By the time they land at London’s Heathrow airport, Megan, the woman next to Holly, has long been breathing normally, and she’s completely convinced that Christmas Key should be her new home.
“It sounds so amazing,” the woman says for the umpteenth time as they make their way towards the baggage claim area. “I can picture everyone: Cap, Bonnie, Pucci, Jake.” She jabs Holly with an elbow. “I can’t wait to see it all.”
“Well, we’d love to have you,” Holly says. “And you have all of our contact info on that card I gave you, right?”
“Got it,” the woman says, patting her purse to indicate that she’s got the card with Christmas Key’s social media links and email address tucked safely inside. “Okay, I guess this is good-bye—I need to freshen up and then find my dad and stepmom.”
“Have a great time!” Holly calls after her, watching Megan as she ducks into the first ladies’ room they see. Megan throws her an excited wave back and disappears into the restroom with a crowd of short women in dark hijabs. The exotic mix of travelers at Heathrow is already dazzling Holly, and as she looks around at the variety of humans surrounding her, she feels a thrill of excitement at being off the island.
Holly didn’t sleep much on the flight, and the unfamiliar sights and smells around her make her stomach twist and turn with anticipation. She’s somewhere totally new, in a city and a country that are so much more metropolitan than Christmas Key that it’s almost like the two places don’t even share the same planet. Two men speaking French close in on her from behind and Holly pulls her shoulder bag to her body more tightly, remembering the lectures she’d gotten from her neighbors about being aware of her surroundings no matter where she is.
At the baggage claim she waits patiently for the carousel to start spitting out suitcases and boxes. A woman next to Holly in chic knee-high suede boots takes her in from head-to-toe, no doubt pegging her as a country bumpkin on a backpacking trip through Europe. Holly stares at the laces of her own Converse sneakers and wonders if she should have chosen something more attractive for her travels than her olive green cargo pants, a gray t-shirt, and her blue Yankees baseball hat. But it doesn’t matter now; she’s on her way to the rental apartment that River’s picked out, and she’ll have time to shower and change before he gets there.
The baggage carousel beeps loudly and grinds into action. Men and women of various sizes, shapes, and colors step forward and pull dinged and well-worn suitcases from the conveyor belt as Holly stares at the mouth of the machine, waiting to spot the hardshell suitcase Bonnie has loaned her. It’s hot pink with white polkadots, and as it makes its slow trek around the belt, Holly flushes at the sight of it. The suitcase is fun and cheerful, but it’s also loud and American. She suddenly wishes she’d borrowed something in black.
“Darling,” the woman in the suede boots says, touching Holly’s elbow as she heaves the oversized suitcase off the conveyor, “what agency are you with?” The wheels of the pink suitcase land on the floor loudly.
“Huh?” Holly squints at the woman, whose face is clean and unlined. Her black hair is long and straight, and everything about her smells like money.
“Agency, love. Which agency are you with?” The woman is watching Holly intently, making mental calculations and tabulations of the width of Holly’s eyes, the length of her nose, the smoothness of her skin, and the broadness of her shoulders.
“I’m sorry…” The lack of sleep on the flight is catching up to Holly while she stands there, sweating in her gray t-shirt as a multitude of languages flow around her. A voice comes over the loudspeaker and says something unintelligible in a British accent. All Holly wants to do is blink her eyes and magically be in the apartment, ready to take a hot shower.
“You are a model, yes?” the woman asks, sweeping one manicured hand through the air in front of Holly.
“A model?” Holly parrots. “Oh, good lord, no!”
A tiny frown creases the woman’s forehead. “But why not?” she asks, as if this is the most obvious next question in the world.
“Why not? Because I’m thirty. And I’m the mayor of an island. And, and…I don’t know—I’m just not.”
“Huh,” the woman says, still appraising Holly. “But your structure is fabulous. I bet you look amazing in a bikini.” She reaches out and touches Holly’s upper arm as she tilts her head back and laughs. “Don’t take that the wrong way—that isn’t a pick-up line!”
Holly looks around at the people still waiting for baggage; none of them are listening to this odd exchange.
“I basically live in a bikini at home,” Holly says, relaxing a little when she realizes that this woman isn’t joking.
“That sounds like paradise. I should visit in August.”
“August is pretty humid. Lots of bugs,” Holly adds.
“Well, August is our slow month in Europe. Most places close down almost entirely, and we all vacation.”
“That sounds like paradise.” Holly folds her arms over her chest and bumps the pink and white suitcase with one knee. “Listen, I need to get to the Heathrow Express and then to Paddington Station. Any idea where I catch the train?”
“I’m headed that way, darling. Let’s walk and talk.” The woman pulls up the handle of a clean, unmarked suitcase and drags it behind her like it weighs five pounds. Holly grabs the handle of her own case and it nearly knocks her over as she buckles under seventy pounds of shoes, summer dresses, jeans, t-shirts, and bathing suits. She has no choice but to follow the woman through a tangle of people all fighting to squeeze onto one escalator.
“Follow, please,” the woman says crisply over her shoulder.
Holly falls into a single-file line as the crowd merges and people step onto the escalator with their baggage. She panics as she sees the narrow space and the small step that she’ll have to fit her suitcase onto.
“I don’t think I’ll—” She’s about to step out of line and find an elevator when the man behind her touches her lower back, shoving her forward.
“Coming?” the woman asks casually, not glancing back at Holly. The people who’ve wedged her in place on the escalator spread out at the bottom as they go in different directions, and Holly trips over the grate, dragging the suitcase with her as she’s freed from the tightly packed group of travelers.
“Coming,” Holly says breathlessly. The woman’s flat heels click on the hard floor as she leads the way, shoulders back, head straight. Holly double-steps to keep up.
“We can catch the express train here,” the woman says, wheeling her suitcase through an archway and onto a platform, “and I can have a better look at your bone structure while we wait.” She comes to a stop and turns to Holly.
“Oh.” Holly takes an involuntary step back as the woman leans in and puts one hand on Holly’s chin, turning her face from side to side.
“Thirty is definitely at the upper end of the range I’d be looking for,” she says. “But I do think there’s an earthy, natural quality to you that could really translate in photos. How long are you in London?”
It takes everything in Holly not to pull her head away and out of the woman’s hand. Being assessed this way is a totally foreign feeling to her. Even in college she’d never been one to feel comfortable under the scrutiny of others, and her life on Christmas Key has never been about glamour and beauty. Being described as “earthy and natural” by this woman who sees extreme beauty on a daily basis doesn’t bother her at all, whereas some women might prefer to be considered chic and polished.
“I’m here for a few days with my...boyfriend,” Holly says, getting hung up only briefly on how to describe her relationship with River. Is he her boyfriend? They’d parted uncomfortably on Christmas Eve, and the road back from there has been cobbled together with long phone conversations, the rebuilding of trust, and lots of mutual understandings.
“Is he as gorgeous as you? Because that would really be something,” the woman says as she digs through her leather purse. “Here’s my card. We’ll probably get separated on the train here, as it’s going to be full. Call me. My office is near Buckingham Palace.”
The express train sweeps through the tunnel with a rush of air, blowing the stray pieces of hair from under Holly’s Yankees cap. She holds the business card tightly. “It was lovely to meet you—what was your name, darling?”
“Holly.”
“Yes. Just lovely, Holly.”
The doors whoosh open and people spill from the train as others fight their way through the crowd with baggage in hand, trying to get on. Holly steps onto the train and turns around, gripping her heavy suitcase with both hands as she yanks it over the ledge.
“Mind the gap,” warns a recorded female voice with a British accent. “Mind the gap.”
“I’m minding it,” Holly mutters, giving one final tug on the handle. The suitcase bumps over the lip of the train and she reels backward, nearly bumping into a woman with a baby in her arms. “Sorry,” Holly says, straightening her baseball hat. As promised, the woman she’d followed to the train platform is already gone and Holly is left in the standing room only section of the car, her huge pink suitcase leaning against her thigh as she stares at the business card of a woman who—completely improbably—has mistaken her tired, travel-weary self for a model. As the train pulls away from the platform, she almost laughs out loud.
The taxi stand at Paddington Station is through a series of long hallways. Holly moves as quickly as she can, following the flow of humans as they make their way to other trains. The air that hits her as she walks out of the station is cooler than she’s used to in May, and the skin on her arms prickles uncomfortably.
“Join the queue, miss!” a man in a coat and hat says, blowing a whistle and pointing at a line that’s roped off by a guardrail. Holly falls in behind an elderly couple, her big suitcase banging against the metal rails awkwardly.
“Where to?” A man dressed identically to the man with the whistle looks at Holly with disinterest when she reaches the front of the line.
“Portobello Road, Notting Hill,” Holly says, consulting an address that she’s saved on her phone.
A taxi wheels into place at the curb next to her. “Put this in the boot for you, love?” the driver asks, coming around to help Holly. He’s got large, stained front teeth and the friendliest smile Holly’s seen since she got off the plane.
“Please,” she says, stepping into the back of the black, domed-roof cab as the taxi stand attendant opens the door grandly.
“Oooh, it opens backwards,” Holly says, nodding at the way the car opens up like it’s got French doors.
“Suicide doors,” the attendant says with a smirk. He slams the door and moves on to the next person in line.
“So we’re off to Portobello Road, are we?” The driver slides into the front seat and punches a few buttons on his dash. A thick piece of clear plexiglass divides the front and back of the cab.
“Yes, please.”
Holly sinks back against the seat and exhales deeply. She’s made it. London. Three weeks of vacation. No village council meetings, no ringing office phones, no island drama. She spends the fifteen minute ride through the busy city taking in buildings and people, and watching all of the other black taxis speed down the wrong side of the road. A new city, a big adventure, and—best of all—in a few hours, she’ll be with River again.