“Call me as soon as you know anything, okay?”
“Okay, Mom. Say hi to Dad for me.”
“Okay. Swim fast.”
The line went dead. Swim fast. As if she’d swim any other way.
Erin took her bags to the kitchen, which was warming quickly in spring’s morning sun. “Christchurch is thawing out.”
“Yes,” Felicity said. “Winter is tough, but she’ll be right here soon.” She confirmed the time and location of Erin’s first race in Queenstown.
“You’re really coming?” Erin said.
“Of course I am. Swimming is important to you.”
“But it’s in Queenstown. Hours and hours away for a few short races.”
“I’m well aware of where Queenstown is. I already have a flight. I am happy to come.”
Lucky Felicity was flying to Queenstown. Erin had to endure an eight-hour road trip. Percy had rented a people mover, the kiwi word for minivan, to drive the four girls and Marama’s mom to the south end of the South Island. Erin scored the middle row, which she hoped would spare her the back seat’s added nausea.
On the road, Percy and Marama’s mom talked about rugby for an entire hour. Ruby and Gemma traded music in the backseat, and Marama snoozed next to Erin, whose earbuds courted a headache.
New Zealand was waking up to spring. Lush flora and fauna grew everywhere: splashes of purple and pink spotted green hills, as mountains loomed in the distance. Erin turned off her music and focused on whichever mountain was furthest away.
The highway was a two-lane road with a higher speed limit, and Erin appreciated signs limiting drivers to 100 kilometers per hour. Driving 100 felt cool, even if it was only 60 miles per hour.
About an hour and a half in, they circumvented an enormous, calm lake surrounded by mountains. A few inches above the water, a layer of fog suggested mystery and intrique.
This was what Mrs. Carey had meant when she taught Erin the word sublime in sixth grade. Mrs. Carey claimed a sublime scene would make Erin feel something.
She felt compelled. Calm.
Michigan wasn’t sublime, but Erin’s annual retreat into the U.P. had felt like this. Every summer, she left everything behind—her friends, her classes, her expectations—for ten glorious weeks.
This time, she’d brought her expectations with her.
A half hour later, they passed a fogless lake with no evidence of humans. No houses, just nature, hanging out, being gorgeous.
Erin wished they could pause here, but Percy plugged southward to Queenstown, driving through one sublime scene, and rounding a mountain to spy another. New Zealand must be the most densely sublime country in the world.
And, determined to travel without vomiting, Erin kept her focus wholly outside the minivan. She saw it all.
Four hours in, traffic came to an abrupt halt. Percy cracked the windows and cut the engine.
“Why are we stopped?” Erin asked.
“No idea,” Percy said. “People’ll clear out, I’m sure.”
No one else seemed remotely concerned. Traffic resumed ten minutes later but remained slow and deliberate until they passed a herd of cattle. On the road. Being herded by two dogs.
A hundred cattle had halted highway traffic, and no one batted an eye. Herd in the road was a totally normal thing.
Erin started laughing and couldn’t stop.
“All right there, Erin?” Ruby shouted.
Marama’s mom turned to stare as Percy studied Erin in the rearview mirror.
Erin tried to stifle herself but chortled loudly. “Cows in the road!”
“Herds change pastures so they don’t run out of grass,” Percy said.
“I’m sure, it’s just …”
Erin had seen people in movies so high they couldn’t control their laughter; this felt exactly like that. It took her several minutes to breathe normally.
“You all right?” Percy said.
She giggled a little. “It’s just absurd. We sat in traffic—no one blaring their horns or swearing or anything—and then resumed as though we hadn’t just wasted fifteen minutes while a herd of cattle walked down the road.”
“What’s fifteen minutes?” Percy said. “No rush.”
“That’s the thing. No one is in any rush. You’re all so polite.”
Marama’s mom said, “Does no good to rush. Cattle take as long as they take. Sounding the horn would just make everyone angry.”
Erin stared, blankly. “But they’re wasting your time.”
“Sometimes we wait on their cows. Sometimes they wait on ours.”
Marama’s mom was almost prophetic.
Erin was going 100 in a people mover with five people she’d met a few weeks prior, driving south through mountains and around lakes in an island country in the middle of nowhere on her way to a swim meet.
A herd of cattle had detained their drive southward, toward colder weather. And it was spring in September. Everything was backward and upside-down. Call it a break or a fermata or a holiday or a sabbatical, but she was definitely out of Wheaton.
And while she’d been living in Chicago’s flat western suburbs, while she’d been killing herself in the pool and racking up contiguous days of cello practice and engaging in intensive study in everything under the sun, this gorgeous country was literally under the sun.
And she’d been missing it.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Erin congratulated herself for making it to lunch without vomiting. She took a few nibbles at the picnic table on the side of the road—next to a lake, naturally—before returning to the van.
Four hours later, they rounded a mountain to find another great lake.
“Hello, Wakatipu!” Marama’s mom said.
Lake Wakatipu didn’t rival Lake Michigan’s size, but nestled among ragged mountains, it was awesome, in the truest sense of the word. Slanted rows of houses, each with a birds-eye view of the lake, covered the mountains.
Queenstown was a quaint mountain village on an almost-great lake. Erin’s heart was full to bursting.
Just as the sun was setting, Percy steered away from Lake Wakatipu. Off the major thoroughfare, they began a steep ascent to Summer’s aunt’s house. Summer’s aunt had refused to rent out the house during national championships for three years, just in case Summer needed it.
This year, Summer wasn’t with them, but her aunt’s offer stood, of course.
Percy missed the turnoff by a few meters and reversed down the hill to try again. After
