The Wonder of Us

by Kim Culbertson

  “I get it.” With Riya, the descriptions of Moira will be endless if I don’t call a stop to it right away. I lean against the bridge, staring out at the water. “This place is even more incredible than its pictures.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Riya agrees, turning back to the light-drenched river, now shot through with ribbons of pink. She holds her hair away from her neck. “Do you feel that breeze? That’s what heaven feels like.”

  “Truth.” My eyes slip back to Neel, who has drifted to this side of the bridge a few yards away, his back to the river view, a hand clamped over one ear, his forehead creased. When he catches me looking, he walks away.

  “Earth to Abby Byrd! Did you hear what I said?” Riya elbows me.

  “Ow—what? Yes.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Yes to ditching the dud tomorrow? Were you even listening?” I wasn’t. She repeats her idea to ditch Neel tomorrow. “I’m over his sprinting tour of Florence. It’s too hot. And he’s not taking a hint.” If by hint, Riya means he’s not listening to Riya yelling at him, she’s right. He’s not. She tucks her hair behind her ears and ticks off options on her fingers. “We could rent Vespas and drive out to Fiesole. I hear it’s pretty. Or sit by the Arno and eat gelato all day. Or whatever we want to do. It’s our trip.”

  I take a deep breath, wanting to say something but not knowing how. I have so many questions swirling through my head that I’m not even sure where to start.

  She notices. “Just ask me, Abby. I know that look.”

  “I don’t have a look.” She mimics my expression. I have to admit, she does a good Abby-wants-to-ask-something face. Since I got her letter in May, questions keep multiplying in my brain. Can we fix this? Can we stay the friends we’ve always been? Can we patch the rips we’ve made in each other so the ragged seams stop showing? Or worse: Is there something terrible she’s not telling me? But as she blinks back at me expectantly, her liquid eyes waiting, I chicken out, and instead ask one of my more practical questions. “How are you paying for all this?”

  She frowns, clearly disappointed. It’s not a surprising question from me. Money has always been a source of weirdness between us. Our whole lives. But I know she doesn’t want to talk about money. She wants to talk about us. “I told you. My nani is paying.” Since I can remember, Riya’s family has just operated on a different level with money than the practical, budget-driven Byrds. Dad says that Riya has “family money,” but I don’t really know what that means because doesn’t every family just have the money they have? But when he says it, he hints at hidden wells of it. Still, this trip feels lavish even for the Sharma-Collinses.

  She fiddles with her purse. “Was that really the question you wanted to ask me?” she presses, eyeing me from under her lashes.

  I swallow. She has already read my face better than anyone. “I know this is an early birthday present for you, but … are you sure it’s not more than that?”

  Again, the pained expression, and she turns back to the water, the breeze fluttering the hem of her dress. “Can’t I just bring my best friend to Europe for a once-in-a-lifetime trip?”

  That does it. The tiny, sharp seed of worry that her letter planted in my gut finally sprouts. “Listen, Rye—be straight with me. This is the kind of trip someone takes when she’s sick … or maybe”—I swallow hard—“dying?” My body goes weak with her possible answer. “Out with it. Are you dying? Just tell me. I can’t stand it anymore.”

  “What?!” Riya pushes back away from the ledge, eyes wide, nearly colliding with a family of tourists trying to take a group picture, sputtering, “No! Geez, Abby!” She apologizes to the family and pulls me by the arm farther down the bridge.

  I follow her, untangling myself as relief floods through me. “It’s not so far-fetched. This seems like a trip you might take because something awful like that has happened!” I stop walking, forcing her to look at me. “And you should’ve known I’d think that and not make me think it for so long! It’s really disrespectful to people who are actually dying!”

  She shakes her head, but a smile starts to bend the corners of her mouth. “You’re a crazy person, you realize that, right? I should have written in the letter: ‘Come to Florence. P.S. I’m not dying’? What is wrong with you?”

  “I was scared, you jerk. It has been that kind of year, okay?”

  Riya’s smile fades. “Oh, Abby, I’m sorry. I’m sorry your year—”

  “Let’s go,” Neel interrupts, pocketing his phone, striding by us. Maybe he’s too soaked in his own drama, but he doesn’t read the tension between us, doesn’t notice the troubled looks on either of our faces.

  Riya and I lock eyes, and she bursts out laughing. “Well, at least I’m not that clueless.” She shouts after him, “You are a rude man, sir, and it is not an attractive quality!”

  I lean into her as we follow him off the bridge. “Okay, so we are most definitely ditching him tomorrow.” After a moment, I add, “And I’m glad you’re not dying.”

  She puts her arm around me. “Well, that’s a step in the right direction.”

  The next morning, I make it all the way to five a.m. before the gray light seeps in through my eyelids. No street cleaner today? Maybe I actually slept through it. The heat hits me first. Not that sticky-dust feel of midday, but hotter than it should be at five in the morning. Ugh. I sit up. At some point in the night, I kicked off the duvet. Riya has hers pulled to her chin, but her feet stick out the bottom, her toenails painted a bright lime green. Her toes make me smile. Riya is really vain about her feet. Once, in Tahoe during a summer camping trip, a guy at the Safeway there told her she could be a “foot model” with her “pretty” feet. I thought that was mega creepy. Who tells a twelve-year-old girl in the graham cracker aisle that she has pretty feet? A creepy guy is who. But she got a big head about it for a while. At Christmas that year, we got in a fight about … something stupid … I can’t even remember now, but I finally got fed up and snapped, “Well, not all of us can be foot models!” We laughed for days, and it became one of the things we always say to help us end silly fights.

  Or used to always say.

  I run my fingers through my tangled hair. I could use a shower, but I don’t want to wake Riya up. Or maybe I do. Maybe we can sneak out this morning before Neel gets up? Over dinner last night, he read us his proposed itinerary for today and Riya rejected each suggestion as he read it. She had a point. I love history more than most other humans, but after page two of Neel’s schedule, it started to feel more like a sentencing than a vacation. Riya raised more than a few eyebrows in the restaurant when she leapt from her chair to threaten him with a pasta spoon.

  I grab my toiletry bag, the one with the plasticized image of the Great Pyramid of Giza on it, and head into the small bathroom. Five minutes later, I stand over Riya’s bed, letting my hair drip onto her face. “Mmmmmmf, whaaaa?” She buries herself under her pillow.

  “If we leave now, Neel won’t stand a chance,” I tell her, poking her one exposed shoulder. “Or we can wait and let him talk us into … what was the plan again—a walking architectural tour of the city’s lesser known buildings? And didn’t I hear something about the city’s recycling program?”

  She almost takes my head off as she springs from the bed. “I’m up!”

  Downstairs, we tiptoe through the dark breakfast area and push through the doors into the quiet city morning. We find a sleepy vendor at a lone open kiosk and grab coffee and some pastries that appear to have more chocolate than breakfast food probably should. We practice our grazies and buona giornatas, and he mostly indulges us, pointing us in the direction of the Piazzale Michelangelo, where we can watch the sun come up.

  A half hour later, we sit on stone steps overlooking the orange-bright city stretched out in front of us. We sip our coffees, devour the pastries, and can’t stop saying “Wow,” because it’s Florence. Wow seems the only word that fits this skyline, if only for the way the sunrise deepens the terra-cotta tiles of the Du
omo and the rooftops beyond.

  Finally, Riya says, “I’m glad you came.”

  “Me too.” My eyes trace the white ribs of the Duomo. The history geek in me tingles with the thought that I’m sitting where someone like Michelangelo might have sat, staring at something Brunelleschi created when so many people doubted him. So. Cool.

  “I wasn’t sure if you would,” Riya says, fiddling with some loose pebbles on the steps. “Because, well, you didn’t respond right away to the package when I sent it.”

  “I was just surprised, Rye.” I clear my throat, my mouth suddenly dry from the pastry. “We said those horrible things and then didn’t talk for almost a month.”

  “I tried to text you! I called. You didn’t get back to me.” She holds her coffee with both hands, her elbows on her knees, and stares straight ahead.

  Defensive knots form in my stomach. “I needed some space. And I couldn’t believe it at first when I got your package. I mean, Florence? A multi-city trip? It was a lot to digest. And kind of over the top.”

  “Well, you know how much I like a grand gesture.” She shrugs, hooking one leg over the other, her foot bobbing.

  “I do.” Riya’s getting mad. Feeling her slow boil simmering, I hurry to insist, “Look, I mostly like your grand gestures. But as you know, I almost always need to process them. I’m not as spontaneous as you are.”

  She snorts. “No, you’re not.”

  I bite my lip. With Riya, this is a critical moment. She gets mad easily, but she also forgives easily. I’ve always admired that about her, mostly because I’m terrible at it. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner after we fought, okay? I was completely overwhelmed.”

  Riya’s dark eyes flick to me. “I know your year—” She takes a deep breath. “Oh, Abby, I don’t really know what to say except I’m sorry your year was so awful. I’m sorry about your parents. And that I said those horrible things. But I kept waiting for you to talk to me about it. Not just tell me, actually talk to me. When I asked you, you said you were fine. You seemed like you didn’t want to talk about it. I was trying to respect your whole space thing!”

  I look at her sharply. “You never asked me what happened.”

  “Yes, I did!”

  I shake my head, my own anger bubbling up. She didn’t ask. She told me she was sorry, that I would get over it, that things would get better with time. She sent chocolate. But she did what Riya always does with difficult things. “You went straight to the future,” I tell her now. “You told me I’d be okay. That time would make it better. You didn’t try to help me live in it. And you never asked what happened.”

  Her brow furrows. “I meant it the same way.”

  “But it’s not the same.” I blink away the tears that threaten behind my lashes and take a deep breath. The air is thick, and I want to believe it’s the steadily rising heat, but it’s more likely from the memory that suddenly floods me. The day my mom sat us down after New Year’s and told us she needed “a change.” My parents have never needed changes. We’ve had the same furniture, the same cars (silver Volvo sedan circa 2007, Datsun pickup circa “older than dirt”), even the same beach towels for as long as I can remember. Things don’t change in the Byrd household. My dad shaved his mustache when I was nine, and Kate still tells him to grow it back every time she sees him.

  Riya clenches her hands around her coffee, denting the cup. “Abby, you knew I meant it the same way. You should have told me. Don’t wait for me to ask. We’ve been friends too long to worry about stuff like that.”

  “Maybe I needed you to dig it out of me!”

  She sets down her coffee and turns to me. “So tell me now. I’m digging now. What happened?”

  Sitting here, all these months later, I can still feel the air leave the room, see the bare trees out the January window, dark and wet with the rain that had soaked them that morning. Still see the look on my dad’s face as he leaned his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor, saying nothing. He’s barely said anything since. “My mom said she needed a change, that this wasn’t working for her anymore, that she needed to move on. And then she left.”

  Riya curls her hand over mine. “That sounds awful. What did Kate do? Did she start screaming?”

  “No one screams in our house, you know that. Everyone was so … polite. It was weird. And then it was silent. We all just sat there in the living room until it started to rain again.” I stare out at the city in front of me, at the windows of the far buildings reflecting the morning light. “The weirdest part was, right before Mom left, she asked Kate if she could borrow her rain boots. Blue ones with bright yellow flowers. And Kate said sure, and then Mom left, wearing them. The next day, Kate went back to college early. And Mom wore her boots all winter. That’s weird, right?”

  “Maybe she felt closer to Kate because of them?”

  I blink at more rogue tears. “You know what I didn’t tell you? She’s living with Dr. Restivo now.” Dr. Restivo was Riya’s dentist, too, before she left. Robert Restivo, DDS. He gives out stickers with smiling molars and lets you pick what color toothbrush you’d like. After a 100 percent checkup when I was a kid, I got a balloon looped around my small wrist, a proud beacon bobbing through the waiting room as I left, smiling my 100 percent smile.

  Now my mom lives with him in a condo by the city park.

  Riya shakes her head. “Last I heard, you said she was ‘taking it slow’ with him or whatever. When did that change?”

  “A few weeks ago.”

  She hesitates, then asks, “Do you ever stay with them?”

  I swallow over the lump in my throat. “I’ve had dinner there a few times. It’s so bizarre—all small talk and silverware clinking too loudly on plates. But I haven’t stayed over. I have to take care of my dad. When she moved in with Dr. Restivo, it sent Dad straight back into his work-sleep-repeat mode. Total zombie. You wouldn’t recognize him. I’m worried about being so far away from him now.”

  “He’ll be okay. He wanted you to come on this trip.”

  “I know. But he doesn’t remember to do the most basic things. Like taking out the garbage or emptying the dishwasher. Even walking Henry.”

  Riya searches my face, and I wonder if now is when we talk about what’s happening between us, why we can’t seem to keep each other in our close orbits. It’s more than just what happened with my parents. She has to know this.

  Chewing her lip, she says instead: “Dr. Restivo always spits when he talks. And that’s just not what you want from a dentist.”

  I start to laugh-cry, leaning into her, my hair spilling onto her shoulder. She puts her arms around me, and I can’t seem to tell her how much I miss this, this way she says the just-right thing in certain moments, that I’m still hurt she wasn’t there when I needed her to say it most.

  My phone buzzes. Neel again. All caps.

  WHERE ARE YOU? I AM QUITE CONCERNED.

  Even his texts sound like a strict old professor. I’ve been ignoring him all morning. I got a text as we wandered along the Arno. Another one as we admired the jewelry as we crossed the Ponte Vecchio, a medieval stone bridge. Finally, I’d turned off my phone, not turning it back on until we found a patch of shade to sit in near the Fountain of Neptune in the Piazza della Signoria.

  Abby shifts next to me. “Neel again?”

  “The Professor is quite concerned.” I hand her my phone so she can read it. “We’re officially in trouble. This is the first one in all caps.”

  “Your screen has a huge crack in it,” she tells me.

  I glance over her shoulder. “Oh, that’s old.”

  She hands my phone back. “He sent another one.”

  It reads: Don’t think I won’t call Aji!!

  “Who’s Aji?” Abby asks, scanning the square.

  “Our grandma. Nani for me since she’s my mom’s mother. Aji for him since she’s his dad’s mother.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Let me see the skirt you got at the market.”
I motion to her backpack. Earlier, browsing the eclectic booths of clothes and bags and jewelry at the Mercato del Porcellino, I’d discovered the skirt alone on a rack of jackets and told Abby it was a sign that she should buy it.

  Now Abby hands me the bag with the matching ceramic masks we also bought. “Hold these for a second.” She fishes out the short, maroon, leather miniskirt. Inspecting it, she gives me the same doubtful look she gave me back at the booth. “I’m still not sure about this. I’m not really a leather miniskirt kind of girl.”

  I motion for her to try it on again. “You’re in Italy. It doesn’t matter if you’re a leather miniskirt kind of girl. You’re anything you want to be here.” Humoring me, she stands and tugs it on under her yellow sundress. “See,” I assure her. “It fits perfectly.”

  She peers down at it. “Maybe you’re right. Besides, the pig did say I’m returning to Florence someday, so I can always just wear it here.” Before the market, we’d rubbed the snout of the famous pig at the Fontana del Porcellino, putting coins in his mouth. When the water washed our coins into the waiting grate, a woman told us we’d have good luck and return to Florence.

  “The pig has spoken.” I nod. “It’s a great skirt.” My phone beeps with what is now Neel’s eighth text of the morning. Speaking of luck, I’m going to need it when he catches up with us.

  Abby raises her eyebrows. “Why won’t you just tell him we’re fine and doing our own thing today? So he doesn’t think we drowned in the Arno or got kidnapped by art smugglers or something.”

  “Both of those things are preferable to spending the rest of our trip with him. I’m going to call Nani and talk to her. She promised he wouldn’t turn into Neel the Controller.”

  Abby sighs. “I still don’t see why it’s such a big deal to text him.”

  “It’s the principle of it.” I don’t miss Abby’s eye roll. I know she thinks I’m being melodramatic about Neel, but we had such a nice morning. For the first time in almost a year, we felt like the friends we used to be and not the ones who had the last ten months wedged in between us. Neel is getting in the way. It’s not his job to decide how our day looks just because he thinks he owes it to our “moral and intellectual growth” (text three). What a prig.