In This Life (8 page)

“Over here,” Jude answered, his voice leading me towards the bedroom. I could barely make him out through the green netting that enclosed the bed and a tiny area around it. I lifted it up and crawled inside to find him sitting on the floor surrounded by little clay pots filled with citronella candles to keep the mosquitos away.

“So? What was so important?” I asked.

“Nothing, really. I just had to see you. Explain what I said last night.”

I couldn’t hide the confused expression on my face. Transparency was sometimes a gift and oftentimes a curse. I sat next to him, our gazes fixed on the flickering candles.

“I want us to spend the rest of your stay here together. As friends. I don’t want anything to change because of what I said to Paulina last night.”

“Jude, get over yourself. I don’t want to sleep with you.”

“I didn’t say you did,” he countered defensively. “I just—”

“Last night, you made sure I knew where we stood.”

“Yes.” He looked at me sadly. “I have to.”

He leaned the weight of his body on his arms and stretched out his legs. The bottom of his jeans were perfectly frayed and torn. His feet looked so fine, his toes long and slender.

“So how do you know Chiayo?” I asked, once again impressed by the many friends he had in the village.

“I stayed with their family when—” He caught himself. “Nothing.”

“What?” I insisted. “Tell me.”

His tone turned softer as he avoided my eyes. “Chiayo is Lao’s cousin. Lao’s mom was really sick. I sat with them throughout her final nights. I also helped to build their new house by the river.”

“Is that why you’re here? To help people? Are you here to help people or to find yourself?” I asked, trying not to sound too emphatic about what I thought he was going to say.

“Both, I guess. Anna, the world is neither black nor white. I find myself when I help people as much as I do when I hurt the people I love. I’m trying to learn about what’s important and to give as much of myself as I can. But sometimes, I can’t help but wonder what’s really out there for me.” His eyes bore into mine, and for the first time since I’d met him, I was sure that I was falling for him. He was selfless and giving. He wanted to make a difference in the world like I did.

Jude spoke with certainty, never failing to make me see things from both points of view. His words made me realize that my mother had to hurt us to find herself. And there was nothing really wrong about wanting what she deserved. There was nothing really wrong about wanting to be happy.
The problem was that sometimes our happiness was at someone else’s detriment. We were burglars in the night, stealing someone else’s laughter for our own and replacing it with tears.

“Listen, Blue, can we be friends, hang out together, and just go back to normal?”

“Believe it or not, I really can’t afford any more complications in my life right now. So, of course we can be friends. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I smiled with genuine affinity. My affection for him was rising to the surface.

“Good,” he said. “Thank you.”

I turned my head in the direction of the wooden chest. It was ornate but worn, with ivory carvings running down its sides.

“What’s in here?” I asked. I got on my knees and slowly lifted its lid. Inside were bits and pieces of the life of the family that lived here—broken toys, a rusty makeup mirror, damaged pictures, tiny baby clothes. I fished in between the clothes and pulled out a funny looking contraption. “What is this?” I asked, holding it up for him to see. “Oh, a cassette player! Of course! We had one of these when I was growing up.”

The beauty of this place had to do with the way time seemed to stand still. Old memories mixed with new ones, the love of a family lost and found in the companionship of two strangers.

“Yeah. It even has a tape inside of it,” he said. “I’ve played it a few times, actually. I just changed the batteries the other day.”

I placed it in the middle of the floor. He slid himself behind me and pulled me close against his chest.

“Let’s hear it,” I said, taking his hand and pushing it down on the PLAY button. Music started to fill the room. We swung our heads and swayed to the music, waiting for the chorus, and then belted out at the top of our lungs:

You’ve got to believe in magic

Something stronger than the moon above

‘Cause it’s magic when two people fall in love

“You know this song?” he asked, his eyes wide with surprise. “Were you even born yet?”

“
Zapped!
Scott Baio! My older cousins used to watch it over and over again when I was a kid!” I laughed. “And listen to you, Mr. Two Years Older than Me.”

“Well then,” he whispered as he stood up and offered me his hand.

I took his lead as he pulled me into his arms, and slowly, so slowly, we moved together to the words of the song. My head was buried in his shoulder while the palm of his hand lay flat on the small of my back. I could feel every breath he took, every beat of his heart. At that very moment, there was no one in the world but us, in a rundown house with a ratty old bed and millions of mosquitoes. There was no one but us, and the music and the magic.

The music drifted out, idly, languidly, until we were left dancing in complete silence. The PLAY button on the recorder popped up.

“Gray?” I muttered into his chest. We stood together in the middle of the floor, motionless but holding on tightly to each other.

“Hmm?” he answered.

“The music stopped.”

“Play it again,” he ordered, without any intention of releasing me.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” His lips brushed against the back of my ear.

“Because I’m kind of trapped here right now.”

He snapped his head up and started to laugh, sweet and joyous. We needed this, he and I. No matter what our secrets were, what life was like before we met, there was no need to know, no need to worry.

The ringing of his laughter was drowned out by a clap of thunder and then a fierce downpour of rain. Instead of running for shelter, I threw my arms up in the air and started to dance.

“Go Blue!” Jude exclaimed, as he ran back into the bedroom and retrieved his phone. He scrolled through it and picked out a hip hop song by will.i.am. Despite the weight of the rain, we jumped and twirled, his hands on my waist, my head thrown back. We swerved left and right, moving in unison. We bounced up and down, our bodies touching, his hands on me, my hands in my hair. Not once did he remove his eyes from mine as we mouthed the words to the song.

Look up in the mirror

The mirror look at me

The mirror be like baby you the shit

God dammit you the shit

Drenched, we danced away our worries and fears. There was no need for reasons, no need for confessions.

They say that love is found in the darkest of moments, when you’re lost and alone, in desperate search of answers. But that night, we found love in merriment and joy. We danced until the clouds had passed and our clothes were dry, we played backgammon into the wee hours of the morning, and slept side by side on the floor. There was no need to define who we were to each other. We were young and alive, and the future looked bright.

“
BLUE, DO YOU
believe in fate?” Jude asked as we floated along the water in two old tires that we’d picked up from the Sunday market. They were tied securely to the bamboo posts that supported the hut to ensure that we didn’t get carried away by the current. Earlier, we had talked about how we should be spending our last week at the mission. “Do you think we were meant to meet, to spend time together, despite the fact that in the end, we have to go our separate ways?”

The moon was so bright and the water was as clear as glass. I could see the little fish swimming underneath my toes. Yellow spotted boxfish and blue tangs blended in with the orange anemones, flitting harmlessly in and out of the corals on the ocean floor. Jude held a flashlight in his hands and shone it on the surface, allowing us to watch the fish go back and forth as he teased them with the light. We were in shallow water, merely chest deep, and so we felt safe and secure in our own private corner of the sea.

Separate ways. It made me sad to hear these words from him. Soon, the inevitable day would arrive and he would be nothing more than the friend I met in Thailand.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I answered. “If God has a plan for everyone, then what good is prayer? Wouldn’t prayer be useless? I mean, assuming people did pray.” Bedtime prayers were a huge deal with my mother when I was younger. Not anymore.

He laughed as he reached out for my tire and linked it firmly with his. We faced each other, our feet dangling in opposite directions.

“You tend to over think things,” he said. “Fate has nothing to do with prayer, Blue. Prayer keeps you in check and gives you the blessings that you need to live out your fate.”

“Okay, but if you prayed for God to change things, they wouldn’t change anyway.” I tried to push away from him, but he held on to the rope that drooped in the water.

“But He can give you strength, acceptance, peace.”

“And so what happens to choice if everything in life is your fate?” I spun around in a circle until he reluctantly let go of me.

“Fate leads to choice and choice leads to your fate,” he clarified. There was no compromise with this guy. “Think multiple choice. There’s only one answer, and if you continue to choose the wrong one, you’ll keep trying until you get the right one.”

“What? You just confirmed that prayers don’t work,” I said as I pushed away from him and drifted as I far as I could go. I continued to state my case. “There was this time in fourth grade when I was being bullied for my red hair. One day, I knew that the girls in this group were looking for me. They heard that my dad had brought me these really cool wooden pens from his trip to China, and they wanted me to hand them over. I hid in the bathroom and prayed with all my might that they wouldn’t find me, but they did. And they took my pens, roughed me up, and made fun of my hair. My mom pulled me out of the school the very next day and placed me in a new one.”

“Now why,” he began, “why in the world would they tease you about your hair? It’s the most striking feature about you. Okay, along with your eyes and your nose and your mouth,” he said gently, while trying unsuccessfully to reach out for me. The light sweep of the current was too quick for him.

“Smooth talking will get you everywhere,” I joked, allowing myself to drift.

“Do you think that what happened has played a part in the reason why you’re so strong and so driven?” He placed the flashlight between his legs and used his hands to paddle closer to me. I thought it was adorable, the way we drifted together and came apart.

“I guess,” I said. “So what you’re saying is that I had to be bullied in order to get transferred to my new school? Because that new school was where I spent the happiest days of my life. I met Maggie there.”

“You met her in grade school?” he asked.

“Yup. Dodgeball. Some idiot hit me on the head with the ball and took me down. The ball bounced off my big head and smacked Maggie on the same spot as she stood on the sidelines flirting with a boy. We ended up in the nurse’s clinic, side by side on two stretchers.” I smiled with fond remembrance.

“What happened to the idiot?”

“He became my best friend.”

“No kidding?!” He laughed. “You see? I really think things happen for a reason,” he said, pulling me to him so that we held hands. In fact, I clasped my fingers around his because I didn’t want to float away. There was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be.

He tugged on the rope as we glided closer to the hut. “For example, do you ever wonder how come you run into so many people day in and day out and only a handful of them remain permanently in your life?”

“No,” I joked. “I don’t sit there and do a play-by-play of everyone I meet.”
Which is why this is so unlike me, Jude.

“So,” he asked, with sincere interest, “Dante was a childhood friend? He seems so cavalier to have been friends with you for so long.”

“No. He never really paid attention to me until our freshman year of college. We were in Spanish class together. We made fun of the same people, liked the same movies, worked in a group together. We love the same style of clothes, shop at the same stores… and he’s been the most patient, loyal friend I could ever have since then.”

“Did you guys ever, you know, hook up?”

“What? No!” I objected. “I’ve told you before, we’re best friends. Besides, we’re too alike. But enough about me. What about you? Who’s your best friend?”

“A guy named Peter. We’re
not
exactly the same, though. He’s a ladies man. And very laid back. Sooo… boyfriends. What about your boyfriends?” he asked.

“If you’re doing this so that I ask about your girlfriend, no deal, Gray. I don’t want to know about her.” I kicked his tire away from me and giggled as he blanched from the sting of the saltwater in his eyes.

“Why do you keep pushing me away? I asked you a question, Blue.” He grabbed my foot and used it to pull himself close to me again.