“All yours,” Danny says when he gets out of the shower. He is wearing one of the hotel robes.
Elijah is gratified to find there's still hot water. He closes his eyes and breathes in the steam. When he looks down at the drain, he sees a small ring of hair. Danny's hair. It is irrefutable proof, but still Elijah asks himself, Is Danny losing his hair? This would mean that Danny is growing older. Is changing.
So strange.
Elijah's inner snapshot of Danny is long out of date. But he hasn't realized it until now.
“What are you looking at?” Danny asks when Elijah steps from the bathroom and stares at his hairline. (It looks fine. Although there is a little gray….)
“Nothing,” Elijah says. “I can't believe we're this old.”
“Tell me about it.”
Danny is already under the covers. It is two in the afternoon. Sunlight filters through the window, but Elijah gets into his bed anyway.
“We'll walk around a little before dinner,” Danny continues driftily. He is turned away from Elijah, but entirely conscious he is there. “You can tell me what you've been up to.”
“Okay.” Elijah closes his eyes and imagines that afternoon is night.
“And then we'll have a nice dinner.”
“Sounds good.”
“And walk around some more.”
“Sure.”
“And then I'll teach you multiplication.” Elijah smiles. “Perfect.”
“I'm glad that you're here.”
“So am I. I'm sorry about—well, what happened.”
“So am I.”
Danny thinks this will be the end of the conversation, but then Elijah (thinking of Julia, thinking of Cal, thinking of college applications, thinking of the confusion and elation and mistakes of the past week) asks,“Is this what growing up is like?”
And Danny answers, “I think so.”
They will stay together until they leave the next day.
V. ARRIVAL
After they get through customs (Elijah's pot having been left for the maid service in Rome), they are confronted by a throng of eager, peering faces. Danny scans the crowd and sees his parents a little way off. His mother is reading a magazine and his father is staring at the flight listing.
A little closer, Danny spots Elijah's friend—no doubt the one who dropped him off. This time, she's wearing a chauffeur's cap and jacket, the cap tilted at a Dietrich angle.
Elijah hasn't seen her yet.
“Hey, isn't that your girlfriend?” Danny asks.
Elijah takes a look and beams. Cal sees him and beams in return.
“She's not my girlfriend,” he tells his brother.
“Well, maybe she should be,” his brother advises.
Elijah doesn't know what to say to that. Because now Cal is jumping the queue, running over and giving him the most fabulous hug.
“Speak Italian to me!” she cries. “Welcome home!”
“What are you wearing?” Elijah asks gleefully.
“You will not believe how many seventy-year-old men I had to hit up before I could get me one of these. I should go return it. I'll be right back.”
With that, she jets off again. Danny's gaze follows her— sure enough, she is handing the cap and jacket back to a shirtsleeved older man.
Elijah keeps hearing Danny's words—Well, maybe she should be. He wonders if it could really be that simple. If something so obvious could actually be right.
“Elijah! Danny!” Their mother is calling them now. She, too, is beaming.
“C'mon,” Danny says. Elijah picks up his bag and continues down the arrival pathway.
After the hellos, the thank yous begin. The word “trickery” does not come up. Danny doesn't even think it anymore.
When Mrs. Silver asks her sons what their favorite part of the trip was, they overlap and finish each other's sentences.
“Oh, it had to be—”
“The Pantheon was the most incredible—”
“—thing I've—”
“—we've—”
“—ever seen. You wouldn't—”
“You wouldn't believe it.”
Mrs. Silver and Mr. Silver share a knowing look.
Elijah and Danny continue on—the telling makes them realize what a good time they've had. Danny talks about gondoliers and Joseph and meeting Ari again, while Elijah tells them about the balcony over St. Mark's Square, the floors and the ceilings, and the woman on the plane ride over who once met Billy Corgan. Julia is not mentioned—she is, momentarily, forgotten.
Mr. Silver asks if all the hotels were okay. Mrs. Silver asks if they had a chance to see the synagogues.
Elijah and Cal walk arm in arm as they all head to the garage. The conversation falls back onto the usual post-vacation topics—what the weather was like here, what the weather was like there, what's been on the news. Cal clearly has other news to tell Elijah, but it will have to wait for the car ride home.
Danny overhears her telling Elijah that Ivan and Meg had a falling-out in the middle of ballroom dance, and the implications are huge.
Finally, they reach the point where Cal's car is one direction and the Silvers' is the other.
Mr. and Mrs. Silver's desire to have Cal and Elijah over for dinner is overruled by their desire to have them drive home before sundown. Plus, Elijah has to be at work early the next day. (“Early” being ten o'clock.)
Elijah says thank you again and again. He hugs his mother and father…as does Cal. Then he comes over to Danny, and the two of them shake hands.
“Give me a break,” Cal moans.
“Tell me about it,” Mrs. Silver puts in.
Elijah and Danny laugh and go for a hug. They hold on longer than either would have expected. When they let go, they thank each other and smile.
“Good luck.”
“You, too.”
Then, with a wave, Cal and Elijah walk away.
Danny watches them go—arm in arm, fading into the garage.
As Elijah walks back into the land of the student, with its late-night coffee conversations and application anxieties, and as Danny returns to his voice-mail, e-mail, direct-deposit, pulsedriven existence, Danny wonders when he'll next see his brother. And what it will be like.
There is the distance of miles, and the distance of brothers, to overcome. He can feel the world coming between them again. But the world is so much smaller than it used to be.