A Brave Start Read online

  “Yes, but I won’t be alone, Jonathan will meet me at the airport and will make sure I learn my way around. And Aunt Victoria will check on me as well. I know she’s going to be giving you regular reports.”

  They hugged one last time and Cassie stepped back and watched as Eleanor rolled her carryon through the line at security and kept watching until Eleanor was out of sight.

  Eleanor made it through security quick enough, noticing there weren’t too many people flying out of Phoenix that night. Once on the other side of security she located her gate and stopped at the Starbucks that was along the way to the B gates. She still had more than an hour before her flight would board, so she settled into one of the chairs with her latte and flipped through one of the magazines she had brought with her, not that she paid any attention to the images or text on the page.

  She felt anxious; an odd combination of terror and excitement. This was the biggest thing she’d ever done on her own. She still couldn’t believe she was uprooting her entire life, even if only for the year. She’d dreamed of living in London for so long, even though she’d only ever been to the city once as a little girl. It had always been a bright, happy memory among a bunch of not so happy memories, and Eleanor had built it up to be a magical place where all her dreams would come true. But now reality was starting to hit. Would London live up to all of her dreams and fantasies? Eleanor couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever happened over the course of the next twelve months, her life would not be the same. Underneath the nerves was another emotion, something much subtler that Eleanor couldn’t quite describe. All she knew was that she wasn’t going to miss being an adjunct and she hadn’t thought about Michael in days.

  Finally, her flight was called and within thirty minutes Eleanor was on board the plane.

  Chapter 3

  The flight lasted about ten hours and Eleanor managed to sleep for about half that time, spending the rest of the time staring out into the empty sky. During the last couple hours Eleanor noticed that she didn’t feel that nervous anymore, instead she felt peaceful. When the plane finally touched down, Eleanor felt the strangest feeling of being home.

  She made it through border control and baggage claim quick enough, a strange mixture of excitement and exhaustion colliding through her body, and when she came through to the other side she struggled to scan the crowd of people waiting in the arrivals area trying spot Jonathan. Thankfully, at nearly 6-foot-tall, with dark brown curly hair and black framed glasses, he stood out. Eleanor had always marveled at how he managed to pull off a combination of sophisticated “cool guy” and “academic nerd.”

  Grinning, she felt a surge in energy and began walking a little faster and waved. Smiling widely, Jonathan waved back, rushing forward to meet her.

  Grabbing her around the waist, he lifted her off the ground and spun her in a circle, hugging her tightly, before finally setting her back down.

  “Hiya cousin!” he said excitedly.

  “Hi!” She was excited to see him. Though they didn’t get to see each other very often, they were both only children and had always treated each other as the sibling they wanted but never got. They kept up through quick messages and occasional video chat, but that wasn’t always as frequent as they’d wanted to in recent years as they both worked on their education.

  Jonathan reached down to take her large suitcases, leaving her with her two carry ons.

  “How was the flight?” he asked.

  “Long,” Eleanor replied with an exhausted sigh. “But relatively smooth, and I ended up with the whole row to myself so that was great.”

  “Oh yeah, that makes a big difference. Lucky you! Well, welcome to London,” he said with a grin. “You’ve seen the airport, now it’s time to experience the Tube. There’s also the Heathrow Express, but it’s more expensive and I thought I should introduce you the public transportation you’ll use most often.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” Eleanor said with a laugh.

  As they walked along, following the signs for the Underground, Jonathan slipped a piece of folded plastic from his pocket and handed it to Eleanor. She flipped it open, seeing it was like a little wallet with two slots inside and a small card slipped into one of the slots.

  “It’s an Oyster card. Mum had me load it with £25 for you, you can top it up yourself once that is used up. It will let you ride the Tube and the buses. But your school isn’t that far from the flat, so most of the time you should be able to walk. What’s been loaded on the card should last you a bit.” Jonathan explained.

  “That’s great!” Eleanor said gratefully. “I’ll have to thank Aunt Vickie. And thanks for coming to get me, you didn’t have to, you know.”

  “I know, and you would have been fine getting to the flat on your own, you’ll see it’s pretty easy. But I knew you’d have your luggage and be tired from the flight. Plus I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you, I didn’t want to wait.”

  Jonathan’s smile was infectious, and as tired as she was, Eleanor felt herself begin to grin like an idiot. She was so happy and excited! She was in London, her favorite city, with one of her favorite people.

  They soon arrived at the Underground entrance and following Jonathan’s example Eleanor tapped her new Oyster card to the card reader and walked through the gate. They soon made it to the platform and boarded a train. Jonathan stacked her bags to the side of the door and then sat next to her. The train started moving and soon they were outside, views of houses and parks, even a golf course, flew past the window.

  “We ride above ground for a little bit, until we get to the edge of town and then we go underground.”

  “Cool,” Eleanor said, somewhat absentmindedly, she was so busy processing everything. It was all so different from Phoenix! She felt like she’d landed on another planet. After dreaming about it for years and playing her childhood memories of her family trip over and over in her mind, seeing it all in person was a bit overwhelming.

  Just as Jonathan said they would, the train soon went into a tunnel as they headed underground. Eleanor felt like they were flying through the tunnel. As they went along Jonathan quietly explained how to read the signs and know what the next stop was and what other lines that stop might service. Every now and then the train would pull into a new station and people would get on or off. She listened to the intercom voice politely announce each stop as they approached, occasionally mentioning what attractions were nearby. The closer they got to the center of town, the more people began to fill the carriage.

  As they pulled into Leicester Square station Jonathan said, “Next is Covent Garden and after that is ours, Holborn. At Holborn you can also get the Central line, which is the red line,” pointing at the map. “You’ll find that you’ll probably use the Piccadilly and Central lines the most. A lot of the popular stuff for tourists are along one of those lines.”

  Eleanor was too busy trying to process everything to respond with more than just a nod of her head. Soon they pulled into Holborn station and Jonathan jumped up and grabbed her rolling suitcases while Eleanor quickly followed with her satchel and carry-on. There were a good amount of people on the platform but Jonathan stepped to the side and Eleanor followed suit. Within a matter of seconds the platform had emptied.

  “I figured we’d let them all go first,” Jonathan said with a grin. “You’ll learn that Londoners move fast. It’s best to keep up or get out of the way.”

  Eleanor smiled weakly and nodded, then followed as Jonathan began rolling her bags along the platform. She noticed that instead of arrows pointing to the “Exit” they pointed to the “Way Out” and filed that bit of information away. They went up a short flight of stairs and then a couple long escalators. She noticed the signs pointing to the Central line and made a mental note of that as well.

  When they reached the top of the escalator Eleanor could feel the warm humid air blowing in from outside and, following behind Jonathan, she tapped her Oyster card at the exit of the station.
r />   As Jonathan turned to the right he looked back over his shoulder at Eleanor and said, “We’ll walk from here, the flat isn’t very far. This is High Holborn, we’ll walk up just a short way to Proctor Street, and Red Lion Square is just a short bit past that.”

  “Ok,” Eleanor replied, a little weakly. She was fading fast. The overnight flight was definitely catching up to her. Looking around she tried to take in all the surroundings. It was busier than she had expected for a Saturday afternoon. She shuddered a bit at what a week day rush hour would look like around here. They passed what looked like a drug store, and then a clothing store called Next, across the street were some more shops and restaurants including a McDonalds and a Krispy Kreme. Eleanor cringed slightly, some things you just can’t leave behind, she thought. They came to a cross walk and Jonathan stopped to wait for the light. He was talking again, passing along more information but Eleanor struggled to keep up.

  “…once you’ve been around longer, but for now wait until the green man lights up on the sign. Behind us is the little Waitrose, if we run out of milk or you want to pick up dinner, that’s the one I usually stop at or at the Sainsbury’s across the street from the Tube. There’s a bigger Waitrose a few minutes more in the other direction from the flat.”

  Eleanor quickly looked over her shoulder to see what he was pointing to but the light changed and she jumped to keep up with him. She assumed Waitrose was a grocery store of some kind, but she was so tired she couldn't remember if she’d heard of it before. Across the street they passed a gym of some kind and then came to a lovely green square. She saw the sign indicating it was Red Lion Square and excitedly looked around at the place that would be her home for the next year.

  The square was lovely. It was a good size, not too small, but not too large either. It had nice, tall trees and overall a very pleasant atmosphere. There was a coffee stand in the middle of the square, and Eleanor noticed a few people sitting at the tables around it, drinking coffee and eating pastries while working on their laptops or reading the newspaper. There were a couple people sitting on the grass, soaking up the sun that was shining through the trees. Jonathan was explaining that the square used to be much longer, and extended down to something he called Southampton Row, but bombing by the Luftwaffe in World War II had damaged many of the buildings beyond repair and in the redevelopment the square was shrunk down to its present size. They walked further into the square and Eleanor noticed that it was lined with a mix of buildings from before and after World War II. Some were more recent from the 1960s and 1970s but some were gorgeous old historic buildings from the Edwardian and Victorian eras, by the looks of it to Eleanor’s untrained eye.

  Jonathan caught her looking up in admiration at a red brick fronted pre-war building.

  “Welcome home,” he said with a small laugh.

  Eleanor looked between him and the beautiful old Victorian townhouse. Mostly red brick, with some white brick accents around the column of bay windows down the right-hand side of the building. It was like something out of one of her favorite historic films.

  “Wait, what?” She stammered in confusion, trying to look around the corner of the building, thinking maybe Jonathan was referring to another building as their home. When she looked back, she saw Jonathan was already walking up the front steps of the building. She read “Halsey House” printed in little black and white tiles at the top of the front steps. She couldn’t believe this was where he lived. Where she would live!

  She followed him in silence, into the main entrance of the building, which despite being newly refinished, still had some of its original features like the tiled floor and the wood banisters. But the decor around the lobby was very modern and very luxe. She felt like she was in a boutique hotel. They walked down a hall to an elevator, Eleanor had just caught up with Jonathan as he was pressing the button to bring it to the ground floor.

  “The lift in this building is pretty good, they put it in when they redid all the flats a few years ago,” Jonathan explained.

  He pressed the button for their floor, and the doors closed with a whisper.

  “We’re only one level up. I don’t usually take the lift if I just have a couple things, the stairs aren’t bad. But if I’m carrying a lot of bags from the food shop or have luggage like this, the lift is great.”

  As tired as she was, Eleanor was grateful for the elevator, or “lift” as she quickly corrected herself mentally. Eleanor’s tired brain was trying to file away information as quickly as Jonathan was sharing it but the long flight was definitely beginning to get to her. They arrived at the next floor and Eleanor followed Jonathan across the landing to the front door. The door opened onto a long halfway with a few doors leading off it. She could immediately see her Aunt Vickie’s design influence in the gallery wall of pictures along the left side of the hallway. On the right side were two sets of doors that Jonathan said were storage closets. Near the end of the hall, was a door to the left and then a continuation of the hall to the right.

  Jonathan nodded his head towards the door to the left, “that’s the living room and kitchen, go in there for a bit and check it out, I’ll take your bags to your room and then come back and give you the tour.”

  In a bit of a daze, Eleanor set her bags on the floor in the hall and wandered into the living room. It was a large room that ran the whole length of the left side of the flat, and was painted a cool toned light grey, that looked almost white, and served to enhance the natural sunlight coming in through the two windows along the side of the room. As she walked in she saw the kitchen area was at the back end of the room, closest to the door where she was standing. But she was immediately drawn to the far end of the room and the gorgeous, large bay window that took up most of the width of the room at the front of the flat. There were two large, plush arm chairs in the window, with a small table in between and a large, tufted ottoman that served as both a foot rest and a coffee table for the space. There was a wood tray sitting on it with some coasters, books, and decorative items. Long white curtains hung from the top of the windows, and fell into a pool of fabric on the floor.

  Out the window, Eleanor could see the square through the lush green trees, and saw people still wandering around the square or sitting by the coffee stand. She couldn’t believe this was her new view.

  Jonathan came into the room and broke her out of her thoughts. “What do you think cousin?”

  “You can’t live here!” She replied with excitement, “I don’t believe it. This is some kind of a joke. I’d have found a way to move here ages ago if I knew this was where you were living! This is way too nice for you! You have knickknacks and coffee table books!”

  Jonathan laughed. “Not always. You know mum. This is just one of her investment properties. If she was going to spring for a flat for me during uni, did you think she was going to get some closet in Zone 6? This all ends when I graduate, why do you think I stayed on for grad school?”

  He laughed again as she raised her eyebrows at him. “OK, that sounds a little privileged, like I’m going to be a perpetual student because my parents are wealthy.”

  “Jonathon, really, that’s not what I was thinking. I know that you need the graduate degree for your career path. I was thinking that luckily for me, you were still in grad school. So I guess that makes me the privileged one.”

  “OK, let’s agree that we both enjoy our parent’s success, but never take it for granted.”

  “And hope one day to give back, unlike my...well, you know.” Eleanor’s voice dropped.

  “Hey, none of that.” He said gently, before resuming the explanation of the decor. “It only looks this clean because mum did a photoshoot here last week and she made me promise I’d keep it ‘show home’ ready for your arrival. Anything you don’t like, or don’t want to keep, we’ll just pack away and mum’s assistant will pick it up next week.”

  “I don’t suppose we can keep it all?” Eleanor asked sheepishly.

  “If you want, but mum a
lso said not to feel like you had to, she wants you to feel like you could add your own touches. But to be honest, mum comes through pretty much every season to give it a refresh style wise and has it photographed for her business or any magazines she has a feature arrangement with. Wait until you see what she does to this place at Christmas!”

  Eleanor’s heart leapt with excitement at the thought. Eleanor knew she’d never do a better job at decorating than her fabulous, and increasingly famous, interior designer and property developer Aunt Vickie. She knew how amazing her aunt was, but she had no idea she’d be living in what was basically one of her show homes. She’d had that experience before when she and her mom first moved to Arizona, but the London version of the experience was even more perfect.

  She walked back down the room to where Jonathan was standing in the kitchen. The kitchen took up all of the back wall with the stove and oven, a wine fridge, cabinets, a microwave, and a hidden fridge, that was very nearly American sized. The sink was in an island that ran half the width of the kitchen from the wall and divided the kitchen from the rest of the living room. It was all gleaming white cabinets with stone countertops and luxe finishings. It was nicer than her mom’s kitchen back in Phoenix. Between the kitchen and lounge, there was a dining table with six chairs around it.

  “Let me show you the rest of the flat,” Jonathan said with a smile.

  They headed down the hall, passing a small powder room, then came to two doors on either side of the hallway. Jonathan pointed to the right and said, “this one is mine,” then pointing to left and gesturing for Eleanor to go ahead of him, “and this one is yours,” he finished with a smile.

  Eleanor walked in to her new room and gasped. Her aunt had definitely been at work in here. Jonathan had been living with another student at LSE, but this room seemed almost perfectly decorated for Eleanor.