They don’t ask where Perth is. They just shrug.
We turn off into the grove of brown winter trees, brushing branches out of our faces. We duck onto a narrower dirt path and keep going, no longer side by side. Finch is in front, and I pay more attention to the shine of his hair and the way he ambles, loose-jointed and fluid, than I do to the scenery.
Suddenly we’re there, in the middle of a brown circle. A wooden bench sits underneath a tree, a picnic table just past it. The sign is to our right—INDIANA HIGHPOINT, HOOSIER HILL, ELEV. 1257 FT. The marker is straight ahead—a wooden stake poking up out of the ground in the middle of a pile of stones, no wider or higher than a pitcher’s mound.
“This is it?” I can’t help saying.
Some high point. It’s amazingly underwhelming. But then what did I expect?
He takes my hand and pulls me up after him so that we’re standing on the stones.
In that instant his skin touches mine, I feel a little shock.
I tell myself it’s nothing more than the understandable jolt of actual physical contact when you aren’t used to it from someone new. But then these electric currents start shooting up my arm, and he is rubbing my palm with his thumb, which makes the currents go shooting through the rest of me. Uh-oh.
In the Australian accent he says, “What do we think?” His hand is firm and warm, and somehow, big as it is, it fits with mine.
“If we’re here from Perth?” I’m distracted by the electric currents and trying not to show it. If I do, I know he will never let me hear the end of it.
“Or maybe we’ve come from Moscow.” He has a good Russian accent too.
“We are seriously pissed.”
In his own voice he says, “Not as pissed as the folks over at Sand Hill, the second-highest spot in Indiana. It’s only 1,076 feet, and they don’t even have a picnic area.”
“If they’re second, they don’t really need one.”
“An excellent point. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not even worth looking at. Not when you’ve got Hoosier Hill.” He smiles at me, and for the first time I notice how blue his eyes are—like, bright-sky blue. “At least it feels that way standing here with you.” He closes his blue eyes and breathes in. When he opens them again, he says, “Actually, standing next to you makes it feel as high as Everest.”
I yank my hand back. Even after I let go, I can feel the stupid current. “Shouldn’t we be collecting things? Writing stuff down? Shooting video? How do we organize this?”
“We don’t. When we’re in the act of wandering, we need to be present, not watching it through a lens.”
Together, we look out over the circle of brown and the bench and the trees and the flat, white landscape beyond. Ten months ago, I would have stood here writing this place in my head. There is this sign, which is a good thing, because otherwise you would never know you’re looking at the highest point in Indiana.… I would have thought up an entire backstory for the kids, something epic and exciting. Now they’re just Indiana farm kids hanging on a fence.
I say, “I think this is the ugliest place I’ve ever seen. Not just here. The whole state.” I hear my parents telling me not to be negative, which is funny because I’ve always been the happy one. It’s Eleanor who was moody.
“I used to think that. But then I realized, believe it or not, it’s actually beautiful to some people. It must be, because enough people live here, and they can’t all think it’s ugly.” He smiles out at the ugly trees and the ugly farmland and the ugly kids as if he can see Oz. As if he can really, truly see the beauty that’s there. In that moment I wish I could see it through his eyes. I wish he had glasses to give me. “Also, I figure while I’m here, I might as well get to know it, you know—see what there is to see.”
“Wander Indiana?”
“Yeah.”
“You look different than you did the other day.”
He glances at me sideways, eyes half closed. “It’s the altitude.”
I laugh and then stop myself.
“It’s okay to laugh, you know. The earth’s not going to split open. You’re not going to hell. Believe me. If there’s a hell, I’ll be there ahead of you, and they’ll be too busy with me to even check you in.”
I want to ask what happened to him. Is it true he had a breakdown? Is it true he OD’d? Where was he at the end of last semester?
“I’ve heard a lot of stories.”
“About me?”
“Are they true?”
“Probably.”
He shakes the hair out of his eyes and stares at me good and hard. His gaze trails slowly down my face to my mouth. For a second, I think he’s going to kiss me. For a second, I want him to.
“So we can cross this one off, right? One down, one to go. Where to next?” I sound like my dad’s secretary.
“I’ve got a map in my backpack.” He doesn’t make a move to get it. Instead he stands there, breathing it in, looking all around. I want to get to the map because that’s how I am, or used to be, ready for the next thing once I’ve got it in my mind. But he’s not going anywhere, and then his hand finds mine again. Instead of snatching it back, I make myself stand here too, and actually it’s nice. The electric currents are racing. My body is humming. The breeze is blowing, rustling the leaves on the trees. It’s almost like music. We stand side by side, looking out and up and around.
And then he says, “Let’s jump.”