The 15:17 to Paris by Anthony Sadler

Author:Anthony Sadler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610397346
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2016-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

26.

THEY STUMBLED OUT onto the street in Amsterdam, drunk and giddy. They’d found a club, drunk too much, danced too much. Alek woke up in a heap on the floor of the hostel room, head throbbing, but content. He’d get his own room tomorrow night; he was desperate for a bed. On Friday they were supposed to catch the 15:17 for Paris, but already he was thinking they’d skip it, catch a later one. Amsterdam had exceeded his expectations, and they all wanted more time here.

“Oh, man, how crazy is this?” he’d said when he first caught up with them at the hostel. “The first time we’re all together after, what, seven years? And it’s in Europe!”

Of course, he’d thought it strange at first, random, that Spencer invited Anthony on their European trip. His bonding with his best friend, this last hurrah before a boring pedestrian life, it felt altered at first. Now that they were all together again, though, it felt right. Old friends, a new place. A city none had explored, opening itself up before them. The place itself was old meeting new, gleaming space-age structures rising out of cobblestone streets with centuries of history.

They went out at night, went to a soccer game during the day. They drank beer while the sun was still up, they made friends easily here. There was a chemistry to this place where the three had finally come together after so many years. Was it just him, or did the place buzz with its own energy? Alek didn’t want to leave.

That was his style; he was beginning to understand that about himself, and he wasn’t ashamed of it. To stay in a place, get to know it, get to know the people, maybe find a girl. Spencer and Anthony, they still seemed to want to see as many places as possible, burning through Europe like the whole continent was on a limited-time offer. Alek wanted to take it slow, soak it in. In Amsterdam, for the first time, Spencer and Anthony agreed.

“Spencer, man,” Alek overheard Anthony saying, “we might need to stay here for the weekend!”

Anthony said Amsterdam reminded him of home; the weather was like home, sunny but breezy, the topography favored Sacramento. Plus the only reason they were supposed to leave was to go to Paris, and Spencer said people they’d run into along the way kept trying to divert them from it. “We met this girl at our hostel in Berlin,” Spencer said. “She told us Paris is just really expensive. She said it’s actually pretty boring, and people are like—they’re actually kind of rude.”

“And Lisa in Venice was the same,” Anthony said. There’d been a girl on their train to Amsterdam too, an Australian who’d already done all of Europe, and tried to convince them not to do France. So why not just skip their train and catch a later one? There were at least a dozen trains a day.

They went on a bike tour out to a

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