16

Morning sunlight shines through the sole window in Alex’s room. His slender arms still wrap around me. For the first time, I see the scars along his wrist. They are many, done in a haphazard mess—as random a series of lines as those galvanized pipes scattered down my riverbed. What did I expect—a single deep and decisive cut on each arm? I run my fingers along the raised mounds of flesh, as though they are a kind of Braille and I can tease a meaning out of them if I concentrate. My mind’s eye tries to picture Alex in the act. Was he uncertain? Could he barely bring himself to make the deepest cut? I allow myself to wonder: Did he ever mean to go through with it? Or was this a desperate plea for attention—a cry for help, as they say?

Alex stirs as my fingers touch the scar tissue. He wakes with a series of jolts and shudders—another habit I remember well from our days as a couple but do not miss.

I climb out of bed and dress in the things I’ve left scattered about the floor: bikini, borrowed clothes, dime-store rubber sandals.

“Malia.” Alex rises and sits up on the bed. “I’m sorry.”

For a second, I wonder if I can lay the blame on his shoulders. Can I compose a version of last night in which I was drunk and he took advantage? I try that out for half a second but can’t sell it even to myself.

“It’s my fault.” I pick the bills up off the floor and stuff them back into my bikini top. “I have to go,” I tell him, without any real idea what time it is.

“You don’t have to go, Malia.” The pink marks on his forearm look like their own odd form of clothing. “That’s the one thing you should get straight in your mind: You do not have to go.”

“Good-bye.” I leave the apartment without a kiss or hug.

*   *   *

It takes a while to find the car. The gate of the Estancia is visible a few doors from my parking spot. I look down at my skirt and top, knowing I should return them. But then I recall Courtney’s disappointed parting glance last night, and I can’t bring myself to face her.

As I pull the door handle on the Jeep, I realize that I don’t have a choice: She’s got my keys.

Luckily, Niña Ana is up and buzzes me in. She has a habit of boiling tap water and then cooling it in the fridge for her guests. I take out one glass bottle and drink the entire thing in a series of bubbling gulps. Gingerly, I push open the door to Courtney’s room.

Inside, half a dozen bodies lie across the mattresses in various states of drooling, snoring, hungover slumber. Courtney’s things are arranged upon a folding chair by her bed. Searching underneath a couple layers of clothes, I find my car keys tucked inside her shoe.

So they don’t jingle, I wrap my fingers tightly around the keys and make my way to the door.

“That was a shitty move you pulled last night.” Courtney’s voice shocks me so much, I put a hand over my heart.

“Jesus, you scared the hell out of me.” I speak softly, hoping not to wake this roomful of sleepers.

“Sorry.” Her eyes hardly open. Her head turns slightly upward off the pillow. “Just thought you should know.”

I want her on my side. So often, she’s been my confidante in times like these. “I fucked up last night,” I say. “Cut me a little slack.”

“You can’t have your cake and eat it, too, Malia.”

A grumble comes from a body in one of the other beds.

“I know,” I whisper. “I’m a little confused about things.…”

“Try not to mess with too many other lives while you figure it out, okay?”

I don’t have a response to that. Why is she being so cruel? “Courtney, did you … Were you hoping that you and Alex might…?”

“Would you all shut the fuck up, please?” bellows a voice I don’t recognize.

Courtney doesn’t answer me.

“Is that what this is about?” I suppose the better part of my interest is pure curiosity. But another part, from a deeper and darker place, feels that she’s violated some unwritten code. It’s true that I’m with someone else and all, and technically on my way out of this country. But Alex is my ex. And Courtney is my best female friend. There’s some sort of rule against that, isn’t there?

“That’s not even the point, Malia.”

“Shut up!” The same sleeper throws a pillow, which lands near my feet.

It occurs to me that I might not see Courtney again for a long time, years even. “Thanks for everything you did for me yesterday. You’re a good friend and you’re right: I messed up. I hope you’ll forgive me.” I leave the room, grateful that nobody asked me to return the borrowed clothes.

Traffic is light for a weekday morning. Large H signs point the way to the hospital. Young boys carry tins of Spanish olive oil between the cars at every stoplight. The oil was Spain’s primary form of aid to their former colony in the wake of the earthquake. It’s given out in shelters and refugee camps. Nobody in this country knows what to do with the stuff. It smokes too much to fry with. Teenagers sell gallons of it for pennies. Salvadoran cooks often dump the expensive oil out upon the ground so that they can use the sturdy tins for something else.

*   *   *

Luckily, there’s a parking spot close to the building where I left Ben and Pelochucho. I buy sweet bread from a cart outside.

“You look like shit,” Ben says to me.

“I didn’t sleep well. Brought you some food.” I hold out the bag of baked goods, hoping its aroma might mask the smell of cigarette smoke, that the cigarette smoke might mask the smell of sex.

Pelochucho stirs, says hello, and bites into one of the sugar-encrusted rolls.

“How was the floor?” I ask Ben, looking down at his makeshift pile of cushions.

“Not so bad.” He shrugs. “I was tired.”

“And the patient?” I ask Pelo.

“Ready to get the hell out of here.” His mouth is full of eggy dough.

“You smell like cigarettes,” Ben says.

“I smoked some on the drive.”

He nods but doesn’t look convinced.

Checking out of the hospital takes longer than expected. Ben and I leave Pelo in the room and sort things out with the clerks at the front desk. They give us syringes and a vial of antibiotics to inject into Pelochucho’s ass, as well as spare bandages and an eye patch. Ben hands over the rest of his money—everything we “earned” from Pelo yesterday. That barely covers the bill.

Again, I ride in the plywood storage space. It’s uncomfortable, but I’m thankful not to have to make conversation. My hangover reaches fever pitch on the ride back as we descend toward the coast. It brings gallons of guilt along with it. In one long evening and a short bit of morning, I’ve lost two of my closest friends in this country, and managed to cheat on Ben in the bargain. I keep thinking of Alex’s last words to me, about not needing to leave, and Courtney’s accusation that I want to have my cake and eat it, too. It’s true: I want to go south and surf, to leave behind the ruins of this place and get some waves, to see Patagonia and toss those stones Ben’s always talking about into the sea. But I also want to stay and set things right, to help heal El Salvador and make my father proud. The two possibilities wrestle with each other inside my mind. I wonder if my Hawaiian ancestors had a way of choosing between competing kuleana. Perhaps those were simpler times. In the end, I decide the best thing is to convince Ben to leave as soon as possible. At least that way, my indecision can’t cause any more trouble.

The more I commit to it, the more it seems that all my problems stem from our still being in this country. Indeed, we’ve stayed in El Salvador just a couple days too long. I worry that now Ben will feel obliged to stick around and take care of Pelochucho.

*   *   *

The engine cuts off. We’re back in La Posada. I want to speak with Ben about our departure, but I need to get cleaned up and have a nap first, maybe a beer as well.

Ben comes around and opens the back for me. Pelochucho works his way out of the passenger seat in a jerky, one-eyed hobble, his legs still stiff from so many hours in bed. Kristy runs over the second she sees his bandages and helps him to the room. Pelo explains the accident with Spanglish and hand gestures.

“I’m dying for a shower.” I climb off the plywood platform.

“Wait,” Ben says. “What’s that?” He points toward our bedroom.

“What are you talking about?”

“The window.”

My eyes follow the invisible line extending from his index finger. Our single bedroom window is a louver—a screenless series of glass slats operated from inside by a crank. And at the bottom left-hand corner, where Ben points, two of the slats have been pushed inward and lie cockeyed on the rack.

“Where’s the key?” Ben feels the pocket of his shorts.

“I don’t have it,” I say.

“Fuck!” Ben walks over to the window and sticks his hand through the space made by the moved louvers. “How is this possible? Motherfuckers came in here during broad daylight?” He cups his hand around his mouth. “Kristy!” he shouts.

“Ben, stop,” I say. “I think it happened last night.”

He squints, confused. “You didn’t hear anything? You didn’t notice it this morning?”

“It’s not like that.” I swallow. “I didn’t come back here. I stayed in the capital.”

This information only confuses him more. “Why?”

“I got lost. I went in circles in the traffic. It was getting dark. Then I saw Boulevard de los Heroes and drove to the Estancia. Courtney was there.”

He turns toward the window and studies the breached panes of glass. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know.” I sift through the memory of our morning conversation, reconsidering what was a lie and what was merely an omission. “It never came up.”

“‘Never came up’?” Anger swells inside his voice. He takes a few steps toward me. “What about the drive?”

“What?”

“You said you smoked cigarettes on the drive. But there was no drive.”

“Did I say that? I’m sorry. We went out. I’m not sure why I didn’t mention it. I didn’t think you needed to know.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” The jealous streak that Ben always warned me about takes over the microphone. His hands clasp my upper arms. Pupils swiveling within the now-round whites, his eyes lock onto mine. “What is going on? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“No!” It isn’t hard to act offended, especially with a stiff thumb pressing into my biceps. Though my answer isn’t quite true, it feels like the best option, given the circumstances.

Ben doesn’t speak, just holds me tighter in his hands. With our faces so close together, both of us breathing hard, me making my best doe eyes, there’s something dirty about the whole exchange—a scene from a bad porno film.

“I was with my friends,” I say, a statement that is marginally true—at least they were still my friends when the evening started. “All I wanted was a night out with some of the other volunteers. I had fun.” The explanation is for myself as much as for Ben. That’s all I meant for last night to be. And it was nearly a success, but for one big mistake toward the end.

He releases me and takes a couple steps backward, holding his hands away from his body, fingers splayed, like they’re sharp objects to be handled with care. He turns his head to the side and nods, then closes his eyes.

“I’m sorry.” Ben sticks a hand into each armpit and squeezes them there. “I’m so sorry, Malia.” He looks up at me with a furrowed brow. “I trust you. I swear I do.”

“It’s okay,” I say.

Though I’d never admit it, Ben’s jealousy is something I find oddly endearing. Among my small circle of college friends, and even more so among the volunteers here, couples are so often changing places, people playing musical lovers. There are jokes about it, as if it’s no big deal. This is the first time I’ve seen Ben get so far out of control, and it did scare me, so much so that I felt compelled to lie. But at least he takes our relationship seriously.

“Let’s find that fucking key.” Ben opens the door to the Jeep and rifles though the console. I walk over to the bedroom window and look inside. The bedside table is directly below. Several items are still upon it: a tube of sunscreen, a half-used bar of surf wax. But I don’t see the woven wallet that I bought in Guatemala last year.

“It’s gone,” I whisper to myself. “It’s gone.”

Ben finds the key and works the door open. Inside, he kneels down, peeks under the bed, picks up pillows, then sheets, tosses them in the air.

I follow him into the room. My purse is tucked inside my backpack in the far corner. I check it, but I already know I won’t find what I’m looking for. “They got my wallet,” I tell Ben.

“Are you sure?” His face reddens. He digs his arms into the top of his backpack up to the elbows.

“Positive.”

He throws a few things into the air, opens and closes a couple zippered compartments. “Fuck! They got my bank card.”

Ben runs out of the room. I follow. He puts his elbows on the hood of the Jeep and buries his face in his hands. “What was in your wallet?” he finally asks.

“The airfare cash, all my bank stuff,” I say. “And my passport.” To myself, I recall the Red Cross business card Alex gave me at the Peace Corps office; it was in there as well.

Ben makes a guttural draining sound. “Fuck.” He covers his face with his hands. I wonder if he might be crying. After a couple seconds of that, he stands up straight. He shakes his head first and then his whole body, like a dog drying off.

The shaking stops and he sighs. “My passport is still in the car. You should get on the phone. Call the bank first. Maybe Jim knows somebody we can talk to at the embassy. I’ll go find Peseta.”

I didn’t expect him to regain composure so quickly. “Okay.” I struggle to do the same.

In the neighboring room, Pelochucho lies like a starfish across his bed, the fan going full blast and shaking in its mount. Kristy stands in his doorway, looking in.

“The poor thing,” she says.

“He’ll be fine.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “We should close this and let him rest.”

She steps back and I pull the door shut.

*   *   *

I spend nearly an hour at the public phone office. The bank passes me from one employee to the next. Without my passport, they can’t confirm that it’s my account. I fail to get a hold put on it. Nobody will even tell me the balance.

Jim is nice enough, but he reminds me that since I’m a private citizen traveling in this country, there isn’t much he can do beyond point me in the right direction.

He gives me the number of a kind woman named Elaine from the embassy. At first, she talks as if we can sort the passport out in a few days. But she is mistaken, speaking of an emergency document that would be good for only one month. I explain our trip, the fact that we’re planning to travel for several months.

“I see. You’ll need a full-fledged passport, then.”

“That’s right,” I say.

“I’m afraid that will be more difficult.”

“It will?”

“Yes. As you can probably guess, the embassy is a little overextended at the moment. Under normal circumstances, we might issue emergency passports for as long as a year, but the ambassador has passed some blanket policies since the earthquake. Now they’re all for one month, period.”

I sigh audibly into the receiver.

Elaine seems to register my frustration. “Sorry about this. The black-market value of a U.S. passport has gone through the roof recently. They’ve had to crack down.”

“I didn’t sell my passport,” I say.

“Of course not. I didn’t mean to imply any such thing. Still, issuing new ones is not taken lightly these days.”

I tell myself to stay calm, that she’s trying to help. “So, what’s my best bet here?”

“You should make an appointment immediately and fill out the paperwork. Do you have a photocopy of your lost passport?”

“No,” I say, though I’d been told many times that making a copy was a good idea.

“Bring in whatever documents you have. We’ll start the process right away. But I must warn you: It could take weeks.”

I swallow her facts as best I can, hoping that Ben is having more luck with a street-level approach than I’ve had with the bureaucratic one.

“Shall I make you an appointment for tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, please.”

Elaine urges me to keep my spirits up and says good-bye.

The phone’s old bell lets out a droning ring once I hang it up. In my mind, I tally up what time it is in Honolulu. There’s nothing I’d like more than to hear my father’s voice right now. But what would I tell him? That I’d abandoned the aqueduct he thought so much of? That I accidentally sabotaged the surf trip I’d left it for? That I might’ve just lost thousands of dollars, much of which wasn’t my own—on account of a drunken infidelity?

*   *   *

Back at La Posada, I ask Kristy for my day’s first cup of coffee. She brings out a mug of hot milk and a jar of instant mix. As I stir black crystals into the cup, all sorts of ideas brew through my mind. Could I conceivably sneak my way past every single border in South America? I’ve known others to skip through here and there, mostly volunteers who hadn’t taken vacation days on their way home from Guatemala or Honduras.

But Ben and I are looking at a lot of borders, and we’ll have to get on a plane eventually, to somewhere. Plus, we no longer have any real budget.

I look up from my coffee and see Ben in the street with Peseta. Their conversation turns heated. Peseta shrugs and Ben nods. After a couple more words, they bump fists and Peseta takes off. Ben comes in to join me. I signal Kristy for another cup of coffee.

“How’d it go on your end?” Ben sits down.

“Not great. They’ve got an emergency option, but it’s only good for a month. A whole new passport is more complicated. I have to go to the embassy tomorrow. This could take weeks.”

“Shit.”

“How about your approach?”

He sighs. “I told Peseta I’d pay for the passport and the bank cards. He isn’t too hopeful. He says most of the crackheads burn the documents straight away when they steal a wallet—so they won’t be caught with them later. With an American passport, there’s some chance they might hold on to it. Especially in the case of yours, because…” Ben pauses.

“Because I’m brown,” I say, finishing the sentence for him. “A Salvadoran girl might use it to sneak through immigration—if she looked enough like me—without even changing the photo.” I realize it as I say it.

“Right,” Ben says. “But that sort of thing is a little sophisticated for the rank-and-file sneak thieves. Which means there’s a chance your passport is still around, waiting for a buyer.”

Kristy brings out a tray with another mug of warm milk. We are silent as Ben fixes his coffee.

“You need to call the bank. They might put a hold on your account.”

“I did that,” Ben says. “But the balance shows there are only a few bucks left.”

“What? They can’t take your cash without the PIN number.”

“That’s right.” Ben sighed and looked at the spot where Peseta had been standing. “But apparently they used the debit option and bought stuff with just a signature. It takes more time, but still.”

“Shit.” I hadn’t thought of that. “So the thieves must’ve been on a spending spree for the last twelve hours or so.”

“More likely the thief passed the cards on to somebody else, somebody with wheels. Anyplace that was open, they bought shit from it.”

“What do we do now?” I ask. The outlook for my own bank account isn’t good.

“I’m not sure.” He extends his hand across the table and touches mine. “We’ll figure something out.”

For a few minutes, we sit in silence and drink our coffee. I want to ask if our trip is still on. How little money would be too little?

“I’ll run out to Sunzal real quick.” Ben takes a final sip and puts down the mug.

“Why?” I ask.

“To get the boards.” He stands up.

I’d forgotten all about them.

Ben waves as he drives out of La Posada. Though it isn’t even noon, I ask Kristy for a beer, hoping to keep this hangover at bay long enough to hold my thoughts together. I drink it fast and then brush my teeth in the sink by the shared bathrooms.

“Chinita!” Kristy pokes her head out of the office, her hand held over the mouthpiece of the phone. “For you.”

I’m still rinsing toothpaste foam from my mouth. “One moment.” I spit in the sink, then cross the courtyard.

Kristy hands me the phone, cord stretched out through the office door.

“Hello?”

“Does everyone know you as ‘Chinita’ in that town?”

“You shouldn’t call me here, Alex.”

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry about last night.”

“We had too much to drink and we fucked,” I say. “That’s all it was. I’d like to be able to blame you for it, but that’s not how it happened.”

“Can I see you again?”

“Look, Alex, I’m in a relationship, a serious one. We’ve got plans.” The word plans feels like a punch to the stomach after the events of this morning.

“Will you tell him?”

“Tell Ben? About last night? I don’t think he’d take it too well.” I neglect to mention our jealous exchange a couple hours earlier. I look down at my arms. Twin black dots—the size of nickels—form at the base of each bicep in the spots where Ben pressed his thumbs.

“That’s probably for the best,” Alex says. “It’s not about him, after all.”

“It’s not about anything. I feel shitty not telling him, but it isn’t worth ruining our trip.” I leave off the fact that my carelessness—combined with some crackhead’s cunning—might already have ruined the trip.

“I’m with you,” he says.

“Look, Alex. I have to go.”

“You don’t have to go, Malia.”

“I do, actually. Ben will be back any minute, and we’ve got some stuff to deal with here.”

“I don’t mean right now,” he goes on. “I mean period. You don’t have to leave El Salvador. I understand your reasons. You can, obviously. But don’t act as if you have no choice. That may be the only thing I learned from going to D.C., then coming back here. I didn’t think I could face it: Salvador, El Vado, the Peace Corps, anything. But the truth is, nobody cares. People have their own problems.”

I hear the distinct rattle of our Jeep’s engine coming down the street. “Alex, I have to hang up now.”

“Come see me if you can, please.”

“Good-bye.”

I hang up the phone and take a few steps out into the courtyard. Ben pulls in and parks. Once he climbs out of the Jeep, he sticks his index finger in his mouth and then holds it straight up above his head. “The wind still hasn’t picked up,” he says. “Might as well go surfing.”

*   *   *

Ben and I set out into a hapless sea. We don’t bother with the point, opting instead for the shorter beach break on the inside, the surf spot the locals call La Paz.

A couple small sets roll in after we paddle out. I get a workable section right off the bat and land a little floater before it closes. For a moment, I have that rare and wonderful sense that surfing can redeem the rest of this mess. My feet hit the deck, and for one fleeting instant my bank account and my passport don’t exist. Two turns into a moderately punchy face, and I can see myself from a distance, from years in the future; today’s problems look small and silly—a funny story told over cocktails. That feeling lasts less than a second, then fizzles out with the white water.

After twenty minutes or so, the wind picks up and the surf turns to crap. We stubbornly sit on our boards, hoping that a fluke wave might line up, waiting for that same elusive sense of redemption.

Bobbing up and down in the blown-out sea, with the midday sun now reflecting so hard off the water that I have to squint, things finally catch up with me. I internalize the accusations that Courtney hurled my way. I think of my mother again. Once she’d cheated on my father and left us, at least she left for good. She didn’t lie about it—as far as I know. And she didn’t come back and try to be a wife or parent every so often. Maybe she deserves some credit for that.

The shame washes over me along with the residual indecision and a slight sense that I ought to tell Ben what happened. For a second, I fear I might drown in all of it.

“This sucks,” I shout to Ben, and paddle for shore.

*   *   *

I rinse off. Ben gathers the medical supplies and enters Pelochucho’s room. In my sarong, I go to the doorway and watch as Pelo lowers his board shorts and exposes the uppermost inches of his white ass.

“Easy,” Ben says, then sticks the needle in.

I wonder if Ben has ever done this before. He looks like a pro. Beyond tired, I walk back to our own room. The sun is still high in the early-afternoon sky. I shut the door, turn on the fan, take off my sarong, and lie down across the bed. For a few minutes, I enjoy the cold, quick air against my naked skin.

*   *   *

I wake up feeling drugged, barely able to open my eyes. It takes a second to remember where I am. I paw at the bed beside me, surprised not to find a male body there.

In the hastily wrapped sarong, I have a peek out the door. It’s dusk. The sun will be setting soon. Ben sits at a table in the kitchen, a Regia and a glass set before him. He waves when he sees me. I put on some proper clothes and go to join him. The metal wire of my flip-flop scrapes against the tiles of the dining room.

“How’d it get so late?” My voice is deep and froggy.

“You were out like a light.” He stands up and grabs me a glass from behind the counter. I pour myself a beer from the big amber bottle.

Ben reaches into the cargo pocket of his board shorts. “Got you a new wallet,” he says.

Before me, he places a leather square with the image of Che Guevara burned into it, along with the words ¡HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!

“Where’d you get this?” I pick up the gift. It’s still stiff and smells of the tanning process.

“The jewelry lady stopped by. It was either Che or the Virgin Mary.”

“Tough choice.” I grin. “Thank you.” I love it. It’s sweet of him. And while we’re prone to joke about Che’s misunderstood iconography, I find the image and the mythology comforting at that moment: a handful of men with ideals and bird rifles taking on the strongest military in the world, their faith and their struggle. Until victory always!

“I am sorry,” Ben says. “About before. I shouldn’t have … grabbed you like that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” I say. “But it’s been a messed-up day. I forgive you.”

“It’s my Irish side,” he says. “My grandmother used to say that Irishmen treat women and horses the exact same way.” He takes a sip of beer.

“How’s that?”

“They worship both, but they expect both to suffer constantly and gracefully.”

“I was expecting something more R-rated,” I say. “How’s Pelochucho?”

“He’s fine. Sleeping. I was bored out here with nobody to talk to.”

“Has he mentioned anything about the hospital bills?”

“Yeah, he paid me back.” Ben nods and points at the Che wallet. “That’s all we have in the world.”

I look inside. There’s a little over four hundred American dollars.

“You hungry?” Ben asks.

“Starving.” All I’ve eaten today is the sweet bread at the hospital.

A couple doors down, a woman cooks pupusas on a portable gas grill. She wraps them in brown paper, along with plastic bags of spicy pickled cabbage and red tomato sauce. We take them back to the hotel and open more beer.

Once the food is finished, we carry our bottles up to the roof. Ben takes out his pouch of Dutch tobacco and a newspaper bundle of the local brown weed. He rolls a spliff. Opting out on the pot, I make myself a thin cigarette. The ocean is still and sounds like a dog’s whimper. It laps gently upon the shore, as if afraid it might do harm to the land.

“No waves,” Ben says with a dry mouth.

“Not one.”

We’re silent for a minute, sharing only the mild sucking and puffing sounds of smoking.

“Can I ask you something?” The quiet night turns me contemplative. “Why do you love surfing so much?”

“It’s fun,” Ben says, trying to brush the question off. “What’s not to love?”

“I know it’s fun.” I won’t let him off that easy. “Lots of things are fun. But why surfing? Why you?”

He holds the spliff upward and inspects the cherry. “I come from a family of—for lack of a better term—tough guys. My dad, my uncles, my older brother: They’ve all been marines, high school football stars, that sort of thing.”

I pay attention, never having heard him say much on this subject. “Obviously, I’m the hippie in the bunch, right? And I’d never make it in the military—could never stand some asshole shouting at me, or, God forbid, to shoot anyone. Even the team sports thing was too much.”

I take a long gulp of beer.

“But when you’re a boy and you’re raised by guys like that, they presume you’re a pussy—too scared for all that physical stuff. For me, surfing—especially in North Carolina, where I learned, with the only real waves coming in as storms and all—was a way for me to have adventures, to test myself.”

“Did it work?” I can’t say the next sentence with a straight face. “Did it prove to your dad that you’re not a pussy?” The suppressed laughter bursts at the sides of my mouth.

Ben smiles at the silliness of the question. “It’s not like that. My dad, my brothers, they’ll never get it. But yeah, it gives me peace of mind. I know I’m not afraid. That’s enough. In a sense, I like that they don’t understand it. After all, I don’t get any of the stuff they’re into.” Ben tops his beer glass off, relieved to be finished with his explanation. “What about you?” he asks. “What do you love about surfing?”

I shrug, wishing I’d prepared a response before starting this. “Most of all, I like that it’s an end in itself, you know? That it’s not a means to an end.”

“How so?”

The cigarette feels hot in my fingers. “Speaking of families, my father’s family is … we’d say pake in Hawai‘i. That word technically means Chinese, but it’s used for anyone who’s frugal and thrifty. You met my dad; he’s very disciplined. Everything is about getting ahead, or helping the next generation get ahead. It’s sort of admirable. My grandparents were plantation workers, and my grandfather managed to save up and start his own business. Now my dad runs it, and it’s successful. He raised me by himself, of course. Sent me to private school. But there’s no stopping to enjoy it, no indulgence. It’s all profit and loss.”

Ben furrows his brow.

“With surfing, I like that there’s no earning or spending involved. Waves aren’t an investment in something else to come. There’s no past or future—only the moment at hand.”

He licks a finger and wets one side of the spliff.

“I get hard work and sacrifice and everything; it’s not like I’m lazy.” I’m having a hard time expressing myself. “But people like my father, or Alex, for that matter … it’s as if they see life as one big suffering contest, you know? That’s like the only measure of character for them.”

I stop talking. The two of us stare out at the dark ocean.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this passport thing,” I confess.

“Want me to go with you tomorrow?”

“No.” I didn’t even think of that, but it’s kind of him to ask. “It’ll be a shitty day. No reason for both of us to go through it.” I almost add that it’s my fault, but figure that much is obvious. “It’s probably better if you look after Pelochucho.”

Ben puts the still-burning spliff down in an upturned jar lid on the cinder block we use as a table. “I got to piss; be right back.”

His steps are slow and heavy down the stairs. As it had a few hours ago in the water, the swelling shame surges again and comes after me. I want a crude time machine that can go back one day and fix all the mistakes I made. I can live with the guilt over what happened with Alex. But this burglary stuff was stupid, and it’s ruined Ben’s surf trip, this dream he’s been looking forward to for years.

I have to fix it. Maybe it’s all the beer, or maybe it’s simply the lack of a better idea, but something emboldens me. It’s absurd: We know the exact location of whichever crackhead stole our stuff, or where he’ll be coming back and forth from at least.

I slip down the staircase. From the bathroom comes the sound of piss splashing water. The gate is still open. Kristy’s light is on.

I leave La Posada and head out into the streets. Walking around this town alone after dark is something I know better than to do.

The crack house is only a couple blocks away, a nondescript two-story building. It fared well through the earthquake. Its white exterior looks newly painted; the trim and front door shine bright red.

I stop on the far side of the street and stare at the crimson door. Somebody inside will know who took my wallet. It must’ve caused a spike in sales, the greatest binge in some lucky addict’s career. I will demand only the passport back; the money will be long gone. That’s reasonable, isn’t it? Perhaps the thieves will even thank me, the way that gunmen often do on the buses here if handed a particularly large sum. I’m not some tourist; I’m La Chinita, after all. That has to count for something.

As logical as I tell myself that this plan is, I can’t quite cross that street. I hear low chatter and the inkling of what sounds like choral music coming from inside. A taste like bile and pennies rises in the back of my throat.

“Chinita! ¿Qué haces?” I hear my nickname in a barbed voice. It’s Peseta. “What are you doing? Have you gone crazy?”

“I want my passport back. I don’t care about the money. Somebody here must have it or know who has it. Come with me.”

“You don’t understand.” Peseta carries a white paper bag spotted with grease. It smells of fried food. I’ve never seen him eat before. He puts his body between mine and the crack house.

“I need that passport,” I say.

“Chinita, trust me on this. You can’t go in there. Please.”

I look over his shoulder at the red door—the final thin membrane that separates the surfers and the crackheads in this town. It’s a Pandora’s box of trouble and change that I’m both attracted to and repulsed by all at once. My eyes turn back to Peseta. He seems sincere. This is the only interaction I’ve had with him that carries no trace of a hustle. Perhaps he doesn’t want me killed just because then he’d lose my spare coins.

After a few more seconds, I exhale and realize that I don’t have the guts. I’m only La Chinita—that’s all I’ll ever be here.

“Malia? What the fuck?” The second I’ve made the decision, I hear Ben’s voice.

“Chuck Norris, do something about your girl. She’s acting crazy.” Peseta appeals directly to him, as if I’m incapable of reason.

“Malia.” Ben puts his arm around me. “Let’s go. Goddamn, you gave me a scare.”

After we’ve walked a few blocks, I swallow my pride and say, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Ben says. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I screwed up all our plans.”

“We’ll figure something out.” We enter La Posada. He leads me to the bedroom and sits me down on the bed.

“The money was easy come and easy go.” Ben takes a seat beside me. “We’re safe. We’re together. That’s what’s important.”

My chin starts to quiver. I can’t quite look up at Ben.

“I love you, Malia.” He rubs a circle into my back.

I wipe at my eyes with the hem of my shirt. “I love you, too.”

*   *   *

We lie down, but between the long nap and the adrenaline rush, I toss and turn for hours.

Finally slipping into the twilight stage right before full sleep, I’m awakened by a bang and then a grunt from the room next door. Immediately, my thoughts leap back to my first night in La Lib.

“Ben!” I shake him. “Somebody’s in Pelochucho’s room!” My voice is a hissing whisper.

“What? Huh?” He forces himself up onto his elbows.

“Fucking crackheads. They know Pelo’s hurt.” In that insane logic that could only occur in La Libertad, I feel that this is unfair, outside of the rules somehow.

Another bang comes through the wall, then a third, lighter one. The sounds settle into a rhythm. Ben’s expression goes from concern to mischief. He lies back down. “Don’t worry about it.” He shuts his eyes. “It’s not fucking crackheads; it’s only fucking.”

I listen closer and hear coos and moans in a female voice. “But … Pelochucho? How? With whom?” My first thoughts are of prostitutes.

“Kristy,” Ben whispers.

“For real?” How have I been denied such a juicy bit of gossip? “Since when?”

“Apparently, it all started the last time Pelo was down here. I guess it got weird when he left. She fell for him more than he realized, hoped he might take her back to the States. He wasn’t sure what would happen on this trip.” Ben closes his eyes and turns over to one side. “Now we know.”

I lie there silent beside him. On the other side of a few thin inches of wood and plaster, Kristy and Pelochucho fuck away. As Ben and I grow more silent, I can make out everything.

“Te quiero. Te quiero. Te quiero,” she purrs over and over—that Spanish phrase that means both to love and to want, a word that never can be satisfied.

It goes on and on, prolonged perhaps by all the pills that Pelo took for the pain. Ben snores beside me. I listen to the lovemaking a while longer, with a feeling I finally recognize as envy. My own bed feels tainted with the betrayal I committed, the jealousy Ben showed, and the half-truths I used to cover it up.

I hardly get any sleep at all.