Are We There Yet?

by David Levithan

  “Yes, I've noticed. I have four brothers of my own.”

  Four brothers. Neither Danny nor Elijah can imagine having four brothers. Separately, they wonder if it's harder or easier than having just one.

  From this point on, Julia owns the conversation. Elijah admires the fact that she is charming enough to make the people she is with act charming as well. Danny's and Elijah's words suddenly run in paragraphs, not sentences. They tell her of their parents' trickery, of their lives back home. Danny talks about work, and even Elijah isn't bored—not totally. Julia seems interested, and Elijah is interested in the way she is interested.

  The Feldsteins leave, with Mrs. Feldstein writing down a list of sites they have to see in Rome. The language of the restaurant slowly shifts to Italian. As the other patrons arrive, Danny, Elijah, and Julia lean into their table to offer critiques.

  “What I want to know is this,” Julia begins. She has been drinking wine casually, and the effect can be heard in her voice. “All of the young Italian men are so gorgeous, right?”

  “I hadn't noticed,” Danny sniffs.

  “Liar!” Elijah cries. “They are absolutely beautiful, and you know it.”

  “Okay,” Danny concedes.

  “Exactly!” Julia smiles. “They all have this perfect proportion, this delicate balance of divinity and boyishness. I can hardly manage to walk down the street without kissing a dozen strangers. When I'm around them, I feel like such a woman. So my question is this: What happens? You see all of these beautiful young men … and all of the old men are at least two feet shorter, round, and balding. There's no trace of the young men in the old men. None whatsoever. It's like they dance at the ball until they're thirty, then—poof !—the midnight bell chimes. They shrink back to size, and their Fiats turn into pumpkins.”

  “What an awful thing to say!” Danny gasps in his most scandalized voice.

  “But true, eh?”

  “Absolutely true.”

  There is a pause, and then Danny asks,“So what brings you here?” He is still thinking of her walking down crowded narrow alleyways, kissing strangers.

  “It's an old story,” Julia says, leaning back in her chair. “Only for me, it's new. I went to school for industrial design. All my life, I've been fascinated by chairs—I know it sounds silly, but it's true. Form meets purpose in a chair. My parents thought I was crazy, but somehow I convinced them to pay my way to California. To study furniture design. I was all excited at first. It was totally unlike me to go so far away from home. But I was sick of the cold and sick of the snow. I figured a little sun might change my life. So I headed down to L.A. and roomed with the friend of an ex-girlfriend of my brother's. She was an aspiring radio actress, which meant she was home a lot.

  “At first, I loved it.I didn't even let the summer go by.I dove right into my classes. Soon enough, I learned I couldn't just focus on chairs. I had to design spoons and toilet-bowl cleaners and thermostats. The math never bothered me, but the professors did. They could demolish you in a second without giving you a clue of how to rebuild. I spent more and more time in the studio, with other crazed students who guarded their own projects like toy-jealous kids. I started to go for walks. Long walks. I couldn't go home because my roommate was always there. The sun was too much for me, so I'd stay indoors. A certain kind of indoors—the anonymous indoors. I spent hours in supermarkets, walking aisle to aisle, picking up groceries and then putting them back. I went to bowling alleys and pharmacies. I rode in buses that kept their lights on all night. I sat in Laundromats because once upon a time Laundromats made me happy. But now the hum of the machines sounded like life going past.

  “Finally, one night I sat too long in the laundry. The woman who folded in the back—Alma—walked over to me and said, ‘What are you doing here, girl? ’ And I knew that there wasn't any answer. There couldn't be any answer. And that's when I knew it was time to go.

  “I had saved some money—not much, but enough. I was far from home, and my first decision was that I couldn't go back. I chose Europe because it was somewhere else, and I'd always wanted to go there.”

  “You thought you'd be happier here,” Elijah says.

  Julia shakes her head. “Not really. But I figured if I was going to be miserable, I might as well be miserable for different reasons.”

  “And are you miserable?” Danny asks.

  “Strangely, no.”

  He can't help but look her in the eye and ask more. “And have you found what you're looking for?”

  Julia looks at him quietly for a moment, then shrugs.“I don't even know what I'm looking for, although I hope I'll know it if I find it along the way. Sometimes I want to simplify my life into a single bare thing. And other times I want to complicate it so thoroughly that everything I touch will become bound in some way to me. I've become quite aware of my contradictions, but there's no true resolution in that.”

  The waiter returns, a conversational semicolon. Dessert and coffee are deferred. Danny tries to look Julia in the eye again, but she is studying the tablecloth, finger-tracing lines around the remaining silverware.

  Elijah reaches over and touches her hand. He feels nervous and brave. She looks up and doesn't pull away.

  Danny takes care of the check.

  Outside, night is just beginning. The sun has been down for some time, but the Italians use another definition for night. As Elijah and Danny leave the restaurant, they take turns holding the door for Julia. She murmurs thank you to each and lifts on her toes when her face first touches the night air.

  “Now what?” Danny asks.

  Elijah is taken aback. He thought it was obvious.

  “We're going to go for coffee,” he says discreetly.

  Danny's energy fades at once, confronted with a “we” that doesn't include him.

  “Oh,” he says. “Of course.” Then, “Do you need money?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  Danny waits for a moment. He wants to see if Julia is going to say anything. If she wants him to stay, he will.

  But Julia remains silent, swaying from foot to foot.

  Elijah wants to ask his brother what he's going to do, but is afraid it will sound too cruel.

  “Don't wake me when you come back,” Danny says instead. Then he turns to Julia and tells her it's been nice to meet her.

  “Absolutely,” she replies. “Thank you for dinner. I'm sure we'll see each other again soon.”

  “I'm sure.”

  Danny moves his hand in a little wave and makes his departure. After he's walked a block, he turns around and sees Julia and Elijah in the same lamplight frame, discussing where to go next. Their bodies are not touching, but their expressions are. Danny turns back to the street and heads for the hotel.

  “He seems nice,” Julia says, some minutes later.

  “Well, I wouldn't call him naughty, if that's the other choice,” Elijah replies. They are walking alongside the Arno— the sidewalk is also a river, of men in jackets and women with jewelry headed out into the evening. The last thing Elijah wants to talk about is Danny.

  “So the two of you don't get along?”

  “Not really.”

  How many times has Elijah heard this question before? Even though it's a question, it contains the speaker's own observation: I've seen the two of you and know you don't get along. Isn't that true? Elijah could say so much more than a simple “not really.” He could compile lists of incidents and spites. But then, when he recited them, he would sound bitter and mean—in other words, he would sound just like Danny. One of the worst things about Danny is the tendency to take on Elijah's qualities when talking to or about him. Elijah can hardly bear it. So ignoring it—ignoring him—seems like the best idea.

  But Julia persists. “Still, he seems to care about you.”

  Elijah wonders what observation this statement could be based upon.

  “Not really,” he mutters again.

  “I think you're wrong.”

  Elija
h is growing impatient—Danny is souring the conversation from afar. “Look,” he says, and immediately modifies his tone. “I guess you just haven't known us long enough. He doesn't really care about me at all. Not in any way that matters.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Here's an example.” Elijah stops on a street corner and points to his shoes. “My shoelaces. I know they come untied a lot. I am aware of the situation. But every chance Danny gets, he's telling me to tie my shoes. At least once an hour, sometimes more frequently. And I wouldn't mind it—I swear I wouldn't mind it—if he was actually concerned about my well-being. If he was worried about me tripping into traffic, I would tie them every time. But no. He doesn't care whether or not I fall on my face. He wants me to tie my shoelaces because untied shoelaces annoy him. They embarrass him. They get on his nerves.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Believe me, I know. If you live with someone all your life, you can tell when you are annoying them. Their face just shuts down. Their words sound almost mechanical, because they are reining in all the other emotions. I think I'd also know if I made Danny happy, but I never make him happy. Ever.”

  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.<
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  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.

  In the morning, the phone winks red at him.

  “Meet us at the Uffizi,” Elijah's voice says. “We'll see you at eleven.”

  It's Julia's dope and Elijah's idea to go to the museum stoned. Julia rolls him a joint, and then—seeing the happiness in his smile—gives him a little extra to go. After they've smoked, they hold hands through the lobby. The pensione's owner nods a good morning. Julia and Elijah giggle and smile in return. When they reach the door, they break into a skip.