A Blind Spot for Boys

by Justina Chen

  Feeling self-conscious and embarrassed, I could already hear my mom’s lecture once she found out that I had snuck out alone.

  “Nah, I need caffeine, too,” I told them quickly, and swung my backpack around so I could stash away my camera. “I’ll grab the shot with Dad on our way home.”

  Stesha studied me intently, just like Reb does when she feels compelled to tell me the hard truth in the most loving way possible. Whatever it was that Stesha wanted to say about safety, I didn’t want to hear any more, not with Quattro beside me. A girl can only look like so much of an idiot before any guy.

  “It’s better this way. Dad would hate to miss out on this,” I said. Then, desperate to fill the growing silence, I found myself babbling about how my parents are so careful with money, we rarely go to coffee shops, much less restaurants, except on Sundays. “That’s when my brothers and I were treated to hot chocolate, and my parents got themselves their lattes,” I said, laughing. “We went to a different coffee shop every week.”

  “An expedition at home,” Stesha translated.

  I blinked at this reinterpretation of what I’d always seen as nothing more than a weekly treat.

  “We used to do something like that, too,” said Quattro. “Only it was hiking. Our Saturday morning hike. My mom says her church was in the mountains.” A fraction of a second later, Quattro corrected himself, “Used to say.”

  “I sometimes think people forget that they can have adventures without even leaving their homes,” Stesha said, leading us across the street.

  As I followed, I cast a curious glance at Quattro, wondering what had happened to his mom, but his inadvertent slip wasn’t an opening for a deeper conversation. Instead, his mouth clamped tight, as firmly locked as the shuttered cafés lining the streets.

  Defeated, Stesha sighed. “Well, there’s always the hotel, I suppose.” But when we reached the hotel, Ernesto, our driver, flagged her down from outside the van, where he’d been waiting for her. Whatever he needed to discuss, it looked urgent.

  “Oh, dear,” Stesha sighed. “You two go on in.”

  A good five feet separated Quattro and me before I even stepped foot in the lobby. If he’d hustled any faster toward the elevator, he would have set a world record for racewalking. Just before the door closed in front of him, Quattro mumbled something about needing to wake his dad for coffee—at least that’s what I guessed since I could only make out the words “wake” and “coffee” and “dad” before he left me standing there, alone.

  My head rattled back and forth between disbelief and confusion. Waking his dad to join us for coffee was only a slight variant of my rarely invoked but highly effective “Oh, my parents have always wanted to try that restaurant! You mind if they come?” Plus, yesterday, I had seen with my own two eyes his father’s megalithic watch, which had more instruments than an airplane’s cockpit. Waking his dad up, my foot. I bet his father’s watch could have blared an alarm that could scare the entire hotel awake.

  From behind me, I heard Stesha—my best friend’s grandmother, the woman who had committed to taking care of our needs this next week, the tour guide who vowed to transport us safely—chuckle. At me.

  “I bet that doesn’t happen to you every day,” she said, not even bothering to hide her smirk. “That boy ran from you.”

  “Whoa, for a second there, I thought it was Reb speaking.”

  “Oh, thanks for reminding me. She said to remember that she met Jackson on a trip. Good karma, these trip romances.”

  I blushed and informed Stesha that Quattro and I were both on relationship moratoriums. “So nothing’s going on.”

  “But, honey, romance or not, there’s a reason why you’re both here. Together. Whenever things like that happen to me—sitting next to someone at a movie theater who knows exactly the person I need to talk to—well, there’s a reason. And a purpose.”

  Synchronicity, reason, purpose—those words reminded me of my first phone call with Stesha: “Sometimes, you got to get out of your daily rut to get clarity about your life. That’s why a lot of people go on Dreamwalks.”

  Safer territory, that’s what I needed. I gestured in the direction of the slumbering street. “Is everything okay with Ernesto?”

  “Well,” Stesha began heavily, “the government mandates that you have a specially licensed tour guide to take you on the Inca Trail. Ruben can come, thankfully, but we like to have extra help for our guests. His second in command broke his foot in a soccer game yesterday.” Stesha frowned at the empty tea cart with so much desperation that the receptionist saw her and pantomimed that caffeine was coming. After a joyous “gracias!” Stesha plunked herself down on the sofa and patted the space next to her.

  “So what does that mean?” I asked, lowering myself to her side.

  “Well, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Grace. You know, I had asked you to keep her company. But now, even though we’ll have a guide and a few porters, they’ll all be busy. And… she’s not moving around as well as she did on our last trip together.”

  I nodded even as I replayed my observations about Grace yesterday. “I can stay by her all the way. Well, at least for as much as she’ll let me. She seems pretty independent.”

  “That’s all you can do.”

  “Can I do anything else?”

  “That’s helping a lot.” Stesha breathed out, releasing her tension.

  “It’s pretty amazing that someone her age is going on this trek,” I said carefully, thinking about my neighbor Mrs. Harris, who couldn’t have been much older than Grace or Stesha, but an outing for her was a ten-step stroll to her porch.

  “We can usually do a lot more than we think. Isn’t that how it works?” Stesha said, visibly relieved when the tea service arrived. I followed her to the serving cart. Instead of handing me a cup, she held my hand, her face softened with a bemused smile. “So forget about Quattro.” She shrugged, squeezing my hand tightly before letting go. “Figure out why you yourself are here.”

  The van descended into a seascape of gritty brown clouds that looked like millions of sand grains magically suspended in air. The sight was so spectacular, it knocked me out of my regret that I didn’t even get to say good-bye to Quattro before we left the hotel and transported me right back to Stesha’s final advice this morning. I hadn’t even considered that there might be a reason outside of my father for me to be on this trek. I was already unpacking my camera. This shot alone could have been the reason.

  “This,” Stesha said in a hushed voice from the front passenger seat, “is the Sacred Valley.”

  “Can we pull over?” I asked eagerly, even though I heard the Gamers’ medley of impatient sighs. They were already irritated that we’d been late to load into the van this morning, and stopping now would only delay our reaching the trailhead, still an hour’s drive away. But when were any of us going to see this mirage of a floating beach ever again in our lives?

  “I think so,” Stesha said, leaning over to Ernesto, who immediately pulled off to the side of the road. “Two minutes, okay? Ruben will be waiting for us.”

  My parents followed me as I hopped out of the van. I quickly found an interesting angle and framed the shot. A breeze dragged the clouds down into the valley. Trees pierced through the clouds so they looked like stubborn sentries determined to remain on high alert. I got my photo, then on a whim, spun around to capture my parents, standing on the cliff edge as if they were planning to take flight. Dad was staring hard at this sandy veil as if he were memorizing it, Mom breathing in so deeply, she could have drawn every molecule of air inside herself.

  “Look, Dad,” I said, as I pointed out the misty line where the clouds converged with clear air. “Do you see that?”

  Dad flinched.

  I mirrored his pained grimace. No matter how careful Mom and I were, our word choices themselves were unintentional land mines. “Look” and “see” had become the ticking bombs of reality.

  But Dad recovered with his usual ea
sy grin for me and agreed, “Beautiful.”

  As he left my side for the van, I swallowed the lump of guilt in my throat. Why was this happening to my father? Our family? Only now that my parents were about to board the van did Hank lumber out with his camera. He said to me, “This looks like something that could be straight out of a game, doesn’t it? You know how much money I could make off of this?”

  “Yeah,” I said faintly, knowing that if Quattro were right here with me, he’d appreciate this view, not for what it could earn him but just for what it was. Where were he and his dad now?

  Hang on a second. What was I doing, wrapped around thoughts about Quattro, wishing we’d said good-bye to each other when we hadn’t? I hurried inside the van, frustrated with myself. If there was one thing I wasn’t going to do, it was waste my vacation obsessing about a boy, particularly one who had all but fled from me this morning. Been there, done that for the better part of a year. No matter what I told myself, though, it was hard to ignore the empty space in the back row where Quattro had sat with me just yesterday.

  At last, Hank finished his photo shoot, beaming when he clambered into his seat. He crowed to no one in particular, “Halo is going to look so old school.”

  “See?” said Stesha once Ernesto had pulled back onto the road. “Nothing is wasted.”

  Chapter Nine

  Using holes dug into the ground and enclosed by concrete stalls, I’ll admit, was a bit of a shock to this suburban girl. (Apparently, years of backcountry camping in the Cascades did nothing to break my dependence on indoor plumbing.) But watching my sure-footed father stumble over a rock he didn’t see at the start of the trek? That was heartbreak, plain and simple.

  “Gregor!” Mom cried from where she and I stood with the rest of the women for a female-power photograph at the humble wood signpost: WELCOME TO INKA TRAIL. We sprinted to where Dad had tumbled just ahead of us on the path.

  “I’m fine,” he said shortly, ignoring Mom’s outstretched hand. He dusted himself off as he sprang to his feet. “Go on. Really. Go on.”

  Mom reared back from his harsh tone, one step, then two. Her lips tightened as she tried but failed to stem her hurt and humiliation. Automatically, she glanced at the other women who were busy cooing over a small herd of llamas. Her cheeks flamed red when the Gamers shot meaningful looks at each other as they passed us. I could almost hear them revising their wedding vows: We’ll never be like them. But my parents had never been one of Those Couples either—that’s what I wanted to scream at Hank, Helen, Grace, and most especially, Stesha, who was watching not my parents but me.

  Without a word, Dad hoisted his backpack higher on his shoulders, then strode forward purposefully. I’d never been afraid to talk to my father about anything, but this wounded-lion routine made me wary around him. Fortunately, Grace provided me with a ready-made excuse to stay far from Dad today; she lagged way behind everyone else. Mom hung back with us, muttering regrets and second guesses: “This was a mistake. Maybe we should turn around now and just go home.”

  Grace smiled gently. “Then you don’t know men. He’s got to do this.”

  “But he couldn’t even see that rock. The entire trail is rocks and cliffs,” Mom fretted.

  “He’ll manage,” said Grace.

  “But—”

  “He’s losing his sight, Mom, not his legs,” I told her.

  Both Mom’s and Grace’s mouths curved into shocked Os at my flat statement, but I wouldn’t want Mom to be hovering over me any more than I knew Dad did. All further conversation was cut off when Stesha introduced us to the team assembled near the warden’s hut.

  “Okay, everyone, I want you to meet Ruben,” Stesha said with an arm around our barrel-chested guide, whose black vest was embroidered with his name and well-worn pants were frayed at the bottom of each leg. Then she gestured at the six men lined in a row. “And these are our porters.”

  Wiry and muscular, the men had been hired to haul our food and tents along the Inca Trail while we carried our own backpacks filled with clothes and supplies. Their legs were so corded with muscles, they looked more than capable of sprinting up and down the trail, regardless of the number of bags they were already lugging on their backs. One was wearing flip-flops, most of them in shorts, which made me feel like a wimpy, overdressed tourist in my sturdy hiking boots and new trekking pants. I could only imagine how Hank felt in his Indiana Jones getup, the fedora topping his head.

  Once each of us had signed in with the guard in the hut, Ruben led us to a rickety bridge that spanned the fast-moving river, much more dangerous and alive than what we’d seen from above in the safety of our van. He stopped in the middle of the bridge, raising his voice to be heard over the wild rush of water: “It’s been raining nonstop for the last week. Today’s the first day we’ve seen the sun.” He joked, “I almost thought we’d need an ark.”

  “Let’s hope this flood doesn’t destroy the universe,” Mom whispered to me before she moved to stand next to Dad. He didn’t even look at her, as indifferent as a stranger.

  “Okay, this might be a good time to tell you that we think of the Inca Trail as a pilgrimage,” Ruben said, turning serious. “There are definitely easier ways to get to Machu Picchu. Most tourists go by train, then take the bus up to the ruins. If we really wanted, we could just follow the river.” With a finger, he traced the bend of the cascading river in front of us. “And be at Machu Picchu in six hours.”

  “But where’s the fun in that?” Grace asked. Dressed in her green raincoat, she looked like a leprechaun.

  “So we’re going to see Machu Picchu the way the Incas did,” said Stesha.

  Ruben scrutinized each of us as if calculating the odds that we’d make it to our destination. “The next four days of walking through pretty difficult terrain will make you appreciate the site even more.”

  “And by the time we get to the Sun Gate,” said Stesha, “I think you’ll have discovered things you’ve never known about yourself.”

  Almost immediately, our group divided into four sections—Grace and I bringing up the rear. The porters, who’d disappeared about two minutes after we began walking. Ruben at the front with Dad, Hank, and Helen. Stesha in the middle with Mom, the better to answer all of my mother’s thousand questions. The last I heard before Grace and I trailed behind everyone, Mom was peppering Stesha with questions about all the plant species we encountered even though she had no interest in vegetation. Mom couldn’t even keep a cactus alive if she tried, which was why we didn’t have any plants, but she was obviously determined to wring every last bit of learning from this trip.

  After four hours of what Grace dubbed “trudgery”—trudging that was pure drudgery on soggy ground—I confirmed what I already knew about myself: Can you say impatient? The trail ascended so slowly, you could barely call it an incline. So why did everyone describe the Inca Trail as challenging? But then the trail taught me a fast lesson about faulty first impressions. Too soon, I had to stop every ten feet or so to catch my breath.

  If I thought I was dragging myself up the mountainside, Grace’s pace was even more sluggish, inching forward while bent over at the waist. How was she going to trek for four days if an hour of hill climbing taxed her? No one was in sight, just the two of us poking along.

  “You doing okay?” I called up to Grace after deciding that it was safer to walk behind her in case she lost her footing. From back here, I could at least break her fall.

  “I’m fine,” she said, her tone sharp.

  One cantankerous father was more than enough to deal with, but now I was latched to an old lady who should have known better than to join a long trek? For this, I had given up my brand-new camera and come to Peru?

  “You can go up ahead,” Grace told me in a gentler voice, casting an apologetic glance at me over her shoulder. She looked as winded as she sounded, which pushed aside my irritation to make room for serious concern. “I’ll go at my own pace.”

  “You know what they say a
bout slow and steady,” I shot back.

  Grace may not have fallen into silence now, her labored breathing preventing that, but she plowed on, only stopping at our first view of Patallacta, gray-stone ruins atop banks of terraces. At our last break, Ruben had told us that these ruins were rediscovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, the real-life explorer who was the inspiration behind Hank’s favorite fedora-wearing movie hero. Hearing about the site was a completely different experience from seeing it, just like writing about Ginny’s chocolate soufflé was way less satisfying than eating it, especially straight out of the oven.

  All misty and gray, the ruins could have been a watercolor painting. They begged to be memorialized in a photo.

  Just as I crouched down for a better angle, Grace howled to the skies: “Girls!”

  Worried, I hurried up the hill to her side. Was she having a mental breakdown? Maybe she’d succumbed to some kind of altitude sickness that induced delusions.

  “Girls! You seeing this?” Grace spun around in a slow circle. In an even louder voice, she called, “Check it out! I’m here. I’m really here.”

  “Ummm… Grace. Who are you talking to?”

  Grace grinned before she wheezed, “The Wednesday Walkers.”

  “Who’re they?”

  “My walking group. There were five of us. We started hiking together almost exactly forty years ago.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “Vermont. If you weren’t burying a husband or dead yourself, you were walking.” She laughed lightly. “Rain, snow, or shine.”

  “Every Wednesday?”

  “Every single one. I’m the last of the bunch. The last of the Wednesday Walkers.” She sighed deeply, then brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Bertie died back in October, right after our walk. Bless those girls, they talked a good talk about wanting to trek abroad. We had such grand plans, too. Following in Alfred Wainwright’s footsteps in the Lake District. Doing the Appalachian Trail. The Cinque Terre. But we never made it out of Vermont together. Life called. If there weren’t children, there were husbands to take care of. And then there was always the issue of money. But you’re too young to understand all that.”