Chapter Two

London - New York

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"The glamour of it all! New York! America!" Charlie Chaplin- Ellis

New York City. July 31st

Ellis

"We're going to get stopped and searched and taken off into separate, dark rooms, and then, the gloves will come out, because, well just look at the state of me!"

I try to calm Jessie down whilst we stand in a long passport control queue that feels like what forever might actually be like, but it's just not going to happen. She's all frazzled from a turbulent filled plane ride. Her very first.

The usually tough, take no prisoners Jessie is nowhere to be found. 

She keeps on about how pale she looks. Suspiciously so, like she might have a small countries worth of Colombian marching powder stuffed in her suitcase.

And I suppose she does look a bit paler than normal. And a tiny bit frazzled but it's been a long day and a bumpy journey so far but as usual, when I tell her that she looks great, because she does, all things considered, she brushes me off.

"Maybe we'll die here, in this never-ending queue," she says, gulping down water from a bottle she's been clutching ever since we stepped off the plane at JFK airport. "Maybe this is all a rouse and they're watching us, listening in to what we say as we wait."

I think the air pressure from the plane and no sleep has taken it's toll on her. That, or the much discussed jet-lag has begun to set in. Just like everyone warned us about.

Still, I try to remain upbeat. We're in New York! The Big Apple! The City that never sleeps, for Christ's sake!

We're finally here, after all these years of dreaming and wishing and planning, in the actual United States of America and if I'm honest, it feels damn good. Even if Jessie's acting all weird and a bit wobbly on her feet.

And even if she's freaking out about getting her fingerprints scanned. Her hands all clammy from what's to come before we can hop on the subway and head for our downtown New York hotel.

"That woman, the customs, security person," Jessie squeaks, under her breath. She side eyes a uniformed woman painfully oblivious to the both of us near passport control. "She keeps looking at me. I think she's trying to suss me out."

"Oh come on, stop being so silly," I laugh quietly, though she shoots me a look that means I shouldn't be. "Jessie, she's really not. I hate to break it to you but you're not any different from all these other schmucks in the line. Everyone's tired and looking like they'd rather be anywhere else than here too."

At least this makes her giggle a little, me putting on my best New York accent.

Ten minutes later and we're back to square one. Jessie's taken off her hoodie but she's still sweating. 

"I wish my mum was here, she'd know what to do. She's good in a crisis."

I shake my head, because Jessie's talking rubbish. Her mum is the complete opposite but I don't say that. Instead I half nod as a woman loudly coughs and I realise she's been behind us, eavesdropping the whole time.

Jessie frowns. "I wish she was here, you know. She''d probably hold my hand or something. I've only been out the country once before, to the South of France and that was in a camper van. I've never had to be interrogated or searched."

"That's not going to happen. No one will search or take you away for interrogation. I promise."

And because her mum isn't here and Jessie is shaking, I do the next best thing and I take her small hand and I hold it. She gives me a weird look but allows it. Like she's way too drained to argue, not like she's having deja vu of the last time I held it, like I am.

Jessie was too drunk and tired the last time to remember. This was during the latter part of a noisy family BBQ my parents threw when we were fifteen. She drunk undiluted Sangria like it was squash and left me to look after her because her parents were away on holiday.

She was sick that night. A lot. Mountains of fruity vomit. She puked in her hair and on my shoes but I didn't really mind.

I held her hand till she stopped been sick and fell to sleep.

And so when I see the sheen of sweat across her head, foreboding perhaps delayed travel sickness and a tinge of green in her cheeks, I take her other clammy hand in mine and gently hold it. I tell her that it'll all be okay.

Again, I make a promise.

When we eventually make it out to the other side, Jessie sucks in a mouthful of semi-fresh air and begins to look less frazzled and she stares down at my hand still wedged in hers.

She grins, with the colour back in her cheeks and says, "Thanks mum."

Downtown New York - Element Hotel, 39th St - 4.58pm

"Here is the key card for your room sir. Will you be requiring another for your..?" The guy with the thick accent behind the check in desk pauses and peers down at Jessie beside me. Thankfully, she's now more calm and less sweaty than the airport or our Subway journey.

When she raises him a beam of a smile, he hands her over a copy no further questions asked.

Originally, we'd toyed with the idea of pretending like we were some young, runaway couple who'd just tied the knot but Jessie hates wearing jewellery and didn't seem too pleased that I'd have to call her my wife for the duration of our New York stay.

"I am so ready to just flop down and sleep," Jessie says as we trudge out the lift and down a long hallway with suitcases that seem comically oversized compared to the suited and booted business men in the bar area with briefcases only. "But, I might take a shower first, that Subway carriage was pretty gross."

"Agreed." I take the key card and punch it in. Soon we're both flopped down, like snow angels on the neatly made single beds we'd specifically requested, with the faint glow of Times Square glimmering in the distance of a hotel supposedly only 'ten minutes' walk away.

This now seems highly doubtful but I shouldn't complain.

Both of our parents had chipped in to get us as close to the action as possible, so that we'd be able to settle into New York living in comfort. And I am grateful.

"So, you want to shower first?" Jessie asks, not bothering to unpack. She nudges her case into a corner by the flat screen TV and mini-bar that nosily hums. Then, she kicks off her trainers and apologises for the smell. It hits me less than a minute later and I crack open the window of our new home on the seventeenth floor for the next few days.

"You go ahead. I'm just going to sit here for a little while and take it all in," I say, parting the curtains to reveal blocks of glass and steel and concrete that touch the sky. Late afternoon light breaks through the cracks and I spy the colourful pixels of a Broadway advert scrolling on the side of shiny building.

Whilst Jessie busies herself with cataloguing all the complimentary mini toiletries on offer in the bathroom, I unzip my hoodie, pull up a chair and watch the world at one hundred odd feet drift by.

Only when Jessie re-emerges, humming the tune to "New York, New York", her usual lions mane of untamed blonde hair flat and sopping wet, with a white, fluffy towel wrapped around her narrow body, does it finally sink in that we're here. In America. And right now, New York! Home of all my favourite movies. The backdrop to so many iconic scenes. The inspiration for all the bands that Jessie loves.

And for Frank Sinatra too of course, to sing "If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere."

The same sentiment probably goes for every person whose ever visited I suspect.

We've not been here more than an hour but New York's got it's hooks in me. Sign me up! I'm completely sold.

I wouldn't mind staying forever.

Chucking her towel on top of her suitcase, a clean pair of jeans and light t-shirt now on, Jessie wildly shakes her hair, showering me in droplets of dewy, water. "So then, where are we headed to first tomorrow?"

I kick back my feet and grin. I don't know why she bothers to ask. It's obvious what my reply will be. It's not changed for ten years. All thanks to her.

"I thought we were going to get all the other landmarks out the way first, you know like The Empire State building and Central Park. The zoo. The Statue of Liberty..." she says. 

"But..."

"The Firestation on 14 N. Moore St, Hook & Ladder 8, from Ghostbusters can wait," she says, much to my disappointment, though I'm pretty impressed she knows the full address. "It's not going anywhere. It hasn't for like, over a hundred years."

Trust Jessie to take charge. She's always been this way. She also doesn't much take no for an answer.

Back when I was eight and thought that nothing could ever feel the same again, it was Jessie who invited me into her house and wouldn't take any of my sniffling excuses. I suspect now that she could see through my claims to be quite happy, sitting by myself in the garden on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, the day after my nan's funeral.

It was Jessie who told her older brother Daniel to clear off so that they'd be enough room on the old lime green sofa the Adkins used to have. And once she'd plonked me on that sofa, with a bowl of Neapolitan ice cream on my lap and Ghostbusters ready to play on the TV, I pretty much realised that I'd never be able to say no to such a girl.

Not because I was scared but because I never wanted her to have any reason to not want me in her company.

I don't think much has changed since I was eight.

Except for last year but we don't talk about that much. Probably for good reason.

Dividing my gaze between the New York skyline and Jessie decorating her bed with the entire contents of her travel back pack, I sigh. "But what if it happen's to be closed the day we go? And then we won't have time to come back."

She remains unconcerned. "It's open Monday - Saturday. We've got plenty of time.

"But, just say, what if they sell out of the t-shirts?" I sound more whiney than anticipated. "I need the original, authentic FDNY t-shirt for my collection, okay?"

Jessie rolls her eyes. "You're lucky I'm used to you being such a nerd. No one else would tolerate this obsession you know."

"Says the girl who hordes quirky looking old vinyl covers of bands she's probably never heard of. And you don't even own a record player to play them on."

She scoffs at me and throws a gummy bear from the bag she'd bought in duty free back in London. "I'm not obsessed, I just like collecting them. It's different."

"Sure."

"We can go visit your Firestation the day after tomorrow, alright?" she says, with a hint of a grin.

"I see what you did there."

When I look up and give her my full attention, she's got a bed full of rogue gummy bears and a smile on so wide, I wonder why I ever thought it possible to only half admire it.

"You're not the only film buff round here, alright, Mr. Ellis Adams?"

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"Oi, Ellis, are you asleep?"

"Well, I'm definitely not now."

Jessie turf's the end of her pillow right at me as we lie facing each other in the dark hotel room. We've been drifting on and off since 8.30pm, when our eyelids had begun to falter.

I guess that would be the fabled jet-lag then.

But now it's two thirty five am and the window is still open. It's noisy outside. New York doesn't lie. It really is the city that never sleeps.

"Do you fancy going out to explore?" Jessie suggests in a whisper, rolling onto her back. "I mean, I know it's a weird time to go out but I can't sleep anymore."

"Same."

"Surely there must be somewhere to get coffee and a bagel at this hour."

I roll onto my back also. "It's New York, of course there is."

And thankfully I'm not proven wrong as we emerge from the hotel and take a brisk walk right into the heart of Times Square.

I start to wobble like Jessie did in the passport control queue.

It's all so overwhelming, even without the crowds I've seen from all the guidebooks and googled images of New York's famous square.

A tightness begins to hug my stomach and a lump wedges itself in my throat as Jessie throws out her arms and spins around and around, laughing the entire time. Her hair still slightly wet and tangled.

My sister often says I'm too sensitive about certain things, but often I wonder if she's not just a robot, with a heart made of steal and therefore she can't feel things, like I do.

But then again, I realise that she'll never see Jessie in the same light as I do right now. Bathed in the glow of New York and the beginnings of new adventure.

How unbelievably special and spectacular it all is, everything and everyone.