Chapter Seven

July 25th, 1976

"Sirius."

"Johnny."

"How are you this lovely afternoon?" Johnny asked in a bit of a mocking tone as he watched Sirius enter the diner.

"Perfect."

"Wonderful."

Johnny stared pointedly at Sirius. Both boys knew exactly what the other wanted, but neither of them wanted be the first to break the silence. There stood an uncompromising impasse, like that between a matchless runner and a great king of men.

Sirius, who was particularly adept at resisting the urge to speak, realized that one of them would have to speak soon, otherwise they would just squander away the afternoon glaring at the other.

Johnny had not quite the sense to come to that happy conclusion. He continued to preen at Sirius with his arms folded across his chest, like a bulldog guarding its owner's home. His eyes were resolute.

Sirius sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. "How long have you been practicing that look?"

"What?"

"The confusion. I've seen it on you a lot."

Johnny's jaw visibly tightened.

"Don't worry, mate, we can't all be thinkers."

"What do you want?"

"Eliza here?" Sirius asked finally.

"She went out for a bit."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes," Johnny answered curtly. "You should probably come back tomorrow."

"Sirius!" a voice called as a teenage girl bounded toward the boys as she stuck a pencil behind her ear.

"Hey, Skip," Sirius greeted her as he cast an askance scowl in Johnny's direction.

Eliza beamed at him as she flattened out her hair quickly.

"Oi! Johnny! Get back here, son. We just got in a huge supply of meat, and I need help carrying it."

Johnny eyed Sirius threateningly before he treaded towards his father.

"Sirius, lend a hand, mate? We could use another bloke."

"Sure," he agreed immediately. "Be right there." Sirius glanced quickly at Eliza's disappointed smile and then went to go help her father.

"Elizabeth Anne Boyd! Get back to work! The loos are in a complete state! Get busy!" shouted Susan from across the diner.

"Lovely," Eliza muttered acidly. "Toilets."

Though Sirius's back probably would have given out if the boxes had weighed anymore and his muscles had reached a level beyond aching from such physical exertion, he felt oddly contented by the fact that he was helping out the Boyd family. He did not like being in people's debt and enjoyed being able to do the odd job every now and again to pay Susan and Martin back for their unyielding generosity. In fact, just yesterday Sirius had donned one of Boyd's aprons and helped serve tables during a particularly busy dinner rush. Eliza had laughed herself silly at the sight.

"Buck up there, Black," Johnny told him with a brusque laugh while eyeing Sirius roll back his shoulder blades. "You'd think you'd spent your whole life getting waited on by servants."

"Elves, actually," Sirius replied back cheekily.

"Yeah, brill, you nutter," Johnny scoffed as he opened up the refrigerator behind the counter and pulled out a bottle of Coca-Cola.

"Can I bum a bottle?" Sirius asked, his body feeling dehydrated from all the heavy lifting.

Johnny held one out for him, and Sirius twisted the cap open. He wondered at the fizzing beverage before taking a sip. "Urgh," he yelped. "What is this stuff?"

"You've never had a coke before?" Johnny asked with a snort. "Welcome to Planet Earth, mate."

"Cheers," Sirius toasted before downing another sip of the odd, bubbly dark liquid.

The cola was sloshing around uncomfortably in his stomach about an hour later when he was sitting in his normal booth. Sirius watched an elderly couple seated a few booths in front of him arguing about what to order.

"No, Henry, dear, your cholesterol!" the woman insisted.

"I don't give a damn about my cholesterol," Henry retorted. "C'mon, love, I haven't had a good shepherd's pie in ages."

"Fine, but don't come crawling to me when you're in the grave."

Sirius chuckled lightly as he watched the old man kiss his wife adoringly on the cheek.

"Something entertaining?"

He looked up to see Eliza looming over him.

"Old age," Sirius answered as he gestured vaguely to the couple, "and all its wonders."

Eliza smiled as she watched the pair and then sat down opposite Sirius, who had considerately moved his feet off the seat to make room for her. "I hope I'm still that in love when I get to be their age."

Sirius shrugged. He never envisioned himself married and wrinkled. He couldn't really picture himself living past forty. James would be the one with the grandkids all around him, not Sirius.

She placed a plate of sandwiches onto the table and then started eating ravenously.

"God, I'm hungry," she said through mouthfuls. "And I don't even care what you're thinking in your little teenage boy mind. Mock my unladylike manners, if you will. I am going to eat all of these myself."

"Can't I nip just one?" Sirius asked, his hunger growing as he watched her devour yet another massive bite.

"If you say 'please,'" Eliza insisted after swallowing hugely.

Sirius gave her a pointed look.

"Oh, fine, Trouble," she caved as she wiped a bit of mustard off the corner of her mouth with a napkin. "But just one."

Sirius took the sandwich and enthusiastically began to eat it. "Fhank thu, Smip."

Eliza chuckled lightly. "I'm going to miss that face," she lamented glumly.

"Huh?" Sirius asked as he licked a bit of mayonnaise off of his thumb.

"Mum's taking me to visit my aunt and uncle in Bath," she said. "We're going to be gone till the beginning of August."

"Oh."

"I wasn't sure at first if I really ought to go," Eliza said quickly. "It doesn't seem the best time for a little holiday. I mean, there's plenty to do here, and I've really seemed to have been keeping busier than usual this summer." Her eyes swept over him for a moment or two before she looked back down at the sandwich in her hands. "But Johnny told me I'm just being stupid. He says there's not anything here worth sticking around for. They'll always be excuses not to leave, right? Besides, I've got to get away for a bit. You get a little stir crazy spending all your days in here. Plus, there's loads to do in Bath!"

Sirius resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Only Eliza Boyd would find Bath a fun and interesting marvel of society.

"It should be loads of fun," the girl continued, as though reassuring herself of this statement. "And everything will be here when I get back, so it's not as though I'm missing out on anything. Everything will still be here, yeah…."

Sirius stared at his plate, and though his jaw was fixed in a gritty way, his gray eyes betrayed his true feelings.

"Aww, Sirius, you've got storm clouds," Eliza proclaimed sympathetically as she placed her hand on top of Sirius's and looked worriedly at him.

The boy's eyes widened minutely from the contact, but he made no other indication that she was touching him.

"I'll only be gone for about a week, and it'll give you plenty of time to work on your motorbike without any distractions. You said you're all done except for the transmission?"

Sirius nodded and removed his hand from her grasp.

Eliza fiddled with the bottom of her wavy hair with her newly freed hand. "It's weird," she said after a few moments of silence. "I really don't know that much about you, but I feel like I'm leaving behind one of my closest friends."

Sirius pondered her words. He supposed she was right, in a way. While she still didn't have half a clue about who he really was, he had grown quite accustomed to seeing her at almost a daily frequency. She had stopped being a prattling nuisance to him and was shaping up to be something else entirely: a person. She wasn't a Marauder, of course, but he could no longer consciously consider her to be a random bird.

She waited for Sirius to say something, but he was staring out the window with a grim expression on his face. Huffing in exasperation, Eliza started upturning her pockets. "Where is it? Nope, not that," she said as she stuffed her notepad back into its place. "Ahh, gotcha," she said as she retrieved a pen.

Without asking for permission, Eliza reached over the table grabbed Sirius's hand while ripping the cap off the pen with her teeth.

"What are you doing?" Sirius asked in surprise as he struggled to take back his hand.

Eliza merely tightened her grip on his wrist. "Relax, you big tosser," she mocked him with delight sparkling in her eyes. "I'm just writing down my number."

"Number for what?" Sirius asked.

"Telephone, of course," she answered as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sirius nodded as though he, too, understood what he was evidently supposed to understand.

"There," Eliza declared happily as she gave him back his hand.

Sirius inspected the ten numbers sloppily sprawled across his palm in glittering ink.

"It's the number of my aunt and uncle's. Don't feel skittish about giving them a ring, though. I don't reckon anyone will get shirty with you. Besides, it'll be nice to hear from you while I'm away. You're much too lonely, Trouble. I'm half-convinced that friend Potter of yours is a figment of your imagination."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Bugger off, Skip."

"Fine, fine," announced Eliza brightly. "It is what I'm trying to do, after all. I know when I'm not wanted, and at that point, I just stick around for the giggles."

She laughed at the surly expression on the boy's face before sighing. "Well, seeing as you're just going to sit there, there's a woman who's been waiting for her tea to be refilled for nearly twenty minutes now.

"It's amazing that you make any tips at all."

"I happen to be very loveable, or hadn't you noticed?" she teased.

Sirius shook his head at her antics.

Eliza laughed chirpily as she pranced off towards the kitchen. "I'll be waiting for your call, Sirius!"

Sirius watched as she hopped away and then redirected his focus to the purple digits etched onto his hand with a resolution firmly fixed in his mind: he needed to find out what a telephone was.


A/N:

As always, thanks for reading.

Nine more chapters.

Please review.

yours,

molly