Carpe Diem

by Autumn Cornwell

  My tongue didn’t want to cooperate. “But … but …”

  He pointed to the bulge in my butt. “Give to me, please.”

  “I was putting it back—not stealing it!”

  He just stood there, hand extended.

  Awkwardly, I pulled the apsara out of my pants and handed it to him. He examined it closely. Then looked up at the chipped lintel. I could see him putting two and two together.

  “No, it wasn’t me! I swear! I noticed someone had defaced the stone and the apsara’s face had come off and—”

  He took me firmly by the arm. “You come with me, please.”

  “Wait! I didn’t steal it! I really didn’t!” My voice squeaked.

  By now a small group of backpackers and tourists had gathered. I turned toward them. “Can someone do something—please! He thinks I stole the apsara. But I didn’t! It’s circumstantial evidence!”

  But they all just stood there solemnly shaking their heads at me, giving me the nonverbal version of the “tut-tut.” One of them said, “Thinks she can get away with it because she’s American.”

  Where the heck was Hanks!?

  In a voice as calm and reasonable as I could muster, I said, “I’m underage. I have a guardian—he’ll tell you I’m totally innocent. Can’t we wait for him? Please?”

  He said nothing, continuing to escort me through the ruins, his eyes focused straight ahead, his gait measured.

  What should I do? What could I do? Everything pointed to me being a thief. I couldn’t see any way around it. It was my word against his—and his word was a whole lot more convincing. He even had “Westerner witnesses.” I’d arrest me, too—if I were in his shoes.

  I scanned the groups of tourists as we walked. “Hanks? Hanks!”

  The guard tightened his grip on my arm and said, “No comment, please.”

  Figures my “guardian” was nowhere to be found the one time I actually needed him.

  The guard led me out of Ta Prohm and down the jungle path toward the waiting taxis, motos (motorbikes with drivers for hire), and milling tourists who were bartering with drivers, buying souvenirs, and drinking beverages in the shade of the banyan trees. Instead of heading to the parked police car, we veered toward a wooden guard-shack where one guard snored in a hammock and the other smoked and read a newspaper. My guard said something in Khmer to the “awake guard,” who glanced at me with mild interest, then went back to his paper. He sat down next to him and put on bifocals from his breast pocket. Then he removed some papers from a black briefcase on the bench between them. He motioned for me to sit on another bench several feet away under a banyan tree while he painstakingly filled out the paperwork with a ballpoint pen.

  Well, Sarah thought. This is it. You’re being arrested and will probably face prison time. Prison time for a crime you didn’t even commit. In a country you didn’t even want to come to—

  “Passport, please,” the guard said a few minutes later without looking up.

  I untucked my shirt, relieved to have something to do. Anything to stop that depressing train of thought. Just as I was about to unzip my money belt:

  “Pssst!”

  I swiveled around. There behind another banyan tree was Hanks! Sitting on the back of a running moto. The driver was a skinny teen with a cutoff T-shirt and arms covered with tattoos. He revved the engine and grinned at me. Hanks gestured for me to jump on the back.

  Is he crazy!?! As if I’m not in enough trouble as it is!

  Hanks gestured again, then mouthed: “It’s your only chance.”

  My heart started to thump-thump-thump in a deafening bass.

  I looked at the guards. One still slept, the other yawned as he turned the page, and my guard peered closely at his form. Apparently there were so many tourists milling and motors running that they didn’t notice a thing.

  What did I have to lose? I remembered the horror stories I’d heard about teens put in prison for life for drug trafficking in Southeast Asia. And teens stealing irreplaceable relics probably didn’t fare much better. After all, I realized, the only way I could prove I wasn’t stealing was for Grandma Gerd to admit she had. But I didn’t want her to get arrested either. Catch-22.

  Hanks waved his hand urgently. As in: DO IT NOW.

  My body tensed, my adrenaline surged. I slowly pulled my daypack over my shoulders … then stood up like I was stretching … inched around the bench … behind the tree … and ran for it!

  One second I was on the bench, the next I was zooming off on the moto, gripping Hanks’s shoulders. The driver circled the perimeter so he wouldn’t have to drive past the guard shack.

  I glanced behind me: The guards hadn’t even noticed I was gone!

  “Don’t look back! Here. Put this on.” Hanks snatched my big white hat and replaced it with a blue baseball cap with CAMBODIA embroidered on it. “Shove your hair up in it.” Then he handed me his red bandanna. “Tie this around your face.”

  I did as I was told.

  The smells of gasoline, exhaust, and Old Spice mingled together in my nostrils.

  Hanks craned his neck. “Here they come—hold on tight.” Then he spoke to the driver in Khmer. I threw my arms around Hanks’s waist just as the driver put it into the highest gear and sped onto the main road. With casual dexterity he navigated around taxis, motos, bikes, and pedestrians.

  I darted a look behind me. The police car was only a couple blocks away—heading in our direction.

  Our driver sharply turned down a side road, where we missed flattening two kids on bikes and a skin-and-bones cat by inches. Then we took an abrupt left into a maze of narrow alleyways that crisscrossed through a residential neighborhood. We finally emerged onto a busy street where we blended into the crowd of taxis, motos, and bikes. Many of the drivers and passengers wore face masks and bandannas to keep from inhaling too much exhaust. And I looked just like them. There was no way the police could track us down now.

  I could feel Hanks’s muscles relax.

  “Thanks,” I said, semi-muffled by the bandanna. “I don’t know what I would have done—”

  “I shoulda let you serve time. That’d teach you not to steal.”

  I yanked down the bandanna. “It was Grandma Gerd! I was putting back what she stole!”

  He turned. His eyes searched mine. Then he pulled the bandanna back up over my nose. “You’re durn lucky I was keepin’ an eye on my ward.”

  “So you were watching me the whole time?”

  “I’m your guardian, ain’t I?” Then he laughed. “Contraband down your pants. Wish I coulda gotten a Polaroid.”

  It took a while for Sarah’s heart to stop thumping. Could Wayne hear it? And a while to process what just happened: I—Sarah Lawrence—have narrowly escaped from the clutches of the Cambodian police!

  When our moto driver dropped us off at the guesthouse, Hanks paid him $20 of Grandma Gerd’s money for his role in the getaway. He gave us a grin and a thumbs-up, then roared off, dirt billowing in his wake. As Hanks and I walked toward our bungalow, I removed the baseball cap and bandanna and handed them to him. “Wow. I don’t know what to say … . I really appreciate how you … you …”

  “All in a day’s work.” He stuffed the bandanna into his back jeans pocket. “Although I think I’m due for a raise.”

  “Frangi, have you seen the apsara?” called Grandma Gerd from the doorway of our room. “I can’t find her anywhere.”

  Hanks and I exchanged looks.

  It took a while for Grandma Gerd to fully comprehend the situation. She paced our room in her bare feet, her baggy fisherman’s pants making swooshing sounds, running her fingers through her disheveled hair and fingering her jade nose hoop. When she finally faced me, she said, “Well, I’m glad you’re okay. You’re lucky Hanks had his wits about him.”

  “I know, I told—”

  She continued as if she didn’t hear me: “But I’m having a hard time forgiving you about the apsara.”

  “It was for your own goo
d. What if you got caught in customs? After all, I almost went to prison for putting her back where she belonged.”

  “I didn’t ask you to. In fact, I wish you didn’t.”

  “But—”

  “I would have been fine. The apsara would have been fine.” She put on her Vietnamese hat and slipped on her sandals. “Yes, I’m happy—fantastically happy—you’re fine. But I’d rather you be fine and have my apsara back.”

  I opened my mouth. Then closed it. It was futile to explain that it wasn’t her apsara.

  Hanks cleared his throat and said to Grandma Gerd, “It’s probably a good idea for us to head outta Siem Reap first thing in the a.m. In case one of the backpackers or tourists turns her in—or one of the security guards spots her around town.”

  Grandma Gerd picked up her woven bag. “So we’re moving on to Phnom Penh a whole week early? There goes seven more days of found art and material gathering in Angkor down the drain.”

  And she slammed the door on her way out.

  Hanks looked at me. “Where’s she goin’?”

  I sighed. “Probably to ‘get a glass of red.’”

  I went to check my email on the guesthouse lobby computer.

  First, my parents:

  Dad: Thought I’d drop you a quick line before we start dinner. (Which isn’t half so enjoyable without you by my side grating the Parmesan or zesting the lemon.) Your mom is feeling far better these days. Still concerned about you, though. So keep those optimistic emails coming! Principal Ledbetter called today at 3:45 p.m. She was curious to find out how your novel’s coming along. I told her you had it well in hand. You do, don’t you?

  Mom: Now that you’re in Cambodia, I want you to be extra diligent about your safety. Don’t let Gertrude pressure you into doing anything even remotely risky. (Like staying at an unrated hotel.) By the way, Amber’s making good progress. She’s finally narrowed down her Life Goals—unfortunately they’re all “arts” related. (Open a gallery, join an Elizabethan mime troupe, design a line of knitwear, etc.) I’ve resisted the urge to sway her toward the more practical—after all, it’s her life, her choice. Now if only she’d decide on a college major … .

  And then my friends:

  Amber: I LOVE WAYNE!

  Laurel: We can’t decide who our favorite character is: Aunt Aurora or Wayne.

  Denise: I must commend your regularity in emailing the chapters.

  Why wasn’t I—ahem, Sarah—their favorite character?

  I wrote about Aunt Aurora blatantly stealing a priceless relic and her conscientious niece Sarah attempting to make restitution by putting it back. Her sacrificial love for her aunt at the risk of her own freedom. Almost going to prison for righting a wrong.

  It was my best chapter to date.

  This time they couldn’t help but see Sarah’s winning qualities.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Full Moon in Full Squat

  Hanks didn’t think we should risk flying to Phnom Penh—too many security guards and police. “Who knows—they might have a wanted poster of Relic Thief Vassar Spore hangin’ over the check-in desk. And those connect-the-dots bug bites of yours are darn hard to miss … .”

  So our mode of transportation was the Tonlé Sap Lake and River via bullet boat, an ancient hot-dog-shaped vessel so jam-packed with passengers that some had to sit on the roof. A virtual death trap with no escape if it should submerge. Not for the claustrophobic.

  I wore the blue baseball cap with my hair tucked up into it and Hanks’s mirrored aviator sunglasses. I was taking no chances. Fortunately, none of the backpackers on board looked familiar—nor did any of them give me a second glance.

  I sat on the vinyl bench seat next to Hanks, who was reading a worn paperback entitled Dustup at the Double D. I attempted to write my latest chapter. Grandma Gerd sat in front of us pasting found art into her Everything Book with a glue stick—ignoring me. I couldn’t believe she was giving me the silent treatment for trying to put her apsara back. What, were we in third grade?

  Out of the corner of my eye I watched Hanks subconsciously spin his horseshoe ring around and around his middle finger as he read. Around and around. I forced myself to look away.

  Grandma Gerd abruptly turned and handed something to Hanks. “Would you give this to her? Not that she deserves it.”

  Hanks handed me a Fanta bottle cap with the letter “D” etched in it. “What’s all this about?”

  I shrugged. I rolled the cap around in my fingers. D. A. D. Dad? Did the Big Secret hinge around my father? I’d have to wait to ask her since she was obviously not too communicative right now.

  I went back to my chapter.

  “And how are Sarah and Wayne doin’?”

  “Just fine,” I said stiffly.

  “You’re really serious about this novel business.”

  “It’s my only chance at valedictorian, which means Vassar, which means a lot to Mom and Dad.”

  “But not you?”

  “Of course it does. But it means more to them. It’s only natural. They’ve been looking forward to me attending Vassar for years. For years.”

  In front of me, Grandma Gerd made a sound like a “harumph.”

  “But it’s your life, not theirs.”

  What was the use arguing with someone who didn’t know a Latin suffix from a prefix?

  He offered me a Chupa sucker. I shook my head. He popped it into his mouth.

  “I know how you feel. My parents pushed me for years. No grade was good enough, no score high enough. They kept comparin’ me to my cousin, a nuclear physicist. But I’m no physicist. The fact I was good at sports didn’t count. Finally I got fed up and told them I wasn’t going to college. Period.”

  “What happened?”

  He shrugged, then laughed flatly. “Dad disowned me.”

  “Really?” It was obviously a wound that still smarted.

  “Yep. Wouldn’t talk to me for months. Acted like I wasn’t there. Wrote me out of his will. Keep in mind, I was ‘dishonoring’ the entire family. To the Chinese, there’s nothin’ worse than that. Mom, my aunties, my grannies, even my cousin, all went to temple day after day to light joss sticks, hopin’ our dead ancestors would change Dad’s mind.”

  “And did they?” How sad!

  “No, but Renjiro tried. Turned out, when he was a kid, he had pushy parents who pushed him into engineerin’ when he wanted to major in art. He convinced Dad to at least talk to me. I agreed to go to college—as long as it was Little Creek Community College in Wyoming. That almost killed him. But I told him he’d lose face worse if I didn’t go to any college. No sale. But I’m still workin’ on him.”

  “What would you major in?”

  “Major in? You mean study?” He shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know … ranchin’, agriculture, or maybe I’ll take some veterinary prerequisites. I like horses.”

  “Then what are you doing at MCT?”

  “Doin’ an internship there was part of our compromise. Somethin’s gotta make Dad realize I’m not engineer material. So, Missus Vassar Spore, I know darn well what it’s like to have pushy parents. Chinese, Japanese, Australian, American—all parents are pushy parents.”

  “My parents aren’t pushy. They’re just super-supportive.”

  Grandma Gerd snorted.

  Hanks smiled. “Uh-huh.”

  “No, really. Goals, plans, valedictorian, Vassar, Pulitzer—all my ideas.”

  Hanks just kept smiling.

  Were Mom and Dad pushy? Were my goals actually their goals?

  Hanks grabbed an empty water bottle from under his seat.

  “Be right back,” he said, slipping past me and disappearing into the luggage hold. A few minutes later he returned with the bottle half-filled with something yellow. He surreptitiously tucked it back under the seat.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  He grinned. “Hey, I’m recyclin’.”

  “I don’t think that’s what they had in mind … .”

  “I go
t an extra bottle. There’s no one in there, so you’d have the ‘facilities’ to yourself, if you know what I mean.”

  “You have heard there’s a bathroom onboard?”

  “If you wanna call it that,” he said in an ominous tone.

  “You wouldn’t catch me ‘recycling’—even if I were a guy.”

  But I realized—once again—I did have to use the bathroom. Why must every waking minute of every day in Southeast Asia concern relieving oneself? Never would I take a toilet seat and bowl for granted again. Never.

  I wobbled down the aisle toward the back of the bullet boat. A young Cambodian girl came out of the bathroom as I approached and smothered a giggle. I soon learned why.

  “Bathroom?” Ha! A medieval torture device was more like it. The room was the size of a phone booth and housed a waist-high wooden box with a circular opening. How on earth do I get on top of that? I managed to use what meager upper body strength I possessed to hoist my lower body up onto the grimy, peeling linoleum that covered the top of the box. Trying to touch as little as possible, I maneuvered my way into the requisite squat over the opening—which required me to hunch over since the ceiling was so low. Even average-size Cambodians with their smaller builds would find this torturous. No wonder the girl laughed at the thought of all five feet ten of me pretzeled in here—my chin touching my knees and my butt extended.

  You’ve squatted before, Sarah coached herself. Stop rocking back and forth. Relax—don’t hit your head.

  I’d just about relaxed when someone knocked on the door.

  “Occupied!” I shouted, and tensed up again.

  Contorted like a human crab, I willed myself to “un-tense.” Finally, just as my legs were so cramped, I almost blacked out, I produced a stream that turned into a torrent. Blessed relief! I refused to be hurried by repeated knockings on the door. Once the job was completed, I attempted to unfold myself. I moved this, moved that, un-tensed this, un-tensed that, stretched, shifted—until I realized: I was stuck, stuck in a squat toilet on a bullet boat in Cambodia.