Monday, July 4

AMSTERDAM

Aubrey stood on the top deck of the houseboat and peered over to the deck below. A string of red, white, and blue paper lanterns was wrapped around the boat’s guardrail, and the water glowed amber in the early evening light. She spotted a few different groups of college kids: boys taking selfies with a blocky Polaroid camera, tattooed girls waving tiny American flags and dancing barefoot. Leah was renting the houseboat with a group of NYU students interning in Holland for the summer, and when she’d met them, Aubrey had instantly felt like she was five years old. She’d wished she’d worn something cooler than a striped A-line sundress and cardigan.

“Shut up.” Leah shoved Jonah’s shoulder. “I can’t believe you remember that!”

Jonah huffed out a laugh. “It’s hard to forget the day you called our drama teacher a ‘thwarted misogynistic manbaby.’”

“Jesus,” Leah said. “You were a freshman then. I should have covered your ears.”

“I was a sophomore.”

“You were a baby.” Her hand rested lazily on his shoulder. His eyes didn’t move from her face.

Aubrey took a long drink of lukewarm beer.

It had only been a year since she’d last seen Leah, but she looked different now. Rows of silver hoops glinted in each of her ears, and a patch was shaved into the back of her long hair. It reminded Aubrey of Rae’s new hair—except Rae’s was a lot shorter. When Aubrey had first seen it, she’d stood there for a moment, dumbfounded. She couldn’t believe Rae would just cut it like that. Without even asking for her opinion first.

“So, Aubrey,” Leah said. Her voice sounded lower now and a little raspy. “Are you ready for Columbia?”

“I picked all my classes,” Aubrey said. “Bought a warm coat.”

Leah turned her head to the side and blew out a cloud of cigarette smoke. “You’ll be amazed by how far Columbia feels from NYU. It’s like this whole other universe.”

“I bet.” Aubrey glimpsed over the railing again. Rae was down there somewhere, probably charming hordes of college girls with her funky hair and her flirty I’m-not-trying-to-impress-you-but-I-totally-am attitude. Clara sat cross-legged on the deck, doing Jell-O shots with a guy in a flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off. And a few feet away from her stood Gabe. Looking up at Aubrey.

She wrenched her head away, blinking into the sunset to get her bearings. After a moment, she glanced back down, expecting him to be gone—but he wasn’t. He jerked his head to the side, indicating the party around him, and rolled his eyes. Aubrey bit her lip. She nodded in agreement.

“Right, Aubs?”

“What?” She turned around, startled.

Jonah and Leah were staring at her.

“Fake IDs,” Jonah said. “Leah knows someone who can set us up.”

“Of course,” Aubrey said. “Breaking the law. That sounds excellent. I just—I’ll be right back.” She slipped through the sliding glass door before Jonah had a chance to react, shutting it tightly behind her. Inside, the air felt close, and it was clear no one had bothered to clean up for the party—cereal bowls and balled-up hoodies covered every surface, and there were dust bunnies languishing in the corners. Maybe this is okay, Aubrey thought. Maybe this is what college living is supposed to be like. But God. It really was disgusting.

She left her beer beside a pile of dishes and walked down the narrow staircase. At the bottom, she met Rae and Gabe.

“There you are.” Rae punched her shoulder. “We were on our way to rescue you.”

“You were?” Aubrey rubbed her arm.

“Yeah.” Rae tipped her head toward Gabe, making her new chin-length curls bounce. “Gabe told me we should.”

“Thanks.” Aubrey directed this at Gabe without actually making eye contact.

“You’re welcome.” He did exactly the same.

They were standing in the miniature living room, which smelled like incense and alcohol. The coffee table had been pushed out of the way to make room for a dance floor. The three of them stood awkwardly to the side while someone cranked up Arcade Fire on an iPad linked to speakers and people shimmied against one another in this half-joking, half-serious way. Rae drank from a plastic cup.

“What is that?” Aubrey asked her.

“Cranberry juice,” she said over the music.

“With vodka,” Gabe added.

“You never drink vodka,” Aubrey said.

Rae shrugged. “Just trying something new.”

“I can see that.” Aubrey eyed her hair. Across the room, a girl in a straw hat and pinstripe pants kept glancing in their direction, checking out either Rae or Gabe.

“Look,” Aubrey said. “Is it okay if we go somewhere else?”

“Like, now?” Rae asked.

“Yes, please,” Gabe said loudly.

Rae looked at the girl in the pinstripe pants, who’d taken off her hat and was placing it on a boy wearing aviator sunglasses. She took another slurp of her drink and fixed her camera bag on her shoulder. “Yeah, fine. Anywhere’s got to be better than this heteronormative wonderland.”

They stepped off the houseboat and onto a gravel road, leaving behind the thrumming beat of Arcade Fire and watching the area turn quiet and residential. A little girl and her mom walked their dog, and a man haphazardly balanced an armful of groceries as he unlocked the door to his apartment building.

“This is the way back to the bus stop,” Aubrey explained.

“You want to catch a bus?” Rae asked.

“I was with Leah all day, and I didn’t get to go anywhere I’d planned. So, yes. I want to catch a bus.”

Rae scrubbed at her hair. “You’re in charge, I guess.”

Gabe shoved his hands into his pockets. “Okay, Tour Guide. What’s on your list?”

“A lot of museums. But they’re probably closed by now. I guess we could walk around the city center. See what’s open.”

They arrived at the bus stop just as one was pulling in. Rae headed straight to the last row and flopped down, resting her legs over the two seats beside her.

“You’re one classy lady.” Gabe pushed her feet off so he could sit down.

“And you’re a bastard,” Rae said, but she made room for him.

Aubrey sat with them but turned toward the window. He and Rae were already wrapped up in a debate about the best albums of an all-girl punk band they both liked, and Aubrey didn’t want to interrupt. She watched their bus crawl over a bridge. From here, it looked like there was nothing but water beneath them, stretching toward the horizon, trying to cover the whole city.

It made her feel like she was floating.

They arrived at Centraal Station in the heart of town. As soon as they got off the bus, Aubrey checked her phone, but Jonah hadn’t texted. Which meant he wasn’t pissed at her for leaving. Or that he hadn’t noticed. Or that he was getting spectacularly wasted. (Or probably all three.)

“Guys,” Rae said. “Look at this. Drunk British people as far as the eye can see.”

“I think some of them are American,” Gabe said.

“My two countries are truly representing themselves.” Rae held up her camera, catching different scenes. A woman with dyed-blond hair sung in a slurring voice while her friends carried her down the street; a group of guys stumbled from a bar, toasting each other with the pint glasses they must have stolen. Last night, Aubrey hadn’t really been able to look around the station since she’d gotten straight on a bus that took her to the hostel. But now she was looking, and honestly? The city center wasn’t exactly what she’d imagined.

“I assumed it would be cuter,” she said.

Rae patted her on the back. “Now you know what happens when the museums close.”

“Oh!” Aubrey veered toward a green-painted entrance. “A coffee shop. Let’s stop in there for a minute, figure out where to go next.” She opened the door of a dimly lit café and stepped into a cloud of overly sweet air and soft electronic music. The tables were all taken up by people having mumbled conversations. Before Aubrey could head to the counter, Rae put a hand on her elbow.

“Wait,” Rae said. “I don’t think this is a coffee shop. I think this is a coffee shop.”

“What do you mean?” Aubrey asked.

Rae mimed smoking a joint, even though Aubrey knew she never had. Or, at least, she was pretty sure she hadn’t. She’d also been pretty sure Rae wouldn’t chop off all her hair at a moment’s notice.

Gabe made a coughing noise under his breath. “I think people are staring at us.”

It was true. A group of twentysomethings was definitely giving them stink-eye, and Aubrey realized they were still holding the door open.

“This might be a good time for a hasty exit,” Rae said, taking Aubrey’s arm and sprinting outside. Gabe called out an apology as he left, too. They kept running, passing neon-lit bars on one side and a canal on the other. A few clearly intoxicated people cheered and clapped for them, and Aubrey waved back for no other reason than it seemed polite. She looked up at the signs on buildings, at a red-and-blue one with a woman’s figure in silhouette. All of a sudden, it clicked—she knew exactly where they were.

She stopped dead in the street and doubled over with laughter.

Gabe and Rae stopped, too, and Rae took a second to adjust the straps of her tank top. “Should we have looked at a map or something?” she asked. “Because I think maybe we’re in the—”

“Red Light District!” Aubrey collapsed against the brick wall beside her, laughing so hard her stomach cramped.

“What gave it away?” Gabe asked. “Was it the incredibly explicit window displays in all of the sex shops?”

“I can’t.” Aubrey hiccuped. “I just… I can’t.”

“You’re both such prudes,” Rae said.

Aubrey scoffed. “Says the girl who made us run out of a coffee shop.”

“I was protecting your delicate sensibilities.” Rae climbed the stoop of a building and took a picture of the street. Aubrey smoothed back the flyaways from her face. The area was still raucous, but she didn’t find it intimidating anymore. She felt as if she were at a party—the kind of party where she didn’t have to try to fit in. Where she could just stand and observe and feel like she belonged anyway.

She took the step below Rae’s. “I can’t get over your hair!” she said. “I thought you liked it long. It was your thing.”

“Not anymore.” Rae looked down and took a picture of her.

“What do you think Lucy will say?”

“She’ll tell me I don’t look like her daughter anymore. Or maybe that I look like my own evil doppelgänger.”

“I mean, that’s the obvious reaction,” Gabe said, stepping up to join Aubrey.

“Well, I hope she’s not too mad,” Rae said. “Or she might refuse to come with me when I get my tattoo.”

“Hold on,” Gabe said. “You were losing your shit over a haircut, but you’re getting a tattoo?”

This time, Rae took a picture of him. “Needles don’t scare me.”

“But scissors in your hair?” Gabe said. “That was terrifying?”

“Maybe you were nervous because it was a metaphor,” Aubrey said. “It represented the transformation from childhood to adulthood.”

“Exactly!” Rae said. “Thank you.”

Gabe shook his head at Aubrey. “You’re such an English-lit major.”

She smiled out at the canal, watching it slide peacefully down the center of the wild street. If someone had asked her right then, she would have said this moment was perfect: She was out with two of her closest friends, talking and joking around, exactly the way they used to. Standing in a city that—for the moment, anyway—felt like it was theirs.

“So, Preston,” Gabe said. “How did you convince your mom to let you get a tattoo?”

“Are you kidding?” Aubrey said. “Her mom designed it.”

“Okay.” Gabe laughed. “That’s pretty badass. What are you getting? Where?”

Rae stretched out her left wrist. “It’s going to be these two shadows standing together. Mom drew it from one of her favorite movies, The Big Sleep. She named me after Raymond Chandler, because he wrote stories for all these old film noirs she’s obsessed with. She thinks the cinematography in those movies is, like, the best thing ever.”

Gabe examined Rae’s wrist, as if the tattoo were already there. “What about you?” he said to Aubrey. “What’s yours going to be?”

Nothing about him seemed hesitant. He wasn’t talking to her because he thought he should. He was talking to her because he wanted to.

“Probably a skull,” she said. “You know, a big one.”

“Yeah?” he said.

“And you should get something outdoorsy. Or Oregon-themed. A lumberjack?”

“How about a flannel pattern?”

“On both your arms!”

“With buttons down my burly chest.”

Aubrey cracked up. She felt her whole body lighten. And even though she didn’t know exactly what had changed, she knew he wasn’t the Gabe he’d been in Paris. He was the one he used to be. The one who would ride his bike along the Thames with her to pass the time after school; the one who would sit at her kitchen table showing her Wikipedia pages of national parks in Oregon; the one who made her listen to P. J. Harvey on his family’s record player, both of them sitting on his living room floor, eyes closed, talking about her scratchy voice and her guitar that grumbled like an engine.

On a balcony above, someone played a loud punk song. Gabe cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted along with it. Rae held her camera above her head, taking a picture of the street, the night, everything. And Aubrey caught herself wishing that the party at Leah’s would carry on and on. She wished that they could stay out here for hours, waiting for the sun to rise, waiting for the glimmering canal to turn pink, red, yellow.

And then her phone chirped, shocking her back to reality. She saw Jonah’s name pop up on her screen along with a message she didn’t expect: this is leah. jonah and clara are fucking trashed. take them home NOW.