Cross Currents (15 page)

“And how about you, Niran? What do you like most about this place?”

Niran thought about his friends, playing soccer, and catching fish. He loved all of those things, loved them as much as he did himself. “If we didn't live here, I'd miss being together,” he finally replied.

His mother's brow furrowed. “But we'd be together in Bangkok too.”

“No, we wouldn't. Father would work at some factory. We'd hardly see him.”

She nodded, biting her lip at the thought of Lek being pulled from them. They would make do, of course. And in most ways they would be fine. But ultimately his absence would take a toll on them, the way the sun fades the colors of a beach umbrella. Such thievery went unnoticed, day to day. Yet at the end of the year the umbrella would be a pale replica of its former self.

Sarai's gaze drifted from Niran's to Suchin's face. “What would you think if I started giving massages?” she asked. “On the beach in front of our resort?”

“Massages?” Suchin repeated, shaking her head. “But why?”

“Just for some extra money. I don't have much to do in the afternoon anyway.”

“Would you still walk us home from school?”

“No, probably not. But you're old enough to do that alone. You don't need me slowing you down.”

Suchin looked at her feet, unaware of a group of her friends calling her name. “But this is what we do. You're cooking the rest of the day. We hardly see you.”

“You see me in the kitchen. Every day you do. That won't change. We can talk and laugh and chop up tomatoes together.”

Niran squeezed his mother's hand. “But if you're not with us, and I find something pretty, who can I show it to?”

“Just bring it home. Show it to me at home.”

“But—”

“And if it's a rainy day, I'll come get you. No one will want to get a massage in the rain.”

Niran looked to the sky, which was as blue as deep water. “Then I'll hope for rain.”

Sarai hugged her children, straightened their shirts, and said good-bye. She watched them walk ahead, moving much slower than usual. The habit of meeting them at school had created a special tradition for them, one that she was loath to break. That tradition to her was what religion was to some people, lifting her, making her feel steady on her feet, and filling her mind with bliss and laughter.

Though Sarai didn't want to sit on the sand, to rub the backs of rich tourists while her own ached, she had no choice. Just two massages a day would mean four or five hundred extra baht, money that might make the difference between their staying or leaving, between a future she could control and celebrate or one that she could not.

Sarai watched her children depart. As usual, Niran followed his sister, climbing up the cement steps to the school. Upon reaching the top step, he turned toward his mother and waved. She waved back, but unlike most mornings, her wave didn't bring a smile to his face. He disappeared inside, and she felt a loss as he vanished, as if the laughter in her mind had suddenly grown quiet.

After blinking away the wetness in her eyes, Sarai hurried back home, knowing that she had to dice and clean and keep her customers happy. And then she would bring a towel to the beach, going from person to person, asking who'd like a massage for two hundred baht, degrading herself, but also ensuring that the lives of her loved ones didn't change.

Sarai knew little about the intricacies of giving a massage. But she'd seen it done so many times and was sure that she would learn. She would learn, treat the flesh of strangers with the greatest of care, and when the rains came, she'd hurry to her loved ones and the laughter would return.

PATCH WASHED HIS HANDS AND face in the sea, then walked toward Ryan's bungalow. He'd just returned from the village, where he had arranged for Ryan to go scuba diving with a dive master he trusted. To Patch's delight, Ryan had seemed eager to board the boat, put on his gear, and talk to the other divers about the prospects of seeing a whale shark. The two brothers had made amends over their disagreement, and Patch had wished Ryan luck, waving good-bye, proud of him for his journey to Ko Phi Phi.

Just before the boat had departed, Patch had again promised to look after Brooke, and now, as he stepped toward their bungalow, he wondered what she was doing. His knock went unanswered. As Achara cried somewhere nearby, Patch walked to the beach, where Brooke sat in a lounge chair beyond the reach of an umbrella's shade. She wore a bikini, sunglasses, and her Race for the Cure baseball hat, and she was reading a dog-eared book. Though Patch tried to not look at her body, he noticed that her skin glistened, seemingly brighter than the midmorning sun.

“Hi, there,” he said quietly, not wanting to startle her.

She looked up, setting her book on her lap. “Hi.”

“I just saw Ryan off. He won't be back for a few hours.”

“Was he excited?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” she replied, brushing sand off her shins and then standing up. “You don't need to be my chaperone, you know.”

“I know. But I want to show you something.”

“What?”

“Feel like going for a hike?”

She nodded, putting on her sandals, sarong, and a blue T-shirt. “Let's hike.”

Patch led her away from the beach, following a sandy trail toward the island's northern cliffs. They soon passed run-down bungalows, a mini-mart, and several stalls that sold the usual trinkets. Three middle-aged women in pink, button-down, short-sleeved shirts sat outside a sliding glass door and asked if Patch and Brooke wanted massages. Patch knew the women well and replied in Thai, telling them that they looked lovely. The masseuses laughed.

“She your girlfriend?” one of the women asked in broken English, gesturing toward Brooke.

“My brother's.”

“Then he more lucky than you. Sure, sure he is.”

“You've got that right.”

The masseuses continued to laugh as Patch smiled and increased his speed. The path zigzagged past worn one-story structures that served as repair shops, Laundromats, and money exchange centers. Tourists haggled with locals, toddlers chased rolling bicycle tires, and palm trees stood so still that they might have been painted into the landscape.

The ground began to rise, and soon all buildings disappeared, the jungle seeming to leap forward in the absence of steel and paint. Tropical trees stretched skyward, tendrils of vines hanging from branches. Some of the vines sprouted flowers. Other vines ran from tree to tree, creating brown webs suitable for catching monsters. Head-high ferns competed for light. Geckos rested on logs and awaited six-legged meals. Butterflies drifted about orchids, the wings and petals an assortment of vibrant colors. The trail turned from sand to dirt, exposed roots running like veins across the island's skin.

Brooke followed Patch, surprised by how quickly one world had given way to another. She'd been on beaches before, but never one near a tropical jungle. The trees were massive, some with pale or even green trunks. Monkeys played in the thick canopy above, dropping from limb to limb with more determination than grace. Frogs and insects created a cacophony of hoots, beeps, and screeches. Occasionally rays of sunlight penetrated the thick canopy and slanted toward the ground. Brooke felt as if she were in a cathedral of sorts, with trees replacing soaring arches and flowers mimicking stained-glass windows.

Her gaze went from the jungle to Patch. She noticed how he didn't hurry up the trail the way Ryan would have. Instead, Patch paused to point out sights to her—a fallen leaf the size of her torso, a purple flower that resembled exploding fireworks. He always made sure to greet the Thais they passed in their own language, using English only for encounters with fellow tourists. He was deferential to everyone, letting people take the easiest path while he skirted roots and rocks.

The incline grew steep, and Brooke started sweating. She would have liked to take off her T-shirt but didn't feel right about wearing only her bikini top. The blue fabric of her shirt darkened around her chest and back. To her surprise, she didn't feel selfconscious. The sweat, which dropped off her face like rain from a wind chime, seemed natural and somehow cleansing. Whatever was leaving her body, she thought, was being replaced by the moist, aromatic tropical air.

As they continued to climb, Patch asked about her family and her studies. He conversed the way he moved, with no sense of haste. She was used to schedules and deadlines, and found herself reveling in his indifference to time. Her answers grew longer and more detailed. She watched the rise and fall of his sandaled feet. Several times she thought about Ryan, and where he might be, but such musings didn't linger. She began to question Patch about his past, pleased at how much he revealed, at how little he seemed to care about his successes and failures.

After about an hour, they reached the peak of what Brooke considered to be a small mountain. Patch led her toward an open area dominated by immense horizontal slabs of limestone. A few tourists and Thais sat on the upper slab, and so he headed toward a lower one, climbing up it, extending his hand toward her, pulling her higher.

Brooke smiled at the scene before her. All of Ko Phi Phi was revealed, and for the first time she understood why the guidebooks inevitably compared it to a butterfly. Opposite her position was a series of lush mountains—perhaps a mile long—that ended in steep drops to the azure sea. The faces of the cliffs were gray and shadowy. She could tell that their side of the island mirrored the other. Between the two wings spanned a curving swath of land bordered on each side by an immense beach. In the middle, the land couldn't have been more than a few blocks wide and seemed hardly to rise above the water, supporting several large hotels but little else. Dozens of sailboats were moored beyond the southern beach. In the distance, beneath the almost cloudless sky, a series of islands appeared to rise from the sea like moss-covered stones set in a puddle.

The view was one of the most beautiful Brooke had ever beheld, perhaps because of the contrasting colors and geographical shapes. The sea seemed to glow in neon blue. The two beaches were nearly snow white. And the island was a striking combination of greens and grays. Though the sea was flat and serene, the giant wings of Ko Phi Phi jutted almost straight out of the water, as if they'd been below the surface, gasping for air, and somehow had been able to leap into the light.

Patch smiled, then walked to the only nearby structure, a dilapidated stall, and returned with a bottle of mineral water, which he offered to her. She drank deeply, then handed him the bottle. “Could you stay here indefinitely?” she asked, having never considered the question until now.

“I love it here.”

“But could you stay forever?”

“Probably. As long as my family could visit.”

She nodded, wiping sweat from her brow, enjoying the warmth. “I still don't think you should do what Ryan wants.”

“Really?”

A memory unfurled within her, and she pushed it away. “Once . . . something was stolen from me. And I don't want anything to be stolen from you.”

“Why not?”

“Because some things . . . you just can't replace.”

“The best things?”

“That's right,” Brooke replied. “The best things.” She thought about how he hadn't asked what had been stolen from her. He'd sensed her need for privacy and chosen to respect it. “You're so unlike your brother,” she said, gazing at the distant sailboats, wondering where they'd come from. “The two of you are connected, but different. Kind of like yin and yang.”

“In some ways.”

“Ryan wants action. He wants to protect me.”

“But you don't want to be protected?”

“I don't know what I want. But it's not . . . some sort of knight in shining armor.”

Patch smiled. “It worked for Julia Roberts.”

“What?”

“In
Pretty Woman
. At the end. She asked Richard Gere to be her knight in shining armor.”

Brooke remembered the scene, and turned toward Patch. “Tempting. But extravagant. I don't need all that.”

“Good. Then maybe I have a chance with the ladies. Because for a while, my prospects haven't seemed great. Not without a job or any money.” He leaned toward her, smiling again. “Plus, I am a fugitive,” he whispered.

“Does that make me one too? Because I'm with you?”

“Probably.”

“Then we've got something on Richard Gere and Julia Roberts,” she replied, grinning.

Patch was glad to see her smile, and gestured for her to follow him away from the lookout point, along a little-used trail that ran into the jungle on the other side of the mountain. It took about ten minutes to reach a half-constructed home that had been framed, but never completed. The structure, which was little more than a collection of sun-bleached boards, had been built on and around limestone outcroppings and overlooked the northern beach.