Coming Home

Chapter 6

April 2002

I was woken up by a faint tap on my window. I immediately knew it was Alex. It always was. Whenever he needed to talk to me at night, he always crawled up the big pear tree, jumped onto the roof and went to my window on the 1st floor. The tricky part was to get past my parents' bedroom without being noticed but he had yet to be unsuccessful.

"What's up?" I asked him as I opened the window so he could climb in.

"I had a row with my parents," he mumbled, "and from my room I could see Jamie undressing some bird. I just had to get out of there.."

"What did you and your parents fight about?"

"They want me to go to college and I told them that only people without any fantasy go to college.."

"Hey, I'm going to college one day!" I was a bit offended by his remark as I could hear that he really meant it, "I don't know what to study yet but I'll definitely go!"

"I know, Is! It really wasn't to undermine you. It's just not for me. I want to live off my music."

"You have to consider other options."

"You sound just like my mum," he rolled his eyes at me.

"I'm just saying that you need some kind of safety net - just in case."

"Look, I didn't come here to get another lecture on how to make it through life," he said and pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, "can we at least just talk about something else?"

We were lying on my bed, looking at the posters in the ceiling while I was thinking of something to say. Eventually, I settled on, "So Jamie's getting some action, huh?"

I could practically hear Alex' eyeballs roll to the back of his skull, "This is the third bird I've seen him with this week!"

"THIRD GIRL??" I asked perplex, "he's really on a streak, huh?"

Alex nodded eagerly, "He says it's because he's so good at playing the guitar. Says that every girl loves a guitarist," he laughed, "Maybe I'll get that good someday."

I didn't know why but his comment made my heart sting. I quickly pushed it away though and said: "When you're a rockstar one day and you're swimming in girls, please don't forget the first girl you spent the night in bed with," I laughed, referring to the many times Alex had snuck up here only to fall asleep on top of the covers while I was lying underneath them.

He looked at me tenderly for a few seconds. Then, his eyes widened before he whispered, "how could I ever forget you?" with a serious look.

September 2002

"You're not dressed yet???"

"Issy...the party's not for another three hours. I'm sure I'll make it in time."

"Do you have any idea how much time I've spent on this costume?" I said, suddenly feeling silly standing on the stairs to Alex' house wearing the silver astronaut costume that my dad and me had been working on for weeks.

"I still don't get why we couldn't just dress up like the Beatles or something," Alex mumbled as I passed him on my way inside.

"Because everyone will be dressed like the Beatles!" I rolled my eyes at him.

"It's a 60's themed party. I don't see why that's a problem."

"Just put on the space costume, alright?"

Alex sighed and we walked upstairs to his bedroom.

"In an hour, alright? I have something to show you first," he said and handed me a picture that looked really old.

"Who is this?" I asked, "well, I can tell it's your mum, but why are you showing me this?"

"Take a look at the woman next to her," Alex said and I could hear he was trying to suppress a laughter.

I eyed the picture intently until it dawned upon me who it was, "Shit!!! It's Mrs. McEnvoy!" I laughed as I recognized my 5th grade math teacher, "WEARING FISH NETS!"

Alex and I erupted with laughter, "mum went to school with her! Found the picture a few days ago when we were cleaning" He said.

"I knew she always had horrible fashion sense, but fish nets? Come on!" I snickered.

"To be fair, this is from the school's September ball 25 years ago, so I'm sorry I have to burst your bubble, but the fish nets are probably part of a costume."

"Damn," I whispered, unable to take my eyes away from the picture.

"Mum said that McEnvoy used to 'get around'" he snickered as he made air quotation marks around the last bit.

"McEnvoy is the most boring person I've ever met. Remember those dull pyjama-like dresses she used to wear? I can't believe she used to get it while wearing fish nets!" I too snickered.

"Oi! Nice!" Alex said and found a piece of paper that he wrote something down on. I looked him over the shoulder and read out loud: "you used to get it in your fish nets. Now you only get it in your night dress - what is this?"

"Sounds nice," he shrugged, "could be something."

"Wait a minute! Am I currently co-writing with the great Alex Turner?" I laughed.

"Keep saying stuff like that and I might even consider putting you on the album cover," he winked at me.

We talked about all the people we knew from school and Alex scribbled down sentence after sentence while we were laughing and reminiscing. Suddenly, we had ourselves a decent ramble of words that Alex said he might be able to make something of.

"Shit, Al! We have to leave in 20 minutes," I said, looking at my watch, "if you don't jump in that space suit now, I'm going to patent that song!"