Are We There Yet? (3 page)

Cal doesn't want to stay for the Silver family reunion. After she speeds away in the bitchin' Camaro, Elijah waves goodbye for a full minute before entering the airport.

He finds his mother and brother easily enough.

“So where's your girlfriend?” Danny asks as Mrs. Silver hugs Elijah tightly.

“She's not my girlfriend.”

“So where is she?” Danny is wearing a suit. For the airplane.

“She had to go.” Elijah can't stand still. His sneakers keep squeaking on the linoleum. He doesn't know whether it's the suit that makes Danny look old or whether it's just life. He is
filling out
, as their mother would say, as if the outline of his adult self was always there, waiting. Elijah thinks this is scary.

“I brought you danish,” Mrs. Silver says, handing Elijah a white box tied with bakery string.

“You're the greatest,” Elijah announces. And he means it. Because he knows the bakery, he can see his mother holding the number in her hand, hoping against hope that they'll have blueberry, because that's his favorite.

Mrs. Silver blushes. Danny gazes intently at a newsstand.

“I need to buy gum,” he says.

“Oh, I have gum.” Mrs. Silver's purse is opened in a flash.

“Yeah,
sugarless.
I don't want sugarless. I'll just go get some Juicy Fruit, okay?”

“Oh,” Mrs. Silver sighs. “Do you need money?”

Danny smiles. “I think I can afford a pack of gum, Mom.” Then he's off, dropping his bag at Elijah's feet.

“I'll take some Trident,” Elijah offers.

Mrs. Silver rummages again and unearths a blue pack and a green pack.

“Sorry, no red,” she says with a smile as she hands the gum over.

“No problem. Thanks.” Elijah tucks the gum into his pocket. He doesn't like either blue or green, but he doesn't mind taking it. Someone else on the plane might want some.

While Danny buys his gum (and newspapers and Advil and a hardcover legal thriller), Elijah asks about his father's leg, and she tells him it's getting better. He thanks her again for the trip—he is
sure
it's going to be great, there are
so many
things he wants to see. She thinks his hair is a little too long, but doesn't say anything. (The telltale look at his collar gives her away.)

“So are we ready?” Danny is back.

“Ready as we'll never be,” Elijah replies. Danny's tie is caught in his shoulder-bag strap. Elijah is inordinately pleased by this.

There's an issue that has to be resolved immediately. Danny, bearer of the tickets, brings it up as soon as he and Elijah are through security.

“So,” he asks, “do you want the window seat or the middle seat?”

“Up to you.”

Of course. Danny knew this was going to happen. Clearly, the window seat is preferable to the middle seat. And politeness decrees that whoever chooses first will have to choose the middle seat. Elijah
must
know this. Typical Elijah. He
seems
so kind. But really, he is passive-aggressive.

(
“Why can't you be more like your brother?”
his parents would ask when he was seventeen.

“Because he's ten!”
Danny would shout before slamming his door closed.)

“You don't have any preference?” Danny asks. “None whatsoever?”

Elijah shrugs. “Whatever you want. I'm just going to sleep.”

“But wouldn't it be easier for you to have the window seat, then?” Danny continues, a little too urgently.

“It's no big deal. I'll take the middle seat if you want me to.”

Great. Now Elijah is the martyr. Danny can't stand it when Elijah plays the martyr. But if it gets him the window seat …

“Fine. You can have the middle seat.”

“Thanks.”

At the gate, they have to cool their heels for almost an hour. Danny is bothered despite his desire not to be bothered. (It
bothers him even more to be bothered against his will.) Elijah reads a British music magazine and listens to his headphones. Because Elijah slumps in his seat, Danny doesn't realize they're now the same height. All he notices is Elijah's ragged haircut, the small silver hoop piercing the top of his earlobe.

Danny tries to read the book he bought, but it doesn't work.He is too distracted.Not only because he's bothered.He is slowly crossing over. He is realizing for the first time that, yes, he is about to go to Italy. Every trip has this time—the shift into happening
.
Before things can go badly or go well, there is always the first moment when expectation turns to
now
.

Danny relaxes a little. He puts away his book and takes out his
Fodor's Venice.
Minutes later, there is a call for boarding. Danny gathers his things for pre-boarding. Elijah pointedly makes them wait until their row is called.

“You're sure you don't want the window seat?” Danny asks as they walk the ramp to the plane.

“Not unless you want the middle seat,” Elijah answers.

Danny waves the subject away.

Elijah charms the flight crew from the get-go. He asks the flight attendants how they are doing. He looks at the cockpit with such awe that the pilot smiles. Danny maneuvers Elijah to their seats, then has to get up again to find overhead compartment space (the rest of the row illegally pre-boarded).

Once they settle into their seats, Danny expects Elijah to strike up a conversation with his aisle-seat neighbor. But Elijah keeps a respectful distance. He says hello. He tells his neighbor to let him know if his music gets too loud. And then he puts on his headphones, even though he's supposed to wait.

Danny offers Elijah a guidebook. Elijah says he'll look at it
later. Danny doesn't want Elijah to wait until the last minute (so predictable), but doesn't bother to say anything. He just sits back and prepares for the flight. He is ready for takeoff. He loves takeoff. Takeoff is precisely the thing he wants his life to be.

As the plane lifts, Danny sees that his brother's teeth are clenched. Elijah's fingers grip at his shirt, twisting it.

“Are you okay?” Danny asks as the plane bumps a little.

Elijah opens his eyes.

“I'm fine,” he says, his face deathly pale.

Then he shuts his eyes again and makes his music louder.

Danny stares at his brother for a moment, then closes his own eyes.
Fodor's
can wait for a few minutes. Right now, all Danny wants to do is rise.

Elijah tries to translate the music into pictures. He tries to translate the music into thoughts. The plane is rising. Elijah is falling. He is seeing himself falling. He is blasting his music and still thinking that the whole
concept
of flying in an airplane is ridiculous. Like riding an aluminum toilet paper roll into outer space. What was he thinking? The music isn't translating. New Order cannot give him order. The bizarre love triangle is falling falling falling into the Bermuda Triangle.

Enough. This will have to be enough. The takeoff is almost over. The plane is flying steadily. Elijah inhales. He feels like he's gone an hour without breathing. Danny hasn't noticed. Danny is in Guidebook Country. Danny doesn't think twice about flying. He doesn't think twice about Elijah, really.

And if the plane were to crash…Elijah thinks about those final seconds. It could be as long as a minute, he's heard. What would he and Danny have to say to each other? Would everything suddenly be all right? Elijah thinks it might be, and that gives him a strange, momentary hope. Really, Cal would be a better doomsday companion. But Danny might do.

Imagining this scenario makes it okay. Elijah is okay as long as he can picture the wreck.

The captain turns off the fasten-seat-belt light. Danny unfastens his, even though he doesn't have to get up. Elijah leaves his on.

There is a tap on his shoulder. Not Danny. The other side.

“Excuse me,” the woman next to him is saying. He takes the headphones off his ears, to be polite.

“Oh,” the woman says, “you didn't have to do that. I have nothing against New Order, but it was getting a little loud, and you said to let you know….” She trails off.

“You like New Order?” Elijah asks.

The conversation begins.

Elijah loves
the conversation
. Whatever conversation. The tentative first steps. The shyness. Wondering whether it's going to happen and where it will go. He hates surface talk. He wants to dive right through it. With anyone. Because anyone he talks to seems to have something worthwhile to say.

The first steps are always the most awkward; he can tell almost immediately whether the surface is water or ice. The dancing of the eyes—
Are we going to have this conversation or not?
The first words—the common ground.
And how have you found yourself here? Where are you going?
—two simple questions that can lead to days of words.

“You like New Order?” Elijah asks.

The woman laughs. “In college. I loved New Order, but I had a Joy Division boyfriend. I wanted to hang out, he wanted to hang himself. We were doomed from the start.”

The conversation continues.

Danny can't help but overhear them. Elijah is, after all, sitting at his elbow, taking up the armrest. Chatting away with the woman about disco groups. Unbelievable. Talking about college and girlfriends and Elijah's prom. (“She disappeared after the second song, but that was okay….”) Danny usually assumes that lonely people are the only ones who have conversations on airplanes. Now he is faced with a dilemma: Is he wrong, or is Elijah lonely? To sidestep the issue entirely, Danny decides that Elijah is an exception. Elijah, as always, is being unusually kind. While he himself is not lonely, he doesn't mind talking to lonely people. He is the Mother Teresa of banter.

Danny silently waits for his introduction, the moment when Elijah gestures to him and says, “This is my brother.” Danny plans to put his guidebook down, smile a hello (taking a good look at the woman, who's about ten years older than him, but still attractive), and then make a hasty retreat back to
Inns & Hotels.

But the conversation never drifts his way. Instead, they are talking about
Roman Holiday.
Danny can't believe it when Elijah says how much he loves Audrey Hepburn. He can understand it, but he can't
believe
it, for it's an adoration that he himself shares. Danny isn't used to having something in common with Elijah, however slight. Their last name is the rope that ties them together. And now there is also this tiny thread. Audrey Hepburn.