Wanderlove (33 page)

Starling steals a fry from my plate. “Anyway, how do you know he wants to be found?”

“I don’t. But like I said, I want to make amends. I don’t know what he’s told you. . . .” I think of our dock, and my face heats up. “But he found out I called you, Starling. That’s not all, but it’s what’s important.” Or at least, what I’m willing to tell. “He’s angry, and really hurt.”

“In which case, I’d hope you’d respect his decision to disappear.”

When she reaches for another fry, I slide my plate away.

“Look who’s talking, Starling! You’re the one who keeps enlisting strangers to ‘protect’ him. He’s almost twenty years old! Talk about a lack of respect.”

“You don’t know what I know.”

“I know more than you think—but it doesn’t make a difference. If you hadn’t underestimated your brother so much and planted all those stupid suspicions in my head, I wouldn’t be in this mess, would I? If you’re not going to tell me anything, I might as well go.”

I stand up, then sit back down.

“I left my money in my daypack,” I admit.

Starling hands the server a couple of bills. “Where the hell are you planning to go, exactly? It’s getting dark. Do you have a place to stay?”

It’s times like these I really, really wish I wasn’t broke and clueless.

“Are you inviting me over?”

“No. I’m letting you sleep out in the street. Of course I’m inviting you over. You’ll give me a headache all night, but I’m not as much of a bitch as you think I am. Believe it or not.”

An armed security guard cranks open the gate to Starling’s building, which has white iron cages on all the windows.

On our way to the stairs, she stops by her car. That’s right—

Starling has a car. A Toyota Camry, parked in a tiny carport inside the gate.

“A rental,” she confesses, seeing my expression.

“I don’t get it. Can’t you walk to work?”

“Obviously. But it’s way more convenient to have a car.

They just put in a supermarket outside Santa Elena.” I guess I can relate. My high school was less than one mile from my house, but I drove there anyway. I’d have thought Starling would be different, though.

She unlocks the door to her third-floor studio apartment.

It’s small, with a red tile floor and a window overlooking the Flores rooftops. A massive table serves as a desk, cluttered with papers, travel journals, and computer paraphernalia.

The kitchenette in the corner is equally messy, the sink heaping with dishes. An orange apron hangs from a hook on the wall. Next to her bed, there’s a framed photo of Starling and Rowan standing atop a Mayan ruin. Rowan looks younger, his hair shorter and hanging in his eyes. I wonder if he’s been here since he left the island. Wondering makes my stomach hurt.

“I don’t get it,” I say for the second time. “You just got here. How come you have so much stuff?”

“This is where I lived before. I kept everything here when I went to stay with Rowan.” She kicks off her shoes. They strike the opposite wall: bang, bang.

“In Santa Lucía?”

“Sure. The owners kept it for me. I paid, of course.” I watch Starling fill two coffee mugs from a jug of purified water and stick them in the microwave. “Where do you get all this money?”

“My stepdad. He’s loaded. He and my mother use money as a substitute for affection, and I’ve decided to be okay with that.”

My thoughts start to sputter. I always assumed people who lugged around backpacks and stayed in places like the Rainforest Retreat did it because they couldn’t afford anything better. Coming from money is the last thing I would have expected from Starling West, the backpacker ideal. She drops tea bags in the mugs and brings them to the table. I glance at the label: Tazo Wild Sweet Orange. Isn’t that the Starbucks brand? I feel like I’ve tumbled down the rabbit hole. “If money’s no problem, why in the world do you backpack?” Starling sits across from me. “You think only broke people can backpack?”

“No, but . . .”

I guess I never really thought about it. On first reflection, simulating poverty seems deceitful, like panhandling for fun.

Isn’t it offensive to the truly impoverished? But then again, anyone who can afford a plane ticket is doing better than most of the world. I guess that’s something you carry with you as a person who travels with his or her eyes all the way open.

“But what?” Starling prompts.

“Well, Rowan and I discussed this kind of thing a lot,” I say slowly. “How a person sees more by traveling cheap. More of the real world, at least. And then, once you’ve traveled this way . . . it probably wouldn’t feel right to travel in luxury, even if you could afford it.” I pause. “Though maybe I’ll feel differently when I’m sixty with a bad back. But it’s why you volunteer all the time, isn’t it? That guilt?”

“I guess it’s part of the reason,” Starling agrees. “First-world guilt. You know what, Bria? You’re a walking contradiction.

You come off one way, but you’re really someone else entirely.”

“Thanks. I guess.”

“It’s funny to think back, isn’t it? I was so surprised to see you in Santa Lucía. I thought maybe I’d misjudged you on the plane—but then, you seemed so uncomfortable around the other backpackers. Also, you were kind of bossy. So I thought there was a good chance you’d keep Rowan from the island. Or at least from Lobsterfest. Before you yell at me again, I’m not saying Rowan can’t take care of himself, okay?

But there’s no need to revisit the scene of old crimes.”

“I wanted to go to Lobsterfest more than he did.”

“You did?”

“It’s true. Rowan tried to get out of it, but I pressured him to go. And he hated it. But I didn’t notice—I was just so into my own little party.”

“I suspected you had your own shit to deal with. Considering you invented a boyfriend and all.”

“I didn’t
invent
him! I just lied about our breakup.”

“Why’d you lie?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like I thought it through. I guess I wasn’t ready to be completely accountable for myself. If that makes sense.”

“It does.” Starling gets up and crosses the room to her dresser. In front of me, she changes into a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt. I am not surprised Starling is one of those naked people. When she rejoins me at the table, I see her shirt reads
Banana Republic.
Talk about walking contradictions.

“You’re staring.” She swivels around. “Look at the back.”

‘Honduras
,
’ I read.

“The real banana republic.”

“Got it.” I bounce my tea bag in my mug, even though the water has reached the point of supersaturation. I know I need to bring up Rowan again, but my mouth won’t form the words.

“So . . . has this ever happened before? With other girls?”

“What, the stalking?”

“Starling! Come on, I’m not . . .” Wait, am I?

“I’m just teasing. No, I’m pretty sure none of his girls lasted longer than a week or two. But as you know, Rowan was a lot different back then. He had the same good heart.

Three sizes too big, if you ask me. But it’s only recently that he’s turned some of that love on himself.”

“So he loved them?”

“Love?” Starling scoffs. “Are you being funny?”

“I thought . . . I don’t know. Wanderlove, and all that.”

“Don’t you remember what I said? It has nothing to do with love.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? I’m the one who came up with it.”

“But it’s not your philosophy. It’s Rowan’s.”

“Whatever.” Starling wedges her knees against the table.

“I’m realizing I have no idea what he’s told you over the past couple weeks. Did he tell you how we met?”

“Met?” I blink at her. “How you met? But you’re brother and sister. You’ve always known each other.”

“Nope. We met when I was your age.”

My age? I’m speechless.
But what about your secret language?
I almost ask, and then I remember: I made it up. I invented their childhoods together.

“I didn’t even know Rowan existed,” Starling explains.

“All I knew was what my mother told me—that my dad was a loser and a drunk and probably dead, and they hadn’t been in touch since before she had me. I was clueless until my freshman year of college, when this sixteen-year-old guy showed up on my doorstep in Berkeley. He’d tracked me down. Rode a Greyhound all the way from Oregon. I couldn’t believe it.”

I can’t believe it either. “You’re saying your mother didn’t know about him?”

“That’s what she said, but I didn’t believe her, and I still don’t. Rowan always knew about me—his dad’s not the type to protect anyone from anything. Our dad, I mean. Apparently, he’d tried to get in touch himself. Probably for the wrong reasons—he must have known my mom married rich.

But I was an adult! I deserved to know I had a brother.”

“At least you have him now.”

“As much as anyone can
have
Rowan.” I can’t help thinking about my own parents. Maybe they could be more outspokenly supportive of my art talent, more perceptive, more harmonious, all the qualities I find them lacking. But they’ve always been truthful. They’ve always been open in their love for me. And the other stuff—well, they’re people. Flawed people, just like me. I need to stop blaming them for not asking the right questions when I could have volunteered the answers at any time.

I should probably start by telling them where the hell I am.

My eyes migrate to the photo beside Starling’s bed. “That’s at Puerto Sol, in Nicaragua,” she says. “Almost two years ago.”

“When Rowan came to meet you in Central America.”

“Yep. When he caught the travel bug. Met Jack. Began to dive.”

“And never looked back.”

“And began making a real mess of things.” Starling tugs off her headband. “He was always a party animal. When I left him to head home and finish college, I should have known things would escalate. I graduated early last winter, and we did some traveling before I came to work up here. That’s when the shit really hit the fan.”

She unwinds her Princess Leia buns until her hair dangles in two pigtails.

“When I came down to Lake Atitlán that time, he was the lowest I’d ever seen him. Someone in a boat from San Pedro la Laguna caught him trying to swim across the lake. In the middle of the night. Do you know how far that is? He was so depressed. Practically out of his head. Hal Cavendish—you know, the guy from La Casa Azul—Hal called me and told me what was going on. I gave the school a day to find a replacement teacher. And then I went.”

I think about the bus breakdown, when Rowan wouldn’t share his scary story. “Was Jack with him? At the lake?” Starling wrinkles her nose. “He was with me, actually.

Here in Flores. Visiting from Laughingbird, where he’d just started working. It wasn’t serious or anything. After I found out how he’d left Rowan in Honduras, I was completely over it. And so I left. Fast.”

“But you were with Jack at the airport.” Starling nods. “Despite Rowan’s better judgment, they got back in touch. Jack stayed at the lake a couple days, before you got there—that’s when he invited Rowan to Laughingbird Caye. That jackass has got a sixth sense for vulnerability.

Back in Honduras, I’m pretty sure—”

“Don’t tell me.”

Starling squints at me. “Really? I thought you’d be dying to know what happened.”

“Rowan told me a lot. But what I don’t know . . .” I wrap the string of my tea bag around my finger. “It’s Rowan’s story.

You know? He should be the one to tell it—if he wants. It’s all that talking and wondering and speculating that got me in trouble in the first place. And even if I never see him again, at least I’ll know I haven’t done anything else to compromise his trust.”

Starling keeps staring at me, her head tipped slightly. In the silence, I can hear tuctucs beeping in the streets below.

Someone’s playing Latin accordion music in the next apartment over.

“You’re right,” she says at last. “I guess I’ve been underestimating everyone lately.”

For the first time, I see the resemblance between her and Rowan. Something in the shape of their eyes and mouths. It makes me miss him more than ever, and I have to look away.

“You really think a lot of him, don’t you?” she asks.

“How can I not?” I touch the butterfly in the crook of my hand. It’s fading; I’ll have to retrace it. Maybe I should tattoo it there. But then it’d ruin all the fun in drawing it. “Can you tell him I’m sorry?”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?”

I look wildly around, heart pounding. Is Rowan here? Has he been hiding in a closet, listening?

“He’s not here! If that’s what you’re thinking. Not right here, anyway. But he is nearby.”

“Where is he?”

“You’re going to have to get up really, really early,” she says, reaching for her phone.

After Starling finishes talking with the shuttle company, I ask if I can call my parents. I could use my phone, but racking up roaming charges isn’t the best way to atone for my lack of status updates. Starling brings a book and a flashlight to the balcony to give me privacy.

“I’m all right,” I say as soon as my mom answers.

What follows is a whole lot of yelling, and a whole lot of tug-of-war as my dad battles for the phone, before they finally put me on speaker and give me the chance to explain.