Pitter-Patter
It’s a beautiful morning inBuenos Aires. The sun is shining, birds are singing, Yumi is talking to me, and I am high on the power of being in the top three.
The other two teams, Grumpy X Sunshine and Team Football, meet us in the lobby of Ezeiza Airport, where JSP stands ready to count us down. With her tablet tucked beneath her arm, Aliona makes a few final adjustments, including stuffing three envelopes into the clue box behind Jonathan St. Pierre.
“Remember that after you grab your clue, you must go to your assigned spot and read it for camera before you are allowed to continue with your Adventure. Does everyone know where they’re going to read their clue?”
“Yes, Aliona.”
“Good.” She looks us all over one more time, walking from team to team and pushing our shoulders down to get us to crouch slightly, like we’re starting a race. “Are we all set?” she asks, waiting for confirmation from the crew before stepping out of the way. “Energy, everyone! Whenever you’re ready, Jon.”
JSP straightens his gray windbreaker, lifts his chin, and smiles. “Teams, welcome to Buenos Aires, Argentina. As our top threefinishers in the last Adventure, you will have a thirty-minute head start on group two and a one-hour head start on group three. Adventurers ready? Let’s get out there!”
Yumi and I race to grab our envelope, then retreat to our designated clue-reading corner, right under the sign for the budget car rental company paying for regular ad placement this season. I tear the envelope open and read, “ ‘Individual Challenge: One team member must choose between COOK or BOOK.’ ”
“This is me, right?” Yumi asks.
“Yep, all you.” It’s the right decision. There are always four individual challenges in a season, and they must be evenly split between team members. Better to have Yumi take one of these, which don’t seem to involve heights, than have her get stuck rappelling into a cave when there are fewer teams and the margin for error is smaller.
“Then can you hand me BOOK?”
I nod and tuck the COOK clue into my jacket’s zippered pocket, hoping we won’t need it.
BOOK: Often called “The World’s Most Beautiful Bookstore” for its frescoed ceilings and stunning golden details, El Ateneo Grand Splendid is a 22,000-square-foot theater that opened over one hundred years ago as a performance space for Argentina’s most venerated dancers. It transformed into a cinema ten years later, and now stands as a gorgeous palace of books that draws literature lovers from around the world. Today, one member from each team will travel back in time to perform a classic Argentine tango on the stage once more.
NOTE: The Adventurer chosen for this challenge must also perform the COOK challenge, if teams switch tasks. Once switched, you may not switch back.
Yumi fist pumps. “I knew it.” She looks straight into the camera. “I knew it. I said this morning, ‘It’ll be tango.’ Didn’t I say that, Noelle?”
I lean in, using my head to push her head out of frame. “Yeah, she did. But she also said thafffb—” A hand covers my mouth.
“No, no. None of that,” Yumi says, pinning me in place against her to prevent me from revealing that she hoped the dancers would suffer a non-serious injury that might keep them from kicking our butts. She meant it as a joke, a throwaway comment with no intention behind it, but both of us know that the internet wouldn’t take it that way. I was never going to relay what she actually said, for that reason.
For as long as I can remember, being around Yumi has felt like playing. Not, like,playing games. Just playing. Fun. Joyful. So few things have been joyful and fun for me lately. I wanted to play again. I wanted to step back into that version of myself and us and her and this. I wanted to see if she’d react how I thought she would—and she did. This relationship will only last as long as our run on this show, and I was thinking that I wanted to take full advantage of it.
But I’m stupid. Because I didn’t consider that Yumi doing the exact thing I goaded her into would mean her palm on my lips. The scent that I already know will transport me back toTheAdventureversefor the rest of my life—Eau de Hotel Soap—somehow smells good on her skin. Her body is solid behind mine, but because she’s shorter than me, we don’t quite line up. If I were the one with my hand over her mouth, pulling her against me, then our bodies would…
Oh my God, Noelle, what are youdoing? I grab her hand and pull it away, whipping around and nearly hitting her with my braids.
Her face is flushed, cheeks raspberry colored. “Sorry, I—”
“No, don’t—” I realize my fingers are still circled around her wrist. I let go with a start. “No, it’s fine.”
She smiles, looking down at the paper in her hand. Abruptly, her smile disappears. “Oh, shit.”
I follow her gaze down to the paper. Nope. To theclue. Looking around, I see all the other teams and crews are gone. Ugh. Shit.
Now, I hate to keep bringing this up, but the love locks bridge was indeed a bridge with love locks on it. El Ateneo Grand Splendidisboth grand and splendid, with its frescoed ceiling and opera boxes packed with bookshelves. The whole store glows with the warm lighting of an intermission.
The only one dropping the ball so far is Red Rocks.
Yumi and I climb the short flight of steps onto the stage turned cozy cafe. It’s sandwiched—or bookended, depending on which pun you prefer—by heavy red velvet curtains. A neat grid of tables and chairs fills one part of the stage, the other clearly left open for this challenge.
She pauses. “Where now?”
Pointing at the heavy curtains, I say, “I’d try there. It makes sense you’d get ready backstage, right?”
“You’re a genius,” she says, dropping her pack on an empty tabletop. “Wish me luck!”
