Now she’s laughing, her head thrown back. Her feet are bare, nut-brown except for a V-shaped flip-flop tan line. She has even more wooden rings on her fingers, and her toes glitter with silver. As I watch, she winds a turquoise Mayan scarf, endlessly long, around the wheat-colored bundle of her hair.
I glance down at my white skirt, my surf shop sandals. They seemed passably bohemian back in my hotel room. But here they look almost pretentious. Though it’s not as if anyone’s looking my way. My invisibility is a good thing, I decide. It means I can escape unnoticed.
As surreptitiously as possible, I edge around the room, toward the night and the lake and the safe, boring numbness of my Global Vagabonds companions on the other side. Five dollars is a bargain for the lesson learned, I tell myself.
“Hey! Where you going?”
Smiling innocently, I turn back.
The backpackers who surrounded the blond girl have dispersed. She’s staring at me with her head tipped to the side, the loose ends of her turquoise scarf draped over her shoulders like pigtail braids.
“Just …” I trail off.
“Come over here! I hate shouting.”
She pats the table beside her. Like a good little square, I obey, crossing the room and perching on the table. Up close, I notice a scar on her bottom lip. Probably the ghost of a piercing.
“Funny finding you here!” she says. “But the travel circuit’s small round these parts, I suppose. Where are all your buddies?”
I try not to scowl. “They’re not my buddies. And they’re back at our hotel in Panajachel.”
“Your hotel’s in Panajachel?”
I nod. “I just came here for dinner.”
“But the last boat to Panajachel left here at six-twenty.”
I sit very still.
“Wait,” I say. “That was my boat—I got here at six-twenty. Nobody told me it was the last one.”
“Did you ask?”
Mutely, I stare at her.
“Always, always ask! Don’t take anything for granted when you’re in another country. Especially when it comes to transportation.” She twirls the ends of her scarf dismissively, as if she didn’t just pull a Marcy and accuse me of being a travel moron. “Lucky for you, you’re in civilization, instead of somewhere out in the jaguar-infested jungles. Everyone who’s here is sleeping at the guesthouse. And I guess that means you too now. My name’s Starling, by the way. Starling West.”
“Starling? Really?”
“Yes, really. Wiseass. What’s yours?”
“Bria Sandoval.”
“Sandoval? Isn’t that Hispanic? My brother’s part Mexican. Do you speak Spanish?”
I shake my head. I’m sure she knows all sorts of Spanish herself. She’s probably fluent in eleven languages. Including indigenous Mayan.
“So how’d you end up here, Bria Sandoval? Did you read about this place in a guidebook? Lonely Planet, perhaps? Rough Guides? Or are you a Rick Steves type of girl?”
“I was invited,” I insist. “By the guy with a ponytail.”
“A ponytail?”
“But he’s not even here.” The lump in my throat returns, but this time it tastes like outrage. “Who does that, anyway? He knew I was staying in Panajachel.”
“The guy with the ponytail.”
“He was with you at the airport. He’s got really tanned skin, with a dragon tattoo on his—”
“Oh, Rowan!” Even as Starling touches my arm reassuringly, she looks delighted. “I should have known. This is just like him. Reformed troublemaker, my ass.”
“Are you saying this is a joke?” I think I can feel my brain start to simmer. “Like, a prank? It isn’t funny. It’s insanely screwed up!”
“That boy can be such a misanthrope. I thought he was done with pranking tourists—it must have been Jack’s influence. Five minutes with him, and Rowan’s getting into trouble again. I wish we weren’t meeting up in a week, but it’s not my decision.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about, so I just gape at her.
“Relax, girlfriend, we’ll get it all figured out. Here! Have my beer.” She pokes her Gallo into my fingers. “So let’s say Rowan misled you on purpose. What’s the big deal? You’ve got a place to stay. We’re good people, not savages. Even Rowan, for the most part.” She grins.
And then it dawns on me: she’s his girlfriend.
She has to be. My face turns hot. I mean, it’s not like he made any sort of move on me. And to be honest, he’s not even my type—he has a ponytail, for crying out loud. But I’m humiliated just the same.
“Hey, Rowan!” Starling yells at the top of her lungs.
I thunk the beer on the tabletop as the kitchen door swings open. Out steps the ponytailed guy from the market, that dark-haired demon, wearing a greasy apron over cargo pants. His chest and feet are bare. “Star, what the—” he begins. Then he sees me. “Holy shit, you made it!”
“How could you do this to me?”
Starling cracks up. “Whoa! Easy there, lioness.”
Rowan holds his spatula in front of his face like a shield and cautiously approaches our table.
“You knew I couldn’t have dinner here and get back to Panajachel tonight!” I shake the beer foam from my hand and stand, wishing my humble five foot two carried more clout. “So very funny, play a trick on a geeky girl. Fine. But did you ever think I might have a roommate, and no way to tell her I won’t be coming back tonight? She might be a stupid tourist, but that doesn’t mean her trip isn’t just as important as yours. Not to mention—”
“I don’t think you’re geeky,” Rowan says.
“That wasn’t the point!”
“Bria, honey,” Starling says, “why don’t you give your hotel a call? Or your group mother or whatever?” She waves her phone in my face. “You can use mine—it’s international. Hal’s got a directory at the bar.”
“But …,” I begin. “Oh.”
I accept the phone. Starling slides off the tabletop and follows me to the bar. “Hey,” she says. “Nice work there. Being concerned about your roommate, I mean, but also telling off Rowan. He really needs it from time to time.” She grins. “Maybe we should keep you around.”
I smile weakly, my head still throbbing from the force of my rant. Who knew I had it in me? If only I had the nerve to confront my parents like that. Or Toby.
Especially Toby.
Toby came to our school at the end of junior year. I remember exactly what Olivia said when she leaned over the lab table in second-period chemistry.
“There’s a new guy! Jessa says he’s hot.”
Hot new guys are always interesting, but I didn’t give too much weight to it, since Jessa Hanny’s and my ideas of hot differ significantly. She’s Olivia’s backup best friend when I’m hanging out with Reese. Once the four of us went out to lunch, and it was nuclear.
While Reese and I bonded as kids over a joint enthusiasm for arts and crafts—me the arts part, her the crafts—and double dates with our coworker moms, Olivia’s always been a different kind of friend: one who knows exactly how to coax out my edgy parts. Nobody else could have gotten me to sneak a Sprite bottle of vanilla vodka into homecoming (Olivia drank most of it herself), or to wear fake eyelashes, wedges, and a glittery halter top to Disneyland (I think I’m still blushing). And nobody could deliver news about a new guy like Olivia Luster, who always saved the best part for last.
“I hear he’s an artist,” she said.
Instantly, my stomach spiraled like a firecracker. She knew me well. I’d crushed, but never hard. I’d dated, but never seriously. When we joked about Bria’s Dream Guy, he always carried a paintbrush. I hadn’t even seen the new guy, and already it felt like he’d been casted just for me.
I didn’t have to wait long. Moments after I found my seat in Life Drawing, he came over and sat beside me. “Bria, right?”
“Right,” I said, kind of nervously.
“I’m Toby. I hear you’re the artist.”
“Mr. Chiang said you’re his best student. Where have you shown?”
“Excuse me?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. I’m an artist too. I’d love to see some of your stuff.”
I’d never been shy about sharing my drawings. But for some reason, this guy’s confidence intimidated me. “Only if you show me yours.”
His grin made my stomach free-fall. “Then it’s a date. It’s great to meet you, Bria.”
The next day, once I managed to pry a squealing Olivia from my wrist, I met Toby in the empty art room at lunch. We were both armed with sketchbooks. The same brand. The same size. But that’s where the similarities ended.
I looked first.
Maybe it was Toby’s grin that hooked me, but his drawings undid me. The detail. The dimension. City scenes I wanted to examine with a microscope. Landscapes. Portraits. And so many naked people I found myself blushing like crazy, even though usually I’m cool with that. They arched and twirled and stretched in a Cirque du Soleil of poses, dynamic enough to acrobat off the page.
“These are two-minute gestures,” Toby explained, motioning toward a page of figures better than I could draw in an hour. “From the academy.”
“The academy? You mean the Southern California Art Academy? You take classes there?” SCAA wasn’t my top choice for college, since I loathed the idea of sticking around the city where I’d grown up. But it was an excellent school, nationally ranked. It was where I’d seen the art school girl.
“Well, I just drop by for life drawing in the evening. It’s open to everyone. You should consider it—it’s really worthwhile to get in some time with a live model.” He grinned again, and I practically had to grab the sides of the table. “You know, they’re starting a fast-track competition for incoming freshmen next year. If you make it, you don’t have to deal with all the traditional lower-division bullshit.”
“Really? I—”
Toby reached for my sketchbook before I could finish my sentence.
I’d always thought of myself as a serious artist, but at that moment, I knew it was a crock. I’d only studied anatomy from the book my father gave me—never figure abstractions, or rhythms, or any real methodology. And my subject matter … oh God. You see, I liked to draw fairies. And angels. Woodland creatures. My cat, Athena, who has since passed away, may she rest in peace. Sea monsters. Elves. Cherubs looped with ivy.
The whimsical. The fantastic.
Maybe my drawings were good, but they certainly weren’t serious. You understand why, as Toby opened my sketchbook, I prayed to dissolve into a Wicked Witch puddle.
He didn’t speak as he flipped through the pages. I felt each tiny gust of wind like a slap. Then he paused at one drawing: a fairy, of which I’d been particularly proud. I’d studied swallowtail wings on the Internet, rendering the veins of color with my finest-tipped pens. “This one’s got some depth,” he said. “Androgyny, yeah?”
“Huh?”
“It’s not a hermaphrodite? Isn’t that a man’s head on a woman’s body?”
I stared at my drawing, horrified. “No! It’s not supposed to be. Maybe I made her jaw a little big, or her neck, but—”
“Oh no!” Toby exclaimed. “Aw, Bria, I’m sorry. It’s really nice. All of them are.” He handed my sketchbook back to me. “But if you want, I can show you a little bit about mannequinizing your figures. It really provides a framework for rendering three-dimensional mass. You have so much potential.”
It’s hard to find fault with comments like that.
Well, in retrospect, it’s not too hard. But Toby’s backhanded compliments were easy to disregard in the radiance of the months that followed—months spent poring over art books with crumbling covers, tramping Malibu Canyon to paint the views plein air, making out against the door of the art room closet, talking on the phone for hours instead of calling back Reese and Olivia. Sketching caricatures of other students. Sketching teachers in drag. Sketching our fantasy trip to Europe.
All summer long, Toby and I prepared our portfolios for SCAA’s fast-track admissions, swearing that whoever made it, whoever didn’t, we’d still attend the school together, no matter what (because naturally, we’d both be admitted the regular way). Even if the Southern California Art Academy wasn’t the East Coast atelier I’d dreamed about, the idea of attending art school with moody, intense, brilliant Toby Kelsey—the first person who I felt really got me, or at least the me I thought I wanted to be—was too good to be true.
And yet it was coming true.
We were planning it.
Some of my old sketchbooks—the ones I stashed under my bed right around the time art school acceptance letters arrived—held drawings of Bria’s Dream Guy. He wore tiny black glasses and Converse shoes, with that legendary paintbrush tucked behind his ear. Then there was his archnemesis, the Bad Guy. In a series of two-dimensional encounters, Bria’s Dream Guy rescued her from the Bad Guy—via surfboard, hang glider, and white stallion—paintbrush moonlighting as a sword.
Back then, I thought Mother Nature split the good guys from the bad with a fat black line.
But the thing is, in real life, they’re often the same guy.
In the kitchen, the backpackers circle a table piled with food. Scrambled tofu, fruit salad, tortillas marbled with black beans, barbecued ears of corn. Guatemalan food with flower child flair. Everything is vegetarian—though not vegan, Starling warns me, like I care.
Okay, so maybe I’ve misjudged these people. It’s hard to feel standoffish crammed shoulder to shoulder on picnic benches, eating with forks and fingers, while a red-haired Canadian guy strums David Bowie on a dented guitar. Several people get up and dance, hoisting their beers in the air. I laugh. And I eat. And I try not to think about how angry Marcy’s going to be when I get back to Panajachel tomorrow morning, despite the message I left at our hotel’s front desk. Or about Glenna, professional beadworker, sitting alone in our room just the way I left her. As long as I stay right here, in the present, I have to admit: I’m enjoying myself.
Then Starling ruins everything.
“Know what time it is?” she shouts. She chucks her beer bottle into the recycling bin and climbs up on the table. Her bejeweled toes are inches from my plate. “It’s skinny-dipping time!”
A cheer erupts from the other backpackers. Benches scrape back as everybody hops to their feet. I stay put, hoping no one will notice.
“Come on, Bria!” Starling says. “You’re the guest of honor—you’ve got to go.”
“It’s only cold at first!” calls a French girl.
Everyone’s looking at me, but there’s no freaking way in hell I’m getting in this or any other body of water, naked, clothed, or in a clown suit. I shake my head.
“Too shy?” Starling taunts.
“Starling,” says Rowan, who has traded his apron for a gray button-down shirt. He steered clear of me all through dinner, presumably in case I turned violent. It’s probably a good idea, even though I’m not really angry anymore. I shoot him a grateful look. Starling rolls her eyes before bouncing from the tabletop and out the door. Others follow, some of them already shedding clothes.
Rowan shrugs at me and heads outside.
Soon anyone who’s not skinny-dipping has wandered away, including Hal. I’d head to bed, but I don’t know where bed is. For a while, I hang around the empty room, skimming books in German, stacking dirty dishes. When I find myself staring at a trail of ants on the floor, I decide I’ve had enough of myself.
The moon is out, doubled by the water. The silhouettes of the woolly black dogs stand guard on the dock. Shrieks and splashes carve the night. Since sitting on
the dock above the swimmers might make me look like a pervert, I walk along the shore until I find a grassy patch beside the lake. From there, I can see the sparkle of wet limbs, glistening heads skating along the surface of the water, but no actual nudity.
I sigh.
It’s not that I want to join in. It’s just … I want to want to, if that makes any sense. My time with Toby taught me to look both ways before attempting anything new. Until now, when even the suggestion of joining in makes me resist.
“So you don’t like getting naked with strangers?”
Rowan has materialized beside me. Entirely clothed and dry, I note. I shake my head and shrug at the same time. “Why, do you?”
“On occasion,” he replies. He hesitates a moment, then settles beside me at a respectable distance. “Of course, it depends on the naked strangers.”
“How about Starling?”
He wrinkles his nose. “My sister?”
“Oh, she’s your sister.” I clear my throat, silently thanking God that relief isn’t something another person can see, like a blush. “You don’t look anything alike.”
“Different mothers. She’s about a year older.”
“Oh,” I say again. I sift pebbles through my fingers until I find a flat stone to fling into the water. It skips three times before sinking, breaking up the moon.
“Anyway, it’s not the nudity,” I confess. “I don’t swim.”
“Don’t, or can’t?”
“Either.”
“It’s shallow here,” Rowan points out.
I fling another stone into the water. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It’s really about the nudity, isn’t it?”
“Just quit it, okay? It’s getting irritating.”
He laughs. “That’s quite a statement, considering those roly-poly people you’re touring with. Why aren’t you backpacking?”
I consider making up some kind of complicated explanation. But then I remember—cringingly—getting caught in my lie on the plane. By both Starling and Glenna. Horrors.
So I tell the truth. “It never even occurred to me.”
Rowan runs his palm up and down his forearm, the dragon’s eye winking in and out. I’d never admit it to his face, but his tattoo disappoints me. You’d think a guy like him would choose something more esoteric. Like a quote from a favorite book. Or maybe a mysterious religious emblem from somewhere special he’s traveled. A dragon seems so … frat boy.
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