Until Tomorrow (10 page)

Christy dropped her pack and jiggled the window until it opened to let in a welcome rush of air. The train was rolling past a grove of old olive trees. Some of them had gnarled
trunks that were at least three feet wide. A small village appeared on the hillside as the train curved to the left. Noting the charming whitewashed houses with their red-tiled roofs in the distance, Christy thought about how they were probably much older and much more humble up close than they looked from a distance. At least that had been true of Antonio's home.

Christy turned her face to the open window and let the rushing air dry the perspiration on her face.

“How are you doing?” Todd asked.

Turning to face him, she said, “Todd, I need to ask you something.”

“Sure.”

“I know you'll be honest with me.” She looked into his strong, steady face and hesitated before going on.

“I'm always honest with you,” Todd said. His short, sun-bleached blond hair stood straight up as the wind blew over him through the open window.

“I know you are. And I really want to always be honest with you.”

“So what's going on?” Todd asked, turning to give her his full attention.

Christy pulled her eyes away from his piercing gaze. She didn't know what to say. It seemed that for years she had been the one to ask the are-we-more-than-just-friends question. She was the one who always wanted to know where their relationship stood and what was expected of her. Todd didn't seem to need to know. While she needed a plan, he seemed content with the adventure of it all.

Christy said the first thing that came to her mind. “Katie said she thinks my expectations are too high for myself and for the two of you. Do you think that, too?”

“Maybe,” Todd said.

“What do you mean?”

“I guess I'd have to know what your expectations are, exactly, to know if they are too high or not.”

“Okay, forget I asked that. This is what I really want to know. Do you think we've changed?”

Todd paused and then nodded slowly.

“I mean, have we changed a lot? Maybe changed too much? Or maybe we haven't exactly changed but become more of who we really are. And is it possible that the true people we are now aren't the same people we were five years ago? Or the people we will be five years from now.”

Todd ran his hand across the stubble along his jawline. “Can you give that to me again?”

Christy looked down at her hands. Her fingernails were all broken off from the camping trip. Her injured index finger had gone from deep purple to black-and-blue. Inside, she felt as rough and bruised as her hands looked.

“Todd, do you want to break up?” She spoke the words in a thin voice without looking at him.

Todd didn't answer. Since he didn't immediately protest and say, “No, of course not,” Christy took it to mean only one thing. Her throat tightened. All her hope drained out of the soles of her feet. Slowly raising her head, Christy glanced up at Todd. His face was turned to the open window, and she could see him swallowing several times.

“You know,” Todd said after a full minute of only the consistent sound of the railroad tracks thundering in their ears. “I think I'd like to talk about this later, if that's okay with you.”

Christy couldn't stop the tears that sprang to her eyes. “Okay,” she managed to say.

Several people were coming down the passageway, forcing Todd and Christy to move out of the narrow aisle.

“Maybe we should go back to where Katie and Marcos are,” Christy suggested, lifting her bag.

“Okay,” Todd said.

Each step Christy took through the train became heavier than the last. Her mind raced through her options. Once they reached Naples, she could take a night train back to Basel and be there by morning. Back to her safe dorm room. Back to her routine and everything that was familiar. She could pour herself into the children at the orphanage. They needed her and wanted her. Why stay with Todd and Katie if they neither wanted her nor needed her?

Her stomach twisted in a huge knot.
All these years for what, God? Was this whole relationship with Todd a big joke on me? A testing of my emotions? Well, I failed, didn't I? I seem to be doing that a lot lately
.

As the train slowed, more passengers and their luggage crowded into the narrow aisles. They soon became so clogged it was impossible to move. That's how Christy felt inside, too. Stuck. Uncomfortably waiting for the inevitable.

When the train came to a stop and the doors opened, the crush of people pushed Christy out onto the platform. She stepped away from the stream of noisy travelers. Todd was right beside her. Neither of them spoke as they watched for Marcos and Katie. The mass of people moved past them, and the two of them waited, still not seeing their friends.

“Do you think they got off before us and went straight out to the bus?” Christy asked.

“We can go see.” Todd headed for the exit. His voice sounded flat and low.

Is he hurting over this as much as I am? We have to talk! This is too painful
.

Todd found the bus to the harbor, and they looked all around for Katie. The driver indicated that if they wanted to go, they had to board the bus now or wait for the next one.

“I wonder if she got on an earlier bus?” Christy said. “What should we do?”

“She might have thought we went on to the harbor,” Todd said. “Let's take this bus.”

They rode to the harbor standing on the crowded vehicle, neither of them looking at the other or talking. Christy kept looking out the windows, expecting to see Katie running after the bus, waving and yelling.

But at the harbor there still was no Katie or Marcos.

“Should we go back to the train station?” Christy asked.

“We could end up passing each other on the way,” Todd said. “I think we better stay here and wait. She's with Marcos. He'll make sure she's okay. It's possible he sent her on to Capri. She might be on her way to the hotel already. I'm going to get something to eat. Are you hungry?”

Christy couldn't imagine how Todd could be hungry in the midst of all this emotional tension. Her stomach was aching, but she guessed it was from emotions, not lack of food.

They waited in line at a pizzeria while the city's deafening noises roared all around them. From the street came the continual honking of car horns, the squealing of old brakes on city buses, and noisy hordes of people walking along, many of them using their hands as they talked.

Christy kept watching for Katie. When Christy got up to the window, she felt like her stomach was in too many knots to eat. But she was learning on this trip that it was best to take food whenever it was available.

Their pizza slices came wrapped in newspaper, and the extra gooey mozzarella cheese stuck to the cheap paper. They found a corner of cement that was in view of the bus stop yet away from the main flow of pedestrian traffic. Taking off their packs and using them as seats, Todd and Christy quietly ate their pizza and watched for Katie.

“Did you hear Marcos talking about this cheese on the train?” Todd asked.

Christy shook her head. She didn't remember any such
discussion. Her thoughts had been and still were absorbed in what she was feeling.

“Marcos said the food in southern Italy is best, and the cheese here comes from buffalo milk.”

“Was he serious?” Christy asked, quite certain she didn't feel hungry now.

Todd nodded and chomped into his second slice. “It's good, isn't it?” He didn't sound enthusiastic when he said it, but as if he was trying to come up with small talk to keep them from having the conversation they really needed to have.

“What should we do if we don't find Katie?” Christy asked, making her own contribution to changing the subject from the obvious one that hung over them.

“I'll go check at the booth over there where we're supposed to buy the tickets for the hydrofoil. Maybe they'll remember seeing a redhead going through the line.” Todd stood up. “Will you be okay here?”

“Sure.”

Christy didn't feel okay. She didn't want Todd to leave her. Ever. Watching him walk away from her made her ache in a symbolic way. When she had watched Doug walk away after their breakup talk in England, she had felt strangely content. She remembered feeling confident that she had done the right thing. She didn't feel that way at all about letting Todd go.

But then, we haven't exactly had our breakup conversation yet, have we? It's not really over yet
.

As Christy watched the mobs of people move past her, she noticed a man in tattered clothes approaching, mumbling something in Italian.

She was not in the mood to deal with beggars and got up, determined to walk away, even though it meant carrying her pack and Todd's, which he had left with her.

“Hey!” Todd called to her as she was hoisting his heavier pack onto her back. “Christy, let's go!” He ran toward her and grabbed her bag. “The last hydrofoil for Capri already left. We missed it. We have to run to catch the boat that's leaving right now. Come on!”

8

“What about Katie?” Christy yelled at Todd as they dashed to the boat.

Todd jogged ahead of her and let out a shrill whistle to keep the gangplank from being pulled away from the large passenger ferry. The uniformed employee looked irritated as Todd waved their tickets at him and ran onto the boat with Christy right behind him.

“That was close,” Todd said, entering the enclosed passenger seating area.

Christy, who was right behind him, caught her breath. “Do you think Katie might be on board this boat?”

“She might. I'm guessing we missed her in the crowds, and she caught the hydrofoil. Maybe Marcos went on to the hotel with her.”

Christy thought about how Katie, Todd, and Antonio had gotten “a little lost” on their hike a few days earlier, and she felt less than confident that Katie would be waiting for them at the hotel.

“I'll walk around the deck to see if I can find her,” Christy said.

“Okay, I'll stay here and watch our stuff. It looks like a seat is back there by the window.”

Christy didn't expect Todd to walk around the large ferry
with her, especially since it meant they would have to lug their packs if they both went. But it still made her feel alone when he sat down in the very last row, with their bags taking up the narrow space next to him.

Christy physically ached as she stepped out onto the deck in search of Katie. The longer she and Todd avoided having their big conversation about breaking up, the larger her ache grew.

Katie was nowhere to be found.

Instead of going back inside to tell Todd, Christy found a bench that was blocked from the wind. She sat with her arms wrapped around herself, as much for comfort as for warmth.

The lights of Naples were coming on all along the large bay they had just left. Tall cliffs, studded with villas and ancient monasteries, rose from behind Naples. The demanding form of Mount Vesuvius towered to the south. Even in her numbed state, Christy remembered Marcos talking about Vesuvius and saying they should visit Pompeii, the ancient Roman city that was destroyed by the now-sleeping volcano.

From this distance, Christy thought the volcano looked harmless. The crescent-shaped bay of Naples appeared to be a magical fairyland, twinkling in the fading light of the late spring evening. None of the traffic, drunken beggars, or street confusion could be viewed from this distance.

A clear, intense memory came to Christy. On her sixteenth birthday, Rick had called from somewhere in Italy. Right here in Naples, perhaps? Or from Capri? Christy and her family had gone to a luau, she had opened her presents, and then she and Todd had sat alone on the balcony lanai of her uncle's Hawaiian condo, watching the moon shimmering on the Pacific Ocean. Christy remembered the way Todd had sat beside her that night, holding her hand, rubbing his thumb over the Forever bracelet. He had told her to look out at the island of Molokai.

Instead of thousands of lights, like the ones she was now watching come alive in Naples, two lights from Molokai twinkled at them like stars, right next to each other on the shoreline. Todd had given Christy one of his famous object lessons that night. He said that just by looking at the lights from a distance, you couldn't tell which one you wanted to go to. You had to get closer and closer until you could see clearly what was there. Then you could decide if what you saw was what you really wanted.

An overwhelming sense of grief came over Christy.
All this time Todd has been getting closer and closer to me, and now that he's close enough to see what I'm really like, he knows I'm not what he wants
.

She couldn't sit there another moment with the lights of Naples winking at her, mocking her for being such a dreamer and for believing that she and Todd would go on forever. She rose and made another round of the deck with deliberate, long-legged strides until she came to a portion of the railing where no other people were around.