AllFreeNovel
Share Us
There are prints of some of his portraits, but none are my mystery woman.
I grumble in frustration, because now I’m back to the Tulleys being my only clue to her name and origin. Last night, I snapped a photo of the painting and attempted a long-shot reverse image search. No dice. (Pardon the pun.) Googling Tulleys alive during the 1920s to 1950s turned up several names but no pictures matching my woman. Some too old. A few too young. But that sweet spot of late teens to late twenties, which I estimate to be her age range, is a big blank spot for this anonymous figure.
At any rate, I snap a few photos of the relevant pages from the book before putting it back on its shelf. I wave to Mr. Baxley on my way out, though he pretends to ignore me.
Back at the computer, I find a few books related to the Tulleys and pull those from the general collection shelves to check out. One, however, requires another venture into the restricted archives.
“Hi,” I say when I approach the warden’s fortress. “It’s me again.”
Grumpily, he pushes his round-rimmed glasses up his nose, then slides the clipboard across the desk without making eye contact.
“I think we might be onto something with our digitizing idea,” I continue, filling out another form. “Like a card scanner for students’ IDs. Or a thumbprint reader.”
I hand him back the clipboard with a smile. Stone-faced, he jerks his head to the corridor.
Yeah, he’s softening to me.
I’m surprised it’s taken this long, but when hopping on the Tube into the city a few days later, I finally encounter a busker on the way to the platform.
Strumming an acoustic guitar, he sings a rendition of the “heart is a windmill” song—as Jack calls it. He’s got a nice voice and plays it well. Not an imitation of my dad but his own interpretation. I know Dad would appreciate it, so I pull out my phone, as several others have, to record a few seconds of his performance and then text it to my father. I drop a few quid in the bucket at the man’s feet on my way to catch my train.
Celeste invited me to lunch today, and this is my first nervous foray into London proper to meet her at a Korean food place near her job. I thought the subway tunnels were crowded, but the short trip didn’t prepare me for the frenetic crush that greets me as I ascend to street level. I’m practically trampled when I make the mistake of freezing at the top of the stairs. I don’t decide to move in any direction so much as get dragged along in the wake of everyone else going about the afternoon rush.
It’s loud. Louder than anything I’m used to back home. I’ve got my head bowed, trying to pull up walking directions on my phone. Celeste said to exit the Tube and head west, but I always forget my awful sense of direction until I end up miles from civilization staring at a vulture on a tree branch.
After circling the same block twice to figure out which way my dot is pointed on the map, I cross the street—narrowly missing being clipped by a cyclist—and get on the right route. It takes only a few minutes until the noise—cars, conversation, and music pouring out of restaurants and storefronts—starts to become almost comforting.It has a strange insulating quality as my ears adjust and filter the sound to a dull hum.
The initial shock wears off. I start to notice the city through the bustle, its vibrancy. When I smell kimchi, I follow the scent to a neon sign of a green dragon and a cartoon cat figure in the window. Inside, Celeste sits at the counter in front of a woman at a smoking flattop grill.
“You found it,” Celeste says by way of a greeting, standing at my arrival.
She’s a lot taller in daylight. A slender, lithe figure in leggings and an oversize shirt of gauzy material over a tank top. Her curly black hair is thick and pouring over her shoulders.
“I ordered for us if that’s all right,” she adds.
“Yeah, I’ll eat whatever. Thanks again for inviting me.”
With a tentative smile, I sit down beside her and tuck my canvas bag at my feet.
“I reckon we were quite hard on you the other night.” She sips a glass of sparkling water and watches me, and I realize she’s waiting for me to participate in this conversation.
“I mean, yeah,” I laugh. “A little.”
She nods briskly. Celeste strikes me as the type who appreciates honesty. “Don’t take it personally. We grill every newcomer just as hard. We’re a tough lot, but we mean well.”
“So you said you work around here?” I ask, changing the subject. “What do you do?”
“I teach ballet. Six- to ten-year-olds, mostly.”
“I feel like I should have guessed that.” It was either dancer or runway model. If she’d have said, like, administrative assistant, I would’ve been sorely disappointed. We all want incredible, unordinary people to fulfill our fantasies so we can live vicariously through them. “Do you still dance too?”
She responds with a noncommittal head tilt. “I always thought I’d dance professionally. It was my dream. The only thing I enjoyed. Our parents scrounged to send me to lessons, then ballet school.”
“What happened?”
“I developed a chronic condition in my hip. I ignored the signs for about three years, until Mum finally forced me to see someone. The doctor said I could have surgery to correct the problem or keep dancing through the pain in the short term and risk permanent damage later. End up in a wheelchair by the time I’m thirty.” She shrugs. “Wasn’t much of a choice at that point.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, clucking with sympathy. “That must’ve been devastating.”
