Again, But Better

by Christine Riccio

  I feel like running in circles.

  “Really?” I say again. Shane, you just said really.

  “The post about your first day here, pointing out all the random differences like the walk–don’t walk signs, that was great! And then I read that one about the hermit people from that random island going to McDonald’s for the first time. That was hilarious.” He grins.

  I’m biting my lip while he’s talking, like a young adult book cliché, but it’s the only way to keep my smile level under control. Chill. I’m chill. He read my “The First 8 Hours” post and a short story I wrote over the holiday break. I really liked both of those!

  “Thanks!” I spurt.

  “We still all going to a pub later for dinner and drinks?” he asks.

  “Um, yeah, I think everyone’s still down.”

  “Nice! Looks like Flat Three is hitting the town tonight, then.”

  I bob my head up and down, “Yup!”

  I want to ask him about a card night. A few moments pass while Pilot eats his sandwich, and I open my computer, trying to gather the courage to ask him if he likes to play cards. Why am I afraid to ask him?

  “Do you like to play cards?” I ask quickly.

  Pilot’s eyes light up. “Do I like to play cards?” he says, smiling. “Does a bear shit in the woods?”

  I grin and pull my eyebrows together. “Why do people say that when they can just say yes, which is so much faster and less confusing?”

  “You play cards?” He smirks.

  “Yeah, they’re only my favorite—I was thinking about going out and finding a deck so we could have a cards night, maybe tomorrow with everyone?”

  “I’m in. You want help finding that deck?” he asks.

  I blink. “Do you … want to go find one?”

  * * *

  I stride down the sidewalk with Pilot. This is our second walk in three days. Is this a second date? I think this boy likes me. I think he’s feeling what I’m feeling, and I can barely contain the urge to skip down the road.

  It’s still light out as we make our way down fancy-white-sophisticated-buildings lane. I like how the sidewalk on this street is never too crowded like in New York. And when I say never, I of course mean, in the last three days, it hasn’t been too crowded.

  “Okay, so possible suspects in this card case. I’m thinking either Tesco, Waitrose, or Sainsbury, that other grocery store I haven’t seen, but people have talked about. I don’t know where they’ll be if they’re not in a grocery store, so hopefully they’re in a grocery store. Maybe some sort of convenient store?” I’m babbling. I look at Pilot. He’s smiling to himself. “Sorry, I’m really excited about cards…”

  “We’re going to find cards,” he replies confidently. “Let’s go to a different area, though, so we get to explore more of the city.”

  “Okay.” I shrug and tuck my hair behind my ears.

  “How about we go through Hyde Park? It’s right down the street.” He points down the road toward a large gated area.

  I raise my eyebrows. “Whoa, off the beaten track. We might get lost.” That was meant to sound daunting and sarcastic, but it sounded happy. This excessive smiling has my vocal inflections all over the place.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll Magellan us back if we get lost.”

  I smile at him. “Don’t worry, I’m not worried.”

  “Good.” He smiles back.

  We walk in content silence as we make our way down the block and cross the street to Hyde Park. I don’t almost die this time, so things are already going smoother than they did on our last walk. There’s a large opening in the tall black gates that surround the park where we enter. It’s a nice day, so oodles of dog owners are out and about. Some people are reading on blankets and under trees. We start down a paved trail in the grass.

  I glance over at Pilot. “So, now you’ve read some of my stuff,” I start.

  “Yeah?” He grins. His hands are stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. I’ve got one hand in the pocket of the white zip-up I threw on and another clings to the leather of my cross-body purse.

  “When do I get to hear your music?” I ask.

  He snorts, but his eyes get bright like eyes do when you talk about something you’re passionate about.

  “Oh, man.” He looks at the sky. “Well, my first album is on iTunes.”

  “What?” I smack his arm in disbelief with my purse hand. He shoots me a dramatic look.

  “Oh crap, sorry!” My voice gets pitchy as I try not to laugh. I heave a steadying breath. “Sorry, what I meant to say was: Is your album actually on iTunes? And why didn’t you mention this before?”

  He’s got this chill-modest-cool-guy half smile on. “Yes, it’s actually on iTunes, and it’s not that hard to get your album on iTunes.”

  “Pies, that’s so cool! Can I find it under your name or—how do I search you?”

  “It’s under my band name.”

  “What! You have a band? You’ve left out so many details of your music life!”

  “It’s just me and my friend Ted, so it’s not like a full band.”

  “What’s your band name?”

  “We’re the Swing Bearers,” he shares with a giant grin.

  A short laugh bursts out of me. “Wow, I love that. It’s almost as cool as my blog. I mean, not quite as witty, but it’s got a nice ring to it.”

  He snorts. “Okay, calm down, French Watermelon. We can’t all be on your level.” The phrase French Watermelon sounds extra ridiculous when he says it.

  “I’m gonna download your album when we get back.”

  He presses his lips together. “I’ll excitedly await your review.”

  “Am I allowed to share with the roomies?”

  He shakes his head, smiling. “Go for it.”

  “This is so exciting!” I don’t exactly skip, but my feet do a weird jumpy-dance thing.

  I take stock of our surroundings. I haven’t been looking around enough. We’re approaching an opening back out into the city streets.

  “You think we go this way, then?” I ask.

  Pilot stops and puts his index finger to his forehead. “Card senses are tingling … that way.”

  I roll my eyes.

  We walk a little way down the street before coming up on a Starbucks. The familiarity of it amidst the culture shock of the last twenty-four hours actually brings me up short. I stop walking to admire it from across the street. Pilot backtracks a few steps and comes up on my right.

  “Starbucks!” I point across the way. “Doesn’t Starbucks feel like an old friend now?”

  He shrugs slightly with his hands still in his pockets. “Have you been since we got here?” he asks.

  “No, not yet.”

  “Shall we go give her a visit?” He smirks.

  I snort. “A visit?”

  “I mean, is she your friend or not? I don’t want walk in on a random stranger,” he answers with mock sincerity.

  I scoff, “That was a stretch.”

  “Uh, actually I think that was pretty witty,” he responds, using the male version of a valley-girl voice, his words all drawn out and over the top. I make weird smothered-laughter noises.

  I take the steps two at a time into the Starbucks, coming to a stop at the end of the line. We shuffle along in silence for a few minutes, waiting to place our orders. I bounce on my toes, excited for my usual drink. When I reach the register, my mouth flops open. The barista is a tall woman in her forties with a knot of red hair—it’s the rude airplane lady!

  “Hi, darling! I see you’re making friends!” She glances from me to Pilot, back to me, and winks. I shake my head, flabbergasted. Dear lord, woman, please don’t say anything else.

  “What would you like?” she asks.

  “I … um, a green tea latte, please,” I tell her.

  “Oh, we don’t have those,” she replies.

  “Oh … weird. Okay, can I have a tall pumpkin spice latte, please?”

  “A what?
”

  “A pumpkin spice latte.”

  “We don’t have pumpkin spice lattes.” She smiles.

  “Okay, I guess I’ll have a tall cinnamon dolce latte, please.”

  She shakes her head, bemused. “Never heard of that either.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, we don’t have cinnamon … dolce lattes.”

  I can sense Pilot silently laughing beside me.

  “What kind of Starbucks is this?” I mumble.

  We leave five minutes later, both of us with tall vanilla lattes. That was so strange. I turn to Pilot to tell him about plane lady.

  “So that was your friend?” He clicks his tongue before I have a chance to speak. “I mean, you didn’t know what was on the menu, so I’d say you’re mildly acquainted at best.”

  I run a hand down my face, trying not to snort at his terrible attempt to continue the Starbucks-is-an-old-friend joke. “I thought it was my friend, but, turns out, it was a regular coffee shop who took Polyjuice Potion and was pretending to be my friend.”

  “Oh, no, too far.” He shakes his head, grinning. “You ruined it with the Polyjuice Potion reference.”

  “What are you talking about? That was clever! You had already pushed it too far!”

  “No, I pushed it the perfect amount. Shane, you pushed it to extreme-dork levels.”

  My cheeks burn from the force of my smile. We’re about to turn left at the upcoming intersection when I spot something colorful on the corner.

  I gasp. “Pies. Look.” I point toward my discovery and watch his eyes widen.

  “Is that what I think is?”

  “That’s a Beatles store! A whole Beatles-themed store!”

  “Oh wait, that’s that band you like, right?” he says.

  “I’m resisting the urge to smack your arm so hard right now.” I’d actually like to grab his hand and drag him across the street, but my arm won’t obey that command; it’s too scared of rejection.

  We rush across, hands unlinked. When the light changes on the next corner, we jog across and up onto the sidewalk outside the Beatles store.

  “Wow!” I stare at the beautiful, brightly colored window display. “It’s Beatlesful,” I pronounce. I turn to Pilot wearing a giant idiot smile.

  He smothers a grin and shakes his head. “I have no words for that.”

  “Did you get it?”

  “Oh, I got it,” he says.

  “That was clever.”

  He shakes his head, smile still smooshed.

  “Come on. It was clever!”

  “Let it be, Shane. Let it be.” He heads into the shop.

  I stand on the sidewalk for a second, processing. “Oh my.” I follow him in.

  “Love Me Do” plays inside the store. We’ve stepped into a Beatles wonderland: CDs, vinyls, sweatshirts, hats, socks, key chains. I know Pilot likes the Beatles. He keeps a chill front, but I can see it in his eyes. They’re all alight and eager as he inspects the trinkets. I squat down to get a better look at what appears to be a set of Beatles-themed Russian nesting dolls in a glass display case. Pilot squats next to me. His side brushes up against mine.

  “Oh, man, look at the sizes! John is the biggest, Ringo’s the smallest. The shade.”

  I turn away from the dolls to look at him. “Look who knows who the Beatles are.” For just a second, he smiles like a goof, then it’s back to cool-guy grin. When we stand up, he starts pointing out different vinyls that he owns as we walk through the displays.

  “Shane,” Pilot calls from behind me as we wander down another aisle. “Beatles cards!”

  I whip around, leaping over to where he is. “What?”

  “Beatles playing cards, Shane. Target acquired. Mission accomplished.”

  * * *

  We walk back through the park as the sun ducks below the horizon.

  “What’s your favorite Beatles song?” Pilot asks.

  “What’s your favorite Beatles song?” I throw back.

  “Shot, you answer first,” he says calmly.

  “What do you mean, shot, you answer first? You can’t shot that I answer first!” I laugh.

  “Uh, first rule of shotting, you can shot whatever you want to shot,” he responds with his voice all goofy.

  I comply, trying to roll my eyes sarcastically and failing. “My favorite is ‘Hey Jude,’ I think, or ‘Yellow Submarine,’ or ‘Hello, Goodbye.’ Or, or … ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,’ I love that one!”

  He closes his eyes and nods with a closed-mouth smile. “Nice picks, nice picks.”

  A pack of runners whoosh past us on the trail. “Now you share yours,” I say expectantly.

  “‘Helter Skelter,’ probably, or ‘I Am the Walrus,’ or ‘Octopus’s Garden,’ or ‘Eleanor Rigby’—they’ve got so many great ones.”

  “How dare you have mocked me for saying I like the Beatles!”

  He shrugs. “You look more like a Taylor Swift kind of girl.”

  “Um, excuse me,” I protest, “I am a Taylor Swift kind of girl, thank you very much. She’s marvelous.” I take a second to glare and dramatically toss my hair over my shoulder. “Music snob.”

  He throws his head back with a laugh. Warm fuzzies bubble up inside me. I don’t know the science behind warm fuzzies and how they bubble, but they do.

  7. Never Mind

  I find Babe sitting on her bed, watching an animated movie on her computer. She looks up as the door closes behind me. Out the creeper window, I see Sahra on the couch in the kitchen, talking to her laptop.

  “Hey!” Babe exclaims.

  “Hey! Whatchya watching?”

  “Ratatouille!” She’s smiling ear to ear.

  “Never saw that one.”

  “You never saw Ratatouille? It’s so cute!”

  I drag a chair up to Babe’s bed, so we can properly chat. “Did you know that Pilot has an album on iTunes?”

  “What? I didn’t even know he made music!” She minimizes Ratatouille and pulls iTunes up on her computer. I scoot over so I can look on.

  “Is it under his name?” She starts typing in Pilot Penn.

  “No, it’s under Swing Bearers.”

  “Swing Bearers!” She giggles. “Ah! I love it.” She types it into the search box and taps the enter key. We watch in suspense as the internet loads. An album called Porcelain Trampoline pops up, purchasable for $6.99.

  “Oh my gosh, it’s real!” I laugh.

  “Seven bucks? Heck yes!” Babe clicks the buy button.

  We spend the next hour listening to the Swing Bearers while we sit on our computers. I like it. It has a relaxed, jazzy, vintage feel. When it comes time to get ready for the pub, I switch the music selection over to Britney Spears. Sahra comes back to the room, and we all get a little more dressed up. I change into my favorite skirt—a black high-waisted one with buttons—and a crop top with a blue-eyed tiger on it. Nothing too fancy, but more so than the jeans and blue New York T-shirt I was wearing on my walk with Pilot earlier.

  * * *

  The five of us sit around a circular table in the Queen’s Head pub. I’m halfway through my first legal ordered-at-a-bar alcoholic drink: a glass of red wine. I dislike wine less than I dislike any other alcohol, so in the spirit of trying new things, I’ve decided to give it a chance. People say wine is an acquired taste, so I’m working on acquiring it.

  Pilot, Atticus, and Babe are on their second Guinnesses, and Sahra’s almost done with her glass of red wine. She’s telling us about her boyfriend, Val, and how much her family loves him. They took him with them last summer to Lebanon.

  When the conversation dies down, Pilot suggests we play a drinking game called 21 that I’ve never heard of, but turns out to be amazing. We cackle our way through the entire game. Everyone gets to make all sorts of random rules that correlate with the numbers between one and twenty-one. Babe creates a ridiculous one that has us all standing up and rotating to the chair on our right. Every round sends us moving around the tabl
e like we’re performing some weird, poorly choreographed dance, and every time we get up to rotate, we start laughing uncontrollably. My abs are sore when we finish.

  “Have you guys used Skype to call home yet?” Sahra asks, as we sober up from the game. “You can purchase minutes, and then use them to call the US, instead of spending a million dollars on your phone. It’s great. I’ve been talking to Val on it because the internet for video-chatting kinda sucks here.”

  “I guess I should do that,” I pipe in. “I still haven’t actually spoken to my parents since I got here. I’ve never used Skype before, but I’ve heard legends,” I add dramatically. “It can’t be too difficult, right?”

  “How have you never used Skype?” Pilot says in disbelief.

  Babe laughs. “It’s super-easy—my parents can do it. We have a Skype date tomorrow afternoon, to talk about the Rome trip.”

  “Yeah, you’ll be fine. It’s self-explanatory,” Sahra adds with a smile.

  I smile back happily (Sahra smiles are rare) and take another small sip of my wine. I try not to wince as the sourness coats my tongue.

  “I Skyped with my parents earlier,” Atticus says. “Which reminds me, did you get to Skype your girlfriend, Pilot? Sorry I was on the phone for so long.” Time slows.

  I blink.

  Um. What.

  What does he mean, girlfriend? What does he mean, girlfriend? What does he mean, girlfriend? My stomach does five hundred backflips as I turn my head to gauge Pilot’s reaction. He’s mid-gulp of Guinness. I try to meet his eyes, but he focuses on Atticus.

  “I, uh, no. It’s okay, no worries,” he says before looking down into his drink.

  I catch Babe’s eye, and her expression of shock mirrors what I’d imagine my own face looks like right now. My eyes whip to Sahra—composed, as usual.

  Babe speaks first. “You have a girlfriend?” she exclaims, voicing my thundering thoughts aloud.

  My mouth feels dry. I think I’m slowly sinking down through the floor. I’ve hit an iceberg.

  “Yeah, you didn’t know?” Atticus says, sounding excited to reveal something we all didn’t know first.