JANUARY
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Leander
I thought you should know that I’ve been discharged from the rehabilitation center, and that I’ve been back in London a week now. Uncle Leander does not currently have an occupation, save for parenting me. The results have been varied. And awful. When he is not making me pancakes in the shape of mice or rabbits, he is dragging me to pubs to eavesdrop on perfectly innocent people. For fun, he says. Never mind the fact that I am still in three separate plaster casts and about as inconspicuous as an elephant. Neither is Leander, who spends these expeditions noisily eating crisps and grinning at me.
I told him he had to find a new hobby. This morning I awoke to a poster of Harry Styles he had affixed to my ceiling. In said poster, he is wearing very tight leather trousers, and glitter. So much glitter.
He badly needs a case. Leander, that is.
Please go murder someone or rob a nearby bank. Please. I beg you.
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Perhaps
Is it in poor taste for me to be joking about murder?
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: Perhaps
I assume that’s why you haven’t yet responded. Though it’s unlike you to be offended. Or rather, it’s like you to be offended while also enjoying feeling offended.
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: Perhaps
Watson. I can’t make any deductions from across the pond. Not good ones, anyway. If you’re upset with me you’re going to have to spell it out. Is this part of your needing “distance”? I assumed two thousand miles would do the trick.
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: Perhaps
C,
You do know that you sent all four of those emails over the course of like twenty minutes, right? I was in class. Some of us still have classes to go to, if they want to do things like graduate and not go crawling home to one of two Broken Homes afterward. Which, by the way, I’m officially making jokes about, because (a) my mother is still not speaking to me and (b) my dad and Abigail are fighting so often that I can’t take more than ten minutes of being in their house, and it’s all so awful that it’s almost funny. So college = important.
What are you doing for school, anyway? Have you thought any more about whether you’re going on to uni? Is the total sum of your education right now Leander dragging you down to the Dog’s Arms or the East Sider or (God help us) the Sherlock Holmes pub and ordering you fried food?
Also, if that’s the case, can I come too?
I’m back in my room over lunch hour. By the way, Lena says hi, and that you and I should switch to texting like “normal people” because someone needs to teach you how to use an emoji and anyway only “adults” send “emails.” I’m not sure if anyone’s disputing whether or not an email’s called an email, but when I told her that, she called me a pedant and stole my brownie, and Elizabeth laughed so hard that she started coughing, and then Tom made a joke about her choking on a diamond, and Elizabeth choked but for real, I think you actually have some competition in the Offending People category.
I miss you, you nut. Tell Leander hi for me.
J xx
FEBRUARY
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Perhaps
All I am saying is that it is a completely acceptable act to eat alone in the cafeteria and I don’t understand your fear of it. You don’t need to have someone along with you every time (i.e., Elizabeth or similar) in order to eat your meal. They’ll serve you either way, I guarantee it.
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Look
You can just ask if I’m dating her again. (I’m not.) (Also I only eat with her with everybody else, so your “or similar” means “Lena Tom Randall Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s boyfriend Kittredge.”)
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: Look
I suppose it is nice to have someone keep you company while you eat.
Which is, coincidentally, something I’ve been speaking to my therapist about. She is the thirteenth therapist I’ve seen, which is both shameful and slightly invigorating. She’s also the first to speak any kind of language I understand. (Though she keeps referencing someone named the godfather when I talk about Moriartys and Moriarty-adjacent events.) Anyway, I like her quite a lot, which is surprising. Currently we are spending some time discussing my eating habits, and you, and outpatient programs, and the doctor that Leander keeps bringing in to see me, who is very handsome.
My uncle is still refusing to take cases, by the by, because I “need some proper looking-after.” He has thrown himself headfirst into my “education,” where we at first worked through the syllabi for several graduate-level humanities courses, reading a number of quite interesting nonfiction texts and novels and some poetry and of course the relevant associated cultural criticism, but after a week or so of this my uncle chucked the whole thing over to make me watch television with him at night. Bad television. According to Leander, my father entirely overlooked my “social and emotional education” in favor of his “uselessly specific curriculum,” making me into some kind of “automaton who actually enjoys reading Heidegger—Good God, Charlotte, who enjoys that? Or Camus? Were you just reading Camus and laughing?”
Apparently the only way to rectify this is to watch loads of old Doctor Who while eating Thai peanut chicken crisps on the couch.
I am working through the Heidegger on my own.
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: Look
C,
That’s great about your therapist, that it’s working out. Less great about the Heidegger. Medium great about the Doctor Who.
Is there a particular reason that you’re talking about the doctor? The handsome one?
J xx
P.S. Please tell me I can make you a whole list of TV shows and films for you to try out . . . maybe you should start with Coppola. Like, The Godfather?
MARCH
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: re: re: Spring break
Really, why on earth would I invite you to stay at our flat unless I did in fact want you there? Leander does too. He told you to stop being a numpty (Scottish for “a stupid,” I had to look it up and am now getting very strange ads on my phone) and to “get here already,” although he knows as well as I do that your break doesn’t begin until next week.
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: re: re: re: Spring break
I just don’t want to step on any toes. Like your toes. Honestly I guess I just don’t know where we stand? Like, this feels healthy, us just talking like this and in a situation where nobody is dying or disappeared or actively trying to kill us. I sort of just feel like I’m holding my breath, a little, and things are going really well right now, and maybe we need more time before we see each other to let things keep being great. Which isn’t to say that you specifically make them not-great.
But also I miss you so much that sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe.
I guess . . . what does your therapist think?
J xx
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Spring break
Dr. Kostas thinks that we need to allow ourselves time to get to know one another in said new, healthier context, and that, in the meantime, we should avoid “pledging ultimate loyalty” to each other again, as that had suboptimal results the last time.
Ultimately, she says it’s my decision. And yours.
Though I know you’ve already made up your mind.
I’ve already ordered in new bedding for the spare room and have begun making a shopping list (Jaffa cakes, Tunnocks—the bars not the tea cakes—and that Irish breakfast blend from that obscenely expensive shop in Piccadilly. And the frozen naan from Waitrose. And Milk Tray. Obscene amounts of Milk Tray. Also the orange juice from Tesco that you had a year and a half ago when we were wandering the city together. In the plastic bottle? It had mangoes in, and carrot, and ginger, and smells wretched. I put you down for four).
Of course, if I’ve misread you, please tell me. But you tend to overuse the word “just” when you’ve made a decision and are attempting to justify it to yourself or others.
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Spring break
Are you bribing me with Milk Tray? Because it’s working.
Yes, yes, of course I want to come. If you’re okay with it, and your uncle, and your therapist. And if we take it all kind of slow.
Also, you are like . . . sometimes you are just the best. The actual best. I hope you know that. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you xxx
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: Spring break
Something terrible, probably.
Leander and I will meet you at Heathrow arrivals. He will be holding a sign he’s making with puff paint. Right now his plan is to have it read WATSON WUZ HERE. I’d apologize but also it’s rather hilarious.
APRIL
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: King’s College London!!!!!!!!!
I got in!! I got in!!!! This is worth all those rejections and the not sleeping and the dragging my GPA up to a 3.85 with my actual teeth and even if they only let me in because they feel sorry for me or that story in the Daily Mail about how we’re both unhinged or something I am TOTALLY GOING TO TAKE IT I DON’T CARE I am going to take you out to dinner as soon as I get back to England!!!
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: King’s College London!!!!!!!!!
Which isn’t a date or anything!
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: King’s College London!!!!!!!!!
Unless you want it to be? Do you want it to be? (Oh God.)
And this isn’t only because I got into school or anything—I didn’t mean it that way at all. And it’s okay if you don’t want to! Date me, I mean. I know the last time we tried anything like that was a while ago and I know it wasn’t like that over spring break—I did really like bumming around London with you and going to bookstores and drinking iced tea.
Was that a date too?
Please put me out of my misery.
All I want to do is explore London with you again. You know parts of the city I didn’t even know existed. Sometimes I feel like it invents new parts of itself just for you. xxxx
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: King’s College London!!!!!!!!!
I know you’re online. I can see that you’re on chat. So are you letting me flounder around writing you awkward emails because it’s funny or because you’re horrified?
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: re: King’s College London!!!!!!!!!
Because I’m charmed, and a bit nervous.
Congratulations, Watson. I know how badly you wanted this, and I’m so very happy for you.
Will you call me? I’m awake. I mean, of course I’m awake, as I’m typing, and not a sleepwalker. But call. If you want.
MAY
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: Uni
Right but you are the only human being on this earth who can decide they want to go to Oxford while having like one-third of a high school diploma AND a police record and then have them be like, oh sure, totally come, just take some summer courses first!
I’m jealous. Actually I’m not because Oxford is, like, really scary to me, and really I’m not actually jealous—mostly I’m just really proud and happy and I think it’s going to be great for you to be able to focus on the kind of work you want to be doing: blowing things up. (Do they have a degree in that?)
Will you still be around in London when I get back from Sherringford? I’m trying to figure out where to stay—things are a little better with my mother but I don’t know if I want to move back in just yet.
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: Uni
It’s called chemistry, Watson.
And I’m enrolled in seven summer courses, in point of fact. I suppose they only required me to take four, but they had classes in biochemistry and music theory and statistics and poetry that sounded interesting, and so we’re currently configuring my schedule. I may or may not be meeting my Poe tutor at midnight on Tuesdays.
The summer program also offers a fiction writing workshop which confers one semester of university credit. It begins two days after Sherringford’s graduation and runs for six weeks.
They offer scholarships.
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: re: Uni
1: Please tell me that you aren’t meeting said Poe tutor in a catacomb, at midnight, on Tuesdays.
2: Are these, like, Leander Holmes rugby scholarships?
3: Also, wait—poetry?
4: Also, is this your weirdly formal way of asking me if I want to do this summer program thing with you?
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Re: re: Uni
1: Possibly. Would it make a difference?
2: Possibly. Would it make a difference? (A joke, Watson. Of course they are.)
3: I’ve been writing quite a bit of poetry recently. It’s very bad. I think in fact it might be the first time I’ve been terrible at something and still enjoyed it. Other than being your best friend, of course.
4: Please come. If it sounds at all appealing to you, or if you’re still casting around for something to do. I miss you.
5: I miss you enough to say: please don’t let me bully you into doing anything you wouldn’t want to do.
FROM: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
TO: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: How long until I see you?
Stop. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and you’ll always be. Unless you decide to Reichenbach on me again, in which case, we need to talk.
Someday your uncle is going to get tired of paying to send me to school. But I’ll never stop being grateful. I’ll give him a call tomorrow to say thank you; it’s late there.
I just checked with my dad, and he’s surprisingly gung-ho about me going. (Well, not surprisingly.) So yeah, I’m in! Twist my arm. Honestly it sounds kind of amazing and I’ve always wanted to spend time in Oxford and it’ll be nice to try out a college writing workshop if I really want to make a run on this whole novelist thing. Did you tell Lena about this? Today at lunch she was talking about it too. Tom went a little pale and was looking at flights on his phone.
I miss you too. I miss you like breathing. Have I already said that? I do, though. I miss you like naan pizza and builder’s tea. Like you’re the home I never knew I had.
FROM: C. Holmes < [email protected] >
TO: James Watson Jr. < [email protected] >
SUBJECT LINE: Four weeks, two days, three hours, seventeen minutes and forty-two seconds
Also, please don’t use Reichenbach as a verb. xxxx