Do-Gooder (2 page)

I even took a picture of Henry, just for kicks. He glanced at me from the corner of his eyes but didn’t say anything. I examined Henry to see if I could figure him out. I didn’t come to any conclusions. No cross rested at his throat, which might have meant he wasn’t one of the devout out to convert the savages. Or it could have meant that he just didn’t wear a cross. The pale blue polo shirt was a bit preppy for the camps, and it was neat and clean, something that was hard to do in the dust and heat. His shorts, on the other hand, were worn and multipurpose. Not a fashion statement—those pockets were used.

Yeah, his clothes told me nothing. “So, Hank, where are you from? I’m guessing America, but I can’t figure it beyond that.”

“My name’s Henry,” he said, “not Hank.”

“Nah, Henry is too aristocratic. It’s the name of someone who takes high tea or enjoys a rousing game of cricket.”

His lips pursed, which drew my attention to them. The dude had a great mouth. A Channing Tatum kind of mouth. I bet when he smiled, he was hot as hell.

Probably not a good idea to let my mind wander in that particular direction.

“So,” I said, hoping to distract myself from his looks. “Are you going to tell me where you’re from? And, while you’re at it, tell me how you ended up in Cameroon working with Chuck? Are you another do-gooder, out to save the world?”

“Alexandria,” he told me. “By way of Washington, DC.”

“And how did you get from Alexandria to Cameroon?”

“By plane, mostly.” His lips twisted into a smirk. Smartass.

“Come on.” That kind of sounded like a whine. Not cool. I cleared my throat. “Everyone who ends up doing this kind of work has a story. Something they’re running away from or running to. Something to prove. You don’t come across like some tree-hugging liberal, out to give the poor Africans a better life, and you don’t come off like some kind of religious zealot, spreading God’s word. Are you a student, earning credit for some humanities class? You’re not old enough to be a doctor trying to heal the world like my father.” I tried and failed to stifle the jaw-cracking yawn that came. This reminded me I hadn’t brushed my teeth in over twenty-four hours. Yuck.

I twisted in the seat to grab my backpack. In the front pocket I had a pack of gum. Wrigley’s finest. I slipped a stick out of the pack then tilted the pack at Henry. “Want a piece?”

He blinked a couple of times before taking a piece for himself. “Thanks.”

Had I been so much of an ass he was surprised by the offer? I was right. When he smiled, he was downright gorgeous. “No big,” I muttered, dropping the pack back into my bag. I crammed the gum into my mouth and let the Doublemint flavor wash away the morning breath. Or afternoon breath. Or whatever. God, I was tired.

“How long have you been at the camp?” If he would only answer one question at a time, I’d only ask one question at a time.

“Almost two years,” he said, turning off the little highway and onto a narrow street. No map or GPS gave him directions, so he knew his way around Yaoundé.

I’d pegged him as about my age, maybe a year or so older, but if he’d been here two, he had to be at least twenty. “How old are you?”

He glanced at me, his face an unreadable mask. “Almost nineteen. How old are you?”

“You’re only eighteen? And you’ve been here how long? Do your parents work at the camp?” No one would let a seventeen-year-old run away to Africa. Except, obviously, my mom.

“Nope.” He turned onto another street, this one broader and with more people. I could see signs for L’Université de Yaoundé, and ahead on the right were sports fields and tracks. No doubt the mix of square, utilitarian buildings and thatch-roofed, traditional structures would have interested me more if I didn’t have to fight to keep my eyes open.

Henry pulled up to the back of one of the big buildings before I could ask him about how he ended up with my dad in Cameroon.

We exited the Range Rover and stepped into the heavy afternoon air. The temperature hovered at about eighty degrees, not too bad in and of itself, but the humidity was crazy. It felt like trying to breathe bath water. My T-shirt, already the worse for the wear after more than twenty-four hours of traveling, immediately started to stick to my torso. I could barely breathe, and Henry didn’t seem at all affected.

I followed Henry to a back entrance of the building and into a dimly lit hall. At the end of the corridor we were greeted by a man in tan pants and a short-sleeved button-down checked shirt. Not your typical laborer’s uniform, but not professional enough to be one of the professors. Probably a clerk of some kind.

“
Bonjour
, Claude.
C’est le fils de
Dr. Martin,” Henry said in halting French, and I almost rolled my eyes, and not in annoyance. I didn’t know if French was the language of love or not, but the combo of Henry and French, even imperfect French, made something in my stomach coil. “
Il s’appelle
Isaiah.”

The clerk guy beamed at me. “Welcome. You are here for to visit your father?” His English was as choppy as Henry’s French. “Your father, he is a very good man. Very good. He does many good things.”

My polite smile almost slipped. Everyone seemed to like Chuck. Everyone except me. Not that I disliked the man, I just didn’t know him. I forced my smile wider. “Yes,” I agreed. I mean, what else was I supposed to say?

“
Avez-vous
… uh…
les
….”
Henry gestured a square shape with his hands. He blew out a long breath that sent one loose strand of hair dancing around his face. He grinned wryly. “Claude, do you have the boxes for the camp?”

Claude’s lips twitched, and he slapped Henry’s shoulder. “You are getting better,
n’est-ce pas
?
Très bien
. Yes, the boxes, they are ready.” He stepped back and waved Henry and me in.

Along the side of the room were four stacks of cardboard boxes, each about as tall as me. Henry’s brows lowered in confusion. “Are those all for us? We don’t normally get that many cases.” He walked over to the stacks and started examining labels.

“Oh, ah… yeah, these are what Dr. Martin ordered,” Claude confirmed. He grabbed a packet of papers and flipped through them, promptly dropping them on the floor. His hands shook when he picked the papers back up.

Henry shrugged. “Okay.” He started loading boxes onto a two-wheeled cart. Claude grabbed a box from one of the stacks, and I grabbed another. The box I picked up was heavier than I expected, given that it was labeled as bandages. The weight probably added up when the supplies were packaged in bulk. I made my way to the door and held it open with a foot so Henry could wheel the cart through.

“Which route will you be taking to get back to the camp?” Claude asked when they’d stopped so Henry could open the back hatch of the Range Rover. “Doumé or Bertoua?”

“Doumé,” Henry said, loading the boxes into the vehicle. Our shoulders brushed as I stacked my box into the cargo area. A little thrill shot through me. Stupid? Absolutely. I knew better than to get all hot and bothered by some guy when I didn’t even know if he bent that way. And the likelihood of a missionary being gay? I wouldn’t bet on those odds. If I weren’t so tired, I’d be able to guard my reactions better, I was sure of it.

“Bertoua is a bigger town,” Claude said when he took his turn depositing his box. “If you have to stay the night, there are better choices there.”

Henry slid the last of the boxes from his cart into the Range Rover. Wiping away the sweat on his forehead, he nodded to Claude. “Yeah, I know, but there’s a patch on N1 that’s flooded and nearly impossible to get through.”

“N1?” I asked.

“It’s the main highway we’ll be taking. We’ll branch off to a different road before Bertoua.”

Okay, I had looked at a map of Cameroon before I left Wisconsin. I had thought I was prepared enough to keep myself oriented when I arrived. Despite my homework, I only had the vaguest idea of where the towns they named were in relation to each other, to Yaoundé and to the refugee camp. I knew enough to realize that where we headed and the route to get there would be a little rough. Africa wasn’t all safaris or the Sahara. There were cities. There were universities (as the campus I stood on proved). There were even McDonald’s restaurants. But most of the guidebooks I’d read called the part of the country I headed for “the forgotten land.” It was the poorest, least-developed part of the country. Obviously I hadn’t done my homework well enough. I’d only been off the plane for a couple of hours, and I was already lost.

One more trip to the Range Rover with supplies, and we were done. And I was a hot, sweaty mess. The air conditioner, when the vehicle started again, emitted little puffs of barely cool air. Next to the overwhelming humidity outside, it felt fantastic.

“There’s a little café a couple blocks over with good food,” Henry mentioned when he slid into the driver’s seat.

“Sounds good.” I grabbed my backpack and dug through it until I found the spare T-shirt I’d packed. I quickly pulled off the sweaty one that clung uncomfortably to my skin. I used the dirty shirt to wipe up extra sweat, no doubt a waste of time.

“What’s that?” Henry paused with his hand on the gearshift. His eyes fixed on the blue plastic insulin pump and the thin tube that attached to my side. I looked down. I was so used to it, I sometimes forgot it probably looked weird to people who’d never seen something like it before.

“Insulin pump,” I told him, unhooking the monitor from my belt. “I’m diabetic and this monitors my blood sugar and dispenses insulin at regular intervals.”

“You’re diabetic and you intend to spend the next four months in an area with almost no medical technology or infrastructure? Are you out of your mind?”

I reattached the monitor to my belt and pulled the clean shirt over my head. “I’ve got all the insulin I’ll need in my bag.” I pulled the small pack out of my bag to show Henry the vials of insulin in their cooling case, and the extra tubing, syringes, batteries, and other pieces that made the monitor do its thing.

“Doesn’t insulin have to be kept cold to work?”

“The cooling case can keep the insulin cool enough for a few days, and when we reach the camp it can be stored in the clinic’s cooler. I’m sure the camp is rustic, but Chuck
is
a doctor. If I have any issues, he’ll know what to do.”

He blinked. “You call your father Chuck?”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to call him Charlie.” I said this as if it should have been obvious to anyone.

I think he was waiting for more info, but he settled in and buckled his seat belt. He shrugged, put the vehicle into gear, and headed to the café.

THE STARTING
and stopping of the erratic city traffic barely smoothed into steady highway speeds (significantly slower than I was used to) before I fell asleep. The thud and lurch of the big 4x4 hitting a particularly large pothole jerked me awake. I blinked and sat up straight, stretching my neck to loosen the knots I’d gotten from leaning against the doorframe.

“Sorry,” Henry said, looking over at me. “I didn’t see it in time to avoid it.”

“No problem.” I yawned and shook my head, clearing away the last wisps of drowsiness. “I probably should be awake anyway.”

“You’ve just flown halfway around the world. You’re entitled to a nap.” His eyes trailed over my face, and his lips twitched.

“What?”

The twitch turned into a full-blown smile that caused my heart to trip in my chest. “You have an impression of the seat belt on your cheek.”

I flipped down the sun visor in front of me, and the small mirror showed me my reflection. A big pink stripe crossed my cheek, from the corner of my eye to the edge of my mouth. I must have used the belt as a pillow. Nice. “How long was I asleep?”

“About two hours. We’ll reach Doumé in about two more.”

I covered a yawn and nodded.

“Question.” Henry kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him.

“Okay, shoot.” I turned the visor back up and drew my feet up onto the seat in front of me. I rested my arms across my bent knees.

“That bracelet. Are you wearing it to shock your dad or is it real?”

I twisted the rainbow bracelet around my wrist a couple of times, watching the colors alternate. Now, I’d never hidden who I was. I wasn’t ashamed, but not being ashamed wasn’t the same as being stupid. I was alone in a vehicle with someone I’d just met, in the middle of a foreign country, and he wanted to know if…. Smile that made my heart pound like a bass drum aside, I had no way of knowing how Henry would react.

He must have noticed my hesitation. “It’s cool if you are. But don’t expect your dad to freak out or anything. He knows I’m gay and has never said anything about it. He’s one of the most open-minded, accepting people I’ve ever met.” Did I catch a little hero worship in his voice? Great, it looked like Chuck had a fan club.

Okay, maybe part of me had wanted to see Chuck’s reaction, but in all honesty, like the insulin pump, I’d gotten so used to wearing it I usually forgot it was on. “My school’s GSA chapter made them. A sort of silent protest against a less-than-supportive administration.”

Suddenly it hit me. He said he was gay. Holy crap, Hank the Hottie was gay too! Now, if this were a movie, we’d fall instantly in love and be together forever after an hour and a half of mind-numbing pseudoconflict. But, sadly, this wasn’t a movie and just because he played for my team, didn’t mean that he would be attracted to me too. Not that I wanted him to be. Because, come on, he was just like my dad. I didn’t want to be the guy with the daddy issues, though I had a few of those, but I had enough trouble with one person in my life out to save the world. I certainly didn’t need another.

I needed to stop my rambling thoughts. “Does the radio work in this thing?” I reached forward and fiddled with the radio’s power button and volume knob. Static blared through the small space, and I cranked the volume back down. I turned the dial to scan for anything with actual music, or even talking. Anything to distract me.