Wanderlove (27 page)

Rowan runs his palm over his eyes, looking weary. “It’s nothing. Just a connection Jack has. A way to make extra money, when all the crowds are here for Lobsterfest.”

“He wants you to, like . . .” I can’t bring myself to say the word again. “To sell . . .”

“It’s not a big deal or anything.”

“But it
is
a big deal. After everything you just told me?”

“It really isn’t. Compared to the kind of situations I used to get into, it’s nothing. I’ve already said too much. Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re not going to do it, are you?”

“I said, don’t worry about me, Bria! I can take care of myself.”

I can’t let it go. “But—”

“Hey, look!”

I turn and look. In a silver pool of light from a dock lamp, sinuous black shadows move through the water. Rowan steps closer to me.

“Baby nurse sharks. They come out at night. Aren’t they graceful?”

Any other time, I’d be captivated. Or joke about yet another hazard keeping me from the water. But this time, my stomach reels with frustration. It’s not the first time Rowan’s tried to change the subject right when we’re getting somewhere. I’d hoped we were past that stage, but apparently we’re not.

And this time, we’re talking drugs across borders. Jail in third-world countries. Drug deals that might not be entirely dealt with. I know I should have expected this, after what Starling said, what Liat said. And I did expect some of it.

Drugs, maybe. Girls. Scores of girls. But not all this. I mean . . .my God.
Rowan.
No wonder he didn’t want to tell me about his past.

Especially since it’s looking likely that it’s not in the past at all.

My emotions are twisting together, so dense and dizzying I can hardly speak. My head aches, and Rowan’s not helping by striding way too fast down the road to our hostel. He drops me off at my room with barely a nod for a goodnight.

I stand with my ear against the door until I hear his shut.

I count to sixty.

Then I hurry back downstairs to the hostel lobby, where the night clerk’s still manning the desk. With his help, I call the number Starling gave me back in Río Dulce, the emergency number I’m supposed to call if anybody needs saving.

“I think Rowan’s in trouble,” I tell her.

Day 16:

Letting Go

Lobsterfest is tomorrow.

It sticks up from the landscape of my journey like a volcanic peak. The inevitable climax of my days in Central America. Exciting, intimidating. Unavoidable.

And now Starling will be there. She’s flying in from Flores tomorrow morning.

“But do you really have to come all this way?” I said on the phone last night. “Can’t you call Rowan and, I don’t know, talk some sense into him?”

“That wouldn’t work,” she explained. “First, because it would make him angry, and less likely to listen to me. Second, because he’d know you called me. By showing up for the party, I can pretend it was a surprise—my intention all along.”

He’d know you called me.
I never thought of that. I tried to imagine Rowan’s reaction if he learned I told on him, and it made me want to down an entire keg of Jack’s toxic punch.

“You’re sure about this, Bria? Because if you’re wrong . . .” I told her I was certain.

And I thought I was. But this morning at breakfast, I can barely look at Rowan. It’s for the best, I tell myself. I’m doing this because I care. And
he’s
the one betraying my trust.

Though every time I think of last night’s furtive phone call, it feels like it’s the other way around. I just wish I’d given Rowan another chance to explain. Or demanded an explanation.

But now it’s too late.

I need to keep busy, I tell myself. It’s the only way to keep my mind from stumbling backward into last night’s minefield.

After breakfast, I hurry back to the hostel. When the coast is clear, I wash a few tank tops, a couple of pairs of shorts, and all my underwear in the sink of the shared bathroom. I drape them over the balcony outside our room to dry.

I hang out at the edge of Sonia’s backyard until she comes outside and calls me a creep. While we listen to a bootleg CD of her favorite soca music, she tells me a story about a white man her husband took lobster fishing, mocking him in a deep, dopey voice. “So he says, ‘I nailed this one guy so big you wouldn’t believe. The guide said it musta been fifteen years old. Did he ever fight! A furious sonofabitch. I had to rip off both his antennae and a leg or two to get him on the boat.’” She spits. When I ask why, she explains, “He got no respect.

He should have left that ancient old creature alone. That lobster probably was ten times smarter than he is, the filthy potlicker.”

After lunch, I consider getting out my sketchbook, but I don’t really feel like drawing.

Instead, I ride my bike to the airstrip and watch a plane land. It looks like an aerial chicken bus. I weave a handful of bougainvillea into a bracelet, which breaks when I try to slip it on.

For the trillionth time, I visit the island’s two art galleries.

There’re folk art, watercolor portraits of locals, island scenes constructed from torn tissue paper and shells. I wonder if they sell art by visitors, or just the islanders. I wonder how many drawings you’d have to sell to make a living, at these prices, in this place. Maybe if you supplemented your income with another kind of job, like working the desk at a hotel, or ad-ministration at one of the dive shops. Rent has to be cheap here. It wouldn’t be that hard.

When I hop off my bike to watch uniformed schoolchildren cavorting in a playground, a little girl runs at me and hugs me around my knees. For no reason.

I buy a bag of roasted peanuts and a plastic bag of green mango slices coated in chili and lime. I sit at the channel and eat, scanning the horizon for Rowan’s boat, my feet in the water, the dive book in my lap.

I wonder if he and Jack have had the chance to talk.

I wonder how Rowan’s feeling. If he’s feeling regret.

Because I know I am. Regret that I let myself trust a guy, yet again, when the first time failed so miserably. Trust that he was “reformed.” That he’d do the right thing around me, like Starling said. That he’d eventually explain everything to me, like he promised under the lighthouse in Belize City, and again when we sat on the overturned boats a few days ago, and other times too. He only told me under duress, and that’s not the same.

How could I trust him when all I had was what he’d given me?

If Rowan hadn’t remained so closed off, I wouldn’t have had to run to Starling. But he’s made it almost impossible for me to confront him. Now he’s about to wreck everything we’ve built traveling together. And there’s no time to recover.

Because there’s barely any time left.

In the late afternoon, when the palm shadows are turning purple, and the dive boats are almost due to arrive, I park my bike beside a wide stretch of sand. With my arms crossed, I watch a group of laborers unfurl a chain-link fence.

The divers call tonight Lobsterfest Eve, like Christmas Eve. Apparently, it’s tradition to abstain from drinking, to save up for the next day’s epic liver-pickling session. But the dive students want to celebrate their spanking new Open Water certifications. So Jack concocts several pitchers of mocktails, which taste like watermelon smoothie mixed with cough syrup and agony.

We sit at the picnic table while Jack, Clement, and Devon enthusiastically exchange stories of Lobsterfests past. As usual, I have nothing to contribute to their talk of vomiting up lobster-flavored ice cream in the vacant lot behind Gilligan’s Grill. Emily and Ariel keep trying to change the subject to the exploits of the past few days: equalizing, regulators, wet suits with saggy asses, surprise barracudas.

“Do you remember what happened to Ariel?” Emily shouts across the table. “When she lost her mask at sixty feet?”

“During a skill set,” Ariel explains to me. “You have to take your mask all the way off for an entire minute. I dropped it when Ethan kicked me with his flipper by accident.” Ethan, I gather, is one of the dreadlock twins.

“Thank God Rowan found it,” Emily says.

“It was hooked on a piece of coral at
eighty feet.
”

“Jack and I had to hold her in place so she wouldn’t freak out and swim to the surface.”

“Bria, you would have been so scared. I thought I was going to drown!”

While Ariel continues her story, Emily turns to Rowan.

She’s dominated his attention all through dinner—not too hard, since he obviously doesn’t want to talk about Lobsterfest. I’m bothered. Shouldn’t be, but I am. Because here’s the thing: if I think about it, I have to admit that Emily’s more Rowan’s type than Ariel is. She’s edgier, opinionated. Definitely the boss man. And she
loves
to dive.

A bee lands in my mocktail. I try to use my straw to rescue it, but it’s not working. Finally, I pour the drink into a bush.

“Hey!” Jack says. “I saw that. I put lots of love into these beverages.”

“And a whole lot of rotten fruit,” I mutter.

All evening, Jack’s hand has been knocking into mine under the table. By the fourth time, I suspect it’s not an accident. Part of me is compelled to get up and leave. Ambush flirtation is sort of shady. Plus, Jack had that thing with Starling. Doesn’t that make his attention inappropriate?

Sounds like
I’m
the ethics police.

Not really, though. Even though any attraction to Jack would make me a hypocrite, if I’m completely honest with myself, another part of me feels flattered. Because if Jack is interested in me, and he had a “thing” with Starling—she of the coconut rings and indigent villages and Mayan heads-carves and phone book–sized travel journals—then it almost makes us equals. Which might be silly, but it feels really good.

Like I’ve reached my
potential
after all.

Jack clutches a fist to his chest, as if my insulting his mocktail savaged his heart. “Just wait until tomorrow. Add a bit of booze, and you won’t even notice the taste.”
Just wait until tomorrow.

My eyes drift back to Emily and Rowan. He and I haven’t spoken since last night, other than mumbled g
ood morning
s at breakfast and
how are you, I’m fine
. I wonder if he’s suspicious of me. I wonder if he knows about Jack’s overeager hands.

I realize I don’t see Rowan’s hands. Or Emily’s.

“You know what? I think it’s time for bed.” I untangle my legs from the picnic bench. Then, on impulse, I add, “I hope the geckos don’t keep me up tonight.”

Rowan squints at me. I stare back.

“Geckos?” Ariel looks around. “Where?”

Finally, lightbulbs appear in Rowan’s eyes. “I guess—” Before he can finish, Jack claps a mammoth hand on my shoulder. “Do you want me to walk you to your hostel?” Shit. I shrug at Rowan, who shrugs back. “No, I’m fine.

Don’t worry about it.”

I’m only a few steps away when Emily calls, “Hey! You forgot your sketchbook.”

I whirl around. “Thanks, I—”

And then I stop. Because she’s flipping through it.

“You’re pretty good,” she says.

I can’t move. My feet are adhered to the dock.

“Hey,” says Rowan. “Seriously, that’s not cool.” He reaches for my sketchbook, but Emily holds it away.

“Holy shit, Ariel, she drew us! Aw, come on. My legs aren’t that fat.”

Ariel bounces out of her seat and leans over Emily’s shoulder. “I think they look about right.” She turns a page, and then another. “I like the dog. He’s cute. He looks like Yoda.”

“How come you never drew Rowan? Oh, wait—there’s his foot. With all the bracelets.”

“You drew Rowan’s
foot
?” Jack asks.

“Who’s this blond girl you keep drawing?” My tongue has turned to wadded cotton. They’ve jammed a periscope inside my brain. Rowan reaches for the book a second time, but again, Emily dodges him, skipping a few feet down the dock. Ariel scampers after her.

“Dude! You’ve got to see these lists. They’re hilarious.

Rowan, you’ve got travel rules?”

“What the hell’s
Wanderlove
?”

And with that, I turn and run.

I admit it. I cry.

Okay, fine. I do more than cry. I dead-bolt the door of our dorm and squeeze onto our tiny balcony, fold myself into a weather-stained rattan chair, and bawl.

The tears come for the obvious reason: that these girls I barely know took something good and made it something to mock. But that alone wouldn’t be enough to make me cry this hard. I’m sobbing because it hits all too close to home. The places I swore I wouldn’t bring to this island, which is turning out to be the exact opposite of the idyllic paradise I thought it was. And I cry harder, because my overreaction embarrasses me. I cry because I’m crying. Which means I will probably cry forever, in a Mobius strip of endless tears.

Someone’s knocking on the door.

“Go away,” I shout. Emily and Ariel can sleep on the beach tonight for all I care.

“Please, Bria. Let me in.”

It’s Rowan. I freeze mid-sob. Before I can chicken out, I pull up my tank top and use it to wipe my face, then march inside and throw open the door.

He’s holding my sketchbook.

My traitorous arms rise to hug him, but I restrain them just in time. I grab my sketchbook and fling it onto my bed before heading back to the balcony. Only then do I remember all my underwear lying out to dry. “Shit,” I say, scooping it into my arms. A pair of pink bikinis flutters to the ground right as Rowan steps outside.

“Need help with those?”

I glare at him with the intensity of a thousand hellfires.

Then I squeeze past him into the room and dump the pile into my backpack. They’re not completely dry, but that’s the least of my concerns. I return to the balcony, my rattan chair, and my scowl.

“I want you to know,” Rowan says, “I didn’t look.”

“What, at my underwear?”

“At your sketchbook. It was really screwed up of Emily to grab it like that, and I told her. Repeatedly. So did Jack and the others. I want you to know.”