by A. J. Pine
Forcing a smile, I say, “I’ll call her tonight, when I get back to the house.”
I don’t, though. When I get back to my cousins’ house, I crash the moment my head hits the pillow. Year’s Eve is only a day away. I promise myself to check in with Sam then.
“Where are you lot off to today?”
It’s Graham, Victoria’s father. With my parents headed back to Chicago, it’s just me and the Londoners for the last of my holiday. We’re nearly out the door with Hugh, Victoria’s boyfriend, to who knows where. She told me it was a surprise, so I’m eager for her response.
“So close,” she moans before turning to face him. “I thought we’d show Jordan ’round the less touristy spots, maybe Hackney. I wanted to let her see it in the daylight before heading to the club for the New Year tomorrow. Ci correct, Papa?” Her tight brown curls bounce with her words, but I focus on Victoria’s mouth, the one that just switched from English to French. She’s been doing this since I arrived. After spending a month in Paris last summer, she claims she can’t help but break into French every now and then. I think she likes to show off her flawless accent, but either way I like it. I have two years of high-school French under my belt, and Victoria promised to teach me some naughty stuff, more than the standard Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? that most Americans love to sing regardless of whether they know what it means.
“Oui. Sounds lovely,” her dad says. “When should we expect you back? Your mum and I want to see Jordan for her last official night with us.”
“Au revoir! We’ll be back in time for supper.” Victoria gives him a quick peck on the cheek, and I wave. The next thing I know we are out the door and on our way to the tube.
“Why does where we’re going need to be a secret?”
Victoria smiles wickedly. “Because. I told you. C’est une surprise. Besides, I did tell him where we’re going. Hackney. So, there’s your only hint.” She throws her head high, proud of her little covert operation.
Right, like I have any idea where Hackney is or what’s there. This whole surprise thing makes me nervous. I remind myself I’ve spent a week with Victoria already, and she’s given me no reason to fear or distrust her. Until now, that is.
The last surprise I received was my journal from Sam, and a wave of guilt washes over me as I think of it. I’ve done as promised, recorded my experiences to share with her later, but not having shared them with her personally feels wrong. None of us talk much on the tube, so I pull out my journal and write a letter to Sam in its pages. Maybe, if I explain to her in writing what I’m feeling right now, sharing it with her later will either bring us closer together or maybe back together from where we may have drifted.
When the train stops about a half hour later, I follow Victoria and Hugh onto the platform and up the steps to the street. We walk for a few blocks through the artiest section of London I’ve seen so far before Victoria stops at a storefront. Neon red lighting frames the picture window and a blue, neon sign in the center reads Prick. Above and below said store name are the words Tattoos and Piercing, respectively.
“Pick your prick, love,” Victoria chants. “Today we are making a memory—une mémoire.”
I should be panicking. I don’t even have my ears pierced. After plenty of begging, my mom finally took me to get my ears pierced when I was six. Though I survived the actual procedure without a tear, every day my mom had to clean and turn the new earrings, I was a mess. Apparently, my ears are too sensitive to various metals, including gold, and we ended up taking out the earrings and letting the holes close up. Since then I’ve had no desire to attempt an ear re-piercing, let alone poke a hole in any other spot, visible or not, on my body. But that’s only one option. The other is something else entirely, and I never knew until now that I wanted it.
“I’m in,” I say.
Victoria bounces on her feet. “Formidable!”
I look at Hugh and shrug.
He gestures toward the doorway. “She means brilliant. Come on, now. After you, ladies.”
I start to follow Victoria in but then stop short of the doorway.
“Wait!” I pull out my phone and snap a picture of the shop’s neon sign and then text it to Sam. Maybe I’m not ready to talk, but I do want to connect.
“I’m ready.” I throw the phone back in my bag and step inside.
Chapter Fourteen
“How are you two going to kiss when the clock strikes twelve tomorrow night?”
Her brown eyes are slits, and Victoria brandishes her hand at me, indicating what most Americans would read as the number two. After three months in the UK, though, I know she’s flipping me off. But I still laugh. Tall, lanky Hugh’s expression lengthens his already long face.
“I’m not sure you two thought this through.” I can’t not laugh. I sit in what looks like a dentist’s chair in the coolest-looking tattoo station—a brick wall with everything from a stuffed goat head to painted masks, replete with a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling—though I have no barometer for comparison. I’ve never been in a tattoo shop before. Victoria and Hugh have been upstairs on the main floor, where the piercing takes place. Hugh pierced his bottom lip, Victoria her tongue. New Year’s Eve is tomorrow.
“The thwelling will go down in a day,” she insists, flipping me off Brit style again, but I still snort. “Pas de problème,” she says, but I know enough French to disagree. Based on the way she’s speaking right now, it is a problem.
Stuart, my tattoo artist, puts some ointment on my finished ink. The moment I realized I wanted to walk through Prick’s doors, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I look down at my left wrist, still hot and pulsing with the memory of the needle, and I smile. Sam’s been with me the whole time, though we’re so far apart. When I sat down in the chair, I showed Stuart Sam’s inscription in my journal, Alef, Hey, Vet, Hey. Ahava. Love.
Sam’s not a crier, and though that night was our last night seeing each other, I was still surprised at her display of emotion when we said good-bye. I knew she loved me, always has, so I wasn’t surprised when she told me. It was seeing that word, a Hebrew word she would have had to research to find, that caught me off guard. Back then I took it as her way of telling me what she thought of our friendship, in case she couldn’t say it in person. But that’s not how I read it now. All this time I’ve tried to be more like her, tucking away my expectations in place of living in the moment. All this time I’ve been afraid of what she’d think of me for not being able to give up the reissued V-card to Griffin. Deep down, that’s why I’ve avoided her calls. But when I look at the inscription on my wrist, copied exactly in Sam’s script, it means so much more. She may have slept with the hot bartender days after becoming single, but that’s not me, never could be me. I tried to be that girl and failed, but maybe that’s okay. Maybe Sam will understand. She sent me here with a message to start living, but she sent me here with love, too.
As soon as Stuart’s done with the ointment, I pull out my phone and see a text waiting from Sam, a response to the photo of the storefront. It reads: Holy shit, girl! What’d you do?
I take a picture of my wrist, which now displays a twin of her inscription to me. I write Thank you and then hit send. She replies immediately with a heart.
Other than inquiring what the word on my wrist means, Victoria and Hugh are quiet, no doubt willing their respective mouths to heal faster than humanly possible. I feel bad for how uncomfortable they look but not enough to curb a small sputter of laughter.
Starving, I ask, “Is lunch out of the question?” My smile dims from amused to timid.
Victoria lets out a melodramatic sigh. “I thuppose not. Mangeons.”
I turn to Hugh for confirmation. “That means eat?”
He nods.
Though relieved, I also worry she’ll still be speaking like that tomorrow night. I can’t imagine an entire evening with French Sylvester the Cat.
On the way to the stairs leading from the basement to the firs
t floor, we pass two other stations, one with an artist busy at work on the shoulder of a guy with full tattoo sleeves. In the other are two guys, one standing and waiting impatiently and the other sitting on the edge of the tattoo chair pulling a shirt back over his head. With Hugh already starting up the stairs, Victoria looks at the currently headless torso, then back at me and whispers, “Mon dieu!”
There’s no arguing with her. Because my God, it is a good torso, trim and smooth, yet no trace of any ink. Must be on his back. When his head finally emerges, I have to grab Victoria’s arm to steady myself.
“Brooks?”
Victoria looks at me, her eyes brown saucers of shock. “You know him?” For a second I’m struck that she has found a sentence she can pronounce. But that second quickly disappears, and I’m back, feet planted, knees ready to give out at any moment.
“Noah,” I say. He’s smiling. Why is he smiling? Fucking hell, that smile! “We’re on our way out.” Still holding Victoria’s arm, I pull her up the stairs and outside, grateful to have already paid for our services. Before she can question my sanity, Noah pushes through the door behind us, followed by whoever the other guy was standing with him downstairs.
“Brooks, wait.”
Can I pretend I didn’t hear him? Better yet, I can rush into a shop with an urgent errand. I spin left to enter the next door I see but stop short before pulling the handle. I thought a place called Bangers and Mash would have been a restaurant. How very wrong I was.
“Picking up thomething for the New Year, love?”
In the window I see what looks like a rack of lacey underwear. But it’s missing the important part, the part that gives the garment its name, the part that goes under.
I linger at Victoria’s taunt, not sure what’s worse, walking in and purchasing a pair of crotchless knickers out of spite or turning to give her a well-deserved glare, knowing Noah stands there, too. I groan, waiting a beat for the heat to leave my cheeks.
When I turn, Victoria’s cheeky grin is nothing compared to Noah, whose smile bears no evidence of tease or taunt. The heat of embarrassment has gone, replaced by another warmth—one I don’t want to feel, one that is the effect of Noah Keating’s smile.
“It’s good to see you.” He runs a hand through his hair. It’s shorter than when I saw him last. We’ve done so well avoiding each other, while sharing a class, that though we’ve been in the same room, we’ve scarcely been eye to eye since the day we watched A Room with a View and the disaster of an evening that followed.
Now would be a really great time to respond with something simple like, “Good to see you, too.” But that’s not what happens. In the absence of any utterance from me, Victoria steps between us.
“I’m Jordan’th couthin Victoria,” she says, followed by, “Merde! Tongue,” after which she sticks out her newly pierced tongue to explain. “And thith ith Hugh.”
Hugh extends a hand toward Noah.
“Noah,” he says, shaking Hugh’s hand. “I’m at Aberdeen University with Jordan. This is my brother, Ethan. He’s visiting from the States.” Both guys have the same dark hair; Ethan’s waving toward the ends like Noah’s used to do. Ethan’s eyes are brown where Noah’s are blue, but their faces share a similar shape. Ethan looks a little older, though Noah is taller, so I can’t be sure.
He looks back at me, his eyes wide and smile beaming. “I can’t believe you’re here. This is crazy.”
Victoria nudges me on the shoulder. “Yeah,” I manage. “Crazy.”
“Your hair is longer,” he says, his tender smile never waning.
Instinctively, I try to pull my growing bangs behind my ear.
“You got yours cut,” I reply. Yep. It’s stand-outside-a-tattoo-parlor-and-make-small-talk time.
“I did.”
Aware of the other three people not talking yet clearly involved in what can only be described as ultimate awkwardness, I try my hand at an exit again.
“We should probably go. It was good to see you, Noah. Nice to meet you, Ethan.”
I start walking alone, not sure what direction I’m supposed to be going, trying to out-walk another confrontation.
“Wait!” Victoria calls after me. I stop where I am but don’t move back into the awkward fold. Instead I wait and listen for her next move. Already tired of her newly acquired lisp, she pulls out a piece of paper and pen from her bag and starts scribbling on it. She hands it to Noah, and he thanks her after reading it.
“Good-bye, Jordan,” he says in my direction.
“Good-bye, Noah.”
Victoria and Hugh meet me, and we all three continue walking.
“What did you give him?” I ask, knowing whatever the answer is, it’s not going to be good.
“My mobile and the name of the club we’ll be at tomorrow night, in cathe they want to meet uth. Judging by that dithplay back there, I’m going to gueth you two have thome thingth to iron out.”
“Oh God, no. No no no no. Not good. Trust me, Victoria. It’s not.”
“Are you going to tell me the thtory, or do I have to figure it out on my own?”
“There is no story.”
How do I explain the train, the past few months, that he knew I wasn’t with Griffin but stayed with Hailey? Seeing him reminds me the only thing that works for me and Noah is distance.
She asks me again later that night, but she can tell the subject of Noah is not open for discussion. But as I try to fall asleep, it all replays in my mind, everything from Duncan’s birthday until now—Noah’s history with Hailey, him asking to be friends when he knew Griffin and I were over. I’ve tried so hard not to be angry at him, but the only success I’ve had comes with avoiding him. Whenever we’re thrust in each other’s presence, I’m right back where I was that first night in the Blue Lantern, seeing Noah with Hailey draped all over him only hours after we kissed. Now I finally get away, five hundred miles away, and he’s here? I pick up my phone from the bedside table and open my photo album, and despite the knot in my stomach, I can’t help the smile spilling across my face when I stare at the picture of us laughing, our first taste of haggis in our mouths. But as soon as I close the photo screen, reality returns.
I can’t want someone who doesn’t want me. So instead I bank on not seeing him again until classes resume in a few days.
Chapter Fifteen
“Santè!” Victoria throws back what will be her first of many shots this evening. Miraculously, in one day after piercing, she has regained control of her tongue. Fear of parental retribution has suddenly given her the ability to hide her indiscretion. Mine is easily hidden under a long-sleeve shirt. And Hugh. Well, Victoria’s parents really aren’t concerned with what Hugh does to his body unless it also involves Victoria’s body.
Hugh and I raise our shot glasses with her, but I slam mine back on our table without drinking it, saving it for when Victoria needs another.
“No shots,” I say.
“Not even for the new year? Pourquoi?” She pouts, like I’ve suddenly ruined the party.
“Because, in the words of my flat-mate, I’m a pussy lightweight. Plus I say stupid shit and do stupid things when I’m drunk, so there’s that, too.”
Victoria giggles, not much of a heavyweight herself, it seems. “Then we’ll let you take it slow. Don’t want you to say anything stupid to a bloke you might fancy.” She giggles again, but I ignore her. The last thing on my agenda tonight is meeting a bloke. Instead I slowly sip a pint of cider. It’s ten o’clock. I need to pace myself if I’m going to make it until midnight and beyond.
Victoria’s club is more like a retro swank pub, and I’m grateful for the laid-back atmosphere. The long, dark bar sports a backlit counter displaying the various beverages available. High-backed, black leather booths line the parallel wall. In stark contrast are the neon-lit, hourglass-shaped pub tables. We occupy a pink one. The place is cool bordering on cheesy. What seals the deal for me is the music—nineties Britpop. Right now Blur’s “Girls & Boys�
� pours through the speakers.
“Time to lose the cardigan, darling.” Before I have a chance to react, Victoria undresses me, revealing the baby-doll tank top hiding underneath. On the way home from Prick yesterday, we passed a shop Victoria insisted we check out.
“Ith the New Year, love. You need to ring it in with thtyle!”
She was still lisping at that point, but it didn’t stop her from pushing me into a fitting room with an armload of tops I never would have thought myself capable of pulling off. Now, as I look down at the beaded black bodice that flares out over my jeans, I’m still not sure. My bare shoulders prickle with goose bumps. I fidget with my hair and then smile when my hand runs over the red rose hair clip that rests above my left ear, pinning back my bangs. Victoria insisted on the top. I insisted on the clip.
“You’re gorgeous, love. Très belle. Stop fiddling. Isn’t she gorgeous, Hugh?”
He offers a nod of agreement. I don’t think I’ve heard Hugh speak more than ten words in the past two days. Then again, Victoria has enough conversation in her to keep things going on her own. Her use of the word gorgeous is hardly encouraging. This morning she gave the same compliment to the quiche we had for breakfast. For all I know, I look like a quiche.
A scab forms on my wrist, but I can read the small word under the healing skin. Rubbing my thumb over it, I think of Sam. I’ll call her at midnight her-time so we can start our Chicago new year together.
“She’s right, you know. Très belle.” The words come from behind me, the deep rasp flawlessly reproducing Victoria’s French words, and I freeze, rooted in place by his voice. Maybe it’s the cider, or maybe it’s still him, but I can’t suppress the smile as I look down into the pint cradled in my hands.
My back still to him I ask, “How can you tell? You can’t even see me.” My shoulders aren’t cold anymore. In fact, every part of me radiates with heat, which is wrong. So wrong. Victoria’s mouth hangs open, the neon light glinting off the silver stud in her tongue. Even Hugh takes an interest in my sudden paralysis.
