Again, But Better

by Christine Riccio

  “I think…” He squints across the way. “It’s another block down.”

  I turn away from the street to gaze at him warily. “You only sound, like, sixty-two percent sure about that.”

  He raises a hand to stroke his chin and glances dramatically from right to left. “I’d say I’m more like thirty-seven percent sure.”

  “Where are the street signs?” My head swishes from one corner to the next. There are no poles. This is so disorienting.

  The So You’re Going to Study Abroad pamphlet did extensively delve into a phenomenon called culture shock. At the time I scoffed, because come on, it sounds dumb. But dang, I guess it’s starting.

  “Okay, I’m, like, forty-three percent sure now that we go straight for another block,” Pilot decides.

  I smile and shrug. “Okay.”

  I look to my left and take a few steps forward into the street.

  “Shane!” Pilot grabs my arm and heaves me back as a car races by a foot from my face.

  My lungs suck up all the air in a ten-foot radius as adrenaline spikes through me. Pilot drops his hand from my arm as I spin to face him, mortified.

  “Holy shit, I forgot about the cars coming from the other way. Oh my god!” I bury my face in my hands for a second.

  Four hours in, and I’ve almost gotten myself hit by a car and killed via a flight of steps.

  “Don’t worry. I almost died a few times after I got here yesterday.” Pilot starts crossing the street. I silently scurry after him.

  “But I mean, I didn’t, because I remembered and looked both ways before actually stepping out into oncoming traffic.” He turns around as we reach the curb to smirk at me.

  I shoot him a surprised grin. “Shut up!” I burst, reflexively whacking him in the arm. A half a second later, I stare at my own arm aghast. “Oh my god, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you. I have this habit of smacking people sometimes—”

  He laughs, interrupting me. “You have a habit of smacking people?”

  “No.” My voice rises a few pitches. “I mean, not smacking people. Jeez.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I mean, hitting people, lightly, sometimes.”

  His eyes narrow. “Is this a serious problem? Do you go to meetings for this?”

  I bite back a laugh. “No!”

  “Uh-huh.” He’s still smirking at me.

  “Why are you smirking?” I protest.

  He continues to smirk.

  “Stop,” I squeal. Before I realize it, I’ve whacked him in the arm again. Oh god. I stutter to apologize.

  His smile widens as he jumps away in mock horror. “There she goes again with the violence. I just saved your life, and this is how I’m treated.”

  I bury my face in my hands, laughing.

  We come to the end of another block and turn right down whatever nameless road we’ve reached. I’m having trouble focusing on anything other than Pilot. How close we’re walking. How he’s looking at me with his lips pursed like he’s suppressing a grin.

  I blow out a breath. “Maybe I do have a problem,” I concede as somberly as I can. “I’ll try and keep it under control.”

  “First step is acceptance,” he says, putting on a haughty voice and bumping me lightly in the shoulder. Another laugh huffs out of me. Up ahead I can make out a sign with red glowing letters that reads TESCO. The name rings a bell.

  “That’s the grocery store, right? Tes-co,” I test the word on my tongue. “Interesting name for a grocery store.”

  “Shane. Interesting name for a girl,” he teases.

  I narrow my eyes. “Pilot. Interesting name for a human.” He snorts.

  When Tesco’s doors slide open, we’re greeted with an onslaught of familiar sounds: carts squealing, elevator-esque music playing overhead, and the repetitive beeps as people check out.

  “So, Shane, what kind of music do you listen to?” Pilot asks, as I scoop up a basket.

  “Music? Who brought up music? We’re getting food.” I snicker shamelessly at my bluntness. I don’t usually say stuff like that to people I’ve just met. I look at Pilot again. “I don’t want to answer that; it feels like a trick question.”

  “I’m just curious!” he says innocently.

  “You write music, so I think there’s a ninety percent chance you’re a music snob.”

  “I am not a music snob.” He pauses and his lip quirks up. “I’m only a little bit of a music snob.”

  My smile is big and stupid again. “Do you want to go through all the aisles? Is that okay? Because I really, really want to go through all the aisles.” I power walk into the first one, and Pilot trails behind.

  “Pilot, look at these soda bottles. Are you seeing this? They’re slightly skinnier than our soda bottles!” I gesture wildly to the soda lining the shelves.

  He grins. “So you were about to tell me about the music you listen to,” he prompts again. We turn into the next aisle.

  “I listen to all types of music,” I answer diplomatically, as I reach down and pick up a tub of Nutella to drop into my basket. “I have a general appreciation for music.” We stroll past the peanut butters and the jellies. “I like the Beatles…”

  “Wait.” Pilot comes to an abrupt stop mid-aisle.

  “What?” I say hesitantly.

  “The Beatles?” he breathes. “No way. You like them? No. Way. No. Way—”

  I roll my eyes. “Stop—” I interject.

  “No. Way!”

  “Stop!” My voice hits squeak levels yet unknown to mankind.

  “I love them! I thought I was the only one who knew about them.” He beams.

  I run away into the next aisle. I hear him laughing behind me as I enter the bread section. I definitely like this boy. I skid to a stop in front of the UK pasta spread. All the pasta is bagged. What even! In America we box pasta!

  “The pasta is all in bags!” I turn to Pilot, expecting him to share my sentiment.

  He looks like he’s about to make fun of me again.

  I try not to smile. “No, ’cause in the United States, most of the pasta is in boxes!” He shakes his head, grinning. “This is an interesting tidbit, Pilot. You’ll be happy I pointed this out in the future when you need to know it … for a game show trivia question about how England packages their pasta.”

  I drop a bag into my basket and skip—oh dear lord, did I really just skip?—down the aisle to find the tomato sauce and skid to another abrupt stop. I shuffle back a bit to make sure I haven’t missed anything before emitting an involuntary gasp.

  Pilot appears at my side. “You okay?”

  “It’s just this sauce section,” I explain.

  His mouth twitches. “Did the sauce offend you?”

  “No, but look. There’s only two types of tomato sauce here. What kind of world does England live in where there’s only two types of sauce!” I gesture around wildly for emphasis.

  He takes a step back, smiling broadly now, and points casually toward the sauce and then back to me. “Did you … did you gasp because of the sauce?”

  Blood seeps into my cheeks. “Sauce is a big deal.”

  I flounder to grab a jar so we can move on and out of this aisle. As I snatch it off the shelf, a second jar slides to the edge along with it. My breath catches, and I lunge to snatch it out of the air, but I’m not fast enough. I leap backward as the second jar crashes to the ground. The glass shatters, and a mild splattering of sauce lands across my feet.

  I freeze, staring at the floor. I can’t believe I dropped a jar of sauce in front of Pilot. Shit. Shit, shit.

  After a second, someone takes my arm and pulls me out of the aisle, away from the destruction zone. It’s Pilot … He’s touching my arm again. He’s laughing. We turn a corner into an aisle full of alcohol.

  He lets go and looks at me pointedly. “You murdered the sauce, Shane.”

  I shake my head. “Accident,” I squeak.

  Pilot scans the shelves before reaching down to scoop up a
case of English cider called Strongbow. He clucks his tongue, shakes his head, and suppresses a smile as we head toward the checkout counter. “And the violence continues.”

  * * *

  We make our way back to the Karlston at a slower pace. I’ve suddenly decided that I want to call Pilot Pies, and I don’t know if that’s okay. Pies is fun to say, and then we’re friends, right? Or, we’re something? Where there’s a nickname, there’s a bond. That’s what I … always say.

  “Can I call you Pies?” I blurt into the night. “Sorry. I wouldn’t ask, but I really want to call you Pies,” I finish hesitantly.

  When I look over, he’s smiling. My shoulders relax a smidge.

  “Sure, you can, Sauce Killer.”

  I beam. “Oh, but I’d prefer if you didn’t call me Sauce Killer,” I respond politely.

  He snorts.

  “Do a lot of people already call you Pies?”

  “Nope, that’s a new one.”

  My heart sings a tiny bit at the idea of having created a new nickname that no one else uses for him.

  “What do people call you?” I ask, curious now.

  “Pilot … or Pi.”

  “Pi? Like in math? You’re not Pi like in math, though. That feels kind of cold. You’re more of a pie-pie. Pies are warm and wonderful and delicious—” I cut myself off. Okay, there’s outgoing and then there’s this.

  He looks at me funny. My eyes fall to the ground as a new wave of embarrassment courses through my system. We walk in silence for a few moments.

  “So, are you going to write about this grocery store adventure in your blog?” Pilot asks.

  “Oh, yeah,” I answer, grasping at the subject change. “I’m planning a whole exposé about this pasta in bags versus boxes phenomenon.”

  “I can’t miss that,” he says seriously. I laugh. “What’s your blog called?” he continues.

  My eyelids snap up. I didn’t think about the part where I’d actually have to tell him what my blog is called. He’s smiling at me again. My heart hops around idiotically. I can’t handle all this.

  I focus on the ground again. “Um … you know what? It’s nothing. You don’t really want to know.” I pick up the pace a little. I think we’re only a block away from the Karlston now. Maybe I can deflect this question.

  “Hey, you said I could read your stuff,” he protests quietly.

  “It’s a weird name,” I confess.

  “What is it?” he asks again.

  I stay quiet, power walking.

  “Shane!” He speeds up to match my pace, laughing as he catches my eyes. “You have to tell me.”

  He’s full-on beaming now, and it makes me feel all floaty. Fluttery and floaty. He stops walking and I stop walking, and we smile at each other.

  “It’s FrenchWatermelonNineteen,” I mumble, the words running together.

  Pilot laughs. “I’m sorry, what was that? French. Watermelon. Nineteen?” he clarifies slowly.

  “FrenchWatermelonNineteen.” I smoosh my lips together so my smile isn’t as toothy. His smile is toothy.

  He shrugs, nonchalant. “Okay. French Watermelon Nineteen. What’s so weird about that? It’s so normal. Practically boring. I know, like, five other people who go by French Watermelon Nineteen on the internet. Are you French?”

  “Nope.” I feel sheepish. I try to make my face look sheepish.

  He raises his eyebrows.

  I drop my gaze to his shoes. “I’m … a big fan of French toast.”

  He answers immediately. “Oh, me too. Who isn’t?”

  I look up again, and he’s closer. How did he get closer? I think I’m shaking. Anxiety springs up through my legs. I’m all unsteady, like I could be blown over by the next gust of wind. I’m not sure what happens now. Eye contact game is strong. My words come out quiet. “Also I love watermelons and the number nineteen, and so, I did what any rational human would have done—smashed them together into a weird blob of a word that would follow me around for the rest of my life.”

  He nods. “So, French Watermelon.”

  Is he closer?

  “Nineteen,” I finish.

  What’s happening? Is the sidewalk moving?

  “I think it’s a fantastic name.”

  We’re standing so close. His eyes are inches away. I’m holding on to the grocery bag for dear life. Freight train has replaced heart.

  And then my eyes swing down to look at a crack in the super-clean London sidewalk. When I raise them a moment later, Pilot’s three feet away again. He’s turned towards the Karlston.

  “Look at that. We made it back.” He looks back at me. “Ready to round up the flatmates and get the bonding rolling?”

  I stare at him. “Um, yeah, of course. I’ve been awake for thirty-four hours now, what’s a few more … I have some icebreaker games loaded on my iPod that’ll be perfect.”

  He grins and jogs up the front steps to the door. I expel the giant breath I’ve been very aware of holding for the past thirty seconds.

  * * *

  It’s so dark in our room. Sahra’s asleep, but I’ve caught a second wind. Up in the bunk, I turn on my laptop for light, grab a pen, and throw open a fresh page in the new Horcrux.

  1/11/11 1:03 a.m.

  I just added all my new flatmates as friends on Facebook (Babe Lozenge, Sahra Merhi, Atticus Kwon, Pilot Penn), and finished off a short email to the parents letting them know everything went well today. I haven’t figured out the best way to actually speak to them yet since I only have a certain amount of allotted minutes on my burner phone. The lights are off, so I’m scribbling via the light of Sawyer’s screen. It works.

  After grocery shopping with Pilot, all of us (minus Babe, who left earlier after orientation to visit a friend she has upstairs) met in the kitchen and sat tentatively around the table. Which, by the way, has terrible chairs. Atticus chatted easily for a few minutes about how excited he is to immerse himself into the London theater scene while the rest of us listened, politely inserting a word or two, but not really furthering the conversation. I was about to descend into a cone of social anxiety, but Pilot broke the silence by pulling out the ciders he bought. And then I broke out the Taboo. Well, the version of Taboo I have on my iPod Touch called Word Kinish. Nothing breaks the ice like a good game of Word Kinish. (In the interest of being outgoing, I obviously prepped my iPod full of group activities).

  I got a little competitive, but I think we all had fun. We kept switching up the teams. My team always won because I’m a professional Taboo/Word Kinish player. The cousins and I used to play this all the time during summers back in our early teens.

  Sahra was the worst of us at Word Kinish. She was easily flustered when she couldn’t think of ways to describe the word she needed to make her team guess without using the illegal buzz words. Instead of talking it through, she would make angry noises until time ran out. I’m not sure what to think of Sahra. She’s kind of nice, but she also seems kind of cold. She doesn’t smile when she talks to me, and she always speaks in short, chopped sentences. I don’t know if she doesn’t like me or if that’s her demeanor.

  I regret not having brought a deck of cards with me. I’ve got to get myself one out here. There’s something magical about a good game of cards when everyone’s into it. It used to be that at every Primaveri gathering after dinner, we’d play cards. In general, the Primaveris are a loud and opinionated people. Normally, I observe rather than participate in their discussions because I’d rather be overlooked than potentially judged or scolded for saying the wrong thing. But when we’re playing cards, that fear kind of falls away. Awkwardness with the cousins falls away. I’m automatically more confident and all of a sudden I have things to say.

  I hope Pilot likes cards. He was totally into the game today. Not quite on my level of into it, but into it in a way that was fun. Atticus too.

  Atticus is a drama major. He’s really easy to talk to. There’s this dorky charm about him that automatically makes me feel less
alone. He just finished The Lost Symbol. I’m totally pumped to talk Dan Brown with him when we get a chance. He’s super-passionate about theater and wants to intern in the West End while he’s here. He recently broke up with his boyfriend because of study abroad, but he seems okay about it. He talked about being excited to mingle with the British. While Sahra and Pilot played Word Kinish tonight from a calm sitting position around the table, Atticus joined me, jumping up and yelling things.

  I’m trying really hard to hold back the tsunami of Pilot excitement that’s been building in me since I first saw him in the kitchen this afternoon, but now that I’m just sitting here in the dark, pre-sleep, I can’t stop all these giddy thoughts from flooding my brain. Could we be a thing? There was a moment tonight where I’m pretty sure we almost kissed.

  Pilot’s so … like, cool. He’s definitely kissed people. Having never been kissed feels like a giant Achilles’s heel. I hate feeling so inexperienced. I hate that this isn’t something I can study. I hate that I get sweaty at the mere mention of the game Never Have I Ever because I’m so scared of broaching sexual topics. How am I twenty years old and I’ve yet to even hold a boy’s hand? It’d be fine if I didn’t want to hold a boy’s hand, but I do. And I’ve never even been close.

  But now, the potential’s, like … right in front of me.

  The word “boyfriend” is already dancing around my brain. My family’s been pestering me about the existence of a boyfriend every few months for the last seven years. How could I not be thinking about it? I’ve been fine by myself these past million years, but I want to know what’s it like to have someone care about me that way. To put their arms around me from behind. I don’t want this Achilles’s heel.

  5. Open Your Eyes and See

  My eyes snap open. A high-pitched bleeping noise is blaring. It takes a second, but yesterday slowly gurgles to the forefront of my mind. I’m in London. That noise is my new plastic phone. It must be 9:00 a.m.