Sneak Peek of Elephant and Castle #3
“Who orders soup when it’s thirty degrees out?”
“Is that hot? I don’t know how to convert the temperature to Fahrenheit.”
Darcy shook her head, as if embarrassed by Nora’s stupidity or perhaps by the stupidity of all of America. “Aren’t you dying? My whole body is covered in a layer of sweat. I look like a slimy sea lion.”
Nora inspected Darcy for a moment, considering this comparison. “The only thing about you that reminds me of a sea lion,” she said, “is your big, dark eyes.”
Darcy snorted. “You’re forgetting about my whiskers. Anyway, look at this chicken. It looks like my nan made this in 1976, and they’ve just defrosted it. It’s actually wrinkled.”
“Is that what you’ll write in the review?”
“You’re writing the review,” Darcy said. “Though I don’t really think this place deserves to take up space. This is why you can’t trust anything you read on the internet. Now tell me the categories you need to cover in your 150 words.”
Nora concentrated. “Year established. Convenience of the location. Atmosphere.” Nora didn’t mention that she had no idea about the convenience of location for anything, since she didn’t know where anything was and would almost certainly get lost on her way anywhere.
“Yes, yes,” Darcy said, “but none of that matters when the food is such shite. I’m at least going to try the pie. Excuse me!” Darcy raised a hand to flag down the waiter.
As Darcy bit into a slice of chocolate pie that she absolutely despised, Nora decided to steer the conversation away from the lacking quality of the restaurant.
This “training” lunch was the perfect time to get to know Darcy a little better and to see if there was a way to break through to some kind of positive working relationship.
She could almost hear what her mother would say.
Kathleen always seemed to understand what was at the heart of people immediately.
She would recognize all of Darcy’s little insecurities, the way she kept brushing her hair out of her face and gripping the table.
She would say it was all a mask, that Darcy was really just scared of something, and she would probably know exactly what that something was, even if Nora hadn’t quite put her finger on it.
Her mother would know how to handle it too, how to talk to Darcy in a way that put her at ease or put her in her place, whatever was necessary in the moment. Nora just knew how to be nosy.
“So how long have you lived here?” she asked.
“Forever,” Darcy said, shutting down any further inquiries. “Have you ever even been here before?”
Nora smiled. “I studied abroad here, and I fell in love with it. I took afternoon strolls through Regent’s Park, I browsed record stores near Abbey Road, I went on the Eye at sunset. It’s my favorite city in the world.”
“The weather’s terrible,” Darcy said, but Nora could tell that she couldn’t complain too much about her hometown. This was where Darcy had grown up, and while she could dislike almost anything, Nora was sure her boss couldn’t hate London. “People are idiots too. Brexit? Come on.”
Nora laughed. “The people I met here were wonderful.”
“Oh gross.” Darcy scrunched up her face.
“What?”
“You met a guy here, I can tell.”
“What? How can you tell?” Nora looked around the room furtively.
“The people I met here were wonderful. Sigh. Wistful look. Memories stirring behind your blue eyes. I can read you like a book, Shrapsan. You batted those long eyelashes all over town, and you fell in love.”
Nora stared. She must be so obvious, but she was also relieved.
She’d been dying to talk to someone about Hugh, to say everything she’d been thinking for the past seventy-two hours—or maybe the past seven years—out loud, but now that she had the floor, Nora wasn’t sure Darcy was the right person to talk to, and she didn’t know where to start.
It was so much more than a teenage romance to her, but how to explain it so that Darcy wouldn’t think she was a dramatic weirdo?
Maybe she shouldn’t have decided to spill the beans to her boss in the first place.
“He was my first love,” Nora said. She cleared her throat.
Scenes from the life of nineteen-year-old, losing-her-virginity Nora kept playing in her mind.
Make out sessions on Tower Bridge in the rain.
White teeth glowing in black lights while they danced at Ministry of Sound.
Steam wafting from hotel bathrooms, droplets of wine dotting the side of the bathtub.
“Well, that is serious,” Darcy said, and Nora blinked hard, forcing herself back into the present.
“We met at the pub where he worked, and he was in a band. It sounds silly now, doesn’t it?
” She tried to shrug nonchalantly. “The first time he ever spoke to me, I could tell immediately there was just this something about him. He told me I couldn’t handle my liquor and I’d be ‘Oliver Twist’ in no time.
I didn’t know what that meant, even though I love the musical.
“You Americans always fall for that Cockney bullocks,” Darcy said. “A couple of rhymes, ‘Oliver Twist’ instead of ‘pissed,’ and you’re completely charmed.”
Nora laughed. “I totally was. I fell for it immediately. Even when I thought logically this guy is just charismatic and I shouldn’t be so smitten, I couldn’t help it. I was done for. And he was right that I couldn’t hold my liquor.”
“Wow, you’re gullible.” Darcy shook her head. “Seriously. How do you survive in this world?”
Nora was on a roll, and she ignored Darcy’s comment.
“I liked him, but I didn’t take him that seriously.
We always had an expiration date. I knew it would just be a summer fling.
But then I got to know him… The band was actually amazing.
I think it clouded my judgment.” Nora looked off into the distance wistfully.
“So he gave you the struggling musician bit, and you ate it right up. You were probably throwing your panties on stage in no time.” Darcy laughed at her own joke. “What was the band?”
Nora was still in another world, remembering all the things that Hugh had said to her, how much she’d wanted to believe him.
When he’d told her he loved her. That had been real, right?
That wasn’t just some line to get in her pants.
“Oh, it’s not like you would have heard of them.
They were just—the Pet Rockers,” she said finally, and Darcy actually did a spit take. She had cider dribbling down her chin.
“You’re fucking with me,” Darcy said, suddenly alert and completely invested in the conversation.
“What?”
“You did not date a guy from the Pet Rockers. You’re good, Shrapsan. I didn’t think you had it in you to make up such a load.”
Nora stared at her, eyebrows wrinkled. “What are you talking about? You know about a band called the Pet Rockers?”
Darcy was shaking her head. “I don’t know whether to believe you or not. They are a relatively well-known local band, at least if you’re into the music scene at all. They do shows all over the city. In fact, I have tickets to a special event they’re doing just north of here.”
“That’s crazy,” Nora said. “There’s no way it’s the same band, right? I mean, literally no one knew who they were when they used to play at the Goose and Cobbler.”
Darcy stared at her as if trying to solve a puzzle. “No, that’s it. You’re not fooling me anymore. What’s this bit you’re doing? I don’t get it,” Darcy grumbled.
“What are you talking about?” Nora suddenly felt sick, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the soup or some other kind of nausea.
“The show this weekend—this fucking weekend—is a special show at the Goose and Cobbler.” Darcy tossed down her fork as if the sheer ridiculousness of this situation wouldn’t allow her to hold it a second longer.
Nora sat in stunned silence, but everything felt too loud.
Her head was cloudy, as if she was just waking from a strange dream.
Darcy was still saying something, but she couldn’t quite make out the words.
The diary in the bottom of her bag still seemed to be beating, and Nora couldn’t hear anything else.
“You really aren’t making this up, are you?” Darcy said, her voice finally breaking through. “I was going to have my roommate go with me, but she doesn’t care about it anyway. I would much rather take you and see you reunite with your boyfriend.”
Nora’s mouth was hanging open. She’d been having the stupid debate in her head, ever since she found the diary, about whether or not to pop into the Goose and Cobbler for old-time’s sake.
She never thought Hugh would still be there, behind the bar, waiting for her.
And she really never thought that his now semi-famous band would be playing a show in the very place where she had first laid eyes on him.
She was trying to convince herself that there was no way any of this was possible—there was no actual way that she could set foot in the pub and fall in love with Hugh Jeffries all over again after seven years.
But as Darcy sat there snapping her fingers in front of Nora’s face to try to break her from her total state of shock, Nora realized the truth.
There was no way in hell she was missing that show.
Don’t stop now. Keep reading with your copy of ELEPHANT AND CASTLE.