Badly Done, Emma Lee

Finding your soul mate is like shopping for a pair of jeans. Sometimes, it takes several tries before you find the right fit.

Northam-on-the-Water is as picturesque as I imagined it would be. It reminds me of the village in Grantchester, the PBS show about the sexy, jazz-loving vicar who solves murders. I caught pneumonia my senior year at Clemson. Manderley flew in and played momma hen. We sat around her hotel room in our jammies, eating cartons of Panera chicken noodle soup and watching Grantchester. Cozy mysteries aren’t my thing—because I thought they were for people who knit potholders in their free time, eat at four in the afternoon, and fall asleep on the davenport watching their programs, but I’ll admit Grantchester hooked me. The charming setting, the sexy crime-solving vicar—or maybe it was the NyQuil. Whatever, it brought out my inner senior citizen for a weekend and inspired a newfound respect for cozies.

We are driving down Northam-on-the-Water’s main street, confusingly named High Street. Confusing because it is not the highest street in the village. Northam-on-the-Water is situated in a narrow valley nestled between two hills. High Street straddles the river that divides the village into two sections. Most of the village appears to be clinging to the hillsides, making High Street the low street.

Although I would hardly call it a bustling metropolis, Northam is larger than I expected, with dozens of shops and businesses situated in honey-colored stone buildings lining both sides of the river. Stone footbridges allow shoppers to cross from one side to the other. There is a tea room, Call Me Darjeeling, with a striped awning and lacy white curtains hanging in the windows, a small supermarket, a bakery, and a woolen mill. The pharmacy has an old-time wooden sign hanging over its door, “Curtis and Sons Apothecary” painted in loopy script. There is a restaurant called the Millhouse, with a working waterwheel, and an inn named Midsummer’s Dream. Knightley stops at a traffic light outside a shop with an old-time glass storefront and a painted wooden sign affixed over the door. A silhouette of Queen Victoria’s profile is painted on the sign.

“‘Victoria’s Candy Emporium,’” I say, reading the sign. “ ‘First in Candy and Colonialism.’ ”

“Irreverent, isn’t it?”

I giggle. “A bit.”

“Deidre Waites can be rather irreverent, particularly when it comes to her love/hate relationship with Queen Victoria. She inherited the shop after her father died and her mum began losing her vision. She changed the name a year ago. She’s quite brilliant, actually, and extremely unusual. She belongs to my mum’s book club.”

“I like irreverent and unusual people.”

“She will be at the dinner party.”

“Dinner party?”

“Didn’t my mother tell you?” He chuckles and shakes his head. “She organized a small gathering tonight to introduce you to the villagers.”

“Ooo! That sounds like fun.”

He looks at me, eyebrow raised.

“Does it?”

“I love parties,” I say, smiling. “Don’t you?”

“As long as they’re not too big or boisterous.”

“Can a party ever be too big?” I look at him, wrinkling my nose. “I don’t think so.”

He laughs. “Now I see why my mother loves you. You’re kindred spirits.”

“Thank you,” I say sincerely. “That’s the kindest thing you’ve said to me.”

My relationship with Isabella Nickerson began at a polo match and has grown through numerous phone calls and emails. Besides being warm, witty, and worldly, she is incredibly empowering, encouraging me to pursue my dreams. I understand why my momma and my Aunt Patricia chose her as their friend—I would have chosen her as a friend if we had gone to school together.

I look through the picture window, into the store, hoping to catch a glimpse of the irreverent and unusual Miss Waites but see only shelves of glass jars filled with colorful jawbreakers, glossy black licorice wheels, and candy-cane-striped peppermint balls.

An elderly couple cross the street, waving to Knightley when they recognize him in the car. They are each holding multiple leashes, a pack of West Highland terriers at their heels.

“The Swinbrooks,” Knightley says. “They have a farm just outside the village where they breed champion West Highland terriers. Do you like dogs?”

“I’ve never had a dog.”

He looks at me as if I said I was related to the Kardashians—shocked and a bit horrified.

“Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Tragic, that.”

I am about to protest at his melodramatic choice of words when I remember something James Corden said in Very British Problems, a series on Netflix about British culture. Corden said his countrymen care for their dogs more than people. I assumed he was joking—I mean, he is a comedian. Now, I wonder. The crosswalk clears of people and pets, the light finally changes, Knightley shifts his car into gear, and we continue down High Street, past a clinic and a child care center.

A church with a brick turret and steeple stands at the end of High Street, flanked by a cemetery and neatly clipped green space, with a war memorial and wooden benches. It looks like a scene from an episode of Grantchester. As if on cue, the church door opens and a man in a black suit and a stiff white collar steps out.

“A vicar!”

“Vicar Ethan Parsons,” Knightley says. “You will meet him tonight.”

“This is just like Grantchester.”

Knightley chuckles. “Ethan Parsons is no Sidney Chambers. He spends his free time in the garden cultivating his roses, not solving murders in smoky jazz clubs.”

“You’ve watched Grantchester?”

I would not have pegged Knightley Nickerson, with his bespoke suits and swanky London cocktail parties, as someone who watched cozy mysteries on Masterpiece.

“I’ve read The Grantchester Mysteries by James Runcie, the series the program is based on.”

“Of course.”

Books. Of course. I make a mental note to download The Grantchester Mysteries and Charlotte Brontë’s novels. I hear Manderley’s scolding voice in my head: Lord knows you are smart, Emma Lee, but when it comes to literature, you are intellectually starved, practically anorexic. Consume something!

Knightley turns right at the end of High Street, drives over a bridge spanning the river, and makes the first left after the shops, turning on a quiet residential road running parallel to the river. We pass a row of stone duplexes with glossy black-painted doors and flower boxes at each window and then single, detached cottages. Knightley pulls onto a gravel driveway—the last driveway before the road ends.

“Here we are,” he says, switching off the engine. “Welcome home, Emma Lee.”

I look out the window at the thatched-roof cottage.

“Are you sure this is my aunt’s house?”

“Yes. Why?”

“It’s stone. I always imagined it would be wood. Why else would it be called Wood House?”

Knightley’s lips quirk. “I believe the cottage is named after the man who built it, Alistair Wood. Though your aunt was rather fond of Jane Austen’s novels, something she shared in common with my mum, so perhaps Wood House is named after Emma Woodhouse.”

My cheeks flush with heat and I make another mental note: download a book about the history of Northam-on-the-Water.

“Of course.”

We climb out of the car. Knightley lifts my suitcases out of his trunk and I follow him down the drive until we reach a gravel path leading to a low stone wall with a wooden gate. I unlatch the gate and push it open.

Winter Hastings, the lawyer who handled the execution of my aunt’s will, said the man living next door maintained the keys to her cottage and acted as caretaker in her absence. Isabella offered to pick up the keys and give them to Knightley because she said my aunt’s neighbor doesn’t like people visiting his home. He’s a massive germophobe, actually. There is supposed to be a key to an old Jaguar stored in the garage, though Winter Hastings warned it might not be operable.

Knightley puts my suitcases down on the front step and fishes a ring of keys out of his inner suit-coat pocket.

“The keys to your castle, milady,” he says, handing me the ring. “I hope you will be very happy here.”

“Thank you, kind sir,” I say, taking the keys.

I try not to react when his fingers touch mine, but my hand shakes as I slide the key into the lock of the heavy, scarred wooden door. I fumble with the key for several seconds, turning it to the left and right and left again, before I hear the tumblers turn. I pull the key out of the lock, lift the iron handle, push the door open. The powdery, perfumed scent of fresh-cut roses greets me as soon as I step through the door, and I notice a crystal vase filled with flowers on a table in the foyer. A small card is sticking out of the flowers. I step closer and read the welcome message scrawled on it in Isabella’s neat hand.

“Your mother left me flowers,” I say, pressing my nose into one of the blooms. “She’s so thoughtful.”

“She is excited you are here,” Knightley says, depositing my suitcases in the foyer. “She asked me to tell you she had someone stock the refrigerator and make the house ready for your arrival, but if you need anything, just ring her.”

“Thank you.”

There is an awkward pause as we stand in the quiet cottage, trying to determine the best way to say good-bye. Do we hug? Kiss cheeks? Shake hands? Slap each other on the backs?

“Right,” Knightley says, clearing his throat. “Would you like me to start a fire for you before I go?”

I look over my shoulder, at the fireplace in the living room, imagine Knightley Nickerson on his knees in his beautiful suit, arranging logs.

“I’m good,” I say, even though the damp cold has seeped down straight to my bones. “Thank you, though.”

“I will be back to pick you up tonight, around six.”

“Six. Fab.”

He turns and walks out the door. Just like that. No cheek kissing or hand shaking. Not even a slap on the back.

I close the door and count to three before running over to the window. I stare out the small rectangular panes of glass, watching as Knightley Nickerson strides down the path, his dark head held at a proud angle, the muscles of his broad shoulders visible beneath the checked fabric of his expensive suit.

If he looks back at the cottage, it means he likes me.

I hold my breath and count his strides.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

He is going to look back.

He walks down the path and through the open gate.

He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t like me.

I let out my breath in one loud, violent exhalation. I am about to step away from the window when Knightley stops, turns around, and looks back at the cottage. At the window. Where I am standing, gawking like a lovesick schoolgirl. It happens so fast, I don’t have time to move away.

He doesn’t know I am standing at the window. How could he know? It’s not like he can see me. The window is very small and the room is dark.

Knightley smiles.

Oh my god! He sees me! He sees me creeping at the window, like some weird, thirsty creeper.

Great! This is the second time I have humiliated myself in front of Knightley-flipping-Nickerson and it’s only been three hours since he picked me up at Heathrow. Wait! Make that three times. First, he catches me accosting some strange man. Then, I thrust a box of candy at him while referencing his genitalia. Now, he catches me creeping on him. He must think I am a nasty girl, a thirsty, nasty, red-rubber-boot-wearing creeper of a girl.

I should be embarrassed, but all I can think is, He likes me. Knightley Nickerson likes me.