Calling on her friends was the right move. She rallied, straightened her shoulders, and said, “Okay, girls, up we go.” Then, to me, she said, “And you, my girl, need to go at your own pace. I’m fine with your mom and Christopher. Really, go.”
So I flew up those last stairs, wanting that first sight of Machu Picchu—and yes, wanting to catch up to Quattro. Breathing hard, I finally neared the imposing stone pillars of the Sun Gate, Intipunku. Quattro stood before the gateway. A small sliver of hope sprouted inside me. Had he remembered our bet? Was he waiting for me?
If he had been, he sure wasn’t acting like it. After the first “Hey!” Quattro looked like he regretted the betraying warmth in his voice. He stayed where he was, alone. Hurt, I pretended to fix the zipper on my jacket, then watched Hank urging Helen to join him on the other side of the Sun Gate: “Come on, Helen. Come on.” He might as well have bent over and patted his thighs the way I called to Auggie: Come on, girl. Come on!
Hank jerked his head toward the trail leading down to Machu Picchu, and with a heroic puff of his chest, he said, “The other guys already left, but I waited for you.”
“Hank,” Helen said slowly, “they left to get Stesha help. Besides, we started as a group. I think we should finish as one.” Her eyes rested on Christopher, who was walking patiently uphill behind Mom and Grace. “Why don’t you catch up to Ruben and Gregor and see if they need help?”
“This isn’t how the trip was supposed to end,” Hank grumbled. The way his shoulders hunched miserably as he left made me pity him. We all like to think that we’d be heroes in a crisis, but look at me when Stesha fell. Besides, I had plenty of opportunities to tell Dom the truth about my age. But had I taken any of them? No.
Even though I wasn’t looking at Quattro, I was fully aware of where he still stood at the top of the stairs, gazing down at his dad, Grace, and Mom. He hadn’t been waiting for me; he’d been waiting for his father. Feeling stupid, I forced myself to continue making conversation with Helen. I confessed, “I get what Hank was talking about. This isn’t how I imagined finishing the Inca Trail either.”
“What’d you imagine?” she asked.
Sunrays were supposed to dance on the stone ruins, instead of this oppressive curtain of gray rain clouds. Quattro was supposed to be at my side as we each strained to be the first to touch the pillars. And my heart was supposed to remain safely intact. Unconsciously, I glanced at Quattro. A breeze ruffled his hair, making me jealous of the wind.
In case he could overhear, I answered, “Well, not blood.”
“Or mudslides,” Helen agreed. She peered at me. “What do you think Stesha would say?”
With a wry half smile, I channeled my best Stesha: “I’ve found that once you let go of your expectations, something better usually comes along.”
Helen laughed lightly before she added her own Stesha-ism, complete with a tiny bounce on the balls of her feet: “Doesn’t that always happen?”
Just then, Grace crested the hill with a victorious “Hallelujah!” She didn’t spare the Sun Gate a glance, just focused on the trail beyond. Clasping her hands together, she threw her head up to the sky and yelled, “Blessed, blessed downhill!”
I burst into laughter. Quattro’s brief answering grin almost undid me. We both looked away. Fast. Honestly, I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry because Stesha was right. Once I had let go of my fantasy of an older, wiser love of my life, someone unbelievably better had come along.
If only Quattro knew it.
Chapter Eighteen
Machu Picchu gleamed before us, a pale jewel pillowed on a lush green peak. Even shrouded in clouds, the ruins were more glorious than I could have imagined. No amount of careful study of photographs, no amount of compulsive reading—nothing had prepared me for the full impact of the sanctuary. I gasped, and Mom placed her arm around my shoulders. My feelings may have been smarting from Quattro’s hot-and-cold relationship schizophrenia, but this—this—was rearranging.
Mom said, “We made it, baby.”
Our appreciation of the ancient site was cut short when Ruben rushed back to the remains of our group, waving his cell phone.
“We have to hurry,” he blurted, and held up his phone as if it were about to blare out wartime instructions. “I just heard that the officials are only running two more buses up here. They’ve closed Machu Picchu entirely.”
“Wait,” said Christopher, looking heartbroken, “so we won’t be able to walk through Machu Picchu? At all?”
“I’m afraid not,” Ruben answered regretfully. “We should head down to the parking lot as fast as possible to get on one of the buses.”
“What about tomorrow?” Quattro asked, stepping closer to Ruben.