by Lacy Camey
“Cute. Where’d you get these?”
“Remember all of the luggage that we women brought? I made sure to bring my own medical goodies. Kids like these sort of things and I was going to use them to hang their charts and take their records so they would feel special. Since I’m not getting to do anything with the children as of yet, at least they come in use for hanging up their fresh sheets.”
He squatted down next to me and helped wash one of the sheets.
“That was really thoughtful of you. But what about those herbs and flower bundles?”
“Morning trip to the market with Steve and Vinny.”
“Market?”
“Oh, you know what I mean. Whatever they call it here.” I splashed more water at him, picking up on his light tease.
“Hey what are ya trying to do, give me my afternoon shower?”
He reached for the pink orchid in the water and took off his hat, placing the flower in his ear. “How do I look?”
I laughed and splashed more water on him saying, “Oh, very becoming.”
“So pink sheets it looks like.” He pointed to the sheets that were now changing colors.
I stopped laughing and noticed how right he was. The sheets were pink! They changed colors because of the pink orchids and other flowers. My jaw hung open. Why hadn’t I predicted that? I took science classes.
“I guess I can’t do anything right,” I admitted, feeling defeated.
“No, no you can! Don’t say that . . . you’re doing good, Chloe. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Judging from the other bundles you have here, use the indigo and purple herb bundles for the boys,” he suggested and laughed some more.
“Oh, I’m just so funny.” I slumped like a pouty five year old and fell back on my side. “I’m making a mess of things. I just wanted to do something special.”
“Hey, come on.” He gently shook my shoulder. “You are doing something special. I think the girls will like their pink sheets.”
“I guess you’re right.” I thought about it some more as I shifted my weight and went to washing. “Boy, you’re optimistic, huh?”
“Well, like I mentioned in my message yesterday in the chapel, it’s the heart that matters. You’re trying to do good and the kids do need fresh sheets.”
His words comforted me and I felt thankful for his manners. I guess I had misjudged him.
“The only thing I didn’t anticipate though is the air drying. Think there’s any way to get something to use to hang the sheets on? Like . . . fishing wire or something?”
“Oh, you’re talking to the king of fishing,” he said proudly.
“You’re not from here, are you?”
“Nope. Montana.” He dried his hands on his jeans and tipped his hat in a gentleman’s gesture.
Charming. I couldn’t help but notice his genuinely cute mannerisms. He wasn’t like most men I met.
“I’ll go look in my tackle box for some wire. Caught a few piranhas a week or so again,” he hollered over his shoulder as he jogged towards his bunk.
“Did you really?” I yelled after him.
“Of course, what do you think you ate last
night? Kidding!”
So he did like to joke. I found myself feeling a bit more at ease and a tad happier from his kindness.
Moments later he was back and tied the wire to a few trees, cutting it with a pocket knife. He made a few rows with the line. As he took a sheet and rang out the water I couldn’t help but notice his bulging muscles, but I quickly went back to washing sheets before he could see me checking him out. I felt my cheeks flush a bit. I stood up to inspect the next pile of sheets to distract myself. As I looked them over, I couldn’t help but notice it appeared someone must have gotten, well, their monthly from the dried stain. Without making a scene—and without freaking out because I was used to blood being a nurse—I told Logan I would be right back. I needed to grab something from the kitchen and I didn’t want him to see the sheet.
I found Josephina and asked if she had any bleach or anything to remove the “woman stain.” She shook her head and tsked her tongue. “Oh dear, poor children need mothers.” She helped me find a bucket and bleach and helped me soak the sheet in a bleach mixture.
“Who talks to these young girls about the birds and the bees?”
“The birds and the bees?”
“Or about becoming a woman?” I made the shape of a curvy woman with my hands.
“They usually go to the doctor for that.”
“Oh, how mortifying! I’ll just have to see what I can do to change that.”
I made my way back to the fountain and heard Logan whistling Deep in The Heart of Texas. As soon as he heard me he changed his tune to a made up whistle.
“By all means, proceed with your love for the greatest state there ever will be in America.”
He stopped and placed a clothespin in his mouth and smirked as he hung another sheet.
Um, hot. Why did he look so hot doing that? And why was I even noticing? He took the clothespin out of his mouth and secured the sheet.
“Montana ma’am, is God’s country. Hate to break it you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Maybe he was right. Texas had great people but we lacked majorly in the rocky mountain and evergreen department.
After we finished the bundle of sheets and washed over sixty, we gave each other high fives and I felt accomplished. The courtyard was officially hijacked by sheets. The sun felt warm and I looked at my shoulder and noticed it was red red, like beach sunburn red.
“You better go take care of that, nurse. Yeah, you’ll get used to the sun. I’m fair skinned myself.”
“Thanks. And thanks for your help. I can’t believe we knocked that out so quickly!” I looked at my watch. “It’s only three! We could easily start on the boys, but it looks like there’s no space for the sheets.”
“Yeah, kids will be about ready to play so perfect timing. They should dry up by dinner and we can get Maycee and Norah to help us put them back on the beds.”
I removed the herbs and poured fresh water into fountain as I took away my makeshift water plug—a washrag. I looked up and saw Logan chewing on one of the clothespins again and I about lost it. He took it out of his mouth. “Oh, this one here broke. Sorry about that.” He placed it back into his mouth, shrugged his shoulders and removed his hat, again brushing through his hair.
I guess that was a habitual mannerism he had.
“Well, I’m going to go see if I can set up a game of ball with the kids. You’re welcome to join us if you like.”
“For ball?”
“Yeah, like kickball sort of. We play in the road in front of the orphanage. You know—kids need to blow off some energy.”
“Well, okay. That sounds fun actually.” I patted my wet hands on my shorts.
“Great, we’ll be in the front. You should come. But might wanna put on some more sunscreen. You’re turning into a tomato.”
Hours later after playing a fun rejuvenating game of kick ball, we were all enjoying chicken rice, avocado, plantains and black beans at dinner when the loudest crack of thunder sounded. Oh no. The sheets! My chair skidded back on the concrete floor, startling Chloe and Maycee, and I felt an aching in my stomach.
I quickly ran out of the eating room, past the kitchen and looked outside into the courtyard. I felt like a deflated balloon. It was raining. Hard. Not just sprinkles but torrential rains. Great. Our freshly cleaned sheets were now freshly rained—on sheets! Couldn’t I just get a break? What were we going to do? The kids needed fresh sheets, heck—dry sheets to be able to sleep on in a few hours.
“Oh, my gosh,” Norah’s hand rested on my shoulder.
I didn’t remove my eyes from the disaster in front of me.
“What do I do? What will we do?” I felt completely, utterly doomed.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I’m always full of back up plans,” I heard Logan’s voice behind me but I didn’t dare turn around.
I turned around.
“A lock in?”
“Oh, how fun! I used to go to those when I was a teenager at my uncle’s church! Way fun,” Norah said, giddy. “In fact, I think that’s where I met my first boyfriend.” She continued the memory in full nostalgia.
“Yeah, you were the rebel one making out behind the organ,” Maycee jabbed.
“Was not! I think that was you,” Norah flapped at her sister.
“I mean—I don’t want to impose on your nightly plans, but—” Logan continued.
“No, not imposing,” I cut in quickly. “What do we need to do?”
He went again with taking off his baseball cap and shoving his hands in his back pockets, his signature move. ”Well, it won’t be an all night thing, but the sheets here in the rainforest with the humidity and breeze should dry in a few hours after the rainfall stops. Since it’s the girls’ sheets, we can focus on tonight being a girl’s lock in with—”
“Oh, my gosh I know! Manicures, pedicures . . . Maycee can do their hair!” Norah said, revealing her ultra girly girl side that had been itching to come out here in the jungle.
“Oh! That would be fun, actually. When I was at the market this morning I bought little jars I was going to use for making perfume with the girls. That would be so fun!” I felt excitement cover my trepidation.
“And, besides, someone needs to talk to the girls about—” their periods. The birds and the bees.
“About what?” Logan asked as he tilted his chin, displaying his perfectly chiseled Montana jaw. I really needed to stop that. Looking at him like that. But he was just so easy to look at!
Well, he should know what I wanted to talk to the girls about. He was the facilitator after all. What if they had views on how such things were taught? I had no idea.
I dragged my feet on the ground and made a little circle, obviously displaying my shyness on the subject. “Oh, you know, womanly things. Like their—”
“Oh, oh. Gotcha, gotcha. I have sisters.” He held up his hands in protest. “By all means, their all yours.”
After dinner and song night, where all the children gathered around Logan’s acoustic guitar and sang a few songs—some in Spanish and some in English—he made the announcement that the girls would have a special fun night that would last late into the night. The boys immediately displayed their distaste. “Now, now . . . one thing we must remember is gentlemen always let ladies go first. You’ll get your own time in a few nights from now.”
I felt myself smiling at his chivalry. He was growing on me for some reason. Here this young man—a simple yet good looking man from Montana—began to grab my attention more than any banker, prince, professional athlete, who had pursued me before. I shook my head and grabbed Norah by the shoulder to try and shake my own thoughts. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t like the idea of a simple life with such a man because it’s what I’ve always wanted, but I wanted to stay focused on the kids. The children. My talk. My cheeks flushed with heat. How exactly would I start that talk anyway?
“Any idea how to separate the younger girls with the older girls? You know, for that special talk.”
“Oh, you mean the talk you’re giving?” Norah teased.
Yes, the talk I would give. The talk my own mother never gave me, but yet here I was—excited to be a mother figure of some sort to these young, innocent pre-teens and a few teens. I remember when one of my friends, Kim, received her monthly for the first time, her mother bought her a special cake and they celebrated. She was horrified, she told me, but I thought it sounded kind of fun. At least she was being celebrated by her mother. Another friend—her mother took her to lunch and she got to skip school to go shopping for becoming a woman. What about my own mother? We never discussed the matter. That was Nia’s “job.”
Moments later—after bringing cases of supplies of jars, herb bundles, make up, and nail polish from our bunk—Norah and Maycee started the makeovers with the younger girls who sat giggling and speaking in excitement with each other about being bonita. Being pretty. I couldn’t help but want to give them a talk too about inner beauty. I quickly realized there was so much to be taught in such a short amount of time. I really needed to make the most of each and every day.
I led the older girls into the chapel, and they sat looking at me—some with confusion, some with suspicion and some smiled.
Even though Logan spoke the majority of time in English, I chose to speak to the girls in Spanish in hopes of bonding with them more. “Well, hello pretty ladies. Thanks for joining me in here for a special talk this evening on this fun night for you all. Like I said earlier, I’m Nurse Chloe and I’m from Texas. Anything you need—”
I stopped momentarily because Logan, Steve and Vinny snuck quietly in the chapel like church mice. Surely they weren’t going to listen to this woman talk? No doubt it would be boring, and, oh yeah, mortifying! Logan crossed his arms and had a huge grin on his face as Steve and Vinny sat like their normal statue self.
“I uh—excuse me gentlemen, but this is a ladies only chat. Sorry, but you’ll have to wait outside.”
Logan chuckled and stood up, leading Steve and Vinny to follow suit. “She’ll be fine in here. Y’all can stand outside if it makes you feel better.” I watched them leave and I could see his shoulders clearly bouncing from laughing. Oh, it’s just so funny seeing girls get their talk. He turned around, “Oh, and you can talk in English. They like that.”
I nodded.
“Well, where were we ladies?” I continued, this time in English. Another loud crack of thunder sounded.
“You know, we’re just thrown into being a woman. Like that thunder that just startled us. Sometimes, you may be sleeping and you just wake up and you see a surprise.” A few of the girls scrunched their noses like they had no idea what I was talking about.
“Aunt Flo,” I said. What was the Spanish word for Flo?
“Como se dice flow in español?”
“Flujo,” one girl said.
“Si, Tia Flujo.”
A few of the girls chuckled and I felt myself relax a bit. I could make this talk fun and I would.
I attempted for the next half hour to explain the best I could the beauty of being a woman and how to not be afraid of it or fearful, but it’s an exciting time to be a woman. From woman products to bras, I threw in the whole talk of hormones and feeling different emotions during the month. And I let them know should any of them want to talk to me, I would be more than happy to have a chat with them. Once I asked “any questions,” what I thought would be a half hour educational talk turned into two hours of more questions and not a single girl stood up saying they needed to use the restroom. During that time, the rain seemed to let up. Boy, they really did need that talk. The girls seemed to soak up all the education I had given them and it made me feel touched and special.
I immediately made a mental note that when I went back to Texas I would send each and every girl a care package with bras, perfume, deodorant, and lotion. I couldn’t wait to send it to them.
“And on that note, would you like to make some girly perfume?”
Their eyes lit up. No doubt most of them never had real perfume in their lives, and I was excited to help make them feel feminine and special and my heart felt like it was bursting with love.
As we made our way back into the rec room, I tried my best to conceal a few happy tears. A few of the young children had fallen asleep. One little girl was asleep, draped over on Maycee’s lap as she read to a very engaged group of girls one of her own children’s books. Even though most of them probably didn’t understand all of the English, they no doubt enjoyed the silly pictures and kept giggling.
Norah was playing a game of duck duck goose and if a child wasn’t listening to a book or sleeping, they were laughing. It felt so good to see the children’s joy displayed and hear their light-hearted giggle
s.
I had the older group of girls sit at our wooden eating tables and gave each of them one of the glass or pottery jars and went to the kitchen to get a pitcher of water. When I came back, I pulled out a few paint containers with pointed tips for them to write their names or the name they wanted to make their perfume. After demonstrating how to unravel the herb flower bouquet and dropping a few drops of aromatherapy essential oils, the girls naturally figured out what to do next. I watched their eyes light up as each smelled the flowers that they saw every day, not knowing it could create such a beautiful scent. Logan sat at the end of the table and I figured he probably just put the boys in their rooms for sleep.
