Spain or Shine (3 page)

“She'll be fine, Carla,” her dad said softly.

“I know.” Elena's mother's tears were on the verge of spilling now. “Try and visit your great-aunt Elena and your cousins when you're there. They're your family. Nothing's more important than family; remember that.”

“I want to visit them, Mom. I just don't know for sure if I'll have time. I already told you that.” She glanced over at the lady in the khaki shorts. “Now I really have to go,” she said, giving both of her parents a quick hug and looping her backpack strap over her shoulder. Her mom thrust a bag into her hand as she headed toward Khaki Shorts.

“So you don't get bored on the plane,” she whispered.

Elena approached Khaki Shorts and gave her name.

“Here you are,” Khaki Shorts said after scanning her list. “Elena Holloway. Welcome. My name is Brenda. Have you ever been to Spain, Elena?”

“Nope. Never left the country,” Elena returned, hoping she sounded casual.

“Well, this will be exciting. Okay, Elena, line up with the rest of the group. It's time to go through security.” The way she kept using Elena's name felt forced. It was as though someone had taught her that repeating the kids' names would make her sound more trustworthy.

Elena walked up to the group of students who were forming a line and inserted herself between a girl in jeans and a tank top and a boy wearing a black baseball hat pulled down low on his forehead. She didn't feel too out of place yet. But she knew that would change once they got to Spain. The program she would be attending in San Sebastián was situated on a local high school campus, so she knew she would be seeing lots of Spanish people on and off of school grounds. Plus, even though all the students in the International School were English speakers, they would be coming from all over the United States, as well as England, Ireland, and even as far away as Australia. She decided to enjoy the comfort of being with people who dressed and spoke like her friends for the short time it lasted.

The plane was nearly full when Elena found her seat next to a man in a charcoal business suit. She squeezed past his knees and slid into her window seat. In order to get a deal on prices the school had been unable to seat the students together on the plane. Brenda had apologized profusely for this, but Elena was privately glad since she was really too nervous about the upcoming trip to make small talk with a stranger. The man sitting next to her, scowling at a stack of papers, didn't look like one for chatter.

She peered through the oval window at the streaks of red dawn rippling through the fog-sodden sky. Looking out over the bay made her feel homesick already, so she closed the window shade and dug into the plastic bag her mom had given her, pulling the contents onto her knees. Inside the bag she found three magazines, a guidebook on Spain, a pack of gum, candy, earplugs, and eye shades.

Elena was probably the least likely one of her siblings to go on a journey like this, but she was hoping to surprise everyone with her bravery. She set the plastic bag down, slipped her iPod out of the front pouch of her backpack, and cued up a Strokes song Caleb had downloaded for her. Maybe a little irreverent rock would slam some courage into her veins. A surge of frenetic drums blended with the rumble of the plane's engine. The cabin began to jostle as the plane rolled down the runway. She closed her eyes, gripped the armrests, and thought,
Here goes nothin.'

The first part of San Sebastián Elena spotted from the air was the shell-shaped beach, Playa de la Concha. It was a thin ribbon of sand laid in a half circle, with a dab of green land tucked in the mouth of the bay that opened out to sea. She'd read about this famous beach during the long plane ride from San Francisco to Madrid. The tour book her mom gave her explained that Playa de la Concha was a magnet for the Spanish and French alike due to its location at the northern tip of Spain, only a skip away from the French border. She imagined herself stretched out on the sand, lulled by the sound of water and wind. This was what she'd been dreaming about for months, and now she was actually here.

Elena craned her neck for a better view of the beach below. She tried to be careful not to wake the boy next to the window who'd fallen asleep with his black baseball hat pulled down over his eyes. She wished she could fall asleep sitting up like that. Her muscles were twitching, she was so exhausted. She leaned forward a little closer to the window, but her forearm slipped and bumped into the sleeping guy's arm. He mumbled and opened his eyes.

“Sorry,” she said, shrinking back in her seat. He waved off her apology affably and rubbed his eyes.

“Man, I can't wait to get out there,” he nodded toward the view from the window. “Doesn't it look awesome from up here?” He looked at her expectantly.

“Awesome,” she said.

He bobbed his head as if she'd just said something profound. “Hey, I recognize you from the airport in San Francisco. You're from California, too, huh?” He pushed his hat up slightly and peered out from beneath its brim.

“Yeah. I live in San Jose,” she said.

“Cool. I'm from Santa Cruz.”

It didn't surprise her that this guy was from a beach town. He wore a pale blue Hurley sweatshirt, and clumps of sea-crisped hair poked out from beneath his hat like dry yellow grass. He looked like the guys at her high school who would drive thirty minutes or more every weekend in search of the perfect wave. He wasn't the kind of guy she normally hung out with, but the sight of him was familiar, and right now anything familiar was welcome.

“I'm Alex,” he said.

“Elena. Nice to meet you.”

“Right on,” he said, giving her a half nod, then glancing back at the window. “I can't wait to ride those waves.”

“You're a surfer?” she asked, though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.

“Yep. That's what I'm here for.”

“To surf?”

“Yeah. Well, not just to surf. I mean, I can do that at home, right? The surf in San Sebastián's going to be gnarly, but I'm really stoked about exploring a foreign country. My family's big on travel. This summer my older brother Keith and I traveled all over California and Colorado—camping, hiking, climbing, that kind of stuff,” he explained. “What about you? Do you travel a lot?”

Before Elena could tell Alex that her family had hardly left the Bay area, they were interrupted by the flight attendant announcing that they would be landing soon. Elena stole another glance at Alex. He was definitely cute, in a scruffy-beach-bum sort of way. But she was on the lookout for something else completely. She'd known boys like Alex all her life. She wanted to meet someone exotic. And an accent wouldn't hurt. Accents were always sexy.

“So, dorm or family?” he asked once the flight attendant had clicked off the speaker.

“Excuse me?”

“We were supposed to choose between staying in the dorms, or with a host family? Which one did you pick?”

“Oh, right. I chose the host family, but to be honest, right now I'm not so sure about that decision. My Spanish is pretty lame, and I'm going to be living with strangers. I just have no idea what to expect.” Her stomach fluttered at the thought of meeting her host family at the airport. These would be the people she would live with, eat with, and share a bathroom with for the next three months. Elena said a silent prayer to whoever might be listening to miraculously grant her an outgoing personality and master Spanish-speaking skills.

“No worries. I chose a host family, too.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. It's definitely the way to go. It's the only way to get a real insider's view of Spain. I've heard that living with locals forces you to speak Spanish sooner and eat more local food and stuff.”

Elena appreciated that this guy, Alex, was trying to pump her up, but he was just emphasizing all the reasons she was nervous to begin with. She'd already gotten lost during the stopover in Madrid. They'd had a long layover, and some of the kids had gone into the airport shops. She'd wandered over to a scarf store, but had forgotten to notice the time and couldn't remember the connecting gate. After about ten excruciatingly long minutes she figured out which gate was hers on the monitor, but it had been a reminder that she needed to be more responsible during her time in Spain. After those few minutes alone in a foreign airport she'd vowed to herself that things would be different here. She'd pay attention and stop daydreaming.

The little puddle jumper they'd boarded in Madrid touched down on the tarmac with several screechy bumps. This was it; Elena had arrived. As soon as the plane stopped rolling and people began standing up and gathering their things, Brenda rushed to the front of the aisle.

“All righty, kids. Stick with me on the way out. We're going to do a head count as soon as we get off the plane.” Her eyes darted around the plane's interior. She seemed to be doing her own silent head count now as if she might lose someone on an airplane the size of a narrow living room.

“Dude, this chick makes me feel like I'm on a kindergarten field trip: Alex snickered, zipping up his backpack.

“I know,” Elena ventured. “She'd probably insist on coming into the bathroom with me.”

“Totally.” A laugh slid from the back of his throat, slow and thick as honey. “Then she'd do a head count to make sure you didn't get lost on the way back to your seat.”

She felt a pang of guilt for mocking Brenda. Though she was annoyingly perky and needlessly protective, Elena was secretly glad she was there to lead the way. She seemed to know her way around airports, and her Spanish was perfect. But she was such an easy target. Why was it that one of the quickest ways to bond with another teenager was to make fun of a dorky adult? Elena decided to give herself a break and chalk this one up to social survival.

 

Brenda corralled the students together once they were inside the airport.

“Settle down, everyone,” she hollered. Elena noticed Brenda's once neatly pressed khaki shorts were now wrinkled, particularly where they hugged her midsection. She looked as rumpled and tired as Elena felt. Elena had managed to log a few restless hours of sleep on the first flight, although sleep might have been too generous a term. It was more like a light nap. She rubbed at the knot that had tightened in her neck. She felt as if she could go to sleep forever.

“Okay, as you know, you were each given the choice to either room in the campus dorm, or stay with a host family while you're here in San Sebastián,” Brenda continued, once the students had hushed. “If you chose the dorm option, you'll stay here with me. If you're meeting with a family, please go check in with Pierce.” She pointed to a gangly red-head. He wore a navy blue collared shirt with the International School emblem stitched over his heart. It was the same type of shirt Brenda had tucked into her shorts.

Elena walked with Alex and two others toward Pierce. He was encircled by couples and their kids, whom Elena took to be the host families. Elena had never really understood the phrase “alone in a crowd” before. But as she stood there, surrounded by students and Spanish families, she'd never felt so alone. Normally Gwen, the outgoing one, would step forward and take control of the situation. Or she could always count on her brothers to tell a joke to lighten the tension. This was the first time that she didn't have one of her siblings or Claire with her for support. She couldn't help feeling as if she could get swept away with the sea of strangers and no one would even notice.

By the time it was Elena's turn to give her name there were only two Spanish people, a woman and a girl, left standing beside Pierce. The woman was built like a dancer, and the girl, clearly her daughter, was a miniature replica of the woman. This was obviously her host family, but Pierce insisted Elena give her name anyway.