At last, I slid the computer off to the side on my bed, too tired to place it on my nightstand or set it on the floor. Even after I switched off the light, images played in my mind, not the ones I’d used in the video—the shots of the stark ruins and pristine mountains before the mudslide, the footage of the river bearing mammoth shards of concrete. But the ones of the people I’d traveled with, come to love, wanted to keep in my life.
Heart speeding, I pawed for the light switch even though no light could compete with my dawning epiphany. I finally understood what the admissions director at Cornish had asked me after viewing my portfolio: What knocks your heart open?
All around me, pinned to my bedroom walls, were my favorite photos of street fashion—all the crazy, unexpected, and truly bizarre outfits people assembled: sweater-vest coupled with skinny chinos and combat boots. But my photos had never been about fashion. They’d been about the personal statements people were making through fashion: Take it or leave it, but welcome to Me.
Forget sleep, I needed to look at the Truth of my journey to Machu Picchu, stripped of camouflage. I needed to look at the photos of what I had seen on the Inca Trail: Quattro, a guy who used humor to hide his broken heart as he waited for me on the trail. Christopher, a quiet man whose actions spoke loudly as he led Helen across the slippery bridge to safety. Stesha, who may have dressed like a lighthearted pixie but was more serious about life than anyone I’d ever met. Mom, who was a hopeless romantic but worked overtime at true love as she reached for Dad over and over again despite being rebuffed. And Dad, who was going blind but looked as if he had finally learned to see as he gazed down at Mom, boarding the flight to Belize.
And there was Grace, an old woman we had all written off as too feeble for the trip. Grace praying, head bowed in the cathedral. Grace lagging behind on the Inca Trail. Grace standing at the edge of the mud field. Grace kneeling beside a fallen Stesha. Grace helping to clear the railroad tracks. Grace standing triumphant atop a communal dining table, prosthetic leg finally revealed.
Maybe that was the heartbeat of my video, the one I wanted to make, not the one others thought I should. Maybe I didn’t want to document the tragedy of the mudslide but wanted to profile the triumph of Grace at every step.
That knocked my heart open.
Missing five days of school the way we had originally planned would have been bad enough, but a nine-day absence made me question whether catching up was even possible. In one class after another, I sat catatonic, staring blindly at the whiteboards and listening to teachers who might as well have been speaking in Quechua for all that I understood. Somewhere along the day, I’d crossed over from feeling stupefied with jet lag to feeling just plain stupid. Thankfully, word about the mudslide had traveled far and fast, which won me sympathy points with the teachers, and I got extensions in every class and promises for private tutoring sessions.
Even with all the homework I needed to do, I collected Mrs. Harris after school for our inaugural Friday Walkers, West Coast edition. A stroll around the block might as well have been a treacherous marathon when done on crutches and with an out-of-shape neighbor who had rarely left home for the past few years. I wasn’t sure which of us was breathing harder or sweating more, but both of us were grateful when we returned home. As we reached the lawn, Auggie bounded out of Aunt Margie’s station wagon and nearly flattened me. Her joyous bark had the strength of a porcine opera diva behind it.
“Okay, Auggie!” I laughed as I wiped my cheeks dry of her slobbery kisses.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” said Mrs. Harris, mopping her forehead before she lumbered to her cottage. “I’m exhausted!”
Just a few weeks ago, I had been irritated that my mornings were given over to leading Auggie through her training exercises. This afternoon I was overflowing with appreciation that our brilliant bedbug sniffer didn’t bark when I brought her inside, which meant that Auggie didn’t detect so much as a single bedbug hitchhiker from Peru. That was hallelujah relief.
Above her wide grin, the circles under Aunt Margie’s eyes were so deep and dark, she could have been the one caught in a mudslide with no rescue helicopter in sight. She flopped onto the couch as if her bones had liquefied, then kicked off her wide orthopedic shoes and wiggled her freed toes. “Wow, talk about exhausted! Try running the business and taking care of Auggie.”
At forty, Aunt Margie was the baby of the family. Handling Auggie on top of her regular routine was a shock to her highly regimented, never-married, no-kids system. I grabbed one of Auggie’s favorite toys—a once-plush hedgehog, its pelt chewed into rawhide—and lowered myself carefully onto the rug to play tug-of-war. Despite my waving the stuffed animal like a tantalizing matador’s cape, Auggie had no interest. Zero. Instead, she circled around me as though I were a lost sheep that needed herding.
“Don’t worry, I’m staying,” I soothed her. She rested her head on my thigh to anchor that promise. I shot a grateful smile up at Aunt Margie. “Thanks for taking care of Auggie.”
“Your dad needs to send me to a spa.” Her eyes fluttered closed, as though keeping them open required too much energy.
I literally couldn’t recall Dad ever asking any of his siblings for anything while he ran the family business year after year. In fact, I couldn’t remember a single time when Dad even complained about giving up college while his brothers and Aunt Margie got their degrees.
“To be honest,” I said, stroking Auggie’s head, “Dad’s worried about what he’s going to do now to take care of Mom and us.”
“Well, you kids will be fine on your own, so he doesn’t have to worry about you. I mean, the twins are already so successful,” said Aunt Margie. With a careless wave of her hand, she brushed off that concern like it was a pesky little aphid. “And your mom works.”
“It’s not like he can hunt for bugs if he can’t see them.”
“He can handle the office work. We’ll just have to figure out some new systems.” Her face brightened. “And he can learn braille.”
“But, Aunt Margie,” I said gently and firmly, “he never wanted to go into pest control in the first place.”
She shoved her swollen feet back into her shoes, averted her eyes with the same painful, plastic expression that strangers wore whenever Dad mentioned Paradise, like it was some kind of rancid odor. Yet all of our family—myself included—had been eager enough to accept whatever profits Dad had shared with them.
No one other than Aunt Margie and a cousin or two over summer break ever pitched in to support the so-called family business. Though I had never sensed any pressure from my parents, there’d always been the unspoken expectation from Dad’s family that my brothers or I would run Paradise one day. It was family heritage, after all.
Before I could say another word, Aunt Margie bustled out the door, citing errands upon errands to run before the stores closed. I’d never really looked at Paradise through Dad’s eyes, and clearly none of his siblings had either. Somehow, I had to let the entire family know that everyone was going to have to step up if they wanted to keep Paradise going. It wasn’t Dad’s responsibility to bear alone. But how did I plan a military coup within my own family? My eyes landed on the computer I had brought downstairs this morning.
Another story awaited. This time, my father’s as seen through my eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
As if my parents had a radar for stealth projects in their own home, they called at the precise moment I removed their Fifty by Fifty napkin manifesto from the kitchen wall to scan for Dad’s video homage. The normal “Hellos” and “How are yous” were so quickly dispensed with that I had barely mumbled a “My ankle’s getting better” when Dad began describing every single tropical fish they’d seen over the previous four days.
“The colors were so bright, it’d have been impossible for even me to miss seeing them. And nurse sharks! Gorgeous,” Dad said, his voice incredulous. It had been a long time since I’d heard him so invigorated. “I’m really
kicking myself that you and Max aren’t here. I should have sold the truck.”
There it was, Dad’s sacrificial generosity again, putting everyone before himself. I limped over to the couch to get more comfortable. “I got to see Machu Picchu, and Max gets to go to Guatemala with you. This is Ash’s trip with you.”
“I know, but still…” He cleared his throat. “So, kiddo, we looked at your video.”
“You did?” I asked. That morning before school, I had e-mailed them the link to the rough cut. “Already?”
“Your mom forced the hotel manager here to let us onto her personal computer. Then she made all of us watch the video at least five times.”
“Just twice!” I heard Mom protest off in the distance before she commandeered the phone from him. She told me, “It’s ready to roll.”
“Not yet.” I propped my leg onto a throw pillow, my ankle swollen from the lap around the block earlier. “The transitions are choppy. And I need you to edit it. And Dad to do the voice-over. This was all placeholder.”
“Post it.”
“It’s not ready!”
“You mean you’re not ready. Spending five more hours on this, let alone another fifty, isn’t going to change its emotional impact,” said Mom before I heard a scuffle on the line. “Wait, Dad wants to tell you something.”
There was a little static before I heard Dad say, “Besides, too much time has passed between the mudslides and now. You’ve got to post it.”
“But it’s not about the mudslides,” I protested, running my fingers through the tassels on the throw pillow.
“It’s better that way. I mean, how many videos asking for donations after tsunamis and earthquakes have focused on doom and gloom?” asked Mom, sniffing. “After a while, it’s almost like you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. And I don’t mean to be callous, but from a viewer’s point of view, there’s only so much suffering you can witness before it all looks too hopeless.”
Another truth. When Stesha had called to check in on me this afternoon, she told me that donations for the relief effort in Peru had slowed from a sickly trickle to mere droplets. So who knew how long reconstruction work would take because of the lack of funding?
“You know,” Dad said thoughtfully, “the story you told isn’t about destruction at all.” He paused. “It’s about the human spirit.”
I moved the computer back onto my lap and studied the final still, two kids playing in front of a destroyed home that even in its best days had been little more than a hovel. Mom sniffled.
“Mom,” I said, “you aren’t crying, are you?”
“Honey, a girl may have started the Inca Trail, but a woman finished it,” she said.
That made me sniffle. Whatever people sought from Stesha’s tours—a pilgrimage to a spiritual mecca or closure to a difficult relationship—I couldn’t argue with Mom: Not only had the trip knitted my parents back together but I had changed in ways I didn’t know, maybe hadn’t even considered, and hoped I would one day discover.
Dad must have grabbed the phone from Mom, because his voice boomed in my ear: “You’re both going to make me cry if we don’t get off the phone. Adios, sweetheart.”
“My parents,” I told Auggie as I tossed the phone onto the sofa, “are the best, but boy, are they weird.”
Her tail thumped. I interpreted that as agreement.
The simple act of releasing my video was a lot harder than I thought. At least with TurnStyle, I knew that because new posts constantly refreshed the site, no one scrutinized any single photo for long. Plus, I knew how much I needed to learn about video production. But Mom always said about her own PowerPoint work, no matter how many people review and rework a presentation, somehow a mistake always slips through. That’s being human for you.
“Ready?” I asked Auggie before moving the computer off the coffee table and onto my lap. “It’s time to send our baby out into the world.”
Holding my breath, I posted the video for public consumption. That one action opened me to criticism in cyberspace from cynics who couldn’t understand the need to help people half a world away. But hopefully, hopefully, the story and images would reach the right people, touch the ones who cared, inspire even one person to give. And maybe the one guy who’d trekked his way into my heart would find the Easter egg hidden inside and know how much I cared.
Chapter Thirty
Trust Mom to look out for me even when she was almost three thousand miles from home. Before we ventured off to Peru, she had arranged a special surprise: Reb. On a two-day reprieve from her treehouse restaurant project, my best friend showed up at our door early that evening, sleeping bag in one hand, bag of treats in the other, and a big squealing “Surprise!”
First thing, Reb reared back in horror—no pretense ever with her—when her shocked gaze locked in on my bare feet, bracketed by crutches: “Whoa… those are just wrong.” She gagged. “Bleh. Ballerina feet.”
“You mean old man feet,” I said, wiggling my toes, banged up with blisters and topped with chipped nail polish that had once been angry purple. My feet were best hidden in socks, but I had better traction with bare feet on the slippery hardwood floors. I shrugged. “It was all those downhill miles in hiking boots.”
“Good thing I’m such a great friend.” Reb jabbed a finger in the direction of my offending feet. “I’ll lead the SOS mission. Just remind me to thank Mom for telling me to bring supplies.”
An hour later, my poor, trek-battered feet were soft from a long, pampering soak in Hawaiian bath salts—“My grandpa wants to know whether these would be good amenities for his inn. What’s your vote?” (Two thumbs up.) Then she handed me a lava pumice stone—“He’s testing these, too. What do you think?” (Only for guests into masochism.) And finally after vigorous scrubbing, we both lavished Notice Me Red on our toenails. While Reb waddled to the kitchen on the backs of her heels, doing an unintentional penguin impression, I surreptitiously checked my phone. Still no answering text or e-mail from Quattro. What did I expect when he didn’t even own a cell phone?
“Quick, where’s my phone?” asked Reb, scanning the kitchen counters frantically. “I know it’s got to be around here somewhere.”
“Why?”
“I need a picture for proof. The official end of your boycott.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ummm… that’s like the fifteenth time you checked your phone. Does bending your own No Boy rule have anything to do with that rather spectacular guy I met? The rather spectacular guy that Grandma Stesha can’t stop talking about?”
“Hey! Isn’t there some kind of confidential tour guide–client privilege?” I demanded as Reb rummaged in the grocery bag that she had brought with her. She held up a bag of fresh kettle corn triumphantly.
“Why would you want to keep Quattro a secret?” Reb asked me, dodging out of danger’s way when Auggie bounded into the kitchen. Smart dog, she knows when food is about to be consumed. Reb’s voice may have softened, yet her tone was insistent: “Why would you want to keep anyone a secret?”
Good question.
I sighed as Reb stopped Auggie from lunging at a stray piece of popcorn that had fallen to the floor after she ripped the bag open. “I guess you know about Dom.”
“Well… yeah. It wasn’t just that you never talked about him with me and Ginny after mentioning him once or twice but that you totally changed how you dealt with boys afterward.”
“I think I didn’t say anything—I know I didn’t say anything—because deep down I knew he was all wrong. I mean, what kind of guy asks you not to tell anyone that you’re dating unless he’s embarrassed by you?”
“Or… maybe he was embarrassed by himself? I mean, isn’t it a little creepy for a business school student to date a high school junior?”
“When you put it that way…”
Reb brought the popcorn bowl over to me, and we each grabbed a handful.
I continued. “I’m such a hypocrite. I gave you
a hard time about staying with Jackson. What did I say again?”
“What are you guys going to talk about when you’re in college and he’s still in high school? Prom?” Reb quoted with near-verbatim accuracy as she delicately plucked one piece of popcorn from the bowl and dropped it into her mouth.
“Ouch.” I grimaced. “Sorry. How can you stand me?”
“You were just telling me the truth, Shana. I mean, any guy other than Jackson would have been a disaster. A total disaster. Plus, you’re usually right about guys half the time.”
“Only half?” It felt so good to be able to laugh about myself and not to have to be perfect. “So Quattro. I think I really like him. No, I know I do. But he’s on his way to college. And”—now I smiled sardonically, repeating the very words I had thrown at Reb once upon a time—“what are we going to talk about when he’s in college and I’m still in high school? Prom?”
“You’re not just any girl, Shana. And”—she held up a finger to prevent an interruption—“I have it from a very good source—you—that prom is fun.”
“But what if our time on the Inca Trail was all we had in common?”
“This, I’ve got to hear. The Love Guru speaketh. So you’re saying…”
“Vacation is fake! Anyone can do a vacation! You’d have to be a total Eeyore not to be happy on a vacation! But in my real world, the one way, way off the Inca Trail, there’s Dad’s blindness and college applications and pest control”—I scrambled for another example—“and prom!”
“Aren’t you being a little… dramatic?”
“Well, he hasn’t exactly called me.”
“Okay, I know this is going to be a shock to your system, but in the real world, where we of the normal looks live, not all of us are chased nonstop by boys.” She patted me gently on the hand as though I were senile. “It’s hard to believe, but true.”