Wanderlost (15 page)

Does it? Do any of my lies make sense?

Sam turns to study the water below us. We've stopped in front of a café and this section of the canal has a railing lining the edge. Sam rests his elbow on it and he leans over to peer down. “You know that thing you said a few minutes ago about
getting past an age where you feel like you have to impress relatives?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think that happens?” he asks.

I think about the events of the past few weeks and I so badly want to answer honestly because I certainly have a lot to say on the subject, but I'm not at all prepared for where that conversation could lead.

Beside me, Sam raises his eyebrows, and I realize I haven't answered him. “Sorry,” I say. “I sort of wandered off there. Um, to tell you the truth, I don't really know.”

“Who are you trying to prove yourself to?” Sam asks.

I lie and say, “My mom. You?”

“My mom too, I guess. Mostly my dad.”

“I thought you said your dad wasn't around.”

Sam yanks a leaf off an overhanging tree beside us and begins shredding it, dropping tiny bits into the river below and watching the current carry them off. “Yeah, he's not. I haven't ever met him. But I want to. I'm just waiting for the right moment, ya know? I want to do something really cool first. Something that will show him what he missed out on.”

“Wow. I can't believe you've
never
met him.” I try to imagine life without my father—goofy as he is—and can't.

“Nope. In fact, for the first twelve years of my life, I thought he was dead. And then we had this project in history class where we were supposed to research our family tree. I snuck into my mom's room when she was at work to look for
my birth certificate and instead I found their divorce papers. Turns out he hadn't died at all; he'd just deserted us.”

“Your mom told you he was dead? That is . . . but . . .
why
?” I'm floored by this.

Sam laughs, but there's no humor in it. “She thought she was protecting me. She says I'm better off without him in my life. I didn't get it for a long time. I'm not sure I totally do yet, but she insists I'll understand when I have kids of my own. She claims that she would have said and done anything to keep me from hurting or thinking any of it was my fault because abandonment like that could scar a kid for life and she didn't want that for me. To be honest, I think all she did was heap onto the pile. It's not like she saved me from the abandonment issues. She just added trust issues on top of them. I mean, I was completely upset that she'd lied in the first place, but it was worse the way she kept it going all those years. If I hadn't found those papers, I'm not sure she'd have ever confessed to me, which is like a total kick to the gut, you know?”

Um, yeah. I do. I feel like shit right now. Obviously I'm not deceiving him about anything on that scale, but the guy just came right out and admitted his trust issues and I'm lying right to his face twenty times a day. “Wow. I'm—I'm so sorry,” I say, not knowing what else to add to make him feel better.

Sam shrugs and pulls down another leaf, continuing to tear off pieces. “It wasn't your lie.”

Maybe not, but I've told him plenty too. If he ever finds that out, he's going to hate me. The certainty slides like a brick
to the bottom of my stomach and lodges itself into place. Once again, my brain screams that I need to put a lock on any feelings I might be starting to have for this guy. Once again, my feet stay planted.

“I'm sorry, I completely dumped on you there. I didn't mean to bring the mood down,” Sam says.

“That's okay,” I say. I'm quiet, though, still taking it in. His issues, my issues.

“It's your fault, you know. You shouldn't be so easy to talk to.” Sam loops one arm over the railing, the rest of his body facing me.

I shiver when a breeze comes off the water and Sam nudges closer. I counter with a small step back before saying, “I think maybe it's just easy to talk to someone on a trip like this, you know? We're completely removed from our real lives, we're in this foreign place, and you don't have to see me after the trip. . . .”

Sam studies me for a moment, his gaze locked on me, and I forget to breathe. “You think that's all it is?” he asks. The lights from the nearby café are reflecting off the water and making Sam's eyes shine. In the corners are the featherlight lines that deepen when he smiles, but he's not smiling now. In fact, he's looking at me so intently, I might melt into a puddle.

“Probably?” I whisper, still caught up in his stare.

“Nope. Sorry, but I don't think that's all it is,” he murmurs, leaning over to me in slow motion. His eyes dart to my lips, then back to my eyes. Lips, eyes.

Before I can react, he places his mouth softly on mine. His arm leaves the railing, settles on my back, and tugs me closer, while his other palm rests warmly on my arm. My eyes flutter shut.

His kiss is soft and hard at the same time. Sweet but questioning. I sigh into his lips. It's perfect.

When I pull away, his hand at my back steadies me as I blink at him a few times. A breeze blows strands of my hair across my lips, where they stick. Sam reaches up and gently frees the tendrils.

“I'm sorry for that,” he murmurs, and I don't even want to guess what emotions he's seeing on my face. Because I'm feeling all of them. Surprise. Guilt. Total giddiness. His eyes haven't left mine and I open my mouth and close it again. What is it I even want to say to him right now? Sam's eyes drift to my lips again.

“No, actually. I'm not. Not even a little bit,” he says. His hand tangles in my hair as he pulls me into him and uses his other hand to cup my face. Without taking his eyes off me, he lowers his head until his lips are on mine, their warmth chasing away the cool breeze off the water.

After the initial surprise wears off, I snuggle closer, kissing him back.

So much for a clean escape.

Prague has a
McDonald's too. I know this because the next day I'm sitting at one, blissfully inhaling a cheeseburger
with
a bun AND a crispy apple pie (which, joy upon joy, they actually fry here instead of baking like at home) before anyone from my group (well, more specifically, Sam) spots me.

I may be recently converted to the wonders of the world outside the 44236 zip code, but being open to new discoveries does not yet include cuisine. Especially in a place famous for goulash.

To be honest, I'm also hiding out a little bit while the rest of the group wanders through Prague Castle. As in love as I am with Europe, I am palace'd and castle'd out at the moment, so I jumped on Sam's offer to stick with everyone on their guided tour while I grabbed a coffee.

Coffee, fried apple-y goodness. Potato, po
tah
to.

To be even more honest, I also need a little more time to process last night's kiss—check, make that kiss
es
, because we stayed by that canal for a long, long time.

I experienced major jitters this morning when I saw Sam outside the hotel loading luggage and they didn't really go away during the bus ride here, even though he was sitting with Dolores three rows behind me. The way he smiled at me like we shared a delicious secret the one time I snuck a peek back at him was positively heart-melty and I don't know if I can handle heart-melty. Oh God, but I kind of want to.

Hence the current head-clearing space.

In other not-so-shocking news, I have a new favorite city. I know, I know. But Prague is so beautiful and ancient that it feels like medieval (400–1500 AD—yes, I remember, Mr. Fenton) knights should be walking down the street. All the buildings have clay-colored red roofs and there are cobblestones and gas streetlights everywhere. We're staying in a hotel in the castle district of town, right by the river and the base of the Charles Bridge. It's like something out of a dream, complete with swans floating around in the water. For real.

It's a pretty intense climb between our hotel and the top of the hill where the castle sits but it was too short of a distance to take the bus, so we just moved slowly and gave Mary and Emma the option of going into every store selling marionettes and Czech crystal (I guess it's world famous), which was basically all of them. Since Prague is part of Bohemia, Emma also insisted on buying a long flowy skirt and a bandana for her hair. The woman sure likes her getups.

I toss the evidence of my Mickey D's binge in the trash can and sneak a peek up the street for my crew before ducking
out of the restaurant. I told Sam I'd catch them back at the hotel, and I'm heading in that direction when I spot a sign for an internet café at the base of the hill. I've sent Elizabeth one email since our talk in Germany five days ago and I'm overdue for a call. Maybe a face-to-face conversation over Skype will help get rid of some of the tension our last one had.

I pay for fifteen minutes and log on to the Skype account Mom had me set up so we could video chat with Elizabeth at college. Within seconds I'm checking the corners of my mouth for ketchup remnants while I listen to the computer ring.

A small square appears and then blows up. Elizabeth's face fills the frame, her familiar room in the background.

My pesky throat lump is back at the sight. Everything looks so, just so . . .
home
. A tickle forms just north of the throat lump and my eyes get a tiny bit watery.

“Aubree!” Elizabeth's eyes are wide. “Where are you? Prague today, right?” Her expression is wary, like she's not sure what version of me she might get. Maybe I deserve that.

I smile to let her know I've moved on from our last call, when I said “screw you” and hung up on her. To my relief she smiles back.

“Yep, I'm in Prague. It's so beautiful, you should see it.”

Her eyes get wistful and her voice is soft when she says, “Yeah, I wish I could.”

I know Elizabeth is way more concerned about losing out on her dream job versus having to give up this trip, but it still must sting that I'm here and she's not. We never even discussed
that and she definitely never complained about it even once. It suddenly hits me that I've been doing all this grumbling about Elizabeth being self-absorbed, but what if I have been too?

I never considered what missing out on this trip to sit home would feel like to my sister, who not only has the travel bug big-time but also hasn't stopped go-go-going in the entire time I've known her. I wonder what this last week has been like for her? I bite my lip and feel a thousand times more sympathetic toward her than I have since our scene at the airport.

She studies something over my shoulder. “Is that a real stone wall behind you?” she asks.

I glance behind me at the exposed stone on the inside of the internet café. “Yeah, I guess. This whole city is about a million years old.”

She laughs. “More like a thousand. Haven't you been keeping up with my binder?”

But the way she says it is teasing, not accusatory, and I grin. Obviously there's no way I'm telling her that binder could be anywhere between here and whatever trash dump is nearest the Philadelphia airport.

It feels good to laugh with her.

“Okay,
now
are you ready to tell me about all of your adventures?” she asks.

“Are you sure? It won't bother you?”

I tilt my head and study her, but she seems completely sincere when she answers. “Of course not! I wanna hear.”

“Okay, so, not to rub it in, but man the Alps are crazy
huge. They make a total mockery of the top of the ski lift at Mad River Mountain,” I tell her. “And get this! We went off book a little to do a
Sound of Music
tour in Salzburg.” I add, “With the tour operator's permission, of course!” when I see her expression turn a little hesitant. (FYI: not telling her about Sam, but he shares blood with the tour operator, so I'm figuring that counts. Plus, it was his idea[ish] to begin with.)

Elizabeth smiles. “Hey, do you remember how funny you were when I tried to get you to reenact the wedding scene from
Sound of Music
with me? You must have been, what, six? Seven?”

“Ten,” I answer. I remember it perfectly. Elizabeth's high school was rumored to be staging the musical that fall and, in typical Elizabeth fashion, she was determined to rehearse ahead of time so she would be a shoo-in for a leading role, even though she was only a freshman (she got it, by the way). Her two best friends were at Girl Scout camp that summer and it was also the year our pool had gone in, so we'd been spending a ton of time in the backyard, swimming and playing badminton. But that day Elizabeth wanted to practice the wedding scene, while
I
was very insistent there was no wedding scene.

“You could never stay up past the part with the party whenever it came on TV,” Elizabeth said with a giggle.

“Well,
you're
the one who told me it ended right after that!”

“I didn't want you to feel bad about not seeing, basically, the whole last hour!”

We grin at each other from opposite sides of the ocean.
Elizabeth says, “I remember the minute Mom got home that day you made her take you to Target to buy the DVD so you could see what you'd been missing out on.”

I remember too. Elizabeth had popped popcorn and had the living room all set up for movie night when we got back. And then she held my hand when I cried over Rolfe blowing the whistle on the Von Trapps' hiding spot.

I wish we could go back to being little kids and liking each other just because we were sisters.

“I'll bet it was fun to see where it was all filmed,” Elizabeth says, so I fill her in on the mountaintop spinning and the gazebo with the hidden water fountains (conveniently leaving out Sam, of course. No need for her to freak out that I'm under round-the-clock surveillance by both the owner's son
and
mother).

Instead I tell her about the epic make-out sessions Hank and Maisy have in the back of the bus and the costumes Emma keeps buying. A tightness in my chest releases as we talk and laugh.

When I realize I'm doing the exact same thing I accused her of doing on our last call and making it all about me, I ask, “So what's it like to be living at home this summer? Weird?”

She pauses. “It's . . . quiet. Mom and Dad are at work and you're gone, so I'm just hanging out alone all day. I don't even have any summer reading for fall classes I can get ahead on, like I usually do. It's really strange to be back in this life, which doesn't even feel like
my
life anymore. I mean, not that
home won't always be home, but just, well . . . you know what I mean. It's not really where
my
life is anymore, if that makes sense. I feel like I'm in a time warp back to high school or something. Except you're not here, which is equally weird, because you're always here.”

I hadn't thought of that. I'm totally used to the house without Elizabeth, but of course she was only four the last time she lived there without me. I try to process that.

She grimaces. “I've been trying to find a part-time job, but so far, no luck. And I don't even know if I'm supposed to check ‘yes' on the application when it asks if I have a criminal record or what? I haven't been, but . . .”

“What's new with the court case?” I ask, cringing at the reminder.

“Nada. Still set for mid-July.”

I nod and swallow. After we hang up I get to go back to marionette shows and the astronomical clock and the Kafka Museum and Elizabeth doesn't have anything to look forward to besides a date with a judge. That sucks.

“Hey, Bree?” she asks.

“Yeah?”

“Nothing. I'm just glad you called.” She shakes her head a little and smiles, and I return her smile.

I'm glad I called too.

I'm still riding the high from my conversation with Elizabeth when we venture as a group onto the Left Bank to take in all
of the sights of Old Town.

This could take a month, considering it's been forty minutes just crossing the Charles Bridge—oldest stone bridge in Europe, according to Sam's iPad—because Mary wants a picture of every statue along the way. There is one approximately every six steps. I wonder what exactly she plans to do with these pictures when she gets home. Talk about the world's most boring slide show. Don't get me wrong, they're really beautiful in person, but . . .

Hank and Maisy have stayed behind because they noticed the same internet café I visited earlier also caters to their American clientele by broadcasting sporting events via satellite. Tonight's showing is of a classic Texas Rangers game. We left them hunting for peanuts to smuggle in.

Sam angles himself next to me as we pause in front of a statue of St. Wenceslas. He hums a few bars of that Christmas carol about King Wenceslas and the feast of St. Stephen, then asks, “Wanna hear something totally grotesque and weird?”

I laugh. We haven't been alone together since our kiss last night and I'm not quite sure how to act around him in front of the other passengers. On the one hand, I don't want him to think I didn't like our kiss or that I don't want to do it again—and again and again and again and again—as soon as possible. But I also don't want to be unprofessional.

Mr. Fenton is all of two feet away reading a plaque and Mary is snapping another photo just to my left. So I carefully avoid touching Sam, but I do lean in closer.

“That's a rhetorical question, right? Who would say no to that?”

Sam smiles. “Okay, so Mr. Fenton just told me this. You know how we're headed to the Old Town Square to see the astronomical clock?”

I roll my eyes and gesture with a head tilt to Mary, clicking away. “
If
we ever get off this bridge.”

“Seriously.” His fingers brush mine and I jump. A smile twitches in the corner of Sam's mouth. I sidestep to put more distance between us. Sam doesn't comment on that, instead continuing, “Fenton says it was installed back in 1410.”

“Wow.” For our school field trips we used to go to Ohio Village to see a replica of a nineteenth-century village, where all the people working there dressed up in long dresses and bonnets (or straw hats and suspenders for the boys) and pretended they were from that time. They'd look at you with fake wonder if you chewed gum or pulled out a cell phone. I thought that was the coolest thing when I was in fifth grade.

And now I am going to see a clock installed in 1410.

Sam tugs gently on my backpack to pull me along to the next statue. “We're gonna try to wait it out until it strikes the hour because this row of figures parades out, including Death himself.”

I pause and a group of tourists streams around us on either side. “That sounds creepy.”

Sam stops too, then steps backward to reach me. “Nope. Not the creepy part. I've seen it—it's actually really cool. But
I never knew the next part. Okay, so check this out. Legend has it that the city was so proud of its unique clock that they ordered the clockmaker blinded so he couldn't re-create it anywhere else. He got so ticked off after that, he broke it, and no one could figure out how to fix it for over a century.”

“Whoa. So just because he was awesome at what he did, they blinded him for life?”

“Yup. Pretty sick, huh? You might want to mess up here and there on this bus tour, Lizzie. I'm just saying.”

Sam mimes slashing across my eyelids as I laugh.

Pretty sure messing up frequently will
not
be a problem for me.

Sam moves closer, his eyes on mine. That small smile is still dancing in the corners of his mouth, and I know this because I'm completely staring at his lips like they're on fire. Which, now that I think back on our kiss last night . . .

For a second I wonder if he's going for a repeat performance, right here in front of all the seniors and I stumble, eyes wide.