Where Sea Meets Sky(32)

She swears an awful lot for being such a quiet little thing. She looks at me with big green eyes and seems abashed for a moment, as if she’s aware that she doesn’t know me very well. I smile back and she relaxes. “Anyway,” she goes on, brushing her curly hair behind her ear, “I decided to take all my savings and say, ‘Fuck you America, fuck you economy. I’m taking my money and I’m spending that shit somewhere else.’ So here I am.”

“Is New Zealand your first stop?” I ask her.

She nods. “Yup. After this I’m on to Australia, then Thailand, then Europe. My dream is to find a small village somewhere on the Mediterranean and teach English.” A wistful look passes over her eyes. “It could happen.”

“I’m a big believer in anything is possible if you want it bad enough,” I tell her, and my eyes briefly fly to the front where Gemma is concentrating on driving shift and eating at the same time. Nick is listening to his own music with headphones so he doesn’t have to put up with Pink Floyd—or us, I suppose.

“So what brought you here?” she asks me, and I have to watch my words. I can’t exactly say Gemma with Nick sitting up there with her.

“Curiosity,” I tell her. “That, and Flight of the Conchords.”

“Good choice,” she says appreciatively. She really is quite pretty. Maybe a little too innocent looking for my appetite, but she balances it out with a style that reminds me of Stevie Nicks.

She’s not Gemma though. She doesn’t have the mischievous eyes I keep trying to get a glimpse of in the rearview mirror.

“So, Gemma tells me this trip is pretty much all for you,” I say. “Which would definitely put her in the running for cousin of the year, wouldn’t you say?”

“She’s pretty awesome,” Amber admits.

“My ears are burning!” Gemma shouts from the front and flashes us a cheeky grin over her shoulder.

“I’m only saying good things,” Amber protests. She looks at me. “I said I would be happy going wherever Gemma wanted me to go, but she’s thrust all the responsibility on me. Now you’re here though, so you can choose.”

I shrug and lean back in the seat. “Honestly, I have no idea. Everything I’ve read about sounds amazing. I’m happy with pretty much everything, too.”

“Great,” Gemma says, “the plans are in the hands of the most indecisive people in the world. I thought you North Americans were all about enforcing your choices on people.”

“Well, I’m just being polite,” I say. “All the blame goes to Amber for being the American.”

Amber playfully punches me on the shoulder and giggles. “Hey, I resent that.”

I grin at her and sense Gemma watching us. I glance up and see her eyeing me briefly before looking away. For that one moment, she looks kind of bothered.

Gemma clears her throat. “All right, kids, since you both can’t make your own decisions, I’ll let you know what we’re doing. We’re heading down to the Waitomo Caves for two nights. I haven’t booked any of the tours yet, but the one I want to do is tomorrow morning so just give me the okay and I’ll call them. The cheapest one is ninety-nine dollars so I don’t know if that’s out of your budget.”

I raise my hand. “Excuse me, teacher, but what are the Waitomo Caves and why would I pay a hundred bucks to see them?”

Amber looks at me aghast. “You haven’t heard of the caves? Glowworms! Like, for real.”

I frown at her. “Okay . . .”

“The whole area is a spelunker’s paradise,” Gemma explains. “Hundreds of caves, big and small, though there are only a few that have tours available. The tour that I think would be choice has blackwater rafting, abseiling, and the whole glowworm thing.”

“Blackwater rafting?” I repeat, confused by everything she’s just said.

“They outfit us in wet suits and we sit in these inner tubes that take us down an underground river, through caves. You can see the glowworms hanging overhead. I’ve never done it but I’ve always wanted to.” She looks at Nick to see if he’s going to jump in, but he’s still got his headphones on and he’s looking out the window, totally oblivious. A flash of annoyance comes across her face but she shrugs it off and then smiles at me. “In order to get to the cave we have to abseil into this fern grotto type thing. I think it would be fun.”

“Wow,” I say. “Kind of a crazy introduction to the country.”

She shrugs. “Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet. Go big or go home, we say. Or, I say. Wait till we hit Rotorua on the way back and you get shoved down a hill in a giant hamster ball.”