The Loose Ends List

by Carrie Firestone

  Wes got beaten up last night. Police involvement. Please bring us an ice pack or frozen peas or something.

  I run to the concierge, who is probably ready to kick us out of the Copacabana Palace. He finds me an ice pack, and I race up to discover Wes with a blue-green face, puffed up like a dead jellyfish.

  Uncle Billy is furious. Once Wes has the ice, Uncle Billy launches into the story of what happened after they dropped us off and went out for more drinks. “Wes got bombed and decided he wanted to go out and find poor people to help. We ended up in a deserted neighborhood in the bad part of Rio, where Wes saw a little kid pushing a shopping cart up the street. He tried to ask her if she needed help—as if she spoke English!—and out of nowhere, her grandmother started whaling on Wes.”

  “Wait, Wes got beaten up by a grandmother?”

  “Yes,” Uncle Billy says. “So then the grandma pulled out a knife, and I screamed for help. Building lights started going on, and somebody called the police. By the grace of God, the cop was relatively friendly and spoke a little English. Wes got out of it by giving the cop and the grandma five hundred US dollars each.”

  “Why did you have a thousand dollars cash on you?” I ask. Poor Wes is holding the ice pack to his ravaged face.

  “I thought we might go shopping.”

  “Yes, he thought we might go shopping, and he thought we might help poor people, and he almost gets us killed!” Uncle Billy is livid and refuses to talk to Wes. He takes off to go hang gliding with the other daredevils—Jeb, Bob, and, wonder of all wonders, Dad. Dad is not a hang glider. I just hope he makes it back in one piece.

  I’m stuck babysitting Uncle Babysitter.

  Eventually, Rotten Plum Face gets into the shower. I text Janie: Beach? She texts back, No f’ing way. So sick. I can’t believe she’s pissing away her only beach day in Rio. Luckily, Wes rallies, plum face and all.

  “What the hell happened to you?” are the first words out of Gram’s mouth when she meets us in the lobby. She takes off her sunglasses and studies Wes, who expects me to tell the outrageous story.

  “Wes, you could be dead right now. There are safer ways to help poor children,” Gram scolds him.

  “Assy, I was drunk. Do you think an old lady could beat me up if I weren’t inebriated?”

  “Yes,” Gram and I both say.

  “Can I not be the butt of jokes today? It’s bad enough that Billy’s not talking to me.”

  We agree to try really hard not to make Wes the butt of jokes and stroll along the snake-shaped mosaic path. I squint to make out the outline of three surfers paddling out. They remind me of Mark. And Enzo.

  Gram wants to set up our stuff on the beach. Mom wants to sit by the pool. Gram wins. Gram and Wes comment on each person passing by, while Mom takes out her knitting magazine. Who can think about wool in eighty-five degrees? Although technically it is winter here.

  Wes peeks out from under the oversized hat he stole from Aunt Rose to hide his deformed face. “How about that one, Aunt Rose? Inappropriate enough for you?” A woman prances by with a black G-string threading her bulbous ass.

  “I want to wear a bathing suit like that,” Aunt Rose announces.

  “Okay, let’s do it,” Wes says.

  “No, really.” Gram pops up in her chair. Her skirted swimsuit hangs on her shrinking frame. “Let’s do it. Let’s all buy thong bathing suits and wear them. We’ll just walk around a little. Come on, it’ll be so liberating.”

  “I’ll do it,” I say.

  “Me too,” Aunt Rose says. I think of the me toos on the Gathering Wall.

  I assume Mom will be the one to kill the moment, but she shakes her head and says, “Well, when in Brazil…”

  We gather our stuff and walk a few blocks to a tourist shop, where I find my perfect suit for the day. It’s a purple thong bikini with tiny seashells hanging off fringe on the top and bottom. I try it on in the changing room, which smells of mildew and feet. I look pretty good, all things considered.

  I walk out to find Wes and Mom standing in front of the mirror. Mom’s in a black one-piece thong suit and Wes is wearing a purple sparkly banana hammock thong. I am simultaneously impressed and disturbed by the size of Wes’s banana. Mom doesn’t even seem to notice. She’s riffling through her bag looking for lipstick.

  Gram walks out. She’s a hairless, deflated mushroom. Her body is tiny and shriveled, and her ass tattoo hangs so low, I can’t even make out the seahorse shape. It’s just a blob of color. Her stomach distends like she’s pregnant, and her boobs hang down and touch the swollen belly mass. Yet the shriveled, drooping woman standing before me in a shiny turquoise thong bikini looks beautiful. Her silver hair, pinned up in Chinese hairpins, frames her delicate features. Her devilish expression gives her a schoolgirl glow.

  I love my gram.

  Aunt Rose stands next to her sister in a ruby-red one-piece thong. She’s a little taller and flatter bellied, but equally shriveled and even saggier. Gravity really does pull everything down.

  “Wow, Wes. Billy never told me how large you are. Good for you,” Gram says. Wes turns a perfect shade of purple to match his eye. “And, Trish, maybe a little laser hair removal would be good for you, dear.”

  “Thank you, Mother dear, but I prefer to look like a woman, not a baby,” Mom says, adjusting her suit.

  Gram pays the saleswoman, who doesn’t bat an eye. She surely sees deranged people all day long. We don’t hide behind our beach bags, afraid to show off our goods. No, the Astrid North O’Neill party struts. We work it. Wes is in the middle, flanked by Mom and me and Rose and Gram, walking the streets of Rio in thongs.

  “We’re sexy, and we know it,” Gram belts. A man in a floral shirt gives us the thumbs-up.

  We get to the beach, throw our stuff down, and march toward the ocean. We push against the waves, holding hands so we don’t lose Gram and Aunt Rose, who probably weigh a hundred pounds between them.

  “Woo-hoo-hoo,” we shout at the top of our lungs, as the cold surf hits our bare skin. Aunt Rose’s sun hat flies off Wes’s head, and we lunge forward to grab it, causing all of us to fall in and yelp.

  Wes runs up to get his bee as we stumble out, laughing so hard it hurts my side. We face the sea and pose for a nice lady who volunteers to take photos.

  I’m exhausted by the adrenaline rush and from wrestling with the waves while laughing hysterically. Wes sends the photo of our bare asses with a text to Uncle Billy: I’m sorry for being an ass. Please forgive me. I love you.

  Uncle Billy texts back, OMFG. I forgive you, you fool.

  A few minutes later, he sends a close-up picture of Dad’s terrified hang-gliding face with the caption SCAREDY CAT MADE IT!

  Gram laboriously works on a text of her own, beneath the shade of our beach umbrella. It takes her five minutes to write two sentences. Be ready in the lobby at five sharp. We’re going to Iceland, babies!

  I get Enzo’s first three things just before we board the plane. I’ve been waiting; I wasn’t going to go first. 1. My mum likes you. That’s a first. (She called my other girlfriends flighty.) It’s probably because you made me leave my cabin. 2. The best thing about being back in England is the prospect of eating large quantities of curry for lunch and dinner. 3. You have a perfect nose.

  Enzo Ivanhoe said girlfriend.

  FIFTEEN

  IT TAKES EIGHTEEN hours, including a layover in Amsterdam, to make it to Iceland. The flight is so long we get warnings to walk around the plane so we don’t develop deep vein thrombosis, another cause of death I was not aware of.

  I switch seats with Bob and sit with Gram in first class for the second leg of the trip. Bob honks so loudly nobody can sleep. Gram doesn’t know what’s worse, Bob’s snoring or Grandpa Martin’s overactive bladder. “More reasons to embrace your youth,” she finishes.

  There are so many things I never knew about Gram. She can be as cryptic as she can be open and exposed. I ask why we’re going to Iceland, of all places, and she whispe
rs, “It’s all because of a very old book.” Then she pulls out a tattered copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. Gram had read us the story about the guy and his nephew who burrowed into an adventure through an Icelandic volcano one summer in Bermuda when we were freshly showered and lined up on the guesthouse daybed. I never knew how much it meant to her.

  Gram hands me a folded, yellowed paper from inside the book cover. It says Dear Mummy, I would like very much if you and Father could take me to the Sneffels volcano in Iceland so that I may take a journey into the earth. Very Truly Yours, Astrid North.

  According to Gram, who was ten at the time she wrote the letter, her coldhearted mother returned the letter and told her there was no such thing as a Sneffels volcano, the book was pure fantasy, and they would not be going to the wretched island of Iceland.

  Despite Gram’s parents, who were supposedly big assholes, the book became a source of inspiration for all her world travels. She’s been to over sixty countries, but never got around to visiting the place where it all began. We’re going to Iceland to prove Gram’s mother wrong.

  “This is psychedelic,” Mom says as we drive down a solitary road surrounded by giant black boulders. There are no plants or trees, just an eerie lava rock graveyard.

  I’m squished in the back of a tiny rental car with Jeb and the luggage. Our caravan pulls up to an oasis, a massive turquoise cauldron simmering in the middle of a vast boulder colony.

  The Blue Lagoon.

  “Pretty neat, isn’t it?” Gram says as we climb out of our respective cars, groggy and grubby. “It’s a man-made geothermic hot spring in the middle of a lava bed. These hot springs are the national pastime here in Iceland.”

  “It’s freezing,” Janie whines.

  “It’s Iceland, for Pete’s sake,” Dad says. “Grab your suits. Let’s check it out.”

  God forbid we actually get a chance to take a nap or eat a meal before we plunge into a geothermal lagoon. We riffle around already messy suitcases for swimsuits. The only one I can find is my still-damp seashell thong. Gram walks straight into the communal shower, a tiny shriveled raisin wedged among Nordic goddesses.

  “I’m not getting naked with Aunt Rose,” Janie whispers. “This is just wrong. And what in hell’s name are you wearing?” Janie stares at my seashell thong.

  “A Brazilian souvenir.” I’ve barely talked to Janie since we left Brazil, where she puked three more times at the airport and slept the whole trip.

  A tunnel connects the locker room to the Blue Lagoon, so we only need to freeze for a few seconds before wading into the steaming cauldron.

  “Kids, kids, over here,” Dad yells. There they are, the misfits, sticking out like sore thumbs. Janie and I slowly wade over to them through the chest-deep pool that stretches as far as I can see.

  “What is that awful smell?” Janie says.

  “Sulfur. Because of all the volcanic activity,” Dad says, floating on his back with his hairy belly sticking out of the water.

  The mystical properties of the Blue Lagoon lull us into a collective trance, and we float aimlessly for an hour. Nobody wants to get out. It’s probably fifty degrees, but the arctic chill feels subzero against the steamy water.

  Back at the rental cars, we look like a pack of mole rats, shivering with sulfured hair shellacked to our heads. It’s hard to believe yesterday morning we were strutting on Copacabana Beach.

  By the time everybody gets to the hotel lobby for dinner, Wes has made friends with an overly pierced couple, Helga and Magnus, and they’ve made a date to go out next Saturday night. I’m envisioning another pukey ride for Janie to the next destination.

  We find a quaint restaurant with paper napkins and miniature lobsters. My family eats enough lobster to deplete the North Atlantic. We lick our fingers clean while Gram pulls out her tattered copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth and tells the story of the book, the note, and her asshole parents.

  “I’d like to leave the book at the volcano if I can, as a tribute to Mr. Jules Verne.”

  “We can make that happen, Mom,” Uncle Billy says.

  I picture lava streaming down a monster volcano and trapping us for eternity in twisted poses like the Pompeii victims. People will discover us in a thousand years and make stupid guesses about who we were and what we were doing there.

  We check out the wool sweater shops and modern street sculptures, then stop to feed the swans at a lake in the city center. Compared with vibrant Rio, Reykjavik is a watercolor of muted blues and grays.

  Jeb and Janie and I go into a café for hot chocolates.

  “I’m so excited. If Ty and I last another month, it’ll be my longest relationship ever,” Janie says.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Jeb says.

  “Why do you have to be so negative, Jeb? That’s rude.” Janie gives Jeb the death stare.

  “I’m not rude. I’m a realist. Number one: There’s too much temptation.” He slurps his hot chocolate. “Number two: You’re weak,” he says with his jackass smile. “I bet you’ll hook up right here in Iceland.”

  “Shut up, Jeb. You’re just feeling guilty for cheating on Camilla with that Brazilian girl,” Janie says.

  “I didn’t cheat. Camilla is not my girlfriend. She’s not even my type.”

  “Yeah. She’s normal,” I say as I get up to venture out by myself. I need a little break from the family. People are laughing and strolling next to the bay. Nobody strolls in Connecticut. The island is so volatile, the ground below me could erupt any minute, sending me into a Jules Verne dimension.

  Gram always says there’s a difference between being alone and being lonely. Tonight I’m by myself on an island of light and cold and heat and stark beauty, but I’m only lonely when I allow myself to think of life without my gram.

  Wes texts: The Jeeps have arrived to journey us to the center of the earth. Move your behinds.

  Janie and I pull our still-shellacked hair into buns and bundle up. Our guide Kristian is dirty blond with a gleaming smile and Bermuda-blue eyes. He’s cute.

  Another guy pulls up next to us in a matching mega Jeep. He’s cute, too, in an elfish kind of way. He’s slighter and more delicate than Kristian, who must be a direct Viking descendant. I climb into Kristian’s Jeep and wave to Mom, who has decided to stay at the hotel with exhausted Aunt Rose.

  Kristian takes us on a sightseeing detour, narrating the whole trip. We pass mist-shrouded waterfalls and grass-thatched cottages, simmering calderas and geysers. Kristian tells us the Icelandic people believe Iceland is full of elves.

  We stop on the side of the road next to a mammoth waterfall pouring over a jagged cliff. Dozens of seals bob in the sea across the road. We walk down to the black sand beach and watch the seals ride the choppy waves.

  A seal waddles right onto the beach, unafraid of our raucous family.

  “What shall we name him, Assy?” Wes calls.

  “How about Jules Verne?” she calls back, just as the waves pull Jules Verne back out to sea.

  After hours of Gram badgering Kristian to slow down, it appears in the distance—Snaefellsjökull, Jules Verne’s Sneffels. It’s a snowcapped mountain with no signs of spewing smoke or flowing lava, which is a letdown and a relief at the same time.

  Gram asks Kristian to stop. She crawls up on top of a boulder, supported by Uncle Billy, and shouts, “See, Mummy? It really does exist. And Iceland is not a wretched place at all.” Her voice is full of residual resentment.

  We drive awhile longer, stopping to let a painfully slow and distracted herd of sheep cross the road. Wes stands on the seat of the Jeep behind us and frantically points toward the mountain. “Rainbow! Look, guys, it’s a double rainbow!” Two iridescent domes of color and light hover above Gram’s volcano, an unexpected gift from Jules Verne or Gram’s mother, or both.

  The off-road ride to the base of the volcano fuels everybody with adrenaline. The other Jeep flies with the top down. Dad’s bald head pops up, and
he lifts his arms like he’s on a roller coaster. Jeb and Wes pop up next to him, three fools on a joyride, screaming at the top of their lungs. When we get to Snaefellsjökull, Kristian offers up a little surprise.

  “Anyone interested in visiting the underworld?” Kristian leads us to a tin spaceship thing sticking out of the ground attached to a sign that apparently says THE UNDERWORLDS in Icelandic. He fumbles with a lock and opens the door. “This is an ancient lava tube that descends several hundred meters. Maybe Grandma and Grandpa over here want to stay and wait?”

  “Not on your life, Blondie. We’re going down,” Gram says, marching to the front of the line in her hiking boots.

  The staircase to the depths of the earth is uncomfortably narrow. The good news is that there aren’t any bats. The bad news is that there is a good chance the volcano will regurgitate lava through this lava tube and singe us all beyond recognition. It’s cramped down here, and I am not getting enough oxygen.

  We stop to rest at the bottom of the first landing. Stupid, embarrassing Jeb has to pee on the wall right in front of us. Dad puts on Elf Guy’s headlamp and looks around for a good spot to plant Gram’s book.

  “I think we should have a ceremony or something so Mom can say her farewells to the letter,” Uncle Billy says.

  “This volcano is believed to be a very powerful healing energy spot,” Elf Guy says.

  We form a circle, lit by headlamps and surrounded by ancient lava rock, and stand shoulder to shoulder, bathed in the energy of this underworld lava tube. Gram chooses Wes to lead the ceremony.

  Wes clears his throat for dramatic effect. He is clearly flattered that Gram picked him.

  “As we stand here beneath this powerful volcano that has stood longer and stronger than any human being, we are humbled and emboldened by its strength, beauty, and endurance.” Wes pauses. “Astrid North O’Neill, you are a gift to every person you meet. Like the volcano, you bring strength, beauty, and endurance to the world. By leaving your cherished book behind, you join us all with the volcano and Jules Verne for eternity.”