A Blind Spot for Boys

by Justina Chen

  Another bunch of tired trekkers spilled into our ruined campsite, telling everyone that they had come from a kilometer away. Worse, their guide and porters had abandoned them. I snapped a quick photo of Quattro, who was standing with his dad and trekking group, listening attentively to their guide.

  Whatever Stesha and Ruben were talking about, it couldn’t have been good, judging from their grim expressions. Nervous, I focused my camera on Grace and Dad providing medical attention to every trekker who needed bandaging with the supplies from Christopher’s small but well-stocked first aid kit. As I continued to shoot the scenes unfolding around us, Mom stuck close to me, worried that I’d be swept away by a second wave of mud. I was glad for her company; I kept glancing uphill, suspicious of the mountain. That unease disrupted the usual Zen I found while photographing. Correction: that, plus the fact that Quattro met my eyes but turned away to help his dad dig out a backpack covered in muck. He hadn’t even acknowledged me, as if he didn’t want to talk to me.

  My cheeks flamed. More than hurt, I was confused. Part of me wanted to crawl behind a boulder to hide, rescue myself, no different from Hank. What was wrong with Quattro anyway? I could not possibly have misjudged another guy again, could I? But there was no way I could have misread that earlier tenderness. I knew I hadn’t imagined our almost-kiss.

  Whatever was going on with him, I forced myself to focus on my work. I crouched down to frame the mud-buried tents. As I did, Hank’s voice carried over to me as he spoke with Helen: “If you see an extra pair of socks, let me know. I’m starting to get a blister.”

  “Wait, where are yours?” she asked, frowning as if only now taking into account Hank’s pristine fedora, his clean backpack, which he had somehow miraculously rescued, his undershirt, his bare feet in tied-up hiking boots.

  “I… I—” he stammered.

  “Hank, why aren’t you wearing socks?” Then her own flood of disbelief unleashed on him. “Where were you this morning? Didn’t you hear me calling from the tent? I thought I was going to die. And I looked for you.” Finally, the damning question: “Did you leave me?”

  The flush on Hank’s face was the one emotion I never thought I’d see him wear: shame.

  “I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking, but it doesn’t mean anything.” He reached for her, but Helen shook her head, first slowly, then furiously. “I came back to look for you.”

  “Don’t touch me!” she cried, backing away so suddenly she stumbled but regained her balance. Her face crumpled, and she wound her arms around herself. Grace hastened to Helen, and I followed to flank Helen on her other side, the way my friends would have if I had only told them about Dom. Change the environment, replace the guy, and that could have been me, alone at a restaurant table, set for two.

  After I’d apologized at least five times by text for my critique of Dom’s website, then didn’t hear from him for days, he had finally responded. Relieved that he suggested getting together for dinner, I nervously chatted through the appetizer and main course, barely eating more than a bite. As soon as I told him I’d spent the morning taking the senior portraits for two of the guys on the varsity soccer team, he was on my case. I tried hard to understand why he was angry about it when I’d told him way back on our first date that portraiture was how I was helping to pay for college. I was so focused on deciphering his terse words, I hadn’t even noticed the young couple sitting next to us until they were leaving.

  The woman with a lion’s mane of blonde hair and a birthmark on her face stood up, glanced swiftly at Dom, and told her boyfriend, “I’m glad you don’t have a problem with what I do.”

  The man’s coffee-brown eyes dropped on me before he smiled crookedly at her. A faint scar scored his upper lip. Placing his hand on the small of her back, he said, “I’d be a complete idiot if I did.”

  Fuming, Dom pushed back from the table and strode outside, leaving me with our unpaid-for, half-finished dinner. I was positive he was coming back once he’d cooled down in the fresh air. For ten minutes, the waiters walked by our table, alternately curious and pitying as they checked in on me: Was I finished? Did I want dessert? Coffee? The check? But I had no credit card, only a ten-dollar bill, which didn’t cover the cost of our appetizer. After twenty minutes, Dom finally returned, but not before one of the waitresses had asked if she could call me a taxi.

  “You can come back tomorrow with the money,” she had offered.

  “He’ll be back,” I had assured her.

  The waitress had studied me briefly before she attended to the new set of diners at the table next to mine. “Honey, you’d be lucky if he didn’t.”

  The waitress was beyond right. So was Grace. I was better off without a guy who’d punish me for not fawning over his website and had an issue with my job. I glanced over my shoulder at Helen, sitting like a pariah on her rock. I knew how she felt. But Hank was staring down at his hiking boots, looking so lost that I felt sorry for him, too. Every minute or so, he’d glance over at Helen, confirm that she was still ignoring him, then stare again at the strips of bare skin between his boots and his rain pants.

  A few yards away, Stesha motioned for everyone to gather around her while she relayed our new game plan.

  “I’ll be fine,” Helen whispered to me. “Go.”

  So Grace and I left her side in time to hear Stesha: “Ruben and I have decided that we’re going to push on to Machu Picchu. From there, buses run regularly down to the town, and then we’ll be able to take the train back to Cusco.”

  For a long moment, we stood in awkward silence. No one wanted to stay in this death trap of mud, but no one wanted to leave either. What if worse lay ahead of us? Yet there was zero assurance that backtracking would be any safer. This was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime expedition, not the only expedition in our lifetimes. All I wanted was to be safe at home in our little cottage.

  “We’ll ask that group without a guide if they want to join us,” Stesha said, nodding toward the leaderless trekkers who were milling around aimlessly.

  “We’re slow enough as it is on our own,” Hank countered as he cast about for support. He looked pleadingly over at Helen as though trying to redeem himself. “A couple of us could make it to town tonight if we pushed hard. Get some provisions, be back with help.”

  “We need to stick together,” Stesha said.

  “But we could do it.” Hank’s eyes glowed passionately as he turned the full firepower of his charm on Dad, the same charisma that I had admired earlier. But charisma meant nothing in the middle of a crisis. Hank told Dad, “The two of us could get to town fast, make sure we’ve got tickets for the train. Buy food for everyone. Divide and conquer.”

  Dad replied firmly, “I’m not leaving anybody behind.”

  At that, Mom eyed Dad with the same fierce pride she always wore when she talked about him, reminding me of her recurring dream: Dad flying overhead as if he were some kind of superhero. I caught the envious look Helen shot at my parents—the same one I’m sure I wore when I first met her and Hank at the airport in Cusco. My parents—not Hank and Helen, not me and Dom, and clearly not me and Quattro—were the It Couple.

  “No one is being left behind,” Stesha said. She pulled herself up to her full five feet. “Right now, everyone’s safety is my concern. There’s a hostel a couple of hours before the Sun Gate. We can take shelter there tonight.”

  “But what if it’s already full? We don’t have tents,” Hank persisted. “What about the porters and Ruben? What’s our contract with them?”

  “I’m staying with Stesha,” said Ruben, and he added a question in Quechua to the porters, who all nodded. Addressing our entire group, he said, “None of us are leaving you.”

  So the decision was made: push on toward the hostel together. At that, Stesha and Ruben went to invite the other groups to join forces with us. Not getting the answer he wanted from our group, Hank stalked over to Christopher. I trudged behind, camera in hand. I could tell myself I was fulfilling my d
uty as the trip photojournalist, but I knew the truth: I wanted a chance to talk to Quattro.

  The sonic boom of Hank’s voice could have unleashed another mudslide as he confronted Christopher: “Your group’s going all the way to Machu Picchu today, right?”

  “Not all of the group,” Christopher corrected, pointing his thumb at their porters, who were unloading their backpacks, reallocating the supplies. “David and Jorje have little kids at home, and Salvador’s mom is sick. So our porters are going straight back to Cusco.”

  I gripped the camera in my hand, feeling guilty. I hadn’t exchanged many words with our porters except for a dozen graciases, por favors, and smiles, lots of wordless smiles.

  “But you need them,” Hank said.

  “We’ll be fine without them,” Christopher said confidently, chin raised as he stared Hank down. Without hesitating, I took my shot, knowing that I was seeing the real Christopher, the man he had been before Quattro’s mom died. There was no muting him now.

  “Hey.”

  Quattro. At his voice, I felt an impossible spurt of happiness. Our campsite and plans were in disarray, but here it was. Joy. He had come looking for me after all, just as he’d promised. But then I read his shuttered face.

  “How’re you holding up?” he asked, sounding more clinical than concerned.

  I sighed, shrugged, shook my head. How could I explain how I was feeling? Still reeling that we’d survived a mudslide. Whiplashed by his behavior. The whisperings of boyfriends past filled my head. How many guys had called me out on my flirt-and-run habit? Now that I was experiencing it firsthand, I had to say: I felt more unwanted than a speck of dust.

  “Are you avoiding me?” I asked him point-blank.

  He flushed. “I’ve been helping out.…” When his shoulders slumped tiredly, I softened. There was no question about it: He’d been pushing himself hard.

  “We were lucky that you and your dad came when you did.”

  “Hardly.”

  “A minute more, and Helen might not be here.” My eyes welled up with tears at the close call. The mudslide had scraped me raw; my emotions were bouncing all over the place. “If we had stayed in our tent for another couple of minutes… If Dad didn’t pull us out…”

  He closed his eyes tight, balled his fists. “I just can’t.”

  “Quattro.”

  At once, he averted his face, but not before I saw his expression ruined with more than grief, but anguish.

  “I have to go,” he said, as if he had made a fatal mistake by caring for me.

  “Quattro! Wait!”

  He was gone.

  According to relationship roulette, I was the last person to comfort Helen. I mean, who was I to give advice when I had fallen for Dom, who had existed in a haze of romance that had been all in my head? I didn’t even want to begin to think about Quattro, who was as love damaged and afraid as I was. But Helen was still sitting on the rock while everybody was making final preparations to leave—not that there was much to do, since most of our belongings were under sludge.

  “Helen,” I said, and paused, then continued clumsily, “you know, my mom thinks that everybody has a sine qua non.”

  “A what?” She may not have understood Latin, but her cheeks flushed as though she knew I was suggesting that Hank wasn’t good enough for her.

  I blushed, too. Why would she listen to me any more than I’d listened to my brother Max, who had tried to warn me off Dom? Besides, what did I know? I’d wasted almost a year, boycotting Max’s every effort to repair our relationship when I owed him thanks.

  “Oh, nothing, I’m just rambling, but you should ask her,” I said hastily. “So do you want to walk with Grace and me?”

  I mistakenly thought we were alone, but Hank had been hovering close behind us, back to being Mr. Caring. “I’ll walk with Helen,” he declared. But at his offer, she shoved away from the rock and marched over to Grace.

  I could hear Grace’s every lilting word: “Mind? Helen, I’ve been waiting to walk with you!”

  Grace tucked her hand in the crook of Helen’s arm and led her to the others, who were inventorying the three backpacks left between us. The last I heard before they started for the trail was Grace asking, “Have I told you about the Wednesday Walkers?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Back on the trail, I was aware of my every footstep, where I planted my feet, where I shifted my weight. Every minute, I half-expected a second avalanche of mud and trees, boulders and debris to sweep us away. So I didn’t protest when my parents insisted on taking the rear position, no doubt to guard me with the same eagle-eyed attentiveness I paid to Grace, who was sandwiched safely between Helen and me.

  Our first rest break only ratcheted up my anxiety. By the time we reached the porters, Ruben and Hank had gone ahead, scouting the next section of the trail. Before I sat, I made an effort to talk to our porters, stitching together my broken Spanish and hoping my smile would fill in the grammatical gaps: “Gracias para tu ayuda.” Why had I been too embarrassed about sounding stupid to talk to them? Their answering grins and pats on my back communicated their relief that all of us were okay.

  Afterward, I peered up the mountain. No sign of Quattro, which was unsurprising. All along, his group had trekked faster than we did, taking side trips and still managing to establish their campsite before us. Every time I thought about Quattro, my heart felt like it was tripping. I hadn’t known how scared I would be to trust my heart to another boy. Or how much it would hurt to be rejected again.

  At our next break, Stesha kept casting worried glances at Grace, as though wondering whether she would make it through the next day and a half. From our meager supplies, we divided three PowerBars among all of us for lunch, one sticky bite a person. Improbably, Grace smiled as she considered her puny segment. “Sort of makes you miss the round-the-clock quinoa diet we’ve been on, doesn’t it?”

  “Here,” Mom said, holding out her piece to me.

  “Mom.” I shook my head and almost didn’t hear her soft request: “Do you mind walking with your dad? He’s all twitchy, like I might slip any second.”

  “Don’t say that!” I protested, shivering. “But I suppose now you know how he feels with both of us hovering.”

  “Well, it’s making me nervous! I’ll walk with Grace, okay?”

  Whatever Grace had said to Helen in the morning must have been encouraging. She lost the forlorn look of the recently widowed, and she didn’t gaze at Hank with naïve puppy dog adoration anymore. Instead, she scrutinized him when he spoke, as though she were weighing his every word and action against some mental checklist. I got the feeling I needed to do a bit more of that in my own love life.

  “Hey, Mom,” I said before I joined Dad as she had begged, “ask Helen to walk with you guys, will you?”

  After two days of trudging at Grace’s pace and being weighed down by my heavy backpack, I felt like Dad and I were sprinting when we set off on the trail together. But I knew he wasn’t going at his full race pace. Neither was I. Both of us wanted to play it safe.

  “You seem unhappy,” Dad called up to me. Even without looking at him, I could hear the concern in his voice. “Does it have anything to do with a certain boy?”

  “Maybe,” I admitted to my surprise.

  “I liked how he came to find you.”

  “Me, too.”

  And that was the problem. The pause in our conversation had less to do with the altitude or the arduous climb and more with processing what both Dad and I had noticed: Quattro’s first instinct was to ensure that I was safe. Just look at Hank and how he’d done in the same crisis: a big, fat selfish F.

  I glanced back over my shoulder at Dad, who had his eyes trained on my feet, ready for the slightest hint that I was losing my footing. That’s where I’d learned how to be vigilant for Grace. Dad had always been there for us, always putting us ahead of himself. He hadn’t run to save his own life, but he’d reached back to save ours.

  “Dad
, you were amazing this morning,” I told my father, wanting so badly for him to see himself clearly.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Are you kidding?” I stopped on a wide stone step to face him. “If you weren’t with us this morning, Mom and I wouldn’t be here.”

  “If I weren’t going blind, we wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

  “Dad.”

  “If I had made more money, we would have visited here earlier.”

  What I now knew for a fact was that money, ambition, and big plans mean nothing at all when you’re staring down death. So I said, “You saved us this morning, Dad. You did.”

  As my words sank in, we tackled the next steep section of the mountain in silence. I couldn’t get enough breath to continue a conversation with Dad anyway. All I could manage was a steady rhythm of five plodding steps, then a brief panting rest. If my breathing was labored, how was Grace doing behind us? Ruben, Hank, and the porters waited for us at the crest of this section. We reached them just in time to hear Hank’s sarcastic assessment: “This is exactly the way I imagined the Inca Trail.”

  I actually understood that complaint. My parents had taken a healthy chunk out of their retirement savings to fund this expedition with me, and the two following trips, with my brothers. This was hardly the Inca Trail I had imagined or would ever wish upon anyone.

  “Then my apologies,” said Ruben smoothly. He gestured for the porters to push ahead. Somehow, drawing from a deep well of patience and good humor that I didn’t have, Ruben continued, “Just because we’re trying to make good time doesn’t mean that we can’t appreciate what we’re seeing.” He looked downhill to the other half of our group, still with one long set of stairs to climb before they caught up to us. “You know, this is one of the most beautiful cloud forests in the world.”

  Strange as it might sound, I had been so distracted by worry and hunger and burning hamstrings, I hadn’t even noticed that we were surrounded by low clouds and wind-battered trees. While Ruben tried to satisfy Hank with a lecture on the function of moss in a cloud forest, Dad paused before a small orchid, an improbable, show-stopping pink flower that thrived without the benefit of direct sunlight.