Again, But Better

17. Shining
I wake tangled with Pilot in one of our four beds, his breathing
still soft and even next to me. I still feel like I’m sparkling
inside and out. I’m tempted to make a 
Twilight
reference, but I
refrain. I’ve never had a night like that with Melvin. I never
had dates like these with Melvin. I’ve never felt a shred of this
with Melvin. Seriously, what was I doing with Melvin?
Our bags sit in the corner of the room. Pilot went back up
to get them from our locker in the shared room last night. I
slowly slip out of the bed and scurry off to the bathroom to get
dressed and brush my teeth.
Pilot’s eyes crack open as I return and sit on the edge of the
bed. He lifts the thin, translucent sheet up in invitation. I slide
in and snuggle up next to him.
“Good morning,” he opens, voice thick with sleep.
“Morning,” I say quietly.
“That was a really great three-date extravaganza.”
I smile. “I’d concur.”
One side of his mouth kicks up. “You’d concur?” he teases.
“What’s the Trip Advisor verdict? How many stars?”
I prop up my head on my hand. “Mmm, what do you
think?”
He smiles lazily and holds up ten fingers. He blinks them
in and out twice.
I cackle, dropping back down onto my back. “I concur.”

---

Babe and Chad are on opposite sides of the waiting bench near
the barren front desk.
“Hey,” Pilot and I greet Babe. She raises her head, looking
fabulous as usual with her red lipstick and white beret. Chad
continues to stare at the floor like the charming chap he is.
“Hey, let’s go grab a cab,” is all Babe says before bolting
for the door. I follow her, roller bag in tow. It takes the same
long ten minutes I remember to find a cab. Babe loads in first
while the driver chucks our luggage into the trunk. Before we
left our room, Pilot and I had a heated debate about whether or
not Chad would insist on a separate cab this morning, and
whether or not he’d have a bruise on his left cheek.
“He’s not going to have a bruise!” I laughed.
“He wailed a little too loud for there to be no bruise,” Pilot
snickered, as he slung his backpack up over his shoulders.
“Five pounds says he still whines about wanting his own
taxi,” I challenge excitedly.
“Ten pounds says he’s definitely going to whine about
wanting his own taxi.”
“That’s not how bets work!”
As the cab driver slams down the trunk, Pilot and I share a
look.
I try not to outright smile when Chad barks, “I’m not
getting in that taxi.”
I cross my arms and glare at him from next to the taxi door.
“There are four seats in this taxi. It took us ten minutes to find
this one. You can come with us, or you can go alone.”
“I don’t want to go in the same taxi as her,” he says in a
quieter voice. He swings his eyes to Pilot, silently pleading
like a four-year-old.
I duck into the car, taking the middle seat next to Babe.
She’s pointedly staring out the window at an empty metal

---

gazebo across the street.
“Come on, dude, you can take the front,” Pilot reasons
calmly before ducking into the back. He scoots next to me,
places his backpack near his feet, and closes us in. The two of
us watch Chad through the window. He deflates, walks around
to the passenger door, throws it open, and drops his ass into
the front seat.
“Gare du Nord, please!” I tell the driver.
Pilot puts his hand on my knee and squeezes it, smirking at
this little victory. He leans in until his lips are against my ear
and whispers, “He’s scared of you,” sounding amused as hell.
Paris 
whooshes
by our window as the Eurostar train pulls
away from the station. I’m seated next to Babe. Pilot and Chad
are a few rows up. Daily Babe lives and breathes somewhere
around a nine on the happiness scale, but at the moment she’s
dipped to at least a four. We’re silent for about ten minutes
before I decide to try to draw her into conversation.
“Babe,” I start hesitantly.
“Babe,” I repeat a little louder because she’s still staring
out the window. I not sure what I’m going to say yet. The
classic question is: 
Are you okay?
But when someone asks me
if I’m okay, and I’m clearly not, it busts apart my tear-duct
dam.
“Babe!” I say one more time. She turns away from the
blurry scenery to shoot me an exhausted look.
“What?” She sighs.
My forehead scrunches up as I try to find the right words.
“Um … I … why is your name Babe?”
“Why is my name Babe?” she echoes, sounding
disoriented.
“Yeah, it’s a different name. I was wondering if there was a
story behind it.” I raise my eyebrows.

---

She sighs again, and to my relief, the corner of her lip flits
up a tiny bit. “It’s not actually my real name.”
“
What?
” I say a little too loudly. I’m shocked that I don’t
already know this. I’ve known her for years now. How did I
never ask this question?
“Yeah, it’s Barbara.” She smiles a little now. A really small
one, but it counts.
“I can’t believe all this time your name has been Barbara,
and we didn’t know. That’s insane. Does everyone call you
Babe?”
“Nope, I thought it’d be a cool nickname, so I changed it
on Facebook and told you guys it was Babe when we first
met.”
“Wow. Kudos.” I shake my head slowly, processing this. “I
always wanted a nickname growing up, but there are no good
nicknames for Shane.”
“Shay?”
“Not a fan,” I dismiss.
“Shaney?”
I stick out my tongue. “Shane is the only adequate form of
Shane.”
We fall silent. “Shall we play a game?” I suggest.
“You brought a game?”
“Only the best game, cards—or we can play the extremely
annoying to those in our general vicinity, but fun for us, I’m
Going on a Picnic!”
She laughs. “I’ve never played that! How does the
annoying one go?”
“Okay, so we go back and forth, adding things to a list, that
start with each letter of the alphabet … You know what’d be
fun, let’s make it so you can only bring things related to either
Disney or Harry Potter. I’ll start us off.” I clear my throat.

---

“I’m going on a picnic, and I’m going to bring … Albus
Dumbledore.”
She narrows her eyes with a smile. “I’m going on a picnic
and I’m going to bring Albus Dumbledore … and Babboo?”
“There we go; we’re doing it. Now, it’s only a matter of
time before the people in our car hatch a plot to smother us.”
She giggles next to me, and I continue on, “I’m going on a
picnic, and I’m going to bring Albus Dumbledore, Baboo, and
Cedric Diggory.”
“I’m going on a picnic and I’m going to bring Albus
Dumbledore, Baboo, Cedric Diggory, and Donald Duck.”
“I’m going on a picnic and I’m going to bring Albus
Dumbledore, Baboo, Cedric Diggory, Donald Duck, and …
umm … Extendable Ears!”
We entertain ourselves for ages playing a game for six-
year-olds on a long car ride. It’s numbing in a good way, like
an elementary sort of meditation. It forces you to channel any
wandering thoughts into remembering random words in
alphabetical order. When we’ve finally finished, we lapse into
silence. I can tell when Babe starts to fade back into her
turmoil of upsetting Chad-related thoughts because her
expression starts to droop.
“Hey!” I try to catch her before she falls too deep again.
She turns to face me.
“Yeah?”
“Um.” I swallow. “I just want to say, you’re great, Babe,
and smart, and organized, and fun, and you’re going to find
someone really, really great eventually. I know you are.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Like really though. I’m not just saying that,” I finish
assertively.
She huffs a reluctant laugh. “Uh-huh. How do you know?
You can see the future?” she retorts sarcastically.

---

“In a manner of speaking.”
“Shane, you’re something else,” she answers, like she’s
aged fifty years and become my great aunt.
I smile at my hands. “Proud to be something else.
Normal’s overrated.”
“Amen to that.” She turns to look out the window. I reach
over and wrap her in a quick, awkward side hug, and we fall
back into silence.

---