Again, But Better

by Christine Riccio

  I duck into the car, taking the middle seat next to Babe. She’s pointedly staring out the window at an empty metal gazebo across the street.

  “Come on, dude, you can take the front,” Pilot reasons calmly before ducking into the back. He scoots next to me, places his backpack near his feet, and closes us in. The two of us watch Chad through the window. He deflates, walks around to the passenger door, throws it open, and drops his ass into the front seat.

  “Gare du Nord, please!” I tell the driver.

  Pilot puts his hand on my knee and squeezes it, smirking at this little victory. He leans in until his lips are against my ear and whispers, “He’s scared of you,” sounding amused as hell.

  * * *

  Paris whooshes by our window as the Eurostar train pulls away from the station. I’m seated next to Babe. Pilot and Chad are a few rows up. Daily Babe lives and breathes somewhere around a nine on the happiness scale, but at the moment she’s dipped to at least a four. We’re silent for about ten minutes before I decide to try to draw her into conversation.

  “Babe,” I start hesitantly.

  “Babe,” I repeat a little louder because she’s still staring out the window. I not sure what I’m going to say yet. The classic question is: Are you okay? But when someone asks me if I’m okay, and I’m clearly not, it busts apart my tear-duct dam.

  “Babe!” I say one more time. She turns away from the blurry scenery to shoot me an exhausted look.

  “What?” She sighs.

  My forehead scrunches up as I try to find the right words. “Um … I … why is your name Babe?”

  “Why is my name Babe?” she echoes, sounding disoriented.

  “Yeah, it’s a different name. I was wondering if there was a story behind it.” I raise my eyebrows.

  She sighs again, and to my relief, the corner of her lip flits up a tiny bit. “It’s not actually my real name.”

  “What?” I say a little too loudly. I’m shocked that I don’t already know this. I’ve known her for years now. How did I never ask this question?

  “Yeah, it’s Barbara.” She smiles a little now. A really small one, but it counts.

  “I can’t believe all this time your name has been Barbara, and we didn’t know. That’s insane. Does everyone call you Babe?”

  “Nope, I thought it’d be a cool nickname, so I changed it on Facebook and told you guys it was Babe when we first met.”

  “Wow. Kudos.” I shake my head slowly, processing this. “I always wanted a nickname growing up, but there are no good nicknames for Shane.”

  “Shay?”

  “Not a fan,” I dismiss.

  “Shaney?”

  I stick out my tongue. “Shane is the only adequate form of Shane.”

  We fall silent. “Shall we play a game?” I suggest.

  “You brought a game?”

  “Only the best game, cards—or we can play the extremely annoying to those in our general vicinity, but fun for us, I’m Going on a Picnic!”

  She laughs. “I’ve never played that! How does the annoying one go?”

  “Okay, so we go back and forth, adding things to a list, that start with each letter of the alphabet … You know what’d be fun, let’s make it so you can only bring things related to either Disney or Harry Potter. I’ll start us off.” I clear my throat. “I’m going on a picnic, and I’m going to bring … Albus Dumbledore.”

  She narrows her eyes with a smile. “I’m going on a picnic and I’m going to bring Albus Dumbledore … and Babboo?”

  “There we go; we’re doing it. Now, it’s only a matter of time before the people in our car hatch a plot to smother us.”

  She giggles next to me, and I continue on, “I’m going on a picnic, and I’m going to bring Albus Dumbledore, Baboo, and Cedric Diggory.”

  “I’m going on a picnic and I’m going to bring Albus Dumbledore, Baboo, Cedric Diggory, and Donald Duck.”

  “I’m going on a picnic and I’m going to bring Albus Dumbledore, Baboo, Cedric Diggory, Donald Duck, and … umm … Extendable Ears!”

  We entertain ourselves for ages playing a game for six-year-olds on a long car ride. It’s numbing in a good way, like an elementary sort of meditation. It forces you to channel any wandering thoughts into remembering random words in alphabetical order. When we’ve finally finished, we lapse into silence. I can tell when Babe starts to fade back into her turmoil of upsetting Chad-related thoughts because her expression starts to droop.

  “Hey!” I try to catch her before she falls too deep again. She turns to face me.

  “Yeah?”

  “Um.” I swallow. “I just want to say, you’re great, Babe, and smart, and organized, and fun, and you’re going to find someone really, really great eventually. I know you are.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “Like really though. I’m not just saying that,” I finish assertively.

  She huffs a reluctant laugh. “Uh-huh. How do you know? You can see the future?” she retorts sarcastically.

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Shane, you’re something else,” she answers, like she’s aged fifty years and become my great aunt.

  I smile at my hands. “Proud to be something else. Normal’s overrated.”

  “Amen to that.” She turns to look out the window. I reach over and wrap her in a quick, awkward side hug, and we fall back into silence.

  18. Break Your Walls

  January 24, 2011 (take two)

  Mom and Dad,

  When I write these, all I can think about is 2017. I’m so confused about my life. When did I stop manning the wheel? Was it here? Was it when I came back home? Was it a gradual process or did I let go all at once?

  Last night, we Skyped before you went to dinner at Aunt Marie and Uncle Dan’s. When was the last time we did that?

  We don’t even try anymore. When did you stop trying? Why did you stop trying?

  XO,

  2017 Shane

  * * *

  After class, I knock on Pilot’s door with my digital camera. It swings in after a few seconds. He openly smiles at me, and it’s wonderful. His guitar lies on the blue bedspread.

  “Hey!” He steps aside so I can come into the room.

  “Hey, have you been guitar-ing?” I ask.

  “Yeah, doing some light guitar-ing, working on some new stuff.” I watch as he catches sight of the camera in my hand. “What’s that?”

  “This is my blender. I thought we could make smoothies.”

  He presses his lips together and takes a step back. “Did Shane Primaveri just make a dry, sarcastic remark?”

  “I’ll have you know, I make more than one dry, sarcastic remark per year now.”

  He drops back on the bed with a chuckle. I lean against the doorframe.

  “So?” he asks with raised eyebrows.

  “Oh yeah, so!” I do a little hop as I stand up off the wall I was leaning on. “I’m here to jumpstart your musical career.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah, I have an evil-genius foolproof plan. It worked for Justin Bieber, and it’s going to work for the Swing Bearers.”

  He rolls his eyes, but humors me.

  “We’re gonna start your YouTube channel.” I walk over and sit next to him.

  “You know YouTube and all that stuff really isn’t my thing.”

  “Is music your thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you want people to hear your music?”

  “Yes,” he says with a small smile.

  “Would you want to potentially make music for a living?”

  He glares at me with a cynical grin and half-lidded eyes.

  “This is just a platform to jump off. YouTube is huge. People can discover you there; you can build an audience there; it’s a portfolio when you’re trying to get a job. It can provide endless possibilities! I spend a lot of time on the internet. I’ve watched it with my own eyes!”

  “And what exactly are you planning with t
he camera?” he asks, amused.

  “We’re going to record your first video!”

  “Right now?”

  “Why not?” I raise my eyebrows. His lips come together as he ponders this. After a moment, he picks up his guitar.

  “I was thinking a duet.” I scoot back so I can lean against the wall and sit crisscross applesauce.

  He grins now, guitar in position. “You sing-sing?”

  “You doubt me?”

  “I would never,” he says matter-of-factly.

  We stare at each other for a moment before I clear my throat. “Okay! So, I think we should do a duet of ‘Wrecking Ball.’”

  He laughs, shaking his head. “Still set on that?”

  “Just this one song. Come on. We’ll call it a cover. We won’t take credit. Humor me here,” I ramble incessantly.

  He smiles at the ceiling for five seconds before he turns to look at me again. “Give me half an hour to work out the chords.”

  I grin. “See you in half an hour.”

  * * *

  When our slightly altered version of “Wrecking Ball” comes to an end, we smile at each other for a good long moment. I get up quietly and stop the recording before retreating to my spot next to him on the bed. During the half-hour break, I dressed up a little fancier and threw on some red lipstick for my YouTube debut. Now I feel a smidge overdressed.

  “You have a nice voice.” He carefully sets down his guitar by his desk.

  “Thank you, O musical one,” I say, crossing my legs. “Are you happy with that take?”

  “I think that’s going to be our most genuine take.” We only did one take.

  “I agree. It’s 2011 YouTube; we can get away with that performance.”

  I hand him the memory card. He pops it into his computer and drops the file to his desktop before giving it back to me. I replace it as he lies down on the bed. He puts his hands behind his head and watches me. I stay seated on the edge, legs hanging off the side.

  “That red lipstick is driving me crazy,” he says after a few moments.

  I laugh. “Did you want to use it?”

  “Lamppost.”

  My heart ricochets. “Did you just use lamppost unprovoked in a real-life conversation?”

  “I think I did.”

  I bring my face within centimeters of his. “You know cutesy, romantic callbacks to our shenanigans are my kryptonite.”

  He’s silent for a beat before he says it again: “Lamppost.”

  I suck in a breath. “God, that’s so hot.”

  He chuckles and tucks a batch of hair behind my ear. “You look gorgeous. We should go out.”

  I laugh. “Okay.”

  * * *

  Paris was freezing but it’s beautiful in London. The sun’s out and the temperature’s in the low sixties: it’s mild, as I’ve heard the British call it. Pilot and I walk through the city hand in hand. I ride the London Eye at sunset with Pilot standing behind me, his arms draped around my waist, my head against his shoulder. We kiss on benches and on bridges. We get dinner and stop in at a pub for a drink. We walk through to Hyde Park. We find a perfect spot, not far from the Karlston, lie in the grass, and talk.

  I learn more about his little sisters. He tells me about the day he taught the younger one, Holly, to ride a bike when his parents were on vacation. He seems really protective over them.

  “Can I ask you something?” he says softly.

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s the deal with you and your family?”

  I’m quiet for a moment. I don’t know how to really talk to people about my family. Where do I start? You share surface details, and they don’t understand why I needed to get away. But you dig too deep, and they only see the bad.

  “It’s hard to explain. I guess they always end up making me feel like I’m not welcome to be myself. That sounds dramatic.” I sigh. “But they have this preconceived idea of what I should be, and if I don’t lean in to it, I feel like I’m not up to par.”

  Pilot’s thumb skates around on the back of my hand.

  “I’ve been trying to lean in my entire life. I love them. I know they love me. I know they think they’re helping me by setting these invisible rules. But I can’t fit that mold, no matter how hard I lean, and it makes being around them”—I stare up into the cloudy night sky—“exhausting.”

  Pilot squeezes my hand. “Have you ever told them that?”

  I shake my head against the hood of my jacket and heave in an uneven breath. “Topic change?”

  Pilot releases my hand and rolls onto his stomach, leaning over me. He traces a finger down my jawline. Across my collarbone. “What’s your favorite song, Primaveri?” His eyes sparkle.

  “Like, what’s my favorite to hear, or my favorite that makes me feel all the feelings?”

  He settles on his side next to me, head propped up on his arm. “Both.”

  “Favorite to hear is ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’ When it came on in the car, my dad always used to crank it, and the three of us would fall into the different parts as if we’d discussed it beforehand, belting out the lyrics.” I grin, thinking of my mom headbanging to the guitar in the passenger seat.

  He nods. “Solid.”

  “I feel like I’m going to be judged for my other favorite.”

  “Is it your BFF T-swizzle?”

  I grin. “Yes.” I gaze into the darkness. “It’s called ‘All Too Well.’ And it’s beautiful. I love the words and the pictures they paint and the way it always tears at my heart. Do you know it?”

  “I do.”

  I whip my gaze back to his. “You do?”

  “I do. I have Red in my iTunes library.”

  “Since when?” I demand.

  “Since it came out in 2012,” he says.

  “You know the year? What, you like Taylor now too?” I ask incredulously. “But you’re like that guy who thinks his indie record is so much cooler than hers!”

  He laughs outright at that. “I am not.” He drops back onto the ground.

  I watch him suspiciously. “Sing something from ‘All Too Well.’”

  He raises his eyebrows, and sing-speaks, “Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it.”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “I’d like to be my old self again.”

  I fall next to him on my back. “I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me for, like, two weeks as a closet Taylor Swift fan!”

  He laughs.

  “What’s your favorite song?”

  “It’s from one of my obscure artists.”

  “To be expected,” I say, propping my arm up under my head again to look down at him. “What’s it called?”

  “‘Holy Branches.’”

  My forehead crinkles with unexpected recognition. “I know that song,” I divulge happily. He smiles skeptically at me now. “No, I really do! The Radical Face?”

  “What?” he yells, amused.

  “What are the chances?” I say, feeling cocky.

  He’s giving me suspicious side-eye now. “How do you know them?”

  “They’re on my work playlist.”

  “How did you find them?”

  “An author I love recommended one of their songs once. I have, like, six of their songs on my playlist.”

  “This is weird.” He grins and pulls his hands up behind his head.

  * * *

  “Holy crap, it’s two a.m.” I drop my phone back in my purse and roll on top of Pilot, hovering on my forearms. “We should probably head back.” I smile down at him. I’ve been smiling for hours. I lift a hand and trace his eyebrows.

  “Then the night will end,” he says. “And I don’t think I’m ready for that.” He watches me for a few moments. I feel like a googly-eyed teenager. We’ve been talking for hours.

  “Remember that notebook you had, back in the day?” Pilot says softly.

  My finger stops tracing. “Yeah.”

  He studies me thoughtfully. “I used
to watch you scribbling in that all the time. You don’t do that anymore.”

  My lips part. I scoot onto the ground again. Pilot shifts to catch my eyes.

  “Your mouth would move like you were talking to the page. I imagined the sound of your voice being drawn out—going straight from your mind to the paper, like your arm was an audio cord.”

  I swallow, tamping down a sudden urge to cry. “Yeah, I guess I don’t trust notebooks with my thoughts anymore.”

  Pilot frowns, dragging a finger delicately from my temple to my chin. “When did that happen?”

  I watch the sky. “Sometime that year, someone got ahold of one of my notebooks and read it.”

  He squeezes my hand. “Shit, that’s horrible. I’m sorry.”

  * * *

  Pilot’s wrapped around me, still asleep. Slowly, I extricate myself enough to look over the edge of my bunk. We got back so late, and snuck up here in the dark. I blow out a breath when I see the girls are both already gone. The blinds to the kitchen are open, but I don’t see anyone in there. It must be late, usually someone’s—

  “Oh my god!” I bolt up in bed and hit my head on the ceiling with a bang. “Ah!” I fall forward and clamber over Pilot’s legs to get to my phone sitting atop the closet against the bunk.

  Pilot stirs as I snatch up the phone. “What? Are you okay? What’s going on?” His voice is groggy.

  Panic courses through me. Eleven o’clock. It’s 11:00 a.m.! I turn to see Pilot propping himself on his elbows, hair poking every which way.

  “Pilot, it’s eleven and our internships started today!”

  His eyelids fly back. “Shit.”

  19. Heavy as the Setting Sun

  It’s 12:16 p.m. when I step up to the door of Packed!. My hair is still wet, and I’m wearing minimal makeup. I’ve dressed in the first suitable thing I could find in my closet: dark blue jeans and a black T-shirt. I ran from the Covent Garden Tube stop, so I’m sweating. I fly up the stairs and bust through the office door as soon as Tracey buzzes me in. Tracy’s sitting behind the desk, watching me.