Chapter 7
~§~
“Hey, flyboy, you coming?”
Clark propped the battered copy of War and Peace across his chest and lifted his head off the bent arm supplementing his pancake pillow just as Gillian’s head appeared in the open doorway.
“C’mon, they won’t wait for us,” she chided, out of breath as if she’d run all the way up the hill.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I don’t want to intrude on the big reunion.”
Brian, the previous owner of Clark’s shack, had arrived from Bogotá that morning, and big plans had been made for reminiscing at Rosita’s cantina in honor of the recently passed Fourth of July. Clark had met the robust man when he and Gillian had come to the school to check on the progress of the rebuild. He’d seemed friendly enough, but somehow Clark had felt out of place, almost like a third wheel.
“Don’t be crazy,” she said, dismissing his objection. “When you’re thousands of miles from home, you need to take any chance you can get to talk to other Americans, especially on the Fourth of July. It’s downright unpatriotic if you don’t come.”
When he continued to look skeptical, she entered the room and came to stand next to his pallet. “Besides, Brian’s brought a case of Chilean wine. It’s good stuff. You don’t want to miss that. Come on. I promise, we won’t tell every bush story we have.”
Clark laughed. “Just the ones that involve eating caterpillars.”
She grabbed the book from his chest and snapped it closed, giving him a playful smack as he swung his feet to the floor. “That only happened once. And I keep telling you, they weren’t that bad.”
He gathered up his discarded sandals and followed her out the door. She was right. It might be kind of nice to celebrate the Fourth of July. After all, it was a national holiday, and as an American, the least he could do was acknowledge it by drinking Chilean wine in a Colombian cantina.
Besides, he still felt bad about how he’d treated her the day of Lois’s wedding. It had been over a month, and she’d not brought it up, acting as if nothing at all had happened when she’d walked by the school the next morning to find him already at work. But he knew he’d behaved abominably, and he’d been trying to be extra nice ever since.
~§~
Three hours and twice as many bottles of wine later, the small group of expatriates could barely keep themselves in their seats, laughter ringing out of the cantina’s open windows and into the streets beyond. Several villagers had gathered outside, shaking their heads and pointing at the crazy gringos who hooted and howled as Brian and Jeff regaled them with misadventures obtained during their nearly twenty years combined of service in foreign lands.
“The next day, I tiptoed back into the latrine,” Jeff was saying to the captivated group, “and wouldn’t you know that damn spider had called for backup. There had to be a dozen of the ugly brutes, each one as large as my hand, waiting to carry me out into the jungle where they could finish me off.”
They all laughed, and Brian filled their empty cups from the communal bottle placed in the center of the table.
“So, Sam, you ever been to Colombia before?” he asked as their laughter ebbed.
Clark shook his head. “Just Bogotá. It’s a beautiful country, at least what I’ve seen of it.”
“You’ve gotta see the wax palms.” He nudged Gillian with his elbow. “Gills, you have to take him to see the wax palms.”
“We’ve been a little busy around here, making a town and all. We don’t live the cushy life like you city folk do.” Gillian remarked dryly. She was seated between Brian and Jeff, and she gave Clark a knowing grin over the table that separated them.
Her barb was lost on Brian, who leaned forward to rest his arms on the table. “And you’ve gotta come to Popayán for Día De Negritos and Fiesta De Los Blanquitos.”
“I’m sorry?” Clark said, thinking that whatever it was, it sounded like something slightly racist.
“In January, it’s a two day festival they call Day of the Blacks and Day of the Whites,” Brian explained. “The first day, guys chase the girls around with black shoe polish, trying to smear it on them. Then the next day, they do the same thing with flour. They literally paint the town white.”
“Sounds really...appealing,” Clark remarked with a grin.
“Oh, no. It’s a lot of fun,” Brian was quick to assure him. “Parades. Strolling musicians, people dressed up in costume. Kind of like a mini Carnival.”
“It is a lot of fun,” Jeff agreed. “A great way to end Christmas time.”
Clark felt an odd twist in his chest. Christmas. January. They seemed so far away. A time he’d let fall off the range of his radar. He’d grown so accustomed to thinking no further than when the next batch of adobe bricks would be cured that something happening six months in the future seemed inconceivable. With a start, he realized that aquí y ahora had settled on him, and he found it comfortable. He didn’t need or even want to think beyond that very night. If he did, life became far too complicated.
Gillian must have sensed his discomfort because she changed the topic. “You know, Sam, Brian’s the one who taught me how to take apart that motorbike and put it back together again.”
An odd and totally inexplicable spark of irritation snapped through him on hearing this. It had bothered him when Brian had swirled Gillian off her feet in a big welcoming hug when they’d arrived at Rosita’s. And it bothered him now that she had decided to forgo her braid in favor of letting her hair flow around her shoulders. She looked uncommonly pretty, a fact that Brian seemed to appreciate as several times Clark caught the man looking at her with a knowing smile. So then it bothered him to think about what their relationship might have entailed before Brian had left for Bogotá.
Mostly, though, it bothered him that he was bothered at all in the first place.
“Is that right?” he asked, forcing himself to smile with interest.
“Yeah, it’s one of the many failed programs of the Peace Corps,” Brian explained as he leaned back in his seat. “Used to be all PCVs were issued a motorbike to get around. You’d spend two days during training learning how to fix the thing, take apart the motor and clean it and put it back together again. Then some brilliant egghead started compiling statistics and discovered the number one killer of PCVs was motorbike accidents. So they stopped issuing them.”
“Brian left me his when he deserted us out here.” Gillian said. “At first I thought it was guilt, but now I think he was just hoping to trade up to something that actually had four wheels.”
“You’re a career volunteer, then?” Clark asked, curious to what jobs an ex-Peace Corps volunteer would find in a modern city like Bogotá.
“No. I decided that it was time to grow up and start earning a respectable living. I teach English to Colombian business men.” Brian chuckled. “Not as much glamour as you find out here, but the pay’s not too bad.”
“Yeah, Brian just couldn’t handle the wild nightlife of San Pablo,” Gillian teased, giving his shoulder a playful smack. “He headed for the big city and settled down. I’m afraid he’s become almost respectable.”
The group shared a laugh, then Brian turned his focus back to Clark. “How about you? What’s the market for superheroes like these days?”
Clark shook his head and took a drink of his wine. “I don’t take money for helping people.”
Brian lifted his dark brows knowingly. “Ah, the ultimate volunteer. Can’t imagine it pays the bills, though. I’ll bet a flat in Metropolis costs a pretty penny. Of course, if I were you, I’d settle some place a bit warmer. Beverly Hills, maybe. Or Hawaii.”
“Naw, too glamorous for my blood,” Clark said with a chuckle, hoping that Brian would stop asking questions. This was the stuff he’d dreaded and the reason he’d thought to avoid this party.
“Wow. Man.” Brian let out a low whistle of appreciation as he studied Clark. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to be Superman. Being able to do all of that stuff. I’ll bet you get a lot of action with the chicks.”
“Brian!” Gillian exclaimed.
“What?” He glanced at her, perplexed by her outrage. “I’ll bet babes are falling all over themselves for a chance with the strongest man in the world.”
Clark shifted uncomfortably and felt a warmth flooding his face. “Sadly, just Lourdes,” he said, self-deprecatingly, and both Jeff and Brian chuckled appreciatively.
“Oh come on,” Brian said. “You’ve got to have some pretty amazing stories. Saving people all the time. Must be a pretty exciting life.”
“Sometimes,” he admitted wryly. Yes, exciting. And wonderful. And also tragic and sometimes horrifying.
“I don’t know. Sam seems pretty normal to me,” Gillian chimed in with a broad grin. “Downright boring, really. I mean, he could go anywhere he wants and instead he’s hanging around San Pablo. Makes me wonder if he has all of his dogs barking.”
She gave him a slow wink, and he smiled his thanks to her for saving him from Brian’s suppositions.
“Look who’s talking!” Brian snorted, turning his attention to the woman seated next to him. “You left behind daddy’s trust fund to come out here and piss in the woods. I’ve always questioned your sanity.”
“Just following in your footsteps, trying to make the world a better place one bottle of wine at a time.” She lifted her glass in salute and took a long sip, and they all laughed together.
Brian stared at her for another minute, shaking his head. “Geez, Gills, you look great. I love Colombian women, but it sure is nice to see eyes that aren’t brown.”
Even in the dimness of the cantina Clark could see the blush staining her cheeks. But she held her own. “Man, Brian, your lack of charm never ceases to amaze me.”
“I mean it. You could have your pick of men in Bogotá. They’d be climbing all over themselves to date a woman with light eyes and hair like yours.” He turned back to Clark. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Colombians seem to have some fascination with fair haired people, especially women. Guess anything becomes exotic if you don’t see much of it.”
Jeff chuckled in agreement. “My mother always said the things she found most attractive about my father were his blue eyes and blond hair. She said he was what she’d always imagined a California surfer would look like. Pretty funny considering he was from Cleveland.”
“Matter of fact, tell him, Gillian,” Brian persuaded as their laughter died, “about that time you got the gringo haircut.”
Gillian nearly choked on the mouthful of wine she’d taken. “I’m not telling him about that!”
“Why not? It’s hilarious.” When she shook her head adamantly, Brian turned to face Clark, clearly unwilling to pass up the chance to share another tale. “When Gillian first arrived in Colombia with her father, they were sent on a medical convoy to a village west of Calí. You think this place is remote? You should see Santa Domingo. Makes this place look like Pittsburgh. Anyway, in Santa Domingo, they don’t see very many white folks. So our little Gills stuck out like a sore thumb. Of course, it didn’t help that she wore this flowery little sundress and the most impractical pair of high heeled sandals.”
“Gee, thanks Bri,” Gillian chided, then rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “I think I still have those shoes around somewhere. Use ‘em to smack cicadas out of my shack.”
Clark leaned back in his chair and took a sip of wine, enjoying the rich, fruity flavor as it washed over his tongue and down his throat. He watched Gillian, her eyes snapping with the laughter she shared at her expense. The young woman in the worn sandals, tan cotton cargo pants and loose hemp shirt certainly had little resemblance to the one in the picture Brian painted.
“This one girl was just fascinated with Gillian’s hair,” Brian continued. “Never seen anything like it. So light. She called it leche de la abeja. Milk of the bee. I think she meant honey. Anyway, that kid followed Gillian all over the village, just staring at her head.”
Clark felt a slight heat rushing over his skin. He himself was guilty of staring at Gillian’s hair, both the night of the St. Mary’s fiesta and then again that morning when she’d shown up with Brian, minus her braid, the sunlight gilding it with burnished gold.
“Well, one morning, Gills wakes up and finds that a big chunk of her hair had been cut right off one side of her head. At first, we wondered if it was mice. They’ll do that, you know. Chew off human hair to build their nests. But the ends were cut too clean. It had to have been cut off with a knife.”
Horrified, Clark leaned forward, his eyes wide.
“Soon enough, we found out what had happened. Seems little...what was her name?” Brian turned to Gillian, his face furrowed as he tried to remember.
“Marissa,” Gillian supplied.
“Yeah, Marissa. Seems Marissa was told by an old bruja...um, village shaman...that if she slept with a lock of Gillian’s hair under her bed, her hair would change to the same color as Gill’s.”
“A lock?!” Gillian exclaimed, outraged. “That little sneak took a whole handful! Right from the front, where you couldn’t miss it.”
Clark squinted, trying to find the spot where the stolen chunk had been taken. But Gillian’s long, honey colored tresses were even and thick on both sides. As if aware of his scrutiny, she tucked the locks behind her ears ruefully.
“Looks like it grew back OK,” Jeff noted compassionately, voicing what Clark was thinking.
Brian shook his head sadly, but a grin pulled at his wide mouth as he teased. “What I want to know is why anyone would trade in their beautiful dark hair for hair the color of beer.”
“Chris called it the color of bread crust,” Gillian stated. “Wonderbread, to be exact.”
They all laughed, the comparison, although somewhat odd, actually very accurate. Her light hair did indeed resemble the golden crust on a loaf of well-baked bread.
“Who’s Chris?” Clark asked between chuckles, not remembering that name mentioned before.
The laughter faded almost instantly, as if he’d just announced that a band of FARC soldiers awaited outside.
“Gillian’s twin brother,” Jeff finally explained when the silence had become unbearable.
“Twin? I didn’t know you were a twin?” Clark said, surprised that she’d never mention such an unusual fact about herself.
Gillian licked her lips and swallowed the last mouthful of wine in her glass. “Yeah. Well, I was.”
“Was?” Clark echoed, perplexed at her odd choice of words. “How do you stop being a twin?”
She shrugged as she reached across the table and pulled the open bottle toward her. “I guess when your other half dies, you just become a normal person.”
Instead of pouring more wine into her glass, she tipped the bottle to her mouth and took a long drag. No one complained.
Clark shifted uncomfortably. “Oh. I’m sorry...”
“He was killed three years ago. In a car accident.”
“Hey, Gills, it’s OK.” Jeff placed a hand on her arm. “You don’t have to – ”
“What? There’s nothing to hide.” Gillian turned to look Clark squarely in the eye, and the expression he saw in hers was like a slap across the face. “Chris and his friend, Garrett, left a party late one night three summers ago and on their way home, wrapped their car around a tree. Doctors say they never felt a thing, probably died on impact.”
“That’s really terrible.”
“Yeah, well, Chris never should have been in that car in the first place.” She looked away and took another swig from the bottle. “He made a stupid decision and that was that.”
Her harsh analysis of the situation unsettled him, so unlike her normally easy-going acceptance of things both bad and good. But when she lifted her eyes and caught Clark’s gaze, the pure pain he saw in them ripped through him. Since knowing this woman, he’d never seen her so affected by anything.
“So…let’s play the ‘whatdaya miss’ game,” Jeff suggested, changing the subject and earning Clark’s eternal gratitude. “I’ll go first, speaking of beer. Cold beer.”
“Ice cream,” Gillian offered immediately, although the merriment was gone from her voice. “And ice in a diet Coke.”
“Movies without subtitles,” Brian said.
“Flush toilets.” This from Jeff
“Pizza,” Clark added.
“Macaroni and cheese.” Brian offered.
“Hot showers,” Gillian moaned wistfully.
“The Sunday paper.”
And so the game continued, but Clark tuned it out, his concentration on the woman seated across from him. Her normally stoic acceptance of the daily sadness in this inhospitable world had led him to believe nothing could ruffle her. Yet he could tell that the death of her bother had inflicted a staggering blow. He had a suspicion that there was far more to the story than she was telling, but he certainly wasn’t about to ask questions.
Instead, he felt an unbelievable urge to make her laugh and smile again. Somehow Gillian sad tilted his newly created world too far off its axis. All of this time he’d been soothing his own hurt with the balm of easy acceptance, using San Pablo as an escape from his problems. But now it seemed that she, too, was running from something too painful to face. The thought that she had a past, and one maybe as full of pain as his own, pulled him back toward the truth that the real world hadn’t actually disappeared taking his sorrows with it. He’d simply pushed it out of his range of awareness, but still it lurked, waiting patiently for him to return.
And too there was a nagging pull of guilt. He’d been so wrapped up in himself that he’d failed to see past the surface she presented. He’d blithely accepted her appearance of no worries, but now it seemed there was far more to Gillian than he’d realized. She’d become his friend, and as such, he wanted to do anything he could to keep her from hurting. As she was helping him heal, he wanted to help her.
“Double Fudge Crunch Bars.”
Clark froze, the words halting all other thoughts.
<What I wouldn’t give for a Double Fudge Crunch Bar.>
In that instant, the miles and the months were stripped away. As if she were sitting next to him, he could hear Lois’s voice lamenting the same request, the same wistfulness.
Was it always going to be this way? He’d believe he’d moved past it, forgotten enough to go on with his life, only to have some offhanded remark yank him back down into the deepest part of his regrets. Even in the remote nowhere of Colombia, he couldn’t escape the reminders of her.
He drained the rest of the wine in his glass, and not for the first time in his life wished that he could enjoy the sweet inhibition it offered to those not like him. For a change, it might be nice to get wasted, to actually not care at all about anything instead of just pretending that you didn’t care.
Looking over the rim of his glass, he saw Gillian staring at him. And when he met her gaze, his breathing stopped for a second. The pain in her eyes was still there, but also in them he saw a knowing. As if she could see into his heart and mind and recognized the sorrow he held within them. In a way, it was like looking into a mirror. She nodded slightly, then looked away, breaking the spell.
Clark released his breath, but his heart continued to pound for long minutes later.
to be continued...
