Daina stares at the heavy mahogany door, polished to a fancy sheen. She rings. And rings again. Laima’s mother opens the door on the seventh ring, but Daina is used to that. As always, the woman opens just a crack, as if opening it any farther will let in the plague. What is it with this woman?

“Is Laima in?”

Laima’s mother gives a calculated look before shaking her head no. “Ne. Laima is…Laima is not…”

But before she can finish saying what Laima is not, her daughter bounds into the space beside her and holds her arms out wide.

“Yay, Daina! You haven’t been here in, like, foreverrrr!” Daina smiles and edges her way past the intimidating woman at the door.

“Come on up!” Laima tugs at Daina’s arm and pulls her up the stairs behind her. “My tėtis just brought me back the snazziest jacket from South Africa. You have to see it.”

“Okay,” Daina pants, struggling to keep up. A two-story home takes some getting used to. “Just wait till you hear my news, too, Laima. You’re going to die, it’s the craziest.”

“Oooh. Now I’m curious.”

Laima throws herself facedown on her rose-quilted bed and wiggles her feet in the air behind her. Daina makes herself comfortable on the guest bed and sniffs in the lavender. Laima’s mother has a thing for pressed flower sachets. She hides them high and low, so the room smells like a craft stall at the market.

Daina takes in the soft shaggy rug and the family of woolly sheep baa-ing cheekily beneath the steel-rimmed clock. She thinks again of the nutty suggestion that lady just came with. Israel. Land of camels and sand dunes. Prophets and miracles. Living there must be like floating in one of those hot-air balloons that sometimes pass over Teplidskai on clear, summery days. Life with an incredible view.

Before she gets a chance to dwell on that thought, a pale-skinned palm blurs her vision. It’s Laima, waving her hand rapidly an inch away from her friend’s nose.

“Hellooo, anybody home? Wake up, Daina!”

“T’sokay. I’m here! I’m listening!”

Laima chuckles. “You think you’re listening. Right now, you wouldn’t hear a lion if it roared in your ear!”
Daina rolls her eyes. “Right. A lion. How would you know what a lion sounds like, anyway?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I’ve been to the zoo. Haven’t you?!”

Daina shakes her head. “Which zoo?”

“Vilnius. Of course. The animals are… wow.”

Something in Daina’s expression makes Laima backtrack and wave dismissively. “They aren’t really that amazing, not like an African safari. Now, that’s totally worth seeing! Give me a few more years, Daina, and I’m going to get out there. First Africa, for the elephants. Then, China — the Great Wall won’t know what hit it. Then Venice.”

Daina laughed. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would you go all the way to China before seeing Venice?”

Laima pulls at the neon bracelets on her wrist. “Dunno. Why not?”

“’Cuz Venice is sooo much closer. That’s why!”

(Excerpted from Family First, Issue 617)