There are so many places I want to take him—if he would like me to, that is—and we talk about the National Portrait Gallery, my favorite of all London’s galleries. There are so many sites he wants to visit, and we make plans to be tourists together. I’m excited to see the city I call home through his eyes. I long to go on a big red bus tour of London, hop off at the Tower of London, and take a picture of us with a Beefeater. I never even did that as a child.
“A picture of us,” he echoes. “I’m looking forward to that. It’ll be so strange to actually see you—for real—after all these times we’ve messaged and talked.”
I stir my pasta and switch off the stove, nodding in agreement. “I can’t wait.”
“Really?” he questions. “Me neither.”
We go quiet and contemplative, and finally he says in mock-seriousness, “Hannah, I think we need to move to the next level of our friendship.”
Although it’s a semi-joke, it’s as if he’s fired a starting pistol and I blink. “What do you mean?”
“I think we need to progress from calls to video calls.”
“Now?” I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the kitchen window. I’ve done a full day at work. And then two flat viewings. I’m a wreck.
“Yeah, why not? You OK with that?”
My stomach tightens, but I think it’s in a good way. I nod my silent answer, realizing he can’t see me. “OK,” I say and then he’s gone. The call has ended. “Oh.”
Seconds later he’s video-calling and I brace myself, swiping to answer. I hold my phone out at arm’s length and watch as his eyes crinkle and he smiles at me.
“Oh my God,” I say, wishing my stomach would untighten. “This is so weird.”
“It’s great,” he says. “It’s long overdue.”
He looks terrific on video. I’m in a small square in the corner of my phone screen and I try so hard not to look at myself on it, judge myself and my lack of makeup, which has long since slipped from my face.
“You’re even prettier in motion than you are in your photos,” he says.
I don’t blush, as far as I’m aware, but in the corner of the screen I can see my face smile and I have to look away in happy embarrassment. “Thank you,” I whisper. I am not going to tell him how good-looking he is. There is no way on God’s green earth he doesn’t already know this. In his flat I see him lean back against his gray sofa. “Do you live by yourself?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“I had this feeling you lived with your parents,” I say and thenrealize how offensive that might seem, although plenty of twenty-nine-year-olds still live at home.
He looks confused. “Why?”
“College football flags in your bedroom. In the picture you sent.”
“Oh. No. My mom and dad use my old bedroom at their place as an office now, and so all my stuff got sent to me. I just hung them in there, as a reminder, I guess. Although most of that stuff’s going back to them when I move to England. Little do they know,” he says darkly.
“I have to confess I’m ridiculously nosy when it comes to property, so I’m going to need you to take me on a tour of your flat,” I command.
“It’s never gonna get old, you calling an apartment a flat.” But Davey stands up, obliges me. I feel dizzy all of a sudden as I whizz up into the air with him as he stands. I ask him a question it has never occurred to me to ask. “Davey? How tall are you?”
“Six two.”
“Six foot two? Cripes. I’m five foot five. You’re going to tower over me.”
I can’t see or hear his reaction, as he’s slowly moving the video around his flat. He shows me his simple, mostly gray sitting room: arty black-and-white photos of landmark buildings from years gone by litter the walls. He takes me into each room slowly and talks in the background about some of the architectural drawings he’s got laid out on his desk—about the kind of projects he’s been working on, the kind of projects he’ll be doing at his new job. It sounds so varied it’s dizzying. Schools and nurseries, huge offices, hotels, shopping centers.
“What’s your favorite?” I ask.
“I love the power and the beauty of watching a magnificent skyscraper go up, from a drawing I’ve helped with. But there’s something so warm and simple about watching a new schoolbeing built, knowing so many kids are going through those doors for the next hundred—two hundred—years maybe.”
I could listen to him talk like this for hours. I prop the phone against the toaster and start mixing my pasta and sauce together as he finishes the tour of his flat. I make a green salad, grab a fork and then carry him to my little two-person kitchen table that I almost never eat at. I push a lot of paperwork out of the way and prop him against it. “I’m going to have to eat my dinner, if that’s OK?”
“I don’t mind.” He walks around his kitchen and I see his face light up from the bulb within the fridge as he opens it. He grabs a can and walks back to his sofa, clicks it open, and I eat and he drinks as we talk about the flats I went to see.
