by John Shors
“Well, I saw that Suchin had picked some. So I asked her. It’s really her present.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She looked at the flower again, then carefully placed it above her ear, moving the bandanna down so that it held the orchid’s stem in place. “How does that look?”
Patch glanced from the flower to her smile, wondering which was more beautiful. “It . . . it looks great,” he replied, and then handed her a beer. “To the birthday girl,” he said, raising his bottle.
Their drinks touched, drawn together for a moment longer than necessary. She sipped the cold beer. “Thank you, Patch.”
“I would have done more, but the sun is setting and there just isn’t enough time to—”
“You don’t need to do more. I wouldn’t want anything different.”
He smiled at the sight of her. “I wish I had a camera.”
“You do?”
“Absolutely.”
Somewhere toward the village, Bob Marley’s voice sprang to life. “Did you arrange that too?” Brooke asked, grinning. “Or is it divine intervention?”
“Just another part of my plan.”
She drank again, swinging her feet on either side of the beam. “So, tell me, why are you building this? Tell me the real reason.”
He started to speak but stopped. A gecko scrambled up a nearby branch, chasing an ant. “I’m close to Suchin and Niran,” he replied. “They remind me of my cousins.”
“How?”
“Oh, when I was maybe twelve or thirteen, I used to babysit my little cousins a lot. They lived right down the road. Our families did so much stuff together. Picnics and pizza nights. And then one day . . . they had to move. Someone bought their house and changed everything about it. And I never walked by that house again. It felt too weird.”
“And that made you sad?”
“It did.”
“So . . . this tree house . . . it’s something to remind Suchin and Niran of you? Something that will stay the same for a long time?”
He smiled. “Are you, like . . . clairvoyant?”
“Hardly.”
“Well, you’re right. Because I want to make something here that will last. Something that will remind them of me. Because we’re close and I don’t want them to be sad.”
“So you’re leaving? Soon?”
The gecko fell, landing on a branch below. Patch watched it right itself, not wanting to speak about the inevitable. “I’ll go to Phuket, and from there, I’ll sneak onto some freighter. As soon as I finish the path and the tree house, I’m going to leave.”
“How long will that take? A few days?”
He nodded. “Please don’t tell Ryan. I’ll sneak away before you take off. Otherwise, he’ll never let me go.”
Her feet stopped swinging. She didn’t want him to leave, to be separated from him. But she couldn’t imagine him in jail. His spirit seemed too free. He was too good. “I’ll help you,” she said, and then finished her beer.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll go to the port ahead of you. I’ll find whoever’s in charge and I’ll ask him which ships are going where. I’ll get the destinations, the departure dates, the manifests. Everything.”
“But he won’t . . . he won’t tell you.”
Brooke took the flower from her hair and smelled it again. “He’ll tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll smile and giggle and act so impressed with him. I’ll ask about the big, strong boats and he’ll tell me whatever I want.”
“But—”
“And I’ll get you some cash. In case you need to bribe someone. On the ship or when you land.”
Patch lowered his drink. Ryan had never told him about this side of her. “It’s too much,” he finally said. “You’re risking too much.”
“Would you do it for me?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s not too much,” she replied, reaching for her second beer. “Because you might be a lot of things, but a hypocrite isn’t one of them.”
In the growing darkness, the light from the candles became more prominent, the flames gyrating in the slight breeze. A bird squawked from the branches above. The smell of the sea permeated the air.
Patch moved closer to her until their feet nearly touched. He took the orchid from her fingers, smelled it, and then placed it back above her ear. “Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“It’s just . . . because I’m going to leave soon. I want to ask you something, and I’ll regret it if I don’t, because I’ll probably never get the chance again.”
“I’m not a fan of regrets. They’re hard to exorcise.”
“I agree.”
“So go ahead.”
“What would have happened . . . if you and I had met first instead of you and Ryan?”
She’d asked herself the same question and remained unsure how to answer it, though she was pleased that he had asked. “I . . . I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“I can’t guess. But I wish . . . I wish it had happened that way.”
“Me too.”
“Why?”
He resisted the urge to touch her, remaining still when every instinct told him to move. “Because I could sit here with you on this old beam for the rest of the night. Just talking. Just getting to know you. And I wish we’d had that chance—to really get to know each other without having to worry about anything else. I think if we’d had that chance . . . things would have been . . .”
“Don’t stop.”
“I wouldn’t . . . I wouldn’t have had to hold back. Like I do now. You’d have seen other parts of me . . . good parts . . . that you don’t see now, that I can’t show you now.”
“Like what?”
“I . . . I wouldn’t be sitting here . . . not moving. I’d be showing you how I feel, not telling you how I feel.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “What else are you thinking?”
Somewhere in the distance a child laughed. Patch recalled the many things that had occupied his mind over the past few minutes—how her promise to help made him feel safe, how her presence brought a smile to his face as quickly as one of Suchin’s jokes, how he wondered whether the skin beneath her eyes was as soft as it looked.
“I’m still wishing . . . that we’d met a few years ago,” he finally replied. “When things were simpler.”
“My life hasn’t been simple for a long time.”
A candle blew out, and he lifted it from a crook in a branch and relit it on another flame. “Why would you help me with the boat?”
“Because you shouldn’t have to lose so much for one mistake. I don’t think life should be so . . . intolerable.”
“But—”
“And I don’t know you very well . . . but I believe in you.”
“Ryan will be mad.”
She shrugged. “We’re finished, so his getting upset is just water under the bridge. At least to me. I’m sure it’s different for you.”
“It is,” he said, then sipped his beer. “But still, thanks for sticking up for me.”
“Of course.”
“You know something else?”
“What?”
“You remind me . . . of me. Except that you’re smarter . . . and prettier.”
She smiled, shifting on the beam. “I’m neither. But how do you think we’re the same?”
“You’re up here, in a tree. You’re an adventurer. And though you have some regrets, they don’t rule you, and they never will.”
“They tried.”
“It’s like . . . when I was ten, I broke my arm, and the doctor told me that my bone would heal, would grow back stronger than ever. I’ve never forgotten that. And I think you’re like that. You had that break. But you’re stronger than ever.”
The beep of a nearby tree frog sounded. Brooke looked for the creature but saw nothing. “My break didn’t mend th
at way. I’m not stronger than ever. I’m only what I want you to see. I’m an illusionist.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true.”
“Why didn’t it work with my brother? I don’t understand why it didn’t work.”
A pair of backpackers walked down Patch’s path toward the restaurant. Brooke watched them disappear into the open-air structure, which flickered with hundreds of holiday lights. “I was too hard on him,” she finally replied. “Too unforgiving.”
“How so?”
“He’s got a lot of endearing qualities. A ton of them, actually. Buried down, deep inside him. But instead of thinking about them, I focused on his shortcomings.”
“Why?”
She turned away. “I don’t want to say anything negative about Ryan.”
“But why did you focus on his shortcomings?”
“Because I felt like . . . I was going backward with him. And that’s not where I need to go. That’s not where I’ll thrive.”
He nodded but didn’t reply, relighting a candle once again. The sky was finally bereft of color. Yet stars were being born, awakening as they had for millions of years. In the distance, the pulse of reggae music continued to thump. The scent of burning wood lingered in the air. Crickets called out to one another in the darkness, their chirps incessant and comforting.
“Happy birthday,” Patch said, moving closer to her on the beam.
“Thank you.”
“No, I mean it. It’s your day. I want it to be special . . . because you’re special.” He held up his beer. “Here’s to going forward.”
Their bottles touched and they drank. She watched him, awash in the candlelight, his face aglow. She was aware of how he leaned toward her, of his desire. She could see it written in his expressions, voiced in the pauses between his words. If she hadn’t felt the same way, perhaps she wouldn’t have recognized his yearning, and she asked herself why she felt so strongly about him. She was falling toward him and longed for him to catch her, to lift her as she’d never been lifted.
Is it because he thinks of me as being whole? she wondered. No, it’s more than that. It’s the way he looks at me, as if he sees me and nothing else, like I’m all that matters. Ryan never looked at me like that. No one ever has.
“Did you spike these beers with whiskey?” she asked, smiling.
“No. Why?”
“Because they’ve gone straight to my head.”
“That’s what birthday beers do.”
“Really? I’ll have to remember that.”
“Should we . . . should we get another? I could go get another.”
His uncertainty about how to proceed was as obvious to her as the gyrating candle flames. She knew he hoped to continue their talk. He wanted to cross the bridge between them, just as she did. He wanted to feel her touch, to confirm his suspicions and hopes. But he was reluctant to cross that bridge because of his brother. And she wasn’t sure whether he should.
Still, she needed to touch him, to let him know that her thoughts mirrored his. So she reached out, brushing away a few grains of sand from his knee. She squeezed his knee once, thanked him for her birthday present, and then climbed down the ladder, moving away from the light of the candles, from the sound and sight of him, from the place where she longed to be.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24
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It was her fingernails that woke Ryan, digging into his forearms, leaving welts. He’d been dreaming about Dao, about being shipwrecked with her on a tropical island. But as Brooke thrashed in her sleep beside him, Dao’s voice fled, replaced by the hum of the ceiling fan and Brooke’s gasps. He gathered her in his arms and held her tight, telling her to open her eyes. Finally she did, flinching beside him, glancing from corner to corner as if she were a trapped animal that sought escape.
“Everything’s all right,” he whispered, remembering the two other occasions when nightmares had gripped her. She struggled against him. “Brooke, it’s me. It’s Ryan. You just had a dream. A bad dream.”
“No.”
“Shhh. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
She looked up at him, and her grip on his arms relaxed. Nodding, she closed her eyes and ran the back of her hand across her sweaty brow. The dream, which was really a memory, came back to her then. She saw herself open the door, the stranger step inside, forcing her backward, a knife flashing in his hand. “Stop, stop, stop,” she muttered, sitting up in bed, twisting the sheet. Tears fell to her cheeks and she wiped them away, the aches and miseries of that distant day suddenly flooding into her. “I have to get up.”
“Sure. Let’s get up.”
“Hurry.”
Ryan slipped out of bed, wearing his boxers and a T-shirt. He put on running shorts and sandals. Brooke, still in her light cotton pajamas, stepped outside. Dawn had just broken and the sky was somewhere between blue and black. Without glancing behind her, Brooke walked to the beach and sat down near the waterline. She wanted to kick and punch and scream but did nothing except stare across the flat water. An image of the stranger materialized and she forced it away, shaking her head, telling herself that he was gone forever, that Patch was right and the stranger hadn’t stolen any part of her soul.
After giving her enough time to gather herself, Ryan sat down beside her. At first he didn’t speak—letting her get used to his presence, unsure whether she wanted him there or not. Finally, he asked, “Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“Do you need anything?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
Somewhere in the distance a rooster announced the sun’s looming arrival. The sound was helpful to Brooke, pulling her from the past into the present. She wiped her eyes and turned to Ryan. “Did I . . . scratch you?”
The undersides of his wrists were still red and gouged from where her nails had dug into them. He showed her the backs of his hands that were fine. “Not a bit.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
A miniature crab emerged from a hole near her feet. She watched it scurry toward the water, then vanish into a diminutive wave, reappearing when the wave retreated. Breathing deeply, Brooke smelled the sea and the damp sand. Her heartbeat slowed to its normal rhythm. She wondered why the dream had come. Maybe because the night before she had wanted to get her own bungalow but was afraid of being alone, and had convinced herself that a few more nights with Ryan wouldn’t hurt anything. He’d apologized for forgetting her birthday and she had accepted his words. And yet they hadn’t touched or spoken affectionately. Those moments, it seemed, were gone.
“I should have gotten my own place,” she said, moving her feet in the sand. “Then I wouldn’t have woken you up.”
“I was already awake.”
“You were?”
“Yeah. So don’t worry.”
She sighed, her feet once again resting still. “Thanks, Ry.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I think . . . I think tonight maybe I’ll get my own room. It probably makes sense at this point.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded, determined to face her fears, not to let the stranger win. “There are so many empty bungalows. I might as well rent one. I’m sure it would make Patch’s friends happy.”
“Whatever you want.”
Hoping to change the subject, she recalled their conversation before going to sleep, wondering why he had seemed so pleased. “Last night, you kept smiling,” she said, her toes moving again in the sand.
“I did?”
“While you spoke, there was this little smile on your face. And I heard it in your voice too.”
“You could hear my smile?”
“What made you so happy?”
He watched a distant jogger, wondering whether Brooke should know about Dao. “I met a girl,” he finally replied. “A woman. She gave me a massage . . . and . . . we talked and laughed.”
Brooke turned toward Ryan
, her brow furrowing. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Yesterday?”
“The other day, actually. And then again yesterday.”
“And . . . and you laughed with her? About what?”
He smiled. “She calls me King Kong. Teases me. Stuff like that.”
“And that’s what you were thinking about last night?”
“I’m sorry about your birthday. I didn’t—”
“I don’t care about that. Tell me about her. How did she make you smile?”
Ryan shifted on the sand. “She’s . . . spunky.”
“Spunky? That’s it?”
“She makes me laugh. I don’t know how or why, but she does.”
“Is she beautiful?”
“I don’t know. The room’s dark. I’m on my stomach most of the time.”
“So, she’s spunky and beautiful. Anything else?”
As Ryan, with some reluctance, spoke more about Dao, Brooke nodded and asked questions. To her surprise, she wasn’t jealous. She was glad that the woman knew how to make him smile, glad that he was happy, and that he was being honest about the situation. And if she was honest with herself, she knew Ryan’s obvious infatuation with the woman was a good thing for all of them.
Brooke could now spend more time with Patch and not feel guilty about it. She could help him with his tree house, help him leave the country. And later, if she wanted to, she could find him in America. They could sit and talk all night. They could touch.
As long as Patch escaped safely, time was on their side. If her instincts were right, if she fell for him as she thought she might, time would give them the chance to be happy together.
Still smiling, Brooke continued to ask Ryan about the woman, believing that he had fallen for her, glad that the morning had gone from a place of pain to one of promise.
SUCHIN AND NIRAN, WEARING THEIR uniforms, left earlier than usual for school. They each carried ten flyers that advertised Rainbow Resort, as well as its restaurant and massage services. At Sarai’s request, Patch had made a master copy the previous day, using colored pencils to brighten a sheet of blank white paper. Patch had drawn a brick path that led to an inviting group of bungalows perched near a turquoise sea. Above his sketch, he’d written down prices and additional information. Lek had a friend who worked at the island’s only health clinic and had been able to use the facility’s copy machine to replicate Patch’s original.