So annoyingly, it’s all arranged.
When Thursday evening comes around I cycle round to Amber’s apartment. I figure it’s best if we turn up together, so I can maybe warn her a bit about them. As I ring her doorbell I worry that Amber might have gone a bit too alternative in her dress, but she doesn’t look too bad, in black jeans and a black t-shirt, with the name of one of the punk bands she likes on it. Her orange hair has gone too, turned back to a kind of dark blue/purple hue, which is the color I think suits her best.
“Billy!” She gives me a hug. “I’ll just be five minutes. Dump your bike in the hallway. It’ll be safer there.”
She turns and disappears into one of the rooms – I’ve not actually been to her apartment before, and I guess she realizes this too as she shouts out to me from out of sight.
“Help yourself to a poke around. My housemates aren’t in.”
So I do, and her place is quite nice. Cozy, and much more like a home than where I’m living, although the whole apartment is probably smaller than the massive kitchen in Lily’s house.
“So Billy, you’re finally going to introduce me to your college friends huh?” I’ve finished looking around, and am back in the hallway, outside her room, but the door’s open and I can see her at a mirror, putting on purple eyeshadow. I think it’s called eyeshadow, either way, there’s rather a lot of it.
“About time too!”
“Yeah. I just wanted to say something about that…” I begin, not really sure what I need to say here. “They’re, they’re quite into their culture stuff, sometimes.” But maybe she can’t hear me, she does have the radio on in the background.
“Is that Guy guy going to be there?” Amber interrupts me. “Get it? Guy guy? If so don’t sit me next to him, OK?”
I tell her not to worry about that, and suggest hopefully that we should walk to the restaurant, so I get a chance to explain about them, but really I’m just delaying things, and when Amber sees where it is, she tells me I’m crazy and calls an Uber. And five minutes later we arrive outside a big glass-fronted restaurant which looks very expensive. Amber gives me a look before we go in, like this wasn’t what she was expecting for a student night out. And I just know this isn’t going to go that well.
Inside there’s a man waiting at a kind of podium thing. He looks very well dressed, and he smiles at us a little bit confused maybe, at the way Amber is dressed. I only know what he wants because I’ve seen it on TV, so I explain, a little bit hesitantly maybe, that we’re here to eat with Lillian Bellafonte. I’m only a bit surprised when he nods his head smartly and asks us to come with him. But Amber gives me a look and mouths what the fuck..? as we follow him. We go past lots of tables of diners, all sitting quietly and eating tiny amounts of food off huge plates. Mostly they’re dressed in proper suits and dresses, I notice, while piano music plays quietly in the background. I’m kind of relieved when we get to the others, they’re at a table tucked away a bit near the back of the restaurant, it’s kind of cut off by a giant fish tank, brightly illuminated, and filled with fish, freshwater fish, like guppies, tetras and zebrafish. The others are dressed normally, or normal for Lily and her friends at least.
“Billy!” Lily stands up. She’s wearing blue jeans and another white wool sweater. “And you must be…”
“Amber.” Amber says, she smiles and I think she’s expecting Lily to do the same, but she doesn’t, or not really. Then Lily introduces the others, but she does so a bit quickly and half-heartedly, and James and Oscar barely stop talking to say hello. Then we sit down, the way the table is laid out, it’s me and Amber at one end, kind of away from the others.
“We asked for this table,” Lily leans in to say to me, “because of the fish.” She gives me a smile, but then turns back to James, who seems to be half way through a story. I don’t really follow what it’s about, but I get enough to hear it involves someone suing someone else about some breach of contract. The others seem glued though, and when he gets to the punchline they all laugh loudly, all except Amber and me. Then there’s a silence, and it’s only really broken when James and Oscar pick up their menus, and start discussing what to eat. I glance at Amber, who’s staring at me quizzically, and pick up my menu too.
The first thing I notice is the prices. I guess that’s just a habit, but here they all look like typos, there’s nothing for less than a hundred dollars, and the descriptions of the food is all in French, or most of it. James and Oscar start discussing, loudly, what’s best – and it’s all about the last time they had it, or when they ate that other thing in Paris, or that seafood restaurant in Florence, and it goes on for ages. Finally I hear Eric saying firmly that he’s not hungry enough for a starter, so he’s just going to have the turbot, and he fixes me with a look. When I find it on the menu, it’s the cheapest thing, so I say I’ll have it too. Amber leans
