Runaways

by Rachel Sawden

  In awe, I slipped out of my flip-flops and padded across the varnished floorboards. On each wall hung a landscape painting in a gilded frame. In the middle of the room lay a king-sized bed, its white cotton sheets freshly turned down.

  “I know it’s rather basic and within earshot of that infernal racquet from Bucket Bar, but it’s where our tour stays,” he said, removing his Rolex and placing it on the bedside table.

  “Are you kidding me? This is a castle compared to what I’m staying in.”

  He moved towards the curtains and pulled them back to reveal glass doors. “It does have a nice view.”

  I followed him, and when he slid one back and stepped onto the balcony suspended above the river.

  “That’s where I’m staying,” I said, pointing past the bamboo bridge. “There are like a million bugs living in the thatching.”

  “You should be staying in a place like this,” he said, before clearing his throat. “With me.”

  “The crappy places aren’t that bad,” I said, ignoring his last two words. “They make for good stories.”

  “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.” He took a step towards the door. “Can I get you a nightcap?”

  “No, thanks.” I shook my head. I just needed to get my camera and get out of there before he got the wrong idea. “I should get back to Lana.”

  “Lana Brooks is a big girl,” he said, scraping two wooden deck chairs across the floor. “Come sit, the moon is about to rise.”

  I had never seen a moonrise before. I didn’t even know it was a thing. But I couldn’t get comfortable: just see it and get out of there. “Okay, but I’ll stand.”

  As I leaned against the lacquered railing, he stood next to me. He was a little too close for comfort, but before I could step away, the moon peeked over the top of the limestone cliffs. Had LMFAO’s “I’m In Miami Bitch” not been playing quite so loudly, and had I not been there with such an immense asshole, as gorgeous and charming and witty as he may be, one could say it was quite romantic.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

  I didn’t know what it was about Miles Cooper. As much as I could hate him in any given moment, he always made me feel that teenaged puppy love.

  “Harper?” His warm breath surged against my ear.

  As I looked up at him, he pinned me against the railing and as his lips zeroed in on mine I turned my head and gave him nothing but cheek.

  He had started my very awkward sexual awakening, and for over two years, an eternity in teenage years, I wanted nothing but this, nothing but him.

  But I wasn’t a teenager anymore.

  “Stop.” Pressing my hands to his chest, I pushed him off me and pulled a chair between us. “This is not going to happen. This is not why I came here.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, raking his hands furiously through his hair. “I don’t know what came over me. I’ve been so stressed out about moving, and I’ve been so alone, and then I saw you, and it brought back so many feelings. And I thought, I just thought…”

  “You broke my heart the last time I saw you. Do you remember that night?”

  He slumped into the chair behind him and rested his face in his hands for a moment. “I’m so sorry about that. I really am. I’ve always felt dreadful about it, and I’ve thought of you constantly since.” He tilted his eyes up. “That was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, and I want to make it up to you.”

  I gave serious consideration to slapping him across his face. But as he sat wiping away tears streaming down his perfectly shaven face, I felt story for him. Miles Cooper, sheltered country club boy, sent off to the other side of the world, alone and afraid. Not everyone can take such radical change. I pulled the chair back and sat across from him, knees touching.

  “You can start by giving me my camera and we can go from there.”

  Chapter 17

  Date: February 26, 2010

  The following morning, Jade, Lana and I rented mopeds in search of Vang Vieng’s famous Poukham Cave and Blue Lagoon. We set off from town driving through grassy fields passing farmers leading lumbering water buffalo through waterlogged rice paddies and across rickety bamboo bridges above fishermen casting nets into the river. Gripping Lana around the waist as the moped sputtered and clattered over the rugged terrain, I tried to push what happened the night before out of my head. Though I left Miles as soon as my camera was in my hands, I shouldn’t have gone into his room in the first place. I should have known that he would try something. But I couldn’t deny that his wanting to kiss me brought back some very unwelcome feelings.

  After finding cave after cave with some alternate spelling of the word “Poukham” (none were clearly the Poukham Cave), we stopped on the dirt path under the shade of a flowering tree. I slid off the seat behind Lana as she pulled the bike onto its stand, and I carefully cleaned the dust off my camera lens. I flicked through my images I had taken and was pleasantly surprised with the landscape shots, but my attention lingered over a shot of a fisherman teaching his young son how to cast a net properly. The child, no older than ten, looked up at his father with such respect and adoration, and the father looked at his son with love and a hint of frustration as the child kept getting tangled in the net. Though I was happy with my shots, I felt frustrated looking through my images. I didn’t know what Awesome Adventures was looking for in the competition. Were they looking for perfectly composed landscapes or candid portraits? Did they want a commentary on social issues of locations or impeccably framed architecture?

  “Can we go back to the river today?” Lana asked as Jade pulled out a map of the cycle livery drew for us.

  “We did that yesterday,” Jade said, crumpling the paper in her grip. “I didn’t come all this way to drink and party and talk to boys. I want to see the country, do things we can’t do at home.”

  Lana crossed her arms. “We can’t party in rivers in Toronto.”

  They glared at each other as they sat on their bikes, front tires a foot apart, like a freeze frame from a game of chicken.

  They both turned to stare at me.

  “Harper, what do you want to do?” Jade said.

  “Well, I mean,” I started, rocking back on my heels. No matter what I chose, someone was going to be pissed at me. But sometimes you have to think of yourself and your needs. “I don’t have any pictures of tubing.”

  “Fine. I’m going to find the real Poukham Cave,” Jade said, pushing the bike off the stand.

  “Jade, don’t be like that,” I said, throwing my hands in the air. But she ignored me as the engine roared, pushed the bike off the stand, and flew past us, vanishing in a cloud of dust.

  “Yup…hungry vagina…I knew it would happen,” Lana said shaking her head and turning the key in the ignition. “To the river?”

  “Should we go after her?” I asked. We had made a pact in India that no one gets left alone again.

  Lana shook her head. “If she wanted us to go with her she would have insisted. The only danger in this town seems to be the rocks in the river.”

  I paused and reassured myself that Jade would be fine. We had never felt uncomfortable in Laos, nor had we heard of crimes against tourists. I had to trust that she would be okay. Lana pushed the bike off the stand and I slid back onto the seat behind her, and then we crossed the field and crossed the river over a toll bridge. Following a jumbo tuk tuk stuffed with backpackers and topped with tubes up river through the town, we parked in the dusty lot and walked over the riverbank and into the bar we had been in yesterday. I followed Lana to the bar and saw Kush behind it, pouring drinks.

  “Hello Petal,” he said with a wink, “what can I get for you lovely ladies?”

  “Two Lao beers,” Lana replied.

  He plucked out two cans from a cooler of ice and placed them on the bar. “Come see me tonight, for my magical mushroom concoction. I make the best in all of Vang Vieng.”

  Lana’s face lit up as
she took one of the cans.

  “Funny, I don’t remember reading that in the guidebook,” I said, wrapping my fingers around the chilled metal.

  “Just leave your boyfriend at home.”

  The memory of Miles’s attempted mouth invasion lit a fire in me and I blurted out, “He is not my boyfriend.”

  “Good, I hoped a pretty girl like you had better taste in men,” he said with yet another wink. As I regretted my words, I wondered if he had an eye condition. “Drinks are on the house.”

  I threw some kip on the bar to let him know that I didn’t owe him anything, took Lana by the elbow, and led her to the edge of the platform to join the lazy sunbathers watching the rope-swingers.

  “Miles made a move on you last night, didn’t he?” she said raising her beer to her lips.

  I lowered my camera. “Yes.”

  “Okay, I have to ask, he’s freaky right?” She poked me in the ribs. “The uptight ones are always the worst.”

  I laughed. That boy was vanilla to the core. “No, and nothing happened last night. I don’t know if I can ever forgive him.”

  “You don’t think he’s changed after all these years?”

  I smiled at her. No matter how many undesirable low-lifes had passed through into Lana’s heart and loins, she never became jaded.

  I wanted to believe that people could learn and grow and change. And perhaps on some level I was open to it, I mean, if it worked out with Miles, it would be a hell of a story for the grandkids, but I decided that I wasn’t going to rush into anything. If it happens, it happens, but it was much too early to determine if he had left his old ways behind.

  But after Adam, at that moment, I felt both emotionally and physically “closed for business”.

  So I replied, “Maybe.”

  ***

  When we returned to the huts, Jade was swinging in the hammock on the patio. As I took a step to our hut and Lana headed to hers, Jade’s face popped up over the brick-red canvas.

  “Guys? I’m really sorry about today,” she said as we slowed to a halt next to her. “I don’t know what got into me.”

  Lana took hold of the top of the hammock and gave it a gentle push. “How about we go trip on mushrooms tonight and forget all about it?”

  Jade smiled and nodded.

  After a nap, shower, dinner, and dousing of bug repellant we headed to Bucket Bar. As we crossed the bridge, I was a bundle of nerves. I had never done mushrooms before, but I figured it couldn’t have been that much different to the bhang. I hoped beyond hope that whatever portal had been opened in the desert could be opened again.

  As Dizzy Rascal’s “Bonkers” blared through the speakers, and the lights flashed like an epileptic’s nightmare, we weaved through the writhing bodies to the bar.

  “I’ve been waiting all night for you, Petal,” Kush said giving his signature sleazy smile.

  I grabbed the bar menu and kept my eyes glued to it. “I’ll take you up on your offer.”

  “Which one?” he said, plucking it from my fingers. “I have many on the table.”

  “Mushrooms,” I replied, meeting his eyes with a look that channeled Lorena Bobbitt.

  “Tea or shake?”

  I nudged the girls, who had their backs turned to the bar, and asked them what they wanted. Lana shrugged.

  “Tea,” Jade said, “Just one to start.”

  With the order placed, he disappeared into a hut behind the bar. Before long he returned, placing a steaming mug full of indigo-coloured liquid on the bar. Throwing our money on the bar, Jade took the mug in her hands, and we made our way to the cushions we sat on the night before. As we kneeled in a circle facing each other, Jade held the mug in the air like Rafiki showing off Simba, closed her eyes, and muttered something. Even in a club, she drank her hallucinogenic in ceremony to the gods. Then she took it to her lips and when she opened her eyes, her pupils had dilated, consuming her iris, leaving just a sliver of colour. Lana took the mug next, knocking it back, not bothering with ceremonial formalities, and then passed it to me. As the compost-smelling steam condensed on my face I held the mug to my chest just as we had in the desert, drew in a deep breath and whispered to Audrey, “Speak to me.”

  The moment the hot liquid hit the back of my throat, the effect was like a bullet to the brain. In an instant, my senses were assaulted with a symphony of rainbow-coloured lights and sounds as my mind failed to group musical notes together. I looked around noticing every detail of everything going on around me. Time seemed to slow down and speed up at the same time. I took the cup to my lips once more and drained it until all that was left was a heap of translucent mushrooms, each one no longer than my thumb.

  I put the mug down and looked at the girls, and a goofy grin spread across my face to match theirs. Suddenly a beetle fell from the sky and landed on the bamboo mat between us, sending us into a laughing fit. In stitches, we flopped down on the cushions and took turns poking at it until it flew off. Rolling onto my back, I stared at the constellations in the night sky and waited for Audrey to turn up. But as the lights pulsated and moved to the music, stars fell, and beetles fluttered past, she was nowhere to be found. I sat up and looked west towards the karst cliffs, hoping perhaps God was waiting in another looming structure, figuring It had a flair for drama, but even as the moon hovered above the crest bathing the craggy cliffs in a soft glow, like earlier in the day, they were nothing but limestone.

  As my eyes followed a piece of fluff across the lounge, a head of sandy hair at the other side of the dance floor caught my attention. Miles made his way around the perimeter of the club in our direction. The memory of his reaction to my story in the desert flashed. If he couldn’t handle the thought of me high, he certainly couldn’t handle me while I was high.

  I had to escape.

  I opened my mouth to say our code word, but the words stuck in my throat. Instead I pawed at the girls, Jade lying on her stomach watching an ant trail while Lana stared at the palms of her hands. I was met with lopsided grins. I pressed my index finger against my lips, pointed in Miles’s direction, and then to the exit. The girls nodded and pushed to their feet. Focusing on limb control, I carefully placed one foot in front of the other, getting the hang of walking again as I made my way through the strobe lights.

  And just as I made it to the exit, a hand landed on my shoulder. “Leaving so soon, Petal?”

  I had no time for his shit, and my brain had no sense to form a response, so I shook off his hand and kept moving before my trip turned sour. The girls must have lagged behind, as about twenty seconds later, they caught up to me. Or it could have been two seconds or an hour, time made no sense anymore.

  “Miles saw us,” Jade said, vacant eyes staring past me.

  I stopped at a fork in the road, we could go back over the bridge or head down a path to the left with a sign advertising another club, Smile Bar. I glanced over my shoulder down the path, but no one was following us. Lana walked ahead, turning left, and Jade and I followed her. In a clearing of trees, we found another bar, just like Bucket Bar except no strobe lights and no people.

  Perfect.

  Hammocks hung from wooden gazebos nestled against the trees, tucked away from view. We floated down to them, but the girls wanted to find water, so I cocooned myself in one, the rocking soothing me back to enjoy the moment. Until…

  “Petal?”

  Oh God, he couldn’t take a hint. Baldy McCreepy earned himself a new nickname: Douchey McTripshitter.

  I stayed still, hoping to melt into the fabric, but I knew he would spot me eventually. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping if I couldn’t see him, then he couldn’t see me.

  All is well. All is well.

  “Petal?” he repeated, his voice louder, closer.

  All is well. All is well.

  “There you are, Petal.” I opened my eyes, and he loomed above me. “I wanted to see how you were feeling.”

  I forced myself upright, feeling too vulnerable horizontal and held the
rope that connected the hammock to the wooden column. “I’m fine,” I managed to eek out with a thumbs up.

  “Listen, I’ve got some mates at a bar a little way down the island. You and your girls should come, it’ll be fun.”

  I shook my head. Scanning the scene for any sign of the girls, or anyone. I could see silhouettes of what I hoped to be the girls near the entrance.

  “I’ve got some great opium we can smoke in the jungle along the way. Best in all of Laos,” he said with a smile ever so south of sane.

  I shook my head screaming on the inside, leave me alone! But my tongue stopped working.

  He gave a sigh of defeat. “Alright, Petal, well, I’ll just wait with you until your friends return. Wouldn’t forgive myself if I left you alone and something happened to you.”

  I appreciated the sentiment. As creepy as he was, he really was harmless, but I still wanted him to go away. I shook my head again and managed to say, “No.”

  “Oh, come on, Petal,” he said taking a step forward, wrapping his fingers on the hammocks rope, his hand barely touching mine. “I know I’m a little crass, but I’m not a bad guy.”

  “I believe she said no,” a male voice boomed from behind him. A hand gripped him by the shoulder and pulled him backwards with such force, he tumbled to the ground. I tried to get out of the hammock. My wobbly legs gave way, and I fell. The girls appeared, and they dropped the bottles of water and helped me to my feet. Steadying myself I saw Miles and Chad towering above Kush, fists cocked.