“Don’t be silly.”
I give her a hard look. “It’s a legitimate question. Especially now.”
She folds her napkin into her lap. “I thought history was the most important thing to you?”
“It used to be.”
Her eyes plead with me. “But it’s one of the most important parts! If we don’t have history, we just spin into the future without any sense of connection.”
Funny, that’s exactly how I feel right now.
Our waitress drops off the food, and we eat in silence for a few minutes. The bridie is savory and delicious, its flaky crust perfectly baked.
“That’s a cool painting.” Riya points out a framed scene on the far wall of the restaurant: an indigo stretch of water with a glowing white horse emerging at its edge.
“The water horse,” our waitress tells us, following our gaze as she refills our water glasses.
Riya squints through the amber light of the restaurant. “Is that horse a ghost?”
“A kelpie.” The waitress smiles at our interest. “They are mystical creatures who live in the lochs, shape-shifting spirits. They can take human form, but mostly appear as horses. They pull people to them through their enchanting beauty, but then you can’t let go and they drag you to your watery death.” The waitress shifts a plate to make her load more balanced. “When I was a lass, my nanna warned me against straying near the water’s edge for fear a kelpie would pull me under.”
Riya and I have exchanged glances. Not sure whether the waitress still believes her nanna or not, I try to joke, “Fear. The cornerstone of any solid child-rearing platform.”
The waitress shrugs. “Didn’t drown, did I?”
We sleep in the next morning, dress quietly, and head out on our last planned outing in Scotland: Arthur’s Seat, a peak in the nearby hills of Holyrood Park with a crumbling ruin and striking views of the city and castle. It’s raining, just a drizzle, but I prefer it this way, not just because it matches my mood, but also because it makes the green-and-stone landscape of Scotland in front of us more mysterious and brooding.
At the top, with the wind moving the hair away from my face, I imagine the way the land looked hundreds of years ago when people lived in crude huts or stone castles and rode horses across the emerald expanse of Scotland. Mom always says I romanticize history too much. That life was hard in those times, most people just trying to find food and shelter. She’s right, but I still think human dreams and hopes have fueled the forward motion of the world. Human nature builds history. That’s what makes it relatable. Who knows, maybe some girl in the 1400s lost her best friend to a quest and her mom moved in with the village medicine man.
I walk to where Riya stands studying the landscape. “Do you think the future can be like a water horse?”
“Like the one in the painting?” She battles with the wind to tuck a lock of black hair behind her ear. “You’re getting SPP. It’s the view, right?” Riya started calling this pondering aloud of mine “School Paper Pensive” (SPP) on a camping trip when we were in eighth grade. It’s when I start to overthink something or want to make a historical argument relevant to a current situation. She’s got a point, and yes, it’s probably the view inspiring this current SPP. But it’s mostly her news. She chooses not to mention that part.
I study the soft lights glowing in the windows around the city stretching out below us. “I worry that walking toward beautiful, ghostly things because they have a promise of something grand and special might not be what’s actually good for us—they’ll just drag us into dark water.”
She grows still next to me, letting the wind win the battle with her flyaway hair. “You think London is a kelpie?”
“Maybe.”
She stuffs her hands in her pockets, her brow furrowing. “It’s not.” Riya’s face has always been an open, shifting canvas, her thoughts and feelings moving across it like clouds. Right now, the clouds are stormy, defensive.
I rub my hands together. It’s cold now that we’re not walking anymore. “I’m just worried about you, that you’re heading into a glittery idea that’s built to hurt you. I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful actress, but it’s such a tough life, even with talent and connections.” I stop, trying to bite down on these practical bits of me. I’ve already said more than she wants to hear.
She motions to the view in front of us. “Some people think this place where we’re standing used to be Camelot. You could be standing on the exact spot where Guinevere’s tears soaked the ground while she longed for Lancelot.”
“Guinevere cried because she was taken unwillingly from her home and forced to marry an older man she didn’t love.”
“But also Lancelot.” She smiles faintly when I roll my eyes. “You can’t help when you love something.” When I shrug, she says, “Do you think something is true because you believe it, or do you believe it because it’s true?” Surprise, surprise. Riya lays down some SPP of her own.
I shrug. “Chicken-egg, I guess.”
The rain has stopped for now, leaving a lingering mist in the city. Small droplets collect in the waves of Riya’s hair, and when she turns to me, they sparkle like diamond chips. “I think it’s true because you believe it.” She takes my hand, cold in hers. “I know you’re worried, that it seems like a leap for me. Thank you for worrying. But I want to live in London and study to be an actress because I need to try it. No sense kicking in our own teeth before we’ve given it a go, as Neel would say.”
“Neel said that?” Traitor. Even more annoying that he’s probably right.
She nods. “I know you want me to come back to Yuba Ridge and fill out college applications and grumble about where we got in or where we didn’t and walk across the field together in those horrible green gowns … I just can’t, Abby. Not anymore. But it doesn’t mean you can’t do all those things. And it doesn’t mean I can’t support you in all those things.”
“Especially now that you’ve made them sound so appealing.” I drop her hand, ducking my head so she can’t see my lip quiver. I know we can’t force our friends to want what we want. My head, at least, knows this is true. But I can’t help feeling like she’s on a full-speed rocket, shooting farther away from me each moment, and its trajectory keeps widening the ache in my chest.
She starts to bounce a little up and down beside me, trying to stay warm. “Can we go now? It’s bloody freezing up here.”
I groan. “Please tell me you’re not going to end up with a fake accent because you moved to the UK. You’re from Northern California.” I remind her mostly to make a point, but also because it feels like she’s forgetting.
As the plane begins to descend into Reykjavík, Abby turns to me from the window, her hand circled lightly around her nearly empty orange juice cup. “Icelandic history tidbit. When the Vikings landed in the 800s, they called it Snow Land, not Iceland. So if that name had stuck, we’d have totally come up with an original name for our kingdom.”
My stomach wobbles from a sudden dip of the plane, but also from her small peace offering. “Yeah, stupid Vikings. Thor stole our thunder.” I try to get comfortable in the airplane seat, stretching out my legs, rolling my shoulders.
“You okay?” Abby asks. “You’ve been fidgeting the whole flight.”
I massage the back of my neck. “I’m a little stiff. No big deal.” She nods and turns back to the window. I keep waiting for the sense of relief I expected to feel once Abby knew about London, waiting for my body to feel lighter now that it has been unburdened of my secret.
But it doesn’t.
“I’m so tired all of a sudden,” I say aloud.
“Wait, you’re human? Congratulations.” She swirls the last of the ice in her cup and points at my half of the kleina, an Icelandic doughnut we ordered from the flight attendant and charged to Neel. “You going to eat that?” I shake my head as she bites into the pastry, and I can’t help but giggle as it crumbles down her front. Chagrined, she shrugs, brushing at the crumbs. “Y
ou’ve got yourself one classy travel partner.”
A surge of love for her rushes through me.
Even Abby doesn’t know how many days during the last four or five years I would sit with my feet in the river near my house and dream myself out of Yuba Ridge into a faraway future. Sometimes, San Francisco or Seattle. Or farther: New York or Europe. It’s an embarrassing cliché, but there were even times I’d imagined falling hopelessly in love with someone who loved me back in an I-would-follow-you-across-the-sea sort of way.
Watching Abby now, I feel like an idiot for not realizing that I already had that sort of love. It had been at first sight, actually. Day one of preschool, a spider crawled into the small kitchen where we ate our snack, and Abby picked it up with her bare hands and carried it outside. She told us his name was Sam and he was, she said quietly, “a little lost.” I knew instantly we’d be friends. From that day forward, I spent years not feeling lost because behind every school year, every summer vacation, every television series or book I loved, every boy I crushed on, every doubt I had about my life, there stood dependable, practical Abby.
True love. The follow-you-across-the-sea kind.
I hope I haven’t messed it up.
She’s putting on a good face for now, but I know how much my decision hurts Abby. My life has taken a careening turn around a blind corner, and she must feel helpless watching me. In my theater classes, my teachers always talk about point of view, about looking through our characters’ eyes from their vantage points. Sitting here, I try to imagine how Abby must see things now that she knows about London.
I probably seem like I’ve lost my mind.
I haven’t, though. For years, even in the midst of summers by the river and camping in Tahoe and countless sleepovers, I’ve been missing a piece. The purpose piece. The bigger, driving piece. The one that snapped into place in Berlin, lit up my life in a way nothing ever has before. Well, nothing except Abby.
For the first time in months, doubt chokes me. “Abby?”
“Yeah?”
“You know I love you, right? No matter the geography.” I put my hand over hers and squeeze, and she gives me a short, surprised smile and squeezes back.
Just after eleven p.m., we land at Keflavík Airport and head toward customs, passing shops for juice, burgers, and coffee. Icelandic sweaters hang on racks. Abby points out tiny elves made of felt sitting in groups on blond wood shelves. After customs, Neel locates our driver in the arrivals hall, and he leads us outside to a small parking lot. I can’t stop staring at the strange periwinkle light, my breath catching in the chilly air.
Neel sits up front with Karl, our driver, and we ride in back, drowsy in the plush leather seats. During the drive to Reykjavík, I can’t pull my eyes from the lush, flat green all around us, the roads lined with purple flowers. I study the crisp, neat houses with their angled roofs, boxy and clean, like Nordic wrapped packages. I slip deeper into my tired haze, and Abby, quiet next to me, seems to do the same.
“Sunset will be in a couple of hours,” Karl announces, moving the car along the highway and through a town, the stoplights pale, glowing eyes in the elongated twilight. “But it won’t get fully dark. Not this time of year.” Finally, we pass a sheet of gray-blue water and Karl pulls the car into the parking lot of a hotel right off the highway. Leaving his door open, he hefts our bags out of the truck, wishes us well, and then drives away into the pale, endless light.
Abby slings her bag onto her shoulder and follows Neel inside. I sigh, hoping some of our famous Iceland magic will work its way into us while we’re here.
It takes forever to check in, something weird with our reservation, so we don’t get into our third-floor rooms until almost one a.m., but Riya has clearly gotten a second wind. She dumps her bags on the floor, saying, “Let’s go explore—things stay open late because of the light.” She brushes on some lip gloss, frowning when she turns to see I’ve already collapsed on my bed. Through the doorway of the adjoining room, we can just see Neel’s feet splayed out on the end of his bed. Riya groans. “Oh, come on, you two! We’re in Iceland. Look alive!”
“I’m game,” Neel mumbles, but his feet remain motionless.
“I’ll pass.” I dig through my bag for my pajamas.
Riya’s face falls. “You’re still mad?”
“That’s not it. I just need sleep.”
She’s not convinced, but doesn’t press. “Neel?”
“Right, coming!”
A few minutes later, Neel and Riya leave to explore Reykjavík. Basking in the quiet of the room, I brush my teeth and adjust the blackout curtains in the window, but no matter how hard I tug, they won’t close properly. I climb into bed, wrapping a T-shirt around my eyes, only then I just feel smothered. I throw the T-shirt across the room at my bag, missing by at least three feet.
A half hour later, the light slanting across my face, I give up and call Mom, who has called twice and sent three texts since yesterday. Dad obviously told her about Riya’s news and my subsequent disappearing act. Her last text simply read: CALL ME!
Kicking off the white duvet, I FaceTime her. She picks up instantly. “Abby?” Mom hates FaceTime, hates the awkward delay that sometimes happens, but for once, she doesn’t complain about it when she answers. Instead, she asks, “Where are you?”
“Iceland. Riya said she sent you an itinerary.” How does she not know where I am right now?
“Right, right. I don’t have it on me.” She is sweaty, her hair pulled into a ponytail. I must have caught her on a walk. “How are you holding up?”
Without warning, the tears start flowing. “I’m—I’m sorry,” I gulp, embarrassed.
“It’s okay—you just got some difficult news.”
“I’ve had a lot of difficult news this year,” I mumble.
She frowns. “I’m assuming that was a shot at me. Most of them are right now.”
“Maybe you could try not to take this one personally.”
Through the screen, Mom’s brown eyes search my messy face. “Where’s Riya?”
“She and Neel are out exploring Reykjavík.”
“Why aren’t you with them?”
I almost tell her about just wanting to get some sleep, about the odd late light here keeping me awake, but instead I tell her the truth. “Because I don’t really want to be with Riya right now.” All year long, I only wanted Riya to come home, longed to see her face in the halls at school, hear her yelling out the car window in the morning, her door already partly open before Dean even reached the curb to drop her off. But now I am avoiding her in an Icelandic Radisson. And, apparently, throwing myself a small pity party about it.
Mom pushes some wisps of hair from her face. “Honey, you can’t let Riya’s decision ruin your trip.”
“I’m not—”
She overlaps my argument. “I’ve never been to Iceland. You’re really lucky to have an opportunity like this one. Don’t waste it sulking.”
Annoyance bubbles up in my stomach, a tourniquet for my tears. “Wow, thanks, Mom, for that inspiring insight.”
“Well, you don’t have to be a snot.”
Heat surges through me. “Let’s look at why I’m being a snot, okay? Let’s look at the timeline of my year. Last summer, my best friend told me she was moving to Berlin. That’s in Germany, remember? Then in January, my mother told our family that she doesn’t love us anymore and moved in with our dentist. I pretty much spent the last five months going to school, working at the Blue Market, and taking care of Ghost Dad, while my only real friend was having major life epiphanies in Germany without me. Then, to top it off, my magical trip to Europe is a scam because the aforementioned best friend forgot to mention that she is moving to London to become an actress. So, you’ll excuse me, but I think I’m inclined to be a bit of a snot right now. I think I’ve earned it.” I stop, my chest heaving, the room suddenly as cold and empty as the light.
Mom doesn’t say anything for almost a full minute. We just stare th
rough a tiny screen at each other on two different sides of the world. “I never said I didn’t love you anymore. That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s an actions-louder-than-words thing, Mom. Actions louder than words.” I click off the phone. My hand shaking, it drops into my lap. I’ve never in the history of my life hung up the phone on my mother. Come to think of it, I haven’t done any of those clichéd teenaged things. Never slammed the door in her face. Never screamed at her that I hated her. Not once. Even when she left, packed her things, stood outside our house, her arm across the open door of the Volvo, I never did something like this.
Maybe it’s about time.
The next morning, I pile my plate with eggs and toast from the breakfast buffet, not feeling quite adventurous enough to try any of the various kinds of smoked fish in the row of glass pots. Across the room, Riya scowls at the make-your-own-waffle machine, muttering low insults at it as she investigates the stainless-steel block from all sides. “Maybe it doesn’t respond to negative reinforcement?” I come up alongside her.
“It’s not working!” She slaps its side, wincing, “Ow, hot!” before rattling off a louder string of colorful curses that raises the eyebrows of a white-haired couple who are sitting at a nearby table.
“Be nice to the waffle maker. Did you pour in the batter?” She nods, so I press the button that cooks the waffle once it has the batter, and a minute later, I slide a sugary golden-brown disc onto a clean plate for her. “There—see?”
“I tried that.” She takes the plate, muttering, “It hates me.” She smiles ruefully at the couple pretending they aren’t eavesdropping.
We join Neel at a far table. Not taking his eyes from the article he’s reading in the Economist, Neel says, “Thought that machine was going to have to bring assault charges against you.”
Riya ignores him. I reach for a silver pitcher of milk, noticing that everything in the room reflects shades of white, silver, and glass, like we’re having breakfast in a spaceship café. I’m also acutely aware that the energy at the table feels strange. I glance at the two of them. They are actively not making eye contact. Did something happen between them last night when they went out without me?
The Wonder of Us Page 19
