An Orange for Another Day

An Orange for Another Day Caroline Woodruff 2214 words

“Are you Americans?” Sunny caught up with the two tall red-haired girls. If so, she guessed that they might be able to direct her to a place to stay in Amsterdam. The two matching rucksacks with American flag stickers, their hair color, and their youthful gait had grabbed her attention.

On that summer day in June when she first arrived at Amsterdam Centraal station, Sunny was too tired to stand in line and wait for a youth hostel referral. She’d arrived in the Netherlands having just come from a 300-mile train trip from Paris and the events on the train ride, though exciting, had exhausted Sunny.

Call it serendipity because, sure enough, the girls with the red hair and matching rucksacks led Sunny to a hostel located on a street just across from the Melkweg. (You may have heard about the Milky Way, the famed house of music in Amsterdam, still open all these years later.)

Although she was wiped out, Sunny was so thrilled to be in Amsterdam that she could not resist her desire to set out on a brief tour of the city. She took in all the sights as she walked through neighborhoods on the cobble-stoned streets that bordered Amsterdam’s canals.

Looking across the canals Sunny spied long-hairs in tie-dyes frolicking with their dogs in open green parks. Life in Amsterdam in high hippie days was revealing itself to Sunny in just the way she had imagined.

That spring back at home in America, she and her friend Robby had spent many hours in the library researching and reading books on the art and culture of every one of the European countries they intended to visit on their upcoming ­­­­­­­trip in the summer. Together, they created a very tight itinerary and were looking forward to every site and every bite in Europe’s garden of earthly delights.

Well, wouldn't you know it? In Paris Sunny’s friend met someone special. Feeling "very, very French", Robby decided he'd park his American fanny in Saint-Germain-des-Prés with his new love interest for the duration of his time in Europe. He unceremoniously sent Sunny off alone to discover her own “very, very” experience.

Rolling across the French countryside that summer day on her way to Amsterdam, Sunny realized that fuming at her friend was the wrong attitude. Perhaps this turn of events was actually a gift. After all, she was free of the tight itinerary and now she could cavort at will, going wherever she pleased meeting friends she would never meet if she had a traveling companion.

The hostel in Amsterdam had several levels and once she found the check-in desk, Sunny was welcomed in English by a tall Dutch boy with long, curly blond locks and a smile that beamed at her in high definition.

The room he assigned her was communal. Taking her key Sunny headed upstairs toward room “11-bed dormitory”. As she entered her room at midday, rays of sunshine streamed through the windows to bless the bed chamber. Radiant light is an auspicious sign, Sunny noted.

The room was clean and uncluttered. A large circular, white table sat in the middle of the sparsely furnished space. There were several bunk beds situated around the large room. In the far corner Sunny saw a flimsy green cloth that served as a curtain covering a doorway to a private sleeping room.

She found bottom bunk bed 11. The pale blue sheets were snugly fitted to the mattress. The linen was worn but freshly laundered and there were two pillows on this bed. Wearied from her travels, Sunny lay down for a nap.

Was it the sound of European pop music? The sound of American rock and roll coming from across the street? Or was it the smell of curry that escorted Sunny back into the waking world? She opened her eyes to behold the very image of Snow White. Snow White was moving books around to place dinner ware on the round table.

She was wearing a sheer white blouse and a floral summer skirt. Her hair was dark brown and her complexion was milky white. Yeah, the very image of Snow White.

"You're awake," she spoke in a friendly voice. "I brought in a curry dish. Will you join me?"

Sunny was groggy, not yet recharged from her several challenging days in Paris, but she got up from her bed and seated herself at the round table. Snow White introduced herself to her new roommate.

“My name is Rosy.” She told Sunny that she was English and 25 years old. She was a secretary and had taken a year's sabbatical from work to travel at leisure to India with a friend. She said she'd been living in Amsterdam for a couple of months, working in an advertising agency and mainly just digging the scene. She even had a private room behind the flimsy green curtain. Rosy seemed quite content living in a hostel in the Netherlands.

Rosy asked about Sunny’s life in America, What city did she live in? What was the music scene like there? Did Sunny like rock music? What concerts had she been to? Had she been to the Milky Way yet?

What kind of art did Sunny make? Who were the historical painters she most admired? What was Sunny’s job and a few more personal questions. As they spoke Sunny realized what a beautiful “classical English rose” Rosy was. And to a somewhat naive, yet semi-sophisticated hippie chick artist on her first visit to Europe, Rosy seemed to Sunny to be the epitome of a proper English lady.

Did the ganja come first or was it the orange and the peeling of the orange that came first? Did the peeling off of the clothes come after the peeling of the orange? As she watched Sunny wondered, Is the peeling of the orange a secret message for me?

They must have smoked first before the orange was peeled. Oh yes that’s right, Sunny remembered now.

In the blinking of an eye, Rosy stood up and began to undress. First off was the sheer white blouse. She then sat down, picked up an orange from the table and began peeling it slowly, seductively in front of her bare breasts.

With no hint of self-consciousness at her nakedness, Rosy spoke slowly, sweetly, in a soft tone about the limitations of her life in London. She and her girlfriends longed for greater opportunities to be themselves in a more open society. She stood up again and Rosy’s floral skirt slipped down her legs. She bent over gracefully to retrieve it.

Her discourse continued as she voiced her exasperation with society and with her family and their expectations of her. They had placed limitations on her freedom to be herself. She and a girlfriend would be getting their own apartment together when they returned from India.

As this chick was rapping and easing out of her clothes, she was generously sharing her cannabis and her righteous Dutch West Indian herb. And it was doing its trick on Sunny! Righteous! She smiled to herself.

I'm really in Amsterdam, Sunny mused dreamily, and I'm really baked .Yes indeed, all was right with the world.

Rosy's clothes were off now and she sat down at the table with Sunny. She picked up the orange again. As she spoke she slowly, sensuously resumed removing the peel from around the orange.

She nodded toward one of the books on the table. Catch 22.

“Have you read it yet?” Rosy offered Sunny her copy to read on the train. Small talk. Sunny wondered to herself if accepting Catch 22 and one of the oranges would obligate her in any way to her new English friend.

Did Sunny have a boyfriend? Did Sunny like Indian food? She could heat the curry up for them later. Sunny discovered that she and Rosy both had a deep interest in Hinduism, and she sensed that it would be easy to take the conversation to deeper levels with this intelligent young woman.

Wow, here I am having a conversation with this cool chick from London and here I am, uncomfortable and naive, consciously maintaining serious eye contact as I’m speaking with Rosy. Where is my sense of adventure, Sunny wondered. Where is my openness to all the possibilities? Did I not plan to be brave on this trip and take chances that could open me up to fresh perspectives on life?

Wow, this chick is sitting here wearing only a pair of pink panties, feeling perfectly comfortable talking to a total stranger. Well hey, Sunny thought, this just must be the way European women are.

But then, Sunny sensed, Rosy began looking at her for some sort of reaction to her naked body. Was Sunny enjoying the beauty of her breasts? Did she notice her milky skin and slender, yet womanly curves? What was Sunny thinking about?

And Sunny was thinking, Oh hell, what’s going to be her next move?

Actually Sunny was thinking that Rosy might be thinking about taking off those pink panties. Does Rosy expect me to go behind that green curtain with her? What I’m actually thinking is, Rosy, are we ever going to get around to that curry?

Rosy ate her orange, and they made more small talk. Because the hour was late, Sunny thanked Rosy, excused herself, and took her orange with her. She would eat it another day. Off now to take a shower. After all, she was in Amsterdam and the summer night was calling. So bravely out into the night she went to discover Amsterdam. Night life in Amsterdam. But first, the Milky Way.

That evening at the Milky Way Sunny heard “Radar Love” by Golden Earring many, many times. The boys in the band were local heroes from The Hague. Good thing I love their powerful driving hard rock, Sunny thought as the song came on for the fifth time.

She met a guy that evening with dreads who told her he was a musician, busking his way around Europe for the summer. Sunny would later run into him in Germany in a city center. “What would you think if I sang out of tune?” He sounded pretty good to Sunny.

Sunny came to find out that Amsterdam music lovers appreciated New Orleans funk. She was surprised to hear the Meters’ “Sissy Strut” playing that night at the Milky Way. Sunny was a New Orleans home girl and was delighted to learn that Art Neville’s music was appreciated in Europe. Rosy dug the Neville Brothers and that certainly endeared her to Sunny.

Despite her independence, Sunny's roommate still lived at her childhood home in England. Rosy's father, Rupert, was a retired diplomat turned amateur historian. Her mother, Philippa, was a master gardener. Her younger brother, Cecil, was her opposite in every way: tidy, quiet, and destined for law school. They were always unusually close.

Rosy attended a progressive boarding school in Oxfordshire, where she developed an obsession with rock music (particularly Cream and Led Zeppelin), started sketching obsessively, and read Virginia Woolf in the library during lunch. At 18, she went on to study Geology at the University of Cambridge, following a deep fascination with volcanos.

During her Cambridge years, free-spirited Rosy was known for hosting psychedelic-themed dinner parties in her dorm room and dating a Swedish avant-garde sculptor named Erik. Her proposed thesis was Rock Formations & Revolutions.

After graduation Rosy refused to settle into a career path. Instead, she took time out to travel — first to Thailand, then to Morocco and finally on to India.

Although not quite so exotic, Sunny’s travels had taken her on an art pilgrimage in Europe, exactly where she wanted to be. During her week-long visit in Amsterdam, Sunny, the blonde artist hippie chick, had walked the same streets that Rembrandt and Vermeer had walked. She’d soaked up the living energies from their paintings in the Rijksmuseum. She’d admired the Dutch Golden Age architecture of old Amsterdam and wondered if she’d lived past lives there. In The Bulldog coffeeshop she’d pondered the mysteries and the meaning of life with a very cool Ph.D student from Portugal. At the Milky Way she’d listened to some bitchin’ music, smoked cannabis with fellow travelers, and had had some far out conversations with people from all over the world. She’d eaten herring and stamppot (mashed potatoes, sausage, vegetables) and she’d stayed the night with a Danish couple on their houseboat on one of the canals. And feeling very, very Dutch she had fallen in love forever with the city of Amsterdam.

However, it was time to leave and her intuition whispered to her, Next stop ~ Rome. As she turned in her room key, the Dutch boy with the big smile asked, "Did you like Rosy?" Ever so slightly mystified, Sunny replied, "Oh yes, she's very sweet."

That high beam smile radiated out toward the somewhat naive, semi-sophisticated American artist hippie chick traveler. "She told me to send only beautiful girls to her room."

And then it dawned on Sunny. With her new perspective on life, who knows? Maybe she would take a chance someday? Yes, it could be delicious, this orange for another day.