by Amanda Heger
“I guess I can forgive you then.” She gave him that smile. The one that made her nose crinkle and the gold flecks in her eyes glow. He took a bite of the roll, the warm, buttery dough falling apart on his tongue.
“It’s so good, right?” Annie asked. “Or maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten anything besides rice and beans in almost three weeks.”
He nodded and took another bite. “Here.” Felipe handed her the other half, more interested in the way her eyelids fluttered closed as she took a bite than eating more himself.
“Hey man, Juan said to tell you that if you aren’t outside in, like, five minutos he’s going to start singing that song again.” Phillip stood in the doorway, his face twisted into a grimace. “Please don’t—”
“Okay, okay. Tell him I am coming.” Felipe stood and pulled Annie next to him as Phillip strolled outside. “Maybe I should take six minutos to torture Phillip a little, yes?”
“I don’t know.” She picked up the yoga mat and began rolling it. “I kind of feel bad for him. Last night after my class—”
Felipe pulled a fresh scrub shirt over his head. “Your class. How was it?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do.” He bent to kiss her, unable to stand the pout on her face. “What happened?”
“Well, for starters, I didn’t have anyone to help with my Spanish.” She gave him a pointed look. “And then everyone walked out. Just up and left. And I didn’t even get to the part with the plantain.”
“Well, you will have a rest from the class today.”
“But Marisol said we were doing the clinic this afternoon, as soon as we get to the next village. Are we behind schedule?”
He shouldered his backpack as Juan’s earsplitting ballad rushed in through the window. “We are coming, old man!” He turned to Annie and laced her fingers through his. “We are on time. But we will not do the class in this village.”
“Why? Because I messed up yesterday? I have some ideas on how to fix it. I worked on it all night.” She held out her journal. The edges were dirty and tattered from so much use. “And you’ll be there this time, right? So the Spanish won’t be as big of a problem.”
The smile dropped from his face. “This village…I do not know how to say exactly. They are more closed than the others. Especially to foreigners.”
“More closed?”
“They do not trust us as much as the others. We have not always been welcome here.”
“Oh.” She cocked her head to one side, and Felipe could see her mulling over the options. “And you don’t think they would like me to whip out my giant banana penis?”
“No.” He laughed imagining the horror on their faces. “You can practice taking blood pressures. I think Marisol would like help.”
“Really? But if they don’t want me…maybe I should stay behind the exam curtain with you.”
He raised one eyebrow, and his mouth spread into a smirk. “Annie, I do not think the clinics are the time for—”
She shook her head and swatted him. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I think it is fine,” he said. “Follow Marisol’s lead. But do not ask many questions. Take the blood pressures and write them down on the cards. Then send the people to me, yes?”
She nodded.
“And later…” He smacked her curvy, perfect butt with a handful of paperwork.
Juan’s singing reached new, horrendous heights as he stepped into the doorway. He’d found some substance to curl the ends of his mustache up toward his cheeks. It made him look like a pot-bellied circus master. Marisol stood beside him, one hand on her hip.
“We are right here,” Felipe shouted. The singing died, leaving his ears ringing with the echo.
“You cannot do the blood pressures if you two do not hurry. We will miss the clinic.” Marisol tapped her foot to the beat of Juan’s now-dead song.
“How did you know I was going to take blood pressure?” Annie asked.
“Windows, mi Anita.” She laughed then shuddered. “Knowing my brother is trying to seduce you is one thing. But hearing it as it is happening is much worse. He is not even good at it.”
He rolled his eyes, enjoying the payback. He’d listened to his sister seduce guy after guy since she was thirteen.
“Mari,” Annie wiped her sweaty forehead on her shirt sleeve, then glanced over her shoulder at Felipe, “he’s really good at it. Like really, really good at it.”
Felipe stood in the doorway, grinning and trying not to look like he was thinking about tearing Annie’s clothes off. She and Marisol walked into the morning mist and melted into the blur of bodies and supply packs waiting for him at the river bank.
Juan poked him in the back with his finger. “Next time I will get out the hose.”
• • •
After an endless day of perfecting her blood pressure reading skills, Annie dug into a bowl of rice and beans. She swiped bites of bread from the roll perched atop Felipe’s plate. He put up a flimsy protest, but every time she pinched off another piece, he touched her. A nudge with his shoulder. A hand on hers, trying to steal it back and never succeeding. By the time she put one piece into her mouth, she was already planning the next theft.
Dusk rolled in, and their host, a middle-aged man with a perpetually red face, tended the bonfire in his backyard. Annie inhaled the scent of burning wood as the flames popped and hissed around them.
“Where is everyone?” Phillip asked, pulling Annie from her daze.
“What do you mean?” Marisol held her fork halfway to her mouth, and a bean tumbled onto her lap.
“Usually we have a crowd,” Phillip said. “Like we’re a traveling circus.”
“Some will come.” Marisol turned toward the red-faced man and shot off a barrage of Spanish.
He disappeared inside his round hut and came back with a decrepit guitar. Felipe gave Annie the last of his roll and traded his plate for the instrument. He tuned the guitar, smiling at her every few seconds. “Mira. Watch. You will get to see my fan club soon.”
He strummed a few chords and nodded as a few bright faces poked out from the darkness. They were mostly children, with wide eyes, creeping out from their hiding places, as if drawn by the notes. But a few adults followed too, all women.
“Whoa,” Phillip muttered. “I have to learn to play the guitar.”
The miniature crowd closed in around Felipe and Marisol. Annie found herself being pushed further from the fire as the children scooted between, clapping and clamoring for his attention. She moved away, happy not to be the center of their curiosity for once.
Phillip plopped down beside her as a tiny girl appeared at the edge of the crowd. The hem of the girl’s pink and white polka-dotted dress brushed against Annie’s legs, and the child’s crooked bangs hung into her eyes. Annie lifted a hand and waved, but the girl ducked behind her curtain of chocolate hair.
“¿Cómo te llamas?” Annie asked. The girl didn’t answer. She slid into Annie’s lap, her middle two fingers in her mouth.
“Rosa. Ella es Rosa,” a tall boy said, sitting beside them.
The girl snuggled into Annie’s chest, humming as they listened to Felipe strum the guitar. Marisol sang in dewy, rolling Spanish, and Annie lost all track of time, listening to her friend’s fierce and quiet voice. She’d forgotten how beautifully Marisol could sing.
Over the child’s head, Annie glanced at Phillip. The way he stared at Marisol almost made Annie feel sorry for him. Total goner.
The songs varied between upbeat, choppy tunes that had every child singing and shaking to slow, quiet songs showcasing Marisol’s low, soulful voice. Juan joined in, offering a bass line, and Annie could barely hold back her shock. Based on his spine-cracking performance that morning, she’d assumed he was one hundred thirty percent tone-deaf.
“What are you and Felipe gonna do when you leave?” Phillip asked as the music flowed through the yard.
“What do you mean?” She shifte
d Rosa, trying to regain feeling in her left arm and put off thinking about the question for a few precious seconds.
He shrugged, staring at the flickering fire. “Like with Marisol. At first it was this crazy, primal, sexual thing, but now…” His voice faded as they both watched Marisol sing and dance with a boy in the front row. Even though he looked to be all of ten years old, Annie could tell he was smitten with her friend. Almost as much as the blond, ex-reality star sitting beside her.
“I’m trying not to think about it.” Annie ignored the lump in her throat. She rocked Rosa, wondering if she should tell Phillip about Marisol’s parade of admirers. Wondering if she should tell him not to count on a relationship with her friend. As far as Annie knew, Marisol’s longest actual relationship had lasted three months. And it only lasted that long because her boyfriend had mono and was absent from school for two-thirds of their relationship.
Felipe bent over the guitar. He mouthed the words as he played, and the way his fingers worked the strings made Annie flush. Before long she wasn’t thinking about home or leaving or Marisol.
The music died out as the fire dwindled and the villagers drifted home. Soon, the only remaining guest was Rosa, out cold against Annie’s chest. Their host gestured toward the girl and shook his head, muttering.
“Sorry, what? I mean, no entiendo,” Annie said.
“Rosa’s parents live across the street.” The guitar strap still hung over Felipe’s shoulder as he sat. “He will take her home.”
The girl’s little brown fingers curled under her chin. “Can I take her home?” Annie asked.
A deep wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows. “They are not kind people, Annie.”
“I’ll be okay.” She stood and shifted the girl’s weight to her hip. Rosa stirred and her eyelids fluttered, but she settled back into sleep. “You can come with me?” Annie pulled in her lips, hoping he read the words between her words. And we can sneak into the woods to make out.
“Ah, sí.” He lifted an eyebrow and pulled the guitar strap over his head. “Vamos.” He put a hand on the small of her back and led her down a windy path between the houses.
His flashlight illuminated the ground in front of them, and Annie’s entire body hummed with his touch. Charged silence stretched between them, and her eyes kept drifting to his profile—his high cheekbones and the slope of his nose, a touch too long for his otherwise perfect face. And for once, she completely understood Marisol’s live-in-the-moment, let’s-get-drunk-and-get-it-on life philosophy. Because all Annie could think about was sneaking into the woods and ripping off Felipe’s clothes.
“It is this one,” he said when they reached a slight, narrow house at the end of the path.
He shined a flashlight in a darkened window, and before they could knock, the door swung open. A woman scowled at them, her face hard and streaked with lines. The blue fabric of her long dress shifted in the night breeze. Behind her, a disheveled man in a red t-shirt and briefs stumbled into view, a scuffed bottle in hand. He gave them all a toothless smile and slid into one of the chairs. Eyelids drooping, he called out, but his words were so slurred, Annie was certain she wouldn’t understand them even if they’d been in perfect English.
“Buenas,” Annie said, her heart stuttering. “¿Su hija?”
The woman pulled Rosa away and slammed the door, never uttering a word.
Annie’s arms hung slack at her sides. She wondered how many of her belongings would need to stay behind to smuggle the girl home inside her suitcase.
Felipe slipped his hand in hers and tugged. “Come.”
She took a deep breath and nodded, but a loud thwack rooted her feet to the ground. Rosa’s wail sent Annie’s stomach plummeting to her knees. Another thwack.
She thumped on the door with the heel of her hand. “Hey. Hey!”
Another thwack, louder this time. A hand clamped on her arm and pulled her away from the door. She swung around to Felipe. “What are you doing? Aren’t you hearing this?” Her blood rushed by her ears.
“Annie, we need to go.”
“You’re kidding, right?” She turned away and pounded again.
He held her close, pinning her arms at her sides. “This isn’t helping,” he whispered.
She struggled, spinning to face him. “You need to call the police.”
“Annie, there are no police here.”
The door swung open, and Rosa’s father lumbered out to them, slurring.”
Annie shook as she stepped around him, stumbling into the house. She had to find Rosa. Had to. She wouldn’t leave until she pried the sweet little girl from this poor excuse of a family. Anger built in a hard ball inside of her, growing so fast and so large it splintered and worked its way into every muscle.
Rosa lay on the floor. Silent sobs shook her petite body as a hand-shaped welt swelled on her cheek. Annie pushed past the girl’s mother and swung Rosa over her hip. “Let’s go.” She expected Felipe to appear at her side and usher them away from these sick sons of bitches.
He pried the girl from her hands. “Annie, you cannot do this.”
Rosa’s father bumbled toward them, shouting and slurring and spitting curse words even Annie recognized.
Felipe set Rosa in front of the man and lifted his palms. “Annie, get out of here.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Rosa’s mother sat on the floor, her blue dress fanning out around her. Annie wasn’t certain how the woman had ended up there—if Annie had pushed her to the floor in desperation to pick up Rosa or if she’d collapsed there amidst the chaos. But now she stared at the ceiling, silent.
Rosa scrambled over to the woman and buried her snot-streaked face in her mother’s chest. The woman made no effort to comfort the child, and hot tears spilled down Annie’s cheeks, leaking her fury and confusion and sadness across her face.
“Annie, I said to leave.” Felipe’s words came between clenched teeth.
“Are you serious right now?” She threw her hands up and wiped her nose on the hem of her shirt, trying to keep her voice from sprinting into hysterics.
“Leave.”
• • •
Felipe heard the thunk of the man’s fist smashing his shoulder before he felt it. Everything was numbed by his anger. He stumbled but gathered himself up, shoving the drunk’s chest. The man was so borracho it took nothing to tip him over.
He stormed toward the door, but Rosa’s cry was still fresh in his mind, and the things the man had threatened to do to Annie had him in a rage. He spun and snarled in the doorway. “You are disgusting,” he spat in jagged Spanish. Outside, he jogged through the dark as a streak of lightning sliced through the sky. He whipped his flashlight from side to side, scouring the area for Annie’s outline. But she was nowhere.
Please be at the house.
He moved faster, sprinting and looking over his shoulder every few steps. Once, he was certain the drunk was following him, but when he wheeled his flashlight around, there was nothing. He made it to the cooling bonfire, and Annie’s hiccups and whimpers rang out as she told the story to Marisol and Juan.
“They’re horrible. And we left her there. Left her!”
“It is okay. Shhh.” Marisol stared at him, her eyes searing holes into his. “You are okay?” she mouthed.
Felipe nodded and slumped over, wheezing and shaking as the adrenaline left his body. He’d gotten so caught up in Annie that his common sense had disappeared. He should have known better than to let her go to that house. Known better than to ignore their host’s warnings. And now they were all paying the price.
The shuffling of feet on damp earth sent him jolting upright, muscles wound tight and heart thudding in his ears. Someone clicked on a flashlight.
Rosa’s father stood where the yard met the trail, leering. The light reflected off the spittle on his chin, and in his left hand he clutched a broken bottle.
Felipe’s voice cracked. “Inside. Dentro.” He tried not to show his fear as Marisol ushered Annie and Phil
lip inside the hut.
Juan stood next to Felipe, and they watched as the man took one step toward them. Juan pulled out his machete, and the drunk tripped over his own bare feet. The girl’s father scrambled backward, slicing his palm on the bottle. It took two tries before he made it up on swaying legs, the bloody shard of glass forgotten on the ground. The man spat and sneered, then turned toward home as if nothing had ever happened.
“We will leave in the morning,” Juan said, tucking the long knife into the holster at his hip. “Sunrise.”
Felipe nodded. Both men turned toward the house, but the tumbling rush of footsteps came again. The child’s father lurched forward, running and falling, running and falling until he was within striking distance. He swatted and swung, and Juan put his hand on the machete. Felipe’s legs and arms were heavy and slow, but he worked his way to the left, drawing the furious borracho away from the house.
The door swung open, and Marisol stepped out. Marco’s confiscated rifle trembled in her hands. “Leave us. Leave us!” Each time she repeated the phrase, her words filled with more fervor.
The lush raised his hands and stumbled backward, catching himself a moment before he tumbled into the remains of the fire. Cursing and spitting, he threw the first thing he found into the dying flames before bumbling off into the night.
Felipe ran to the fire and tried to rescue the sex ed supplies, but with new fuel, the fire grew, engulfing it all. The fuzzy uterus shriveled and turned to ash as the furious orange flames lapped at his feet. He raised his eyes from the fire to find a gathering crowd.
“Do not ever come back!”
“You are a disgrace!”
“Please do not go. My baby is sick!”
Shouts came from all sides. The mass of people closed in around them, turning the air hot and furious. Felipe grabbed the supply bags, tossed a few to Juan, and they jogged into the hut with Marisol. Their host shoved a heavy log against the door.
Phillip blinded Felipe with a flashlight, and chaos erupted. Felipe cursed and dropped the bags. Marisol forced Phillip’s light to the ground, and eventually the shouts from outside faded. In the corner, Annie sat with her arms folded across her chest.
