"Steve Levine, the mirror shows your sinful side and your wet toes."- Heart of a Lion // The Griswolds
The siren is wailing down the street, and I'm third wheeling with Diana and Guad. I can't tell which is worse.
Alice and Perry look pale from where they sit, but when do they not?
Bob and I are both sitting along the aisle across from each other.
I send him a shy smile from my side.
His grin back makes my stomach do they freaky outy thing. Shut up.
I'm watching the sky scrapers crawl past us when I feel a tug at my fingers. A familiar feeling enters my gut and creeps up to my heart. No, Janis, you're not 12.
Bob is clenching my hand from across the gap. Although I don't look at him, I'm sure he's smiling. He always seems to be.
Well, Janis, you finally managed to get one, I think, although the voice in my head sounds like my father's. But I'm sure any guy I'd even consider dating would feel his wrath. To him I'll always be 9. But that can only be because his life stopped before I could grow any older.
I try to think about hand holding to keep my mind off my dead father. It's not like he cared enough about us to tell us about HEXA anyways. How much can I trust him now that I know the truth? Hand holding, hand holding, Janis.
One of Bob's fingers rubs my palm and I don't know how to react but to bite my lip to keep myself from smiling.
Are you serious right-
In a split second, Bob's hand seems to yank me across the aisle and causes my head to slam on his seat as I fall to the floor.
The bus has taken a sharp turn, I soon find out.
Moaning on the floor and desperately trying to avoid catching attention, I attempt to pull myself up. Bob laughs and apologizes: "Sorry, Jan-Jan."
"That's alright. I-"
"Shut up, Janis, there are more important things afoot," snaps Alice from the window seat. I furrow my brow, more confused than offended.
"In fact, you could say the baseball game is afoot," jokes Perry, trying to mimic Sherlock Holmes.
"It really is a blessing you don't make puns more often," I tell him.
His green eyes harden but I can read from his face he isn't really hurt. I think the only time I actually hurt his feelings was when I told him I didn't like Alice and him together.
But at least I'm not the one with the sister who has a "you're next" note.
I grip the shaking seats to keep myself from falling over again.
"So he wants to take us all out on a really big date?" Asks Bob. What? I think. I follow his eyes and see the packet of baseball tickets signed by Ashton.
He scratches his newly shaved chin (courtesy of the hotel).
My sister and Perry glance awkwardly to each other, as if they're the parents telling children troubling news.
"He must have left them in my backpack and they slipped through the folds of my book when I put it in," explains Alice. She glances to Perry's shaking hands and hums lowly.
"Are we sure they're even from Ashton?" Bob questions. "HEXA had plenty opportunity to put them in there at the hotel."
"Oh." The thought hadn't occurred to me yet. "What choice do we have though? What if he's in trouble in San Diego?"
"What are you all talking about?" Asks Diana, who's finally managed to get her attention away from Guad. "Janis sit down you're in a moving bus!" She scolds.
Being told what to do by someone other than Alice takes me aback. I don't have a mother. No one is allowed to reprimand me.
"Ashton's invited us to a baseball game," I say, rather than listening to her.
"Oh. What?"
I take the packet of baseball cards from her brother's hands and sit down next to her.
"He signed them. If you couldn't read."
"Well that makes it clear then," Guad speaks up. "Trap or not, we have no choice but to go to San Diego."
Night falls. All is dark and our bus lumbers through the seemingly endless abyss.
The only sounds that comfort me are rattles and bumps. A chicken squawk makes me wonder if the people on this bus are weirder than I thought. I can sense a jungle outside, but I cannot see it. However, I have found recently that if there is a will there is a jungle.
Everyone on the bus, including the squad, is asleep, as far as I can tell. Diana's head is on Guad's shoulder. Darkness has shrouded Perry and Alice, so I can only guess what they are up to.
But despite how I lay here and close my eyes, I cannot fall asleep.
"Jan-Jan."
Bob's awake.
I glance to my left and make out the dim light of two blue eyes. They are the only I can see, making it feel like we are the only two awake on the bus. And that makes it so we are the only two persons on the earth.
"Hello, Bob."
A creaking sound hints he's getting up from his chair. His dark figure confirms it as he kneels down and rests his arms on my thighs.
I suck in a breath.
"Are you going back to Wyoming when we get to America?" Whispers Bob, although I'm sure no one can hear us. "Because honestly it's the grossest state ever."
Sometimes I forget he's been all over. I also forget that we might make it home and leave everything, even HEXA, behind us.
"I don't think you're at liberty to judge my state," I tell him.
"But I am at liberty to care about what happens to you and me, right?"
You and me. Is that the point where two people become a "thing?" I haven't ever been a thing with anyone before. What does that entail? I'm not sure. All I really know is that I like Bob. And I'd never be able to lose him.
"Of course you are," I reply. I rest my arm on his shoulder and he lays his head in my lap. How okay is this on a public bus? I wonder. But what I do know is that I am tired and want to sleep.
30 seconds of bus noise passes until I open my mouth to say something. "What are we going to do when we get to Guayabitos?" I whisper faintly.
This time it only takes 10 seconds of silence for me to realize he's fallen asleep.
He's just going to leave his head on my lap? I think.
Glancing down at him, I try to get a look at his hair. When a car passes us in the night the headlights illuminate the entire bus. Bob's brown locks are scraggly and unkept but they crown his head with some strangle regality. "I know everything and nothing," they seem to say about him.
Leaning my head back, I close my eyes and wait for sleep to find me. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but I do know that according to custom, it will need all of my energy.
It's been a while since I've gotten a good sleep. And on a bus one finds themselves grateful for anything they can get.
Guayabitos turns out to be a sleepy sea town on the coast of Mexico with a few tourist shops. Cobble makes the roads and stray dogs wander around us once we've gotten dropped off at the bus station. It all reminds me of where we started at Punta Arenas.
I stretch my arms and yawn, feelings as though I've just woken up from my own bed.
Even though it's hot out like all of South America was, a lazy breeze blows past us. Perry stops taking his letter jacket off and leaves it on. His sister giggles at him, laughter lines appearing around her eyes.
Bob inhales. "It's been years since I've visited here." He slaps his thighs a couple times like they're drums. I cringe. "But I know the perfect place for us to stay."
"What do you mean, 'stay?'" Asks Perry. He glances anxiously to a closed night club atop a grocery store.
"Perry, this is Ricon de Guayabitos!" Explains Bob, as if this should be news. "It's the perfect place for a vacation. Beautiful weather, and with me, beautiful guys too." Alice snorts and I choke. "If we're already here, can't we just stay for a day or so?"
He reminds me of a kid begging his mother for candy, except Perry is so unmotherly he does't even have a mother anymore. Ouch, Jan, that's mean.
"I think that sounds good," agrees Guad.
Although I want to get back home with all my heart, part of my heart seceded and wants to stay here, even for just a night.
"Why not?" I ask.
Perry shrugs. "I suppose I don't have a problem with that." He glances to the direction of the ocean. Oh, California, I remember. He must miss the beach. Although normally I don't care for Perry's feelings, I can begin to sympathize. My entirety is aching for the ocean also.
"Follow me, ducklings!" Bob announces, even though we all wish he wouldn't. "We're going to the Casablanca Resort!"
We spend the rest of the afternoon negotiating to get a hotel room.
Bob bothers the managers in Spanish until 5 pm when we can finally claim a space for us to stay.
Since the place is a resort and not a hotel, we get two couches, a kitchen, two bedrooms, and two bathrooms. To me it feels like we've just bought an entire house.
A sea breeze blows past me and I try to remember the last time I was at the ocean. Was it actually Maine?
There's another distinction between my father, Alice, and I, besides me not being a geologist. My father, for the 9 years I "knew" him, maintained an intense fear of water. Maybe that's why we lived so far inland as Wyoming.
But when I lived in Maine with my aunt and uncle, I found that I loved the ocean. I was fascinated with watching the white caps crash on the craggy shore. I loved going out to sailboat with Faye and watching our boat cut through the water. Men for thousands of years have designed different ways to master the ocean. But it can still conquer them if it wanted.
I became profoundly struck by shipwrecks. Alice always tells me I'm crazy for it, but they never cease to fascinate me.
So I found myself standing out by the pool and open air courtyard where the beach began. The sky tinted orange and the sun threatened to begin its descent.
"Food tastes really good," Bob's voice mentions behind me.
My heart jumps in surprise. My stomach growls in agreement.
"That is true."
"You want to eat some?" He asks. What does he mean- "with me? On a date?"
Oh. That's what he meant. We're in Mexico. We're stranded and being hunted down. And I'm being asked out too?
Obviously I've recognized that Bob and I have more of a relationship than say, Guad and me. But the prospect of going on an actual date terrifies me a little. I've never gone on a date or been in a relationship. But if I had to choose a guy to do that all with it would be Bob.
The waves crash on the shore, rumbling one by one. I feel as though I'm in Maine again. 7 years ago, where I first met Bob Sawyer.
"Of course I will," I finally reply. "I'd love to." I hope I didn't hesitate too long.
The smile I get in return is like that of the children I babysit. "Really?" He squeals. "Okay! Let's go!"
Right now? I think as my arm is grabbed and I'm being pulled to our hotel room. Looking like this?
"Alice, we're going out!" Calls Bob into the hotel room from the door, as if Alice is his mother (which would honestly just complicate things).
My sister pops her head out of one of the bedrooms. Raising and eyebrow she gives an "okay," but offers no resistance.
I raise my eyebrow also, thinking she'd seem to care more.
"Perry and I are going out for a walk," she adds quietly, before disappearing into the bedroom.
Hmm, I say to myself. I suppose there won't be any worrying about her being alone. Besides, it'd be nice to get going.
"I think we are staying here," says Guad from the couch. Diana nods, looking up from a magazine in Spanish.
"What's this mean?" She asks, pointing to something in the magazine.
Guard's voice returns to a mutter and begins to read it to her.
"You think we should go?" Says Bob into my ear.
I can't help the excitement I feel. One on one. Bob and me.
"If I remember right, there's a very good restaurant called Vicky's only a block or so from here."
Together, we walk hand in hand across the courtyard and through the airy breezeway and out of the Casablanca Resort. Never in my life have I felt more comfortable with a guy besides my father, my cousin Faye, or maybe my old friend Ronnie. But with Bob I know I don't have to worry. He wants what I want: to get away from HEXA and to stay together. Anyways, if anything bad happens he's trained in like five forms of combat.
A surprising number of white people are walking the streets, like in Mexico City.
"Lots of Canadians come down here to retire," says Bob as if he can read my thoughts.
"Nothing wrong with having some nice maple syrup lovers around," I comment, laying my head on his shoulder.
"Actually they're normally pretty old and grumpy. But they were useful when I was younger; they spoke English."
He leads me down the street. And from his shoulder level I notice that much of it reminds me of Punta Arenas: cobble roads, open air shops, loud music in Spanish blasting from trucks (a couple of them saying not too appropriate things).
Fortunately, or maybe not, natives here seem to be dressed almost worse than we are. I managed to shower at our last hotel before it was HEXAfied, but these people seem to not know what a shower is.
However, I never envisioned my first date taking place in Mexico while I have one change of clothes and a limited amount of money at all.
Bob takes me past small tourist shops and the one grocery store that sits under the night club with a very... revealing logo. I silently hope that isn't Vicky's.
But we move forward, stopping in front of a restaurant with gold bars making the walls and vine coated pillars supporting an open top floor.
A squeeze of my hand. "In Mexico they serve Sprite almost exclusively in glass bottles."
"Classy," I say, glancing around at the plethora of people roaming the streets. Some of them have higher class clothing, but those people are almost all white. Others wear just a hoodie and let their children roam around the edge of the road, playing with stray dogs.
I feel much safer with Bob at my side. Normally a crowded road wouldn't make me anxious but now I've learned just to wait for HEXA to strike.
He leads me inside and we are instantly seated at a table for two adjacent to the sidewalk. Fake (or maybe real) stuffed fish and sharks are adorned around like a really good fisherman had become an interior designer.
"They sell the same plate of quesadillas almost everywhere. So I can't tell you anything special about this place, just that it's special to me," says Bob as he plants his elbows on the table.
"How much time have you spent here?" I ask, leaning back in my seat. A gust of evening wind blows through and I wish that I had some kind of jacket like Perry or Bob.
"My parents would drop me off here for months at a time when they went off to do something 'important.' Probably HEXA work," he explains. "I stayed by myself at the Casablanca and I could do anything I wanted at all. I was only a child but I was allowed to roam Mexico unsupervised. Looking back on it it probably wasn't safe, but I loved it here anyways. I learned to surf, I fished on large boats with the natives, I taught myself Spanish, and the best thing was that I wasn't with my parents."
I stare at Bob and wonder if I've ever heard him spill so much about his past in one run. Maybe I should avoid topics that involve his parents.
The clearing of a throat breaks our silence. "Que quieren comer?" Asks a waiter standing by our table. I wonder how long he's been there and hope he doesn't speak English.
Per Bob's words, I order the "unoriginal" quesadilla and a Sprite. He does the same and the waiter leaves, to both of our relief. I can tell he's hoping that wasn't a HEXA member either.
"When this is all over," I say, "all I really need is one hot shower at home."
Bob bites his lip, as if he has some secret. "I don't take hot showers."
"What do you mean? What other kind of shower is there?"
"If I can take a shower at all, it's ice cold," he explains. "When I was with HEXA at 14, they would put one of those age chemicals in me and pour close to scalding water on me to see how my skin would react."
I blink and hope I don't look too shocked.
"So I can't touch hot water," he says sheepishly. I wouldn't normally guess this trait in him, but when he's talking about his abduction, it's expected. "The burn scars only went away less than a year ago."
"I-I didn't know at all," I stutter. No other words come to mind. What do you say to something like that? "I'm sorry."
"Guayabitos is a great place," says Bob. I'm grateful for the subject change. "There's something about the constant roll of the ocean that's calming." It's as if he is mirroring my thoughts, like they're connected.
I watch his eyes for a second and realize something that's embarrassing to admit but a truth nonetheless: Bob is the ocean. But he's a turbulent one, like that in Maine. Changing constantly, but sometimes crashing on the rocks. Despite it, he always comes back and his waves are consistent.
"You love the ocean, don't you, Jan-Jan? Like you did in Maine?" He asks, running a hand through his windswept hair. Being so close to the equator has given us both a strong tan I failed to notice.
"I love every inch of the seas," I reply, nervously fidgeting with my mother's wedding ring. It had been a gift from my father when he first told us about her. Alice resents me for wearing it, but by now it's the only thing I have of Dad. (My mom is not the sea. She never comes back.)
The conversation is making me tense and I know because I find myself having to think hard about what to say next. So I get rid of it.
"What's the most beautiful country you've been to?" I ask. Travel, that's what Bob's interested in.
"It changes a lot. A while ago it was Bolivia. A couple of days ago it was Colombia. And right now it's Mexico."
"Just whatever country you're in?" That sounds pretty lame, I think honestly.
Bob laughs his contagious laugh. "No. Whatever country you're in."
The smell of cigarette smoke is all to pungent. Children squeal and people yell in Spanish. Bob and I are leaning against the cheaply painted front door of someone's apartment.
My head is on his shoulder again. His hand clutched my hand like it's going to run away.
"I'll go with you," I say. Jan, what does that even mean? My father scolds.
"Jan-Jan, what does that mean?" Asks Bob.
"When we get to America, I don't care where Alice and I go, I just want it to be with you," I mutter, watching the Mexicans walk by, taking their own stories with them.
"I've been everywhere," says Bob. "So it can't hurt to go anywhere." His face looks blankly on and I feel he's too ancient to be 17. Maybe 72 instead.
"Can the hotel be one of those places?" I ask. "It sounds like a good time to go to sleep." I feel I've been asleep the whole night actually, blissfully passing the evening with Bob.
I feel his head nod next to mine and I yawn as he moves us to the sidewalk.
The entire walk home I'm drowsy, but slowly coming to my senses. When I fully return to the world, I'm sitting on the couches next to Guad, Diana, and Bob.
They look to me expectantly, as if I'm supposed to give a speech.
"What?"
"Your sister," laughs Diana. "She's out on a date longer than you. How does it feel?"
"Like it has to be super awkward because of your brother," I shoot back. "And all we have to do is wait for them to crash and burn."