Come Home

The following isn't that great. It is a fictional travel writing piece I wrote for class.

On the cab ride to the hotel, Gia slept. The flight from JFK had worn her out, along with seeing me for the first time in three months. At the airport Gia reeked of loneliness as she hugged me tight. She sandwiched my face between her hands, looking for ways I may have changed.
“I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you,” she said. As the cab buzzed through the dark streets on the way to the city of Florence, I watched the meter tick and thought about my friend’s life since I’d left, about what could make the missing so strong.
Europe had not cured me of my insomnia so I stood on the balcony as she slept in that big bed. I smoked the romantic cigarettes I had bought back in Paris and watched the way Florence shone. The city glows yellow at night, warm lamps shine out of windows cut into buttery-stone apartment buildings. We were not too far from the Duomo and moonlight suited it well. The red roof seemed to shimmer with this past afternoon’s rain and spotlights allowed even my poor eyesight to make out the intricate carvings of saints and flowers. The rolling Tuscan hills cradled the city and stretched out as far as the eye can see. I thought of Hemmingway’s white elephant mountains, sleeping belly-up in the sun. These were purple Italian elephants, sleeping soundly.
It was three a.m, that space between night and morning. I love those times, being caught in the middle, being in-between. If I could live my life in the light of dusk and dawn forever, I would.
…
The next morning Gia and I sat at a street café, smelling like lavender hotel soap and the two espressos we’ve each had. Life stateside was all the same, according to her: stifling, static, boring.
“I can catch you up in five minutes. Rick and I have broken up and gotten back together three times just this past months. He keeps being a total bastard but I can’t seem to let go. My mom decided to build a pool house for the pool. My sister has become a total dyke but my parents are convinced it is only because she’s been watching the L Word on DVD. I miss you—I’ve realized that you’re my only friend who’s a girl. I have no one’s hair to braid and have slumber parties with,” she laughed. “And I wrote you about that other thing. Now please regale me with hilarious tales.”
We left the café and walked through Florence in a whirlwind of my own words. I had been riding the trains, seeing the sights and meeting new people. In a lot of ways it felt as if I had live a hundred new lives and given myself a new name in each city. I was Astrid in Paris, where I ate baguette and loved a boy whose name I never caught. I was Sadie in Prague, where I met a group of other girl-lushes in an Irish pub. We went to their apartment and threw cold pasta and leftover salad around in a fit of laughter. In London I was back to being Frankie, because I was tired and tea makes me feel honest.
“You seem really happy,” Gia said when I had told her what my mouth and memory could manage.
“I am really happy.”
“I don’t remember the last time I saw you like this,” she said, her eyes squinting in the light.
“Come on, I’m not that different.”
“I know you’re right. People always just seem different if you haven’t seen them for a while. New things take me more time to get used to than they do for you, Frankie.”
We crossed the Ponte Vecchio, the city’s oldest bridge, and the survivor of the war. A strong March sun glittered on the water’s surface and we were able to take off our jackets and let the wind play with the hem of our sundresses. We passed all the jewelry shops and I contemplated buying myself a silver and sapphire bracelet. Gia almost convinced me to get it, but I resisted. Our families’ wealth was like a game to us. We wore it like robes—something we could step out of whenever it did not suit our tastes, like when out hearts ached for lipless children in Sri Lanka or the earth burning in a layer of pollution. Most of all, the money we had meant that we didn’t have to do anything. We could lay down in our silks and furs and resign from life, like our mothers and grandmothers had. It’s the scariest sense of security a person could know.
…
In the Boboli gardens we put flowers in our hair and laid in the grass. We gaped at the views, all those red roofs and pine trees which thrive in the warmth. Under a path cocooned by lush tree branches and next to a mossy wishing well, Gia said the things I knew she would eventually say.
“All our friends are dying.”
“Don’t say that,” I told her.
“Why? You know it’s true.”
“One friend died. The other died because he died. It’s cause and effect,” I said, keeping my voice flat and steady.
“This isn’t math class,” she said with harshness that surprised both of us.
“I’m sorry,” I touched her arm. “Can’t we just have fun? Your parents wanted you to get away from all of that.”
“Same with your parents, but none of us expected you to stay away. It’s just been me over there, stuck in that hell hole. Just me.”
“I’m sorry.”
…
We ate big bowls of penne and fettuccini by candlelight and I told Gia more stories. So much had happened and I had so much to say but I could tell Gia was loosing interest. She was angry with me for being gone for so long with no promise of returning. She had a flight back in six days and I was floating around indefinitely. I had escaped.
That night we danced with American art students under disco balls and flashing lights in places with names that any non-Italian speaker could translate. We drank endless gin and tonics and let our bodies move like liquid sun across the floor. We were honest and pure. Gia always had been, she was the good girl. Years ago my world felt so small and happiness was a tree I just couldn’t climb. I sucked in pills like oxygen and exhaled sickness. Europe was clean though—a flat land compared to a steep valley.
After a bottle of wine Gia decided she wanted most to go to Berlin next, but she would only go if we could go by train.
“Are they like black steel and do they go through the Alps?”
“No, they look like white plastic caterpillars. I think that the biggest thing about Europe is learning to not believe the movies.”
We got on the train late the next day after eating a few cones of gelato and making inappropriate jokes about the David. Gia was thrilled for a while—she loved how flushing the toilet was like launching a torpedo and that there was a dining car. She loved the views of the icy, snowy mountains we saw as we passed through Austria. Eventually I pressed my head to the cold window and drifted in and out of sleep.
“Frankie, are you awake?”
“Yes,” I said, lifting my head.
“Talk to me. My iPod died.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I don’t know. What we’re you just thinking about if you weren’t sleeping?”
“I was thinking about how much I like riding trains. I like when you wake up and don’t know which country you’re in. You just know that you’re on the move. You know that you’re going somewhere and that someone else is doing the driving. I was thinking how I would like to stay like this forever: always going, never arriving.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“I know. But only half of the time.”
“Seriously though. Running away doesn’t solve anything. You have to come home,” her blue eyes widened.
“If this is what you want to talk about, I would rather sleep,” I said, already curling back into the window.
“Fuck, Frankie. Some things are important. Some things need to be said. Everyone at home is dying,” she put her face closer to mine, her brow furrowed.
“You keep saying that, but I don’t understand. Mark and Carrie died. Two people.”
“Everyone is using. Except for you and I. So everyone is dying.”
“Then its good I’m here in Europe. I’m saving myself. You should stay here too. There’s so much to see.”
“Are you afraid that if you go back you’ll use again?” she asked and folded her arms.
“Of course I’m fucking afraid! That’s what happens at home, that’s what I do at home.” At that moment the conductor hustled over to check the tickets of the crazy girls shouting on his first class train. When he left Gia said without looking at me, “You didn’t even fly back for the funeral.”
I watched the mountains roll across her irises before I whispered, “I’m terrible at funerals.”
“Carrie’s mother couldn’t even walk. Her husband had to carry her in because she was crying so much. Her face was bright red and wet, but she made no noise. I watched her during the service. She would open her mouth to try to breath, but could barely take in air,” Gia’s voice scratched my ears like sandpaper.
“Don’t tell me these things.”
“At Mark’s wake his father had a black eye. Carrie’s dad had punched him. I hear Mark died in her arms, in the tent by the river. The one with all the leeches. Anything’s an overdose with that shit. Carrie put her head in the oven the next day. She was our best friend. And you weren’t there.”
“Shut up,” I said, clutching the armrests.
“They had daisies at Carrie’s funeral and wake. Everyone knew they were her favorite. Remember how she wore crowns of them every spring? Mark’s mother asked me if he ever mentioned a favorite flower. Of course he hadn’t, but I told her he liked tiger lilies.” Her voice frightened me. It was like she was speaking in a dream.
“Please, Gia. Stop talking.”
There are few expressions that are as accurate as ‘bursting into tears.’ I burst, for the first time since I had heard the news in December. My eyes burst all the water they could ever hold, and so did Gia’s. They were gone and would never be anything on earth besides gone. Could any of us cry enough tears to make the shape of a water-Carrie? I fell asleep and when I woke up it was like coming up for air from the ocean floor.
When we finally reached Berlin we left our sadness on the train. Sometimes that’s all you can do. In its wake there was a sort of numbness that melted into happiness from time to time. It wasn’t easy, but she was my best friend and we were together again, traveling. We let our laughter, the bipolar opposite of our frantic tears, bounce through the city’s clean and wide streets. We saw the Wall, that monster that kept families apart but we still would not let any more sadness in. We took pictures in front of it, kissy faces, thumbs up and peace signs, and burned with the need to create art like those graffiti artist had. I picked the Dancing to the Revolution wall as my favorite, and Gia liked the classic big-lipped people one. A few bites into our Berliner doughnuts, a decision was made.
“So you’ll go back?”
“Eventually, in a few months. But I don’t think we should go back to our little town.”
“You want an new town?” she asked.
“I want a new world,” I said.
“One without drugs?” Gia laughed. “Frankie, like that will ever happen.”
“No, I know that’s impossible. I want a new world without people who feel so empty they’ll use anything to fill the holes.”
“Me too. Maybe will go west, where it’s warmer. People are happier in the sunshine.”
“Ok. So we’ll go west.”