Without Borders

by Amanda Heger

  “Who is the pretty Americana?” the old woman whispered against his cheek.

  Felipe shook his head, suddenly aware that he’d never brought anyone but family on a visit to this place. “She is here for the brigade,” he said. He kissed Alma’s cheeks and placed his usual order, ignoring the questions in the woman’s raised eyebrows.

  They both turned to Annie, and she made an earnest attempt to order, rubbing her forehead between words. It wasn’t perfect, but she managed to ask for the chicken soup.

  “Good choice,” he said as Alma shuffled into the kitchen.

  Annie covered her face with her hands. “I can’t believe how horrible I sound.”

  Felipe chuckled, and she slouched further in her chair. “You are trying.” He reached across the table and pulled her hands away. His voice softened as his fingers tangled with hers. “That is better than most.”

  Her eyes darted away from him, and Felipe dropped her hands, his throat dry. He stood and scrambled behind the counter, desperate for something to soothe his nerves. He poked his head into the dim hallway. “Doña, dos Modelos,” he called out as he shoved aside the smudged glass doors of the refrigerator and plucked two amber beers from inside.

  Annie’s eyes were wide. “Is it okay? I mean, I don’t want to end up in Nicaraguan jail. Especially if it’s anything like Mexican jail.” She didn’t touch the beer he sat in front of her.

  Felipe took several long swigs of the fizzy liquid. “You have been in Mexican jail?”

  Annie’s cheeks pinked. “No, but you hear stuff sometimes.”

  “You know someone who has been in Mexican jail?”

  Now her cheeks were aflame, and from a distance it would be difficult to tell where her hair ended and her face began. “No, I guess I heard about it on TV.”

  Felipe pushed her beer closer to her tightly laced fingers. “A joke, Annie. You will not go to jail. Mexican or Nicaraguan. The owner is a friend.”

  “Oh.” She smiled. “Can I have a Coke instead? I don’t think I can handle alcohol right now.”

  He grabbed a soda from the cooler and shoved the unopened bottle inside the frigid air.

  “So you’re a doctor now?” she asked as he returned to his seat.

  “It does not take so long to become a doctor here,” he told her, cutting off the inevitable questions.

  “Do you like it?”

  Most everyone assumed he enjoyed being a doctor. And he did. But this wasn’t the job he wanted long-term, working under his mother’s direction, always scraping for funding and waiting on government grants. Ever since he first applied to medical school, Felipe had pictured himself in charge of Ahora. He wanted to turn their small, family-run practice into the most renowned rural medicine organization in the Western Hemisphere. He wanted to sit on advisory boards, directing funding and resources to the right places. He wanted to make Ahora self-sufficient, scrapping the need for American donations and their many attached strings. But his mother refused to turn over the reins to him, insisting he needed more experience and a public health degree to qualify for the job. And after the last brigade, she’d threatened to shut him out altogether if he couldn’t find a way to make peace with the poverty tourists and their crazy demands.

  The beer hadn’t loosened his lips enough to give voice to his dreams. “It has good moments and bad. More good.” He took another long swallow as their food arrived. “How do you feel about monos?”

  “Monkeys?” Annie held her spoon halfway to her lips, and gold broth dribbled from the edges. “I don’t think I want to eat one,” she said.

  He turned and jogged to the back, returning with a new distraction—a small, furry guest on a leash. The monkey sat in the chair between them, its face turned toward Annie.

  She looked between Felipe and the animal with wide eyes. “What’s his name?” she asked. “Is he friendly?”

  “Don Juan, and he is very friendly. Probably too friendly.” He held out a finger, and Don Juan grabbed on, offering a formal monkey handshake. Annie let out a full, throaty laugh that made Felipe’s pulse throb, and held her own finger out to the monkey. He shook it gingerly, then swiped a carrot right out of her bowl.

  Broth splashed everywhere, leaving a slosh of yellow across her shirt. A tense moment of silence crept by, but then Annie’s face flashed from shock to laughter. She pulled the last vegetables out of her bowl and offered them to the monkey. The furry beast gobbled the offering down in two bites and climbed straight into her lap, as if the two of them owned the place.

  Felipe leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Last year, Doña Alma took him from some kids across the street. They were tormenting him.”

  “Oh, you poor baby,” she cooed, stroking the animal’s head. “Did they hurt you?”

  “He had a broken leg. We set it,” he said. “But please do not tell my mother. She will be angry if she knows I used supplies on a mono.”

  Annie looked up from the monkey and smiled. “Our secret.”

  • • •

  As they exited the tiny restaurant, Annie didn’t feel the acute, empty pang of homesickness. She felt more relaxed than she had in days, maybe even weeks. For the first time since stepping off the plane, she thought she might actually survive this. Might actually enjoy this.

  Under the glow of a single dull street lamp, they walked toward Ahora, the ocean crashing against rocks in the distance. Muffled voices drifted from the barred windows of the buildings lining the street, and Annie squinted, trying to understand the rolling, rapid Spanish.

  “Thanks for dinner.” She stole glances at Felipe’s outline as she fell into step beside him.

  “De nada.”

  One house away from Ahora, the bellows of a heavy-lidded, gape-mouthed man broke the sound of the waves. “AMERICA!” He bumbled toward them like a zombie on steroids. “I LOVE WHITE WOMEN!”

  Annie froze, then continued walking straight ahead. She wouldn’t acknowledge him. Travel tips like this were listed in the yellow booklet they gave her at the student health center—on one of her five vaccination visits.

  Felipe pulled her close and yanked them both onto the front stoop. His hand paused against her shoulder as the man stumbled on past them “I am sorry. He was…”

  Under the dim porch light, she could see him searching for the right English word. A hint of his warm, spicy cologne drifted in the air. “¿Borracho?” she asked.

  “Ah! Your Spanish is already getting better.” He smiled, and Annie’s heart ended up somewhere between her tonsils and her collarbone. His fingers slid to her elbow, lingering there.

  The thudding in Annie’s ears made her own words seem far away. “I learned that one the other night.” She looked at her flip-flopped feet then at him. He still smiled at her, and her body moved forward another inch.

  “Annie!” Phillip’s voice popped the bubble around them as the door opened wide. “I’m so glad you’re back. I was going to give you the inside scoop on next season’s Barnyard.”

  Day Four

  Every time Felipe closed his eyes, the American man made another observation about their surroundings. By observation number three, he had no trouble understanding Phillip’s loose accent, with its long vowels and the extra r’s inserted into his words.

  “Isn’t this the rainy season?”

  “Sí.”

  “It hasn’t rained at all since I’ve been here.”

  “It will.” Felipe closed his eyes again, his limbs numb from the constant vibration of the truck bed. He never rode inside the cab—the bumps and curves of the dirt road combined with the recycled air inside turned his stomach to churning lead. Today, the nausea of the cab was beginning to seem like a viable alternative to Phillip’s company.

  “What will we do with the supplies if it rains?”

  “When it rains.”

  “Okay, but what do we do? My equipment can’t get wet.”

  Felipe opened one eye. Only a shred of blue showed through the green ceiling of leave
s. This time of year, spoonfuls of water pouring from the sky were usually the first sign of rain. “The packs are waterproof.”

  “Oh.”

  They hit a dip in the road, and Felipe’s body left the ridged bed. He came down hard on his tailbone and thumped on the window in protest.

  The glass slid open, and Marisol’s head poked out. “What?”

  “Remind Juan there are people back here, por favor.”

  She rolled her eyes and closed the window, disappearing behind the mud-speckled glass.

  “She’s a fox. She always go on these trips with you, bro? I wish—” Felipe’s glare cut him off. “Uh, sorry, man. Is that your girl? ’Cause, nicely done. Nicely done.”

  “Marisol is my sister.”

  “Really? You don’t look anything alike.”

  Felipe closed his eyes again.

  “So, is she single?”

  He shrugged. Marisol had a string of admirers lined up in Managua, and she moved from one to the next without much fanfare. Occasionally, she brought someone to the house they shared, but Felipe never saw the same guy twice. He didn’t ask. Some things were better left in the dark. Like his sister’s sex life. It belonged in the deep, unable-to-see-a-hand-in-front-of-your-face kind of dark.

  “Maybe she can nurse me back to health.”

  Felipe kept his eyes closed. “Are you sick?”

  “No, man. It’s like this thing in America. Sexy nurses are like a thing.”

  Felipe knew all about sexy nurses. The last was a willowy one named Slema. Things had fizzled out between them after a few dates, and they pretended not to know each other during the workday. It was awkward, but soon Felipe left for this brigade. Conveniently, he was always on the cusp of leaving for a brigade.

  When he returned, there would be a new crop of nurses at the Ahora clinic. They never stayed long, lured away by the promise of more money at the private hospitals. His clinic offered little in the way of money and a lot in the way of uncertainty and burn-out—one of the many things he wanted to change.

  “Uh, oh,” Phillip said.

  This got him to open an eye. A few dark spots dotted Phillip’s shoulders. A single drop hit Felipe’s face. Another his arm. The giant drops of a midday flash storm. Short, but bone-soaking.

  He pulled two thin, clear plastic ponchos from one of the many bags between them. “Here.” He tossed one to Phillip as the truck continued on, bumping and jerking across the uneven road.

  “I’ve got it.” The American tossed it back and dug in his own backpack.

  Felipe shrugged and pulled his head through the hole of his poncho as the drops grew heavier. When he looked up again, Phillip was covered from head to toe in thick, fluorescent yellow plastic. He’d even tugged on a pair of matching knee-high boots, transforming himself into a waterproof, human plantain.

  • • •

  Annie’s eyes popped open, shocked into consciousness by the echoes of a slamming door. She sat alone in the unmoving truck, the glorious air conditioning long gone. Outside, rain came down, turning the world hazy and unfinished. She ran a hand along one cheek, checking for the telltale signs of drool, when a flash of yellow appeared at the driver’s side. She crawled across the sticky bench seat, narrowly avoiding the gear shift, and cracked the window.

  “We’re stuck.” Phillip’s voice was nearly smothered by the pounding rain. He pushed a folded rectangle of plastic through the window. “You have to get out.”

  “What? Why?” Annie stared at the plastic—a clear poncho, the kind you bought at the dollar store. The ones that barely kept you dry in a light drizzle.

  “Less weight. Juan’s going to drive, and Felipe and I will push us out.”

  Annie turned the handle until the window closed, then pulled the rumpled plastic over her head. Through the foggy passenger side glass, the others waited under an overhang of trees, each covered in a layer of protective plastic.

  She scooted to her side of the cab. The numbers and letters on the gear shift were smudged and worn, probably from years of use. It was the only part of the truck’s interior that wasn’t immaculate. The pebble gray dash shined, dust free. Freshly vacuumed mats spread across the floor, and there wasn’t a single piece of trash to be found. It was a far cry from Annie’s car. No matter how often she cleaned, she always found at least two stray French fries stuffed in between the seats.

  Phillip pounded on the driver’s side, waving at her through the drops streaking the window. “Okay, okay. I’m coming,” she muttered, not bothering to roll the window down again. With a deep breath, she straightened her poncho and flung open the passenger door.

  Warm water pelted her body through the thin plastic, and the sound of rain smacking the earth rose up, deafening her. She swung her right leg out of the truck, ready to sprint toward the rest of the group. But her foot disappeared into a pool of cold muck, and the mud kept climbing, sucking her further into the pit. She slipped and slid along the edge of the vehicle as the rain pelted her eyes and cheeks.

  After a solid thirty seconds of cursing and tugging and sliding deeper into the sludge, Annie managed to steady herself, but the weight of the mud and the strange angle of her body kept her stuck—half in, half out of the truck and floundering in the raging monsoon. From across the mud pit, the others shouted at her, but she couldn’t understand them over the drumming of the rain and the thudding of her own heart.

  With a grunt, she yanked her leg upward, using the handle of the truck for leverage. The brown goop gave a little, and her foot came loose. With a second pull, it dangled free. The rain slowed, leaving her hanging from the open door. She stood perched on the doorframe, afraid to go inside. Afraid to coat the pristine truck interior with the thick, red-brown goop.

  “I tried to tell you to come out the driver’s side,” Phillip said. He stood at the edge of the mud hole, arms outstretched. “Jump. I’ll catch you. On Barnyard Boyfriend I won the bale toss. You know. You saw that episode, right?” He winked as he said it, and the memory of the episode flashed through her mind. Phillip caught twenty bales of hay in the span of thirty seconds, and when his potential girlfriend jumped from the loft, he caught her too.

  Beyond him, the others stayed in their line, watching in silence. Juan stared past her to the inside of his truck, and his expression became more pained with each glob of mud that fell from her clothes. Here goes nothing.

  She leapt, pushing herself off the ledge with every bit of force she could gather. It was only after both feet left the safety of the truck that Annie realized she hadn’t told Phillip she was about to jump. His hands slid past her waist as her chest slammed into his. She ricocheted off his body and flopped onto her back in the mud. His banana jacket covered her eyes and mouth as he fell on top of her, and his weight pushed her deeper into the slop.

  I’m going to drown in a mud hole in Nicaragua.

  Annie flailed her arms, searching for something solid. Fingers grabbed her slimy wrist, and Phillip rolled off her. Through mud-soaked eyelashes, she saw a shock of short, dark hair. She reached her other hand out; Felipe wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled.

  “Are you okay?” He stood in the overgrown puddle, mud climbing to his mid-calves.

  Annie started to say yes, or maybe no, but the taste of dirt filled her mouth. She shrugged.

  “I am going to pull and you stand, yes?”

  She nodded then clasped her fingers around his forearms. He yanked, and she stumbled straight into his chest. “Sorry.” She gripped the front of his poncho for balance and glanced up to find her lips an inch from his.

  “It is okay.” He put a hand on her low back, grazing the bare skin exposed by her tangled, muddy mess of a shirt.

  To her left, Phillip struggled like a turtle on its back. “Guys? I think I need some help over here.”

  Marisol waded into the pit after him, and Annie bit back her laughter. “Is this really happening?”

  “Sí. Now, push through the mud,” Felipe said. “Do
not lift your feet. Like this.” He let go of her and shuffled one hand against the other.

  It worked. Annie scooted the two feet, and he pulled her onto solid ground. Her clothes and hair hung heavy with mud, and the chaos left her poncho shredded.

  Felipe smiled and pulled at a tattered edge of the plastic. “You are trouble, Americana.” Even in her mud-soaked state, she couldn’t resist grinning at him.

  “You ride here now, yes?” Juan scooted between them and patted the truck bed. He marched to the driver’s side without waiting for her response.

  “What?” Annie looked to Felipe for translation.

  “Juan keeps the truck very clean.” He scraped the mud from his pants. “It is his obsession. Now you will have to ride with me.”

  Annie’s stomach curled in on itself. Growing up in the Midwest, she’d heard enough horror stories about people being thrown from the beds of pickup trucks to last two lifetimes. Maybe three. She knew she should protest and insist on riding somewhere with a seatbelt, but as she watched Felipe shove the truck out of the mud, a hint of his triceps peeked out from the sleeves of his shirt, and she forgot all her concerns.

  “We will go slowly.” Felipe pulled the latch on the gate and held out his hand. She took it, and he launched her into the damp truck bed. Mud squished between her toes, but when he sat beside her, Annie nearly forgot about the missing seatbelt and her inadvertent mud bath. With every bump in the road, the truck heaved, and Felipe’s shoulder pressed into hers. Her mind refused to focus on anything else.

  • • •

  As they approached the village, the spiked pochote trees thinned enough for Felipe to make out the shapes of houses along the riverbank, gnarled and leggy on their stilts. The sun reflected off metal roofs, and mud dried in a thick crust over his blue scrub pants. Annie sat next to him, slowly morphing into a mummified version of herself. Her hair was a clumpy, brown mat on her head, and she pulled hunks of caked, drying mud from her shirt. Phillip was in better shape. His banana suit offered some protection, and his clothes were only brown at the edges.