The fingernails of the stewardess are very long and red, and it is based on this observation that I decide not to ask if I may have water without bubbles. The only thing good about Italy so far is the size of the airplane seats. I curl my entire length into the seat and fall asleep, dreaming of David, who I will finally meet at our last stop in Florence. I wake when the plane starts to groan with landing pains. There is an indentation on the back of my hand where it was pressed against the recline button, and I have to peel my cheek from the window glass.
In the Milan airport the men openly greet our breasts and the women swish by in stilettos and dark sweeps of hair. Our rental car looks like a giant marshmallow on wheels, but it holds our clothing and canvases and clay and we still have room to cross our legs. No one complains except Clara, who has come along as a reward from her parents for gaining ten pounds. Athena and I passed the time in the Paris airport speculating over the contents of Clarašs suitcase. We decide upon: one pair of jeans, one miniskirt, three bikinis, one razor, and a bottle of tanning oil. Turns out we arenšt far off our mark; she carries her Gucci sunglasses and credit cards in her shoulder bag.
Miss Molly and Miss Rhea sit in front and scream at each other over the noise of Italian free-lane driving. Both of their windows are open and the cross-winds threaten to pull Miss Mollyšs reading glasses from their cord around her neck. Miss Rheašs honey-red hair is snaking out of the window like thirsty fire, ecstatically escaping its Victorian confines atop her head. When we pass the city limits into the countryside, most of us can relax enough to sleep. I gaze at the dying sunlight until my eyes feel as hot and dry as the wheat fields. Miss Molly points out neat rows of grapevines, which look to a Carolina girl like tobacco fields. Clara is casting an empty blue gaze out of the window, sipping from an Evian bottle. Išd bet my motheršs wedding ring that its not water. The wind is loud in my ears, beneath it the sound of Athenašs knitting needles, clicking. The scarlet scarf spills from her hands, over her knees, and beneath Miss Mollyšs seat in front of her. Her hands move quickly, every so often pausing to turn the diamond stud in her nose.
Traveling with Athena always holds adventure. A group of us take the train to a concert in Atlanta in the fall of senior year. The band strums the final chord at 11:57, the last train home leaves at midnight. My friends are cozy in the yellow woolen seats, just getting their tickets punched when they realize I am not with them. Lost in the parking lot after the show, I panic briefly until I hear the name "Charleston" from a nearby group of scraggly fans. Most of them are sucking nitrous oxide from blue balloons, one kidšs is white because the balloons ran out and he had to use a condom. They tell me that they are driving home that night to make it back for Reggae On the River and theyšd be happy to give me a lift. They seem like a merry bunch. I just pray that the driver isnšt stoned and gaze out the window, wondering where Athena is.
The villa where we stay the first three nights is stuck into terraced hills lined with olive trees and grape arbors. The hills slide into a sea-like lake that looks like some surrealistšs depiction of blue. In the morning the sun wakes me through French glass doors, and I remind myself that this is my present. My gift, for surviving twelve years of prep school and being a dutiful daughter in relation to dinner dishes and body piercing. I remind myself of this. Athenašs parents, on the other hand, actually encourage her artistic abilities, and the rest of the girls are daughters of the wealthy, who canšt find any other way of disposing with their offspring for the summer holiday. In the back of my mind I know that I am the same.
In the olive groves I arrange white magnolias, red poppies, and orange silk scarves among the branches and Athena snaps the pictures. We move fast because poppies have a short life span once theyšve been picked. To the left above the trees in the distance stands the Medici hunting lodge with its twenty-four chimneys. In the bottom left corner of the photo shines the red rooftop of Magdalena, an ancient beauty who lives in the valley above her gelato shop. Afterward Athena and I wander along a trail, stopping once to pick thorns from our socks and again to watch a small blue Fiat wheeze its way up the pass.
Three glasses of wine into dinner, Clara convinces the ladies to let us go down to the village to frequent a disco that Rhea and Molly knew in younger days. The wind is fearsome by the water, the waves are dark and make sounds like rowdy kissing. The disco is closed, as are the bars. A man in a tight leather jacket stops to offer us directions and cigarettes, explaining that most of the young people of the village have gone to the city to work for the summer. We say grazi and ciao and walk purposefully away. We stop in the shelter of an outdoor snack stand, where Clara orders a beer and Athena and I have cappucinos with shots. Under our tutelage, the younger girls are learning to appreciate the finer aspects of alcohol. They all split a bowl of hot chocolate with amaretto, giggling as they sip. No one giggles when we realize there are no cabs to take us home. Clara laments the fact that her cell phone does not have service across the Atlantic Ocean. We grasp hands and walk single file along the road towards the villa. There are no streetlights and the road is impossibly windey and steep. Occasionally a car comes whipping around a corner, and we all leap into the ditch overgrown with blackberry plants and dandelion weeds. Clara lights a cigarette and holds it above her head, claiming that the automobiles will see the glowing tip. I very calmly realize that someone could die.
We inch along like a wary caterpillar, finally finding the gate to the path that leads up to the villa. Kate remembers that Rhea said to jiggle the lock, but the wrought iron refuses to budge. Athena notes that there is no moon. I kick off my high heels and wriggle over the lowest part of the gate, careful not to impale myself at the top. The gate swings open from a latch on the inside, and Athena orders everyone to take hands once again. We hike slowly and blindly up into the hills, occasionally bickering over where the path is. I hush everyone when I hear a rustle, and an enormous shadow comes hurtling at us, turning into a grove at the last moment. Athena says it is the size of two men, and Clara assures us that itšs okay, only half of us are virgins. I start to ask what the hell that means, but the thing is returning, at a gallop. Kate and Jenna scream, everyone huddles. The shadow whinnies. It neighs. I laugh out loud, I double over and canšt stop. Athena wants to know why a horse is trotting among terraced grape arbors along the Appian Way.
At breakfast Miss Rhea asks if we are up to a trail ride along the lake, and Clara answers that we are too hung over.
I am wary of the people you meet in train stations. In Germany the summer after junior year, Athena and I take the subway everywhere. In the U-bahn station, Prokofievšs "Romeo and Juliet" theme pours sickly from the loud speakers. Athena picks at a long thin red scab near the top of her wrist until it bleeds like a fresh cut.
"Athena!" I say, and she just looks away. Her profile is neat, her nose petite and jaw defined. The freckled skin reminds me of thin expensive paper.
The whirr of air through the station makes my head feel filled with helium. Ellie squeezes the open wound, and I look away.
My vision focuses on a man heading in our direction, and I try not to make eye contact. I lean forward to look up the tracks for the train. Suddenly he brushes past me and plants himself close to Athena. The bones in his face speak of Visigoths.
Athenašs lower lip drops and strawberries bloom in her cheeks. I almost warn him about her ideas of personal space. The man says in German, "You, girls, are you waiting for the train?" He doesnšt look away from Athenašs face. "This one looks like my sister. Alice is her name. She has hair like you, like this. . ."
A tentative hand reaches toward the black curls under Athenašs ear, and she twitches. Blood from the scab smears on her other palm.
I hear a windy whine, and I push between them and grab Athenašs elbow. The train stops and the new electronic doors swish open. I pull Athena on and we walk swiftly and silently from car to car until the train begins to move. Athena drops like a leaf into a seat, and I press my nose against the cold dirty glass. I can barely see the manšs blond hair, ruffling in the windy tunnel of the station. Athena touches her tongue to her wrist.
Miss Rhea says that the train system is the only thing punctual about Italy. We take the train to Venice, and Miss Molly makes us hide our wallets beneath our shirts. Clara tucks her cash into her bra. Athena and I sit at the front of the paddleboat that pushes us along the main canal. Instead of rose bushes or azaleas framing the yards, seaweed and water fungus slide down the front steps and inch up the shutters of the pastel houses. At the landing, seas of masks greet our arrival. They seem about to quote us something blithe, melancholy, or elfish. Colored glass beads clink in the tourist stands, feathers and stars and brass noisemakers. Athena says, in the America we call this Mardi Gras and stick it in New Orleans. I stick my tongue out at her. In the main square we are attacked by hordes of pigeons, their shit adorns the marble statues and imposing columns of Il Palazzo Ducale. We wander through ballrooms and dungeons, every room echoing with wine-induced laughter, screams of the dying, and our own heavy breathing.
Six of us squeeze into a gondola without tipping and our ladies wave to us from the bridge. Our gondolier is named Stefano and has unruly dark hair puffing from the v-neck collar of his striped shirt. He serenades us in Italian, and we smile dreamily into the sun. As we round a building we see a man standing on the sidewalk above the water, streaming an arc of urine as he looks us straight in the eye. He makes no move to pull up his pants. Stefanošs notes never waver, but afterwards he tells us that no gentleman would ever expose himself to ladies so, such a man is no good.
Tucked in the western corner of North Carolina, we sleep in a pile on top of a mountain; Athena, me, my cousin Jake, and a boy whose name echos only within the confines of my own head. It is officially freezing, but we are cocooned and this boy is very quiet.
In the morning we hike along a ridge, so high the trees cannot grow. The feeling amongst us is that there exists some elevated and glorious goal towards which we are steadily walking, although there is nothing but Athenašs jeep and beyond that civilization, the appeal of which varies depending how you look at it. At noon we collapse in a small dusty dip populated by scruffy late-blooming blueberry shrubs. We peel off sweaters and long underwear and wring them dry as the wind cools the sweat on our bodies. We are left salty and shivering. Lunch is almonds, dried fruit, pitas and hummus. The boy asks to braid my hair. He has rough palms with long fingers. Athena raises an eyebrow. An argument arises over the tone of Henry David Thoreaušs writing. Athena says he is brilliant but who would want to be friends with him. Jake questions Thoreaušs need for friendship, Athena points out that humans are social animals. I ask what about St. Francis of Assisi, and Athena says at least he had the squirrels. The boy ties my braid off.
We spend one more night near the headwaters, and tomorrow we will hike down to the put-in site and raft the remaining twelve miles. The water will be white and the sky will be blue edged with the green of the summer season, but tonight it rains like the river needs refilling. Lower in the valley the temperature is warmer, logically, but the temperature difference still makes me think we have walked into Alicešs Wonderland. We unpack the second tent because the rain outside turns a tent into a sauna with four sweating breathing bodies inside. The boy and I lie at opposite ends of our tent with an arm outstretched, fingers touching. The rain pours and swishes and staccatos and beats. When it finally slows, the cicadas begin their hypnotism and the heat becomes unbearable. I donšt give in to the urge to strip, although I can think of no reason why I shouldnšt. I pretend we are in a sweat lodge, experiencing something spiritual and lasting. The rain stops altogether and the gnats come: deerflies, mutant mosquitos, flying donkeys that draw blood. We canšt unzip the tent. With sighs we roll onto our stomachs, and he uses an index finger to trace the veins on my wrist.
Florence is known for, among other things, shoes and Michaelangelošs David. There is a replica of David in one of the big squares, but it is a gargoyle in comparison. We wait in line with hundreds of other American students, they all have straight light hair and wear Nike and Gap. We know they are American by the sullenness in their hips and the way they flash their eyes. I wonder if my own eyes glance around a room or up a street like that, like a god, like a person on a schedule. After our tickets are bought we are rushed down corridors in floods, suddenly bursting in upon a great room awash in soft light, hushed and echoing with confined beauty. Athena says, eighteen feet of marble pulchritude. He is what I would want a king to look like, the arch of the brows, bend of the wrist, glance over the shoulder. With vague alarm I consider the possibility of falling in love with a statue; I feel a sudden sharp sympathy for Pygmalion. I position myself so David is looking me in the eyes, as if a hand to his cheek would make it bloom. After a while, I notice Athena, who had fallen asleep at his feet. I wonder who will wake first, and I settle down to wait.