Are We There Yet? (18 page)

Danny's on his feet now. “I haven't dragged her into anything. You have.”

“I have?”

“Yes.”

They're facing off now. They haven't done this in so long.

“So what are you saying?” Elijah asks.

“Are you sleeping with her?” Danny asks back.

“WHAT?”

“I said, are you sleeping with her?”

“Are you saying I have to sleep with someone in order to be with them?”

“I'll take that as a ‘no. ’ ”

“Take what you want. I'm going.” Elijah has his notebook now and moves to the door.

Danny blocks him.“Not so fast. I want to talk to you about Julia. I'm just not sure you're seeing everything.”

“I thought you liked her.”

“I do. I did. It's just that—”

“I'm spending too much time with her. Which means I'm not spending enough time with you. But you know what? I
enjoy
myself when I'm with her. I do
not
enjoy myself when I'm with you. And neither do you. So consider Julia a blessing.”

“In disguise.”

“What do you mean?”

Danny is so close to telling. He is so close to shattering Elijah into little lovelorn pieces. But he can't. Invoking the moral high ground somehow makes you lose it. Using a secret as a weapon makes you almost as bad as the transgressor.

He will not tell.

Elijah will never know the only good gesture Danny can make.

“Doesn't your wistful romanticism ever get tiring?” Danny sighs.

“No,” Elijah says. “
You
get tiring. Look, I'm sorry. But I have to go.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Rome. With Julia. We'll take the train.”

“Don't be silly.”

“I'm not being silly at all. I'm
thinking
, Danny. Isn't that what you want me to do?” In two short minutes, he packs his bag— no hard thing, since he was never around enough to unpack.

“You don't have to do this,” Danny says as Elijah reaches the door.

“You don't have to say that,” Elijah ricochets.“You don't have to start being nice now. It doesn't suit you. I know where we're staying. I'll see you in Rome.”

With that, he leaves.

As he does, Danny realizes his shoelaces are untied.

It is too late, though, for Danny to say anything about it. If Elijah trips, there's nothing he can do. If Elijah falls, he will still feel in some way responsible. For having noticed too late.

As Danny drives the Autostrada del Sole toward Rome, he cannot help but think of everything that's happened. From Ju-lia's hello to Elijah's nonexistent goodbye. The flicker of Julia's glance, the barely bridled fury in Elijah's eyes. For once, Danny wanted Elijah to come right out and say
I hate you
, if only so he could say,
Well, I don't hate you
back.

The cars swerve past him, but this time Danny isn't in a rush. Everything seems so precarious to him. Like driving. Like the fact that all you need to do is move your hand a quarter of an inch and you will be in the next lane. Crashed and dead. So easy.

Concentration. Driving requires concentration, but Danny isn't quite there. He is driving by instinct, like the other thousand strangers upon whom his safety depends. Towns and street signs whiz by, and Danny tries to recall Julia's exact expression. He knows he did the right thing. But still he feels like he's done himself some wrong.

At this very moment, Elijah and Julia are on a train. Or maybe they're still in Florence, dancing along the Ponte Vecchio. Elijah is ignorantly grinning, laughing at the performance. But who is Julia thinking about? That is what Danny wants to know.

He tells himself it's just a summer thing.
Fling
is such an apt word—it casually throws you. Then life resumes.

Danny drives. He wishes he could tell the truth to someone, so it could be recognized.

“It's good to share a life.”
His mother had said this to him not too long ago. He had come home for Sunday dinner, something
he tried to do once every month. His parents, as always, were on their best behavior—only minimal discussion of Elijah, and virtually no mention of future weddings or grandchildren. Many of Danny's friends—especially his female friends—faced a terrifying litany every time they stepped into their parents' home:

Aren't you getting old? We're not getting any younger. Isn't Alexandra a beautiful name for a baby girl?
But Danny's parents were good. Either they had faith that they didn't have to interfere, or they'd already given up hope. The only marriage reference came after dinner while Danny's mother washed and Danny's father dried. They had done this for as long as he could remember, with the radio turned on to the news.

“Don't you ever want to dry?” Danny had asked his mother.

And she'd smiled and said, “It's good to share a life.”

Making it sound so easy.

Danny was approaching Rome now. He could see Coca-Cola signs and Mel Gibson billboards. The return of the common culture. Something he could be a part of. Larry King nightly in seventy countries worldwide. Star Wars chat rooms on the Internet. Madonna in any language. The closeness and the emptiness of it all. And Danny in his Avis rent-a-car, turning on the radio, hoping it will help.

It's good to share a life
—
and it's good to share minutes and hours, too, Danny thinks. With a wife. With a husband. With a boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend. With a fling. With a brother.

For a moment, one brief moment, Elijah and Julia run out of things to say. They are on the train, headed south through Tuscany. They have just been talking about windmills, even though there aren't any windmills in sight. Julia was recalling Amsterdam, and Elijah drew her outward. He asked her about tulips, then asked her about windmills. He himself has never seen one. But they've appeared in his dreams, each a different color, swirling as they spin.

“Ah, the windmills of your mind,” she says. Then falls silent.

He doesn't know what to say next.

She stares out the window—he can see her reflected over the moving countryside. Her eyes aren't fixed on any one place. They are fixed on the blur.

Her expression is the kind that shifts the air into stillness and cold.

“Julia,” he says gently, throwing her name into the breach.

It takes her a second to turn. Then she smiles tenderly.

“You have no idea how confused I am,” she says.

“So give me an idea.”

She just shakes her head.

“I don't want to taint you. I want you to remain clear.”

Can't you see you're confusing me already?
Elijah wants to say. But he doesn't. He wants to unburden her, not the opposite.

He lets her turn back to the window. He takes out
Pictures from Italy.
As she looks out the glass, she reaches back for his hand. He lets her take it. The book rests against his chest, open and unread.

Elijah feels like a grown-up, with a grown-up love.

Danny gets lost, so incredibly lost on his way into Rome that he almost pulls off to the side of the road and abandons the car. His hotel, d'Inghilterra, must be on some obscure street, since everyone he asks just shrugs or points vaguely. Hemingway once slept there, but that doesn't help.

It's always a low when life begins to imitate an old Chevy Chase movie. He circles the same roads at least ten times, searching for any sort of direction. He vows never to rent a car in a foreign country again. Next time, he'll take the train, or a taxi between cities, if that's what it takes.

Danny curses up a storm. And feels stupid. Because cursing in front of company at least generates an effect. Cursing alone is like taking a Hi-Liter to futility.

At the seventy-eighth red light, Danny leans over and asks directions from a cab driver. The cab driver, amazingly, says, “Follow me.” In just two short minutes, Danny is in front of the hotel. He tries to run out and pay the driver, but the taxi is gone before he can even make the gesture.

“Your reservation is for
due
,” the stark man behind the reception counter says, his voice carrying through the grand hallway before being absorbed by the curtains.

Danny nods.

“And the other party?”

“Is coming.”

“Oggi?”

“I believe so.”

Danny is perversely afraid that word will get back to his
parents:
Your sons didn't check in together. They must have had a fight.

Danny knows this will be viewed as his failure.

“What did you do?”
his mother will ask, followed by a dollara-minute pause.

“Nothing,”
he'll reply.

And then she'll say,
“That's exactly what I thought.”

As they pull into the Stazione Termini, Julia turns to Elijah and says, “It's okay. I'm here now.”

“But where have you been?” he cannot help but ask.

“It doesn't matter,” she replies. Even though it does.

With all due respect to d'Inghilterra, Danny decides he is sick of Italian hotels. There is something to be said for opulent lobbies, but he would trade in every last ornamentation for a well-lit, generously bedded room where the towels are not made of the same material as the tablecloths.

All of the driving has taken its toll, and although Danny refuses to nap, his senses are blunted as he walks outside the hotel.
I am in Rome
, he says to himself, trying to muster the vacation's last waning pulse of enthusiasm. It is too late and too gray to go to the Pantheon—he wants more celestial weather for that. So instead of the Usual Attractions, Danny shifts gears and decides to go shopping. Not for himself. He can't imagine anything more boring than shopping for himself. But his gift list must be reckoned with. He must lay his souvenirs at the altars of his co-workers, lest they think he hasn't been thinking of them while he was away.

The list is still neatly folded into his wallet. Gladner and Gladner. Allison. Perhaps John. Mom and Dad, of course. His assistant, Derek.

Since his hotel is near the Spanish Steps, Danny decides to duck his head into the posher stores. Especially for Gladner and Gladner. He thinks it would be most appropriate to buy them ties. And maybe a tie for his father.