Me: NO!! i’ve got a plan.
Kiara: okay.
Kiara: IMHO you should tell her.
Me: didn’t we have this discussion already?
Kiara: okay, she’s your friend.
Me: trying to sleep. tschüss!
Kiara: tschüss!
I turn off my phone, my stomach blooming with nerves. Tomorrow morning, my two worlds will officially collide. Old and new. No better city than Berlin for that, but my stomach churns. As the train rocks us ahead, I start to doubt some of my plans, especially after everything Abby told me in Switzerland. As I squint into the dark, I consider calling Nani, canceling the rest of the trip, and sending Abby back to Northern California.
Because that would be easier.
Maybe even better?
Frustrated, I sigh loudly in the hope that it wakes the Snore Factory down below. It doesn’t work. I chew my lip. Sometimes, I miss how simple it was to spend our summers by the constant swirl of the river, lounging like lizards on the warm granite. Simple and sweet.
Before the world grew huge and began to swallow us whole.
But like this train, I can’t turn around now. I just hope Kiara and Abby are a good mix. What is it about the dark that grows a worry into a shadowy, evil shape even when there is probably nothing to worry about? I’ve rarely seen Abby be possessive. If anything, she will be distant when she doesn’t like someone. And she’s never needed us to like the same people. But that’s just it. I want her to like Kiara. I almost need her to. Because what would I have done this year without Kiara? Berlin bodychecked me on arrival, but Kiara threw a much-needed blanket around me. She filed the edges off an autumn tipping dangerously into disappointment (despair, even, when I let myself get melodramatic about it).
The first two months at my new school, I cried almost every night. No one knows this. Not Abby. Not my parents, though they suspected. At the breakfast table many mornings, her espresso cup halfway to her lips, Mom’s eyes would track my face for signs of distress. I would smile brightly and chatter on about a new gallery Dad had shown me or a film I’d seen recently. I hadn’t wanted them to know I wasn’t handling things, that the city seemed huge and cement-blocked, the language sharp and stabbing at me on the underground or at the grocery store. I couldn’t admit I was struggling. Not to them. Dad was busy with a show at a gallery. Mom was busy wearing suits and taking meetings. Her brother, Neel’s dad, had carried the family business on his shoulders for years so his younger sister could live by a river in Northern California with her artist husband and small child. It was Mom’s turn to pick up some of the slack.
And it was just for a year.
Only sometimes a year can feel like a lifetime.
Then one rainy Thursday afternoon in November, I was packing my books into a maroon leather satchel I’d found with Mom in a vintage shop on Oranienstraße, when a girl in my social anthropology class stopped by my table. “Hey.” She had multicolored streaks in her chopped blonde hair. “You’re Riya?”
I nodded. “Yes, Riya. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
She put her hand flat against her chest. “Kiara.” She wore jean shorts over ripped purple tights and vintage Doc Martens and a tight leather jacket buttoned to her throat. “I really liked what you said today about globalization, how we’re becoming blind to cultural specifics. Very cool.” She grinned wide white teeth at me. Like a spotlight.
“Oh.” Caught off guard, my cheeks heated. “Thanks.”
“I’m going to a forum now.” She paused, adjusting her own black shoulder bag, studded with safety pins. “At the Collective. It’s a talk about social theater. Want to come? It’ll be in English.”
The heat from my cheeks had receded, draining into my limbs. “I would love that.” Since that afternoon, I’ve spent three to four days a week at the Collective, studying the role of social theater, taking improv and technique classes, reading and studying plays, and steadily letting a path I’d never known existed light up the world in front of me.
Now I shift in the train bunk, thinking about what Abby said in Zurich. About the boat. Maybe that rainy afternoon in Berlin was the moment where Abby and my life in Northern California began to slip through my fingers, spooling away on the dark water of my past, instead of staying a fixed part of my life. Even if I didn’t realize it at the time, maybe that was the moment I pushed the boat.
My parents are easy to spot in the crowded train station, especially with Dad holding up a huge sign with his cartoon drawing of two traveling girls and the word Wilkommen! in bright orange letters. I warm at the sight of him. Not just the sign but his paint-spattered jeans and T-shirt. Dad uniform. Mom, looking glamorous in jeans, a bright geometrically patterned top, and wedge sandals, waves enthusiastically when she sees us. As we get closer, Abby drops her bag and runs to hug them both at the same time, crushing Dad’s sign between them. She steps back. “Oh—sorry about the sign.”
He folds it in half, waving away her apology. “It’s done its job. How’s the grand tour?”
Abby beams at the sight of my parents, her words spilling out. “This trip is incredible! I can’t believe it. We had the best hot chocolate in Zurich, and we saw the most beautiful art in Florence, and I bought a leather miniskirt—a leather miniskirt, me! And we took a gondola up a mountain in Switzerland—” She stops to catch her breath. Abby has always adored my parents, and it hasn’t changed. “Just, well, wow.”
Grinning, Mom picks up Abby’s bag. “Wonderful, girls.” She leans in to kiss my cheek. “Hi, sweetie.” Up close, I see the dark patches under her eyes. She told me work had been busy when I talked with her yesterday. And they have both started packing to go back to California in August, so she’s probably exhausted. Her eyes slip to my outfit. “Cute dress.”
“Thanks.” I look down at the cerise-pink maxi dress I slipped on this morning, wrinkled from its time wadded in my suitcase. It was cool on the train, but Berlin will be hot by midmorning.
Dad leans in to give Neel one of those awkward side-body hugs guys are always giving each other. “Good to see you, Neel. Have these girls been behaving themselves?”
Neel makes a snorting sound. “Troublemakers, both of them.”
Dad laughs. “Right, I’m sure. Let’s go. We brought the car.” We follow him through the massive, glass-ceilinged train station, Abby’s eyes popping at the multi-levels and shops. “We can stop for breakfast if you guys are hungry?”
The train-weary three of us unanimously agree.
Forty-five minutes later, we sit at an outdoor café halfway through breakfast, staring out at the Spree River. A boat packed with tourists moves lazily past us in the blue water before disappearing under an arch in the nearby bridge. Neel’s phone buzzes on the table, and he snatches it up, eyeing it warily. Grimacing, he excuses himself and moves away down toward the water.
Abby takes another bite of her eggs Benedict and glances at my plate. “Aren’t you hungry?”
I realize I’ve been picking at my scrambled eggs in an absentminded way that leaves them looking like accident victims. I shovel a forkful into my mouth. “Sorry, just thinking about our day.”
Mom hands me an envelope. “Here’s tickets and such. I know you’re anxious to get sightseeing, so Dad and I thought you could head out from here and we’d take your luggage back to the apartment.”
Before I can reply, Dad’s phone rings. Checking it, he says, “It’s the gallery, excuse me,” and leaves the table.
Mom raises her eyebrows. “We’re losing the men!” She studies Neel pacing near the river’s edge, gesticulating widely. “That doesn’t look pleasant.”
“Moira,” I mumble through my eggs, no other explanation necessary.
“Right.” Mom’s gaze slips back to me. “She’s here, you know.”
I set down my fork. “What?”
“In Berlin. She’s here to see Neel while you two explore the city.”
I push away my plate. “Well, that’s just grea
t.”
Abby looks interested. “I want to meet her.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re in luck.” Mom finishes the last of her espresso, clearly enjoying my reaction. “We’re all having dinner tonight. After you go to Museum Island.”
I drop my forehead to the table.
Bemused, Abby notes, “Museum Island sounds promising,” then adds, “You have scrambled eggs in your hair.”
I like cities in theory. A city seems cool, a constant invite to stay up all night on a rooftop, soak in the theater, try new cafés, all the while moving through a constant throng of busy, vibrant people. I love visiting cities, but I’ve always wondered if I’d actually enjoy living in one. Maybe it’s the press of so many people. Or the grime. Or the noise. Or the underlying smell of urine. But, for me, city life seems like living perpetually at the end of an overcrowded day at Disneyland. I adore Disneyland, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Still, I could see myself in a city for a while. Because cities have museums. And museums have all the things I love.
Speaking of love, after breakfast, Riya takes me to Berlin’s Museum Island.
Museum Island.
Apparently, Berlin sent out a Bat-Signal for museum geeks, a flash against the sky to say, There’s an island just for you.
Riya claps her hands in front of my gaping face. “See! Look at you. I knew it! I knew you would love it. The first time I came here I thought, it’s like Abby’s mother ship.”
“If friendship had a museum, it would be the Riya Sharma-Collins Museum.”
She hugs me. “This is true. Okay.” She waves the envelope her mom gave her at me. “Tickets, tours, maps, recommended lunch spot. Mom organized the whole thing. We have until dinner at eight with Moira the Monster. What do you want to see first?”
I shake my head at her exaggeration. “Moira the Monster. She can’t possibly be that bad.”
Riya blinks at me. “Right, optimism. Okay. Let’s go enjoy that for a while.”
A few hours later, I stand transfixed in front of a gold coin in a glass case in the Bode Museum. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the sculptor Phidias’s seated statue of Zeus at Olympus. It’s not my favorite of the wonders. I’ve always thought while reading the myths that Zeus acted like a sexist, overtired toddler who needed anger management classes, so I never really focused much on him. But Phidias’s statue was a wonder, the biggest statue of ivory built over wood at its time. The coin I’m gaping at now features Phidias’s Zeus, holding a tiny figure of Nike in his gold hand.
Riya squints at it. “Who was Nike again?”
“Goddess of victory.”
“Oh, that makes sense. I guess they wouldn’t name a shoe after the goddess of sleeping late.” She inspects her own Nikes. “Do you think she cares that she’s now the goddess of sweaty feet?”
I shrug, the coin holding me in a history trance. Like all the Seven Wonders except the Great Pyramid of Giza, the statue of Zeus doesn’t exist anymore. As with many theories in history, people disagree: Some say it was destroyed in a fire, some argue it was lost when Constantine the Great ordered it dismantled and a collector had it moved to Constantinople. How someone loses a forty-three-foot statue is beyond me, but who knows, maybe FedEx runs into this sort of problem all the time. Yet somehow, this tiny coin survived and made it all the way to right now, right here, in front of my face. It might be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Like standing in front of the lost wonder itself.
Riya yawns, inspecting her cuticles. I can’t blame her. She doesn’t have museum stamina in the same way I don’t have loud-music-and-too-many-people-at-a-party stamina. Today, I’ve already dragged her through rooms of Byzantine art and spent the last hour poring over about four thousand coins in the Bode collection. I peel my eyes away from this beautiful coin. “Want to move on?”
She brightens. “Are you sure? I’m sorry—I didn’t sleep so great last night on the train. And that currywurst from lunch isn’t sitting so well.” She clasps a hand over her belly. “But I want to make sure you see everything you want to see. And I know this Zeus thing is a big deal.”
“How many coins can we look at before our eyes start crossing?” All of them, I don’t add. I want to see every single one. “Let’s hit the next museum.”
Riya looks relieved. “Great. I’m ready to go, too.”
I don’t mention I could spend the next month basically living here.
We wander through the Pergamon Museum for the rest of the afternoon, our eyes bugging at the sheer scale of the artifacts. Standing in the Aleppo Room, we pause to take in the intricate panels, the paintings containing the oldest Syrian home collection from the Ottoman period. “I don’t really know much about the Ottomans,” Riya admits, turning a slow circle to soak in the detailed scenes that merge Islamic and Christian stories in bold red, black, and mustard yellow.
“They basically ended the Byzantine Empire,” I tell her, leaning in to examine a panel detailing the story of Saint George.
“Well, that’s super helpful, thanks.” She follows my gaze. “Is this a story I should know?” She points to Saint George and his dragon.
“Saint George? It’s damsel in distress and imperialism all rolled into one!”
“Charming.” She doesn’t try to hide the sarcasm. Right now, Riya’s clearly having her own paddleboard moment. Time to bring the boards to shore.
“Oh!” She grins, glancing at a new text on her phone. “Will says hi.”
“Hi back.”
His message puts the first genuine smile I’ve seen on her face all afternoon. It’s nearing five, and she’s obviously had enough museum air for one day. We head for the exit. Outside, we walk into the hot light. Riya slips on her aviator glasses. “This whole area was bombed in World War II. Seventy percent of it was ruined or something like that. We came here with my school. It’s been a huge restoration project.”
I tuck the slim book I just bought on the Pergamon’s Islamic art collection into my backpack. “I’ve been reading a lot about Berlin this year. Interesting city; such a sad history. It’s crazy to think about how much of it was bombed and divided. But it seems like Berliners aren’t afraid of their past. Like it just makes them more determined.” As I prattle on, Riya withdraws into her phone, grinning at an exchange she’s having with Will. I bite my lip, knowing I need to shut up and let her show me the city she’s been living in for a year without all my research babble clouding the air around us, but I wish she’d put the phone away. I study our sandaled feet as we continue along the cobbled paths of Museum Island. “Everything good with Will?”
She looks up. “What? Oh, sorry. Actually, it’s not Will. It’s Kiara.” She slips her phone into her bag.
I try not to let a spark of annoyance creep into my voice. “Should we go back to your apartment? I can’t wait to see it.”
“Great idea. We can walk along the Spree to Hackesche Höfe, do a little shopping on our way. Then we can walk from there to Alex. Or we could rent bikes? Do you want to rent a bike?”
“I think walk. Who’s Alex?”
She shakes her head. “Alexanderplatz. It’s the square near our apartment named for the Russian czar’s trip to Berlin in 1805. Ha! History tidbit for you. See, I can be a wealth of historical knowledge, too.” She motions at the Neues and Altes Museums as we pass them and then the blue-domed Berlin Cathedral with its wide green lawn. “Museum, museum. Church!”
I shake my head, but can’t help but smile. “You’re a detailed and thorough tour guide.”
I peer through the dim lighting of the restaurant, my mouth watering at the savory scent in the air, and sip sparkling water, my eyes on the door. Despite Riya’s warnings (or maybe because of them), I’m looking forward to meeting Moira. If Riya’s to be believed, I should be looking for a harpy with fangs. As I wait, I scan the menu again. My parents are not adventurous eaters. Going out to dinner usually means pizza or Mexican. This past year, I’ve missed going out with
Riya’s parents, who always seem to try something new. Tonight, Anju and Dean bring us to a Turkish restaurant in the northeastern corner of the Tiergarten, Berlin’s central park. On our way here, they pointed out the famous Brandenburg Gate, and I noticed Nike again, that busy goddess of victory, atop Berlin’s famous monument. But I couldn’t seem to focus on those massive passageways Hitler famously marched his troops through when he became chancellor, the sound of goose-stepping like thunder. My rumbling stomach distracted me. And the promised Moira sighting. The suspense is killing me.
“Maybe he can’t find the restaurant,” Dean muses, checking the time on his phone. “Neel’s not usually late.”
“Moira likes to make an entrance,” Riya mumbles into her water.
“Maybe she’s grown up a little since the last time we saw her.” Anju adjusts the napkin in her lap, the light of a low-hanging chandelier flashing on the necklace of green glass beads she wears, sending pale spangles of light across the table. “Maybe we all have.”
Riya sets down her water. “She was nineteen the last time we saw her. Do people grow up from nineteen, or do they just fine-tune their annoying habits?”
“I guess we’ll soon find out,” Anju says brightly, leveling her gaze at Riya in that way she has that says, You’re answering your own question right now, my darling. I’ve been the recipient of that look before. It’s gentle, but effective. Then she’s rising a bit out of her chair, waggling her fingers at the couple coming through the door. “Hello, Neel! Moira!”
Moira is no gnarled, green-skinned harpy. This creature floats through the restaurant, short and narrow-faced, wearing a simple pearl-pink sheath dress, her white-blonde hair slicked into a low knot at the nape of her slender neck. She’s beautiful, like a blade, thin and sharp. The table stands to greet her and Neel, air kisses filling the space around their cheeks, a European habit that makes me feel like I missed a necessary choreography lesson that would allow me to execute this custom with any style or grace. I stay seated and avoid the kiss, kiss. Moira slips into the seat to the right of me. She has deeply sunken eyes the color of pool water, and translucent skin. She must burn easily, and for some reason realizing this makes me feel marginally better about her perfect skin. I’m not proud of this flash of meanness, but it flared unexpectedly.
The Wonder of Us Page 10
