Foreign Exchange (16 page)

I’m only half awake, but I can feel my teeth chattering.

“Should I ask them for another blanket?” Sawyer whispers.

“You’re awake
?”

He smiles
his yes. It’s quiet. Everyone else must be sound asleep. I check my watch and it’s just after midnight.

I
steady my teeth, realizing I’m not actually
that
cold. “I’m okay. I must have been dreaming I was in Siberia or something.”

He laughs a little.

I scratch my arm. I’d worn one of
my favorite tops to dinner, a lacey thing with bare shoulders and little attached sleeves. It’s all lace, it’s not warm, and it’s the worst possible choice for comfortable sleeping attire.

“I guess you didn’t bring a change of clothes,” Sawyer whispers.

I shake my head.

He gets up and moves to
his luggage. He comes back with a red T-shirt he'd been wearing earlier. He passes it over and then lies down beside me again.

“I
suspected I’d need at least one change of clothes.”

I rub it together in my hands.
It's soft like the gray one of his I have at home. “Are you sure?”

He nods
, so I get up and head to the bathroom to change. I’ve gotten used to the steady rumble of the train, but walking through the car, I suddenly find myself off balance.

The bathroom is tiny, a lot like the bathroom
on the airplane. I pick up Sawyer's shirt, and can’t help myself. I bring it to my face and sniff it. This time it doesn’t just smell like fabric softener. It smells like
him
.

I
take off the lacey top and slip his over my head, reveling in the softness around me. Before I leave the bathroom, I decide it would be even more comfortable without a bra. I unhook mine and slip it out through one of the sleeves.

When I head back to our seats,
I hold my balled-up lacey shirt and bra in front of my chest, then shove my clothes down on the side of my seat and pull the blanket up to my shoulders. I think Sawyer may have fallen back to sleep, but then he whispers, “Hey, Cuz.”

I smile. “Do you think Amelia really bought that we’re cousins?”

He shrugs with his upper shoulder. “It seemed like it.”

“Well, I hope she doesn’t talk to Matt, because he knows we’re not.” Sawyer doesn’t look worried by this information. “Speaking of Matt…
he said something…when we were leaving."

“What did he say?”

“Something about you being gay.” I laugh. “I don’t know where he got that from, but also about your hair—why you keep it so long. Isn’t that weird?”

Sawyer
chuckles uncomfortably and angles his face away. From his weird reaction, my mind is going all sorts of places without my permission:
Did he used to be gay? Is that why he doesn't like to touch girls? Does he still like guys—and girls?
 

Suddenly
, I remember a couple of years ago, there was a rumor going around our school for about five minutes about Sawyer being a homosexual. Some of the jocks started it, probably jealous of all the female attention he garnered, but when Sawyer started to bring college girls around and make out with them in public, the rumor quickly lost its credibility.

“Don’t get me wrong,” I say, hoping he’s not taking it as a criticism from me. “I think your hair’s sexy.” I feel my cheeks redden and
I'm glad for the dim lights.

“You do, do you?”
He smirks. “Because that’s exactly why I keep it long.” Suddenly, just for a second, I feel like I have the old Sawyer back. The Sawyer I used to joke around with, and who always knows how to make me laugh. But then his face grows serious.

“A few years ago I did some stuff, some modeling. I’m not particularly proud of it, but you have to start somewhere in the modeling world. Because I have a bit of muscle, the gay exercise mags were the easiest place to get work.” He rushes on with his words, so I can tell this
is something that embarrasses him. “I haven’t shot for them in a couple of years. Last year I got a great gig, a shoot for
Esquire
, so things are getting better.”

I’m stuck on him saying
gay exercise mags
. I try to read him, but he’s not meeting my eyes. “So, like, what kind of modeling? Were you––”

“What?” he asks. I wish he could read my mind, because I don’t want to have to say it. But he’s forcing me.

“Doing gay stuff?”

He laughs out loud, and I have to shush him so we don’t wake the other passenger
s. “No, nothing like that. It’s just...I think that’s where the rumor started. Someone from school must have seen a magazine picture. If it ever went any further, got passed around, and especially after that rumor a few years ago, people at school would definitely get the wrong idea.”

I wonder why that would
be such a bad thing. I mean, several guys at our school are gay, and no one makes a big deal about it. Then again, I guess it might interfere with all of his female attention.

“So will you tell me more about it
, then? About the modeling?”

“Yeah, I’ll tell you.” He takes a breath. “I guess I should start by telling you that all those summers when Tristan told you I was visiting my grandparents in Vermont—”

“You weren’t?”

He shakes his head. “My aunt lined up some modeling gigs in New York. Tristan went the first year.”

I remember her going to “Vermont” for the summer she turned thirteen.

“She didn’t get any work, and she didn’t want to look like a failure, so she and Mom decided we shouldn’t tell anyone.  I stayed with my aunt each summer and made some decent money, for a kid.
Then added some weekend modeling for art classes in Detroit. My mom was adamant about keeping me busy with the business, but Tristan freaked out every time I suggested taking any work locally or anywhere around Ainslea. With the college work, I could at least keep Mom happy, and it was under the radar of anyone Tristan knew enough to keep her happy too. That’s how I was paying for the Jeep.”

“So your mom was behind the modeling? Seriously?”

“Pretty much. But ultimately the New York stuff was because it’s what Tris wanted. She was always trying so hard to break in. It’s just so much easier for a guy. My mom thought—well, maybe we all did—that if I could get some solid work, we could start bringing Tris along…maybe someone would pick her up, too. But it’s not an easy life. There are so many shady operations out there, especially when it comes to young girls. That’s why I’ve been so worried.”

I nod, trying to let all this new information set
tle in.

“Still cold?” he asks, bringing me back to the moment.

“A little. But I’ll be okay. I’ll ask for another blanket when they come around again.
”

He looks at me, his eyes going back and forth over mine
like he’s trying to read them. I’m about to assure him that I can ask myself and he should get some sleep, but then he says, so quietly I barely hear him, “This chair’s probably big enough…if you want to…” he motions between us, “…share.”

My heart gallops inside my chest.
Did he just…

The way he’s looking at me, he did. He
totally did.

But then…I close my eyes and take a deep, cleansing breath.
Calm down, Jamie.
This is not about that. He’s being kind and caring. We’re both worried about his sister. And that’s all.

I lift my blanket and sit up, momentarily forgetting about my braless state. I
flip the other way and shimmy toward him, then pull the blanket up to my throat. He's moved all the way to the far edge of his seat, and I’m surprised that there really is a lot of room for both of us.

But
then he comes closer anyway.

He lifts
the edge of my blanket and snuggles underneath it with me. His warm hand rubs my arm, then up under the shoulder of my—
his
—T-shirt. His arm wraps around my waist and he pulls me even closer. I swear I can feel his quickened heartbeat against my back.

“This is nice,” he whispers into my hair. All I can do is offer an infinitesimal nod.
Nice
.
So, so nice
. “This will help me sleep.”

And I want him to sleep. I remember that. As much as I want just a little bit more—a kiss
to my neck, another touch, or a whisper in the dark—I know this has to be enough.

Or neither of us will sleep at all.

Chapter Sixteen

I wake up with Sawyer still snuggled up to my back, his arm around my waist, but now my hand is wrapped into his. I can tell by his even breathing that he’s still sleeping. I want to glance at one of our phones for the time, but that would mean pulling my hand from his, so I don’t.

It’s getting light outside. It must be after seven, only a couple of hours before we’re in Milan
. A couple of hours before I’ll know if Tristan’s okay.

When Sawyer starts to stir, he
nuzzles into me. It feels nice, and it's something I've thought about doing with him in the privacy of my bedroom, but at the same time, my head is clearer this morning. I have to wonder in his half-asleep state if he even knows it’s me here with him. How many college girls has he snuggled up and slept with? Did he go home with college girls after his weekend modeling jobs? And what about Amelia? How far had he actually taken that, to get on the trip to Europe?

Another twinge of guilt hits me at the thought of
using other people. I'd assured Matt I liked him, and there was nothing between Sawyer and me. And Matt was willing to help me because of that.

I
gently wriggle free, leaving the blanket for Sawyer. I stand to head for the bathroom, but quickly remember my bra, and snatch it and my lacey top up and hold them in front of my chest.

“You can wear
my shirt if it’s more comfortable,” Sawyer says groggily.

“Oh, um, thanks.”

I splash some water on my face and lean against the bathroom wall for a few seconds, processing.

I know I need to just take last night for what it was:
A really nice time where we could be a comfort for one another. My mind has veered off course a bit about it, so I need to find a way to just calm the heck down. We have more important things to worry about.

Five minutes later, I head back, ready to talk business. What’s our plan for the day? How can we track Tristan down and
find my dad before the train that leaves for Barcelona tonight?

Sawyer has his seat propped up and
a map open on the tray table in front of him when I return.

“Double-checking our route?” I ask.

“There’s a lot to cover in Milan and it looks like a complicated city. I hope we can do it in a day. There’s a possibility we’ll find her at the address she’d given my parents when she first arrived.” The way he says it makes me think it’s not a
big
possibility.

B
y the time we pull into the
Milano Centrale
train station, I barely even care that we’re in Italy. I barely care about the ornate, high-arching ceiling and the Italian chatter I hear all around me. I only care about finding my best friend and making sure she’s okay.

We exit the train, and
I’m racing toward the main doors, when Sawyer says, “Hey, hold up. We should probably check our email.”  Sawyer leads us to a cafe, grabs a table, and orders two coffees. He pulls out his lethargic computer.

It
’s all I can do to sit still across from him. I get why this could be important, but so far checking email has done no good, and it’s not like we have time to spare. While he’s doing that, I take out our international cell phones and plug his number into mine and mine into his. Being in a brand new city—a brand new country—makes me suddenly nervous.

He’s shaking his head at what must be an empty inbox.

I hit send on Tristan’s Italian phone number, and wait. It rings once. Then twice.

I sit perfectly still while it rings maybe fifteen
more times against my ear. Finally Sawyer reaches out a hand for the phone. “She’s still not answering.”

Even though that’s obvious, his words annoy me. “But why the hell wouldn’t she answer? She knows I
’m in Europe. Sure, it’s a strange number, but how would she expect me to call?”

“Sh-sh-sh,” Sawyer says, and I realize how loud I’ve gotten. How worried I suddenly am. “It might be nothing,” he says, talking me down. “
She might be in the shower, or still sleeping. Maybe she found out from our parents that I came to Europe. I told them not to tell her, but...” He trails off and I remember him saying the word “surprise” to his mom at the airport.

He’s right
. What if his parents did give it away? And then she’ll know I’ve been keeping things from her, too.

“Maybe you should get in touch with your parents.
Ask them when they last heard from Tristan and if they have any news. You could tell them our class is doing a short excursion near Italy and you want to try and meet up with her. Ask them if they let on that you’re over here, or if you can still surprise her.”

“Good idea,” he says.
Since they’ll still be sleeping, he decides to email.

When he’s done and I’ve checked my empty email inbox,
we head to an information desk. It’s hard to wait in line when we’re in such a hurry. Everyone seems to be in a hurry here, though, and the line moves quickly. I have to watch carefully to hold my place in line, because every time I turn my head, somebody tries to butt in front of me.

When we’re finally at the front, I speak my first Italian words in years. I’ve prepared my question in my head, but it still comes out awkward, like it’s rusted to my mouth. I pass the lady the only address Tristan had given
anyone. I point to our map and show her the route we’d drawn out.

The lady is already looking at the man behind me in line when she points through the train station and says, “
Metro. Verde a Loreto
,” which, thankfully, I can follow. We’re looking for the green metro line, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Loreto Street on our map.

Outside the train station there are big industrial buildings everywhere, and I wonder for a second if we’re in the right city.
Could this possibly be the modeling capital of the world?

T
he sparse directions seem easy enough to navigate, and soon we’re pushing our way off the metro at the Loreto stop. The air feels drier than it had in Barcelona—probably because we’re more inland.

We reach street level in a commercial area. The streets are nicer, but windy, and don’t seem to form any kind of a grid. There are hotels scattered around, which makes me wonder if we’re in a touristy area
, which seems like a good thing as far as Tristan’s safety goes.

Sawyer pulls out his map and we study it again. It turns out Loreto is not just a street, but an entire area, and a maze of an area at that. Our first planned stop is the address Tristan had given us for where her host family supposedly lives. Who knows if she ever really was at this address, but if her parents had mailed her anything, it would have been here, so we decide it’s a good place to start.

I find
Viale Monza
on the map and run my finger along to try and find the intersection we’re standing at. But there’s no such intersection. We ask a street vendor, and he doesn’t seem to know what we’re talking about. We walk a couple of blocks farther and ask again, and finally we’re given an answer including a lot of
forse,
which means maybe. We walk another block and ask again, and it seems we’re on the right track. We continue that method until Sawyer figures out how these directions are meshing with our map.

“This way,” he says.

His legs are a lot longer than mine, and I practically have to run to keep up, but I don’t want to ask him to slow down. We round the corner onto
Viale Monza
and I scan the buildings for numbers. It takes a lot of looking, but I finally find them in little carved plates on the corners.

Sawyer points ahead, obviously having already figured out the direction the numbers are running. He starts reciting the address numbers aloud as we get close, but some of them jump wildly out of sequence.

“There it is!” I point at the same time he seems to realize it.

The address we're looking for
has a wide, welcoming doorway and a sign in English:
Bed & Breakfast
. It doesn’t surprise me that Tristan would have chosen a place like this and my face, my whole countenance, lightens.

“She’s here,” I say. “She has to be here
!”

Sawyer’s smiling too
. He holds the door open for me. No, it’s not a host family home, but we already knew that. This area, this bed and breakfast, it all seems so right for Tristan, so
safe
, and I’m feeling better and better by the second.

We
walk up to the front desk, which looks more like a hotel than a homey bed and breakfast. The desk clerk is on the phone, speaking perfect Italian, so it surprises me when she hangs up and says, “Can I help you?” in perfect English.

Are we that obviously American? We must be. And I get the feeling that we are exactly who
m this place caters to.

“I’m looking for my sister who
’s been staying here,” Sawyer says. “Tristan Bishop?”

The lady is friendly, with a big red
-lipsticked smile. She nods and turns to her computer. Her brow furrows a little, and she asks Sawyer if he could please spell the last name. He does, and after a moment, her brow crinkles more.

“I’m afraid she has
not been staying
here
.”

I gulp away my smile. “It might have been
last week.”

She shakes her head. “
We do not have that name in our system. She would not have checked into a room under that last name during this year.”

Sawyer and I glance at each other, worry working its way back onto both of our faces.

“She gave us this address,” Sawyer says to the lady, but it sounds more like a plea than a statement.

“Oh!” T
he woman’s face brightens. “Maybe she reserved a box.” The woman moves over to the other side of the counter where I see several rows of mail slots. She flips through a card file. “You said the last name was Bishop, yes?”

We both nod.

“Ah, yes, I see it here. Tristan, you said?”

We both nod a little harder. It’s our first link to her actually being in this country at all.

“Yes, she registered for a mailbox on 5 September.” September fifth, just after she would have arrived in Italy. “But it looks like she hasn’t been in to pick up anything for several days.” The lady reaches behind her to one of the numbered boxes and pulls out a stack of letters, then fans them apart with her thumb a couple of times.

It’s a lot of mail for someone who’s
been here less than two weeks.

“Well…we could pass those along to her
,” Sawyer says.

Good thinking, Sawyer!

But the red-lipsticked lady says no. “We would need to see her passport. It’s in the rental agreement.”

“Please,” Sawyer says, sounding desperate.

The woman explains to him again about needing to see Tristan’s passport. This time her words are slower, as though she thinks we may not have understood.

As she’s telling Sawyer this, my eyes are on the lady’s hands. On the letters. I can make out the name of one of the modeling agencies from
Sawyer’s list as one of the return addresses.

“So we couldn’t just see them for a second?” I ask, motioning to the stack.

When I look up at the lady, her smiling face has straightened. She pulls the letters back from me. “I suggest you tell your friend to come and pick them up soon.” She glances back at the card file. “Her box is getting full and she’ll need to make a payment before the start of next month if she doesn’t want us to send these back.”

W
e stand there for several seconds staring at each other. But I can tell, this lady won’t back down. Besides, at least we have somewhere to start on our list:
Giardino di Modelli Agenzia.