Again, But Better(99)

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.”