Really, why on earth would I invite you to stay at our flat unless I did in fact want you there? Leander does too. He told you to stop being a numpty (Scottish for “a stupid,” I had to look it up and am now getting very strange ads on my phone) and to “get here already,” although he knows as well as I do that your break doesn’t begin until next week.
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: re: re: re: Spring break
I just don’t want to step on any toes. Like your toes. Honestly I guess I just don’t know where we stand? Like, this feels healthy, us just talking like this and in a situation where nobody is dying or disappeared or actively trying to kill us. I sort of just feel like I’m holding my breath, a little, and things are going really well right now, and maybe we need more time before we see each other to let things keep being great. Which isn’t to say that you specifically make them not-great.
But also I miss you so much that sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe.
I guess . . . what does your therapist think?
J xx
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Spring break
Dr. Kostas thinks that we need to allow ourselves time to get to know one another in said new, healthier context, and that, in the meantime, we should avoid “pledging ultimate loyalty” to each other again, as that had suboptimal results the last time.
Ultimately, she says it’s my decision. And yours.
Though I know you’ve already made up your mind.
I’ve already ordered in new bedding for the spare room and have begun making a shopping list (Jaffa cakes, Tunnocks—the bars not the tea cakes—and that Irish breakfast blend from that obscenely expensive shop in Piccadilly. And the frozen naan from Waitrose. And Milk Tray. Obscene amounts of Milk Tray. Also the orange juice from Tesco that you had a year and a half ago when we were wandering the city together. In the plastic bottle? It had mangoes in, and carrot, and ginger, and smells wretched. I put you down for four).
Of course, if I’ve misread you, please tell me. But you tend to overuse the word “just” when you’ve made a decision and are attempting to justify it to yourself or others.
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Spring break
Are you bribing me with Milk Tray? Because it’s working.
Yes, yes, of course I want to come. If you’re okay with it, and your uncle, and your therapist. And if we take it all kind of slow.
Also, you are like . . . sometimes you are just the best. The actual best. I hope you know that. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you xxx
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Spring break
Something terrible, probably.
Leander and I will meet you at Heathrow arrivals. He will be holding a sign he’s making with puff paint. Right now his plan is to have it read WATSON WUZ HERE. I’d apologize but also it’s rather hilarious.
APRIL
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: King’s College London!!!!!!!!!
I got in!! I got in!!!! This is worth all those rejections and the not sleeping and the dragging my GPA up to a 3.85 with my actual teeth and even if they only let me in because they feel sorry for me or that story in the Daily Mail about how we’re both unhinged or something I am TOTALLY GOING TO TAKE IT I DON’T CARE I am going to take you out to dinner as soon as I get back to England!!!
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: King’s College London!!!!!!!!!
Which isn’t a date or anything!
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: King’s College London!!!!!!!!!
Unless you want it to be? Do you want it to be? (Oh God.)
And this isn’t only because I got into school or anything—I didn’t mean it that way at all. And it’s okay if you don’t want to! Date me, I mean. I know the last time we tried anything like that was a while ago and I know it wasn’t like that over spring break—I did really like bumming around London with you and going to bookstores and drinking iced tea.
Was that a date too?
Please put me out of my misery.
All I want to do is explore London with you again. You know parts of the city I didn’t even know existed. Sometimes I feel like it invents new parts of itself just for you. xxxx
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: King’s College London!!!!!!!!!
I know you’re online. I can see that you’re on chat. So are you letting me flounder around writing you awkward emails because it’s funny or because you’re horrified?
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: re: King’s College London!!!!!!!!!
Because I’m charmed, and a bit nervous.
Congratulations, Watson. I know how badly you wanted this, and I’m so very happy for you.
Will you call me? I’m awake. I mean, of course I’m awake, as I’m typing, and not a sleepwalker. But call. If you want.
MAY
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: Uni
Right but you are the only human being on this earth who can decide they want to go to Oxford while having like one-third of a high school diploma AND a police record and then have them be like, oh sure, totally come, just take some summer courses first!
I’m jealous. Actually I’m not because Oxford is, like, really scary to me, and really I’m not actually jealous—mostly I’m just really proud and happy and I think it’s going to be great for you to be able to focus on the kind of work you want to be doing: blowing things up. (Do they have a degree in that?)
Will you still be around in London when I get back from Sherringford? I’m trying to figure out where to stay—things are a little better with my mother but I don’t know if I want to move back in just yet.
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: Uni
It’s called chemistry, Watson.
And I’m enrolled in seven summer courses, in point of fact. I suppose they only required me to take four, but they had classes in biochemistry and music theory and statistics and poetry that sounded interesting, and so we’re currently configuring my schedule. I may or may not be meeting my Poe tutor at midnight on Tuesdays.
The summer program also offers a fiction writing workshop which confers one semester of university credit. It begins two days after Sherringford’s graduation and runs for six weeks.
They offer scholarships.
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: Uni
1: Please tell me that you aren’t meeting said Poe tutor in a catacomb, at midnight, on Tuesdays.
2: Are these, like, Leander Holmes rugby scholarships?
3: Also, wait—poetry?
4: Also, is this your weirdly formal way of asking me if I want to do this summer program thing with you?
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: Uni
1
: Possibly. Would it make a difference?
2: Possibly. Would it make a difference? (A joke, Watson. Of course they are.)
3: I’ve been writing quite a bit of poetry recently. It’s very bad. I think in fact it might be the first time I’ve been terrible at something and still enjoyed it. Other than being your best friend, of course.
4: Please come. If it sounds at all appealing to you, or if you’re still casting around for something to do. I miss you.
5: I miss you enough to say: please don’t let me bully you into doing anything you wouldn’t want to do.
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: How long until I see you?
Stop. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and you’ll always be. Unless you decide to Reichenbach on me again, in which case, we need to talk.
Someday your uncle is going to get tired of paying to send me to school. But I’ll never stop being grateful. I’ll give him a call tomorrow to say thank you; it’s late there.
I just checked with my dad, and he’s surprisingly gung-ho about me going. (Well, not surprisingly.) So yeah, I’m in! Twist my arm. Honestly it sounds kind of amazing and I’ve always wanted to spend time in Oxford and it’ll be nice to try out a college writing workshop if I really want to make a run on this whole novelist thing. Did you tell Lena about this? Today at lunch she was talking about it too. Tom went a little pale and was looking at flights on his phone.
I miss you too. I miss you like breathing. Have I already said that? I do, though. I miss you like naan pizza and builder’s tea. Like you’re the home I never knew I had.
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Four weeks, two days, three hours, seventeen minutes and forty-two seconds
Also, please don’t use Reichenbach as a verb. xxxx
Acknowledgments
THANK YOU SO MUCH TO THE WONDERFUL KATHERINE Tegen and everyone at Katherine Tegen Books for all your support. You really are my dream publisher. I especially want to thank my incredible editor, Alex Arnold, whose kindness and care is only matched by her intelligence and insight. Thank you to Rosanne Romanello—I am so grateful for your fierce championing of Jamie and Charlotte!—and to Sabrina Abballe and to everyone at Epic Reads. I am so lucky to have your support.
Endless thank-yous to Lana Popovic, dream agent and dear friend. None of this is possible without you. Thank you to Terra Chalberg (and everyone at Chalberg & Sussman) and to Sandy Hodgman and Jason Richman for your work on this series.
Love and thanks to Kit Williamson and Emily Temple, my found family.
Emily Henry: critique partner, coconspirator, angel sister. I love you. Jeff Zentner: you are a dear friend, a bastion of sanity, and pretty much the only person I want with me in a candle store. Thank you for being a rock. Evelyn Skye, Charker Peevyhouse, and Mackenzi Lee: my incredible friends and adventuresses. Some books are written alone, but mine feel firmly seated in the community you’ve all made.
Thank you to all my readers. Hearing from you is the best part of any day! Thanks especially to Ashleigh, Katie, Anthony, Abby, Eline, Kathleen, Kristen, Sarah, Melissa, and Suzanne for their early support of this series.
About the Author
Photo by Kit Williamson
BRITTANY CAVALLARO, author of the Charlotte Holmes series, is a poet, fiction writer, and old-school Sherlockian. She is the author of the poetry collection Girl-King and is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. She earned her BA in literature from Middlebury College and her MFA in poetry from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Currently, she’s a PhD candidate in English literature at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She lives in Michigan with her husband, cat, and collection of deerstalker caps. Find her at her website, www.brittanycavallaro.com, or on Twitter @skippingstones.
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Books by Brittany Cavallaro
A Study in Charlotte
The Last of August
The Case for Jamie
A Question of Holmes
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Copyright
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE CASE FOR JAMIE. Copyright © 2018 by Brittany Cavallaro. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art by Dan Funderburgh
Cover design by Katie Fitch
* * *
Digital Edition DECEMBER 2017 ISBN: 978-0-06-239899-4
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-239897-0
* * *
1819202122CG/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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The Case for Jamie Page 26