When we get to Burano, I’m glad Yumi took this challenge. Not only is it going to be hilarious to watch her attempt it, but also, while she goes off to learn how to butcher an art form, I get to study Burano.
Waterways slice through it, an absence of cars due to the wooden footbridges and the narrow, wisteria-filled, shade-drenched alleyways. Houses in mint, tangerine, and lilac line the canals. Gauzy curtains billow in every doorway, just barely hiding interiors lit only by the afternoon sun. I try not to look, acutely aware of my role as a game show tourist (which I personally feel is even worse than Regular Tourist). I know my gaze guides Petter’s camera, and I’d like to keep privacy invasion offThe Adventureverse’s list of crimes.
When Yumi finally emerges, trailed by the Adventure Master, she’s wearing a black-and-white-striped shirt over stiff black pants and a flat-top straw brimmed hat with a blue ribbon wrapped around it. She kind of looks like our Parisian mime, actually. Without preamble, she grabs my hand as if she’s angry at it and shoves me into one of the long gondolas. The short tails of her hat’s ribbon flutter behind her, mimicking the shape of her two low pigtails.
I notice that Bo and Petter record us from the safety of the sidewalk, which says a lot about their confidence in Yumi.
Inelegantly, she grabs for a paddle and uses it to push off the canal wall. The gondola jerks, rocking violently enough that I grab at the edge of my seat with a gasp.
“No,” the short Italian man cuts in, to Yumi’s annoyance. “Nobody should be scared of the gondola. Fail.”
Yumi narrows her eyes at me. “She’s not scared. She’s just nervous she’ll fall in love with me.”
“She’s not already in love with you?” the man asks dismissively.
“Of course she is,” Yumi recovers, surprisingly smoothly. “But she’s terrified of commitment and this reminds her too much of a proposal.”
The man isn’t buying it, but I chime in anyway. “It’s simply too romantic. Terrifying.”
He rolls his eyes, jerking his head toward her practice station. “Fail. Back to classroom.” To me, he says, “Do not think about proposal next time.”
“What about a murder?” Yumi asks under her breath as she haphazardly guides us back to the docking post.
The Italian man clicks his tongue, but there’s an underlying playfulness to it, like Yumi is a troublesome grandchild. He follows her back to practice, leaving me to return to soaking in the sights.
It’s laughable how picturesque it is. It’s almost perfect. Actually, it’s better than perfect. It’s real. Thick stripes of algae grow along the low canal walls. It’s a fishing village, and it smells like one. That surprises me; I don’t know why I hadn’t considered how Italian canals would smell. The water is a murky green. And all of those things, rather than taking away from the experience, enhance it. They’re the difference between watching the color-corrected version ofThe Adventureverseon TV and living it.
On Yumi’s next attempt, I’m able to keep a pleasant smile onmy face despite her gondola-launching skills having improved roughly zero percent. Our trip down the canal is far from smooth, but this time I’m less afraid of being dunked into the green water and more afraid of losing my cool and cackling at the Italian opera number “sung” in a painfully non-Italian accent. The look she gives me as the words clatter and clang out of her mouth is deadly. It says,I’m not fucking doing this again. Keep it together.
She finishes the song, though it would be more accurate to call it a slam poetry performance, and the grumpy gondolier hands me our next clue, betraying only the tiniest hint of a smile as he pats Yumi on the back for a job mediocrely done.
As we step out of the gondola, my partner snatches the envelope out of my hand. “I earned this. You didn’t do anything.”
“Are you kidding?” I ask, widening my eyes and pointing at the canal. “That was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced. That was my Switzerland.”
Face deadpan, she grumbles, “I’ll show you Switzerland.”
I fight back a smile. She always gets nonsensical when she’s annoyed with me. “What does that mean, babe?”
Yumi ignores me, tearing the envelope open and reading, “ ‘Adventurers, retrace your steps to Santa Lucia station. You must remain in your costume.’ ” She looks up, confused.
I peek over her shoulder to read the rest of the clue and immediately see what gave her pause. “That’s it?”
She turns the clue over, but there isn’t anything on the back, either. “I guess so?”
I rack my brain, trying to rememberanytime the show has given a clue like this. It just hasn’t happened before. No indicationof whether we’re going to a challenge or the mat, or something else—that’s bizarre. “Is there anything else in the envelope?” I ask, unsettled.
Yumi flips the envelope upside down and shakes it, but nothing falls out. “No, just that.”
“Weird.”
“I guess we catch another water taxi, then. Dressed like this.” Yumi says, adjusting her hat.
“You look good,” I reassure her. “Better than good. Great. Hot, even.”
She glares, holding out her bag for me to carry in punishment for bullying her. And, to be honest, it’s a fair trade. “The people of Italy are going to think I’m mocking them.”
“Just talk a lot,” I suggest. “They’ll hear that you’re an American and then they’ll just blame your obnoxiousness on that.”
