The Lost Girls (16 page)

Standing on the sidewalk outside the club, Amanda and I waited for our van while covertly playing fashion police with the outrageous characters that passed by.

“I'm so glad you came out tonight. I was worried you'd bail,” I said.

“And miss all this? No way? Besides, my eighty-year-old self told me that if I'd stayed in, I'd totally regret missing tonight,” she replied as a band of muscle-bound men walked by, smiled, and whistled before continuing down the shadowy road on foot.

Laughing, I recalled the first time Amanda had mentioned her mysterious eighty-year-old self. During one of our countless 3 a.m. conversations in our freshman dorm, she'd explained that whenever she'd had a tough time trying to figure out whether she should take a risk or not, she'd ask, “What would the blue-haired, sun-parched, granny-panty-wearing future version of myself advise me to do? Would she tell me to stay in and study or go out and meet a cute guy?”

I had immediately understood where she was coming from. I often justified my more impulsive choices with a similar rationale that “I'll sleep when I'm dead” or “Live every day like it is your last.” I guessed that overachievers like us needed some excuse, however quirky it might be, to defy our own conventions and just have fun.

“Well,
my
eighty-year-old self would have advised me to not act so bitchy to my friend Amanda when she wanted to hit up an Internet café to research an article,” I said.

“What are you talking about? No, you haven't,” Amanda said with a wave of her hand, then added, “I mean, I know you get frustrated with my writing, but it's something I really want to do for myself. I guess I just don't understand why it annoys you.”

“It's not really your writing. It's more of my own shit. You saw what a crazy freak I was the last few months before we left New York. I mean, seriously. What the hell was I thinking trying to study for the GMATs, work fourteen-hour days,
and
try
to figure out the Brian thing? I really just needed a few weeks on the road to relax and unwind.”

“What's going on with you and Brian, by the way?” Amanda asked gently.

“Oh, who knows. We e-mail back and forth and chat on Skype, but we mostly just make small talk and try to avoid the elephant in the room…or on the line…or whatever. But, God, it's just so sad most of the time. I can't stand it. I mean, there's really nothing left for us to hold on to, but it's, like, we just can't let go.”

“I know. I can't imagine how hard it's been for you guys. It totally sucks, Jen. I'm sorry,” she said with sincerity.

“It's fine. Really,” I replied. “I mean, being on this trip with you and Hol makes things seem okay somehow. Even when we're in the shittiest of shit hostels or trapped on a ten-thousand-hour bus ride—I don't know, I just love it. It's like I finally found something bigger than myself to focus on. It sounds a little cheese-ola, but that's why I'm always pushing us to live in the moment and use this time to explore new sides of our personalities.”

“You mean like becoming favela funk partygoers,” she said, motioning to a group of drunk college-aged girls stumbling into their hostel's assigned vehicle. “Look, I totally get that. We
are
doing those things and it's awesome, but it can't be like that every single day,” Amanda replied. “I don't know. You're holding on to Brian. I'm holding on to my career. Maybe we're not supposed to let go of everything all at once.”

“Okay, fair enough. I guess it really is just me pinning too many hopes on this trip to help me to figure out my own life. Because I don't have a clue about anything at this point. Not my boyfriend. Or career. Or plans for the future. I know
nothing
,” I moaned.

“Well, we
do
know this…that girl's tangerine leotard thing
is so
not
cute,” Amanda said, nodding her head in the direction of the club before turning her attention back to me. “So things are totally crazy for you right now. I get it. But Holly and I will be there in New York if you need us, and then we get to go to Kenya so you can live your dream.”

“Thanks, Schmanders,” I said just as our ride appeared. “I know everything will work out the way it's supposed to in the end.”

“It definitely will. And just think, tomorrow we'll be in Salvador with ten full days to chill out on the beach.”

“Hey, there you all are. What a night, huh, ladies?” our friend Morris said, throwing his arms around us and pulling us into the packed minivan.

“Hell yeah, it was,” Amanda replied.

“And just think, we have ten more months of travel ahead of us,” I said, leaning my cheek against the cool glass window as we sped down the bumpy incline, attempting to beat the sun back to Mellow Yellow.

SALVADOR, BRAZIL
AUGUST

I
'd never seen anything like it, except maybe on TV when Olympic gymnasts performed floor exercises. Men had gathered to cartwheel around their opponents and scissor-kick over one another's heads. One shirtless guy swung his legs low behind him to dodge a blow and then did a half-dozen flips before landing on his feet. It happened so fast, I got dizzy just watching.

It was our first day in Salvador, Brazil's oldest city, formerly the country's main slave port and home to people who are a blend of African, European, and Native American blood. This genetic pool has blessed many locals with the bodies of lean, muscular dancers and skin as smooth as polished mahogany. I was as captivated by their natural beauty as I was by their skillful performance as a group of about a dozen guys took turns doing
capoeira
—a cross between martial arts and dancing—on the beach down the street from our guesthouse.

Toes buried in the sand, I closed my eyes and tipped my face up happily to soak up the heat from the Brazilian sun, which was so much more intense than the rays in New York. Moments earlier, Jen and Amanda had walked toward the water to watch
the show and to buy coconut water for a buck apiece. Here, as in Rio, you could sip the sweet liquid directly from the coconut via a hole that's been sliced into one side and fitted with a bendy straw.

“Oi. De onde esta você?”
I turned to find a petite woman with skin the color of honey and waist-length hair sprawled on a beach chair behind me.

“Lo siento, yo no hablo portugués. ¿Habla español o inglés?”
I'm sorry, I don't speak Portuguese. Do you speak Spanish or English?

She giggled and turned to say something to another twenty-something woman wearing a white string bikini and a guy with hazel-green eyes, both planted beside her.

“Where…you from?” She tried again.

“New York. Are you from Salvador?” I asked her.

Rather than respond (maybe she didn't understand?), she gestured for me to join her and her friends. I glanced toward the water to see Jen and Amanda, who were now moving their legs back and forth in an arc while a guy swung his arms in front of his body, instructing them on the basics of capoeira.

Grabbing our day packs, I plopped myself in the sand next to the three Brazilians. The guy offered me a can of Skol, a popular beer, and I felt the fizzy liquid cool my throat as I took a gulp. Since we didn't speak the same language, we sat there smiling awkwardly at one another between sips, until they gave up on silence and began chattering with each other in Portuguese.

Once again, I was back to feeling like a toddler learning to speak for the first time. While in Peru, I'd picked up enough Spanish to carry on basic conversations, but all of mine were peppered with communication breakdowns. (My first week there, a Peruvian guy who offered to buy me a drink at a bar looked shocked when I tried to say I was embarrassed for mispronouncing his name. That's when Amanda laughed and said,
“Holly, you said
embarazada
, which means
pregnant
, not embarrassed!”) I worried I'd make a similar misstep while trying out my Portuguese.

After several minutes spent in silence with me smiling stupidly at the group while they talked, the trio stood up and one of the women pulled me to my feet.

“Hey, Holly, where are you going?” Jen asked as she returned from the capoeira lesson to sprawl out on her towel.

“I don't know. But I think my new friends want to show me something. Can you watch our stuff?”

“Sure.” Jen shimmied over to grab our bags, and I let the woman lead me away.

If I had been back in New York, I would never have allowed a stranger to drag me off to some unknown locale. But as she pointed to the end of the pier, where a crowd had formed, the mission seemed more like an adventure than a danger. I followed her out to the edge, joining her and the cluster of locals who sat with their legs dangling. Men, women, and kids were chatting wildly, laughing freely, and sipping drinks as they stared at the skyline. The sun looked like an oozing ball of lava, turning from yellow to orange to red as it sank into the ocean and lit the clouds above. The second it disappeared, the crowd erupted into cheers.

They came out here just to watch the sunset.
I clapped with energy I didn't even know I had. When was the last time Elan and I had taken the time to watch the sun set over Manhattan? The cheering faded along with the sun, but the crowd lingered. Some talked excitedly, while others jumped into the water as the clouds clung to the last streaks of light. The two women and the guy I'd been hanging out with were taking turns diving off the pier like kids. Without stopping to think, I got to my feet, took a running start, and jumped off, too.

I pretended that my plunge into the Bay of All Saints had
the power to wash away any heaviness I felt from missing Elan. For a moment it was only me, the sky above, and the salt water swirling around me. I let myself sink deeper, briefly losing sense of which way was up and which was down.

When I resurfaced, the first stars were faintly dusting the sky. I glanced over to see that my new friends had already climbed back onto the pier. The girl with the waist-length hair stood scanning the ocean and waved me in once I surfaced.

“It's okay, I can get up by myself,” I said, floundering on the slippery ladder, the waves pounding at my back. She didn't understand me and wrapped her hand around my wrist. I braced myself against the wooden planks and let her help me out.

 

S
queak, slam, crash!
After hours of staring at the ceiling, counting backward from a hundred and imagining myself spooning with Elan, sleep had finally overtaken me. That is, until a drunken backpacker stumbled into the room, let the door slam behind her, and then missed a rung on the ladder leading to the bunk above mine. She fell to the floor in a messy heap.

“Are you okay?” I bolted upright, knocking my head on the bed above me. “Ouch!” I howled.

“I'm fine—no worries!” slurred the Australian girl.

She tried crawling into the bunk again, shaking the rickety frame as she collapsed onto the mattress. Within seconds bearlike snores reverberated through the room. I spent the next few hours tossing and turning, my runaway mind bouncing first from whether I'd saved enough to pay my student loans each month to missing my sister's birthday back home to how I could convince Jen and Amanda to change guesthouses. They still didn't seem to understand that an insomniac like me could not spend an entire year in noisy dorms.

Sleeping with strangers—or attempting to—was turning me
into a walking zombie. Although my friends and I had quietly disagreed about our hostel arrangements, I was beginning to worry that the real issue wasn't about sleeping at all but rather about wanting to spend our time on the road in very different ways. I didn't mind having a cocktail now and then, but after exploring the nightlife in Lima, dance clubs in Arequipa, and backpacker bars in Rio, I was starting to worry that my traveling companions wanted to turn our trip into a yearlong spring break. I cringed just thinking about Mellow Yellow in Rio, where I'd curled up on a mattress no thicker than a notebook in a closet-sized room that vibrated with drums and bass from the in-hostel bar just three feet away while the girls were out at the favela party until dawn. Jen and Amanda had been thrilled to stay at Mellow Yellow, but it'd been my idea of Hostel Hell.

Although we'd sworn at one point to share our expectations for on-the-road life
before
we actually got on the road, somehow we'd never gotten around to it back in New York. It wasn't until I spent every waking and sleeping minute with Jen and Amanda that I learned how they preferred to spend their daily lives—and night lives. I was scared that they'd merely traded partying in Manhattan for partying on the road, changing their surroundings but not their lifestyle.

Feeling as if I might be acting like a princess or a baby or both, I'd hesitantly tried to tell Jen and Amanda that I didn't want to stay in party dorms. Once they finally seemed to hear me, they'd looked at me with disappointment.

“Holly, we want to be around other backpackers. How are we supposed to meet people if we're stuck in some boring hotel?” Amanda had argued.

“Yeah,” Jen had agreed. “Besides, dorms are cheaper and we have to stretch our money.”

They definitely had a point about the money thing—communal rooms could cost as little as $5 each, while a private triple
might cost $10 apiece—or more. The difference meant we could afford to stay on the road for twice as long. Did I need to loosen up? Wasn't traveling as a group all about compromise?

But finally, as the dawn's early light cast lines on my face through the blinds, I decided that enough was enough. I didn't want to squander my trip feeling hungover and exhausted. I wanted to feel healthy and free. As I stared up at the ceiling, its cracks amplified in the morning shadows, niggling thoughts morphed into full-blown fears. Had I thrown away a fulfilling career, left the man I loved, and sacrificed my idea of a home all to hang out in backpacker hostels?

Bleary-eyed but suddenly motivated, I climbed out of bed and started loading my quick-dry towel and other belongings into my backpack. My plan was to pack and then read in the common room until Amanda and Jen woke and I could tell them my next move.

“Holly, what are you
doing
?” Amanda whispered loudly, leaning her head out of the bottom bunk across the room.

I paused before answering, “I've got to find someplace quieter where I can sleep—I'm seriously exhausted.”

“Wait, what?” Now it was Jen who bolted upright in the bunk above Amanda's. “You can't leave!”

I stopped for a second, surprised. It's not as if I was cheating on them by taking off with a new group of backpackers—I was just going to sleep in separate quarters. “You know I love you guys, but I've tried to tell you…I'm just not down with the wild party dorms. And I don't want you to change your trip for me. Believe me, it's nothing personal,” I said, hoisting on my backpack.

“But it
is
personal, Holly. We're in this trip together. If you go, we have to come with you,” Amanda said. She placed her bare feet on the wooden floor and fished around for her backpack.

And with that, my two traveling partners loaded their packs, checked out of the hostel with me, and headed for the Old Town section of Salvador.

It was a tense cab ride—I despise conflict and felt guilty for uprooting the girls. But I knew keeping silent wouldn't benefit the group in the long run. I tried to distract myself by paying extra close attention to the world streaking by outside the window. In the city's Old Town, cobblestone streets wound around seventeenth-century houses painted in shades of banana yellow and ocean blue. Hundreds of churches stood side by side with
terreiros
, holy places where worshipers merged the traditions of two religions: Portuguese Christianity and Afro-Brazilian Candomblé. As we passed by so much history, my outburst at the hostel suddenly seemed silly and insignificant compared to the journey I'd agreed take with Jen and Amanda. I had my two friends, and I was traveling the world. What the hell was my problem? I hoped we could find a way to merge my idea of the trip as more of a learning vacation with the girls' desire for partying and relaxing.

As we walked into Albergue das Laranjeiras Hostel, its dark wooden lobby fashioned like an old ship, I glanced around at the bustling café where travelers were lined up for a buffet breakfast that included yogurt, pastries, cheeses, and sliced mangoes. Instead of a bar, I spotted an open loft above where visitors lounged in hammocks and read guidebooks.

“Is this place okay with you?” I asked. To my relief, they both nodded.

When the man behind the counter said they had only one single and a few dorm spaces left, the girls told me to take my own room and they'd save money by sleeping in the dorms. After that, Amanda and Jen agreed that we'd always try to stay in triples if they were available.

I felt thankful. Money may not buy happiness, but in this
case, a few extra bucks could buy sanity. I laid out my sleeping bag in the narrow room, big enough to fit only a single bed but filled with silence, and happily burrowed inside in search of sleep.

 

B
y the time Amanda and Jen came knocking at my door, it was nearly evening. I'd slept the entire day away—something I don't think I'd done since I was eight and had the chicken pox. It had taken only a little rest for me to feel calm again. Hoping things wouldn't be awkward between the three of us, I asked them to go for a walk. I was itching to explore a new part of town together.

As Amanda, Jen, and I lounged at a table on one of the cobblestoned streets branching off Largo do Pelourinho, I felt as if I'd stepped back in time. A fellow traveler had recommended we check out the pedestrian road lined with bars and restaurants to try
vatapá
, a yellow stew made with shrimp. Though the cuisine was delicious, it was definitely not diet-friendly: palm oil, coconut, and cashews were all staple ingredients. And to spice it up even more, many dishes came with red peppers so hot, they were guaranteed to make your nose break into a sweat.

We each ordered a different dish and then passed them around so we could sample more flavors. “Hey, I'm sorry about the whole hostel thing. I still feel bad for making us move,” I said, holding out my plate like an olive branch.

“Holly, seriously, don't worry about it. We love our new place,” Amanda said, spooning some rice onto her dish. “Jen and I just don't want you to quit the trip and go home. For a few minutes this morning, we were seriously worried you might!”

“I was never going to quit!” I said, again surprised that they'd thought I'd leave for good. “I guess I'm not the best at communicating, and so things just kind of built up in my head.
It wasn't just about the sleeping thing. I'm worried that all the trip is going to turn out to be is partying with backpackers,” I said.