Tuesday at Strawberry Faire

June 15, 2013

Lizzie POV

"Housekeeping!" The cleaning lady, Andrea, called from the other side of my door.

"Come in! I yelled back, and heard her open the door with a cheerful hello.

"Where are you, dear?" She questioned me, walking to where I was.

"Hi hi! I'm almost finished in here and I'll be out of your hair. Promise!" I stuck my head out of the bathroom and greeted her.

"Oh, you're fine Lizzie. You know I start on the beds anyways! What are you so dolled up for? I don't think I've seen you with that much make up in the three weeks you've been here." She asked while taking off the sheets on my bed. Andrea was a beautiful middle aged woman and by far the nicest person that I've met since I've been in London. We met on the second day that was here, and I immediately gravitated to the maternal nature that she seemed to have. She was the breath of fresh air that I needed to find here.

"It's my first day at work today!" I squealed as I walked out of the bathroom and slipped on my favorite pair of black vans.

"Oh, that's right! I should have known. Well you look stunning, even in work trousers." She winked at me and pulled me into a hug. The nerves that I had been feeling started to fade away from this simple and sweet gesture. It was amazing that I had known this woman for barely a month and she held more comfort to me than my own mother.

"Why thank you!" I over exaggerated my southern accent and twirled around like a little girl. We both started chuckling and I looked over at the clock, seeing that I was already behind schedule. "Oh shit! I have to go or I'm gonna be late." I quickly grabbed my purse and cell phone and rushed to get out of the door. "Wish me luck!" I called out just as I closed the door behind me.

&&

It was, of course, a rainy and cold day in London. I still hadn't gotten the gist that you really had to bring an umbrella everywhere you go. Which meant that once it started to pour down rain, I was screwed. Thankfully, I was almost to the Strawberry Faire when it started coming down hard and ran the rest of the way. I was greeted by a cheery James once I opened the door to the store.

"Good morning!" He said to me walking from behind the counter he was manning. "You can put your stuff in the break room, no mobiles while working and then I'll show you our opening routine." I nodded and walked to the back of the store, passing a girl totally engrossed in working on the toppings bar. Setting my stuff down, I turned off my cellphone and went back to meet James out front.

"Alrighty, let's get this party started." I said, jumping onto the register counter and swinging my feet back and forth. James let out a chuckle and reached out for my hand.

"First, we don't sit on the counter. It’s unsanitary." I rolled my eyes as he helped down from the counter. "Secondly, I have someone I want you to meet." I followed him over to the girl at the toppings bar. He whispered something in her ear before saying, "Lizzie, this is Nora. Nora, Lizzie." He grinned at the two of us, and put his arm around me. I shrugged him off and stuck out my hand towards her. She was average height, plain but striking as well. Her best feature was her eyes. They were a mixture of an icy blue and light green. A bright smile spread across her face, but didn't reach her eyes. I could see the hurt and pain in them; this girl was hiding so much inside. Just like me.

"It's nice to meet you, Lizzie." She shook my hand and her southern accent surprised me at first, causing me to perk up a bit.

"Oh my God you're American." She seemed to be around the same age as me, too. This just kept on getting better. "And you can call me Liz."

She let out a giggle and nodded. "Yeah, born and raised in Texas. Where are you from?”

"Full blooded Virginian. Not to be confused with virgin." My last comment earned a strained cough from James and a chuckle from Nora.

"Well, alright then! It was nice to meet you." She continued to laugh while turning back around to the toppings bar with a slight smile.

"C'mon, we have yoghurt dispensers to fill." James said, pulling me towards the stock fridge.
I think I just made my first friend, not from the hotel, in England.

June 30, 2013

Lizzie POV

The elevator opened to the fourth floor of the apartment building. I followed Nora to the very end of the hallway until we got to apartment W2. I pulled the key out of my pocket and stuck it into the lock.

"You ready?" I excitedly asked Nora.

"Liz, just open the door." She rolled her eyes at me, jokingly annoyed. I gave her the bird and continued to slowly turn the key, just to get on her nerves. "Ugghh my God, I'll do it!" She slapped my hand away and turned the key, revealing the sunlit living room in front of us.

"I think I've fallen more in love with this place since the last time I saw it." I said, remembering the first time we had seen this place on the internet. Nora came over to my hotel room with a bottle of red wine and a box of thin crust cheese pizza. We decided that we wanted to move in pretty much two weeks after we met. Everything about us had lined up exactly alike, and she quickly became my best friend. We sat in front of my macbook, pizza and wine in our hands, scrolling through apartments, one after another.

"So what's our budget again?" I asked her. Handling money really wasn't my strong suit, seeing as for the past 18 years I never had to worry about running out of it. Nora was definitely the more frugal one out of us.

"600. And they usually make you pay per week, not per month." She took a sip from her wine and set it down, something obviously catching her attention. "Ok, how about this one? It's 550 per week, 2 beds, 1 bath, and, ohmyGod look at that sitting room." She clicked on the picture to enlarge it. Three large windows spanned the wall, lighting up the entire room; a beautiful contrast to the ash blonde hardwood floors.

"This is it, Nora. It includes utilities, it's furnished, and it's right next to a tube station so that's good, right?"

"Yes, that's very very good. I'm gonna email them and see if we can schedule a tour." She agreed, while typing out an email.

The next day, the agency contacted us and a week later here we were, moving into our brand new apartment. Both of us had to pretty much save our entire month's salary to pay for the down payment. Thankfully, Strawberry Faire paid their employees graciously so we had a little left to buy groceries with. I put my purse on the white recliner and followed Nora into the kitchen to put away the bags of groceries in our hands.

&&

After we had settled in and put away what little stuff we had, I plugged in my phone to the large speakers I had bought for us. With the sounds of The 1975 playing behind us, we rearranged the living room, and made a list of decor that we wanted to add in the future; once neither one of our bank accounts were in the negative, of course. Eventually, dinner was made in our cramped chrome kitchen and we settled down in front of the tv. Neither one of us thought the tv shows here were funny, and instead found humor in horribly imitating their British accents. I looked over at my new-found best friend in mid-laughter. Her nose crinkled when she really got into it, and tears were starting to form in her eyes from how hard the two of us were laughing. Sometimes, I caught her when she thought I wasn't looking, and I could see that she was holding something back from me. It hurt, knowing that she didn't feel like she could trust me after I had opened up to her all the way.

"Why are you staring at me?" She asked, chuckling at me.

"Nora, I know you're hiding something from me." I criss-crossed my legs and turned toward her on the couch. Her eyes widened and she refused to hold eye contact with me. "Whatever it is, you know you can trust me. I won't judge you for your past." I reassured her. She folded her hands and put them in her lap, looking up at me and squaring her shoulders.

"No, everything's fine. I promise."

I stared her down, totally not believing her.

"Liz, I'm okay. Sometimes I just space out. I've told you everything about my past. You need a drink?" She got up from the couch with our cups in headed towards the kitchen without even waiting for my reply. Even though I wanted to trust her, and I choose to for now, there was still something about the look in her eyes and how quick she was to get up and change the subject. Maybe one day, I'll figure it all out.

NORA POV

June 30, 2013

Today was my last day at Peach Tree Lodge. Even though we knew the day had to come eventually, Ann and I were still sad about not living in the same building anymore. Since she was the owner, not married, and with no kids, it was easier for Ann to make her home at the Peach Tree, living comfortably in the back behind the offices. She had become like a mother to me my first month here, staying awake to listen to me vent about my parents and cry about things I couldn’t take back or change. Things that no matter how far I tried to run away from still haunted me. I never told Ann what happened that made me want to leave home, other than my parents. I hadn’t told anybody, not even Lizzie.

Lizzie-sometimes I shake my head and just laugh to myself at how I found this girl. Or maybe she found me. My second day of work at Strawberry Faire was her first day. I always got to work about 30 minutes ahead of time, just in case there was a rush and Henry needed an extra hand or some extra cleaning needed to be done. I was refilling the toppings bar as I heard the door open. I guess I was too focused on what I was doing and didn’t notice her walk in. A couple minutes passed before James walked towards me and tapped on my shoulder. As I looked up over my shoulder, he whispered behind his hand, “This is the American girl I was telling you about.”

I looked in her direction. Tall, blonde, and drop-dead gorgeous, she greeted James, who put his arm around her and led her over in my direction.

“Lizzie, this is Nora. Nora, Lizzie.” He said with a silly grin on his face. He took his arm from her shoulder and walked back behind the counter.

I think he had that grin on his face because he knew what he was doing, setting us up to work together. Two Americans, just graduated high school, running away from people neither of us wanted to be. James didn’t know that much about us, but the more Lizzie and I got to know each other, the more alike we realized we were, even with our apparent differences. I never thought I was reserved and laid back; when I met this girl, I knew I was. She was loud, carefree, outgoing, wild; everything I wasn’t most of the time. Not that I couldn’t be. Sometimes it takes me awhile if I don’t know a person.

Lizzie didn’t let me be quiet for long. She has this effervescent talent of giving life to people. She was who truly brought me to life for the first time since arriving in London. She takes the risks that I refuse to take anymore, says whatever is on her mind, laughs too loud for her own good, and despite her personality taking up the whole room, she always manages to make everyone around her feel just as special as she herself feels.

Yeah, we are complete opposites sometimes. That’s what made her perfect for me; I needed Lizzie to wake me up again. Within a month of working together we had become best friends, fighting against ourselves and the world that tried to make us someone else, someone neither of us wanted to be. I was fighting myself, shutting out a part of my past I wanted to forget about; Lizzie was fighting against the world, being so outspoken and wild that sometimes I felt like it was an act. Like she was trying to be someone else, but the world didn’t want to let her so she did everything in her power to tell the world they were wrong.

Eventually I came to realize I was right. On one of the numerous nights we stayed at each other’s hotels with pizza and wine, she shared her life with me. The good, the bad, and the ugly. We cried, we drank, we consoled ourselves with thin crust pizza; it was a beautiful bonding moment, and a turning point in our friendship. I felt bad, though because I only fed her the story about my neglectful parents who tried their best but still didn’t measure up to what a child deserved. I wasn’t lying to her, I just wasn’t telling the whole truth.

However, since we were moving in together now, I didn’t know how much longer I would be able to avoid it.

When we arrived to the apartment, she teased me like she always does, taking forever to unlock the door. After I slapped her hand out of the way and opened it myself, we walked inside. Even though we both had seen it before, it still felt like opening the biggest present on Christmas every time we saw it.

Since everything was already furnished and neither of us had much stuff with us to begin with, we were able to move in quickly and spent our first night on the couch, doing horrid British accents to tv shows we despised. We were laughing so hard I had tears coming from my eyes. That’s why I was so caught off guard when I looked to find Liz watching me intently.

“Why are you staring at me?” I asked her warily, with a smile still playing at my lips. Sometimes I feel like she just did things to try and annoy me. Most of the time it worked. But she always made me laugh in those moments too, so I could never be mad at her.

“Nora, I know you’re hiding something from me,” Liz said, matter of fact and straight to the point. My eyes went wide, from the fear of her seeing past my front and also because sometimes she just honestly scared me (but in the best way possible). I looked down at my hands as she continued,

“Whatever it is, you know you can trust me. I won’t judge you for your past.”

So many thoughts were running through my head in this moment. She seems so positive that I am hiding something from her, which technically I am. I’m just not ready to tell her yet. I’m not ready to speak those words out loud. I want to reinvent myself, right? To do that, I can’t bring up the part of my past I want to stay hidden. That girl is dead; all of her secrets need to stay buried with her. I love Lizzie to death, but I just can’t do it. No matter how selfish it is of me, even after she shared her whole story with me. I get to be selfish, right?

After going back and forth in my head for so long, my mind was made up. I look her in the eyes and say, “No, everything’s fine. I promise.”

She kept staring at me, not ready to give up. This girl sure has a lot of fight in her, I can tell you that.

“Liz, I'm okay. Sometimes I just space out. You know everything about my past. Mmmk? You need a drink?” I quickly got up and grabbed our two drink glasses to go refill them in the kitchen, hoping Liz believed me and would drop it.

When I reached the sink, I set the glasses down. I put my hands on the counter and dropped my head, letting out a long breath. I know I keep telling myself I don't want anyone knowing about my past, but the longer I keep lying about it, the harder it will be for me to move on from it. Maybe I should tell Liz. Or maybe I should just get used to lying.

I refilled our glasses with ice water and walked back out to the living room. Thankfully Liz seemed to have moved on from our previous conversation because when I sat back down, she was already distracted with mocking the accents on the tv shows, laughing loud enough for the neighbors to hear.
I got away with lying to her again today, but eventually, I’m going to have to tell the truth. I just don’t know when that day will be.

NORA POV

Tuesday November 5, 2013

Once again, I found myself waking Liz by pounding on her door and yelling as loud as I could. After four months of living together you would think this wouldn’t be an issue anymore. We were supposed to do yoga at 8 am. I waited 15 minutes before deciding I would be nice and let her sleep in this once. After all, we didn’t have work today and it wouldn’t hurt anything for her to miss one day of yoga. After 30 minutes, my workout was over and, surprise surprise, Liz was still asleep. I felt all gross and sweaty so I decided that if she wasn’t awake by the time I got out of the shower, I would wake her by whatever means necessary.

“If I come into your room and you aren’t out of bed, I’m going to kick your butt Elizabeth Clark!”
Finally, I heard some noise from inside as she loudly set her feet on the floor. “I hate your guts Eleanor!” I could hear the mocking tone in her voice. She knew how much I hated to be called that.

“For the last time, that’s not my name!” To stop ourselves from arguing further, I marched away and started to blow-dry my wet hair. I could vaguely hear her yelling something at me from her bedroom, but the loud wind of the hairdryer drowned her out. Mission accomplished.

A couple minutes went by and then I heard Liz yelling at me again. This time I decided I would pay attention. I stuck my head outside of the bathroom and replied, “Yeah?”

She said that everyone has the flu and James needs us to work all day. I told her to tell him we would work it. It might be a long day, but goodness knows we both needed the money.

I went back to blow-drying my hair, so I could put on a little bit of makeup before Liz needed the bathroom. It wasn’t the biggest one I had ever seen, and Liz is a bit more high-maintenance than I am, so she needed the bathroom all to herself. Today was the exception, however, as she still hadn’t showered, so we shared the bathroom. Once my hair was dry, I quickly applied powder, a little bit of blush, a healthy amount of mascara, and some lip-gloss, just in time for Liz to come rushing out of the shower with the towel barely wrapped around her.

“Jesus Christ! You could’ve warned me that I was going to see your naked ass!” Sometimes I couldn’t believe the things that girl did. I know we were living together but still. She replied with a smart-aleck comment that I returned with an eye roll before I ran down the hallway to quickly put on our work uniform.

I walked out to the living room and Liz was nowhere to be found. A few minutes later, we eventually left, after I scolded her about being late again. We rushed to get to the tube before it left the station. One day, she’ll learn how to be on time without having to rush. I really hope that day is coming soon.

&&

I knew working 10 hours would make for a long day, but I had no idea what was in store for me. Liz never got out of her “I-hate-mornings-and-everyone-in-the-morning” mood all day long. She almost got into it with a couple customers, and I had to send her to her lunch break early to avoid a comment that very likely would’ve gotten her fired had James been there.

I’m usually the one out of the two of us to keep level-headed but after the crazy day we had at the shop and Liz’s mouth not knowing when to keep quiet, I was about to lose my cool.
What about sent me over the edge was a group of boys walking in 10 minutes before we closed. Apparently it really did send Liz over the edge because as soon as the bell over the door ringed, a little gem slipped out of her mouth.

“Fuck.”

I looked at her with wide eyes like I could shoot her. One of the boys commented to the others, “Well we know they have ace customer service.” She looked at me apologetically; I guess she thought she hadn’t said that as loud as she did.

I was about to greet the tallest one, a blonde boy with quiffed hair and eyes so blue you could swim in them, and take his order, when Liz said something that made me stop. The other boys stopped what they were about to say too, just as confused as I was.

I shook my head and thought to myself, This could be a very interesting night.

Tuesday November 5, 2013

Lizzie POV

"If I come into your room and you aren't out of bed, I'm going to kick your butt, Elizabeth Clark!" Nora yelled from outside my bedroom.

"I hate your guts, Eleanor!" I yelled back and got out of bed with a loud grunt. Mornings before coffee were not my greatest moments.

"For the last time, that's not my name!" She purposefully drowned out my reply with the sound of her blow dryer. I scoffed and walked to the kitchen to make myself breakfast. Starting the coffee maker, I grabbed the last slice of bread from the pantry and stuck it into the toaster. I made sure to write on the notepad stuck on the fridge labeled, "Groceries" that we needed bread. The toaster popped out the toast and I opened the fridge door for the grape jam I had on my toast every day. I poured myself a cup of coffee, black of course, and headed to the living room. My phone beeped in my hand, telling me I had a text message.

James: can you and nora work a full shift today? everyone has the flu...including me.

Well shit. There goes the lovely Tuesday afternoon I had planned.

"Nora!" I yelled from the living room.

"Yeah?" She stuck her head out of the bathroom, hair half dry.

"Apparently everyone has the flu and James needs us to work all day. What do you want me to tell him?" I asked, taking a sip from my cup.

Her eyebrows shot up while I was talking. "Um, tell him yes. I guess? That's what, 10 hours?"
I nodded in agreement, replying to James that we would do it. The clock on my phone reminded me that we had to catch the tube in 45 minutes. I shoved the rest of the toast down my mouth and pretty much chugged the entire cup of coffee on the way to the bathroom. I rushed in the shower, barely having enough time to wash my hair.

"Jesus Christ! You could have warned me that I was about to see your naked ass!" Nora screamed when I jumped out of the shower and ran to my bedroom with the towel half on me.

"Oh I'm sorry princess, I didn't know that you showered with clothes on!" I replied back, giving her the bird and earning an eye roll in return. Slipping on my favorite black pair of skinny jeans and the mandatory work shirt I was given to wear, I went back to the bathroom to take care of my hair and face. I drew my blonde hair in a high pony tail, tying it in place. Next, I grabbed my make-up bag and added a little bit of foundation, blush, eyeliner and mascara. I topped it off with my favorite red lipstick, after I brushed my teeth.

"Liz we need to go!" Nora urged me from the hallway. I grabbed my black vans and skipped over to her, trying to put them on. "This is why you get up when I tell you to, not when you want to." She sang, grabbing her purse and name tag from the bowl we kept them in.

"Just shut up. It is too early for this shit." I snapped back, making her chuckle, and we left to walk to the tube station.

&&

The 10 hours went by way too slow for my liking. Everyone that came in got on my nerves, and Nora had to save my ass multiple times. First it was a 6 year old that got the yoghurt all over the floor because his dumbass dad wasn't paying attention to him. I made sure to tell his dad, as kindly as I could, that you had to accompany your kids at the yoghurt dispenser so that that didn't happen. According to Nora, I was rude about it and she banished me to behind the register for the rest of the day. In the middle of the day, a lady accused me of charging her for too much yoghurt, which is impossible because you put the damn cup on a scale and we don't even touch that. I tried to nicely explain this to her and she thought that I was being impolite, then made a comment about how all American's were the same. Nora saw what was going on and came over right as I was about to give her a piece of my mind.

"Why don't you go ahead and take your lunch break, Lizzie?" She walked over to me, intercepting the conversation.

"Yeah, sure." I rolled my eyes and clocked out for the hour break I was given. When I came back, I felt a little less groggy and bitchy so the rest of the day went by faster. It was now 10 minutes before close. We weren't allowed to start cleaning out the machines until the store had closed, so we were just waiting for the time to go by. As if just our luck, right then a group of four guys walked through the door.

"Fuck." I thought I whispered, but judging from Nora's horrified look I hadn't.

"Well, we know they have ace customer service." The Asian looking one snickered to his three other friends. They were all extremely tall, and good looking. The last guy walked through the door and I immediately recognized him.

"No way." I spoke catching his attention.

"Well look who we have here." He replied with a smirk on his face.