Kilometer 99 (15 page)

The more I commit to it, the more it seems that all my problems stem from our still being in this country. Indeed, we've stayed in El Salvador just a couple days too long. I worry that now Ben will feel obliged to stick around and take care of Pelochucho.

*   *   *

The engine cuts off. We're back in La Posada. I want to speak with Ben about our departure, but I need to get cleaned up and have a nap first, maybe a beer as well.

Ben comes around and opens the back for me. Pelochucho works his way out of the passenger seat in a jerky, one-eyed hobble, his legs still stiff from so many hours in bed. Kristy runs over the second she sees his bandages and helps him to the room. Pelo explains the accident with Spanglish and hand gestures.

“I'm dying for a shower.” I climb off the plywood platform.

“Wait,” Ben says. “What's that?” He points toward our bedroom.

“What are you talking about?”

“The window.”

My eyes follow the invisible line extending from his index finger. Our single bedroom window is a louver—a screenless series of glass slats operated from inside by a crank. And at the bottom left-hand corner, where Ben points, two of the slats have been pushed inward and lie cockeyed on the rack.

“Where's the key?” Ben feels the pocket of his shorts.

“I don't have it,” I say.

“Fuck!” Ben walks over to the window and sticks his hand through the space made by the moved louvers. “How is this possible? Motherfuckers came in here during broad daylight?” He cups his hand around his mouth. “Kristy!” he shouts.

“Ben, stop,” I say. “I think it happened last night.”

He squints, confused. “You didn't hear anything? You didn't notice it this morning?”

“It's not like that.” I swallow. “I didn't come back here. I stayed in the capital.”

This information only confuses him more. “Why?”

“I got lost. I went in circles in the traffic. It was getting dark. Then I saw Boulevard de los Heroes and drove to the Estancia. Courtney was there.”

He turns toward the window and studies the breached panes of glass. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I don't know.” I sift through the memory of our morning conversation, reconsidering what was a lie and what was merely an omission. “It never came up.”

“‘Never came up'?” Anger swells inside his voice. He takes a few steps toward me. “What about the drive?”

“What?”

“You said you smoked cigarettes on the drive. But there was no drive.”

“Did I say that? I'm sorry. We went out. I'm not sure why I didn't mention it. I didn't think you needed to know.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” The jealous streak that Ben always warned me about takes over the microphone. His hands clasp my upper arms. Pupils swiveling within the now-round whites, his eyes lock onto mine. “What is going on? Is there something you're not telling me?”

“No!” It isn't hard to act offended, especially with a stiff thumb pressing into my biceps. Though my answer isn't quite true, it feels like the best option, given the circumstances.

Ben doesn't speak, just holds me tighter in his hands. With our faces so close together, both of us breathing hard, me making my best doe eyes, there's something dirty about the whole exchange—a scene from a bad porno film.

“I was with my friends,” I say, a statement that is marginally true—at least they were still my friends when the evening started. “All I wanted was a night out with some of the other volunteers. I had fun.” The explanation is for myself as much as for Ben. That's all I meant for last night to be. And it was nearly a success, but for one big mistake toward the end.

He releases me and takes a couple steps backward, holding his hands away from his body, fingers splayed, like they're sharp objects to be handled with care. He turns his head to the side and nods, then closes his eyes.

“I'm sorry.” Ben sticks a hand into each armpit and squeezes them there. “I'm so sorry, Malia.” He looks up at me with a furrowed brow. “I trust you. I swear I do.”

“It's okay,” I say.

Though I'd never admit it, Ben's jealousy is something I find oddly endearing. Among my small circle of college friends, and even more so among the volunteers here, couples are so often changing places, people playing musical lovers. There are jokes about it, as if it's no big deal. This is the first time I've seen Ben get so far out of control, and it did scare me, so much so that I felt compelled to lie. But at least he takes our relationship seriously.

“Let's find that fucking key.” Ben opens the door to the Jeep and rifles though the console. I walk over to the bedroom window and look inside. The bedside table is directly below. Several items are still upon it: a tube of sunscreen, a half-used bar of surf wax. But I don't see the woven wallet that I bought in Guatemala last year.

“It's gone,” I whisper to myself. “It's gone.”

Ben finds the key and works the door open. Inside, he kneels down, peeks under the bed, picks up pillows, then sheets, tosses them in the air.

I follow him into the room. My purse is tucked inside my backpack in the far corner. I check it, but I already know I won't find what I'm looking for. “They got my wallet,” I tell Ben.

“Are you sure?” His face reddens. He digs his arms into the top of his backpack up to the elbows.

“Positive.”

He throws a few things into the air, opens and closes a couple zippered compartments. “Fuck! They got my bank card.”

Ben runs out of the room. I follow. He puts his elbows on the hood of the Jeep and buries his face in his hands. “What was in your wallet?” he finally asks.

“The airfare cash, all my bank stuff,” I say. “And my passport.” To myself, I recall the Red Cross business card Alex gave me at the Peace Corps office; it was in there as well.

Ben makes a guttural draining sound. “Fuck.” He covers his face with his hands. I wonder if he might be crying. After a couple seconds of that, he stands up straight. He shakes his head first and then his whole body, like a dog drying off.

The shaking stops and he sighs. “My passport is still in the car. You should get on the phone. Call the bank first. Maybe Jim knows somebody we can talk to at the embassy. I'll go find Peseta.”

I didn't expect him to regain composure so quickly. “Okay.” I struggle to do the same.

In the neighboring room, Pelochucho lies like a starfish across his bed, the fan going full blast and shaking in its mount. Kristy stands in his doorway, looking in.

“The poor thing,” she says.

“He'll be fine.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “We should close this and let him rest.”

She steps back and I pull the door shut.

*   *   *

I spend nearly an hour at the public phone office. The bank passes me from one employee to the next. Without my passport, they can't confirm that it's my account. I fail to get a hold put on it. Nobody will even tell me the balance.

Jim is nice enough, but he reminds me that since I'm a private citizen traveling in this country, there isn't much he can do beyond point me in the right direction.

He gives me the number of a kind woman named Elaine from the embassy. At first, she talks as if we can sort the passport out in a few days. But she is mistaken, speaking of an emergency document that would be good for only one month. I explain our trip, the fact that we're planning to travel for several months.

“I see. You'll need a full-fledged passport, then.”

“That's right,” I say.

“I'm afraid that will be more difficult.”

“It will?”

“Yes. As you can probably guess, the embassy is a little overextended at the moment. Under normal circumstances, we might issue emergency passports for as long as a year, but the ambassador has passed some blanket policies since the earthquake. Now they're all for one month, period.”

I sigh audibly into the receiver.

Elaine seems to register my frustration. “Sorry about this. The black-market value of a U.S. passport has gone through the roof recently. They've had to crack down.”

“I didn't sell my passport,” I say.

“Of course not. I didn't mean to imply any such thing. Still, issuing new ones is not taken lightly these days.”

I tell myself to stay calm, that she's trying to help. “So, what's my best bet here?”

“You should make an appointment immediately and fill out the paperwork. Do you have a photocopy of your lost passport?”

“No,” I say, though I'd been told many times that making a copy was a good idea.

“Bring in whatever documents you have. We'll start the process right away. But I must warn you: It could take weeks.”

I swallow her facts as best I can, hoping that Ben is having more luck with a street-level approach than I've had with the bureaucratic one.

“Shall I make you an appointment for tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, please.”

Elaine urges me to keep my spirits up and says good-bye.

The phone's old bell lets out a droning ring once I hang it up. In my mind, I tally up what time it is in Honolulu. There's nothing I'd like more than to hear my father's voice right now. But what would I tell him? That I'd abandoned the aqueduct he thought so much of? That I accidentally sabotaged the surf trip I'd left it for? That I might've just lost thousands of dollars, much of which wasn't my own—on account of a drunken infidelity?

*   *   *

Back at La Posada, I ask Kristy for my day's first cup of coffee. She brings out a mug of hot milk and a jar of instant mix. As I stir black crystals into the cup, all sorts of ideas brew through my mind. Could I conceivably sneak my way past every single border in South America? I've known others to skip through here and there, mostly volunteers who hadn't taken vacation days on their way home from Guatemala or Honduras.

But Ben and I are looking at a lot of borders, and we'll have to get on a plane eventually, to somewhere. Plus, we no longer have any real budget.

I look up from my coffee and see Ben in the street with Peseta. Their conversation turns heated. Peseta shrugs and Ben nods. After a couple more words, they bump fists and Peseta takes off. Ben comes in to join me. I signal Kristy for another cup of coffee.

“How'd it go on your end?” Ben sits down.

“Not great. They've got an emergency option, but it's only good for a month. A whole new passport is more complicated. I have to go to the embassy tomorrow. This could take weeks.”

“Shit.”

“How about your approach?”

He sighs. “I told Peseta I'd pay for the passport and the bank cards. He isn't too hopeful. He says most of the crackheads burn the documents straight away when they steal a wallet—so they won't be caught with them later. With an American passport, there's some chance they might hold on to it. Especially in the case of yours, because…” Ben pauses.

“Because I'm brown,” I say, finishing the sentence for him. “A Salvadoran girl might use it to sneak through immigration—if she looked enough like me—without even changing the photo.” I realize it as I say it.

“Right,” Ben says. “But that sort of thing is a little sophisticated for the rank-and-file sneak thieves. Which means there's a chance your passport is still around, waiting for a buyer.”

Kristy brings out a tray with another mug of warm milk. We are silent as Ben fixes his coffee.

“You need to call the bank. They might put a hold on your account.”

“I did that,” Ben says. “But the balance shows there are only a few bucks left.”

“What? They can't take your cash without the PIN number.”

“That's right.” Ben sighed and looked at the spot where Peseta had been standing. “But apparently they used the debit option and bought stuff with just a signature. It takes more time, but still.”

“Shit.” I hadn't thought of that. “So the thieves must've been on a spending spree for the last twelve hours or so.”

“More likely the thief passed the cards on to somebody else, somebody with wheels. Anyplace that was open, they bought shit from it.”

“What do we do now?” I ask. The outlook for my own bank account isn't good.

“I'm not sure.” He extends his hand across the table and touches mine. “We'll figure something out.”

For a few minutes, we sit in silence and drink our coffee. I want to ask if our trip is still on. How little money would be too little?

“I'll run out to Sunzal real quick.” Ben takes a final sip and puts down the mug.

“Why?” I ask.

“To get the boards.” He stands up.

I'd forgotten all about them.

Ben waves as he drives out of La Posada. Though it isn't even noon, I ask Kristy for a beer, hoping to keep this hangover at bay long enough to hold my thoughts together. I drink it fast and then brush my teeth in the sink by the shared bathrooms.

“Chinita!” Kristy pokes her head out of the office, her hand held over the mouthpiece of the phone. “For you.”

I'm still rinsing toothpaste foam from my mouth. “One moment.” I spit in the sink, then cross the courtyard.

Kristy hands me the phone, cord stretched out through the office door.

“Hello?”

“Does everyone know you as ‘Chinita' in that town?”

“You shouldn't call me here, Alex.”

“I just wanted to say I'm sorry about last night.”

“We had too much to drink and we fucked,” I say. “That's all it was. I'd like to be able to blame you for it, but that's not how it happened.”

“Can I see you again?”

“Look, Alex, I'm in a relationship, a serious one. We've got plans.” The word
plans
feels like a punch to the stomach after the events of this morning.