Jasper starts pulling down cups and saucers from a shelf.
“I have Darjeeling, Assam, oolong?”
“Any of the above.” I shrug, I know nothing about tea except I like it with milk, no sugar.
“Let’s have oolong for a change then,” Jasper says, tapping a glass jar and taking it down from the shelf. “I have to say it feels fortuitous, us picking up each other’s cases,” he says, spooning loose leaf tea into a small gray earthenware teapot.
“It does?”
“This might be speaking out of turn, but when we ran into each other in the airport, I—” He turns back toward me, shaking his head in feigned embarrassment.
“What?” I say with a girlish giggle that doesn’t sound at all like me.
“Well.” He closes his eyes briefly. “I wanted to ask you out. I know we barely said a word to each other, but, well, I’ve never scrabbled around the floor to retrieve”—he pauses, his lips twitching briefly as he searches for the right word—“the toiletries of someone so beautiful before.”
I clench every muscle in my body. Did he just say I was beautiful?
“Hardly,” I say, feeling a playful scowl crease my forehead.
“You’re stunning, Laura, as I’m sure you know, but—I don’t think we British folk know how to ask someone out in the middle of an airport.” Jasper wrinkles his nose. I can’t stop watching the muscles in his face move. Is this really happening, or is this a fantasy? Maybe I passed out drunk in the sea and this is some kind of drowning hallucination.
“I would have felt sleazy asking if I could have your number in front of a concourse full of people. Plus, you probably have a boyfriend or a husband or a . . .” He lets the sentence hang, and I look up to meet his eye with a deliciously laden look.
“None of the above.”
“When I got the message about a woman having my case, I— It sounds ridiculous, but I hoped it might be you.”
This could literally not be going any better.
“Can I tell you something even stranger?” I say, leaning forward to take the cup of tea and saucer he hands me. “When I opened your bag—before I knew it wasn’t mine—some of the things inside, they made me feel that I was meant to find you.”
“Really, like what?”
He walks around to my side of the kitchen island, pulling out the bar stool next to me, and I feel flustered by his proximity. Don’t tell him everything, Laura, you’ll freak him out. Apple peel, apple peel.
“To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite book.”
“No,” he says, eyes wide with surprise, “I’ve only read it about fifteen times.”
“You haven’t!” I gasp.
“I even went to law school because I wanted to be Atticus Finch,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Though I soon realized being a lawyer wasn’t all about getting to be the good guy; often you’re forced to be the bad guy too. Thus, my career in the legal profession turned out to be short-lived.” He shakes his head, as though not wanting to get too far off topic. “What else was in my bag? You have me well and truly intrigued now.”
“Phil Collins.” I let the name hang between us.
“Only the greatest musician ever born!” says Jasper, slapping his hand on the counter.
“You had the piano music in your bag, and, well, to say I’m a massive Phil fan would be a huge understatement.” I feel myself grinning—everything he is telling me is confirming my instincts about the case.
Jasper shakes his head, smiles, then starts talking to the ceiling, “Alexa, play ‘I Wish It Would Rain Down.” The walls begin to sing. “I found that sheet music in an obscure music store in London; I thought playing more music I actually like might encourage me to practice more.”
The chorus kicks in, and we both start singing along. He knows every word, just like me. It’s cheesy, but delightfully so. We’re both nodding our heads to the beat. Jasper rolls up the sleeves of his jumper, picks up two wooden spoons from a pot and pretends to play the drums on some saucepan lids; it makes me laugh.
My mind starts getting ahead of itself: Maybe our suitcase story will be made into a musical one day. Reese Witherspoon could buy the movie rights and turn it into something like La La Land or Les Misérables. Ooh, it could be like Mamma Mia but full of Phil Collins songs.
“I don’t know anyone else who truly appreciates Phil’s genius. I mean, who else can combine up-tempo pop with that kind of musical dexterity and lyrical complexity?” says Jasper.
“Right! Exactly,” I say, throwing both hands in the air. “I’ve loved him since I was a girl. I inherited my dad’s old LP collection, and all the Phil records are scratched from overuse—”
“You listen to LPs?” Jasper grins. “I have a whole library of LPs upstairs. OK. Favorite song, on the count of three. One, two, three . . .” And then we both say, “ ‘Sussudio,’ ” at the same time. He holds my gaze, and I feel that warm glow that comes from knowing someone likes you.
“Well, well.” He smiles at me. “I think we should make a toast.” He pauses, contemplating what to toast to, and then says, “To lost luggage.”
“To lost luggage.”
Looking at Jasper take a sip of his tea, it’s as though someone has found the list in my head filed under “perfect man” and made him flesh. I ask Jasper where the loo is, just to give myself a time-out from all the delicious eye contact, and he points me down the corridor.
There are all sorts of interesting prints and vintage maps adorning the wall; they don’t look like the kind of art someone our age would choose. I must have walked farther than he instructed, because when I open the door, I find, not a bathroom, but another kitchen. Unlike the kitchen we were in, this one is cream and white, and all the units gleam as though brand-new and unused. I shut the door, confused. Why would anyone need two kitchens? Maybe this is some kind of granny annex or a lodger lives here.
Following the corridor around, I pause to inspect a line of butterflies in wall-mounted cabinets. They’re both beautiful and strangely morbid. The next door I come to is open a crack. I reach out for the handle, inexplicably nervous about what I might find behind it. As I push the door slowly open, I find—another kitchen.
What the hell? I am Alice in Kitchenland, and it’s slightly freaky. This kitchen is stylistically entirely different from the first two, dark charcoal surfaces and deep mahogany cupboards, with a large steel extractor unit in the center of the room. I back out, my heart racing.
Bugger, I knew he was too good to be true. It’s not as though I’ve opened doors to find a string of corpses or a coffin with my name on it—but I still feel unnerved. Is Jasper obsessed with kitchens? How many more kitchens are there? Why do guys that tick every other box always have to have a weird “thing”? Why can’t I just meet a normal, unmarried man who likes Phil Collins and has a regular number of kitchens in his house?