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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.
>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.”
