Secrets (18 page)

Jessica slept fitfully that night, but Teri seemed to have no trouble dropping off right away. While Jessica listened to Teri’s even breathing, she thought back on some of the things they had talked about on their drive down from San Diego. Teri had pointed out the turnoff on the freeway toward Escondido and talked about growing up in a large family with a father who was the pastor of a Spanish-speaking church. Teri had been to Mexico many times. She said she had only been to Nueva twice before and that Kyle’s dream had been to build an orphanage here since this was one of the more prosperous villages in the valley. Many abandoned children were in the poorer surrounding villages, and they could be brought to an orphanage, if one existed.

Sleeping off and on, Jessica’s dreams came to her with sporadic themes. Over and over a tape of Kyle’s voice replayed his surprising statement, “I find myself intensely attracted to you.” Then she dreamed of an orphanage filled with laughing Mexican children. She woke and thought of her father, then fell asleep again and dreamed of being back in her classroom. Charlotte Mendelson was walking in with a police officer at her side as Charlotte pointed her acrylic-nailed finger at Jessica. Waking with a start, Jessica listened to the silence, calming her emotions, and wondering what it would be like to talk to God openly, intimately the way Teri did. Why couldn’t she do that?

Just when Jessica was ready to fall into a deep sleep, Teri’s alarm went off right by her head, startling her into an upright position. Teri reached over, slapped off the alarm, turned on
her flashlight, and sat up in her sleeping bag, reading something.

“What are you doing?” Jessica whispered.

“Reading my Bible,” Teri answered. “Do you want me to read aloud?”

“No, that’s okay. I need to make a trip to the lovely little outhouse.” Jessica pulled on her jeans and tennis shoes and unzipped the tent. She was greeted by Bill’s camera lens, right in her face.

“!Buenós dias, Senorita Fenton!”
he said.
“¿Cómo estás?”

“I’m going to como your estas in a minute,” Jessica said, placing her hand in front of the camera.

“No photographs, please,” Teri added in her best movie star voice.

“Hey, Bill, leave the women alone,” Kyle called out from his tent.

“Best to let sleeping beauties lie, is that it?” Bill said with a predawn smile peering out from behind his video camera.

“Why don’t you start up the camp stove and see if you can find the eggs.” Kyle emerged from his tent just as a rooster came pecking its way across their camp, crowing his heart out.

“Cool,” Bill said, “a Spanish-speaking rooster.” He hoisted his camera back onto his shoulder, and slinking after the scrawny bird, he said,
“Hola
, Senor Rooster. Don’t you want to be in the movies?”

Jessica made a quick trip to the outhouse and dove back into her tent. She was so tired she couldn’t believe it. All she wanted to do was crawl into her sleeping bag and go back to sleep. But she wasn’t going to get her wish. There was too much to do.

She tried her best to clean up with another wet towelette. Her contacts were a bit of a challenge, but she eventually succeeded in putting them in and joined Teri in the kitchen area
of their camp, where Teri was stirring a big pan of scrambled eggs on the camp stove. Several of the girls were up, helping her with the paper plates, plastic glasses, and silverware. This was all new to Jessica. She had never been on a camping trip like this before and never had she seen a bunch of kids pitch in and appear to have so much fun working.

That’s what Jessica noticed all day. These teens were having fun. It was hard work putting the roof on the church and finishing the interior. Several of the women from the village joined them in the morning along with the men who didn’t have to work on Saturday. Dozens of children ran around, as did mangy dogs, scrawny cats, and a couple of chickens.

Jessica found the work tiring. She had never tried anything like this before and was amazed to find that she actually kind of liked it. The three little girls who had attached themselves to her last night found her and followed her around all morning. Whatever Jessica did, they wanted to do, which included hammering and painting.

Around noon, when they were all hot and exhausted, Teri went to work making sandwiches. Some of the guys found a spigot and in their best Spanish asked one of the Mexican women if they could use it to wash up. She agreed, and within minutes a water fight broke out. Even Jessica received a bucket full of water splashed across her back. She let out a shriek and spun around. Kyle stood a few feet away with an empty bucket in his hand and a grin on his face.

Jessica thought for a moment of how it would appear to the women of the village if she retaliated. Teri had instructed her on how to be sensitive to the culture since the women in the village tended to be more reserved and modest than American women. Quickly glancing around, she noticed that all the women and most of the children had gone home for
their mid-day meal and perhaps a siesta. The only ones watching were the teens from their group, and they all seemed eager to see how Jessica would react.

“Thanks,” she said to Kyle with a smile. “I was getting a little too hot.”

“De nada,”
Kyle said in Spanish. “You’re welcome. Any time.” He sauntered off with the other guys, back to their beach chairs on the other side of the truck where Teri was passing out sandwiches.

Jessica retreated to her tent and grabbed her plastic sports bottle, which had been free with a drink she had bought yesterday. She carried it back to the camp kitchen. When no one was looking, she popped the stopper on the ice chest and filled her sports bottle with icy water. Then she walked over to join the lunch bunch.

Kyle had his back to her and was stuffing a large bite of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich into his mouth. No one seemed to notice her approach since Bill was busy entertaining them by making his sandwich into a talking puppet while Joel videotaped him. Jessica slipped in behind Kyle, opened the lid, and poured the icy water down his back.

“Yeow!” Kyle hollered, jumping out of his seat and spinning to face his opponent. He looked shocked and a bit delighted to discover it was Jessica. She smiled and strutted over to the card table to pick up her lunch plate.

“I got Kyle’s reaction on tape!” Joel said triumphantly. “You’re the first one on record who has been able to pay him back. Every year he gets us, but somehow we can’t quite get him.”

“It’s because I sleep with my eyes open,” Kyle said, giving a slight, involuntary shiver and sitting back in his beach chair. “Good thing I’m not the vengeful type, Senorita Morgan!”

Morgan!
Everything seemed to stop for Jessica. She caught Kyle’s gaze and searched it frantically. What else did he know about her?

“You mean, Senorita Fenton,” Bill corrected him.

“Right. Senorita Fenton,” Kyle said. His look at Jessica was one of compassion, one that said, “Come on, you can trust me.”

But did she dare?

A
ll afternoon Jessica worked alongside the teens and many eager village children. Mentally she processed every angle on how Kyle could know her real last name. He could have checked her wallet when he had her purse. Ida could have told him when he picked up the key to the house. Perhaps he had noticed the luggage tag the day she moved in. Or Charlotte could have tried to use her information to turn him against Jessica. Of all the options, Ida telling him was the most comforting. It would account for his reaction the afternoon he told her that secrets only become heavier the longer you carry them around.

Jessica tried to decide if his knowing her name had changed anything. Did it mean she could let down her guard and tell Kyle what she was running from? No, that was out of the question. All it meant was that he had a bit of information about her she wished he didn’t have. But it didn’t change anything.

At least none of her students seemed to think of it as anything more than an odd mix-up. That is, all but Dawn.

Toward the end of the afternoon she helped Jessica wash out paint brushes. Dawn had white paint in her hair and on her overalls, and even a few flecks had been sprinkled in her eyebrows. But Jessica had observed how much fun Dawn had acquiring each spot.

“Why did Kyle call you Señorita Morgan?” Dawn asked, looking down at the brushes in the bucket of milky water.

“Who knows?” Jessica said lightly. “Do you want to help me with dinner? Teri went to visit one of the women down the road, and I could use some help.”

“Okay,” Dawn said.

Jessica snuck a couple of quick peeks at Dawn out of the corner of her eye. Was it her imagination, or was Dawn looking at her differently?

I’m becoming neurotic!

Jessica put on a smile for Dawn. “Come on, let’s get started. Teri told me she would leave everything out.”

Jessica and Dawn washed up in a bucket of clear water and found Teri’s dinner fixings on the folding table. Spaghetti. Easy enough. They filled a big pot with pure water and tossed in the spaghetti noodles. Dawn opened the jumbo can of sauce, and Jessica found two loaves of prepared garlic bread. They had to hunt through the trunk of Kyle’s camping gear to find another pot for the sauce.

“I have to tell you,” Jessica said to Dawn once their endeavor was well underway, “I don’t cook much. My specialties are Marie Callender’s frozen microwave dinners.” She swatted at a few pesky flies and noticed how it was finally beginning to cool off.

Dawn laughed. “That’s all I know how to make, too. Sometimes I cook scrambled eggs. Oh, and I have made
chocolate chip cookies a few times. It’s funny because you should see our kitchen. It’s huge, with all these fancy machines like a pasta maker and a food processor. The joke is, we never use them. My dad and I buy frozen dinners or eat out.”

“That is kind of ironic, isn’t it?” Jessica said.

“I think the weird part is that I remember going to my grandma’s house for dinner when I was little, and she had this tiny kitchen—no dishwasher, no garbage disposal—and I think she had like three pots and one frying pan. She used to make these great meals. She was an awesome cook. And she never owned a microwave or a food processor in her life.”

Jessica laughed and then went hunting until she found a big wooden spoon to stir the sauce. “I can’t say that I’ve ever prepared anything for fifteen people before, either.”

“Sixteen,” Dawn corrected her, batting the flock of tiny mosquitoes away from her face. “Fifteen people were coming on this trip, and then you made sixteen. I’m really glad you came.”

“I think I am, too. It’s so different down here, isn’t it? The people and their way of life. It makes a person do some reflecting.” Out of the corner of her eye, Jessica noticed something over her shoulder. It was Bill’s camera.

“And here, folks, we have one of our famous mystery meals,” Bill said as he zoomed in on the bubbling pot of red sauce.

“It’s only spaghetti,” Dawn said.

“Yeah, that’s what they all say. The question is, what’s in the sauce?”

“Lizard bellies, gopher guts, and rotten bee brains,” Kyle said, stepping into their conversation.

“You’re not too far off in your prediction,” Jessica said, swatting at another fly. She shook her head at the same time, hoping to discourage the mosquito hoard which suddenly
showed up, acting as if Jessica’s ears were on their dinner menu. “Where did all these bugs come from?”

“They sleep during the heat of the day and come out when it cools off,” Kyle said.

“Great,” Dawn said. “Which do you prefer? Heat or bugs?”

“Yes, ladies and gentlegerms, that
is
the question tonight. Which do
you
prefer? Heat or bugs? Call in now. Our operators are standing by to record your response.” Bill kept talking to himself as he walked toward the girls’ tents, with one eye closed and the other squinting through his camera.

“Does anybody else worry about that guy?” Jessica asked.

“He’s one of a kind,” Kyle said. “I think he’s going to be a game show host when he grows up.”

Kyle came up behind Jessica, leaned over her shoulder, and looked in the pot of sauce. “How’s dinner coming?”

Jessica thought about how she and Kyle, even in the midst of this dirty, primitive setting, could pretend they were in a cozy kitchen of their own. She could lift the wooden spoon up for him to taste the sauce while cupping her hand underneath it to catch any drips. Or she could say, “Go wash up, dear. I’ll light the dinner candles, and you can pour the champagne.” These scenes were all from black-and-white reruns she had watched on Nick at Nite. Images—strong images—in her mind of what a family should be.

Jessica didn’t move. She knew that, if she turned around to look at Kyle, his face would be only inches from hers. “We’re getting there,” she said flatly and then, as Kyle walked away, she drew in a deep breath. She wanted to hold on to that scent of freshly washed skin that Kyle took with him. It was the smell of earth, sweat, and flesh rinsed with Ivory soap. The clean fragrance splashed up first, but in its wake lingered the manly, deeper scent that is earned only by hard work. She had known few men who carried that scent.