As Far as the Stars. Virginia Macgregor

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СКАЧАТЬ aren’t enough chairs so I’m sitting on the floor with Leda on my lap. She’s finally gone to sleep, knackered from all that whining and jumping.

      The guy I saw at the arrivals gate is sitting on the floor again, leaning against this massive backpack he’s been lugging around. And he’s folding another bit of paper, some old flyer he’s picked up. I think he’s recreating the Washington Monument, though the model he’s making is so tiny it’s hard to tell.

      I remember how, when we moved from London to DC, and Dad took us round all the tourist stuff, the first thought I had when I saw the monument was that it looked like a rocket about to shoot off into the sky. But then my brain has a habit of shaping everything it sees into some kind of space-related universe.

      I look back at paper-folding guy. It’s cool, how he’s made this really accurate model out of a bit of scrap paper. And I’m about to go over and tell him that when he sighs, stands up, scrunches the model up into a ball and throws it in a trash can.

      Blake does that too – when he’s frustrated with how a song’s going. You can tell whether his composing is going well or badly by how many bits of balled up notation paper there are on his bedroom floor.

      Except the model the guy made was good – like amazingly good. I think about going to rescue it from the trash, but then people around me start shifting and shushing and I get distracted.

      I look up in time to see a short, bald official in a UKFlyer uniform climbing onto a chair. He tries to get our attention, but everyone speaks over him, shouting out questions.

      So, I stick two fingers in my mouth and whistle.

      A few people give me a dirty look, like what I did was inappropriate. But it works: the room goes still.

      The paper-folding guy looks up at me, his eyes big and grey behind his glasses, and smiles.

      Everyone else turns to face the UKFlyer representative.

      ‘I’m sorry that we haven’t been able to give you more information about the flight—’

      ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ It’s the man I saw earlier, the one with the red face.

      ‘If you bear with me—’

      But he’s lost us. We all know that he hasn’t got any more of a clue about what’s going on than we do.

      Which totally pisses me off. I need to know what’s happening so that I can work out, for sure, whether Blake’s going to make it to the wedding or not. Unless Blake shows up right now, we’re already too late to make it to the family breakfast, news which will cause a minor earth tremor when it reaches Mom.

      My heart sinks. It’s the middle of the summer vacation and everyone’s coming over to see the solar eclipse: it would take a miracle for him to find a seat on another plane. And if Blake doesn’t get onto another flight – and soon; if he ends up stuck in Heathrow, he’ll miss the rehearsal dinner too. God, he might not even make it to the wedding on time.

      And it’s not as if we can delay the wedding – like we usually delay things for Blake being late. Because the whole point of the wedding is that it’s meant to happen during the eclipse. And the eclipse isn’t going to hang around for anyone – not even my brother. On Monday 21st of August 2017, between 13.25 and 14.26 (there’s a time-zone change between the states of Virginia and Tennessee), the moon’s shadow will rush across Nashville at 1,800 mph, and Jude will marry her high school sweetheart, Stephen. And they’ll live happily ever after.

      Or that was what was meant to happen. Before this – whatever it is – got in the way.

      I look at my phone. Mom’s left another message.

       Did you pick up Blake’s suit?

      I text back quickly:

       Yes.

      Then I put my phone away.

      You want to know the really ironic thing? It was my idea. Having the wedding during the eclipse. It was genius. A kill-two-birds-with-one-stone kind of genius. Four birds, actually.

      Bird One: the solar eclipse is a big deal for me. Skies and planets and stars – basically, everything that’s not on earth – is what I spend all my time thinking about. This is the first total solar eclipse to sweep across the entire USA in ninety-nine years and Nashville is the largest city in the path of the totality. Having a special family event connected to it felt cool.

      Bird Two: Mom wanted a wedding that trumped all her friends’ daughters’ weddings – and none of those got married or are planning to get married during the eclipse. The idea totally got me into Mom’s good books.

      Bird Three: Nashville’s kind of a home away from home for us. When we were little we’d visit all the time, squeezing into Grandpa’s tiny flat on Music Row. Grandpa was Blake’s hero. He played the electric guitar and they’d jam together for hours. Gran passed away before we had the chance to meet her so we were Grandpa’s only family. Blake was the one who made sure that Grandpa never felt alone. Anyway, all our happiest family memories are from that time. When Grandpa passed away, Dad decided to keep the flat, for all of us but for Blake mainly, who totally loves Nashville. One day Blake wants to live there – there and London, his two favourite cities in the world.

      Anyway, that’s kind of Bird Four: holding the wedding in Music City was a way to guarantee that Blake would show up and that he’d buy into the whole wedding thing. Blake loves Nashville. He sees himself as the blended reincarnation of Johnny Cash and Jimi Hendrix – with a bit of Dolly Parton thrown in for good measure: Blake’s got this kind of hip androgynous thing going, which is also part of his brand. When people ask him if he’s gay or bi or something, he says: You fall in love with a person, not a gender. Which gives him this sexy, mysterious vibe that make girls – and guys – even more into him.

      Anyway, when I suggested the eclipse, just for a moment, Mom and Dad looked at me like I was the special one. Like they do with Blake because he’s this really talented musician with good looks and has this totally magnetic personality. Like they look at Jude because she’s pretty and because she’s marrying a guy who’s going to law school, like Mom did, and is going to give them a million grandchildren.

      So, I’d done well.

      Only I didn’t factor in the fact that Blake might not show.

      I start to feel dizzy, like the ground is falling away from under me.

      The UKFlyer guy looks out across the room, like he’s hoping that someone’s going to save him so that he can get down and not have to do this anymore.

      A woman with a baby asleep in a sling walks up to the counter where the guy’s standing and looks up at him, her eyes bloodshot.

      ‘Please tell us what’s going on.’ She says it in this really quiet voice, but we all hear her.

      The guy stares down at her kid, like he’s never seen a baby before. His eyebrows scrunch together and his shoulders slump.

      ‘Please,’ she says again.

      And then it’s like something clicks. He rolls back his shoulders, tilts up his head, opens his mouth СКАЧАТЬ