Out of Touch (14 page)

They hadn’t known then that Mrs. Duncan was ill, but perhaps they should have guessed. In some ways she projected the same vibrancy and restlessness as Sarah, but it was buried deep beneath bitterness and alcohol. She walked with the same taut posture that had first drawn Reggie’s eye to her daughter, as if her spine and each of her limbs were pulled by invisible elastic. But Mrs. Duncan was no longer graceful, if she ever had been. She was a sixty-year-old woman who looked closer to
eighty. She wore a lot of polyester and rayon, bought gag gifts for friends at the office, and tried to provoke arguments with her daughter almost every night. But she said she’d always wanted a vacation in Jamaica, and she said she wanted to know her daughter’s first “serious” boyfriend.

Sarah told Reggie he was the only guy she’d dated that her mother approved of. Despite the fact that he had joined the Peace Corp and spoke openly about a life of service through NGOs (which he carefully explained meant non-governmental organizations), he was an MBA from a wealthy family who knew how to charm almost anyone. And as mothers went, he found Sarah’s mostly likable and amusing, so he’d done his best to keep everyone in good spirits during their one-week trip together.

At the end of that cave tour, it was Sarah’s mom who asked the man selling maracas to carve “Reggie + Sarah” into one. It was not the sort of souvenir they would have chosen for themselves, but they’d appreciated the gesture and made good use of the instrument when singing silly songs later that night. Reggie was pretty sure Sarah had kept it, though he didn’t know where. He’d remembered it immediately when Sarah designated her meeting place over the phone.

As the boat reached the refreshment area at the end of the current tour, Reggie stepped off into the cavernous cantina and looked around. The maraca booth still squatted in the same spot. No sign of Sarah, though. He went with the rest of the tour for his complementary glass of punch and sat where he could keep an eye on the maraca seller.

From his seat, he saw a wiry rasta guy in a brilliant yellow shirt come through a service door. The guy glanced around, spotted Reggie, and walked straight to him.

“Hey mon, don’ wanna hurry you, but if you wanna meet your lady in time, we need to go.”

Reggie smiled and raised an eyebrow as he set down his punch. “The time suits me fine.” With his pack over his shoulder again, Reggie followed the man in the flowing yellow shirt out through the service door and up a gritty stairway into the blinding afternoon light. Before his eyes adjusted, they came to a dusty cab, and the rastafarian, who appeared to be the cabby, opened a door for him.

The person inside had short black hair, a wide brimmed white hat, and a white tourist t-shirt with plastic beaded trim, but it was still obviously Sarah. Reggie climbed in without saying a word and the cabby started driving. He gazed at Sarah, wondering if she looked so great because of her tan, the hair, or the time they’d been apart.

Just as he was about to speak, Sarah cut him off by saying in Urdu, which they hadn’t used in almost two years, “How well do you remember this language?”

He thought,
“Shit, I was never as good as you at languages.”
But in Urdu he said only, “A little bit. I can try.”

She hugged him tight across the backseat, and he lost all comprehension of the words she murmured in his ear. His body reacted very strongly to seeing her again. But when she stopped at just a hug, he let her disengage and then asked in careful Urdu, “Could you repeat that?”

Then the cabbie, without looking back said, “We got a car following us. You wanna lose him, no problem.”

“You can do that? Thanks, man.” Sarah answered, fixing her eyes on the rearview mirror.

Reggie settled a hand on her thigh and just enjoyed the ride as the cab hit town and began suicidal driving maneuvers, the likes of which he’d last seen in Delhi. They cut between cars, made sudden turns, and spit through and out of narrow alleys. The driver maintained a relaxed attitude throughout, giving a short laugh when it was clear they’d lost their tail. Reggie saw Sarah pulling money out of her pocket, wondered if he should chip in, and decided he’d just be interfering.

The car jerked to a stop by the same open-air market he’d passed through before. Spies could save themselves a lot of time by just covering this market well. But he followed Sarah out as she paid the driver with an enormous tip.

“You got a normal t-shirt in that bag?” Sarah asked, in Urdu, of course, as she threaded her way through the now crowded market. She pulled off her sun hat and tourist shirt and shoved them into her tote bag. She was wearing a tight yellow tank top underneath, and Reggie was suddenly quite sure she was not wearing a bra. A moment later she had pulled a loose navy blue t-shirt over it, and Reggie tried to think back to her last question.

“Yeah, like the tank top, by the way.”

“Hold that thought for later. When we step around this corner, go ahead and swap to your t-shirt. I’ve got two snug straps around my midriff right now that I’m going to slide up to make me look more like a guy.”

Reggie was wondering about the usefulness of such disguise, but as they reached the specified corner he fumbled in his pack for a nondescript shirt. The place she’d chosen for them to change was an alley full of rotting garbage. Overflowing cans provided some visual privacy, but Reggie suspected the odor was what really turned spectators away. He swapped shirts in thirty seconds while Sarah reached under her shirt and managed to quite remarkably hide the fact that she had breasts. She then handed him a worn looking baseball cap, put one on herself, and continued across the market to the main bus stop.

The wait at the bus stop stretched longer than their whole walk through the market. All around them locals and tourist kids crowded onto other buses. Sarah kept quiet and didn’t make eye contact. Reggie leaned against a pole trying to look like a tourist and think like a private investigator. A heavyset black woman pulled a screaming kid by the arm, then finally picked him up like a sack of potatoes and shoved her way onto a bus. A dirty white teen with dreadlocks and the blank expression of American privilege slouched his way onto a packed bus and stood without holding on. Behind them a thirty-ish man who looked half-black and half-Hispanic stood waiting. He seemed out of place. His casual clothes appeared pressed; his shoes, too new.

At that point Sarah pulled Reggie onto an overflowing bus. The out-of-place man didn’t follow them; he was talking on his phone. Reggie focused his attention on the crowd crammed in beside him.

He liked foreign bus services. American buses carried either despair or machismo. Cities with subways had a bizarre underworld charm all their own, but there was nothing like riding a bus in a country where people took it for granted as part of their daily life and community. Conversations flowed with these people from their work, onto wheels, to their homes. The stories were loud and either unabashed or told for thrill value. The locals didn’t care what the trampers and hostlers heard, probably assuming they weren’t fluent in the language. Here much of the conversation was in Spanish, some in English. Reggie’s Spanish was much better than his Urdu; he could follow it without effort. When he finally glanced at Sarah he saw she was a study in nonchalance, much like the American kid at the bus stop. The French knew ennui. The American version denied the possibility of interest. Reggie realized Sarah was more of an actress than she’d ever let on. She also was quite passable as a boy, which left a slightly uneasy edge on Reggie’s attraction to her.

People left and joined the bus, but gradually it became less crowded, less raucous. Reggie looked out the windows more. The area was a strange combination of cheap construction from several different decades. Prefab buildings with peaked roofs pressed next to pseudo-Mexican stucco and foam blown vacation huts. The air carried a whiff of salt, and Reggie vaguely remembered something about a boat from Sarah’s litany in the cab.

He glanced around the bus trying to remember who had boarded with them. Of course, that man, or someone they didn’t even suspect, could have called ahead to another stop. So anyone present could be assigned to watch them. He followed Sarah off at the next stop, studying the passengers who disembarked behind them.

All of a sudden his pack was pulled from his shoulder, and a young Asian man was running off with it. Reggie grabbed for him, swore in English, then started to give chase. He was pissed at himself for being so careless after all his travels, but realized quickly that he didn’t want a scene.

Sarah huffed up beside him, “Did you need it?”

“No.”

“I.D. in it?”

“No.”

“Sorry, then. Let’s go.”

Reggie was stung for a moment by the indifference of this mysterious dark-haired pseudo-boy who used to be his girlfriend. But he’d chosen to come here. They walked a couple blocks to a beach with a small dock where three boats were tied up. The nicest was a motor boat with a polished wood deck and navy blue sides. It was tied in sideways with a plank out for boarding. Sarah walked up noisily and called out, “We’re here.”

A very tan man with a short ponytail stepped out. He shook Sarah’s hand and reached out to Reggie.

“Hi, I’m Joe.”

“Reggie.”

“Glad to meet ya’. Jill was ready to go without you if she couldn’t track you down. Must be quite a dig you’re going to.”

“We hope so,” Sarah, or “Jill”, chimed in. “Anything we can do to help get going?”

“Nah, I’m all ready. Not that much to do on a boat like this.”

“Well, you mind if we go down below then? I think I’ve gotten a bit too much sun the last few days.”

“You better get used to it if you’re going into archeology. But sure, you two scoot on down and have some time to yourselves. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

Joe gave Reggie a knowing wink as Sarah led the way below deck. Reggie smiled, unsure just what the cover story was, and followed Sarah down. A cramped flight of stairs led into a tight cabin with a small kitchen area, table, and bed. There were no personal effects, any dishes or clothing were stored in closed cupboards. The only smell was ocean and a slight hint of mildew. The bed was covered with a rough brown blanket, tucked with military precision at the corners.  Reggie was ready to launch a humorous tirade about being one of Bo Peeps returned sheep when Sarah took his hand and flooded him with an explanation in Urdu.

He managed to grasp that they were supposed to be archeology students who’d wrangled an invite to an exciting new dig in Belize. Sarah seemed to have negotiated their passage for cash and a promise they’d report back about the new dig site. Joe, probably not his real name, had his own reasons for being in Dangriga, Belize before dawn, probably smuggling something out, possibly archeological artifacts.

“Are you crazy?” Reggie asked, in a harsher tone than he intended.

“No more than usual. This is moving too fast for you, isn’t it? I didn’t really think we’d make it this far without being caught.”

Sarah pulled close to him, her whole body pressed against his. The urgency of his physical attraction hit like a full body slam. “My lucks rubbing off on you. Do we really need to speak in Urdu?”

“He might be listening, but you can say normal stuff in English if you want.”

“Like I could say, let’s see that tank top the way you wore it earlier?” he said in English.

“If that’s what you’re most curious about, sure.” She fumbled with the bands under her shirts, then pulled off the camouflaging loose blue t-shirt. She was in fact not wearing a bra and the clingy yellow tank top suited her slim figure well. Reggie ran his fingers down her back enough to feel the two bands now around her ribs and midriff. He slid his hands under the tank top and felt, then peeked at the lower one. It was a three-inch wide piece of stretchy nylon that it took him a moment to recognize.

“What a curious use for a head band,” Reggie said.

“I hardly need it for my hair now.”

Reggie slid the hand that was under Sarah’s shirt up above the hair bands. His other hand glided gently across her almost bristly short hair. “I like it. Dark hair looks quite exotic on you. About this boy thing though, I prefer your figure as it is.”

“I see that from the boy thing in your jeans,” Sarah quipped as she rubbed her hips against him and began to remove his shirt. There wasn’t
much need for English or Urdu for a while.

After an urgent but quite spectacular round of sex, Reggie found himself lying naked on the bed with Sarah asleep, mostly naked, mostly on top of him. Normally, he was not the sort of guy who would object to that, but it occurred to him that Joe might eventually want to use the inside cabin. Besides, now that one sort of passion was temporarily sated, his curiosity was rising with its own passion.

He stroked Sarah’s newly shorn hair, enjoying the sensation, and also hoping it was a fair way to wake his light-sleeping girlfriend.

She stretched on top of him and said, “I guess a good night’s sleep would be too much to ask?”

“Naked in the cabin of Joe the smuggler’s ship?”

“If you’re going to say things like that, use Urdu,” she said in Urdu.

“I don’t have the vocabulary. Besides if he was going to listen in, I’m sure he found the previous segment much more interesting.”