Wanderlost

by Jen Malone

  “You could never stay up past the part with the party whenever it came on TV,” Elizabeth said with a giggle.

  “Well, you’re the one who told me it ended right after that!”

  “I didn’t want you to feel bad about not seeing, basically, the whole last hour!”

  We grin at each other from opposite sides of the ocean. Elizabeth says, “I remember the minute Mom got home that day you made her take you to Target to buy the DVD so you could see what you’d been missing out on.”

  I remember too. Elizabeth had popped popcorn and had the living room all set up for movie night when we got back. And then she held my hand when I cried over Rolfe blowing the whistle on the Von Trapps’ hiding spot.

  I wish we could go back to being little kids and liking each other just because we were sisters.

  “I’ll bet it was fun to see where it was all filmed,” Elizabeth says, so I fill her in on the mountaintop spinning and the gazebo with the hidden water fountains (conveniently leaving out Sam, of course. No need for her to freak out that I’m under round-the-clock surveillance by both the owner’s son and mother).

  Instead I tell her about the epic make-out sessions Hank and Maisy have in the back of the bus and the costumes Emma keeps buying. A tightness in my chest releases as we talk and laugh.

  When I realize I’m doing the exact same thing I accused her of doing on our last call and making it all about me, I ask, “So what’s it like to be living at home this summer? Weird?”

  She pauses. “It’s . . . quiet. Mom and Dad are at work and you’re gone, so I’m just hanging out alone all day. I don’t even have any summer reading for fall classes I can get ahead on, like I usually do. It’s really strange to be back in this life, which doesn’t even feel like my life anymore. I mean, not that home won’t always be home, but just, well . . . you know what I mean. It’s not really where my life is anymore, if that makes sense. I feel like I’m in a time warp back to high school or something. Except you’re not here, which is equally weird, because you’re always here.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. I’m totally used to the house without Elizabeth, but of course she was only four the last time she lived there without me. I try to process that.

  She grimaces. “I’ve been trying to find a part-time job, but so far, no luck. And I don’t even know if I’m supposed to check ‘yes’ on the application when it asks if I have a criminal record or what? I haven’t been, but . . .”

  “What’s new with the court case?” I ask, cringing at the reminder.

  “Nada. Still set for mid-July.”

  I nod and swallow. After we hang up I get to go back to marionette shows and the astronomical clock and the Kafka Museum and Elizabeth doesn’t have anything to look forward to besides a date with a judge. That sucks.

  “Hey, Bree?” she asks.

  “Yeah?”

  “Nothing. I’m just glad you called.” She shakes her head a little and smiles, and I return her smile.

  I’m glad I called too.

  I’m still riding the high from my conversation with Elizabeth when we venture as a group onto the Left Bank to take in all of the sights of Old Town.

  This could take a month, considering it’s been forty minutes just crossing the Charles Bridge—oldest stone bridge in Europe, according to Sam’s iPad—because Mary wants a picture of every statue along the way. There is one approximately every six steps. I wonder what exactly she plans to do with these pictures when she gets home. Talk about the world’s most boring slide show. Don’t get me wrong, they’re really beautiful in person, but . . .

  Hank and Maisy have stayed behind because they noticed the same internet café I visited earlier also caters to their American clientele by broadcasting sporting events via satellite. Tonight’s showing is of a classic Texas Rangers game. We left them hunting for peanuts to smuggle in.

  Sam angles himself next to me as we pause in front of a statue of St. Wenceslas. He hums a few bars of that Christmas carol about King Wenceslas and the feast of St. Stephen, then asks, “Wanna hear something totally grotesque and weird?”

  I laugh. We haven’t been alone together since our kiss last night and I’m not quite sure how to act around him in front of the other passengers. On the one hand, I don’t want him to think I didn’t like our kiss or that I don’t want to do it again—and again and again and again and again—as soon as possible. But I also don’t want to be unprofessional.

  Mr. Fenton is all of two feet away reading a plaque and Mary is snapping another photo just to my left. So I carefully avoid touching Sam, but I do lean in closer.

  “That’s a rhetorical question, right? Who would say no to that?”

  Sam smiles. “Okay, so Mr. Fenton just told me this. You know how we’re headed to the Old Town Square to see the astronomical clock?”

  I roll my eyes and gesture with a head tilt to Mary, clicking away. “If we ever get off this bridge.”

  “Seriously.” His fingers brush mine and I jump. A smile twitches in the corner of Sam’s mouth. I sidestep to put more distance between us. Sam doesn’t comment on that, instead continuing, “Fenton says it was installed back in 1410.”

  “Wow.” For our school field trips we used to go to Ohio Village to see a replica of a nineteenth-century village, where all the people working there dressed up in long dresses and bonnets (or straw hats and suspenders for the boys) and pretended they were from that time. They’d look at you with fake wonder if you chewed gum or pulled out a cell phone. I thought that was the coolest thing when I was in fifth grade.

  And now I am going to see a clock installed in 1410.

  Sam tugs gently on my backpack to pull me along to the next statue. “We’re gonna try to wait it out until it strikes the hour because this row of figures parades out, including Death himself.”

  I pause and a group of tourists streams around us on either side. “That sounds creepy.”

  Sam stops too, then steps backward to reach me. “Nope. Not the creepy part. I’ve seen it—it’s actually really cool. But I never knew the next part. Okay, so check this out. Legend has it that the city was so proud of its unique clock that they ordered the clockmaker blinded so he couldn’t re-create it anywhere else. He got so ticked off after that, he broke it, and no one could figure out how to fix it for over a century.”

  “Whoa. So just because he was awesome at what he did, they blinded him for life?”

  “Yup. Pretty sick, huh? You might want to mess up here and there on this bus tour, Lizzie. I’m just saying.”

  Sam mimes slashing across my eyelids as I laugh.

  Pretty sure messing up frequently will not be a problem for me.

  Sam moves closer, his eyes on mine. That small smile is still dancing in the corners of his mouth, and I know this because I’m completely staring at his lips like they’re on fire. Which, now that I think back on our kiss last night . . .

  For a second I wonder if he’s going for a repeat performance, right here in front of all the seniors and I stumble, eyes wide.

  Sam’s hand on my elbow steadies me. I sigh at how delicious it feels, then jump away. Out of the corner of my eye, I’m positive I see Emma nudge Mary and point in our direction. Great. Just great.

  Sam tilts his head, and his expression is somewhere between puzzled and amused. “Not here,” I whisper/hiss, jerking my head in the direction of Mary and Emma.

  Sam follows my head motion and bites his lower lip as his eyebrows go up. Now there’s no hiding his amusement. “I get it. We’re on the down low, Agent X?”

  “The very down low,” I whisper, because Mr. Fenton and Dolores are making their way toward us.

  Sam steps closer again, hands raised in surrender. “If you insist, but it’s gonna be tough not to touch you all day.”

  His voice is low and warm and teasing and I just want to grab his hand and run us to a hidden spot under the bridge. Instead I force myself to turn my back on him and very deliberately march over to Mr. Fenton. “
How are you enjoying Prague, you two?”

  Mr. Fenton smiles easily. “Very much, Lizzie. I was just telling Dolores that if you stand on this bridge during the summer solstice and look up at the St. Vitus Cathedral, the very last ray of sun to touch the cathedral hits at the exact spot where St. Vitus’s remains are buried. Is that impressive planning or what?”

  I nod and shuffle lightly away from Sam, who has come up beside me and is feigning great interest in Mr. Fenton while trying to surreptitiously brush his fingers against mine again. I swat them away with a small smile on my lips this time and from the corner of my eye, I see Sam grin. My insides go all bubbly, like someone just opened champagne in my belly.

  The rest of the afternoon we spend wandering very slowly around Old Town. I’m ready to jump out of my skin, having Sam so close and not being able to touch him. Actually, I’m about to jump Sam. I can tell he’s every bit as attuned to me, because whenever I “accidentally” bump my hip against his or I step so close behind him that my breath tickles his shoulder, I feel his whole body tense up.

  We’re trailing a few feet behind the seniors and I’m about to go certifiably crazy from all the amazing tension between us when Sam, in one fluid motion, grabs my hand and tugs me into a doorway tucked into the cobblestoned alley we’re walking down. He pushes my back against the wall and tangles his hands in my hair, kissing me so passionately that I now get that whole “weak in the knees” expression. My legs feel like rubber glue. Just as quickly he pulls back and steps into the alleyway, whistling innocently as he catches up with the others. I, on the other hand, can’t move. Like, physically can’t move.

  When I join the others a full three minutes later, Sam is the picture of innocence when he asks, “Stop to tie your shoe?”

  I’m wearing sandals.

  I need another doorway right this very second.

  I glance at him and he subtly winks at me. God, this boy.

  I do my best to throw myself into playing doting tour guide, fishing out the first aid kit from my backpack when Dolores gets a blister and finding Mary’s reading glasses in the bottomless pit she calls a pocketbook. All afternoon, every move I make, I can feel Sam’s eyes on me. It’s . . . well, it’s kind of thrilling.

  After dinner (no roll, plain chicken breast, a PowerBar in the stall of the ladies’ room), we all see a performance of Don Giovanni at the National Marionette Theatre. Apparently, this is some big thing in Prague. There are smoke machines going during the performance and everything. And forget yodeling a la the Sound of Music puppet show. We get Mozart (the dude sure got around Eastern Europe).

  I have a seat next to Sam, and he keeps shifting so that his leg brushes against mine and I place my hand low between our seats and wait for him to do the same. When he twines my fingertips with his, I have to suck in a breath. He squeezes gently and rubs circles in my palm with the pad of his thumb. To be honest, I spend way more time focused on this than the marionettes.

  But when we spill out onto the street once it ends, I find the one thing that could take my attention off of Sam. Prague at night. “It’s so beautiful!” I gasp.

  The cobblestones twinkle under the flickering flames of gas lamps curving down the narrow alleyways of the old section of town. It feels like I’m in another century.

  Emma slides into place next to me. “This here is why I booked the trip.”

  I understand perfectly. The night’s warm and a tiny bit sticky, but the atmosphere is otherworldly.

  “I’ll tell you what this city is, it’s romance,” says Mary, never far behind Emma.

  “So true,” answers Emma. “Too bad we’re all withered up and old. You’ll have to settle for a stroll with an old friend instead, Mar.”

  Mary links her arm through Emma’s. “Hey, speak for yourself on that withered-up-and-old thing. Except . . .” She pauses and winks at me. “I do think we can live vicariously through some of us here who might be single and full of youthful promise.”

  I begin backing away. “Oh, no. Um, I don’t think . . .”

  Just then Mr. Fenton appears with Dolores at his side and Sam a few steps behind.

  “You know, Dolores and I were just talking about what a nice night it is for a leisurely stroll along the Vltava River. Don’t you think us old folks should trot ourselves off to bed and let our young friends here enjoy a walk?” Mr. Fenton says.

  Who needs eHarmony when you have the Granny and Gramps Matchmaking Service? I catch Sam’s eye and my cheeks flush pink. But he doesn’t look embarrassed at all. He looks amused.

  “Well, if you’re sure you can make it back to the hotel on your own,” Sam says, palms to the sky in a who-am-I-to-protest gesture.

  “Oh, no. I’m the tour guide. I insist on getting you back safely,” I say, holding my ground.

  “I see. Let’s settle this once and for all. Lizzie, which way is our hotel?” Mr. Fenton looks smug.

  Ummmmm. I have a map of the city in my backpack for just this kind of situation, but I’m guessing from the victorious looks on everyone’s faces, they’re not gonna let me grab it. I point behind me and try to sound authoritative. “That way.”

  “Enjoy your walk,” says Mr. Fenton. He gestures in the complete opposite direction. “Anyone over the age of sixty-five, follow me.”

  Emma, Mary, and even Dolores smile and waggle their fingers in my direction as they fall in behind Mr. Fenton. I turn to Sam helplessly. “Did you have anything to do with this?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are we going to let them get away with it?” I ask.

  “What do you suggest? We hold a trial and hang them from the Old Town bridge tower for incessant meddling? I kind of thought meddling was what grandparents lived for.”

  “What do you think gave us away?”

  Sam coughs. “Probably the way you can’t stop undressing me with those swoony eyes. Geez, I feel like I’m on the cover of Tiger Beat or something.”

  I swat at him for the hundredth time today and he captures my hand easily and tucks it inside his own. I am suddenly filled with warm, happy thoughts about my mutinous crew.

  “Who cares what gave it away,” Sam murmurs, stepping close and gently backing me against the wall outside the theater. He takes my other hand in his too. “Cat’s out of the bag, so now I can do this any time I want. Which has basically been every second of this day.”

  Stepping in, he places his lips on mine and steals my breath. Even as my eyes close, I can still sense the flickering gas lamps on the street corner. I hear the soft strums of guitar music from a street café a little ways off and feel the uneven cobblestones under my sandals. This place is magical. All of it.

  Sam brings our entwined hands up and tucks my elbows against my hips as he sighs into my mouth. I think he’s feeling the spell of this place too. His kiss isn’t urgent like earlier, but soft and sweet. I untangle our hands and wrap my arms around his neck as Sam deepens our kiss. It feels like I could float away as his hands circle my back.

  How could I have ever imagined this would be my summer?

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Up for a walk? It’s a free-choice afternoon and I choose you.” Sam slides behind me and whispers in my ear.

  My insides feel like they’re wrapped in an electric blanket and getting warmer by the second. Getting close to Sam is really stupid and potentially threatening to everything I’m here to do for Elizabeth, but not getting close to him feels completely impossible.

  I turn to face him. “Sure! Give me a few minutes to grab my stuff from my room.”

  I’m deciding right here and right now to just let it happen. I’ll worry about the fallout later. For now, we’re in Venice.

  Venice!

  After two hours of walking around, I’m ready to make another declaration. Venice is my new favorite. Okay, I know. I say that everywhere. But really, it’s like Amsterdam with all the canals (or probably it’s more that Amsterdam is like Venice) but it’s also a little bit more mysterious and just more . . . e
dgy. Every time we take a turn, I’m convinced we’ll never in a million years find our way back to our hotel. I can barely do that when there’s a grid pattern, and here we’re talking bridges everywhere. But Sam keeps saying “Trust me,” so I do.

  The irony is not lost on me.

  He steers us to St. Mark’s Square with the pigeons and the Basilica and the Caffè Florian and all the long striped poles where the gondolas are docked and bobbing in the water. But I prefer the surprises of turning corners and finding hidden squares with laundry hanging above our heads and tiny bubbling fountains.

  Sam is a far better tour guide than I am. He’s no Mr. Fenton with all the dates and facts, but his anecdotes come from experience, unlike mine, which come from Sam’s iPad. He tells me about coming in the fall, when half the city floods with the tides and there are narrow wooden platforms people use instead of sidewalks and all the Italian women put away their fancy Italian shoes in favor of tall rain boots (which I’m sure are still somehow fabulously stylish). And he likes to point out everything, like those posh Italian women, or the little boys in an intense soccer match in the street. Or the patisseries with their colorful windows and the souvenir masks dangling from the street carts as we cross yet another bridge over a canal. I feel like he’s letting me see everything through his eyes, bringing me into his world.

  “I’ve always wanted to come one year during Carnevale. I mean, it’s a total tourist trap, but they still hold the fancy balls where everyone comes masked. Don’t you think it would be fun to be someone else entirely for a night?” Sam says.

  As a matter of fact, I know a thing or two about being someone else entirely.

  I feel like a Ping-Pong ball the way my emotions are jumping all over the place today. Walking around hand-in-hand with Sam makes me feel like we’re a real couple, and just hours ago I decided to take things as they come with him and try to enjoy our time together, but the guilt about all the lies between us is killing me. It’s taken up residence in my stomach and it’s like I swallowed an avocado pit. (Not that I’d ever eat an avocado.)