by Michelle Labbé

As always, Bronwen made it sound easy.

“Come on, Holl,” she said. “We’ll go to England, then. We’ll see the sights. It’ll be fun, I promise. I’ll look at grad schools, and you’ll get to see what it’s like, see how you feel about maybe living there. I’ll handle the details. I’ll take care of everything. I know England like the freckles on my nose.”

Holly listened, knees drawn to her chest, and tried to smile. Bronwen swore that they’d decide together, but Holly had a feeling that her decision was the one that counted, that Bronwen had already made up her mind. And as they planned, as they set their itinerary, Holly knew it was true. The way Bronwen had darted around the room, first leaning against the windowsill, then resting her hands on the table, then sitting in a chair and jiggling one leg up and down in an imperfect rhythm, the way she tilted her head so sparks of light haloed her hair, the way her eyes traveled past Holly when she spoke of Oxford, of Bath, of St. Ives, of Edinburgh, spoke for her in a way that words, that idle promises, could not.

And she had promised. Over and over. “If you stay in the States, we’ll just try long distance,” she had said. “Don’t know how I’d get through grad school without you around, but we could give it a shot.” A pause. “I love you,” she had added.

And Holly had responded, said she loved Bronwen too, said they could try, no matter what. But she had looked down at her hands, twisted them, felt the slipperiness of her palms. Maybe long-distance could work for a month or two. But given time, the break-up would come. She’d seen it happen, over and over. All her friends from high school, the couples who’d sworn that they would end up married. Holly had believed in them. But then college came, and one by one, they began to splinter. There would be someone else, there would always be someone else, someone new and more exciting than the voice at the end of the phone, the text in the e-mail, the scribbles on the postcard.

And that was how Holly ended up in a hotel in Bath, gripping the sink with both hands and wondering why she’d ever agreed to this. She sighed and looked up. Frowning at her reflection, she tried to smooth down her hair, frizzed and mussed from the seven-hour plane ride and the muggy end-of-spring heat.

Bronwen was singing to herself in the next room. “Almost ready, Holl?” she asked.

Holly started, and patted her hair one last time. She frowned again. It was no use. “Almost,” she called back.

“It’s good to be back,” Bronwen said, dipping her head forward and drying her hair vigorously with a towel. “What do you think so far, Holly, love?”

“I don’t know yet,” Holly admitted. “It’s different.”

“You’ll be fine.” Bronwen grinned, tilting her head to one side. “It’s a marvelous and beautiful and stupendous country, and we’ll travel all across it, and you’ll see. Don’t you worry. I wasn’t happy myself when I had to up and move to the States, but I came to find things to love about it. I mean, after all, I met you, didn’t I?” Bronwen grinned and pulled Holly to her side. Holly blushed and let Bronwen draw her in, but then she broke away.

“Yeah,” Holly said. She looked down at her hands and picked at a hangnail. “There is that.” Holly remembered with clarity the day she’d met Bronwen. Bronwen had sat two seats in front of her in art history, and all through the lecture Holly had studied the way the projector’s light had fallen on Bronwen’s hair, illuminating each strand in a hazy golden halo around her head. For three restless, distracting, pencil-tapping weeks Holly had tried to work up the courage to go for it, to ask her out.

Then Bronwen had come to her, had said she’d asked around and that she’d heard Holly was the one to ask about studying, memorizing the details of every slide. Bronwen couldn’t do that. She couldn’t tell Notre Dame from Rheims or Chartres or Cologne, couldn’t tell a Cézanne from a Pissarro. But Holly could. And after all, Bronwen added with a wink, she thought she ought to get to know the cutest girl in class a little better. It wasn’t exactly the typical study-buddies proposal, but there were no two ways about it: Holly could only blush, and duck her head down, and stammer out her acceptance. And that was it. From then on, she and Bronwen had been together, climbing up trees and kissing under the canopy of leaves, running around museums, reading books over each other’s shoulders, watching the cheesiest lesbian chick flicks they could find. The two of them had been happy, mostly, until graduation approached and the threat of departure began to loom large in their thoughts. In Holly’s thoughts, at least. She wasn’t sure if Bronwen had ever worried herself about anything.

Bronwen spoke. “Now it’s your turn to acclimate. Only you’ve got me. Your very own personal tour guide.” Bronwen flung her arms out and bowed with a flourish. She gave Holly an elfin grin, and Holly couldn’t help but smile back. “Anyway,” Bronwen continued, “back to my first question. You ready to go?”

Holly glanced back at the mirror and shrugged. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Right. Let’s go.” Bronwen hooked her arm around her shoulder-bag and opened the door to the hallway. Holly thought for a moment that she’d heard a catch in Bronwen’s voice, a nervousness, but she wasn’t sure. It was probably her imagination. She followed, grabbing her purse and her coat; England was colder than she had expected, even in June. She looked both ways down the hallway before stepping out, as if watching for oncoming traffic.

Once outside, Bronwen stopped them short. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she murmured, breathing in. Holly had to agree. She had never before been in a city without skyscrapers; she hadn’t even realized they could exist. But the buildings here were small, boxy and narrow like townhouses, sweeping down the cobblestone road in a graceful crescent, forming into one golden-brown whole that almost glowed under the rich blue sky.

“Yes,” Holly said. The word didn’t seem adequate, but she didn’t know how to be eloquent in front of such grace, such design.

Bronwen frowned a little, then smiled. “You see? You do like it here. You were so worried.”

Holly grinned, close-mouthed, and clenched her shoulder-strap tightly, the bases of her nails turning white. Bronwen kept saying that. You were worried, so worried. It wasn’t England that Holly was worried about.

“I do love Bath,” Bronwen continued. “I could tell you loads about it. I mean, it’s been a while, but I did do a paper on it a couple of years ago. Didn’t specialize in history of Britain for nothing.”

As they walked, she began to relate a detailed history of Bath—how the Romans had come and built a bathhouse over a natural hot spring in the city’s center, how the waters were thought to have healing powers, how even now people came to take the waters for their health. While Bronwen spoke Holly nodded, and nodded, and wondered when Bronwen would stop, let her have a word in edgewise, give her time to say her head was hurting, had been buzzing since she stepped off the plane, and she really couldn’t listen to a history lecture just now, please. But the moment didn’t come.

It was Bronwen who paused, at last, ran her hands through her hair, and asked, “Now where are we? Brian said to meet him at The Raven. I ought to know where that is. Used to pass it all the time.” She paused. “I’ve told you about Brian, haven’t I? It’s hard to keep track.”