Riya runs her fingers through her dark hair, which has grown curly in the humidity. “Did I plan too much? I wanted to make sure we got all the history stuff in that you’d like. No offense, but I don’t need to see any of it again. I’d rather take you shopping.”
I watch shoppers mill around us or sit at nearby tables, enormous bags resting at their feet as they murmur to one another across their own tabletops. “Sometimes, I get depressed thinking about all the amazing historical things in the world and how I probably won’t get to see even the tiniest fraction of them. Even if I Google all the checklists of what I should see.”
Riya grins. “I Googled Ten Best Things to See for each of our cities. Even though I’ve been to most of them. But you can’t possibly see everything anyway.”
I sigh. “Maybe I just feel guilty. I know I should want to see as much historical stuff as I can, but it starts bumming me out after a while.”
“Don’t feel guilty! We’re allowed to have fun. We don’t have to be so productive all the time. We’re not Neel.”
I reach for a cookie. “Maybe this cookie represents the best part of Berlin for me.” I take a bite. “Yep, this is my wonder of Berlin.”
Riya shakes her head. “Well, that would make me the world’s lousiest tour guide.” I throw the cookie at her. “Hey, you’re wasting our wonder of the world!”
Tears threaten to surface. Clearly, I’m having some sort of emotional heatstroke today. “Forget it.” I should tell her that it feels like it’s been a long time since anyone has taken care of me the way she has on this trip, has stopped whatever they were doing to make sure I had water or a cool department store to sit down in, but I don’t tell her, and the moment passes as she points out a cute handbag hanging from the shoulder of a woman walking by us. I grab the other cookie on the plate. “Don’t underestimate how good these cookies are.” The sad truth is that more often than not, I don’t say the things I should in any given moment.
But I’m lucky. Because I have Riya, who can mostly read the thoughts shooting through my messed-up head even if I don’t say them aloud. She motions to the crumbs on the plate. “Thanks for saving me one, by the way.”
Later, Riya stands next to me by a rack of clothes and studies my find. “You should definitely get it.”
I drop the slippery fabric of the top, letting it fall like water back onto its hanger. “Right, because I’m going to spend”—I pause, checking the price tag and running the math in my head—“eighty-eight dollars on a tank top.”
Riya pulls it from the hanger. “It’s beautiful. And it’s on sale. Try it on.”
In the dressing room, the mirror confirms my fear: I love it. I turn in circles, admiring the way the silvery fabric spills around me. Riya peers over the edge of the door. “Let me see—oooooh, yes. It will look gorgeous with the miniskirt from Florence. My treat.”
“You are not buying me an eighty-eight-dollar tank top. I don’t care how much on sale it is.” I pull it off over my head and put it back on the hanger.
Riya yanks open the door and snatches it. “Okay, then my nani is buying it.”
Before I can grab it back, my phone rings. A FaceTime from Kate. “Hi,” I say to my sister, her big eyes blinking at me through the screen. “Whoa, up close and personal.”
“Guten Tag!” she shouts into the phone. Older sisters are supposed to be cool and teach you about cool things, but that does not include technology for my sister. She’s more of a Luddite than I am.
“Why are you shouting?”
She pulls back slightly from the screen. “Where are you?”
“In a dressing room. In Berlin—hold on.” I set the phone down on the ground and quickly slip back into my shirt.
“Nice bra!”
I grab the phone. “What’s up?”
“Just checking in on you before I go for my run.”
It’s almost three in Berlin, which makes it nearly six in the morning in Portland, Oregon. Kate runs five mornings a week at 6:15. She’s very committed to it. She got 99 percent of the athletic genes in the family. I can do basic hiking, but nothing that takes actual skill or endurance or a prop of any kind. Or getting up at six in the morning.
I start to tell her, “We saw Checkpoint Charlie today, the most well-known crossing spot for the Allies in the Cold War,” but her phone goes suddenly between her chin and her shoulder. She’s tying her shoes. “Hello, this is a video call,” I remind her.
Her face reappears. “Oh, right. So you met someone named Charlie.” My sister got zero percent of the interest-in-history genes.
“Yes, he was dressed in lederhosen and wielding a beer stein the size of a small car. I might move in with him here in Germany and learn to herd goats. Could you tell Mom and Dad for me?”
She rolls her eyes. “Sorry—I had to tie my shoes. How’s Riya? Did you see Dean and Anju?”
“They’re great. Dean’s taking us to see his work at a gallery here tomorrow.”
“They’re too cool to be parents.” I hear her filling up a water bottle.
Someone knocks on the dressing room door. “Okay in there?” the matronly saleswoman asks me when I crack open the door, her hair in a perfect gray bun. I show her my phone, and she smiles understandingly, moving off down the row of dressing rooms.
“And the cousin,” Kate continues, “how’s that going?” To my horror, heat rushes to my cheeks, visible even to distracted Kate in Portland. She perks up. “Oh, well, what do we have here? International romance?”
“Eww, no. He’s almost twenty years old.”
“I’m twenty-two. Am I eww?” She mimics my face.
“Yes.”
She grins. “He sounds intriguing. An older, British chaperone?”
“He and Riya are always at each other’s throats. Cousin baggage because he’s so bossy and condescending. Besides, he has a horrible girlfriend.”
This kills her smile. “Off-limits, then.”
“Yes, I know.” Kate has always been clear on this subject. Which makes her unrelenting support of Mom’s choice even more annoying. I know Mom claims she and Dr. Restivo didn’t start dating until after she and Dad decided to split, but it seems like a technicality.
“You should call Mom.” Another of Kate’s annoying habits: reading my mind.
I exit the dressing room. “I talked to her last night.”
She tries a different angle. “She said you still won’t talk to Robert?”
“I don’t currently have any pressing dental needs.” I see Riya across the store, finishing up at a cash register. She holds up a white, red-handled bag and gives me a thumbs-up.
“You’re being a baby about this, you know?”
“Says the girl who conveniently lives in Portland.”
“Abby—”
“Look, you haven’t had to deal with the fallout, okay? You don’t know what it’s like.”
“So you’ve said.”
“I have to go,” I tell her. “Riya’s waiting for me.”
“Abby!” Her expression is as worried as her voice, and it keeps me from ending the call even if I don’t respond. She really doesn’t get it. Kate got to grow up with her childhood intact, move away, and is now off living her own life, our parents existing in the backdrop for holidays and long weekends. She hasn’t had to survive in the same house with Dad for the last five months, see his face each day as he wanders like a zombie through the rooms. She hasn’t had to make sure he eats right or puts the garbage out. She has the luxury of neutrality because she doesn’t get dropped off each week for Sunday dinner with Mom and Dr. Spits-A-Lot.
“Don’t worry about it, okay?” I tell her. “Have a good run.”
That night, I feel sort of awkward standing in front of Nachtlicht on a busy Berlin street wearing the beautiful silvery tank top, my leather miniskirt, and a pair of borrowed heeled sandals that include an elaborate zigzag of unnecessary straps that Riya had to help me fasten.
It also feels exhilarating.<
br />
“You look incredible,” Riya keeps telling me, squeezing my arm. She tugs on one of the curls she somehow managed to pile on top of my head in a way that didn’t make me look like a deranged sprinkler.
Giddy, I wonder if the makeup she applied still looks as good as it did in the mirror back at her apartment. I hope I’m not sweating it off. “Thanks. You look fantastic.” She does. Black platform combat boots, lemon-yellow satin shorts, and a tight, subtly glittered black T-shirt.
“You look like a tarty bee,” Neel declared as we left earlier.
“Buzzzzzzz,” Riya tossed out as she shut the front door on his response.
“There they are!” Riya releases my arm, waving wildly at Tavin, Kiara, and Jonas as they cross the street toward us.
“What is he wearing?” I gape at Jonas, dressed in a suit that looks entirely made out of pockets. Suit pockets. Dress-shirt pockets. Denim back pockets and the inside white material of front pockets. Big pockets from handbags stitched together with smaller pockets from coin purses—every kind of pocket—to form a full suit. Even his tie is made from tiny pockets.
“Wow,” Riya says when they join us. “Mr. Pockets.”
He hands us each a slip of white paper and a pen. “Tell me a secret.”
Kiara giggles. “You write it down and put it in one of his pockets!”
“I’m a piece of interactive performance art,” he tells us proudly, his lime-green glasses slipping down his nose. “Cool, right?” Riya scribbles something down and tucks it into a denim pocket on his right sleeve. Tavin does the same. I can’t really think of much, so I write I wonder what my dog’s doing right now and tuck it away in his chest pocket.
Tavin leans into me, whispering, “I wrote down that he seems to need a lot of attention.”
Tingling at the feel of his breath on my neck, I whisper back, “Not sure that’s such a big secret.”
Tavin flashes his trademark smile at me. “Perhaps I should resubmit?”
“Maybe.”
“Nice tank, by the way.” He takes the hem of my top and rubs it between his fingers. I follow him into the club, fluttery in the wake of his compliment.
Inside, it’s a mix of shadow and spots of neon lights from a hidden source. On the angular corner stage, a three-person band pounds out a driving beat. They seem to be wearing a full outfit between them: the singer in a crop top and high-waisted marching band shorts, the drummer in a suit jacket without a shirt, and the base guitarist sporting a dress shirt that hangs to his knees, no pants, just combat boots and a top hat. He looks a little like a punk version of John from Disney’s Peter Pan.
Tavin notices, too. “Maybe they don’t have enough money to each buy all the clothes,” he says dryly. “So they share.”
“Music is a tough life.” I nod in fake solemnity.
He squeezes my arm. “Riya knew you and I would get along.”
My heart picks up a beat. “Are we getting along?”
He leans into me, his lips grazing my ear. “I’m going to get us something to drink.” He disappears into the throng, giving me a minute to catch my breath.
Riya, Kiara, and Jonas dance at the edge of the thick pack of dancers. I survey the rest of the room. Some people hang out in clumps by the wall or sit at low tables with drinks, leaning in, heads almost touching to hear each other. I have never been in a club before, and even if this is a special club for sixteen and over and not a “real” club (as Neel informed us earlier) it feels real to me. Of course, I also have absolutely no idea what to do in a real (or fake) club, so I just stand here lamely, searching for Tavin’s familiar worn jeans and maroon T-shirt to reappear in the blur.
Suddenly, he’s next to me with a pair of Cokes, and I can smell the sweet syrup of the soda. I take a grateful sip, my head more carbonated than my drink. “I’m not much of a dancer,” he confides, dipping close to my ear again.
“Me either,” I shout into the side of him, his shaggy hair tickling my nose. Maybe this is one benefit of a club: It forces you to get close to someone just to hear them.
“Fancy meeting you here!” A voice bellows on the other side of me. Neel stands there, eyes wide in mock surprise, his hands in the pockets of a pair of skinny black jeans. “Thought I’d join you since Moira’s ditched me and gone back to London.”
“What? Oh, um—” I can’t believe he’s here, after the whole fake club comment. He blinks at me and then makes a slight nod in Tavin’s direction. “Oh, right, this is a friend of Riya’s—Tavin.”
“Gaven, how’d you and Riya know each other?”
“What?” Tavin can’t make out Neel’s words.
“It’s Tavin!” I try again, shouting into Neel’s ear. “They went to school together last year.”
“Ah, brilliant.” He moves his head to the music.
Something has shifted. Tavin looks annoyed, sips at his Coke, his eyes scrutinizing the dancers. Neel rocks back and forth on his feet, heel to toe, heel to toe, trying to look interested, but beneath it, he’s hurt. He’s being casual about Moira, but something happened.
I scoot closer so he can hear me. “What happened with Moira?” He makes a sour face. “Do you want to talk about it?” As I say it, I realize I want him to want to talk about it with me. Somewhere quiet. That can’t be good. “Or not—whatever.”
He shakes his head. “Too loud!” He motions around us.
I take a long swallow of my drink, choking on the carbonation. Both boys slap me on the back in unison. Smooth. “I’m fine,” I sputter. One of my curls comes loose and bobs like a bungee jumper in front of my eyes.
Tavin tugs again at the flutter of my tank top hem. “You want to dance?”
Feeling Neel’s eyes on me, I give Tavin a playful nudge. “I thought we agreed we weren’t dancers.”
“Let’s fake it.” He pulls me toward the dance floor, and I cast apologetic glances back at Neel, who smiles stiffly, still rocking, heel to toe, heel to toe, like a bored teacher at a dance he wasn’t supposed to have to chaperone.
We find Riya with Kiara and Jonas near the stage. Tavin and I attempt some dance-related moves for a few minutes and our joint awkwardness cracks us up. He really goes for it, kicking his legs and arms in random directions, and doing little shimmies that aren’t even close to being rhythmically on beat for the music that’s pounding the air around us. He’s adorable, and the way he keeps looking at me kicks up that fizz in my belly again. Riya dances over to us, giving me a sly smile. She motions at Tavin. “Having fun?” I nod, and after a few twirls, she shouts, “Is that Neel I saw moping over there?” I nod again, and she takes my hands, pulling me into her until our faces almost touch. “What in the name of ancient history is he doing here?”
The band takes a sudden break. Riya lets go of me, and we each take an automatic step back now that we can actually hear each other. She repeats her question.
“Moira went back to London.”
Riya shoots a concerned look at her cousin. “So, we actually scared her off? And it didn’t even take a spike or a silver bullet. Miraculous.”
I glance at where he stands, his face long. “He seems pretty sad about it.”
“This is what they do.” She fans herself as she heads to the bar.
I follow her. “What do you mean?”
“She throws a fit, breaks up with him, and he coaxes her back. It’s a repetitive, boring little game of Duck, Duck, Neel.” Riya scans the bar. “Whew, hot. I need water.”
Kiara dances up to us, even if the music has stopped momentarily. “Get me one,” she tells Riya, and collapses on a barstool. “I love dancing.”
I’m distracted, trying to catch Neel’s eye, but I nod and say, “Yeah. It’s great.”
Kiara kicks off a heel and starts massaging her foot. “You must be thrilled to see Riya. She tells me you two are tight.”
My gaze snaps back. “Yeah, super tight. Since preschool.”
She switches feet. “That’s cool. I’ve been dying to meet
the famous Abby!”
“Great to finally meet you, too.” She’s being nice, but the air feels weird between us, and it takes me a minute to recognize the thin tendrils winding their way through my gut as jealousy. I try to give Kiara a bright smile. Back home, Riya has tons of friends and often hangs out with them without me. I’ve always preferred it this way because I know when she’s done with parties and boyfriends and just wants to be herself, she comes to me.
Why should Kiara feel different from all those other friends?
She just does.
Riya returns, balancing three glasses of sparkling water, and hands one to Kiara and one to me. To Kiara, she says, “Apparently, you know the bartender? Sebastian.”
Kiara runs the name around her head, trying to place him, until Riya points him out at the other end of the bar. “Ah, yes. He’s friends with Ren.”
At my confused look, Riya says, “Her brother. One of her three older brothers. The middle, right?”
Kiara nods into her water. “Renald. The one who gives my dad all the gray hair. He got a tattoo on his face last week.” She shakes her head affectionately.
Riya laughs. “Another one?”
Kiara launches into a story that involves her brother, a German flight attendant, and the Swedish authorities. She has Riya doubled over in giggles by the end of it. “And that’s when he said to them, ‘Does this mean I don’t get my massage?’”
I try to laugh even if it has the feel of a recycled story, one she’s told for this very moment, this lead-in to the theatrical punch line. Kiara drains the last of her water. “It reminds me of what happened with Gus at school—remember that?”
Riya has to set her drink down she’s laughing so hard. “With the hamburger! That was hilarious.”
I don’t know Gus or what happened with the hamburger. I try to follow the back and forth of conversation (something about a librarian and a smuggled hamburger?) but they’ve lost me. I know it’s not on purpose—they’ve disappeared down the rabbit hole of a shared school environment that can’t help but leave me out of the mix, but it’s never easy to be on the outside of an inside joke.
The Wonder of Us Page 13
