Without Borders (13 page)

“You are blushing.” Marisol made the last word a song, drawing it out over several unbearable moments.

The heat simmering below the surface of Annie’s skin caught, and fire burned in her face. “It’s…I just…He…”

“Spit it.”

The inside of the truck seemed to grow even hotter, and Annie poked her head out of the open door and gulped in the ever-so-slightly cooler air. “I thought there was something there, you know? But—”

Marisol threw her hands to her mouth, and a deep cackle escaped between her fingers. “I knew it!”

“Knew what?”

Marisol sat up as tall as her tiny frame would let her. “That you would not be able to stay away from each other. I knew it since the day I told him you were coming to Nicaragua.”

Annie’s heart ping-ponged through her chest, shooting between elation and dread, once in a while hitting a little bit of fear on its way.

“What is wrong?” Marisol fanned herself. “You look like…Oh no. Are you going to be sick again? It is very hot in this—”

“No. It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

Her friend raised both eyebrows and tucked her chin toward her chest. Trying to sneak a lie past Marisol had always been like trying to sneak past a bloodhound while wearing a ball gown made from sirloin steaks.

Annie sighed. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea. My boyfriend and I broke up a few weeks ago, and…” she sighed.
I’m not ready for this
, is what she wanted to tell her friend.
Definitely not ready.
But the words wouldn’t come.

“You did not tell me this.”

“I didn’t want to talk about it. It was easier to try to forget.” And she
had
managed to forget. Not Mike necessarily, but in the midst of everything that had happened, she’d forgotten to be sad. Worrying about who her ex was hooking up with in her absence didn’t even make it into her top ten list of problems—not when she was dealing with things like helping a woman give birth or staring down the barrel of a rifle. Or the way her world shifted when Felipe smiled at her. “It doesn’t matter. I obviously misinterpreted things. Besides, I’m leaving soon anyway.”

“
Mi Anita
, you will be here for,” Marisol counted on her fingers, “seventeen more days.”

“Exactly.”

“Seventeen days is enough to make some
very
good memories. Trust me. I am the Cupid of Nicaragua.”

“
Vamos
.” Juan stood at the door, waving them out of the truck.

Annie slid out and smoothed her sticky clothes, grateful to be out from under Marisol’s microscope. “What’s going on?”

“
Muerto
,” Juan said.

“Dead?”

“What do we do?” Phillip asked. He stood with his head ducked under the hood and his hands behind his back, like a child afraid of breaking his mother’s fine china.

Annie felt Felipe’s presence behind her even before he spoke. It made her legs restless and her mouth dry.

“We will get a ride,” he said.

“From who?” she asked. Other than their truck, there wasn’t a single motor vehicle in sight.

“Someone will come.”

“You mean hitchhike?” Her mind flew to the hold-up—those angry boys with their guns and threats. She wouldn’t do that again. Couldn’t.

“
Sí
.”

Marisol patted her arm and gave a small nod. “It is okay, not like in the States.”

“I think it’s better if we don’t.” Phillip slammed the hood.

Juan shot him a glare before turning to Annie. “You still have your electric gun, no?” He made a buzzing sound before jerking his limbs in every direction.

She smiled despite the tightness in her chest. “No.
Muerto
.”

Marisol looped an arm through Annie’s and led the group down the dirt path to the rutted, unpaved highway. Tiny gnats swarmed their faces, and the road curved far into the distance—empty and barren.

The five of them sat, then stood, then sat some more. Marisol dug a paperback out of her bag and leaned against Phillip, devouring the pages. Annie had forgotten how much her friend loved to read. When they were in high school, Marisol read every piece of fiction in Annie’s house—including the box of musty Babysitter’s Club books they’d unearthed in the basement.

She turned away from them and closed her eyes, letting the breeze rush across her sweaty skin. The grass tickled her arms and legs as she forced her attention to the most pressing of her problems: hitchhiking. Cold fear settled into her belly as she composed a mental list of every self-defense move she’d ever read about, learned, or seen on television. It stalled out around number four.

“What are you doing?” Felipe sat next to her, resting his elbows on his knees.

Annie looked at her hands. At some point in her self-defense review, she’d straightened her fingers into firm lines, Karate Kid style. “Nothing.” She stuffed her hands underneath her legs.

“Annie, yesterday I—”

“Thank you. For yesterday. For trusting me.”

He shook his head. “I am the one saying thank you. You saved them.”

“How about this?” She took a stab at knocking down that wall. “You forgive me for the whole electrocution thing, and we’ll call it even?”

“Deal.” He rolled forward as if to stand, the wall still clearly intact.

“What do you do when you aren’t on these trips? Do you work at a hospital?” The words ran from her mouth, quick and nearly unintelligible.

“
Ahora
has a clinic outside of Managua,” he said, sitting back down. “I work there. Marisol too.”

“Juan?”

“No, he is a
voluntario
.” They both looked over. Juan lay on his back with his hands folded across his chest, eyes closed. “Do not tell him you know,” Felipe said. “His head gets big.”

Annie smiled. “I won’t.”

Something rumbled, and she tensed, waiting for a vehicle to come tearing down the road.

“Thunder.”

“Do you think it’s going to rain?” The sky was a thin gray blue, but there were no clouds.

“Maybe.”

She took a deep breath and let the exhale rush through her teeth. “Tell me something else about you.”

“Like what?” He looked at the grass then at her.

“What do you do when you aren’t working?”

“Baseball,” he said, the dimple coming out. “I coach a team. They are terrible.”

“They can’t be that bad.”

“They are.” He rolled onto his back. “But they are five and six years old, so no one minds very much. You?” he asked.

She lay beside him, letting the grass tickle the back of her neck. “I don’t play baseball.”

“No, what do you do? Besides school and spending time with your boyfriend.”

For a fleeting moment, she considered making something up. Something that would put her in the same league as a gorgeous doctor who hikes out into the rainforest to save people
and
spends his free time coaching pee-wee baseball. “No boyfriend. I’m in a sorority. Treasurer. I handle all the money.”
So basically nothing.

“But your photo album.”

“What about it?” There was nothing exciting in there. Random photos of her dad and her cat. A sorority formal or two.

A lumpy, foreign sound hummed among the buzz of insects and muted conversation. In the distance, a dirty canvas-covered flatbed truck rumbled along, and two women and a man already hung from the steel poles tenting the fabric. The mud-coated monstrosity lumbered toward them, and she jolted up, not giving Felipe a chance to confirm the paltriness of her accomplishments.

• • •

The vehicle rolled toward them in a cloud of dust. After a nod from the portly driver, Felipe stepped onto the rail and pulled Annie up next to him.
No boyfriend.
“Come on,
Americana
.”

She gripped a pole with both hands, and her fingers slid in the mix of grime and sweat. She wiped them on her shorts and tried again.

“
¿Bien?
” He put a hand above hers.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I think so.”

Phillip and Marisol managed to squeeze in the bed, perched on a tower of hay. Juan grabbed a free spot on the other side of the truck bed.

The driver hit the gas, and Annie wound both arms around the pole, pulling her body and face close to the dirty metal.

Felipe tried not to laugh. “If you relax your muscles, it will be easier.”

She shook her head, plastering herself to the pole.

“Annie?” He leaned in closer, struggling to be heard over the purr of the engine. “This is going to be a very long ride. Do you want me to ask someone to trade places with you?”

She stared straight ahead, and even her lips barely moved. “No.”

She will deliver a baby without blinking but cannot ride on the back of a truck.
He shifted into his own space, but Annie’s hand darted behind her and grabbed his. With one stilted movement, she wrapped his free arm around her waist, turning him into a human seatbelt.

The truck picked up speed, and the air made her hair whip against his face. He shuffled forward and slid his body behind hers. Annie’s heart pounded so hard, he could feel it in his chest, and the pace of it nearly met his own—although it wasn’t the hitchhiking that made his blood race.

One glorious hour later, they arrived in Sahsa. Felipe peeled himself from the curve of her hip and the softness of her hair.

“Where are we going? Is there, like, a hotel here?” Phillip ran a hand through his windblown hair as they crossed the road.

“We will stay here.” Felipe pointed to the building in front of them. A two-room building made of cinder blocks and topped with tin. Sahsa, the town where both he and Marisol had been born, had a few stores, one clinic staffed by a rotation of three local nurses, and a handful of bars. But no hotels.

“This is the
casa materna
. No one uses it,” Marisol said, unlocking the door. “Except us.”

“
Casa de materna
? Who’s Materna?” Phillip asked.

Beside him, Annie laughed. “It’s like a maternity home,” she said.

A rush of hot, stale air hit Felipe’s face as he stepped into the building. A layer of grit coated the thin, plastic mattresses in the front room, all the beds clearly unused since the last time they’d stayed. He walked through the narrow space between the beds and pulled back the threadbare white sheet separating the two rooms.

Sweat rolled down his back. “Open the windows,” he said as he turned and collided with Annie.

Her pink cheeks glistened with sweat. “So this is where we’re staying for the next few nights?” She stared at a cracked porcelain sink along the wall. “And there’s running water? What if someone wants to use the home while we’re here?”

Felipe could practically see her salivating.

“Would we get to help?” she asked.

“Relax,
Doctora,
” Marisol called out. “No one is due this week.”

“Good.” Phillip plopped down on the mattress closest to the door. “I can’t wait to sleep in a real bed.”

“I did not know you did much sleeping.” Juan’s mustache twitched.

“Careful, old man.” Marisol wagged a finger at him. “If you are not nice, I will set a swarm of horseflies loose under your sheets.”

Felipe turned to the corner, where an oblong table brimmed with boxes and other supplies. He dug through them as Juan and Marisol threw harmless threats at one another. “Your supplies.” He handed a box to Annie.

Outside, the sun was setting. The light filtering in from the open window turned her hair a soft shade of pink. “Supplies?”

“
Sí
. For your sexual education classes.” His stomach growled, and he reached for the opportunity to get her alone. Perhaps to find out a little more about this no-boyfriend situation. “Are you hungry? There is a restaurant—”

All the color leached from her face, leaving her freckles stark against her skin. “My vagina!”

Felipe took a step back. “I am sorry. What?”

“My flashcards. Oh my God. I can’t—” Her hands fluttered around her face, pushing back her hair, lacing in and out of themselves.

“Annie?”

“Flashcards. I made flashcards so I could learn all the proper names for…things.” She waved a hand over her midsection.

“That is good, no?”

“They’re gone. I haven’t seen them since…” She closed her eyes. “Shit. I can’t believe this.”

“Breathe. Where did they go?”

“Those boys. Out there.” She waved toward the door. “The ones who stole from us. They took my vagina. Oh God, not
my
vagina. It was a model.” She hung her head. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize until now.”

“
Todo bien
, Annie. Maybe our
banditos
are studying them right now. We have a whole box of things here.
Útero
.” He pulled a stuffed toy from the tattered box, trying not to let his expression reflect the unease inching down his spine. Something always went wrong on the brigades. Usually multiple things. Someone would get sick. Or the supplies would run low. Or the rain would beat down so hard Juan couldn’t maneuver the boat down the river, eating into their promised rest days. And more often than not, whatever went wrong at this point in the game would be the straw to break the American camel’s back.

Annie took the plush uterus from his hands and turned it over between her fingers. “People like fuzzy, right?”

As they marched to the clinic, Annie marveled at the tiny town. Hours of dense jungle separated them from the nearest actual city, but for the first time in two weeks, they passed a bar and a crowded convenience store, and a school painted in primary colors. Marisol and Juan pointed out the landmarks as they walked along the dirt road. The locals pointed at the Americans.

Twelve days, that’s how long it takes to stop feeling like a zoo animal
.

The sun perched over the treetops, sending its scorching rays to broil Annie’s skin. She knew she probably smelled atrocious, but her stench was masked by the manure of farm animals wandering the main street of the town.

Marisol pointed to a tiny hut to their left. “We call her Tortilla Woman,” she said. “I do not think anyone knows her real name, but everyone knows where to go to buy tortillas.”

Annie nodded, barely hearing the words, and stepped around a pile of cow dung in her path. “Where’s Felipe?” She tried to keep her voice breezy, but her friend’s grin told her she’d been made.