The Geography of You and Me

40

At first, she’d planned to tell him the truth.

But the truth was so much less appealing.

The truth meant sitting by herself in London that first week of June, imagining Owen in New York: walking through Central Park, waiting in line at the ice-cream shop, watching the sailboats glide up the Hudson. The truth meant doing nothing. It meant missing out. And most of all, it meant not getting to see him again.

And so, instead, she’d said yes.

Then she panicked.

Earlier in the year, when they were still in Edinburgh, they’d planned to go back to New York for the beginning of the summer. But that had all changed with Dad’s new job in London, where he was working too many hours to escape even for a long weekend, much less an entire month. For a while, Lucy and Mom had still talked about going on their own, since it seemed likely that the boys would be there, but now that they both had summer internships in London, it seemed there was little reason to go.

“Summers are too hot in New York anyway,” Mom had said. “You’ll like London a lot better.”

Lucy knew this was probably true. So far, she loved everything about this city: the street markets and the colorful buildings, the twisting lanes and expansive parks and the way most everyone sounded like a version of her mother. She even liked her classmates at school, who were not just from England or even America but from all over the world: India and South Africa and Australia and Dubai. In New York, she’d stood apart, and in Edinburgh, she’d stood out; but here, she just stood alongside everyone else, and there was a comfort in that, in fitting in for once.

She liked the weather here, too, which was always gray and damp, never too cold and never too warm. It was the in-betweenness of it that she’d grown to appreciate. She had no doubt that she’d enjoy the summer here. But even so, as her mother complained about all those years they’d suffered through the high temperatures in New York, Lucy had been jolted by the memory of that night on the roof, where she and Owen had lain beneath a stagnant sky, sticky with heat and grinning at every limp breeze that managed to reach them, and for a moment, she found herself wishing they’d go back.

But there was no reason to make the trip.

Until yesterday, when she got Owen’s e-mail and decided that in this case, anyway, the lie was a lot more exciting than the truth.

And so she’d written back: I’ll be there. What’s the plan?

It had taken him a full day to respond, and she spent the hours in between with a knot in her stomach, stunned by the possibility of it. It wasn’t that she thought she’d never see him again, because she had more faith in the world than that. But they’d done so much zigging and zagging over the past year, had missed so many chances and squandered so much time, that it seemed hard to believe they might just get another shot at this.

She knew it might not turn out well. It might end up like San Francisco again. It could be a complete and total disaster: They might argue or be overly polite; they might be awkward or nervous or both; they might realize they were better from a distance, better as friends or pen pals or nothing at all.

But they had to see each other again to find out.

When he finally responded late the following night, Lucy was lying in bed, staring at her phone and attempting to calculate the hours between San Francisco and London. As soon as she saw his name appear at the top of the screen, she sat up to read his note, which was a measly seven words.

The lobby at noon on June 7.

The light from the screen seemed to pulse in the dark room, giving the ceiling a whitish glow. She stared at the note for a long time, amused by its matter-of-fact tone, then typed her reply—Not the top of the Empire State Building?—and hit Send before she could think better of it.

Once again, she sat in the dark, awaiting his response, hoping he knew she was only kidding. They were accustomed to corresponding by postcard, where there was endless time between letters rather than endless space on a screen, and they hadn’t adjusted their style just yet.

Finally, after what felt like a very long time, a new e-mail arrived.

How about the Statue of Liberty at midnight? it read, and she laughed, picturing him at his computer, leaning back in his chair with a crooked grin as he waited for her reply. She propped a few pillows behind her, sitting up again.

Or better yet, she wrote, a rowboat in Central Park at dusk.

A taxi on Broadway at sunrise.

A horse-drawn carriage at the Plaza at high noon.

Colonel Mustard with the rope in the study, he wrote, and she laughed again, the sound loud in the quiet house.

After that, it was easy again. For hours, they wrote back and forth, a conversation punctuated by short periods of waiting, where Lucy held her breath and kept watch over her phone, resenting the constraints of technology, the limits of distance.

All night, they wrote to each other, an endless volley of thoughts and worries and memories, the information pinging this way and that across the globe. She told him about breaking up with Liam, and he told her more about what happened with Paisley. He apologized again for what happened in San Francisco, and she apologized right back. As the night crept toward morning, Lucy’s fingers flew across the screen, and she had to reach for the tangled wire of her charger to keep the light from going out, to keep the flame of conversation from dying as they joked and teased and reassured each other, as they talked all night from opposite ends of the world.

Why did we never do this before? she typed eventually, as her eyelids grew heavy and the screen started to swim in front of her.

We wanted to support the local postal service? he replied. We’re old-fashioned? We couldn’t ever figure out the time difference?

Or we’re just idiots.

Or that, he wrote. But at least we’re idiots together.

Later, when they’d said almost everything, the only thing left was good-bye.

See you soon, Bartleby, she wrote.

Can’t wait, Colonel Mustard.

As she set her phone on the bedside table, she realized there was only one thing she hadn’t told him: that she didn’t actually have any plans to be in New York.

But it didn’t matter. As she drifted off to sleep, fuzzy-headed and heavy-limbed and unreasonably happy, she knew that she’d find a way to get there.

41

Until the Day of a Hundred E-mails, Owen wasn’t completely sure he’d follow through with it. There was still time to back out, to say that his trip was canceled or that his plans had changed. But last night, after so many hours and e-mails had flown by, the rain stopped and a gray dusk settled over Seattle and he finally came up for air, blinking and disoriented and grinning like an idiot, and he’d known for sure then that he would be going to New York.

He wanted to see her.

It was as simple and as complicated as that.

The next morning was Sunday, which meant that Dad was off work, and Owen woke to the smell of pancakes. It had been a long time since his father had cooked anything for breakfast, but ever since they returned from Pennsylvania, they’d resumed the Sunday-morning tradition. When he was little, Owen remembered getting his pancakes in the shape of a mouse, while Mom’s were always slightly crooked hearts. These days, they were mostly just circles, but it wasn’t the shape that mattered; it was that they were there at all. Owen knew it was a small thing, but it felt big; it felt like they’d traveled a very long way just to make it here, to this kitchen with the bubbling batter and the smell of syrup.

As he slid into his seat, Dad waved the spatula in greeting.

“Sleep well?” he asked, and Owen nodded distractedly. He had a question to ask, and he was busy trying to figure out the best way to do that. But Dad was in too good a mood to notice. He slid a plate of warm pancakes in front of Owen with a grin. “For my favorite son.”

“Your only son appreciates it,” Owen said, reaching for the syrup. As Dad moved around the tiny kitchen—turning off the griddle and putting the butter back in the fridge, all while humming a little tune under his breath—Owen chewed slowly, still making calculations.

He didn’t have any savings—not anymore. There wasn’t exactly a lot to begin with, but when money was tight on the drive, Owen had started paying for things himself. Not anything big, just the odd tank of gas or some groceries when it was his turn to run into the store. And then in Tahoe, he’d done the same with his dishwashing money, and anything he’d managed to scrape together since. He’d never mentioned it to his dad, who had still been too distraught at that point to notice much of anything, but it felt good to help, especially as the expenses stacked up and the weeks stretched on.

But now, suddenly, this had become a problem. Owen had looked up flights online, and they weren’t as bad as he thought, a few hundred dollars maybe, but that was still a few hundred dollars more than he had. Upstairs, tucked in one of his drawers, was the key to the roof of their old building, which meant he didn’t need a place to stay. If worse came to worse, he could easily sleep up there for a couple of nights; it was warm enough, and he was pretty sure nobody would notice. So it was really just the plane ticket and a few other essentials, but he had a plan that would cover those, and he had two whole weeks to do it. He just needed to work up the nerve to ask.

“So,” he said, as his father finally took a seat across from him. “The site’s coming along?”

“Yeah,” he said, beaming. “It’s coming up fast. And the foreman told me yesterday that they’ve got another job lined up right after, and he wants me on the crew.”

“That’s great,” Owen said, watching him take a long swig of orange juice. “So do they… have enough help?”

“Help?” Dad asked, without looking up from his breakfast.

“Yeah, you know… workers.”

“Plenty,” he said with a nod, then frowned, his fork left hanging a few inches from his mouth. “How come?”

“I just thought, if they ever needed an extra pair of hands or anything, maybe I could—”

Dad laughed a short bark of a laugh. “You?”

“Yeah,” said Owen, feeling his face go warm. “I mean, I’ve been helping around the house, and I really like it.…”

This was only half true, and they both knew it. In the six weeks that they’d been here, the house had come a long way, but it was mostly due to Dad’s work. He’d put in new windows and repaired the front steps, painted the porch and the wood trim around the door, installed a new sink, and refinished the hardwood floors. Owen always trailed along after him, handing over tools and completing small tasks when instructed, but he lacked the skill for this kind of work. More often than not, he spilled the paint or missed the nail. He just wasn’t very comfortable with a hammer or a drill, unlike Dad, who should have come home from the construction site exhausted every day but instead returned with a brand of energy Owen hadn’t seen in him since before the accident, switching out his tool belt with genuine enthusiasm.

He was watching him now across the table with one eyebrow raised. “You hate that kind of stuff,” he said finally, and Owen shrugged.

“It would just be nice to have some extra money.”

“Story of our lives, huh?” Dad said with a smile, but when he saw Owen’s expression, his mouth straightened again. “Look, we’re doing okay now, so if you’re worried about college—”

“I’m not,” he said, and for once he meant it. Over the past few weeks, he’d been researching student loans and scholarships, had been making plans without quite admitting to himself that he was doing it. And he’d made his decision. “Actually, I checked,” he said, “and UW has really great financial assistance.”

Dad stared at him. “Does that mean…?”

“Yeah,” Owen said with a grin. “University of Washington.”

“So you’ll be…?”

“Right across town.”

Dad smacked the table, making the plates wobble. “Well, that’s great news,” he said, beaming, but then his smile fell and he leaned forward with a worried expression. “But you’re not just doing it because of me, are you? Because you can go anywhere, you know. I’ll be fine. And I’ll come visit.”

“It’s not for you,” Owen said, picking up his fork. “It’s for your pancakes.”

Dad laughed. “But really.”

“Really,” Owen said, meeting his eye. “I like it here.”

“Me too.” He rubbed at his chin, looking off toward the window. “And I was thinking… between the job and finally selling the house, we’ve got some room to breathe, and now with this, it seems only fitting that you get some sort of graduation present.…”

“Dad…” Owen began, his voice strained, but it didn’t stop him.

“And I know what you did,” he said, his eyes bright. “With your savings. On the trip. And I’m proud of you for that, too. So I’d like to give you a little something for—I don’t know. To have some fun with, I guess, or to get you started, you know?”

Owen lowered his eyes and stabbed at his pancake. “Dad, I can’t.”

“You don’t even know how much it is yet, so you can’t say it’s too much,” he said with a broad smile. “I was thinking that a couple hundred bucks should do it, but then I remembered that these are special circumstances, and for a guy who went 6 and 0 with college applications, I think five hundred would probably be more fitting.”

For a brief moment, Owen actually considered doing it—going through with graduation, just to get the money. He could already imagine walking up Broadway, turning the corner into the lobby of the building, finding Lucy there by the elevators where they’d first met. It was almost worth it, just to see her.

But he just wasn’t built that way. And he still couldn’t imagine walking across a stage to receive his diploma without his mother out there in the audience.

Besides, it was no accident that he’d suggested June 7 to Lucy.

June 7 was graduation day.

It took him a long time to meet his father’s gaze. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Really. But I can’t.…”

Dad tilted his head to one side, clearly confused. The conversation had started with Owen needing money, and now here he was refusing it. “Why not?”

“Because I’m not graduating.” Owen shook his head. “I mean—I am, technically. But I’m not going to the ceremony.”

“Why not?” he asked. “It’s such a big deal.”

“Not to me,” Owen told him. “Not anymore.”

Dad’s eyes went soft behind his glasses as he finally understood. “Ah,” he said, blinking a few times. Outside, the sun emerged from behind the clouds, filling the room with an orangey light, and they sat there as the pancakes went cold on their plates and the clock on the wall—the one from their kitchen back home—marched ahead.

Eventually, Dad shrugged. “Well, who cares about a stupid cap and gown, anyway?”

“Thanks,” Owen said gratefully.

“Besides, she would have hated it,” he said. “All that pomp and ceremony.”

“Circumstance. Pomp and circumstance.”

“Whatever,” he said. “It’s the pomp that’s the real problem.”

Owen laughed. “She would have loved it.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “She would have. But she’d have been proud of you either way. Just like I am.”

To Owen’s surprise, Dad scraped back his chair then and walked over to one of the drawers beneath the toaster. He paused there for a moment, his shoulders rising and falling, before turning around and holding out a pale blue box.

“Sorry it’s not wrapped,” he said. “I was going to wait till graduation, but now…”

Owen reached for it, turning it around to where a plastic window showed a jumble of glow-in-the-dark stars. He stared at it, gripping the edges of the box so hard that the edges bent under his fingers.

“I tried to pry the old ones off the ceiling back home,” Dad said, returning to his seat. “But they were stuck on pretty tight. I guess whoever lives there next is going to fall asleep under them, too.”

There was a lump in Owen’s throat. “That’s kind of cool.”

“Anyway, I’m sure no self-respecting astronomy major goes to sleep under fake stars,” Dad said, gesturing at the box, “but you can always put them up here, for whenever you come home.”

“Thank you,” he said, the words a little wobbly. “I love them.”

They were both quiet for a moment, lost in their own separate memories, but then Owen remembered where this had all started, and he cleared his throat.

“Dad?”

His father looked up. “Yeah?”

“This is great,” he said, rattling the box. “Really. And I don’t want to sound greedy, but the thing is… I could still use that money. Or at least some of it.”

“For what?” he asked with a frown, and Owen coughed into his hand.

“It’s just…”

“What?”

He sighed. “There’s this girl.…”

To his astonishment, Dad began to laugh. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, his shoulders shaking.

“What?” Owen asked, confused. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I’ve just been wondering when you’d get around to telling me about her.”

He stared at him, unable to hide his surprise. “You knew?”

“Of course I knew.”

“I thought you were too busy.…”

“Being sad?”

Owen gave him a rueful grin. “Well… yeah.”

“You know what made me less sad?”

“What?”

“Seeing you happy,” he told him. “And for a while there, it seemed like those postcards were the only things that did the trick.”

Owen wasn’t sure what to say, but before he could find the words, Dad leaned forward in his seat, reaching into his back pocket for his cracked leather wallet, which he tossed onto the table. It landed heavily beside the bottle of syrup and they both stared at it for a moment. Then Dad raised his glass of orange juice in a toast.

“Happy Graduation,” he said. “Now go get her.”

42

Lucy woke in the last hour of the flight, blinking into the gray haze of the quiet airplane. Beside her, the window shade was open a few inches, and she yawned as she looked out at the steep banks of clouds moving past like dreamy mountain ranges. On the screen in front of her, a timer ticked down the minutes until they reached New York. It wouldn’t be long.

For sixteen years, Lucy had hardly ventured off the island of Manhattan, and now, eight months and five countries later, she was finally returning. She reached for the bag at her feet, pulling out her old copy of The Catcher in the Rye—her security blanket, her teddy bear—but instead of opening it, she just held it in her lap, gripping the edges.

Soon, she would be seeing the apartment where she grew up, the building she’d lived in her whole life, and the neighborhood she’d known so well, but it didn’t feel the way she thought it would. It didn’t feel like going home.

A part of her would always love New York, but she’d loved Edinburgh, too, and now London. And if you were to set her down in Paris or Rome or Prague or any of the other places they’d visited, she was certain she’d find a way to fall in love with those, too.

All these years, she’d imagined her parents were out there in the world trying to take in as much as possible: photos and stories and memories, check marks on a list of countries and pins on a globe. But what she hadn’t understood until now was that they’d left pieces of themselves in all those places, too. They’d made a little home for themselves wherever they went, and now Lucy would do the same.

But first, there was New York. The little cartoon airplane on the screen inched out across the blue of the map and toward the green, and Lucy ran a finger along the cracked spine of the book in her lap, closing her eyes.

At first, she’d tried telling her parents that she’d simply changed her mind about going back for the summer.

“Not for the whole time,” she said one afternoon as they strolled through Kensington Gardens, enjoying the rare sunshine and the even rarer appearance of Dad in daylight hours. “I was just thinking it would actually be kind of nice to visit, you know?”

Along the edge of the pond, a trio of ducks sat honking at everyone who passed by, and Dad watched them intently, his mouth turned down at the edges.

“Wish I could go back for a visit,” he said, squinting at the water.

But Mom only raised her eyebrows. “What kind of visit?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “Maybe just to see some sights… or some friends.”

At this, Mom stopped short, her hands on her hips. “Some friends?”

Lucy nodded.

“In New York?” she asked, then turned to Dad without bothering to wait for an answer. “Are you buying this?”

He glanced over at her with a blank look. “What?”

“Mom,” Lucy said with a groan. “It would only be for a few days.”

“And you’d be there all by yourself?”

Lucy dropped her gaze. “Yeah,” she said to the gravel path.

“Nope,” Mom said. “No way.”

Dad looked from one to the other as if this were some kind of sporting event where he didn’t quite understand the rules. “I think Lucy’s perfectly capable of being there on her own,” he said. “It’s not like she hasn’t done it before.”

“Yes,” Mom said in a measured tone, “but this time, there’s a boy in the picture.”

Lucy let out a strangled noise.

“A boy?” Dad said, as if the concept had never occurred to him. “What boy?”

“He’s in town that first week of June,” Lucy said, ignoring him as she turned back to Mom. “He thinks I’ll be there already, because I told him that a million years ago, and he wants to meet up.…”

Mom was watching her with an unreadable expression. “And you really want to see him.”

Lucy nodded miserably. “And I really want to see him.”

Dad shook his head. “What boy?”

There was a long pause while Mom seemed to consider this, and then, finally, her face softened.

“What boy?” Dad had asked again.

Now Lucy’s seat shook as Mom leaned over the top of it from the row behind her. “Hi,” she said. “Sleep well?”

She swiveled to look at her. “Did you?”

“No,” Mom said, but her eyes were shining. “I’m too excited.”

“Really?”

“Really,” she said with a grin. “It seems that distance does indeed make the heart grow fonder.”

“I think that’s absence.”

Mom shrugged. “Either way.”

Lucy turned back to the window, where the plane had broken free of the clouds, and the blue-gray ocean swept out beneath them. When she pressed her cheek to the glass, she could see ahead to where it met the land, stopping abruptly at the edge of New York. “Not a whole lot of distance now.”

“That’s okay,” Mom said, sitting back down, so that she spoke through the space between seats, her voice close to Lucy’s ear. “Someone once told me it’s best to see a city from the ground up.”

They left the water behind, the scene below becoming a grid of grayish buildings, and made a wide sweeping turn as they moved inland, the plane tipping leisurely to one side so that Lucy could see the rivers that cut through the land like veins.

As the ground rushed up at them, she remembered her father’s advice about calling the car company as soon as they landed, and she sat forward, reaching for her bag. In her wallet, there was a business card with the number, which her dad had carried around in his own wallet for years. It was fuzzy at the corners and bent across the middle, but he’d handed it to her with pride.

“This is what we used to get home to you after every trip,” he said. “Now that you’ve become something of a traveler, too, I’m officially passing the baton.” He pulled her into a hug and kissed her on the forehead. “Say hi to New York for me.”

As she slid the card carefully from the folds of her wallet, she felt the lump at the bottom of the change purse. Over the past months, she’d become so used to the shape of it that she’d nearly forgotten what it was, but now she pulled it out, twisting the cigarette in her fingers. It was a little bit flattened now, crushed by the months spent tucked beneath all those heavy British coins, but it was still mostly intact, and she studied it, remembering how she’d found it the morning after the blackout. She brought it to her nose and inhaled deeply, thinking that it smelled a bit like Owen, and then—before the flight attendant could remind her that there was no smoking on board the plane—she wedged it back inside her wallet, her chest suddenly light.

Out the window, she could see that they were circling over Brooklyn now, but in the distance, the spiky outline of Manhattan rose up in an arrangement of towering buildings and valleys made out of vast green parks, all of it bordered by two rivers like a pair of cupped hands. As they dropped lower in the sky, she could see the outlines of roads and parking lots and backyards, all of them fanning out around the heart of the city, where people were busy going on with their lives, walking and eating and laughing and working, and somewhere below, in the middle of it all, there was Owen: nothing but a yellow dot from above, waiting just for her.

43

There was traffic on the way in from the airport. Owen leaned against the window of the bus as it inched toward the Lincoln Tunnel, watching the long chain of cars spitting clouds of exhaust into the afternoon heat. Above him, beyond the tunnel and across the Hudson River, the city seemed to shimmer. From where he sat behind the smudged glass, it looked almost like a mirage, the kind of place where you could forever draw closer without ever actually reaching it.

But Owen knew he’d get there eventually. And he had plenty of time. He wasn’t meeting Lucy until noon tomorrow, which meant he had the rest of the day to prepare. His dad had given him enough money for a cheap hotel room, but Owen planned to spend the night up on the roof anyway; if there was ever a place that had felt like home in the city, that was it, and there was nowhere else he’d rather be tonight.

The plan was simple. When he arrived at Port Authority, he’d take the subway up to Seventy-Second Street and see if the back door to the building was open. Sometimes, if you caught the maintenance guys at the right time, it was easy to slip in that way, and Owen had often gone that route just to avoid the uncomfortable splendor of the lobby. If it happened to be locked, he planned to walk in through the front door, say hello to whichever doorman was on duty, then walk straight over to the elevator like he belonged there, though it was obvious he never had. If anyone asked where he was going, he’d give Lucy’s name, which wasn’t a lie, since he’d be there to see her the next day, and then he’d head straight up to the roof.

In the morning, he’d go around the corner to the gym that was always offering free trials, and he’d take a shower, change into clean clothes, buy some flowers on the way back, and then wait for her in the lobby.

His head felt light as he thought about it, and in the cramped space of the bus, his knee jangled against the back of the seat in front of him. He’d been like this ever since Dad dropped him off at the airport this morning, giving him a bear hug and wishing him luck. On the flight, he’d been so rattled that he spilled his orange juice, drenching not only himself but the lady beside him. He still smelled faintly of sour citrus.

It wasn’t that he was nervous to see Lucy. It was more that he didn’t know what this was to her, and there was something scary in that. Just because he knew what he wanted now didn’t mean that she did, too. And just because he’d made up an excuse to fly all the way across the country didn’t mean that she was equally excited.

That first time, during the blackout, they’d met as strangers. Then in San Francisco, they’d met as friends, eager to find out whether the strange magnetic pull they felt toward each other was real or an illusion.

But this time, Owen wasn’t sure what to think.

When there was nothing but space between you, everything felt like a leap.

As the bus began to ease into the Lincoln Tunnel, the phrase came to him all at once, pulled from a memory like an echo: It is what it is.

He smiled as he remembered Lucy’s objection to the words, but he realized now that she was wrong. It was true that things could always change. But it was also true that some things remained as they were, and this was one of them: nine months ago, he’d met a girl in an elevator, and she’d been on his mind ever since.

All around him, the other passengers were blinking into the deep black of the tunnel, but not Owen. He knew exactly what he wanted, and he could see it just as clearly in the dark.

44

They stood in the quiet of the apartment, the last of the day’s light coming through the windows at a slant, and neither spoke. Finally, Lucy dropped her bag, and the sound of it seemed to echo for a long time.

“It looks the same,” she said, not sure whether she meant that as a good thing or a bad thing. The place had a hushed quality to it, left on its own all this time with only the occasional cleaning lady for company. She kept half-expecting to hear her brothers laughing in the next room, or the sound of her father’s voice as the front door creaked open. “It doesn’t feel the same, though.”

“It’s just been so long,” her mother said, trailing a hand along the back of the couch as she walked over to the window. “Too long.”

Lucy glanced at her, where she was silhouetted against the orange sky, the sun burning itself down in the reflections behind her. “It’s been forever,” she said, and Mom looked over her shoulder.

“Not quite,” she said with a smile. “Maybe just half a forever.”

Once they’d walked through the apartment from end to end—poking their heads in the bathrooms and laughing at the things they’d left behind, surveying bedrooms and rummaging through the cabinets like tourists in their own home, picking it over for memories and souvenirs, marveling at the sheer oddity of being back after so long—Lucy announced that she was going out.

“You’re welcome to come…” she said, but she trailed off in a way that made Mom laugh.

“Go,” she said. “I know you’re just going to wander endlessly, and my feet will only get tired.” She paused, glancing out the window, where the sky had gone from pink to gray. “Just be careful, okay? It’s been a while since we’ve been in the big bad city.”

Lucy smiled. “It’s not so bad.”

“Where do you go anyway?” she asked. “When you walk?”

“Nowhere,” she said with a shrug, then changed her mind. “Everywhere,” she corrected, and they left it at that.

In the hallway, she punched the button for the elevator, already trying to decide where to go first—Riverside Park or Central Park, uptown or downtown—but when the doors opened with that familiar ding and she stepped inside, she found herself stalled there. Her hand was inches from the button that would take her to the lobby, but instead—without even thinking about it—she sent the car moving up, the ground lifting beneath her feet, and she raised her chin and watched the dial go from the twenty-fourth floor to the twenty-fifth and on and on until the doors opened onto the little hallway that formed an entrance to the roof.

She had no idea why she had come. Tomorrow, she would see Owen. In less than twenty-four hours, they would be together. It wasn’t long to wait. But still, when she’d thought of him over the past months, this had been the backdrop, unfamiliar and slightly magical, and now she couldn’t stop herself from wanting to see it again.

He’d told her once that the door was left open sometimes, and she’d been amazed at this, astonished that she could have lived her whole life in a building and never known such a place existed.

Now she held her breath as she twisted the metal knob of the door, and when it turned, she used her shoulder to open it the rest of the way, then grabbed a nearby brick to use as a doorstop, propping it open a few inches so it wouldn’t lock behind her.

When she turned around, she felt her lungs expand, happy for no other reason than to be alone up here beneath a sky like a chalkboard, the night still new and unwritten. The city was spread before her, all twinkling lights and staggering scale, and it occurred to her that until she met Owen, she’d been living her life on a map, when really the world is a globe: three-dimensional and full of possibility.

With the breeze on her face and the distant fog of noise below, it took her a moment to register the click of the door falling shut somewhere behind her. She spun around, her thoughts wild as her thumping heart—expecting to find herself stranded up here, cursing herself for not wedging the brick better—but then she saw the figure by the door, and all this melted away.

“You’re early,” he said, but it didn’t feel that way to Lucy.

To her, it felt like it had been forever.

45

It was hard to tell exactly how it had happened or who had moved first, but suddenly there they were: standing only inches apart in the middle of the inky black roof, the air between them electric. Owen opened his mouth to say something, to explain his presence here, to make some sort of a joke, but then he changed his mind, because he was tired of talking, at least for the moment, done passing words between them. All he wanted to do right now was kiss her.

And so—at last—he did.

When he moved closer, her eyes flickered with surprise before falling shut, and he closed his, too, so that as their lips met and their hands found each other’s, it was once again just the two of them in the dark, a blackness complete but for the sparks behind his eyelids, which were so bright they might as well have been stars.

46

“No seriously,” he said, pulling away after what felt like no time at all. “You’re early. I had all these plans. We were going to meet in the lobby and then have a picnic in the park, and then we were gonna get ice cream at that place—the one from the blackout—and come up here to eat it, and then—”

Lucy, still inches from his face, leaned back with a smile. “Well, we’re already up here, so…”

“But there was going to be ice cream.”

“I don’t care about ice cream.”

“And a picnic.”

“Owen,” she said, laughing.

“And we were going to lie on our backs and stare at the sky and look for stars.”

“There are no stars,” she pointed out, “but we can certainly stare at the sky.”

He gave her a helpless look. “But I had all these plans.…”

“It’s okay,” she said, taking his hand again. “This is better.”

47

They sat together against the ledge, their knees touching.

“So do you come up here a lot?” he asked, and Lucy glanced over at him, her face difficult to read. She seemed to be weighing something, and it took her a moment to decide on an answer.

“Actually,” she said, “I just got in this morning.”

Owen stared at her. “I thought you were…”

“No,” she said. “Our plans changed.”

“So you’re just here—”

“For a couple of days,” she said, ducking her head. “To see you.”

He smiled. “Really?”

She nodded, wincing already, and he understood why; he knew better than anyone how it sounded, realized how crazy it was to fly halfway around the world to see a person you hardly knew. But he also knew exactly what to say to make her feel better.

“Me too,” he said, moving close so that there was only the rustle of clothing and limbs and beating hearts as he looped an arm over her shoulder. “I only came to see you.”

48

“So,” she said later, after the sky had gone fully dark and the birds had all gone to bed and the lights of the city made the whole world glow. “What else don’t I know about you?”

He looked thoughtful. “I can juggle.”

“No, I meant—wait, you can?”

“Yup. And I also hate peanut butter.”

“Who hates peanut butter?”

“People with refined palates,” he said. “And I know some good card tricks. And jokes.”

“Like what?”

He considered this a moment. “Why did the scarecrow win the Nobel Prize?”

“Why?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

“For being outstanding in his field.”

In spite of herself, Lucy laughed, but Owen’s face had gone serious again.

“And I decided to go to college next year.”

At this, she sat up. “Really?”

“Really,” he said with a smile. “University of Washington.”

“That’s perfect,” she said. “Your dad must be really happy.”

“He is,” he said. “We both are.”

“Okay, then,” she said, shaking her head. “So there’s apparently a lot I don’t know about you. But I was actually talking about the smoking thing.”

Beside her, Owen stiffened. “What smoking thing?”

“The morning after the blackout,” Lucy explained, “there was a cigarette on the kitchen floor. I’d totally forgotten about it, but I found it again on the plane, and—”

His face had gone ashen. “You still have it?”

“Yeah,” she said, a little embarrassed. “I guess it was sort of like a souvenir.…”

“So you kept it,” he said, watching her intently.

She nodded. “It’s downstairs in my wallet.”

To her surprise, a look of genuine relief passed over his face. “Thank you.”

“Sure,” she said, frowning. “But what’s the deal? You’ve been waiting for a smoke all this time?”

“Something like that,” he said, his eyes shining, and she realized just how much there was she didn’t know about him. He was like one of her novels, still unfinished and best understood in the right place and at the right time.

She already couldn’t wait to read the rest.

49

Later, they lay on their backs, their shoulders pressed together, laughing up at the charcoal sky. There were tears running down the side of Owen’s face.

“Wait,” he said, trying to catch his breath, the whole thing inexplicably hilarious. “You live in London now?”

“Yeah,” she said, curling into him, giggling uncontrollably. “And you live in Seattle?”

“Yeah,” he said. “What’s so funny about that?”

“Nothing,” she said. “What’s so funny about London?”

“Nothing,” he said, and just like that, they began to laugh again.

50

“Right there,” he said even later, pointing up.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I see one.”

She squinted. “Where?”

“You don’t see it?” he said, using his hands to trace something across the night sky, which was fixed tight as a lid over the simmering city. “It’s right there.”

“That doesn’t help,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows.

“It’s—I think—it might be—” He paused dramatically. “Yup, it’s the Big Dipper.”

She gave him a dubious look.

“No, really,” he said, grabbing her hand and using it to draw shapes across the middle of all the uninterrupted black. “There’s the tail, and there’s the cup. It’s a cup, right?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a ladle,” she told him. “But you’re the science guy.”

“A cup, then,” he said, moving her hand to the left and making three dots. “And there’s Orion’s belt.”

“You’re crazy,” she said. “There’s nothing.”

“What happened to all that relentless optimism?” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to be the positive one?”

“Right,” she said, looking up again. “Okay.”

He was studying her closely. “Anything?”

“I think, maybe… yup, I see one.”

“Where?”

She took his hand and guided it toward the highest part of the sky. “Right there,” she said. “It’s a big one. And it’s really bright.…”

When he spoke, there was laughter in his voice. “That’s the moon.”

“Is it?”

“It is,” he confirmed, and she smiled.

“Even better.”

51

“There’s something else you don’t know,” he said later. Her head was resting on his chest, and he was running a hand through her hair.

“What’s that?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“You don’t know this yet,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear, “but we’re going to have an amazing week. We’re gonna walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and go see the Statue of Liberty and wander around Times Square like a couple of tourists.” He paused. “Or a couple of pigeons.”

There was a smile in her voice. “And we’ll get you an I♥NY T-shirt.”

“The T-shirt is optional,” he said, which made her laugh.

“And then what?” she asked, though this time the words were quieter, smaller; they were heavy with things unspoken: questions without answers and promises without assurances.

Owen wanted to say this: “And then we’ll be together forever.”

Or this: “And then we’ll live happily ever after.”

But he couldn’t. Instead, he fixed his eyes on the empty sky, feeling his once heavy heart go floating off like a balloon.

“And then we’ll have to go home,” he said eventually, because it was the truth, and after everything they’d been through, it was the only thing he could give her.

They were both silent for a long time. She twisted at a piece of his T-shirt, then let it go and laid her palm flat against his chest, right over his heart, and he could suddenly feel it again: the steady thump of it drowning out all his other thoughts. It was more drumbeat than countdown, more metronome than ticking clock, and he felt himself carried forward with each muffled beat, as if hope were a rhythm, a song he’d only just discovered.

He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. “But it’ll be okay,” he promised. “We’ll keep writing. And we’ll figure out a way to see each other again.”

“You think so?”

“I do,” he said, the words thick in his throat. “We’ll make it happen. Maybe I’ll come to London. Or you can come to Seattle. Or we’ll meet up somewhere else entirely.”

“Okay,” she said after a moment. “Let’s make it somewhere exciting then. Like Saint Petersburg. Or Athens. Or New Zealand.”

“Or Alaska,” he suggested. “We could wander around the tundra.”

“Like a couple of penguins.”

“Exactly,” he said with a laugh.

“Or maybe Buenos Aires.”

He nodded. “Or Paris, so you can show me the exact center of the city.”

“And you can make a wish, too.”

“What was yours?” he asked. “To go back again someday?”

“Not exactly.”

“What then?”

She lifted her head to look at him. “To come back here someday.”

He smiled. “The only problem is, I think we’re about fifteen yards off,” he said, pointing at the spot where they’d sat the last time, where he’d made a star appear in the unlikeliest of places. “I’m pretty sure the exact center of the world is just over there.”

“I don’t know,” she said, and he could see that she was smiling, too. “I think this might be it.”