by Teya Tapler
In the end, Zander cleaned his hands of his pants and shouted back at Evan’s mother, “Mrs. Shtuttgart, everything’s loaded. I’ll be back with the plane and the professor in about two hours.”
”You did well so far. Now is your time to make a connection with her. Don’t talk about school. All 21st century teenagers hate that institution and are not receptive to conversation on the topic unless it is about debasing the education process.” Mary’s voice came into Zander’s ear, the small communicator device well hidden by his hair. She had been whispering to him ever since he became part of the archeological dig and started living in their tents. Her voice was guiding him during his few conversations with professor Shtuttgart helping Zander to become the personal assistant to Mrs. Shtuttgart. That is why today he was driving to Jose’s store instead of spending the day on the dig among the shovels, brushes and wheelbarrows. Most of the time Mary’s guidance was helpful but Zander was finding her annoying the other 90 percent of the time and that occasion was not an exception. “Remember what I told you the other day-” Mary continued as Zander turned the key into the ignition and the roar of the vehicle dissolved her words.
The start of the engine and the initial jolt interrupted Evan’s thoughts, reminding her to hold on. She quickly grasped the windshield with her right hand, feet pressed hard to the floor. When Zander started the car Evan swallowed heavily and squeezed the windshield for extra assurance. Supposedly the ride on the front seat was going to be better…or at least that was what everyone who hadn’t ridden with Zander would say.
They headed back to the camp, the crates on the back seat banging at each other and their content audibly clattering at every jolt of the car. Evan was keeping her eyes glued to an invisible point in the distance, trying hard not to lose her grip or give in too much to the car’s attempts to toss her off bump after bump. Few turns down the road Zander tried to start a conversation. “D’you like it here, Miss Shtuttgart?” he shouted at Evan, his voice squeezed between the noise from the car’s engine and the crates’ clanking.
The wind blew away Evan’s response. “No!” For her, the two letter word summed up both the ride to the camp and the quality of the rest of her time.
“What are you doing?” Mary’s voice came to Znader once more. It was as if she was talking without stopping to breathe. ”What is all that noise? Are you driving the car as fast as you can? Zander! Slow down! We need that girl on our side. If you don’t slow down –“
Zander tapped his left ear to turn the communicator off and continued his conversation with Evan. “Why?” he shouted again.
“Too dirty,” she shouted back still looking straight ahead, “and too bumpy,” she looked at him after the car jumped off one of the roots running across the road. The crates on the back seat banged at each other once again adding a dramatic ending to her statement.
He smirked and slowed down a bit. The heavy crates on the back seat stopped clanking and that improved the ride a bit. A veil of silence fell over the car. It became quieter, even uncomfortable. The previously angry and insubordinate engine started to agree with Zanders driving.
“So, you can fly the plane?” Evan asked just to break the awkward silence.
“Yeah, I got my license a few years ago.”
Show off. She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. He didn’t look much older than her, even under all that disheveled hair and dirty clothes.
“We lived in Africa, and there’s no age limit there. My parents are park rangers and flying’s a fast way to move around.” He said.
She didn’t respond and the conversation died. The silence engulfed them again as they drifted in their own thoughts, the noise of the engine keeping them in the present. The road was winding between the tropical foliage, potholes and roots as Evan, eyes focused on the distance, was thinking once more about the junior prom night and Kevin’s kiss.
Suddenly, the car jolted more than usual and came to an abrupt stop. It became surprisingly eerily quiet, even the car’s engine was silent. The only sounds surrounding them were a few distant birds and the wind blowing dust off the road.
“Not aga-ain!” Zander said.
”Are we out of fuel?” Evan said sarcastically.
Zander looked at the fuel gauge and ignoring her tone replied, “No-o, not likely, Miss Shtuttgart; it’s more than half full.”
He got out of the car, took a wrench from the box under the driver’s seat, opened the hood and started looking at the engine. Evan remained in the front seat and looked around. The car had stopped and removing her eyes from the invisible point in the distance wasn’t going to make her leave her breakfast on the front seat. Here, the rainforest looked the same as the rainforest outside her tent and the rainforest around the area where the excavation was going on. Enormous firs, palms and wild elephant’s ear plants surrounded them. There were trees everywhere: trees to the left and trees to the right; trees behind them and trees further ahead. There were small trees nestled under big trees, big trees growing next to even bigger trees, even what seemed like trees spreading out of other trees.
The initial calm, after the car stopped, slowly gave way to the daily rainforest chatter. Evan felt the curious animals coming closer: first the ants and the butterflies, followed by the birds and the small lizards, then the monkeys and the bigger snakes, followed by the deadlier predators. Hidden under the shrubs and the smaller trees or perched on the higher branches, even if the animals were not coming for her, in her mind Evan started seeing them surrounding the car one animal group at a time, ignoring the fact that some of them were feeding off the others, all organized with the idea of harming her. She got scared and looked for Zander, but she couldn’t see him behind the open hood.
“Can you fix it?” she tried to hide the tremble in her voice. Even though she felt uncomfortable around Zander, he was the only human being around that could scare the animals when they closed in on her: he had that wrench in his hand.
“Yeah, It’s that old thing again, I’ll think of something,” he replied as she heard him poking under the hood. His words were followed by a sharp, high pitched mechanical sound, a loud thud and a much louder curse, in that order. Zander angrily slammed the hood, kicked the front tire, threw the wrench on the road and walked away from the car.
“I heard that.” Mary scolded him. Somehow the communicator had turned itself on.
“I wasn’t talking to you Mary.” Zander whispered.
“Why are you talking to me? What happened to the girl? What is going on?” an avalanche of questions filled Zander’s ear.
“Yeah, she’s okay. The car broke. I’m okay too, thanks for asking. Now let me think for a moment. That vehicle is not only ancient but also an extremely bad piece of junk.” Zander whispered back and tapped his left year switching the communicator off again.
Evan watched him intently from the distance. She counted his steps as he distanced himself from the car, waving hands angrily until he came to a stop. Then he sat down in the middle of the road with his back to her, scratched the left side of his head, angrily hit his right knee and concentrated on something extremely far away. Afraid that he might not return before the animals attacked her, Evan jumped out of the car and slowly followed him. He didn’t have the wrench with him but he was still bigger and stronger than her. Evan took a fresh piece of chewing gum and put it in her mouth. She calmed herself by chewing very, very slowly as she moved toward Zander. She moved quietly avoiding stepping on any stones or muddy patches. Her pink cheerleader shoes were not the best choice for walking on that surface. Today they felt like the stilettos she’d worn during the prom: she was making a fashion statement and suffering the consequences.
Zander sat motionless, looking into the distance.
Realizing he was mentally somewhere else, without asking for permission, she sat next to him, close enough to feel safe and yet far enough not to invade his space, and looked into the distance trying to match the spot he had focused on.
“It’s just like in school. When you think you’ve figured it out it comes right back at you,” Zander hit his right knee with his fist again.
“I thought you were fitting in nicely,” Evan said, still focused on the distance.
He looked at her as if he hadn’t noticed her presence there. She felt watched and moved her eyes to him. “I thought you had figured out your place in life: driving a car, flying a plane,” she explained.
“You’re being sarcastic again, aren’t you?” he raised an eyebrow. “No, I haven’t figured out my place. My parents-” He suddenly stopped, surprised that for the first time he was about to mix his cover story with his personal live. It wasn’t the place to talk about his parents. That was not the time either, and she was just another client. He was working for the Time Travelling Agency and that was only the beginning of yet another retrieval expedition. Zander moved his eyes to a palm tree in the distance.
“At least they don’t drag you around like mine do.” Evan tried to smile, her fear subsiding. ”We haven’t been on a family vacation since the discovery of the first pearl. For me, the summer is a dead season. I can’t do anything.… I just hate it.”
“Yeah. All teenagers hate their parents. It’s an inevitable part of growing up,” Zander said. “At least you have your sister.”
“To play snakes and ladders with.” Evan rolled her eyes. “Do you want a piece of gum?” She pulled a package from her back pocket and offered him a piece.
“No thanks, Miss Shtuttgart.” He looked away, sounding annoyingly formal again. “I’ve got to fix the car. It’ll be getting dark soon.” He got up.
She looked at the sun. It was still pretty high up in the sky for her, but yet, she had never lived in the wilderness like him in Africa, and couldn’t tell the time by the sun or find directions by looking at the plants or the stars. Evan followed Zander and stood at the side of the car, curiously watching his actions. He opened the hood and leaned over.
“I’ve always been good at fixing things,” Zander spoke while fixing the car, “until I discovered the computer. That is a magnificent machine. You can talk to it and teach it how to command other equipment.”
“Where is it?” she asked.
“What?”
“Your computer,” she said, forgetting that they were in the rain forest. The thought of having internet access and contacting Kevin in real time crossed her mind. She could do a video conference, chat with him or in the worst case send him an email, either option was going to make her day.
“I don’t have one yet. That’s why I’m here—to earn enough money and buy one. How about you, Miss Shtuttgart, what are you dreaming of?” he asked, almost formally again.
“I want to be a reporter,” she said, not knowing why she was talking with him about that. Caught up in the moment, she continued, “I’ll study journalism in college. Kevin and I—” realizing that a guy who worked for her parents was probably not the best audience, she suddenly stopped.
“My best friend and I are also planning to go to the same college,” Zander said, acknowledging her statement as something normal.
Evan felt that she could talk with Zander about anything. It was a weird feeling, to think that you had always known someone during your first real encounter and conversation.
She looked at Zander over the car motor. He seemed to know what he was doing. His hands were moving fast; he was tightening and unscrewing, tying together or separating things as needed. She didn’t understand what the problem was. Knowing that the car was broken was enough for her. To her, the items under the hood were mere things. She had heard their names: carburetor, transmission belt, pistons, and cylinders, but they were all dirty and oily. Evan was more interested in the interior of the seating area and the overall look and shape of a car: the colors and textures. There was something in them she could relate to, even if they were not available in the local mall.
Evan looked away in the distance again as her thoughts moved to the guy at the other side of the car. It felt nice talking to someone her age, to someone who could understand her. If only he wasn’t so dirty, with uncombed hair. If only he didn’t talk with her in such a weird formal way, and wasn’t so eager to help her parents, she might have added him to the list of her friends. She involuntarily compared him with Kevin. The two of them were so different that Evan laughed at the thought.
In her mind she quickly filed Zander under the header of helpful and Kevin under the header keeper.
After a while, Zander moved to the driver’s seat, “Watch out,” he said and tried to start up the car. The roar of the engine scared the birds that had gathered around. The car got going with the familiar growl and jolt that suddenly sounded like music to Evan’s ears. She smiled: soon she was going to be back in the camp.
“Up and running in no time!” Zander closed the hood and cleaned his oily hands off his T-shirt. “Hop in!”
Chapter 9
“Dear Kevin,
It’s now day 31 being away from you. Thanks for the letter. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane here,” Evan began to write.
She closed her eyes. The time at the dig was dragging very, very slowly. Evan was not babysitting her sister anymore but each day was still exactly like the one before. The expected invite to ride in the plane hadn’t come yet and there was nothing fun to do either. The cinemas, the shopping malls, the milkshake place and the amusement parks were hundreds if not thousands of miles away. The days felt like weeks, the weeks felt like months. The time when she and Kevin had agreed to write to each other every day now seemed years ago.
It was the night of the junior prom. Evan and Kevin had left earlier to beat the crowds on their way out. The night was nice and warm. Night flights and comets were chasing on the canvas of the clear, dark blue, early summer sky. For the prom, the school yard had become a big parking lot. Even students who usually took the bus to school had come with a car. She and Kevin wandered for a while before remembering where they’d parked.
Kevin had tried to joke that Evan had to leave one of her stilettos in his car, just like Cinderella, and that he had to spend the next couple of months looking for her around the world like Prince Charming.
She was angry with her parents cutting her time with Kevin. The happiness she experienced when he kissed her, on the podium in front of the whole school, had been replaced by the uncertainty of whether she would hear anything from him during the summer. That made her respond coldly to all his questions, and Kevin had started to make his typical awkward pauses more often than usual. He seemed convinced she was intentionally hiding the location from him and that had made her feel even worse.
Evan opened her eyes. It was day 31 since her parents brought her to that wretched and forgotten place in the middle of nowhere. Now she was writing her 31st letter to Kevin, just as she had promised that night after the prom.
I’m happy you got a new car. I haven’t seen next year’s model Maserati yet. You know there is no internet or TV here. Evan wrote.
Writing to Kevin was her way of expressing her feelings about everything that was going on there. She couldn’t talk to her parents about it. They loved the dig and didn’t realize how she felt. Evan couldn’t talk to Allie about it; she was too young and wouldn’t be familiar with the turmoil in the soul of a future high school senior. Evan couldn’t talk to Amanda about it, either. Her father’s administrative assistant only delivered and picked up mail and was around only for few busy hours. Evan couldn’t talk to anyone else about it. Even thought it was almost the same team that had worked on all four previous expeditions, they wouldn’t understand her at all. They loved the dig, while she hated it.
In the beginning, she had been upset that Kevin wanted to know everything about the dig and the findings. Evan thought he wasn’t interested in her anymore, but his letters kept on coming, hidden in the Mort Enterprises internal communications bag, and Amanda was secretly giving them to her. Letter after letter came and in every one, Kevin asked
about the dig and the findings, explaining that if Evan talked about those things that were bothering her she would feel better and would not notice the time dragging along.
Now Evan was glad she’d listened to Kevin. Laying on paper the details about the daily archeological discoveries, struggles and hypotheses was really therapeutic. She followed every detail with a few lines about how it made her feel. She should have started doing that long time ago. It was better than writing in her diary, because the diary didn’t write back. Kevin had always given her the best advice. When she was worried that her parents wouldn’t approve of them seeing each other, he came up with the idea to meet secretly on their way to and from school, and then he offered to let her drive his car.
OMG, isn’t he nice!
A rush of summer wind stroked her cheek and played with her hair. The gentle touch felt just like when they drove the Mercedes SLS convertible to and from school. She looked up, popping big bubbles one after another. A few playful, small and puffy clouds were running across the sky in the distance. Being almost as high as the top of the forest canopy was not helping her see too far above the trees, but whatever she could see from up there was breathtaking. Some of the trees were in blossom. Colorful birds were popping in and out of the foliage. The smell of the rainforest and its flowers was intoxicating. The sun was getting closer to the horizon.
Oh, no! It’s time to go. I have to be back before dark. They will start looking for me soon. She threw the pen and papers in her backpack and started climbing down the pyramid.