“As long as it isn’t Starbucks, I’m fine!”
Elsa liked the idea of these hole in the wall coffee places. Chain coffee places felt so…cold and unipersonal to the girl. She always liked the one of a kind places. They always had the best coffee.
“I like hole in the wall cafes. Always so cute and cozy! There is one in DC I love to go to with my friends. We take the Metro into Dupont Circle and go to this place. Its call Dolcezza and its all brick and has the best coffee and the weirdest flavors of sorbet and gelato. It’s awesome! You…might like it? I don’t know. Sometimes I can never figure out if you would like something of not.”
Elsa started to feel a lot more relaxed. She was afraid this adventure was going to be like a horrible thing that would have her grounded for life, not a laid back trip to get coffee and chocolate pastries.
“Starbucks. Honestly, MacTavish, you insult me.”
Strolling towards the nearby bridge, Iris listened to Elsa ramble on, lots of words and locations that meant precious little to her whizzing through her ears. One day, she might visit DC and have Elsa make all of it real, but for now she nodded along amicably, heels clicking across the streets.
“You don’t know what I’d like. It’s not like we haven’t known each other all our lives or anything.” An ocean’s worth of distance meant precious little to the English girl, not with so much history between she and her friend. Their parents were thick as thieves, family without blood, and that meant something important to her. It seemed Iris’ entire family was a patched-up quilt, lots of uncles and aunts and cousins pulled from old assignments her father and mother undertook. Even those she considered her grandparents weren’t hers by blood, MacMillan a mentor and Zhenya… something. Iris had not yet put together how her mother had met Zhenya.
“Holborn alright by you, stranger?”
“I’m pretty sure being an American breathing your air is an insult enough, Price.”
Despite the traffic and usual sounds of city life, Elsa could still hear the clicking of Iris’ heels. It always baffled the red head how the Brit managed to walk in those things, especially through a busy metropolis. The last time Elsa had tried on a pair of heels was at the Saks Fifth Avenue at Chevy Chase. Her and her friends usually stuck with Kohls down the road but always had fun going to the high end stores and seeing if the clothes really were worth $900 something dollars. Judging by how Elsa stood up, cried out in pain, and fell over taking out a mannequin and a bag display on her way down, she should just stick to flats and never try on a pair of heels again. Especially $900 ones...
“Sure, we may know each other our whole life,” Elsa stated, wondering if Iris’ feet were filled with dead nerves in those heels, “but its not like I see you everyday. Who knows, maybe from the last time we Skyped to know you may have...I don’t know, woke up and suddenly realized Pumpkin Spiced Lattes and cat sweaters were the way to go. And yeah, Holborn sounds like the way to go. Sounds nifty.”
