Something funny hit Stevie. A little sizzle of something unpleasant.
“Oh!” Izzy cried, getting up. “You’re back! Ready to go?”
Izzy’s aunt lived in a place called Islington, which was several Tube stops to the north, on something called the Northern Line—a black line on the orderly squiggles of the Tube map. This meant they had to walk to the Embankment stop, which was down along the path they had taken before, by the river.
The Tube. The famous Tube. It was nothing to David now. He’d been here for months and tapped his card lightly on the reader while Stevie and the others fumbled with their tickets. He and Izzy chatted and joked as they rode down the incredibly long escalator into the depths below London. The walls were paneled in screens that repeated the same rotation of advertisements as they went down, trying desperately to get her to buy a new thriller called Blood at Dawn, attend a production of Richard III, and buy dessert for Christmas at a place called M&S. There was a light, minerally smell, somewhere between fuel and the sweet, unused smell that basements sometimes had.
Another little sizzle as Izzy showed David something on her phone.
There was nothing to be jealous about, was what she told herself as they stood on the platform, looking across at the massive advertisements that were plastered along the curved walls of the Tube. If anything, Izzy seemed more excited about Stevie.
But what if that was what you did when you were trying to hide something?
“Hey.”
David was whispering against her ear. The feeling of his warm breath made her tingle, and the entire right side of her body seemed to go into a liquid state.
“Guess what?” he whispered.
“What?”
“Chicken. Butt.”
He flicked her ear with his tongue.
There was a rush of wind and the train appeared. There was a polite bong sound, and then the recorded voice said MIND THE GAP in a staid English accent.
“It really does that?” Nate said.
The train was utterly rammed with people. There were no seats to be had, and very little standing room. They all crushed together in a forest of arms, wobbling as the train sped along. Janelle and Vi squished together by a pole. David had looped an arm around Stevie. It was warm on the train and the gentle rocking motion made Stevie start to drift off. She wasn’t asleep, but she wasn’t as awake as she wanted to be. There was no time to sleep on this trip—this was all she had. Every day was valuable. Every night.
There was a lot of squeezing and standing and wobbling and pressing before the train expelled them at a place called Angel. They emerged on a wide street of shops and restaurants.
“It’s not far,” Izzy said brightly. “About a fifteen-minute walk.”
This was not quite the around-the-corner-sounding place that Izzy had indicated. Finally, after walking down at least a dozen streets, they stopped at a restaurant on the corner called the Rose of Bengal that played old Bollywood movies on a large screen.
“I’ll get a selection of dishes to share, if that’s all right,” Izzy said. “My treat. Are there vegetarians?”
Vi had been transitioning to a vegan diet, so this was noted. Izzy ordered an array of things that Stevie didn’t know. All the dishes going to the tables in little copper pots looked and smelled incredible, but she didn’t know what they were. It sounded like they were having all of it—lamb bhuna, rogan josh, tandoori prawns, saag paneer, aloo gobi, bindi masala, chana masala, chapati, paratha, Peshwari naan . . . a few of these words sounded vaguely familiar, but she was lost. For the first time since arriving here, she felt the depth of distance. She couldn’t even figure out what David’s new friend was getting them for dinner.
After a short wait, they were presented with three brimming bags and headed back out, following Izzy down a street filled with rows of identical two-story brown brick terraced houses. Each had six concrete or stone steps leading up to a shiny black door, and a low fence of black wrought iron along the sidewalk, separating off a recessed area where there was a lower level. Stevie didn’t really know what things were like in Dickens’s time, but she imagined the building much like this, with chimney sweeps and cooks and maids talking to one another on the stoops. Now, instead of horses, there were impossibly small cars and scooters lining the road, and plastic trash bins stationed aside the stoop.
“Hello, Doorknob,” Izzy said.
“Did you just say hello to the doorknob?” David asked.
Izzy pointed to the top of a recycling bin next to them, in the tiny forecourt of the house. Sitting on top, like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, was a large orange cat, slapping at his own tail.
“This is Doorknob,” she said, passing David the food bags and scooping the cat into her arms. “Because, dumb as a. His favorite toy is the wall. He has a cat flap but he can’t work out how it works. You’re not bright at all, are you? But you’re a good boy. She’s going to be so excited.”
Stevie wasn’t sure if she meant the cat, but the cat seemed to be male.
“She?” Stevie asked. “Your aunt? She knows we’re coming, right?”
“I texted her,” Izzy replied.
Izzy knocked twice, then produced a set of keys and opened the door a crack to lead them into a darkened vestibule, which was tidily full of coats on a row of pegs, a bike, and a stone statue of a Buddha on the floor. She set Doorknob down, and he circled three times before strolling through an open doorway into what looked like the living room. There was a light on somewhere above them, but no sound.
“Hello!” Izzy called up the stairs. “Just me! I brought food!”
Which seemed like an odd thing to say, since it was not just Izzy, and suggested that food had not been previously discussed. Stevie heard a chair roll back and footsteps. A woman came down the steps. She bore enough of a resemblance to Izzy to confirm that this was, in fact, her aunt. Her hair was cropped to her chin and full of bouncy curls. She had well-manicured eyebrows, professionally full, but wore no makeup. She was dressed in pajama bottoms and an oversized T-shirt.
“Oh,” she said. “Hello . . .”
“I brought some friends,” Izzy said. “This is David, from uni. And these are some of his friends from America—this is Janelle, and Vi, and Nate . . . and this is Stevie. Stevie Bell.”
She said it in a way that suggested that Angela should know the name, and maybe clap.
She did not.
“Oh,” Angela said. “Right. Nice to meet you.”
She looked at Izzy with an expression that said, Why have you brought me five Americans? I did not order five Americans.
“They’re doing a tour of historical sites,” Izzy went on. “They’re going to the Tower tomorrow. And I thought, since I know you never eat when you’re working, I’d bring food and maybe we could chat?”
So, Izzy hadn’t told her aunt that this was happening. They were crashing. They were crashing with a lot of food, but they were crashing. Stevie looked to David in concern, but he just shrugged and gave a half smile.
“Oh. Right. Of course, yes. And you’re well timed. I haven’t eaten today and I’m starving. Izzy knows me. Yes, let’s go through to the kitchen.”