Kristen selected a Chilean lager and sent the server on his way. She folded her hands. “Think about it, Emily. You said yourself that all your friends there are married and having kids.”
But I want that. Tears pricked at my eyes, several strands of frustration fusing into one: annoyance with myself for pathetically wanting a boyfriend; shame that I couldn’t be all carefree like Kristen, couldn’t drop it all for six months of wanderlust.
“Oh my God, don’t cry!” Kristen’s hand flew down to mine, threaded through my fingers. “I’m sorry—I’m saying this all wrong. I just mean…so many people would kill to have your freedom. All our college friends are lugging around diaper bags and burp cloths now, right?” We both chuckled. “I just thought…hey, we’re turning thirty. Isn’t now the perfect time to try something new? And I got excited thinking what our lives could be like on the road. Like it used to be, only better, because we’re grown-ass women now.” She sat up straighter, still clutching my hand. “You know I love our trips. But seeing you once, maybe twice a year isn’t enough. I miss you like crazy.” She looked down at the placemat. “And…and last year, when you were having a tough time, I felt awful that I couldn’t be there for you in person. You’re the most important person to me, you know?”
This time last year. My stomach flipped, picturing last spring, post-Cambodia: how I’d floated through work in a stupor…on the days I managed to make it in. How I swung between deep, spastic sobs and wild, thrashing panic, a single thought like a subtitle: I’m going to die.
“It’s not just that, though,” she went on. “I miss watching Netflix on the bed when we’re too lazy to go out. I miss discussing a single topic over the course of days or weeks and not, like, mentally organizing a life update with bullet points for one of our three-hour calls. I dunno. Just me?”
I shook my head and laughed. “Yeah, no, me too. It’s just—it never crossed my mind. It’s not something I ever imagined doing.” I sat back, took a sip of wine. “Kristen Czarnecki. You crazy bitch.”
She laughed. She had the nicest laugh—full and musical. “We can totally do this. Why not? Other people do it all the time. Hell, we meet them on our trips, and I’m always jealous. We could be the people everyone else is jealous of!”
She stared at me then, smile broad, her eyes pleading—the same look she gave me whenever she was trying to convince me to go on an adventure with her. Climb into this abandoned cave with me; follow these strangers to a speakeasy in another neighborhood. Her cajoling always paid off, always led to the most magical and memorable pieces of a trip, so I never regretted following her fearless lead.
Look how things had turned out the one time I’d tried spontaneity on for size.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
I wouldn’t think of that now. I met Kristen’s gaze over our empty plates, bits of avocado and quinoa speckling the surfaces. All that was behind us. This week—this proposition, which flipped and frothed inside me—proved it.
“Please tell me you’ll consider it,” she said.
“I’ll think about it.” She squealed and clapped and I felt myself blush. Okay, another delay in telling her about Aaron—I wasn’t going to ruin the moment now. I’d see how I felt in the morning.
Back at our inn, we followed a twisty stone staircase to a plateau, where an oval pool winked up at the sky. We lolled on its lounge chairs, batting leaking from their seams, and counted shooting stars. I saw five; Kristen, six.
* * *
—
Our last day had that misty, prematurely nostalgic air, bittersweet as we sucked in each sight and experience hungrily, willed it to last. I woke up early to visit the town’s pretty church, with its cerulean ceiling and simple stained glass, its outside the friendly white of a chipped diner mug. Kristen—once a devoted Protestant, now vehemently opposed to organized religion in any form—didn’t want to hear about it, and instead greeted me in the hotel lobby with the just-right shade of milky coffee and a proposed plan for the day.
We rented bikes from a kiosk and tottered over the winding road, stopping to gaze at the mountains in silence, as if saying goodbye. We pulled on bathing suits and plunged our toes into the hotel’s frigid pool, then reclined in the filtered autumn sun, sharing a bottle of Chardonnay and reading our books in amicable silence. The hotel’s whistling custodian clambered up to a shed and gave us a wave before digging a rake from a tangle of tools inside, and Kristen jumped up and asked him to take a photo of us with my camera. I got us both massages at a tiny, green-walled spa, where we lay on musty massage tables while thick-limbed women rubbed our backs with more speed than precision. It was a perfect last day. Kristen didn’t mention the backpacking pitch, but I could feel it between us, the possible future hovering like a shared memory.
I was torn. Though she was still right next to me, I already missed Kristen. I’d sunk back into the salve of her devil-may-care sense of humor, her constant championing of me—she saw me as strong and smart and competent, and she always had a pep talk at the ready. As other friends in Milwaukee paired off and married and had kids and drifted further, farther away from me, ripples in a pond, Kristen remained more loyal than a sister, more loving than a doting mom.
But…part of what made our time together special was that it was limited. And stuff was maybe, finally happening in Milwaukee—there was Aaron, the thought of whom set off small fireworks in my chest. Plus the possible promotion at work, the job I genuinely liked.
I broached the topic while we paused for an afternoon coffee. I loved this part of a travel day, the predinner ahh. We were on a bench in front of a shipping-container-turned-café that sold coffee and Chilean pop （Bilz and Pap and other excellently named soft drinks） from a sawtooth window.
“So, I’ve been thinking about what you said. About traveling for the rest of the year.”
“Oh yeah?” She slid back her sunglasses and beamed at me. She’d asked for her coffee over ice, café sobre hielo, to which the server frowned in confusion and scooped some cubes into her steaming cup.
“I’m truly honored that you asked me.” My rib cage tightened—I hated conflict, hated letting someone down. “You know you’re my number-one travel buddy. My ride-or-die.”
“But?”
I sighed. “It’s not a good time for me to leave for six months. Things are happening at work and—and I’m interested in someone, which I’ll tell you all about…” I paused to giggle at Kristen’s delighted gasp. “I just want to give it a chance. You know? But I still really like this idea, and there’s no one I’d rather do it with than you. Can we maybe try to make it happen next year?”
She was quiet for a moment, staring into her coffee.
“Kristen?”
She licked her lip. “I’m taking it in. A part of me really wants to try to convince you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. I just…wow, I really thought you’d say yes.” She nodded, slowly at first and then with fervor. “I’m bummed, obviously, but I’ll deal with it. Hey, tell me about this guy! There’s a guy?!”