by Amanda Heger
He kept singing as he shook his hands dry, but between beats he leaned in behind her. “Interesante.” His breath cooled the sweat on her neck, and a chill rolled down her back.
Annie looked at the bra in her hands. A pink lacy thing she’d thrown in her luggage at the last minute, which now seemed like both her stupidest and best idea ever. Her stomach fluttered, and her skin flashed hot as she remembered the way his fingers had crept up her ribcage the day before. She glanced behind her to the throng of eager children watching their every move.
“I will distract them.” He tossed a blue soccer ball over the fence and followed with his body, smiling at her over his shoulder. The kids fanned out, breaking themselves into teams as she scrubbed.
• • •
The kids protested and shook their tiny fists at him, but Felipe picked up his ball and declared the game a tie. He hopped over the fence and wiped the sweat from his face as the crowd dissipated.
Annie pulled clothes from the laundry line. “It sounds like they want to keep playing.” She reached for a pair of shorts, and he ran a hand down her side.
“I promised them a rematch tomorrow.” His mind zeroed in on the way her hips shifted beneath his hands. It reminded him of how they’d arched to press against him yesterday, and he wondered if anyone would notice if he snuck her back to their temporary living quarters to explore them some more.
“Annie! Annie!” Three lanky boys stood at the fence, still sweaty from the soccer game.
She waved to them as she stacked a pair of shorts on top of her other clothes.
“You have novios.” Felipe chuckled.
Annie smiled and shook her head at him. The freckles on her nose scrunched with the movement, and he found himself following her to the fence, where the boys dangled their arms and legs through the gaps.
“Annie. I am Leonardo,” the tallest one said. His hair fell over one eye, and he pushed it away every few seconds.
“Hola, Leonardo.” Annie shook the hand he stuck through the posts. “¿Cuántos años tienes?”
The boy told Annie he was sixteen, but Felipe knew Leonardo was thirteen. He raised an eyebrow but didn’t out the kid. Annie’s smile was wide and welcoming, and her shorts showed off her smooth legs. Felipe couldn’t blame Leonardo for trying.
“Brothers?” Annie asked, pointing at the threesome. Their heads bobbed, quick and eager.
“You get brothers?” Leonardo asked. His gangly limbs hung through the slats in a comedic mix of awkwardness and machismo.
Annie shook her head. “How do I say I am an only child?”
Felipe told her, and when the boys overheard, their eyes bloomed. Hands fluttered and weaved in and out of the fence as their flurried words moved between broken English and fluid Spanish.
“That is unusual here,” Felipe said.
Annie smiled. She stood with her hands wrapped around the fence posts, talking to the boys. They pelted her with questions, some in Spanish, some in their rudimentary English. Sometimes Annie understood and answered. Sometimes he translated, wishing they would leave so he could have her to himself. The boys wanted to know her parents’ names. John and Linda. Her birthday. February third. Her favorite color. Purple. Whether she liked Shakira. Who doesn’t? Felipe wanted to know all those things too, so he didn’t send them away.
“¿Le gusta melocotón?” Leonardo asked.
She twisted her mouth in concentration. “¿Melocotón?”
“I think you call this star fruit.”
“No sé,” she told Leonardo.
The boy scrambled up the fence. At the top, Leonardo’s arms gave out, nearly impaling him on the sharp edges. He fell to the ground, brushed his pants leg off, and tried again. This time he made it over on wobbling arms. The boy pulled himself up tall, and Felipe and Annie parted to make room for his teenage ego.
“¿Vamos? ¿El árbol de melocotón?” The kid bounced on his toes.
“There is a star fruit tree near his house. He wants to take you there.” Felipe translated, praying she would say no. The trip would leave him no time to pin her against the laundry sink and run his hands along every part of her.
“Is that okay? I mean, can I leave my clothes here?”
“Sí,” he sighed. “We will be back. I promised my aunt we will stay for dinner.” Leonardo watched them from beneath his shaggy hair. “Vamos,” Felipe told the kid.
Leonardo looped Annie’s arm through his, and Felipe fell in step behind them. The boy led them out of the gate, where his brothers waited. Together, they left the dirt road and headed into a maze of stilted houses, drawing a few stares as they went.
They arrived at the tall, slim tree, and Leonardo dropped Annie’s arm. He circled the tree, and under his feet the grass was worn thin and brown. Around them, small shacks dotted the landscape, and the thin cover of the tree split the searing hot rays of sun. After two complete loops, the boy chose a spot and snaked up the trunk. His long legs and bare feet gripped the bark, and he yelled to Annie, asking if she could see him. She shielded her eyes as she watched, shouting encouragement in halting Spanish. The other boys called out, guiding Leonardo to the closest fruits.
“I think he is too young for you.” Felipe elbowed Annie in the ribs.
She twisted her mouth in a perfect impression of his sister. “A girl has got the needs.”
With a thud, Leonardo came down from the tree and walked toward them. His hands were raw from the climb, and he’d tucked the hem of his shirt into his collar, creating a pouch for his spoils.
“Look!” He untucked his shirt, revealing four of the yellow fruits. He handed the biggest, ripest one to Annie and the smallest to Felipe. His brothers swarmed, taking the last two and leaving him empty-handed. Leonardo yelled after them and waved his fist in the air, but they were already kicking up dirt on the way home.
“Here.” Felipe handed his to the boy, who accepted the fruit with a nod.
Leonardo nudged Annie. “Try. Try.”
“How do I eat it? Do we have to peel them?” Annie’s glance darted between them, then to the angular fruit in her hand.
“No. They do not have this in the store where you are from?”
Annie shrugged. “Maybe. I’m more of berry kind of girl.”
“Berry?”
“You know. Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, mulberries. Pretty much anything you can put in a pie.”
Leonardo coughed. “Try, try.” He nudged Annie again, his features flashing from fascination to eagerness.
“Okay, okay.” She laughed and took a large bite from the middle of the star fruit. Juice pooled in the corners of her mouth and ran down her chin. “Muy bien. Muy, muy bien.”
Leonardo’s eyes widened at the sight.
“We must go. Try not to break his heart,” Felipe said.
Annie let out a stiff laugh, but her ears turned pink. She held out a hand to Leonardo—her intent to shake unmistakable. “Adios, amigo. Gracias por la…” she turned her face toward Felipe.
“Melocotón.”
“Melocotón,” she repeated.
Leonardo nodded, and his smile stretched the width of his face. He took Annie’s arm and insisted on chaperoning their walk home, rambling the entire way in stunted English.
• • •
They watched as Leonardo slipped through the gate toward home, looking over his shoulder every third step. When the boy was out of sight, Felipe pulled Annie in for a deep kiss, and she came utterly undone.
“How long until dinner?” she asked, her breath shallow.
He shrugged, kissing her again. It was softer this time, and she raked her hands along his chest. “Come on, Americana. I will give you the tour.”
Barbara bustled in her dark, boxy kitchen, buzzing between the refrigerator and table. Phillip darted around the tiny room with her, sporting a yellow apron over his t-shirt.
“What’s up, guys?” He held a wooden spoon. “Your aunt made me the sous chef. Cool, right? And she has a
refrigerator, even though the electric doesn’t work all the time. She keeps it cold with ice. And I’m not allowed to open it. Marisol’s extra insulin is in there.”
“Where’s Mari?” Annie asked, trying and failing to wrap her mind around Phillip dressed as June Cleaver. The scent of sweetness and cumin clung to the sticky air, growing stronger with every inhale. “What are you making? Smells fantastic.”
“It’s this giant banana thing.”
A warm, solid hand pressed against Annie’s back, the weight of its palm inching past the waistband of her shorts. Phillip’s words fell into a blur.
“Cool. Good luck with that.” She pulled Felipe out of the kitchen. He guided her toward a steep set of unfinished wooden stairs.
The top of the staircase opened to a balcony that looked down at the street. Homes climbed the rolling hills beyond the road, and on the horizon a single jagged tree climbed toward the setting sun.
“This is the porch.” Felipe gestured toward the long, narrow perch. But his eyes never left her face, and he trailed a finger down the length of her neck.
Her eyelids fluttered closed, and when she opened them, her gaze fell on a photo in an old wooden frame. The colors were faded, but there was no mistaking Felipe’s dimple, even with the toothless smile. Her feet halted and refused to move. “Is this your mother? Your biological mother, I mean?”
He nodded and ran his fingers along the frame.
She stepped closer. His mother was stunning. Her long, dark hair fell around her shoulders in shiny waves. She had Felipe’s earth-shattering smile with a hint of Marisol’s mischief. “She looks like you. Mari too.”
“Gracias.”
Annie kept her eyes on the photo but laced her fingers between his. “What happened to her?”
“Malaria.”
“I’m sorry.” She squeezed his hand and looked at him, trying to gauge his reaction.
Felipe pulled her into a rope hammock that stretched along the corner of the balcony. “It was a long time ago.”
Her breath caught at his expression, and the burn of tears washed up her throat.
“What is wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she leaned in to him, trying not to think of her own father’s health. At least she’d had twenty-one years with him. Probably a few more, if she was lucky. Felipe only had eight before his world crumpled.
“It is not nothing. I can see.” He pulled her toward him. The thick rope dug into her arms, and she settled in next to him. Her head fit snug against his shoulder, and the feather-thin cotton of his t-shirt caressed her cheek.
“My dad is sick,” she said. “Heart failure.”
“I am sorry.” He wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug, and his shoulder muffled Annie’s sniffling.
“Sorry,” she muttered, pulling back. “I didn’t mean to be such a Debbie Downer.”
“Debbie who?” His eyes narrowed.
She laughed through her tears. “Never mind.”
“Okay, Debbie. Do you want to see more on the grand tour?”
Annie shook her head and snuggled harder into his arms. “Later.”
The sun sank lower in the sky, and the town’s generator began humming seconds before the lights around them clicked on. Without a word, Felipe reached over Annie’s head and flipped them off.
“When will you apply for medical school?” he asked.
A rush of anxiety slithered into her chest. “When I get home. If I can come up with a good essay. My MCAT scores haven’t exactly been stellar.”
Beneath her Felipe shifted, and Annie glanced into his face. His cowlick was made worse by the weave of the hammock pushing against his hair, and his dark eyebrows were askew. It gave him a rumpled, just out of bed look that made her toes tingle.
“I am applying to a Master’s program. Public Health.” Frustration seeped into his features. “Or I am supposed to. My mother says I must have the degree before she will put me in charge of Ahora.”
“You want to be in charge?” She propped herself on her elbow to study him. To watch the way his full mouth worked around his words. To see which phrases brought out his full smile and which left him dimple-less.
Felipe nodded as fireflies flickered around them, lighting the sky. “But this is not what I want to discuss.” His hands inched up the bottom of her shirt, grazing her hip.
Annie raised her eyebrows. “What do you want to discuss?” She slipped her fingers beneath his shirt to trace his collarbone. “This?” She traced an imaginary line from his shoulder to his jaw. “This?” She lowered her forehead and let her lips flutter against his. “This?”
He tugged her closer and pulled her bottom lip between his. “Nada.”
Day Fifteen
At first it was only Leonardo and his brothers begging her to play.
“Annie!” The boy’s face had popped up in the open window of the maternity home the second she and Marisol returned. “Come outside. ¿Play fútbol?”
Every bone in her body ached with exhaustion. She’d spent the last eight hours following Marisol from house to house as her friend checked in on elderly patients and caught up on local gossip. But the boy’s expression was too bright and eager for Annie to say no.
She left Marisol and wandered into the evening heat. The sky glowed pink and orange, giving her some reprieve from the sun’s beating rays. Soon it would be dark, and the lights in the town would flick on for a few precious hours. Once ten o'clock rolled around, they'd all be plunged into darkness until morning.
The boys drew lines in the rutted dirt road and divided themselves into two teams—or rather, Leonardo claimed Annie as his teammate and forced his brothers together. But within minutes, five or six more kids jumped into the mix. Then a few more. Before long, it seemed every child in Sahsa had converged on the soccer game. The teams and the rules were informal, and after a half hour of playing Annie drooped under a layer of sweat.
Felipe appeared as a mass of laughing kids moved down the makeshift field, leaving her behind to guard the goal. "Who's winning?" he asked.
It was the first time she'd seen him all day, not that she hadn't spent half the day thinking about him. The kisses. The touches. The way his teeth nipped her earlobe as they'd swung in the hammock the night before. "I have no idea. I just stand here, and anytime the ball comes this way I kick it back the other way."
The children ran toward them, the ball flying in front. Felipe dove into the mix, stealing the ball and driving it toward the other end of the field. The younger kids squealed and laughed, but the older ones tore after him, intent on taking back their command of the game.
She watched from the goal, her legs too full of cement to chase after them. The game spanned the width of the road, blocking any would-be traffic from crossing one end of Sahsa to the other. But so far, no cars had come through.
“Annie, mira.” Leonardo’s voice rang out over the sounds of the game, and he waved to her from across the street. It was the third time in the last ten minutes he’d insisted she watch him. Each time he sprinted down the street and made a desperate grab for the ball. The kid was all sharp angles and uncoordinated bouncing, and he never managed to connect his foot with the ball.
“At least he’s persistent.” She waved back, and he took off. Dust and flecks of mud flew up behind him, and Leonardo drew his foot back and kicked, completely missing the ball. Just like every other time. But this time, the crowd imploded as he hit the ground, taking out a handful of kids with him.
Annie ran toward them, expecting tear-streaked faces and bloody knees. But everyone seemed fine, laughing and shoving one another. Except Leonardo.
His lay on his side, knees curled into this chest, moaning. Felipe knelt beside him, talking in low Spanish she couldn’t understand.
“Is he okay?” It was a dumb question. Clearly he wasn’t okay. “I mean—”
“Help me get him inside,” Felipe said.
Together, they unraveled the boy and got him to his feet. Eve
n with a coat of dirt and sweat caking his shirt, it was obvious something wasn’t right. His left shoulder was higher than the right, and he kept his arm plastered to his chest, unmoving.
“Do you think something’s broken?” Annie asked as they made their way into the empty maternity home. She eased Leonardo onto the nearest bed.
Felipe rolled up the boy’s shirt sleeve. “Dislocated.”
Annie leaned in closer. Leonardo’s face was covered in beads of sweat, and a dozen tiny scrapes marked his elbow. A deep rivet sank into his skin just below the shoulder. “What are you going to do?” she asked. She fought the urge to touch it, to press her finger against his skin and feel for the out-of-place bone she knew was missing from the space.
Leonardo and Felipe began talking then, so quickly that Annie’s mind only translated every fifth word. Something about pain. Maybe corn?
“He said this happened before. Three months ago. His aunt pushed it back into place,” Felipe translated. He wrapped a piece of tape around the boy’s sleeve, keeping it rolled out of the way.
“Maybe it never got reset right?”
Felipe shrugged. “This happens one time, it happens many times. He will need to learn how to fix it himself.”
“Fix it himself?” Annie’s cheeks scrunched as she sat beside the boy. No one should have to reset their own dislocated shoulder. Especially a kid.
“Sí. Or his family can do it. But we will do it this time.” He pulled a supply bag out from beneath one of the beds and began digging.
“Annie can fix, yes?” Leonardo looked at her with wide, pleading brown eyes.
She started to tell him no. That she was just a college student from the suburbs, and that his shoulder looked angrier than her drunk uncle on New Year’s Eve.
“Sí. I mean yes, right?” She glanced at Felipe, trying to look brave. If this kid’s aunt could do it, she could too—especially with a doctor’s supervision. Plus, she’d delivered a baby a few days ago. What was a measly shoulder after that? Of course, that woman had done most of the work for the delivery. “Or, I can watch, if you—”
