Wanderlove

by Kirsten Hubbard

  I open my mouth to reply, but I can’t untangle my brain from his words.

  All stuff I know, of course. I know people live in Central America all their lives. And I know people are people, be they professional beadworkers or Garifuna, Spring Breakpackers or Mayans. But on this trip, I’ve never let my brain dwell on those thoughts. I’ve never bothered to imagine myself in someone else’s place. Like the kids selling key chains in the streets of Antigua. Or the mother with the screaming toddler in the Guatemala City bus station. Because then I’d have to admit that in the grand scheme of things, I’m pretty well-off.

  I mean … art school. That’s what I’m agonizing over? The missed opportunity to pay bunches of money to paint and draw?

  I know how shallow it sounds. And yet … it’s not like I can instantaneously extricate all my emotions from it. My problems might be superficial on a global scale, but they’re real to me. Just like my parents’ marital problems are real to them. And Rowan’s hang-ups are real to him.

  “You’re right,” I tell him. “But you’re wrong, too. Because you just can’t speak for everybody. Not even every traveler. You can’t begin to know what anybody’s going through. It’s almost like … you only have empathy for those less fortunate than you are.”

  “Come on!” Rowan cries, indignant.

  “You do come off as feeling awfully superior.”

  “I don’t think I’m superior.”

  “No offense, because I think you’re the most insightful person I’ve ever met … but you seem to have a lot of pent-up disappointment in travelers who aren’t you or Starling.” I know I’m really stomping on his feelings at this point, but I make myself hold his eyes.

  Finally, he cracks a grin. “Thanks,” he says.

  “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “No. I’m really not. I’m thanking you—for the first thing you said. About being insightful. That’s just … Wow. I’m honored. It almost eclipses what you said next, which was pretty mean. But point taken.”

  I poke my fingers through the netting of the hammock. “Anyway, who am I to talk? I’m probably more judgmental than you are. I judged Dan as soon as I saw his comb-over.”

  “Who’s Dan?”

  “Marcy’s husband. I judged Marcy based on her velociraptor fingernails.”

  “I judged you when I saw your Windbreaker.”

  “Asshole! That’s a low blow and you know it. At least I’m not a boy wearing a stack of multicolored bracelets on his leg.”

  Rowan sticks his foot in my face. I grab it and trap it under my arm.

  “You’re right, though,” he says. “It’s about time to take these damn things off, isn’t it?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Soon. It’ll be, like, a rite of passage. We’ll have a ceremony. And until then … I’ll try to be more accommodating of Spring Breakpackers.”

  “I will too. Also, Global Whatevers.”

  “And even Global Whatevers.”

  For a moment, we’re just smiling at each other, and it’s kind of weird but also really nice. Rowan clears his throat like he has something important to add, but all he says is “Look up.”

  Mystified, I tip my head back.

  I don’t know how, but I forgot about the stars. They coat the sky like smeared wet sugar, so many the whole night seems to glow. When was the last time I looked up?

  “Bet you don’t have stars like that back home,” Rowan says.

  “No way! In Los Angeles? Too much light pollution, even in the suburbs. If I’m lucky, I see about ten or twelve of them.”

  “Just wait until I take you to the Corn Islands in Nicaragua. Especially Little Corn. Or Isla del Coco. It’s in Costa Rica, miles and miles offshore. But if I took you all the way out there, you’d have to dive.”

  “Naturally,” I say, playing along.

  “Or maybe I’ll take you to this tiny Garifuna island off the coast of Honduras. Chachauate Key, they call it. At low tide, you can hike from the main village across a sandbar and put up a hammock on a deserted isle. Between two coconut trees. Like out of a movie. And the stars—you wouldn’t believe.

  “Or we could go to the Tikal ruins, just over the border in Guatemala. You can stay at a budget hotel in the park, then wake up before dawn and climb to the top of the highest temple to watch the sun rise over the jungle. You’ll swear you can see the whole wide world.”

  None of it will ever happen. We both know I’m not going anywhere after Laughingbird except home. But the images are so gorgeous, his words so beguiling, that a sentence slips out without my permission: “Hold my hand.”

  Rowan stares at me.

  I would stare at me too if I could.

  “It’s just—what you said was so perfect. I’m not, like, coming on to you.”

  After a moment, he reaches out. Because of the way we’re lying, we can only hook our fingers together clumsily. It’s more awkward than anything.

  “Anyway, I know you wouldn’t,” he says.

  “Wouldn’t what?”

  “Come on to me.”

  “Of course not,” I say quickly.

  “So … we’re friends? Or siblings, or whatever it was Starling said? Brother and sister?”

  “Of course. Hooking up would be immoral. Like, travel incest.”

  Rowan grins at me, then closes his eyes. We sit there awhile longer, listening to the waves, the grackles trilling in the trees, the soft thump of reggae music from the bars down the street. I want to let go of his hand. But I don’t want him to think anything’s wrong.

  19

  Days 12-15

  Transformed

  I have mastered the island.

  Okay, so it’s not that much of an accomplishment, considering it’s so narrow in some places I can see the ocean on both sides. But when you’re from the Los Angeles area, you can’t master much outside your own neighborhood. You know where you’re going, but it’s almost impossible to know all the corners. You know the good parts and bad parts, but not all the parts in between.

  Every morning, I borrow the same purple bike from the dive shop and set out to reexplore all the places I’ve already been. And hour by hour, trail by trail, I’m changed.

  Externally, it’s obvious. My sunburn turns to tan. My wind-thrashed hair is almost untamable, even by Rowan’s rolled-up bandanas. Bug bites materialize on my legs, though I never catch a single mosquito sucking at me. When I show Rowan, he tells me about other Central American beasts that bite. “Sea lice. Sand flies and fleas. Sea serpents.”

  “I call bullshit on your serpents.”

  “There really are sea snakes, though.”

  As if I needed another reason to stay out of the ocean.

  Biking barefoot with my sandals in the basket, I fly down Front Street. I dodge potholes on Middle Street. Clutching an iced papaya drink in one hand, I sail down Back Street. I wave at everyone I pass—locals, backpackers, guys and girls and children—but I’m speeding way too fast for conversation.

  I stop only to draw.

  Until now, I’ve been pecking at my sketchbooks, erasing, sketching with painstaking care, perfecting every line. Like every single page I drew was designed to impress my invisible critics. Well, one critic in particular. But on this island, I don’t care what he thinks. I have really, truly left him behind.

  I draw pelicans, frigate birds, grackles, gulls, herons.

  I draw iguanas, weathered old dinosaurs basking in the sun.

  I draw island dogs.

  I draw island kids.

  I sit on a tombstone, which I hope isn’t disrespectful, and draw the island’s tiny graveyard. I draw the briar patches of the mangroves, trees that grow right out of the sea. I draw the ice cream shack when I’m craving a second scoop but am too embarrassed to go get one. I draw until I fill my sketchbook and have to buy a third.

  I’m so happy I can barely stand it.

  But my happiness comes with one major stumbling block: it makes me even more aware of how litt
le time I have left.

  My plane leaves from Guatemala City four days after Lobsterfest. College is supposed to start a month after that. I’ve been so busy I haven’t thought about it in days.

  Once I remember, time starts rushing by even faster, so fast I can see the minutes zipping around me like one of those cartoon time warps. I feel unhinged, propelled forward, as if the wind’s bashing me in the face even when I’m off my bike, and time’s flying, I’m flying, and real life and the college I don’t want are speeding toward me like the front bumper of a semi truck.

  The only thing that anchors me is Rowan.

  Every afternoon, I wait at the dock for the dive boats to come in.

  First there’s Devon and Clement’s boat, for certified divers exploring the deeper, farther places, like the legendary Blue Hole, which I picture as a bottomless pit filled with thousand-tentacled creatures baring fangs bigger than Belize City lighthouses. Jack climbs off the second boat first, with a stack of weight belts slung around his neck and a dive tank in each hand. He always has something smart-assed to say to me. Like “Hungover, as usual. Didn’t I warn you to stop at number nine?” Or “It’s because you’re bite-sized, isn’t it? Good thing—those hammerheads looked hungry today.” I’ve been avoiding him as much as possible, because the sight of him makes me wonder about things I don’t want to wonder about.

  Next come the dreadlock twins. Emily and Ariel follow, bickering loudly.

  Rowan always emerges last, looking like some sort of ponytailed mer-creature in his unzipped wet suit. He grins boyishly and says, “Don’t listen to Jack. Next time, you should come along.”

  And I shake my head and grab an armful of flippers before following him to shore.

  In the evenings, Emily and Ariel act like puppies, jostling for Rowan’s attention. He’s civil—at least, he doesn’t play any of his notorious pranks—but it’s obvious he prefers my company.

  Just not in that way.

  It’s a relief, really, that we established our relationship once and for all, that night we shared the hammock. The murkiness has been clarified, the tension dispersed. At last, there’s an easy peace between us.

  We find the time to talk before dinner, or after we excuse ourselves from the group at night. Before long, everyone knows those hours are ours, even Rowan’s fan club.

  Rowan’s sixth travel rule:

  Downtime is the best time.

  Rowan admits that one day, he’d like to write books. There’s no shame, he claims, in being a Flashpacker: a backpacker with a laptop and other techno-toys. I describe my histories with Reese and Olivia, the way I drifted from one to the other, then away from both. And I talk about how I used to love to swim at one particular beach, my beach, a long time ago but not anymore, even though I don’t tell him why.

  Rowan tells me about the dad he shares with Starling: a failed architect turned landscaper, terminally unhappy, always on the move to escape a boss, a woman, or another imaginary enemy. He doesn’t talk about his mother, and I don’t ask.

  I tell him about the art school girl, and even my art school dreams. But I don’t tell him my reasons for discarding them, and he doesn’t ask.

  Little sacrifices to keep us content. To convince us we’re making progress.

  And maybe we are. It’s like carving a sculpture from a hunk of marble. Exposing the artwork hiding inside, chip by chip. But the process is slow. Too slow, when our trip is already winding down. Which I don’t want to think about.

  One time, Rowan asks if I’ll ever draw him. We’re sitting on the beach, atop an overturned rowboat. I shake my head. “It’s just too … intimate.”

  “Really? But don’t you draw, like, models? Strangers?”

  “It’s different then. When I’m drawing a stranger, it’s easy to break them down into lines, shapes, edges. Forgetting the person isn’t a problem, because you don’t know the person. That’s how I can draw an old man’s … you know, and not be embarrassed. And also, models rarely ever see the drawing—there’s no pressure to achieve a likeness they’re happy with. But friends are different.”

  “I wouldn’t care if your drawing didn’t look like me.”

  “You say that.” I roll my eyes. “Drawings are interpretations, right? By definition. But when I draw a friend, I can’t just interpret clinically: I see them through a veil of what I know, what I feel. That’s what I mean about the intimacy. About how it’s personal, for both of us. So the process is already different. But the product is what really stops me.”

  I think of the time I drew Olivia. She claimed she really liked it … except.

  “When people are faced with their flaws—and my artistic limitations—they’re never as happy as I need them to be. I know it’s dumb that I need validation. If I ever want to be a professional, I’ll have to swallow all that to earn a paycheck. But for now, I can’t help it. It’s too important to me.”

  When Rowan doesn’t say anything, I glance at him. “What?”

  “Nothing. I just love to hear you talk about art.” He pauses as a pelican dives into the water right in front of us. A piece of my chest seems to plunge with it. “Do you think you’ll ever show me your drawings?”

  The pelican surfaces, a fish flopping in its enormous beak.

  “Soon,” I promise. “Will you ever tell me about your sordid past?”

  Rowan laughs and shakes his head. “Soon.”

  Although we’re both all too aware our time is running out.

  When you spend days aboard a rickety beach bike and there are potholes all over the place, it’s basic probability: you’re destined to take a spill. Lucky for me, my wipeout occurs on the south side of the island, and my audience is mostly birds and lizards.

  Mostly. Because when I finish cursing and totter to my feet, I discover I’ve fallen in someone’s yard. A woman stands nearby with a spatula in her hand, like she’s about to smack me. She’s even shorter than I am, with an enormous bosom that tapers to skinny legs and tiny feet. She wears a wrinkled Sesame Street T-shirt, with Elmo and Grover beaming freakishly across her chest.

  “What you looking at, girl?”

  “Oh, n-nothing,” I stammer. “I—”

  “Well, what you waiting for? These plátanos is getting cold.”

  I gape at her, trying to figure out what the heck a plátano is.

  The woman mutters something in Kriol. “Quit yawning at me. Are you a baby bird or a girl? You can call me Sonia.”

  “I’m Bria.” Finally, I leave my bike on its side and perch tentatively on a picnic bench. I’m not really sure what’s going on, but she seems friendly. Like a wolf wagging its tail. Despite her tiny feet, she moves quickly, zipping between the grill and the table, loading two plates with a Belizean breakfast of refried beans, tortillas, scrambled eggs, and fried plantains, which are probably what she meant by plátanos. She sits across from me and shoves a plate my way. “Really? You don’t mind?” I say.

  “Mind what? You joining me this breakfast? I should thank you.” She rolls a tortilla into a shovel shape and scoops a heap of beans. “Morning’s boring as shit. My husband, he fishes dawn till dusk.”

  “What does he fish for?”

  “Fish. Conchs.” She pronounces it conks. “But now is lobster season, so he fishes for lobsters. You going to the lobster party?”

  “Sure—how could I not?” It’s all anybody talks about, with the exception of Rowan.

  “So you’re a backpacker?”

  I shrug. “I have a backpack, at least.”

  “I was a backpacker too,” Sonia says. “Girl, don’t look so surprised! We got travelers from here as well as come here.” She spoons a giant pile of sugar into her coffee and stirs. “So you like my island?”

  “I love your island.”

  She chuckles. “If you love it now, you should see it before. Back before there’s more hotels and bars than shells. Back when only real backpackers come and visit. You’re too skinny,” she adds. “Eat more eggs.”
<
br />   I take a bite. “What do you mean?”

  “Eggs give you big tits.”

  “No! About the real backpackers.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s thirty years ago or more. You know La Mariposa? By the main dock?”

  “Sure,” I say. The hotel with the butterfly paintings. By now, I know where everything is. I could draw an entire map out of my head. Maybe I should.

  “La Mariposa is my sister’s hotel. But she’s a bruja and we don’t talk no more. Anyways, the whole southern part of the island, from the channel to the main dock, is mangrove forests thirty years ago. Now there’s a thousand people live on this island. Then, there’s just three or four hundred.

  “In those days, only the real backpackers visit. Those carrying real backpacks—not these giant monster bags, look like a turtle house. There’s no water taxis, no airstrip. To get to my island, you have to pay a fisherman in Belize City to take you on his boat. Maybe if you’re lucky, he put you up in his house. Or you find two coconut trees and put up a hamaca, and hope no coconuts falls on your head in the night.”

  “What did people eat?” I ask, imagining Survivor-type hippies scavenging for shrimp and mangos.

  “They eat what everybody eats,” Sonia says. “You pay a family in the morning, and in the evening, you have what they have—stew chicken, fried fish, pollo a la plancha.”

  I wonder if Rowan’s ever traveled like that. It’s easy to picture him hailing a fisherman, stringing up a hammock. I remember the island he told me about—the one with all the stars. And suddenly, I want to see it so badly my stomach aches. I want to string up a hammock under the stars and eat pollo a la plancha. I don’t ever want to go home. “It sounds amazing.”

  Sonia nods. “But now, the word is out. And to this day, we can never go back.”