The Lost Girls (50 page)

Did the idea of being as far away from home as possible with no assignments to frame my day and no professional mission to accomplish still scare me? Not nearly as much as it would have the year before we left. Actually, a part of me couldn't wait to see what happened when I traveled without an itinerary, a goal, or a backup plan. Once that happened, it would be just me and me, kid—no distractions.

When Jen and I had traveled to Europe after college, my father had tried convincing me to stick around the continent as
long as my budget would hold out. I refused, 100 percent sure that “all the good jobs would be gone” if I didn't scramble to New York by the time summer got under way. Now, seven years later, I didn't want to make that same mistake again.

 

W
e left the van behind and followed Adam's lead to Echo Point, a viewing platform perched several thousand feet above the floor of the Jamison Valley. The three of us had taken in some pretty stunning landscapes during our trip, but something about this one rendered all three of us silent—for a few minutes anyway. I started to reach for my camera and then thought better of it as I stepped toward the railing to soak in the scene. Capturing the full scope of the panorama—the velvety ripples of forest tumbling across hundreds of thousands of acres of low mountain foothills—would have been impossible anyway.

Approaching the edge, I thought of the first time my mom and her longtime boyfriend Bruce had taken my sister and me to see the Grand Canyon. They'd helped us climb up onto a railing just like this one and held us tightly from behind as we stared out into the gap carved in the earth by the flow of water over millions of years. I remember as a nine-year-old kid feeling overwhelmed by the sheer scope of it all, as if realizing for the first time just how vast the world truly is and how very tiny I was within it. Standing here now, pressed along the railing with Jen and Holly at my side, I experienced a similar feeling of humility and a sense of connectedness with the earth.

Adam pointed to a rock formation I'd noticed to our left, three limestone towers that rose dramatically from the ground and narrowed to a point like spires on a church.

“That's known as the Three Sisters,” he said, leaning out over the rail. “According to an Aboriginal dreamtime legend,
they were once real maidens from the Katoomba tribe who'd fallen in love with three brothers from the neighboring Nepean tribe.”

Tribal law wouldn't allow any of them to get married, he explained, but the brothers wouldn't take no for an answer. They decided to capture their brides, which sparked a major battle between the two sides. Because the lives of the women were in danger, a witch doctor took it upon himself to turn the three sisters into stone to protect them from harm. Unfortunately, the doctor was killed in battle before he could reverse the spell and return the women to their former beauty.

“And so here they are to this day. Even though they're stone, they're still pretty beautiful, I'd say.” Adam smiled, almost to himself. “I always liked that story as a kid—I figured if I used magic, or at least wished hard enough, I'd be able to turn them real again.”

We laughed and teased him a little about that, and he shrugged, eager to change the subject. “Why don't we take a little hike and see them up close?”

The four of us walked as a group to the archway fronting the Giant Stairway, a series of eight hundred steps and runways that led to the valley floor, right past the Three Sisters. Adam motioned for us to go ahead. As we got closer, I could see that the individual formations were so tall—nearly a thousand feet each—that there was no way they should be able to stand on their own. But somehow, they must have supported one another, keeping the group upright while the rest of the rock around them had eroded away.

Jen and Holly, who'd already bounded down the narrow set of stone steps etched into the rock, paused, waiting for me to join them. I walked the last few steps to where they were standing. Once again in our own formation, we walked the rest of the way together.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
APRIL

D
espite its distance from home, Australia felt unexpectedly familiar. Well, “same same but different,” as they say in Thailand. It was “same same” because everyone spoke English. People lived in houses and mowed their lawns and walked their babies in strollers rather than carrying them on their backs. Amanda, Jen, and I joined our newfound circle of friends at happy hour. We were strangely enthralled when we walked through the automatic doors of air-conditioned grocery stores to find
refrigerated
eggs for sale. We drank the tap water again without getting sick. And by renting a room at Simone's apartment, we technically weren't backpackers anymore. We had a home base.

Australia was “different” because the stars were upside down. The seasons were reversed. Cars drove on the opposite side of the road. People said “heaps” instead of “a lot.” They preferred to have their toast with Vegemite (a salty, malty-flavored paste) as opposed to jam. The cities had funny-sounding names such as Katoomba and Maroochydore. The animals also had funny-sounding names, as if they belonged in a Muppets performance: wombat, platypus, wallaby.

Differences aside, Australians' lives seemed very much like Americans': people went to work, took their families to the beach on weekends, and used holidays as a time to get together with friends and loved ones. Though we'd be missing Memorial Day back home, we were able to celebrate an Australian national holiday, ANZAC Day.

“Is it named after a type of cookie?” Amanda asked Simone when she first heard of it, her eyes glistening at the prospect of a day reserved for eating the confectionary creation of rolled oats and granulated sugar.

“Dah-ling, don't be silly. It stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps,” Simone said, explaining that the holiday honored soldiers who lost their lives in World War I. Australians turn the day of remembrance into a festivity that goes beyond Americans' typical backyard barbecues or picnics at the beach. Gambling is a mainstay in Australian pop culture, with casinos, racing, and “pokies” (electronic slot machines) as common as Starbucks in New York. In fact, Aussies lose more money to gambling than any other country in the world. So it's only fitting that to celebrate, a lot—I mean
heaps
—of Aussies head to their local bar to drink beer and play an addictive game called two-up.

And that's why Amanda, Jen, and I arrived in the middle of mayhem at Bondi's Beach Road Hotel at noon on a Wednesday. Our plan had been to beat the crowd, but the madness was already well under way. Pushing open the doors, we were accosted by the yeasty scent of draft beer and the sound of rising cheers. The hub of activity wasn't at the bar but rather among a circle of people that swelled around empty space.

Men wearing beach shorts and thongs (flip-flops) and women in sundresses waved money above their heads as if bidding at an auction and yelled, “Twenty on heads!” or “Fifty on tails!” A guy with a microphone stood in the inner circle, balancing large coins atop a small paddle.

Tension crackled and silence ensued as the announcer tossed the coins high into the air. Acting as a single organism, the circle pushed forward, straining to see how the coins would fall.

“We have heads!” he yelled, and groans from the losers and howls from the winners erupted like thunder.

Just then, I heard Amanda apologize to a blue-eyed guy wearing a baseball hat she'd apparently bumped into.

“No worries. I like your accent. Where are you ladies from?” he asked.

“New York,” she said.

“New York? Like
Sex in the City
New York? Like Carrie Bradshaw?”

At this point in the trip, we were accustomed to men linking a group of female friends from New York to the infamous HBO series and Amanda to Carrie with her lioness-like mane of curls.

“Something like that,” Amanda said.

Suddenly a few men formed their own circle around us, probably curious about a group of Americans out to celebrate the Australian holiday. The funny thing is, travel had taught me as much about my own country as it did about the ones I visited—mostly because it let me see what Americans looked like through foreigners' eyes. We'd quickly learned that there was a bonus to having an accent, because Australian males were quick to buy us rounds of drinks and have a chat whenever we'd ventured into a local pub. Either that or chivalry still survived and thrived Down Under.

“Would you like to play two-up?” asked a guy with spiky blond hair who'd introduced himself as David.

“I'd love to, but I have no idea what I'm doing.” I wanted to join the Australian tradition but didn't want to look like the silly foreigner that I was by making all the wrong moves.

David explained that two-up involves waving a bill in the
air, finding a partner who is holding up the same amount, and betting on whether the coins will land on heads or tails. If you guess right, you get to keep your partner's money.

It sounded easy enough, as if it were all luck and no strategy. “So I have a fifty percent chance of winning?”

“That's right,” he said. “Bets start at five dollars. I'll bet against you for your first time if you'd like. Heads or tails?”

“Tails!” I said, pulling out a fiver and following him to join the outer edge of the circle.

The announcer recruited a volunteer to toss the three coins. One landed on heads, the other two landed on tails.

“I won! I won!” I screamed, waving for Amanda and Jen, who were talking near the bar, to come watch. “I doubled my money!”

The announcer heard my American accent, despite the ear-rupturing clapping. He pointed to me and asked where I was from.

“New York!” I yelled. More cheers erupted—quite the easy crowd to please.

“We have a New Yorker here! Would you like to toss the coins?” His voice resonated from the microphone. It seemed as though practically everyone in the bar screamed even louder, and I pushed through the masses to walk self-consciously into the center of the circle, all eyes on me. Amanda followed, video camera in hand, recording my first ANZAC Day and fifteen (or five) minutes of fame.

The announcer hammed it up for Amanda's video recorder, raising his hands in the air as he yelled, “Woooo!”

“You're on
Candid Camera
, baby!” she said.

He turned to me. “All right, are you ready?”

I nodded, placing one hand on my thigh, lowering the paddle with a deep breath, and then releasing the coins in a giant arc. They landed as if in slow motion, then seemed to speed up,
spinning erratically. The people in the first layer of the circle jumped back, their eyes following the coins as they rolled away before scattering outside the bounds.

The crowd groaned impatiently. I definitely wasn't going to be cheered on for my lack of hand-eye coordination. “We'll have to roll again,” the announcer said.

He whispered a few quick tips about tossing the coins lower so they'd stay within the circle as another player collected them to hand back to me. I took another deep breath and gingerly flipped the coins off the paddle. They landed cleanly this time, front and center.

“We have tails!” he announced, and the crowd was awash in the rustling of money exchanges and guzzling of beers.

“Nice job, New York,” David said, patting me on the back.

Amanda and Jen held up their bills and walked across the crowd to exchange bets, making half a dozen new friends in a matter of minutes. Online dating has nothing on playing two-up—it's the simplest, least awkward way to meet new people that I'd ever encountered.

It was warm inside the beach bar, but a comfortable, cozy kind of warm. As the sun sank lower outside, the stakes grew higher inside.

“How are you doing, David?” I asked, eyeing the growing wad of cash in his hand.

“I'm up $750.” He grinned when my eyes widened in shock. “It's a very good ANZAC Day indeed.”

 

M
undane stuff that once felt like a chore, such as grocery shopping, washing dishes, and folding laundry, became unexpectedly comforting as Jen, Amanda, and I had settled back into domestic life at Simone's apartment. We stocked the freezer with cookie dough ice cream, carefully hung the few
items of wrinkled clothing we had in a closet, organized by color, and arranged our sunscreen on the bathroom shelf as if displaying pieces of fine art. There was even a mirror above the sink, where I'd placed my hydrating eye cream, vanilla-scented lotion, and strawberry-flavored lip gloss.

Shamed by my extravagant nonessentials, I had long let those goodies remain in the crevices of my backpack. The girls had staged repeated load-lightening interventions at airport weigh stations, their purist packing approach clashing with my philosophy: you should carry whatever brings you comfort on the road. For me, that's books and toiletries. (The girls
did
manage to wrangle my rather ironic copy of
How to Pack
from my bag's zippered pocket, which shaved off approximately two ounces.) There was just something about brushing a stroke of emerald liner near my eyes or a dab of peachy shimmer across my cheeks that makes me feel clean and pretty—no matter how dust-covered I might be. And now I didn't have to hide them anymore. Simply being able to wake up and brew coffee with our very own coffeemaker (well, Simone's coffeemaker) and then to cup a steamy mug in our hands while watching the morning news felt as special as Christmas, New Year's, and Easter all rolled into one.

After all the times I'd exercised in a windowless gym after a day spent inside the office—only able to dream about running on a beach or hiking in the mountains—I was surprised I'd wanted to convince Jen and Amanda to sign up for a gym membership at the Westfield mall near Bondi Junction. I mapped out a weekly schedule of classes and taped it to the refrigerator as a reminder. Joining the groups of exercisers in the mirrored classroom, with its rows of yoga mats and ruby-colored exercise balls neatly lined up against the wall, felt safe to me rather than confining. Our return flight to New York was taking off in just six weeks, and I was shocked to discover that I wanted
to do “normal” stuff when my “normal” life loomed so close. I hungered for the normalcy that I'd so gleefully bid good-bye to when we'd first embarked on this around-the-world journey.

And it was with the same desire for the familiar that the girls and I enthusiastically accepted an invitation to join Simone's friends for their monthly book club party. It was one of those sparkly Sundays that seemed typical in Sydney. The water in the harbor shimmered under a butterscotch sun. We sat at a wooden picnic table on the deck of the yacht club in Rose Bay, which offered surprisingly cheap food and drinks despite the fancy-sounding name.

I couldn't tell you the name of the book the women were meeting about, because it was never actually discussed. We arrived with Simone to find half a dozen women in their late twenties seated on the opposite sides of two picnic tables. They were wearing sunglasses with lenses so large they covered their entire cheeks. Two bottles of wine were chilling in gleaming silver buckets.

After Simone introduced us, Jen, Amanda, and I took our places in the empty spaces between the women. Rather than sit together, the three of us dispersed, each easily falling into conversation with the new person next to us.

For the greater part of a year, our social circle had consisted of the lucky number three. And in a way maybe similar to a marriage, we'd fulfilled roles for one another that went well beyond the frivolity of casual courtship. Traveling through foreign countries had morphed us into one another's accountants, counselors, organizers, nurses, and bodyguards. We'd also become slightly codependent.

This became clear once our “real” lives loomed close, as each of us tried to absorb the fact that, soon enough, we'd return to making choices solely for ourselves, not based on the good of the group. Even the most mundane decisions, such as what to
make for breakfast, would again become solitary activities with no need for group compromise.

I sensed we were each branching out, trying to sink our roots deeper into our individual worlds and stake out a plot of land that was uniquely our own.

I planted myself next to Leonie, a dark blonde with steel blue eyes and a raspy voice that sounded both effervescent and sexy. “Would you like a glass of wine, love?” she asked. “I usually prefer red, but we ordered white because it's so warm today.”

I nodded, and she pulled a bottle from the ice bucket, filling an empty glass with the pale liquid. “We have heaps of wineries in Australia. You should visit Hunter Valley for a wine tour,” she said.

I told her that the only distinction I'd been able to make between types of wine pretrip was whether one was red or white. While biking through wineries in New Zealand, though, I'd discovered what an art form it was to grow grapes ripened to just the right sweetness and to blend different varietals.

“I was in New Zealand when I went backpacking, too,” she said. “I didn't go on any wine tours while I was there, but I
did
shag a hobbit.”

She said this just as I took a sip, resulting in a coughing fit. Leonie calmly handed me a napkin.

Leonie quickly explained that her liaison hadn't been with a
real
hobbit, but with an actor playing the role. She'd just happened to be on the North Island when
The Lord of the Rings
had been filming, met a worker from the set at a bar, and agreed to help with costume fittings to earn extra cash on the road. It was probably her charisma that had gotten her invited to the wrap party afterward, where the hobbit had invited her back to his hotel room. “That was after many glasses of wine, of course,” she said.

“The free wine at wrap parties can be a dangerous thing. My
boyfriend is an actor,” I said, thinking of Elan at the first mention of acting.