Page 2 of The Meet Queue-t
“I wasn’t staring,” I say in possibly one of the most bare-faced lies that’s ever left my lips.
He blinks in confusion at the blatant untruth. “Obviously not.”
“I mean”—there is no way for me to salvage this—“I just looked at you. Once. Or twice. Because you’re reading.” My face burns hot all over again, and I make one final attempt to explain away my overt and obvious checking out. “I’ve never seen someone read while queueing before.”
“I see,” he says, enough dryness in his voice that I want to cringe into an alternate universe. A smile teases the corner of his mouth. “Well, what do you suggest I do in one of the longest queues of British history?”
I fold my arms. “You could . . .” My voice trails away as I contemplate his options. I’ve been twiddling my thumbs, replaying awkward encounters from the past five years, and staring at cute strangers, but I can’t say I’d recommend it. Then the rest of his sentence hits, and I forget about the lack of laid-on activities. “Wait,” I say. “You think this might be one of the longest queues in Britishhistory?”
“You don’t?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it before now. But—” I take a second to assemble my thoughts. “Surely it can’t be, though, right? I mean, history goes back alongway. And a lot of it isn’t documented. Canthisqueue rightnow really be the longestever? We’re Brits. Queueing is ourthing.”
His face shifts, becoming more angular and intense, the focus in his eyes palpable. “The term ‘queue’ was coined in the nineteenth century,” he says, and it’s as though he’s placed himself in another box—this one named ‘lecturer’. “Likely because of the invention of factories, where people were forced to queue in and out. For a substantial proportion of British history, there wasn’t the population nor the need for queueing. And until the twentieth century, the word was viewed as French. So while queueing might be our thingnow, it hasn’t been for very long.”
My mouth drops open. “Wow. Should I have been taking notes?”
He ducks his head, and although it’s dark, I think I see a flush sweep up his cheeks. About time he took his turn. “Sorry,” he says. “Occupational hazard.”
“Let me guess. Teacher?”
“Lecturer.” He holds out a hand. “Dr Oliver Murphy. I work in the history department at York.”
IknewI was right about his bangable professor vibes. For a second, I stare at him, wondering if he’ll notice me wiping my palms on my jeans. His fingers twitch, like he’s already regretting the hand, so I grab it and shake. A good, firm shake my dad would’ve approved of, if I’d had a dad. “I’m Tessa Nelson.”
“Nice to meet you, Tessa.” He considers me for a moment. “So, why are you here? To pay your respects?”
“In a way.” Not to the Queen precisely, but he doesn’t need to know that. “What about you?”
“Because this is a momentous occasion,” he says, like it’s obvious. “This is a place where history is being made. How could I not be here and see it happen?”
“I don’t know, because it means waiting in a queue all night?”
“I had three coffees before I joined. I’m set.”
I have to laugh, and his gaze drops to the hole in my lip where my piercing used to be. Just as quickly, he looks away, and I heft my bag more firmly on my back. “You work in the history department, huh?” I ask.
“That’s right.”
“What kind of history?”
“Broadly? Renaissance. Seventeenth century is my favourite, but sometimes I teach seminars on the social structure of the fourteenth century.” His eyes are gleaming behind his glasses, but he physically stops himself before he can launch into another lecture. “But specifically? I study the Bubonic plague.”
“The plague,” I repeat, and stifle a grin. “Appropriate, all things considered.”
“The similarities we saw when COVID first happened were astounding,” he says earnestly. “So many of the same behaviours were in place. Did you know that in the sixteenth- and- seventeenth century, they used to force isolation?”
“What, like lock people in their houses?”
“That’spreciselyit. And not only them—if they lived with a family, they werealllocked in together, padlocked in, for a minimum of forty days.”
“Didn’t that just mean everyone in there died?”
“Not always everyone. But if they got infected, there was a good chance they would die, yes.”
“God.” I wrap my arms around myself and shiver. “That’s . . . Wow.”
The queue moves again, more decisively this time, and I look out over the Thames, glittering with the city lights. Just behind us is Tower Bridge, and opposite is the Tower of London. A far cry from my small hometown in Leicestershire, but there’s a strange beauty to it, all these lights glimmering off the water, and a sense ofalivenessthat zips through my veins. Not just from London, but from the queue itself.
