Runaways

by Rachel Sawden

  Jade and Veronica slung Mark’s arms over their shoulders and led him to the picnic bench.

  “Miles?” His name tumbled from my lips as I turned my gaze to him.

  “Harper?” A smile crept across his face. “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

  My mind drowned in a flood of memories as I stared into his dark eyes, trying to put it all together. For years, I had practiced over and over in my head what I would say to him if I ever saw him again. It was filled with four letter words but as my consciousness struggled to stay afloat, it could only send a few words to my mouth. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Too long,” he said in his affected transatlantic accent before wrapping his arms around me. I closed my eyes and inhaled his scent, DEET and fresh laundry.

  As his grip loosened, I took a step back to get a better look at him. It was like looking back in time. He had the same sandy blond hair cropped close to his scalp and country club prep. Navy polo shirt, khaki Bermuda shorts, boat shoes, and despite the hot weather, he had a red sweater tied at his neck hanging down his back like a cape. A smile pulled at my lips when I noticed the Lacoste alligator embroidered on each piece of clothing. Only he would go traveling and bring designer brands.

  “Hi, I’m Lana.” She bounced over and stopped dead in her tracks. “Miles?”

  “Lana, you are looking well.” He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.

  A mass of oil-black curls jumped in between him and me. “Miles Cooper,” Jade roared, “what the hell are you doing here?”

  Keeping his demeanor stoic, he replied, “Jade, it’s so lovely to see you, too.”

  “Stand down,” I whispered to Jade. She turned and glared at me before stepping aside.

  “Mr. Cooper, we are leaving.” Behind him a thin woman in her forties holding up an unopened umbrella stood with a group of older, more well-to-do tourists like a shepherd and her flock.

  “Shit,” he said, scrubbing his freshly shaven chin. “My tour group is leaving.” He reached into his pocket and stretched out his hand holding a shiny black pair of matches with the words Bamboo Club etched in silver across it. “Meet me here tonight at nine o’clock for a drink. It’s by the night market.”

  I took it and pressed my fingers into the smooth card of the pack as he kissed me on the cheek, turned and merged with the crowd of polo shirts and Bermuda shorts, and disappeared down the path.

  Chapter 15

  “I can’t believe you’re going to have drinks with him,” Jade said as she pushed the door to our dollhouse loft open.

  “What was I supposed to say? No?”

  “Yes!” She flopped onto the stack of floor pillows strewn on the intricate oriental carpet in the middle of the room and huffed in exasperation. “The last time you saw him, I helped you put the pieces of your broken heart back together.”

  “Okay, you need to fill me in on what the deal is with you and Mr. Big Shot on Campus,” Lana said as I took my brush from the antique vanity.

  I kept forgetting that Lana had left university at the end of the first semester of freshmen year after she was discovered by a news producer. And so, as I brushed my hair, painted my face with makeup, and dressed, I told Lana the history while Jade rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth. I began with, “So you know how I said Adam was my first? Well, that isn’t entirely true…”

  I had first met the infamous Miles Cooper when I was seventeen, and my parents took me to visit Audrey in university. She had taken me to a party, much to my parents’ objection. However, given that I still had the figure of a prepubescent boy and train-track braces so big the Trans-Canada Railway could run on, they didn’t have much to worry about by way of college-aged boys thinking I was older than I was. It was a kegger, my first real kegger, with solo cups, frat boys, drinking games, and people passing out in the toilet — everything they always had in the movies. Of course, I was making my rounds at the party tied to Audrey’s hip, known simply as, “Audrey’s Little Sister”, but once she asked me to be her beer pong partner, it all changed. Sports may have worked against my desirability with boys, in high school, but if you can emasculate a college boy by repeatedly landing a Ping-Pong ball into a red plastic cup, well, they rather like it. As the crowd gathered to watch Audrey and I take down the frat boys, a guy who I later learned to be Miles Cooper stepped to the table for a better look.

  You know those teen movies where the hot girl is revealed, steps into frame and time slows down, a cheesy saxophone track plays and an inexplicable breeze blows through the room billowing through her hair as she glows like an Oscar statue? Well, that was how he looked to me. And we were winning by four cups and had only one more to make. I had been carrying the team, but now I rimmed out every time, folding under the weight of the gaze of my Adonis. And then it was one cup each.

  “Who’s your partner?” Miles said.

  I could barely look at him, almost as if I deemed myself unworthy to.

  “This is my sister, Harper,” she said.

  I allowed myself to make eye contact, and he stood with his arms folding, his gaze lingering on me. “More like your badass sister.”

  I nearly melted. No boys in high school gave me a second look, but a college boy noticed me. An impossibly beautiful college boy noticed me and called me badass.

  But I had to focus on the game. I had to impress him by winning.

  When the other team, a pair of unkempt and overexcited bros from Phi-Alpha-something-or-other made both throws in the final cup, we met defeat. Audrey hugged me, proud of how well we had done, but when she released me, I looked up and Miles was gone.

  Audrey gave me the rundown on him: his parents were two of the most high-profile lawyers in the country, he was captain of the swim team, once modeled for Ralph Lauren, and almost needless to say, he was the most desirable junior on campus.

  And he noticed me.

  When I sat with acceptance letters to five universities many months later, weighing my options, I was still haunted by the glowing boy, the most beautiful man I had ever seen in real life. The boy Audrey had said was a third year, and so would still be there during my first. And being the horny and delusional teenager, I said yes to McGill, dreaming that he would see me as my own person now that I had my braces removed, and I could fill out my bra without the help of tissues and socks. Within two weeks of first semester, I learned that he ate lunch in the Shatner Building’s student center cafeteria every Monday, and so on the third Monday, Lana helped me dress like a woman and I strutted in wedge boots to the Shatner Building to “accidentally” bump into him.

  By the time I got there, he was leaving, and so I waited around the corner of a pillar, and then came around the corner and literally bumped into him. I was so nervous, I didn’t know what to do next.

  “Oh, hi, Miles,” I said, twirling my hair as Lana had taught me.

  He furrowed his brow. “Have we met?”

  Not the response I was hoping for.

  “Sort of, not exactly…” I fumbled. “I was at that kegger last year.” He gave me a pitied look as he failed to recognize me. “I’m Audrey Rodrigues’s sister, Harper.”

  “Oh right, Audrey’s badass sister,” he said with a big smile. “How is she doing?”

  He remembered me.

  “She’s great,” I said, trying my best to act nonchalant.

  “My, Harper, you have blossomed beautifully.” His eyes scanned my body, and I nearly fainted. Miles Cooper was checking me out. Every girl within sight gawked at me, no doubt plotting my death. “Well, it was good to see you. Please tell Audrey I say, hi.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled, steadying myself against the wall. And then he disappeared. Miles Cooper just called me beautiful. My teenage fantasies came true, and I believed it was meant to be. But then a week later I learned that he had a girlfriend, Celia Butterfield. However, that didn’t stop me from spending freshman year chasing him around from classes too advanced for me and dragging Jade and Lana to parties to see h
im. He would always give me a nod and wave of recognition. He noticed and remembered me. I bided my time and by second-semester finals, he and Celia had broken up.

  After finals were done, sat I dragged Jade once more to the big end-of-year kegger. It felt like everything was coming full circle. He spent most of the party with his guy friends but as the party wound down I found him alone in one of the frat boys’ bedrooms (I was just checking out the house!) and on a beanbag on the floor, I held him as he cried in my arms about getting dumped. When I asked him if there was anything I could do to make it better, well, I don’t think I need to tell you the rest.

  “The old hit and quit,” Lana said, shaking her head.

  “I didn’t count him because I freaked out by thrust ten and made him stop, and that’s not exactly how a girl wants to remember her first time. I was so ashamed I didn’t even tell Audrey,” I said, laying my brush on the vanity. And if Adam and I ended up together I could say that I had only been with one man my entire life. That was a little fantasy I liked to keep to myself. “And yeah, I never heard from him again. Well, until he messaged me a week ago.”

  “You never told me that,” Jade said, pushing to sit upright.

  “I wasn’t expecting to actually see him,” I said pulling a silk kaftan over my head. “And I didn’t reply anyways.”

  Once the girls were ready, we set off for dinner across the street. And afterwards we walked off our stir-fried veggie dinner, checking out the handicrafts at the night market. Then at eight fifty-five, I hugged the girls and set off for Bamboo Club as a ball of nerves. I was still angry with Miles for never contacting me after that night, but there was something inexplicable about my attraction for him. He was still as gorgeous as he was the moment I saw him and an insecure part of me felt like he was too good for me but wanted to prove that I was good enough.

  Jade pointed her finger in my face. “You better come back home before midnight.”

  “Yes mom,” I said, swatting her finger away. “I’m only meeting him to be polite.”

  ***

  “Miss Harper Rodrigues,” Miles purred as I approached him at the bar. “How the hell are you?”

  To be honest, I was wonderstruck by the unusually classy surroundings. “A little sore from cycling to the waterfall today, but fine otherwise,” I said with a smile as he pulled out a lacquered barstool.

  “It really is good to see you again,” he said, his wandering eyes setting my cheeks ablaze. “Beautiful as always.”

  I squirmed, feeling self-conscious as I settled into the stool. He looked so put together, as if he fell out of a magazine ad. Baby blue collared shirt, smart-causal navy slacks with a subtle detailing that suggested Ted Baker, with that red sweater firmly tied in place. And then there was me wearing the fanciest thing I owned — a simple silk kaftan I had bought from a man with a pet monkey on the roadside in Jaipur.

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  The bartender, a slightly built Laotian man, placed two martini glasses on the bar. One dirty with two olives, still his favourite, the other a fuchsia-coloured concoction featuring a purple orchid speared with a colourless plastic sword.

  “Cheers,” he said, raising his glass before whispering, “Sorry they didn’t have any Grey Goose, we’re not exactly in civilization.”

  I was tempted to tell him that I would have been happy with the local beer. After a sip he placed the glass back on the lacquered bar and took me by surprise by placing his hand on mine. “I’m so sorry to hear about Audrey. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you.”

  “Thank you,” I said, not meeting his eyes and pulling my hand back gently. This was a platonic meeting and the less touching the better. “I miss her so much. But last month when we were in India, I got to talk to her.”

  It was one of those things that sounded better in your head. And I wished I could take it back. I just wanted to tell someone who knew her that she was out there, somewhere.

  “What were you smoking?” he said with a laugh. I met his gaze and didn’t blink. After a beat, his face contorted. “Are you crazy? That’s not safe.”

  I had forgotten how sheltered and straight-laced he was. I’d thought maybe age, life experience, and some travel may have opened his eyes and his mind, but I was wrong. He had a sheltered upbringing and judging by the kind of tour he was traveling with, he had kept adventure and authenticity at an arm’s length. But I wanted to tell him that ever since talking to her in the desert, I felt as if, even though I was completely stoned, the feeling that she was out there somewhere plugged the hole in my heart. And then an idea blossomed — perhaps I could speak with her again. I stored it and changed topic. “Yeah, I know, it was crazy. So what are you doing here?”

  “I’m on a bit of a sabbatical from work…” As the empty glasses of too small and too easy to drink cocktails piled up, he told me how he had been working his way up the ranks of the family law firm, most recently in the Vancouver office, and had been tasked with opening a branch in Singapore. “I told Piers and Isabelle I would need some time off before taking that responsibility on. They acquiesced, and I booked a tour of Southeast Asia.”

  His calling his parents by their first name never failed to amuse me.

  He continued, “My mother heard through the Toronto grapevine that you were traveling the area, so I reached out to you on Facebook, but you never replied.”

  “The Internet is really bad around here,” I lied.

  “And you? What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

  I snorted a laugh.

  “I guess you could say I’m on a bit of a sabbatical myself,” I said before giving him a heavily edited version of the events between me leaving university and my unjust dismissal from my first attempt at adult employment. “So I thought, you know, I’m young, and I should give my dreams a shot before I’m bogged down with children and mortgages and what not.”

  I pulled out my camera and showed him a couple of the unedited shots I had taken at the waterfall that day.

  “So let me get this straight,” he said before pulling an olive from a plastic sword into his mouth with his teeth, “you’re spending your whole life savings on this?”

  With a smile, I nodded, ignoring the explosion of nerves in my stomach. When he put it like that that it hit me how insane my decision was. But I was in too deep to pull out.

  “I have to say I’m not sure if you’re ballsy or crazy.”

  “There’s a thin line between crazy and genius, I’ve been told to straddle it,” I said straightening my posture.

  As he took a sip his eyebrow quirked, and I realized that he may have taken my attempt at being witty as flirtation. “So, where’s your boyfriend?”

  “What boyfriend?” I said without thinking, immediately wanting to slap myself in the face.

  His too-white teeth appeared behind a smile. “A while back I tried to friend you on Facebook. Finally signed up after being inundated with invites in my email. But you were with what appeared to be your boyfriend in your profile picture. I supposed I chickened out on ever trying to get you back. I figured it wasn’t meant to be.”

  My stomach turned inside out. This was not how it was supposed to go. I thought the next time I saw Miles Cooper, I would punch his perfect little nose into his perfectly manicured face, but the way he looked at me only brought me back to another time, a good time before life got so damn complicated.

  Don’t tell him you’re single.

  “Well, that’s no longer the case.”

  His face lit up.

  Shit.

  Before I could explain that I was emotionally unavailable and still wanting to punch him in the throat, he raised his glass. “Cheers to moving onto bigger and better.”

  After the conversation had moved to the more neutral topic of travel stories, I realized the time, and hugged him farewell, declining his offer to walk me down the street to my guesthouse. Our farewell was more of a see you later, as our itinerary dates overl
apped in Vang Vieng. Given the conflicting tides of feelings towards him, I decided it was best to keep him at arm’s length.

  Chapter 16

  Date: February 23, 2010

  Vang Vieng, Laos

  After eight hours stuffed yet again in another minivan, rattling over unpaved roads snaking through the mountains (a recipe for motion sickness especially for me after a night consuming a regrettable number of sugary cocktails), we made it to Vang Vieng. It turned out that over the years Vang Vieng became a mainstay on the Southeast Asian backpacker trail and so brought development to this formerly sleepy village perched on the shores of the Nam Song River. Concrete buildings standing no taller than two stories lined crudely paved roads housed tour centers, restaurants, and guesthouses. It stood in stark contrast to the colonial charm of Luang Prabang.

  Jade kept her nose in the guidebook, and Lana and I followed her dutifully through throngs of soaking wet westerners who carried black inner tubes towards the river. We were in search of a colony of thatched huts Lana had been told about while waiting for us at the Kung Si Waterfall the day before.

  Crossing a narrow bamboo bridge that spanned the river, we continued following a narrow trail towards a grassy field. The field fronted massive limestone cliffs, and the sun hovered just above the crest. And in the shade of the cliffs, we found the colony of thatched huts. After we had paid for two huts, we settled in with Lana as my roommate. Each was just big enough for two feet of space around a double bed. Eager to catch the images of the children playing in the shallows of the river in the soft early evening glow, I reached into the cloth handbag I had brought with me to the bar the night before.

  The blood drained from my face.

  “Oh my God,” I muttered as I emptied the contents onto the bed. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

  “What’s wrong?” Jade called from the hammock outside.

  “My camera. It’s not here.”

  I heard the creaking of rope and footsteps on the dusty wooden floorboards. “Just breathe, I’m sure it’s there.”