Wanderlove

by Kirsten Hubbard

  That sketchbook was like a wardrobe to a magic kingdom. When you’re three, you don’t draw what you see—you draw upon your imagination. Nobody tells you to stop putting wings on people, unless you have a most unfortunate preschool teacher. You are intoxicated by your own magic. Everyone draws as a little kid, but most people lose it as they grow up. For any number of reasons: lack of skill, lack of motivation, lack of encouragement.

  Miraculously, somehow I hoarded that power longer than most people—the power to draw out the brilliant parts of the real world on paper, until art became an entire world of its own. I think I could be happy forever, straddling both worlds, one foot in each. Most people don’t get that opportunity. Even if—

  The shuttle bus beeps outside Starling’s window. I date my journal entry and put down my pen. It’s still dark out. I’m dressed in a tank top, my sneakers, and a pair of Starling’s drawstring pants. “Cherish them,” she said. “They’ve back-packed around the world. Now I’m passing the torch.” In the morning chill, my Windbreaker has made a comeback, but thank goodness it’s not so crispy anymore. I’ve crammed a bottle of water, my third sketchbook, and my favorite pencils into my daypack. My overstuffed backpack leans against the door.

  I go over and shove Starling’s shoulder. She groans.

  “I’m leaving,” I tell her. “If this doesn’t work out, I might never see you again.”

  “That’s crap,” she mumbles. “You have my number. And you always pop up somewhere.”

  I pat her head. Whatever happens with Rowan—if I find him—it’s nice to know Starling and I have passed the peace pipe. The peace pants.

  On the shuttle, I sit on a bench seat in back. A pair of teenage girls sit on either side of me, because they got here first and both want window seats. So for the forty-five-minute ride, I’m stuck between them, cringing beneath their squeals, ducking to avoid their excitable elbows. Nervousness is already salsa dancing in my stomach, so I distract myself by attempting to look out the windows.

  The Petén jungle barricades both sides of the road. We pass a sign warning of falling rocks, which I decide not to think about. What are you supposed to do? Drive faster? Swerve? Once we pass through a checkpoint—military fatigues, machine guns—and enter the park, I see other signs looming in the dark: JAGUAR CROSSING, COATI CROSSING, DEER CROSSING, even TURKEY CROSSING.

  At last, we pull into a big gravel parking lot, beside dozens of turismo buses and minivans. I guess we’re not the only ones here to greet the sunrise. Our tour guide slides open the door to the sound of a whole chorus of cicadas, along with the sharp scent of wet soil. I see a few hotels—basic, budget places. I squeeze the straps of my daypack. Any one of them could be his.

  As I climb the wooden staircase to Temple IV, which is so steep it seems more like a ladder than a staircase, the sun is already rising. Layers of gold and peach streak the stormy sky. The entire forest seems to vibrate, whispering up and down my bare arms, making the hair stand on end. When I finally emerge atop the crown of the Two-Headed Serpent—with a boundless jungle vista spread out before me, so vast I can almost make out the curvature of the earth—the satisfaction that sweeps over me seems so tangible, it practically sparkles.

  It’s the perfect moment to find Rowan. To run at each other (well, to walk briskly, since we’re more than two hundred feet in the air) and to fall (but not really) into each other’s arms.

  I walk all the way around the top of the temple twice before I’m sure of it.

  He’s not here.

  My stomach plummets all the way to the ground.

  When Starling said Rowan might be here, on top of this particular temple, it made perfect sense. It’s one of his special places. Like Sonia talked about—the places you get, the places that stick in your heart. One of the places Rowan said he’d take me, when we lay together in the hammock.

  You’ll swear you can see the whole wide world.

  I step to the edge and stare out at the faintly shifting carpet of trees, the far-off haze of mountains, trying not to cry. The angular heads of other temples jut out from the canopy, glowing in the light of the sunrise. It’s all as epic as Rowan said. And it wrecks me that he’s not here beside me.

  I’m facing east. So are the mountains I see the Maya Mountains? If I could somehow sharpen my eyesight, crank it up to telescopic Superman vision, would I be able to zoom right through the mountains to Belize City? Cross the water and revisit Laughingbird Caye? Our dock?

  I back away from the edge and sit on a stone bench. I’m supposed to fly back tomorrow morning. As long as I take the night bus, I’ll make it to the airport in time.

  And my trip will be over.

  This whole vacation, I’ve been throwing myself headlong into some situations, holding back from others, without any framework or road map—anything to extricate myself from Toby and my past. And maybe that’s what Rowan did, I realize, during those “meaningless” years before we met. If he kept moving from place to place, person to person, experience to experience, maybe somehow he’d stumble upon the best way to heal.

  But there has to be a destination at some point, doesn’t there? Otherwise, we’re just wandering around aimlessly, endlessly.

  At least I made it to the ruins. I run my hand over the stone beside me. This might be the exact place where a princess ran away with a warrior. Or a Spanish conquistador drove a sword through the heart of a high priest before flinging him headfirst down the steps. Did that kind of thing really happen? All I know about the Mayans comes from my muddy memories of tenth-grade world history. It’s funny—I’ve been so upset with myself for not reading about destinations as they are. It never occurred to me I should also read about how they were. People really lived here: thousands and thousands of them. And now they’re gone. From beginning to end, they completed their lives inside this ancient city. But had they been complete?

  I hold out my arms, trying to feel the remnants of body heat, a scrap of enduring emotion. Something touches my arm. I draw it back against my body and see the raindrop, halfway up my forearm—like a glistening dragon eye.

  If it’s going to rain, I’d better get going.

  So maybe I’ve messed up this Rowan thing. And it’s going to hurt for a long while. But this time, I’m not going to let that pain hold me back. Instead, I’m going to let it propel me forward in the best way. I’m going to draw and paint like never before. I’m going to tell off Reese and Olivia, and then apologize, and I’m going to make other friends too. I won’t let good things pass me by, ever again. And I’ll always, always hold on to what I love.

  I turn around right as Rowan appears at the top of the stairs.

  I can’t move. I’m a Mayan statue. I’m afraid the wind will knock me over, my stone legs locked together as I tumble onto the treetops. Because what if he doesn’t want to see me? What if he doesn’t want to be found?

  He looks my way. His eyes take a second to focus, as if he’s trying to figure out who I am.

  Now or never. I take a deep breath and go to him, my hands in the pockets of Starling’s drawstring pants. I wish I weren’t wearing my Windbreaker, but it’s doing its job.

  “You didn’t say goodbye,” I say, willing my voice to hold still.

  He stares at me.

  “And maybe that’s the way you and Starling do it,” I continue, “but not me. So …”

  I wait for him to reply. Something like, What are you doing here? Or, Why aren’t you on your way to Guatemala City? Or maybe, How did you find me? There are a million questions he could ask. Or he could just say goodbye and climb back down the temple.

  But instead, he keeps looking at me, and looking and looking. And then—unexpectedly, but somehow so fittingly—we both begin to laugh.

  29

  Day 20

  Travel Ghosts

  We walk along the trail toward the Grand Plaza, neither of us talking much. From time to time, our fingers touch, until Rowan puts his hands in his pockets. I try not to read too
much into it, but it’s hard. Especially after I’ve traveled so far.

  Suddenly, I stop in my tracks. “This is it.”

  “Temple I? Yeah, it’s probably the most famous one.”

  “It’s the temple from my Global Vagabonds pamphlet.” I glance at him. “Don’t laugh. But it’s what convinced me to come to Central America in the first place.”

  “Too bad we can’t climb it.” Rowan points at the Spanish signs propped at the bottom of each set of steps, which can only read DO NOT ENTER. TEMPLE OFF-LIMITS. NOT ALLOWED.

  I take a few steps toward the temple, craning my neck to look up at its hulking head and shoulders. I can picture the pamphlet photo exactly. The sunny-faced wannabe travelers, painstakingly racially diverse, probably Photoshopped in front of it. In real life, the temple appears even larger. There’s a pale stripe across its face, broken by a black rectangular opening, like the eye of a Cyclops.

  Then something crashes into my legs. It’s a kid with a stuffed spider monkey affixed to his neck. He throws me a terrified look before scampering away.

  He’s broken my trance. Now I’m aware of all the early-morning tourists milling through the courtyard like stirred-up ants. They take turns posing in front of Temple I, mimicking the beautiful people from my notorious pamphlet. Maybe it’s because of the thunderheads gathering above, but everyone appears rushed. Power-walking between Kodak moments. Spending more time composing pictures than beholding the real-life panoramas in front of them.

  It amazes me that I’ve traveled three weeks without a camera. It’s definitely made me draw more. I wonder if it’s also made my experience more intense. I don’t need photos of the key destinations, anyway; I’ll bet everything’s available online. But then again, I don’t have photos of particular moments. My most memorable vignettes. Or the people I’ve encountered. Glenna, Sandu, Sonia, and Jack. Ariel and Emily. Starling.

  I don’t have a single photo of Rowan.

  We start walking again. Maybe we can’t climb Temple I, but plenty of the ancient jungle gyms have been reinforced for foreign feet. At one point, an animal bursts out of the bushes below. I jump and Rowan grabs me, saving me from a three-foot plunge to certain death.

  He lets go all too soon, laughing. “It’s just a wild turkey.”

  “Yeah, thanks. I can see that now.”

  It’s embarrassing, but it breaks the ice. Kind of. Okay, to be honest, there’s still a great big white glacier between us, but at least now we’re attempting to shout around it.

  “So,” Rowan says. “What’s your plan?”

  “Now?” I shrug, looking out at the treetops instead of at him. “I might stay a little while.” In a few hours, my bank account should reflect the funds my parents transferred last night after I promised full-time paperwork duties for what’s left of my summer break. Enough money to delay my plane ticket, if I need to. I have until the end of the day to decide.

  “Just a little while, huh? That’s what I used to say. ‘A little while’ has got a funny way of turning into longer than you think.” We half smile at each other. “Where will you go, if you stay?”

  I hate how there’s a thousand ways I can read every single thing he says. I shrug. “I’m not sure.”

  “Don’t stay for me.”

  I turn so he can’t see my face, which feels slapped. “I’m not. I’m staying for me. Anyway, I really mean just a little while. A week. I’ve got college.”

  This whole trip, college has been another thing I’ve been running from. It’s funny how you can run from the future and the past simultaneously. I spent a lot of time coming up with ways to avoid it. Teaching in a local school, like Starling. Selling my art in an island gallery. Maybe even traveling forever, like Rowan.

  But it’s like I said before. There needs to be a destination, even if it’s way off in the haze of my unlived life. And in that life, I’d like to be an artist.

  An artist who travels a lot.

  “No kidding? I thought you were holding out for art school.”

  “Well, I’m going to major in art. And if I hate the art program, I’ll transfer. I convinced myself I lost my chance, but that’s not true at all. It just felt … safer to say so.” I pause. “I’ve come to realize it really doesn’t need to be all or nothing.”

  “True,” Rowan says.

  We round the corner and are faced with another sweeping view of the ruins. Nothing compares to the morning vista from Temple IV, but it’s breathtaking all the same. “And what about you?”

  “I guess it depends.”

  After that comes the silence. A silence that stretches longer and longer, thickening, amplifying into a current of jungle noise, a crescendo of insects and howler monkeys.

  I turn to Rowan. “I want to draw you. All of you.” Then I pause. “That came out wrong—you can keep your clothes on.”

  Slowly, he breaks into a grin. “You mean it?”

  “I mean it.”

  “When? And where?”

  “Anywhere. And right now.”

  Because if I put it off even an hour, I’ll chicken out. Also, it looks like rain, and nothing ruins a good sketch more than a downpour.

  “Just sit,” I tell Rowan. “Like you’d sit if you were …”

  “Sitting?”

  “Right. Relax your back. And your hands.”

  He settles back on the ancient gray steps of Tikal’s North Acropolis, holding a book in his lap. I spread out my Windbreaker on the wet grass and sit atop it, cross-legged. From here, his chin is lifted too high. “Look down,” I say. “No, that’s too much. You look like a sad puppy. No—now you look pissed off.”

  “Come show me.”

  “Fine.” I go to him and put my fingers under his chin, tilting his face in just the right way. I can feel his breath on my palm. All I’d have to do is lean forward. I remember the way his skin felt after we jumped off the dock. The geography of his back.

  “Okay.” I back away. “That’s good.”

  I sit down and open my sketchbook.

  I try to pretend he’s just a stranger, but I wasn’t lying when I said it’s almost impossible to forget. I have to erase more than usual; I want it to be right. In case we go our separate ways forever, this drawing is all I’ll have of him. To gaze at or throw darts at, depending on how I feel when I get home.

  Once I’ve built the framework of his pose, I start to render. Beginning with his ankles: right crossed in front of left. “Are you hiding your tan lines?”

  He doesn’t answer, but I can see him fighting a smile. Good model.

  At his knees, I sketch the torn hem of his cutoffs. He hates when I call them that. Too many pockets—they’re a bitch to draw. His daypack.

  His hands.

  His arms. I try my best not to make his dragon look like the Loch Ness monster. His white shirt, unbuttoned three buttons. The angle of his clavicle. A place my mouth has been.

  I release my breath slowly so he won’t know I’ve been holding it. It’s hard to believe he’s not feeling anything, but if there’s even a chance he isn’t, I can’t let him know I am.

  Now his face.

  It’s the hardest part. Imperfections in the figure are forgivable, but achieving a likeness in the face is more important than anything else. I break it down into pieces—mouth, chin, ridiculous ponytail—convincing myself he’s just another model, some stranger posing for fifteen bucks an hour. But every time I lift my eyes, I see his.

  I’ve drawn people who made faces whenever I looked up. Don’t do that, by the way, unless you’d like a pencil in the eyeball. But Rowan’s not like that. He’s taking this seriously. He just gazes at me, utterly relaxed, while I’m feeling so much my pencil’s shaking.

  The thing about drawings is you can work on them forever; they’re never finished, not really. You can always find something to fix. I know I need to stop, but I’m afraid of what’s going to happen afterward. I’m not so afraid of his opinion, although yes, my heart will shatter like a stompedon pi
ece of Mayan pottery if he doesn’t like it.

  But it’s good, I think. It looks like Rowan.

  So that’s not what I’m afraid of. I’m scared that after I’m done, we’ll stand up, and it’ll be time for me to go back to my shuttle, and he’ll go back to his hotel, or his shuttle or bus or wherever, and it’ll be the end of my trip. Of our trip. Of us.

  I waste a few more minutes on the background. Instead of drawing the ruins behind him, I sketch the faintest outline of volcanoes and the lake.

  That’s my Rowan.

  Finally, I glance up at him. He’s still as stone.

  “Your tattoo looks like Nessie,” I tell him. “But it’s the best I can do. You can move now. Maybe we can get lunch, and you can tell me your whale shark story—”

  In one swift motion, Rowan hops from the steps and closes the space between us, reaching for me with both hands. It happens so quickly I’m still reeling as he sets my sketchbook on the grass and pulls me against him. When he kisses me, my entire body reacts, like I’ve taken that first step into a too-hot shower. I’m sure he can feel my heart pounding from my chest into his. I feel dazed, almost drunk from the reality of him—the heat of his mouth, the texture of his shirt in my fingers as I hold him tight.

  I know that this time, the worst thing I can do is let go. And I won’t be losing anything. Because it’s the most selfish thing I could ever do—to allow myself to fall for someone worthwhile.

  Not long after, the rain begins to fall. We hole up in the café of his guesthouse and order mugs of coffee. It only makes my heart more jittery, because Rowan’s sitting right beside me, his fingers woven through mine. “I just need to make sure,” he says with a slight smile. “This isn’t meaningless?”

  I use our linked hands to give him a push.

  “It never was. You know that.”

  With his free hand, Rowan flips the lid of a container of condensed milk and splashes it into his coffee. “I really didn’t think you’d come, you know.”

  “I didn’t either.”