Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
“I told her we were going to see Aladdin and that you had gone to buy me a thoda.”
“That I had?” I ask quickly.
“Her uncle,” Mila answers, looking at me strangely. Can’t say I blame her.
“Are you gonna open that?” Clo taps the bottom of the plastic bottle.
“This?” I hold it up as though I’m not even sure what it is, and Clo nods. “Not just yet.” I make to slot it into my pocket before realizing this stupid frock coat doesn’t have any pockets. “Maybe when we get to our seats. Speaking of”—I glance Mila’s way—“they’re going to deliver the rest to us in there.”
“Thank you, Matt. That’s so kind of you.”
“I told the lady they don’t have a popcorn machine here.”
“Popcorn?”
“Yes.” Clodagh frowns. “Are you not listening to me?”
“Of course I am. You said they don’t have popcorn here.”
“Yeah. I told her I love popcorn, but the lady’s favorite thnack is thomething else they don’t got here.”
“Too bad,” I answer, careful not to repeat my mistake.
“She likes zeppole, and I said I like it too. That my daddy sometimes buys me it from a truck when we visit him at work. That’s a good memory I have,” Clodagh says a little sadly. “She said she likes it because of good memories too. Zeppole reminds her of country fairs, that’s what the lady said. She has a boy’s name. But she was a lady, not a man.”
“What kind of boy’s name, Clo?”
“Same as a kid in my class. I don’t like him. He picks his nose.”
“Ah, that’s rotten. But what was the lady’s name, again?”
“Ryan. Her name is Ryan.”
“Ryan?” My heart lifts a good couple of inches.
“Uncle Matty, you keep saying the same things as me!”
“I know, pet. And I’m sorry.” The apology shoots from my mouth as my heart begins to beat frantically. “But you’re sure the woman in the green coat was called Ryan?”
“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”
“You did,” I say, glancing around distractedly. It can’t be her. Can it? “Did she say where she was going? Next, I mean?”
“To catch her tube, whatever that means.”
The Tube—the nearest station is just minutes away! My heart pounds against my chest as though it will break through my ribs. “Mila.” My head jerks her way. “Could you keep an eye on Clo for a bit?” Without waiting for an answer, I thrust the concession stand treats into her arms.
“Yeah, but—” A bag of crisps falls. I swipe it up.
“You help Mila, Clo?” The little girl nods. “You’ll be okay for a few minutes, right? That’s a good girl,” I say as she nods. “I promise I won’t be long.”
Clo says something in response, but I’m already turning away.
A fool’s errand. The words whisper in my head as, outside, frigid air hits me in the face.
“The Tube,” I mutter to myself as I dodge a family crowding the steps, then take the remaining three in a long-legged leap. Oxford Circus is the nearest station.
I turn right out of the theater into the pedestrian thoroughfare full of shoppers, theatergoers, tourists, and teenagers deciding between burgers and noodles.
Hope is a thing with wings, so they say, and it’s hope that carries me to the end of the street like a man fucking possessed. I don’t feel bad about leaving Clodagh with Mila, though I’m sure it’ll come. And I’ll probably cop it from Letty thanks to her current hypervigilant parenting. But I don’t have the headspace for any of that right now.
“Scuse me! Sorry!” Turning shoulder first, I squeeze through a large group of dawdling tourists, almost slipping on the damp pavers as I swing a right at the end of Argyll Street. I leave them gesticulating and yelling in something that might be Mandarin.
“Oi! Do you need glasses, mate?” Not so difficult to understand is the cabby after I dodge into the road, narrowly missing his black cab. Or maybe it misses me.
I hold up my hand in apology. No time to stop.
I know it’s her. It’s got to be, I think as I pelt to the other side. Then, impersonating an Olympian, I sprint away, all powering legs and robot hands.
Ryan, wait for me. I’m coming for you. Because how many women called Ryan in the world can there be—women who like green and eat zeppole? The thought that she might be here, in the same city—well, the feeling is indescribable. The wings of hope themselves.
Oxford Street, and the circular red-white-and-blue signage is my bull’s-eye. The sight calls for a spurt as my lungs work like bellows and my legs like pistons.
“Excuse me—excuse me!” I shout, descending into the station. Taking the steps three at a time, I dodge between commuters, the correct side of the stairwell be damned.
In the bowels of the station, my breathing echoes in my ears as I turn one-eighty, scanning the barriers and the escalators beyond, hoping to see a hint of green coat or dark hair.