Johnny Doesn't Drink Champagne

Chapter Two

The room at the hostel is tiny. Two beds on either side of a narrow strip of carpet, and a little nightstand in between. The nightstand is metal, like a filing cabinet, only short and squat. It has a small bedside lamp on it for us to share.

Lydia looks through the doorway in dismay. “We got assigned the room furthest from the bathrooms.”

“Yes. But it’s also the room furthest away from Mrs. Bertorelli. Did you pick that?”

A smile appears on Lydia’s face and we high five. We stumble into the room, which seems extremely crowded once we get all our bags in through the door. There is hardly enough space to put the bags down flat so we can unzip them and get our clothes out. We have to take turns.

I want to tell Lydia about the letter. I’ve always told her everything. But I’m tired. In the dim glow of the low wattage, energy-saving light bulb overhead, I unpack just what I need for tonight and slip along to the bathrooms – dodging Brody on the way.

“Hey baby, I wouldn’t mind being your bar of soap!” he calls out from the doorway of his room. He is dressed in only his boxer shorts.

“Cut it out, Brody! What ever happened to separate hostels for men and women, huh? That wasn’t such a bad system.”

“That’s for monks and nuns, Maddie, not red-blooded guys like me.”

Mrs Bertorelli emerges from her room, wearing an extraordinary purple housecoat that matches her hair. She gives him a withering stare. “Need help brushing your teeth, do you, Brody?”

“No, thanks, Mrs. B.,” He bares his teeth for her to see. “All done. Shiny and white.”

Brody has excellent teeth. In fact he’s quite the all-American guy. Six feet tall, blond hair, broad across the shoulders, narrow in the hip. Shame he has the personality of a deranged cockroach.

I scoot into the bathrooms and freshen up.

When I get back to the room, Lydia says she’s found my cell phone charger, so what the hell was I freaking out about on the bus?

I shrug. “Nerves. What’s on the schedule for tomorrow?”

“Tower of London,” she says, in the same bored tone she would use on a regular day at school.

“Cool,” I say, wishing she wasn’t making this so hard.

She sighs. “Amazing opportunity, yes. I’m very lucky.”

I frown. Now’s the chance to say I’m sorry about Dad muscling in and opening his checkbook, but I’m afraid I’ll make things worse. Why does she have to have such a chip on her shoulder about it anyway?

Lydia sighs and starts putting those awful bendy curlers into her platinum blonde hair so she can look like Marilyn again tomorrow. Right now she is starting to look like Medusa with all the snakes.

I sit down on the narrow bed and get out my phone. I send a quick message to my parents to tell them I’ve survived the journey. I’m not sure what the time is back home, but they told me not to worry about that. My guess is they are sitting at the kitchen table with their cell phones out, waiting for news. They reply instantly, with panicky instructions about getting enough sleep, taking my vitamins, having a great time and not talking to strange men.

I tell them goodnight, and then I slip under the covers and try to settle down to sleep.

There is a long awkward silence.

I think about the discarded letter I found at Heathrow. It’s tucked into the inside pocket of my jacket. In my mind’s eye I see the young man who let it slip from his fingers, and something doesn’t add up. The yellowed fragment of paper doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that guy would carry. Everything he wore and everything he had with him was brand new. Expensive and ultra modern. The suit, the bags, the Lamborghini.