Are We There Yet? Read Online Free PDF Page A

Along with the rest of the passengers, Elijah hopes a sudden stop will jolt Danny to the ground.
    Elijah remains in his seat until the plane has come to a complete stop. Danny passes over their carry-ons. Penelope leans over and says she can't believe she's finally in Venice.
    Elijah nods his head and looks out the window.
    Venice.
    But not really Venice. The airport.
    It is raining outside.

Elijah can't help it. He scans the crowd at the gate outside of customs, looking to see if someone is waiting for him. As if Cal could truly drive the bitchin' Camaro across the Atlantic Ocean and wait with a lei, just to be inappropriate.
    “Let's go,” Danny says, hiking his bag higher on his shoulder. “And tie your shoelaces.”
    Elijah doesn't care about his shoelaces, but he ties them anyway. He nearly loses Danny in the airport rush. He doesn't care much about that, either, except for the fact that Danny has the money and the name of the hotel. (Typical.) Elijah nurtures a half-fantasy of disappearing into the crowd, making his own way to Venice, living by his wits for a week and then returning at the end of it all to share the flight home with his brother. He can't imagine that Danny would mind.
    But Danny has stopped. Danny is waiting and watching— watching his watch, tapping his foot, prodding Elijah forward. International crowds huddle-walk between them. Families with suitcases. A girl who drops her Little Mermaid doll.
    Elijah returns the doll and makes his way to his waiting brother, who asks, “What took you so long?”
    Elijah doesn't know what to say. Shrugs were invented to answer such questions, so that's just what Elijah does.

Italy should make Danny feel rich, but instead it makes him feel poor. To change 120 (dollars) into 180,000 (lire) should make a man feel like he's expanded his wealth. But instead it makes the whole concept of wealth seem pointless. The zeros—the measures of American worth—are grotesque, mocking. The woman at the exchange bureau counts out his change with a smile—
Look at all the money you get.
But Danny would feel better with Monopoly chump change.
    He leads Elijah out to the vaporetto launch. It's quite a scam they're running—the only way into Venice from the airport, really. It's one of the worst feelings Danny knows—the acknowledgment that he's going to pay through the nose, and there's nothing he can do about it.
    “One hundred twenty thousand lire for the men,” the vaporetto driver (the vaporetteer?) says in flawed English.
    Danny shakes his head.
    “Best price. Guarantee,” the driver insists. Danny can tell he's been brushing up on his Best Buy commercials. Probably has his American cousins videotape them.
    Danny tries three other drivers. Other tourists gratefully take the vaporettos he discards.
    “You really expect me to pay one hundred and twenty thousand lire—
eighty dollars
—for a vaporetto ride?” Danny asks the fourth driver.
    “It is not a vaporetto. A
water taxi
, sir.”
    Elijah steps into the boat.
    “Sounds great,” he tells the driver. “Thank you.”

It is pouring now. Cold and rainy and gray.
    Elijah can't see much through the clouds and mist. Still, he's thrilled by the approach—thrilled by the wackiness of it all. Because—he's realizing this now—Venice is a
totally
wacky city. A loony idea that's held its ground for hundreds of years. Elijah has to respect that.
    The buildings are
right on the water.
Elijah can't believe it. Sure, he's seen Venice in the movies—
Portrait of a Room with a View of the Wings of the Lady Dove
. But he'd always assumed that they picked the best places to show. Now Elijah sees the whole city is like that. The buildings line the canals like long sen-tences—each house a word, each window a letter, each gap a punctuation. The rain cannot diminish this.
    Elijah walks to the front of the taxi and stands with the driver. The boat moves at a walking pace. It leaves a wider canal—Elijah can't help but think