Edward Ellis. My throat goes tight.
There’s a strapline under his picture:
Pilot suspected of failing to recognise a technical error in the cockpit.
‘Oh God,’ I say.
And I want to tell her about how Christopher’s dad was the pilot but then I think about how cut up he was about what everyone was saying – that the crash might have been his dad’s fault – so I don’t say anything.
‘It’s horrible,’ Suzy says. ‘All those people…’
‘Yeah.’
I pray that Christopher hasn’t seen the update. Not yet. He needs to get to his mom, first. He needs someone with him.
I look back at Suzy.
‘Did Blake tell you anything?’
‘Tell me anything?’
‘Any special plans he had – linked to the wedding – or the eclipse. Or Nashville. Something that might explain why he hasn’t shown up yet?’
‘Doesn’t Blake always have special plans?’
‘The wedding?’
‘Yeah – Jude’s getting married later today.’
Her face drops. He hasn’t been in touch then. Not for ages. She doesn’t even know about Jude.
She sits back like she’s been punched.
‘He was meant to be in Nashville already,’ I say gently. ‘And he said he had a surprise planned, for the wedding.’
She looks back at me, her eyes far away like she’s trying to process it all.
‘We’ve missed the rehearsal dinner and he hasn’t been in touch since he was in London.’
‘He said he’d be there?’ she asks.
I swallow hard. ‘He promised. No matter what, he said.’
Suzy’s eyes go clear again. ‘Then he’ll be there.’
I look up. ‘You think so?’
‘Yeah. Probably at the last minute. Knowing Blake, probably at the last second. But if he’s said he’ll come, he’ll come.’ She pauses. ‘Family’s everything to him, you know that.’ She looks right at me. ‘You’re everything to him. He wouldn’t let you down, Air. Not unless—’
My heart lurches.
‘Unless what?’
‘Unless it’s out of his control.’
Her words hang between us.
‘And what if it is out of his control?’ I say, my words breaking.
She stares at me for a moment and then closes her eyes, takes a breath, opens them again and, trying to smile, says, ‘You’ll give him hell and he’ll forever be in your debt.’
We both go quiet again.
Then I let out a laugh that sounds kind of forced but I go with it anyway, ‘Yeah, you bet I’ll give him hell.’
She smiles and puts her hands over mine. ‘Want me to come with you? To Nashville?’
My eyes well up. She’d close the diner – on a busy day like today – for me? For Blake?
I shake my head. ‘This is a big day for you – for the diner.’
‘There’ll be another eclipse.’
‘Not for another seven years, not like this one, a total eclipse, in North America.’
She shrugs. ‘Seven years? I’ll still be here.’
And she will. Because Suzy’s the exact opposite of Blake. If he can never stay in one place for more than a few seconds, she’s the kind of person who puts her roots down deep and doesn’t budge. Her grandma opened this diner sixty years ago. The whole putting her roots down is probably what made Blake fall in love with her: opposites attract and all that. And what made him keep leaving her too.
‘You really think it’s going to be okay?’ I ask.
‘You bet it is,’ she says.
And I want to believe her, I really do. But all I can think about is that one word she said after she went on about how Blake would never let me down.
Unless it’s out of his control.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
10.01 CDT 1-40
I give Suzy a big hug and then I pick Leda up, along with the boxer shorts and the T-shirt Christopher left behind, and I go back to the car.
It’s starting to get hot already, so I put the top down.
I lift Leda into the back and place her on her blanket. The seat beside her looks empty without Christopher’s backpack.
And then I look at Blake’s morning suit, still scrunched up on the back bench and the box with his hat with its big dent in the side.
I swallow hard.
I can do this. I press the words into my brain. I can do this.
Then I lift the paper star over my head and place it on the dashboard, close the door and start the ignition.
For a moment, I sit there, the car rattling, staring up at the hot, white sky. It’s nearly lunchtime. I’ve got three hours to get to Nashville, in time for the wedding. And then everything will go dark.
As I turn the car, I notice that Suzy’s come out onto the porch. She holds up her hand and waves.
When this whole wedding stuff’s over – when I’ve made Blake feel totally guilty for putting me through all this – we’re going to come back here and eat pancakes and everything will feel normal again. And I’ll tell him to stop taking Suzy for granted. I’ll make him see how awesome she is.
I wave back.
And then I pull out of the parking lot.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
10.04 CDT 1-40
I drive down the road that takes me out of Knoxville.
By the time I get to the highway, the sun is so strong and so low that I can barely see where I’m driving.
Cars and trucks rush past. Too fast. Too loud.
A dull pounding sets in at the back of my skull.
Something feels weird. Wrong-weird.
There’s too much space around me.
And my body feels hollow. Right down to my bones.
And the thing is, it’s never been a problem before.
Having space.
Sitting, waiting, walking – being – alone.
My family’s so intense that I love the time I get to myself.
Being alone has always been fine.
Except now it’s not.
It’s really not.
And I don’t know what to do.
Through the windscreen, I stare at the heatwaves rising off the asphalt. At the cracks in the road. The faded lines.
And I think about all those hours we sat next to each other in the car. How we swam together. How I got used to the sound of him folding paper beside me. How I grew to like it.
And I think about all those things he said about his dad. How he was the only one he had but how they weren’t even close. And how he’s on his way to a mom who might not even want to see him. No one should have to face all of that alone.
I stop and look over my shoulder. I can still see it. The diner. It’s neon sign blinking by the side of the road. The roof where I sang. How, for a few minutes, he made me feel like I could go to the wedding and sing instead of Blake.
I want to call him and tell him how I don’t know what to do now, with all this space around me. And then I realise that we didn’t even swap numbers. Not once did we stop and think about how we might get in touch again.
Then I think about how he has to focus on his own stuff. Even if I did have his number, it wouldn’t be fair to call him. He has to get to his mom. This isn’t about me.
And I think about how we were never really meant to meet.
And how, whichever way you look at it, this whole thing was going to have to end sometime.
Maybe it’s for the best that we didn’t swap numbers. That we’re making a clean break. That, whatever we shared these past two days, stops here.
I reach over to the passenger seat and pull at the glovebox to get out some sunglasses. Blake has more sunglasses than anyone I know. He stashes them away in different places so that he always has a pair to hand. It’s part of his look.
As I shut the glovebox again, my hand brushes against my telescope case.
Only a few hours ago, Christopher and I sat in a field,
looking at the stars. I remember how his face lit up when he got that first look at the night sky through the telescope.
It’s like they’re so close I can touch them, he said. Like the rest of the world is falling away.
And so, I knew he felt it – how amazing they were, those balls of fire lighting up the universe, so beautiful and so close and so far away.
And then I think back to what he said about how his dad wanted him to see the eclipse from a fishing boat out on the sea in Oregon and how, instead, he was going to be seeing it through the window of a bus.
I look back at the telescope. At the empty seat beside me. And then at the tiny paper star on the dashboard, the sun lighting it up like a lantern.
Just let him go, just let him go. I force the words into my brain.
But my brain’s not listening. And neither’s my heart.
Damn it.
I glance back at the clock.
It won’t take long, I tell myself.
I take the exit, turn the car, and head back into Knoxville.
Chapter Forty
10.15 CDT Knoxville Bus Station, TN
The bus is already there. Christopher’s queuing to get on.
I park the car next to a sign that says ‘No stopping at any time’ because it’s the closest space to the station, praying that there are no traffic attendants around.
‘You stay here,’ I say to Leda. ‘And don’t let anyone tow us.’
She lets out a small yelp – she sounds happier, like she knows that Christopher’s close.
Then I grab the telescope and run into the station.
The bus is already there.
And Christopher’s the next in line to get on.
‘Christopher!’ I yell out.
My heart’s pounding.
There are so many bus engines running and it’s so echoey in here that my voice doesn’t carry.
I push past the other people in the queue and catch Christopher’s arm.
He turns around. Behind his glasses, his pale grey eyes widen with confusion.
‘Air?’
I push the telescope into his arms. ‘I want you to have it.’
‘I – I don’t understand.’
‘To see the eclipse.’
‘But—’
‘You can use it through the bus window. It will help you see it better.’
‘But, how will I give it back to you?’
‘You can have it.’ I pause. ‘I mean, for good.’
His eyes go even wider.
‘It’s got a special lens,’ I say quickly to cover his embarrassment. ‘So you can look right at the sun without burning your eyes. Look through it, like I showed you.’
‘Are you sure?’
I nod. I’m sure. I’m going to spend my life looking at the stars. At the moon. And something tells me that when I get to the wedding, I won’t be getting out my telescope to look up at the sky.
‘Take it as payment – for the parking fine and the gas and the coffee…And maybe, one day, you can tell me about it. I mean, what you saw, and what it felt like.’
‘Are you coming or not?’ The bus driver calls down to us from his seat.
‘Yes, he’s coming,’ I call over.
Because even though every bit of me wants to reach out and grab Christopher and persuade him to turn around and come back to the Buick, I know he’s got to get to his mom; that we both have to work out the next bit on our own.
‘You could make it – afterwards,’ I say.
‘Make it?’
‘A model. Of the eclipse. Out of paper.’ I look at him.
‘If he’s coming, he needs to get on the bus,’ the driver says.
I step away.
Christopher’s still looking at me.
And then I jump back up the steps and throw my arms around him and press my cheek to his and whisper into his ear:
‘They’re not a waste of time – your paper models. They’re beautiful, really beautiful. And I think you should spend your life making them. That would be a really big thing.’
When I pull away from him, he stares at me, his eyes wider than ever.
I step down off the bus.
‘You’re an artist, Christopher!’ I call over to him.
And he keeps looking at me. Then he puts the telescope on his back and gives me a nod, like he’s saying yes.
Yes to the telescope and to looking at the eclipse and to telling me about it one day and to making a model.
Yes to everything we’ve been through in the last two days.
Yes to how we held each other, just now, and how, in that moment, things felt like they might be okay.
And then he turns, steps into the bus, and is gone.
Chapter Forty-One
12.51 CDT 6th Avenue N., Nashville, TN
I don’t have time to go through the proper, hotel parking procedures, so I abandon the Buick on 6th Avenue.
I take the paper star on the piece of string, pull it over my head, tuck it into my dress and close my eyes for a second.
You can do this. His words come back to me. Being brave…it’s part of your DNA.
I grab Blake’s suit from the back, along with the dented hat box. Then I pick up one of the bits of scrunched up paper from the footwell on the side where Christopher was sitting, pull it open and flatten it out. It’s a printed email from his dad, dated from a week ago – an itinerary of all the places he wanted Christopher to visit when he was in DC. After the long list of places he signed off: See you soon. Dad. My heart jolts.
For a moment I feel like I can’t breathe. Like I can’t put one foot in front of the other, let alone turn up at Jude’s wedding and face my family and then sing that damned song.
Hold it together, Air. Hold it together.
I grab a pen from the glovebox and scrawl across it:
Please don’t tow me – my sister’s getting married.
Parking attendants aren’t known for their compassion but I can’t think of what else to do. If I do get towed, Blake’s paying for it.
I stick the note on the windscreen under one of the wipers and look over at the hotel.
Music drifts down from the roof terrace. Mom had a ton of jazz pianists come to the house to audition for the wedding. In the end, she went with someone Blake recommended.
And then I think about how Mom will react if I sing the special wedding song rather than Blake and a sick feeling pushes up my throat.
You’d better be here already, Blake, I say through gritted teeth.
Getting to the wedding, that’s what I’ve got to focus on right now.
I take out my phone. I stopped looking at my phone when I left Knoxville – I had to concentrate on driving without the stress of taking in more news – or of having to read Mom’s messages. She must have taken our phone call last night as a green light to start sending me texts again. I guess she’s got a right to be stressed: the wedding’s started and I’m not there yet. Not that she’s called for the last hour. Which means that either a) she’s too busy – which would make sense or b) that Blake’s here and the crisis is over.
I send Mom a quick message as I grab Leda from the back seat:
I’m coming.
The bottom of my dress catches on the Buick door. I hear a loud, clean tear.
‘Damn it!’
I look down at the jagged hem.
At least, now, the hem covers my sneakers.
Before I walk through the big glass doors of the hotel, I look up once more at the roof of the hotel and this time I send up a prayer rather than a curse: Please, please be here, Blake. I can’t do this alone.
The small, sharp points of the star dig into my skin at the base of my throat.
I hold Leda tighter, and walk through the doors.
Chapter Forty-Two
12.59 CDT The Blue Ridge Hotel, Nashville, TN
It’s beautiful. Obviously, it’s beautiful. Mom wouldn’t have settled for anything less than perfect. But it’s more than
that. Up here, on the roof of the hotel, in the heart of Nashville, under the big sky, it’s as though all the ugliness I’ve been seeing on the news – the broken wreckage of the plane, the stories about what happened in the cockpit – is part of some other world. A world that, for now, doesn’t touch this one.
There are chairs arranged in rows, draped in sky blue silk. At the back of each chair, the silk has been gathered and tied into big bows. I bet Mom tied each one of those herself, probably at some crazy hour last night.
I scan the roof terrace, my heart hammering – maybe he made it, just before me.
I look over at the cluster of jazz musicians Blake recommended, thinking that that’s where he’d be, jamming with them. But he’s not there either.
Even without looking, I can feel it – that he’s not here.
When Blake’s around, the energy’s different. He draws everyone in towards him. There’s a centre for people to focus on.
No, he’s not here.
The chairs face an arbour of soft, pale pink roses under which Jude and Stephen are going to get married. The two-hundred-year-old roses from Mom’s rose garden in DC, the ones she had flown down on ice, along with the white roses for last night’s reception.
Even the roses made it, Blake! I want to scream. Where the hell are you?
On every chair, there’s a pair of glasses for looking at the eclipse. Mom had them made especially: the frames in whites and blues to match the colour scheme of the wedding.
The same roses that are draped over the arbour are everywhere else too. In low vases on the round tables where people will be having their meals. In flowerbeds that Mom had brought in to run along the perimeter of the roof terrace. And soft, single heads nodding in lapels of the men’s jackets.
In the corner of the roof terrace, there’s a microphone and the stool Mom bought for Blake.
My heart contracts.
As I try to imagine myself standing there, I start to feel dizzy, like the air up here is too thin.
Maybe he’ll show up just in time. Like Suzy said. He’ll come running in at the last second and snatch the microphone from my hands and before I’ve had the chance to sing even one flat note, he’ll launch into the song.
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