – means that they’ve released new information. That the plane made it after all. ‘Is there any news?’ I ask. He shakes his head. ‘I needed to get out of there for a bit.’ My heart slumps. ‘I thought you were leaving?’ he says. ‘So did I.’ ‘You changed your mind?’ I shake my head, too tired to explain. And too pissed about the car. He sits down beside me but keeps a space between us like he’s scared to get too close. But then he holds out his hand, which feels weirdly formal, but I take it anyway. His skin’s cool. It feels nice. ‘I’m Christopher,’ he says. ‘As in Columbus. I can’t believe that I just said that.’ ‘As in Columbus?’ I laugh and, for a second, it feels like a bit of my body comes back to life. ‘My dad has a thing about explorers.’ With his tangled blond hair and his pale skin and his rosy cheeks, he looks more like Christopher Robin out of Winnie The Pooh than the rugged coloniser of the New World. ‘Parents dump you with a whole load of shit when they give you a name, hey?’ He blushes. Maybe I offended him. Maybe he likes being associated with Christopher Columbus. ‘I’m Air. As in, Ariadne.’ It’s Blake who nicknamed me Air – as soon as I was born. Because he thought it was a totally cool name. As opposed to the totally nerdy name Dad picked out for me. For my baptism, when I was seven, Blake even wrote a song for me, using all these clever metaphors about breath and air and being in the world. He looks up at me. ‘Ariadne. The goddess of mazes and labyrinths.’ ‘You know?’ Nobody knows. Nobody except my geeky parents who fell in love over Greek myths at Oxford. My geeky parents who were totally pissed at Blake for changing my name basically as soon as they’d given it to me. ‘Home-schooled,’ he says. ‘Sorry?’ ‘I was home-schooled until I was sixteen. Dad made me study all the old stuff. Latin, Greek, the myths. He got tutors for me. And when he had the time, he took me to museums. Anyway, that’s how I know.’ ‘You were home-schooled in England?’ ‘Not really in England. Not really at home, either.’ ‘You weren’t home-schooled at home? How does that work?’ He blushes again, which makes his pale grey eyes stand out even more. ‘My dad travels so much that it was either take me with him or put me in a boarding school. I’m in a boarding school now, but I was home-schooled until last year.’ He pauses. ‘Well, away-schooled – I had some tutoring whenever we were in London but most of the time Dad taught me when we were travelling.’ The corners of his mouth go up. ‘Dad and the internet.’ ‘Why boarding school now?’ ‘So I can get my A-levels and go to university. Dad said it would be easier having the structure of a school to help me through that rather than figuring it out on our own.’ He hasn’t mentioned his mom, which probably means she’s not around in some way and I don’t want to upset him by asking. ‘I’m from England too,’ I say. ‘Was. Lived there until I was four. Which is why Americans think I’m English and English people think I’m American.’ ‘I like it – your accent.’ ‘It makes me sound like I don’t belong anywhere.’ ‘Is that a bad thing?’ He gives me a small, sideways smile. I hadn’t ever thought of it being a good thing. But perhaps he’s right. Perhaps it’s kind of cool not being locked into one particular place. ‘I guess not.’ ‘So how come you lived in England?’ he asks. ‘Mom’s English – well Scottish-English. Dad went to do a semester at Oxford, which is where they met.’ ‘Where they fell in love over Greek myths?’ he says. ‘Yeah. Mom was meant to be doing international law but she kept taking all these other classes too. Anyway, Dad ended up loving Oxford so much he stayed for years. They got married. Had kids.’ ‘And then you moved to the US?’ ‘Mom got a gig at the White House. As an international human rights lawyer.’ ‘Wow.’ ‘Yeah. She’s a high achiever.’ ‘And your dad?’ ‘Classics professor at Georgetown. He still misses Oxford but he’d go anywhere for Mom.’ He looks at me, curious, like my friends sometimes do when I talk about Mom and Dad and how close they are. He leans back and closes his eyes. Behind his glasses, he’s got these crazily long, light eyelashes. ‘It’s warm out here,’ he says. ‘Yeah.’ A beautiful warm afternoon. I think about Mom, Jude and Dad working really hard to get things ready for the wedding. And how Mom must be coping with the news that we’re not going to make the breakfast. I picture them sitting there tomorrow morning, staring at two empty chairs and how Mom will be totally freaking out and how Dad will be trying to calm her down and how Jude will be thinking that it’s typical that we’re both off somewhere else without her. She feels left out when it comes to the three of us. All those birth order theories don’t apply to us. Blake’s the middle child but he gets all the attention. Jude’s the eldest but that doesn’t make her feel special – she’s the one who feels like she’s being overlooked. As for me, I’m the opposite of the spoilt and indulged youngest child – I’m the one whose job it is to sort out my brother and sister’s problems and fights. My eyeballs sting like I’m going to cry, because I know that it’s totally not fair. There are times when Jude’s sulkiness about not getting enough attention has annoyed the hell out of me but if there’s one time that Jude shouldn’t feel left out, it’s at her wedding. I sniff back the tears. Leda nestles in closer to Christopher. He sits up and pats her head gently. ‘She yours?’ he asks. ‘My brother’s. I’m babysitting.’ He puts out his hand and Leda puts her head into it like she’s looking for a treat. ‘I love dogs – all animals really,’ Christopher says. He keeps stroking her. Leda’s tilting her head back so far now it’s like she’s in some kind of trance. He’s totally good with her. ‘Do you have any pets?’ Christopher shakes his head. ‘I was never allowed. Too much moving around.’ He keeps stroking her and I can tell, from how his shoulders drop and his body sinks into itself, that Leda’s making him feel more relaxed too. ‘So, what happened?’ Christopher asks. ‘I thought you needed to be somewhere.’ ‘I did.’ I look back at the space where I parked the Buick. ‘They took my brother’s car.’ ‘Your brother?’ He frowns and knits his eyebrows together: they’re blond and tangled, like his hair. ‘The one who owns the dog?’ ‘The very same.’ ‘He’s the one you came to pick up?’ ‘Yeah. Sort of. It’s a long story. I think I got it wrong. Or he got it wrong. Anyway, he’s not here.’ ‘Right.’ I hand him the parking notice. ‘They took the car.’ ‘From the car park?’ I shake my head. ‘From here.’ ‘Here?’ I nod. ‘Right here?’ ‘I was in a hurry – we were already late.’ My throat goes thick. ‘I know it was a stupid thing to do but I texted Blake to come straight out; I thought it would only take a few minutes before we’d be back in the car.’ Tears prick the back of my eyes; I blink hard to make them go away. ‘I didn’t know all this would happen.’ ‘Are you okay?’ asks Christopher. And then it all comes out. ‘My sister’s getting married on Monday, during the eclipse, on this amazing rooftop terrace in a hotel in Nashville. And I should be there already but I thought Blake got on the wrong plane so I came back to collect him and now he’s not here and he’s not answering my texts and I don’t know how to tell my family – and now I don’t have a car anymore.’ I gulp. ‘I don’t know what to do.’ My words tumble over each other so quick I’m pretty sure I don’t make any sense. ‘So no, nothing’s even close to okay.’ I shut my eyes to push the tears back in. ‘Can I help?’ Two perfect pink circles form at the top of his cheeks. It’s a weird thing to ask. But it’s kind of nice too – to have someone helping me out for a change. ‘Help?’ I ask. ‘To get your car back,’ he says. He makes it sound so simple. And it makes me feel better – that there’s one thing I might be able to sort out in this whole tangled mess I’m in. ‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘I’d like to help.’ ‘You would?’ He gives a quick nod. ‘Take my mind off things for a bit – you know?’ It hits me again. That someone he knows – someone he cares about – is on the plane that’s gone missing. His brow is scrunched up and he’s squinting into the sun and I get it, that he needs this. ‘Yeah, I know,’ I say. He studies the parking notice and then says, ‘Have you called the number yet?’ I shake my head. ‘The tow truck might not have got very far. We could explain.’ ‘Explain?’ ‘What’s going on,’ he says. ‘That these are special circumstances.’ Our eyes catch his and, for a beat, we don’t say anything. ‘You think that would work?’ In my experience, traffic enforcement doesn’t do special circumstances, especially for people our age. ‘We could try,’ he says. Leda gives out a small bark and thumps her tail against the sidewalk, like she’s agreeing with him. I bite the side of my thumbnail and notice that my sky-blue nail varnish is chipped. I went to have a manicure before I left DC – on instruction from Mom. To match the bridesmaid’s dress I’m meant to wear tomorrow. Then I get out my phone and dial the number. Chapter Eight (#ulink_44e2133f-d069-56d1-81df-566be68fa72a) 16.45 EST I watch Christopher grab a sheet from an old in-flight magazine from his backpack and start folding. I don’t even know what he’s making but I can tell that he’s enjoying it, the feel of the skin of the paper as he rubs it between his fingers. He looks relaxed like he did when he was stroking Leda. I snatch glances at him through the corner of my eye, hoping that he doesn’t realise that I’m staring. It takes my mind off things, looking at this weird English guy who’s got nothing to do with my life or what’s going on in Nashville or with Blake. How he’s sitting here, folding that bit of paper, as though it’s another ordinary day. It’s weird that he’s this calm, because as bad as I’ve got it with Blake and the wedding and everything, Christopher has it way worse. Someone he knows was on the plane that’s crashed. God, I haven’t even asked him who he came to meet or why he was here. I’ve been so busy thinking about myself. And he’s the one who must be going through hell. And yet he’s sitting here, like he’s got some special information that no one else does. As if that floating piece of metal doesn’t mean the same to him as it does to the rest of us: that the crash was bad. Really bad. As in, it’s unlikely anyone survived. Leda puts her muzzle on Christopher’s lap and keeps slobbering on him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. ‘I didn’t ask you…’ I stutter. ‘Sorry?’ ‘I never asked you, who you came to meet.’ My voice breaks a bit. ‘I mean, who you were collecting at the airport.’ ‘Oh.’ He goes quiet for a bit. ‘Dad. I came to collect my dad.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ He doesn’t answer. I guess it’s all too much to take in right now. That’s probably why he came out here, so he could get away from thinking about his dad being on that plane. ‘So, what brought you to DC?’ I ask. ‘I came to do research for a school project. The future of American politics.’ He puts quote marks round his words with his fingers. ‘Dad’s been working for the last week and he knew he was flying into DC so he thought it would make sense for me to come earlier – to do some work – and for him to join me afterwards.’ ‘You came all the way to DC for a school project?’ ‘Dad gets cheap flights. And he said it would make my project stand out – to do on-the-ground research.’ ‘Wow, that’s commitment.’ ‘Dad believes in doing things properly.’ ‘Sounds like my mom.’ He makes another fold in his paper. ‘You really study American politics in the UK?’ He nods. ‘Dad made me take politics as an A-level. He wants me to understand.’ ‘Understand what?’ He looks up at me and smiles. ‘Everything, basically. But the state of the world as it is now, I guess. And America’s kind of central to understanding that.’ ‘Central to understanding how we’re fucking up the world, you mean?’ He laughs and his face relaxes for the first time. ‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘I guess we’re all a bit responsible for that.’ I think about the blazing rows Mom and Dad have about politics over dinner and how the one thing they agree on is that our current president is singlehandedly tearing down every good thing about our country. As far as I’m concerned, the mess the world’s in is another reason for going into space. ‘You enjoy that? Studying American politics?’ I ask. He looks back into his hands. ‘Not really.’ Then he looks up again quickly. ‘I mean, no offence—’ I smile. ‘None taken.’ ‘It’s not really my thing.’ ‘But you’re doing it anyway?’ He looks back down. ‘Dad’s made a load of sacrifices – for my education. It’s the least I can do.’ ‘Studying something you don’t enjoy seems like quite a big price to pay if you ask me.’ He stops folding and stares into his hands. ‘I mean, you should still get to study what you want to study,’ I add. ‘You only live once and all that.’ I think about how supportive Mom and Dad have been about my whole wanting to be an astronaut thing and how, even though they’re worried, they’re kind of supportive of Blake and his music, and how they’re letting Jude do her own thing too, even though they’re sad that she gave up her piano. I guess we’re lucky. Not all kids get parents like that. ‘It’s not so bad,’ Christopher says. ‘Dad gets me to see cool places. And once I’d done all the school stuff – tours of the White House, the museums – I got to go to the National Gallery of Art. I loved walking around the Sculpture Garden. Some of those artists are amazing.’ ‘I go there too – all the time! To the gallery – and the Sculpture Garden. It’s one of my favourite places in DC.’ ‘Really?’ I nod. ‘Who knows, we might have crossed paths.’ The corners of his mouth turn up. I wonder whether I’d have noticed Christopher walking past me or sitting on the edge of the fountain in the Sculpture Garden. I mean, if we hadn’t been thrown together like this at the airport. ‘So, you’ve been walking around DC on your own for a whole week? Isn’t that kind of lonely?’ He starts folding again, making sharp, tight corners, pressing down with the side of the thumbnail to make the edges smooth. ‘I don’t mind,’ he says after a while. ‘I’ve got used to it. Dad works a lot and it’s kind of fun, getting to know a new city on your own.’ I like to be on my own too, when I’m discovering something for the first time: like identifying a star through my telescope, or researching a planet. ‘I suppose I get that,’ I say. ‘It makes you focus more – when you’re on your own, I mean.’ He nods. ‘What’s the boarding school like?’ I ask. ‘It must have been a bit of a shock, after home-schooling or away-schooling or whatever it is you did.’ ‘It’s okay. Mostly. A bit male.’ ‘A bit male?’ ‘All boys.’ ‘Wow.’ ‘Which is why I’m nervous.’ ‘About what?’ He gulps. I watch his Adam’s apple slide up and down his throat. ‘Talking to you,’ he says. ‘Well, you’re doing a better job than most of the guys at my high school.’ The tops of his cheeks go an even deeper red. ‘There’s a lot of rugby too. I’m not so good at that.’ I look at his long, white fingers folding those bits of paper. No, I can’t imagine he’d like to be in the middle of a rugby scrum. He goes back to folding the paper over and over into all these tiny, intricate folds. Then he puts it down beside him on the pavement, half-made so I can’t quite work out what it is – whether it’s another bird, because there’s a kind of wing, or whether it’s the sail of a ship. He looks over at the doors to the airport terminal and then glances at his watch. ‘You worried about the plane?’ I say and then I regret it. Of course he’s worried about the plane. The reason he’s out here, sitting with a random girl with a dog on a sidewalk, is because he’s trying not to think about it. He shrugs. ‘Dad’s planes aren’t usually late.’ It’s a weird thing to say; as if anyone had the power to decide if their plane is going to be late. ‘There’s probably been a mix up,’ he adds. I think of that floating bit of metal again and how it didn’t look like a mix up to me. I swallow to ease the dryness in my throat and then get up and start pacing again, craning my neck in the hope that I’ll see Blake’s yellow Buick rounding the corner. Christopher goes back to folding his piece of paper. Then I sit down again – a bit closer to him than I intended. Our legs touch. I don’t know whether I should move to give him more space or whether moving will seem rude like I don’t want to sit close to him. I check my phone. Just more Where are you? And Call me? messages from Mom. Nothing from Blake. I sigh and start biting the side of my nail. I’m jittery but at the same time my body and my brain feel frozen, like I couldn’t get up off this pavement, not in a million years. I look back down the road. At least when the Buick shows up I can do something. Get behind the steering wheel, start driving, clock up the miles to Nashville so that I have a chance of getting to the wedding on time. I look back over at Christopher. ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘For what?’ ‘For hanging out with me.’ ‘It’s better than being in there,’ he says, looking back at the airport terminal. ‘Much better.’ A taxi pulls up a few yards away from us. Leda barks. Three people step out. A woman in a trouser suit, red hair tumbling down her shoulders; as she stumbles out onto the pavement, she gets out a compact mirror and starts applying lipstick. Behind her, a guy with one of those fuzzy microphones on the end of a stick. Behind him, a guy with a camera balancing on his shoulder. I get up and put my hands on my hips. ‘What the hell?’ Leda barks louder. The woman spots us, puts away her lipstick and her mirror and walks up to us, her heels clacking on the sidewalk. She stops in front of us, pauses, like she’s settling into a role, brushes a strand of hair over her shoulder and then says: ‘Did you two come to meet the plane?’ ‘No,’ I say, quickly, before Christopher has the time to say anything. If having a mom for a lawyer has taught me anything, it’s that you don’t talk to journalists. Especially to journalists who look like her. The microphone guy and the camera guy come and stand beside her. They’re pointing their respective pieces of equipment at us. The woman – the reporter – turns to Christopher. ‘You?’ Christopher looks at me. I shake my head. The woman’s waiting for him answer. ‘No,’ Christopher says. She looks at us suspiciously. ‘You two kids don’t want to be on TV?’ Leda’s barking is really loud now, so loud that the woman takes a step back. ‘No, we don’t want to be on TV.’ I yank Christopher away from the reporter. The woman steps closer. ‘What’s that?’ She looks down at Christopher’s hands – at the paper model he’s holding. I look down too. My insides flip. He made a plane. A paper plane. Slowly, he scrunches it up into a ball. ‘It’s nothing,’ he says. The woman shrugs. ‘Come on,’ she tells her guys with the microphone and the camera and then walks off. I watch her stride through the sliding doors into the terminal building and get a sick feeling at the back of my throat. She’s going to interrogate all those poor people inside. She’s going to make them feel even worse about what’s happening. At least she’s left Christopher alone. When she’s gone, I sit back down. Christopher sits down too. He lets out a long sigh like he’s letting out a whole lot of air that’s been building up inside him. ‘Dad would hate that,’ he says. ‘Hate what?’ ‘All the fuss. The reporters. They say they want to help but they don’t. They make everything worse.’ ‘They don’t help?’ I ask. He shakes his head. ‘When he’s not doing his regular job, Dad does charity work: he goes to disaster relief zones, after earthquakes and fires and stuff. He can get there quicker than most people. He goes to deliver supplies. And he says that the reporters focus on the wrong stuff and make people more scared. And when people are scared, bad things happen. Keeping people calm, making people feel safe – that’s what matters.’ It’s weird. Sometimes, when Christopher talks about his dad, I get the feeling that he doesn’t really like him, that they’re not close, but then he says something like that and it’s like his dad’s his hero. ‘I’m sorry—’ he stutters. ‘They get to me, that’s all.’ ‘It’s okay, I understand,’ I say. ‘That’s why I told her to get lost.’ He nods. ‘Thanks.’ Leda flops between us. We sit there, listening to the planes taking off and landing. So many planes. So many people. Then, all of a sudden, Christopher looks up at me. ‘About your brother – I think it’s going to be okay. UK Flyer has one of the best safety records.’ ‘Blake’s not on the plane.’ Because he’s not. He’s not where he’s meant to be. He’s probably miles from the wedding. But there’s no reason he’d be on the plane that’s crashed. That’s not an option. Christopher doesn’t answer. Leda shuffles in closer between us. And for a long while, neither of us say anything. We just keep waiting. Chapter Nine (#ulink_eb9d9406-0b21-5d93-a0ae-e05812b8bbaa) 17.32 EST It takes us over an hour to get the car back. Christopher was right, it hadn’t reached the impound lot yet. When I got through to the state police, I told them that my brother was on the plane that’s gone missing, the one that’s on the news. I felt bad for lying but telling them the truth – that I don’t know where Blake is and that I’d just parked illegally because I was in a rush – wouldn’t have got my Buick back. Anyway, it worked. I hope the reporter didn’t get any of me on film. Mom always has the news on, especially news from DC, in case she needs to rush back to the White House to give some kind of legal advice. She’ll get so mad if sees me standing at Dulles right now. And if she catches wind of the fact that I’ve been caught up in this whole plane crash thing, she’ll totally flip. After that reporter left, I went back into the airport terminal to get some food and water for Leda. The TV screen was still showing the same picture of that bit of metal floating on the sea. It turns out that the stretch of ocean is off the coast of Ireland, which they’re saying was at the beginning of the plane’s route. But all kinds of crap gets washed up into the ocean, right? That’s what I want to tell Christopher, who’s been really quiet since the reporter left us. When the tow-truck guy finishes giving us a lecture on not parking illegally, he gets out one of those wireless credit card terminals and holds it out to me. And I freeze. I’ve spent all my cash on gas, having my nails done, and getting the sun filter for my telescope. And using the emergency credit card is out: first, because I already pulled out a large sum paying for Blake’s flight and second, because Mom will get an email alert. And she’s smart: she’ll notice that the transaction was made to some parking fine business in DC. ‘We take credit or debit,’ the guy says. ‘You’re kidding, right?’ I’m hoping that if I act surprised enough, he might change his mind. It’s a trick Blake taught me. Except the guy looks at me like I’m an idiot. I should have learnt this lesson already: Blake’s tricks minus his charm don’t work. ‘No, I’m not kidding,’ he says, his voice deadpan. ‘You’re seriously making me pay a fine?’ ‘Yeah. It’s policy,’ the guy says. I consider pointing out that it’s not policy to drive a car back to its owner once it’s been towed. And that policies don’t really count when it comes to our particular situation. But he’s been pretty accommodating up to now and I don’t want him to take the car away again. ‘I can’t afford that,’ I say, staring at the $200 displayed on his terminal. The parking control officer rolls his eyes. ‘I could lend you some money,’ Christopher says. My first instinct is to say no. Mom and Dad have raised us never to borrow money from anyone. Well, they’ve raised me and Jude not to borrow money from anyone. Blake does his own thing. Plus, I feel bad – I don’t even know Christopher. And I don’t know when I’ll be able to pay him back or how. But I can’t stop thinking about how, if I leave now, I can still make it to the rehearsal dinner. ‘Thanks,’ I say. When the guy drives back off, I put Leda in the back and get into the driver’s seat. Then I sit there, the door open, staring at the silver guitar pendant hanging from the rear-view mirror; I gave it to Blake for his eighteenth birthday, three years ago. I can’t believe he’s actually twenty-one. You’re meant to be a proper grown-up by then, aren’t you? But Blake has this Peter Pan thing going on. He’ll never really be old. In the rear-view mirror, I see my two dresses and Blake’s suit and hat box, laid out on the back. And then I look at the rest of the car, like it’s the first time I see it. The scuffed leather bench seats in the front and back. The beige top, folded down. It’s awesome. Old and kind of rusty and it rattles whenever you go over sixty mph. But it’s totally awesome. Like Blake. A hard lump forms at the back of my throat. I close the car door, put my left hand on the steering wheel and I’m about to switch on the ignition when I notice something else: the photograph taped to the dashboard. I’m ten years old, standing on this tall rock above a swimming hole. Blake’s holding my hand. We’re about to jump. Jude must have taken the picture. It was the first time Blake took us there – Blue Springs in the Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee. I switch on the ignition. And then I realise that he’s still standing there. ‘Do you have someone?’ I ask. He looks at me, his grey eyes wide. ‘Someone?’ ‘Someone you can call – or go to?’ He looks back at the arrivals lounge and then back at me like he’s struggling to make up his mind about something. ‘Where were you meant to go?’ I prompt. ‘After you picked up your dad—’ Then I stall. I grip the steering wheel harder. ‘Well, where were you and your dad meant to stay? When he got here, I mean?’ Please may he have someone. A friend. A relative. A contact from his dad. He can’t stay here alone. ‘Oregon,’ he says. ‘A connecting flight. To see the eclipse.’ ‘Wow, Oregon,’ I say. ‘That’s cool.’ Because Oregon’s where I would have chosen to be – if it weren’t for the wedding. I mean, Nashville’s a cool place to see the totality, but Oregon is where it all starts. I wonder whether, in a different lifetime, without the wedding and without the plane going missing, Christopher and I might have met out there, at the beginning of the eclipse. And then I think about how we might have crossed walking around the Sculpture Garden in DC. Blake wrote this song, ages ago, about how when you’re meant to be meet someone, you get loads of chances – you brush past them over and over until BAM! you finally notice each other. I’d always thought that was a bit slushy and romantic – and too superstitious for my scientific world view. But maybe there’s something in it. ‘So, you have someone you know in Oregon?’ I ask. And then I feel stupid. They’re going on a holiday, why would they know anyone there? And even if they did know someone there, it’s miles away – it’s not like a friend in Oregon is going to help Christopher with what he’s going through here in DC. ‘No, we were going to stay in a hotel.’ His eyes go far away, like he’s trying to picture being there. ‘And Dad booked us a place on a sailing boat,’ Christopher says. ‘He wanted to see the eclipse from the water.’ A silence hangs between us: the silence of what was meant to happen if his life hadn’t just been turned upside down. ‘What about your mom?’ I ask. He stares at me and blinks. ‘Was she meant to come with you – to see the eclipse?’ I ask. And I know it’s overstepping. And that he would have mentioned his mom already if she were in his life. But I can’t drive away thinking that he’s going to be here on his own. There has to be someone he can call. He shakes his head. ‘Is she back in England?’ He shakes his head again. ‘Atlanta.’ ‘Your mom lives in Atlanta?’ He nods. ‘I’ve got a parent from each side of the pond – like you. Only the other way around. Mum’s American, Dad’s English.’ That was in Blake’s song too: how when you meet someone you were meant to meet you find out all this crazy stuff you have in common that can’t be explained away. ‘They’re not together,’ he says. ‘They’re divorced?’ ‘They never got married.’ ‘Oh.’ ‘They separated shortly after Mum had me.’ ‘Do you go to Atlanta to visit her?’ I ask. He shakes his head. I know I’m in a minority: the kid of parents who are still together – more than that, who love each other. And that even though Mom’s totally crazy in the way she organises every second of our lives; and even though Dad’s too much of a wuss to ever stand up to her and say No, life’s already hard enough without another one of your mad projects; and even though Jude annoys the hell out of me with her throwing away her life to be a 1950s housewife, and Blake drives me crazy in the way he thinks the whole world revolves around him – I love them more than anything. All four of them. And I know that that makes me one of the lucky ones. I’ve got a family. A proper family. The most incredible family in the world. ‘Have you called her?’ I ask. ‘Your mom? To tell her what’s going on.’ My breath is tight in my throat. ‘With the plane.’ He shakes his head. ‘I didn’t know what to say.’ He pauses. ‘It’s like too much time has passed – too much has happened. We can’t just pick up where we left off.’ I look at him and think about how he helped me get the car back, and the thought of him going back into that airport terminal on his own makes my heart sink. ‘Perhaps it would help if you saw her face to face.’ His head snaps up. ‘I could take you part of the way to Atlanta,’ I suggest. ‘I’m heading in that direction. Sort of.’ Leda jumps up and starts thumping her tail on the tarmac, like she’s totally up for taking Christopher with us. He bites the side of his lip and looks back at the door to the arrivals lounge. ‘As soon as there’s any news, it will be all over the TV and the internet,’ I say. ‘It’s not like you’ll find out more by staying here. And you’ll go crazy waiting. Come with me – you can charge your phone in my car and I’ll drive you to Knoxville. There’ll be a bus to Atlanta from there.’ He doesn’t say anything. ‘I could do with the company,’ I say. Leda starts licking Christopher’s arm. ‘And it looks like she wants you to come too.’ Then, very slowly, he nods. ‘If you’re sure.’ ‘I’m sure.’ I shove the dresses and the suit to one side on the back seat to make room for his backpack and lift the binder from my summer internship at the Air & Space Museum off the passenger seat. Leda jumps into the back. And then Christopher gets in beside me. Chapter Ten (#ulink_cc142d6f-3569-56dc-8ba1-65e675a62633) 20.45 EST 1-66 It takes us ages to get out of DC because of the traffic. When we finally do, I relax for a bit and look up at the sky. It’s dark. And now that we’ve left the city, it’s clearer; there are billions of stars. The moon. A pale, round disc in the sky. Tomorrow night, it won’t be there at all, not the night before the eclipse. Well, it will be there – it’s always there, like the stars – we just won’t see it. I wonder what it would be like to see the eclipse from the moon; to watch a long, dark shadow slicing the earth while the rest of the world stays bright. Now that would be even more amazing than being in Oregon. One day I’ll live somewhere where it’s so clear it’ll be like living in the sky itself. When Mom was a kid she spent her summer holidays way up in the north of Scotland, and she says that there are islands there where you can see more stars than you ever thought existed. The warm, night air brushes against my arms and my face, cool against my eyes. It feels good to let my body go numb, not to have to think. The only sound comes from the engine, a low hum, the tyres clicking over ridges in the road and Leda, who keeps letting out her random yelps in her sleep. I still don’t know where Blake is, and the news of what happened to the plane and Christopher’s dad is hanging over us like this horrible black cloud. But it feels good to have left the airport behind and to just be driving. I look over at Christopher. After he plugged his cell into the lighter socket, he sat back and stared out of the windscreen. And he hasn’t stopped staring. Like he’s hoping that the night sky will give him an answer. As the wind rushes past us, the smell of his skin and his clothes drifts over to me: pines needles and rainwet earth, like he lives deep in a forest somewhere. Besides Dad and Blake and a couple of boys in my Physics class at school, I don’t really hang around guys much. Which means that, if he were here now, Blake would totally be giving me a hard time about this. And then it comes back to me: the reason I’m in this weird situation – driving my brother’s Buick through the night with a strange guy from England – is because Blake’s missing. Christopher hasn’t said anything since we left Dulles, which is kind of a relief; my brain’s been on overdrive ever since I got to the airport and I don’t have the energy to talk or process any more information. So, I keep my eyes on the road, let the warm air wash over me and push the CD player into its slot. The sound system’s the only concession Blake made to updating the car. He wants the Buick to be true to its 1970s spirit. Yeah, the car has a spirit. For Blake, everything’s got a spirit. The CD spins and then music starts coming out, and it takes a second to sink in. The singer’s voice. Suddenly, I can’t breathe. My hands go numb on the steering wheel and the car starts swerving to the middle of the road. ‘Hey! Watch out!’ a voice yells beside me. I hear Leda barking from the back seat – loud, strong barks, way louder than her usual whining. Then I hear her scramble down into the footwell, like she does when she’s scared. The next thing I see are headlights, huge, beaming in through the windscreen: a truck is coming towards us, head on. My heart’s hammering. A hand reaches past me and pulls the steering wheel hard until the car swerves to the side of the road. Then I lose control of the wheel and I’m thrown against the door. The tyres screech. Leda yelps from the footwell. The car spins and, for a second, I think this is it, this is where it ends. And then everything stops. We’re on the hard shoulder, facing the wrong way. The side of my body feels bruised from the impact against the door. My head’s spinning. Blood’s pounding in my ears. Outside my body, the only sound is the tick, ticking of the engine. And the whoosh of cars driving past us. My throat’s dry and my heart’s knocking so hard I think it’s going to push out of my ribs. And I’m wondering why the airbag didn’t detonate. The only way Mom agreed for Blake to drive this museum piece of a car was if he got it totally safety-checked. He said he did. Of course, he said he did. He probably decided that airbags weren’t true to the car’s spirit. I should have taken it to the garage myself. I try to steady my breathing. The weird thing is that the music’s still playing. Blake’s cover of Johnny Cash’s ‘Flesh and Blood’. I reach out for the CD player and thump my palm against all the buttons, trying to make it stop. ‘Damn it!’ I yell, still thumping at the CD player. ‘It’s okay,’ a voice says beside me. ‘It’s okay.’ And then I remember I’m not alone. That Christopher’s sitting beside me, a guy who, a few hours ago, I didn’t even know existed. A guy who, more likely than not, just saved my life. He reaches past me, pushes on the eject button and the CD slips out. I sit back, my whole body shaking. Neither of us says anything. Then, his voice low and gentle, he asks, ‘What just happened?’ My eyes are closed now. ‘That was him.’ My words come out jagged, like my mouth has forgotten how to form words. ‘That was Blake, singing.’ I open my eyes and look back at the road. Everything looks normal: cars drive past us on either side. Headlights. Tail lights. No sign of the truck that we swerved to avoid. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, my voice shaking. ‘It’s all been too much. And then hearing Blake’s voice.’ From the corner of my eye I see Christopher nod. And then he looks down at the CD player. My eyes follow his and I see Blake’s handwriting scrawled in Sharpie across the top: For Air. I’ve listened to the CD he made for me so many times it should be worn out by now. ‘Your brother’s a musician?’ I feel blood in my mouth; I must have bitten my cheek as we swerved away from truck. I can’t believe I haven’t told him this about Blake yet. It’s like you can’t mention my brother’s name without mentioning his music in the same breath. Blake is his music. And I assume that the world knows him already, which is stupid, I know. But then if you’ve lived with Blake, you’d understand: he was born with Destined to be famous stamped on his forehead. ‘Yeah. He’s a musician. He writes songs. Plays the guitar – has a band. He was on tour in England.’ I pause. ‘He’s even more successful over there than he is here.’ I stare out of the windscreen. ‘He loves London, especially.’ I stare out of the windscreen, feeling numb. And then I cover my face with my hands and dig my fingers into my scalp. My breath is ragged, like there’s not enough oxygen in the air. ‘All this is so messed up,’ I say. I picture our special family breakfast at Louis’s tomorrow morning without me and Blake there. How Mom will be out of her mind with worry – and totally pissed that I’m not answering my phone. And how, if Blake doesn’t show up in time for the wedding itself, I’m going to have sing instead of him. Which makes my stomach cave in on itself. He’s the one everyone wants to hear. Blake’s words come back to me: I’ll be there, no matter what. I’d guessed there would be a screw-up. There usually is with Blake. And he’s made a fine art out of turning up late to things. It makes him even more noticeable – as if he needed that. But this is Jude’s wedding for Christ’s sake. This is different. This is the one time where he has to be on time. This is the one time where (besides the song) he doesn’t get to steal the show. I take a few breaths to calm myself down. I’ll be there, no matter what, I whisper to myself. No matter what. He promised. And then I look back up at the stars. Someone once asked me why I wanted to do it – to study the night sky, to be an astronaut. Why I was so obsessed with the world beyond the earth. My answer was simple: It makes me believe that anything’s possible. But it’s like all that’s an illusion. I feel trapped. And totally powerless. Like even if the whole universe were on my side, it wouldn’t help me. ‘If Blake doesn’t make it to the wedding, I don’t want to go either.’ Christopher waits a beat and then, in a quiet way that’s louder and clearer than anyone yelling, he says: ‘Whatever’s going on with your brother, you’ll be there. For your family.’ I stare up at him. ‘I will?’ ‘Yes, you will,’ he says firmly, like there’s no alternative. He looks at me through the strands of tangled hair that fall over his forehead. ‘You said that your sister’s wedding was the most important day in your family’s life, right?’ ‘Right.’ ‘So, you have to go.’ ‘But what am I meant to tell them?’ I hold out my phone. ‘I’ve got all these missed calls from Mom. She’s wondering what the hell’s going on.’ ‘Don’t tell them anything. Not yet. Just focus on getting to Nashville.’ I stare at him for a second. His grey eyes are so light, they’re transparent. He’s doing the job I usually do: he’s calming me down and telling me that it’s going to be okay and getting me to focus on finding a solution. It feels nice not to be the one sorting things out for once. I nod. ‘You’re right. It’s going to be fine. Blake’s going to show up and it’ll all be fine.’ ‘I didn’t say—’ ‘He’ll show up,’ I talk over him. ‘And he’ll sing his song and everyone will forget he was even late.’ I press the words into my head. ‘Yeah, it’s going to be fine.’ I can feel Christopher staring at me. He doesn’t say anything. I look at the steering wheel. Somehow, I have to find the strength to get going again – to drive those hundreds of miles to Nashville. ‘You still want to be driven by someone who nearly crashed into a truck?’ I ask Christopher. He keeps looking at me. Then the corners of his mouth turn up. ‘The truck was kind of in the way.’ I let out a laugh, and all the tension in my body dissipates for a moment. ‘It was, wasn’t it?’ ‘Definitely.’ ‘You trust me? To keep driving you?’ ‘Well, I don’t know about that…’ he says. But he’s smiling. ‘Yeah, I trust you.’ The thing is, I don’t even know whether I trust myself anymore. I look up again at the stars. If I’m going to be an astronaut one day – if I’m going to make it all the way up there – I’d better learn how to navigate things down here. A low whine comes from the back of the car. ‘Oh God.’ I unbuckle my seatbelt and twist round to the back of the car. Leda’s cowering in the footwell, her eyes two black, glassy pools. For once, she’s dead quiet. My binder and my telescope are wedged in beside her and Blake’s suit has flown off its hanger and is draped over her. The hat box is in the other footwell. It’s got a big dent in the side. I hope to god that the hat isn’t damaged. I rip the suit off her body, pull her out of the footwell onto my lap, wrap my arms around her neck and let out a sob. Then I hold her away from me and inspect her. There’s a small cut on her ear – and on her nose too. Her whole body’s shaking and I can feel her heart hammering against her ribcage. I lean in and kiss the top of her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’ She licks my face. Her tongue is so warm and familiar that my eyes well up and for the first time since Blake left her with me six weeks ago, I’m grateful that I’ve got her. I hold her closer and look up at the sky. Where are you, Blake? Christopher leans over and pets the top of Leda’s head in long, gentle strokes. I can feel her relaxing against me, her heart slowing down. For a few seconds, neither of us say anything. Then I say, ‘Here.’ I place Leda on Christopher’s lap. ‘You look after her.’ Leda licks his hand and he leans over and kisses the top of her head, the soft patch between her ears. ‘Leda likes you,’ I say. ‘Leader?’ ‘Yes, Leda. As in L-E-D-A. Jupiter’s thirteenth moon.’ ‘Oh – right.’ ‘It was found in 1974. The moon, I mean. I can show it to you if you like.’ God, I sound like a dork. ‘It’s a cool name.’ He pats her again, a bit more confidently this time. ‘Have you had her for a long time?’ ‘She’s Blake’s. Like the car. Whenever he goes on tour, I get to babysit them. And I named her – obviously.’ ‘Obviously?’ ‘I like space.’ ‘As in, outerspace?’ I nod. Leda puts a paw up against Christopher’s chest and then paws at his glasses, so that he has to readjust them. Yeah, she definitely likes him. Christopher shakes her paw like he shook my hand earlier. ‘Pleased to meet you, Leda,’ he says. ‘Officially.’ As I lean over and give Leda a stroke, my hand brushes Christopher’s bare forearm; electricity shoots through my body. I notice Christopher’s cell light up; it’s been charging through the cigarette lighter. He grabs it and starts scanning through news pages. His breath goes jagged and he starts jiggling his leg. I should ask him what’s going on, but I’m not ready to take in anything else right now. I want to get back on the road and drive. Focus on getting to the wedding. And anyway, if Blake’s turned up somewhere and is waiting for me to pick him up, he’ll call me. I switch on the ignition and look across the road. It’s late so there aren’t many cars around. I pull out onto the road, do an illegal U-turn and then press down on the accelerator. Chapter Eleven (#ulink_99c6f653-73e7-53c7-a3ed-78dddabcce2b) 21.30 EST 1-81 My eyes are burning. After the adrenaline of the past few hours, it’s like my body’s gone into some kind of shutdown mode. I look back at the road. A few seconds later, my eyes close. My eyelids are heavy and it takes all the energy I’ve got to blink them back open. ‘I think I need to take a break,’ I say. Which is the last thing I want to do right now. I’ve got over 500 miles to cover before I get to Nashville – and, because of the eclipse, the traffic’s going to be really bad as soon as people hit the road tomorrow morning. So, I should keep going. But if I don’t take a break, I’m going to crash the car – really crash it this time. And then I’ll never make it to the wedding. If that happens, Mom and Jude won’t forgive me. It’s one thing our unreliable brother not showing up, it’s another for the always-show-up-no-matter-what-little-sister (the little sister who’s meant to walk in front of Jude scattering the petals of Mom’s heirloom roses) bailing. I look over at Christopher. His eyes are closed so I guess he didn’t hear me. I lean over and shake him gently. He rubs his eyes and yawns. ‘We’re stopping for a break,’ I announce. I notice a Mobil sign by the next exit and flick the indicator. ‘Can you lend me a bit more money?’ I ask. ‘For some gas?’ I swallow hard. I hate having to ask him, but I don’t have a choice. Well, I do have a choice. I could use the emergency credit card. But like I said, I’m not ready for Mom to find out where I am. Plus, she’ll get the email alert and then she’ll call and I’ll feel like I have to pick up and I’ll try to make up some excuse but she’ll hear it in my voice, that something’s wrong. I’m a crap liar. ‘I’ll pay you back.’ ‘Sure,’ he says, getting out his wallet. Once we’re parked and I’ve filled up the car, I take Leda to a patch of grass for a pee and then put her back in the backseat of the car. ‘We won’t be long,’ I say. I noticed a sign in the window advertising coffee. It won’t be Starbucks but I’ll take anything to keep me awake. I start walking away from the car and Leda yelps. And then she totally guilt-trips me: cocking her head to one side and looking at me with those big, black glassy eyes of hers. She’s still shaken up by what happened earlier, when I nearly rammed us into an oncoming truck. The blood on her ear has dried into a crusty brown. I know she’s wondering where Blake is because the only reason we ever go to Dulles airport is to collect Blake. And I know that she doesn’t want to be alone. But what am I meant to do? There’s a big No Dogs Allowed sign outside the Mobil store. She lets out a low, mournful whine. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Okay.’ I look over at Christopher and get an idea. I open the boot, pull out a fluorescent yellow sash that Mom put in there along with a whole load of other safety stuff and tie it round Leda’s belly. She starts whining again. Then she wriggles around under the sash like she’s got fleas. ‘It’s this or you stay in the car,’ I say. Leda keeps snapping her head round and biting at the sash. I clip on her lead and hand it to Christopher. ‘She’s yours,’ I say. ‘Look like you need her.’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘She’s your service dog.’ ‘She is?’ ‘Yep.’ If you think I’m a bad liar, try watching me act. It’s not pretty. I flunked every theatre class I took at school. Blake and Jude sucked up all of Mom and Dad’s artsy genes. ‘Okay,’ Christopher says, taking the lead. I like that about him. That he kind of goes along with things without asking too many questions. That he stays calm. And trusts me. ‘You’d be good to have on a space mission,’ I say. ‘What?’ Did I actually say that out loud? ‘Oh, nothing. Just that you’re cool.’ He raises his bushy blond eyebrows. ‘I’m cool?’ ‘Yeah. You are.’ I grab my telescope from the back seat, Christopher gives Leda’s lead a tug, and we head into the store. The guy behind the counter looks at Leda and you can tell he’s about to say something, but then he sees Christopher and closes his mouth again. Christopher totally rocks the service dog thing. He pats Leda on the side and says, ‘good dog,’ and makes it seem like it’s totally normal that he’s bringing an animal into a no-animals-allowed place. Blake once said that confidence was his biggest talent – that it was what made people listen to him and like him. That people are drawn to confidence because it makes them feel safe, like it’s making them stronger too. Blake said that confidence was even more important than being good at singing or playing the guitar or being cute. Though he has all of those things too, of course, so I’m not sure he’s really tested the theory. I’ve got enough cash in my wallet to get us a couple of coffees from the dispenser. I get some chips too, from the guy at the counter. He’s so busy watching the highlights of the Red Sox game that he doesn’t even look away from the screen as he hands me the change. We sit at a round, rickety metal table by the food machines, the only table in the store. I feed Leda some chips under the table. I know it’s not good for her but Leda looks like she could do with some comfort food. And, more to the point, Blake’s not here so he doesn’t get a say. My phone sits on the table in front of me. It keeps lighting up. More messages from Mom. Messages from Mom asking when Blake and I are going to show up. I type a quick message: Blake messed up his flight. I’m waiting for him. We’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t stress, Mom. I pause and then add: Love you. Then I switch off the phone. I know Mom. On the face of it, she’ll seem totally calm. Make a joke of it – that it’s Blake’s thing – to turn up late. That we should have banked on him not making the family breakfast. That the main thing is that he’s there for the wedding. That I’ll get him there. Because that’s what I do. But inside, she’ll be going crazy. Because the events Mom plans never go wrong. Mom sees every festive occasion (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, birthdays and a few other religious festivals to which we have no known affiliation) as some kind of Olympic-level competition. When we were kids, she hand-sewed every one of our Halloween costumes and baked, carved and frosted every one of our birthday cakes and, every Christmas, she scales the roof putting up Christmas lights – bolder and brighter and blinkier than any of the neighbours. She’s totally exhausting to live with. Like Martha Stewart on speed. Except that stuff isn’t even her day job. She’s an amazing lawyer too. So, how does Mom do it all, I hear you ask? Simple: she never sleeps. You’ve got it, Mom’s both a superhero and totally annoying. So, you can imagine that her eldest daughter’s wedding was going to be a big deal. And it’s an even bigger deal because Mom knows that, more likely than not, she’ll only get one stab at it. Blake doesn’t believe in marriage – or anything else that involves long-term commitment: he’s had a steady stream of girlfriends since middle school. As for me, having a husband and kids doesn’t really mix with zooming off into space. So if Blake and I mess up Jude’s wedding, she’ll be upset. Really upset. I wonder how Dad’s handling everything right now. He’s the yin to Mom’s yang. The calm centre to her spinning world. He sits back and lets stuff wash over him. When Mom goes into intense mode, he slips away into his study and goes into Greek-myth world and doesn’t re-emerge until things have calmed down. When Mom’s doing my head in too, I sometimes join him in there. He lets me sit on the other side of his desk and read or work on my Physics homework and we pretend the rest of the world has dropped away. It makes me feel better, to sit there with Dad, even if we don’t say anything. I think about calling him and telling him everything but then I know that’s not an option. Dad’s like me: can’t hide what he’s thinking. Mom would pick up on the fact that I’ve been in touch right away. When Christopher’s finished his chips, he gets out his phone. ‘You said there was a bus from Knoxville to Atlanta?’ he says. ‘Yeah, there should be.’ He looks up a few more pages. ‘What time do you think we’ll get there?’ ‘To Knoxville?’ I check the clock on the far wall of the store. ‘When’s the earliest bus – tomorrow morning?’ ‘Six thirty.’ ‘If we drive through the night we might make it for that one.’ He nods. And then a stillness settles between us. And I know it’s because talking about the bus has brought it home that, in a few hours, we’ll be saying goodbye. He takes a paper napkin from the dispenser and folds it until it turns into a small, tight body with wings and a long, thin beak. He places it on the table and its head tilts upwards, like it’s about to take flight. It’s amazing how he can make a cheap paper napkin from a gas station look this beautiful. Sitting here, it’s like we’re in a bubble, our bodies pale from the fluorescent strip lights, no sound except the humming of the refrigeration units behind us. I think about the craziness of the airport we’ve left behind and the investigation into what’s happened to the plane and the fact that I nearly crashed the car. And I think about all the wedding preparations taking place in Nashville and how Blake and I should be there. And then I look back at Christopher, folding another napkin, a second bird to accompany the first. It reminds me of the newspaper bird he made for the mother and the child back at the airport. I wonder where they are now. I wonder who they were waiting for. Christopher’s hair falls over his glasses, and I feel like leaning forward and sweeping it away so that he can see more clearly but I don’t. Because that would be weird, right? Touching a boy I hardly know? Plus, it would make him totally freak. And I realise that right now, I need him. Like I need to go to Dad’s study sometimes. Because even though he’s not doing anything, he’s making me feel better about this shit storm of a situation. So, instead of touching his hair, I keep watching him. It’s kind of soothing, how precise he is – and how focused. Like, while he’s folding, nothing else in the world exists. ‘Where did you learn to do that?’ I ask. He stops folding and looks up at me. ‘Do what?’ ‘Those models you make.’ ‘Models?’ ‘Out of paper.’ ‘These?’ He looks down at the paper birds. ‘Oh, they’re nothing,’ he says. ‘They don’t look like nothing.’ He sighs, leans back in his chair and looks out through the store window. A truck is refuelling next to Blake’s car. ‘I used to get bored, waiting,’ Christopher says. ‘Waiting?’ ‘For Dad.’ His eyes narrow in concentration and he makes another fold. ‘I hung around airports a lot.’ ‘When you were travelling with your dad?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘You taught yourself how to make things out of paper, then?’ ‘I started by making paper planes,’ he says. ‘I guess like any kid.’ I think back to the paper plane Christopher was making when we were waiting for the Buick to come back – and how that reporter stared at it, like it implicated Christopher in some way. The plane was amazing. A perfect replica of one of those Boeings that cross the Atlantic. But it was more than that. Its wings were alive, like those of a bird. ‘I’d get scraps of paper,’ he explains. ‘And fold them into an arrow and shoot them around the place.’ He goes quiet for a bit. ‘It annoyed him.’ ‘Your dad?’ He nods. ‘He got annoyed by the paper airplanes?’ ‘Yeah.’ He goes quiet again. ‘It still annoys him.’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘The paper folding. He thinks it’s a waste of time. That I should be reading books or revising for my exams or planning my future. You have to lead a Big Life, Christopher, he’s always saying.’ He pauses. ‘Whatever that means.’ I feel a thud in my chest. And it comes back to me, the reason we’re here, in this service station that smells of oil and grease, drinking bitter coffee from a machine. And that it’s way more serious than anything I’m worried about. A plane’s crashed. And though he seems to be in denial about it, Christopher’s dad was on that plane. ‘Well I think it’s cool, the things you make,’ I say. ‘That you’re artistic.’ His eyes go wide. ‘Artistic?’ ‘I can’t even draw a stick-man.’ I can’t even sing, I think. But that, more likely than not, is what I’m going to have to do – in just over twenty-four hours. To cover Blake’s ass. To make sure Jude’s wedding goes to plan. ‘So, I think that it’s amazing – that you can make all that stuff, just out of paper. More than that – it’s not even special paper like from an art shop or something. You use scraps, right? Stuff you find around the place.’ He nods. ‘Well, it’s awesome.’ I smile. ‘Eco-Art – that’s trendy, right?’ ‘Trendy?’ ‘Yeah.’ He laughs. ‘Maybe.’ ‘Well, I think your models are amazing.’ The tops of his cheeks blush. ‘Thanks.’ A guy comes into the store. He grabs a coffee from the machine beside us and a burger from the oven. Then, he bashes into the back of my chair and my telescope falls to the floor. ‘Watch out!’ I say. But the guy keeps walking, without even apologising. Christopher leans over and picks it up. ‘What’s this?’ ‘My telescope.’ ‘For the eclipse?’ ‘Yeah – for the eclipse. But for other stuff too.’ ‘Other stuff?’ ‘I like looking at the night sky. I want to do it – professionally.’ ‘Professionally?’ ‘Yeah. Sort of.’ My cheeks get hot like they do every time I have to explain my thing about the stars and the universe and what I want to do with my life. Besides Dad, most people I tell don’t get it. That what’s up there is like the most important thing a human being could do. That it’s the only way we’re ever going to understand how we got here and why we’re here now and what’s going to happen next. ‘I want to be an astronaut,’ I say. ‘Really?’ He looks surprised but not a patronising only-ten-year-old-boys-want-to-be-astronauts look. It’s a kind of impressed look. Really impressed. Like he understands – how wanting to go into space is the most awesome thing anyone could ever want to do. I feel a rush of pride. I nod. ‘Yep, really.’ He looks up at me, his pale, grey eyes wide and shiny. ‘That’s meant to be really hard – isn’t it?’ ‘Yeah, it’s really hard. Only a tiny percentage of those trained ever go up into space. I did an internship this summer, at the Smithsonian to help my chances of getting into MIT. NASA recruits from MIT,’ I explain. ‘So, you’re going to study engineering?’ ‘Yep. One more year of school—’ ‘One more year of school?’ ‘What?’ ‘You look – I don’t know – kind of—’ he stalls. ‘Young?’ He nods. His face goes red. ‘I skipped a grade. That’s why this internship was really important. I have to prove that I’m ready.’ ‘Skipped a year? So you must be, what—’ ‘Seventeen. Just. My birthday was last week.’ Mom usually makes a fuss about birthdays but this year, mine got kind of lost in all the wedding preparations and I was busy doing my internship and Blake was in London. I didn’t mind. I don’t like the fuss. Dad took me out for red velvet cake at my favourite bakery in town and then we talked for hours, until it was nearly dark and the owner of the bakery had to kick us out. It was probably the best birthday I’ve ever had. Christopher shakes his head. ‘God, you must be really clever – skipping a grade. I can barely keep up with my own year.’ ‘I work hard. And starting young has advantages. If you want to be an astronaut, I mean.’ ‘So, when you get to MIT—’ ‘I’m going to do a BA in Physical Science – majoring in Astronomy. I want to understand the skies before I get into the mechanical stuff. Then I’ll do a Masters in Aerospace Engineering. And after that a doctorate.’ ‘Wow, you’ve really got it all worked out.’ I nod. ‘If you want to be an astronaut, you basically have to start planning from when you’re born.’ ‘Won’t it be kind of lonely – I mean, all those years of studying and then going off into space?’ ‘Besides my immediate family, I’m not into personal relationships, so I’ll be fine. And I quite like being on my own.’ Those bushy eyebrows of his knit together. ‘You’re not into personal relationships?’ ‘Getting married and stuff,’ I explain. ‘Oh – right.’ ‘I mean, if it’s a toss-up between finding the man of my dreams and having his babies or getting to land on some undiscovered planet, the choice is easy.’ ‘It is?’ ‘Definitely. And anyway, break-ups are distracting, right? I can’t afford to be distracted, not when I’m planning a space mission.’ ‘Why would there be a break-up?’ ‘There are always break-ups. It’s like a thing for astronauts: break-up statistics are high. So, it’s better to be single.’ I pause. ‘Especially if you’re a woman.’ His eyes look wider and paler than ever. Maybe I’ve told him too much. But then he was the one who asked all the questions. ‘You’d get on with my mum.’ He makes it sound like a sad thing. ‘As in Atlanta Mom?’ I ask. And then I feel stupid. It’s not like he’s got any other moms. ‘Yeah, Atlanta Mum. She’s a scientist. A marine biologist – sea rather than sky. But she wanted to study too – rather than having a kid, I mean. Which is why Dad looked after me.’ He pauses. ‘I guess that, like you, she didn’t want any distractions.’ ‘Oh…’ I don’t really know what to say. I think he’s just compared me to the mom who walked out on him. ‘I’m sorry.’ I say. ‘That you didn’t get to have both of your parents.’ Mom and Dad had us all pretty young. Dad was still doing his doctoral thesis at Oxford when they had Jude. Mom was finishing her legal practice course. They would never have considered giving her up though. Mom jokes about putting her down for naps in her filing cabinet at work and Dad says that she’d sit in her stroller at the back of his lectures, good as gold, and that having her around made the students like him more. I guess they worked it out. Then, one year later, they had Blake. They were so close in age people thought they were twins. And then, four years later I came along, by which time Mom and Dad had hired an au pair from Sweden who allowed them to get on with their jobs without making us feel like we’d been abandoned. Juta drank goats milk, forced us to go on these epic hikes and cycled through Oxford, pulling us behind her in a trailer. She sang constantly – which meant that she adored Blake because he’d sing along with her. They’d do harmonies and people would stop in the street and listen. At first we hated her but by the time she left, three years later, we thought our lives would end if she wasn’t there anymore. She’s coming to the wedding too. Bringing her husband and four children. Anyway, I wonder what I’d do. Whether I’d give a kid up if it meant being able to go into space. It doesn’t feel like a fair decision. Which is why it’s better not to get involved in all that to begin with. Keep things simple. And the world’s overpopulated anyway. ‘Sometimes it’s hard,’ I say. ‘To make it work. But I’m sure they both still love you. Parents are parents, right, no matter how much they mess things up?’ For a while, Christopher doesn’t say anything. And then, he says: ‘I’ve never really felt like I’ve had parents. I mean, I haven’t felt like I belonged to them – like you’re meant to feel.’ ‘You don’t feel like you belong to your parents?’ That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. ‘I mean – I don’t feel like I come from them, like I’m one of them or that I have bits of them in me.’ I think about the bits of Mom and Dad I have in me. I thought I was more like Dad. Kind of chilled. Happy in my own company. But then, when I’ve got an idea for a project or when I go off on one of my rants about female astronauts, Dad looks at me and smiles and says: You’re just like your mother Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/virginia-macgregor/as-far-as-the-stars/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.