The Near & Far Series

by Serena Clarke

  “What?” she joked now, feeling awkward that the money topic had come up. “Go, and give up my thrilling job at the bank?”

  He laughed. “You should have given that up years ago. Or at least taken one of those promotions you were offered.” At the sight of her shocked face, he said, “One of the Rotary fellows works there too. I know you turned down jobs that would have taken you to bigger things…away from here. After you and Jeremy broke up, we would have loved to see you have some fun.”

  “Oh, well…” Even newly single (which was actually for the best, once she found out how self-absorbed Jeremy really was) there was no way she could have taken any of those offers. Who would have looked after her parents? Shelby was utterly useless.

  He pointed to her laptop, her portal to the world, sitting on the coffee table. “Go and live a little. I’ll be fine.”

  If she opened it now, Twitter would spring back to the screen, a stream of other people’s achievements and opinions and excitement. Maybe he was right, and her mother too. Maybe it was time to add some more-than-okay tweets of her own.

  Two

  The plane tilted as it circled for landing, and Cady caught a glimpse of a bridge below. Was it the right color to be the Golden Gate? She leaned across to see better out the window. Wodges of San Francisco’s trademark fog clung to the hills, but the blue sky and blue ocean held a Californian promise of…something.

  “Get off!” Shelby elbowed her in the ribs.

  “Ow, that hurt!” She glared at her sister, now awake, her hair on end and her face crabby. “You had the window seat all the way across America. And you slept through most of it. I’m having a look.”

  “Whatever.” Shelby rolled her eyes and made a great show of straightening the blanket over her knees.

  Cady rolled her eyes in return, but she was more interested in the new territory outside the window than in re-traversing the old ground of their relationship. She was actually surprised that Shelby was here at all. After years of playing the role of wild child, she’d been suddenly circumspect when Cady said she was going to the States, and would Shelby like to come too?

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she’d said. “I have things going on here. And is it a good idea, really? It’s not your kind of thing, surely.”

  Straight away, Cady felt her blood pressure rise. “What’s my kind of thing? Staying home like an old maid?”

  “No, you’ll probably get another boyfriend eventually, I suppose. And you’re not old! I mean, we’re the same age.”

  Cady waited for more, but that was it. “I have a life to live, the same as you.” As she’d said it, she realized how true it was. “I thought you’d be up for an adventure. You love being the wild one.”

  Shelby shrugged, bypassing Cady’s point. “I just think, well, are you sure? Have you really thought it through?”

  Cady thought back to all the nights she’d sat in bed switching between YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, her little MacBook on her lap, but only after tucking her mother in, and with one ear on alert for any sounds from the bedroom. Now she gave her sister a sharp look. “I’ve had plenty of time to think about it. As you know. Or would know, if you’d been there.”

  Shelby ignored the jibe. “Well, yes, but…what about Dad?”

  Now they were getting to the truth of it. She’d always avoided responsibility, relying on Cady to be the sensible sister. She obviously didn’t want to take anything on now, either.

  “Let me get this straight. I’ve been here for years and years, looking after Mum, while you’ve played around town. And now she’s gone.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Dad’s got a plan, and so have I. What about you?”

  “I have all kinds of things happening here.” She looked sideways, avoiding her sister’s eye. “I can’t up and leave right now.”

  Cady snorted. So much for the wild child. “Here’s a chance to go and do something, and not only do you not want to go, you don’t want me to go either. I don’t know why I even asked you.”

  The thump, rattle and roll of landing brought her back to now. She’d given up her job—no great sacrifice, although they’d told her to come back any time—and the sum of her old life was packed into her dad’s storage shed at Ingleside Heights. Now, there were things to do. Shelby was here, for better or worse, and there was only the two of them—sisters, come what may. She’d had a dad pulled out from under her feet, but there was no doubting her twin-ness with Shelby. Whatever this California adventure might bring, they’d be doing it together. However much they might drive each other mental.

  They edged their way off the plane and cleared customs, a tedious procedure of scanning and scrutiny that made them both feel guilty even though they had nothing to hide. Finally out in the arrivals hall, they watched other passengers being enveloped in hugs. Joyful welcomes from families, friends and lovers played out in English, Spanish, and languages Cady couldn’t identify. The two of them stood for a moment and watched a mother tearfully embrace her newly arrived daughter. They looked at each other, both thinking the same thing—they’d never have a reunion like it again. They both knew well enough, from different angles, how difficult and obstinate their mother was. But she’d loved them with the same determination—even if Shelby, too much her mother’s daughter, had cut and run. It was unbelievable that such a force of nature could be gone.

  Then Cady hitched her bag on her shoulder and set her suitcase on its wheels. That force of nature wouldn’t want to see her fall into a slump now. “Come on,” she said, and gave Shelby a nudge. “Let’s find a taxi. San Francisco awaits, and we need flowers in our hair. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  The taxi driver gave them a wink as he dropped them off outside their bed and breakfast on Valencia. “Double trouble in the Mission.”

  They’d heard that one before. Shelby gave a ‘pfft’ and shook her hair, ignoring him to study the neighborhood. Cady made a quick calculation—how much should you tip a cab driver?—and pressed some notes into his hand. By the look on his face when he saw the amount, she knew she’d paid too much. Damn. Well, she’d call it good karma. They weren’t in Haight-Ashbury, but good vibes wouldn’t go astray.

  As the cab pulled away she looked at Shelby standing on the pavement in the sunshine, her hair flowing down her back. A bit of paisley and a headband and she’d be right at home in 1960s San Francisco.

  Of course whatever Shelby suited, Cady did too. The two of them had never felt the need to purposefully have wildly different hairstyles or clothes, maybe because they were such polar opposites in personality that no one would mistake one for the other, no matter how similar they looked. They weren’t identical twins, but to look at them, they could have been. Perfectly run-of-the-mill long, straight, light brown hair, or honey chestnut, as Shelby preferred to call it. Blue eyes. Straight nose. Peachy English rose complexion. Pretty good cheekbones. It was all there, twice over. But somehow Shelby carried it off with an extra dash of panache (and now with her new going-on-holiday fake tan). When they went out together, they always attracted attention, but it was Shelby who held that attention, and turned it into an opportunity.

  To be honest, Cady had come to prefer it that way, especially after her split with Jeremy. She’d had things to do anyway—apparently she couldn’t juggle a man and a social life with looking after her mum. But now…well, this was her new start. There was still no hurry, of course. But who knew what the new Cady might do?

  “It’s not very hilly,” Shelby said. Her tone implied that her sister had chosen the least satisfactory spot in all San Francisco.

  Cady looked at the colorful buildings, the vivid street art, and the eclectic characters walking and cycling along the tree-lined street. Über-hip tattooed customers emerged from a thrift store opposite, while on their side of the road a pavement stall sold vinyl records and ragged band posters. If she had to change anything, she’d only replace the trees with palms, to fit the sunny day. Other than that, it was just perfect. She
shrugged and pointed to the surrounding hills. “I think we’ll have plenty of chances to do some hill-climbing.”

  They turned to their home for the next few nights, a big Victorian bay-fronted house tucked between two others painted in ice-cream parlor colors. It looked every inch the San Francisco native.

  “I need a lie-down,” Shelby sighed as they went up the steps.

  “You just lay down for about six hours,” Cady retorted. “But actually…it would be good to have a rest before dinner. And we can see if there are any Flashpoint updates.”

  They did have a plan, and it all revolved around Flashpoint. Cady had stumbled across them on YouTube one particularly sleepless night, when Anne was struggling with the side effects of a new treatment. They were a flash mob movement based loosely in San Francisco, led by Kyle Baxter, a social media savvy, charismatic hipster. And, apparently, a slick ladies man. Well, that was his reputation. Cady couldn’t see it herself, online. But, give him the benefit of the doubt—maybe the whole hipster thing didn’t translate so well to her pebble-dashed London suburb. Charisma was most powerful in person, after all. She’d wait and see.

  And he obviously had something going on. From their city base, parked in random spots around the Mission district, Kyle and the select few Flashpointers in his inner circle travelled the Bay Area in a stonkingly ostentatious rock star bus. With their Facebook likes growing by the hour, and thousands of Twitter followers, Flashpoint could rally hundreds of participants for a flash mob at short notice. Cady could see that it would be thousands before long.

  And the fun of it! It was more than a cheesy dance routine in a shopping mall. Cady had watched them all on YouTube. Completely filling the curves of Lombard Street with color-coordinated flash-mobsters. A jaunty, clattering musical tribute in Chinatown, played entirely on hundreds of pairs of chopsticks. Surrounding the towering column of the Dewey Memorial in Union Square with concentric circles of chanting dancers.

  Some of it did verge more on ‘mobster’ than ‘flash’—in the eyes of the authorities, at least. The choreographed bike riding stunt on the Golden Gate bridge cycle lane had gotten them in trouble, when half the city’s bicycle messengers showed up unexpectedly, turning it into a melee. But it also brought publicity—the best reward of all for a budding social media phenomenon.

  If Kyle was thinking all that up, Cady was willing to overlook the scraggly moustache-less goatee (shudder), the over-gelled quiff, and even the fur vest (faux, she assumed) that he seemed to be constantly wearing. Now she was finally going to join in on one of the flash mobs. And Shelby too, who had put her usual eye-rolling on hold to concede that it was actually pretty cool.

  The message had been going out online—a rendezvous at noon the next day in Dolores Park, the center of Mission hipsterism. There was an mp3 file to download, which would guide them through the event, and everyone was asked to wear either black or white. Shelby had baggsed black, of course, so Cady was left to wear what she thought was a very unflattering all-white ensemble. Well, it would be worth it. They had ninety days before their visas expired and they were on a plane home. She intended to make the most of every one of them.

  She knew Anne would want her to. She’d kept her mother’s secret, despite a thousand questions and endless speculation from Shelby in the weeks since they read their letters. As the days went by, the deception weighed more and more heavily, but the image of her mother, thin and determined in her bed as she extracted Cady’s promise, made her hold her tongue. For how long, she didn’t know. Didn’t Shelby have a right to know, as much as she did?

  As they went up the foot-worn steps of their guesthouse, the front door was flung open and a motherly figure came out to greet them. Motherly with tattoos and a nose stud, that was.

  “Look at you!” she exclaimed, holding out her hands in welcome. “I knew you were sisters, but you’re peas in your own gorgeous pod!”

  Shelby stopped in her tracks on the steps, but Cady, with her mother still in her mind, went straight into the waiting embrace. When she stepped back, she found Shelby alongside, waiting for her own hug. Maybe both of them were feeling their loss just as keenly.

  “I’m Marian,” said their host as she let Shelby go. “Come in, and be at home. While you’re here, this is your home as much as it is mine.” She gestured for them to come in, and they followed her along the hall and up the staircase, a gentle waft of fragrance—could it be patchouli?—leading them onwards. As she opened the door to their room, she paused, her grey pixie cut making Cady think of Judi Dench—if Judi Dench accessorized hers with a tattoo snaking down her neck and encircling her arm with flowers. She pointed to a door across the hall. “That’s the bathroom. It’s separate, but it’s just for this room, so you’re not sharing.” She smiled. “When you’re ready to head out, come find me downstairs. We’ll get you officially signed in then, and I can give you some pointers on good places to eat around here.”

  “Thank you,” they replied in unison.

  She laughed. “You guys are too cute. Love that accent. Okay, see you in a while.” And she left them to it.

  Three

  Cady woke up suddenly. Was that an earthquake?

  Disoriented, she brushed the hair from her face and squinted in the light coming from the window. No, it was a truck going by, making the old wooden house vibrate. She looked across at the other bed, where Shelby was curled up fast asleep, her suitcase still standing unopened in the middle of the floor. The long plane trip had obviously caught up with them. How late was it? She checked her watch, which she’d changed to local time when they landed. Six thirty. As if in protest, her stomach gave a loud growl. If it was six thirty here, it was…something, at home. Whatever, it was ages since she’d eaten. She grabbed up her toilet bag and headed for the bathroom. San Francisco was out there, and she wanted to be out there too.

  An hour later, they were sitting at a long table in the café Marian had recommended. Around them, an assortment of self-assured customers laughed and ate organic food and sipped coffee in mismatched cups and saucers.

  “Probably skinny-soy-decaf-vanilla-macchiato-lattes,” said Shelby over the top of her menu, making Cady laugh.

  “I dare you to order one of those,” she replied.

  Their fellow diners, and the wait staff too, ranged from geeky cool to model-agency cool—even the grey-haired ones were more effortlessly camera-ready than Cady knew she could ever hope to be. They gave their order to the surprisingly friendly waiter, and swirled the ice in their diet Cokes while they waited for their food, talking about what might happen tomorrow.

  When two guys came in and sat at the other end of their table, Shelby’s eyes widened and she pointed behind her hand. “Babe alert,” she mouthed, indicating the guy further along her bench.

  Cady took a surreptitious look. Yep, he was Shelby’s style all right. Tanned, with blond hair swept to one side, and sporting the kind of perma-stubble that takes careful maintenance. Just the right amount of smooth chest showed behind the unhemmed ‘v’ of his t-shirt. His tight grey cardigan was buttoned up, and Cady was pretty sure that his large, black-rimmed glasses were purely decorative.

  Then she peeked at his companion, sitting further along the bench on her side of the table. Oh, mercy. She sucked in her breath, her heart doing a little hop in her chest. This one was more rugged, with dark hair, a strong profile, and a properly trimmed goatee (the only kind of beard Cady could tolerate). He was wearing a regular-issue black tee, just tight enough to set off his substantial build. No man-cardi coddled his broad shoulders. And there were no man accessories either, apart from several thin leather bracelets on the same wrist as his watch. But—he was sporting the kind of messy little ponytail that gave her the screaming heebie jeebies. Brad Pitt, Colin Farrell, David Beckham…there wasn’t a man alive who could successfully pull off a ponytail, in her opinion. Mostly, ‘shave and a haircut’ was her rule of thumb, when it came to men. The more elaborate the hair (face and head), the mor
e inflated the ego, in her experience. Jeremy had been conclusive proof of that, with his Beckham-ish obsession with styling and restyling.

  She took another quick glance at the two of them. On her side of the table, ponytail guy reached out and picked up a menu, and she couldn’t help appreciating the way his arm and shoulder muscles flexed, surely more than was strictly necessary. He said something to his friend and grinned, making a dimple flash in his cheek. The friend laughed heartily, adjusting his glasses and re-sweeping his fringe across to the side.

  “Probably gay,” she whispered back to Shelby, mostly to annoy her, and she pouted in exaggerated disappointment. Laughing, Cady distracted her by asking about the latest boyfriend she’d left behind in London, and she was soon recounting the disappointing last date they’d had. As she talked on, Cady nodded and made the right noises, trying not to take peeks at ponytail guy. He wasn’t even her type, for goodness’ sake.

  When the guys had ordered, they handed their menus to the waiter, and the object of Shelby’s admiration turned his attention their way.

  “What are you lovely ladies doing in this neighborhood? Sounds like you’re a way from home.”

  Shelby was instantly nonchalant. “Yeah,” she said cooly. “London was getting kind of same-y.”

  He raised a well-groomed eyebrow. “London? There must be plenty to keep you busy there. Where do you live, like, in a manor house or something?”

  Cady laughed. “Not many manor houses in Peckham Rye.”

  Ponytail guy turned to her and smiled, the dimple she’d seen on his left cheek now matched by one on the other side. His nose was a tiny bit crooked, as though it had been broken at some stage. “We have no idea where that is,” he said. “With those accents you could tell us you lived in a castle, and we’d probably believe you.”