Are We There Yet?

by David Levithan

  It's the woman next to Elijah. Danny is paralyzed by her talking.

  “No way!” Elijah exhales in admiration.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Danny tries to fall back to sleep. He can't believe they're still awake.

  Penelope sleeps soundly on Elijah's shoulder. Which is to say, soundlessly. He doesn't mind, even though it makes his arm sore. Pins and needles, Elijah thinks, and then he figures that having an arm full of pins and needles would hurt a hell of a lot more than this.

  Danny stirs on the other side of him, waking up and turning to Elijah, his eyes unaccustomed to the simulated day. He registers Penelope on Elijah's shoulder and smiles groggily. It's not like that, Elijah wants to tell his brother. But he doesn't want to wake Penelope up.

  It's like comfort, Elijah figures. Being a comfort is itself pretty comforting. Having someone find a place on your shoulder and be able to rest. Not seeing her face, but picturing it from her breath. Like a baby sleeping. Feeling her breath so slightly on his arm. Breathing in time. Comfort.

  The quiet times are the ones to hold on to. In the quiet times, Elijah can think of other quiet times. Staring at the ceiling with Cal. Driving home from a concert, the road silent, the music in his head. Sharing a smile—for a moment—with a beautiful stranger passing in a car.

  Beside Elijah, Danny shifts in his seat and signals to the flight attendant for another Diet Coke.

  Danny would never let a stranger sleep on his shoulder, Elijah thinks. Danny would be afraid of the germs.

  He closes his eyes and tries to drift off.

  Amazing. Danny thinks it's amazing to be moving so fast without feeling movement. To be sitting in an airplane, traveling as fast as he's ever traveled, and still it feels like he's in a car, steadier than a train, not even as fast as sliding down a slide. How can this be? Danny wonders. He wants to ask someone. But who can he ask? Elijah, even if he were awake? The girl on Elijah's shoulder? (Isn't she a little old for him?) The pilot? No one. There's no one to tell him how it can feel so slow to go so fast.

  The phone is embedded above the fold-down tray. He could make a collect call from above the Atlantic Ocean. He could slip the corporate card into the proper slot and dial any area code around the world. He does it—slips in the card—just to see what the dials are like. Thinking, Wouldn't it be funny to slip your credit card into the slot, ten thousand miles in the air, and find a rotary phone? But no—just the usual buttons. He can pretend it's home. Just a local call.

  He pauses before dialing. He pauses too long. He pauses long enough to realize that no one comes instantly to mind. He doesn't have anyone instant. He doesn't have anyone worth a twenty-dollar-a-minute call.

  Quietly, Danny places the phone back in its receiver. He presses a little too hard, and the woman in front of him rustles in her sleep. Danny looks at Elijah. He looks at Elijah's eyelids and tries to tell whether he's awake. He used to do that all the time when they were kids. Elijah would be faking sleep—he didn't want to leave the car, he didn't want to go to school—and Danny would catch the small, betraying twitches. He would try to point them out to his mom, and Elijah would mysteriously pop out of sleep before Danny could finish his sentence. Their mom would shake her head, more annoyed with Danny's tattling than with Elijah's fakery. Or so it seemed to Danny. Back then, and still.

  Now Danny concentrates—staring into his brother's closed eyes. Waiting for one eye to open, to see if anyone's looking. Waiting for a telltale giggle of breath, or the twitch of an itching finger. Instead, he observes Elijah and the woman both breathing to the same silent measure. Crescendo. Diminuendo. Rise. Fall. Speed and slowness.

  Danny remembers the nightmares he would have. The strangers climbing through the window and stealing Elijah from the crib. He remembers waking the house without waking the baby. Running to Elijah's room to make sure. Because if Elijah was okay, that meant everything was fine.

  Elijah travels in and out of sleep, like the airplane traveling in and out of clouds. Moments of fleeting wakefulness, dreamlike. The rituals of airline travel, meant to guard against your fears. Words of conversation. The echo of the in-flight movie from too-loud headphones many rows behind. The wheels of the beverage cart and the crisp opening of a soda can. The pad of feet in the aisle. A child's questions. The flipping of a magazine page. Penelope's breathing. The sound of speeding air. The realization that clouds sound no different than air.

  He dreams of Cal's Camaro, and of driving to Italy.

  Then he wakes up, and he is there.

  II. VENICE

  The plane lands impeccably. Danny is up and angling for the aisle before the captain's announcement can tell him to keep his seat belt on. Elijah watches him with a certain degree of embarrassment. He can't see what the rush is. It's not like they can leave the plane any faster. All it means is they'll have their bags in their laps for that much longer. Even the flight attendants are still strapped in; they can't make Danny sit down. Along with the rest of the passengers, Elijah hopes a sudden stop will jolt Danny to the ground.

  Elijah remains in his seat until the plane has come to a complete stop. Danny passes over their carry-ons. Penelope leans over and says she can't believe she's finally in Venice.

  Elijah nods his head and looks out the window.

  Venice.

  But not really Venice. The airport.

  It is raining outside.

  Elijah can't help it. He scans the crowd at the gate outside of customs, looking to see if someone is waiting for him. As if Cal could truly drive the bitchin' Camaro across the Atlantic Ocean and wait with a lei, just to be inappropriate.

  “Let's go,” Danny says, hiking his bag higher on his shoulder. “And tie your shoelaces.”

  Elijah doesn't care about his shoelaces, but he ties them anyway. He nearly loses Danny in the airport rush. He doesn't care much about that, either, except for the fact that Danny has the money and the name of the hotel. (Typical.) Elijah nurtures a half-fantasy of disappearing into the crowd, making his own way to Venice, living by his wits for a week and then returning at the end of it all to share the flight home with his brother. He can't imagine that Danny would mind.

  But Danny has stopped. Danny is waiting and watching— watching his watch, tapping his foot, prodding Elijah forward. International crowds huddle-walk between them. Families with suitcases. A girl who drops her Little Mermaid doll.

  Elijah returns the doll and makes his way to his waiting brother, who asks, “What took you so long?”

  Elijah doesn't know what to say. Shrugs were invented to answer such questions, so that's just what Elijah does.

  Italy should make Danny feel rich, but instead it makes him feel poor. To change 120 (dollars) into 180,000 (lire) should make a man feel like he's expanded his wealth. But instead it makes the whole concept of wealth seem pointless. The zeros—the measures of American worth—are grotesque, mocking. The woman at the exchange bureau counts out his change with a smile—Look at all the money you get. But Danny would feel better with Monopoly chump change.

  He leads Elijah out to the vaporetto launch. It's quite a scam they're running—the only way into Venice from the airport, really. It's one of the worst feelings Danny knows—the acknowledgment that he's going to pay through the nose, and there's nothing he can do about it.

  “One hundred twenty thousand lire for the men,” the vaporetto driver (the vaporetteer?) says in flawed English.

  Danny shakes his head.

  “Best price. Guarantee,” the driver insists. Danny can tell he's been brushing up on his Best Buy commercials. Probably has his American cousins videotape them.

  Danny tries three other drivers. Other tourists gratefully take the vaporettos he discards.

  “You really expect me to pay one hundred and twenty thousand lire—eighty dollars—for a vaporetto ride?” Danny asks the fourth driver.

  “It is not a vaporetto. A water taxi, sir.”

  Elijah steps into the boat.

  “
Sounds great,” he tells the driver. “Thank you.”

  It is pouring now. Cold and rainy and gray.

  Elijah can't see much through the clouds and mist. Still, he's thrilled by the approach—thrilled by the wackiness of it all. Because—he's realizing this now—Venice is a totally wacky city. A loony idea that's held its ground for hundreds of years. Elijah has to respect that.

  The buildings are right on the water. Elijah can't believe it. Sure, he's seen Venice in the movies—Portrait of a Room with a View of the Wings of the Lady Dove. But he'd always assumed that they picked the best places to show. Now Elijah sees the whole city is like that. The buildings line the canals like long sen-tences—each house a word, each window a letter, each gap a punctuation. The rain cannot diminish this.

  Elijah walks to the front of the taxi and stands with the driver. The boat moves at a walking pace. It leaves a wider canal—Elijah can't help but think of it as an avenue—and takes a series of narrow turns.

  Finally, they arrive at the proper dock. The driver points the way, and Danny and Elijah soon find themselves maneuvering their suitcases through the alleys of Venice. The Gritti is smaller than Danny had pictured. He looks at its entrance suspiciously, while Elijah—unburdened by expectation—is more excited.

  An elaborately dressed bellman glides forward and gathers their bags. Danny, momentarily confused, resists. It is only after Elijah says thank you that the suitcases are relinquished and the steps toward the registration desk are taken.

  “May I help you?” an unmistakably European man asks from behind the counter. He wears an Armani smile. Elijah is impressed.

  “Yes,” Danny starts, leaning on the desktop. “The name is Silver. A room for two. Originally the room was under my parents' names, but they should have switched it to mine. Danny Silver. We need a room with two beds. On the canal side.”

  “If that's possible,” Elijah adds. Danny swats him away.

  The manager's smile doesn't falter. He opens a ledger and types a few keys on his computer. A temporary concern crosses his brow, but it is soon resolved.

  “Yes, Silver,” he says to Danny. “We have a room—a beautiful room. Two beds. That is what you requested in March. One room for Daniel and Elijah Silver.”

  Elijah thinks this sounds great. But Danny doesn't look happy.

  “Wait a sec—” he says. “What do you mean, March? The initial reservation should have been for Rachel and Arthur Silver, not for Daniel and Elijah.”

  The manager checks the ledger again.

  “We have no record of a change,” he tells Danny. “Is this a problem?”

  Danny shakes his head severely. “You see,” he says to the man behind the desk,“my parents made me think this had been their vacation. But now you're saying that it was our vacation all along.”

  “Which is great,” Elijah assures the still-confused manager. “It's just a surprise. For him especially.”

  “I see,” the hotel manager intones, nodding solemnly. After the paperwork is completed, he produces a pair of golden keys.

  Elijah says thank you. Danny continues to shake his head and mutters his way to the elevator. The hotel manager smiles a little wider as he hands the keys to Elijah. Beneath his coutured appearance, his sympathy is palpable.

  Elijah says thank you again.

  “I can't believe it.” Danny also can't stop hitting the side of the elevator.

  “What's the matter?” Elijah asks as they walk to their room.

  “What's the matter?!? They tricked us, Elijah. Our own parents. Tricked us. I mean, I knew they meant for us to come here together. But to have had that plan all along …”

  They are being led into the room now. It is beautiful. Even Danny has to shut up for a second, just to look out the windows at the canal. Now that the rain has been reduced to a sound, it is moodily atmospheric, mysteriously foreign.

  Elijah puts his suitcase on the bed closest to the windows as Danny tips (no doubt undertips) the bellman. When Danny returns to the windows, the spell has been broken. His tirade continues.

  “I just can't believe they'd be so…manipulative. I can't believe they could stand there and lie to us, all these months.”

  “I think it's kind of nice,” Elijah mumbles.

  “What?”

  “I said it's kind of a surprise.”

  Elijah knows, from years of practice, that it's best to just ride the conversation through. Unpack. Nod occasionally. Pretend that Danny's right, even if he's acting like he's been set up on a hideous blind date.

  The trick is, Danny doesn't particularly like to hear himself talk, especially in monologues. Halfway through a sentence, he'll realize there's no reason to go on. His point has been made, if not accepted. Like now:

  “If only they'd …” Danny says with a sigh. Then he pauses, and listens to the rain outside. He realizes he's in Venice, and that his parents cannot hear him. He walks to the closet and hangs up his coat. His last sentence dangles in the air, until it is forgotten.

  Naps and dinner. Naps and dinner. It seems to Elijah that every family vacation revolves around naps and dinner. This vacation does not appear to be an exception. As soon as Danny has unpacked, he kicks off his shoes and tears off the bedspread, thrusting it aside in a vanquished heap. They have just arrived—they have just been sitting for countless hours—and still Danny feels the need to lie down and close his eyes. Elijah is mystified. Danny's behavior is perfectly predictable, and perfectly beyond understanding.

  “I'm going for a walk,” Elijah says.

  “Be back for dinner.”Danny nods for emphasis, then nods off.

  Because the sky is gray and the time zones are shifty, Elijah finds it hard to gauge the hour. He never wears a watch (his own rebellion against time, against watching). He must rely on the concierge to supply him with a frame of reference. It is four in the afternoon. Two hours until dinner.

  Upon leaving the Gritti, Elijah is presented with one of the most exquisite things about Venice—there is no obvious way to go. Although St. Mark's Square pulses in the background, and the canals hold notions in sway, there is no grand promenade to lead Elijah forward. There is no ready stream of pedestrians to subsume him into its mass. Instead, he is presented with corners—genuine corners, at which each direction makes the same amount of sense.

  Elijah walks left, and then right. And then left, and then right. He is amazed by the narrowness of the streets. He is amazed by the footbridges and the curving of paths. He sees people from his flight and nods hello. They smile in return. They are still caught in the welcomeness rapture; they've deposited their baggage, and now they wander.

  We are like freshmen, Elijah thinks. The incoming class of tourists. The upperclassmen look at them knowingly, remembering that initial rush, when every moment seems pictureperfect and the tiredness distorts the hours into something approaching surreality.

  Elijah feels giddiness and delight—although he is now in Venice, he is still high on the anticipation of Venice. The trip has not settled yet. It hasn't officially begun. Instead, Elijah is staking out the territory—sometimes circling the same block three times from different directions—somehow missing the major squares and the more famous statues. Instead, he finds a small shop that sells shelves of miniature books. The shopkeeper comes over and shows Elijah a magazine the size of a postage stamp. Elijah wants to buy it for Cal, but he's forgotten to bring money. He wants to come back tomorrow, but doesn't know if he will ever be able to find the store again. He could ask for the address, but he doesn't want to travel in such a way. He wants encounters instead of plans—the magic of appearance rather than the architecture of destination.

  Seconds pass with every door. Minutes pass with every street. Elijah never realizes that he's lost, so he has no trouble finding his way back. Three hours have gone by, but he doesn't know this. Night has fallen, but that seems only a matter of light and air. When Elijah returns to the hotel, he doesn't ask the concierge for the time. Instead, he asks fo
r a postcard. He draws a smile on the back and sends it to Cal. He cannot describe the afternoon any other way. He knows she'll understand.

  Danny is still asleep when Elijah returns to the room. But only for a moment.

  “What took you so long?” he asks, stretching out, reaching for his watch.

  “Are you ready to go?” Elijah replies. Danny grunts and puts on his shoes.

  Map in hand, Danny leads the way to St. Mark's Square. His movement is propulsive, unchecked by awe or curiosity. He knows where he wants to go, and he wants to get there soon. Elijah struggles to keep up.

  (“What is taking you so long?”Danny is on his way to the arcade and supposed to be watching his ten-year-old brother. Danny has agreed to drive Elijah and his friends to the movies and waits impatiently by the car. Danny is walking ten feet ahead to the bus stop and wants to get to his friends. Elijah is holding him back. That is the clear implication of the question. It is Elijah's fault. Elijah is left behind because he's too slow.)