ACCORDING TO MY school guidance counselor, I have a few requirements to fill to get class credit for my five weeks abroad, which will allow me to skip a senior year elective: A hundred hours of community service, which I’ll accomplish by volunteering in the record store. Then I have subject-specific tasks to complete, depending on which elective I want to skip.
Of the list, Photography seems like the easiest throwaway class. I’ll have to assemble a photo project documenting my time here using each of the various techniques outlined in the syllabus at least once, with thoughtful captions for each. I’ll have to do some research to get it right, but it seems a far cry easier than some of the other electives. If I’d chosen Business Law, for example, I’d have to create my own fictional organization set in London and write a business plan for it, then write a long essay explaining how it differs from United States business practices. Hard pass.
It’s almost too easy to take pictures. I was going to do that anyway. And by Friday morning of my first week in London, I’m feeling pretty confident the community service portion will be a breeze too. In a week’s time, I’ve learned the ins and outs of Fox Den with no problems.
Well, no problems except Henry.
“Do you plan to play guitar until midnight every night?” he asks, chomping a piece of candy like he has to kill it first. I continue sorting albums by genre, faking indifference better than Ringo.
“Only if it displeases his majesty,” I say in my best fake British accent, because I know it irritates him when I do that. We’ve fallen into this routine where he says something snarky, and then I reply with something equally snarky and/or borderline insulting. He smirks. I smirk. We go back to ignoring each other. I don’t know if this is camaraderie or if he actually hates my guts.
My mental inventory of Henry so far: he smokes, but never smells like smoke. He eats peppermint candy like he’s trying to piss off his dentist. When we aren’t busy with customers, he reads weird scientific-looking books with diagrams of molecules on the front, and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s smart, or if it’s because he wants people to think he’s smart.
Felix perches at Henry’s feet. His tail makes swishy brushstrokes in the air, waiting patiently for a head pat. Henry tosses his book—The World of Quantum Mechanics—under the counter and steps over him like he’s not even there.
I mentally add doesn’t like animals to the ledger of treachery.
Felix trots over and does a figure eight through my ankles, looking up at me with a plea. Pet me. Unlike Henry, I stoop to pet his soft fur. At least I know Felix’s intentions.
“That song isn’t really meant for guitar.” Henry climbs a step ladder to replace a top shelf rock biography a customer decided against. The graphic on the back of his t-shirt has multicolored intersecting lines with block letters that say Everyone Wants To Get Ley’d. I squint, contemplating the spelling, when he turns to me. “Wasn’t it originally written on piano?”
Okay, so I don’t remember what instrument Sir Paul used when he wrote it. I feel my face crumple like a ball of paper around my reply. “None of the Beatles played an instrument on the final version. It was an orchestra ensemble.”
He pauses, one foot dangling midair next to the top step.
“Sometimes a song is ruined when you tinker with the arrangement.”
“A string octet, to be specific,” I add to my earlier thought. But I don’t know where to get one of those, and besides—I played it on guitar in the dream. If he can tell what song it is, maybe I don’t suck as badly as I thought.
“You’re a Beatles fan, then.” Henry says this in his sarcastic voice—the one he might as well trademark. Like my knowledge of the string octet is the first definitive piece of evidence that I’m maybe, perhaps, someone who enjoys the greatest band of all time. The Help! thrift store t-shirt I’m wearing notwithstanding.
“I mean, isn’t everyone?” I give Felix a parting pat and resume alphabetizing the albums I’ve sorted into genres. “My pop used to say that anyone who claims he isn’t a Beatles fan is either a liar or an asshole.”
Henry hops off the ladder and crosses his arms. “Interesting.” But he says it in a way that makes it sound like he isn’t interested at all. “I’m really not much of a fan myself.”
I’ve been telling myself I won’t react, no matter what he says. Heat pulses in my cheeks and I narrow my eyes. I asked George if he’d heard of Walrus Gumboot at dinner. He hadn’t. Which disappointed me, of course. And also made me wonder how good he could be at his job, since he has a festival poster with their name on it hanging in his store, totally unawares. Henry was sitting right there for the whole conversation. Not participating, but listening. This is an intentional jab. He knows what he’s doing.
He smirks and turns away, probably mentally collecting his trophy.
“Oh yeah?” I forget my manners. “Then which one are you? Liar? Or asshole?”
“I’m more of a Stones fan,” he says. He glances back at me, purses his lips around a shit-eating grin, and whistles the tune to Gimme Shelter.
Asshole then. Clearly.
“Your shirt is obnoxious,” I mutter, even though I don’t know what it means.
“It’s great,” he says.
I glare at him, hoping I convey exactly how uninterested I am in his opinion on getting laid. Ley’d. Whatever.
“It’s referring to ley lines, just so you know.” He grins again. “Friend of mine gave it to me as a joke.”
I roll my eyes and wander off to the other side of the store so I can google “ley lines” on my phone without being caught.
Maybe working alongside him for a hundred hours will be more of a challenge than originally anticipated.
