by Amanda Heger
With a grunt, he motioned to Annie and then to the scale next to him. Panting from the cross-airport sprint, she used both hands to drop her largest suitcase onto the scuffed metal surface. She followed with the two smaller pieces and waited for some type of identification tag. None came, and she plastered on the brightest smile she could muster. “That’s all,” she said. “No mas.”
Marisol placed a hand on the small of Annie’s back and pushed lightly. “You too.”
“Me?” Her eyes darted between Marisol and the scale, trying to make sense of the instructions. When she couldn’t figure out anything else to do, she stepped next to the bags.
“No.” The man took one look at Annie’s blank face and shook his head.
“Too heavy.” A low, familiar voice came from behind her, and Annie’s insides constricted until she couldn’t breathe. “There is a weight limit for the small planes.” Felipe stood less than a foot away, his brown eyes and dark, rumpled hair set off by the baby blue shirt he wore.
“A weight limit?” She remembered the two bags of chips she’d inhaled the night before, still half-drunk on booze and shame. Dear God.
“Sí. Do you have extra things?” Marisol asked.
“Extra things?” Frustration rolled off the people behind her, but Annie couldn’t imagine getting through an entire month without everything she’d packed. She put a lot of time and effort into her packing list—it held only the most necessary items.
“Is there anything you can throw out?” Marisol asked.
The man behind the counter smoothed his thick, graying mustache, and Annie’s mind spun, composing a list of her belongings and ranking them from most precious to slightly less precious.
“I can check one. I only have this.” Felipe held up a small duffle bag then reached for the bag on top of her mountain of luggage.
She pulled it out of his reach. That was the bag with her underwear, and she wasn’t about to risk another disaster. “Thanks.” She handed him the rolling suitcase full of first-aid supplies and extra socks and prayed that would be enough.
“Bien.” The mustached man began pulling Annie’s luggage into the mountain of bags behind the counter.
For the first time since the El Bar debacle, she forced herself to look Felipe in the eye. “Thank you.”
• • •
Felipe heaved Annie’s suitcase onto the scale and tossed his duffle bag into the mix. He stepped onto the scale, sliding under the limit by two kilos. How can anyone need so many things?
Annie’s silhouette headed toward the gate, and he followed. Her face looked the same as it had all those years ago, the upturned nose and the wide brown eyes. The same untamed red curls. But the way her body had filled out was something new; the curve of her hips and the way they swayed the slightest bit as she moved had drawn his attention from across the airport the night before.
She never tried to kiss me when we were kids. And Felipe would have remembered, because his teenage crush on Annie was so charged and full of fervor. Instead, he spent his year in the States alone in the basement of their rental house, watching old Roseanne reruns and trying to get a handle on the strange Midwestern accent. Meanwhile, his sister and Annie flitted in and out between houses and social extravaganzas. Marisol’s classmates saw her as an exciting and extroverted freshman. He was the short senior with a weird accent.
Outside the window, their small plane waited, and his stomach threatened to revolt. The flight from Managua to his mother’s house in Puerto Cabezas never failed to turn him into a wobbling, nauseated mess. Most of the time, the other passengers pretended not to notice the dark patches of sweat that bloomed beneath his underarms. But every once in a while, the tiny fourteen-passenger plane would lurch and shift just right, and no one could ignore the retching noises he made as he filled the tiny paper bag tucked into the seat pocket.
Please do not let me vomit this time.
“Buenos días, Doctor,” the pilot called as Felipe climbed the unsteady steps. The man didn’t look up, arranging newspapers along the windshield for easy reading. It was the same pilot from the last flight. The flight when Felipe didn’t quite get the bag open in time. He muttered a quick response and kept his head ducked low.
He shuffled down the narrow aisle. On both sides, the plane brimmed with people. Children sat on parents’ laps, smacking and slobbering on the windows. The recycled air was chilled, and already the beginnings of motion sickness churned inside him.
“’Lipe!” Marisol called to him from the last row, gesturing toward the spot next to Annie.
His eyes darted around for another option. Nada. Of the fourteen seats, thirteen were already filled. He scooted in front of Annie without meeting her eyes, and their knees collided. It sent an ugly ache through his leg, and he doubled over, practically landing in her lap. “Sorry.” He scrambled for his cracked vinyl seat and pressed his forehead to the cool glass, suddenly feeling more like a bumbling adolescent than a medical professional.
Annie’s ears flushed a deep red. “It’s okay.”
“He is not usually such a mess,” Marisol said.
Felipe kept his eyes on the seat in front of him, wishing he could crawl over the other passengers and into the fresh air. “I do not like to fly.”
“Is it safe?” Annie asked.
“These are Sandinista pilots. The best in the world. Our trip is like a smooth baby’s bottom.”
Marisol laughed as the plane’s engines roared beneath their feet. “Smooth as a baby’s bottom.”
Felipe waved his sister off, pretending not to care about the way the plane rocked as they moved toward the runway. Inside his chest, a familiar embarrassment flickered to life.
He hated the way Americans looked at him when he butchered their language. He hated the way his job—even after years of medical school and some of the top grades in his class—depended on their donations. He hated that, within a week of setting off on one of the brigades, Americans were beaten down by the rain and the bugs and the never-ending procession of poverty. Then, they became dead weight. One more piece of equipment for him to haul in and out of the boat. Necessary liabilities.
Annie would be no different—even if he couldn’t stop thinking about that almost-kiss.
The plane taxied and took off down the runway. Felipe’s insides pushed against his spinal cord, and the familiar jerk of panic grabbed him. He reached for the armrest, hoping to steady himself, but Annie’s arm lay there. He yanked his hand away and mumbled an apology, but not before he noticed her hands were as clammy as his own. The brief touch allowed his mind to forget the heights and the swell of nausea threatening to overtake him.
Willing to do anything to keep his mind off the flight, Felipe focused on the smattering of freckles across her bare left shoulder. For the next half hour, he counted each of them out of the corner of his eye—an entire universe’s worth. Lost in the constellations, he barely noticed the lurch of the small plane.
“Look.” Annie leaned over him, her eyes fixed on the window.
The objects below grew as the plane eased toward the empty field. There was no landing strip. No giant tower full of air traffic controllers guiding their way. Only a few brown, spotted cows dotted the field, barely looking up from their grazing to acknowledge the plane—as though the aircraft belonged there as much as any heifer.
“We’re landing in a cow pasture?” Annie’s guffaw escaped between her words. She returned to the confines of her own seat.
Felipe closed his eyes as the plane’s wheels hit earth. Already her superiority was showing. “You should not use that soap,” he said, ignoring the way her coconut scent reminded him of those moments at the bar when he’d nearly leaned in to kiss her. “You will attract mosquitoes.”
“What?” Annie stared out at the field, and he could tell she barely registered his words.
“Nada.”
• • •
Annie stepped through the door of Ahora headquarters—a modest two-story
house with white iron bars in the windows. Fans whirred in every direction, and her gaze oscillated with them, taking in every detail of the place where Marisol grew up. The front room had been converted into office space, and towers of paper fluttered in the fake breeze. On the far wall, mismatched picture frames and awards hung in long, perfect lines. A far cry from her father’s office, with its plush chairs and serene elevator music being piped in over the waiting room speakers.
A bright American accent interrupted her thoughts. “I’m so glad you’re here.” Marisol’s mother wrapped her arms around Annie’s shoulders, swaddling her in the scent of patchouli. The sixty-something woman wore baggy khaki cargo pants and a flowing green top. Her laugh lines were deeper and her hair a bit grayer, but otherwise Melinda looked just as Annie remembered.
Annie squeezed back, careful to keep her arms at her sides. Sometime during the bumpy van ride from the cow pasture airport to the office, the humidity won a hard fought battle against her deodorant. “Thank you so much for letting me come along.”
“Of course.” Melinda turned to her son. “’Lipe, take Annie’s bags to Marisol’s room, por favor.”
With an audible exhale, he loaded himself down like a pack mule and hiked up the stairs. Marisol was at his heels, leaving Annie alone with their mother.
“Your father tells me you’re headed to our old alma mater next year?”
Annie stared at the ground and shrugged. She couldn’t explain the pull that Brown University’s campus had on her. The looming brick buildings and all the wide-open spaces. The leaves morphing from green to canary yellow in the New England fall. The first time Annie had visited, she was ten. Her dad had bought her a red and white Bears sweatshirt at the bookstore, and she wore it every night to bed, even in the summer, until the sleeves were so tattered and small that he ordered two replacements for her birthday.
But if her MCAT scores were any indication, she wouldn’t be heading to Brown. The grueling medical school entrance exam was the reason she’d ended up here, in the middle-of-nowhere Nicaragua. This trip was a desperate, last ditch attempt to pad her resume. “We’ll see,” she said.
“Are you also considering the schools closer to home?” The tilt of Melinda’s head and the frown lines near her mouth gave away her concern.
Annie nodded, but the unspoken question—whether her father’s heart failure meant she should stay close to St. Louis—soured her stomach. His condition was nothing new. His heart had been giving out for more than ten years. But now, his panting and swollen ankles were getting worse, not better, and he needed someone to take care of him. There was no way Annie could manage that from Rhode Island.
She had already given up on Brown once. When she was seventeen, her parents went through a cantankerous divorce. Annie was unsure her father could weather the shock of being abandoned by both the women in his life in such quick succession. That fall, she shredded her Brown application and applied to the pre-med program at St. Louis University.
“I’m sure you’ll get a glowing letter of recommendation when this is all said and done. And from what your father tells me, any school will be lucky to have you.” Melinda’s gaze flicked to the ceiling. “I have to get to this grant request. But if you’re thirsty, there’s a cooler of water on the counter that’s safe for drinking and brushing your teeth. Marisol’s room is upstairs on the left.”
“Thanks.” Annie wondered what else her father had told the woman. He and Melinda had been friends for ages. They’d even been in practice together for a little while. Then Melinda picked up and moved to Nicaragua, where she started Ahora with her life savings and a tattered visa. Somewhere along the way, she adopted Marisol and Felipe.
Annie climbed the creaking wooden stairs. Her bags lay in a heap at the top, and she dragged them behind her into Marisol’s empty room. A medley of photos stuck to the walls, their corners curling in the sticky air.
She ran her fingers along the edges of each one as she took in the smiling faces. Marisol and Melinda. Marisol surrounded by a group of smiling children. Marisol and Felipe making faces at each other. Marisol getting what Annie assumed was her nursing degree. Another, blowing out the candles on her cake, while Annie stood to the left, smiling at her friend. Her fifteenth birthday. In the corner of the shot, Felipe’s brooding figure watched Annie watching Marisol.
She walked to the small window, trying to forget her father’s illness and medical school and Mike. Trying to ignore the nagging pull of embarrassment that plagued her every time she saw Felipe’s face—even in those old photos. On the street below, a slight, stooped woman carried two chickens by the feet, letting them dangle upside down. Their wings were motionless and splayed wide.
Twenty-eight days, Annie told herself, pulling out her phone. You can stick anything out for four weeks. She stared at the screen, willing the arcs in the upper left corner to connect her to the world. Her world—the one with air conditioning and Internet and water you could drink straight from the tap. After another minute of searching for a signal, she gave up and powered down the useless hunk of plastic.
Annie leaned her forehead against the bars lining the window. She’d called her dad from the hotel the night before but was only able to leave a message. What if he’s sick? The thought hit her like lightning. What if he’s sick and no one can reach me?
She pushed the power button again.
“That will probably not work on this side of the country.” Felipe stood in the doorway, shaking his head. Annie jumped at his voice and the phone spilled from her hands, clattering to the wooden floor. “I have told my mother to tell the Americans, but she always forgets. It will probably not work on the trip either. You should leave it here.”
She ducked her head and crouched to pick up the phone. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Do you need to call someone?”
“My dad. Do you have a phone?”
The edges of his mouth turned down, and he crinkled his forehead. Annie’s throat went dry. That look of pure concentration was as horrifyingly gorgeous as his smile. “My mother has a phone she loans to the foreigners.”
“Really?”
Felipe laughed, and the dimple emerged. “Come.”
Downstairs, the office was empty. He pulled a long, black block with an extendable antenna from Melinda’s cluttered desk. It looked like something from a NASA museum. “You must dial the country code first,” he said.
Annie nodded. “Thank you.” Her voice trembled, and Felipe rushed toward the front door, as if he couldn’t stand being in the same space with her for one second longer.
She dialed, and a long pause filled the phone’s speaker between rings.
“Yellow, London residence.”
“Dad?”
Silence.
“Dad? Can you—”
“Annie!” His voice overlapped hers, and they began talking simultaneously, stopping and starting again. “Are you having a good time?” he asked. “Making a good impression?”
She turned toward the wall of crooked photos, her eyes too blurred with tears to make out any of the faces. “I don’t know. I—” She sagged against the wall. “I don’t think this is a good idea. I need to come home. What if something happens?”
“What’s going to happen? You’ll be fine.”
A whimper escaped Annie’s chest. “No, what if something happens to you? I’ll be all the way over here.” She waited for her plea to cross the gulf and hit her father’s ear.
“Listen, Ann. I’m fine. You’re not putting your dreams on hold again because your dad’s getting old.” His voice was a mash of sternness and warmth. The same one he had used when someone stole her bike in elementary school. When her beloved pet guinea pig died. When her appendix ruptured junior year of high school.
“You’re really feeling okay? Tell me the truth. Are you remembering your meds? Weighing yourself?”
“Yes. Every day.”
“I still think I should come home.”
“Why?”
/>
“The doctor, Marisol’s brother, I don’t think he likes me very much.”
“Felipe? Why would you think that?” He coughed, and Annie’s heart cracked.
“Just a feeling.” She straightened, and a drop of sweat rolled down her chest. “I need a great letter of recommendation. It’s dumb to spend an entire month here if I can’t get it.”
“Annie,” he sighed, “it’s dumb to turn down the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“I think I already blew it.” Static cut through their connection.
“What was that? Annie? You there?” Concern climbed her father’s voice.
“I’m here.” She sighed through the words.
“If you want to get into Brown, you have to stand out. Learn everything you can. Observe every procedure. Ask questions and write down all the answers. When you get home and work on your essays, you’ll have it all right there in front of you. Brown’ll be knocking on our door, begging for you.”
“Learn everything. Write it down.” She fiddled with the end of the antenna.
“Exactly. And, Annie?” She waited through the beat of silence until he spoke again. “I’m proud of you. You’ll be glad you did this. I promise.”
• • •
Felipe stood on the sparse front lawn, unfolding the last leg of Ahora’s long banquet table. A giant, pale hand appeared in front of his face. “Let me give you a hand with that, bro.” The voice stretched the words, running the vowels together in a way that made Felipe’s brain ache.
The American poster boy looked like a life-sized replica of the Ken doll Marisol was so attached to as a kid. Some tourist had given it to her, a hand-me-down from a box of toys their own child had outgrown. When she was eleven, she took it everywhere.
“You must be Phillip.” Felipe put on his most formal English.
“Did you recognize me? You must have recognized me. Even all the way out here. The Internet age, man. The Internet age!” His hyper-white teeth glowed.
Felipe assumed his ability to understand was being impeded by the man’s drawling accent. “Can you lift that side?” He pointed to the opposite end of the table.
