Chapter Text
The next time Lockwood and I met was a few weeks later. George had announced that dinners at his and Flo’s place wouldn’t be so regular any more – mainly because he needed to convince Flo to settle down for the time being, quite literally. He was a little worried she’d otherwise run around and take her boat up and down the Thames hunting for antiquities to sell while nine months pregnant, so George hoped to make small adjustments, step by step to get her to stay home just a bit more week by week. Hosting his incredible dinners where she’d usually escape to the riverside weren’t helping at the moment.
I’d ordered my usual: Caramel macchiato and a pastry with custard cream at my favourite, little café just around the corner of Bark Books, the publishing house my novels were currently published at. It had become a habit of mine to stop by whenever I had to actually go to the office. Usually I was allowed to write from wherever I wanted, but I had a meeting with Nina, discussing my fifth and final book of the series. Having breakfast at home always meant trouble, in my case at least. Let’s say I didn’t have the best time management skills, so it was safer to come here to eat and have my coffee where I could just rush to the office in a few minutes instead of taking the never quite predictable tube when I was already running late.
So, here I was, fishing for my wallet while the laptop case on my shoulder was weighing me down as if someone had tied a brick to it. Honestly, I did appreciate that technology had finally time to bloom after the Problem had started to diminish, but I felt we were still lagging behind immensely if portable computers still weighed as much as a German Shepherd.
The cashier was already eyeing me impatiently while I tried not to trip and be buried under my laptop – I wondered if this would still count as a work-related accident. If I could just reach inside my coat pocket…
“I’ll handle this.”
OK, let me get this straight again: I am telling you the real ending that later never made it into my books here. This is not a meet-cute or anything. The parallels were just a little too non-coincidental sometimes. Don’t ask me, I didn’t come up with this story.
I blinked, frozen in my unflattering action for a second, awkwardly hobbling on one leg before I managed to regain my balance and properly look at Lockwood – who was here, of all places.
We hadn’t seen each other, let alone talked since our reunion at Georges’. There was no need to, was it? We weren’t necessarily friends after such a long time had passed or anything, but the way he looked at me seemed to tell a completely different story. There was a hint of a smile on his face, surely because of my ungraceful and unintended yoga pose just now. His dark eyes were fixed on me a moment longer than strictly necessary and I caught my heart skipping a beat, which it shouldn’t have done, obviously. But the magical thing about Lockwood looking at people was that he really and actually saw you. It wasn’t just a casual, fleeting glance, it wasn’t even flirty or anything, but you felt seen, for who you were.
The fact that this particular look made me fumble for my own words was just a side effect, very likely not even intended by him. But I was saved by Lockwood turning to the counter and placing his own order.
“You don’t have to do that,” I mumbled, sulking a bit upon being treated as if I was broke, without a job, or otherwise not able to pay for my own coffee. I knew he didn’t think any of this, but being treated by him felt wrong.
“Oh, I do.” He turned back to me, waiting for our drinks to be prepared. “Think about it as compensation for all the times you had to pay for our cab rides home when I’d forgotten my wallet. I still owe you anyway.”
His grin was a bright as the sun, just like I remembered it was every time he’d had to break to me that I had to pay.
I frowned. He was right. He did owe me quite a lot of money, didn’t he?
“You’ll have to buy me a lot of coffee to make up for all this,” I challenged him not thinking he’d actually take the bait, but the answering laugh that escaped him was alluring.
“Yeah, like taking you to a rather fancy dinner.” It was meant as a joke, we both knew that. Still, it had an uncomfortable connotation to it, dampening the atmosphere around us, because it oddly sounded like he was asking me out on a date – which he wasn’t, of course. He realized the awkwardness of his remark and cleared his throat as if hoping a smooth change of topic could sooth the air around us: “Sorry, you know what I mean. Anyway.”
He gave the cashier his card, grabbed his coffee (black with a little bit of milk) and was obviously about to leave.
“What are you doing here?”
I couldn’t contain my curiosity and somehow, I felt bad about our weird exchange. I didn’t want him to feel like I was angry or anything, so I’d said the next best thing before Lockwood was able to disappear as swiftly as he’d come.
“Getting coffee on my way to work. I come here every day.” He eyed me with amusement, as if it wasn’t obvious what he was doing here. But that wasn’t my point.
“Oh. Me, too, actually. Well, if I have to go to work.” My gaze fell to my shoes, pondering if what I was about to say next was really a good idea, but one, I still felt like a terrible person, two, he’d just treated me to my breakfast and third I maybe wanted to at least become a little closer again? I didn’t really know…
“Would you… like to join me for a bit?”
We had the same friends, that wouldn’t change, and if there was anything I could do to make our relationship less awkward in the future there was nothing wrong with sitting at a café together for a few minutes.
Lockwood turned his wrist to take a quick look at his watch, then back at me: “Yeah, I’ve still got some time.”
If he was unsure or anything about my invitation he didn’t show it. I really wondered what his job was. Nearby? Just like me? It seemed plausible.
I could’ve just asked him, but something kept me from doing so. It never felt quite right to ask him about anything personal.
“I really liked your books so far, by the way,” he suddenly confessed right after we’d found a table and I’d barely even sat down, so it caught me rather off guard.
“Um, thank you,” was my only viable answer. Being complimented on my work by him of all people was a huge reward. I’d been wondering a lot about how he’d feel about me telling this story (our story) in the first place, so it felt good that he actually acknowledged it and didn’t seem offended.
“You made me look quite cool.”
“Well, I didn’t really intend to make you that cool, but my editor insisted. Would make the storytelling better she said.”
“Ah, and here I thought that was your impression of me all along.” He theatrically placed a hand over his heart. “If this was ten years ago I might actually be hurt.”
“Come on, you know very well how I thought about you ten years ago.”
I laughed, then took a sip of my coffee. Last time we’d been sitting at a café together the mood hadn’t been so peaceful. It had marked my final withdrawal from Lockwood & Co. and the only reason it was so present in my mind at the moment was the fact that it hadn’t been too long since I’d written about it. Well, not about the café scene in particular as you might very well know, but still.
He took another look at his watch: “So, any plans for the final book?”
I buried my hands in my face, the frustration hopefully pouring out of me: “Oh, please. Don’t ask me.” I wasn’t actually sure I’d meant that. Part of me just wanted to be left alone with my struggle, part of me wanted to be asked about it. But ranting about my trouble writing the last book of my series didn’t seem appropriate in front of someone I’d more or less just met – again.
“That bad, huh?”
I heard the soft plop of his to-go coffee cup being placed on the table. Apart from that it was uncomfortably quiet.
“Well, care to tell me what exactly you’re struggling with? Maybe I can help.”
I freed my face from the depths of my hands, looking up and facing him incredulously, my brows deeply furrowed: “Why would you be of any help?” I didn’t mean to be offending, I was just confused.
“Because it’s my job.”
I blinked at him, even more confused: “What do you mean, that’s your job?”
“I’m an editor,” he said as if it was common knowledge and only I’d been too stupid to pick up the clues.
“Excuse me, what?”
“At the same publishing company, just around the corner,” he added a little guilty.
“What?! Why the hell didn’t you tell me earlier?”
A few people close to us were looking at me, obviously annoyed by the volume my words had blurted out with.
“I mean,” I leaned forward a little, trying to tune my voice down, “why didn’t you tell me at George’s dinner party?
Lockwood awkwardly scratched the back of his head: “Ah, yeah well there wasn’t really the right moment to and also nobody asked so…”
Yeah, right. Nobody had asked him any personal questions that evening. Everyone had been too wary to do so. Apart from the very basic ‘Hey, what have you been up to the past ten years?’ none of us had asked any further although Lockwood had been extremely vague about it: He’d spent a few years in South East Asia then had settled in Paris to study… something… and now he was back here because of his job.
Ok, well that one was on us, I guess.
“Sorry, for not asking.” I stared into my lap, my hands shyly fumbling with the hem of my black denim dress.
“No, well, it’s ok.”
“We just assumed you didn’t want to talk about anything if you didn’t bring it up yourself. Old habits I guess…” That wasn’t really an excuse, I knew that. Lockwood could’ve completely changed after all those years and be as open and oversharing as a Golden Retriever. I apologize for all those dog analogies. You can blame one of my ex-boyfriends who’d had a dog – you can probably guess who I missed more.
Yeah, no. I knew that even if Lockwood had changed a lot, that was probably a stretch. He wouldn’t just suddenly walk up to strangers and tell them his whole life story. He might look for approval of others though, that was a probability, eagerly smiling at random people, hoping to get a compliment out of them.
“I can’t really blame you.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah right.” My mind had gone off track a little, leaving the cosy coffee shop for the little park around the corner to play fetch with a frisbee and the tail-wagging Jeffrey. Being back at my comfort café, consciously, made me revisit what Lockwood had actually just confessed. “So… you say you’re an editor?”
“Yep.”
He took a casual sip of coffee. The way he looked so very professional actually unnerved me a bit. I always had trouble sorting through my hair every morning, trying to smooth it out in the right spots or, when I was really frustrated just tying it up in a tight bun on top of my head. And still, despite all the hair spray in the world it was always still sticking out at odd angles. It was frustrating.
“Why?”
Lockwood nearly choked on his coffee – and still had the decency to look impeccable doing it, a small laugh coming over his lips: “Why?”
“Ah, sorry, I meant…” My gaze was drifting to my lap again, spotting a handful of pastry crumbs on my dress. Honestly, who was I? A child? I nonchalantly brushed them off and under the table before looking up again. “No, I mean… What made you become an editor?”
“Oh.”
He looked a little surprised and I wondered why. As if he didn’t quite believe I’d actually asked an honest question about his life, and (hopefully) sounded rather interested as well. I also wondered how many friends he’d left behind in France or wherever else he’d been. Of course, Lockwood was an extrovert, excelling at talking to new people and he knew how to say the right things, flatter people, get them to like him, but actually opening up to others had never quite been one of his strengths, so it was only natural to be curious about that.
“I met a friend of my parents in France, actually. He got me into the job.” He looked to the side a little sheepish. “He’s the CEO of the branch in Paris.”
Ah, so he’d had a little help then. Nothing to be ashamed of, to be honest I think. Without knowing the right people who knows if I would’ve started writing my books in the first place.
“But I didn’t just take the offer, because I had an opportunity,” Lockwood continued, now facing me again as if nothing had happened and he didn’t look at least a little embarrassed a second ago. “I’ve always liked reading.” He grimaced. “Ok, maybe not until I was a teenager.”
I repressed a small laugh. Somehow, I could really imagine Lockwood as a child, being completely and utterly bored out by books and reading, preferring to climb trees and run around swinging a toy rapier. But yeah, the version of him I knew had spent a lot of time in the library and it had not always been gossip-magazines he’d been reading.
“So, I mean it. If you need help?”
I shook my head, moving around the pastry crumbs on my plate in meaningless circles with my index finger: “It’s really not that easy. Nothing specific I could ask about.”
“Try me.”
Did he just adjust his glasses? What an unusual view. It made me wonder if I’d ever decipher the things Lockwood more or less unconsciously did with them and become as fluent in this language as I’d become with George. Sorry, that came off so wrong. It sounded as if he was a puzzle I intended solving. It sounded as if I wanted to meet him outside our circle of friends and regularly hang out with him.
But I didn’t think it this far in that moment. Instead a huge sigh escaped me with the urge to bang my head on the table. That would’ve squashed the rest of my breakfast though so I composed myself and obediently answered: “I don’t know how to wrap things up.”
There. It was out. Out in the world. The problem that had been bothering me for longer than I was willing to admit. How was I supposed to write a compelling ending to a story that – in reality – hadn’t ended worth telling in the first place? That book was aimed at children as well. I couldn’t just tell the truth and shatter the hope of clueless little babies, who’d just recently been allowed to attend school and read books in their free time that weren’t about how to make a salt bomb and who’d been finally allowed to be children in the first place.
“Ok, telling the truth is obviously off the table,” Lockwood was pondering, looking as serious as if he was thinking up a business plan. I knew that expression. I’d seen it on him after our client meetings, when investigating a haunted house as if he was Sherlock Holmes, on the rare occasion we’d done a proper debrief.
It caught me completely off-guard when he suddenly looked up, his dark eyes fixed on me: “How would you have liked the story to end?”
How… I would have liked the story to end?
Surely, I must’ve looked like a complete idiot in that moment. Nobody had ever asked me about that. (Though technically I’d never told anyone what I’d been struggling with, so...)
My mind drifted away. How would the sixteen-year-old Lucy Carlyle have wanted her story to end? She’d been young, yet had felt so much older that she’d actually been. She’d literally been through war, living her life on the battlefield of the dead. She’d been alone for so long it had taken time to appreciate the family she’d found with her friends – leaving them behind when they’d probably needed her the most for what she thought was right, only to find out being alone didn’t solve anyone’s problem. She’d been a teenager, madly in love with her boss/ colleague/ landlord and best friend. A best friend she’d just kissed in a burning lift before waking up in a hospital bed, feeling all alone again.
What would she have wanted?
Sixteen-year-old Lucy Carlyle wanted to answer ‘with us’. But I wasn’t that girl anymore. I had long stopped being that girl, so I said: “I would’ve wanted Lockwood & Co. to continue for at least a little while longer.”
What technically could have meant the same as ‘with you’ or ‘without you leaving’ or all those very similar things the girl from ten years ago would’ve liked to tell him. But what you might be forgetting here, dear reader, is that I didn’t only lose Lockwood that day. I’d lost my job, too. I’d lost a home. I’d lost a routine, a life I’d taken for granted and if there was a way to only have just another ordinary day with Lockwood & Co. as it had been, I’d gladly taken it any day.
“I would’ve liked that, too.”
He didn’t look at me then.
No matter how much time passed, he still stayed a mystery. There wasn’t really anything left to say anyway. It had taken me a long way to come here, to be the person I was now, a long time to heal. Twenty-six-year-old Lucy Carlyle didn’t much care about the past. She was a successful writer, self-dependent, strong-willed as ever and always looking ahead. Ahead to finish her book series, ahead to her marriage, ahead to her future. She certainly wouldn’t let herself be deceived by her younger self.
I didn’t have time to dwell on my past, I’d closed that door long ago. (That wasn’t the same as having come to terms with it – but admitting to that would’ve meant to admit I hadn’t come to terms with it. But that was a matter to deal with another time.)
I looked at my non-existent watch: “Sorry, I gotta go or I’ll be late.” Laptop bag already slung over my shoulder I was about to leave, but then a tiny little voice in my head scolded me. “Uhm, thanks. For the coffee. And the food,” I told the table, slightly bowing my head before rushing to the door.
“Luce?”
I stopped.
Something inside me stung. I felt sick. Maybe I should’ve eaten something else and not the sweetest option they had. Hearing my old nickname was so strange. Nobody had called me that for ages.
“See you next time,” he continued.
I didn’t turn around, just kept staring outside the door. Next time?
“I still owe you a lot of coffee. Or… whatever.”
Yeah, whatever. I pushed the door open without looking back. Maybe I was being rude, I didn’t care. But part of me really didn’t want there to be a next time.