Hi! So I know this update is short but I really wanted to update because I feel bad and unreliable....
This chapter is almost over, I know I have one more addition to make to this chapter after this current update, but it needs edits so I'm gonna work on that. Good news is I will upload it soon after this, so you guys get a whopping two in a row that you can count as one! Yay!
Thank you to everyone who recently voted, followed me, left lovely comments, the like. You are all wonderful (not to be all cliché and totally overly mushy). I hope you enjoy!
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The days following mine and John’s visit to Julia were the beginning of July, and the next time I ended up making John’s acquaintance was, coincidentally, on the Fourth of July. It hadn’t occurred to me when I told Anne I wanted to spend the summer with her that, along with spending my birthday in England, I’d also be there for, ironically, an all-American holiday.
Nonetheless, it seemed that Anne, despite having chosen the single country from which we won our independence to settle down in, was keen to carry on with her American spirit. Indeed she spent the day before and of the fourth of that hot month sticking small American flags in the front yard and going out into town to get red, white and blue streamers to tape over the front doorway and to wrap around the upstairs banister. I had barely entered the kitchen that day before I was undoubtedly aware of the patriotic kitchen ware Anne had replaced our regular things with, from the star spangled hand towels to yet even more flags stuck in a vase of flowers in the center of the table. The celebration even seemed to extend to the breakfast itself, as it was served on blue plates that were decorated appropriately with white stars accompanying red cups and white napkins.
Anne stood in the midst of it all, decked out in an American flag apron as she finished making breakfast. Her back was to me as I entered, and she hummed along to “America the Beautiful” that by some miracle she’d managed to find on Radio Luxembourg and was currently crackling from the small speaker mounted on the wall next to the cabinets.
“Sure you’re not overdoing it Auntie Anne?” I asked as I sat down at the table to eat, feeling very out of place and unpatriotic in my knee-length, mainly pink, floral dress.
“Never!” she cried en lieu of greeting, whirling to face me and brandishing a pan of eggs. “If you don’t support your home country then what are you?”
“Not a nationalist?” I guessed, but I only made her laugh.
“Very clever you are,” she said, joining me in her seat across the table and scooping some eggs out onto my plate for me.
“Actually,” she leaned forward with a smile, “it’s a pretty funny story. See, when I first moved here, I put out a flag or two in the flower pots, nothing big. I figured that since I’d moved to England, I didn’t need to make a big deal about my home country, America was in the past and I was sure I wouldn’t be back there to live again.”
“But,” here she snorted with laughter, trying to continue to tell me the story, “I was talking to John the next day, he stopped at the gate on his way to somewhere, and he told me Mimi thought I had ‘some nerve’ being new to the neighborhood and dragging in ‘those wretched decorations in a place like this!’” She paused to throw her head back and laugh and I couldn’t help but join her. “So nowadays I go big because I know it gets a rise out of her, but she won’t say anything because she’s Mimi!”
We both continued to laugh at that, the fact that Mimi Smith was probably over at Mendips at that very moment, fuming at Anne’s ridiculous decorations display, but doing nothing at all about it because of her principles of propriety.
A knocking at the door at that moment made our laughs fade a bit, though not much, and it was because of this that Anne, still giggling as she went to the door, turned to me and said, “Now don’t you say a word about this! Mimi’d never talk to me again if she knew I was trying to bug her with my decorations.”
I had my back to the door so I couldn’t distinguish who it was that had arrived, but the voice I heard a moment later put my doubts to rest. “You’ve quite outdone yourself this year Anne, I love every part of it!” said the gleeful voice of John as he no doubt admired Anne’s festivities.
“Why thank you John, I’m glad you like them!” Anne replied happily, and she seemed to be happy that John was in on her joke, as she no doubt knew that John got just as much pleasure as she did at making Mimi fume.
“Can I come in?” I heard John ask. “Mimi’s already gone out and she didn’t leave anything to feed this poor soul.”
“Oh so you want food do you?” Anne said in a mock-scolding voice. “Tramping around town for food are you? Do I look like a soup kitchen Lennon? Get out and beg for your bread elsewhere!” I heard her and John dissolve into a series of laughs, through which Anne managed to say, “Yes, yes, of course you can come in! Come on in, for I dare say this is the wettest Fourth of July I’ve ever seen.”
I heard footsteps in the hall and soon John walked through the door and into the kitchen and, upon seeing me, cried, “Oh come on! You’re not into the spirit? Why, I’m not even from America and I can’t help meself!” And he was right, between Anne with her apron and himself, who I could now see was wearing blue jeans and a red and white shirt, they looked like they both belonged at a picnic at the Boston Common. And I told him so.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked curiously, taking a seat at the table beside me while Anne approached the stove to make him some eggs.
“At the Common every year in town people have picnics and it’s this big thing,” I told him. “The Common’s a park, by the way. A big park in the middle of the city, and there’s a pond where you can go ice skating in the winter and swimming in the summer.”
I heard Anne sigh and I looked up at her as she said, “You know, sometimes I miss Boston, being there with you kids and everything. I mean I haven’t seen Michelle in ages! How is she by the way, I realized I never even asked you!”
John looked at me and asked, “Sister?”
“Yeah, she’s two years younger than me. And she’s fine Anne; she’s recently realized how attractive boys can be, so you know how that goes.”
Anne groaned and said, “Tell your mother I wish her all the best, that stage seems endless.”
“I think that’s because it is,” I pointed out. “And how do you know? You haven’t had any kids.”
“Yes but I lived with your mother for about nineteen years, and if Michelle’s anything like her then I know plenty.”
I laughed outright and cried, “My mom was boy crazy?”
“Oh my god you don’t even know the half of it Liz!” Anne replied, waving her spatula around, and I realized as I glanced over at John that he may have been rethinking his decision to come over. “From when she was Michelle’s age on boys were all she would talk about. She had a new crush every week, sometimes multiple ones, even right up to a year before she met your father!”
I laughed but noticed John looked confused and slightly more uncomfortable, so I leaned over and said confidentially, “My mom is like Mimi, but American.” And at this he laughed slightly, more at the mental substitution of Mimi as my mom swooning over a bunch of boys.
The conversation sloped into a lull after that until Anne suddenly said, “Oh John! Isn’t that fête of yours this Saturday?”
His face brightened; he finally could contribute to the conversation. “Yeah, it is! Five forty-five we go on, and then we have another show later on that night. We’ve been practicing a lot, so you bother better be there!” He looked at me pointedly. “After all, you’ve already promised haven’t you?”
“What?” I asked, very confused. “When was that?”
“When we met! Remember?” he asked. “I told you about the band and how we were playing and you said that you’d come!”
“I never said that!” I said, though I couldn’t remember the conversation very well as the only thing that remained in my head about the meeting was how very annoying he was.
“Really miss high-and-mighty?” he returned childishly, mocking my tone of voice. “Well, if doesn’t matter really. You’re coming, and that’s that.”
VVV
It was the end of the day on the fourth of July, after quite an American afternoon full of singing anthems and patriotic tunes with Anne and John to the radio and eating the marshmallows, strawberries, and blueberries that Anne had skewered and arranged to look like the flag. I was outside at Anne’s request, pulling up all the flags that had been punctured into the ground, when I heard the door next door open. Looking up I saw John and another boy his age come bounding out, John’s friend dragging along what looked like a giant crate. Dropping the flags to the ground I walked down the path and out the gate, meeting John and his friend in front of Mendips.
“-but c’mon Ive we’d love to have ya full-time!” John was saying. “At least I would. You’re definitely better than ruddy old Len, and a right more enjoyable person to have a smoke with if I do say so meself.”
John’s friend laughed and replied, “I appreciate it John, but me mum’s been on me ‘bout gettin’ a job, and I can’t see how I can be in a band and do that at the same time. I think I’d drive meself mad.”
“Hi John,” I cut in shyly. John was fine on his own with me, but he struck me as the kind of person that may act differently around you when he was with his friends, so I approached with caution.
“Whaddyou need Liz?” he asked, not as harshly as I expected, but there was definitely an impatient air.
In contrast, John’s friend gave a good-hearted chuckle and asked, “Now who are you? You Johnny’s girl then? You never told me you got yourself an American bird John!”
John made to answer but his friend continued. “What’s your name?”
I stammered, “I-I’m Liz. Just Liz.”
The boy smiled (I was starting to like him) and stuck out his hand for me to shake, which I did. “I’m Ivan, Ivan Vaughn. You live next door here?”
“My auntie does,” I said. “I’m just visiting for the summer.”
“Yeah, just for the summer,” John put in, and now I could see his ‘I’m-trying-to-be-cool’ attitude coming out.
“Oh do reel your enthusiasm in a bit John, you’re smothering me,” I snapped, my sarcastic alter ego making a brief reappearance.
My remark seemed to please Ivan just as much as it had pleased John. “Lookit this one then!” he said, smiling widely.
“Yeah,” drawled John. “Watch out for ‘er though Ive. She bites.”
“Oh never mind John,” I said to him, feeling embarrassed in front of his friend and wanting nothing more than to just turn and run straight back into the house. “I just wanted to know what you two were up to, and now you’ve-”
“Hold on, hold on,” Ivan interrupted me. “John hasn’t done anything, don’t worry about it.” He looked at me kindly (and I knew I was really sure I liked him) and said, “I sometimes play bass in John’s band.” He gestured at the crate, which I now realized had a long pole through it with a string attached at the top. On the side of the crate was painted, “Jive with Ive, the ace on the bass.”
“But we were just sayin’ how I can’t really anymore because my mum’s on me to get a job started, and to find out where I can go to school. So I can’t anymore mate,” he said to John, gesturing with his hands. “I wish I could, but I don’t think I can, unless you wanna talk to my mum for me.”
John nodded glumly and sighed. “It’s alright Ive,” he said wistfully, and for a moment I thought he was being serious. But then he said, “But don’t worry, when I’m rich and famous and live in a house as big as Elvis’, I’ll still remember ya. May even give you a call, if you’re lucky that is.” And they both chuckled and bent down to pick up Ivan’s bass.
“Are ya coming to the fête on Saturday?” Ivan asked, turning back to me one last time.
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” I said in a slightly small voice.
Ivan grinned, as if he was looking forward to it, which I thought was very good of him, and said, “Great, I’ll be seein’ you there then. Bye now!”
“Bye, nice to meet you,” I said, trailing off slightly as the two set off down Mendips, John obviously intending on helping Ivan get home, leaving me to scamper back into the house and wonder why John felt he had to change himself all the time, even in front of such nice people like Ivan Vaughn.
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To be continued (obviously).
DFTBA guys (don't forget to be awesome, please tell me ONE of you knows what I'm talking about).
~Rosalind