by Kevin Craig
Claire and Greg walk together, staying far behind everyone else. This surprises me after what Shania told me about their fight, which I would have seen with my own two eyes had I not been upstairs waiting for things to calm down. Let them work things out themselves. Last thing we need is more drama on this trip.
“So, are we?” Shania says.
“Huh?”
“An item? Are we an item?” She looks down at our interlocked fingers and then gives me an overexaggerated inquisitive look and giggles.
I’m so bad with girls. Really. We all know how the Sabrina Vincent fiasco went down. I couldn’t even get that girl by lighting a celebratory fire in her honor. To be fair, though, that was probably not the best way to go about it.
Now here’s this girl who’s looking at me like I matter, and I didn’t do a single boneheaded thing to get her. Unless, of course, it was the tumble down the muddy hill that cinched it for her? Just so we’re clear, I did not do that on purpose to get the girl.
“Earth to Diego? I didn’t know it was going to be such a difficult question.”
“Nah, nah,” I say. “It isn’t.”
Kei and Troy have stopped in front of a house and they’re talking amongst themselves.
“Well, then. Are we?”
“I just. I’m having a hard time believing you’d want to. For me? The answer would be yes. I’d like that.”
“Who hurt you?” she says. I can’t read the look on her face, but there’s laughter in her eyes. Not sure if she’s asking a serious question or not. “I just mean, Diego, you’re gorgeous. And the way you talk about your mother and how nice you are. And, man. I was so angry when we met. Like, hostile. Just being around you makes me feel better about all the crap in my life. It’s insane you think you couldn’t be enough to get any girl you’d want.”
“My track record speaks for itself.” I smile, try to wave it off. I don’t like talking about myself like this. And I’m not fishing for compliments. She squeezes my hand.
“Well. I want to. So, I guess that settles it. We are.” We stop beside Troy and Kei, who are staring at the house in front of them.
“You are what?” Troy asks.
“An item?” I say, but it comes out as a question. When I speak it out loud it begins to feel real in my head. Shania Reynolds and me. This girl who wanted to kill me and everyone else, just six days ago, chose me. I’m not even going to tell them she’s my first. Maybe before all this is over, I’ll even call her my girlfriend.
“That’s amazing, Diego,” Troy says. He side-hugs me and it surprises me. But it’s also cute. The guy’s okay. Then he looks at Kei.
“Yeah,” Kei says. “You can tell them.”
“Awesome.” He kisses Kei’s cheek. “So we were thinking about kind of being an item, too. Only.” He raises his hand quickly to stop Shania and me from saying anything. “Proviso. We’ve decided to spend our time out here together, for now. I mean, obviously we know how this is going to play out, right.”
“Dude.” I’m about to congratulate them, but then I remember Kei is American and I do the math. The possibility of anything long-term vanishes pretty much instantly. I don’t know whether to be happy or sad. Still, I grab his shoulder and give it a little shake. “I’m happy for you.”
Shania hugs him. “I knew you had it in you, Troyboy. You picked a cutie, too.” She pats Kei’s shoulder. “Nice.”
I notice none of us use the words boyfriend or girlfriend. Not yet. At this point, it would probably just jinx us.
“When we get back to the albergue, we’re going to ask his sisters if we can walk the rest of the way together. At least we’ll have a few days.”
“That’d be nice,” Claire says as she and Greg finally catch up. “You guys look cute together.” She holds her hands out and frames them, making a box with her fingers like she’s going to take a picture. Kei laughs.
“It’s all him,” Troy says. He looks at Kei like Kei is everything. And I know the feeling.
“What’s wrong?” Troy says. He lets go of Kei’s hand and steps over to Claire. He puts a hand up to her face and wipes away tears. I hadn’t even noticed. Then he looks to Greg and his face turns quickly to anger. “What happened, Greg?”
“Dude, no,” Greg says as he takes a step back.
“It’s okay, Troy,” Claire says. “It’s cool. I was using Greg as a sounding board, talking about my shit. He apologized and then he just listened. Turns out, he’s really good at listening.”
Troy looks at both of them like they’re insane.
“After what happened earlier, I wasn’t sure,” Troy says to Greg.
Troy disappeared right before supper and came back downstairs with Greg. I missed everything before that.
“I’m an asshole,” Greg replies. “We’ve already established that. No way around it. But I apologized. I swear, bro, we were only talking this time.”
“Okay. But like I said, I’m gonna call you on your crap,” Troy says. Boy is hard-core. “Bygones be bygones, Greg. Especially if Claire was willing to forgive you. Think before you speak in the future. Easy as that.”
“True. You’re right.”
“Oh, I know I’m right. That’s why I’m telling you.”
I look at Shania and raise my eyebrows exaggeratedly. She gives me the look that says not now. I know she’s thinking the same thing, though. Troy’s playing tough. He’s like David to Greg’s Goliath.
“Are you okay, Claire? Really?” Troy says.
“Yes, Troy,” Claire says. “I swear. Greg apologized, I accepted. Then we talked about some of my stuff. I talked, he listened. All’s good.”
Greg looks at Troy and smiles. He’s got one of those see, I told you so looks on his face. Troy backs down a bit, appears to accept Claire’s explanation.
“I have an idea,” Kei says. “How about we go back to the refugio. I think I walked about a thousand steps too many today.”
This relieves any leftover tension. We all agree with Kei.
“Wait, wait,” Shania says, jumping away from me and taking center stage in front of us. “Guys. We totally need a group selfie in front of this amazing house. I mean, look at it.”
It’s incredible: thatched roof that looks like it goes on forever and stone walls. If this were Hollywood, we’d be on the set of some crazy medieval movie with dragons and shit. It wouldn’t even surprise me if a dragon came swooping out of the sky right now, blocking out the moon, and landing in the road beside us. It’s that cool.
“You’re right. Instagrammable,” Kei says.
Shania turns her back on us and holds her phone out at arm’s reach. “Get behind me, everyone.”
“Wait.” Kei again. He grabs a selfie stick and a clicker thing out of the little shoulder bag he’s carrying and hands them to her. “Here.”
“Kei to the rescue,” I say.
Shania Bluetooths the clicker and snaps her phone onto the selfie stick. We all stand behind her as she aims the shot.
“Okay, can everyone see themselves on the screen? Ready? Smile!”
She takes the shot and then keeps moving the stick around at different angles and taking shots. We all make ridiculous faces and hold fingers up behind each other and stick out our tongues and stuff. Then we take turns snapping pics with couples and different groups and Shania promises to share them with everyone.
Time for bed. Tomorrow is the real horror day. We’re all feeling pretty good right now, being out alone. Free. But it’s all going to change tomorrow, I’m guessing.
We run back to the albergue and, despite the silence of the sleeping town, we let out a few hoots. And there are definitely some outbursts of laughter.
Only one window opens before we get back to the albergue. We laugh even louder when a woman’s voice makes a big Shhhhhhh sound as we fly past another incredible medieval ho
use. Oops. We definitely are delinquents.
Chapter 26 — Shania Reynolds
Friday, July 5th – Day 7 – Is that even possible? 7 Days? & Diego!
Last night was a blast, but we’re all feeling it this morning. Still, I’m not bitter about it or anything.
When we got back to the albergue, all the peregrinos were in the common room gathered around the big fireplace. Guess who was sitting on the ginormous hearth playing some beaten up acoustic guitar and singing some folksong? Yeah. Bastien. The man who can do everything.
Of course we joined them. That old man sang for over an hour. Felt like we were at a concert. All the other peregrinos clapped like mad and shouted their praises at him. And when he sang “American Pie” for Kei and his sisters… I could cry just thinking about it now. All the Americans in the room, they got wild excited. Some lady cried and sang along. She couldn’t sing, but she did anyway. And, yeah, it was beautiful.
I love Bastien. I think every single peregrino in this whole refugio loves the man. They’re all swarming him right now as he tries to finish the last of his breakfast. They’re thanking him, and taking pictures with him, and laughing and shaking his hand. And he’s taking it all in. The old man is drinking in every drop of this affection. I love him. And he’s all ours. He’s walking with our group again today. He told us he would make sure we all got to Fonfría in one piece. And when he said that, he winked at Diego… who tapped the bandage on his forehead and laughed.
So we’re all hungover, but not from booze. Just… just… from what? Life. We’re life hungover.
And we’re about to head out to the worst climbing day of our Camino. Mountain day. My legs don’t feel like mine. They’re harder. I hope I don’t get all Hulk muscles down there.
Oh. Yeah. Bright side. As if the whole entry wasn’t all bright sides already. Diego. It’s official. We’re an item. Not entirely sure what that means, but I love the sound of it. Man, I hated the guy on day one. Who would’ve thunk it? Total boyfriend material, though. All mama’s boys are.
I finish with my journal and tuck it into my backpack. I’m ready, really I am.
“Buen Camino,” a woman says to me as she places her passport into a breast pocket in her shirt and closes the snap over the pocket. That reminds me. I still need to get my passport stamped. I smile and return her Buen Camino before she slips out the door with a group of pilgrims.
I get my passport stamped by the hostess and thank her for everything. It’s been amazing.
Everyone’s here, ready to go. Even Claire. She may have given up on making us wait every day. I’m guessing we’re all a little softer than we were on day one. Maybe Gilbert knows what he’s doing with this program. Maybe it’s not all a bunch of granola crunch bullshit after all.
“Okay, we go,” Bastien says as he clicks his walking stick on the floor to get our attention. He doesn’t just get ours. Everyone left in the albergue turns toward the sound of his voice. “Goodbye, my fellow peregrinos. May the god you choose go with you this day. Fonfría, Fonfría.”
He turns and heads out the door to a dozen or so goodbye Buen Caminos from those we’ll leave behind. He waves, and we follow him outside.
“This is a day in your lives,” Bastien says as we assemble around him on the narrow cobbled roadway. He points the way. “This is the way.”
And we’re off.
“Boy’s coming with me for a bit,” Manny says, hauling Diego away from me. Diego makes a show of struggling to stay with me, but we’re both good with it. I nudge myself over to Bastien and decide to walk with him.
“Salut, ma chère,” he says. As we walk, I’m somehow comforted by the clicking of his stick. “Today is to be beautiful beyond measure.”
“That’s good to hear. Everyone’s been building it up so much, it’s getting pretty scary in my head.”
“No, no. We have conditioned for the climb, no?”
“Actually, I was kind of thinking that. My legs feel stronger.”
“We will walk beside highways today, and in woods, and on cliffsides, and through small towns. A little bit of everything. All uphill.”
He had me right up to the end. Oh, well.
“Hey, can we walk with you guys?” Troy asks. I’m glad Kei’s sister let him go on ahead with us. Before we came along, he was pretty much walking by himself anyway.
“Sure,” I say. “Bastien’s just giving me the highlights for today.”
“My sister told me to drink lots of water,” Kei says. Troy rolls his eyes. “She said she didn’t want to come upon my body in the woods later.”
“Ha ha. Yes. The last woods before Fonfría, they will be the worst. They are, how do you say, never-ending.”
We start an incline as we head out of O Cebreiro. It opens up to highway soon after we leave the town and it’s all winding road. We walk beside a guardrail, and the view is incredible. I can see for miles.
We walk for a mile or so in silence. Everyone’s trying to find their pace with the incline, which seems to increase with every step. There’s a constant grshh, grshh, grshh sound of crunching gravel as we make our way, punctuated by the fump, fump, fump of Bastien’s stick on the shifting surface.
“Look at that,” Troy says, breaking the silence we’ve fallen into. “Wow! What is that?”
“That is where we come from, Troy. The town. O Cebreiro.” Bastien points with his stick. “See. The church of the Madonna miracle. There.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize. Yeah. I can see all the roofs. Weird.”
“We travel in a wobble today. Very confusing.”
“Yeah, I thought it would be over there.” Troy points in the other direction.
“Yes,” Bastien says. “Wobble, wobble. Here, there.”
We continue in silence, like we all know talking is too much of an energy drain. It’s a constant climb. We need to conserve our energy. The only one talking nonstop is Manny. He’s up ahead talking Diego’s ear off, like the climb is nothing for him.
I don’t hear Diego saying much in return. Seems like a one-way conversation.
We soon arrive at another small town. Diego and Manny get there first, but we’re not far behind them. And Meagan and Gilbert are right behind us. Liñares, the sign at the entrance says.
We stop and allow Claire and Greg to catch up with us. Everyone is breathing heavily. I feel like, we made it! But I know we’re not even close. The sun hasn’t climbed much in the sky since we set out. Still morning.
“Phew,” Meagan says. “That was hard work.”
“Seriously,” Greg says. He sounds like he’s going to die. Or cry. Or both. Since we’re all standing still, he starts to tear off his backpack.
“No, no, wise guy,” Gilbert says. “We’re not stopping. No breaks yet. We were just waiting for everyone to catch up.”
“Oh my God, you’re killing me. This is child abuse.” Greg moans, but readjusts his backpack. “I’m reporting you to Children’s Aid.”
“Good luck with that,” Meagan says. We all laugh, but not too much. Because, you know, we’re all dying.
“We walk into town together,” Bastien says. “Soon, we come to a break, Greg. After we leave town, there is something to see. We stop then, oui?”
“Oh, yes. I know where you mean,” Meagan says. She takes out her pretty-much-destroyed guidebook and checks it. “Yes. We’ll definitely stop there, Bastien. The kids will want to take pictures.”
“Yes.” He takes a drink of water. He’s been taking sips regularly since we first set out. I wonder how old he really is. He must be at least seventy. Today, it’s showing.
Troy and Kei share a bottle, while everyone else goes for their own bottles. It’s like we all took the cue from Bastien. We keep walking into the town. It’s still uphill, but there are flat parts here as well.
Halfway through the town, Gilbert po
ints to a church. We all slow down, but nobody stops. He walks as he reads from his guidebook.
“La Igrexa de Santo Ex—”
“Estevo,” Bastien corrects. “This simply means the Church of Santo Estevo. This church, it is from the twelfth century.”
I take a quick sidelong shot, stopping just long enough for it to not be blurry. I’m pretty sure I’ve taken more pics than anyone else in our group. Maybe when I get home, I’ll start a blog.
This makes me think of home, and I push the thought away because it’s depressing. Diego can’t wait to get to Santiago so he can go home and see his mom. I want to see the cathedral, and get there and all, but I don’t want this trip to end. The last thing I want to do is go home. I feel so alone there. I think I’d die without Dillon. Dweeb that he is.
Soon, we are outside the town. After we pass the mile marker, we hit a rough pathway that runs alongside the road. I glance behind me for Greg’s reaction to the path ahead of us, and he rolls his eyes. It is literally straight up.
“Greg’s not a happy camper,” I say to Bastien.
“Soon we stop,” Bastien says.
“I’m not too happy myself,” Troy says. But his face is beaming. He and Kei have been holding hands since we left the albergue.
“Only a mile up this hill, kiddos,” Meagan calls back to us. I sigh with relief, but the moan from behind me tells me either Greg’s not buying it or he thinks a mile is too much.
“Too little, too late, lady,” he says to Meagan. “You’re still being reported.”
“Sure thing, bucko. Just keep walking. You’re the only one complaining.”
“I’m the only one brave enough.”
He could be right.
We walk on. The guys ahead of us pick up their pace a bit, but we stay back with Bastien.
As we come toward the top of this hill, everything opens up around us. A statue comes into view. At first I can only see the top, and then more and more of it. A man holding his hat on his head, fighting against a heavy wind as he walks into it.