As Far as the Stars

Chapter Two (#ulink_3dabf970-1200-57b5-8859-31b79890bb70)

12.40 EST

I look back at the screen to make sure I’ve got it right.

But the word’s still there:

DELAYED.

It doesn’t make any sense. Blake texted me before he got on the plane. If it had been delayed, he’d have known – and they wouldn’t have let passengers get onto the plane, not that early.

Though sometimes they get everyone on and then pull everyone off again. If there’s a technical error or something. That could have happened.

But who cares what happened? If we’re late for any of the wedding stuff, Mom’s going to kill me.

I go up to a guy wearing what I recognise as a UKFlyer uniform:

‘Excuse me—’

He spins round. His eyes are wide and kind of jumpy. UKFlyer officials have this way of looking totally calm. Like, even if the airport was on fire, every hair would stay in place. Mom says it’s a British thing. But this guy doesn’t look calm, not at all. Which is weird. Like it’s weird that everyone around me is acting so stressed out. It’s not like they’ve all got weddings to go to – or Moms like mine. Planes get delayed all the time.

‘The plane – the one that’s been delayed,’ I say to the UKFlyer guy. ‘I was meant to pick someone up.’ I pause. ‘Or I think I was. It’s complicated. Could you check the passenger list for me?’

He stares at me and blinks like I’m not speaking English.

I rephrase, trying to calm myself down enough to get the words out in the right order:

‘I need to check whether my brother was meant to be on the plane that’s been delayed.’

‘I’m afraid we can’t release that information.’

‘I’m his sister.’

‘We still can’t release that information. Not at this point.’

‘What point?’

He looks at me like I’m about two years old – or totally crazy – or both. I mean, shouldn’t I know if the person I’ve come to collect was on the plane? And if I don’t, isn’t that weird?

Yeah, it’s weird. But then he doesn’t know Blake. Infuriatingly unpredictable Blake.

‘I’m sorry I can’t help,’ the guy says, his eyes still darting around. ‘I’ve got to go.’

My heart starts doing this weird arrhythmic pounding thing.

This can’t be happening.

If I screw up even the tiniest part of this wedding, Mom will never forgive me. She’s planned every last detail. It’s been her life for like a year.

On the surface, my allocated job for the wedding is simple: Blake. Get Blake to Nashville. In good time. Get him to the family breakfast and then the rehearsal dinner and then, crucially, the wedding, wearing a morning suit: top hat, coat and waistcoat, like Jude wanted – and ready to sing.

After Jude and Stephen have said their vows, during the eclipse, Blake is going to perform the song he’s written for their big day. The song that Jude – and Mom – and every guest at Mom’s perfectly choreographed wedding, would remember for the rest of their lives. I reckon most of Jude’s friends accepted the invitation just so they could drool over Blake Shaw’s big blue eyes and gravelly voice. Not that I’d tell her that.

The only one who’s heard the song is me; I practised it with him over a million times before he left for London. And I made him promise to keep practising while he was away – This time, the charming-Blake-improv, won’t cut it, I told him.

It’s my job to give Blake a hard time – to balance out the rest of the world that thinks the sun shines out of his butt.

My body tenses up. If he messes up the song, I’m going to kill him, like properly kill him.

I take a breath.

Yeah, on the surface, getting Blake to the wedding was meant to be simple. But Blake’s never simple. Which is why I was given the job. Managing Blake is always my job. Besides working my butt off to get a higher Grade Point Average than the boys in my Advanced Physics class and looking at the night sky through a telescope, sorting out my big brother’s life is my primary occupation. When one of his songs hits the charts and he makes millions, I’m so taking a cut.

Leda won’t stop fidgeting so I put her down and rub my eyes. The world blurs. I blink and look over at the people who are here to welcome the passengers off the Heathrow flight. And that’s when I see him.

Scruffy, tangled blond hair falls over his forehead. His hair’s longer than mine. Way longer. Though I guess that isn’t hard. A year ago, I chopped all my hair off: went for a pixie. Blake loved it. Mom freaked. Jude looked kind of pleased, like now I definitely wouldn’t be competition in her daily one-woman beauty parade. At first, Dad didn’t say anything, he only kind of smiled with that twinkle he gets in his eye when he knows I’ve done something that’s kind of out there. Later, when Mom was out of earshot, he told me he thought it looked modern, which I guess was a compliment.

Anyway, this guy’s hair is long and tangled and looks like it’s been hacked at by a pair of kid’s safety scissors. It brushes the top of his round tortoiseshell glasses, which make his eyes look huge. They’re light grey, like when the sun’s fighting to get through the clouds.

He’s skinny and pale in that fade into the background kind of way.

In other words, he’s the kind of guy, that, unlike Blake, people walk right past.

But that’s what makes me notice him – the fact that he’s sitting on the floor, really still, out of everyone’s way.

When you’re part of my family, the quiet-keep-it-to-themselves types seem to belong to a different species. Even Dad, who’s this bookish Classics professor, can be kind of loud and overexcited when he talks about his favourite (not very famous) Greek goddess, Pepromene.

Anyway, the quiet guy’s head is bent over a piece of paper that he’s folding over and over. He’s totally lost in what he’s doing – it’s like all this craziness isn’t even touching him.

For a second, looking at him and how calm he is, my heart stops hammering and I think that things might turn out okay. That they’ve made a mistake. That – with the proviso that Blake did get onto the flight to Dulles – any second now, he’s going to walk towards me, his guitar case slung over his shoulder, waving and looking guilty for having messed up his flight – but smiling too. Because that’s also part of his brand: the massive smile that makes his cheeks dimple; the smile that takes over his entire face; the smile that makes whoever’s looking at him think it’s just for them.

Someone shoves past me and I’m snapped back into the present.

Leda jumps up and down like a mad thing.

And then an announcement blares out through the terminal speakers:

Attention please ladies and gentlemen, this is a call for all those meeting passengers on Flight UKFlyer0217 from Heathrow. Please come to the information desk.

Chapter Three (#ulink_32deff9a-c091-53ec-8ad6-a71c6b1d6d3f)

13.31 EST

We’re in a room now, behind the security gates. It’s all taking too much time. And it’s making me nervous. Why couldn’t they simply tell us what they had to tell us over the speakers or put a note on the arrivals screen? Why herd us all together like this for a plane that’s been delayed?

I shouldn’t be here. I should get back into the car and drive to Nashville.

Just tell me where you are, Blake! I say through gritted teeth.