Dreaming about London

For a second I literally considered that I must have gone in to wrong apartment, as I heard myself say: “Hello? Anybody home?”


“Hi sweety, welcome home! How was work?” Aida said coming out of the kitchen.


“It was pretty okay, a bit stressful but some very nice people. But what on Earth has happened in here?!” I looked around the living room with my eyes wide open.

“What do you think of your new home?” she asked smirking at me. “Em and I decided to take care of all this, since you would probably be busy working and tired when you got home.”

“You’re not serious!” I walked around the completely transformed living room.


A black sofa was placed up against one of the walls and a long coffee table made in dark wood stood in front of it. Above the sofa two vintage framed posters were hung up, one from the movie Metropolis and the other one from the first version of King Kong. Right next the sofa stood a tall book case, also in dark wood, with books, movies and vinyls. I went over there and ran my hand across the side of it.


“We’re planning on filling that completely out, once we get a good collection of stuff like that,” Aida said following my glance at the bookcase.

I turned towards the other side of the small living room and saw two vintage armchairs and a small round coffee table between them, with a lamp placed on it. Aida’s guitar stood in the last corner.



It was simple. It was vintage. It was amazing.


All I could do was to walk fast towards Aida and hug her tightly. At first she seemed a bit stunned by my sudden movement but then I could feel her smiling against my shoulder. When I finally let go of her I had tears in my eyes at the thought of this actually being my home.

“Where’s Em?” I asked once I’d pulled myself together.

“Right here,” she said coming out of kitchen with a can of coffee and some cups. I immediately hugged her as well, even though she wasn’t able to hug me back holding on the stuff in her hands. I just couldn’t believe what they had done to this room!


We all sat down on the sofa, Em handed me a cup of coffee as I lid up a cigarette and so did Aida.

“Don’t you guys think it’s about time that you stop doing that?” Em asked smiling innocently at us.

“What, smoking? It’s the city, baby, London makes me want to smoke,” Aida said with a smirk on her face and I chuckled.

“Anyway, how the hell did you do this?” I asked while making a hand gesture around the room. “Carrying furniture through the tube doesn’t seem like a very comfortable experience.”

“We borrowed the boys’ car,” Em said. “And then we went to this street market, where was it, Aida?”

“Uhm. In the Brick Lane area. Lots of second-hand furniture, so we bought all of it there, it looks great, don’t you think?” Aida said.

“It looks absolutely amazing, this is beyond my wildest dreams!” I exclaimed.

“But we had to drive back and forth about three times, or else it wouldn’t fit in the car,” Em added.

“Wait, who drove?” I suddenly got concerned, since none of us had ever driven on the left side of the road and in the right side of the car.

“I did,” Aida said proudly.

“And you didn’t get hurt?”

“Well, I was screaming non-stop the first five minutes, but then I kind of got used to it actually,” she said.

“Man, you guys are the best! Let me know what I owe you for the furniture.”

They nodded and Em said: “But. We haven’t had the time to stuff the fridge and I just really can’t deal with the breakfast that you can buy here so I thought we could do that in a moment? There’s a big supermarket just around the corner.”

Then it was my turn to nod, I felt much more energetic now that I’d gotten such a beautiful living room.



And so we did. It took us about an hour to get all the stuff that we needed and we probably hadn’t remembered it all, since we were all used to our parents dealing with all that and that the things would just be in the fridge automatically.



Em cooked dinner for us when we got home, while I lay on the sofa taking a nap until she called me out in the kitchen to eat. She’d made some chicken breast with steamed broccoli, it smelled amazing, cause I was feeling extremely hungry. We still didn’t have any plates or stuff like that, beside the cups that Aida had brought from home, so we were eating out of some disposable plates sitting at a very small white table, with only room for three chairs, in the kitchen.
I did the tiny amount of dishes and went to bed right after, knowing that if I wanted to survive working again tomorrow I’d have to get plenty of sleep. I walked in to my room that already was a complete mess; two open suitcases, clothes all over the floor and two boxes of stuff that I hadn’t had the chance to store yet. I had always been quite a messy person that never bothered cleaning up until the spiders were scaring the hell out of me. As soon as I lied down on my matrass I fell in a deep and extremely comfortable sleep that lasted all until 6.30 the next morning.




I got up feeling a lot better and rested than yesterday and also not as nervous, which was really nice. I went to the bathroom and popped in the shower and then put on my clothes that this day consisted of a pair of black stockings, a black and tight skirt, a short denim shirt and my purple Nike Free – my feet still hurt from yesterday where I had been so stupid to wear All Stars.
I ate some oatmeal with milk for breakfast, brushed my teeth and went out the door at 7.30, still being a bit afraid that I might get lost cause I had possibly the poorest navigation ever.



When I got to Aunt Betty I went through the door on the left side of the building as I was taught yesterday and put on the brown t-shirt in the staff room and went out in to the café where I found Nathalie washing some salad just like yesterday.

“Good morning,” I said cheerfully.

“Good morning, Maja,” she said. “You didn’t get too scared yesterday to come back, I see?”

“Naah, it takes a bit more to scare me. What can I do?” I asked.

“The cucumber needs to be sliced very thin, you can do that.”

I nodded as Nick came in with a tall trolley filled with baking sheets with warm bagels on them.

“Good morning,” he said before going back in to the bakery.

“Hello,” I said smiling.

“So Maja, today Betty is stopping by to say hello and do some paper work in her office, and she will also take care of everything with your bank account, salary and so on,” Nathalie told me.

“Ok, that sounds fine,” I said.



Right before the café opened Nathalie went over everything again very quickly to make sure that I was ready for another busy day. I felt a bit more confident than yesterday, but at the same time still quite nervous.

Turned out Tuesday was very much like Monday – quite hectic and always something to do, whether it was making bagels, doing dishes or cleaning tables around the café. But this time everything didn’t nearly as confusing as yesterday and I managed to help Nathalie a lot more now. I couldn’t wait to get really good at this.

Right before I was done working and when most of the lunch customers had left an elder woman came in through the staff room.


“Hello Betty,” Nathalie said and I turned around to face my new boss.

“Oh Maja, it’s so nice to see you!” the short and extremely happy lady said and cupped my face in her hands kissing my cheek. I couldn’t but smile widely being on the verge of laughing at her cute gesture.

“You come with me in here, then we shall have a chat,” she said and I followed her in to yet another room that must be her office, where she sat down at the desk.

“So Nathalie told me yesterday that you were doing a great job,” she began and I looked at her a bit confused, so she continued: “You see, I didn’t mean to hide anything from you, it’s just not everybody that can handle such a stressful job so I needed her to tell me about your work performance yesterday before I would know whether to hire you or not. And I can tell you that I’m going to.” She took out a few papers for me to sign.

“Thank you, I’m so happy to hear that!” I said.

We talked shortly about all sorts of stuff, both work and personal and she seemed just as nice in person as on Skype, which made me very relieved – I’d had way too many bosses that were just completely jerks.




I walked down Tottenham Court Road on my way back to the tube. I stopped by a street kiosk to buy some cigarettes.


“Uhm. Marlboro Lights,” I said as I discovered that there weren’t much else of the other brands that I knew. As I paid I glanced over at today’s headlines on the newspapers. I was just about to walk out of the kiosk when something familiar caught my eye. I pulled out a paper that had the words: “WHO IS LIAM PAYNE’S NEW GIRLFRIEND?” written with big black letters at the top. And right underneath that - a blurry picture of Liam kissing a girl with some very familiar thick hair in a tall ponytail right outside Heathrow Airport.





“Look what I found on the way home,” I said and put the paper down at the table in the kitchen where Aida was having coffee when I got home. She quickly read the headline, while I looked at her watching her eyes grow bigger and bigger just as mine had done earlier. She then opened the paper to see what they’d written about it. She read out loud as I poured coffee in to a mug as well and lidding up a cigarette.


“A couple of days ago member of the boy band, One Direction, Liam Payne, was spotted waiting outside Heathrow Airport, apparently for a girl. As soon as this unknown woman reached him several kisses were exchanged as the picture underneath proves. Right after they went in to separate cars along with the rest of the people that according to many sources drove the same way towards the West End of London.

Who is this girl and how did she get to be with someone as famous as a member of the world’s biggest boy band? The Sun will bring you the latest news on this story.”




“Wauw,” Aida said still staring at the paper even though she’d already finished reading it. “I didn’t think I saw any other people than us at that moment at the airport?”

I shrugged. “It’s crazy how fast this goes. We probably should talk to her about this, when she gets home. She’s at work, right?”

“Yeah, she left this morning at 10. She’ll be home right before dinner time.”

I nodded still feeling in complete chock over the news.



I cooked dinner for us – some beef soup with beans and bread – and just as Aida and I were about to sit down and eat, Em’s voice sounded from the door: “Hey, I’m home!”

“You will not believe the amount of customers at that coffee shop, I’m completely burned out…” she began until she saw our faces. “What’s wrong?” she then asked looking incredibly concerned as she sat down. Aida just pushed the paper over towards her and she began reading it. I couldn’t see her face expression and she didn’t say anything until she closed it.

“Well, it has to happen sooner or later. Liam is coming over after dinner, I’ll ask him what he thinks.”


Aida and I both nodded still not knowing how to react on such a thing – for Christ sake, none of us had been famous before!

“Oh and Harry asked if he could come here as well, and I said yes. That’s okay with you guys, right?”

“Yes, of course!” I said and I noticed a wide smile forming on Aida’s lips.



An hour later the two boys arrived both wearing hoodies and sunglasses to attract less attention. Liam kissed Em almost before he’d entered the apartment. He must really like that girl, I thought smiling as I watched them hugging each other tightly.


“Hi girls,” Harry said happily when he followed Liam inside. “Wow, something’s been changed in here!” he exclaimed when he saw our new living room.

“Yeah, I can’t take credit for that, those girls took care of it all yesterday,” I said.

Aida blushed and just said: “We’re making coffee. Want any?” Harry nodded.

“No, I’m fine thanks,” Liam said before he and Em went in to her room, she probably wanted to inform about today’s news.


Aida, Harry and I sat down on the sofa and I lid up a cigarette as Harry poured the coffee in to the cups.

“Are you guys smoking?” he asked.

“Every once in a while,” Aida said.

“Uhm. Can I have one?” he suddenly asked me and I couldn’t help but smile at him as I handed him one.

“Do you smoke?” Aida then asked looking at him.

“Every once in a while,” he winked at her before she turned towards the bookcase to put on some music. As the sound of Pumped up Kicks with Foster the People started filling the room from the old turn table that I’d gotten from my father a couple of years ago along with thousands of vinyls, before he passed away.


“Oh I love Foster the People!” Harry exclaimed. “Where did you get that on vinyl?”

“I got it in Denmark in a small and old shop that sold you know, old Pokémon cards, vinyls, cartoons and so on. I loved that shop,” Aida said.

“What else do you have?” Harry stood up and walked over the bookcase running his eyes over the shelves.

“Mine are not there yet, they’re still buried in a box in my room,” I said.

“Get out!” he suddenly exclaimed while pulling out loads of the vinyls. “You have like all the music I listen to; Pink Floyd, Joy Vance, Mikill Pane, The 1975 and Haim!”

“Really?” Aida said interested. “That’s funny. Then you like Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes as well, right?”

“I love them! This is great, Aida. What kind of vinyls do you have, Maja?” he asked.

“Uhm. Not much of stuff like underground indie rock and pop, like Aida’s, just mostly old classics like Elton John, Billy Joel, Beatles, Elvis, different country music and so on,” I said.

“You don’t like this kind of music?” he asked me.

“No, I like it, I just… like the old music better, I guess,” I said smiling.

“Yeah, you’re a bit like Niall. He a huge The Eagles-fan.” He smiled at me as well.



Then he and Aida started on a conversation that mainly consisted of praising their common music taste and listening to different bands. I just sat back down at the sofa watching them sharing their passions and I think I smiled all the time of how cute they were acting around each other. Their conversation didn’t stop until Harry went home at 11 o’clock in the evening.



“What a great guy,” Aida mumbled to herself as she’d closed the door behind him. I smirked at her doing my best impression of a whistle and she hit my shoulder smiling shyly. “Shut the fuck up.”

Notes

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