Are We There Yet?

Are We There Yet? David Levithan Sometimes your destination is not where you arrive…A gorgeously thoughtful novel by the co-author with John Green of ‘Will Grayson, Will Grayson’Danny isn’t used to having something in common with Elijah, however slight. Their last name is the rope that ties them together.Danny and Elijah’s lives could not be more different. But a journey together sweeps them up in the romance, wonder and breathtaking beauty of Italy. And falling in love opens their eyes to the distance that’s grown between them.Can one girl remind them of what it means to be brothers? To Mom, Dad and Adam (here, there and everywhere) Table of Contents Title Page (#u4b77acc8-f26a-5c29-a974-1a58fda82278) Dedication (#ub488ed3d-c172-517b-bb38-acefa2564db7) Departure (#u8297b95c-9c56-5b71-a6f7-f185fb38fd5b) The Phone Rings … (#ufebaf499-ace1-54c4-bbfb-30dc6681cea8) Elijah Always Says … (#u33848f9a-0ab3-5584-b694-2fb5991c1d5c) As Elijah “Hangs … (#u47075f72-a91e-571c-83a1-0f411ddcbe77) But No. … (#u3a0e6805-e469-50ed-af90-ff0b1abee17f) Seven Years Apart … (#u2f90b72f-3903-591a-af27-ce387f09e2e2) Cal Drives Elijah … (#u8ddd6c9f-2165-5994-af1c-438367e15ad6) Danny’s Mother Drives … (#ubb1a4275-2860-5b49-8b5a-960989ef5c4a) Cal Doesn’t Want … (#u58ed82da-d483-5bc8-9f9c-9c23a202b2b8) There’s an Issue … (#u3094125a-b40c-51fc-aca2-204c1874cfed) Elijah Tries to … (#ua222c145-0c23-5411-9ff7-e523c4b00210) Elijah Loves the … (#uf948c520-4d10-5917-9412-4dbc502efa1f) Danny Can’t Help … (#u9f6b4e50-2ca7-52cc-88d3-e093362f7011) “So this Is … (#u46b7bc24-f323-557d-b785-146d72b0bf68) Boys Never Dress … (#u61d7af02-a686-5ded-97b1-a8bb6666b832) Danny Wakes Up … (#u15f55544-22b0-5c80-a5d1-95d2474f54b4) Penelope Sleeps Soundly … (#u9d314ed3-2831-531a-ae25-d5279eb18a94) Amazing. Danny Thinks … (#u39dbcdcd-09cd-5e12-afaa-3979eff9bc97) Danny Remembers the … (#ua2355f51-13c8-56c8-b741-f16b0e46b50b) Elijah Travels In … (#u09d304ce-d56c-5b62-b820-c958c567c45c) Venice (#u87773323-fc02-5af5-9950-95a8d160809d) The Plane Lands … (#ue7a20d95-1b4d-5fe4-a330-4863f26bd8fc) Elijah Can’t Help … (#uf77cf52c-6545-58fd-bc2f-e50e0b402434) Italy Should Make … (#u96244091-c728-5d47-976c-a94f7b86c44d) It Is Pouring … (#u5da84074-a672-571a-8deb-87c9feee042f) “I Can’t Believe … (#ub7417120-2776-58ed-a98a-908f5606d9bb) Naps and Dinner … (#ua229aaeb-d9fc-5b2e-a88a-4799c736117b) Danny Is Still … (#ubc2b9a03-b626-5bf6-850a-121a6bfe230d) On the Walk … (#litres_trial_promo) Elijah Falls Asleep … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny Dreams of … (#litres_trial_promo) Morning. … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny and Elijah … (#litres_trial_promo) A City Presents … (#litres_trial_promo) Although It Is … (#litres_trial_promo) One Night, Deep … (#litres_trial_promo) “Do You Wonder … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny and Elijah … (#litres_trial_promo) As Elijah Wanders … (#litres_trial_promo) Elijah Leaves the … (#litres_trial_promo) It Is Quiet … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny Wakes Up … (#litres_trial_promo) They Are Due … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny has Trouble … (#litres_trial_promo) The Laws of … (#litres_trial_promo) Back At the … (#litres_trial_promo) While Danny Dials … (#litres_trial_promo) Florence (#litres_trial_promo) Since Danny Can … (#litres_trial_promo) “Open Your Eyes.” … (#litres_trial_promo) A Girl, Danny … (#litres_trial_promo) Florence Is Not … (#litres_trial_promo) The Duomo Is … (#litres_trial_promo) It Is, By … (#litres_trial_promo) “He Seems Nice,” … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny has Deliberately … (#litres_trial_promo) With the Right … (#litres_trial_promo) It Takes Three … (#litres_trial_promo) Slowly, Elijah and … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny Goes to … (#litres_trial_promo) In the Morning … (#litres_trial_promo) It’s Julia’s Dope … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny Waits By … (#litres_trial_promo) Elijah Isn’t Surprised … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny’s Guidebook Talks … (#litres_trial_promo) Elijah Figures Julia … (#litres_trial_promo) The Three of … (#litres_trial_promo) After Skimming the … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny Is Relieved … (#litres_trial_promo) Statues Was One … (#litres_trial_promo) Eventually, It’s Time … (#litres_trial_promo) Elijah Is an … (#litres_trial_promo) “Can I Come … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny Is Amazed … (#litres_trial_promo) Rome (#litres_trial_promo) As Danny Drives … (#litres_trial_promo) For a Moment … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny Gets Lost … (#litres_trial_promo) As they Pull … (#litres_trial_promo) With All Due … (#litres_trial_promo) Meanwhile, Elijah and … (#litres_trial_promo) It Is July … (#litres_trial_promo) Elijah and Julia … (#litres_trial_promo) The Next Day … (#litres_trial_promo) Elijah Awakens to … (#litres_trial_promo) The Jewish Ghetto … (#litres_trial_promo) “Let’s Get Dressed … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny Is Nervous … (#litres_trial_promo) Julia Takes Elijah … (#litres_trial_promo) “I Was Engaged … (#litres_trial_promo) At First, Elijah … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny Is Amazed … (#litres_trial_promo) Elijah Doesn’t See … (#litres_trial_promo) Ari Walks Danny … (#litres_trial_promo) Elijah’s Possessions haven’t … (#litres_trial_promo) Elijah Needs to … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny Arrives First … (#litres_trial_promo) “Where have You … (#litres_trial_promo) When they Get … (#litres_trial_promo) Danny Proposes a … (#litres_trial_promo) Arrival (#litres_trial_promo) After they Get … (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Also by David Levithan (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) DEPARTURE THE PHONE RINGS AT AN UNGODLY HOUR. ELIJAH LOOKS AT THE BLUR of his clock as he reaches for the sound. Eleven in the morning on a Saturday. Who can be calling him at eleven in the morning on a Saturday? Cal, his best friend, stirs from somewhere on the floor. Elijah picks up the phone and murmurs a greeting. “Oh goodness, did I wake you?” Elijah’s mother asks, her voice so much louder than the dream he’d been having. “No, no,” he says, disguising his own voice to sound awake. “Not at all.” “Good, because I have some great news for you …” His mother is talking about Italy and Elijah’s brother Danny and luxury accommodations. He thinks his brother has won a prize on a game show or something. Cal starts hitting his sneaker like it’s a snooze button. He tells her to go back to sleep. “What did you say?” his mother asks. “Will you go?” “Does Danny want me to go?” Elijah doubts highly that Danny wants him to go. “Of course he does.” Elijah still doubts that Danny wants him to go. Cal is awake now, rubbing her eyes. Elijah’s boarding school frowns on having overnight guests, but Elijah doesn’t really care if it frowns. Elijah covers the receiver and whispers to Cal, “It’s my mom. I think she wants to know if I want to go to Italy with my brother.” Cal shrugs, then nods. That’s enough for Elijah. “Sure, Mom,” he says. “And thanks.” ELIJAH ALWAYS SAYS THANK YOU, AND OFTENTIMES SAYS PLEASE. “You’re such a relic,” Cal will taunt him playfully. “Thank you,” Elijah will reply. Elijah learned quickly that saying thank you garners a variety of reactions. Some people (like his brother) can’t handle it. Other people (like Cal) are amused. Most people are impressed, whether consciously or not. He’ll be offered the last slice of pizza, or the last hit from the bong. “You’re a relic, not a saint,” Cal will continue, dragging him to the next party, parties called gatherings, dances called raves. Where she leads, he will follow. She tousles his blond-brown hair and buys him blue sunglasses. He playfully disapproves of her random boyfriends and girlfriends, and gives her flowers for no reason. They smoke pot, but not cigarettes. At the end of most parties, they can be found woozily collecting cans and bottles for the recycling bin. Elijah had planned to spend the summer hanging out with Cal and their other friends in Providence. At first, his parents weren’t too thrilled about the idea. (“Hang out?” his mother said. “Sweetheart, laundry hangs out.”) Now he’s being sent to Italy for nine days. “I’m going to miss you,” Cal says a few nights before Elijah is scheduled to leave. They are walking home from a midnight movie at the Avon. The June night is warm and cool, as only June nights can be. The air is scored by the faint whir of cars passing elsewhere. Elijah inhales deeply and takes hold of Cal’s hand. Her hair – dyed raven black – flutters despite itself. “I love it here,” Elijah says. He is not afraid to say it. “I love it here, this moment, everything.” He stops looking at the sky and turns to Cal. “Thank you,” he whispers. Cal holds his hand tighter. They walk together in silence. When they get back to school, they find four of their friends on the common room’s lime-green couch. Mindy, Ivan, Laurie and Sue are playing spin the bottle – just to be playful, just to be kissed. The moment shifts; Elijah is still happy, but it’s a different happiness. A daylight happiness, a lightbulb happiness. Cal arches her eyebrow, Elijah laughs, and together they join the game. Elijah is the first to grow unconquerably tired, the first to call it a night. Cal is still laughing, changing the CD, flirting with the lava lamp. Elijah says his goodnights and is given goodnights in return. The world already misfocusing. He makes his way to bed. Ten minutes later, there are two knocks from the hallway. The door opens and Cal appears, brightness behind her. It is time for their ritual, their nightly ritual, which Elijah thought Cal had forgotten. Sometimes she does, and that’s OK. But tonight she is in the room. Elijah moves over in his bed and Cal lies down beside him. “Do you wonder …?” she begins. This is their game – Do you wonder? Every night – every night when it’s possible – the last thing to be heard is the asking without answer. They stare at the glow-in-the-dark planets on the ceiling, or turn sideways to trace each other’s blue-black outlines, trying to detect the shimmer of silver as they speak. This night, Cal asks, “Do you wonder if we’ll ever learn to sleep with our eyes open?” And in return, Elijah asks, “Do you think there can be such a thing as too much happiness?” This is Elijah’s favourite time. He rarely knows what he is going to say, and then suddenly it’s there. Above them. Lifting. A few minutes pass. Cal sits up and puts her hand on Elijah’s shoulder. “Goodnight, sleep tight,” she whispers. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” he chimes, nestling deeper under the covers. Cal smiles and returns to the party. Elijah rearranges his pillows and fits himself within the sheets. And as he does, he wonders. He wonders about goldfish asleep with their eyes open. He wonders about Italy, about his parents, about whether the stars will be brighter in Venice. He hears voices at a distance, the lively sound of voices from the common room. Like the spots of colour whenever he closes his eyes. He closes his eyes. He thinks about what a wonderful friend Cal is. How lucky he is to have such friends, all of his friends. He is happy. He is almost empty with happiness … AS ELIJAH “HANGS OUT” FOR THE SUMMER, AS HE SMOKES AND DOPES and lazes and does who knows what else (according to his brother), Danny toils and roils away at Gladner, Gladner, Smith & Jones. The two senior Gladners (of no relation – they sat next to each other at Harvard Business School) have taken Danny under their wingtips. Their secretary saves him a seat in the boardroom and provides him with an ample supply of Mark Cross pens. He walks the halls with a boy-wonder halo, the recipient of enough gratitude to deflect all but the pettiest begrudgements. He is twenty-three years old. People at work pay attention to Danny Silver because he single-thoughtedly saved the Miss Jane’s Homemade Petite Snack Cakes account (Gladner, Gladner’s largest). Danny specialises in crisis control, and the crisis faced by Miss Jane’s was a doozy: a bored and crusading Washington Post reporter discovered that the neon-pink frosting on Miss Jane’s most popular snack cake (“the Divine”) was made with the same ingredients as the nation’s bestselling lipstick (“Pink Nightshade”). Consumers were not pleased. Miss Jane’s stock plummeted; the company’s profits seemed poised to go the way of a dung-coated Twinkie. Enter Danny Silver. (Imagine this to be a grand entrance – the boardroom door opens, Miss Jane’s directors all turn in unison to see their fair-haired saviour. In truth, Danny Silver first appeared to the cupcake conspirators via e-mail, and his hair isn’t fair. But the effect was the same.) While others advised refusal and rebuttal, Danny suggested humility and humour. A press conference was announced, during which the company president expressed shock and dismay, and pledged an overhaul of the Divine, wherein the frosting would be made from purely organic sources. He also made clear that the rest of the snack cakes in the Miss Jane’s family were “one hundred per cent cosmetic-free.” As soon as Danny heard the reporters laugh with this, he knew everything would be OK. But OK wasn’t good enough. The company had to emerge triumphant. In a mere thirty-nine hours, Danny had come up with his masterstroke. It came to him as he paced his Upper East Side apartment, throwing clothes into the hamper, figuring out which kind of pasta to boil for dinner. (He loves to tell this story; it’s one of his best stories.) As Danny paced, he thought of cakes, cream fillings, cafeterias and childhood. The idea appeared. It wove itself brilliantly within him. He did not hesitate. He called Jones, who called Smith, who paged Gladner, who woke up Gladner at his girlfriend’s apartment in the Village. Three hours later, the bigwigs gathered – a war room – as Danny bounced among them. A conference call was placed to “Miss Jane” (aka Arthur Swindland, 61, renowned throughout the world for his collection of celebrity polo sticks). A scant two weeks later, America and Europe witnessed Miss Jane’s First Annual Bake Sale. (The rest of the world would continue to eat lipstick frosting.) Miss Jane’s employees and certain grandmothers-for-hire set up tables in supermarkets across the land, all selling snack cakes. The profits would go to the newly formed Miss Jane’s Homemade Petite Snack Cake Centre for World Peace. Katie Couric herself bought a snack cake on live television. Oprah invited Miss Jane to be her guest on a programme stressing “corporate responsibility in the kinder, gentler age.” (When Mrs Silver saw this show, she knew her son had arrived. Making corporate billions was one thing – but to be on Oprah! was true accomplishment. Elijah didn’t bother to watch.) Miss Jane (n?e Mr Swindland) was so impressed with Danny that he earmarked .01% of the MJHPSCCWP’s profits to the charity of Danny’s choice. (The rest would be distributed to Shriners organizations around the world.) As his star rises, Danny finds himself working longer and longer hours. By the time he leaves the office, the wastebaskets have been emptied and the floors have been vacuumed. He has begun to forget what his apartment looks like. (His friends might say the same about him.) Gladner and Gladner (both devotees of Ted Newness, the management guru) tell Danny they will give him a raise – as long as he takes a vacation in the month of July. Three days later, Mrs Silver calls with her offer. Danny Silver doesn’t doubt for a second that he’s being tricked into taking a trip to Italy. “It’s all prepaid,” his mother proclaims. “I know this is such short notice. But I just don’t think that your father can go. Italy isn’t a place for sitting. And his leg – well, you know your father’s leg. We had hoped it would be OK by now. But who can know such things?” Danny’s father is fine. The day before, he played eighteen holes of golf. “How are you feeling, Pop?” Danny asks once his mother has passed over the phone. “Oh, I don’t know. The leg’s been acting up.” “But you were playing golf yesterday.” “Yes, yes, yes. I must have overextended myself. A damn shame. About Italy, I mean. But Mom tells me you and Elijah are going to go …” Aha, Danny thinks. The hitch. There is a whisper and a shuffling noise as Mrs Silver takes back the phone. “I know, I know,” Danny’s mom says as her husband recedes to the couch. “I hadn’t mentioned that part. But it’s only fair. We have two tickets. Two sons. And it’s prepaid. Nonrefundable. Your father can’t go. So I can’t go.” “Ask the Himmelfarbs,” Danny offers. “They’re your best friends, after all.” “The Himmelfarbs? Do you know how much this trip costs?” Mrs Silver takes a deep breath. “No. You and Elijah should take the tickets. It’s a week. Nine days.” Nine days with Elijah. Nine days with Quiet Boy, Mr Virtue, Boy Misunderstood. Elijah, who never seemed to change. Not since he was ten or so and started to grow quiet. His mind seems to be working on two levels at once – pass the salt and contemplate the pureness of the clouds. He is always dazed, and he is always kind. Faultlessly kind. Danny can’t stand it. “Have you asked Elijah how he feels about this?” Danny is hoping that Elijah might still say no. Since Elijah is still in high school and Danny is in the Working World, the two of them rarely have to see each other. “Yes,” his mother replies. “He thinks it’s a great idea.” Danny can hear his father chuckle in the background. He can imagine his father giving his mother a thumbs-up sign and his mother smiling. Prepaid. No refunds. His mother continues. “It’s over the week of July Fourth. You’d only have to take six days off from work. And you haven’t been anywhere this year.” “OK, OK, OK,” Danny relents. He wonders if it counts as being tricked if he knows what’s really going on. “You’ll go?” Danny smiles. “There is nothing in the world I would rather do.” There is still a chance that Elijah will back out … BUT NO. At one in the morning the night before departure, Danny wakes up with a start. He hasn’t talked to Elijah since their mother made the offer. He should have talked to him, and has tried to, but whenever he’s called, someone else has answered. Probably some pothead incapable of taking a message. Danny wants to be well-Fodored and well-Frommered by the time he sets down on Italian soil. But what will Elijah want to do? What does Elijah normally do? I’ll have to talk to him. For a week. Nine days. But about what? How’s life? (Two-minute answer.) How’s school? (Five minutes, tops.) How’s life with the dope fiends? (Maybe not a minute – maybe just a Look.) What do you want to do today? (That one could stretch out – maybe twenty minutes each day, depending on the repetition of shrugs.) So isn’t this a fine mess we’re in? (Rhetorical – no help.) Danny gets out of bed, switches on the light and squints. He counts his traveller’s checks; he’s bringing extra spending money, assuming Elijah won’t have any. He takes out the list of gifts he has to buy, makes sure it’s in his wallet, and makes sure his wallet is on the bureau by the keys. He knows he is missing something. He is always missing something. He can never get past the first step of finding it, which is knowing what it is. He stays up most of the night, doing things like this. He doesn’t want to forget anything. And, more than that, he wants to think of something to say. SEVEN YEARS APART. DANNY CAN REMEMBER THE MOMENT HIS FATHER called to say Elijah had been born. Elijah can’t picture Danny younger than ten, except from the photographs that hung around the house long after Danny left for college. They never had to share a room, except when they went down to the shore. Spending the day by the pool, broken by stretches of playing on the beach. Danny was the Master Builder of sandcastles, Elijah his ready First Assistant. No two castles were the same, and in that way no two days were ever the same. One day would bring the Empire State Building, the next a dragon. Danny always sketched it first on the surface of the beach. Then Elijah dug, providing sand and more sand and more and more sand until he hit the water beneath and had to move a little bit over to start again. As Danny created windows out of Popsicle sticks and towers out of turned-over buckets, Elijah would wander wide to collect shells. Sometimes the shells would be decoration and other times they would become the residents of the castle. Extended shell families, each with a name and a story. As Danny dipped his hand in water to pat the walls smooth, Elijah would explain what went on inside, making the shape and the hour more real than Danny could have ever made alone. There would always be extra shells, and at night Elijah would line them up on the dresser, sometimes according to size, sometimes according to colour. Then he would crawl into his bed and Danny would crawl only two feet away into his own bed. From there, Danny would read Elijah a story. Whatever older-kid books Danny was reading – Narnia being chronicled, time being wrinkled – he would send through the stillness to his brother. This was supposed to put Elijah to sleep, but it never did. He always wanted to find out where his brother would take him next. CAL DRIVES ELIJAH DOWN FROM PROVIDENCE IN HER BITCHIN’ CAMARO. It was buck-naked white until she and Elijah covered it with the primary-colour handprints of all their friends. It’s a 1979 model, the transmission is crap, and it goes from 0 to 60 in just under four minutes. But, man, once it gets to 60! The Camaro is, joyously, a convertible. Cal and Elijah zoom down I-95, blasting pop from the year of the car’s birth, swerving from lane to lane. When they can hear each other over the wind and the music, they speak Connecticut: I will not Stamford this type of behaviour. What’s Groton into you? What did Danbury his Hartford? New Haven can wait. Darien’t no place I’d rather be. As they reach the New York state line, Elijah feels the urge to turn back. He can’t pinpoint why. It seems the wrong time to be leaving. He doesn’t want to step out of the present, this present. Because once he does, there will be college applications and college acceptances (just one will do) and the last of everything (last class, last party, last night, last day, last goodbye), and then the world will change forever and he will go to college and eventually become an adult. That is not what he wants. He does not want those complications, that change. Not now. He tells himself to get a grip. Cal is driving him forward. Cal and everyone else will be here when he returns. It’s like he’s travelling into another dimension. Time here will stop. Because he is entering Family Standard Time. None of it will carry over to Cal, to the Camaro, to the state of Connecticut. He will go with his brother. He will have a good time. Life will be waiting for him when he gets back. Not a bad deal. Elijah smiles at Cal. But Cal isn’t looking. Then she turns to him as if she knows. She smiles back and blasts the music louder. DANNY’S MOTHER DRIVES HIM. HE LIVES IN NEW YORK CITY. Therefore, he doesn’t have a car of his own. When he wants to travel far, he signs out a company car. But this time, his mother won’t hear of it. Those are her exact words – “I won’t hear of it” – as if it’s news of an ignoble death. “Just be nice to him,” his mother is saying now. He’s heard this before. Just be nice to him. He heard it after he dared Elijah to poke the hanger in the socket. After he put glue in Elijah’s socks, telling him it was foot lotion. After he turned off the hot water while Elijah was in the shower. For the fifth time. Elijah could have retaliated. But he never even tattled. Elijah has always taken his mother’s words to heart. Elijah can just be nice. Sometimes, Danny thinks this is all Elijah can be. “I mean it,” his mother stresses. Then her tone shifts and Danny thinks, Yes, she does mean it. “I worry about you.” She looks straight ahead while turning the radio down. Danny thinks it remarkable that she still doesn’t look old. “Really, I do worry about you. I worry about you both, and that you won’t have each other. There aren’t many times that I wish you were younger. But when I remember the way the two of you would get along – you cared about him so much. When he was a baby, you were always feeling his head and coming to me and saying he had a fever. Or you’d wake us up, worrying he’d been kidnapped. All night, I had to reassure you that he was OK. Staying up with the older son instead of the baby. But it was worth it. In the middle of the night, when you couldn’t sleep, you’d beg me to take you to Eli’s room. And when I did, you would sing to him. He was already asleep, and still you wanted to sing him a lullaby. I would whisper with you. It was so wonderful, even if it was three in the morning. For a few years after, you watched over him. And then something happened. And I wish I knew what it was. Because I’d undo it in a second.” “But, Mom—” “Don’t interrupt.” She holds up her hand. “You know it’s important to your father. It’s important to me. It’s also important to you. I don’t think you realise it yet. You both can be so nice and so smart and so generous. I just don’t understand why you can’t be that way with each other.” Danny wants to say something to assure his mother. He wants to tell her he loves Elijah, but he’s afraid it won’t sound convincing. So they remain silent. Eventually, Danny turns the radio up a little and Mrs Silver shifts lanes to make the airport turnoff. She asks Danny if he’s remembered his traveller’s checks, his passport, his guidebooks. “Of course I remembered them,” Danny responds. “I’m your son, after all.” That gets a smile. And Danny is happy, because even if he can’t do anything else right, at least he can still make his mother smile. CAL DOESN’T WANT TO STAY FOR THE SILVER FAMILY REUNION. AFTER she speeds away in the bitchin’ Camaro, Elijah waves goodbye for a full minute before entering the airport. He finds his mother and brother easily enough. “So where’s your girlfriend?” Danny asks as Mrs Silver hugs Elijah tightly. “She’s not my girlfriend.” “So where is she?” Danny is wearing a suit. For the airplane. “She had to go.” Elijah can’t stand still. His sneakers keep squeaking on the linoleum. He doesn’t know whether it’s the suit that makes Danny look old or whether it’s just life. He is filling out, as their mother would say, as if the outline of his adult self was always there, waiting. Elijah thinks this is scary. “I brought you danish,” Mrs Silver says, handing Elijah a white box tied with bakery string. “You’re the greatest,” Elijah announces. And he means it. Because he knows the bakery, he can see his mother holding the number in her hand, hoping against hope that they’ll have blueberry, because that’s his favourite. Mrs Silver blushes. Danny gazes intently at a newsstand. “I need to buy gum,” he says. “Oh, I have gum.” Mrs Silver’s purse is opened in a flash. “Yeah, sugarless. I don’t want sugarless. I’ll just go get some Juicy Fruit, OK?” “Oh,” Mrs Silver sighs. “Do you need money?” Danny smiles. “I think I can afford a pack of gum, Mom.” Then he’s off, dropping his bag at Elijah’s feet. “I’ll take some Trident,” Elijah offers. Mrs Silver rummages again and unearths a blue pack and a green pack. “Sorry, no red,” she says with a smile as she hands the gum over. “No problem. Thanks.” Elijah tucks the gum into his pocket. He doesn’t like either blue or green, but he doesn’t mind taking it. Someone else on the plane might want some. While Danny buys his gum (and newspapers and Advil and a hardcover legal thriller), Elijah asks about his father’s leg, and she tells him it’s getting better. He thanks her again for the trip – he is sure it’s going to be great, there are so many things he wants to see. She thinks his hair is a little too long, but doesn’t say anything. (The telltale look at his collar gives her away.) “So are we ready?” Danny is back. “Ready as we’ll never be,” Elijah replies. Danny’s tie is caught in his shoulder-bag strap. Elijah is inordinately pleased by this. THERE’S AN ISSUE THAT HAS TO BE RESOLVED IMMEDIATELY. DANNY, bearer of the tickets, brings it up as soon as he and Elijah are through security. “So,” he asks, “do you want the window seat or the middle seat?” “Up to you.” Of course. Danny knew this was going to happen. Clearly, the window seat is preferable to the middle seat. And politeness decrees that whoever chooses first will have to choose the middle seat. Elijah must know this. Typical Elijah. He seems so kind. But really, he is passive-aggressive. (“Why can’t you be more like your brother?” his parents would ask when he was seventeen. “Because he’s ten!” Danny would shout before slamming his door closed.) “You don’t have any preference?” Danny asks. “None whatsoever?” Elijah shrugs. “Whatever you want. I’m just going to sleep.” “But wouldn’t it be easier for you to have the window seat, then?” Danny continues, a little too urgently. “It’s no big deal. I’ll take the middle seat if you want me to.” Great. Now Elijah is the martyr. Danny can’t stand it when Elijah plays the martyr. But if it gets him the window seat … “Fine. You can have the middle seat.” “Thanks.” At the gate they have to cool their heels for almost an hour. Danny is bothered despite his desire not to be bothered. (It bothers him even more to be bothered against his will.) Elijah reads a British music magazine and listens to his headphones. Because Elijah slumps in his seat, Danny doesn’t realise they’re now the same height. All he notices is Elijah’s ragged haircut, the small silver hoop piercing the top of his earlobe. Danny tries to read the book he bought, but it doesn’t work. He is too distracted. Not only because he’s bothered. He is slowly crossing over. He is realising for the first time that, yes, he is about to go to Italy. Every trip has this time – the shift into happening. Before things can go badly or go well, there is always the first moment when expectation turns to now. Danny relaxes a little. He puts away his book and takes out his Fodor’s Venice. Minutes later, there is a call for boarding. Danny gathers his things for pre-boarding. Elijah pointedly makes them wait until their row is called. “You’re sure you don’t want the window seat?” Danny asks as they walk the ramp to the plane. “Not unless you want the middle seat,” Elijah answers. Danny waves the subject away. Elijah charms the flight crew from the get-go. He asks the flight attendants how they are doing. He looks at the cockpit with such awe that the pilot smiles. Danny manoeuvres Elijah to their seats, then has to get up again to find overhead compartment space (the rest of the row illegally pre-boarded). Once they settle into their seats, Danny expects Elijah to strike up a conversation with his aisle-seat neighbour. But Elijah keeps a respectful distance. He says hello. He tells his neighbour to let him know if his music gets too loud. And then he puts on his headphones, even though he’s supposed to wait. Danny offers Elijah a guidebook. Elijah says he’ll look at it later. Danny doesn’t want Elijah to wait until the last minute (so predictable), but doesn’t bother to say anything. He just sits back and prepares for the flight. He is ready for takeoff. He loves takeoff. Takeoff is precisely the thing he wants his life to be. As the plane lifts, Danny sees that his brother’s teeth are clenched. Elijah’s fingers grip at his shirt, twisting it. “Are you OK?” Danny asks as the plane bumps a little. Elijah opens his eyes. “I’m fine,” he says, his face deathly pale. Then he shuts his eyes again and makes his music louder. Danny stares at his brother for a moment, then closes his own eyes. Fodor’s can wait for a few minutes. Right now, all Danny wants to do is rise. ELIJAH TRIES TO TRANSLATE THE MUSIC INTO PICTURES. HE TRIES TO translate the music into thoughts. The plane is rising. Elijah is falling. He is seeing himself falling. He is blasting his music and still thinking that the whole concept of flying in an airplane is ridiculous. Like riding an aluminium toilet paper roll into outer space. What was he thinking? The music isn’t translating. New Order cannot give him order. The bizarre love triangle is falling falling falling into the Bermuda Triangle. Enough. This will have to be enough. The takeoff is almost over. The plane is flying steadily. Elijah inhales. He feels like he’s gone an hour without breathing. Danny hasn’t noticed. Danny is in Guidebook Country. Danny doesn’t think twice about flying. He doesn’t think twice about Elijah, really. And if the plane were to crash … Elijah thinks about those final seconds. It could be as long as a minute, he’s heard. What would he and Danny have to say to each other? Would everything suddenly be all right? Elijah thinks it might be, and that gives him a strange, momentary hope. Really, Cal would be a better doomsday companion. But Danny might do. Imagining this scenario makes it OK. Elijah is OK as long as he can picture the wreck. The captain turns off the fasten-seat-belt light. Danny unfastens his, even though he doesn’t have to get up. Elijah leaves his on. There is a tap on his shoulder. Not Danny. The other side. “Excuse me,” the woman next to him is saying. He takes the headphones off his ears, to be polite. “Oh,” the woman says, “you didn’t have to do that. I have nothing against New Order, but it was getting a little loud, and you said to let you know …” She trails off. “You like New Order?” Elijah asks. The conversation begins. ELIJAH LOVES THE CONVERSATION. WHATEVER CONVERSATION. THE tentative first steps. The shyness. Wondering whether it’s going to happen and where it will go. He hates surface talk. He wants to dive right through it. With anyone. Because anyone he talks to seems to have something worthwhile to say. The first steps are always the most awkward; he can tell almost immediately whether the surface is water or ice. The dancing of the eyes – Are we going to have this conversation or not? The first words – the common ground. And how have you found yourself here? Where are you going? – two simple questions that can lead to days of words. “You like New Order?” Elijah asks. The woman laughs. “In college. I loved New Order, but I had a Joy Division boyfriend. I wanted to hang out, he wanted to hang himself. We were doomed from the start.” The conversation continues. DANNY CAN’T HELP BUT OVERHEAR THEM. ELIJAH IS, AFTER ALL, sitting at his elbow, taking up the armrest. Chatting away with the woman about disco groups. Unbelievable. Talking about college and girlfriends and Elijah’s prom. (“She disappeared after the second song, but that was OK …”) Danny usually assumes that lonely people are the only ones who have conversations on airplanes. Now he is faced with a dilemma: is he wrong, or is Elijah lonely? To sidestep the issue entirely, Danny decides that Elijah is an exception. Elijah, as always, is being unusually kind. While he himself is not lonely, he doesn’t mind talking to lonely people. He is the Mother Teresa of banter. Danny silently waits for his introduction, the moment when Elijah gestures to him and says, “This is my brother.” Danny plans to put his guidebook down, smile a hello (taking a good look at the woman, who’s about ten years older than him, but still attractive), and then make a hasty retreat back to Inns & Hotels. But the conversation never drifts his way. Instead, they are talking about Roman Holiday. Danny can’t believe it when Elijah says how much he loves Audrey Hepburn. He can understand it, but he can’t believe it, for it’s an adoration that he himself shares. Danny isn’t used to having something in common with Elijah, however slight. Their last name is the rope that ties them together. And now there is also this tiny thread. Audrey Hepburn. Danny thinks about this for a moment. (If Elijah were to look over, he would notice his brother hasn’t turned the page in the past ten minutes.) As Elijah and this stranger discuss the ending of Roman Holiday and how it makes them feel (sad, happy), Danny wonders whether it’s true that everyone, at heart, likes Audrey Hepburn. So the similarity isn’t that strange at all. It’s as commonplace as the desire to eat when hungry. It doesn’t link the two brothers any more than that. That is something Danny can believe. “SO THIS IS YOUR BROTHER?” PENELOPE WHISPERS, POINTING OVER Elijah’s shoulder. He doesn’t know why she is whispering. Then he turns and sees that Danny has fallen asleep on his tray table, the edge of his shoulder spotlighted by the overhead lamp. “Do you think he needs a pillow?” Elijah asks. “No. He’ll be all right.” Elijah reaches over the armrest and presses the lightbulb button. Then he turns back to Penelope and asks her if she has any brothers or sisters. She has three sisters, one of whom is getting married in a matter of months. “She’s older than me, thank God,” Penelope says with a sigh. “I have to wear this hideous dress. I told her – I said, ‘This dress is hideous.’ Her dress is gorgeous, by the way. Bridesmaids only exist to make the brides look good. I don’t care what anyone says. It’s not an honour. It’s a mockery. “Her dress has a train. When I saw it, I just started to cry. Not because I’m not the one who’s getting married. I can handle that. But to see my sister in a white satin train – it was like we were playing dress-up again. She’d always let my mother’s dresses trail behind her. Of course, I’d jump on them and try to trip her up. And I was always the one who got in trouble for the footprints – it didn’t matter that the bottom was also covered with dust. Anyway – seeing her at the fitting, it struck me that I can’t jump on her dress any more. I can’t pull it over her head and show her underwear to the congregation. I can’t even tell her that it isn’t hers, that she has to put it back in the closet before our mother comes home. No, it’s hers. And it’s her.” Penelope shakes her head. BOYS NEVER DRESS UP AS GROOMS, ELIJAH THINKS. THEY NEVERpractise their own weddings like girls do. But there are other kinds of pairs. He remembers Batman and Robin. Luke and Han. Frodo and Aragorn. Cowboy and Indian. There was only a year or two for those games, before Danny started dressing up in a different way. This time, the character he was playing was the cooler version of himself, shopping at the mall for the perfect costume, trying to blend in and stand out at the same time. It was never explained to Elijah, and he wasn’t old enough to figure it out. All he knew was that one day his brother stopped wanting to be a superhero, stopped wanting to save their backyard world. Elijah stopped dressing up then, too. He retreated to the realm of his room, to his drawings, to his stuffed animals. It wasn’t the same. Sisters dress up to rehearse for what will really happen to them. But brothers, Elijah realises, are never rehearsing that way. They rehearse their own illusions, until reality takes a turn and they are asked to rehearse for other things. You go to school. You graduate. You sell snack cakes. You hang up your cape and put on a suit. DANNY WAKES UP INTO THE STRANGE TIMELESS NIGHTTIME OF AIR travel. The window shades are drawn. The flight attendants float down the aisle like guardian angels. The guidebook has fallen at his feet. A woman is talking. “… And then, it was the strangest thing, I walk into the room and there’s Courtney Love. Have I told you this? No? Good. So I can’t believe it. Now, this is after she was the lead singer of – what was it called? – Hole. Don’t think I’m that old. I’m not that old. So it’s after Hole, and I walk into the room, and there she is. I can’t believe it. So I walk over to her and offer her a joint. Real cool. I can tell that my boyfriend’s real impressed at how smooth I am. And she says yes. But neither of us has a match. I’m fumbling around, pulling the rolling papers and the dope out of my pockets, and I can’t find a light! So my boyfriend just leans over, Courtney looks up at him, and all smooth, he lights her up. I’m still there fumbling. She says thanks to him, offers him a puff, and when he’s done he doesn’t even offer it to me. Because now they’re talking and sharing and it’s like I’m not even there. I say his name, and he just gives me one of those side smiles. I can’t believe it. Some other guys join the conversation and I’m out of the circle. And I’m sure Courtney has seen me. But does she say anything? No. Not a word. My boyfriend’s treating her like the Pope and my head’s all screwed up, so I just say real loud, ‘Well, why don’t you just kiss her ring!’ Everyone stares at me. Like, it makes perfect sense to me, but I’m the only person in the room with the context. I have to get out of there. Right away. My boyfriend’s staring at me like I just called his mother a whore. And everyone else thinks I’m insulting Her Highness Courtney Love. So I run out of the room. But I’m not looking where I’m going – I crash into this guy in the doorway – and that’s how I met Billy Corgan.” It’s the woman next to Elijah. Danny is paralysed by her talking. “No way!” Elijah exhales in admiration. “Uh-huh.” Danny tries to fall back to sleep. He can’t believe they’re still awake. PENELOPE SLEEPS SOUNDLY ON ELIJAH’S SHOULDER. WHICH IS TO say, soundlessly. He doesn’t mind, even though it makes his arm sore. Pins and needles, Elijah thinks, and then he figures that having an arm full of pins and needles would hurt a hell of a lot more than this. Danny stirs on the other side of him, waking up and turning to Elijah, his eyes unaccustomed to the simulated day. He registers Penelope on Elijah’s shoulder and smiles groggily. It’s not like that, Elijah wants to tell his brother. But he doesn’t want to wake Penelope up. It’s like comfort, Elijah figures. Being a comfort is itself pretty comforting. Having someone find a place on your shoulder and be able to rest. Not seeing her face, but picturing it from her breath. Like a baby sleeping. Feeling her breath so slightly on his arm. Breathing in time. Comfort. The quiet times are the ones to hold on to. In the quiet times, Elijah can think of other quiet times. Staring at the ceiling with Cal. Driving home from a concert, the road silent, the music in his head. Sharing a smile – for a moment – with a beautiful stranger passing in a car. Beside Elijah, Danny shifts in his seat and signals to the flight attendant for another Diet Coke. Danny would never let a stranger sleep on his shoulder, Elijah thinks. Danny would be afraid of the germs. He closes his eyes and tries to drift off. AMAZING. DANNY THINKS IT’S AMAZING TO BE MOVING SO FAST WITHOUT feeling movement. To be sitting in an airplane, travelling as fast as he’s ever travelled, and still it feels like he’s in a car, steadier than a train, not even as fast as sliding down a slide. How can this be? Danny wonders. He wants to ask someone. But who can he ask? Elijah, even if he were awake? The girl on Elijah’s shoulder? (Isn’t she a little old for him?) The pilot? No one. There’s no one to tell him how it can feel so slow to go so fast. The phone is embedded above the fold-down tray. He could make a collect call from above the Atlantic Ocean. He could slip the corporate card into the proper slot and dial any area code around the world. He does it – slips in the card – just to see what the dials are like. Thinking, Wouldn’t it be funny to slip your credit card into the slot, ten thousand miles in the air, and find a rotary phone? But no – just the usual buttons. He can pretend it’s home. Just a local call. He pauses before dialing. He pauses too long. He pauses long enough to realise that no one comes instantly to mind. He doesn’t have anyone instant. He doesn’t have anyone worth a twenty-dollar-a-minute call. Quietly, Danny places the phone back in its receiver. He presses a little too hard, and the woman in front of him rustles in her sleep. Danny looks at Elijah. He looks at Elijah’s eyelids and tries to tell whether he’s awake. He used to do that all the time when they were kids. Elijah would be faking sleep – he didn’t want to leave the car, he didn’t want to go to school – and Danny would catch the small, betraying twitches. He would try to point them out to his mom, and Elijah would mysteriously pop out of sleep before Danny could finish his sentence. Their mom would shake her head, more annoyed with Danny’s tattling than with Elijah’s fakery. Or so it seemed to Danny. Back then, and still. Now Danny concentrates – staring into his brother’s closed eyes. Waiting for one eye to open, to see if anyone’s looking. Waiting for a telltale giggle of breath, or the twitch of an itching finger. Instead, he observes Elijah and the woman both breathing to the same silent measure. Crescendo. Diminuendo. Rise. Fall. Speed and slowness. DANNY REMEMBERS THE NIGHTMARES HE WOULD HAVE. THE STRANGERS climbing through the window and stealing Elijah from the crib. He remembers waking the house without waking the baby. Running to Elijah’s room to make sure. Because if Elijah was OK, that meant everything was fine. ELIJAH TRAVELS IN AND OUT OF SLEEP, LIKE THE AIRPLANE TRAVELLING in and out of clouds. Moments of fleeting wakefulness, dreamlike. The rituals of airline travel, meant to guard against your fears. Words of conversation. The echo of the in-flight movie from too-loud headphones many rows behind. The wheels of the beverage cart and the crisp opening of a soda can. The pad of feet in the aisle. A child’s questions. The flipping of a magazine page. Penelope’s breathing. The sound of speeding air. The realisation that clouds sound no different than air. He dreams of Cal’s Camaro and of driving to Italy. Then he wakes up, and he is there. VENICE THE PLANE LANDS IMPECCABLY. DANNY IS UP AND ANGLING FOR THE aisle before the captain’s announcement can tell him to keep his seat belt on. Elijah watches him with a certain degree of embarrassment. He can’t see what the rush is. It’s not like they can leave the plane any faster. All it means is they’ll have their bags in their laps for that much longer. Even the flight attendants are still strapped in; they can’t make Danny sit down. Along with the rest of the passengers, Elijah hopes a sudden stop will jolt Danny to the ground. Elijah remains in his seat until the plane has come to a complete stop. Danny passes over their carry-ons. Penelope leans over and says she can’t believe she’s finally in Venice. Elijah nods his head and looks out the window. Venice. But not really Venice. The airport. It is raining outside. ELIJAH CAN’T HELP IT. HE SCANS THE CROWD AT THE GATE OUTSIDE of customs, looking to see if someone is waiting for him. As if Cal could truly drive the bitchin’ Camaro across the Atlantic Ocean and wait with a lei, just to be inappropriate. “Let’s go,” Danny says, hiking his bag higher on his shoulder. “And tie your shoelaces.” Elijah doesn’t care about his shoelaces, but he ties them anyway. He nearly loses Danny in the airport rush. He doesn’t care much about that, either, except for the fact that Danny has the money and the name of the hotel. (Typical.) Elijah nurtures a half-fantasy of disappearing into the crowd, making his own way to Venice, living by his wits for a week and then returning at the end of it all to share the flight home with his brother. He can’t imagine that Danny would mind. But Danny has stopped. Danny is waiting and watching – watching his watch, tapping his foot, prodding Elijah forward. International crowds huddle-walk between them. Families with suitcases. A girl who drops her Little Mermaid doll. Elijah returns the doll and makes his way to his waiting brother, who asks, “What took you so long?” Elijah doesn’t know what to say. Shrugs were invented to answer such questions, so that’s just what Elijah does. ITALY SHOULD MAKE DANNY FEEL RICH, BUT INSTEAD IT MAKES HIM feel poor. To change 120 (dollars) into 180,000 (lire) should make a man feel like he’s expanded his wealth. But instead it makes the whole concept of wealth seem pointless. The zeros – the measures of American worth – are grotesque, mocking. The woman at the exchange bureau counts out his change with a smile – Look at all the money you get. But Danny would feel better with Monopoly chump change. He leads Elijah out to the vaporetto launch. It’s quite a scam they’re running – the only way into Venice from the airport, really. It’s one of the worst feelings Danny knows – the acknowledgment that he’s going to pay through the nose, and there’s nothing he can do about it. “One hundred twenty thousand lire for the men,” the vaporetto driver (the vaporetteer?) says in flawed English. Danny shakes his head. “Best price. Guarantee,” the driver insists. Danny can tell he’s been brushing up on his Best Buy commercials. Probably has his American cousins videotape them. Danny tries three other drivers. Other tourists gratefully take the vaporettos he discards. “You really expect me to pay one hundred and twenty thousand lire – eighty dollars – for a vaporetto ride?” Danny asks the fourth driver. “It is not a vaporetto. A water taxi, sir.” Elijah steps into the boat. “Sounds great,” he tells the driver. “Thank you.” IT IS POURING NOW. COLD AND RAINY AND GREY. Elijah can’t see much through the clouds and mist. Still, he’s thrilled by the approach – thrilled by the wackiness of it all. Because – he’s realising this now – Venice is a totally wacky city. A loony idea that’s held its ground for hundreds of years. Elijah has to respect that. The buildings are right on the water. Elijah can’t believe it. Sure, he’s seen Venice in the movies – Portrait of a Room with a View of the Wings of the Lady Dove. But he’d always assumed that they picked the best places to show. Now Elijah sees the whole city is like that. The buildings line the canals like long sentences – each house a word, each window a letter, each gap a punctuation. The rain cannot diminish this. Elijah walks to the front of the taxi and stands with the driver. The boat moves at a walking pace. It leaves a wider canal – Elijah can’t help but think of it as an avenue – and takes a series of narrow turns. Finally, they arrive at the proper dock. The driver points the way, and Danny and Elijah soon find themselves manoeuvring their suitcases through the alleys of Venice. The Gritti is smaller than Danny had pictured. He looks at its entrance suspiciously, while Elijah – unburdened by expectation – is more excited. An elaborately dressed bellman glides forward and gathers their bags. Danny, momentarily confused, resists. It is only after Elijah says thank you that the suitcases are relinquished and the steps towards the registration desk are taken. “May I help you?” an unmistakably European man asks from behind the counter. He wears an Armani smile. Elijah is impressed. “Yes,” Danny starts, leaning on the desktop. “The name is Silver. A room for two. Originally the room was under my parents’ names, but they should have switched it to mine. Danny Silver. We need a room with two beds. On the canal side.” “If that’s possible,” Elijah adds. Danny swats him away. The manager’s smile doesn’t falter. He opens a ledger and types a few keys on his computer. A temporary concern crosses his brow, but it is soon resolved. “Yes, Silver,” he says to Danny. “We have a room – a beautiful room. Two beds. That is what you requested in March. One room for Daniel and Elijah Silver.” Elijah thinks this sounds great. But Danny doesn’t look happy. “Wait a sec—” he says. “What do you mean, March? The initial reservation should have been for Rachel and Arthur Silver, not for Daniel and Elijah.” The manager checks the ledger again. “We have no record of a change,” he tells Danny. “Is this a problem?” Danny shakes his head severely. “You see,” he says to the man behind the desk, “my parents made me think this had been their vacation. But now you’re saying that it was our vacation all along.” “Which is great,” Elijah assures the still-confused manager. “It’s just a surprise. For him especially.” “I see,” the hotel manager intones, nodding solemnly. After the paperwork is completed, he produces a pair of golden keys. Elijah says thank you. Danny continues to shake his head and mutters his way to the elevator. The hotel manager smiles a little wider as he hands the keys to Elijah. Beneath his coutured appearance, his sympathy is palpable. Elijah says thank you again. “I CAN’T BELIEVE iT.” DANNY ALSO CAN’T STOP HITTING THE SIDE OF THE elevator. “What’s the matter?” Elijah asks as they walk to their room. “What’s the matter?!? They tricked us, Elijah. Our own parents. Tricked us. I mean, I knew they meant for us to come here together. But to have had that plan all along …” They are being led into the room now. It is beautiful. Even Danny has to shut up for a second, just to look out the windows at the canal. Now that the rain has been reduced to a sound, it is moodily atmospheric, mysteriously foreign. Elijah puts his suitcase on the bed closest to the windows as Danny tips (no doubt undertips) the bellman. When Danny returns to the windows, the spell has been broken. His tirade continues. “I just can’t believe they’d be so … manipulative. I can’t believe they could stand there and lie to us, all these months.” “I think it’s kind of nice,” Elijah mumbles. “What?” “I said it’s kind of a surprise.” Elijah knows, from years of practice, that it’s best to just ride the conversation through. Unpack. Nod occasionally. Pretend that Danny’s right, even if he’s acting like he’s been set up on a hideous blind date. The trick is, Danny doesn’t particularly like to hear himself talk, especially in monologues. Halfway through a sentence, he’ll realise there’s no reason to go on. His point has been made, if not accepted. Like now: “If only they’d …” Danny says with a sigh. Then he pauses and listens to the rain outside. He realises he’s in Venice, and that his parents cannot hear him. He walks to the closet and hangs up his coat. His last sentence dangles in the air, until it is forgotten. NAPS AND DINNER. NAPS AND DINNER. IT SEEMS TO ELIJAH THAT every family vacation revolves around naps and dinner. This vacation does not appear to be an exception. As soon as Danny has unpacked, he kicks off his shoes and tears off the bedspread, thrusting it aside in a vanquished heap. They have just arrived – they have just been sitting for countless hours – and still Danny feels the need to lie down and close his eyes. Elijah is mystified. Danny’s behaviour is perfectly predictable, and perfectly beyond understanding. “I’m going for a walk,” Elijah says. “Be back for dinner.” Danny nods for emphasis, then nods off. Because the sky is grey and the time zones are shifty, Elijah finds it hard to gauge the hour. He never wears a watch (his own rebellion against time, against watching). He must rely on the concierge to supply him with a frame of reference. It is four in the afternoon. Two hours until dinner. Upon leaving the Gritti, Elijah is presented with one of the most exquisite things about Venice – there is no obvious way to go. Although St Mark’s Square pulses in the background, and the canals hold notions in sway, there is no grand promenade to lead Elijah forward. There is no ready stream of pedestrians to subsume him into its mass. Instead, he is presented with corners – genuine corners, at which each direction makes the same amount of sense. Elijah walks left and then right. And then left and then right. He is amazed by the narrowness of the streets. He is amazed by the footbridges and the curving of paths. He sees people from his flight and nods hello. They smile in return. They are still caught in the welcomeness rapture; they’ve deposited their baggage, and now they wander. We are like freshmen, Elijah thinks. The incoming class of tourists. The upperclassmen look at them knowingly, remembering that initial rush, when every moment seems picture-perfect and the tiredness distorts the hours into something approaching surreality. Elijah feels giddiness and delight – although he is now in Venice, he is still high on the anticipation of Venice. The trip has not settled yet. It hasn’t officially begun. Instead, Elijah is staking out the territory – sometimes circling the same block three times from different directions – somehow missing the major squares and the more famous statues. Instead, he finds a small shop that sells shelves of miniature books. The shopkeeper comes over and shows Elijah a magazine the size of a postage stamp. Elijah wants to buy it for Cal, but he’s forgotten to bring money. He wants to come back tomorrow, but doesn’t know if he will ever be able to find the store again. He could ask for the address, but he doesn’t want to travel in such a way. He wants encounters instead of plans – the magic of appearance rather than the architecture of destination. Seconds pass with every door. Minutes pass with every street. Elijah never realises that he’s lost, so he has no trouble finding his way back. Three hours have gone by, but he doesn’t know this. Night has fallen, but that seems only a matter of light and air. When Elijah returns to the hotel, he doesn’t ask the concierge for the time. Instead, he asks for a postcard. He draws a smile on the back and sends it to Cal. He cannot describe the afternoon any other way. He knows she’ll understand. DANNY IS STILL ASLEEP WHEN ELIJAH RETURNS TO THE ROOM. BUT only for a moment. “What took you so long?” he asks, stretching out, reaching for his watch. “Are you ready to go?” Elijah replies. Danny grunts and puts on his shoes. Map in hand, Danny leads the way to St Mark’s Square. His movement is propulsive, unchecked by awe or curiosity. He knows where he wants to go, and he wants to get there soon. Elijah struggles to keep up. (“What is taking you so long?” Danny is on his way to the arcade and supposed to be watching his ten-year-old brother. Danny has agreed to drive Elijah and his friends to the movies and waits impatiently by the car. Danny is walking ten feet ahead to the bus stop and wants to get to his friends. Elijah is holding him back. That is the clear implication of the question. It is Elijah’s fault. Elijah is left behind because he’s too slow.) As they approach St Mark’s, the streets become more crowded. Danny weaves and bobs through the fray, dodging the men and women who walk at a more leisurely pace. Elijah follows in Danny’s wake, without enough time to wonder if these couples are lovers, or if the children are playing games. Finally – too soon – they arrive at the Caff? Florian. Danny barks out their name and says, “Reservation, table for two.” The ma?tre d’ smiles, and Elijah can sense him thinking to himself, American Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/david-levithan/are-we-there-yet/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.