The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight(40)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

“You look great,” she tells her, because it’s true.

“Yes, but I haven’t been traveling since yesterday,” she says. “You must be completely knackered.”

Hadley feels a twang in her chest at the word, which reminds her so sharply of Oliver. For months now, the sound of Charlotte’s accent has been enough to kick-start a massive headache. But suddenly it doesn’t seem so bad at all. In fact, she thinks she could get used to it.

“I am knackered,” she says with a weary smile. “But it’s been worth the trip.”

Charlotte’s eyes are bright. “I’m glad to hear that. Hopefully it will be the first of many. Andrew was just telling me you might come for a visit soon?”

“Oh,” Hadley says, “I don’t know—”

“You must,” Charlotte says, crossing back into the sitting room, where she grabs the computer again, carrying it out like a tray of appetizers and then sweeping aside a few napkins and coasters to make room for it on the bar. “We’d so love to see you. And we’ve just renovated. I was showing everyone the photos earlier.”

“Honey, is now really the—” Dad starts to say, but Charlotte cuts him off.

“Oh, it’ll only take a minute,” she says, smiling at Hadley. They stand side by side at the bar, waiting for the images to load. “Here’s the kitchen,” Charlotte says as the first picture appears. “It looks out over the garden.”

Hadley leans in to look closer, trying to spot any remnants of Dad’s previous life, his coffee mug or his rain coat or the old pair of slippers he refused to throw out. Charlotte flips from one photo to the next and Hadley’s mind races to catch up as she tries to picture Dad and Charlotte in these rooms, eating bacon and eggs at the wooden table or leaning an umbrella up against the wall in the entryway.

“And here’s the spare bedroom,” Charlotte says, glancing at Dad, who’s leaning against the wall a few feet behind them, his arms crossed and his face unreadable. “Your room, for whenever you come see us.”

The next photo is Dad’s office, and Hadley squints to get a closer look. Though he left all his old furniture behind in Connecticut, this new version looks nearly the same: similar desk, similar bookshelves, even a familiar-looking pencil holder. The layout is identical, though this room looks slightly smaller, and the windows are staggered in different intervals along the two walls.

Charlotte is saying something about the way Dad is so particular about his office, but Hadley isn’t listening. She’s too busy peering at the framed photos on the walls within the picture.

“Wait,” she says, just as Charlotte is about to click through to the next one.

“Recognize them?” Dad says from the other side of the room, but Hadley doesn’t turn around. Because she does recognize them. Right there, in the photos within a photo, she can see their backyard in Connecticut. In one of the pictures she spots a portion of the old swingset they’ve never taken down, the birdfeeder that still hangs just outside his office, the hedges that he always watered so obsessively during the driest of summers. In the other she sees the lavender bushes and the old apple tree with its twisted branches. When he sits in the leather chair at his new desk and looks at the photos, it must seem like he’s home again, gazing out a different set of windows entirely.

All of a sudden, Dad is beside her.

“When did you take these?”

“The summer I left for Oxford.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he says quietly. “Because I always loved watching you play out the windows. And I couldn’t imagine getting any work done in an office without them.”

“They’re not windows, though.”

Dad smiles. “You’re not the only one who copes by imagining things,” he says, and Hadley laughs. “Sometimes I like to pretend I’m back home again.”

Charlotte, who has been watching them with a look of great delight, turns her attention back to the computer, where she zooms in on the photo so that they can see a close-up of the frames. “You have a beautiful garden,” she says, pointing at the tiny pixelated lavender bushes on the screen.

Hadley moves her finger a few centimeters over, to the actual window, which looks out over a small yard with a few rows of flowering plants. “You do, too,” she says, and Charlotte smiles.

“I hope you’ll get to see it for yourself one day soon.”

Hadley glances back at Dad, who gives her shoulder a squeeze.

“Me, too,” she says.

16

1:48 PM Eastern Standard Time

6:48 PM Greenwich Mean Time

Later, toward the end of the cocktail hour, the doors to the ballroom are thrown open, and Hadley pauses just inside, her eyes wide. Everything is silver and white, with lavender flowers arranged in oversized glass vases on the tables. There are ribbons on the backs of the chairs, and a four-tiered cake topped with a tiny bride and groom. The crystals on the chandeliers seem to catch the light from the silverware, from the gleaming plates and the tiny glowing candles and the brassy instruments of the band, which will sit propped in their stands until later, when it’s time for the dancing to begin. Even the photographer, who has walked in just ahead of Hadley, lowers her camera to look around with an air of approval.

There’s a string quartet playing softly off to one side, and the waiters in bow ties and tails seem almost to glide through the room with their trays of champagne. Monty winks at Hadley when he catches her taking a glass.

“Not too many,” he says, and she laughs.

“Don’t worry, my dad will be down to tell me the same thing soon enough.”

Dad and Charlotte are still upstairs, waiting to make their grand entrance, and Hadley has spent the entire cocktail hour answering questions and making small talk. Everyone seems to have a story about America, how they’re dying to see the Empire State Building (does she go there often?), or planning a big trip to the Grand Canyon (can she recommend things to do there?), or have a cousin who just moved to Portland (does she maybe know him?).

When they ask about her trip to London, they seem disappointed that she hasn’t seen Buckingham Palace or visited the Tate Modern or even shopped along Oxford Street. Now that she’s here, it’s hard to explain why she chose to come for just the weekend, though only yesterday—only this morning, really—it had seemed important that she get in and out as fast as possible, like she was robbing a bank, like she was fleeing for her life.