3. Alaskan Nudists

Rebecca Andrews is my best friend. She is the only person who made the effort to come and visit me in New York. That’s how I know she actually does like me, unlike my two ridiculous excuses for parents who didn’t bother to visit me once. Even on Christmas.

I had dramatically informed my family and friends before I left that I was not coming back to London until I had finished the year long program and my master’s degree all together. I had stressed that this also included holidays, figuring they would have realized the traumatic mental state David had left me in and make the effort to come to me on those occasions. But none of them did. I suppose I can forgive my friends; most of them are either too broke or just too cheap-ass to buy a plane ticket. But my parents? Really?

Their excuse was that, since I was the one who had made the impulsive decision to abandon my life and live in American purgatory for a year, I should be the one making the holiday visitation efforts because they didn’t want to be enablers.

‘Enablers of what?’ I had demanded. 

‘Your lifestyle choices, sweetie, and the way you choose to deal with your problems. Until you admit to your mistakes and come home, we’re not sure how to help you. But we love you, darling, and we’ll be here when you do’. 

I mean, for fuck’s sake, I was in New York finishing an Art and Gallery Studies degree, not carjacking with a gang of meth-heads. But I suppose I could excuse them as having had one too many vodka sodas whenever they spoke to me because that happened to be the story of their life.

I tell Becca to meet me at Baggage Claim and after catching a group of idiotic looking preteens clearly whispering about me, I add, ‘please hurry.’

‘I’m on my—fuck, sorry, we’re on our way.’

I know that probably means she and Connor are on their way to Baggage Claim in a single file sort of operation: Becca pacing in front while Connor trails behind with the trolley. 

Connor has been her boyfriend practically since she was born. I’m still not sure why they aren’t married yet, but at the end of the day, I honestly don’t care either. I like Connor. Not just because he’s a nice guy, successful, treats my friend right, blah blah. Yes, he is all of those things, but I especially like him because his last name is Atholl. Atholl. Connor claims it’s a common name in his native Scotland, but that still doesn’t deflect from the primary fact that his last name sounds like the word ‘asshole’ with a lisp. 

‘Natasha!’

I glance around but can’t see them. Then, after a few 360 degree turns and successfully becoming that asshole in a horror film—excuse me, atholl—who looks all around in terror as a swarm of possessed children close in on her from every angle, I decide to pick a direction and stand firm in facing it. And it certainly doesn’t matter that what I’ve ended up facing are the loos. Standing firm.

‘Natasha, over here!’

Still facing the toilets, I eventually feel someone lift the suitcase from under my hand and know my stamina has paid off. 

Becca is wearing a brown halter sundress with sandals that are quite possibly constructed out of barn yard straw. But even more distracting than the threaded haystack on her feet is her hat. It is so obnoxiously wide that it could probably shade a third-world country. Connor is wearing a Tommy Bahamas shirt and jean shorts that don’t quite make it over his knee, which is a shame. I really should have expected this kind of ludicrous attire. It is so typical for English people to think that just because it is May and the temperature is hovering slightly over sixteen degrees that it calls for bikinis and barbeques. Beer-bellied men and construction workers suddenly think they have an excuse to remove their shirts and show off their delicious goods as they walk down the road because, I mean, who can bear to wear a t-shirt in that kind of monstrous heat? I wonder what they would think if I told them Americans wear coats in sixteen degree weather. Sure, and the Alaskans just opened their first nudist colony, right? They call it the Igloo of Eden and there’s a sign on the door that says “drop your fur-trims, wear your man-skins,” and every year the last person to die of frostbite is crowned the winner of the Frozen Games. May the odds be ever in their favour. 

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, repositioning the fake Louis Vuitton on my shoulder, ‘Did you two just get in from Hawaii?’

‘BBC said it might hit a high of eighteen degrees today,’ Connor says proudly, adjusting his trademark bifocal spectacles which he insists be called just that and never merely glasses, ‘We’re going to milk it for all it’s worth.’

Clearly.