“You mean like Todd?”
Is he reading my thoughts? Or is he thinking the same things about Todd that I am?
“I don’t know,” Doug said thoughtfully, looking down at the floor once more. “That’s why I wanted to come on this outreach. To see if I have what it takes. I’m not like Todd.”
“I know,” Christy said quickly. “And I don’t want you to be. I want you to be Doug. And you are…” Now her thoughts seemed scrambled, and she felt angry that she hadn’t been able to leave thoughts of Todd back on the airplane. Back in California. Back in her collection of high school memories. Todd had followed both of them to England and once again stood between them. “I…I just wondered if you had thought much about being a missionary.” Christy held Doug’s hand tighter. She wanted to think of Doug and only Doug.
“Not really. With my business major I’ve pictured myself being in the American workforce at some big company and sort of being a missionary to all the lost business people. I don’t think I could live overseas.”
“Me either,” Tracy whispered. Christy hadn’t noticed her standing on the other side of Doug. “I mean, this is fun to visit, but I do better in familiar surroundings. What about you, Christy?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to come on this trip too. I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Or I guess I should say, I don’t know what God wants to do with my life.” Saying it aloud sounded even scarier than when she had thought it or written it in her diary. It was like admitting she was lost, aimlessly taking general ed courses at a junior college and trying to come up with answers for the career counselors who asked what she was interested in. She honestly didn’t know.
A uniformed gentleman politely asked if they would like to take a seat because it was time for evening vespers to begin. Katie was already sitting in one of the folding chairs set up in the section where they were standing. The three of them joined her, with Doug taking the initiative and sitting next to Katie.
Within a few minutes a line of choirboys wearing white and red robes with high white lace collars flowed down the center aisle, two by two. They stepped right over the David Livingstone engraved stone on their way to the altar at the front of the chapel.
Christy closed her eyes and breathed in the majesty of the moment as the clear, high voices of the choir danced off the rounded stone ceiling of this ancient place of worship. During the music and Bible reading that followed, Christy quietly bowed her head and worshiped the same awesome God people had sought to worship on this site for more than a thousand years. The thought sobered her and made her feel a reverence she had never felt in her church at home in California.
She tried to explain it to her friends the next morning as they ate breakfast together in the small dining room of their bed-and-breakfast. Christy sat with her back to a huge fireplace where a cheery fire crackled and warmed her. Doug seemed to know what she was saying, and Tracy agreed between bites of crisp toast. Katie ate silently, studying a tour book and not entering into the conversation.
Things had not been good between Katie and Tracy that morning. Katie had washed her hair and had asked to borrow Tracy’s hair dryer.
“Be sure to plug in the adapter first,” Tracy said.
Katie had plugged the adapter into one electric outlet and the hair dryer into another. When she turned on the hair dryer, it sounded like a lawn mower. In less than ten seconds the dryer started to spit sparks into their room. Then, with a loud pop, Tracy’s hair dryer burned out.
Tracy’s face had turned deep red as she followed the cord from her dead hair dryer to the outlet. “Katie, you’re supposed to plug the hair dryer info the adapter!”
“How was I supposed to know? All you said was to plug in the adapter first, and I did!”
Tracy grabbed her awful-smelling dryer from Katie’s hand, threw it in the trash can, and said in a controlled voice, “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
At the time Christy had thought it would have been better if Tracy had hauled off and slugged Katie. Katie could have taken that. Instead, the two of them hadn’t spoken one word to each other since.
“You want the rest of your eggs and sausages?” Doug asked Christy, eyeing her half-full breakfast plate.
“No. Go ahead, help yourself.” Reaching for the silver teapot in the center of their table, Christy poured herself another cup of hot tea, tempering it quickly with milk and sugar.
“Would anyone else like some tea?” Christy asked.
“No, thanks,” Katie said without looking up from the tour book.
“Which bus do we take to the Tower of London?” Doug asked.
“There’s a bunch that will take us there once we get on Oxford Street. Do you remember how to get back to Oxford Street?”
Doug thought he knew, and within a half hour they were bundled, umbrellaed, and armed with their cameras. Christy wore tights and leggings under her jeans today, and two pairs of socks. She could feel the difference when they hit the pavement and marched to Oxford Street in the foggy drizzle. Much warmer. Today, more than the day before, she felt like she was in England. And she liked it.
She enjoyed her top-deck perch again on the bus as they slowly edged their way down crowded Oxford Street. It seemed quite a while later when Doug asked Katie for the map. “Did that street say Bloomsbury? We’re going the wrong way.”
“No, we’re not,” Katie said. “This is bus 8. Bus 8 goes to here,” she said, leaning over and pointing to the map. “Then we switch to number 25. and it takes us right there.”
“Yeah, but look,” Doug said, pointing to the map. “This is the street we just passed. The Tower of London is way down here. We went the wrong way. This where we are now. Way up here.”
“I don’t believe this!” Katie said.
“Wait,” Doug said. “Look here. We’re not far from Charles Dickens’s house. You wanted to go there, didn’t you? We could take a quick tour and then catch bus 25.”
“That’s a great idea,” Tracy said. “I’d love to see Dickens’s home.”
It turned out to be a good idea, even though they got lost and walked block after block trying to find 48 Doughty Street, which wasn’t well marked. Katie complained when they discovered that the admission charge was two pounds. They took off in separate directions to explore the home of this author who had made old England come alive in his A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and dozens of other works.
Christy thought it was pretty interesting, especially the flimsy-looking quill pen displayed under glass that Dickens used to write his stories. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to write with a feather pen. Especially an entire book. Dozens of books. Writing back then must have been hard work.
Tracy and Doug seemed absorbed in all the displays, lingering to read the information cards much longer than Christy had the patience for. She left the two of them on the third floor, examining a huge painting of a lighthouse, and went down the narrow winding stairs in search of Katie. She found her sitting on a small wooden bench near the front door.
“Are you ready to go?” Christy asked.
Katie didn’t look up as Christy sat next to her but waited for a group of tourists to meander down to the basement before answering. “Why am I being such a brat?”
“We’re all kind of tired, Katie.”
“I know, but that shouldn’t be an excuse. I like Tracy. I really do. It’s just that she’s… I don’t know. She gets to me.”
“I think it’s because you two are so much alike.”
“No, we’re not!”
“You each show it differently, but you’re both strong and zealous. That’s not a bad thing. I think it’s a great quality.”
Katie seemed thoughtful. She let out a deep breath. “Things somehow aren’t the way I thought they would be.”
“How did you think it would be?”
“Exciting and interesting and, well…much more fun than this. This is a lot of walking, gett
ing lost, being frustrated, and feeling weird. I feel out of place. I’m not into all this ancient museum stuff. And it makes me feel uncultured and ignorant. I’m on new-experience sensory overload. I’ve never heard of any of these people we’ve seen statues of. And when Doug was explaining that stuff about the battles and statues at Trafalgar or whatever that square was, he might as well have been talking about life on another planet. I hate being so clueless about everything!”
Christy had always appreciated Katie’s honesty and her ability to express her feelings accurately. “I know what you’re saying,” Christy said, trying to sound as comforting as possible.
“Then why doesn’t it bother you? When I saw you holding your little cup of tea at breakfast, you looked like you belonged here. Like it all came naturally to you. How do you do that?”
“I don’t know. I guess it hasn’t hit me yet. I like experiencing all these new things.”
Just then Doug and Tracy came thumping down the stairs, talking intensely about a photograph they had seen of Hans Christian Andersen when he had come from Denmark to visit Dickens, whose work he admired. They kept their discussion going even after the four of them left and headed back to catch the bus. At least they were getting along well.
Katie seemed a little less tense as they boarded the bus and headed for the Tower of London. Christy should have known that Katie would be more relaxed once she had blown offa little steam.
As the bus lurched to a stop at an intersection. Christy caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window. She looked different. Scholarly maybe, with her hair back in a braid, almost no makeup on, and wearing a turtleneck. All she needed was a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. It occurred to her that she looked like a person who knew where she was going in life. The thought made her smile. At least she could look the part. And before this trip was over, maybe she would feel the part too.
As she stomped her feet to warm them up, Christy thought how nice a hot cup of tea would taste right now.
“Where did our sunshine go?” Christy asked, peering out the w;ndow of the train as it sped out of London to the north.
An hour earlier they had made their way, luggage and all. to the Euston train station. Their backs had been teased by a brief stream of welcome sunbeams. But now the sky had pulled up its thick, gray winter blanket and tucked the sun back into bed.
When none of her friends answered her question, Christy switched her attention to the seats and found that everyone else was asleep. Doug, sitting next to her, slept with his head tilted back and his mouth half-open. He looked like he might start to snore any minute. Christy wondered if she should wake him if he did.
Katie and Tracy, seated across the table and facing Doug and Christy, had each found her own space: Tracy with her lead resting on a wadded-up sweater against the cold glass window and Katie, opposite Doug, with her head buried in her folded arms on top of the table.
Christy wasn’t sure why she was still awake. It had been a strenuous early morning romp to get to the train on time. Now the train’s constant sway and roll should have been enough to lull anyone to sleep, especially someone who had gotten so little rest in the past three days.
But Christy was too excited. This was England! She didn’t want to close her eyes and miss anything. The view outside her window changed from city sights, with red brick homes and black wrought-iron fences, to country sights with long stretches of meadow broken by neatly trimmed hedgerows. The bushes were all brown and naked, awaiting the kiss of spring to grace them with a fresh new wardrobe. And the fields looked almost a silver-gray color, with only a hint of the rich green grass that hid beneath the unbroken frost now covering the land.
I’ve got to write about this, Christy thought, searching in her bag for her journal. She remembered Charles Dickens’s quill pen as she clicked the top of her ballpoint pen. She was glad she didn’t have to try to write with quill and ink on this moving train table.
We’re on a train on our way to Lancashire, which is somewhere in northwest England, she wrote. Everyone is asleep but me. I love the countryside, even though it’s all shrouded with a winter frost. I’m warm and cozy inside this comfortable train. If we make our connection in Manchester, we should arrive at Carnforth Hall before dinner and in time for the opening meeting of our outreach training.
How can I describe London? What a huge, ancient, modern, bustling, polite, quaint, crowded, exhausting city! Two days were not enough to make its acquaintance. We did finally see the crown jewels at the Tower of London, like Katie wanted, and it was pretty interesting. But my favorite part was climbing to the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral and looking down on the city. St. Paul’s is such an incredible church. I’ve never been inside a huge church like that before. and it made me feel full of reverence and awe.
Doug stirred in his sleep and adjusted his large frame so that his left leg stuck out in the aisle and his head bobbed over toward Christy.
“You can lean on my shoulder if you want,” she whispered. He must have been too far gone to hear her. because he didn’t respond. Christy continued in her diary.
I also liked the words that were etched in the stone at the front of one of the churches. I think it was Westminster Abbey. Christy had copied them onto a scrap of paper and now dug for it in her bag.
“May God grant to the living, grace; to the departed, rest; to the church and the world, peace and concord; and to us sinners, eternal life.”
Christy wasn’t sure why this inscription intrigued her so much, except for the way it focused on grace and peace and “concord” or harmony. Those were not exactly qualities their foursome had experienced so far on this trip. She hoped that would change once their training began at Carnforth Hall.
Just then Doug’s head slumped onto Christy’s shoulder, immediately waking him. “Oh, I’m sorry. I must have fallen asleep.”
“That’s okay. Why don’t you get some more sleep? You can use my shoulder if you need a pillow.”
Doug’s little-boy grin spread across his groggy face. “How come you’re still awake? Those two look like they fell asleep as fast as I did.”
“There’s too much to see,” Christy said, smiling back at Doug. “This is all so amazing to me. I don’t want to miss anything.”
Without drawing attention to her actions, Christy closed her diary and slid it back into her shoulder bag. It wasn’t that she had anything to hide from Doug. She just didn’t have anything she wanted to share. Her diary was her collection of private thoughts, and as much as she liked Doug, she didn’t want to let him into those thoughts.
“You hungry?” Doug asked.
Christy let out a gentle laugh. She knew Doug was hungry. He was always hungry. “I could go for a cup of tea.”
“You’re becoming quite the little tea drinker, aren’t you?” Doug yawned and stretched both his long legs into the aisle. “I think I’ll go find that snack bar or whatever they call it and see if they have any sandwiches. You want a candy bar or something to go with your tea?”
Christy shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.” Then with a friendly tease in her voice she said. “I’m sure you’ll eat whatever I can’t finish.”
“I’ll get two candy bars then. Maybe three.” Doug stood in the aisle and reached for his backpack under the seat.
“Do you need some money?” Christy asked. “Mine is right here.”
“No. I’ve got it.” He balanced his way down the narrow aisle and through the doors into the next car on the train.
What a sweetheart. He really is an incredible guy. Christy sighed and looked out the window.
The train was slowing to a stop at a small-town train station. On the wooden landing stood a lad wearing a black cap, knee socks, shorts, and a dark blazer. He held a closed umbrella in one hand and a briefcase-looking book satchel in the other. He stood completely still as the train chugged out of the station. Christy watched him through her wide window with a smile. In her imagination, he was Peter, brother of Susan, Edmund, and Lucy
in C. S. Lewis’s British fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. Christy was sure “Peter” was about to enter an invisible door into Narnia.
“Your tea, miss,” Doug said, startling her back to the real world.
He placed a large paper cup covered with a plastic lid on the table before her and handed her several tiny plastic cream containers and packets of sugar. In his hand was a medium-sized paper bag with a handle.
Doug looked cute. He had swaggered away as a long-legged man and trotted back as a shy boy with a picnic basket in his hand. He sat next to Christy and reached into the lunch bag.
“Ham and cheese.” he said, producing two wrapped sandwiches. “And Toblerone.” Christy recognized the long, triangular-shaped box that held a candy bar. She had seen some on sale at a newsstand in London.
“They call candy bars ‘sweeties’ here,” Doug informed her. “At least that’s what the guy at the lunch window said. It’s kind of hard not to crack up when a grown man looks you in the eye and says, ‘Would you like a sweetie?’”
Christy giggled and poured her cream and sugar into her hot cup of tea.
“I should have told the guy I already had a sweetie.” Doug said.
Their eyes met. Christy smiled her thanks and then looked away.
Why do I feel embarrassed? This is Doug. My boyfriend. Why does it still feel awkward when he says nice things to me?
Christy didn’t have time to come to a conclusion because just then Tracy woke up and said, “Are we almost to Manchester?” It was as if she had invaded their private moment, and yet somehow Christy felt relieved.
“No. About another hour, I’d guess.” Doug chomped into his sandwich. “You want a bite, Trace?”
With a yawn she answered, “No, thanks. I could use a bathroom though. Do you know which way it is?”
“That way,” Doug said, pointing in the direction from which he had just come. “Only they call it a ‘WC,’ which stands for ‘water closet.’ I think.”
“Katie,” Tracy said, gently nudging the sleeping redhead. “Sorry, Katie, but I need to get out.”