31
A few years after I started “Checking Out,” there was a brief period when we expanded the column to include a supplement called “Late Checkout,” which focused on finding the best deals or free activity alternatives in any city you happened to be visiting. In Montreal, for example, “Late” would recommend that instead of paying for a guided dinner-and-dancing boat tour of the St. Lawrence River, you should consider heading down to the ferry on the Jacques-Cartier Pier, which provided visitors with gorgeous views of Montreal’s downtown, and a great way to visit the old fort at Musée David M. Stewart. All for a fraction of the cost.
But “Late” failed, monumentally and fast, which came as a surprise to me. It had been my idea, and I had thought it was a good one. Who didn’t want to experience a city without breaking the bank? It wasn’t until years later that I realized what we had done wrong. It wasn’t that we provided a free option, it was that we had also provided the expensive option beside it. It was in the comparison that we lost the readers. Because all they could see, then, was the option they wouldn’t be taking. All they could think about was what they’d get if they could spend more. About what was about to be missed.
I arrived in London late on a Sunday afternoon—stepping onto the tarmac at Heathrow Airport some seventeen hours before I was scheduled to report to my new office at Buckingham Gate.
For my second major move in less than a year, I’d taken very little with me. Two suitcases, two pictures of Mila, and the phone numbers of two people I knew in the entire country—one number was my new boss’s, Melinda Martin. The other I couldn’t feel good about dialing. Not yet.
The newspaper sent a car service to the airport to fetch me, which provided a far nicer introduction to my new hometown than the Tube would have granted. As a bonus, the sun had started setting over Central London as the driver, Thomas, took the long way to my new abode, pointing out the sites he thought I’d enjoy along the way: Trafalgar Square and Nelson’s Column; the National Gallery and Buckingham Palace; Waterloo Bridge and Piccadilly Circus. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I’d been to all of those places before for “Checking Out.” I didn’t ever want to have that kind of heart.
He smiled at me in the rearview mirror. “So what kind of writing do you do for the newspaper?” he asked me.
I shrugged. “Mostly,” I said, “obituaries.”
Thomas took a right down Sloane Street, and I looked out the window at the hustle and bustle of late-day shoppers hurrying in for a chance at final sales, at early-evening restaurantgoers, filling up the good window seats while they still could. Then Thomas hooked a
left onto a tiny side street, which looked like, and felt like, an entirely different world. An exceptionally peaceful and intimate one, with just a handful of manicured gardens and small, beautiful buildings greeting me.
“This is lovely,” I said.
“It’s the best block in London,” he said. “Truly. There have been books written about it.”
“I believe it,” I said.
Thomas shut off the ignition, and turned toward me. “And it’s your home,” he said, giving me a bright smile.
I tried to look as happy about that as he did. You’re choosing this, I reminded myself. You’re doing the right thing. Or, at least, the only thing.
And thankfully, as we walked into my new flat together—each carrying a suitcase—I didn’t have to try so hard anymore to believe it. It was, hands down, the single most charming apartment I’d ever seen. It looked like a carriage house, with large windows and tall, white pillars, an old-fashioned kitchen (complete with a farmer’s sink), and rustic wood furniture running through the hallways and leading up a tiny staircase to the loveliest bedroom. The river just outside every window, endless, and glowing.
“Quite the digs they’ve handed you here,” Thomas said, as we stood by the living room windows, filling out the paperwork he needed completed.
“It’s like a ready-made life,” he said.
I looked up at him, that phrase catching me. A ready-made life.
Then I forced a smile. And followed his eyes outside. First toward the river, then toward what was across it: Battersea. My supposed-to-be home was over there, somewhere, the one I’d picked out for Nick and me. And there I was—able to look straight at it, from a short distance. Just a few months later than planned. Didn’t that mean something? That, after everything, this was where I was supposed to be?
I quickly signed along the necessary X’s.
“You should count yourself as lucky. I’ve seen some of the other places they put the newbies to stay,” Thomas said. “You must be good at writing about dead people.”
“Very,” I heard someone say.
We turned to find Peter in the kitchen doorway, holding a bottle of Dom Perignon and two champagne flutes.
“Peter!” I said. “How did you get in here?”
“I hid in the kitchen pantry,” he said. “A woman living alone? You really should check all doors upon entering.”
I ran over to him, giving him a hug. And holding on, probably for a little too long. Okay, definitely for too long, Peter utilizing the expensive champagne bottle to separate us.
“Hold it together, my love,” he said.
“I just can’t believe it’s you,” I said. “What are you even doing here?”
“I told you they were sending me over here for a spell. So here I am to greet you . . .” he said. “Midspell.”