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Here's what Jacob knows about Freddy:
1. His name is Freddy. This is fairly new information, picked up when Freddy passed through the station with a friend. He stopped to fish a pound out of his pocket, but the stocky, round-faced man he was with kept moving. He turned back after a few strides and said, "Freddy, mate, we've got to go."
2. He is cute.
3. A few nights a week when Jacob plays violin at the Oxford Circus tube station, Freddy tips him on his way up from the bustling Central Line platform. He'll stay and listen usually, hanging back, pretending to check his phone or tie his shoe whenever Jacob catches his eye and smiles.
4. A little over a week ago while playing Brahms, Jacob's E string snapped and hit him in the eye. Clutching his face he yowled something along the lines of, "OW! Fuck me, baby Jesus, that stings! FUCK!" The children who had stopped to listen were ushered away by their scandalized-looking mother. Shortly thereafter they were replaced by a breathless Freddy, who laid his palms on Jacob's face and whispered, "Oh my God, are you all right?" Tears were leaking from Jacob's eyes, and in an attempt to preserve his reputation as a knavish fiddler with an endless supply of charm, he wheezed, "I think you're going to miss your train." Freddy hesitated a moment, sad eyebrows drawing up, then walked away.
5. And now, Freddy is missing.
"I don't think he's missing," Evie says, squinting at Jacob.
"He's missing," Jacob repeats darkly. "He's probably dead somewhere. Decomposing. Cute little mustache all messed up." He thumps his forehead down on the table, and after a moment Henry reaches over to pat him on the shoulder.
The day after the incident with the E string, Evie dragged Jacob to a hospital because his eye was "looking infected, Jacob, and I won't have you getting pus all over my sofa." He took the recommended few days off, and he hasn't seen Freddy since.
"He's not missing, and he's not dead," Evie assures him, on the edge of a laugh. "Don't be so dramatic."
Jacob moans into the table. Henry murmurs, "I'm going to get us some more drinks."
"Maybe just a water for Captain Heartbreak," Evie says.
"No," Jacob interjects, snapping back up into a sitting position. The room is spinning a bit, but he does his best impression of sobriety and says, "I'd like another beer please, Greenie."
Evie scoots out of the booth to let Henry leave, and when she sits back down she slides all the way to the wall. "Jacob, he's probably on holiday or something. Just wait it out."
"He's not on holiday," Jacob says, staring into the middle distance. You can tell just by looking at the guy: Freddy hasn't taken a single day off in his life. He wears his ties loose and his shirts with the top buttons undone, but that can't disguise how rigid his posture is as he comes and goes.
"You don't know that," Evie retorts. "Look, I can accept you mooning over some poor man you've never spoken to—that's fine, have at it—but don't pretend you know his schedule." She puts on her big sister voice when she adds, "And you know, if you printed some business cards with your website on them like I suggested, this Freddy might have a means to get in touch with you."
"I don't want a website," Jacob grumbles. They've been over this before: computers are a too-big, too-heavy addition to the travel backpack he lives out of. Jacob didn't even own a phone with internet access until he sent his last pay-and-go mobile through the wash and Evie insisted on the hardware upgrade. (This hasn't stopped him from leaving all manner of porn open on Evie's laptop, but that's by the by.)
"Aleck said he'd help you make one," Evie reminds him, like that changes the base issue of Jacob not wanting to hang out in public libraries to maintain a website. "You could get people to pay to download your music!"
"I haven't recorded any of my stuff." He sways a bit and adds, "Besides, how does that even work? How do I even get the money? I don't trust it."
"PayPal, Jacob. And a bank account. It's not as scary as you think." Jacob scoffs, but Evie presses on with, "It's less scary, in fact, than carrying all your cash around on your person."
Jacob rolls his eyes, then glowers at the table until a pint appears there following Henry's return. He grabs the beer and chugs it. When he's finished he lies across the booth on his belly, legs bent at the knee, face flat on the leather seat.
Evie's tapping her foot as she suggests, "Why don't you post one of those—what do you call them? Missed connections. Put it up on Gumtree."
"Or write a Rush Hour Crush," Henry adds.
"Oh, I like reading those," Evie agrees.
"That would never work," Jacob interjects, voice muffled. He flips onto his back—though it takes him a few tries—then shields his eyes with his forearms. "I just want to find him and give him kisses. And blowjobs. …And I want to die holding his hand."
"That's nice," Henry replies evenly.
They carry on for a while, the world getting brighter and spinnier. Jacob remembers being loaded into a cab at some point, then stumbling up the footpath to Evie's building, then being tucked in with some sport drink. He remembers waiting until Evie and Henry retire before sitting back up and going to look for Evie's computer.
Jacob wakes the next morning (wait—afternoon, he realizes after checking his phone) to a hammering headache. He's already missed his usual Southbank morning rush hour shift, which is too bad, but at least this way he can take his time.
He makes his way to the bathroom and sits cross-legged in front of the toilet, knowing what's to come. After a few minutes, he vomits—the controlled vomit of a gentleman who's been terribly hungover a time or two or two hundred—then he showers. He makes greasy breakfast, jolting every time oil spits up from the pan and onto his bare skin but too tired to go and find clothes. When he's done, he plops down at the table and opens Evie's laptop.
The first screen that opens is a Metro page thanking him for his Rush Hour Crush submission.
"Hmm." That does sound familiar. Jacob eats his hashbrowns and tries to recall what he wrote. He feels like it was…a lot. Good thing no one ever reads these, he thinks, closing that tab.
Missing his morning tips means Jacob needs to step it up for his evening at the Oxford Circus station. That means dragging out the amp and loop pedal his family gave him for Christmas. On the surface, it's a perfect gift for a street musician, but Jacob knows their true agenda: give him something too heavy to carry on his back and maybe he'll be less liable to skip off to Berlin or Paris or Madrid (again).
Jacob sets up at his usual spot. He's quicker with wiring his new tools now that he's had a month to practice with them. Red to input, white for effects loop in, yellow for effects loop return. He holds his violin across his abdomen then picks out a few notes to test his levels and, satisfied, clears the loop.
Jacob knows that people who are serious about this have much more advanced setups, but those aren't the people passing through this station at rush hour. Instead, he plays for commuters who are fascinated to hear one man producing the sounds of a septet, and generally they tip accordingly.
But even for an afternoon with the loop pedal, he finds himself raking in a lot of money. People are dropping coins and cash faster than he can empty his violin case, and he finds himself being recorded more often than usual as well—whenever he takes stock he finds that the crowd around him is half made up of faces obstructed by mobile phones.
It's a plump woman with an impossibly Scottish accent who finally walks up to him between songs, holds a copy of Metro in front of his face, and asks, "This you, laddie?"
Her finger is on the Rush Hour Crush column, bordered in pink and adorned with little hearts. Jacob takes it from her and skims, the memory of writing this opus filtering back in as he reads.
You: A man named Freddy who leaves the Central Line platform at Oxford Circus station a bit past 6:00.
Me: A street musician who makes you nervous.
I know your name is Freddy because I heard your friend call you that once. And I know I make you nervous because you tip me every day but always duck my eyes like I'm a basilisk which, I assure you, I am not. I smile at you and you check your phone, apparently forgetting that it doesn't work underground or hoping that I don't know that. I finish a tune and say 'hello' and you don't return the greeting until you've already backed three steps away.
I can't tell if you like Vivaldi or Elvis or today's top 40, but I CAN tell you like me. Because no matter what I'm playing, you stop and listen and leave a pound or two.
A couple of weeks ago a string broke on my violin and jabbed me in the eye, and you asked me if I was all right and I sent you away. You haven't been back since.
I didn't mean to embarrass you or hurt your feelings, and I really wish I could see you again. You can find me where you left me—same time, same place. And hold onto your tips so you can use them to buy me a drink next time instead.
The submission form's telling me to sign off with a descriptive moniker, but I feel like I've already got the upper hand knowing your name, so here's mine: Jacob.
"Better than I thought it would be," Jacob concludes, assuming Metro's proofreaders had a lot to do with that. His eyes skip up to the beginning of the column and he sees that there's an editor's note there, declaring: This is longer than our usual fare, but Valentine's Day is coming up and this one struck a chord with us. Let's help this poor sod #FindFreddy. Ugh.
"So it is you then?" the woman prompts. Jacob nods once and holds the paper back out to her. She waves a hand and says, "Keep it. You'll want to have a copy for when you find your Freddy."
He sets the paper on top of his amp. "Thanks."
"Thank you," she says, dropping some coin into his case. "It was a nice read. Good luck to you."
Jacob tucks his violin back under his chin, smiles, and starts on some Paganini.
At around half-eight he packs up, carrying his equipment plus his weight in cash and coin back to Evie's flat in Upper Holloway. When he gets inside he finds Evie and Henry sharing the couch, both glued to their laptops.
"Ah. Another exciting night home for Evie and Greenie," Jacob teases as he rolls his amp case into its designated corner.
"Where have you been?!" Evie demands, a little shrill. "We've been texting—"
"Mobile's dead," Jacob replies. He's been on or near the tube for hours besides—reception's not the best underground. "Why, is something wrong?"
"Quite the opposite," Henry supplies.
Smiling so widely Jacob can see all her teeth, Evie tells him, "#FindFreddy is trending!"
He glances between Evie's smile and Henry's and says, "…I don't know what that means."
Evie's smile vanishes into an eyeroll. "God, you bloody luddite—come here, I'll show you." Jacob takes off his jacket then squishes himself between Henry and Evie on the sofa. Evie angles her laptop so he can see it better and points to the edge of her screen, saying, "Look, this is a list of what people are tweeting about in London."
He spots it—right there, near the bottom of the list, sandwiched between the names of a couple of footballers—it says #FindFreddy. Jacob's stomach turns.
"What are they…twittering about, exactly?"
Evie clicks the link and the page populates with a collection of photos of him from just hours ago and a link to @MetroUK's account. Underneath, snippets from random Londoners:
Ada Striker @LambethBully1 · 1m
Saw Jacob playing today! Seems like a keeper. Good luck on the search! #FindFreddy
Mildred Graves @millie_graves · 2m
#findfreddy #findfreddy #findfreddy I'm way more committed to helping this man find his rush hour crush than I am to bagging my own valentine.
Jesse Butler @sousedinstrand · 4m
shit, have you seen video of the #findfreddy bloke? i'd change my name to freddy if it meant bedding that hobo adonis.
"Oh, this one thinks I'm hot!" he says, pointing.
Evie side-eyes him. "They also called you a hobo." Jacob shrugs.
"People are writing blogs about it," Henry interjects, turning his computer. "This person outlined a whole plan for what order you might visit other tube stations. It's based on the lines that pass through Oxford Circus and the most- and least-trafficked platforms on each route." He switches tabs and continues, "And this person used census data to estimate your chances of finding Freddy. He says there are about 20,000 Freddies, Freds, and Fredericks in London, but when you factor in age range and sexual preference it's a much smaller number…"
Jacob tunes out and tries to ID the feeling in his gut. He's…excited? Nervous? If so many people are talking about it, surely Freddy will see it. Then what?
"I'm honestly impressed that your drunken submission got the trending topic treatment instead of ending up in a roundup of the creepiest Rush Hour Crushes of the year," Evie says, nudging Jacob with her shoulder, which in turn tips Jacob into nudging Henry in the shoulder. "Anyway, it'll all blow over by tomorrow, I'm sure."
"Why, if it isn't the newly-minted Detective Sergeant Abberline," Aubrey blares—loud for showmanship or in order to be heard over the din of traffic, Freddy's not sure. Aubrey and his wife Marjorie live in the flat above Marjorie's butcher shop. It's convenient for them, for running the shop and for having all the amenities of a commercial corridor in walking distance, but damn if it isn't noisy.
Aubrey stands aside and Freddy walks in, warm air rushing around him. "All right, Freddy?" he asks as he leads him up the narrow stairwell, lined with old paisley wallpaper.
"Yeah, good."
At the top of the stairs and around the corner, Marjorie's washing her hands in the kitchen sink. She shoots Freddy a wide smile over her shoulder as he enters. "Freddy, it's so nice to see you," she says, and you can tell she means it. Marjorie's cut out for small business ownership that way: she loves everyone she meets and can coax a smile out of even the grumpiest bastards. (This explains how she ended up with Aubrey, who spends about 70 percent of his time being downright baleful.)
"Thanks for inviting me for dinner, Marjorie," Freddy says. "I brought wine. And, er…" He holds up a trio of yellow daffodils tied with a ribbon. Freddy bought them at a flower shop about a week ago and he's since grown sick of looking at them. But it seems wasteful to throw them out when they're still not wilting, so to the Shaw family they go.
"Oh, lovely! Will you look at that, Aubrey? Flowers," Marjorie says. She takes both gifts and turns away, plopping the flowers in a clear glass and digging out a corkscrew for the wine.
"Yeah. Flowers," Aubrey echoes, not matching Marjorie's enthusiasm by half. He narrows his eyes at Freddy.
Freddy pretends he doesn't notice his friend's suspicion and instead helps move food from countertop to tabletop. In a few minutes they're tucking in and trading stories about their weeks. Things are as slow as ever at Bethnal Green Police Station, Freddy's old base of operations. The most notable part of Aubrey's week was when someone stumbled into the station house saying they were bleeding and needed a hospital…then it turned out they were just having a bad trip.
Meanwhile, Freddy's promotion to detective sergeant and transfer to Charing Cross Police Station wasn't quite as exciting as he'd hoped. He complains that they started him on investigating a rash of smash and grabs around Covent Garden.
"Yes, if only more people were getting murdered, then you could investigate something more interesting," Aubrey drones.
He's hard on Freddy for being more interested in solving crimes than protecting people from them in the first place. (But that's a load of tosh from a man who's more likely to play truant than do any sort of police work, preventative or reactive.)
"Well, it is only Wednesday," Marjorie replies, smiling at the end of her bite of pasta.
Aubrey scolds his wife. Marjorie laughs. Freddy drinks his wine and gazes at the daffodils he brought, sitting crookedly in their glass of water.
"Freddy?"
Freddy looks up, puts down his wineglass, forces a bland smile. But Aubrey isn't having it. "What's with the flowers, mate?"
"Nothing!" he insists, knowing it comes out too quickly.
"Freddy," Aubrey repeats, lowering his chin. "I may just be a lowly PC to your detective, but I know suspicious activity when I see it. And you've been eyeing those flowers like they fingered your mum."
It's Marjorie's turn to scold. Aubrey turns his eyes back on Freddy when she's done and prompts, "Well?"
"You'll laugh," Freddy says.
Aubrey shrugs. "Maybe."
Freddy scowls and pours what's left of the wine he brought into his glass. "I bought the flowers for someone else," he admits. He takes a big swig of wine then adds, "Satisfied?"
Aubrey opens his mouth to respond but Marjorie gets there first, saying, "Definitely not." She pins Freddy with a look that's both too searching and too soft. "What happened, Freddy?"
"It's—" he pauses, chewing on the insides of his cheeks. He was going to say 'it's nothing' but it seems too late for that. "There's this violinist. A busker. He plays three nights a week at the tube station where I used to transfer on my way home from Bethnal Green. He's…he's something."
"He's what? Handsome?" Marjorie supplies. She's leaning forward on her elbows, like she's eager for scraps. "Talented?"
"Both," Freddy concedes, smothering a fond smile. "Square jawed and scruffy. Totally unselfconscious when he plays." Freddy can't say what he prefers: when the violinist sways, eyes shut, lost in his music…or the moment after when he opens his eyes, spots Freddy, and smiles like he's been waiting for him. Like he's delighted to see him.
A portion of Freddy's career success can be credited to him being unmemorable. Average height, unremarkable face. Blending in is a valuable gift for a plainclothes police officer. But the look the violinist got whenever he saw Freddy…well, it doesn't matter anymore.
"Anyway, a while back he broke a string on his violin and it scratched him in the eye. I rushed up to him and tried to see if he was OK but he brushed me off. So I picked up the flowers a couple days later to say…something. 'Get well soon' or 'sorry I touched your face' or 'I have a big horrible crush on you.' Doesn't matter though, because he didn't come back. And now my commute has changed. So."
Freddy adds, "I thought we had a…thing. I passed every day and he smiled at me. And as I'm saying it, I realize how stupid it is. He obviously just liked that I tipped him." He forces a dry laugh.
And that's the story of how Freddy took a harmless, risk-free crush on stranger and scared him away. And he's sure every time he recalls this interaction for the rest of his life, he'll be embarrassed all over again. What kind of sadsack misinterprets a busker's thankful smile as flirtation? Freddy, apparently.
He glances around the table, at Aubrey who's a little redder than usual and at Marjorie who looks at a loss for words. A moment passes before he pushes out from the table, the scrape of the chair on the floor breaking the silence. He announces, "I'm gonna pop downstairs for a smoke."
Freddy grabs his jacket on the way out, swinging it over his shoulders as he descends to street level. Outside he lights up, shielding his cigarette from the breeze and the drizzle that started up while they were eating, and takes a long drag.
He hadn't told anyone about the violinist before this. He thought getting it off his chest would put it into perspective, make the whole thing feel silly and help him to stop dwelling on it. But all it had done was smear his embarrassment around for more people to frown at.
A few minutes pass, then Aubrey joins him outside. Freddy lifts his pack of cigarettes in offering but Aubrey shakes his head. He knows Marjorie sent Aubrey down. He also knows that Aubrey respects the fact that, nine times out of ten, Freddy Doesn't Want to Talk About It.
Still, he decides to give him what he came for. Freddy ashes his cigarette and grumbles, "Out with it, Aubs."
"We're sorry that your busker vanished."
"Thanks."
"And I'm glad—we're glad," Aubrey amends, "that you're considering dating again. After Martha." Freddy knows the rest. That it's what Martha would have wanted, that there are plenty of fish in the sea, et cetera et cetera.
He hadn't actually sat down and made the decision to 'get back out there,' but Freddy is many months past mourning his wife's illness and death. He got used to being single again in the meantime, and it didn't occur to him to change that status. But it didn't occur to him to feel guilty about the crush on the violinist either. So Freddy says, "I suppose."
After a moment, Aubrey adds, "Do you reckon that you developed a crush on a nomadic sort of stranger because you have lingering fears about entering a new relationship? And this course of action seemed to be low stakes?"
Freddy blinks. "What? Where the hell did that come from?"
"Oh, it's—" Aubrey gestures vaguely. "Marjorie listens to a romance advice podcast with this Olwyn Owers woman. Now she's got me hooked on—hey, don't laugh."
"I'm not!" Freddy says, smiling around one last drag. He stubs out his cigarette when he's done and puts on a scandalized tone when he finishes, "I'd never."
He cocks his head toward the door and Aubrey opens it. Just after they go inside, the digital billboard down the street flickers and goes black. It lights back up a moment later, but not with the ads for perfume, sweets, and syndicated TV that cycled on it before. It's a simple screen, white text on blue, that reads #FINDFREDDY.
Hood up and feeling hunted, Jacob slips into the Cross Keys. Inside it's relaxingly dim, all crimson upholstery and gaudy carpet, amber lights reflecting off the brass pots and kettles dotting the ceiling. Jacob stops in here on days he fills in with Robert Topping's troupe in Covent Garden. He likes this pub. It's cluttered with picture frames and kitschy memorabilia…but never cluttered with tourists. He also likes Mary Anne, the aging but spry co-owner who can usually be found tending bar midday.
"Jacob!" she cries, spotting him as he makes his way along the bar. "The usual?"
"Yeah, cheers," Jacob replies. He hops onto one of the stools and slips his violin case between his feet and the bar.
Mary Anne is back with his lager in a moment, taking the cash Jacob holds out to her. He pushes his hood down and drinks, only realizing that he forgot to deploy a grin when Mary Anne tilts her head and asks, "What's the matter, dear?" She pats his wrist and continues in a hush: "Is it the search?"
She's looks at him like he's lost a beloved pet or something, not just submitted a Rush Hour Crush that's spiraled out of control.
"Well." Jacob rests his elbow on the bar and leans on his hand. "I've been propositioned by nearly every Freddy and Eddy in London at this point."
"And you didn't think to send any of them my way?" Mary Anne asks, angling her whole body into her saucy wink.
That wrings a smile out of Jacob. "I will with the next one, I promise," he says. "In the meantime, it's gotten impossible to play at my usual spot—people crowd around and clog the tunnel and they're getting me in trouble with TFL. Actually, the other day I got there and, I swear to God, there was someone dressed like me, standing in my spot, playing a guitar."
Mary Anne titters and asks, "Was he convincing?"
Jacob returns the laugh, but dryly, and admits, "I mean…yeah. He did look a lot like me." He takes another drink before saying, "I just don't understand how this is still going. It was fun at first. Evie and her boyfriend were watching Twitter to see if Freddy reared his head. My friend Aleck took it upon himself to hack some road signs and stuff to help spread the word. And now it's just…it's too much."
Jacob finishes his lager and Mary Anne gets him another. "Has no good come of it?" she inquires.
He blows out a sigh, casting around for some part of this that hasn't been a pain. "I guess. Good Morning Britain booked me for a bit. I don't want to do it, but Evie talked me into it. They pay well for appearances, and she thinks I should use the money for a security deposit and whatnot on a flat, then give the conservatoire another shot."
"Oh! That's a brilliant idea." Mary Anne bounces and so do her ringlets. "Have you started looking for a place?"
"No," he says, plain. "No, I'm thinking I'll use it on a plane ticket, actually. Crash with my friend Ned in New York, then hop some trains. Try the America thing for a while."
Mary Anne clicks her tongue and protests, "But you've only just come back to London!" Jacob shrugs. He never goes anywhere with the intent to stay, and he's about had his fill of listening to Evie and Henry have weird silent sex while he sleeps out on the couch. "Well, I won't stop you from doing what makes you happy. But what about Freddy?"
"What about him?" Jacob says, shrugging again. "If he hasn't come out of the woodwork yet, he's not about to. Besides, there's too much expectation now. What if we meet and it doesn't work out? That's a shit ending to this story."
When he's not agonizing over how this whole ordeal feels like a colossal invasion of Freddy's privacy, this is the thing that makes Jacob's palms sweat: the idea of finding Freddy and it turning out that they're terribly incompatible. Would they have to issue a public statement or something? For Immediate Release: Jacob and Freddy announce that the sex is bad and they'd rather not go into details.
"Is that a worse ending than you not finding him at all?" Mary Anne asks. She doesn't say it softly, just matter-of-fact. Jacob sucks in his lips, considering.
"Mary Anne!" Benjamin, Mary Anne's husband, pops his balding head and bowtied neck out of the door that leads to the kitchen. "Sergeant Abber-whatsit's on the phone for you. Wants to talk about the break-in."
"Coming, Dizzy!" Mary Anne calls back.
"Break-in?" Jacob echoes, sitting up straighter. "What break-in?"
"Just a busted window and some lost liquor is all. Not a very determined thief, whoever they were." Mary Anne turns toward the kitchen then stops herself, one hand on the edge of the bar. She pivots back toward Jacob and says, "You know, if you're not set on your Freddy, I should introduce you to this Abberline! New detective at the station, very nice man." She taps the side of her nose conspiratorially and adds, "And he has a mustache."
Mary Anne thinks 'mustache' means 'gay.' Which—well, she's not not right.
"Thanks, Mary Anne," Jacob says. "But I don't date cops."
From the kitchen, Benjamin bellows, "Mary Anne! The phone!"
"Coming, Dizzy!" she calls again, sounding a little miffed this time. She leaves to take the call, and Jacob checks his mobile and sees it's about time to leave for the piazza anyway.
Jacob tries to give Mary Anne's corgi, Desmond, a pat on the way out, but he snaps at him like he always does. Arsehole dog.
Not content with merely congratulating Freddy for considering dating again, Aubrey and Marjorie go ahead and set Freddy up with a friend of theirs. It's someone they've mentioned to him before, more than once: Rose Bartlett, a woman Marjorie knows from some female entrepreneurs networking group.
Freddy and Rose agree to get lunch: it's casual, it's low maintenance. Freddy lets Rose pick the location and groans when he discovers it's in Knightsbridge. Still casual, still low maintenance, only now it's expensive.
They've just ordered their food (Freddy going for the cheapest dish on the menu and "just water will be fine, thanks") and are going through the motions of getting to know each other.
"Any siblings?" Rose asks. She's tall and broad, probably a pound-for-pound match for Freddy. She looks a bit like a librarian with her square glasses and her prematurely graying hair pulled into a bun. And not in a bad way.
"I'm the youngest of four."
"Wow!" she says. Freddy nods. It's made all the more 'wow' when you factor in the fact that his mother raised them alone from the time when Freddy was about six, but he leaves that part out with new people. Tends to make them sad. "Are all your brothers and sisters in London?"
"No, just me. The others stayed in Dorset. My eldest sister runs a food co-op, the next sister is in local government, and my brother works in the office for a place that makes hospital equipment." Freddy wrinkles his nose. "And it's about as boring as it sounds."
"Lucky you made it out, yeah?"
"Well, I've been told I'm quite boring too." Rose laughs. Freddy laughs. It's not like sparks are flying, but it's not going poorly either, which is a relief.
"And how about you?" Freddy prompts. "Siblings?"
Rose is talking about her brother—Argus, goes by Gus—and how they came to own a business together when something catches Freddy's eye. The women at the table behind Rose are watching a video together, their heads bent close to hear the laptop speakers. And for a second he thought he saw…but that's ludicrous.
There's a sharp-eyed woman on screen now, red hair sprayed so stiffly in place it looks like a helmet. Freddy's gaze drifts back to Rose, who's—shit, who's asking him a question.
"Sorry, what was that?" he says. Rose starts to repeat herself, but Freddy's eyes snap back to the computer. Because the red-haired woman is gone, and—that's him.
That's him. Someone's taken a brush to his hair and a trimmer to his beard, but there's no mistaking the man on screen. It's the violinist from the Oxford Circus station, sitting up very straight on the far left side of a typical daytime talk show sofa.
Freddy's out of his seat and on his way to the other table before he remembers to turn and say something to Rose, who looks a little alarmed. He manages, "Sorry, I just—I have to—" before giving up and going straight for the women with the computer.
"Pardon me, can I see what you're watching?" he asks them in a rush, hand outstretched to turn the laptop toward him.
"What? No." The woman draws back from him, looking disgusted. "Sod off."
Freddy falters for a moment, rocking on his feet, then slides his badge out of his pocket and holds it up. "Show me the computer," he says, going for firm. "Now."
The woman gives him another dirty look, she but holds up her hands in mock surrender. Freddy crouches at the edge of the table and spins the computer toward himself, tilting the screen down. The helmet-haired woman is on screen again. Freddy arrows back to the beginning of the video.
"In the spirit of St. Valentine we're talking about the anatomy of the perfect personal ad today," the host says, enunciating around a megawatt smile. It's a clip from Good Morning Britain of all impossible, unlikely things. "Joining us today is the host of the fantastic Love with Lady O podcast, Olwyn Owers—welcome, Olywn."
"Thank you for having me," she says.
"And also with us in studio is a musician and the scribe of the most-talked about Rush Hour Crush of the year, Jacob Frye. Welcome!"
The camera cuts to the violinist—no, Jacob—who says "thanks" with a stiff smile.
In under two weeks this man became little more than a ghost…some nameless fiddler who lived in Freddy's mind but had vanished from his reality. And now he had a name, first and last. Jacob Frye, Freddy thinks. Jacob Frye. Holy shit.
"If you haven't read Jacob's Rush Hour Crush yet, we put a link to it on Good Morning Britain's Facebook and Twitter pages. But would you mind giving viewers a quick synopsis, Jacob?"
"Sure. Er—I guess the gist is I'm a busker," Jacob says, indicating himself with a hand on his chest. He does it with a posh kind of flourish, like he's acting the part of a person who's comfortable in front of television cameras. "I play violin in a few places around the city. And there was this man who left me a tip whenever I played at Oxford Circus station and he was…" Jacob's brows gather as he remembers. "Well, I thought we had a bit of a thing. Then one day he stopped showing up. So I mentioned it over drinks to some friends and they suggested writing something, which I thought was a terrible idea at the time, but then I had a few more drinks and…and here we are."
That's—no. No, it can't be.
"And 'here we are,' indeed," the host says, laughing toothily. Jacob parrots the laugh with eerie accuracy. "When you wrote it, did you know your post was destined to go viral?"
"Not at all. I'm surprised it even got published…it was rather long and I'm sure the original was basically unreadable. I think its popularity has a lot to do with the hashtag the Metro editors added."
"#FindFreddy," the host supplies.
Jacob nods. "Right."
Freddy stands straight up, locking his knees. Feeling the heat in his face and under his collar, he looks around at the women who were watching the video and Rose, who's twisted in her seat to watch him.
"You done, guy?" says the woman whose computer Freddy had commandeered.
"Er—yes. Yep." Freddy gently slides the laptop back to the position he found it. "And the Metropolitan Police Service thanks you."
Shock is shifting into excitement is shifting into delight as he steps back to his table. Under normal circumstances, getting a withering glare from his date would make Freddy nervous, especially when his date looks like they would beat him in a fight. Instead he feels tingly everywhere, wide awake and ready for anything.
"I need—" Freddy says. He notices he's smiling and struggles to school his face into a more neutral expression. "I need to go. I—it's." He tilts his head, and resets. "You seem really great. And here's, y'know, here's like forty quid," he says, dropping some bills on the table. "For lunch. Er. It was really nice to meet you and you seem—great. Again, really great. OK."
Freddy makes a quick exit and walks about two blocks before he realizes he doesn't know his destination. He hails a taxi and climbs in. The cabbie asks where he's headed and he has to think about it a moment. He decides to go home and tells the driver, "Kilburn—Mazenod Avenue, please."
Bouncing his knee, Freddy pulls the video back up on his phone and finds the minute mark where he left off. The podcaster, Olwyn Owers, is asked about what made Jacob's Rush Hour Crush such a success. She agrees the hashtag has a lot to do with it, but then goes into a speech about Jacob's expert use of the "three Us: uniqueness, urgency, and ultra-specificity."
"It's unique in the obvious ways—the length of the column itself, for example—but also because Mr. Frye isn't just another commuter like most submitters. He's a street musician, and he's had multiple interactions with the object of his affections, again unlike most submitters."
Object of his affections. Freddy holds his phone to his chest, muffling Olwyn's posh voice for a moment. Bloody hell.
When he lifts it again, she's mid-sentence. "—lists a place and approximate time, and because he names himself and his crush. There's enough detail there for Freddy to find him—or for a friend of Freddy's to put two and two together."
"But still no Freddy?" the host says, her smile tipping sad.
"Ah, no," Jacob replies.
"Is it even possible he still hasn't heard about it? It seems #FindFreddy is everywhere…"
Jacob nods, like he's waiting for the host to finish her statement, then catches up. "I suppose I could have misheard his name in the first place, and I should actually be looking for a Teddy or something," Jacob says, smiling ruefully. "The truth, I think, is he's heard about it and has stopped leaving his house altogether. Is probably going by his middle name these days."
"Not possible," the host replies, and Freddy finds himself nodding along. Who in their right mind would find out this man—this man here, with this face, voice, and body—was looking for them and then not show up?
…Well, there does exist a combination of sexualities and relationship statuses that would not be interested. But even then, wouldn't you want to tell him the truth and put him out of his misery? Look at that face.
"You're not giving up on the search, are you?" the host asks.
"I—I guess I am," Jacob replies. "I admire that so many people want to see a happy ending here, but right now I can't even play at Oxford Circus station for the crowds. I think it's time to try a different country for a while, and leave Freddy in peace."
A coarse silence falls between the people on Good Morning Britain 's semicircular sofa, and Jacob glances directly at the camera and then away. The host recovers after a moment and says, "Well that helps us segue to our next topic: the science of online dating profiles, which are of course the dominant incarnation of the old personal ad. Olwyn, what tips would you give Jacob for, say, setting up a Tinder account wherever he plans to go next?"
Freddy closes the video abruptly, like he they were about to show something horrific. What was left of his excitement dissipates, leaving anxiety in its wake. So he can't expect to find Jacob at Oxford Circus on Tuesday…and pretty soon he can't expect to find him at all.
He takes a deep breath.
"Excuse me," Freddy says to the cabbie, leaning forward. "Sorry, change of plans. Can you take me to Charing Cross Police Station?"
He searches #FindFreddy in the meantime and pulls up a repost of Jacob's original submission.
You: A man named Freddy who leaves the Central Line platform at Oxford Circus station a bit past 6:00. Me: A street musician who makes you nervous.
Freddy leans his head against the window and smiles.
In ten minutes he's paid the driver and is marching into the station, confidence renewed. He shakes the ball chain loose from his warrant card so he can hang it over his neck.
Lucy, the desk clerk, gives him a dirty look as he walks in. Then again, she kind of always looks like that—like she's just smelled something rotting. "What're you doing here?" she asks.
"Working," Freddy tells her, not stopping on his way past. The station is mostly empty—no one's in the holding cell and only a couple of people are at their desks.
Except Lucy follows him and says, "You're not on call this weekend."
"Well, it's urgent." Freddy reaches his desk and hits the spacebar on his keyboard, and his computer starts its slow climb out of rest mode. He wiggles his mouse back and forth in a vain attempt to make it go faster.
"You're not meant to work overtime unless you're an exempt salaried employee."
He looks at Lucy over his shoulder and asks, "Why does this matter to you? Are you having guests or something?" Freddy sits down, shaking the mouse some more. "Leave me be, Lucy."
Lucy leans on the edge of Freddy's desk, watching him. "What?" Freddy snaps. He's not looking at her as he says it; instead he has his eyes trained on his screen as he keys in his password and goes to pull up records. "Are you going to report me to HR for violating my own workers' rights?"
"No." Lucy folds her arms. "I'm just bored."
"Well I don't plan on staying long," Freddy says, slow as he focuses on typing J-A-C-O-B F-R-Y-E. He saw it spelled out on the bottom of the screen on the clip. The database processes…processes…and turns up nothing. A bunch of similar names but no Jacob Frye. "Dammit." (This is the first and hopefully last time Freddy will be disappointed to look up a potential romantic partner and find they haven't been arrested.)
"Who's Jacob Frye?" Lucy asks, leaning around to look at his screen.
"That's…confidential." Lucy's giving him a look. "What?"
"It just sounds familiar," she replies, lifting her phone. She starts to type. "Jacob…Frye…here we are. Oh, right—the Rush Hour Crush guy."
He can see Lucy's hand moving as she scrolls on her phone, and his face starts getting hot well before she stops and says, "Wait. Wait. You're #FindFreddy? You're the one every lovesick fool on in London's been looking for?"
Freddy glances up from his computer, where he's started searching things the civilian way—Google. Lucy reads a confirmation in that and releases a peal of wicked laughter. She stops, just for a second, then laughs again—sharp and cruel, the kind of laugh linked forever in your mind to school bullies.
Freddy knows better than to ask why this is so funny—he'd rather not know. Instead he says, "All right, that is a bit disproportionate."
"Oh, this is delicious," Lucy sighs on cool down, delicately dabbing her eyes with her knuckles. "Truly. I can't believe no one in the division figured this out—people were talking about it in the breakroom and everything. You should all be fired. Can I send an office-wide email about this?"
"No," Freddy grunts.
"And don't you go by 'Frederick'?"
"Believe me, I try," Freddy tells her. He abandons Google—Jacob hasn't left much of a trail there—then pulls up Twitter to search #FindFreddy. The gap between recent posts stretches longer and longer. The trend is winding down, and Freddy's chances of reaching Jacob are diminishing with it. He blows out a sigh.
"How are you going to reveal yourself?" Lucy asks. Freddy looks around at her and she nods toward the screen. "You've got 140 characters to make your premiere as the Freddy."
"Oh, I don't have Twitter."
Lucy goes silent, eyes flickering back and forth between his. "Then how do you suppose you'll be found?"
Lucy takes a photo of him, which Freddy shoots down because his eyebrows are out of control ("Don't they always look like that?" Lucy says, smug). Fifteen minutes and a lot of circular arguments about handles later—Freddy throwing out Lucy's suggestions before he even realizes he was dealing with someone who goes by @7uicy7ucy—Freddy was looking at his first tweet.
Frederick Abberline @freddyabberline
I'm Freddy. Anyone have a lead on where I can find Jacob if he's not at Oxford Circus station anymore? #FindFreddy
It wasn't grand or romantic, but it got the job done. Or would, if the world wasn't full of pessimists and liars. Replies and retweets ticked in slowly but consistently, and they all had the same approximate sentiment.
Sylvia Duke @dukesylvia
@freddyabberline SURE U ARE
Prudence Browne @missusjekyll
Hmm…new profile, no pic, no tweets. Seems legit, right guys? #FindFreddy
Harvey Hughes @harveyhues
#findfreddy here we go again
In the meantime, Freddy does his own searching. He scrolls backward through all the photos in the #FindFreddy thread in an attempt to find one of Jacob fiddling somewhere other than a tube station. No go. He looks up all the private busking schemes in London to see if Jacob's name is listed on their rosters. Again, nope. He prowls through comment threads on the various blogs about the rise of #FindFreddy in the hope that someone might mention seeing him somewhere other than Oxford Circus station. Nothing definitive.
It's dark outside the station windows by the time he gives up modern media and decides to submit his own Rush Hour Crush. It's only a few sentences, but he can't summon the willpower to write them. Besides, how hard should he lean on referencing Jacob's prose? And what can he do to make sure Metro doesn't throw it out, assuming they've been flooded with submissions from fake Freddies as well?
Fuck it, he thinks, or maybe says. He closes his browser, turns off the monitor, and leaves the station to take a walk. Lucy, back at her own desk, doesn't say goodbye.
Outside, he heads in the direction of Covent Garden instead of the tube station that will take him home. Dinner hour's over and the crowds are tapering off, the buskers are doing their last shows of the evening.
He passes a woman hula-hooping, expertly dancing and dipping her limbs in and out of the hoops without stopping their circular motion. Then he walks past a man, brazenly shirtless even in the February chill, who's twisting out of a binding of thick metal chains while spitting jokes into a microphone. Freddy makes his way along the edge of a third circle act, this one featuring two people balancing on tall unicycles who are juggling about a zillion pins between them.
Improbably, his eye is drawn away from the action up high to the accompaniment below, where a familiar silhouette guides his bow along the strings of a violin, his wrist shaking on vibrato.
It's their last show of the night, and the week, and Jacob's glad because he's exhausted. He plans to buy some self-pity cookies after this and kick off Valentine's Day a night early by eating sweets and having a wank, perhaps simultaneously.
He scans the crowd as he plays, not really needing to watch the buskers or listen for Robert's cues. He knows the cadence of the show now, knows when it's time for forte and when it's time for piano, knows when it's time to rest for one of Robert's better jokes.
So Jacob searches the faces in the audience when things feel repetitive, softening at the open awe of small children and the more subdued delight of their parents. He especially likes to find the people standing off from the group, at the edges of the show and usually alone, trying and failing to look too cool for Robert Topping and his upbeat humor and overdone circus tricks.
And it's when he looks there, at the fringes of the crowd standing by the church columns, that Jacob finds Freddy.
Jacob freezes, a sudden stop that he couldn't pass off as an improvised rest if he wanted to. Freddy raises one hand in a meek wave.
Addressing the audience, Robert crows something about the crowd being at a loss for words and their accompaniment being at a loss for notes. Robert leans around the unicyclists to get a look at him and says, "Jacob?" then "Oh!"—because Jacob is shoving his violin and bow into Robert's arms and walking across the cobblestone, making a beeline for Freddy.
Freddy doesn't try to escape this time, doesn't pretend to tie his shoe. His eyes go a little wider as Jacob makes his approach, but if Freddy's there to tell Jacob he got the wrong idea, it's going to have to wait. Because Jacob's in front of him now and he's grabbing Freddy's face and he's kissing him full on the mouth.
Freddy's breath hitches, and it's loud against Jacob's lips. Jacob has the presence of mind to kiss him with care: eager, but not sloppy. Hard, but not bruising. He sips at Freddy's lips, a little chapped but wonderfully warm, and he tastes like spearmint gum…and the cigarettes the gum's meant to cover up. Freddy's hands find Jacob's sides and he's pulling him closer, humming when Jacob runs his fingertips through Freddy's hair, then down, tracing along his pulse.
Jacob's a split-second away from plunging his tongue into Freddy's mouth when a breeze picks up around them and he remembers: outside. Covent Garden. Crowd.
He pulls off Freddy and looks around. The few people who had been standing near them were giving them a wide berth, and Robert had literally stopped the show to watch them. Up on their unicycles, Tom and Nora were cradling the pins they'd been juggling in their arms.
"Er." Jacob leans back a bit and, pointing at Freddy, says, "It's…Freddy."
"Oh!" Robert exclaims, beaming. "Ladies and gentlemen, our accompaniment has found his elusive Rush Hour Crush—and just in time for Valentine's Day."
An 'awww' ripples through the crowd, followed by some mortifying applause. Robert takes a moment to remind them they'll collect tips when the show's over, adding something about helping Freddy and Jacob get a private room. Jacob tunes him out, and they restart the show without the music.
He glances back at Freddy, who appears to be a little lost.
"I've been looking for you," Jacob says.
Freddy clears his throat and replies, "I know."
"I had—you know, I had a whole thing planned?" Jacob tells him, casting around for any part of the speech he'd sketched out to use in this moment. "For when I found you, I mean. I was going to say a whole thing."
"Yeah. I—" Freddy gives up on whatever he was going to reply with and settles on a shrug.
Jacob shifts his weight and looks at his feet. When he does, he catches sight of a badge resting on Freddy's abdomen, hanging from a long chain. "Wait," he says, lifting it, "you're a cop?"
Freddy follows Jacob's eyes to the badge. "Oh. Er—yes."
Jacob blinks. "OK. All right, I guess that's fine." Freddy gives him a puzzled look and opens his mouth to say something more, but Jacob cuts him off with, "Do you want to get some dinner? Right now?"
Freddy closes his mouth and smiles, his shoulders relaxing. "I'd like that."
Two cheap dinners, four magnificent orgasms, and one shared night locked in battle over Freddy's blankets later, Freddy and Jacob lean against the kitchenette counter in Freddy's studio. Jacob slurps on a bowl of cereal while Freddy drinks some tea.
"What're you thinking about?" Jacob asks. Maybe it's because he says it with his mouth full of marshmallow bits, but it doesn't come off as too searching or too sentimental—just curious.
"I'm thinking about all the people on Twitter who told me I wasn't Freddy." He grins against the rim of his cup, victorious.
"Mmm!" Jacob puts his bowl down and walks over to Freddy's bed to grab his mobile. "Let's take a selfer." Selfer. Freddy can't tell if Jacob is being funny or not, so he tracks his movement silently, without comment.
Jacob hands Freddy's phone off and wedges himself between Freddy and the countertop, leaning their heads together. Freddy activates the camera and gets them in frame, trying for a flattering angle while also keeping the dirty dishes out of the background. With everything in focus, he sees himself and Jacob together for the first time and decides he likes how it looks.
"Do you want to tweet it?" Freddy asks.
Jacob says, "Sure!" and takes Freddy's phone from him. What Freddy meant was, 'Do you want me to text this photo to you so you can post it from your own account?' But Jacob is already composing a message with determination, the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth.
"What are you writing?"
"It says, 'I told you so, you arseholes.'" Jacob's eyes flick up from the screen. Freddy shrugs. "I'm kidding. Though you seem remarkably calm about that."
Normally he might care more, but this morning Freddy is too caught between sleepy and sated to do anything of the sort. "Do you want to hang out today?" he asks, hoping that Jacob's forgotten it's Valentine's Day or (better yet) he remembers and doesn't mind. "We can do…whatever."
"Whatever sounds nice," Jacob says. He kisses Freddy's temple for emphasis, then shows him his tweet, complete with their 'selfer.'
Frederick Abberline @freddyabberline
#findfreddy Call off the search.