Dee: Vanya, do you know how illegal that is?! Fact: the place you are statistically least likely to meet your life partner—prison.
* * *
* * *
Gran: Please call me when you can, Laura. Not urgent, but there are a few things I’d like to discuss. Also, could you bring me back some black butter if it’s easy? Annie used to eat it on crackers—the taste makes me think of her.
Gran rarely volunteers memories of Mum like that, and I savor this tiny nugget of new information.
“You know you’re missing the view,” says Ted, distracting me from replying.
“I’m sure you think I’m glued to my phone, but I am here to work.”
“And find your soulmate,” he says, flashing me that teasing look again.
I tilt my head sideways at him.
“That will be a bonus. If I don’t do the work, I won’t have a job to go home to.”
As though reading my mind, another text from Suki pings through.
I trust you will come up with something marvelous for the mini-break piece—I have every faith in you. #LoveLife4Ever
I am used to Suki’s oscillations. One minute she is cold and critical, the next she is praising you, claiming you as family. It’s effective, because just as you give up hope of ever pleasing her, she drops a breadcrumb, and you would do anything to keep the warmth of her approval shining in your direction. No one is immune, not even Vanya.
I thank Suki for her confidence in me, quickly respond to some work emails, and then call the airport, asking to be put through to the lost luggage desk.
“Hi, yes, my name is Laura, last name spelled L-E-Q-U-E-S-N-E. I picked up the wrong bag after a flight yesterday. I wanted to know if mine had been returned, or if the man who has it called?”
“Ah, Ms. Le Cane,” comes the nasal reply, “my colleague tells me you left with another passenger’s suitcase last night.”
Damn it, Zany Specs dobbed me in.
“Er, yes, that’s not exactly what happened. And it’s Ques-ne, rhymes with Chesney.” Ted clears his throat beside me. “I just thought it would be easier if I deliver the bag directly. If you could give me the man’s details, we could work it out ourselves. The airline doesn’t appear to be doing a great job of retrieving my luggage for me.”
Maybe I can scare this woman into giving me his number if I get all “customer complaintsy” on her.
“Miss Le Ques-ne,” she imitates the way I said my name. She doesn’t sound at all scared of me. “It isn’t airline policy to release customers’ private details. Be assured we are trying our best to get in touch with the passenger whose bag you have. Please could you give me the code on the baggage receipt for your missing luggage?”
With a sigh, I read out the number on the receipt stuck to the back of my wallet.
Then she says, “We will do our best to locate your missing item. Now, if you let us know where you are staying, we’ll send someone to pick up the bag you have taken”—she pauses—“in error.”
“Hang on . . . my reception is going,” I lie. “Just, er, call me if he calls! Bye!”
I hang up and then look in trepidation at the screen, as though the woman I was talking to might leap out of my phone. How crazy am I acting, on a scale of one to Amy Dunne in Gone Girl? Probably still only a three or a four, right? People do crazy things for love all the time.
“What’s your plan then,” asks Ted, “with this case?”
“I’m not sure. He’s bound to call, though, right? How can this guy not have realized he has the wrong bag by now? It has my mobile number written on the tag.”
“Remind me why you are so intent on meeting this man?” Ted says, drumming the steering wheel with his fingers. “What was the book that makes him so irresistible?”
“I don’t need your mockery, thank you very much.”
“I’m not mocking you. Maybe I could help search the bag for clues.”
“I don’t know. I should probably just wait for him to call.” I turn to see if Ted looks serious. “What qualifies you to help anyway?”
He pauses for a moment, stroking his beard with one hand, as though genuinely contemplating his skill set.
“Hmm, I have a Boy Scout badge for signs, signals, and codes?”
“Well, in that case . . .”
The car turns out of a lane boxed in by low granite walls, and we emerge again on the coast. The island is small, so nowhere is much farther than a fifteen-minute drive, but the place is a maze of lanes I am glad that I don’t need to navigate myself. Ted pulls into a gravel car park overlooking the sea and drives right to the edge of the cliff. It is a very different scene to the bay where we have just been: Instead of low by the shore, we are now high above the sea, gray-blue water stretching to the horizon in every direction. On either side of the car park, narrow footpaths follow the undulating shape of the land’s edge, the slope covered by a blanket of green and brown. Down below, waves turn white where the rock meets the sea—a wild swell pulsing against the dark granite edge of the island. I think of pirates trying to land here centuries before, how impossible it would have been to get ashore.
Ted and I both get out of the car. I stretch my arms above my head, exhilarated by the blustery cliff-top breeze.
“This place isn’t in my album.”
“No, but you wanted me to look in the bag, and it’s a good place to stop.”
“I didn’t know Jersey had all these cliffs,” I say, snapping a photo of the scene.
“The island slopes down like a block of cheese. The north is like this, the south is flat, beaches.”
“So, I’m on top of the cheese right now?”
He smiles. “You are.”
“I’M ON TOP OF THE CHEEEEESE!” I shout at the sea.
He laughs and then screws up his face as though he thinks I am silly. I can’t help smiling at his reaction, and then I keep smiling from gratitude that he’s shown me this beautiful view. The air here feels so unlike London, like breathing new air that no one has ever breathed before. Ted’s gaze meets mine, and I notice his eyes are calm, like a boat with a deep, even keel.
“Are you always like this?” he asks.
“What am I like?” I ask, curious as to what he might say.
“Joyful,” he says, and it is the last word I expected.
“Not always,” I say, trying to cover the surprise in my reaction. “All right then, Boy Scout, let’s see if you deserved that badge of yours.”