The Wonder of Us

by Kim Culbertson

  I think it started in middle school, that growing ache for something else. Something outside of Northern California. Maybe it’s because middle school was when being excited or open-minded or grateful started to evaporate for so many of my classmates. It was when we downshifted into a wry lifted eyebrow anytime someone did something goofy or strange. Every year, we seemed to judge one another just a little more harshly, seeking out divisions, separating into groups. People always blamed becoming a teenager. “Oh, middle school,” they said knowingly. “Oh, teenagers.” It made me sad. Why were we all acting like this? Suddenly, we had to choose a camp, a persona, and slip into the proper uniform for whatever we chose. The sporty kids. The drama geeks. The honor students.

  Choosing one never had felt right to me.

  It hadn’t for Abby, either. Her skepticism of the whole shift had been what rooted her to me. We talked about leaving someday, about college, about beyond. She was always on my side because I knew she felt it, too.

  Those were the years Abby saved me over and over, even if she didn’t know that’s what she was doing.

  The night of eighth-grade graduation, I remember sitting on our favorite rock at the river, our dresses tucked up under our knees so our feet could dangle, talking about how weird everyone was acting, how strange it was to have to pretend we didn’t like our parents, or certain people who used to be our friends, how it felt like we had to tone down the stuff we liked, make-believe we didn’t care anymore about fairies or Star Wars or the YouTube star we’d been obsessing about for two years, about any of the things we loved as kids.

  Abby had listened, nodding, tossing small rocks into the eddy and swirl of the dark water. “I feel like that all the time,” she told me.

  Now, staring out at the darkening water, I realize it was an incremental ache. First middle school. Then high school: different hallways, same faces. All of us continued to separate into specific blobs of oil in our claustrophobic social pool. Looking back, my biggest fear was knowing that in Yuba Ridge, those groups have a way of fixing themselves in cement, and every part of me pulsed with the knowing that I had to get out of there before they set for good.

  Because the only one worth being cemented to was Abby.

  If I’m honest, I wasn’t fully aware of biding my time. I had fun. I distracted myself. Lots of parties. Hanging out at the river. Boys. Always boys. Some sweet, like Ryan Hoffman, whose heart I might have broken freshman year when I told him I just wanted to be friends. Other boys were pushy and self-centered like Greg Newman, who thought an invitation to homecoming allowed him full groping advantages. When I threatened to call his mother, the mayor, he dropped me off at home and never talked to me again. No loss there.

  By that point, though, the ache had found its way into my outer limbs.

  Then, one night, my mom sat by my bed and told me, “It would be helpful to your uncle if I could be in Berlin for a year while the company transitions into the new offices there.”

  I’d jumped at the chance.

  “You’re quiet.” Will trails his fingers across the top of my hand to get my attention, and it jolts me back to the present.

  I turn to him. “The water looks so pretty right now.”

  As I watch the light change the color of the lake from blue to ink, I wonder how I can explain to Abby that because of Berlin, I see light like this differently now.

  “We’re going to stay for at least the first set.” Will’s gaze slips to the two musicians who have started tuning their instruments on the stage. The guy wears a suit and tinkers with a violin. The girl wears a vintage shift dress under the thick strap of her guitar. They seem like hipsters, early twenties. Lots of these duos in Berlin.

  “Do you play an instrument?” Will asks me.

  “I used to play the piano, but I quit before middle school.” I study his long fingers. “Do you play? You have the hands for it.”

  He shakes his head, splaying his hands out on the table. “Just numbers for me. I’m afraid I am terribly tone-deaf.”

  The duo takes the stage. Soon, their jazzy, indie-folk sound floats across the twilit evening. Neel and Abby turn around to watch them, their backs leaning against the table now. I try to concentrate on the music soaking into the space around us, and scoot a little closer to Will, until his knee grazes mine beneath the table. I try to focus, but I keep noticing the way Neel leans into Abby, pointing out a boat strung with lights gliding slowly across the water or whispering something to her I can’t hear over the hum of the song, and that earlier annoyance flickers like the start of a fire.

  When the musicians take their break, Will excuses himself and disappears inside the building. A few minutes later, Alina appears with two sticks of pale blue cotton candy, almost glowing in the last of the twilight. “What?” Abby clasps her hands together in front of her heart. “Seriously?! Cotton candy delivered straight to the table? I love Switzerland!” She pulls a delicate thread from her stick and pops it in her mouth. I do the same, and it begins to coax me out of my funk—I mean, it’s cotton candy delivered right to our table.

  “Did you do this?” Abby grins at Neel.

  “It had to be Will.” The burnt-crisp taste on my tongue might be sugar, might be my tone.

  Neel hears it, gives me a funny glance before answering Abby. “It’s all Will, I’m afraid, though I’m happy to take the credit before he comes back.”

  “Try it.” Abby pulls away a wisp and holds it out to him.

  He waves her off. “I think not.”

  Abby laughs at his pained expression. “Don’t be such a baby. It’s delicious. Especially compared to the cotton candy at our county fair, right, Riya?” Her smile is tinged faintly with blue. “Remember when that guy convinced you to try the banana flavor?”

  “Ugh.” My stomach curls at the thought. “There is no banana anywhere in the whole world of bananas that tastes like that cotton candy did. They should have called it what it was: armpit flavor.”

  “Window cleaner and armpit flavor?” Neel shakes his head. “I’m growing increasingly concerned about American dietary habits.” It’s not all that funny, but Abby and I do that thing we do sometimes where we catch each other’s eye and burst into giggles for no reason. The ease of it, its suddenness, loosens the knot in my chest.

  Neel looks delighted we find him so funny. “Whatever do they put in that candy floss?” he asks Will, who has just returned to the table.

  Will climbs back onto the bench next to me. “Fairy dust. Unicorn laughter. The usual magic.” He lets his hand linger for a moment on my back, sending its own magic tingling up and down my spine. “Shall we stay for another set?”

  I nod, pulling another strand of candy from the stick, and hope these musicians play for the rest of the night.

  The next morning, I wake as the light creeps under the living room curtains, a breeze from the open window fluttering them and sending sun spangles across the wood floor. Riya snores, shifting as I scoot out from under the covers. I pluck my phone from my bag and log on to the Wi-Fi. Today, Will plans to drive us to Lucerne to see the famous bridge and the Old Town, and I want to do some research before we go so I know what I’m looking at when I get there.

  “You’re up early.” I jump. Will leans against the door frame of the kitchen in dark jeans and a plain black T-shirt. He holds a white ceramic cup with his long fingers. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, thanks.” I follow him into the narrow kitchen. Will fiddles with the espresso machine, sending it whirling, and turns to set a plate of small croissants (gipfel, he tells me) with butter and jam in front of me on the counter. I bite into one. “Mmmm, did you make these?”

  “No, no—went to the bakery this morning.” He washes out his cup in the sink and sets it in the stainless-steel drying rack. “Good, yes?”

  “Delicious.” I dab some currant jam on my next bite.

  Neel appears in the doorway. “Someone needs to wake Sleeping Beauty in there before she snores a hole in the floor.”
I laugh. We can even hear her in the kitchen.

  Will hands him a coffee. “Let her sleep. No need to rush out of here. Lucerne isn’t too long a drive. Especially for a Californian.” He winks at me. Riya seems pretty gone over him, and I can’t blame her. Neel has cute friends. Actually, Riya would kill me for even thinking it, but Neel’s pretty cute himself. Not as obvious as Damiano the Italian Stalker, but there is something about him—his dark eyes, his thick black hair, his lean forearms. Okay, is it weird that I’m noticing his forearms? Who cares about a guy’s forearms? I bite into a second gipfel, trying not to notice the casual way Neel rests against the counter, holding his coffee as he and Will make plans for the day. He’s animated with Will in a way I haven’t seen before, telling him a story about a mutual friend they know who started an internship in Norway this summer. He’s grown up from the photos of the skinny, fussy cousin Riya had pinned on her wall at home. Relaxing against the counter, the sleeves of his shirt rolled to his elbows, he’s practically handsome.

  “Abby?”

  “What?” Not looking at your forearms! I manage not to shout.

  Neel sets his cup in the sink. “We’ll head out in a half hour or so. Think you can wake the beast in there?”

  I slide off the chair. “I’m on it.”

  “And, Abby?”

  “Yeah?”

  Neel points the gipfel he’s about to eat at me. “Wear some decent walking shoes. Not those floppy things you two try to pass off as suitable footwear.”

  Even good forearms can’t save a guy sometimes.

  An hour later, I peer through my window in the backseat of the BMW as we move along the highway out of Zurich and into the surrounding area, passing neat towns with their orderly boxes of geraniums, the snowcapped mountains a constant fringe on the horizon. In the seat next to me, Riya wears black-and-white-striped socks pulled to her knees with her running shoes and a belted denim dress. She’s listening attentively to the music blaring from Will’s car stereo, her head bobbing. “I like this,” she tells him. “Is it new?”

  “Old.” He glances at her in his rearview mirror. “I’ll make you a playlist later.”

  I turn again to the window. Yesterday we had clouds and rain, but today is bright and clear. Will drums his fingers on the steering wheel along to the song’s bass-thump and chats with Neel about their classes for next fall. “I can’t believe this weather,” he keeps saying, scanning the clear skies. “Okay, slight change of plans—I’m taking you to the Rigi first. It’s usually clouded over and you can’t see anything, but today is incredible.”

  Riya sits forward, elbows on knees. “What’s the Rigi?”

  Will changes lanes. “It’s a section of the Alps. We’ll go to Weggis and take the cable car up. Seriously, on a day like this, it’s one of the best views in Switzerland.”

  Riya grins at Will through the break in the seats. “Sounds amazing.”

  I check my phone. “Queen of the Mountains.”

  Will nods. “That’s right, good. Have you studied Switzerland much?”

  I hold up the evidence. “I’m iPhone smart.”

  Sitting back, her voice holding a trace of annoyance, Riya mutters, “I hope you have an excellent roaming plan, Queen of the Google.”

  “I do, thanks.” I slip my phone into my backpack. “Nice socks, by the way. Very hiking appropriate. You’ll be all the rage in the cable car.” She answers by stretching her legs across my lap and waggling her running shoes in my face.

  “So about this cable car …” Neel’s voice catches. “Like gondola-in-the-sky kind of cable car or a tram?”

  “Sky.” Will follows signs to Rigi Kaltbad before glancing over at Neel. “Okay?”

  Neel doesn’t answer him, just looks quietly out the passenger window.

  Turns out, Neel has a water-and-oil sort of relationship with heights. A half hour later, ashen-faced, he sits glued to a bench in the cable car, his eyes shut tight, as we soar toward the town of Rigi Kaltbad. “Neel, you’re missing it!” Riya exclaims, her face so close to the glass she leaves small patches of fog on it. “You’re missing the view of the lake!”

  “I’ve seen a lake,” he says, grimacing.

  He hasn’t seen this lake. And not from this vantage point. As the car lifts us higher, I gawk at the landscape below us—the mountains, the wide blue water, the houses peppered along its edges merging into the green of meadows.

  “This is Swiss engineering,” Will assures Neel, giving his shoulder an encouraging pat. “You are very safe.”

  Neel shakes his head. “I will be very safe when I’m standing on the ground.”

  A few minutes later, he gets his wish as we bump into the Rigi Kaltbad station and walk into the car-free village. I breathe in the mountain air, crisp and green. In the distance, I hear a sporadic, dreamy sort of clanging that I realize must be cowbells. Cowbells! We follow the path through some trees toward a lookout Will wants to show us, the air scented with pine, like home.

  The weekend before I left for Florence, Dad took me hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail in Tahoe. When the four of us were living under the same roof, our family had hiked almost every clear weekend, but I hadn’t been on a trail in months. That Saturday, Dad and I set our alarms for seven, grabbed breakfast to go, and drove the hour to the trailhead, listening to the CD I gave him for Christmas, Mozart for Hikers. Dad always played classical music on long drives, but I bought that particular CD before Mom had packed the Volvo with hanging clothes and boxes of books and a laundry basket full of her shoes, and then suddenly there it was playing in Dad’s car. I had to turn to the window, my eyes stinging.

  As we hiked, Dad pointed out types of rocks and various animals: a tree squirrel, a hawk. Finally, as we stood gazing out at Lake Tahoe from the crest of the trail, he turned to me, his Squaw Valley baseball hat shading the green eyes I’d inherited, the eyes that for months had been sad and worried at their edges, and he asked, “You holding up okay, Bee?”

  He’d finally given me a chance to tell him that I hadn’t been holding up okay all year, that things weren’t right with Riya gone or that it was weird without Mom at home. I could have told him how it felt like Kate seemed to be slipping more and more into her college life or even just that junior year had been harder than I’d expected. He finally asked me. But instead of telling him what I truly felt, I pointed out a shadow of another hawk passing over us and told him, “Fine. Really, Dad, I’m fine. I’m your Bee.”

  Why had I done that?

  Riya falls in step beside me. “Okay, serious face—what’s up?”

  “This is just my face,” I try to joke, holding my backpack straps like a parachute. “I’m perfecting the intellectual gleam in my eye—see?” I give her my best smarty-pants stare, adjusting my glasses. We walk in silence for a moment.

  She’s waiting for me to ask about her announcement yesterday, I can feel it radiating from her. I know I didn’t react the way she’d hoped. But Riya has never been a theater kid. We knew theater kids. They passed out flyers for fall shows and spring plays and abridged productions of Shakespeare. Growing up, we watched them at the boxy community theater downtown or outside on the cement stage at the fairgrounds. Each spring, they paraded around the stage dressed as fairy-tale characters or villagers or pirates, while we sat on an old quilt watching them. Later, we went to some of their shows at Yuba Ridge High.

  But we never joined them onstage.

  “So, an actress, huh?”

  Riya’s eyes light up. “Okay, I know I told you about Kiara.”

  About a thousand times. Most of my communication with Riya since November has had a Kiara said the funniest thing, or Kiara and I went to this amazing club, or Kiara and I saw this cool French film, so, yeah, she’s told me about Kiara.

  I strangle my backpack straps. “What about her?”

  Riya’s excitement quickens her pace. “She’s part of this theater collective in Berlin. She goes four days a week after school for improv and acting cl
asses and theater-as-social-change workshops.”

  “Theater as what?”

  “As social change. It’s a type of theater that acts as a vehicle for social justice. Storytelling to create a better world. I started going with Kiara to these workshops, and, well”—she glances at me nervously—“I fell madly in love.”

  Riya is always falling madly in love. For about ten minutes. She’s like that with everything. Each new find is a fierce burst of love. In high school alone, she’s gone through at least a dozen “life-altering” interests. Freshman year, she was certain she wanted to be a vet, so she volunteered at the Yuba Ridge animal shelter. For a month. That’s how long it took her to realize she had to clean up after the animals and not just post cute pictures of them on Instagram. She has been madly in love with ceramics (a three-month class she didn’t finish), swim team (one season), and with bookselling at our local used bookstore (quit after two months). It’s a long list. But that’s Riya—she crushes and obsesses and moves on to the next incredible thing.

  I’ve always felt honored she’s kept me around all these years.

  “So acting’s your newest love?”

  She shakes her head. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not like that. This time it’s for real. I finally realize how you feel about ancient history. I’ve always been so jealous of you, with how you always knew what you wanted to do with your life.”

  I slow my pace so the guys move farther ahead of us up the trail. “What do you mean?”

  She slips her arm through mine. “You’ve always known your direction. That you want to go to college and study ancient history and work in a museum and then be a college professor, right?”

  “We’ve both always known we want to go to college someday.”