Just One Day

Two
Our train to London is at eight fifteen—Melanie’s idea, so we will have maximum shopping time. But when the alarm clock starts beeping at six, Melanie pulls the pillow over her head.
“Let’s get a later train,” she moans.
“No. It’s already all arranged. You can sleep on the train. Anyway, you promised to be downstairs at six thirty to say good-bye to everyone.” And I promised to say good-bye to Ms. Foley.
I drag Melanie out of bed and shove her under the hotel’s weak excuse for a shower. I brew her some instant coffee and quickly talk to my mom, who stayed up until one in the morning Pennsylvania time to call. At six thirty, we trudge downstairs. Ms. Foley, in her jeans and Teen Tours! polo shirt as usual, shakes Melanie’s hand. Then she embraces me in a bony hug, slips me her business card, and says I shouldn’t hesitate to call if I need anything while in London. Her next tour starts on Sunday, and she’ll be there too until it begins. Then she tells me she’s arranged a seven-thirty taxi to take me and Melanie to the train station, asks once again if we’re being met in London (yes, we are), tells me yet again that I’m a good girl, and warns me against pickpockets on the Tube.
I let Melanie go back to bed for another half hour, which means she skips her usual primp time, and at seven thirty I load us into the waiting taxi. When our train arrives, I drag our bags onto it and find a pair of empty seats. Melanie slumps into the one next to the window. “Wake me when we get to London.”
I stare at her for a second, but she’s already snuggled up against the window, shutting her eyes. I sigh and stow her shoulder bag under her feet and put my cardigan down on the seat next to hers to discourage any thieves or lecherous old men. Then I make my way to the café car. I missed the hotel’s breakfast, and now my stomach is growling and my temples are starting to throb with the beginnings of a hunger headache.
Even though Europe is the land of trains, we haven’t taken any on the tour, only airplanes for the long distances and buses to get us everywhere in between. As I walk through the cars, the automatic doors open with a satisfying whoosh, and the train rocks gently under my feet. Outside, the green countryside whizzes by.
In the café car, I examine the sad offerings and wind up ordering a cheese sandwich and tea and the salt and vinegar crisps I’ve become addicted to. I get a can of Coke for Melanie. I put the meal in one of those cardboard carriers and am about to go back to my seat when one of the tables right next to the window opens up. I hesitate for a second. I should get back to Melanie. Then again, she’s asleep; she doesn’t care, so I sit at the table and stare out the window. The countryside seems so fundamentally English, all green and tidy and divvied up with hedges, the fluffy sheep like clouds mirroring the ever-present ones in the sky.
“That’s a very confused breakfast.”
That voice. After listening to it for four acts last night, I recognize it immediately.
I look up, and he’s right there, grinning a sort of lazy half smile that makes him seem like he just this second woke up.
“How is it confused?” I ask. I should be surprised, but somehow, I’m not. I do have to bite my lip to keep from grinning.
But he doesn’t answer. He goes to the counter and orders a coffee. Then he gestures with his head toward my table. I nod.
“In so many ways,” he says, sitting down opposite me. “It is like a jet-lagged expatriate.”
I look down at my sandwich, my tea, my chips. “This is a jet-lagged expatriate? How do you get that from this?”
He blows on his coffee. “Easy. For one, it’s not even nine in the morning. So tea makes sense. But sandwich and crisps. Those are lunch foods. I won’t even mention the Coke.” He taps the can. “See, the timing is all mixed up. Your breakfast has jet lag.”
I have to laugh at that. “The doughnuts looked disgusting.” I gesture toward the counter.
“Definitely. That’s why I bring my own breakfast.” He reaches into his bag and starts unwrapping something from a wrinkled piece of waxed paper.
“Wait, that looks suspiciously like a sandwich too,” I say.
“It’s not, really. It’s bread and hagelslag.”
“Hachuh what?”
“Hach-el-slach.” He opens the sandwich for me to see. Inside is butter and some kind of chocolate sprinkles.
“You’re calling my breakfast confused? You’re eating dessert for breakfast.”
“In Holland, this is breakfast. Very typical. That or uitsmijter, which is basically fried egg with ham.”
“That won’t be on the test, will it? Because I can’t even begin to try to say that.”
“Out. Smy. Ter. We can practice that later. But that brings me to my second point. Your breakfast is like an expatriate. And, go ahead, eat. I can talk while you eat.”
“Thank you. I’m glad you can multitask,” I say. Then I laugh. And it’s all just the weirdest thing, because this is just happening, so naturally. I think I am actually flirting, over breakfast. About breakfast. “What do you even mean, an expatriate?”
“Someone who lives outside of their native country. You know, you have a sandwich. Very American. And the tea, very English. But then you have the crisps, or chips, or whatever you want to call them, and they can go either way, but you’re having salt and vinegar, which is very English, but you’re eating them for breakfast, and that seems American. And Coke for breakfast. Coke and chips, is that what you eat for breakfast in America?”
“How do you even know I’m from America?” I challenge.
“Aside from the fact that you were in a tour group of Americans and you speak with an American accent?” He takes a bite of his hagu-whatever sandwich and drinks more of his coffee.
I bite my lip to keep from grinning again. “Right. Aside from that.”
“Those were the only clues, really. You actually don’t look so American.”
“Really?” I pop open my crisps, and a sharp tang of artificial vinegar wafts through the air. I offer him one. He declines it and takes another bite of his sandwich. “What looks American?”
He shrugs. “Blond,” he says. “Big . . .” He mimes boobs. “Soft features.” He waves his hands in front of his face. “Pretty. Like your friend.”
“And I don’t look that way?” I don’t know why I bother to ask this. I know what I look like. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Sharp features. No curves, not much in the boob department. A little of the fizz goes out of my step. Was all this just buttering me up so he could hit on Melanie?
“No.” He peers at me with those eyes of his. They’d looked so dark yesterday, but now that I’m up close, I can see that they have all kinds of colors in them—gray, brown, even gold dancing in the darkness. “You know who you look like? Louise Brooks.”
I stare at him blankly.
“You don’t know her? The silent film star?”
I shake my head. I never did get into silent films.
“She was a huge star in the nineteen twenties. American. Amazing actress.”
“And not blond.” I mean for it to come out as a joke, but it doesn’t.
He takes another bite of his sandwich. A tiny chocolate sprinkle sticks to the corner of his mouth. “We have lots of blondes in Holland. I see blond when I look in a mirror. Louise Brooks was dark. She had these incredible sad eyes and very defined features and the same hair like you.” He touches his own hair, as tousled as it was last night. “You look so much like her. I should just call you Louise.”
Louise. I like that.
“No, not Louise. Lulu. That was her nickname.”
Lulu. I like that even better.
He reaches out his hand. “Hi, Lulu, I’m Willem.”
His hand is warm, and his grasp is firm. “Nice to meet you, Willem. Though I could call you Sebastian if we’re taking on new identities.”
When he laughs, little crinkles flower along his eyes. “No. I prefer Willem. Sebastian’s kind of, what’s the word . . . passive, when you think about it. He gets married to Olivia, who really wants to be with his sister. That happens a lot with Shakespeare. The women go after what they want; the men wind up suckered into things.”
“I don’t know. I was glad when everyone got their happy ending last night.”
“Oh, it’s a nice fairy tale, but that’s what it is. A fairy tale. But I figure Shakespeare owes his comedy characters those happy endings because he is so cruel in his tragedies. I mean, Hamlet. Or Romeo and Juliet. It’s almost sadistic.” He shakes his head. “Sebastian’s okay, he’s just not really in charge of his own destiny so much. Shakespeare gives that privilege to Viola.”
“So you’re in charge of your own destiny?” I ask. And again, I hear myself and can hardly believe it. When I was little, I used to go to the local ice-skating rink. In my mind, I always felt like I could twirl and jump, but when I got out onto the ice, I could barely keep my blades straight. When I got older, that’s how it was with people: In my mind, I am bold and forthright, but what comes out always seems to be so meek and polite. Even with Evan, my boyfriend for junior and most of senior year, I never quite managed to be that skating, twirling, leaping person I suspected I could be. But today, apparently, I can skate.
“Oh, not at all. I go where the wind blows me.” He pauses to consider that. “Maybe there’s a good reason I play Sebastian.”
“So where is the wind blowing you?” I ask, hoping he’s staying in London.
“From London, I catch another train back to Holland. Last night was the end of the season for me.”
I deflate. “Oh.”
“You haven’t eaten your sandwich. Be warned, they put butter on the cheese sandwiches here. The fake kind, I think.”
“I know.” I pull off the sad wilted tomatoes and smear off some of the excess butter/margarine with my napkin.
“It would be better with mayonnaise,” Willem tells me.
“Only if there was turkey on it.”
“No, cheese and mayonnaise is very good.”
“That sounds foul.”
“Only if you’ve never had the proper sort of mayonnaise. I’ve heard the kind they have in America is not the proper sort.”
I laugh so hard that tea comes spurting out my nose.
“What?” Willem asks. “What?”
“The proper sort of mayonnaise,” I say in between gasps of laughter. “It makes me think that there’s, like, a bad-girl mayonnaise who’s slutty and steals, and a good-girl mayonnaise, who is proper and crosses her legs, and my problem is that I’ve never been introduced to the right one.”
“That is exactly correct,” he says. And then he starts laughing too.
We are both cracking up when Melanie trudges into the café car, carrying her stuff, plus my sweater. “I couldn’t find you,” she says sullenly.
“You said to wake you in London.” I look out the window then. The pretty English countryside has given way to the ugly gray outskirts of the city.
Melanie looks over at Willem, and her eyes widen. “You’re not shipwrecked after all,” she says to him.
“No,” he says, but he’s looking at me. “Don’t be mad at Lulu. It’s my fault. I kept her here.”
“Lulu?”
“Yes, short for Louise. It’s my new alter ego, Mel.” I look at her, my eyes imploring her not to give me away. I’m liking being Lulu. I’m not ready to give her up just yet.
Melanie rubs her eyes, like maybe she’s still sleeping. Then she shrugs and slumps into the seat next to Willem. “Fine. Be whoever you want. I’d like to be someone with a new head.”
“She’s new to this hangover thing,” I tell Willem.
“Shut up,” Melanie snaps.
“What, you want me say that ‘it’s old hat for you’?”
“Aren’t you Miss Sassy-pants this morning.”
“Here.” Willem reaches into his backpack for a small white container and shakes out a few white balls into Melanie’s hand. “Put these under your tongue to dissolve. You’ll feel better soon.”
“What is this?” she asks suspiciously.
“It’s herbal.”
“Are you sure it’s not some date-rape drug?”
“Right. Because he wants you to pass out in the middle of the train,” I say.
Willem shows the label to Melanie. “My mother is a naturopathic doctor. She uses these for headaches. I don’t think to rape me.”
“Hey, my father is a doctor too,” I say. Though the opposite of naturopathic. He’s a pulmonologist, Western medicine all the way.
Melanie eyes the pills for a second before finally popping them under her tongue. By the time the train chugs into the station ten minutes later, her headache is better.
By some unspoken agreement, the three of us disembark together: Melanie and I with our overstuffed roller bags, Willem with his compact backpack. We push out onto the platform into the already-hot summer sun and then into the relative cool of Marylebone Station.
“Veronica texted that she’s running late,” Melanie says. “She says to meet her by the WHSmith. Whatever that is.”
“It’s a bookstore,” Willem says, pointing across the interior of the station.
The inside of the station is pretty and redbricked, but I’m disappointed that it’s not one of those grand stations with the clattering destination boards I was hoping for. Instead, there’s just a TV departure monitor. I go over to look at it. The destinations are nowhere that exotic: places like High Wycombe and Banbury, which might be very nice for all I know. It’s silly, really. I’ve just finished up a tour of big European cities—Rome, Florence, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Berlin, Edinburgh, and now I’m in London again—and for most of it, I was counting the days until we went home. I don’t know why now all of a sudden I should be struck with wanderlust.
“What’s wrong?” Melanie asks me.
“Oh, I was just hoping for one of those big departure boards, like they had at some of the airports.”
“Amsterdam’s Centraal Station has one of those,” Willem says. “I always like to stand in front of it and just imagine I can pick any place and go.”
“Right? Exactly!”
“What’s the matter?” Melanie asks, looking at the TV monitors. “Don’t like the idea of Bicester North?”
“It’s not quite as exciting as Paris,” I say.
“Oh, come on. You’re not still moping about that?” Melanie turns to Willem. “We were supposed to go to Paris after Rome, but the air traffic controllers went on strike and all the flights got canceled, and it was too far to go on the bus. She’s still bummed out about it.”
“They’re always on strike for something in France,” Willem says, nodding his head.
“They subbed Budapest in for Paris,” I say. “And I liked Budapest, but I can’t believe I’m this close to Paris and not going.”
Willem looks at me intently. He twists the tie on his backpack around his finger. “So go,” he says.
“Go where?”
“To Paris.”
“I can’t. It got canceled.”
“So go now.”
“The tour’s over. And anyhow, they’re probably still striking.”
“You can go by train. It takes two hours from London to Paris.” He looks at the big clock on the wall. “You could be in Paris by lunchtime. Much better sandwiches over there, by the way.”
“But, but, I don’t speak French. I don’t have a guidebook. I don’t even have any French money. They use euros there, right?” I’m giving all these reasons as if these are why I can’t go, when in truth, Willem might as well be suggesting I hop a rocket to the moon. I know Europe is small and some people do things like this. But I don’t.
He’s still looking at me, his head tilted slightly to the side.
“It wouldn’t work,” I conclude. “I don’t know Paris at all.”
Willem glances at the clock on the wall. And then, after a beat, he turns to me. “I know Paris.”
My heart starts doing the most ridiculous flippy things, but my ever-rational mind continues to click off all the reasons this won’t work. “I don’t know if I have enough money. How much are the tickets?” I reach into my bag to count my remaining cash. I have some pounds to get me through the weekend, a credit card for emergencies, and a hundred-dollar bill that Mom gave me for absolute emergencies if the credit card wouldn’t work. But this is hardly an emergency. And using the card would alert my parents.
Willem reaches into his pocket, pulls out a fistful of foreign currencies. “Don’t worry about that. It was a good summer.”
I stare at the bills in his hand. Would he really do that? Take me to Paris? Why would he do that?
“We have tickets for Let It Be tomorrow night,” Melanie says, assuming the Voice of Reason. “And we’re leaving on Sunday. And your mom would freak out. Seriously, she’d kill you.”
I look at Willem, but he just shrugs, like he cannot deny the truth to this.
And I’m about to back down, say thanks for the offer, but then it’s like Lulu grabs the wheel, because I turn to Melanie and say, “She can’t kill me if she doesn’t find out.”
Melanie’s scoffs. “Your mom? She’d find out.”
“Not if you covered for me.”
Melanie doesn’t say anything.
“Please. I’ve covered for you plenty on this trip.”
Melanie sighs dramatically. “That was at a pub. Not in an entirely different country.”
“You just criticized me for never doing things like this.”
I have her there. She switches tacks. “How am I supposed to cover when she calls my phone looking for you? Which she’ll do. You know she will.”
Mom had been furious that my cell phone didn’t work over here. We’d been told it would, and when it didn’t, she called the company up in a tizzy, but apparently there was nothing to be done, something about it being the wrong band. It didn’t really matter in the end. She had a copy of our itinerary and knew when to get me in the hotel rooms, and when she couldn’t manage that, she called Melanie’s cell.
“Maybe you could leave your phone off, so it goes to voice mail?” I suggest. I look at Willem, who still has the fistful of cash spilling out of his hand. “Are you sure about this? I thought you were going back to Holland.”
“I thought so too. The winds are maybe blowing me in a different direction.”
I turn to Melanie. It’s on her now. She narrows her green eyes at Willem. “If you rape or murder my friend, I will kill you.”
Willem tsk-tsks. “You Americans are so violent. I’m Dutch. The worst I will do is run her over with a bicycle.”
“While stoned!” Melanie adds.
“Okay, maybe there’s that,” Willem admits. Then he looks at me, and I feel a ripple of something flutter through me. Am I really going to do this?
“So, Lulu? What do you say? You want to go to Paris? For just one day?”
It’s totally crazy. I don’t even know him. And I could get caught. And how much of Paris can you see in just one day? And this could all go disastrously wrong in so many ways. All of that is true. I know it is. But it doesn’t change the fact that I want to go.
So this time, instead of saying no, I try something different.
I say yes.