by Lisa Jackson
“That’s it,” Janie said. “Grab the Frommer’s, Mer. We’ll find something better.”
Meredith didn’t argue. The thought of bumping into Sam and Gina coming out of the honeymoon suite made her stomach churn. She snatched up her purse and the book. “Should we call a few places first?”
All three turned to the bare bedside table and then pivoted slowly, searching the few furniture surfaces for a phone.
There was no phone.
“Let’s just go,” Janie said, winging out the door.
Fran went back to her own room, and Meredith followed her sister. She wasn’t going to argue. At least if they found a new hotel room, this leg of the trip would be Sam-and-Gina free. They would be harder to ignore when the group went to Machu Picchu. The village there, Aguas Calientes, was much smaller, and the group would all be doing the same activities, whereas here they were free to see whatever they wanted.
As she and Janie headed down the walkway toward the hotel’s lobby—a charming, rustic room with beamed ceilings, clearly meant to sucker people in—Meredith couldn’t help eyeing Janie’s red pumps. They didn’t look like good tourist gear. “Don’t you want to change into walking shoes?”
“These are really comfy,” Janie said.
Maybe comfy for a cab ride from Gramercy Park to the Upper West Side, Janie’s natural habitat. But for exploring a foreign city on foot?
Cuzco was a big city—a swath of Spanish Colonial architecture with touches of even older civilization peeking through, along with splashes of modernity. Most of the city had seemed level, but the hotel was set high on a steep street in a hilly section of town.
Meredith hadn’t noticed the incline of the street so much when they had arrived on the bus. The entrance to the hotel was in the center of a steep staircase that rose up from the street. It almost felt like a vertical alley, with walls of buildings within arm’s reach on either side. Many had exclaimed how charming it seemed, even as they lugged their bags up the stairs. Now, as she teetered down the uneven, narrow sidewalk, she thought about having to go up that staircase every time they returned to the hotel.
Hostal Tres Chivos. It was beginning to make sense. “Maybe they named the hotel ‘Three Goats’ because it took goats to make it up the street.”
“Or maybe it was where the goats lived,” Janie muttered, her arm poised to grab the wall for balance.
As sightseeing strategies for viewing a town went, hunting for a hotel wasn’t bad. They encountered bad luck—no free rooms—at the first several places they looked, but Meredith was just excited to be out wandering the streets and stretching her legs after being folded up in airplane seats for so long. The strange city and the mountains in the distance energized her. At moments she felt she could have bounded through the streets like a gazelle.
Janie wasn’t so enthusiastic. “It’s more crowded than I expected,” she complained, clutching her purse tightly to her side. “And so touristy.”
“It’s the big tourist season,” Meredith said.
“That Claudia,” her sister muttered. “She would get us stuck here when there are mobs of people.”
“The mobs are here for the same reason we are, though. The weather’s so nice.”
In fact, Hostal Tres Chivos aside, it felt as if they’d touched down in paradise. The weather was insanely gorgeous—sunny and a perfect seventy-five degrees. Hard to believe this was winter here. She’d take it over the already sweltering weather they’d left in NYC. Seeing the mountains made her antsy to put on her hiking boots and start exploring the ancient ruins hidden in those green peaks. Meanwhile, the streets busy with vendors, locals, and tourists of all stripes provided constant distraction. Only Janie’s single-minded focus on hotels kept Meredith from wandering down side streets or stopping to snap pictures of every building and vendor.
After less than an hour tracking down five-star hotels, Janie started to look dispirited and complained of fatigue. Fifteen minutes later, her ankle turned on a cobblestone. One second they were trudging side by side, Janie’s nose in the guidebook while Meredith gawked at the world around them. The next thing Meredith knew, Janie let out a bleat and then was leaning against the wall.
“What happened?”
Janie was holding her foot. “These crazy sidewalks,” she complained, glaring at the offending stones. “Doesn’t this country know how to make concrete? I might have broken my ankle.”
“Oh no,” Meredith said.
Janie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I think the universe is trying to tell me something. I need to get back and take it easy.”
“To the hotel?” Meredith asked.
“Where else? I can’t take a cab to Manhattan from here, can I?”
“But if you’re hurt, shouldn’t we get you to a doctor? The guidebook probably has the name of an emergency clinic. . . .”
“Nah, that’s not necessary.” Her sister limped toward the nearest intersection. “It’s probably just sprained. I’ll rest it for a bit and see how I feel tonight.” She stuck out her hand and whistled at a vehicle barreling toward them. How she knew it was a cab was anyone’s guess. Janie seemed to have a longtime New Yorker’s unfailing instinct for flagging down taxis.
“You’ll have to carry on the hotel hunt without me,” she said, handing Meredith the guidebook, open to the pages with the best hotels underlined.
Meredith started to protest. She didn’t even care about the hotel, and now Janie seemed perfectly happy to go back to their revolting little room. “Maybe we could look again tomorrow.”
“It’s not rocket science,” Janie assured her. “Just find a five-star hotel. Double beds or better—preferably queens, en suite bath with a working door, non-crumbling walls, and room service.” Janie got in the vehicle. Then, before the cab could speed away, she rolled down the window and called out, “And we don’t want to spend more than eighty dollars per night.”
Meredith stared after the retreating cab. A feeling of being ill-used made her breathe in shallow huffs, but she continued on. The first hotel she went to had a room, but there was just one bed in it, and she was not spending her vacation sharing a bed with her sister. At the next hotel—a beautiful Colonial building with long corridors of arched hallways overlooking a courtyard with flowers and a fountain—the clerk laughed at her when she asked for a room for eighty dollars or less. The cheapest room they had available was two hundred dollars.
She returned to the street, stewing. She loved Janie, but for heaven’s sake. They only had a few days—she wanted to see something of the city beyond hotel lobbies. She’d been so happy when Janie had encouraged her to take her money from the stupid commercial and accompany her on vacation. She’d looked forward to getting away from all their usual routines and traveling together. Now she saw the downside. They might be seeing new sights, but they were their same old selves.
Why was this hotel hunt up to her? Even if she secured the perfect room, she suspected Janie would find fault with it. And then there would be more friction between them—Janie feeling huffy, Meredith inadequate. A wave of pre-resentment washed over her over this future hypothetical fight. Why did Janie have to be so uncompromising, so particular, so bossy?
It was just like Janie had been about Sam all those years ago. Okay, he hadn’t been perfect. Who was perfect right out of college? Meredith certainly hadn’t been. And yet Janie had nitpicked over his faults in Meredith’s ear until those aspects of his character began to bug Meredith too. He wasn’t fun-loving enough; he didn’t care about culture; he thought she was hopelessly left-brained and unorganized. And how often did these post-college hookups work out, anyway? He was her roommate, for heaven’s sake. Sleeping with your roommate was lazy and showed woeful lack of imagination. And where was the romance? Instead of flowers, he gave her Excel spreadsheets.
And how naïve, impressionable, and just plain stupid had Meredith been? At the first sign of trouble, she’d allowed herself to be talked out of a relationship by
someone who wasn’t actually in it. She’d let Janie influence her and whisk her away to London, as if she were an heiress in a Victorian novel being sent to Europe so she could forget she was in love with the chauffeur. And how often had the heiress actually forgotten about the chauffeur? Not often, Meredith bet.
It hadn’t entirely worked with her, either. Leaving Sam had created a sore that had never quite healed. And, though rarely spoken of, the Sam question had always remained a point of friction between herself and Janie, the burr in the blanket of their sisterhood going on seven years now.
Meredith steamed down the street, furious with herself—again—for having been such a doormat when she was twenty-two. And for still being one today. What on earth had possessed her to come on this vacation? This should have been a grand adventure—the kind of vacation to savor each second exploring and discovering new things. Not to spend angsting over shower curtains. It was the kind of place to come to with someone you were crazy in love with, or even alone.
That last thought caused her to stop in her tracks. She was alone. Alone with a guidebook and the whole afternoon stretching out in front of her. So what was to stop her from doing whatever she wanted?
Looking back at the ruins of Qorikancha, Sam caught sight of Meredith shading her eyes to stare up the six-meter walls at the convent perched above it. He stopped, feeling a shock almost as big as the one when he’d first spied her at the airport in New York. After that, he’d known he would probably be seeing her often, with the group. But he hadn’t imagined this—spotting her by herself, outside a ruin. He found himself staring, wanting to take a mental snapshot of her. Locals might think she looked like a typical tourist, in her red tank top, shorts, and walking shoes, with a little leather purse secured over her shoulder. They wouldn’t notice the way sunlight glinted off her auburn hair, making it seem positively red. They wouldn’t recognize the stillness that could overtake her when she was concentrating on something she found fascinating.
Maybe no one who hadn’t known her would notice these things. No one who hadn’t spent a significant portion of his young adulthood dreaming about her, wondering about her.
A part of his brain protested the injustice of it. Why couldn’t they have crossed paths again years ago, when it might have made a difference? Not that they would have rekindled their romance. That would have been highly unlikely. He wasn’t Charlie Brown, waiting for Lucy to yank that football away again. But it might have given him some closure. It wouldn’t have left him dangling, forever questioning what he could have done differently.
He was getting ready to turn around and head back to the hotel when Meredith pivoted, as if a sixth sense had alerted her to him standing there. She caught his gaze, and red heat crept up his neck. He half expected her to cross the street and chew him out for ogling her.
Instead, a beaming smile overtook her formerly pensive expression, and she bounced excitedly on her toes. Then, impulsively, she rushed across the street, almost getting run down by a moped.
The near-collision stopped his heart. Hadn’t she heard the motorbike’s angry mosquito engine buzzing directly toward her? He was opening his mouth to scold her when she finished her death-defying dart and then hopped up onto the sidewalk with a triumphant smile. Like an aerialist who’s performed a triple flip with a twist under the big top and then touches down on the relative safety of the tiny platform to give a bow.
“Isn’t that incredible?” she said, beaming.
He shook his head. “I thought you were a goner.”
Her eyes clouded in confusion for a moment, and then a laugh burst out of her. “I wasn’t talking about crossing the street—I was talking about that.” She swept her arm toward the hulking architectural evidence of a lost empire, just in case he’d missed it. “Can you imagine what it must have looked like? An entire fortress wall covered in gold. Filled with life-sized solid gold and silver cornstalks, and golden llamas, and the sun itself. How do you build a golden replica of the sun? It must have been incredible!” She turned and caught him staring at her again. He couldn’t seem to help himself. But at least he was breathing normally now. She exhaled on a chuckle. “But yeah, me making it across the street without getting run over? Pretty damn impressive.”
Her laugh had the same effect on him as sunshine—the sound permeated him with well-being, making him smile in spite of himself. Of course, every exposed pore of his skin was slathered with sunblock. He had no protection from the effect Meredith had on him.
“Seriously, you should go in and poke around that place and the little museum,” she said. “It’s worth the ten bucks.”
“I did go.”
“You mean you just came out?” At his nod, she rolled her eyes. “We were probably wandering around in that place, just missing bumping into each other.”
Question: What do Qorikancha and New York City have in common? Answer: The ability to swallow people whole and make them lose sight of each other.
Maybe they could have wandered around that ruin for seven years and never met again.
“Where’s Gina?” she asked.
“At the hotel—jetlag.” Although he had a hunch she’d wanted to stay at the hotel and sneak in some work. He raised a brow. “Where’s Janie?”
“At the hotel—sprained ankle. Or broken.”
He felt his forehead crinkle. “Does she need to see a doctor?”
“She said she just wanted to rest. She might have just twisted the ankle a little. In fact, she might just have felt like taking a nap. I’ll probably regret not taking one myself this evening. I can’t remember the last time I slept. Jetlag is going to catch up with me sooner or later.”
“You’re not supposed to sleep during the day, according to the book I read. The best thing to do is make it through a normal day and go to sleep at the appropriate hour, local time. That way you’ll acclimate yourself quickly.”
“Or get killed crossing a street half-asleep,” Meredith said, laughing again.
He’d forgotten how much she liked to laugh at things. Goofy little occurrences during the day and awkward verbal exchanges cracked her up. Even big things that terrified her also tickled her. Seconds before a giant asteroid hit the planet, the last sounds on Earth would be millions of terrified screams and Meredith’s final hoot of laughter.
“So . . . you’ve been sightseeing,” he said. It sounded lame, but was infinitely better than I’ve missed your laughter.
“Yes, and now I’m bushed. I was thinking of going to a café near here that’s mentioned in my guidebook. It has local specialties.”
“Guinea pig?” he asked.
She tilted her head. “Are you trying to avoid cuy?”
“I hadn’t meant to—I never thought about guinea pigs one way or another. But then on the plane Gina was telling me about the pet guinea pig she had when she was a little girl. Buttercup. And how Buttercup used to like to sleep in a shoebox at the foot of her bed. And now when I see them roasted on those sticks, with the head and everything, I can’t help thinking of Buttercup.”
“I totally get that,” Meredith said. “And guinea pigs make that cute little R2-D2 sound—wheek, wheek, wheek.” She did a dead-on impression of a guinea pig.
“But it wasn’t even my pet,” he pointed out. “It’s completely irrational.”
“Oh no. I could never eat a horse, all because of My Friend Flicka. And that was just fiction.” She opened her book, squinted at the map, and then waved to the right, in the general direction of half the city. “I think the café is over there. The review doesn’t mention cuy. It talks about chicharrones, which is chunks of deep-fried pork with mint, onions, and other stuff.”
“That sounds . . . good. Disgusting, but good.”
“That’s what I thought.” She looked at him eagerly. “Want to try it? While we’re there, we could order something to bring back for our weaker halves holed up in the hotel.”
He’d been preparing to beg off, but her last addition—that hint that th
ere would be an element of altruism involved in their having lunch together—decided him. “Lead the way.”
Of course she led him the wrong way. They wandered, lost in conversation and increasingly just plain lost, then wound up half a mile from where they needed to be.
“You were always terrible with directions,” he said.
“No, I’m not. I think I’m pretty good with directions.”
“You used to get lost all the time!”
“But that was in New York, right after we moved there.”
“That’s what I mean,” he argued. “New York is a grid. It’s navigating for dummies.”
She shook her head. “It’s just the way the numbers go—I can never remember if they get bigger when you go east of Fifth, or smaller. . . . There’s some system there.”
“You still don’t know?” he asked, incredulous.
Laughing, she handed the book to him. “Okay, Magellan. Lead the way. Anyway, you were always the one wagging a map around, like a tourist.”
“We are tourists.”
“But back in New York? I used to worry we’d get mugged while you wandered around with your nose in a city map, even when we were just looking for something basic, like the Brooklyn Bridge.”
“You have to know what street it’s on to find the entrance,” he sputtered. “Besides—we never were mugged.”
“Still—a map.” She laughed, as if the idea were completely crazypants. As if she hadn’t just been looking at one—and misreading it. “Where’s the adventure in that?”
Hungry now, they gave up the idea of backtracking all the way to the place in the guidebook, and ended up in a little dive that served nothing but cheese-covered corncobs.
“Peruvians evidently don’t worry about the cholesterol,” he said, after stuffing himself.
“At least not about the cholesterol of tourists.”
“I must say, it wasn’t what we were looking for, but it was pretty good.”
In addition to the disgustingly good food, there was the fun of catching up with Meredith. He asked her about what she did now, and she told him about the Astoria Garage Players, which ate up most of her free time. “We’re doing a children’s theater camp this summer. That starts when I get back. I can’t wait.”