Sisterchicks Go Brit! by Robin Jones Gunn Read Free Book Online

name was Mrs. Roberts, and she had a fabulous British accent.”
    “Why did you have a tutor?”
    I sat on the edge of the sloping twin bed. “I was very sick, and I thought I was going to die.”
    Kellie chuckled.
    I didn’t.
    She raised her eyebrows. “Lizzie, you’re serious. What happened?”
    I realized that when you’ve been the closest of friends for decades, it’s natural to think you know everything about the other person. Kellie knew my brothers by name. She knew what size shoe I wore before my two daughters were born and what size I wore now. She knew that I had a cat in first grade called Inky Boo and that my eyelids swell whenever I inadvertently eat salsa laced with jalapeños. But Kellie didn’t know this story tucked deep in my history.
    “My sophomore year of high school I had to stay in bed from October to February, and my parents hired a tutor.”
    “What illness did you have?”
    “Mononucleosis.”
    “You had mono?” She grinned. “Who did you kiss?”
    I cringed as if I were fifteen again and answered with the same indignation I had back then. “No one.”
    “I’m just kidding.” Kellie obviously had caught the edge in my voice.
    “That’s what everyone said.”
    It really wasn’t my intention to come across so strong or indignant to Kellie. She had no way of knowing that this ancient history still carried a sting. My reputation throughout high school had been tainted by rumors that I had “gone too far” withsome guy over the summer and that’s how I got the kissing disease.
    “I didn’t kiss anyone,” I said more calmly. “I got strep throat, and it developed into mononucleosis. The mono went after my liver, and I developed jaundice. By the second month of the illness I tested positive for hepatitis.”
    “Oh, Lizzie, you
were
sick.”
    “My skin turned a nauseating shade of yellow, and so did the whites of my eyes. It was awful. I really thought I was going to die. Then Mrs. Roberts came with her basket of books. All the British classic novels. She read to me for hours, and after she left, I kept reading.”
    “That’s why you and your girls are such great readers. You passed that love of literature on to them.”
    “It wasn’t just the literature I loved. Mrs. Roberts also brought travel brochures of England. She said they were our geography lessons. I would open those glossy, accordion-folded brochures, and she would tell me all about the sights in each picture. I memorized the pictures: the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, and, of course, the red phone booths.”
    “I can’t believe I never knew this.”
    “I almost told you a few years ago when you asked why I didn’t want to go with you to the blood drive. Do you remember that?”
    Kellie nodded. “My nephew was in the hospital. You said you couldn’t donate blood. I thought you just meant you couldn’t make it to the hospital that day.”
    “No, I can’t donate blood. My medical records show that I had hepatitis, and that means I’m not qualified to be a donor.”
    Kellie sat on the edge of her twin bed looking at me compassionately. “Your sophomore year was when you made your birthday wish to go to England, wasn’t it?”
    I nodded. “When my fifteenth birthday came that December, I wished I could go to London one day.”
    “And then you never got to. Until now.”
    “This might sound odd, but a trip to England wasn’t my real wish back then. I just wanted to be well enough to go to London if the opportunity ever presented itself. I guess my wish was really about getting healthy.”
    “Then I would say a double wish has come true for you today, sweet friend. You’ve been healthy enough to come for forty years. And now you’re here.”
    “I know.” My face warmed as a childlike sense of delight came over me. “We’re here, aren’t we? We’re in England.”
    “And tomorrow morning we’ll be in London.”
    However, the next