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I had my theories. Selfishly, egotistically, I hoped I could be the one to cure her ache, to make her feel fulfilled. But maybe it would take more than that; maybe she was harboring lost dreams. I saw it a lot, when I used to work at the restaurant. I would take my breaks and eat my hot fudge brownies out on the dining floor and watch the people around me. There were so many of them, young and old, alone and sad, eating to fill the void, being out in the open just to get the comfort of a polite server. It broke my heart, time and time again, to see these lost and lonely people. They seemed to have no one, and if they had someone, they seemed to have nothing to keep their days going. No passion, no dreams. Just a life in the wake of what could have been, discarded attempts at trying to live better.
I was no better. I had no one either, no life, no motives. But I had passion, even if it had to be excavated from me. I had a passion for the arts and the moments that made me love life. The buried passion was what got me going from day to day until my sister fucked off to Spain to live with some man she barely knew.
And that’s when I knew I was missing out. I wasn’t living at all. I was barely any better than the lost souls I saw at work, hiding their sorrows with beer and greasy burgers. So I applied to school, hoping to at least get that ball rolling, and then I met Gemma that fateful, drunken, horny night, and everything seemed to click, click, click into place, like a key turning a lock.
Now I’m here, transient, unsure of where the door leads and where I’m going next.
“Sorry to bum you out,” Tibald says. “I think I like smiling, stupid Josh a lot better.”
I glare at him. “You should like all of Josh.”
He shrugs, grinning. “I’ll leave that to Gemma.”
“Right,” I say despondently.
“You got to her once before,” he points out. “You can do it again.”
“By being a forward, cocky, horny-as-hell animal?”
“Whatever works.”
I clink my pint of beer against his and say, “Then here’s to whatever works.”
We drink ours down, fast, and order another.
The amount of beer I’ve consumed in New Zealand has been pretty ridiculous. People always say that Canadians are the beer drinkers of the world—as in we drink a lot of it and all the time—but I think the Kiwis have us in a headlock over that one.
The next morning I wake up in a six-bunk dorm that seems to stretch on forever. There’s someone snoring in the bunk beneath mine and across the room, Gemma and Amber are just getting out of theirs. Gemma opted for a cheap hostel in Christchurch since we’ll be spending a few days at a nice one on the Banks Peninsula.
You get what you pay for. This place has weird stains on the carpet, bathroom doors that don’t lock properly and they charge you five dollars to use the Internet for ten minutes. And if I hadn’t come home drunk last night after being with Tibald and passed out right away, I would have been up all night listening to the backpacker bus group whoop it up in the shoddy communal lounge.
Needless to say, we’re all dressed and packed in record time and piling into Mr. Orange, with Amber worried she’s caught some contagious disease from the bed. Our trip to the Banks Peninsula is supposed to be a short one but I volunteer to drive anyway.
Gemma declines, telling me it’s not an easy drive, and thanks to the remnants of a hangover, I’m okay with that.
She wasn’t kidding. The peninsula used to be a volcano, and now it’s this massive, tall lump of land jutting out into the ocean, like a round thumb. The mountains in the middle are high, with rolling brown and green hills dotted with sheep and pockets of forest. The road winds back and forth, switchback after switchback, past deep valleys along the edge of the original crater. Occasionally you can see fingers of rich, jeweled blue as different harbors reach inland.
Mr. Orange growls and purrs like an angry cat as it motors up the hills and around the bends, but somehow we make it all the way to a place called Le Bons Bay and a backpacker’s hostel sitting at the crest of a long, wide valley.
After last night, I am more than happy to just spend the night in the bus, but I change my mind as Gemma leads us to the big red farmhouse and we’re introduced to the owners. They ask if we’d like to have dinner with them and the rest of the backpackers. I get this feeling that we’re at some weird communal hippie resort but then Gemma explains that this is what they’re known for. The wife is a cook and they do fabulous homemade meals. There’s just enough lamb for us to join them tonight, and tomorrow they’re doing fresh pasta.
We can’t say no to that—besides, we only have a little bit of food to last us for the next few days and it’s a long drive to the French-settled town of Akaroa to get groceries. They also ask if we’d be interested in a wildlife-viewing boat trip tomorrow, weather permitting. They have a small boat they can take about six guests on.
Amber shakes her head no, looking a little green at the thought. “I’m good.”
But the cost is reasonable and I don’t want to miss out. I look at Gemma. “Dare you to come with me.”
She gives me a look. “Oh, really.”
“We could see dolphins, your favorite.”
That’s when the owner, Hamish, speaks up, his eyes volleying between us. “Actually, we probably will see dolphins. Hector’s dolphins, the smallest and most rare species in New Zealand.”
“Oh, well, Gemma here says she’s seen them all. She’s a bit of a dolphin hipster.”
