Again, But Better

French Watermelon
sounds extra ridiculous when he says it.

---

“I’m gonna download your album when we get back.”
He presses his lips together. “I’ll excitedly await your review.”
“Am I allowed to share with the roomies?”
He shakes his head, smiling. “Go for it.”
“This is so exciting!” I don’t exactly skip, but my feet do a weird jumpy-dance thing.
I take stock of our surroundings. I haven’t been looking around enough. We’re
approaching an opening back out into the city streets.
“You think we go this way, then?” I ask.
Pilot stops and puts his index finger to his forehead. “Card senses are tingling … that
way.”
I roll my eyes.
We walk a little way down the street before coming up on a Starbucks. The familiarity
of it amidst the 
culture shock
of the last twenty-four hours actually brings me up short. I
stop walking to admire it from across the street. Pilot backtracks a few steps and comes up
on my right.
“Starbucks!” I point across the way. “Doesn’t Starbucks feel like an old friend now?”
He shrugs slightly with his hands still in his pockets. “Have you been since we got
here?” he asks.
“No, not yet.”
“Shall we go give her a visit?” He smirks.
I snort. “A visit?”
“I mean, is she your friend or not? I don’t want walk in on a random stranger,” he
answers with mock sincerity.
I scoff, “That was a stretch.”
“Uh, actually I think that was pretty witty,” he responds, using the male version of a
valley-girl voice, his words all drawn out and over the top. I make weird smothered-laughter
noises.
I take the steps two at a time into the Starbucks, coming to a stop at the end of the line.
We shuffle along in silence for a few minutes, waiting to place our orders. I bounce on my
toes, excited for my usual drink. When I reach the register, my mouth flops open. The
barista is a tall woman in her forties with a knot of red hair—it’s the rude airplane lady!
“Hi, darling! I see you’re making friends!” She glances from me to Pilot, back to me,
and winks. I shake my head, flabbergasted. 
Dear lord, woman, please don’t say anything
else
.
“What would you like?” she asks.
“I … um, a green tea latte, please,” I tell her.
“Oh, we don’t have those,” she replies.
“Oh … weird. Okay, can I have a tall pumpkin spice latte, please?”
“A what?”
“A pumpkin spice latte.”
“We don’t have pumpkin spice lattes.” She smiles.
“Okay, I guess I’ll have a tall cinnamon dolce latte, please.”

---

She shakes her head, bemused. “Never heard of that either.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, we don’t have cinnamon … dolce lattes.”
I can sense Pilot silently laughing beside me.
“What kind of Starbucks is this?” I mumble.
We leave five minutes later, both of us with tall vanilla lattes. That was so strange. I turn
to Pilot to tell him about plane lady.
“So that was your friend?” He clicks his tongue before I have a chance to speak. “I
mean, you didn’t know what was on the menu, so I’d say you’re mildly acquainted at best.”
I run a hand down my face, trying not to snort at his terrible attempt to continue the
Starbucks-is-an-old-friend joke. “I thought it was my friend, but, turns out, it was a regular
coffee shop who took Polyjuice Potion and was pretending to be my friend.”
“Oh, no, too far.” He shakes his head, grinning. “You ruined it with the Polyjuice Potion
reference.”
“What are you talking about? That was clever! 
You
had already pushed it too far!”
“No, I pushed it the perfect amount. Shane, you pushed it to extreme-dork levels.”
My cheeks burn from the force of my smile. We’re about to turn left at the upcoming
intersection when I spot something colorful on the corner.
I gasp. “Pies. Look.” I point toward my discovery and watch his eyes widen.
“Is that what I think is?”
“That’s a Beatles store! A whole Beatles-themed store!”
“Oh wait, that’s that band you like, right?” he says.
“I’m resisting the urge to smack your arm so hard right now.” I’d actually like to grab
his hand and drag him across the street, but my arm won’t obey that command; it’s too
scared of rejection.
We rush across, hands unlinked. When the light changes on the next corner, we jog
across and up onto the sidewalk outside the Beatles store.
“Wow!” I stare at the beautiful, brightly colored window display. “It’s Beatlesful,” I
pronounce. I turn to Pilot wearing a giant idiot smile.
He smothers a grin and shakes his head. “I have no words for that.”
“Did you get it?”
“Oh, I got it,” he says.
“That was clever.”
He shakes his head, smile still smooshed.
“Come on. It was clever!”
“Let it be, Shane. Let it be.” He heads into the shop.
I stand on the sidewalk for a second, processing. “Oh my.” I follow him in.
“Love Me Do” plays inside the store. We’ve stepped into a Beatles wonderland: CDs,
vinyls, sweatshirts, hats, socks, key chains. I know Pilot likes the Beatles. He keeps a chill
front, but I can see it in his eyes. They’re all alight and eager as he inspects the trinkets. I
squat down to get a better look at what appears to be a set of Beatles-themed Russian

---

nesting dolls in a glass display case. Pilot squats next to me. His side brushes up against
mine.
“Oh, man, look at the sizes! John is the biggest, Ringo’s the smallest. The shade.”
I turn away from the dolls to look at him. “Look who knows who the Beatles are.” For
just a second, he smiles like a goof, then it’s back to cool-guy grin. When we stand up, he
starts pointing out different vinyls that he owns as we walk through the displays.
“Shane,” Pilot calls from behind me as we wander down another aisle. “Beatles cards!”
I whip around, leaping over to where he is. “What?”
“Beatles playing cards, Shane. Target acquired. Mission accomplished.”
We walk back through the park as the sun ducks below the horizon.
“What’s your favorite Beatles song?” Pilot asks.
“What’s 
your
favorite Beatles song?” I throw back.
“Shot, you answer first,” he says calmly.
“What do you mean, 
shot, you answer first
? You can’t shot that I answer first!” I laugh.
“Uh, first rule of shotting, you can shot whatever you want to shot,” he responds with
his voice all goofy.
I comply, trying to roll my eyes sarcastically and failing. “My favorite is ‘Hey Jude,’ I
think, or ‘Yellow Submarine,’ or ‘Hello, Goodbye.’ Or, or … ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,’ I love
that one!”
He closes his eyes and nods with a closed-mouth smile. “Nice picks, nice picks.”
A pack of runners 
whoosh
past us on the trail. “Now you share yours,” I say expectantly.
“‘Helter Skelter,’ probably, or ‘I Am the Walrus,’ or ‘Octopus’s Garden,’ or ‘Eleanor
Rigby’—they’ve got so many great ones.”
“How dare you have mocked me for saying I like the Beatles!”
He shrugs. “You look more like a Taylor Swift kind of girl.”
“Um, excuse me,” I protest, “I am a Taylor Swift kind of girl, thank you very much.
She’s marvelous.” I take a second to glare and dramatically toss my hair over my shoulder.
“Music snob.”
He throws his head back with a laugh. Warm fuzzies bubble up inside me. I don’t know
the science behind warm fuzzies and how they bubble, but they do.

---