Wanderlove Page 7
I’ve only been sitting for fifteen minutes when I see Rowan approaching. I slip my sketchbook between my thighs. He has a novel under his arm: Atonement.
“Oh,” he says when he sees me.
“Hi, Rowan!” I say cheerfully in an attempt to offset his hostility, which is starting to get on my nerves. “What brings you out here on this gorgeous evening? Have I stolen your seat?”
He blinks at me a moment, then recovers. “It’s not mine unless I’m sitting in it.”
“Great! I thought we’d have to battle it out. I may be small, but I can kick some serious ass.”
Half smirking, Rowan ruffles the pages of his book with his thumb. “Actually, I thought I’d go read down by the water. There’s a new group here tonight, I think I mentioned, and they’re dead set on a karaoke competition. My eardrums already ache in anticipation. Also, just too many people.”
“You’re not big on people, are you?”
“I wouldn’t say that. Just … when faced with the choice between small talk with strangers and peace and quiet, I’ll choose the latter every time. You know?”
“It depends. Are we talking naked karaoke?”
Rowan pauses a second and then cracks a smile. “Could be. But I assume naked karaoke with strangers isn’t your thing?”
“Depends on the naked strangers.”
We grin at each other for a moment past stupid, and it’s really decent, and I’m so proud of myself I could backflip. Finally, Rowan starts for the lake.
“Are you coming?” he calls over his shoulder.
I’m so surprised it takes me a second to reply. “Um, I don’t have a book.”
“Did you say … no book? No book?” He pretends to pull a knife from his chest. “We’ve got to remedy that. Just grab one from the book exchange inside. Hal won’t care. If you’re feeling overly ethical, leave a few quetzales.”
My first impulse is to decline. Because—admit it—there’s something perversely appealing about sitting all alone, feeling sorry for yourself, especially when the scenery’s stunning and there’s a party going on behind you.
But that’s not what this trip is about. It’s about jumping in. Making up for all the times I held back. And if I’m not quite ready to rip off my clothes and sing “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” I should probably go read by the lake.
I’m about to stand up when Rowan shrugs. “No big deal. See you in the morning, then.”
Apparently, I took too long to decide.
I watch him trudge down the slope toward the water, allowing myself to feel shitty for exactly ten seconds. Then I open my sketchbook. I pick up my pen.
And for the first time in months, I draw.
Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.
~Pablo Picasso
The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they’re always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back.
~Norman Rockwell
6
Day 5
Breakdown
Guatemala City, Guatemala
Guatemala City is one of the most dangerous cities in Latin America. Petty theft is rampant, as are violent crimes. As a result, we will not be spending any more time than necessary in Guatemala City after our airplane lands.
I crumple up my Global Vagabonds itinerary and shove it into my daypack. Most of the destinations differ from ours, but it’s the closest thing to a travel guide I’ve got if you don’t count Rowan and Starling. I’m sitting beside two strangers on my first chicken bus ride, with half my ass hanging over the seat, one leg braced in the aisle.
As far as I can tell, there are no chickens.
I’m profoundly disappointed, but I suppose the name is metaphorical. Though the ride is cheap, I’ve quickly learned any money saved is eclipsed by liters of sweat, kicked ankles, malodorous human beings, white-knuckled feats of highway navigation, and other forms of discomfort. Maybe it would be bearable if I had a window seat. All I’ve seen during our three-hour journey are hips, backs, and the undersides of bosoms. And we had to sit through four … entire … hours of this before our arrival in the supposedly savage avenues of Guatemala City.
Okay, so they do look kind of savage. When my plane landed, it was late, and the Global Vagabonds shuttle rocketed straight to Antigua. Now, as I stagger down the bus steps and attempt to find my land legs, my eyes are whirling in every direction. The streets swarm with schoolchildren, businesspeople, cowboys, Mayans. I see uniformed guards with machine guns flanking the entrance of a bank. Another guard stands a couple of doors down, defending an ice cream parlor. Overhead, menacing-looking tangles of wires crackle with electricity.
As Rowan strolls off to collect our backpacks—they were riding on the roof of the bus—Starling turns to me. “Is it just me, or is your bladder about to explode?”
“Ew,” I reply.
We each pay a quetzal for a wad of toilet paper at the bus station bathroom, otherwise known as the Chamber of Stinking Horror. It seems more women missed the toilet than made it. Breathing through my mouth, I hover over the seat until my legs cramp.
When we make it out alive, Rowan is waiting in front of the station entrance, our backpacks gathered around his legs like good little children. Mine’s the largest by far. I’m already considering ditching that second pair of jeans I insisted on packing.
“That bathroom reeked like hot death,” Starling says. “But for some reason, I’m starved. Can you guys grab some snacks while I get our tickets?”
“We need tickets?” I ask. On our last bus, we just climbed on.
“Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.”
“But how do you know?”
“Experience. Meet me inside in ten, okay?”
I watch her dark blond bundle of hair glide over the crowds. Her confidence must be a result of all that experience, because I feel utterly helpless. A little more Spanish comprehension would probably help.
Reluctantly, I follow Rowan to a row of street carts outside the station and attempt to select a snack, but the chaos all around us keeps stealing my attention. An orange dog brushes my leg, startling me. Its face is peppered with scars. Why are creepy Guatemalan dogs always brushing against me? I realize I’m standing a little too close to Rowan.
“We’d better hurry,” he says.
I turn back to the carts. The meats heaped on crusty black grills don’t tempt me. Neither do the wobbly towers of flan. I hesitate in front of a fruit cart. Everything looks spotty, dented, bruised.
“It all looks like it’s been in a battle.”
“Maltreated mangoes,” Rowan says.
Is he actually joking with me? I smile tentatively. “Abused avocadoes,” I try.
“Warmongering watermelons.”
“There aren’t any watermelons.”
“That’s because they lost the war.”
Still smiling, I pick up a small green fruit. “What’s this?”
“It’s a guava.”
“Is it? My friend Reese had them on a tree in her yard. They looked different, though.” I recall how we tossed them in the golf course pond by her house, along with oranges and persimmons, testing to see which would float. I learned to skip stones in that same pond, during the drowsy summer before ninth grade. Not long after, I met Olivia at freshman orientation and started dividing my time between the two of them. Until I met Toby and didn’t have time for either.
“Cuánto queso?” I ask the vendor.
Rowan stares at me, obviously impressed by my Spanish fluency. Except the fruit vendor is staring at me too. “Oh,” Rowan says, starting to grin. “You meant ‘Cuánto cuesta?’ ”
“That’s what I—” I pause. Oh no. Oh God. I totally asked, How much cheese?
“Dos por uno,” the vendor replies, shaking her head.
Dying of humiliation, I hand her a quetzal and take two guavas. I dig my fingernails into one and break it open.
It’s crawling with bugs.
I scream and throw it into the street. It explodes in a blossom of juice, like a tiny smashed jack-o’-lantern. I hop around, alternately shaking my hands and wiping them on my jeans. Rowan looks like he doesn’t know whether to comfort me or crack up.
“I feel like they’re all over me! What are they?”
Rowan goes over to inspect the splatter. “Some sort of beetle … Ooh, maggots.”
I hurl the other guava into the trash. That takes care of my hunger.
Rowan buys a bag of candied peanuts for Starling, and we head inside the crowded bus station. The space stinks of perspiration and sour fruit, of bus exhaust and dog pee and probably human pee. A toddler screams at the top of his lungs, but his weary-looking mother does nothing to calm him. Stray dogs weave in and out of people’s legs. A few yards away, a pair of teenage boys stare at me with their arms crossed. I try not to make eye contact.
Starling meets us at the station’s single empty seat. While we wait for our bus, we play musical chairs, and it’s my turn to sit first. Rowan leans against the wall and tinkers with his dive watch. Starling stands in front of me, knock-kneed, with her hands in her pockets.
“Whenever I’m in a crowded place like this,” she says in a low voice, “I always think the floor’s going to cave in.”
My blinking is audible. “Why’s that?”
“Didn’t you hear about the giant sinkhole?”
Giant sinkhole? “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The Guatemala City sinkhole. It just opened up beneath a bunch of poor people’s homes, and the houses and everyone in them fell into this underground river of sewage and got swept away.”
I glance at Rowan in disbelief.
“True story,” he says. “Though I heard it was just one home. Three people.”
“It was, like, five hundred feet deep,” Starling says. “Can you imagine? What a way to go—death by sludge!”
If I really concentrate, I think I sense a rumble beneath my feet. Probably from the buses. But I can’t help imagining a sweeping ocean of sewage, brown and loathsome, rushing beneath a fragile crust of asphalt. I pull up my feet onto the chair, as if that will save me. “Could it happen again?”
“This is Central America,” Starling says darkly. “Anything can happen. Put your feet down; you’re getting our seat dirty.”
Our bus breaks down in the late afternoon. I have my head tipped against the window, wishing there were enough privacy to draw. After last night, the urge is a bundle of heat in my chest, like a swallow of too-hot tea. But the idea of drawing in front of Rowan and Starling makes me shy. I’m tracing a face on the wall with my finger when the driver slams the brakes.
“What the hell,” I say, rubbing my clunked forehead.
There’s a metallic screech that sounds like an orgy of bats, and the smell of exhaust clouds down the aisle. After a moment, the bus squeals to a stop beside a cliff spray-painted with advertisements: Alka-Seltzer, Fanta, aspirin rápido. I could use some of all three. On the other side of the highway, pastureland stretches into the darkening hills.
Without the wind rushing in the windows, the temperature seems to shoot up ninety-nine degrees. Someone curses in Spanish. Starling, who sits across the aisle, curses in English. Rowan, who’s sitting behind me, sleeps through the whole thing.
“What’s happening?” I ask Starling.
She closes the travel journal she’s been skimming. From her volunteer time in Nicaragua, she told me earlier. The most volunteering I’ve ever done was competing in a charity art show at age thirteen. I sold three greeting cards for two dollars each. Pretty weak when compared to spoon-feeding Nicaraguan orphan babies. “You should be thrilled,” she says with a yawn. “It’s a discount tour of the authentic Guatemalan lifestyle.”
Without announcement, the driver cranks open the bus door and heads outside. From my window, I see him dial on his cell. He listens for a second. Then he bangs the phone against the heel of his hand.
“Shit,” I say.
The other passengers slouch in their seats and stare out at the empty pastures. I remember our backpacks on top of the bus and hope they’re safe. “So this is pretty typical?”
“It’s not uncommon.” Starling wedges her knees against the seat in front of her. “Ugh, it’s hot. I wish we had cold drinks.”
And food. My appetite has forgotten the wormy fruit. Well, until just now. “How long will it take to get going again?”
“Depends on how quickly a mechanic gets here.” She returns to her journal.
The minutes struggle along like damaged insects. I attempt to read my book from La Casa Azul, a novel called Bel Canto, but I can’t concentrate. The muted light strains my eyes. I flip to the blank last page and draw invisibly with my index finger, loopy, whirly figure-phantoms, until even that gets boring. Out my window, I see the bus driver light a cigarette.
“Just be glad the bus isn’t full. Imagine if we were sitting three to a seat,” Rowan says. I turn to find him stretching, his fingers grazing the overhead racks.
“Or even two,” Starling says, crossing the aisle to sit beside her brother. She pulls the elastic from his ponytail. “You stink.”
“What, you think you smell like roses?”
“Roses? How boring. I smell like jasmine and citrus blossoms.” She turns Rowan’s head to the side, then, using her fingernails as a comb, begins to french-braid his hair. He lets it happen, seemingly unconcerned. I’d laugh, but I don’t think I have enough oxygen.
“Damn it all to hell,” Starling says, patting the top of Rowan’s head. “Let’s play a game.”
I stick my book in my daypack, a little wary but mostly intrigued.
“Let’s tell scary stories. Really scary stories. None of that crap from third-grade scout camp. Never mind, scratch that.” She grins ghoulishly. “We’re not going to tell scary stories. We’re going to tell stories about times we were scared.”
I glance at Rowan. He shakes his head, but I can’t tell whether he’s rejecting the game or just amicably disapproving. Starling gives his braid a yank.
“When were we scared?” she asks him. “Think back.”
“Not we. This is your story.”
“But what about that time in San Pedro Sula? Before you went to live on Utila? You and Jack tried to convince me to take that puddle jumper to La Ceiba because Jack knew the pilot, even though you knew he was smuggling a few pounds of—”
“Christ, Starling!” Rowan swats her hands from his head.
“What’s the big deal? Nothing happened, in the end.”
“No.”
I examine my fingernails, pretending not to see the cartoon storm cloud hovering between them. Pounds of what? Pounds of what?
“What about that time in Puerto Sol?” Starling asks Rowan.
Until I hear otherwise, I’m just going to assume she meant pounds of bananas.
“Whatever. You don’t need my permission. As long as the story’s yours.”
She kicks off her sandals and pulls up her knees. She has at least three toe rings on each foot. I wonder if they pinch her skin when she walks.
“So I was living in Puerto Sol. That’s on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. Really hard to get to, or at least it was two years ago. I was staying at this volunteer camp in the summer, helping implement renewable energy in the village. Did you know like fifty percent of Nicaragua’s population doesn’t have dependable access to electricity?”
I shake my head.
“It’s a tragedy. Anyway, one day I’m heading back to the dorms in the late afternoon and I turn down a side road. It rained that day, so there are puddles along the gutters. Mud in the street. Right away I get this creepy feeling, even though I’ve passed this way a million times before, and it isn’t even night yet, but the feeling’s impossible to ignore.
“Then this arm comes around in front of my face. And suddenly, I’m on the ground.
“I fight like a wildcat—which is exactly what you’re not supposed to do. The majority of injuries during muggings happen when the victim fights back, did you know that? But the kicking, the screaming is involuntary—I can’t stop.”
She drops her feet.
“Then, over my mugger’s shoulder, I notice this man standing there with his motorbike. And so I direct my screams for help toward him. But he just stands there, watching. Finally, the man wrenches my bag from my hands. And then—get this—he goes and climbs on the back of the other guy’s motorbike, and they speed away. They were in it together.”
“So all he wanted was your bag?” I ask.
Starling nods animatedly. She’s standing now, leaning over the seat between us. “If I’d known that’s what he was after, I’d have given it to him! Hell, I would have curtsied. I fought because I thought he was going to—well, you know what I thought. A big mistake. I didn’t even know I was bleeding until I stood, and I saw it in the dirt.” She pulls out her bottom lip with two fingers. “I bit all the way through it. See the scar?”
So it wasn’t from a piercing. “I would have been on the first plane home,” I say.
“Well …” Starling seems to realize she’s standing, and sits back down in her own seat. “I thought about it. But I’d moved out of my last apartment. I didn’t have anywhere to go home to, other than my friends’ couches. I hadn’t spoken to my parents for ages, so I didn’t want to call them. I couldn’t even bring myself to go to work. For a week, I just hid in my room.”
“What made you stay?”
“Rowan.”
I glance at him. He’s looking out the window.
“He’d come to visit me twice before, for a week each time,” Starling explains. “The first time, he got his Advanced Open Water certification. The second time, he got his Rescue Diver certification. The third time, he never left. He traveled to other countries, of course. But never home.”
Two years. I still can’t wrap my brain around it. I wonder what he was like before he left for his perma-vacation. Less than a week into my own, I already feel changed. Although not nearly as changed as I’d like to be.