There was no sign that said WELCOME TO LONDON, POPULATION LOTS, PLUS WE HAVE GHOSTS or anything like that. There were suddenly just more things. More houses along the road. More shops. More trucks and cars and overpasses. Then she saw the first double-decker red bus, and it all came into focus in her head. Red pillar postboxes. Ornate street signs in white, red, and black. Grander houses in brick with arched windows and wrought-iron balconies. Endless buildings with a low, severe grandeur—long rows of white-fronted buildings. Union Jack flags flapping in front of hotels. The distinctive Tube signs with the red circle crossed through with a blue bar. Then she saw the first landmark she clearly recognized—the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. They wound through streets of theaters and restaurants, down to a much faster road that followed the river. Then a series of turns past a massive gray stone building that looked like a palace. A few more turns around a confusing block, then the car came to a stop in front of a building made of red-gold brick （they really liked bricks in London）， with long windows. It was five stories high, with multiple peaks and arched windows. Next to it was an identical building, and the two were connected by a lower structure.
“Here we go,” said the driver.
Early in the drive, Stevie had been texting updates to David. She had been too entranced to do so for the last half hour, and only now looked down at her phone to see a message.
Sorry, something has come up. I’ll try to see you tonight.
Her eyes almost filled with tears.
“What?” Vi said.
Stevie held out the message for them to read.
“It’s fine,” Vi said. “We’ll unpack and then you’ll see him.”
I’ll try to see you tonight. What the actual hell?
Nate leaned over and read the message as well.
“Oh good,” he said. “I was hoping for some weird tension.”
“Come on,” Janelle said, opening the door. “We’re here!”
Stevie took a gulping breath and opened the door on her side, almost knocking into someone on a bike. She heard a shouted swear word as the bike moved on.
“Look to your right,” said a voice.
A head appeared in the open doorway. It came in from the side, almost upside down. There was a shock of near-black hair, a shag of half-curls and wisps, a twisted smile. “How’s it going, jerks?”
5
DAVID EXTENDED A HAND TO HELP HER OUT OF THE CAR.
“You . . .”
“A joke. You love jokes!”
“I hate jokes,” she replied, breaking into a smile. His hand was warm, and the gesture so genteel. This was the first touch, the first contact. He was real.
“Oh, that’s right,” he said. And then he swept down and kissed her. It was fleeting—truly, it was just a brush of the lips.
Now that he was standing upright and she was in front of him, everything shifted into position. She had looked at him in hundreds of photos since he’d been in England, and over equally as many video calls, but in person, she could see how his slightly longer hair moved in the breeze, the tips of the curls snapping back and forth. He was wearing his fine, long black dress coat. The coat. It had apparently caused a two-thousand-dollar dent in his father’s credit card. He’d bought it to impress her, to dress up for her, and probably to piss off his dad as well. In both these things, it had succeeded.
It was hard to explain the effect it had. It swept the backs of his calves. The lapels seemed to draw out the angles of his face. It was a magical piece of clothing.
Under it, he wore the worn-out Yale sweatpants that had belonged to his father—the white letters crusted and crumbling along his leg. She took a step closer and noticed an unfamiliar smell. New detergent. A strong scent. This was his English scent. She wanted to grab him, to push him flat against the side of the minivan, to kiss him until her lungs turned inside out from lack of air, until night fell and the sun rose again. She wanted to disgust the world and not care. She wanted vengeance on months of lonely nights. She wanted to taste his skin.
What she said was: “You suck.”
He threw his arms around her waist and picked her up, spinning her once, almost hitting the driver with her legs. The driver dodged around, making a low grumble, and went to haul their suitcases out of the back of the car. David greeted them all. Vi and David had always gotten along well, so a warm hug was exchanged. Janelle had never been as fond, but she accepted a hug. Nate was simply not a hugger, so they nodded to each other.
Stevie had been gripping a ten-pound note in a sweaty hand for the last half hour of the trip, and she presented it to the driver before he left. She was unsure from his look whether this was a lot or a shameful pittance. She decided she would worry about this for days. It would wake her up at night.
“Welcome to London,” David said. “This is Craven House, where you will be staying. That building”—he pointed to an identical building to the one that they stood in front of—“is where I live. It’s connected to this one through this lobby and the common room. You live this way.”
He grabbed the closest suitcase and started pulling it along. It happened to be Nate’s. Nate was perfectly content with having David do his lifting. There is no elegant way to drag your suitcase up some steps and into a lobby with too many fluorescent lights, which Stevie was certain turned her skin a fetching shade of grayish green, like a sad cabbage. It was still late November, but a small Christmas tree was up in an empty corner of the lobby, looking like it was at a party at a stranger’s house and hating every minute of it.
At the front desk, their photos were taken and printed onto ID cards. Stevie tried not to look at hers, with her bloodshot eyes and salad dressing hoodie. Each of them was handed a key on a plain ring.
“Room 5-19,” the person behind the counter said to Stevie. “Fifth floor.”
There were elevators, but they were hilariously small, clearly designed to aid people who needed it and not to carry stupid American suitcases up five flights. They pressed into the elevator in two loads of people and bags, and it made the begrudgingly slow ascent to their floor.
“This way,” David said, grabbing the handle of Stevie’s suitcase and pulling it along.
To get to their rooms, they had to pass through three separate heavy doors that segmented the hallway for no clear reason.
“Someone’s in the pocket of Big Door,” Nate said.
“They love fire doors here,” David said. “Something to do with the whole city burning down.”
Most of the doors along the hall were closed, and there was only a faint sound of voices behind some of them.
“Seems empty,” she said.
“Well, it’s the pub hour. A lot of people go down for drinks or food or to hang out in the lounge around now. There’s kind of a routine. I’ll show you. This one’s yours, Vi. Nate, here you are. Janelle, I think you’re down a few doors. And here . . . nineteen.”
Stevie opened the door of a compact, utilitarian room with front-facing windows that looked out over the street. Unlike Ellingham, which had big, quirky rooms, this room was a modern blank canvas—plain white walls, empty corkboards, built-in lights overhead and next to the bed.
David half closed the door and embraced Stevie, looking down into her face.