The United States of Us

by Kate Sundara

  ‘I know.’ A pause. ‘Bergamot’s good for balancing mood, neutralising impulsive behaviour. You’re pretty impulsive aren’t you?’ She raises her hand to dab the juice on Zak but he grabs her wrist, making the fruit fall back into the grass. She laughs, he rolls over onto his side facing her, a lock of wild raven hair falling across his face.

  ‘Green eyes,’ he tells her. ‘Your eyes make me calm.’ She kisses him hard on the mouth, the tastes of salt and summer on his skin. He’s her new addiction – his pheromones arresting her senses like they did by the wishing-well. And realising the beauty she beholds before her, she cups his cheekbone in her palm, knowing the fragility of life, of exquisite moments such as these, and of the tenuousness between here and gone.

  They lay wet on the earth, sedated by steamy heat, sun searing a perfect circle into the blue blue sky like a shimmering disc of white-hot metal. In the shade of the boughs, she rests her head on Zak’s sturdy chest, his warm hands in her hair. To her, this day is divine. For once, she feels in sync with the universe – everything gloriously and effortlessly changing – her feelings, her fortune kaleidoscopic. Like Zak is letting her look through his lens into his technicolor world of wonder. Like this is her reward for all the darkness and drudgery she’s been through.

  ‘Stay,’ says Zak. His rested voice is almost a growl. Mia likes the way it sounds in his throat. She pulls herself up onto her elbow. ‘I can’t stay – it’s all booked, all paid for.’

  ‘I’ll pay it back.’

  ‘Zak. All that rearranging for the sake of a couple more days on the island? What difference will it make? We still have to leave. Everyone has to leave.’

  The sadness in his eyes serenades her, the effect she’s had on him so unexpected.

  Zak rolls over, hovering above her, his strong arms supporting the weight of that strong, lean body. That new-found land. Sunlight spheres through his dangling hair, through the shining clouds, the citrus trees. His breathing grows heavy. She lets his eyes flood into hers this time. They kiss again, his full lips against hers, kisses like a deep dark wine.

  ‘MIA!’ Another voice comes rushing through the flora.

  ‘There you are!’ cries Anna. As she comes swishing through the long-grass, Cupid flees the crab-apple tree, Zak pulls himself off Mia who sits bolt-upright. ‘I’ve been look- ing everywhere for you! You–’ Clocking Zak by the stream, Anna’s dark eyes pop open like two umbrellas.

  Mia panics. ‘Where were you?’ she snaps unjustifiably, trying to cover her tracks.

  ‘The good-bye boat is leaving in ten minutes!’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Make haste!’ insists Anna.

  ‘Make haste?’ says Zak. Mia almost bursts out laughing.

  Mia stands, Zak picks meadow leaves from her hair, Anna marches off, Zak spins Mia back in to him and kisses her in a sunbeam.

  How enlivened she is today – shining, healthy, glowing – a bright contrast to that weary shadow of a girl who washed up on these shores all those weeks ago. It’s great to see her this happy. Seeing is all I can do; I can’t interfere even if I want to, and there have been many times that I have. It’s her life, not mine, but until I find a way to untangle us, Mia and I remain in this fusion, this attachment. I try to stay the unbiased observer.

  It’s not easy being soul-mates when one of you is alive and the other one dead.

  * * *

  Zak is half in shadow, half in light as he walks with Mia beneath the canopy.

  ‘You travel light!’ he remarks, as she walks with her little bag.

  ‘My backpack’s at the dock. I dropped it off with the others last night.’

  ‘I’m not good at goodbyes,’ he confesses. Zak’s eyes are alive with fire and water, with passion and sensitivity. His eyes are asking her not to leave him. Mia never expected them to look that way – it’s all so sudden. In the distance she spots the tiny boat bobbing on the sea and she freezes.

  ‘What is it?’ asks Zak. ‘You really don’t like the water? So stay on the island. Stay here with me and when we leave, we’ll leave in an air-balloon.’

  ‘Ha-ha.’

  ‘I’m serious. Stay here and I’ll create one with my own two hands, we’ll float off, totally bypass the sea – we’ll fly way up above it.’ His mood seems to lift with his make-believe balloon.

  She looks at him askance.

  ‘Just imagine… the dolphins leaping along below us…’ Zak demonstrates his vocal dexterity, clicking and whistling just the way dolphins do.

  Mia can’t help but laugh at that, impressed – she’s never heard any human make those sounds before. ‘Where would we go?’ she asks, enchanted by this whimsical man-child, this live-wire with all his puckish wonder.

  ‘Anywhere you want!’ He casts his hands up in the air.

  Delighted by his flight-of-fancy, she plays along, entering escape from her phobia. ‘Take me to some of the places you told me about – take me to Nepal, to Tibet!’

  ‘They call Tibet the roof of the world. To the top of the world!’ he declares.

  Mia already feels on top of the world with him. She grins, her eyes alive. He makes her come alive, like he’s sprinkled her with stardust… ‘And what’ll we do when we get there?’

  ‘Anything you want! We’ll fly kites way up in the Himalayas. We’ll visit shanties and dine with the friends I made. We’ll seek monasteries and temples high in the clouds, drink yak-buttermilk tea with villagers, sleep by fires, under stars! We’ll hike and trek till our muscles burn then massage each other’s pain away…’ He gives her an impish grin and a wink.

  Mia’s laughing along with all of this.

  ‘I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Where next?’

  She’s tempted by all the amazing places with which she associates Zak: the Caribbean, the Maldives, the Bahamas, the Seychelles. She remembers all the destinations she’s been to alone, and is thrilled by the idea of not being alone in the world any more. To no longer be the lonely traveller returning with a hundred stories that feel like nothing but a dream. She’d share her dreams with Zak and he’d make them as rich and as real as the colours of India. Not only for the good times but through the bad. Her projections paralyse her in time…

  ‘You know, the Tibetan Buddhists talk of a place beyond the mountains called Shambhala,’ Zak enthuses. ‘Paradise on earth, somewhere only those with the right karma can reach. It’s a totally treacherous hike to find that sacred place. But once you get there, there’s no pain and suffering, only joy…’

  ‘Maybe we could reach it…’ suggests Mia. ‘I mean, if we’re in our balloon, right?’

  ‘We’re already there…’ He gives a look then breaks out a winning smile that leaves her speechless. Is he saying what she thinks he’s saying? That paradise on earth isn’t a physical place, but this feeling she’s feeling right now? He reaches for her hand. And Mia appreciates that yes, while maybe all this makes him zany, full-on and utterly over-the-top, at the same time this could well be the happiest day of her life, or at least the happiest she’s been in years…

  ‘Well…’ she says, trying to relocate her rationale in the whirlwind. She’s giddy from the dizzy heights of his air-balloon fantasy, or is it that she hasn’t eaten all day. Is it something more?

  ‘Well…’ sighs Zak and looks at her and grins. They both laugh again, she’s not entirely sure why.

  ‘Any idea how to land a balloon?’ She’s got to bring them down to earth, got to be leaving.

  ‘Sheesh!’ grimaces Zak, ‘I thought you knew!’ He grabs both her hands, tumbling down onto the grass, pulling her on top of him. They lay laughing, panting, then the laughter falls away and Zak’s left looking at her, all pleading, sorry, sexy – like she’s about to break his too-big heart.

  ‘Come with me. For real,’ he tells her.

  ‘Come where?’

  ‘Come live with me in America!’

  ‘Ha! You’re funny.’

  ‘Come to America, you’d lov
e where I live! The Rocky Mountains! Nature, forests—’

  ‘—Bears!’

  ‘Bears. Don’t you worry about the bears. You wouldn’t have to worry about a thing.’

  Everything about his tone, body-language, eyes says he’s serious.

  ‘You know what else we don’t have there: Sea. We’re a million miles from the sea.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘No! It’s not crazy! C’mon Mia, you recognise this soul-connection – this kismet! It’s not just some summer fling – you know it, and I know you know. But the way this world works you won’t admit it. Where have I been? What do I do for a living? Where was I born? None of that matters. This matters – THIS! Don’t tell me we don’t know each other. We’ve known each other forever.’

  She starts humming to herself to self-comfort, a habit she picked up from me. She used to call me Hummingbird because I’d hum when I was trying to think. There was so much to think about that summer: what’d happen once we started at our different universities? Could one of us transfer? How could we separate when we’d forged our bond running so free?

  Turns out I needn’t have worried about any of it.

  Back then we’d lie making different bird-calls; skylarking in the fields, sunlight falling into her eyes just the way it is now.

  But that’s our story. She’s here now. With him. She tries to put me out of mind to process the present. Mia’s been travelling the world on her own for three years and only now finds herself having her first romance since ours.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’ teases Zak. Her heart is radiating joy. If only she could make herself harden up again like the melted candle-wax last night; Zak’s softening her out of her comfort-zone. Overwhelmed, she plucks clovers while he waits over her intensely. ‘Well… What do you say?’

  ‘MIA!’

  Anna again. Mia springs up. ‘C’mon Zak, we have to run! Anna’s waiting for me, she has to tick me off the departures list.’ Mia waves at the boat crew down on the beach. ‘Oh Zak. Why did this have to happen on my last day?’

  He laughs under his breath, removing something from her back.

  She turns to him. ‘What’s funny? Is my turmoil that amusing?’

  ‘Not that.’ He smiles and holds up a four-leaf clover. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘if this ain’t a sign…’

  Down on the sands, Mia watches the little boat bobbing on the sea, islanders hustling and bustling about them.

  ‘Zak. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Take care, Mia. It’s a wild world out there.’

  ‘Isn’t that a song?’

  ‘Which reminds me,’ he says, reaching in his pocket. ‘Have this.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You asked me what I write – I write songs.’ He puts the piece of paper in her hand.

  ‘Won’t you need it?’

  ‘It’s all in here,’ he smiles bravely, pointing to his head. ‘I got it down on guitar, I would’ve played it to you but we’re all outta time…’

  ‘I wish things were different.’

  Mia bids Anna an awkward adieu, then one of the Spanish girls, a laundry co-worker of Mia’s runs over, kisses Anna goodbye and goes to save Mia a place on the boat.

  ‘LAST PASSENGERS, PLEASE!’

  Mia turns to Zak, but can’t think what to say. Adorned with flowers and ribbons thrown around her by fellow islanders whilst she’s been stood here, ‘You look like you’ve stepped straight out of Woodstock,’ Zak tells her smilingly.

  She laughs. ‘You and I were born in the wrong era. Guess, it’s all about the timing,’ she adds.

  They lock in a tight embrace.

  More shouts from the boat.

  She presses one last parting kiss on Zak’s lips. Then he takes a step back as she turns away.

  Pulling herself onto the boat, the others reach out, taking her arms. Mia looks back to shore, but Zak’s already disappeared in the crowd. The little boat starts to pull away, she grips the sides. Then she hunkers down into the middle where she’s so surrounded by other travellers that she can’t even see the water. The transfers team are proud that in all their years of ferrying islanders back and forth to the mainland they’ve never had a boat overturn. Mia takes comfort in that. To take her mind off the ever-deepening blue beneath her, she unfolds Zak’s paper and reads. And what she reads is so beautiful she regrets ever doubting him and starts to question her decision to leave Utopia.

  But now it’s too late and they’re too far into the blue. She’s on her way again and with such aversion to the sea she doesn’t even have the option of swimming back.

  OCTOBER, 2005

  London

  Six weeks have passed since she got home and Mia’s London life couldn’t be more different. Everything’s an opposite. The island was all shiny summer days; here it’s cold, drizzle and grey. The island was free from technology; here she’s become pathologically addicted to the internet. The island allowed her an independent, relatively carefree mindset; here an infatuation with the man she met there has completely taken hold of her.

  When she got back to England Mia found Facebook, a newish network that everyone’s talking about. She checked to see if Zak has an account. He does, but he doesn’t really use it. He prefers email, apparently, even if his Facebook friend-count is through the roof, his wall full of travel photos, tagged by other people, his timeline plastered with miss you man!s, greetings from guys and girls in broken-English and enough invitations that he could couch-surf his way around the world again if he wanted to. She tries not to check his page too often, aware that he’s fast becoming her obsession. He’s becoming her world. Analysing every picture, trying to figure out his relationship with everyone who leaves a post, part of Mia hates social networking sites for the insecurity it creates, part of her loves it for helping her stay connected to him.

  Another plus of this online access is that she gets to see some of Zak’s photography. He published an album of his work – people on horseback, people in ponchos, people she’s never met, places she’s never seen. He has a real talent with the camera, a way of capturing truth and beauty, and through the eyes of strangers she sees reflections of himself. That’s how she’s getting to know Zak – not the facts, his essence. It takes real talent to capture warmth like that, she reckons, takes someone special to make people smile that way.

  A Native American lady, backdropped by a gas-station, her hands weathered like her old leather jacket – it’s Mia’s favourite shot. She’s drawn into that photo. Beneath it, Zak’s written that it’s taken close to where he lives and so she stares into the background, studying every teensy detail, trying to piece together anything that could pull her further into his world. Studying Zak’s photographs is the closest means she has to reaching him. Her only chance of access into an inac- cessible world.

  Transporting myself from place to place is no longer an issue for me.

  Zak’s emails to Mia come thick and fast, in surges, great streams of consciousness of unmet passion, pages of words, promises of all the things they’ll do together one day. They talk about being together soon, he asks her when she’s coming to see him in River Valley and she tells him when she’s saved up enough. She’s working like crazy in London. Zak offers to pay, but she won’t let him. She’s still wilful, can still look after herself – that part of her at least hasn’t changed.

  Since the island, not a night has passed when she hasn’t fallen asleep thinking of Zak. She pictures his sad beautiful face as she left him on the island and is riddled with regret. Her intuition tells her she has to see him soon. She’ll get herself to River Valley, USA, if it’s the last thing she does.

  * * *

  Mia’s arranged to meet up with her longest-standing friend Lucy today. I don’t know who’s more nervous about it, her or me. We all share history, mine extending as far back as the womb. Lucy’s my twin.

  When Mia broke the news to her other friends that she’d soon be leaving England again for the promise of love, their
responses were those of excitement. Hullabaloo around a laptop – it’s astounding how fast technology moves on when you’re not involved with it – Mia pulling up pictures of Zak from the social networking site, squeals of joy and hands to mouths as her peers marvelled over Zak’s attractiveness and the good fortune of their friend. They asked Mia if he had a brother, reminding her of all the things about him she still didn’t know. They asked if she’d invite him to stay with her in England and she explained that her shared flat with knackered old deckchairs and leaky ceiling was hardly fertile ground for blossoming romance, especially with winter on its way.

  Zak was clear in his emails he wanted her to go there.

  ‘At least we’ll have somewhere cool to come and visit if you end up living in the mountains,’ enthused one of them.

  ‘Couldn’t he pay half your fare?’ asked another.

  ‘He offered in his email but I won’t let him,’ replied Mia.

  ‘C’mon, this is Mia – got to do everything on her own. Won’t let anyone help.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘We’re thrilled for you, Mia. If only if could happen for all of us! Have you told Lucy?’

  In her gut, Mia knows that telling Lucy, my sister, is thorny territory. They meet on neutral ground, in the corner café. Mia broaches the subject gently, but Lucy’s straight in there, hacking away, tongue like a scythe. I just wish my departure hadn’t made her so hard, so harsh. It’s not just Mia’s life I’ve affected. I never knew I had this much impact on earth.

  ‘You’re going to use all the money you don’t have to fly across the world to see some guy you’ve spent how long with – a day? One day?’

  ‘One day can change everything, you know that,’ answers Mia. They stare at each other across the table. The worst kind of silence. ‘I’m a travel-writer, it’s a career opportunity.’

  ‘I thought you were quitting! It ran you ragged and hardly provided you with a sustainable income. You said you wanted to reassess your career, or start university – that’s why you came home!’