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chapter forty one
tequila and teen spirit
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Julian didn't drink so, whenever our group went out, he was often the designated driver. As consequence, this meant Star was almost always in charge of the music.
As soon as we climbed into Julian's Toyota, Star got him to roll down all of the windows. She then turned on the CD that had been in the car since the first time I'd met Julian. The opening guitar riff to Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' began to play, and she cranked up the volume so loud, Draco flinched violently when the full band joined in.
"Load up on guns, bring your friends," Star began singing. Draco was staring at the dashboard of the car. His eyes were extremely wide and he was refusing to move.
When the chorus came on, Julian, Star, and I all screamed the lyrics at the top of our lungs.
"With the lights out, it's less dangerous/Here we are now, entertain us!"
When the song ramped down into the next verse, Draco finally let his arms drop and I started to laugh. He was not a Nirvana fan, it appeared.
"Is this eighties music?" he asked me.
"I think Nevermind was released in the early nineties," I said.
"Thank Merlin," he said on an exhale. "It's just...dreadful."
It was a good thing I liked Nirvana because, thanks to Star, I'd listened to every album the band had ever released enough times to have them all memorized.
Traffic was congested, so we finished the entire album and got halfway into the MTV Unplugged set before we finally made it to London.
Draco got out of the car with a huge sigh, clearly pleased to be released from the torture that he found Seattle grunge music.
The Indian place Dillon picked for us turned out to be an unpretentious family-owned restaurant in an artificially bright room, located in the basement of some kind of financial building. The yellow wallpaper was peeling to the concrete underneath, and the tables were packed close together. It was already busy when we emerged from the narrow staircase into the low-ceilinged dining area.
Draco did not look pleased.
"Hello, Dillon!" said an older Indian man with an impressive silver mustache. He greeted Dillon brightly in Marathi and I had to elbow Draco because he was making a judgmental face at the plastic flower arrangement centerpieces on the tables.
"It's Mars's birthday, so I decided I'd let her know about my favorite secret spot in all of Britain," Dillon said, switching back to English so the rest of us could understand. The man's eyes glittered at me.
