by Micol Ostow
Frankly, she realized that it was pretty similar to what she would have picked had they just been going shopping, but maybe with a little extra dollop of “oomph.”
“Oomph” turned out to be a good thing. It wasn’t long before someone approached.
“Are these seats taken?”
Eliza had been lost in thought. She jumped a little, startled, and recomposed herself, slightly embarrassed. She looked up to see the very vision of an Australian guy—which was to say, a mess of rumpled, dirty-blond curls, his eyes a sparkling shade of deep brown.
“Um, yes, I’m sorry, but I think they are,” Eliza said, really meaning it. At that moment she would have gladly sacrificed her friendship with Jess for a chance to sit next to Mr. Aussie-bloke.
“You think they are?” He seemed amused by her uncertainty.
“No, well, yes, they are taken. My friends and I are sitting here.”
He looked to her left, and then her right, raising a quizzical eyebrow. Clearly he thought her friends were of the imaginary variety. “It looks like it’s just you sitting here.”
Eliza blushed. “Well, they’re coming. One’s at the bar and the other will be here any minute.”
She was flattered by the attention, and a little flustered as well, which didn’t happen often. She didn’t want to chase him off, and thankfully was saved the decision as Jess returned.
“Hamish Bloody MacGreggor! Get your good-fornuthin’ mitts off my mate there!”
He’s Jess’s friend? And also—his name’s Hamish?
“Hey, Jess. I didn’t know you guys were together. She kept saying that she had all of these mates, but I thought she was just playing hard to get.”
“Yes, we are, she was, and keep your paws off.” Jess smiled.
He held his arms up in a “Who, me?” pose. “I was just looking for an empty seat,” he protested. “No paws, I swear,” and he winked at Eliza. She had to hide a smile.
“Hamish, meet Eliza. She’s from America on exchange.” Jess gestured from Hamish to Eliza by way of introduction.
He stuck his hand out. “I’m Hamish, but everyone calls me Macca.”
Macca? It was almost as bad as Hamish. He was lucky he was such a hottie.
“Macca? Like McDonald’s?” Eliza tried not to giggle as their palms made contact and they shook hands. Jeez, one cute guy and she was totally dorking out.
Macca tilted his head back and drained the rest of his beer. “No, ma’am. It’s Macca as in MacGreggor—and no self-respecting MacGreggor would be caught dead near a louse like a McDonald. You got that?”
“Okay, Braveheart.” Eliza gave her most winning sunny grin and folded her arms across her chest. Check and mate.
“Fair enough, but this William Wallace is out of grog and is heading to the bar.” He smiled right back at her and gave a wink.
And that’s the game.
She’d never met a guy like this back home. Of course, most of that was because Hamish was clearly so über-Australian, in addition to being a hugely cocky flirt. But it was more than that. He was rugged and outgoing in a way that the boys back at Fairlawn weren’t. In a way that Parker wasn’t, for sure. Most of the Fairlawnians thought black was the new black and listened only to Emo bands with male lead singers in eyeliner. And even though Parker was more like Eliza and her group—in other words, practically a walking Gap ad—that only made the contrast between him and Macca all the sharper.
And Parker was on hold for now, anyway.
Upon mutual agreement, they squished their seats together and dragged some more chairs over so there’d be room for them all. Macca and a couple of his friends sat with them while they waited for Nomes to show up. Jess gave Eliza a little wink as Macca slid in next to her.
They tried to keep up the conversation despite the music blaring in the background. It turned out that Macca was a senior at Geelong Grammar, a school in a city a little south of Melbourne, but his parents lived in Toorak, pretty near the Echolses. In fact, he even knew Billie—they’d surfed together as kids, he said.
Oh man, he’s a surfer. Eliza thought back to a brief obsession with surfers based on the TV show Laguna Beach. Now there was absolutely zero chance that she’d escape a big-time crush. She was a total goner.
The musicians had, by now, taken the stage and were starting their set. As the band launched into its first song, Eliza sat back, happy to be holed up in the Espy next to an Australian surfer demi god. She smiled to herself.
This semester is getting better by the minute....
Chapter Eight
Although many of the clichés about America were obviously true, Billie had found that at least one—that all Americans were completely high-strung and neurotic—didn’t seem to be. The Americans whom Billie encountered at Fairlawn that first morning were decidedly un-neurotic. In fact, they were so thoroughly chilled out that she thought some of them might even be asleep. It almost made her chuckle; Australians were always known for their “no worries” attitude, but this school was so hippie-dippie that the mood in the air went way beyond “no worries.” This was more like “no pulse.”
She found her way to her “homeroom” without any trouble. Homeroom was apparently what Americans called the first class of the day. You didn’t learn anything in homeroom, though—it was just the place where teachers took attendance and made any sort of school-wide announcements. Billie decided that she would remember the meaning of homeroom by thinking of it more as “home base.” To her, that made much more sense.
Billie was the only S.A.S.S. student at Fairlawn, which might have made her feel self-conscious, but even though she was an introvert by nature, she actually wasn’t shy in the least (awkward conversations with Mrs. Ritter notwithstanding). As if to prove her point, she smiled at the girl who slid into the seat beside her.
“G’day,” she said, grinning. “I’m Billie Echols.”
“You must be our exchange student,” the girl replied. “Whose house are you staying at?”
“I’m with the Ritters,” Billie said proudly. She still couldn’t quite believe that she’d been assigned to work for the number one eco-warrior in the world. Or, at the very least, in the American government.
“Nice,” the girl said to her, nodding approvingly. “Although I think Mrs. Ritter is sort of like the diet police.”
Billie shrugged, thinking back to the brown rice and bland fish. “I can be sneaky. Especially when it comes to something as urgent as biscuits.” At the girl’s blank look, she explained, “You know, bickies. Biscuits…cookies!”
“Right.” The girl smiled. “Your accent’s awesome.”
What is it with Americans and accents? Billie smiled.
“I’m Heather, by the way,” the girl continued. “Heather Small. I’m going to intern next semester. But I don’t know where yet.”
“Gotcha,” Billie said. “So everyone at this school has to intern?”
“For at least one semester of high school,” Heather confirmed. “It’s sorta one of the only real rules this place has.”
“It does seem very…touchy-feely.” Billie laughed, hoping that she wasn’t offending her maybe, sort-of new friend. But Heather just grinned in agreement. Billie felt even warmer toward her.
“What can you tell me about Eliza?” she asked boldly. “The only things I’ve been able to suss, based on her bedroom, are that she likes purple, and that she likes cable TV. Oh!” Her eyes widened as she remembered one other juicy detail. “And there was a bloke in one of her pictures. Someone she was pashing with?”
“If ‘pashing’ is Australian for ‘smooching,’ then yes, the bloke was probably her boyfriend, Parker,” Heather explained. “Parker Green. He’s great—really a friendly, nice guy. Everyone here at school likes him.”
“Sounds perfect,” Billie mused. Her experience with boys thus far had been minimal. She had lots of guy friends, and even a few crushes here or there, but nothing major. Nothing official. In fact, maybe that should have bee
n one of her goals for her time in the United States: to pine after a boy (and vice versa)? “Pining” sounded incredibly romantic.
“Yeah, I guess. Though I’m not sure how thrilled he is that Eliza suggested they take a break while she’s away. I mean, he still puts on his merry sunshine front. But it’s, like, I think he doth protest too much. And, he’d never admit it, but he has been a little bit cranky about newspaper deadlines since Eliza left.” Heather rolled her eyes to show what she thought of this sort of behavior. “We’re on the paper together,” she explained. “So I try to keep him in check. Boys can be so dramatic, you know?”
Billie just nodded vaguely. She actually didn’t know, and she didn’t really want to go advertising that fact. Like pining, drama was something else that could be romantic, even if it was a little bit annoying.
“Oh!” Heather exclaimed, as though just remembering something. “You’ll meet Parker. He’s doing the Ritter internship, too.” She lowered her voice. “Also a scandal—he and Eliza were set to do it together, until she decided to skip town, instead.”
Billie’s eyes widened. That did sound scandalous. Was it wrong that she found it kind of intriguing as well?
Of course, now that she had some more background on Parker, she was all the more eager to meet him. The idea that she had in her head of Eliza was a strange one; it was almost like they were long-lost twins, in the way that they were literally exchanging lifestyles with each other for the term. But the composite of Eliza’s self that Billie had cobbled together was based on only a few flimsy context clues. Eliza’s American persona was a mystery that Billie was excited to learn more about.
In the end, it turned out that Billie and Parker were actually in chemistry class together. Science was Billie’s weakest subject, and therefore she couldn’t give too much attention to Parker and his relative state of being. But from first impressions, he seemed to be much the way Heather had described him. He was one of the few students clad more like a refugee from an Abercrombie advert than a Marilyn Manson acolyte, but his cheery demeanor seemed almost aggressively upbeat. Billie tried to keep her gaping to a minimum, and she decided she’d wait until she had better found her feet before she got too chatty with him. She was definitely curious to hear more about this newspaper thing. Writing was something that had always fascinated her.
Or at least, if she couldn’t stop herself from gaping for the foreseeable future, she’d wait to approach him until she’d kicked her jet lag, which didn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Wasn’t the equation something like, one day per hour of time difference? That meant she’d be spacey just about forever.
That would never do. She didn’t have forever. All she had was this one semester in D.C. And she was determined to make the most of it.
Luckily, Billie’s enthusiasm for her internship that afternoon perked her up. While she’d spent the morning of classes wandering the halls of Fairlawn in a semi-fugue state, now she was buzzing like she’d mainlined ten shots of espresso in a row. All of her eco-conscious activities in Australia had been leading up to this moment. She was going to Take Charge, Be Heard, and Do Something.
Actually, to be more specific, she was also going to Jump Out of Her Skin if they couldn’t get to work sooner rather than later.
Billie and her fellow interns had arrived at Mr. Ritter’s office at two P.M., all itching to jump in and get involved. There was a certain amount of terror over suddenly having what felt suspiciously like a real job, but it was, for the most part, overridden by a pervasive enthusiasm unique to volunteer-type people.
Any moment now, Billie knew, she and her co-interns would be handed their clipboards and canteens and sent out to survey land, collect samples, or mash up paper from recyclables using only their bare hands.
Any. Moment. Now.
She jiggled her foot in her seat impatiently, trying not to make too much noise in the process. She sighed under her breath. She chewed on her fingernails. She contemplated helping herself to another cup of coffee but rejected the idea for a host of reasons. She was already half mad from adrenaline as it was.
She was trapped. Trapped in a dimly lit conference room on the fifteenth floor of an office building.
She surveyed her fellow interns briefly. Of course there was Parker, who’d offered her a smile of recognition and a nod when they’d first arrived. She assumed that he knew she was the one staying with Eliza’s parents for the semester, but they hadn’t had a chance to discuss that just yet. Instead, the two of them had spent the last few minutes shifting uncomfortably in their seats and generally avoiding eye contact with the other two members of their little group: thin girls with pale skin and brownish-blonde hair who were dressed in nearly identical jeans and pastel cable-knit sweaters.
As if aware of Billie’s eyes on her, one of the two girls (the one in the lime-green sweater, as opposed to the one in Pepto-Bismol pink) glanced up.
“I’m Fiona, and this is Annabelle,” she offered. “We’re freshmen at Fairlawn. We had to apply special to be accepted into this program with upperclassmen.” She sounded extremely proud of this fact. She also seemed to be the designated spokesperson for the two of them. It was odd, but Fiona was clearly doing her best to be friendly, and as far as Billie was concerned, her overture was welcome.
Less welcome was the ages-long orientation speech to which she and her colleagues were soon to be subjected. The door to the conference room opened with a creak, revealing a crisp, no-nonsense type woman in sensible shoes, black pants, and a baby-blue sweater set.
More pastels? What was it with Americans dressed like Easter eggs? Billie wondered.
“I’m Iris Meyer,” Easter Egg began, clearing her throat. “I’m your internship coordinator. I’m just going to quickly take attendance, and then we’ll go through the ground rules.” She settled herself in a seat at the front of the room and quickly referred to the clipboard she’d been carrying, reading off names to confirm that all of the interns were, indeed, present. Billie couldn’t help but notice that Fiona and Annabelle both responded to each of their names.
“Bathrooms are located in the front of the hall, on either side of the elevator banks,” Iris droned. “You’ll need a key for that, so check in with the receptionist when you need to go.”
Billie frowned. Why were they sitting around talking about toilets when there were rain forests to replant? She’d been doing almost nothing since she arrived but flit in and out of getting-to-know-you sessions. She knew that it was very important to be properly acclimated to new situations and stuff, but it was getting to be a bit much. When were they going to get up and actually Do Something?
Oh—now. Now they were getting up.
In her personal pity party, she’d almost missed it. Parker sort of nudged her on the shoulder as he brushed past her seat, teasing her for zoning out.
“The conference room where we were just sitting is where most of the office meetings will take place. If for some reason we need more space, then we meet on the seventeenth floor,” Iris said. “In that case, you’d be informed by e-mail.” Her low-heeled pumps whispered softly as she strode forward, in full-on tour-guide mode.
She led them past an extremely miniature kitchen. The fridge was so teeny that Billie wasn’t sure it would even fit a jar of Marmite.
“This is the break room,” Iris continued. “If you bring food from home, you can keep it in the refrigerator. But be sure to label what’s yours,” she warned, “so that it doesn’t go missing.”
Billie’s eyes widened. Since when did activists nick one another’s tuck boxes? Then she remembered that Americans weren’t too keen on Marmite, and she realized that theft probably wouldn’t be an issue.
Iris came to a stop in front of an enormous room filled with copy machines. Honestly, it looked like every single copier in the entire world had been shoved into the same space. The dull industrial lighting bounced weakly off of the machines’ shinier surfaces.
“Are you guys ready for
your first task?” Iris asked, sounding, in all truth, rather subdued. Her tone of voice was not exactly what Billie would call inspiring.
Nevertheless, it was all that she could do to avoid leaping into the air and pumping her fist. Who cared if Iris was running on low batteries? She was ready for her first task, definitely. She’d been—what did the Americans say again?—born ready. She rubbed her hands together like a cartoon villain.
Apparently it was meant to be a rhetorical question, because Iris plunged right onward with her spiel.
“You are all familiar with Proposition Seven, yes?” Another rhetorical question, but of course the answer was yes. Proposition Seven was Ritter’s bill to de-pollute the Chesapeake Bay, which had been deemed dirty water. The EPA had announced a proposed cleanup initiative to start at the end of the calendar year.
She nodded at Iris, as did the other interns.
Iris pressed her lips together. Her expression was inscrutable…not a smile, but not a grimace, either. More of a non-expression.
“We’ve recently been made aware of some new developments regarding the EPA’s proposed cleanup. This”—she slid a sheaf of papers out from the mass of her clipboard—“is the press release, which should tell you all you need to know about the new information.” She passed the papers to Fiona. “Fiona, you and—”
“Annabelle,” Annabelle chimed in helpfully.
“Annabelle,” Iris repeated mechanically, “can collaborate on our e-mailing list of potential volunteers. We need to update them on the news.”
