Where the Sea Takes Me

by Heidi R. Kling

  “What do you want to drink?” she asked me.

  I looked around. I had borrowed a skin-tight blue dress from Amelie’s insanely organized closet, and wedge heels, and was definitely not the most dressed-up person in there.

  Waitresses lined up, a half dozen, approaching one at a time.

  “Sienna. What are you getting?”

  “What? Sorry. Um, I’m not sure yet.”

  “You can order at the bar.”

  “Anything?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been ordering since I was fourteen.”

  “Oh. Cool,” I said. I’d never ordered a drink at the bar. I wasn’t a fake ID kind of girl. “I’ll just have whatever you’re having.”

  The lights dimmed and a group of guys at the table next to us got up to sing a Bruce Springsteen song, which was entertainingly bad. Our drinks arrived. It was hot in there. Steaming. We slurped our drinks down.

  I asked Amelie about her tribal-looking tattoo.

  “It’s a zebra shark. They’ve been mostly farmed out.”

  “Why did you choose it?”

  “Let’s just say I have a specific empathy for the beautiful hunted.”

  She lit a cigarette and sucked on it. I noticed her foot tapping anxiously on the floor.

  “Sharks are always on the move; that’s how you have to be. Be like a shark, keep moving forward. You stop and that’s when they get you.” She inhaled deeply, tugging on the cigarette. She reminded me of Deni in the orphanage. A caged tiger about to go rogue.

  “Why do you always want to keep running?”

  She took a deep breath and leaned back against the pink booth. “My mother wasn’t royalty. I made that up. Sorry.”

  “Okay? I did think it was sort of…odd. Why did you lie?”

  She sighed. “It’s a lie I’ve told for years and years at my private schools because the truth is too hard for most to handle.”

  I nodded again, anxious to hear her truth. “I’m not mad.”

  She shrugged an apology. “My mother was from one of those villages, one of the villages where they take the girls. She was from such a poor family that when they came for her youngest daughter, the most beautiful, the most fragile, she had four more mouths to feed, you know? She let them have her but with one condition…”

  She glanced at me over the table, seeing if I could handle her real backstory. This was going to be bad. “What condition?”

  “That he’d take the older daughter, too, to look after her. He wondered about her eyes. They didn’t look like her sisters. But in the end, he thought they might be exotic and took her, too. She went along to watch her sister but planned her escape from the moment she left.

  “At a rest stop, the girl managed to escape from the back of a truck when the man was getting gas, but he came back when she was picking the lock to let the other girls go. She couldn’t save anyone else. She’s been looking for them ever since.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Up near Angkor Watt. The man travels on the junk boats and keeps the girls on one of the floating cities out there where they are sold. On the weekends, I look for them.”

  “The older girl, the one who escaped, that was you.”

  She didn’t confirm the obvious. “I found my real dad. That’s Hunt. He didn’t even know I existed. He met my mom in a bar and out of shame she never told anyone a white man fathered me. In the city, I learned English and French. Hunt sent me to boarding school in Australia.”

  “That explains your accent.” And slang. And excellent English.

  “Yes, and I got the job in his clinic after I graduated. Not a day goes by where I don’t feel guilty. Not a day goes by when I don’t feel like it should be me in the back of the van. It’s horrifying to think about what she must have gone through. Is still going through.” Breaking eye contact with me, she stared at the guys singing karaoke.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  She tapped the tribal zebra shark on her arm hard. It had a Norwegian shape, all white space and angles. “Never stop moving until you find what you’re looking for.”

  I took in the scene. The music vibrated through our booth, pulsed through me. “Are you worried he’ll find you?” I dared to ask.

  She lit another cigarette, sucking on it before meeting my eyes. “Every day,” she said. “So what about you. You must have a backstory to make you drawn to this work.”

  “My mom went missing over the Indian Ocean. In a small plane. I was convinced she was alive for years. It was only on my trip to Indonesia that I let her go.”

  “I’m sorry about your mom, but my sister is not dead. And I’m going to find her.”

  “Back at your apartment, when you asked if I really wanted to help, this is what you meant?”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded, understanding her. Understanding it all. We shared a quiet moment of understanding before a lighter smile teased her lips and she looked like a regular nineteen-year-old instead of a world-weary vigilante.

  “So, tell me more about Deni. Like what’s happening now?”

  “I don’t really know,” I said honestly.

  “You heard my backstory.” She tapped out her ashes in a turtle-shaped dish. “Part of it anyway. There are few things I wouldn’t believe. Try me.”

  True. There was nothing I could say that was as bad or as sad as Amelie’s story.

  I took a big sip of my drink, welcoming the warm buzz washing over me.

  I could be sitting at home on my roof arguing with Spider about toilet paper right now. Instead, I was in Cambodia, in a karaoke bar, about to confide in a stranger about my deepest feelings. “Well, two years ago my dad took me to Indonesia on a trip. Deni was orphaned after a tsunami, and he was just so…mesmerizing…I kind of followed him around and we circled each other, I mean, I thought about him every second, and we sort of, well…”

  I let her fill in the blanks.

  “OMG, you hooked up with him at an orphanage? Doesn’t that goes against, like, all the rules of this sort of work?” She lit a new cigarette, a slow smile on her face. “I knew I liked you. And you’re still, like, together?”

  Heat flushed my cheeks. Whoa. Too many blanks. “First of all, we didn’t hook up. Not like that. Second, no. I never thought I’d see him again.”

  I told her about Deni proposing, and how we found Rema the very next day, and then all the details of our heartbreaking goodbye. She leaned in, eyes steady on mine, her chin resting on her palms.

  “And that’s pretty much it. Now we are here. Traveling together again, but virtual strangers, really. I don’t know what will happen between us this trip.” I flushed again, thinking of us holding hands in the night. “I mean, there’s no way we can have a future together because of our circumstances, so maybe it’s better just to let it go.”

  The words coming out of my mouth tasted like a lie.

  But I said it.

  Maybe it was the vodka cranberries talking, or maybe it was something else. Maybe it was the cold truth I didn’t want to let myself think about. We’d finish up here, and then we’d say goodbye again.

  Deni would go back to his life, I’d go back to mine, and that would be that.

  My throat swelled with emotion, imagining a Deni-less life now that I’d found him again.

  I shrugged, trying to brush it off for now. The last thing I wanted was to ruin our night out. And thinking about saying goodbye to Deni again crushed me.

  “Let’s get another drink,” I said. “And then I want to sing.”

  “That’s the spirit.” She waved over the waitress, told her something in Khmer, and then added us to the karaoke list. “Sienna,” she said, her eyes flashing. “I’m going to tell you the straight-up truth.”

  “What?”

  “You’re lucky you feel so much. Embrace that and build around it. The rest will follow.”

  “But how?”

  “Because any fool can see he feels the same for you.”

  “Why do you th
ink that?”

  “How he looks at you, how he follows you around with that camera, how he totally blew me off when I hit on him…”

  “You hit on Deni?”

  “Of course! He’s a hot, interesting guy. I’m not dead inside, Sienna. I only look that way.” The waitress appeared and she took a sip from the straw. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know he was yours.”

  “And he…turned you down?”

  “Yes.”

  “He looked over at you in the pool, and I swear if a person looked at me like that, I might believe in love, too.”

  I took a sip of my drink and thought about Deni waiting for me back at the hotel. He wanted to hang out later. The thought of it sent ripples of joy down my spine.

  Our names appeared on the screen, and giggling, we climbed up to the stage. We chose a club version of the song “Only You” originally by a band called Yaz. They gave us two mics.

  About midway through the song, my eyes were pulled to the door. Standing in the doorway, squinting through the stage lights and over the crowded tables, was Deni.

  When we finished the song, we curtsied and I met him across the crowded tables.

  “Go,” Amelie whispered in my ear. “My other friends just arrived, it’s cool.”

  “Thanks.” I gave her a quick hug.

  She tapped her tattoo as Deni took my hand, and we slipped out into the hot night.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “How did you find me?”

  “I asked Hunt where Amelie liked to go.”

  “Savvy.”

  “Savvy?”

  “Clever.”

  “Ah. Yes. That is me. I did not want to interrupt, though. Are you sure you want to leave now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He grinned. “I want to show you something,” he said, my hand warm in his. We quietly breezed through the entrance of the hotel, through the hallway, until we reached a door. He pushed through it, and I followed him up several flights of stairs.

  The roof.

  “Did you know I have a thing for sneaking up on roofs?” I asked.

  “Maybe you mentioned it.”

  He led me to the edge to an amazing view—a wide expanse of city lights that danced like fireflies.

  I sat next to him, and even though we could fall several stories to our broken-neck deaths, I swung my legs. It was hot. Indonesia hot. “I haven’t felt heat like this since I was with you.”

  As soon as I said it, I realized the double meaning. His eyes met mine and we both laughed. I mean, obviously. “Amelie told me she hit on you.”

  “Hit on me?”

  He didn’t know the term. He was so damn cute. “Oh, like, she liked you and wanted to, you know…”

  “Ah, be with me?” He leaned in confidently.

  “Yes,” I laughed. “And she said you only had eyes for me.”

  He leaned in and tucked a swath of my hair behind my ear. “She is right.”

  I swallowed.

  “Amelie has a crazy story,” I said.

  “Most of us do,” he said.

  “I know.”

  I studied his jawline, his full lips lifting at the corners.

  “Remember when Amelie and Tom were talking about the junk boats and Angkor Watt?” I asked to keep from kissing him.

  “Yes.” His eyes were on my lips, too.

  “I want to do that,” I said.

  “When?”

  “How about this weekend?”

  “I’ll go where the river takes me.”

  I laughed. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  He put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head.

  “Rambut stroberi.”

  I slugged him playfully and he pulled me against his chest.

  Me and Deni in Phnom Penh overlooking the city at night.

  “You still haven’t told me about her,” I said into his beating heart.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Rema,” I added, hating to bring her up, but needing to. I couldn’t handle all the sexual tension between us until I knew. Why was Deni making this so hard?

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  Pulling his arm away, he leaned back on the roof’s asphalt on both palms. I sat upright and faced him directly. “Deni?” I pressed a little louder so he knew I meant it. Before we went any further, I needed to know. I was sick of wondering, of waiting.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is it…that bad?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Deni, I can’t lose you again.” My eyes swelled with tears. “I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad we’re together, but I can’t…do that again. I can’t do this”—intimacy, love, everything—“and then lose you again. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  He understood that much. That I knew.

  “Then please. Stop making me want more until you’re ready to be honest.”

  He watched me stand up and walk away from him. I slipped back down the stairs and into my cool-as-the-California-sea hotel room. I shut the door behind me and stood with my back to it as if I could hold everything harmful at bay.

  Amelie’s hunters.

  Deni’s secrets.

  Spider’s disappointed eyes.

  The shark tattoo.

  Amelie had the right idea: never stop moving.

  Chapter Twenty

  The next morning, I lagged in bed reading emails from home. I wasn’t ready to face Deni after what happened on the roof. We had a moment, and I sort of…bailed. But I had to protect myself. Protect my heart.

  I couldn’t have him and then lose him again.

  Catching up on emails seemed like a nice excuse to hide for a bit.

  Dear Sienna,

  Thanks for your nice note! I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself; I’m sure Sophany appreciates your help. Yes, Tom does know her from years ago. Your father knows her as well. She’s a wonderful woman and a fantastic doc. We are all well. Max misses you especially. Yesterday I caught him playing with his dinos in your room and acting out the two of you playing some game. He’ll be happy to see you when you return! See attached for the picture he drew for you.

  Be safe,

  Love,

  Vera

  PS. Here is an article about safety warnings.

  The article included warnings about SUVs kidnapping tourists. Great. Thanks, Vera.

  I got a nice one from Bev. Nothing from Spider.

  At least I didn’t have to wonder if he was still upset.

  Feeling a little glum, I got dressed and made it to breakfast. The others were fully engaged, eating already. Deni caught my eye, and I caught his back. He didn’t look mad; if anything, he looked concerned about me.

  Immediately, I felt better and offered up a little smile.

  He smiled back and nodded.

  For the moment, everything was okay again, so I regaled them with Vera’s warnings.

  They especially enjoyed the new character of MONSTER LEXUS SUVS above the law, honking at fluffy clouds and running over random pedestrians to prove a point. Tom had a good laugh and said he already knew about the Lexus SUVs. “Range Rovers are the new rage among the elite of Phnom Penh, so we should watch out.”

  Tom might laugh it off—he was a huge man who people generally didn’t mess with—but I made a point to not carry my bag around unless necessary. I wouldn’t walk around at night here alone.

  Our breakfast was a noodle soup. They were either rice noodles or ramen noodles in a clear broth with some meat and veggies. Yesterday we had grilled meat. I would’ve killed for a bowl of oatmeal. I picked at it and drank my iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk. Jasmine tea was always on the table and free.

  “Good thing Spider isn’t here. They’d serve him for breakfast,” Tom said.

  Tom looked still annoyed with his former surf buddy.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “He’d be a delicacy. Fried bugs of all different sorts are here. Spider
s to dung beetles and water bugs to grilled or fried snake, and get this, fertilized eggs that are cooked so the little chick is inside the egg!”

  My stomach churned, appetite gone.

  “And a very common snack is grilled snails,” he added.

  “Grilled snails? Es car don’t,” I grumbled.

  Deni laughed.

  “Where’s your sense of adventure, kid?”

  He flagged the server over and ordered something in Khmer.

  “Don’t, Tom. Ew. Please don’t do anything weird.”

  Sure enough, the server quickly returned with a cooked chick sitting inside an egg. He popped it into his mouth, swallowing it whole.

  “You just ate Tweety Bird.” I groaned. “You are a disgusting man.”

  Outside, rain streaked silver on the sides of the hotel. The gray sky boomed with thunder and bursts of light so intense they caused flash floods.

  Swim lessons were cancelled.

  Dr. Chhim texted Tom and suggested we enjoy our day instead. We hadn’t seen anything yet, and this country was chock-full of amazing vistas and locations waiting to be seen.

  Tom suggested we venture out into the storm to check out the wildlife center, which I told him was ironic seeing as how he just swallowed a baby chicken whole.

  “The comedy never stops flowing,” he retorted, rubbing his belly. “So you two up for it?”

  “Sure,” Deni said.

  Tom looked from me to Deni and back to me.

  “Maybe some time in a storm will cool off whatever bees are in your bonnet. Meet you in the lobby in T minus six minutes.”

  “What does he mean?” Deni asked me as Tom lumbered up the stairs.

  “Bees in your bonnet means whatever is bothering you. Like a bee—it’s a stinging insect—gets into your bonnet, which is an old-fashioned hat. I don’t know why he insists on using old clichés that no one knows, but he’s Tom. Go figure.”

  “Go figure?”

  “Oh shoot.” I grinned. “Now I’m guilty.”

  He grabbed my wrist and looked at me intently. “Sienna. Last night, I hope you are not too upset today.”

  “I’m…I’m okay, but I was sad. It’s just hard for me.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You do not need to be sorry,” he said. “And I do not want to cause you any sad.”