by Linda Gerber
“Please don’t,” Victoria said. “I’ll be fine. We have only a few days left in Costa Rica, and you need to take advantage of the break in the clouds while you can.”
“Got the insurance information,” Bayani said, waving the piece of paper to prove it. “Estefan has gone to pull up the car.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t make a fuss,” Victoria said to no one in particular. Maybe she was talking to her foot, which had swollen to nearly twice its size.
Liz handed Bayani one of the camcorders. “Don’t forget the camera.”
I gaped at her. “You’re kidding, right?” I mean, I knew drama was good TV, but this was real, not “reality.”
Bayani took the camcorder from Liz and pointedly set it down on the couch. “This is not part of your show.” Then, ignoring Liz’s sputtering, he calmly folded up the insurance paper and tucked it into the pocket of his jeans.
Victoria took my hand. “Now I expect you and Logan to have your research-paper outlines done by the time I get back. I don’t anticipate it will be long, so be sure to use your time judiciously.”
“Now you’re kidding,” I accused.
“Not in the least. Your three hours is a requirement, regardless of the circumstances. Claudia has agreed to step in as your tutor this morning.”
My jaw dropped. Claudia? But she was one of our chief hacker suspects.
Victoria gave me a steely look, as if she could tell what I was thinking. “Claudia can be a valuable resource to you, with her native perspective. You will be wise to learn what you can from her while you have the opportunity.”
“All right,” Cavin announced, “the car’s out front.”
Victoria pushed herself out of the chair. “Right. Here we go, then.”
Dad and Daniel flanked her on either side, and she slung an arm around each of their shoulders to take the weight off her foot. Together, they made slow progress out the front door. Mama Tica followed with an armload of pillows to make Victoria comfortable on the long ride to the hospital. The rest of us trailed behind helplessly, wanting to do something but not knowing what it would be.
“My, what a production,” Victoria said as they helped her into the backseat of the SUV and situated the pillows around her.
“She’s so British,” I told Logan as we watched her trying to keep that “stiff upper lip” she was so proud of, even though her lips had gone completely white, like the rest of her face. I hoped her treatment at the hospital included some kind of pain meds.
The doors shut, closing Victoria away from us, and the SUV pulled away. Those of us left behind huddled together, watching the SUV bump away down the long driveway and turn onto the main road.
Once it was out of sight, Claudia cleared her throat. “Well, then,” she said to Logan and me, “should we start your class now or later?”
“Later,” Mama Tica answered for us. “You’ve none of you had breakfast. Come inside and eat. The day looks better on a full stomach.”
At the dining-room table, I picked at my gallo pinto and eggs. “You really think she’ll be all right?”
Mom rubbed my back. “Honey, Victoria’s too stubborn to have it any other way. They’ll give her some medicine and antibiotics, and she’ll be fine.”
“I wish we could have gone with her.”
“And what good would that have done? We’d only clog the waiting room and make things difficult for the hospital staff. It’s best we keep out of the way. Bayani’s with her. He’ll make sure she’s comfortable.”
I picked at my rice. “I could have done that,” I muttered.
“I’m sure you would have,” Dad said gently. “And if you were of legal age to sign admission papers, we would have sent you before anyone else.”
“Excuse me.” Cavin stood by my mom’s chair, holding a sheet of paper in his hand. “When you have a moment, we need to go through the changes to the schedule this morning.”
As my mom and dad turned to talk with Cavin, Logan slipped onto the chair next to mine. “We’ve got to get out of class this morning,” he whispered.
I stole a quick glance at my mom and dad, and then answered in a low voice, “Sounds good to me. Why?”
“I heard Estefan and Marco talking. There’s a spot out in the pasture where you can get cell reception.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. I mean, I was glad to hear it and everything, but what did it have to do with class?
“Maybe there didn’t need to be an active Internet connection this week. Someone could have used a smartphone to post those blog entries. We should go check it out.”
I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was standing close to us and then whispered, “I thought Bayani said the IP address was Finca Calderón’s office.”
“I dunno,” he said. “They could have routed it with a phone, right?”
“Yeah. So how do we get out of—”
“Hey, you two,” Cavin said. “What’re you cooking up over there? Ye look entirely too conspiratorial for my taste.”
“Da!” Logan glared at his dad, and if I didn’t know he was covering for the fact that we actually were conspiring, I would have thought he was really mad.
Cavin laughed and threw his hands up in mock surrender. “Kids,” he said to my parents, chuckling. He opened his mouth like he was going to say more, but then closed it again and watched us sharply.
“Hmm,” he said again. “Kids.”
Logan and I sat in the conference room with books and pamphlets spread on the table, studiously copying down information for our reports. I had it all worked out how we were going to get Claudia to let us go early by offending her no-nonsense, anti-emotional nature with a crying jag over Victoria’s plight, but then Liz came along and ruined everything.
She poked her head into the room and announced, “Oh, good. You’ve gotten a head start. Britt will be along shortly.”
“Britt?” I asked. “But I thought Claudia was—”
“Change of plans. Claudia will be riding along with the When in Rome crew. They need a guide, and both Estefan and Bayani are with Victoria. It was a toss-up between Claudia and Marco, and Marco volunteered to stay with our crew, so Claudia won.”
“Doesn’t Britt usually go with the When in Rome crew?” Logan asked.
Liz sighed. “Yes, she does. But after Victoria’s unfortunate experience yesterday, Britt is disinclined to venture into the cloud forest again, so she’ll be sitting in the classroom with you.”
I almost hated to bring it up because Liz was already looking so frazzled, but I raised my hand anyway. “Um, Liz?”
She leaned her head against the doorframe. “Yes?”
“If Britt’s our teacher today and she doesn’t want to go into the cloud forest, how are we going to do the shoot this afternoon? We’re supposed to have a teacher with us at all—”
“Yes. Thank you, Cassidy,” Liz said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I am well aware of the regulations. Which is why, while you are in class, I will be on the phone, trying to arrange an alternate location where Britt will be more comfortable accompanying us. Now, if there is nothing else…?”
“Naw, we’re good,” Logan said. “Thanks.”
When she was gone, he shut his book and leaned back in his chair. “What’s Britt going to do the rest of the trip if she won’t go into the forest?”
I just shook my head and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Logan asked.
“I know why Britt wanted to stay behind, and it doesn’t have anything to do with spiders.”
He raised his brows and gestured for me to continue.
“Didn’t you hear what Liz said?” I asked. “Marco is staying here. Britt has a thing for Marco, so…”
“Ah. Britt is pretending to be traumatized by last night so she can stay at the farm with Marco.”
I smiled. “Exactly. Which should make it supereasy to convince her to let us out of class early.”
“Because…?” Logan prodded.
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“Hello? She wants to spend time with Marco, not us. We simply need to let her know we’re perfectly fine with that arrangement.”
Britt didn’t even pretend to try to teach us anything. She showed up twenty minutes after Liz had come in to check on us, and then she just sat around, staring out the window or doodling in her notebook. Probably writing Marco’s name with lots of swirly letters and hearts all around. I don’t know because she was hiding whatever it was behind her hand.
I swear, she was acting like a seventh grader with a major crush. I’ll admit I don’t know a whole lot about how most seventh graders act because I spent only about three weeks in middle school while I was in Ohio, but I saw a lot of seventh-grade drama then, and from what I could tell, Britt would fit right in.
Logan kept drumming his pencil on the table and making big gestures with his eyes, by which I’m pretty sure he meant I should start trying to convince Britt that it would be a good idea for us all to ditch class. I made faces back, because I wasn’t really planning on doing all the talking. I was kind of counting on his helping me.
But if I didn’t say something, we’d still be sitting there when Liz got done with her phone calls and came to announce where we’d be filming that day, and then who knew when we’d have another opportunity to slip away?
I raised my hand, but Britt didn’t notice me. She kept staring at her paper with a goofy smile on her face.
“Excuse me, Britt?”
She slapped her hand over the writing and looked up at me. “What?”
Logan and I exchanged a quick glance, and then I rushed ahead. “Well, we’re doing nature research papers and it’s such a nice day right now, we were wondering if maybe we could go outside to work on them?”
“To soak up the nature,” Logan added helpfully.
“Oh. I don’t know. What does Victoria do?”
It was almost too easy. I really had to concentrate to keep from smiling. “She likes to have lessons outside.” Which was true.
Britt considered that for a moment. “But you’re not talking about doing a lesson, are you?”
I frowned. Maybe it wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought. “Well, no, but we’d be working on our papers.”
“I understand. You don’t want to be here.” She stared wistfully out the window. “I don’t blame you, but the regulations say three hours of class time each day.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t say those three hours have to be in a classroom,” I countered.
“Right,” Logan said, “it’s three hours of learning time. If we’re working on our papers, we’re learning.”
“I don’t know,” she said, even though we all knew letting us go is what she wanted to do. “You promise to work on your papers?”
“I guarantee we’ll be doing research,” I said.
“All right then,” she said, clearly relieved. “Class dismissed.”
Travel tip: In general, Costa Ricans are very affectionate and are often physically expressive, even in public.
“Where are you kids off to?” Mama Tica caught Logan and me just as we were about to go out the door.
“Research.” I said. “Outside.”
I couldn’t look at her when I said that. It wasn’t a lie, but I still felt as though we were deceiving Mama Tica. She deserved more respect than that. In fact, I almost broke down and confessed the whole thing, but she saved me by saying, “Well, you certainly can’t go out without boots. The ground is muddy, and the grass is wet.” She pointed to a cabinet by the door where she stored the ubiquitous black rubber farm boots. “Put them on first, then you may go outside.”
We both obeyed gratefully and escaped before the guilt could set in.
“So where did they say they could get the signal?” I asked Logan. “It’s a pretty big property.”
“They said something about a south pasture,” Logan answered. “Do you know where that is?”
“Are you kidding? I get all turned around in new places. I don’t even know which way is south.”
“That much is easy.” He squinted up at the sky. “The sun rises in the east, and it’s about nine o’clock, so this way”—he faced toward the sun—“is east. Which means this way”—he took a quarter turn to his right— “would be south.”
I knew that. “Okay,” I said, “so the pasture is this way. Did they say where in the pasture?”
“I didn’t hear specific directions,” he said. “But we’ll find it. Just hold your phone out and watch for connectivity bars.”
As luck would have it, the south pasture sat on a hilly slope overlooking the rest of the farm. Which would account for it being the one place where you could find a cell-phone signal. But it also meant that getting up to it was a hike.
I kept watching for any bars on my phone, but the search signal kept spinning around and around.…Logan didn’t appear to be having any better luck.
The long grass was still wet from the morning dew. Or maybe it was from the rain. All I know is, I was glad for the boots, fashionable or not. I thanked Mama Tica under my breath for insisting we wear them.
“What did you say?” Logan asked.
“Nothing,” I puffed beside him. Why wasn’t he getting winded from the climb? I resolved to add a workout to my daily routine. No way was I going to let him show me up everywhere we went.
At the top of the slope, a group of cows stood watching us, unblinking, flicking their tails, slowly chewing, their jaws working in a kind of up-and-down and side-to-side movement that was strangely mesmerizing.
Suddenly, Logan grabbed me and yanked me toward him. “Watch out!” My rubber boots slipped in the wet grass and I almost went down, but Logan caught me and propped me up. “You just about stepped in…that.” He pointed to what my gramma would call a cow pie. Well, we were in a pasture.
Now I remembered the other reason people on farms wear boots. “Thanks,” I told him sincerely.
He set me back on my feet and let go. I wondered about the merits of slipping again.
“Okay,” I said instead, “we’re at the top. Are you getting anything?”
He shook his head and turned his phone to show me. Nothing. “We’ll probably just have to walk around to find the sweet spot.”
Well, I decided, I could think of worse things. The view from the top of the hill was incredible, with the farm spread out below us. Beyond that, green, rolling hills met with the deeper green of the lush trees in the forest. A mist hung in the lowest-lying areas, giving the whole scene a soft-focus feel. Meanwhile, on the hill, the sun felt warm on my skin, but not too warm. Just enough to offset the morning chill. And, of course, I had Logan beside me. If it wasn’t for the cow smell swirling around us on the breeze, it would have been a perfect moment.
“Have you ever seen such a—”
“I got it!” Logan interrupted. He was holding his phone up about shoulder height and pointing it due east. (I could tell from the angle of the sun. Thank you, Logan.) “Three bars.”
I checked my phone as well and found that I had four. “Let’s see if we can get online,” I suggested. He shot me a look that said “Duh.”
I’d never had a phone with Internet capability before, so it took a little getting used to. Especially since every time I lowered the phone enough to see what it was I was typing onto the screen, I lost the signal.
“Maybe we should walk this way a little bit,” Logan said, pointing east. He held his phone in front of him in one hand and reached back to grab my hand in his other. “Watch your step.”
It was a natural gesture, considerate, protective, just like when he took my hand in the hot springs. I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean anything by it either time other than to be helpful, but that didn’t stop the rush of pleasure that swelled up my arm and tingled in my stomach. I liked the feel of his hand, the way his fingers wrapped around mine, gentle, but firm, pulling, guiding—
Squish.
“Ha!” he laughed. “I told you to watch your step.”
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br /> Lifting my foot gingerly, I wiped it along the clean dew-soaked (or rain-soaked) grass to clean off the boot. It was not a process that could be done with much dignity. Especially with Logan nearly doubled over next to me, laughing. One of the cows in the group on the hill lifted her head and mooed, as if she was laughing at me, too. So much for romantic gestures.
Logan helped me over the tall clumps of wet grass until we found a boulder sticking out from the hill that we could sit on. The sun had been shining on it just enough that the surface felt warm to the touch, but as soon as I sat down, the coolness beneath seeped through my jeans, and I shivered.
“Are you cold?” Logan asked. He didn’t even wait for an answer but peeled off his jacket and handed it to me. I murmured my thanks and wrapped the jacket around my shoulders.
Logan bent immediately over his phone, concentrating on moving things around the touch screen. I watched him quietly for a moment, smiling to myself. He could be annoying sometimes, but then he could be so considerate and genuine and sincere that it made my heart ache. I wondered again what he thought about our friendship.
Well, he was a guy, so he probably didn’t think about it at all, but if he did, what would he think? Were we anything besides just really good friends? He almost kissed me once. Okay, I almost kissed him once, standing in the stairwell in Spain, right before he left. But he’s the one who started it by hugging me. I thought I felt something from him then.
After that, there were the almost-nightly video chats. He wouldn’t have spent all that time with me if he didn’t like me, right? As more than a best friend, I mean.
And then what about in the lodge…that moment on the couch? If we hadn’t noticed the blinking camera light that told us it was recording, would he have kissed me then?
As I looked at him, so unaware, bent over his phone, I got the feeling he was like the tree frog we’d seen hiding in that bromeliad. When we tried to look at it too closely, it had hopped away. Maybe it was the same with Logan. Maybe I should just be happy with the way things were and not try to define it, but just let it be.
Pura vida, I said to myself. And I understood a new layer of what it meant.
