double-decker buses and toured London. Jo saw Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard, and spent a yawning, sandy-eyed hour at the Victoria and Albert Museum, looking at carved wooden tigers and jeweled tiaras, and ate fish and chips, wrapped in newspaper, sprinkled with malt vinegar, and drank pints of ale with lemon squeezed onto the foam. By six in the morning she’d boarded her bus.
Jo slept and woke and slept and woke again, trying to read from her copy of James Michener’s The Source as the bus bounced along for almost two days, stopping for kids to board or disembark, making its way east to Istanbul. When they finally arrived, the boys hurried off to buy hash. Jo joined a group of girls who, she’d discovered, had also made reservations at the guesthouse in Sultanahmet that she’d chosen for herself and Shelley. The air was dusty, the streets full with people, many of them young and white, like Jo, others darker-skinned, the men bearded, the women in veils. Jo pulled her collar up over her face, rubbing at her gritty eyes, staring at her map until she and her new friends figured out which way to walk.
The girls’ names were Katherine and Melinda and Gina. Katherine was tall and blond and busty, with flushed cheeks and a high-pitched voice, and Melinda had heavy glasses and a quiet, self-contained manner, and Gina was petite, with short black hair and a quick smile. Stay away, Jo told herself as they sat in a teahouse for a meal of fiery lentils and rice. In the guesthouse’s communal bathroom, Jo took a long, hot shower, listening as Katherine, who was dressed in a bathrobe and leaning against the sink, read from a guidebook about the squat toilets.
“I guess that they’re basically holes in the ground, with a pitcher of water to rinse off after.”
“Ew,” said Melinda, and Gina shrugged and said, “Can’t be worse than my summer camp.”
The beds were narrow, six of them in rows of three in one little room, and the sheets were stiff and scratchy, smelling strongly of bleach, but Jo was so tired that she didn’t care. She brushed her teeth and was asleep as soon as she’d closed her eyes. Twelve hours later, when she woke up, the room was full of sunshine and was empty except for Gina, who was standing at the window. “You’re up!” Gina called, when she saw that Jo’s eyes were open. “Want to go to see the Hagia Sophia? The lady at the desk says it’s a three-minute walk.”
Jo sat up slowly. She could smell bleach and dust and curry, and even the quality of the light looked different than it had back home. I’m somewhere else, she thought, still hardly believing that she had made it halfway around the world . . . and that she’d left Shelley behind. Stop it, she told herself, the way she’d done it every time she found her thoughts wandering in Shelley’s direction. It was like a wound she couldn’t make herself stop probing. She wondered if it would ever stop hurting.
“I need to make a stop first. I need to go . . .”
“. . . to the American Express office.” Gina’s slim build and sleek hair made Jo think of an otter, some graceful creature just as at home in the water as on land. “Melinda and Kat already went. I think we all promised our parents the same thing. Come on, I’m starving! Let’s find out what they eat for breakfast here.”
Jo pulled on loose pants, a long-sleeved white blouse, remembering what she’d read about modest dress in Muslim countries, and a pair of sandals she’d bought in Ann Arbor and had never worn before. The clerk sent them to another teahouse, where they ate triangles of soft white cheese, soft-boiled eggs, olives, white bread and apricot jam, along with cups of strong tea. Fed, rested, dressed in clean clothes, with a new friend beside her and plans forming for the next few weeks, Jo felt the faint stirrings of excitement. She promised herself that she would keep moving forward, distracting herself with new places and new faces.
They found the American Express office at the intersection of two main streets with unpronounceable names, and gave the woman behind the counter their names and the address of the guesthouse. The woman held up one finger—wait—and disappeared behind a wall. Jo looked at Gina, who shrugged and said, “Want to see the