We entered the hotel bar lobby, where he’d said he would be waiting. I called to mind the photographs in which Bill said Jack looked like a kindly old basset hound. In those images, Jack sometimes wore round black-rimmed glasses, and he always appeared in a suit and tie—did he wear these things on a regular day to eat lunch at a hotel? Or would he be in his teaching robes? A pipe between his lips? A cigarette dangling?
My thoughts winged everywhere—caged birds.
Did I look all right? Beautiful but smart? Kind but intelligent? I’d never admired my looks, per se, except for one very lovely photograph on the back of Weeping Bay. And every time I tried to reproduce that exact pose, I came up short and disappointed. I fiddled with my strand of pearls and glanced around the bar. It was full at lunch hour: men in three-piece suits and ties, women in pearls and hats no different from what I wore. The room was a haze of chintz and velvet, low lighting from lamps at dark wood side tables. The walls were covered in green damask wallpaper, the ceiling with dark wood gables thick as railroad ties. It was all very stately and noble, which caused me to stand taller, shift my shoulders back.
My gaze roamed the room until I found him.
Jack.
There he was, animated, in deep conversation with the man across from him. His smile was kind and curved as he listened.
I took stock of him as if I had eternity to stare without his noticing.
His hairline had receded, and what dark hair remained on top was slicked back with comb marks. His smile sparked with life. His eyes were shadowed by his sloping eyelids beneath rimless glasses, as if he’d just woken and was happy to have done so. He sat casually, with one corduroy-clad leg over the other.
There was something lit up about him, the way the landscape of his face was animated beneath his strong eyebrows. His lips and mouth were full. These attributes—his mind, which I knew in letters, and now the light of his spirit—combined into a singular word: beautiful. The birds in my mind moved to my chest, fluttering there in anticipation.
And then, as if someone placed a hand over his mouth, he stopped midlaugh. He looked to me as if my stare had tapped him on the shoulder.
Our gazes caught and stayed. He grinned, as did I.
I gathered myself and ambled toward him, came to a stop in front of the couch as he stood. Those brown eyes of his, they were sparkling as if lit.
“Well, well. My pen-friend Joy is finally in England.” His voice was a song: part Irish brogue, part English. He wasn’t quite as tall as I’d expected, perhaps five foot ten at the most, yet his charisma stretched to the beams overhead. He wore a ragged tweed jacket with brown leather patches on the elbows and a white-buttoned shirt with a bright-blue tie.
“And you,” I said with a jittery smile, “must be my very famous friend, Jack Lewis.”
He bellowed with laughter and thrust out his hand to take mine in a rigorous shake. “Famous? Infamous perhaps, in very small circles.”
My voice sounded breathy and silly. I lowered it. “I’m really happy to see you. After all these years of friendship and an entire month here in England, finally we meet face-to-face.” I held to his hand and we smiled at each other. For what was most likely only a few seconds, time paused. He let go of my hand as Phyl stepped closer. “Oh! I’ve forgotten myself! Please meet my friend Phyl Williams.”
The man next to Jack lifted his eyebrows, and at once I knew what I’d done wrong—I’d spoken loudly in my New York accent.
Jack shook Phyl’s hand and in that brogue stated, “George, may I introduce you to Joy Gresham and her friend from London, Phyl.”
George nodded once at each of us and Jack explained. “George is a dear friend who was once a student of mine at Magdalen.”
I glanced at George. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you.” I held out my hand and he shook it without a word. Nervous, I pressed my lips together, hoping the lipstick was still there and hadn’t bled into the small creases around my mouth.
“Come,” Jack said, “let’s sit down. They’ve sorted a table for us.”
The four of us wound our way to the low-lit dining room table reserved in the middle of the restaurant, where four cut-glass tumblers sparkling with amber liquid waited.
We settled in, shook open the napkins on our laps, as I quickly assessed George. He possessed a long face like a horse with a deeply etched forehead, a road map to years of furrowed brow. Large ears perched as if tilting toward his eyes, and his long nose ended in a rounded bulb from which he seemed to look down at me as he caught my eye. I looked away.