Count On Me

by Abigail Graham

  Young teachers, or interns as I was, I guess, are used to a strange tug-of-war with their students. They want to pull you into their childish world and they want to use you to pull themselves into adulthood. They want you to be a peer and are confused when you’re not. They don’t see where the line is. I was an aide, so I was in a subservient position to the teacher. That really confuses them.

  It’s not like that, here. When one of the boys summons his full command of the English language to tell me I look like an angel, he’s not complimenting my looks. To him, I came from heaven.

  For my first few months here I felt fat compared to the kids. I started to lean out on the MREs. They’re not bad, if you get the right ones. The vegetarian bean burrito is great. The other stuff, not so much. The chicken stew, my God. Sometimes a bunch of the volunteers get together and dump the nastiest, gloppiest varieties into one big pot, pour in a bottle of hot sauce, and make a disgusting but somewhat more palatable stew.

  I really don’t care. There’s nothing for me back where I came from, and these kids need someone like me.

  Class drags on until five in the afternoon. Tomorrow I don’t have to get up—local teachers provide some of their education in their native dialect for three hours in the morning. Melissa likes to get up, unfortunately. She’s read Charlotte’s Web about five times and has these stacks of lesson plans she’s never going to use. It’ll be a victory if we can get them to grasp the basics of the story.

  They’re all smart as hell, they take to the computers and tablets we provided like fish to water, they just don’t have the tools to understand. I’m amazed that kids who have been through so much can even bring themselves to care about the hackneyed wisdom of a talking spider.

  I mean, to me, Charlotte’s Web is just a cartoon. I didn’t even read the book until I came here.

  Exhausting as it is, I still feel good about myself at the end of the day. Older boys and girls, kids really, have come back from the fields and construction projects to walk their siblings and cousins home. Some of these kids are the heads of their households, and take care of their younger family and their grandparents at the same time.

  I get a lot of attention from the boys but quietly and graciously ignore it, doing my best to greet them and wish them well in broken Solkovian. I speak the language at about a fourth-grade level now, pretty good for six months in. Melissa is a better speaker. She’s been here for a year.

  I’m not really afraid anything will happen to me, but we have a buddy system. The two of us walk back to the volunteer camp together. Along the way, Brad shows up.

  He tests Melissa’s vows of chastity. It’s funny to me how blatantly and obviously she gets horny just at the sight of him. I can practically hear her getting wet. She turns beet red, stares at his package and coughs, then keeps looking at him as he draws near.

  The man has a similar effect on me. He’s been with the org for two years now, and however he looked when he left, it’s given him a great body and a rich, dark tan that contrasts with his sandy hair in a strangely macho way, like some fifties bodybuilder from Muscle Beach. He’s covered in dust and soot and it only makes the effect more intense, like a sexy construction worker from a calendar. Short shorts show off long, carven legs without an ounce of fat, bulging muscles, and an ass that could crack bricks between his cheeks. The tank top he wears shows off his massive shoulders and pulls tight around his thick, broad chest.

  I’m sure if Melissa could, she’d run over and lick his stomach. She’d be pushing me out of the way. Conceptually, anyway. I’m not really that interested in him. He’d be good for a lay, but he’s too…cheery. One day he and Melissa are destined to settle down, have passionate missionary sex, and breed a new generation of missionaries.

  Heh, missionary.

  I snort and make to wipe my nose as if it were from the dust. Brad jogs up, pecs flexing mightily, and my lusty animal brain forces my eyes down to his package. He’s the missionary girl’s dream, all muscle, all for the Lord, and his libido held in check only by faith. I kind of fear for Melissa when she finally hooks up with him. She’s not going to be ready for that thing.

  Kinda wasted on her, really.

  I wouldn’t be thinking about this if it weren’t for my own dry spell. It’s been two years, and I can’t exactly take care of business with Melissa in my tent. You know how, in romance novels, there’s always this shy virgin who’s never even had an orgasm despite being twenty-six years old or whatever? That’s Melissa. I think she’s tried to masturbate a few times, but the first time it feels good, she gets too embarrassed and quits.

  If I’ve ever met a guy who’s never jerked off, it’s Brad. It’s going to be interesting when they finally hook up.

  God, I’m creepy. I need to get laid.

  “Evening, ladies. Mind if I walk you back to camp?”

  “Yes, please do,” Melissa chirps up.

  Guys probably find her refreshing in her directness. I know she dated a local teacher here for a few months before he got tired of dealing with her, since she won’t go past an openmouthed kiss without a ring on her finger.

  Brad eyes me up and down as we walk and I know I’m testing his vows. I don’t know why. I’m not much to look at beside Melissa.

  “How were the students today?”

  “Great,” Melissa pipes up. “They’re taking to the material so well. Every day working with them gives me so much hope. How is the construction going?”

  “The first families should be moving into their houses next month. These people work so hard, it’s incredible. I feel shamed how I lag behind. They never stop to rest and we have to convince them to take lunch breaks.”

  Melissa continues to moon at him.

  “You’re always so quiet, Penny. Is something troubling you?”

  “No, everything has been great. I’m scheduled to make my phone call this afternoon.”

  I make my excuses as we walk down the path of planks into the volunteer camp. It’s fenced off, and something about that has always struck me as especially ominous. The gate is usually open, but at eight o’clock it’s closed and locked with a heavy chain and padlock. A guard sits by the gate all night, too.

  The phone is in a small tent off to the side, with its own dish and generator. They make sat phones now that look like cell phones and fold up to fit in your pocket, but that’s like CIA stuff. Ours looks like it came out of a Russian submarine from 1976. It’s a big gray box with a control panel and a hardwired handset that weights two pounds, or at least feels like it does.

  I sit down and push the buttons in the right order to connect to the satellite. There’s no dial tone when I first pick it up, just a hiss that turns into a computery squeal and then finally a dull drone. I tap out my parents’ phone number and wait. I’m allowed three tries if they don’t answer, and then I lose my turn for the week.

  On the sixth ring there’s a harsh click and a voice. My mom sounds like she’s talking through a diving helmet.

  “Penny?”

  “Hi, Mom. It’s me. We’ve got ten minutes.”

  “Oh, honey, we miss you so much. When are you coming home?”

  “I’m signed up for nine months. I think I’m going to re-up when I’m done. We’re doing a lot of good here.”

  She sighs and coughs. “That’s good, Penny. You can at least take like a month off, though, right? Come home for a while?”

  “Yeah, I should be able to. It’s not like they’re swimming in volunteers out here.”

  There’s an urgent edge to her voice I don’t like, but the thought of returning home sickens me. I drum my fingernails on the folding metal table that holds the phone, and listen.

  Mom keeps me updated on the goings-on at home. My sister will graduate from high school this year, and she’s crestfallen that I’m going to miss the ceremony. My cousin is getting married, my other cousin is pregnant.

  After five minutes of news from the home front, Dad gets on. I listen to him talk about work
. The company he works for is in trouble, and he sounds beaten down and broken.

  “When are you coming home?”

  “Not sure. I can do a visit when my contract is up, but I’m planning to stay out here. I might move to the city for the next go around, though. They need teachers there, too.”

  “They need teachers here. I talked to Frank Filichikia. He says there will be an opening for an English teacher at George Washington next year.”

  Ah yes, George Washington High School. No, not that George Washington High School, the other one. The one where I went to school, where my sister Demeter goes to school (it’s my mother. My mother is insane for Greek mythology), and the one where my parents met, and their parents met. (Well, mostly. My mom’s father was from Indiana.)

  I glance back through the flaps. The sun is beginning its slow descent and painting the world out there red and gold. When I’m not thinking about what could have been and how far I want to get from my life, I could see myself here. At least for a while.

  Mom took the phone back while I wasn’t paying attention.

  “Have you met any boys?”

  I sigh. It stings me every time she asks. No, I haven’t met any boys. I didn’t sign up for this to get laid. After what I dealt with last year, I don’t really want to worry about that for a good long while, if ever again. Mom is Mom, though. I feel a little sick with myself at how I seize up, shaking with anger at her question.

  She only wants me to be happy, I know.

  “There’s a guy here that’s interested in me but I’m iffy on him. His name’s Brad. I think my roommate or tent-mate or whatever likes him more. I think they should get together.”

  “Why don’t you ask him out?”

  “Mom, we’re in the middle of nowhere. There is no ‘out’ to ask him to. Besides, I’d be screwing over my friend. She really likes him. That’s like a no-no. I can’t do that to her.”

  My mother sighs. “Honey, I think you need to move on.”

  “I did move on, Mom. I moved six thousand miles on.”

  “Penny, I had to sow my wild oats, too, but you’re almost twenty-six years old. It’s time to start really building a future. You can’t minister to the heathens in a dust bowl forever.”

  I wonder, why not? There are some volunteers who have been out in places like this for decades. The camp doctor has been with the group for forty years, and served in Africa, India, a dozen places in Southeast Asia.

  All the things I could see and do. The world is so huge and open.

  “I know, Mom. I’ll think about it.”

  We say our good-byes. Dad gets back on. We chat until my timer dings, and then he grunts and says he’ll talk to me next week.

  Then I hang up and walk back to our tent.

  It’s getting dark.

  It gets really dark out here at night. The camp and the construction zones are well lit, but that only makes it worse. It’s like walking on the bottom of the ocean. I feel floaty, like the current is trying to pull me up. I could float up and up and drown.

  When divers spend too long under the surface, too far, they have to decompress to come back out. If they don’t, the nitrogen in their blood bubbles out under the lowered pressure. They call it the bends, but it’s more like bursting from the inside, like a soda bottle someone shook up until it’s ready to pop.

  I’d be like that if I went home. Too much of a shock. I don’t know if I could cope with Philadelphia again, or even the suburb where I grew up. Maybe I should just stay out here, or go farther east. When my term is up I’ll be able to sign on again and go somewhere else. Some of the options are a little dangerous.

  When I look out into that great, deep darkness that surrounds this tiny island of light, it feels pretty dangerous here.

  I duck into the tent and grab my bag, head to the shower stall, and scour the dirt off my skin. The dust is everywhere when the wind picks up. It gets in everything. I keep my hair short for ease of maintenance and just run my fingers through it to dry it out after I’m done.

  I grab an MRE from the supply tent and head back to join Melissa. Every meal pack has a cooker in it. You pour water in the pouch; the food is all sealed up so it doesn’t get wet. The cooker reacts with the water and gets hot, and heats up the food.

  Or you can use the microwave, which we do. It’s as big as a regular oven and covered in scratches. It probably leaks radiation, but at this point I don’t care.

  I lucked out and drew the veggie bean burrito. I should hate it but there’s something about the crust that reminds me of a pot pie. It doesn’t taste very burrito-y at all, but that’s fine with me. I munch it down in big bites, gulping bottled water in between to cool my throat before the superheated burrito can sear it like a steak on a griddle.

  Steak, it’s been so long since I had a steak. Some things from the real world I do miss, I suppose. A nice rib eye would go well tonight.

  I’m so hungry I eat the burrito and the nasty crackers (that always taste rotten, and are usually fairly soft) and the jelly and the chocolate. That one will make me regret it in the morning. I even mix up the coffee powder and drink it cold.

  Melissa eyes her “chicken and noodles” and frowns at my precious burrito, or the few tiny crumbs that are left of it when I finish. She looks like she might lick the crumbs off my paper plate.

  “I hate this stuff,” she confesses. “I know we should eat the same food as the people we’re helping, but I can’t stop myself from wishing for something better.”

  She bites her lip, probably trying to figure out which sin that is. Gluttony? Avarice? Pride? One of them. It’s not Wrath, I know that.

  I leave her to it. I want to sleep. I turn off my little lamp and lie out on the cot. Melissa doesn’t like it that I strip down to my skivvies in the heat, but she can stuff it if she thinks I’m sleeping in a damned nightshirt like her. It’s going to be in the upper eighties tonight. At least the humidity drops rapidly when the sun goes down.

  The fan oscillates between us. Melissa reads for a while then shuts off her light.

  When it’s finally fully dark in the tent I roll over, facing away from the flap, and stuff my thin pillow up under my head as much as I can.

  It’s moments like this when my resolve starts to weaken. What the fuck am I doing this for? I’m completely overreacting, like a spoiled little girl. People would kill to take my place in the world. Like the people here. Ask any one of those girls out there to trade places with me and go home to a cushy teaching job where they can get fat eating bonbons and teaching the Odyssey to bored ninth-graders and they’d cut off their own arm for the chance.

  A restless, dreamless sleep falls over me. It’s never really quiet in the camp. Melissa may be so straightedge she cuts herself, but somebody out there is fucking. I hear giggles in the distance. It’s like summer camp, some nights. Last month one of the girls went home after she turned up pregnant by one of the men.

  It’s sometime past midnight when I hear the tent flap open. A hot breeze blows up my back, and light cuts in a thin line across the tent wall.

  I freeze. Very, very slowly, I turn and look back over my shoulder. Brad just walked into our tent. Melissa is already up, sitting up in bed. She’s dumping a dress over her head. Brad just got a view of the full monty, or as close as one can get with Melissa. He saw her ankles, how scandalous.

  I’m a little mad at him for so obviously checking me out if he’s with her, for her sake. I’m happy for her, though. If anyone in the world needs to get laid, it’s Melissa. She yawns, and Brad’s voice hisses in the dark.

  “Quiet, we can’t wake your roommate.”

  “Tent-mate.”

  Brad lets out an exasperated sigh. “Come on, we don’t have much time. We’ll miss the truck if we don’t hurry.”

  Truck? What truck?

  As Melissa follows him out of the tent, I sit up, yank on a pair of shorts and a shirt, and tug on my boots. Something isn’t right. What truck? They can’t leave the ca
mp. It’s against the rules.

  Following after them, I hang back and hope they don’t notice my shadow from the harsh lights. They weave between the tents, making a circuitous route toward the back of the camp. When they reach the fence, Brad peels back the chain link from one of the posts and holds it for Melissa while she slips through, then heads through himself.

  Frowning, I start to turn back. If they want to go fuck in the bushes, I’m not going to stop them. I just hope he’s not pressuring her into something she’s not ready for.

  In the distance I hear the distinctive rattle-chug-chug of a diesel engine. It’s not one of the generators either. I find the loose section of chain link and pull it back, scratching up my hands in the process.

  It makes a hell of a racket once I’m through, but I don’t think that matters now. Quickly I make my way down the hill. Behind the camp the ground slopes away sharply toward a creek where we’ve been drawing water to filter for bathing.

  Down at the bottom I spot Brad and Melissa, lifting big wooden crates into a truck together. It’s a military vehicle, painted a drab brown.

  As I move closer I make out the markings on the side of the crates. It’s food from our camp, food for the orphans and villagers. Why would they be stealing food?

  I move closer, crouching in the tall grass along the creek bank. The water burbles softly, almost drowned out by the diesel rattle. It glows like a strip of silver in the dark. No moon tonight.

  That must be deliberate.

  Brad grabs Melissa around the waist and hoists her into the back of the truck.

  I step out. “Where the hell are you going?”

  They both look at me, and freeze.

  A man I can’t see speaks in a low voice. I barely recognize the words. It’s a harsher, more guttural version of the Solkovian tongue. A different dialect.

  Then it hits me. He’s speaking Kosztylan.

  “Penny, what are you doing here?” Brad booms.