The canvas is forgiving. If you make a mistake, if you regret a colour choice or texture, erase it with your rag and start again. If you still can’t get it right, leave it alone and work around it. Use it. Make it into something it wasn’t supposed to be.
During the brief drive to the West End, Gareth and Jillian sat up front, with Adam and Noelle in the backseat. Jillian made small talk, something about the state of London theater, while Noelle peered out the window at the dark sky, wishing she could step out of the car at the next stoplight and go home. Last night, she hadn’t known what accepting Jillian’s invitation would entail—an unexpected reunion, followed by a crushing bit of news, all in less than two hours’ time. Emotional whiplash.
When they arrived at the theater, the bustle of finding parking, producing tickets, wading through the crowd, and looking for seats all happened in a thirty-minute rush. They were seeing The Phantom of the Opera. On any other occasion, Noelle would have been ecstatic. She’d never seen Phantom before. But tonight, it only meant she’d have to live publicly with her discomfort for another three hours.
With only five minutes to spare, Gareth led them to their velvety crimson movie-theater-style chairs, only four rows from the stage. Noelle, flipping through the program, sat between Jillian and Adam. Ten pages of colorful ads shouted at her in bold print to “Visit Chez Gerard for a fine dining experience” and to let her know that “the Funky Buddha is the place to be.” Finding the program notes, Noelle pretended the lengthy cast list fascinated her as she secretly begged for the curtain to hurry up and rise.
Adam produced a new pack of gum from his pocket, opened it, and offered it to Noelle.
“Thanks.” She didn’t really like gum, and she’d have to chew it all night or find a discreet place to spit it out later. Still, she wanted to be polite. So she took it.
Finally, the orchestra played the introductory notes. She watched the actors on stage in their elaborate costumes, singing about the dark side of love, and wished they would feed her some answers along with their lines. She wanted to stand up and ask the cast, Why is our timing so horrible? Why was I brought here to see Adam in the first place? To sit next to him, knowing again that we have no chance anyway?
Maybe it would have stung less if Adam had told her right away. If only he had looked her straight in the eye that very first moment, shaken her hand, and immediately said, “Hi, Noelle, nice to see you again, I’m happily engaged.” Maybe if he’d done that, she wouldn’t have spent the next hour falling for him again, allowing the old feelings to resurface so effortlessly, forgetting completely that she was leaving the country in two days anyway. But she had fallen, and because of that, she had to spend the next few hours doing damage control on her emotions.
Gradually, note by note, the characters and story entranced her, and she escaped into the aching beauty of the music and the longing of the Phantom. She related to it, wanting so desperately someone you would never have. Could never have.
As tears rolled down during the final song, Noelle sensed the weight of Adam’s stare. He touched her arm, and in the soft glow of the stage lights, his eyes squinted with concern. He gave a hint of a comforting smile then offered his handkerchief. Noelle took it with a thankful smile and dabbed her tears away.
Everyone buzzed about the Phantom during the brief ride back to Jillian’s. Overlapping comments about the play, promises to meet up again, thanks to Jillian for the invitation and to Gareth for the elaborate meal. As the car pulled into a spot in front of their townhouse, Noelle folded Adam’s handkerchief and passed it over to him.
“Keep it,” he whispered. He shifted toward her in his seat, not concerned that Jill and Gareth were already exiting the car. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I guess the music really got to me.”
“It’s a powerful story. One of those that can circle in your head for days afterward.”
“I agree.”
As they got out, Jillian begged Noelle to stay overnight, not drive back to the village at such a late hour. She kindly refused with the very legitimate excuse of having a thousand things still to do before her flight. She didn’t tell Jill how exhausted the evening had rendered her. And how desperately she needed to be alone with her scattered thoughts.
Taking her cue, Adam said a polite “no” to a nightcap. He needed to get back home. Noelle assumed “home” meant “Laurel.”
Adam walked Noelle to her car and opened the door. “It was incredible, seeing you again.” As he reached down for a hug, Noelle had to stand on tiptoes to reciprocate. She smelled the new leather of his jacket as she backed away. “I wish you didn’t have to get back to the States yet. I wanted more time to catch up.”
“Me too,” she lied. Catching up only would have made things more painful. Leaving soon was best.
Adam leaned against the doorframe. “Is someone watching for you?”
“No, but I’ll call Jillian when I get there. And I’ve got a cell phone. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. So. Take care of yourself.”
Noelle wondered what they would’ve done with this final moment if he hadn’t been engaged. Exchanged cell numbers and email addresses, kept in touch an ocean away with the ease of a few clicks. But in the end, a few text messages wouldn’t amount to anything substantive. They lived separate lives in separate places.
Noelle stepped inside the car, careful to tuck in her long coat before Adam closed the door. She started the car and waved good-bye. Turning the corner, she drove with one hand, clutched the handkerchief with the other, and dealt with the mess going on inside. Let all the questions have their way.
What if Mr. Lester’s letter had reached me two weeks ago? What if Adam and I had reunited before he got engaged? Would it have mattered?
She traveled further back. What if that horseback ride to the river during our final summer had ended differently? What if that one missed opportunity had determined every other moment after that?
“Damn,” she whispered through a sob.
When Noelle reached the edge of London and the traffic had cleared, with nothing but an open country road toward the Cotswolds, she put her mind on autopilot and revisited that day at the river. She remembered the unusually sweltering August sun and how she’d taken advantage of the rare English rays to do some tanning. Half-asleep on a blanket with the sun beating down, she laid in her pink bikini near the fountain in Gram’s garden.
“You need a good dunk in the river.”
Noelle twitched, hearing Adam’s voice, and she shielded her eyes to see him standing in front of her, hands rubbing together in preparation. He only wore swim trunks and sandals. His chest had filled out that summer with some definition, some muscle. She’d been staring too long and looked away. “Now?”
“Yeah—C’mon. Gorgeous day for a ride and a swim.”
The thought of a sparkling body of water sounded more appealing than broiling under a hot sun, so she got up and slipped into her jean shorts.
The River Avon ran through Bath. The year before, Adam and Noelle had found a perfect, tranquil spot in a bend of it, enormous trees with rustling leaves and plenty of room at the water’s edge to have an elaborate picnic or a long nap after a swim. Tourists sometimes took specified trails along the river but only occasionally veered from it to interfere with Adam and Noelle’s “place.” Most of the time, they could swim uninterrupted.
Saddling up Ginger and Spice, the only two horses in Gram’s stables, they galloped the two miles to the river bend and tied the horses to a tree. Noelle adored riding, ever since Adam had taught her two years before. It took him a month to convince her she would be safe with him and with the horse. But once he coaxed her along and rode behind her in the saddle, once he taught her how to hold the reins and connect with the horse, she fell in love with riding, with the freedom of the powerful hooves beating underneath, taking her away.
The river sparkled and winked in the sun and invited them to come in. Removing her shorts again, Noelle waded in, skimming the top of the tepid water with her fingertips. Adam splashed past her with a dramatic dive.
“Show off!” she yelled, splashing him back. They spent the next hour drifting lazily, talking and soaking up a beautiful day. “So, are you ready for Oxford? Or, I guess the better question—is Oxford ready for you?” Noelle had asked with a grin, letting the water lap up to her neck as she paddled beside him. As they drifted toward the river’s edge, her toes could almost touch the bottom.
Despite being the same age, newly seventeen, Noelle would be starting her senior year of high school in the fall, while Adam would start college. Adam had once teased her that because British students sometimes graduated earlier, they were smarter than American students were.
“Yeah. I think so. I’m checking out the housing next week. Move-in is the week after.”
“I want to go to college. I hate high school,” she pouted.
“You can hold out one more year. Did you get the Oxford applications yet?”
“Yeah—yesterday. I’ll fill them out on the plane. It’ll give me something to do. I can’t wait to get out and live on my own.” She thought ahead to what the following year at home would hold for her, and whether her mother’s recent marriage to “Tom” would even last the summer. Likely not.
She shifted to float on her back, using Adam’s shoulder to steady herself. But he tensed up and gasped loudly, pointing beside her in the river. “Snake!”
Noelle screamed a raw, high-pitched screech, her body jerking and splashing to an upright position as she jumped into Adam’s arms for safety. “Where? Where?” She scanned the water for an enormous, slithering reptile swimming toward them, jaws open.
Adam’s chest rose and fell in quick pants, and he suppressed a smile. Noelle shoved him away in the water. “You wanker! You scared me to death!”
His laughter echoed throughout the riverbed nearly as loudly as her scream had. Her senses still overly acute from the empty threat of a snake, she lunged at Adam playfully, pushing him down into the water. His dark curls disappeared then bobbed up again as he emerged, still laughing, to wipe his dripping face with both hands. He returned the favor. Expecting it, she shut her eyes just in time and came up smiling too, rubbing her eyes clear of water.
When she opened her eyes, Adam placed his hands around her waist, drawing her in close to him. They floated, face-to-face, breathing heavily, water dripping from their eyelashes down their cheeks. He’d stopped laughing. She had never seen that expression on his face. Serious, focused, with no hint of sarcasm or playfulness. His gaze drifted down to her lips then back to her eyes. Noelle swallowed and blinked, unsure of what to do. Or what he would do. She didn’t try to wriggle out of his grasp, but part of her wanted to. The look in his eyes made her almost as nervous as the idea of an approaching snake.
It happened in slow motion. His lips parted, and he leaned in, closed his eyes. His lips brushed hers, but a shrill whinny from one of the horses startled her. She flinched in Adam’s arms and looked toward the shoreline. A group of riders had pulled up beside the tree where Ginger and Spice were tied.
“’Scuse me,” one of them yelled in a Texas accent. “Mind if we park awhile?”
Adam released Noelle gently and yelled back, “No, go ahead,” then drifted away from her.
They waded back to shore in silence, Noelle slogging her hands and feet as though weights had been attached. She wanted to go back, replay the moment without the riders, and find out what would’ve happened without their horribly timed interruption. She would never know if Adam would have backed away at the last moment, joking around. Or if they would have gone through with the kiss she’d dreamed about so many times. It might have changed everything.
The moment they reached the estate to return the horses to their stalls, Adam hopped into his car with a hasty good-bye. Surely, an actual kiss would have been less damaging to their friendship than an almost-kiss, than never knowing. That night, Noelle cried into her pillow, analyzing the afternoon in her head, wondering if they would ever get a second opportunity at a kiss or if they had just spent their one and only chance.
Two weeks later, ending her final summer in England, Noelle boarded a plane for the States, leaving part of her broken heart in England. She never did make it to Oxford, never resolved her questions.
Staring through her headlights at the road, Noelle wanted to know if Adam remembered that day at the river, whether he recalled it with the same clarity or perspective. Even so, it didn’t matter anymore. Adam was engaged. Spoken for. Tonight, for a few glorious moments, just as in that river, a potential moment, an almost “something,” had been interrupted. But more heartbreaking than the first time.