Without Borders (21 page)

“Yeah, good catch,” Phillip added.

Annie stood taller, and some of the heaviness of her failed class lifted as they walked away from the clinic. “Thanks.”

Their host greeted them with a small smile and a plate of rice and beans. Annie dropped the bags near the front door and sat. The lumps and ruts in the floor dug into her backside, and she shifted as she forced down the plate of bland mush.

“What’s the first thing you want to eat when you get home?” Phillip asked, pushing around the rice on his plate.

“I think I want ice cream,” Annie said. “Cookies and cream. Or a hot fudge sundae.” She closed her eyes, biting back a whimper as she imagined the warm, sweet chocolate and cool, creamy vanilla mixing together on her tongue.

“I want a steak. No, bacon.” He closed his eyes as he chewed. “A whole package of bacon.”

Her mind flashed to the pigs swarming that poor diaperless little girl. “Even after—”

“Don’t say it.” He laughed.

Marisol pulled the fork from her mouth and pointed it at Phillip. “Have you told Annie about your girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?” Annie wrestled the shock and judgment from her features. “Um…no?”

Phillip shook his head. “She wasn’t my girlfriend. Well, she was when we were twelve.” He put down his empty plate. “Lya was my neighbor, and her family was from Nicaragua. I was so in love with her. Or, I thought I was. We were kids. But we had some good times in college too. My twenty-first birthday, she bought me so many shots…”

Annie’s stomach sank at his use of past tense. “What happened?”

“Car accident. Last summer. That’s how I ended up here. Had some free time before classes restarted and…” He shrugged.

The light filtering in from the windows waned. The darker it grew inside the little hut, the sadder Annie became.
I was so in love with her
. His words wormed their way into her subconscious, playing again and again as she finished her meal. She shuffled into the other room to change and brush her teeth, again feeling sheepish and small for the way she had judged him.

She returned to the main room. Marisol and Phillip were tangled in the same hammock. Even in the falling darkness, Annie saw it rocking.

She cleared her throat. “Mari?”

“
¿Sí?
”

“How far is it to Rosita?” She tugged her shirt sleeves. So many days in and out of the boat had left her with little sense of where they were in relation to the cities. Not that she could have found Rosita on a map anyway. “They’ll be okay, right?”

There was a pause and Marisol’s flashlight clicked on. “Four hours. Maybe five,
depende
on the roads. It did not rain as much today, so probably four.”

“So, it’s been almost four hours. They should be back soon, right?”

“Four hours there. Four hours back.”

“Oh.” Annie bit her lower lip and sat in the hammock. “But they’ll be okay. I mean, it’s safe, right?”

“We will see them in the morning.”

The flashlight clicked off, and a breeze rushed in through the cracks in the walls. Goosebumps rose on Annie’s arms, and she pulled one of Felipe’s scrub shirts from the top of his bag. It smelled like him, like comfort and medicine and earth. She snuggled into it, wondering how she would sleep two weeks from now, alone in her cold, air-conditioned bedroom, thousands of miles away.

The sound was so heinous, Felipe sat straight up, certain the world was ending. He threw his hands to his ears. But Juan increased the volume, singing loudly enough to wake everyone in Nicaragua. Maybe everyone in Honduras too.

“Okay. Okay.” Felipe pulled his hands away from his ears long enough to smack the dentist in the leg. “I am awake.”

Juan cackled and shuffled away, his song fading mercifully as he went. Felipe lay down, his eyes sliding closed before his head hit the yoga mat. After so few hours of sleep, the thin foam felt like a feather bed to his exhausted body.

He and Juan had returned to the village as the sun broke through the horizon. By the time they shuffled into the house, Felipe’s eyes burned. But Annie was stretched out in the hammock, her mouth wide open with one arm dangling off the side. He couldn’t bring himself to wake her and collapsed onto her purple mat, tumbling into sleep.

“Hey.”

He pried open an eye as the sweet, yeasty smell of fresh bread pulled him further from unconsciousness.

Annie crouched next to him on the floor, her backpack hung over one shoulder and a lumpy roll of bread in one hand. “You awake?” she whispered. “I think we’re getting ready to go.”

“
Sí
.” The delicate skin on the inside of her elbow somehow made Felipe both sleepier and more awake. He pulled lightly, hoping she would curl up beside him. “Tired.”

She hovered next to him for half a second, but she eased back on her heels and smoothed his hair with her free hand. Felipe’s eyes fell closed.

“You’ll be able to sleep on the boat.” She nudged his hand with the bread. “This is yours.”

“Annie?”

“Yeah?”

He pushed back his guilt and ran his hand down her arm. It was all he’d thought about on the way to the nearest hospital, as he and Juan sat in silence listening to the moans of the teenage robber—who they learned had a name, Marco, and a family, two sisters and a brother. As Marco eked out his answers to their questions, Felipe became more and more ashamed of the way he’d acted. And more grateful for Annie’s unrelenting insistence. “I am sorry about yesterday.” He took the bread.

Annie shook her head. A grin spread across her face, lit by the sun streaming through the open door. “It’s like I was a real doctor. I mean, when you got there, did they confirm it? His appendicitis?”

Her giddiness was contagious. Felipe sat up and pulled her against him. Her lips were soft, and his fatigue faded, pushed out by the fervor of their kiss. “I did not wait to find out.”

“Oh.” She pulled away an inch, her shoulders sinking.

“Because you are here.” He tilted her chin to look into her eyes. “I was not going to wait for three hours with a skinny teenager when I knew there was a beautiful woman waiting for me.”

“I guess I can forgive you then.” She gave him that smile. The one that made her nose crinkle and the gold flecks in her eyes glow. He took a bite of the roll, the warm, buttery dough falling apart on his tongue.

“It’s
so
good, right?” Annie asked. “Or maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten anything besides rice and beans in almost three weeks.”

He nodded and took another bite. “Here.” Felipe handed her the other half, more interested in the way her eyelids fluttered closed as she took a bite than eating more himself.

“Hey man, Juan said to tell you that if you aren’t outside in, like, five
minutos
he’s going to start singing that song again.” Phillip stood in the doorway, his face twisted into a grimace. “Please don’t—”

“Okay, okay. Tell him I am coming.” Felipe stood and pulled Annie next to him as Phillip strolled outside. “Maybe I should take six
minutos
to torture Phillip a little, yes?”

“I don’t know.” She picked up the yoga mat and began rolling it. “I kind of feel bad for him. Last night after my class—”

Felipe pulled a fresh scrub shirt over his head. “Your class. How was it?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do.” He bent to kiss her, unable to stand the pout on her face. “What happened?”

“Well, for starters, I didn’t have anyone to help with my Spanish.” She gave him a pointed look. “And then everyone walked out. Just up and left. And I didn’t even get to the part with the plantain.”

“Well, you will have a rest from the class today.”

“But Marisol said we were doing the clinic this afternoon, as soon as we get to the next village. Are we behind schedule?”

He shouldered his backpack as Juan’s earsplitting ballad rushed in through the window. “We are coming, old man!” He turned to Annie and laced her fingers through his. “We are on time. But we will not do the class in this village.”

“Why? Because I messed up yesterday? I have some ideas on how to fix it. I worked on it all night.” She held out her journal. The edges were dirty and tattered from so much use. “And you’ll be there this time, right? So the Spanish won’t be as big of a problem.”

The smile dropped from his face. “This village…I do not know how to say exactly. They are more closed than the others. Especially to foreigners.”

“More closed?”

“They do not trust us as much as the others. We have not always been welcome here.”

“Oh.” She cocked her head to one side, and Felipe could see her mulling over the options. “And you don’t think they would like me to whip out my giant banana penis?”

“No.” He laughed imagining the horror on their faces. “You can practice taking blood pressures. I think Marisol would like help.”

“Really? But if they don’t want me…maybe I should stay behind the exam curtain with you.”

He raised one eyebrow, and his mouth spread into a smirk. “Annie, I do not think the clinics are the time for—”

She shook her head and swatted him. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I think it is fine,” he said. “Follow Marisol’s lead. But do not ask many questions. Take the blood pressures and write them down on the cards. Then send the people to me, yes?”

She nodded.

“And later…” He smacked her curvy, perfect butt with a handful of paperwork.

Juan’s singing reached new, horrendous heights as he stepped into the doorway. He’d found some substance to curl the ends of his mustache up toward his cheeks. It made him look like a pot-bellied circus master. Marisol stood beside him, one hand on her hip.

“We are right here,” Felipe shouted. The singing died, leaving his ears ringing with the echo.

“You cannot do the blood pressures if you two do not hurry. We will miss the clinic.” Marisol tapped her foot to the beat of Juan’s now-dead song.

“How did you know I was going to take blood pressure?” Annie asked.

“Windows,
mi Anita
.” She laughed then shuddered. “Knowing my brother is trying to seduce you is one thing. But hearing it as it is happening is much worse. He is not even good at it.”

He rolled his eyes, enjoying the payback. He’d listened to his sister seduce guy after guy since she was thirteen.

“Mari,” Annie wiped her sweaty forehead on her shirt sleeve, then glanced over her shoulder at Felipe, “he’s really good at it. Like really,
really
good at it.”

Felipe stood in the doorway, grinning and trying not to look like he was thinking about tearing Annie’s clothes off. She and Marisol walked into the morning mist and melted into the blur of bodies and supply packs waiting for him at the river bank.

Juan poked him in the back with his finger. “Next time I will get out the hose.”

• • •

After an endless day of perfecting her blood pressure reading skills, Annie dug into a bowl of rice and beans. She swiped bites of bread from the roll perched atop Felipe’s plate. He put up a flimsy protest, but every time she pinched off another piece, he touched her. A nudge with his shoulder. A hand on hers, trying to steal it back and never succeeding. By the time she put one piece into her mouth, she was already planning the next theft.

Dusk rolled in, and their host, a middle-aged man with a perpetually red face, tended the bonfire in his backyard. Annie inhaled the scent of burning wood as the flames popped and hissed around them.

“Where is everyone?” Phillip asked, pulling Annie from her daze.

“What do you mean?” Marisol held her fork halfway to her mouth, and a bean tumbled onto her lap.

“Usually we have a crowd,” Phillip said. “Like we’re a traveling circus.”

“Some will come.” Marisol turned toward the red-faced man and shot off a barrage of Spanish.

He disappeared inside his round hut and came back with a decrepit guitar. Felipe gave Annie the last of his roll and traded his plate for the instrument. He tuned the guitar, smiling at her every few seconds. “
Mira.
Watch. You will get to see my fan club soon.”

He strummed a few chords and nodded as a few bright faces poked out from the darkness. They were mostly children, with wide eyes, creeping out from their hiding places, as if drawn by the notes. But a few adults followed too, all women.

“Whoa,” Phillip muttered. “I have to learn to play the guitar.”

The miniature crowd closed in around Felipe and Marisol. Annie found herself being pushed further from the fire as the children scooted between, clapping and clamoring for his attention. She moved away, happy not to be the center of their curiosity for once.

Phillip plopped down beside her as a tiny girl appeared at the edge of the crowd. The hem of the girl’s pink and white polka-dotted dress brushed against Annie’s legs, and the child’s crooked bangs hung into her eyes. Annie lifted a hand and waved, but the girl ducked behind her curtain of chocolate hair.

“
¿Cómo te llamas?
” Annie asked. The girl didn’t answer. She slid into Annie’s lap, her middle two fingers in her mouth.

“
Rosa
.
Ella es
Rosa,
” a tall boy said, sitting beside them.

The girl snuggled into Annie’s chest, humming as they listened to Felipe strum the guitar. Marisol sang in dewy, rolling Spanish, and Annie lost all track of time, listening to her friend’s fierce and quiet voice. She’d forgotten how beautifully Marisol could sing.

Over the child’s head, Annie glanced at Phillip. The way he stared at Marisol almost made Annie feel sorry for him.
Total goner.

The songs varied between upbeat, choppy tunes that had every child singing and shaking to slow, quiet songs showcasing Marisol’s low, soulful voice. Juan joined in, offering a bass line, and Annie could barely hold back her shock. Based on his spine-cracking performance that morning, she’d assumed he was one hundred thirty percent tone-deaf.

“What are you and Felipe gonna do when you leave?” Phillip asked as the music flowed through the yard.

“What do you mean?” She shifted Rosa, trying to regain feeling in her left arm and put off thinking about the question for a few precious seconds.