A Blind Spot for Boys

by Justina Chen

  “We better go if we want to be back on time,” I said loudly. Dad must have agreed, since he hustled to the elevator bank before our hotel room door could even shut behind us.

  “You sure about this?” Mom asked as we landed in the lobby, looking guilty for disobeying Stesha’s orders.

  “This’ll be the perfect training run for Rainier since we’re already at altitude,” Dad said, ignoring the employees at the front desk, who stared at us while my parents stretched. Of course, people stared. I’m sure they were wondering how we’d pay the hotel bill if we had to be medevaced back to the U.S. “We’ll just take it a little slower.”

  But slow for Dad was race pace for most humans. His guiding principle for exercise was to train hard and train often. My lungs protested every step for the first quarter of a mile. There was a reason why all the other tourists lollygagged at a slow, dazed pace. Can you say “oxygen deprivation”?

  “Sorry, I can’t keep up,” Mom huffed.

  Did that slow Dad? No, he and his lungs of titanium kept on going. After ten minutes, Mom grabbed Dad’s arm and tugged him to a stop. “Honey, please.”

  Dad may have nodded in reluctant agreement as he checked his watch, but it was like he heard a different clock ticking. The next few weeks with me and the twins weren’t just family vacations but his last epic adventures with sight. No wonder he wanted to squeeze in as much as he could. Mom must have guessed that, too, because she said, “Gregor, we’ve got seven days here to see everything.”

  At that, Dad sidled away from Mom. She flinched at the slight. I felt so bad for her, I actually asked her to tell us what she had read about Cusco. We wove through the labyrinthine streets back to the hotel with Mom (still) talking about the first order of Catholics who built a monastery on top of the foundation of an Incan building, supposedly to show the superiority of Christianity. But then an earthquake in 1950 toppled the monastery. The only thing left standing was the Incan stonework underneath. As I walked in between my parents, I only wished that our family would be so lucky in the aftermath of Dad’s diagnosis.

  Despite our being showered and wearing fresh clothes, Stesha divined that my parents and I had disregarded her suggestion to power-nap: “Well, you three better drown yourselves in water to rehydrate, then some coca de mate.” She gestured to the tea service in the middle of the lobby. “Coca tea. Really. Have some.”

  Guilty as charged, I obediently hightailed it to the beverage table. There, Hank was filling his teacup from a large dispenser. He lifted his cup to me in a toast. “Say hello to liquid cocaine.”

  “Cocaine?” Mom practically lunged for my cup until Stesha said, “Mollie, sheesh, the tea’s brewed from such an insignificant amount of leaves—”

  “Which is why it’s been banned back in the States,” interrupted Hank with a large grin. “Down the hatch, right?”

  Stesha continued despite Mom’s shocked expression. “And it’s absolutely harmless. Plus it helps with altitude sickness.”

  “So when in Rome…” said an old woman who acted anything but elderly as she tipped back her head to catch the last drops in her teacup. She smacked her lips, then grinned impishly up at us from the well-worn couch. “Whatever it is, it’s kept me refreshed these last couple of days. I’m Grace. Grace Hiyashi.”

  So this was Grace, the woman I was hired to accompany during the trek. I lowered my hand to shake hers, but Grace scooted to the edge of the sofa, placed her hands next to her hips, and hoisted herself up. My parents and I obviously weren’t the only ones to ignore Stesha’s advice. Grace didn’t exactly move like she’d exercised an hour a day the way Stesha had advised as preparation for the trek. Even with a few inches on Stesha, who barely scraped the five-foot mark, Grace was tiny as she stood before me.

  “So I hope everyone took the packing list seriously. If you have any problems with your hiking boots, we’ll have just enough time to take care of them before we hit the trail tomorrow,” Stesha said, waving us to follow her out of the hotel, but not before she cast a worried glance at Helen’s and Hank’s boots, so new they couldn’t have seen much action beyond a store aisle. I recognized them as the top-of-the-line mountaineering boots that Dad had coveted but quickly reshelved when he saw that they cost more than a camera lens.

  Once outside, Stesha added ominously, “The restored section of the Inca Trail may be just twenty-four miles long, but it’s quite uneven. Quite.”

  Mom’s concerned gaze flicked to me before it planted on Dad. From her pre-trip reading of every published guidebook about Machu Picchu and her hours searching the Web for photos of the steep and rocky trail, we knew this trek would be rough. But it was entirely different to have it confirmed by someone who knew the trail well.

  “Okay, so everyone ready for a tour of Cusco?” Stesha asked, but without waiting for our response, she began rattling off details about the Temple of the Sun, which had once been the most important building in the Incan empire, then repurposed by the Catholics. I was beginning to sense a theme with dominant cultures.

  In front of me, Helen confessed to Hank, hand over what must have been her overworking heart: “Oh, gosh, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make it on the trail if walking here is this tough.”

  He said in a supportive undertone, “Don’t worry. If that old lady can do it, so can you.”

  Grace’s expression didn’t betray whether she overheard him as she untied the shamrock-green raincoat from around her waist. She paused on the sidewalk, breathing hard, while she struggled into her coat.

  “Here,” I said, holding it so she could slip her arms through the sleeves.

  I had to agree with Hank, though: If Grace lagged behind now, panting from the altitude even with two days of acclimatizing, how was she going to keep up with us on the trail? The Gamers distracted me from my thoughts. Out of shape or not, Helen was acting pretty spry up ahead of me, nudging Hank playfully. I had to wrestle down my envy, and not just over their flirting; they were snapping pictures with their matching cameras, so state-of-the-art, our new model looked like a toy. I was only too happy to test Hank’s camera when he asked, “Hey, could you take a picture of us?”

  I took so long framing the shot that I blocked the flow of traffic on the sidewalk. But honestly, it was a thrill to handle a camera I’d only ever read about.

  “Sweetie, this isn’t for the cover of Time,” Helen teased me with an easy smile that turned doting when she blinked up at Hank. “Yet.”

  Apologizing—“Sorry, I get kind of carried away”—I returned the camera reluctantly. As we followed Stesha on a whirlwind tour of Cusco, my eyes kept finding the Gamers. Maybe it was a little stalkerish, but I couldn’t help but study how easily Hank draped his arm across Helen’s shoulders. How they walked in unison, stride matching stride. How I was walking behind everyone with an old lady who was cute, but not Dom cute.

  Right then, Stesha stopped dramatically in the middle of the plaza. With her arms spread wide, she announced, “You are standing in Huacaypata, the Square of War and Weeping.”

  War and weeping. That, I understood. Just the idea of my final conversation with Dom was enough to make me want to war and weep against the memory of it.

  “If you believe the Incas, this is the navel of the entire earth.” Stesha jabbed her finger at the ground. “Literally, you can draw a straight line to connect all the sacred spots in the Incan empire to this point right here.”

  “All roads lead to you,” Hank crooned to Helen behind me.

  Just like that, I realized that the next four days with the Gamers were going to be my own personal purgatory. Their perfect-couple company would only remind me of what I could have had if I were just a couple of years older or Dom a couple of years younger. Doomed by our birthdays; talk about unfair.

  With no time to lose, Stesha ushered us toward the cathedral, an imposing and ornate building better suited for medieval Spain than the Incan empire. No photographs were allowed. Even if I had been able to shoot, I do
n’t think I could have lifted my arms. They felt weighed down and strapped to my sides in the oppressive space, which made it easy to imagine bloodthirsty priests and ruthless conquistadores.

  “This entire cathedral is a subversive rebellion fought with art,” Stesha told us, pointing to a painting and telling us that the rumored model for Judas’s face was none other than Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador who pillaged the city.

  “I should do that with our competitors in the next game,” Hank murmured to Helen.

  To put more distance between me and the Gamers, I trailed behind everyone, even Grace, down an aisle. Elaborate art was crammed into every square inch, making me feel claustrophobic. Before Stesha stopped in front of a statue in an alcove, my heart began pounding in double time. But why? Why would this supplicating saint make me feel anxious, as if I were late for a final? My family wasn’t Catholic, just part-time Presbyterians who made it to services only on Christmas Eve and Easter morning.

  “Meet Saint Anthony,” Stesha said, her eyes on Grace, not me, thankfully. “Women of all ages come here first thing in the morning.”

  “Why?” Grace asked.

  I knew why.

  Once Ginny, whose mom is a devout Catholic, found out that I was going to Cusco, she told me about Saint Anthony, the patron saint of missing people and possessions. In this particular cathedral, the faithful believed that he paid special attention to the lovelorn. So Ginny had begged me to leave a note for her. I knew she meant business when she sent me that note, signed, sealed, and delivered in a FedEx envelope. Obviously, Chef Boy needed a massive prod of the divine intervention kind.

  Stesha explained, “To leave prayers for a novio.”

  Novio. Boyfriend, soul mate. I knew that word from years of Spanish classes. Still, I wasn’t prepared for Stesha to gaze at me—me!—with so much empathy, I could have been one of the lovelorn making a special pilgrimage to petition Saint Anthony. I took a hasty step back to distance myself from that mistaken identity. Nope, just an innocent messenger. I was of the no-boys-allowed order of girlhood, thank you.

  “It’s been ten years, Grace,” Stesha said quietly.

  “Some men are irreplaceable,” Grace murmured. Her fingers flew to the man’s wedding ring that rested on a chain above her chest, rubbing it as if it were a rosary.

  Stesha may have placed her hand between Grace’s shoulder blades, calming her, but a stern directness replaced the warm glow in her eyes. She told Grace flatly, “You have a second chance at love. You told me that you really cared for Henry. You can’t be afraid to love again.”

  That statement tore into me, threatened to reopen the scar tissue from my breakup with Dom. As much as I wanted to join my parents, who were examining another alcove, I was frozen in place.

  “I miss Morris so much.” Grace’s husky confession welled up from a grief so deep, plumb lines couldn’t scrape the bottom.

  The sound of this heartbreak scared me. It was bad enough missing Dom, bad enough having every little conversation and every little black-jacket sighting remind me of him—and this was after dating him for only six weeks. So how do you even move on after an entire lifetime together? Grace’s face crumpled. Who’d ever want to risk being buried alive under that kind of grief? Not me.

  “He was my life,” Grace continued softly. “I’m almost seventy. And Henry’s even older than Morris was. So why bother? If I want companionship, I could get a dog.”

  “Grace Hiyashi!” cried Stesha, placing her hands on Grace’s shoulders. “I refound the love of my life and I’m almost exactly your age. There’s no age limit to loving. And have you even considered that maybe there was a reason why you met Henry where you did? You’ve always wanted to go to Bhutan.”

  Unable to breathe, I needed out of this gloomy cathedral with its burden of gold. I was only too glad when Stesha glanced at her watch and said enthusiastically, “Oh, good! We’ve got just enough time to look at some ruins today.”

  And here I thought we had already looked at ruins.

  All I wanted to do was follow Stesha along with everyone else out into the plaza. But a promise was a promise, and I had promised Ginny I’d deliver her note. How could I place her prayer on the altar with Grace still standing there, practically guarding Saint Anthony? Finally, Grace lifted her head. Finally, she walked away with heavy footsteps. As soon as she did, I tossed Ginny’s prayer onto the pile ringing the saint’s feet. Just as I turned to escape, a name flew into my head before I could grab hold of it and bury it so far down that even my subconscious couldn’t tap it: Quattro.

  What the heck?

  A single candle in the alcove flickered, a sudden bend in the flame, as though Saint Anthony himself had chuckled.

  Wait a second. I whirled around to face the statue. That was so not a prayer.

  After Reb came home from a trip to Hawaii, she talked about certain places being able to rearrange you. I hadn’t understood until now. My survival instincts shifted into such high gear, I felt the power burst of cortisol pulsing to my nerve endings. I rushed out: out of my memories, out of the cathedral, out into the afternoon sun, where everyone was waiting. Unused to the bright equatorial light, I squinted and saw a blur of orange. Orange, the all-too-familiar color used to flag emergencies. Orange, the signature color of a certain boy with a beak for a nose and a taste for bacon maple bars and who had told me he’d be at Machu Picchu, too.

  Chapter Seven

  My heart couldn’t have thudded harder after an hour of wind sprints up stadium stairs. Alarmed, I scanned the crowds of tourists in the plaza for another sighting of that impossible-to-miss orange, but saw nothing except blue jeans and earth-colored trekking clothes. Relief collided with disappointment. Disappointment? What was with that? Pushing that unwanted feeling aside, I plowed toward my tour group. What was I thinking—that I’d run into Quattro just because he said he was coming to Machu Picchu? From the moment we landed, my eyes had felt desert dry, and my muscles still felt sluggish after our halfhearted run. So obviously the hallucination was just another game the high altitude was playing on my body.

  “There you are!” cried Stesha when I reached the safety of our group. Before I could breathe a sigh of relief, the sea of tourists parted. And there he was, Quattro in all his blazing orange glory, staring at me, stunned. Alongside his father, he now approached, loose limbed in well-worn hiking boots.

  Five feet away, Quattro’s lips curved into a confident smile I remembered too well, and he said, “Fancy meeting you here.”

  My vocabulary was suddenly, unmistakably, and embarrassingly reduced to caveman grunts: “What…? How…? Why…?” Worse, the more I stammered, the more amused Quattro grew, as if he were used to girls losing command over speech in his presence.

  Pull yourself together, Shana Wilde.

  You are the Wilde Child.

  Remember?

  But all I could remember was Saint Anthony, and I shot a swift wordless glare over my shoulder in his general direction. A staff position at the National Geographic, an internship during Milan’s fashion week, an A in Chem—those were the sorts of practical miracles I could have used. Not this.

  When I faced everyone again, Dad was smirking at me like I was some kind of Pied Pipress of boys. That is, he did until he clued in that this wasn’t just any boy but one he had met. One immortalized in some of my photos. His mouth gaped comically before he leaned down to whisper in Mom’s ear. Her “No way!” was a yodel that bounced off all the building walls around us. Great, so much for acting blasé.

  “You know each other,” Stesha said, looking between me and Quattro, all statement, no question. I knew the conclusion Stesha was drawing, because it was no different from what Reb would blurt out if she were right here: Fate!

  Thankfully, Dad shook hands with Quattro’s father right then, so there was no room for Stesha to say that word aloud. “Christopher, good to see you again,” Dad said, grinning. “No bedbugs here, I hope?”

  “So far,
so good,” Christopher answered, a small smile lifting the edges of his mouth and accentuating the deep circles under his eyes. When had the man last slept? It didn’t look like anytime recently. But tiredness and graying hair aside, he looked like an older, darker, and much, much thinner version of Quattro. Gaunt came to mind.

  “How’s Auggie?” Quattro asked, forever endearing himself to my father by bringing up our dog. That rat.

  After Dad filled Quattro in on Auggie’s dog-sitting situation, Hank stopped fiddling with his camera long enough to say, “Small world.”

  “I suppose that’s what some people might think.” Stesha’s dubious smile made it all too clear where she stood on that theory.

  But Hank’s statement set off a chorus of similar stories about people running into friends in the unlikeliest places. I felt like I was trapped inside It’s a Small World at Disneyland with all the same nightmarish, head-exploding repetition.

  From Grace: “Bumping into friends happens to me all the time! Once, when I was in Paris, I ran into a long-lost college friend. I literally thought I had read her obituary in the alumni magazine just a week before. But there she was, back from the dead, sitting at a café, calling out my name. I nearly had a heart attack right then and there.”

  From Helen, nudging Hank: “And remember the time when we were in Scotland, walking across Saint Andrews?” For our benefit, Hank clarified, “The golf course. Anyway, we ran into one of Helen’s former colleagues who she hadn’t seen in what? Five years?” Helen nodded triumphantly, saying, “I had a feeling that I was going to see her all during the trip, right? Didn’t I keep saying that?”

  Of course, everyone had a small-world story; this was a Dreamwalks tour, after all, the one that attracted people who sought out the weird and the woo-woo. What I didn’t expect was Dad to join in on the fun. He said to Mom and me, “Remember the time when I kept meaning to call that client with that huge alpha rat? And then who do we see at the gym the next day? And he’d never worked out at five in the morning before?” Mom lit up because old Dad was back: joking, grinning, teasing. Right on cue, she piped in: “Alpha rat guy!”