Wanderlove (5 page)

The dogs back off—but now I’m exposed. I cross my arms and survey the space: part pub, part restaurant, and part collective living room. Six picnic tables are arranged on a dirty plank floor. One wall is propped open like a garage door, letting the evening in. Beyond it, there’s a patio deck furnished with potted plants and colorful hammocks. And everywhere, there are backpackers.

I see:

tanned skin

tattoos—including, inexplicably, a winged
hot dog

bare feet (hairy ones)

dreadlocks

knit caps, including one with fake

dreadlocks attached

and lots and lots of linen.

But I don’t see the ponytail boy from the market anywhere. Distraught, I head to the bar.

“They’ll be done cooking in about twenty minutes,” the bartender tells me in an (Irish? Scottish?) accent. He’s short and lean, with freckled skin and pink knuckles ideal for rapping people’s skulls. “It’s five American dollars for the meal.

Six if you want a Gallo as well.”

“I don’t know what that is,” I admit.

“Haven’t been in the country long, have you?” He opens the refrigerator behind him and withdraws a beer bottle bearing the red-and-yellow rooster logo I saw on signs all over Antigua. “
Cerveza.
Gallo is Guatemala’s national beer.”

“Why a rooster?”

“Down enough and you’ll be crowing like one.” I manage a smile. “Just dinner,” I say, rummaging in my money belt. The bartender grins. I realize I have my hand down the front of my skirt.

“You’re not staying here, are you?” he asks.

Why, is it that obvious? I shake my head. I consider asking about the ponytailed guy, but I don’t know his name, and I know how lame that will sound.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Henry Cavendish, like the Brit who discovered hydrogen—but that’s our secret. Call me Hal!” He opens the Gallo for himself and slurps noisily. “I’m the owner. But you don’t want to talk to me. I’m old and boring. You should run along and meet people. This crowd’s pretty friendly, as long as you don’t betray an interest in Top Forty radio.”

“I’ll try to keep it quiet,” I say, stepping away from the bar.

I scan the room for someone sitting alone. Or an empty bench where I can sit by myself. I should have bought the Gallo, anyway. I hate beer, but at least I’d have a prop.

That’s when I see her: the blond girl from the plane.

She’s talking to a pair of skinny backpacker girls, and she looks even more backpackered out than before. Backtastic, even. Backtacular. She sits on a table, monkeylike, with her bony knees splayed out. Her drawstring pants pool around her thighs.

Of course
she’s here. I can’t believe it never occurred to me. I focus all my mental energy on creating an escape hatch in the floor.

When nothing happens, I duck my head and inspect the bookshelf beside me. I grab a book—
The Canterbury Tales
in French, but at least it’s illustrated—aim it toward the room, and peek over the top.

Now she’s laughing, her head thrown back. Her feet are bare, nut-brown except for a V-shaped flip-flop tan line.

She has even more wooden rings on her fingers, and her toes glitter with silver. As I watch, she winds a turquoise Mayan scarf, endlessly long, around the wheat-colored bundle of her hair.

I glance down at my white skirt, my surf shop sandals.

They seemed passably bohemian back in my hotel room. But here they look almost pretentious. Though it’s not as if anyone’s looking my way. My invisibility is a good thing, I decide.

It means I can escape unnoticed.

As surreptitiously as possible, I edge around the room, toward the night and the lake and the safe, boring numbness of my Global Vagabonds companions on the other side. Five dollars is a bargain for the lesson learned, I tell myself.

“Hey! Where you going?”

Smiling innocently, I turn back.

The backpackers who surrounded the blond girl have dispersed. She’s staring at me with her head tipped to the side, the loose ends of her turquoise scarf draped over her shoulders like pigtail braids.

“Just . . .” I trail off.

“Come over here! I hate shouting.”

She pats the table beside her. Like a good little square, I obey, crossing the room and perching on the table. Up close, I notice a scar on her bottom lip. Probably the ghost of a piercing.

“Funny finding you here!” she says. “But the travel circuit’s small round these parts, I suppose. Where are all your buddies?”

I try not to scowl. “They’re not my buddies. And they’re back at our hotel in Panajachel.”

“Your hotel’s in Panajachel?”

I nod. “I just came here for dinner.”

“But the last boat to Panajachel left here at six-twenty.” I sit very still.

“Wait,” I say. “That was my boat—I
got
here at six-twenty.

Nobody told me it was the last one.”

“Did you ask?”

Mutely, I stare at her.

“Always,
always
ask! Don’t take anything for granted when you’re in another country. Especially when it comes to transportation.” She twirls the ends of her scarf dismissively, as if she didn’t just pull a Marcy and accuse me of being a travel moron. “Lucky for you, you’re in civilization, instead of somewhere out in the jaguar-infested jungles. Everyone who’s here is sleeping at the guesthouse. And I guess that means you too now. My name’s Starling, by the way. Starling West.”

“Starling? Really?”

“Yes,
really
. Wiseass. What’s yours?”

“Bria Sandoval.”

“Sandoval? Isn’t that Hispanic? My brother’s part Mexican. Do you speak Spanish?”

I shake my head. I’m sure she knows all sorts of Spanish herself. She’s probably fluent in eleven languages. Including indigenous Mayan.

“So how’d you end up here, Bria Sandoval? Did you read about this place in a guidebook? Lonely Planet, perhaps?

Rough Guides? Or are you a Rick Steves type of girl?”

“I was invited,” I insist. “By the guy with a ponytail.”

“A ponytail?”

“But he’s not even here.” The lump in my throat returns, but this time it tastes like outrage. “Who does that, anyway?

He knew I was staying in Panajachel.”

“The guy with the ponytail.”

“He was with you at the airport. He’s got really tanned skin, with a dragon tattoo on his—”

“Oh,
Rowan
!” Even as Starling touches my arm reassuringly, she looks delighted. “I should have known. This is just like him. Reformed troublemaker, my
ass
.”

“Are you saying this is a joke?” I think I can feel my brain start to simmer. “Like, a prank? It isn’t funny. It’s insanely screwed up!”

“That boy can be
such
a misanthrope. I thought he was done with pranking tourists—it must have been Jack’s influence. Five minutes with him, and Rowan’s getting into trouble again. I wish we weren’t meeting up in a week, but it’s not my decision.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about, so I just gape at her.

“Relax, girlfriend, we’ll get it all figured out. Here! Have my beer.” She pokes her Gallo into my fingers. “So let’s say Rowan misled you on purpose. What’s the big deal? You’ve got a place to stay. We’re good people, not savages. Even Rowan, for the most part.” She grins.

And then it dawns on me: she’s his
girlfriend.

She has to be. My face turns hot. I mean, it’s not like he made any sort of move on me. And to be honest, he’s not even my type—he has a
ponytail
, for crying out loud. But I’m humiliated, just the same.

“Hey, Rowan!” Starling yells at the top of her lungs.

I thunk the beer on the tabletop as the kitchen door swings open. Out steps the ponytailed guy from the market, that dark-haired demon, wearing a greasy apron over cargo pants. His chest and feet are bare. “Star, what the—” he begins. Then he sees me. “Holy shit, you made it!”

“How could you
do
this to me?”

Starling cracks up. “Whoa! Easy there, lioness.” Rowan holds his spatula in front of his face like a shield and cautiously approaches our table.

“You
knew
I couldn’t have dinner here and get back to Panajachel tonight!” I shake the beer foam from my hand and stand, wishing my humble five foot two carried more clout.

“So very funny, play a trick on a geeky girl.
Fine
. But did you ever think I might have a roommate, and no way to tell her I won’t be coming back tonight? She might be a stupid tourist, but that doesn’t mean her trip isn’t just as important as yours.

Not to mention—”

“I don’t think you’re geeky,” Rowan says.

“That wasn’t the
point
!”

“Bria, honey,” Starling says, “why don’t you give your hotel a call? Or your group mother or whatever?” She waves her phone in my face. “You can use mine—it’s international. Hal’s got a directory at the bar.”

“But . . . ,” I begin. “Oh.”

I accept the phone. Starling slides off the tabletop and follows me to the bar. “Hey,” she says. “Nice work there. Being concerned about your roommate, I mean, but also telling off Rowan. He really needs it from time to time.” She grins.

“Maybe we should keep you around.”

I smile weakly, my head still throbbing from the force of my rant. Who knew I had it in me? If only I had the nerve to confront my parents like that. Or Toby.

Especially Toby.

Toby came to our school at the end of junior year. I remember exactly what Olivia said when she leaned over the lab table in second-period chemistry.

“There’s a new guy! Jessa Hanny says he’s hot.” Hot new guys are always interesting, but I didn’t give too much weight to it, since Jessa Hanny’s and my ideas of hot differ significantly. She’s Olivia’s backup best friend when I’m hanging out with Reese. Once the four of us went out to lunch, and it was nuclear.

While Reese and I bonded as kids over a joint enthusiasm for arts and crafts—me the arts part, her the crafts—and double dates with our coworker moms, Olivia’s always been a different kind of friend: one who knows exactly how to coax out my edgy parts. Nobody else could have gotten me to sneak a Sprite bottle of vanilla vodka into homecoming (Olivia drank most of it herself), or to wear fake eyelashes, wedges, and a glittery halter top to Disneyland (I think I’m
still
blushing).

And nobody could deliver news about a new guy like Olivia Luster, who always saved the best part for last.

“I hear he’s an
artist
,” she said.

Instantly, my stomach spiraled like a firecracker. She knew me well. I’d crushed, but never hard. I’d dated, but never seriously. When we joked about Bria’s Dream Guy, he always carried a paintbrush. I hadn’t even seen the new guy, and already it felt like he’d been casted just for me.

I didn’t have to wait long. Moments after I found my seat in Life Drawing, he came over and sat beside me. “Bria, right?”

“Right,” I said, kind of nervously.

“I’m Toby. I hear you’re the artist.”

It’s hard to reply to a comment like that without sounding vain. I eyed him as I strung together my next words. He had curly blond hair, blue eyes, a few faint freckles. He wore a white sweatshirt and normal guy jeans. He didn’t look like an artist. But then, neither did I. “I guess,” I said at last. “As much as you can be in high school.”

“Mr. Chiang said you’re his best student. Where have you shown?”

“Excuse me?”

He shook his head. “Never mind. I’m an artist too. I’d love to see some of your stuff.”

I’d never been shy about sharing my drawings. But for some reason, this guy’s confidence intimidated me. “Only if you show me yours.”

His grin made my stomach free-fall. “Then it’s a date. It’s great to meet you, Bria.”

The next day, once I managed to pry a squealing Olivia from my wrist, I met Toby in the empty art room at lunch. We were both armed with sketchbooks. The same brand. The same size. But that’s where the similarities ended.

I looked first.

Maybe it was Toby’s grin that hooked me, but his drawings undid me. The detail. The dimension. City scenes I wanted to examine with a microscope. Landscapes. Portraits. And so many naked people I found myself blushing like crazy, even though usually I’m cool with that. They arched and twirled and stretched in a Cirque du Soleil of poses, dynamic enough to acrobat off the page.

“These are two-minute gestures,” Toby explained, motioning toward a page of figures better than I could draw in an hour. “From the academy.”

“The academy? You mean the Southern California Art Academy? You take
classes
there?” SCAA wasn’t my top choice for college, since I loathed the idea of sticking around the city where I’d grown up. But it was an excellent school, nationally ranked. It was where I’d seen the art school girl.

“Well, I just drop by for life drawing in the evening. It’s open to everyone. You should consider it—it’s really worthwhile to get in some time with a live model.” He grinned again, and I practically had to grab the sides of the table. “You know, they’re starting a fast-track competition for incoming freshmen next year. If you make it, you don’t have to deal with all the traditional lower-division bullshit.”

“Really? I—”

Toby reached for my sketchbook before I could finish my sentence.

I’d always thought of myself as a serious artist, but at that moment, I knew it was a crock. I’d only studied anatomy from the book my father gave me—never figure abstractions, or rhythms, or any real methodology. And my subject matter . . .oh God. You see, I liked to draw fairies. And angels. Woodland creatures. My cat, Athena, who has since passed away, may she rest in peace. Sea monsters. Elves. Cherubs looped with ivy.

The whimsical. The fantastic.

Maybe my drawings were
good
, but they certainly weren’t
serious.
You understand why, as Toby opened my sketchbook, I prayed to dissolve into a Wicked Witch puddle.

He didn’t speak as he flipped through the pages. I felt each tiny gust of wind like a slap. Then he paused at one drawing: a fairy, of which I’d been particularly proud. I’d studied swallowtail wings on the Internet, rendering the veins of color with my finest-tipped pens. “This one’s got some depth,” he said. “Androgyny, yeah?”