The Long Distance Playlist

by Tara Eglington

  ‘You okay?’ I say softly.

  She nods her head at her parents. I can tell that she doesn’t want to talk.

  Dad starts the car, and we head towards Mount Cook National Park. I pull my phone out of my pocket. The earbuds are still in, and I hand one to Issy. She puts it in her left ear. I put the other one in my right, and ‘We Own the Sky’ by M83, my favourite song from the snowboarding doco That’s It, That’s All, plays as Mount Cook comes into view.

  We’re on the long, flat part of the road now, where the mountains rise up on either side to thousands of metres. The road lines are like a yellow-brick road, pointing directly at Mount Cook.

  Aoraki, I correct myself, using the Maori word for the mountain. ‘Aoraki’ was a person – one of the sons of the Sky Father in Maori legend. For the South Island Maoris, the Ngai Tahu, Aoraki is the most sacred of the ancestors, the link between the spirit world and the physical one.

  It’s rare to see Aoraki without clouds. But today, he’s emerged from his cloak of mist, and all 3724 metres of him are on show.

  Louise is calling Dad’s mobile now.

  ‘Perfect day for a heli trip,’ she says as the call kicks in through the car’s speaker.

  We all think she’s joking until we see her car pull off at the turn for the aerodrome just ahead of us.

  ‘Louise, what’s this about?’ Mum laughs as we see Patrick’s hand out the car window, motioning us to follow their vehicle.

  I turn my head to look at Issy, wondering if she knows what’s going on. There’s this tiny curve of a smile there, even though I can tell she’s trying to hold a poker face.

  Years back, when the Byrnes and my family had visited Mount Cook together, we’d watched one of the helicopters take off in the distance, heading up into the National Park.

  ‘Can we do that?’ I asked Dad.

  Dad and Mum laughed. ‘Not this trip, mate. It’s a bit expensive,’ Dad said.

  ‘Imagine the views back there.’ Mum shook her head.

  ‘We’ll do it one day,’ Dad promised.

  ‘All of us will,’ Louise said.

  Louise obviously remembers that moment too, because the next thing she says over the speaker is:

  ‘You guys up for that adventure today?’

  Isolde

  Thursday 13 June

  Maia and Tobi look embarrassed when Mum walks over to us in the aerodrome carpark.

  ‘Louise, this is too generous,’ Maia says, shaking her head.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Mum says as we file in through the door of the heli office. ‘I know how many extra hours went into that wedding.’

  Tobi and Maia try to keep protesting, but Mum won’t hear a word of it. So they let it go and start to look excited as we’re weighed by the team, ready for our 2:30pm flight.

  Taylor and I head outside. He snaps a photo of the black chopper on the tarmac and sends it to Finn, captioned ‘today’s ride’.

  ‘That’s obnoxious,’ I say, laughing.

  ‘I can’t play it cool right now.’ Taylor grins. ‘I’m a heli newbie, you know.’

  I am too. He and I are put up the front of the helicopter. I’m in the middle, between Taylor and the pilot, and it’s a tight fit. We slip headphones on so we can hear the pilot during the flight, and the rotor blades start above us. The vibration thumps through my whole body as the blades whip through the air, faster and faster, to a throbbing hum. I’m expecting a lurch or a swing forward, but instead, we’re suddenly hovering before I even register we’ve left the ground.

  We wave goodbye to Vi and Jack, who are still standing next to the tarmac. They already had their ‘heli moment’ at the wedding.

  In a few seconds, they’re specks in the distance.

  ‘This is insane!’ Taylor says over the head mic.

  It is insane. The entire national park is opened out in front of us. You can see river braids twisting down from the green glacier waters of Tasman Lake on our right. The white light bouncing off the snowy peaks in every direction is nearly blinding.

  We’re approaching Aoraki. I can feel the helicopter quivering against the force of the wind up here, hundreds of metres in the air.

  We’re tiny, I think. Nothing against the forces outside the window.

  For a second, I panic, realising anything could happen. That if that rotor blade stopped turning, we’d drop out of the sky, and in sheer seconds we’d all be in pieces down below on the floor of the valley.

  Taylor grabs my hand. He’s grinning at me, and I start to relax.

  I’m going to tell him while we’re here, I think. I’m not leaving it any longer.

  Taylor

  Thursday 13 June

  I’ve been grinning like mad ever since the heli left the tarmac. It’s not just the excitement of seeing the national park this way, it’s also having Issy’s hand in mine.

  The pilot swings the heli around to the east side of Aoraki and brings us in to land on the floor of the long, wide Tasman Glacier. I’m out the door as soon as it’s safe. I give Isolde my hand so she can jump down too. My feet are immediately lost in the deep snow. We shuffle forward, away from the helicopter. The wind is whistling over the glacier. I crane my neck upwards, taking in the walls of rock, ice and snow towering above us on either side. I think I’m seeing things, when out of the corner of my eye I spot a group of six snowboarders coming down the other side of the glacier, far in the distance.

  ‘Heli-boarding,’ the pilot says to us. ‘Pretty popular up here this time of year.’

  ‘Next visit?’ Issy says to me, laughing.

  ‘Totally,’ I say, joking back.

  But secretly, I’m imagining myself carving out here in the deep snow and the silence. How amazing that would feel.

  I’m going to do it one day, I vow.

  I’m on an absolute high on the flight back. Issy is too. I can see the exhilaration on her face, even after the chopper has landed at base.

  ‘I don’t want to go back to real life,’ she says in Mum and Dad’s car as we’re driving towards the Mount Cook hotel.

  The exhilaration’s gone from her face now, and she looks sad. I know she’s thinking of next week – back in Sydney, with her parents.

  ‘Don’t think about that,’ I say. ‘Let’s go exploring. I wanna check out that blue glacier lake we flew over before.’

  ‘Tasman Lake?’

  ‘Yeah. I saw from a map in the heli office that there’s a lookout up there.’

  Issy’s face brightens. Back at the hotel, we leave our parents to check in. Dad gives me the keys to the car, and Issy and I drive across the long bridges that are suspended above rocky riverbeds. We pull into the Tasman Glacier carpark.

  ‘Fifteen-minute walk,’ I say as we check the signpost down the bottom of the trail.

  Up at the lookout, the lake is even bluer than it looked from the helicopter. There are chunks of ice floating here and there, a sign of how freezing the water must be. The ground underneath my feet is black rock, rising on either side of the lake into mountains. I look up at the peak on my left, and it takes me a few seconds to realise that what looks like cloud, drifting by in the late-afternoon sunlight, is fresh snow blowing off the crest.

  There’s a rumble in the distance.

  ‘Tiny avalanches,’ Issy says, pointing to our right, where you can see the tumble of ice, rock and snow racing down the incline on the other side of the water.

  We find a seat on a big rock, prime position for the view. We stay there as long we can, at least an hour, staring out at the vastness in front of us, the wind rustling our thick jackets and tingling our noses. I keep opening my mouth to tell Isolde how I feel. But every time I do, I get scared that my words will get lost in the wind out here. Finally, sometime around 5pm, both our mums text us their version of Don’t stay out any longer, it’s freezing and you’ll get sick!

  ‘Shall we go?’ Issy asks, standing up.

  ‘Better, I guess.’

  Halfway down the trail
I stop, and she does too.

  ‘Wow,’ Issy says, staring out at the valley in front of us.

  Half of it’s in shadow now, but in the distance the sky is pink and violet, spilling over the mountains.

  ‘Just like your costume, Lupin-girl,’ I say, smiling.

  Isolde turns her head.

  It’s not her smile that does it. It’s the way she’s looking at me, like I’m something more spectacular than the view in front of us. My heart’s so full of her, and my body full of adrenaline, not just from the heli trip today, but from the high of being around Isolde – her guts and her spirit, who she is – that it’s unstoppable.

  I pull her to me and kiss her.

  There’s a moment at the start, where I know I’ve taken her by surprise, and my heart gives this huge twist with fear that she might pull away, but she doesn’t.

  She kisses me back.

  It’s cold noses and hot breath, and I don’t know how to stop. I can’t stop, so the kiss goes on and on, until I run out of breath and I have to pull away before I fall right down in front of her.

  When I open my eyes, she’s still in my arms, looking up at me. I don’t trust myself to speak for a moment because I’m overwhelmed.

  Her breathing is shaky. Mine is too.

  I can’t read her eyes.

  Have I done the wrong thing? It doesn’t feel wrong.

  ‘I thought you’d never do that,’ she says with a smile.

  And this time, she leans in and kisses me.

  Isolde’s Mobile

  Ana

  Thursday 13 June, 7:13pm

  It happened :)

  Call me right now!!!!

  I can’t. We’re at dinner. Everyone’s here.

  Call me later, then??? I HAVE TO KNOW EVERY SINGLE DETAIL ABOUT THAT KISS.

  I wouldn’t be able to describe it to you. I’m dizzy just thinking about it.

  It was that good? :)

  It was that good :) :)

  Taylor

  Thursday 13 June, 8:13pm

  I think there’s a bunch of people talking at this table, but I’m not quite sure. All I keep hearing is the Dean Lewis version of ‘Adore’ – you know the line where he says he wants the entire street out of town so he can be alone with the girl?

  I want this entire Mount Cook village out of town right now. You’re right next to me and all I want to do is talk to you about what happened and why I feel like someone’s electrocuted me in a good way, and I can’t because your sister is on the other side of you and will hear the whole thing.

  And I can’t kiss you either, the way I want to.

  I know you’re trying to keep the convo going with Vi so she doesn’t suspect what’s happened, but your smile, looking down at your phone right now, is everything :) :) :)

  Isolde

  Friday 14 June

  We didn’t get much time alone together last night. Along with our parents and Jack and Vi, there were about fifteen other people taking part in the stargazing tour, huddled together in the planetarium.

  But down in the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, we get ten minutes under the constellations of the southern sky. Taylor shows me Saturn through the telescope, and then afterwards, in the dark, he tells me about the last time he saw it, up on Queenstown Hill, and what he realised.

  Lying in my bed later in the night, unable to sleep because I can feel the sadness inside me about my parents, heavy on my chest, that story is the one thing that keeps my heart afloat.

  We’re on our way home now. I’m in the back of the Hellemanns’ car. Taylor’s coat is on the middle seat between us, and we’re holding hands under it. Taylor’s sent me the I Can’t Stop Thinking About Her playlist.

  This is yours now xxx, he texts me.

  Let’s listen to it together, I text back.

  With the earbuds split between us, it becomes the soundtrack for the long drive home.

  I Can’t Stop Thinking About Her

  Sink In Amy Shark

  Lovers Anna of the North

  So It Goes . . . Taylor Swift

  DKLA Troye Sivan & Tkay Maidza

  Meet in the Middle Ta-ku & Wafia

  Hesitate Golden Vessel & Emerson Leif

  Give Me Tonight Dustin Tebbutt

  Let Me Hold You Nick Wilson

  Sweetest Thing Allman Brown

  Shine to Rust Cameron Jones

  Ocean Eyes (Live) Flawes

  From: taylor_hellemann@gmail.com

  To: IsoldeByrne@hotmail.com

  Sent: Friday 14 June, 9:43pm

  Subject: Be my date tomorrow night?

  Location: Queenstown :) :)

  Activity: Japanese teppanyaki dinner – I wanna share tapas plates and fumble over my chopsticks around you :)

  Taylor

  Saturday 15 June

  I wish I’d told her earlier, I keep thinking as I sit across from Isolde in one of the booths at dinner. I would have had more of this trip to hold her hand, like I am now. More moments to look in her eyes without feeling shy about it, worrying that my feelings were scrawled across every feature. More nights like these, sharing salty edamame beans and slurping ramen together, where we laugh about old Taylor and Issy, and all the hot-headed misunderstandings of the past few years. Stuff that felt painful just a few weeks back is now amusing.

  ‘I’ve reread some of our IMs on the regular – like they’re a novel I can’t put down,’ I confess, rolling my eyes with embarrassment as a waiter takes our plates away.

  ‘I still have that old lip gloss you used that time on the chairlift,’ Issy admits.

  ‘You do not.’

  ‘I do!’ she says, red-faced. ‘It’s in my ballerina jewellery box, the one Mum and Dad gave me the Christmas after I started dancing.’

  We both go quiet at the mention of her parents.

  Isolde shakes her head. ‘I keep wondering if maybe . . . there’s some hope. Mum and Dad didn’t say anything to Vi before we took her and Jack to the airport – they know Vi’s not back till Christmas. If they’re going to break up . . .’

  Isolde stops talking for a minute. I can see she’s struggling not to cry.

  ‘They wouldn’t tell her over the phone or Skype, right? That’d be messed up. So maybe they’re going to work it out.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I say, squeezing her hand.

  She looks down at the table. ‘Let’s not talk about it any more. I want to enjoy being with you.’

  She doesn’t say ‘before I leave tomorrow’, but I know we’re both silently finishing her sentence that way.

  We stay at the restaurant, holding hands and laughing until 9:30pm, when we have to get on the road to make it home before my 10pm P-licence curfew kicks in.

  Back at my place, her parents and mine are sitting around the fire. Issy and I head for my trampoline at the end of the yard. We lie out there, cuddled up together underneath the blanket we’ve brought outside with us to fend off the cold. Her head is against mine, her body curved in towards me.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asks at one point when we’re not kissing.

  ‘How I used to do tricks on this thing,’ I say, referring to the trampoline.

  It had been my training ground for some of the moves I did out on the mountain. In the seasons where there was no snow in the parks, I’d tape up the sides of my snowboard so it couldn’t rip the trampoline, and I’d hang out here for hours every day. Having a soft surface meant I became more comfortable with being in the air for longer periods.

  ‘Your mum and I used to get sweaty palms watching you out here,’ Issy says.

  ‘She was always worried I’d flip off and land on my head. Same with the Big Air comps. Guess she was stressing about the wrong thing, hey?’ I say ironically.

  That’s how we wind up talking about the accident. It’s been on my mind lately – I guess because come the 25th of June, it’ll have been two years since it happened.

  Issy knows the basics, of course. Brad, Connor a
nd I coming back from a party at night, on a back road in Wanaka. Black ice at the bottom of a dip. Our car, sliding out into the centre of the road, spinning in circles, again and again. A small truck coming the other way, travelling too fast to avoid us. Both vehicles smashed up into the guardrail.

  If I’d been on the right-hand side of the back seat, I would have been obliterated. The front of the van had smashed into it, and the metal had crumpled like an empty soft-drink can squeezed tight in someone’s fist.

  But Isolde doesn’t know the other stuff, not until tonight.

  I tell her I don’t remember much from right after the collision because I was passing in and out of consciousness. But I can recall that there was no space – that I was pinned between the front of the van on my right and the car door on my left. I remember heat and the smell of burnt-out brakes that hadn’t had a chance against black ice. The hearing in my right ear fading in and out.

  The thing I remember most is the panic . . .

  There’s not enough space around me. Not enough space to move or breathe properly.

  My door won’t open.

  I can’t get out. I’ll never get out.

  I don’t know where Connor and Brad are. I can’t see them in the front of the car. Maybe they’ve been thrown out.

  I’m going to die back here, alone.

  My eyes close. The next time I open them, I’m not in the car any more. I can feel cold underneath my body, but that’s it. Everything else is numb.

  I look up at a winter sky, full of stars.

  I’m on the road, I realise. Two heads are above me, talking. A man and a woman. I don’t know them.

  Someone’s screaming. The noise is ripping through my ears, and my brain is bleeding from the high pitch.

  How can someone else’s screams be making me hurt like this?

  I want to put my hands over my ears to stop the screams – to stop the way that the noise seems to be ripping strips of flesh from all over my body – my legs and arms and torso – but I can’t feel my hands. I don’t know where they are.