Up Over Down Under (19 page)

“I get it,” Billie interrupted, rolling her eyes. “Yes, I reckon that could be a crack more painful. Ugh.” One thing that Billie had learned about herself during her U.S. stay was that, despite the fact that her native language was English, people often had no idea what the heck she was saying. Something about the accent really threw them, even as they giggled and launched into their own Crocodile Hunter impressions. It was completely baffling. So phone calls would have been a particularly unique form of torture.

She straightened up in her seat at the thought, rolling her shoulders backward as though to shrug off the jinx of Parker's supposition. “Let's change the subject,” she suggested. “I'd hate to see our deepest, darkest worries accidentally come true.”

“Fair enough,” Parker said. He drummed his fingers against the top of his desk. “I think the problem is that it's too quiet here today.”

He was right. Fiona-belle had been put on poster duty for the morning, and were off slapping flyers on every community bulletin board between Ritter's office and Capitol Hill. Though posters were just as egregiously unecological as oversized first-class mailers, Billie was actually a little bit jealous of them for being out in the sunshine and actual fresh air.

Feeling the first tinges of a rumbling in her stomach, Billie glanced at her watch: 12:43. No wonder she was grouchy. It was feeding time. She looked longingly toward the windows on the far side of the cube farm where she and Parker were camped out. She didn't really have time for a proper tuck in the honest-to-outdoors for the lunch hour. But.

A pick-me-up might be just the thing to get me through the rest of the afternoon,
she thought to herself. It certainly couldn't make her any
less
motivated than she was already feeling, that was for sure.

“Do you fancy nipping out for sarni?” she asked Parker, swiveling her chair in his direction.

He knit his eyebrows together and pretended to consider her offer. “I'm assuming you're asking me to lunch,” he said, grinning.

Billie nodded. “I keep forgetting to draw you up that glossary you so desperately need.”

“Yeah, well, Australian English, American English—no matter how you say it, I'm kind of starving,” he admitted. He smacked one more label onto an envelope, then pushed back from his desk and out of his chair.

“You realize that if we go out to eat, we're going to have to work double-time just to finish up this crazy stack of letters before six.”

Billie nodded and pointed again toward the windows, this time specifically to the cloudless blue sky.

“That's a chance I'm willing to take.”

“This day's a beaut,” Billie said, breathing in the crisp fall air. “The only thing that would make this”—she gestured to the verdant lawn of the Capitol Mall—“absolutely perfect would be if the street vendors carried Marmite.” She dunked a chunk of soft pretzel into a small container of mustard resting on the park bench beside her for good measure.

She swung her legs out in front of her happily. For the thirty minutes that she and Parker had managed to escape the cube farm, Billie felt energized and alive. And she obviously wasn't the only one. Couples strolled hand in hand along the sidewalk; business types managed to keep their mobiles tucked securely in their pockets, at least for the duration of lunch; and birds twittered in chorus with a nearby guitarist. The whole scene was like something out of an advert for Washington, D.C. For once. Color, drama, bustle, energy. Billie loved it.

She'd love it even more if she had some Marmite. But that was not to be.

Parker shuddered. “I don't know what Marmite is, but from the sound of it, it's bad news.”

Billie laughed through a mouthful of pretzel. “It's yeast spread.” She paused for a moment, contemplating. “I suppose ‘yeast spread' does sound pretty disgusting when you put it baldly like that.” She smiled. “I think you're just going to have to trust me on this one.”

Parker arched a dubious eyebrow in her direction. “Trust you? Maybe. Try it? Pass.”

Billie shrugged and took another bite of her pretzel. Swallowing, she said, “Isn't that the whole point of a cultural exchange? We introduce each other to our countries' customs and habits?”

“Consider me sufficiently introduced. I would prefer not to get any more chummy with Marmite,” Parker said, laughing.

“Fair enough,” Billie said, shaking her head. “Eliza said the same thing in her last e-mail—that my parents have been pushing Marmite on her every morning with her brekkie…” She trailed off as she realized that Parker's face had gone still at the mention of his maybe-ex-girlfriend.

Dumb, dumb, dumb,
she thought. She couldn't believe she'd been so thoughtless as to bring up Eliza's name. Especially when she and Parker were having such a fun time just enjoying some sunshine on their lunch break.

But as quickly as Parker's expression had darkened, it cleared again. He blinked as though determinedly wiping away unpleasant thoughts. “I didn't realize you guys talked,” he said, finally.

“We e-mail,” Billie admitted. “It sounds like she's been keeping busy. But she told me to say hi.” She winced as she passed the message along to Parker, who no doubt would have preferred to hear from Eliza himself. There was a funny feeling stirring in her chest, too, as she watched a mix of emotions pass over her new friend's face. Could it be…was it actually…

Was she
jealous
? Of Parker's relationship with Eliza?

Of course not. That would be silly. She and Parker were just friends. And even if they weren't, what was going on with him and Eliza was clearly complicated at best.

Whatever Parker was thinking, he didn't let on. His mouth had settled into an impassive line. After another beat he said, “Tell her I say hi back.”

“I will,” Billie said, wishing the subject would change itself.

No such luck, though. “How is she liking her internship?” Parker asked lightly.

“I think the great outdoors have taken some getting used to,” Billie said.

At this, Parker finally smiled. “I'm sure.”

Billie felt emboldened by his grin. “We talked a little bit about how frustrated I've been at
our
internship. She was pretty understanding.” Billie wasn't sure why she was so surprised about that fact, but she was—after all, she and Eliza were still practically strangers, when all was said and done.

“Really,” Parker mused. “That's interesting. You must be rubbing off on her.”

He paused. “You know, someone at school mentioned this group to me. They call themselves the Green Gorillas. They do guerrilla marketing and stuff for the environment. They're a high school offshoot of a group that first sprung up on college campuses. They meet once a week. I can't remember where, but some Internet café near Georgetown. New members always welcome. You should swing by one of their meetings. Check it out. You never know. I'm sure you can find them online.”

“Guerrilla marketing,” Billie repeated. “That sounds serious.”

“Well, it's gotta be more serious than scanning and photocopying all day, right?”

“You've got me there,” Billie conceded. “Will you come with me?”

Parker nodded. “I will. Even though I really shouldn't—not if I want to keep my grade-point average up,” he said. “Physics is killing me.” He glanced at her. “But for you, anything.”

Billie knew he was only teasing, but her stomach did a backflip at the lilt in his voice just the same. “I understand,” she said, tossing her now-empty mustard cup into the paper bag her snack had come in and crumpling the whole thing into a wrinkled ball.

“Speaking of killing”—her eyes twinkled—“aren't you just dying to get back to work?”

Parker shook his head. “You have no idea.”

Eliza was sitting in Billie's bedroom at the beach house staring at a nearly life-sized purple, stuffed dolphin. If the bedroom in Melbourne was a seven out of ten in terms of eco- and surfing-obsessed, this was an eleven. There were posters of surfers on preposterously large waves, dolphins and whales in the wild, and sunsets over exotic beaches in places like Tahiti. There were even some photos tacked up to the small vanity mirror by the closet showing Billie and a freckle-faced friend mugging for the camera. Eliza recognized her as Val, another crunchy-type from school.

Val seemed nice enough, though she definitely didn't run with Jess and Nomes.

It was shocking to Eliza how different she and Billie were. Their S.A.S.S. program was an exchange program, and yet it was hardly as though the two girls could be dropped into each other's life seamlessly. She wondered how much of who they each were was innate and how much was a product of circumstance, of environment. It was a strange thought—if she had been born in Australia, to the Echolses, she might have turned out like Billie.

Or would she? Would she have loved shopping, shoes, and sipping lattes, and hated mud, marshes, and malls of the non-shopping variety no matter what?

Eliza wasn't thrilled with the direction her semester had taken, but there wasn't a lot she could do about it now. She was going to make the best of the situation and see how things would roll out. That apparently included cultivating a newfound appreciation for surf photography and friendly stuffed animals.

She flopped down on the bed and pulled out her mobile to call Jess.

“Eliza! What's going on? How's Sorrento?”

“Musty.” She sniffed the bedding, which clearly had not had a thorough airing out all winter. “How's Noosa?” Jess and her family had a vacation home in Queensland, near the barrier reef, where she was spending the vacation.

“It's good. Sunny and warm, which hits the spot.”

“I can't believe everyone else gets to have a fabulous break, and I'm stuck here.”

“I'm telling you, Sorrento can be awesome, and we'll be home soon to hang. You're going to have a ripper if you just roll with it. Remember, no worries, right?”

“Yeah, no worries,” Eliza said without conviction. The Aussie catchphrase held little appeal to her at the moment. “I should probably get going. We're supposed to go down to Fishy Wishy for my ‘job training.' At least they're saying I'll get some time off to go to the beach, but I still have to do the penguin project.”

“Well, I'm sure it'll all be good. I'll call you tonight when we get back in from the beach.”

Eliza groaned at the thought of spending the afternoon stuck in a fish shack while her friends were living it up at the beach.

“Okay, talk to you later.” She hung up her cell phone and stared at a poster of a giant sting ray that hung over the bed. She was suddenly more curious about Billie than ever.

What was up with that girl? Had she been born with gills?

And if so, was she feeling as much a fish out of water in D.C. as Eliza was in Australia?

 

Fishy Wishy was everything Eliza had feared.

As she and Frank pulled up, she saw that it was an overdone storefront shack on the main street in Sorrento. The street was a broad boulevard with the usual assortment of beach shops featuring bathing suits, souvenirs, and plenty of places to sit out and eat. The building was a low, one-story affair, with a faux-tiki top on the front and a big picture window. Out front were several tables on a patio that stretched onto the sidewalk.

The shack was open year-round with a skeleton staff, but as the weather turned warm they needed more people to service the increasing crowds that marked summer in Sorrento. That was where Eliza came in.

The shack itself was a lot like a McDonald's in layout but without the corporate slickness and flair. There was a counter facing the front, some tables inside, a bunch more outside, and an open kitchen in the back that mostly contained some freezers with fish and pre-cut frozen french fries—or chips as the Aussies say—and a bunch of deep fryers. There was a small station set up where fixings and buns could be added to sandwiches, but mostly what they served were fried foods, tossed into plastic baskets lined with wax paper.