Beneath Wandering Stars (6 page)

“
What
? He was wounded? Wow, babe. I am so sorry.” Brent looks pensively torn up, which is kind of his standard expression, but it's as poignant on a pixilated screen as it is in the flesh. “Man, I wish I could be there for you right now.”

I wish that, too, but that would require jumping through my desktop, and unfortunately technology hasn't advanced that far yet. Brent is a sensitive soul—one of those super comforting people to have around when things get rough because it's obvious he
feels
everything you're going through. That kind of empathy reminds me why I'm lucky to be with a guy like Brent. An additional reminder is seeing his face, since we haven't video-chatted in over a week. His chestnut hair is extra curly around his ears—a sign Texas is already hotter than Hades. People always say he looks like the lead singer of fill-in-the-name-of-whatever-band, but to me he's just Brent.
My
Brent.

“I miss you, Gabi. I know I've been busy with the band, but I really do.” Brent tugs anxiously on one of the gauge holes in his ears—an accessory my father deplores (“Tell me,
mija
. Just what Amazonian tribe is your boyfriend a part of?”). “Is it bad?”

“Well, he's in a coma. So yeah. It's bad.”

I don't elaborate because I can't do so without losing it, but I'm surprised when Brent's face does a free fall. He and Lucas never hit it off, in part because Brent isn't a military brat. His dad is the regional manager of all the AAFES retail stores in Texas, so Lucas always thought of Brent as a rich kid just pretending to be one of us.

It doesn't help that my brother is annoyed by fashion-driven subcultures of any kind. Hipster, goth, skater—he detests them all. Whenever I teased Lucas about his boring wardrobe of faded T-shirts and worn jeans, he'd smirk and say, “Classic old-school is the most radical thing a person can be these days, Gabs. Want to be original? Then stand for something time has proven to be solid.”

Sure, Brent pays extra attention to trends because he's a musician, but I don't mind, seeing how I'm the one who gets to enjoy the view. Besides, even if he and my brother are never best friends, Brent is there for me when it counts. Like right now.

“You said Lucas left a letter with instructions. What does he want you to do?”

“Go on a pilgrimage. Apparently.” I explain my brother's strange request, which Brent doesn't get
at all
.

“Seriously? Lucas wants you to walk all the way to Spain just to visit some dead guy's tomb? Why not fly? It'd be a lot faster. Oh wait, is this supposed to be some weird way to save your brother's soul?”

Based on how my brother's mind works, Lucas orchestrated this little adventure to save
us
, not himself. He's always been a natural mediator, and I have no doubt that Lucas saw this trek as a way to repair the broken bond between me and my dad. Too bad there's no chance of a truce now. Dad has made it perfectly clear that he's counting down the days until I am no longer a military dependent and a potential threat to his upwardly mobile career.

“The three of us used to do hikes all the time,” I explain. “I'm guessing Lucas's plan has to do with how messed up things have been lately. You know, ever since—”

“Believe me, I know.” Brent's flushed cheeks are even visible digitally. “The man hasn't looked me in the eye, shook my hand,
nothing
.”

“Yeah, well, that's what happens when you break the circle of trust.” I roll my eyes and change the subject from my father's resentment issues to something hopefully less futile. “Have you received anything from UT-Austin yet?”

Brent shakes his head and stares into his lap, like he's embarrassed that he hasn't heard back. From the moment I arrived in Germany, my plan has been fixed and my goal singular: to return to Texas as soon as possible. Our entire group of friends applied for admission to UT-Austin as a way to reunite the old crew after graduation. I got my acceptance letter in the mail a few weeks ago, but we're still waiting to hear back on Brent's application. He's a decent student with a lot of extracurriculars like me, so I don't get the holdup.

“Don't worry,” I tell him. “You'll get in and we'll be together. Just like before.”

Brent nods, but he still won't look at me. There's something buried beneath the surface that he doesn't know how to unearth, but now is not the day for me to dig.

“So when are you leaving for Spain?” he asks.

I sigh. “As of thirty minutes ago, it looks like I'm not. Dad's boss won't let him go, which means I can't go.”

“And so you're giving up? That's not like you, Gabi girl.”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Go anyway.” Brent shrugs, as if this is the most obvious solution to my problem. To his credit, Brent's parents are fairly hands-off, so it's hard to blame him for failing to grasp life under an oppressive, dictatorial regime. “You're about to graduate, Gabi. They can't call the shots forever, and letting Lucas down is something you'll regret for the rest of your life. Buy the plane ticket and go do this thing.”

“Uh, with what money?” Brent makes it sound so easy. And for him, it would be. “As of today I've made $264.78 bagging groceries at the commissary, which will hardly be enough for last-minute airfare, let alone train tickets, hostels, food . . . .”

“Relax. I can spot you,” Brent interjects. “Let me buy your plane ticket as an early birthday present. E-mail me the dates and I'll book it right away.”

Why is he pushing this? His offer is super generous and that's one thing Brent has always been, but five minutes ago he could barely grasp the concept of a pilgrimage. Now he's volunteering his patronage.

“That's sweet of you, but I can't let you do that.” My family has lived paycheck to paycheck for most of my life, and it seems I've inherited my father's self-made-man vanity.

“Yes, you can. You never let me pay for movies or concerts, which means I've got, hmmm, let's see . . . .” Brent counts his fingers, his blithe smile an assurance he intends to win this one. “Yep, according to my calculations, I owe you fifty-four dates. Come on Gabi, it's the least I can do. I doubt I'd be graduating, let alone getting into college, if you hadn't kicked my butt into gear. Let me help
you
out for once.”

“This isn't about me,” I realize out loud. And that's the very thought that makes this act of treason plausible. My brief stint as a rebel in San Antonio didn't last long, but I
do
think I could play a martyr. Lucas's cause is worth imprisonment or exile—the two most likely sentences
El Jefe
will inflict once he discovers I've disobeyed a direct order.

So be it. When I picture my brother lying in his current prison, neither punishment sounds all that bad.

“Okay, Brent. Buy the ticket. I'm in.”

• • •

Nylon is noisy. There's no escaping it. My backpack is huge and awkward and I feel like a drunken Santa Claus stumbling down a dark hallway with an overstuffed gift sack.

Dad left for Vilseck and Mom has spent most of her waking hours at the hospital, so making travel preparations wasn't difficult. Seth had already decided to do the walk with or without me. I told him my dad changed his mind, and I'd meet him at the airport in time for our 7
A.M.
flight.

Now the trick will be getting out of this house in the dark without my ginormous backpack taking out Mom's favorite lamp in the process.

Why did I pack so much? I doubt Bilbo Baggins ever had to deal with this nonsense.

As I creep through the living room, a floorboard creaks beneath my extra weight. I freeze. The lamp I was worried about breaking switches on, the colors of its Tiffany shade blinding me like a watchtower spotlight. Mom is on our new Ikea Söderhamn sofa, her hand clutching the cord of the Victorian lamp. I'm struck by how these two styles don't go together
at all
, but right now shaky interior design is the least of my worries.

“Were you going to leave a note at least?” Mom sits up like she's been expecting me. Her face is hard. Gangster hard.

Yep, I am so busted.

I lower my eyes to the pristine hiking boots I'll never get to use. “How did you find out?”

Mom yawns and wraps a crochet blanket around her shoulders. “You never do your laundry without me pestering you about it a dozen times first. Last night you did three loads.”

Laundry?
Are you kidding me? After all my scheming, that stupid Snuggles bear was the one who sold me out?

“So that's it. You tell Dad and none of us accomplish the
one thing
Lucas asked us to do.” I unclick the shoulder straps of my bag and let my Matteo-sized backpack fall to the floor. “All because Sergeant Paranoid doesn't believe I can travel with a member of the opposite sex without getting pregnant in the process. Can't you see how ridiculous this is? In seventeen years, I screwed up
one
time.”

Now my mom is wide awake. “Your father has a lot on his plate, Gabi. Lucas is plenty, but he's also got six devastated families to serve, and the last thing he needs to worry about is his only daughter wandering around a foreign country.”

“Which is why he should just—”

“Let me finish, Gabriela.” Mom runs her hands through her hair, like she's about to make an important announcement to important people and wants to look the part. This is a demeanor I've seen before, most often when Dad was deployed. It means my mother is about to ditch the passenger seat and take the steering wheel.

“As I was saying, your father has a lot on his mind, so I'm not sure he's thinking clearly about this, about how important this journey must be to Lucas.” Mom takes a deep breath. “The last thing I want is to undermine your father. We make our decisions together as a team, despite how one-sided it may look on the outside.
But
I've also been married to the man for twenty years, and sometimes I suspect I know what he truly wants even more than he does.”

“And what does he want?” I demand. “For me to live with the guilt of having failed Lucas for the rest of my life?”

“Cut the melodrama, Gabi. What your father wants is simple—for his children to reach adulthood safely, without having to experience the kind of struggles he had to. What he sometimes forgets is that this world will never be safe, and two of his children are practically adults already.” Mom gets up from the sofa, picks up my pack, and helps reposition it on my back. “I'll talk to your father. Now you'd better get going, otherwise you'll miss your flight.”

Salty tears line the back of my throat as I give my mom an unexpected hug goodbye. “Thank you. For being on my team.”

“I'm always on your team, Gabriela. You just have to give me the chance to play.”

I break Mom's embrace and turn towards the door.

“Gabi, wait.”

My shoulders sink. She's about to change her mind. Mom disappears down the hallway towards Dad's office.

“Take this,” she says when she returns, holding out a plastic bag.

Now I'm really confused. “What is it?”

“Something your father wanted to do for Lucas while he walked the
camino
. Something your Grandma Guadalupe did for him when he got sick.” Mom hands me one hundred extra euros and the clear plastic bag filled with tiny tealight candles. “Now it's up to you.”

I accept this parting gift, aware that I'm walking this route for Dad as much as I am for Lucas. Maybe if I do this one thing right, he'll trust me again.

Maybe I'll start trusting myself.

Seven hundred and eighty kilometers. Five hundred miles. The distance between Cleveland and New York. That's how far we're walking. Well, almost that far. Mom will talk to my teachers, but two weeks of class plus spring break is probably the most I can miss and still manage to graduate, so we'll have to take a short bus ride in the middle of the route to speed things up. Still, walking for this long is
insanity
. And I willingly agreed to take part in it.

Not to mention that I most certainly overpacked. This is the first detail I discern as I study the other tourists—oops, I mean
pilgrims
—on the train ride from Paris to the Spanish border. Let's start with the young woman across the aisle, the one who hasn't looked up from her magazine in almost two hours. Her stylish sporting gear makes me wonder if she's a model for Eddie Bauer or The North Face. She's got to be either Dutch or Norwegian. Tall and very Heidi-looking with white-blond hair worn in two long braids. Like the rest of these passengers, her equipment tells me Europeans take hiking
very
seriously. Their fancy trekking poles, super lightweight packs, and layers of waterproof material make it look like they're about to tackle Everest.

My
contribution to the world of
camino
fashion? A ratty pair of Adidas warm-up pants that should have been thrown out two seasons ago. Seth brought his camo-green rucksack, which holds a lot of junk, but stinks like canvas and makes us stick out like silly Americans who have no idea what the heck they're doing.

Seth has uttered maybe three words the entire overnight train ride. He rests his head against the window, looking like he's in desperate need of an energy drink. I decide it's time for another round of “let's see what gets a reaction,” so I dig through my daypack, hoping that what I'm about to reveal will remind Seth we're doing this pilgrimage for Lucas, not as a ridiculously long penance that requires him to glower 24/7.

I pull out the Barbie-sized G.I. Joe action figure—
action figure
, not doll, Lucas always insisted—that sat on my brother's nightstand most of his childhood. Only I've made a few alterations. To start, I taped a small photograph of Lucas's face over the G.I. Joe's face. Then I stripped the soldier of his gun and wrapped his arm in a mini-rosary, just to give him a more pilgrim vibe.