Page 21 of Catch a Kiwi
She was at the door when I asked, “Where’s Delilah?”
“I told her to rest. She still has a headache.” And she was gone.
Summer
“What the hell are you doing?”
It was a roar. I jumped about a mile, which was a bad idea, because the roof of the van, which was curved and made standing awkward to begin with, buckled and I almost fell, and then the van shifted. Just a little, but enough to make me grab for an upside-down front seat, hold on, and experience some cardiac arrythmia.
It was Roman, of course. He was outside the van,crouching to look through the broken-out windshield, saying, “That doesn’t look one bit stable. Why are you risking it?”
“Excuse me,” I said, doing my best to regain my balance in all ways. “We were both in here yesterday, remember? I was hoping there was more still in here than there actually is. I found a few things—my toothbrush, miraculously, because the bathroom doesn’t have a window and nothing could fly out, and my shampoo and so forth—but none of the important things. The momentum from the van rolling seems to have catapulted it all out. Then everything washed down the hill in the storm, and I—” I had to stop and breathe a couple of times. “I need a shovel. A rake. Something to help me find stuff under the mud. I should have picked up my purse yesterday when I saw it, and Delilah’s backpack, too. Why didn’t I?”
“Because you were trying to save her life,” Roman said. “And that thing’s too unstable. Get out and let me do it.”
I ignored him. “Well, in any case, they’re both gone now.” I steadied my voice and held up a gumboot. “I found one of these. Delilah’s. A pair of jeans, also Delilah’s. A few shirts. Some pots and pans and cutlery, although I don’t have anything to cook on or a table to put it on anymore. Do you have a rake?”
I was sure he was going to sigh. I said, “Look. I know this is not your problem. But I— what do I do in a foreign country without my passportormy driver’s license? Or my bank card? I have to find my purse, or?—”
I couldn’t help it. My throat was closing, the wave of panic threatening to crash over me. I’d been holding it at bay, trying to be methodical. Trying to be rational. Now, I sank to my haunches, put my palms against my head, which hurt—I’d forgotten about the stitches, and the bruising, too, which hurt like crazy every time I bent my knees, nearly making me cryout—breathed in, and breathed out. “Sorry,” I muttered. “Possibly a … a panic attack. I’ll figure it out. I’ve handled worse.”
“Worse than losing all your possessions,” Roman said. “Worse than being down to a pair of sandals and some shorts.”
“Yes.” I stood up again. “And I bounced back.” Another deep breath. “Rake?”
Roman
I tried to get her to let me do it. She wouldn’t. I even said, “How about if I look for your things, and you start mopping the mud out of my house? Can’t say fairer than that. You’ll notice I have gumboots. I’m wearing them.”
She said, “I have to do this, though. I’ll help you mop your floors. I need to clean your car, too, but I have to do this first. I’m the one who knows what’s out here. It’s not even ten yet, and it won’t get dark until nine tonight. That’s plenty of time. I just have to be systematic about it. I just have to?—”
“Fine,” I said. “Getting the rake.”
I got a shovel, too, went all the way down to the bottom of the hill, and started working my way up, tossing things into the rubbish bag as I found them. The ground was a mess, the plants flattened and the earth still sticky underfoot, but when I spotted something like a tail sticking out of a fern, pulled on it, and realized it was the strap of a backpack, I got a surge of satisfaction.
“Hey.”
I looked up. Delilah, slipping and sliding down the hill in mud-covered trainers and the shorts and shirt she’d worn yesterday. She’d fallen on the way, because one side of her was muddy again.
I held up the backpack. “Hey yourself. Looking better this morning. How’s the head? This yours?”
Her face lit up. She didn’t look much like Summer—she was darker, even shorter, and had an elfin look to her instead of Summer’s—well, radiance—but she had a personality all her own, a bit of a tough-girl thing that Summer, for all her briskness, lacked. “Thanks,” she said, and grabbed for it. “Wallet. Passport. Bank card. Maybe I’ll be able to go to college after all and won’t be thrown in debtor’s prison. Is there debtor’s prison here?”
“No. You’re thinking about England, and you’re about two hundred years too late.”
“I guess it’s like the States, then,” she said, “and they just make your life miserable instead. I probably shouldn’t have used part of my so-called inheritance from selling our crappy mobile home on a ticket to New Zealand, but Summer used almost all of hers on the campervan and then crashed it, and she keeps paying for things, so …” She stopped a minute, then said, “I need to buy us a car, but if I suggest it, she won’t let me. I could do it on my own, though. Too bad my education didn’t include lessons in buying a car. Why don’t they teach you anything useful in school? I know how to change a tire, and I even know how to swear because the spare’s got a leak, but that’s not exactly helpful. I know you have to bargain, though, and I could do that. Call the guy an asshole and walk out. I just need to know how you figure out if it’s a decent car so you don’t end up crashing it down a hill after it dies. Which was totally my fault, by the way, because I was steering, and Summer hasn’t even mentioned it. Another reason I have to buy the next one. Do you know how to do that? Buy a car?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Excellent. Tell me.” She reached into the front pocket of the filthy pack and felt around. “It’d be better if I could recordyou doing it. If I were Zen like you, I’d have had my phone in here instead of in my lap like a total addict, and it’d be here now. There’s probably a quotation about that. Thrift or prudence or being in the moment or something. Don’t tell me. I hate quotations.” She fossicked around some more and came out with a pen and little notebook, then slung the muddy pack over her shoulder. “I’m taking notes. Tell me how to buy a cheap used car. Do not quote some dead monk.”
I paused with my hand on a broken plate, then shoved it in the rubbish bag and took a few more sidesteps up the hill, kicking my way into the muddy slope for purchase. “To seek is to suffer,” I told her over my shoulder. “To seek nothing is bliss. But you probably do need a car. Easier if I just help you do it, probably.”
“What did I say about quoting?” She scrambled up after me.
“Couldn’t help it. You set yourself up for that. Bodhidharma. Monk. Died in the fifth century.”
“I am not writing that down,” she said. “I’m forgetting it immediately, because it’s stupid. But you’d do that? Help me get a car? Really?” She studied me more closely, like a deceptively perky squirrel, the kind that looks cute until it starts fighting the birds for what’s in the feeder. “I’m wondering why. Summer thinks you’re hard-nosed. You know why she thinks that?”
