For Real(42)

Philadelphia shoots me a dirty look. “How’d we do with what?”

For a second, Will looks confused, but then he shoots me a small smile. “Pretty good, thanks to you,” he says, dropping his voice so Philadelphia can’t hear. I struggle to suppress the goofy grin that wants to explode all over my face—he didn’t even tell her. She can flirt with him all she wants, but she can’t make him open up to her like he did to me.

“Don’t you have your own partner to bother?” Philadelphia links her arm through Will’s and pulls him ahead, and he turns around and mouths “Later” to me.

The cabs in front of the airport are black with yellow tops and green stripes on the sides, and we pile into one with our crew. Troy makes no effort to tell the driver where we’re going, so I lean forward and say, “Lodhi Gardens?”

I have no idea how many people speak English here, and I’m incredibly relieved when he says, “Okay.”

“We gotta get there fast fast fast,” Troy chimes in. “Rápido!”

I stare at him. “Seriously? Did you just say that?”

“What? It’s a race.”

“Rápido is Spanish, Troy. We’re in India. That is so ridiculously offensive.”

He shrugs. “Whatever. You talked English to him. I don’t get how that’s different.”

We pull into traffic, and just like that, I forget all about Troy. I’ve never gotten carsick easily, but driving in India tries even my high tolerance. I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to be on the left side of the road, but we weave back and forth so much that I’m not entirely sure which side the cabbie’s driving on. He leans on the horn constantly, and we whip around mopeds, jeeps, motorized rickshaws, children, and stray dogs like we’re in some sort of horrible race-car video game. Skinny white cows with horns and humps appear out of nowhere and wander across the road, and we nearly plow right into them a couple times. I grip the strap above the door with both white-knuckled hands and stare at the road in front of us, thinking Stop! and Move over! as loudly as I can, as if I can control the driver with my mind. “He took your ‘rápido’ to heart,” I mutter to Troy.

“Told you he’d know what I meant,” he says, completely missing the point.

In the few brief moments I’m not terrified, I try to take in our surroundings, which are noisier and more colorful than anyplace I’ve ever seen. Women in bright saris fly by on the backs of motorcycles, the jewel-toned fabric whipping in the wind. Merchants line the roadsides in front of crumbling storefronts, peddling everything from vegetables to electronics. I see one man prostrate on a prayer mat in the middle of a traffic island and another having his beard shaved on a street corner. Monkeys climb around on the telephone poles and nobody pays them any attention, as if they’re as ubiquitous as the squirrels back home. I ache to have someone next to me whose hand I can grab as I shout, Look at that, and that, and that!

By the time we get to the Lodhi Gardens, I’m so grateful to stop moving that I want to kiss the filthy ground. I hold out a handful of rupees so the driver can extract what we owe, and he takes a couple of bills, which bear Gandhi’s face. Then we put on our packs and sprint through the gate and into the gardens. My shoulders are killing me from yesterday, and my pack feels heavier than ever. For a second, I wonder if I should’ve taken Troy up on his inappropriate offer of a massage.

As soon as we step inside the gardens, it’s like we’ve passed through an invisible force field that repels the Delhi chaos. Everything inside the park is gorgeous and serene and neatly manicured, and the traffic noises fade away under the sounds of chirping birds and rustling branches. The heat even seems a little less oppressive in here. I finally feel like I can breathe, and as I stand still for a minute in the middle of a stone walkway, my shoulders start to relax.

We choose what looks like the main path, and we haven’t been walking long before we see a large domed structure that looks like a temple. It’s made of stone in various shades of red and tan and brown, surrounded by a crumbling protective wall. A smaller, triple-domed building sits off to one side, and people recline on the steps near its arched doorways, basking in the afternoon sunshine. It’s so beautiful and ancient-looking that it makes me lose my breath. But there’s no sign of a pink flag or a challenge anywhere.

“Maybe we should go around the back?” Troy suggests. “If it’s a jumbo-sized challenge, we’ll need a lot of open space, right?” It’s weird to hear something so logical come out of his mouth, but I follow him.

And there on the lawn behind the building, draped in pink blankets printed with the Around the World logo, are seven elephants dressed in decorative headpieces. They’re majestic and wise-looking, and they are definitely jumbo-sized. Childish glee bubbles up in me at the sight of them—I was obsessed with elephants as a kid, and my well-loved stuffed one, Grumby, still sits on my bed at home. I can’t believe I get to hang out with real, live ones up close. Finally, a story I actually want to tell my friends.

“Dude, those things better not poop on me,” Troy says, completely ruining the moment.

As we get closer, I see that each elephant has a pattern of flowers stenciled onto its cheeks and the front of its trunk. Samir and Tawny are standing on either side of one of them, filling in the petals with bright neon paints as if their elephant is a coloring book. It’s infuriating that they’ve managed to pull ahead of us even though their flight was later—they must have had a shorter layover. Two of the elephants are already fully decorated, and I’m pretty sure the one with the blue toenails is Miranda’s—that’s the shade she prefers for her own toenails.