Chapter 31
ASHA
I don’t know why I asked, or why I keep torturing myself with Callum.
He had every opportunity to take me into one of our rooms last night and blow my back out, but he chose not to.
And then the very next morning, he let me use him as a pillow, cutting off his precious blood flow so I could be comfortable.
Who does that? What is his thought process? Why is he so confusing?
But I might as well spend time with him instead of eating alone, when I’ll only be thinking about him anyway. Maybe he’ll let something slip and I’ll figure out why he can’t seem to make up his mind about whether he’s into me or not.
“Sure, I’d like to get something to eat with you. Let’s pick somewhere not on my lists, though.” He shakes the laminated papers he’s holding.
I snort. “You really don’t want to spend any more time with the babies than you have to.”
“No.”
“All right. Probably good to test out some new restaurants for your lists and my recommendations, anyway.”
“It’s such a tough job, when you put it like that.” He rolls his eyes at me and gets a tongue stuck out at him in response. That garners even more eye rolls.
“If you keep rolling your eyes, they’ll stick like that one day.”
“And I’ll send you the medical bill.”
“Ha! I’d gladly pay your zero-dollar medical bill, you nationalized healthcare-haver.”
Callum rolls his eyes at me again—oh, how one lives on the edge when one has that sweet free healthcare—and leads us to a restaurant that he’s been wanting to try.
He picked a spot in La Petite France, and we scored a table in an outside patio overlooking the sparkling, clear blue water. Very fairy tale location here.
We eat a nice meal where Callum only confuses me by approximately 15 percent more than where I started the meal at (only because I started pretty high on the confused scale).
After a full lunch, we walk around the winding, narrow, cobblestoned neighborhood and take in the beauty, working our way to the cathedral.
Mom texts me to see if I’m free, and I excuse myself a few steps away to take the call. It’s only going to get busier, and it would be awkward calling her back on the bus, where everyone is listening in to the conversation. “Hey, Mom.”
“Hey, Beta. How is the tour going?”
“Good. Well, okay.”
“Why only okay? What happened?”
“Apparently, this is an extended interview to keep my job, and the group will decide between who is the better guide at the end of it. The other guide is fired.”
“What? You have so much passion and knowledge for this job, I can’t believe they put you in this position.”
Sometimes it’s hard to have this supportive a mother.
I know it’s an absurd thing to complain about, even in my head, and I know I should be more grateful.
A lot of my Indian friends growing up had tougher parents, who very much thought there were only three jobs: doctor, engineer, or lawyer.
My friends never missed an opportunity to tell me how lucky I was that my parents supported anything I wanted to be.
And didn’t yell at me for the B+ I got in calculus.
Mom was equally enthusiastic when I wanted to be a ballerina, a doctor, a princess, a lawyer, an archaeologist, and a curator. Then a tour guide. In that order.
She didn’t care when I went to school undeclared, or when I declared my major to be art history. She didn’t say anything when I applied to jobs in Europe to lead tours, besides saying how sad she would be to have me be far. Which I get; I miss her, too.
Other Indian friends had parents who were more concerned with their children going into certain careers for the stability they could provide, since all of our parents sacrificed so much to provide us with the lives they did when they were first starting out in America.
And stability is a fair consideration. None of my friends are on a tour with an attractive grump, trying to save their job while they travel through some of the most beautiful sights in Europe, with a group of interesting, demanding people who are having a good time because of my suggestions, for ridiculously low pay.
Well, none of that sounds particularly bad to me, aside from the job in peril and low pay parts.
But I know how lucky I am that Mom and Dad let me pursue my passions, having enough faith in me to know I’ll figure out what I want in life.
On the other hand, that much support is also kind of weirdly stressful.
I can’t let them down after how much they believe in me, after how much they let me decide my own path.
How much they stand up to my grandparents and their friends for me, who still ask when I’m going to grad school and getting a “real job.”
It’s why I’m afraid to push too hard on this specialty tour idea. What if it is a dud? I can’t fail in front of the people who showed up at my college graduation with signs containing giant pictures of my head, setting off illegal streamers and very discouraged horns when they called my name.
I don’t want to see those same faces filled with disappointment. I don’t want to prove all the people they argued with over me right.
“The industry is tough,” I say.
“Beta, maybe this is the time you pursue the specialty tours you’re always so excited about? Maybe now is the time to start your own company like you dream of? You know your cousin just graduated law school and would love to help with the business side of things.”
I hadn’t even thought of asking her. Because then even more people would watch me fail.
“Starting a business is never easy, especially in this field. Most of these companies are downsizing or closing outright.”
“Yes, but they don’t have you. I was looking at some posts on your social media, and you’re getting so many followers and likes!”
“I don’t know, Mom. I just need to get through this tour and then I’ll see what happens before I make any plans. I need to focus on this first.”
“All right, you’ll figure it out; you’re so smart. We love you.”
“I know. Love you more!”
I turn back to Callum to find he’s got his phone out. “What are you doing? Are you finally seeing the benefits of vacation photography?”
“Not even a bit. But I thought you might like this.” He turns to show me what’s on his screen.
It’s a picture of me, with a fairy tale background of medieval buildings covered in plant life adding more gorgeous colors, talking into my phone.
The sun is streaming in behind me and bouncing off the water to my right.
I look like I’m in a fairy tale. It’s a great photo. Still, I’m able to tear my eyes away to look at the photographer, all my happiness with the picture shining through my eyes.
“I’ll send it to you,” he murmurs, and looks down to do that, maybe as a way to avoid facing my gratitude.
“Thank you.”
“I couldn’t help but hear a wee bit of your call. What’s this about starting a business?”
“Nothing.” I say it emphatically.
“It must be something. You seem perturbed.”
“I told my mom about the potential imminent firing, and she thinks this would be a good time to start a business, with the smaller, niche, customized tours.”
“She’s right. You’re smart and charismatic enough to make it a success.”
It takes me a second to process the rain cloud saying something so…optimistic. And nice. “Is that a compliment?”
“It’s the truth. If you feel praised, that’s your business.”
Typical Callum. No hearts and flowers with this one, but occasionally he’ll say something that makes me want to blush and bury my head into a pillow. Like I’m Bashful from Snow White, but with less facial hair. I’m literally “aw, shucks-ing” right now.
And the best part is he’s so belligerent when he’s giving the compliment. It’s so contradictory. So contrary. So adorable.
“As kind as your words are…” I make sure to pause and look him directly in the eyes at the compliment since I know how much he hates sincerity and emotions.
When he starts squirming, I continue. “It’s never easy to start a business, and it’s going to be harder in an industry that’s already going through some things. ”
“You have all the minions, so that’s a good place to start.”
“Minions? Like the adorable yellow cartoons who follow Steve Carrell around?”
“On social media.”
“You mean followers? Wait, have you been stalking me?” I nudge him. “Some light social media investigating? Are you part of that minion/follower count now?” I get my own phone out to check, and Callum snatches it out of my hand before I can open the app.
“You’ll get this back once I’m certain you’ve forgotten this conversation.
” Callum holds the phone over his head, a place I would never be able to reach without a ladder or a very generous hand up.
That doesn’t stop me from hopping against him repeatedly, more for the feeling of me sliding down his body every time I fail than any real desire for the phone.
Failure has never felt so good. Especially when I hang on his bicep in an attempt to use my body weight to lower his hand. It doesn’t work, and I feel like a kid in a playground, but I’m impressed that his arm doesn’t budge.
“I’ll never forget this conversation,” I vow.
“How about I buy you a drink and we can talk more about the business?”
I stop my ineffective hopping. “I’ll take that drink, but I’ll pass on talking about this idea anymore. I plan to remain optimistic about keeping this job until Rob tells me to my face that I’m fired. Then I can worry about a plan B.”
“See, this optimism of yours isn’t helping you. You should be preparing for the worst so you can be ready when it happens.”
We sit down in a café and order some Alsatian wine.
It still hasn’t fully hit me that we won’t be working at the same place after this.
It seems cruel for the universe to throw us together on this trip, and then make it harder to see each other after.
I was getting used to the idea of gallivanting around the continent with him.
It was a nice thought. Beautiful sights. Romantic nights. At least when our tours met up. But now there won’t even be that.
And that thought does put a damper on this fairy tale locale.
“We’re at Lauterbrunnen.” My voice is strained but has a note of relief in it. Travel days are always long, and they get even longer when there’s an entire afternoon of touring in the middle, and the day traverses three countries.
Very few people took my words of wisdom and bought snacks on their stop, so most people are tired, hungry, and all around unhappy. A lovely combination when you’re trapped in a steel prison with nineteen of them for hours on end.
I wish we could go back to the morning when they were all asleep. Is this what parents feel like? Constantly counting down to nap time and bedtime? Just surviving in the times between sleeps until they can have the peace of their children being unconscious?
“Let’s all move efficiently to get the luggage unloaded and then we can have a nice dinner. Then there’s a bar on site, or you can head straight to bed.” I say the words as much for myself as for the rest of them. Because I am internally counting down the moments until I get to my bed.
Too many people have gotten mad at me for, in no particular order, the distance from Strasbourg to Lauterbrunnen (so, geography), the lack of decent food in a gas station, the amount of hours in a day, their hangover, how uncomfortable bus seats are, how slow border crossings are, and how cold the bus is.
Incidentally, I have no control over any of those things.
Needless to say, I’m ready for some tourist-free time.
Callum has the right idea. He had earbuds in and every time someone came up to him, he said that we were almost there to whatever their question was. They were mad at him too, but no madder than they were at me, who tried to genuinely respond to their concerns. It’s just rude.
But the end is in sight now. We’re pulling up to the lodge that the company uses, a tall triangular structure that used more windows than wood in its construction so that any visitor could see the gorgeous views of Jungfrau and the Swiss Alps around this valley.
All of which are wasted on the ungrateful visitors now, since it’s too dark to see anything.
Maybe if they could see the stunning green land, dotted with picturesque farms and other buildings, and the occasional fluffy Swiss cow, all surrounded by soaring mountains and multiple waterfalls, they wouldn’t be so angry.
I hear grumbles but tune them out. We’re so close to the finish line for this day, and everything they want is coming in the next hour. If we can just make it through the next hour.
Laura stops the bus and we start unloading. I leave Callum and his earbuds with the unhappy travelers and enter the building to start check-in.
“Hey, Leon,” I greet the chalet owner, since unlike in other places where the hotels can vary, we always use this lodging on this stop and the owner is very involved in running his chalet.
“Asha! So good to see you, as always. I hope you had good travels.”
“I had travels.” I force a smile and I’m sure Leon gets the point. He’s been doing this a while.
“Ah. Let’s get you sorted quickly.” See, he gets it. He rapidly bangs at the keyboard in front of him, then smiles at me. “All right. Keys for thirteen rooms.”
“It should be fourteen. Eleven for the guests, one for Laura, one for me, and one for Callum.”
“Callum’s here?” Leon looks at his screen with a frown. A frown that doesn’t foreshadow good things for me. “Rob said the tours were combined, but he didn’t say both guides were coming. When we heard, we booked out what we thought was an extra room.”
My heart drops. “But both of us are here.” I’m getting shrill now. “So what does that mean?”
“I’m sorry, Asha. There’s another group here, plus our solo summer tourists, so I only have the thirteen rooms. It’s the high season.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s only one bedroom for the tour guides. You’ll have to share.”