Page 79 of An American in London

I’ve been glancing back at the door while I wait in line, but of course he’s not here. Why would he be? But he’s all I want right now.

I open my phone and check my list of Daniel De Luca sightseeing spots. I’ve done most of them, but there’s one where he proposes to Poppy Kent I haven’t gotten to yet. The scene was filmed on location at the Beale Theatre. It’s kind of difficult to visit a theater without seeing a show, but that scene? It’s a moment in cinema that turns the hardest heart to mush. Childhood sweethearts getting a second chance at love after a tumultuous ten years that saw Daniel’s character move to Hollywood and become a famous actor. He runs into Poppy Kent’s character when he’s back in London taking the West End by storm. She’s hauling her cello onto a bus in the rain. He stops to help and they meet again. Just thinking about that scene can bring me to tears sometimes. What would have happened to Simon and Rose if they hadn’t met again by chance? If it hadn’t been raining or if the bus had left slightly earlier?

I bring up details of the theater and learn there’s a musical on at the moment: a remake ofSleeping Beauty. There are tickets available, but I can’t bring myself to go on my own. But there’s always something to see in London and so much I haven’t done yet. I’m going to take a walk and see what I run into.

I turn left onto the street and dodge a delivery van unloading a brown paper package the size and shape of a cow into an art gallery. I’m the only one who notices. Everyone else going this way and that is focused on their day. I’m the only one floating about with no direction. No place to go.

I pass by a stationery shop, then stop and turn back. The window is crammed with every office accoutrement you could think of.Highlighters, pens, pencils, Sharpies in every color of the rainbow, and a thousand other colors too. Swatches of paper and cards are arranged at the back like multicolored flowers, and on the right there’s a tower of staplers. Hanging from the ceiling like ornaments in a Christmas scene are pads of sticky notes in every size. In between are lines of paperclips, linked together like daisy chains, spinning a little in the draft so they look like rain.

A window like this deserves attention; the shop behind a window like this deserves a browse. It’s the kind of shop my mother would have lost an afternoon in.

An old-fashioned brass bell attached to the door rings as I enter. A pretty blond woman with a pixie haircut looks up from behind the counter and smiles. There’s no offer of help—this is London, after all. But I don’t want help. I just want to look.

There’s an entire wall dedicated to pens of every type and color. I can’t help but wonder if there’re enough people buying pens to keep the place going. I pick out a couple and keep going to the eraser section. This place would have been heaven to teenage me, and it’s still pretty exciting now, as I round the corner on thirty. Who knew I needed an iguana-shaped eraser? But I do. I pick it up and feel bad I’m leaving such true artistry behind. Along with the beautiful but expected rainbows, hearts, and butterflies, there are llamas, avocados, and even cartons of milk jostling for real estate in Eraser World.

Toward the back of the shop, things start getting serious. I feel like I’m standing in a rainbow of paper and cardstock stacked in neat, sectioned trays that look like they’ve been specially made for the purpose. I consider asking the woman behind the cash register whether I can bring my things from the hotel and spend the rest of my stay in London here. There’s something so calming about it. My gaze hits on the stack of mount boards, which remind me of the vision boards my mom and I used to create before she died. They had all our hopes and dreams of the future on them. Usually, a future where I’d be Mrs. Daniel De Luca.

My love of vision boards died with my mom. So had my hopes and dreams about my future—marital and otherwise. Things started to rearrange themselves in my mind. I stopped hoping for things when my mom died. I just knew what I didn’t want—the sadness. The grief. The loneliness.

I’d had enough of people leaving me after my mom died. I clung to Melanie, forsaking new friendships in favor of hanging tight to the one I already had. I went to college because I wanted to make my dad happy so he wouldn’t have a reason to leave me. Then I hung on to Jed long past the point any love between us died. It was all in the name of the status quo—protecting myself from loss. Keeping grief at bay.

I’d been desperate not to be on my own. Desperate not to be sad.

Daniel De Luca was the last man I wanted. Until Ben.

What else have I been clinging to simply because holding on feels easier than letting go?

I pull out one of the gigantic mount boards. I know how I’m spending the rest of my day. I’m going to put together my first vision board in nearly fifteen years, full of things I choose for me. Full of my hopes and dreams for here and now, not way back when.

Before I tear the first image from a magazine, I know it won’t be Daniel De Luca I put up on that board. And it won’t be a job at the bank either.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

There are plenty of great hotels in New York, but the London Savoy might be the nicest place I’ve ever been. As I descend the wide steps toward the Thames Foyer, ready for my first ever afternoon tea, I can’t take my eyes from the glass-domed ceiling in the middle of the room.

“Good afternoon, miss.” The hostess smiles.

“I’m meeting the Duchess of Brandon.” I bet I’ll never tell a hostess I’m meeting a duchess again. I need to remember this moment. I just wish it was under better circumstances. I couldn’t say no to the duchess’s invitation to meet with her, however hard the conversation might be.

“Certainly. Let me show you to your table.” I’m glad I didn’t find out I could have afternoon tea during my lunch hour before now. I would have spent far too much money and eaten way too many cucumber sandwiches.

The duchess smiles like I’m a long-lost friend. After exchanging kisses on each other’s cheeks, she orders champagne and we sit. She’s on a chair and I’m next to her on a pretty blue sofa.

“This is so gorgeous,” I say, glancing around. “And a piano.” I didn’t notice the music before. “How lovely.”

“Don’t tell my husband, butthis, rather than any of his hotels, is my favorite place for afternoon tea in the whole of London.”

I laugh. “I promise your secret is safe with me.”

She smiles and then her face drops. “Tell me what’s going on. I was so devastated to hear about you and Ben.”

My thumb strokes my ring finger. I only wore it for a few days, but my finger still feels his ring’s absence. “He’s a great guy. There are no bad feelings. It’s just ... logistics,” I say honestly.

“It’s such a shame,” she says. “I’m a people person, Tuesday. And the chemistry between you ...” She looks at me like she’s waiting for me to fill in the silence, but what can I say? “It felt so solid. Cemented. The duke and I both said how you reminded us ofuswhen we were young,” she finally says. “I’m so sorry if anything I said or did put too much pressure on you both.”

I shake my head. I really don’t want to talk about this. If she’s not careful, I’m going to end up confessing everything. I really don’t want to do that.

“Do you remember me telling you about my girlfriends who were matched in marriages of convenience?” she asks. “Not all of them, but many of them fell in love with their husbands, just like Lucy Madison fell in love with Daniel De Luca in’Til Death Do We Part.”

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