Where Sea Meets Sky (6 page)

“A credit card—” she says and I raise my hand, cutting her off.

“My credit card limit is low, my payments are manageable, and I don’t think I really need to explain myself anymore.”

She raises her eyebrows, eyes wide. She’s not used to me talking back.

“And anyway,” I continue, “I’ll still pay my rent when I’m gone, so don’t worry.”

She sucks at her teeth and looks around the darkened room, as if it will give her answers.
Where did I go wrong?
I can imagine her saying.

Finally she looks back at me and she seems tired, like the lines around her eyes suddenly deepened. “This is just so . . . impulsive, Joshua. You’re just like your sister.”

That was meant to cut like a knife, but it doesn’t hurt. “And just like my sister, are you going to let me back into the house when I return? Or will the doors lock on me, too?”

Her eyes narrow into slits. “That is not fair. Vera went to live with a married man. That behavior is unacceptable.”

After all this time, my mother still doesn’t get it. It doesn’t matter that Vera is happy, that Mateo got a divorce pretty much right away, that things are great for them and they’ve beaten a lot of those heavy odds stacked against them. None of that matters. Your fuckups will never let you shine in the Miles household.

“Well, she did it anyway, despite what you think, and I’ll be doing the same.”

A weird softness comes into her eyes for one moment, like she’s peeled off a mask. “Why do you hate me so much?” she asks so quietly I can barely hear her.

Now I’m the one who’s stunned. “What? I don’t hate you.”
I just don’t really like you most of the time
, I think, and it surprises me. It’s strange, actually, to think about your parents in terms of liking them or not, like they’re some person you kind of know and you can form an opinion of them based on how they act, how they treat you, whether you click or whether they annoy the shit out of you. We’re all thrust into our parents’ lives without a choice, and you grow up together as they raise you. You love them and they love you.

But liking them, as people, to be around—that’s a whole other bag of balls. I love my mom because, well, I do. I’m her son. She’s my mom. But for the first time, I realize I actually don’t like her at all. It’s fucking weird.

“I’ve gone wrong somewhere,” she says, going into her dramatics. Whatever vulnerability I saw, that little thing that made me like her a bit more, is gone.

I contemplate saying,
Look, Mom, I love you but I don’t like you
. But instead I indulge her and say, “Well, Mercy turned out great. Married to a rich husband with a stick up his ass. Nice house, though.”

“Joshua,” she says. “Watch your language.” But she doesn’t argue my statement either.

After that, she leaves, looking defeated, as if she just lost a sale to another realtor. The funny thing is, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I was actually going to quit my job and buy a plane ticket to the land of Gandalf and flightless birds and backward draining toilet water. But now, after her reaction, now I’m sure. I’m going.

And I don’t even know why. It comes back to Gemma, of course, but I don’t think she’s the reason for me taking flight so impulsively. I don’t even plan on looking her up—how could I find her anyway? I don’t even know her last name, and the last thing I want to be is a stalker.

But she was at least the catalyst, the push I needed to go into the great unknown. You can only ignore the call so many times before you know it’s time to go.

Life is spreading her legs for me.

I’m going in.

Everything happens so fast. The next day I quit my job. They aren’t too sad to see me go, which makes me realize that even if New Zealand goes tits up, at least I made the right decision. I’ll get a new job; a better one.

I collect my vacation pay and put it aside in the bank. I did save money, that was no lie, but it’s really not a lot. I can put the flights on my credit card but everything else has to come from the savings account. I start looking into hostels, into backpacker buses, into camping. Everything seems so expensive but I see some cheaper options out there to make every dollar stretch. I can work on farms in exchange for room and board. I can do the same in some backpackers. I could probably even find some under-the-table work if I really got stuck. I could eat ramen noodles and drink cheap beer. I could make anything work, if I had to.

The fear doesn’t set in until it’s a few days before November twenty-third, the day of my flight. I talk to Vera on the phone and she’s still in disbelief over the whole thing.

“I can’t believe you’re actually going,” she says.

“I guess it’s a bit out of character,” I muse, rolling up a joint in my room.

“Well, no that’s not it,” she says. “You’ve always been a bit impulsive. I just never thought you’d be this way for a girl.”

It was probably a mistake to tell her about Gemma. I didn’t tell her much, but it’s enough for Vera to get the wrong idea.

I sigh. “I’m not going
for
her. She just . . . made me think if she can do it, I can do it.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” I know she’s a bit hurt that I’m going there and not to Spain, especially over Christmas time.

“But you’re really tasty chopped liver, Vera,” I tell her as I light the joint, taking the first puff. I used to smoke a lot more but I’ve seriously cut down over the last year.

“Thanks, dickhead.”

“Seriously,” I say, “I don’t know why I picked New Zealand but it just seems like a good place for my first time overseas. It’s small, they speak English, it looks a bit like Canada . . .”

“There’s a hot chick there that you want to bang,” she adds.

I grimace at those words. “That helps, but that’s not why I’m going.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I don’t actually know her.”

“You keep saying that, too.” She pauses. “It’s okay to be infatuated, I understand. Believe me.”

“You and Mateo,” I start, searching for the right words. “You had a connection but you also knew each other. It wasn’t . . .”

“Insta-lust?”

“No. Well, maybe. Hell, I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“There’s nothing wrong with insta-lust, Josh. I mean, isn’t most lust instant? You see the person and right away you’re like, damn, I want to get in their pants. If insta-lust didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be one-night stands, would there? You saw this Gemma chick and you wanted to fuck her right away. The fuck was good enough to make you want more. It’s simple.”

“I don’t think we should talk about this anymore.”

She sighs. “You’re so weird about this stuff.”

“I’m not, you’re the weird one.”

“Fine. Well, anyway, I say go have fun. You’ll have the best time of your life, I’m telling you that right now. And Josh . . . I’m proud of you.”

I roll my eyes. “Thanks.”

“No, seriously. It takes guts to do something like this. I hope you get the girl. Just remember to keep me updated.”

“I’m not getting the girl,” I tell her again sternly.

“Just like I didn’t get the guy.” Then she tells me she loves me and hangs up.

The funny thing is, my closest friends, they obviously know about the trip and are super excited for me. My friend Brad has even been to New Zealand and gave me his Lonely Planet guidebook stuffed with all his highlighted recommendations and shit to do. But I never discussed Gemma with them. I guess because I don’t want them to assume the same thing that Vera does: that I’m going there for her. They’d never let the pussy jokes stop. And, if I’m being honest, a part of me is afraid that if by chance I do come across her, it won’t be anything like I remembered. I’m afraid that I’ll lose her before I have a chance to have her.

I really should go back to lying to myself.

Chapter Four

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

JOSH

I have no idea where I’m going. I’m unbelievably tired, sore, strung-out. People are speaking with funny accents. The light in the airport is too bright. I don’t know what time it is. The customs officials are asking me too many questions about soil and seeds and fruit. I’m in another hemisphere, another day. I’m in the future. I’m a traveler through both time and space, yadda yadda. Led Zeppelin must have been talking about jet lag.

Somehow I find my way into the arrivals area of the Auckland airport. I’m here. I made it. I’m really here.

Holy fuckfarts.

This was a huge mistake.

The weight of all my impulsive decisions come crashing down on me like rolling rocks, picking up speed. I drag my overpacked backpack to a chair and plunk myself down on it, head in my hands. I could have thought this over yesterday. I could have had second thoughts on the long-ass plane ride, when I watched thirty-million episodes of
New Girl
and
How I Met Your Mother
.

Instead, all my doubt smashes into me the minute I’m on New Zealand soil.

I’m alone in a foreign country with a finite amount of money to my name. I only have a backpack with some random shit I didn’t need to bring. Outside the large windows it’s summer. My head is in winter. I quit my job to do this. I may be doing this for a girl I don’t really know.

I’m an idiot.

I don’t know how long I sit like this. Maybe minutes, maybe an hour. I only raise my head when I feel someone sit down on the chair next to mine.

It’s an older, heavyset man with a bushy beard, a baseball cap on his head. He’s got a stuffed Kiwi bird in his worn hands and twirls it around.

He catches me staring and gives me a knowing look. Just add a twinkle in his eye and a pipe in his mouth and he could be fucking Santa Claus.

“Jet lag is a bitch, aye?” he says in a gruff Kiwi accent.

I nod. “I guess you could say that.”

He narrows his eyes, sussing me out. “Where ya from, mate?”

“Canada,” I say, turning my backpack over so he can see the freshly affixed Canadian flag patch I placed on it.

“Where in Canada?” he asks.

“Vancouver, British Columbia. West Coast.”

“Where in Vancouver?”

I raise my brow. “Uh, in the city, near downtown.”

“Where in the city?”

“Commercial Drive?” I say, as if the truth isn’t the right answer.

Finally he smiles. “Love that area. My cousin lives on Broadway, near the Drive. Last time I went was just before the Olympics.”

My mind is blown. First person I talk to in a foreign country and they pretty much know exactly where I live. I’m not sure if this good or bad.

He’s watching me. Then he says. “Small world, aye?” Suddenly his attention is caught by a load of passengers coming through the arrivals area. “Excuse me, my granddaughter is here.”

He gets up and I watch as he greets a young couple and their little girl in a pink dress. There’s a lot of hugging and tears and he gives the girl, his granddaughter, the stuffed Kiwi bird. She hugs it, delighted, albeit still shy around her grandfather. The reunited family leaves together, looking happy as pigs in shit.

I’ve never felt more alone. And I know the feeling will only get worse if I don’t get up. I need to get to the backpackers in the city, I need to unpack and sleep and take comfort in the idea that the world is small. It’s something I can handle.

I go outside and wait for the next airport bus. I have a moment of panic when I realize I never got any New Zealand currency out from the bank machine, but it turns out the buses here accept credit cards. I hold my breath, praying there’s enough room on the card for the twenty dollar ticket after all the plane tickets I bought. There is.

Throwing my backpack in the bins at the front, I find an empty seat and take a moment to get a grip. I feel discombobulated, like a gumball bouncing around in a gumball machine. I feel like I’m in a dream, like I’m here but not here at the same time.

By the time the bus engine roars to life, my leg is jumping up and down to a restless beat. I’m anxious, nervous, worried about things I’m not even aware of. But when we pull away from the curb and chug down the road on the wrong side, I’m hit with a thrill. I’d forgotten that everyone drives on the left here.

Suddenly, a mere bus ride turns into a novelty. It trips me out, going against everything I’m used to. It’s foreign. It’s exciting. I’m not at home. I’m elsewhere.

I’m free.

Bright fields of French lime and forest green fly past the window, dotted with cows and sheep. Cars zip down the highway with names I’ve never heard of before, like Holden and Peugeot and Daihatsu. Everything is so much the same and yet so different. It hits me, smacks me, time and time again, that I’m not in motherfucking Kansas anymore.

I feel high. It’s the jet lag. It’s the lack of sleep. But the unknown is all around me, and kilometer by kilometer, I am falling in love with it.

By the time the bus winds along narrow suburban streets, well-kept houses, and yards filled with lush, sub-tropical foliage and bright flowers, and then through downtown Auckland with its concrete and glass buildings, my body is fighting a war between the need to explore and the need to close my eyes.