Antipodes Read online

  I can’t do this.

  Tears welled in her eyes. If she pulled the exit cord, no Columbia. Staying was the only viable option. Perhaps surviving without ripping her uniform to shreds would be her unique factor. Erin steeled herself. Five months. She could do anything for five months.

  She dressed quickly and emerged from the dressing room to find Felicity had already paid.

  “I could have bought my own clothes,” Erin said.

  “Nonsense. Pippa will need Ilam uniform eventually. I’m merely buying early. Off to the grocery, then home?”

  They passed a lovely fountain that was inexplicably home to a half-dozen grocery carts.

  “Your school’s just over the road, there.” Felicity pointed in a general direction, but Erin spied only trees. Felicity pulled into a parking garage. “And this is Riccarton Mall.”

  Erin could endure no more surprises. “What’s next? Hair bands and school-sanctioned earrings?”

  Felicity forced a smile. “No jewelry at school.”

  Erin spun her grandmother’s ring around her finger.

  “Erin?”

  “This school. It sounds a little like prison.”

  “I found life easier when I didn’t have to decide what to wear every day.”

  Erin was ambivalent. “I really, really love clothes.” Clothes I’ve chosen myself.

  Beneath her middle school track shorts and what was supposed to be her senior class T-shirt, Erin wore her ugliest underwear. All other clothes were candidates for her suitcase. She carried with her all the emotional baggage of her birthday and breakup with Ben, but her actual baggage—everything she would need for five months abroad—would not fit in her allowed luggage.

  Foreign Study Network’s list of essentials included a camera and film, so that list couldn’t be trusted. A thousand websites’ suggestions for study abroad included hats and “cultural toiletries,” whatever they might be. No one suggested true necessities: gummy bears, Sephora, and fluffy towels in case her host family owned short, thin towels like at the gym.

  From the center of her enormous bedroom, Erin eyed stacks of clothes, toiletries, and sundries. Pastel sticky notes indicating the weight of each stack fluttered as the AC kicked in.

  “Dad saves the day!” Mitchell dropped a huge box on Erin’s carpet. “FedEx says it’ll get there in a week. Sixty pounds, max. Problem solved, and you know what I say?”

  Erin wasn’t sure which Dad quip was relevant in this situation.

  “If you can fix it for under a thousand dollars, it’s not a problem.”

  Erin appreciated both his optimism and his wallet.

  Mitchell hugged his daughter before regarding her with pity and longing—he had been almost unbearably sappy for weeks—and left her to pack.

  Erin lay on her floor staring at the ceiling, willing herself back to a time when everything was okay. She couldn’t even remember when that was. To stimulate her resolve, Erin checked her phone. Her new favorite follow, Good-Time Girl, was a seventeen-year-old Christchurch girl who never showed her face but constantly posted about parties, fashion, and sporting events.

  Good-Time Girl’s most recent snaps were of skiing over winter break. Images of a gorgeous lake at the foot of a mountain appealed to Erin. Good-Time Girl couldn’t fill the void of all the former friends Erin had unfollowed after her fall from grace, but she was a start.

  Good-Time Girl seemed … normal. Maybe Erin could find normalcy half a world away.

  FOURTEEN

  Still without warm pajamas, Erin followed Felicity through the garage into the house, where she dropped her bags in Pippa’s room and scrolled through her photos.

  After seeing several odd fashion choices, Erin had snapped a photo of a woman in black stretch pants that stopped mid-shin, a cropped Lycra top, and a lacy bright blue shirt that was practically a poncho. She texted it to Lalitha.

  Litha: What the actual fuck?

  Erin loved Lalitha in this moment more than ever.

  Erin: I just got back from the mall.

  Erin: She was one of MANY.

  Erin: I saw eleven barefoot people.

  Erin: A mannequin in an unironic three-piece suit.

  Erin: in CAMOUFLAGE.

  Erin: practically transparent T-shirts and many hideous prints.

  Erin: A lot of pleather, and even more lace.

  Erin: Remember Desperately Seeking Susan?

  Litha: Never forget Susan.

  Erin: It’s just exactly like that.

  Litha: Come HOME!

  Erin: I DID accidentally spend over $700 on a sweet pair of white leather pants.

  Litha: Who are you, and what have you done with Erin?

  Erin: No, they’re cool. I swear.

  Erin: Also, teen kiwis wear one-piece costumes as pajamas. Like, with whole animal heads as hoods. All sorts of animals.

  Litha: Did you choose a piggy?

  Erin: No, I spotted them after the pants, and decided $700 was about as much as Mitchell’s Visa could take.

  Erin: Also, kiwis get very excited about wool/possum blends.

  Erin: I swear I am not making this up.

  Erin: What are you up to tonight?

  Litha: My cutest-ever blue shirtdress.

  Litha: Drinks at Claudia’s house.

  Erin: Claudia …

  Litha: Quigley, yes. She’s cool.

  Litha: And her mom feels super guilty about the divorce.

  Erin: So?

  Litha: So, she’s buying the beer.

  Erin: Sweet

  Litha: And I have a new love.

  Erin: SPILL

  Litha: Teddy Kozel

  Erin: That’s old news.

  Litha: The new news is he might be interested in ME.

  Erin: If he’s not, he’s a fool.

  Felicity knocked. “Afternoon tea, Erin?”

  “Isn’t it early for dinner?”

  “Yes. This tea is a wee snick.”

  Erin considered that for a moment. “Snack?”

  “Yes.”

  “Absolutely. Give me one minute.”

  Erin: Li, I need to know all about that date.

  Erin: Right now, I need to eat so I can get on Christchurch time.

  Erin: (My host mother called it a “wee snack.” How cute is that?)

  Litha: Super cute. Don’t buy any lace.

  Erin: Okay. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

  Litha: So, the sky’s the limit, then?

  Erin: ♥

  Erin: Call you in a few.

  In the living room, Pippa intently wrapped her fingers around a guitar neck, desperately reaching for the upper frets. A tattooed Asian guy in a torn green T-shirt guided her: “First fret on the G string. Yup. Go.”

  Pippa strummed an E chord and spotted Erin. “Hi sista!”

  The tattooed guy turned and smiled. His deep umber irises were so dark near the middle she couldn’t tell where his pupils began. His eyes were spectacular.

  “Hank is teaching me to play. He says I have to learn my chords first.”

  Hank’s hand brushed a metal clip of keys attached to his belt loop as he reached to greet Erin. “Hank. And you’re the American sister.”

  “I am. Erin.” She gripped his hand firmly, and let go a second after Hank’s hand relaxed, just as Mitchell had taught her. “Why the chords first?”

  Hank grinned, revealing wildly crooked teeth. “Easy to sing along when you’ve got chords, innit? Learn eight chords and you can sing nearly everything. Fingerpicking, you have to learn one song at a time, slowly.”

  He was right—she knew he was right—but he had missed the point. “If you teach Pippa to read music, she’ll be able to learn any song for herself.”

  “We’ll get there. All in good time.”

  “Got your uniform today, Erin?” Pippa asked.

  “I did.”

  Pippa told Hank, “She’s going to Ilam, too.”

  “Sweet as,” he said.

  “Do you g
o to Ilam?” Erin asked.

  He smiled widely again. “I left school at sixteen. Have a carpentry apprenticeship with Blakely.”

  That explained his huge biceps and forearms, but learning he was a dropout fizzled the dreaminess of his eyes.

  “Want to join us?” Hank asked.

  Erin eyed her cello case. What was another day without practice? “Need to have a quick snack and get ready for school tomorrow,” she said dismissively. “Happy practicing, Pippa.”

  After a few crackers and slices of cheese, Erin retreated to her room, where she pulled up Ilam High’s website to see girls in her exact uniform. Boys wore shorts and knee socks in warmer weather, so perhaps she’d gotten off easy? She texted photos of the uniform to Lalitha and settled in bed to call her oldest friend.

  “I’m no Superman!” Lalitha said when she picked up.

  “There’s no Superman here, either,” Erin said. “I do, however, have a tattooed high school dropout in my living room.”

  “No!”

  “I do. He is teaching my little sister—who is ten, she’ll have you know—guitar chords.”

  “Did you step in and show him what’s what?”

  “No. I—” Tears welled in Erin’s eyes. “I don’t …” Her voice was a whisper.

  Lalitha’s voice was calm and quiet. “You okay, Erin with an E?”

  Erin shook her head, unable to speak.

  “Did I lose you?”

  Kind of.

  “I’m here,” Erin whispered through her tears. “I just don’t know what I’m doing here. You saw the photos.”

  “Oh, I did. But I’m guessing it’s too soon to ridicule?”

  “Much too soon. Their food is weird. Everything is slow—slow traffic, slow talkers, slow walkers. I almost trampled kiwis at the airport.”

  “Dillying and dallying and dallying some more?” Lalitha said.

  “Exactly. No sense of urgency. So, probably because everyone is so slow, instead of traffic lights, they have huge, terrifying roundabouts. What if I wreck their car?”

  “Well …”

  “Say nothing. That accident was not my fault. And their car, catch the singular? They have only one.”

  “How does that even work?”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Maybe they carpool?” Lalitha said.

  “I don’t know, but today, my host mom drove me to buy my uniform. We went to the mall. Oh my god. Lalitha, they have Kmart and McDonald’s, but no Banana Republic. The clothes are mostly terrible.” She gasped. “Oh, my god. Lalitha, my white leather pants are to die for.”

  “Who are you, and what have you done with my girl?”

  “No, they fit me like a glove, and it’s a beautiful matte leather. I promise they are cool. At least something is cool. Li, they have an Aldi-caliber grocery store in their mall. And people dress like it’s 1987. And I’m sharing a room with a ten-year-old who has the stinkiest farts in the world.”

  “Worse than Peter McQueen the Pooty Machine?”

  “Worse.” Erin cracked a smile remembering their gassy elementary classmate. “But thanks for that.”

  “I’m sorry you’re there. I wish you were here.”

  “Yeah. Hey, is that Quigley going to call me, or what?”

  Lalitha didn’t answer.

  “What?” Erin said.

  “She’s not that bad.”

  “Traitor!”

  “I know, right? She’s kind of quiet, really smart. She wore a periodic table of nerds T-shirt yesterday. I sort of think under other circumstances you’d be friends.”

  “I’m not sure whether I feel better or worse.”

  “Her sisters are hankering to go back to L.A., but she likes Wheaton because it’s quiet.”

  Erin scoffed. “Tell her she should transfer to New Zealand. There’s no place quieter.”

  FIFTEEN

  Monday morning, the last social media posts were hours old—and that was Saturday night in Wheaton.

  Good-Time Girl had posted at midnight: “Farewell, winter hols. Back at it tomorrow.”

  Maybe she’s at Ilam too.

  Claire had sent a to-do list for Erin’s first day of school and reminded her to be in the office fifteen minutes before school started.

  Erin checked the weather for a respite from the cold. Her computer knew she was in New Zealand, but she couldn’t bring herself to reset her Google Maps home to Christchurch.

  It was zero degrees Celsius. Lalitha had been wrong: six degrees Celsius, or 43 degrees Fahrenheit, was Christchurch’s average July low. That would be all well and good if her house weren’t the same temperature.

  After a quick breakfast, Felicity drove Erin and her still-nameless rented cello to Ilam High. They were ten minutes late.

  “I’ll fetch you at half two and take you to the pool?”

  Erin nodded.

  Felicity waved to several students and greeted more by name. “Jade, this is Erin. She’s staying with us until Christmas. Erin, Jade used to mind Pippa when we went out. It’s Erin’s first day at Ilam.”

  “Hello,” Erin said. It was a very strange sensation, meeting someone dressed in the same frumpy kilt, the same white blouse, the same tie. Jade wore a ponytail and, despite a questionable complexion, absolutely no makeup. No foundation. Nothing to widen her slightly small eyes.

  Jade said, “Want me to show you in?”

  “I need to talk to a counselor about my schedule first.”

  “I can wait.”

  Erin left Jade leaning against the gray exterior and entered Ilam High.

  Halfway around the world, Erin’s New Zealand guidance counselor was just as scatterbrained as Mrs. Brown in Wheaton. Their offices were practically identical: multicolored piles of papers, books shoved into every available shelf space, and almost no space for students, let alone Erin’s poor cello.

  In bold black ink, a huge poster read:

  INTEREST

  +

  ABILITY

  +

  CAREER

  =

  SUBJECT CHOICE

  “I’m Penelope. How do you do Erin?”

  Erin relaxed immediately; Penelope wasn’t kiwi and hearing Erin pronounced correctly felt like home.

  “Based on your records, Erin, you are welcome to our entire curriculum. I’ll walk you through the same as I do with most students near the end of term four. First, let’s talk about what you enjoy.”

  Penelope took copious notes as Erin spoke. “I do well in all my classes. I’m through Calculus in math, physics in science. I’ve finished my high school literature requirements. I’ve taken six years of Spanish. Science and literature are my best subjects.”

  “And are those your favorite courses?”

  “They’re my best.”

  Penelope squinted at her. “The way we approach course selection here is to start with your interests first. Once we know what you enjoy, then we consider your ability. We wouldn’t do well to have you doing things you loathe just because you excel at them. Why would you do something you’re good at if you don’t enjoy it?”

  Erin didn’t have an answer for that. Penelope’s words repeated in her head.

  “So, Erin, which courses do you like best?”

  “Math, for sure. Science. I took astrophysics last summer and loved it.”

  “We don’t have astrophysics, but we do offer physics. Do you enjoy other sciences?”

  “Chemistry, yes. Biology, no.”

  She wrote more. “And do you enjoy language and literature?”

  “English classes, if it’s creative writing. Deconstructing literature trips me up.”

  “And the arts?”

  “Music. I play cello and used to play guitar.”

  “And do you enjoy both of those?”

  “Well, I love guitar—I started playing when I was five. I gave it up for cello in fifth grade.”

  “And do you enjoy cello?”

  “I play with the Chicago Youth Symphony
Orchestra.”

  “But do you enjoy it?”

  No. No, she didn’t. But Erin was diplomatic. “I prefer the guitar, but that’s not available in American schools.”

  “Would you enjoy our orchestra?”

  Felicity had rented a cello for five months. Five months without playing cello would seriously derail seven years of intensive practice and lessons. Five months without cello would leave Erin with a lot more time holed up in a freezing bedroom all by herself.

  Five months without cello might feel like vacation.

  “Erin? Does playing in our orchestra sound like something that interests you?”

  Almost imperceptibly, Erin shook her head.

  Penelope smiled. “No orchestra then.”

  Just like that, Erin was free. She glanced toward the cello case. “May I leave that cello here for the day?”

  “Of course. Now, what about visual arts?”

  “I couldn’t fit both music and art into my schedule in Wheaton and I always had to choose cello. I haven’t taken art since middle school, so I probably would be far behind everyone here. I’m not very good.”

  Penelope pressed so hard with her pen that her paper bowed slightly around each loopy letter. “Foreign language?”

  “Didn’t Wheaton forward my records?” Erin sighed loudly. “You should have all my grades.”

  “I do have your marks, Erin. I’m trying to get to know you, which is easier in person than parsing how your teachers have rated your work. You study Spanish, you said?”

  “It’s the most practical language.”

  “You’ve had six years of Spanish, including some university courses, which surpasses our courses here, I’m afraid.”

  “I did that to comp out of foreign language in college.”

  Penelope smiled. “Of course. We do require students to enroll in foreign language every term. Would you prefer Italian, Mandarin, Japanese, Ma-ori or New Zealand Sign Language?”

  “Wouldn’t I be starting with freshmen?”

  “Many Ilam students dabble in foreign languages instead of pursuing proficiency, but yes. Some of your classmates would be quite young.”

  Pippa was more than enough young person in Erin’s life.

  “Which language most appeals?”

  “Italian, I guess?”

  Penelope beamed. “Italian it is then. Now, have you thought about careers that interest you?”