I’d hurried through the quick change, then a rapid brushing of my teeth before I’d dashed cold water onto a face that felt as if it had the grime of nations embedded in it, and realized only then that there was no way to dry it. I’d settled for wiping it on my shirt, in the end. The shirt wasn’t a whole lot better than the jeans anyway.
The whole thing was a long, long way from first class, let alone Hemi’s Gulfstream G650, but that was just too bad. Coming here had been my choice, Koro would be waiting for me, I would get a job, and it would all get better. I didn’t have to solve all my problems right now. I just had to get through today so I could start over tomorrow.
Except Koro wasn’t waiting.
Finally, I went over to the Vodafone kiosk and waited as patiently as I could behind a young couple whose gigantic backpacks leaned against the counter beside them like fatigued travelers. Even though it took a good fifteen minutes, there was still no reassuringly broad-shouldered grandfather figure to be seen when the clerk had replaced my SIM card and I had restored my contacts and was dialing Koro’s number.
Four rings. Voicemail.
“Uh,” I said at the beep, “Hi. It’s Hope. I’m here. I guess you’re stuck in traffic.” It was barely six-thirty in the morning, but I did know that Auckland sported one thing New York City shared. Traffic. “I’m just, uh, letting you know I’m waiting for you in the arrivals hall.”
In the half hour that followed, I sat on an uncomfortable chair and called twice more, and he still didn’t answer. The sinking feeling in my stomach wasn’t just nausea now, and my fluttering heartbeat wasn’t just for myself. Something had happened.
What now? I wanted to sit on the floor and cry like a little girl, but I hadn’t been a little girl for a long, long time, so that wasn’t an option.
What would Hemi do in my shoes? I’d left him, and I might have destroyed my future with him for good, but he was still the person whose judgment and initiative I admired most—well, except in the matter of interpersonal relationships. I longed to have him with me right now, because he’d know what to do, and then he’d make it happen.
Well, then, figure that out and do it.
Who did I know?
I knew Hemi and Koro and nobody else here, not to have their number. And I wasn’t calling Hemi. What, I’d left him to establish my independence, and twenty-four hours later, I was calling him and asking him what to do, begging him to work his magic and rescue me? No.
All right—what could have happened?
Koro had changed his mind and wasn’t coming for me. He’d talked to Hemi, and the two of them were trying to force me to go back.
No. Not possible. Hemi would never, ever have left me here alone, and neither would his grandfather. It was that Te Mana thing. My baby was going to have a father with protectiveness embedded in his very DNA. I got a flash of Hemi’s big arms cradling somebody tiny and helpless, and knew exactly how gently and carefully he’d hold our baby. How fiercely he’d guard us both.
Stop that.
Right. Back to thinking rationally. Koro wouldn’t have left me here on purpose, so . . . an accident on the road holding him up? An emergency at home? No, he’d have called me, surely. All right, a simple dead battery in his phone. Mine was on its last red sliver of battery life itself. Or the likeliest thing of all: he’d mixed up the day. I couldn’t remember what day it was myself, now that I’d crossed the International Date Line and gained nearly twenty-four hours. Koro had looked at the confirmation I’d hastily emailed him and assumed it was for tomorrow. And today he was . . . well, sleeping, probably, with his phone off.
Go, or stay?
Go. Katikati was only a three-hour drive, and there was no point waiting here any longer. I’d leave Koro another message along the way telling him what I was doing and when I’d get there before my phone died entirely. I wasn’t in Outer Mongolia, I was in New Zealand. There was an information booth in the corner, and if I knew anything at all about Kiwis, I knew the person behind that counter would be helpful.
Right, then. I was going to Katikati, where at least I knew my way around and nothing was confusing, and there would be a shower and a bed somewhere. Where I could get ready to face tomorrow.
It was actually more like six hours later by the time I’d trudged the couple of uphill miles from the Katikati i-Site, the information center where the bus had discharged me, to the little house on the hill. I’d wolfed down a chicken pie at a brief rest stop that felt like hours ago, but I was hungry again, and so far beyond “tired” that I seemed to be floating in some alternate space, with my consciousness fully outside the shell that was my body. And, yes, it was still raining, the wind was still blowing straight from Antarctica, and despite an anorak with the hood pulled up, I was soaked and shivering. For the last half mile, the part where I was dragging my suitcase behind me up a final steep hill that felt more like a mountain, with my backpack feeling like it held bricks instead of a laptop, I honestly wondered if I was going to make it.
I did, of course. You could always do more than you thought you could, and your limit was always another step farther ahead. I’d learned that long ago. And when I reached the driveway, Koro’s car was there. A much-used small Toyota SUV, parked beside his boat.
I hadn’t realized how much I’d feared he’d been in an accident until my knees threatened to buckle. He was fine, and he was home—at least there was light coming from inside.
I hauled the suitcase up four wooden steps to the broad front porch, blessedly under cover and out of the rain, and knocked on the door.
Ten seconds, twenty, and I knocked again, louder this time. I was sweating despite the cold, and not just from the physical effort and the anxiety over my welcome. The minute I’d seen the house, my insistent bladder, high on hormones and the suggestive rain, had flashed “TOILET” in giant red letters and declared a state of emergency. I was shifting from foot to foot, wiggling like a five-year-old.
When there was still no answer, I tried the door. It was unlocked. Thank goodness for New Zealand. I pulled my suitcase hastily inside, slammed the door behind me, and didn’t stop to deal with my streaming jacket and soaked boots, just headed straight for the bathroom.
Is there any relief in the world more blissful than finally peeing when you’re all the way past desperate? It was very nearly orgasmic. At least, I was shuddering. Then I was washing my hands and face and drying them on an actual towel, and that wasn’t bad, either.
Finally, I stripped off my dripping jacket and unzipped my boots. I’d have to wipe down the water I’d tracked in before Koro came home, because wearing shoes in a Maori home just wasn’t done, let alone walking through the house in muddy boots. But after that, I’d get rid of my wet clothes, take a shower that used way too much hot water, see if Koro had any herbal tea, plug in my phone so I could text Karen, and then lie down and sleep for a day.
Koro wouldn’t mind, surely. Have a rest and a think, he’d told me. Come to me, my darling. He wouldn’t mind.
I picked up my jacket and shoes and left the bathroom, finally flipping on the light in the hallway that I hadn’t bothered with on my mad dash.
Something made me look to the left, toward Koro’s bedroom. I stood there for a moment as if I’d grown roots, my mind trying to take in what I was seeing. And then I heard, as if from far away, the clunk that was my boots hitting the floor, and I’d covered the five or six steps to the half-open bedroom door.