“No wonder the English like tea so much.” Christy said, holding a white china cup with both hands. She sipped her tea as if it were warming her to her toes. “If I lived here, I’d be looking for something to warm me up several times a day too.”
Katie took her last bite of fish. “The vinegar was okay on this fish, but I still like good old American tartar sauce. You want the rest of my fries, Doug?”
“Sure, I’ll take your chips,” he said, using the British word for fries.
“I have a question,” Tracy said. “If they call French fries chips, then what do they call potato chips?”
“Crisps,” their waiter said, reaching to clear Katie’s empty plate.
They had stumbled into a quaint-looking restaurant and found a table with four chairs as if it were waiting for them. The waiter had turned out to be friendly. The four orders of fish and chips had come in huge portions with the mushiest green peas Christy had ever seen. She ate about half her fried fish, half her chips, and only a reluctant spoonful of the mushy peas. They tasted the same as they looked.
Doug managed to put away whatever food the girls left, including the peas. Christy decided he must have been born without taste buds. Either that or his bottomless stomach was so demanding that it left little room for a discerning palate.
Doug stuck the last few cold chips in his mouth and glanced at his watch. “It’s a little after four. What do you think? Should we try to make it to the Tower of London to see the jewels now, or wait until tomorrow?”
“We would have more time tomorrow,” Tracy suggested.
“Where did this day go?” Christy asked. “And what day is it, anyhow?”
“Wednesday,” Doug said. “It’s eight in the morning at home right now. Time to start today.”
“Isn’t that weird?” Katie said. “At home everyone is just starting this day, and we’re almost done with it.”
Once again Christy could see Tracy cringing at Katie’s loud voice and her declaration of something else that was weird, it bugged Christy too, but not as much as it seemed to irk Tracy.
“So what do you guys want to do? It’ll be dark soon,” Doug said.
“Let’s see as much as we can,” Tracy said. “Even if it’s dark. We only have today and tomorrow. We’ve come all this way and there’s so much to see. Would you guys be willing to go back o Westminster Abbey? I’d really like to see it.”
“Sure,” Doug answered for all of them. “Let’s figure out this bill and get out of here.”
Christy noticed as they walked briskly down the street toward the ancient Gothic church that Katie was unusually quiet. Tension between Katie and Tracy seemed to be growing, and Christy felt uneasy about it.
Over the years, Doug and Katie had experienced plenty of friendly conflicts, but through all their tumbles, their friendship always managed to land on its feet. Katie and Doug had a brother-sister kind of esteem for each other.
Tracy and Doug had been close friends even longer than Christy and Tracy. As a matter of fact, Doug and Tracy even dated for a while several years ago. The two of them had remained close friends, and Christy couldn’t remember ever hearing either of them saying anything unkind about the other. They seemed to get along in any kind of situation.
But Katie and Tracy had never spent an extended amount of time together. Their personalities were so different, yet so alike. They were both strong, determined women—Katie in an outward, aggressive manner, and Tracy in her gentle, firm, uncompromising way.
Then, as if Tracy sensed the same tension with Katie, she fell back a few steps next to Katie, and Christy heard her say. “I really appreciate you being flexible. I’m looking forward to going to the Tower of London tomorrow. We’ll have more time then. I’m sure it’ll work out and be much better than trying to go now.”
Katie didn’t respond at first. Then, as they crossed the street to Westminster Abbey, Christy heard Katie say, “Do you always get your way, Tracy?”
Christy wanted to turn around and scold Katie for saying such a thing, but Doug quickly looped his arm around Christy’s shoulders and spoke softly in her ear. “Let the two of them work it out, Chris. Trust me. It’s the best way for both of them.”
Christy had to trust Doug. There wasn’t much she could do. She strained to listen as Tracy, in her gentle yet firm way, told Katie that they needed to work together as a team and do what was best for the group.
“Right,” Katie responded. “It would help though, if the group were making more of the decisions and not just you.”
“You’re right. Katie. After this, we’ll all decide what to do next,” Tracy said.
They were at the door of the old stone building, and Christy realized she had hardly paid attention to what the church looked like. She entered solemnly. A sign by the door indicated an admission fee of three pounds.
“Three pounds!” Katie blurted out. “I’m not paying to go inside a church! I’m waiting right here. You guys can go in without me.”
“I think the charge is only for a tour, Katie,” Doug said quietly. ’I don’t think we have to pay anything to look around this part.”
The four entered the tourist-filled sanctuary with Katie lagging behind. They walked around, quietly observing the statues, memorials, and engravings on the stone floor that identified who was buried beneath their feet.
“Look,” Doug said to Christy, pointing to the large letters etched on the floor in front of him. “David Livingstone is buried here. He was that famous missionary to Africa. Did you know that they brought his body back here to England, but they took out his heart and buried it in Africa because that’s where his heart was—with the African people? Is that awesome or what?”
Christy wasn’t sure it was awesome. Bizarre might be a better adjective. It sounded like something Todd would do.
Todd. Where did that thought come from?
Christy impulsively reached over, took Doug’s hand, and squeezed it tight. “Doug, do you want to be a missionary to some far-off place?”
“You mean like Todd?”
Is he reading my thoughts? Or is he thinking the same things about Todd that I am?
“I don’t know,” Doug said thoughtfully, looking down at the floor once more. “That’s why I wanted to come on this outreach. To see if I have what it takes. I’m not like Todd.”
“I know,” Christy said quickly. “And I don’t want you to be. I want you to be Doug. And you are…” Now her thoughts seemed scrambled, and she felt angry that she hadn’t been able to leave thoughts of Todd back on the airplane. Back in California. Back in her collection of high school memories. Todd had followed both of them to England and once again stood between them. “I…I just wondered if you had thought much about being a missionary.” Christy held Doug’s hand tighter. She wanted to think of Doug and only Doug.
“Not really. With my business major I’ve pictured myself being in the American workforce at some big company and sort of being a missionary to all the lost business people. I don’t think I could live overseas.”
“Me either,” Tracy whispered. Christy hadn’t noticed her standing on the other side of Doug. “I mean, this is fun to visit, but I do better in familiar surroundings. What about you, Christy?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to come on this trip too. I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Or I guess I should say, I don’t know what God wants to do with my life.” Saying it aloud sounded even scarier than when she had thought it or written it in her diary. It was like admitting she was lost, aimlessly taking general ed courses at a junior college and trying to come up with answers for the career counselors who asked what she was interested in. She honestly didn’t know.
A uniformed gentleman politely asked if they would like to take a seat because it was time for evening vespers to begin. Katie was already sitting in one of the folding chairs set up in the section where they were standing. The three of them joined her, with Doug taking the initiative and sitting next to Katie.
Within a few minutes a line of choirboys wearing white and red robes with high white lace collars flowed down the center aisle, two by two. They stepped right over the David Livingstone engraved stone on their way to the altar at the front of the chapel.
Christy closed her eyes and breathed in the majesty of the moment as the clear, high voices of the choir danced off the rounded stone ceiling of this ancient place of worship. During the music and Bible reading that followed, Christy quietly bowed her head and worshiped the same awesome God people had sought to worship on this site for more than a thousand years. The thought sobered her and made her feel a reverence she had never felt in her church at home in California.
She tried to explain it to her friends the next morning as they ate breakfast together in the small dining room of their bed-and-breakfast. Christy sat with her back to a huge fireplace where a cheery fire crackled and warmed her. Doug seemed to know what she was saying, and Tracy agreed between bites of crisp toast. Katie ate silently, studying a tour book and not entering into the conversation.
Things had not been good between Katie and Tracy that morning. Katie had washed her hair and had asked to borrow Tracy’s hair dryer.
“Be sure to plug in the adapter first,” Tracy said.
Katie had plugged the adapter into one electric outlet and the hair dryer into another. When she turned on the hair dryer, it sounded like a lawn mower. In less than ten seconds the dryer started to spit sparks into their room. Then, with a loud pop, Tracy’s hair dryer burned out.
Tracy’s face had turned deep red as she followed the cord from her dead hair dryer to the outlet. “Katie, you’re supposed to plug the hair dryer info the adapter!”
“How was I supposed to know? All you said was to plug in the adapter first, and I did!”
Tracy grabbed her awful-smelling dryer from Katie’s hand, threw it in the trash can, and said in a controlled voice, “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
At the time Christy had thought it would have been better if Tracy had hauled off and slugged Katie. Katie could have taken that. Instead, the two of them hadn’t spoken one word to each other since.
“You want the rest of your eggs and sausages?” Doug asked Christy, eyeing her half-full breakfast plate.
“No. Go ahead, help yourself.” Reaching for the silver teapot in the center of their table, Christy poured herself another cup of hot tea, tempering it quickly with milk and sugar.
“Would anyone else like some tea?” Christy asked.
“No, thanks,” Katie said without looking up from the tour book.
“Which bus do we take to the Tower of London?” Doug asked.
“There’s a bunch that will take us there once we get on Oxford Street. Do you remember how to get back to Oxford Street?”
Doug thought he knew, and within a half hour they were bundled, umbrellaed, and armed with their cameras. Christy wore tights and leggings under her jeans today, and two pairs of socks. She could feel the difference when they hit the pavement and marched to Oxford Street in the foggy drizzle. Much warmer. Today, more than the day before, she felt like she was in England. And she liked it.
She enjoyed her top-deck perch again on the bus as they slowly edged their way down crowded Oxford Street. It seemed quite a while later when Doug asked Katie for the map. “Did that street say Bloomsbury? We’re going the wrong way.”
“No, we’re not,” Katie said. “This is bus 8. Bus 8 goes to here,” she said, leaning over and pointing to the map. “Then we switch to number 25. and it takes us right there.”
“Yeah, but look,” Doug said, pointing to the map. “This is the street we just passed. The Tower of London is way down here. We went the wrong way. This where we are now. Way up here.”
“I don’t believe this!” Katie said.
“Wait,” Doug said. “Look here. We’re not far from Charles Dickens’s house. You wanted to go there, didn’t you? We could take a quick tour and then catch bus 25.”
“That’s a great idea,” Tracy said. “I’d love to see Dickens’s home.”
It turned out to be a good idea, even though they got lost and walked block after block trying to find 48 Doughty Street, which wasn’t well marked. Katie complained when they discovered that the admission charge was two pounds. They took off in separate directions to explore the home of this author who had made old England come alive in his A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and dozens of other works.
Christy thought it was pretty interesting, especially the flimsy-looking quill pen displayed under glass that Dickens used to write his stories. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to write with a feather pen. Especially an entire book. Dozens of books. Writing back then must have been hard work.
Tracy and Doug seemed absorbed in all the displays, lingering to read the information cards much longer than Christy had the patience for. She left the two of them on the third floor, examining a huge painting of a lighthouse, and went down the narrow winding stairs in search of Katie. She found her sitting on a small wooden bench near the front door.
“Are you ready to go?” Christy asked.
Katie didn’t look up as Christy sat next to her but waited for a group of tourists to meander down to the basement before answering. “Why am I being such a brat?”
“We’re all kind of tired, Katie.”
“I know, but that shouldn’t be an excuse. I like Tracy. I really do. It’s just that she’s… I don’t know. She gets to me.”
“I think it’s because you two are so much alike.”
“No, we’re not!”
“You each show it differently, but you’re both strong and zealous. That’s not a bad thing. I think it’s a great quality.”
Katie seemed thoughtful. She let out a deep breath. “Things somehow aren’t the way I thought they would be.”
“How did you think it would be?”
“Exciting and interesting and, well…much more fun than this. This is a lot of walking, getting lost, being frustrated, and feeling weird. I feel out of place. I’m not into all this ancient museum stuff. And it makes me feel uncultured and ignorant. I’m on new-experience sensory overload. I’ve never heard of any of these people we’ve seen statues of. And when Doug was explaining that stuff about the battles and statues at Trafalgar or whatever that square was, he might as well have been talking about life on another planet. I hate being so clueless about everything!”
Christy had always appreciated Katie’s honesty and her ability to express her feelings accurately. “I know what you’re saying,” Christy said, trying to sound as comforting as possible.
“Then why doesn’t it bother you? When I saw you holding your little cup of tea at breakfast, you looked like you belonged here. Like it all came naturally to you. How do you do that?”
“I don’t know. I guess it hasn’t hit me yet. I like experiencing all these new things.”
Just then Doug and Tracy came thumping down the stairs, talking intensely about a photograph they had seen of Hans Christian Andersen when he had come from Denmark to visit Dickens, whose work he admired. They kept their discussion going even after the four of them left and headed back to catch the bus. At least they were getting along well.
Katie seemed a little less tense as they boarded the bus and headed for the Tower of London. Christy should have known that Katie would be more relaxed once she had blown offa little steam.
As the bus lurched to a stop at an intersection. Christy caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window. She looked different. Scholarly maybe, with her hair back in a braid, almost no makeup on, and wearing a turtleneck. All she needed was a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. It occurred to her that she looked like a person who knew where she was going in life. The thought made her smile. At least she could look the part. And before this trip was over, maybe she would feel the part too.
As she stomped her feet to warm them up, Christy thought how nice a hot cup of tea would taste right now.