As Far as the Stars

‘Are you okay?’ asks Christopher.

And then it all comes out.

‘My sister’s getting married on Monday, during the eclipse, on this amazing rooftop terrace in a hotel in Nashville. And I should be there already but I thought Blake got on the wrong plane so I came back to collect him and now he’s not here and he’s not answering my texts and I don’t know how to tell my family – and now I don’t have a car anymore.’ I gulp. ‘I don’t know what to do.’ My words tumble over each other so quick I’m pretty sure I don’t make any sense. ‘So no, nothing’s even close to okay.’

I shut my eyes to push the tears back in.

‘Can I help?’ Two perfect pink circles form at the top of his cheeks.

It’s a weird thing to ask. But it’s kind of nice too – to have someone helping me out for a change.

‘Help?’ I ask.

‘To get your car back,’ he says.

He makes it sound so simple. And it makes me feel better – that there’s one thing I might be able to sort out in this whole tangled mess I’m in.

‘I’m fine,’ I say.

‘I’d like to help.’

‘You would?’

He gives a quick nod. ‘Take my mind off things for a bit – you know?’

It hits me again. That someone he knows – someone he cares about – is on the plane that’s gone missing.

His brow is scrunched up and he’s squinting into the sun and I get it, that he needs this.

‘Yeah, I know,’ I say.

He studies the parking notice and then says, ‘Have you called the number yet?’

I shake my head.

‘The tow truck might not have got very far. We could explain.’

‘Explain?’

‘What’s going on,’ he says. ‘That these are special circumstances.’

Our eyes catch his and, for a beat, we don’t say anything.

‘You think that would work?’

In my experience, traffic enforcement doesn’t do special circumstances, especially for people our age.

‘We could try,’ he says.

Leda gives out a small bark and thumps her tail against the sidewalk, like she’s agreeing with him.

I bite the side of my thumbnail and notice that my sky-blue nail varnish is chipped. I went to have a manicure before I left DC – on instruction from Mom. To match the bridesmaid’s dress I’m meant to wear tomorrow.

Then I get out my phone and dial the number.

Chapter Eight

16.45 EST

I watch Christopher grab a sheet from an old in-flight magazine from his backpack and start folding. I don’t even know what he’s making but I can tell that he’s enjoying it, the feel of the skin of the paper as he rubs it between his fingers. He looks relaxed like he did when he was stroking Leda.

I snatch glances at him through the corner of my eye, hoping that he doesn’t realise that I’m staring. It takes my mind off things, looking at this weird English guy who’s got nothing to do with my life or what’s going on in Nashville or with Blake. How he’s sitting here, folding that bit of paper, as though it’s another ordinary day.

It’s weird that he’s this calm, because as bad as I’ve got it with Blake and the wedding and everything, Christopher has it way worse. Someone he knows was on the plane that’s crashed. God, I haven’t even asked him who he came to meet or why he was here. I’ve been so busy thinking about myself. And he’s the one who must be going through hell. And yet he’s sitting here, like he’s got some special information that no one else does. As if that floating piece of metal doesn’t mean the same to him as it does to the rest of us: that the crash was bad. Really bad. As in, it’s unlikely anyone survived.

Leda puts her muzzle on Christopher’s lap and keeps slobbering on him, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

‘I didn’t ask you…’ I stutter.

‘Sorry?’

‘I never asked you, who you came to meet.’ My voice breaks a bit. ‘I mean, who you were collecting at the airport.’

‘Oh.’ He goes quiet for a bit. ‘Dad. I came to collect my dad.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He doesn’t answer. I guess it’s all too much to take in right now. That’s probably why he came out here, so he could get away from thinking about his dad being on that plane.

‘So, what brought you to DC?’ I ask.

‘I came to do research for a school project. The future of American politics.’ He puts quote marks round his words with his fingers. ‘Dad’s been working for the last week and he knew he was flying into DC so he thought it would make sense for me to come earlier – to do some work – and for him to join me afterwards.’

‘You came all the way to DC for a school project?’

‘Dad gets cheap flights. And he said it would make my project stand out – to do on-the-ground research.’

‘Wow, that’s commitment.’

‘Dad believes in doing things properly.’

‘Sounds like my mom.’

He makes another fold in his paper.

‘You really study American politics in the UK?’

He nods. ‘Dad made me take politics as an A-level. He wants me to understand.’

‘Understand what?’

He looks up at me and smiles. ‘Everything, basically. But the state of the world as it is now, I guess. And America’s kind of central to understanding that.’

‘Central to understanding how we’re fucking up the world, you mean?’

He laughs and his face relaxes for the first time.

‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘I guess we’re all a bit responsible for that.’

I think about the blazing rows Mom and Dad have about politics over dinner and how the one thing they agree on is that our current president is singlehandedly tearing down every good thing about our country. As far as I’m concerned, the mess the world’s in is another reason for going into space.

‘You enjoy that? Studying American politics?’ I ask.

He looks back into his hands. ‘Not really.’ Then he looks up again quickly. ‘I mean, no offence—’

I smile. ‘None taken.’

‘It’s not really my thing.’

‘But you’re doing it anyway?’

He looks back down. ‘Dad’s made a load of sacrifices – for my education. It’s the least I can do.’

‘Studying something you don’t enjoy seems like quite a big price to pay if you ask me.’

He stops folding and stares into his hands.

‘I mean, you should still get to study what you want to study,’ I add. ‘You only live once and all that.’

I think about how supportive Mom and Dad have been about my whole wanting to be an astronaut thing and how, even though they’re worried, they’re kind of supportive of Blake and his music, and how they’re letting Jude do her own thing too, even though they’re sad that she gave up her piano. I guess we’re lucky. Not all kids get parents like that.

‘It’s not so bad,’ Christopher says. ‘Dad gets me to see cool places. And once I’d done all the school stuff – tours of the White House, the museums – I got to go to the National Gallery of Art. I loved walking around the Sculpture Garden. Some of those artists are amazing.’

‘I go there too – all the time! To the gallery – and the Sculpture Garden. It’s one of my favourite places in DC.’

‘Really?’

I nod. ‘Who knows, we might have crossed paths.’

The corners of his mouth turn up.

I wonder whether I’d have noticed Christopher walking past me or sitting on the edge of the fountain in the Sculpture Garden. I mean, if we hadn’t been thrown together like this at the airport.

‘So, you’ve been walking around DC on your own for a whole week? Isn’t that kind of lonely?’

He starts folding again, making sharp, tight corners, pressing down with the side of the thumbnail to make the edges smooth.

‘I don’t mind,’ he says after a while. ‘I’ve got used to it. Dad works a lot and it’s kind of fun, getting to know a new city on your own.’

I like to be on my own too, when I’m discovering something for the first time: like identifying a star through my telescope, or researching a planet.

‘I suppose I get that,’ I say. ‘It makes you focus more – when you’re on your own, I mean.’

He nods.

‘What’s the boarding school like?’ I ask. ‘It must have been a bit of a shock, after home-schooling or away-schooling or whatever it is you did.’

‘It’s okay. Mostly. A bit male.’

‘A bit male?’

‘All boys.’

‘Wow.’

‘Which is why I’m nervous.’

‘About what?’

He gulps. I watch his Adam’s apple slide up and down his throat.

‘Talking to you,’ he says.

‘Well, you’re doing a better job than most of the guys at my high school.’

The tops of his cheeks go an even deeper red.

‘There’s a lot of rugby too. I’m not so good at that.’

I look at his long, white fingers folding those bits of paper. No, I can’t imagine he’d like to be in the middle of a rugby scrum.

He goes back to folding the paper over and over into all these tiny, intricate folds. Then he puts it down beside him on the pavement, half-made so I can’t quite work out what it is – whether it’s another bird, because there’s a kind of wing, or whether it’s the sail of a ship.

He looks over at the doors to the airport terminal and then glances at his watch.

‘You worried about the plane?’ I say and then I regret it. Of course he’s worried about the plane. The reason he’s out here, sitting with a random girl with a dog on a sidewalk, is because he’s trying not to think about it.

He shrugs.

‘Dad’s planes aren’t usually late.’

It’s a weird thing to say; as if anyone had the power to decide if their plane is going to be late.

‘There’s probably been a mix up,’ he adds.

I think of that floating bit of metal again and how it didn’t look like a mix up to me.

I swallow to ease the dryness in my throat and then get up and start pacing again, craning my neck in the hope that I’ll see Blake’s yellow Buick rounding the corner.

Christopher goes back to folding his piece of paper.

Then I sit down again – a bit closer to him than I intended. Our legs touch. I don’t know whether I should move to give him more space or whether moving will seem rude like I don’t want to sit close to him.

I check my phone. Just more Where are you? And Call me? messages from Mom. Nothing from Blake. I sigh and start biting the side of my nail. I’m jittery but at the same time my body and my brain feel frozen, like I couldn’t get up off this pavement, not in a million years.

I look back down the road. At least when the Buick shows up I can do something. Get behind the steering wheel, start driving, clock up the miles to Nashville so that I have a chance of getting to the wedding on time.

I look back over at Christopher.

‘Thanks,’ I say.

‘For what?’

‘For hanging out with me.’

‘It’s better than being in there,’ he says, looking back at the airport terminal. ‘Much better.’

A taxi pulls up a few yards away from us.

Leda barks.

Three people step out.

A woman in a trouser suit, red hair tumbling down her shoulders; as she stumbles out onto the pavement, she gets out a compact mirror and starts applying lipstick.

Behind her, a guy with one of those fuzzy microphones on the end of a stick.

Behind him, a guy with a camera balancing on his shoulder.

I get up and put my hands on my hips. ‘What the hell?’

Leda barks louder.

The woman spots us, puts away her lipstick and her mirror and walks up to us, her heels clacking on the sidewalk.

She stops in front of us, pauses, like she’s settling into a role, brushes a strand of hair over her shoulder and then says:

‘Did you two come to meet the plane?’

‘No,’ I say, quickly, before Christopher has the time to say anything.

If having a mom for a lawyer has taught me anything, it’s that you don’t talk to journalists. Especially to journalists who look like her.

The microphone guy and the camera guy come and stand beside her. They’re pointing their respective pieces of equipment at us.

The woman – the reporter – turns to Christopher.

‘You?’

Christopher looks at me. I shake my head.

The woman’s waiting for him answer.

‘No,’ Christopher says.

She looks at us suspiciously. ‘You two kids don’t want to be on TV?’

Leda’s barking is really loud now, so loud that the woman takes a step back.

‘No, we don’t want to be on TV.’ I yank Christopher away from the reporter.

The woman steps closer. ‘What’s that?’ She looks down at Christopher’s hands – at the paper model he’s holding.

I look down too.

My insides flip.

He made a plane. A paper plane.

Slowly, he scrunches it up into a ball.

‘It’s nothing,’ he says.

The woman shrugs. ‘Come on,’ she tells her guys with the microphone and the camera and then walks off.

I watch her stride through the sliding doors into the terminal building and get a sick feeling at the back of my throat. She’s going to interrogate all those poor people inside. She’s going to make them feel even worse about what’s happening. At least she’s left Christopher alone.

When she’s gone, I sit back down.

Christopher sits down too. He lets out a long sigh like he’s letting out a whole lot of air that’s been building up inside him.

‘Dad would hate that,’ he says.

‘Hate what?’

‘All the fuss. The reporters. They say they want to help but they don’t. They make everything worse.’

‘They don’t help?’ I ask.

He shakes his head. ‘When he’s not doing his regular job, Dad does charity work: he goes to disaster relief zones, after earthquakes and fires and stuff. He can get there quicker than most people. He goes to deliver supplies. And he says that the reporters focus on the wrong stuff and make people more scared. And when people are scared, bad things happen. Keeping people calm, making people feel safe – that’s what matters.’

It’s weird. Sometimes, when Christopher talks about his dad, I get the feeling that he doesn’t really like him, that they’re not close, but then he says something like that and it’s like his dad’s his hero.

‘I’m sorry—’ he stutters. ‘They get to me, that’s all.’

‘It’s okay, I understand,’ I say. ‘That’s why I told her to get lost.’

He nods. ‘Thanks.’

Leda flops between us.

We sit there, listening to the planes taking off and landing. So many planes. So many people.

Then, all of a sudden, Christopher looks up at me.

‘About your brother – I think it’s going to be okay. UK Flyer has one of the best safety records.’

‘Blake’s not on the plane.’

Because he’s not. He’s not where he’s meant to be. He’s probably miles from the wedding. But there’s no reason he’d be on the plane that’s crashed. That’s not an option.

Christopher doesn’t answer.

Leda shuffles in closer between us.

And for a long while, neither of us say anything.

We just keep waiting.

Chapter Nine

17.32 EST

It takes us over an hour to get the car back. Christopher was right, it hadn’t reached the impound lot yet. When I got through to the state police, I told them that my brother was on the plane that’s gone missing, the one that’s on the news. I felt bad for lying but telling them the truth – that I don’t know where Blake is and that I’d just parked illegally because I was in a rush – wouldn’t have got my Buick back. Anyway, it worked.

I hope the reporter didn’t get any of me on film. Mom always has the news on, especially news from DC, in case she needs to rush back to the White House to give some kind of legal advice. She’ll get so mad if sees me standing at Dulles right now. And if she catches wind of the fact that I’ve been caught up in this whole plane crash thing, she’ll totally flip.

After that reporter left, I went back into the airport terminal to get some food and water for Leda. The TV screen was still showing the same picture of that bit of metal floating on the sea. It turns out that the stretch of ocean is off the coast of Ireland, which they’re saying was at the beginning of the plane’s route. But all kinds of crap gets washed up into the ocean, right? That’s what I want to tell Christopher, who’s been really quiet since the reporter left us.

When the tow-truck guy finishes giving us a lecture on not parking illegally, he gets out one of those wireless credit card terminals and holds it out to me.

And I freeze.

I’ve spent all my cash on gas, having my nails done, and getting the sun filter for my telescope. And using the emergency credit card is out: first, because I already pulled out a large sum paying for Blake’s flight and second, because Mom will get an email alert. And she’s smart: she’ll notice that the transaction was made to some parking fine business in DC.

‘We take credit or debit,’ the guy says.

‘You’re kidding, right?’

I’m hoping that if I act surprised enough, he might change his mind. It’s a trick Blake taught me.

Except the guy looks at me like I’m an idiot. I should have learnt this lesson already: Blake’s tricks minus his charm don’t work.

‘No, I’m not kidding,’ he says, his voice deadpan.

‘You’re seriously making me pay a fine?’

‘Yeah. It’s policy,’ the guy says.

I consider pointing out that it’s not policy to drive a car back to its owner once it’s been towed. And that policies don’t really count when it comes to our particular situation. But he’s been pretty accommodating up to now and I don’t want him to take the car away again.

‘I can’t afford that,’ I say, staring at the $200 displayed on his terminal.

The parking control officer rolls his eyes.

‘I could lend you some money,’ Christopher says.

My first instinct is to say no.

Mom and Dad have raised us never to borrow money from anyone. Well, they’ve raised me and Jude not to borrow money from anyone. Blake does his own thing. Plus, I feel bad – I don’t even know Christopher. And I don’t know when I’ll be able to pay him back or how.

But I can’t stop thinking about how, if I leave now, I can still make it to the rehearsal dinner.

‘Thanks,’ I say.

When the guy drives back off, I put Leda in the back and get into the driver’s seat.

Then I sit there, the door open, staring at the silver guitar pendant hanging from the rear-view mirror; I gave it to Blake for his eighteenth birthday, three years ago. I can’t believe he’s actually twenty-one. You’re meant to be a proper grown-up by then, aren’t you? But Blake has this Peter Pan thing going on. He’ll never really be old.

In the rear-view mirror, I see my two dresses and Blake’s suit and hat box, laid out on the back.

And then I look at the rest of the car, like it’s the first time I see it. The scuffed leather bench seats in the front and back. The beige top, folded down. It’s awesome. Old and kind of rusty and it rattles whenever you go over sixty mph. But it’s totally awesome. Like Blake.

A hard lump forms at the back of my throat.

I close the car door, put my left hand on the steering wheel and I’m about to switch on the ignition when I notice something else: the photograph taped to the dashboard. I’m ten years old, standing on this tall rock above a swimming hole. Blake’s holding my hand. We’re about to jump.

Jude must have taken the picture. It was the first time Blake took us there – Blue Springs in the Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee.

I switch on the ignition.

And then I realise that he’s still standing there.

‘Do you have someone?’ I ask.

He looks at me, his grey eyes wide. ‘Someone?’

‘Someone you can call – or go to?’

He looks back at the arrivals lounge and then back at me like he’s struggling to make up his mind about something.

‘Where were you meant to go?’ I prompt. ‘After you picked up your dad—’ Then I stall.

I grip the steering wheel harder. ‘Well, where were you and your dad meant to stay? When he got here, I mean?’

Please may he have someone. A friend. A relative. A contact from his dad. He can’t stay here alone.

‘Oregon,’ he says. ‘A connecting flight. To see the eclipse.’

‘Wow, Oregon,’ I say. ‘That’s cool.’ Because Oregon’s where I would have chosen to be – if it weren’t for the wedding. I mean, Nashville’s a cool place to see the totality, but Oregon is where it all starts.

I wonder whether, in a different lifetime, without the wedding and without the plane going missing, Christopher and I might have met out there, at the beginning of the eclipse. And then I think about how we might have crossed walking around the Sculpture Garden in DC. Blake wrote this song, ages ago, about how when you’re meant to be meet someone, you get loads of chances – you brush past them over and over until BAM! you finally notice each other. I’d always thought that was a bit slushy and romantic – and too superstitious for my scientific world view. But maybe there’s something in it.

‘So, you have someone you know in Oregon?’ I ask. And then I feel stupid. They’re going on a holiday, why would they know anyone there? And even if they did know someone there, it’s miles away – it’s not like a friend in Oregon is going to help Christopher with what he’s going through here in DC.

‘No, we were going to stay in a hotel.’ His eyes go far away, like he’s trying to picture being there. ‘And Dad booked us a place on a sailing boat,’ Christopher says. ‘He wanted to see the eclipse from the water.’

A silence hangs between us: the silence of what was meant to happen if his life hadn’t just been turned upside down.

‘What about your mom?’ I ask.

He stares at me and blinks.

‘Was she meant to come with you – to see the eclipse?’ I ask.

And I know it’s overstepping. And that he would have mentioned his mom already if she were in his life. But I can’t drive away thinking that he’s going to be here on his own. There has to be someone he can call.

He shakes his head.

‘Is she back in England?’

He shakes his head again. ‘Atlanta.’

‘Your mom lives in Atlanta?’

He nods.

‘I’ve got a parent from each side of the pond – like you. Only the other way around. Mum’s American, Dad’s English.’

That was in Blake’s song too: how when you meet someone you were meant to meet you find out all this crazy stuff you have in common that can’t be explained away.

‘They’re not together,’ he says.

‘They’re divorced?’

‘They never got married.’

‘Oh.’

‘They separated shortly after Mum had me.’

‘Do you go to Atlanta to visit her?’ I ask.

He shakes his head.

I know I’m in a minority: the kid of parents who are still together – more than that, who love each other. And that even though Mom’s totally crazy in the way she organises every second of our lives; and even though Dad’s too much of a wuss to ever stand up to her and say No, life’s already hard enough without another one of your mad projects; and even though Jude annoys the hell out of me with her throwing away her life to be a 1950s housewife, and Blake drives me crazy in the way he thinks the whole world revolves around him – I love them more than anything. All four of them. And I know that that makes me one of the lucky ones. I’ve got a family. A proper family. The most incredible family in the world.

‘Have you called her?’ I ask. ‘Your mom? To tell her what’s going on.’ My breath is tight in my throat. ‘With the plane.’

He shakes his head. ‘I didn’t know what to say.’ He pauses. ‘It’s like too much time has passed – too much has happened. We can’t just pick up where we left off.’

I look at him and think about how he helped me get the car back, and the thought of him going back into that airport terminal on his own makes my heart sink.

‘Perhaps it would help if you saw her face to face.’

His head snaps up.

‘I could take you part of the way to Atlanta,’ I suggest. ‘I’m heading in that direction. Sort of.’