Are We There Yet? (14 page)

Elijah's never said these exact words before, and now that he's said them, they seem even more real. They are so real, they scare him. Because Elijah fundamentally wants everyone to be happy. With everyone else, he still tries. But he gave up on Danny long ago, for so many reasons that they add up to no clear reason at all.

Julia takes his hand. He thinks the subject is finished, but then she asks, “When did that start?”

She seems so genuinely to want to know the answer that he finds himself talking again. “I guess it was high school,” he says.

“So when he was your age now?”

That sounds strange to Elijah, but he guesses it's true. He nods. “About my age. And I was eleven or twelve. Just starting
it all, you know. And Danny became a closed door to me. Literally. Wherever he went, the door closed behind him, and that's all I'd see. Like I'd done something. When he'd open the door, when we actually saw him, he was always grouping me with my parents, always saying I was taking their side or scamming to get into their good graces. That I was the good son. But the thing is, he'd been good, too. Then the doors started closing. And it wasn't even like he was doing anything so crazy. I mean, he wasn't shutting himself in his room and smoking up or looking at porn or sneaking in girlfriends. He wasn't hiding anything but himself. And I just didn't get it.”

“Do you get it now?” Julia asks.

“I don't know. I don't have a little brother, I guess. It's different at my school. I like having the door open.”

They have walked past the busier part of town and are now in a streetlight that barely glimmers above the river darkness.

“He's cute, you know,” Julia says.

“He is?”

“In that isn't-doing-what-he-wants-to-be way. A look like that, you just want to help.”

“In what way?”

“I don't know,” Julia says. “You just want to tell him it's okay to be himself.”

“And me?” Elijah asks.

Julia arches an eyebrow. “You? You're much easier. You're cute in a cute way.”

“Really?”

Julia smiles.

“Really.”

Elijah slowly feels lucky again.

Danny has deliberately lost his way. He feels it is too much of a defeat to return to the hotel so early. He is suddenly concerned about what the concierge will think.

So he wanders through Florence, which doesn't feel like Venice at all. He walks down to the Arno, to be by the water. He leans against the railing and stares at the other side, thinking of home. A few minutes later, he is distracted by an eager conversation, spoken in a foreign tongue. Not ten feet from him, a young couple talks in an embrace. (
Young
being seventeen or eighteen … this has become young to Danny, and he hates that.) The boy is not beautiful, merely good-looking, wearing (of all things) a beret. The girl has long hair that shifts every time she laughs.To them, Danny is as real as the river or the city—nice, incidental music behind the conversation. Danny turns away, obtrusive in his own eyes. The couple is taking in all the magic of the moment for themselves. They have left Danny with nothing but scenery and air. And the air is beginning to chill.

Danny moves away from the river, back to the streets. Paying closer attention, he realizes the packs that pass him are all American. A succession of American collegians—all having the same conversations (“And so I told her to …” “Are you telling me I should …?”“Get out of here!”). They are all attractive, or trying very hard to be attractive. Danny chuckles at this endless parade of semesters abroad. He doesn't feel at all like one of them. He doesn't have their gall or revelry.

It seems entirely fitting when the fluorescent logo of a 7-Eleven rises before him. Amused, Danny steps in—just to see
if a 7-Eleven in Florence is any different from a 7-Eleven in Connecticut or California. Slurpee is spelled the same in any language, and while some of the beverages are different, the beverage cases still mist if he opens the door for too long. Struck by impulse, Danny tracks down the snack cakes. And indeed, there it is: the all-new, cosmetic-free Miss Jane's Homemade Petite Snack Cake—translated into Italian.

Danny reads the name aloud, mispronouncing most of the syllables. He grins and beams—these are words that he wrote at a desk thousands of miles away, not even knowing they'd be translated into a language he'd never spoken. Something that travels so far must be, at the very least, a little important.

There are only three snack cakes left. Danny buys them all—one for his parents, one for his office, and one for his own delight. He can't wait to show people. He wishes Elijah were with him. He wishes he were with someone who would understand—not just the seventeen-year-old cashier, looking embarrassed in his maroon, orange, and white uniform (such a combination has never before appeared in Italy, especially not in polyester).

Buoyed by his discovery, Danny returns to the hotel. But he's not ready for the night to end—not quite yet. Elijah isn't back, so Danny heads for the bar. Since he thinks there is something disreputable about drinking a bottle of wine alone, he drinks by the glass until the world goes soft. He drinks, even though drinking always makes him remember rather than forget. He tells the bartender about the snack cake. The bartender smiles happily and congratulates him.

Danny is happy in return.

With the right person, you can have a late-night conversation at any time of the day. But it helps to have it late at night.

Elijah and Julia are back in Julia's room, in Julia's
pensione
. Elijah touches the blanket and stares at the pictures on the wall, which he thinks of as hers, even though they are not hers at all. All of her possessions are still in a suitcase.

“I didn't have time to unpack,” she explains. “You were here so soon.”

“I'm sorry if I disturbed you.”

“Don't worry—I was already disturbed.”

She takes off her shoes, and he follows suit. Although there are chairs in the room, they are far too rigid for casual conversation. So Elijah and Julia sit on the floor, leaning on the same side of the bed.

“I wish we had candles,” Elijah says.

“What if we turn the lights off and leave only the lamp on?”

As Julia rises to get the switch, Elijah closes his eyes. He can feel her moving across the room, he can see the change from light to dark, and then the small step back to light. He can feel her returning to him. Sitting next to him. Breathing softly.

“Relax,” she says, and the word itself is relaxing.

Do you wonder?

“Who are you thinking about?” Julia asks quietly.

“Nobody. Just my best friend. Wondering what time it is over there.”

“Is he back in Rhode Island?”

“Yes.”

“Then the night is just beginning.”

Elijah opens his eyes, and finds that Julia has closed hers.

Their voices travel at the speed of night.

It takes three tries for Danny to fit his key into the lock. “Elijah?” he asks. But the bed is empty, and the room is alone.

Slowly, Elijah and Julia begin to lose their words. They fall from the conversation one by one, lengthening the pauses, heightening the expectation. Her hand moves from his arm to his cheek. He closes his eyes, and she smiles. He is so serious. The first kiss is clear, ready to be set for memory. The second and the third and the fourth begin to blur—they are no longer singular things, but part of something larger than even their sum.

“Thank you,” Elijah whispers in one of the moments of breath.

“You're welcome,” Julia replies, and before he can say another word, she kisses him again.

They kiss and touch and trace themselves to sleep. They will wake at sunrise, in each other's arms.

Danny goes to sleep easily, and wakes up two hours later. Nausea infuses every pore of his consciousness. Part of him wants to throw up and get it over with. And part of him remembers what he had for dinner—veal, asparagus, tomato bread soup—and wants to keep it in. Finally, he decides ginger ale is the way to go, and overrules his inner cheapskate to take a swipe at the minibar. Sadly, ginger ale is nowhere to be found. Fanta will have to do.

“Elijah—are you sleeping?” Danny fumbles for the bottle opener and cuts his hand on the cap. He follows the rug to the lip of the bathroom, then liberates four Tylenol from his travel kit. The first Tylenol falls down the drain, but the other three hit their mark, drowned in a tide of too-sweet soda.

Danny still feels sick. But he falls asleep anyway.