In the only gesture he made, Father Emilio pointed to the safe, ajar behind him. Getting up, she hurried gingerly, pulling out the envelope, looking inside, handling the crisp unused hundreds. He didn’t turn around in his chair to watch her. He continued to sit, his fingers pressed together in prayer, facing the windows to the street.
“Thank you so much,” she said, putting the envelope back in the safe. “Thank you for your understanding, Father. I’m just going to take…if you don’t mind, I’ll take two thousand, and what I won’t need, I’ll bring back, and this way, two thousand is left, which is plenty for two tickets, more than enough. Thank you so much.” Rolling up the money, she stuffed it into the leg pocket of her khakis. “Well, if there’s nothing else, I appreciate your understanding, and I must run, because it’s nearly lunchtime and the fish adobo needs to be warmed up, and the bread put in the oven.”
Go back. The return. Reversal. You left, jumped ship, and are now floating back to the Jersey port, to the town of Summit. You look around and suddenly the place you left has dignity, simplicity, grace! It’s all the things you need, you want. Return of the native. Return of the prodigal son. You kiss the furniture, lie down on the wooden floor, beg for that elusive forgiveness, you scrub your life with your own two hands, saying, this is all I want, this is all I want, this is all I want, you chant home home home from the roof of the homestead.
And then…
You’re not home home home thirty minutes before you drive to the local Dairy Barn for milk and a sentence of conversation with the insipid cashier makes you realize that you need to run not walk back into the well of the Summit train station, and not even ask where the next train takes you, just wait for the doors to open, jump inside, press yourself to the window, and thank all the Southern Cross stars that you barely escaped the plodding slog of your inevitable asphyxiating life.
“One more thing.” Larissa turned to Father Emilio when she was already at the door. “Nalini is so close to me, as you well know, and I can’t find the words to explain to a five-year-old what I need to do as a grown-up. She won’t understand, and I fear she’s going to break down if I tell her I’m leaving, even for a couple of days. I desperately don’t want her to get upset. Could you…do me a favor, Father, and please…”
“Don’t worry,” said Father Emilio. “I’ll take care of Nalini.”
Abandoned love. Eros. The hurricane of two souls.
We go through life praying it will never happen to us.
We go through life praying that it will.
6
Land of the Dry Lakes
He wasn’t even there! He wasn’t at the airport, he wasn’t waiting for her. Obsessively she called the only number she had for him, called it over and over. She had arrived in Sydney in mid-afternoon, and it wasn’t until five in the evening that the phone was finally picked up.
“Kai’s not here,” said Billy-O. “Who is this?”
“Billy-O, it’s Larissa!”
“Oh. Larissa. Hi.” He said her name like he had no idea who she was.
“What happened to him? He was supposed to be at the airport.”
“Airport. Oh, I’m sure he knows, yeah…”
She felt a smattering of relief. “When did he leave?”
“Uh—days ago, maybe four, five.”
Relief shattered. “Oh my God,” she gasped, “something must’ve happened to him.”
“No, no,” Billy-O said quickly. “Don’t worry. He was making a detour in Jindabyne. Hang tight. I’m sure he’ll be there soon. He probably underestimated how long it was going to take to get to Sydney. He does that a lot. Underestimates things.”
Did Kai do that a lot? This wasn’t a little underestimation, like, say, twenty minutes, a half-hour. Her plane landed over three hours ago.
“Do you know if he found a new place for us to live?”
“I don’t know, darlin’, I couldn’t tell you.”
Wow. Most unhelpful. And perplexing!
Larissa got herself some airport fries, a lukewarm panini, a Diet Coke, and sat lumpbacked with her luggage in the Qantas arrivals terminal. She calculated that from Jindabyne to Sydney airport was about a five-hour drive, so even if he left late morning he should’ve been here already. This was inexcusable. The short hairs at the back of her neck were fuming. She called Bart and Bianca.
Bart was friendly, but in a detached way; there was none of that, Larissa, baby, I haven’t heard from you for three months, how-you-been talk. It was just, Hey. Yes, Kai came a few days ago, yes, stayed with us while he took care of things.
“Do you know if he found us a place to live?” she asked.
“I don’t know that he was looking,” Bart replied. “But he should be there soon. He’ll tell you all about it. He left after lunch.”
After lunch! When he knew her plane was landing at two. The gall.
She sighed. “How’ve you and Bianca been, Bart?”
“Oh, good, good, fine, yeah, everything’s great. Listen, we were just running out to meet some friends, so if there’s nothing else…”
“No, Bart, there is nothing else.” Larissa hung up.
She heard Kai’s voice calling for her across the crowded echo of the terminal. “Larissa!” He was strutting to her, his hands open, smiling. He had cut off his hair! It was all gone, just a thick light brown fuzz remained. He had a big smile on his face and didn’t look remotely sheepish.
“Kai!”
“Oh, I know.” He ran his hand through his crew-cut head as he came up to her and opened his arms. “You don’t like it? It was too bloody hot. Come here.”
They hugged, she frowning, puzzled. “Did you lose more weight?” he asked, his hands moving up and down her back.
“No, I think I gained a bit. I did nothing but eat sweet rice pudding morning noon and night.” She stepped away from him, to look at him. They kissed. She was still frowning, yet was so happy to see him. “Kai, you’re nearly five hours late. My plane landed this afternoon.”
“No!”
“Yes. I told you. Before I left, I wrote it down in your little book so you wouldn’t forget.”
“Lar, oh my God. I’m sorry. I thought you were flying in tonight.”
“I wrote it down for you!”
“I know, but I accidentally left my notepad in Pooncarie. I thought I remembered right.”
“You thought you remembered? Why didn’t you call Billy?”
“I thought I remembered correctly,” he repeated doggedly, the conciliatory smile fading.
“Did you throw my letters out? Because I wrote in my last letter what time I was arriving.”
“Ah,” he said, pointing like a teacher with his index finger and grinning, “When did you send it? Because I didn’t get it. The mail takes four months to get to Pooncarie. It’s like the Pony Express. You’d write me in August, and I’d get the letters in late September.”
She stood, staring at him, saying nothing.
“So actually,” he said cheerfully, “I did pretty good, all things considering. Hey, it could’ve been worse, I could’ve mixed up the days.”
“I think that would’ve been difficult, seeing that I wrote the date of my arrival at the top of every letter I sent you. It would mean you didn’t read a single one.”
“And that wouldn’t be true.” He hugged her again in reconciliation. “I’m sorry,” he said into her neck.
“Oh, Kai. I’ve missed you so much.”
Nuzzling, he didn’t answer her. She backed away to appraise him. He was wearing distressed rolled-up jeans, a wide belt, old work boots, a black T-shirt, a jean jacket. He didn’t look like himself without the kinky hair falling to his shoulders, but he was undeniably the most fly guy around.
“Kai…” Larissa wasn’t angry anymore. She was tired, and so happy to see him. They stood like this holding hands in the middle of the airport. Tiptoeing up, she kissed him. “Forget it. Just a mistake. Don’t worry…” She was ready to cry. “I can’t be
lieve we haven’t spoken in three months. I wish you could understand how much—”
“I know. It’s been such a long time.” His hands squeezed her hands.
“I called you every day. Every single day. You never answered the phone.” She couldn’t believe she was lucky enough to have him for her own, to feel him. She had put on jeans, a raw silk ivory blouse. On the plane she applied some makeup for him, brushed out her hair extra sleek and shiny. She spritzed on his favorite perfume, Moon Sparkle, donned his favorite G-string, a lacy see-through gold La Perla. Everything was for him. All the scattered ruins of all the other hearts were at his feet.
“It’s true, we were never home,” he said. “If you saw Billy’s place, you’d know why. Just kidding. But we’ve been crazy busy. And of course Billy doesn’t have an answering machine.”
“Why would he? But why didn’t you spend twenty dollars and get one?”
“It’s not my house,” Kai said evenly. “I don’t tell Billy-O what to do. Besides, they don’t sell electronics in Pooncarie. I’d have to go down south to Adelaide for that.”
“Oh, Kai.” She leaned against him and closed her eyes.
“Well, come on. No use standing in the middle of the airport. You must be hungry.”
“What are we going to do? It’s nearly eight.”
“Yeah, it’s too late to drive back,” she said. “Let’s get a room.”
“It took most of my dough to get our cruiser out of hock. We need the money. I don’t want to spend it on a room.”
Smiling, she showed him the hundreds in her purse. “We got us a little bit of money.”
“Nice! Where’s you get that? Nuns hold a fundraiser in your honor?” He grinned.
“Actually, funny story there, about the money. Wait till you hear. But let’s stay somewhere nice. I’ve been sleeping practically on a rack for three months, with itchy blankets, oppressive humidity, no AC.” She caressed his face. “And I’m sure Billy’s couch was not exactly a luxury suite.”
“That’s more true than you’ll ever know.”
“So let’s splurge. What do you say?”
Reluctantly he agreed.
“What’s the matter? You’re worried about the money? It’s found money, Kai.”
“I know. But…I too vividly remember not having any money at all. Kind of hard to spend hundreds on a hotel room.”
“You’ve been working too hard. I can tell by your face. You’re so tanned, though. Must’ve been outside a lot. Come on, don’t worry. Our tour season is starting in two weeks. We’ll be fine. Let’s go have a nice dinner.”
“I brought nothing nice to wear.”
She lowered her voice. “We’ll get room service.”
“Ah.”
“We’ll have sushi for room service,” she cooed, gazing up into his face, kissing his chin, stroking his hedgehog head. “How did you get here? On the bike?”
“How do you propose we put your suitcase on my bike? No, on our safari jungle boy.” He kissed her and picked up the handle of her suitcase. “Ready?”
“Where’s the bike?”
He paused. “It’s in hock.”
She stopped walking. “You pawned your Ducati?” she said incredulously.
“Billy-O wanted to buy two beautiful horses from the local wrangler.” Kai said. “They really were stunning. He promised to pay me back ASAP.”
“I don’t understand why Billy-O would need to borrow money from you,” Larissa asked slowly. “Isn’t he paying you? And didn’t he get a business loan?”
“Yeah, for the stable, not to buy expensive horses, Larissa. We’ve never seen mares like these. They’re pale white. Come on, let’s go.”
They walked out of the terminal and crossed the street to the parking lot.
“Billy said you’ve been in Jindabyne a few days,” Larissa said. “Did you get a chance to look for a new place?”
“No,” Kai said. “But we can have our old place back if we want. I paid Mejida.”
“You did? Why?” she exclaimed. “She was such a witch.”
“Be that as it may, it wasn’t her fault that we owed a witch money. I don’t like to leave debts unpaid. What if I do business with her again? Bart and Bianca depend on her, and she was harassing them, threatening to stop driving Bart’s customers. Too much bad blood all around.”
Larissa shrugged, speeding up when she spotted their tour vehicle, happy to see it. “I guess. But I could think of many uses for that thousand bucks we owed her.”
“Thirteen hundred.”
“Look how nice it looks! You washed it? Did you get it tuned? Because it needed it.”
“I did it all, Larissa.”
In the troopie, Kai drove them into Sydney, to the Intercontinental Hotel on Macquarrie Street. Larissa was about to run to reception to see if a king deluxe room was available with a Harbor Bridge view, on a high floor, but she was stopped by the valet manager who said there was no how, no way that the hotel could park a vehicle that size in their garage. It simply wouldn’t fit, he said. It’s as big as a tank. A wartime troop transporter. There’s not enough headroom, no clearance for this item. Sorry, can’t do it. He and Larissa argued, while Kai stood nearby and said nothing.
Larissa was so disappointed. “Kai, how come you’re not more upset? We could have had us a soft downy bed and a hot shower.” She pouted.
He was philosophical about it. “Nothing we can do,” he said. “I don’t like to rail against things when there’s nothing I can do. I would like to, however, do something about my hunger.”
They got take-out from the snazzy Cafe Opera at the Intercontinental; Larissa ordered black bean squid and soft shell crabs, and tuna, and in a little white shopping bag, she carried it out to the cruiser, and they drove off, parking in a metered spot on a side street near the Opera House, and sat on the bench side by side looking out onto the Sydney Harbor, eating their sushi on their laps just like they once used to. Was it her imagination or was he reticent? But the harbor looked so pretty as they sat. A little bit like the Tappan Zee Bridge looked over the Hudson River when she and Che were kids and would sit like this on the banks of a park in Piermont and watch the white sailboats in the fading light.
“Everything’s fine. I’m just hungry, Lar,” Kai said. “When my mouth is full, it’s kinda hard to speak.”
“Do you want me to tell you about Paranaque?”
“You mean something you forgot to put in your letters?”
She chuckled. “Were they effusive?”
“You could say that.”
“Yeah, unlike yours.” She poked him. “What was that one letter you wrote me? It wasn’t a letter, it was a telegram. Dear Lar. Stop. Things are good. Stop. Miss you. Stop. Have nice day. Stop.”
Kai smiled into his squid, licking the black bean chili sauce off his fingers. “You don’t know how hard Billy and I worked. I couldn’t lift a fork to my mouth at night. Every time I’d try to write, I’d fall asleep.”
“But when I called, you were never there. Where were you sleeping?”
“First off, Billy doesn’t have caller ID so we had no idea you called. And second, we’re men, we don’t cook. After work, we’d run back, shower quick and then head out for a bite to eat. We had some other guys working with us, so we’d all go out and what not.” He fell quiet while he finished his food. It was nearing ten, and the last light had left the sky. The harbor went from violet to twinkling navy. Larissa had a sense of the unreal, a material awareness of herself being central to the elusive meaning of her own life. Just to think—she, a girl from a little town near Nyack who’d never been out of the United States, would be sitting in the middle of her life with her extraordinary Hawaiian boy, looking out on the harbor in Sydney, Australia, a hemisphere, four oceans, six continents away from home.
“What a fascinating place, the Philippines,” she said finally. “I wish you could’ve seen it.”
“Really? All that vinegar and boiled water? No, thanks. I’ll
take my Pooncarie any day.”
“So you liked it there? It wasn’t horrible?”
“Liked it?” He shook his head. “Larissa, it’s like nothing else in the universe. Honest. It’s transcendental there.”
“Hmm.” Pensively, she stared at him. “But we’re going back to Jindabyne, right? You didn’t leave anything behind in Pooncarie, did you?”
“No,” he said without emotion. Why did Larissa get the impression he was struggling not to sigh? Instead he pointed quizzically to the sushi she was dismantling by separating the tuna from the rice. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Not eating the rice is what. I should’ve ordered sashimi.” She spread the wasabi on the last piece of her raw tuna. “I’ve had enough of rice, thank you very much, to last me the rest of my days. If I never have it again as long as I live, that’ll be just fine with me.” She watched him get up, collect his garbage. “So tell me more about this Pooncarie. Did you make good money with Billy-O?”
“Yeah, he took care of me. It’s not about the money, though. Listen, you want to head out? We’ll drive out of the city, find a campsite.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’m kind of ready for that campsite right now.” She pressed herself against him.
“Yum,” he said. “We’re in a public place.”
“So?”
“Aren’t you frisky.”
“I’ve lived with nuns for three months,” said Larissa. “Frisky? I’m positively feline. You’re lucky I don’t ravish you on the bench in front of the Opera House.”
“Lucky? I dunno. It’d be one hell of a story to tell the kids.”
And just like that, the conversation guillotined by cliche. Mutely she threw out her garbage and got into the troopie. Kai prided himself on being scrupulously careful, avoiding verbal gaffes like that, invoking the word “kids” in jest. But perhaps after three months he’d been out of practice.
He drove them to Bondi Beach, where they parked up in the deserted scenic view of the secluded hills, and lay down on a blanket in the dune grasses under the stars. The rhythmic ocean crashings served as background love music. She gave him all the love she got.