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“Hiya!” She hugged Alex. “I never thought I’d be leaving tonight with you by my side.”
“Tell me about it. Do you work here every weekend?”
Lucy held the door open for Alex and her abundance of shopping bags. “It’s a total fluke you found me here. I started at Pret’s head office in Victoria as the Operations Manager’s PA two weeks ago. Part of the training includes in-store shifts, so you learn how the products are made, how customers are given the ‘Pret experience’, and all that jazz. Today’s my last in-shop session.”
“See?” Alex laughed and playfully smacked Lucy’s legs with her bags. “That makes our meeting even more incredible. Someone wanted us to meet. I just knew the sun shining this morning was a sign that something good was gonna happen today.”
“Something good? More like something fucking awesome.” Lucy stuck her arm into one of Alex’s bags, partially pulling out a navy blue dress with a scalloped neckline from Club Monaco. “Look at all this stuff. Win the lottery?”
“I wish. The airline lost my luggage.”
“Fuck, no. I would freak if that happened to me…” Lucy stopped, her eyes scanning the King’s Road. “Wait, do you fancy a drink? I’m dying for one, and I bet you’ve worked up a thirst exercising your credit card.”
“Bring it,” said Alex.
• • •
“Stake a claim on the couch. I’ll get the drinks in.” Lucy helped Alex tuck her bags under the wood table and skipped back towards the bar.
She whooped it up with the Fox and Hounds bartender like he was an old friend. Lucy was always extroverted and bubbly over email and Skype. Thank goodness her online and real life personalities mirrored one another. Sometimes meeting online friends in the flesh is like encountering a stranger. The most outgoing, hilarious person online ends up being a shy shell of a soul who squeaks out four-word sentences, or the sweet, caring person on Twitter transforms into a rude, know-it-all—or worse. But being with Lucy felt easy and familiar. No stranger danger here.
Lucy returned with a pint for herself, a vodka and orange for Alex, and packets of pork scratchings, and cheese and onion crisps.
“This place is perfect for my first drink in London. It’s so cozy.” Alex’s eyes skimmed the red walls, paintings of hunting scenes, and chocolate brown floorboards. “Exactly what I imagined a London pub would look like.”
Lucy whipped out her phone. “We have to document our first drink together. Ready? Say ‘I Am Sher-locked’.” Alex held her drink aloft and grinned widely beside her long-lost friend.
She tore open a crisp packet. “These chip bags are so small compared to ours in the States. Where are the rest of them? Seriously, you’d have to scarf down six British chip packages to equal one American bag.”
Lucy raised her glass for a ‘cheers’ with Alex. “Listen to you. Chips…that’s a different thing over here.”
“I’ve been juggling all the different names. I’ll never blend in if I keep calling crisps, ‘chips’, and flats, ‘apartments’. Once an outsider, always an outsider. You’d never know my dad’s British.”
“And so are you. Accent aside, you’re one of us.” Lucy popped the pork scratchings open. Her eyes widened at the crisp bag in Alex’s hand. “Oh shit. Sorry. Creature of habit. Freddie’s a cheese and onion addict. I buy that flavour automatically. Hope I didn’t poison you.”
Crumbs coated Alex’s fingers. “Nope. I inhaled them.” She showed Lucy the bag’s shiny interior.
“You have to meet Freddie. You’ll love him.”
“He’s got great taste in crisps—and friends—I’m sure I will,” said Alex.
“He’s my gay bezzie mate. We get into all sorts of geeky trouble together. That’s how we met. In 2011, waiting for the X-Men: First Class red carpet arrivals…James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender. God, Fassbender’s so freaking hot. They were both great about us taking lots of selfies. That was a night I’ll never forget.”
“I remember seeing photos on your Facebook page two years back…didn’t you meet Daniel Radcliffe at a film premiere or something?” asked Alex.
“That was the 2012 BAFTAs red carpet at the Royal Opera House. Our film awards, yeah, we camped out for hours. So worth it.”
“I’d love to do that.”
“Stick with us, kid. You’ll see all your favourites,” said Lucy. “We’ve got a brilliant track record. My most recent selfie’s with your favourite, at least I think he’s still your favourite…Ben Whishaw? A bird pooped on my jeans about thirty minutes before I ran into him on the street. Talk about a superstition paying off.”
“Really? Ben! So lucky. I hope you cleaned yourself up before you met him.”
Lucy laughed. “What do you take me for?” She quickly scrolled through the photos on her phone, searching for him. “There he is.”
Alex smiled at the image of Lucy and the actor snapped on an East London street. “Aw, Whishy. I adore Ben so much.”
“I practically wet myself. It was sweet of him to stop like that,” said Lucy.
