“She your girlfriend?” one of the women asked in broken English, gesturing toward Brooke.
“My brother’s.”
“Then he more lucky than you. Sure, sure he is.”
“You’ve got that right.”
The masseuses continued to laugh as Patch smiled and increased his speed. The path zigzagged past worn one-story structures that served as repair shops, Laundromats, and money exchange centers. Tourists haggled with locals, toddlers chased rolling bicycle tires, and palm trees stood so still that they might have been painted into the landscape.
The ground began to rise, and soon all buildings disappeared, the jungle seeming to leap forward in the absence of steel and paint. Tropical trees stretched skyward, tendrils of vines hanging from branches. Some of the vines sprouted flowers. Other vines ran from tree to tree, creating brown webs suitable for catching monsters. Head-high ferns competed for light. Geckos rested on logs and awaited six-legged meals. Butterflies drifted about orchids, the wings and petals an assortment of vibrant colors. The trail turned from sand to dirt, exposed roots running like veins across the island’s skin.
Brooke followed Patch, surprised by how quickly one world had given way to another. She’d been on beaches before, but never one near a tropical jungle. The trees were massive, some with pale or even green trunks. Monkeys played in the thick canopy above, dropping from limb to limb with more determination than grace. Frogs and insects created a cacophony of hoots, beeps, and screeches. Occasionally rays of sunlight penetrated the thick canopy and slanted toward the ground. Brooke felt as if she were in a cathedral of sorts, with trees replacing soaring arches and flowers mimicking stained-glass windows.
Her gaze went from the jungle to Patch. She noticed how he didn’t hurry up the trail the way Ryan would have. Instead, Patch paused to point out sights to her—a fallen leaf the size of her torso, a purple flower that resembled exploding fireworks. He always made sure to greet the Thais they passed in their own language, using English only for encounters with fellow tourists. He was deferential to everyone, letting people take the easiest path while he skirted roots and rocks.
The incline grew steep, and Brooke started sweating. She would have liked to take off her T-shirt but didn’t feel right about wearing only her bikini top. The blue fabric of her shirt darkened around her chest and back. To her surprise, she didn’t feel selfconscious. The sweat, which dropped off her face like rain from a wind chime, seemed natural and somehow cleansing. Whatever was leaving her body, she thought, was being replaced by the moist, aromatic tropical air.
As they continued to climb, Patch asked about her family and her studies. He conversed the way he moved, with no sense of haste. She was used to schedules and deadlines, and found herself reveling in his indifference to time. Her answers grew longer and more detailed. She watched the rise and fall of his sandaled feet. Several times she thought about Ryan, and where he might be, but such musings didn’t linger. She began to question Patch about his past, pleased at how much he revealed, at how little he seemed to care about his successes and failures.
After about an hour, they reached the peak of what Brooke considered to be a small mountain. Patch led her toward an open area dominated by immense horizontal slabs of limestone. A few tourists and Thais sat on the upper slab, and so he headed toward a lower one, climbing up it, extending his hand toward her, pulling her higher.
Brooke smiled at the scene before her. All of Ko Phi Phi was revealed, and for the first time she understood why the guidebooks inevitably compared it to a butterfly. Opposite her position was a series of lush mountains—perhaps a mile long—that ended in steep drops to the azure sea. The faces of the cliffs were gray and shadowy. She could tell that their side of the island mirrored the other. Between the two wings spanned a curving swath of land bordered on each side by an immense beach. In the middle, the land couldn’t have been more than a few blocks wide and seemed hardly to rise above the water, supporting several large hotels but little else. Dozens of sailboats were moored beyond the southern beach. In the distance, beneath the almost cloudless sky, a series of islands appeared to rise from the sea like moss-covered stones set in a puddle.
The view was one of the most beautiful Brooke had ever beheld, perhaps because of the contrasting colors and geographical shapes. The sea seemed to glow in neon blue. The two beaches were nearly snow white. And the island was a striking combination of greens and grays. Though the sea was flat and serene, the giant wings of Ko Phi Phi jutted almost straight out of the water, as if they’d been below the surface, gasping for air, and somehow had been able to leap into the light.
Patch smiled, then walked to the only nearby structure, a dilapidated stall, and returned with a bottle of mineral water, which he offered to her. She drank deeply, then handed him the bottle. “Could you stay here indefinitely?” she asked, having never considered the question until now.
“I love it here.”
“But could you stay forever?”
“Probably. As long as my family could visit.”
She nodded, wiping sweat from her brow, enjoying the warmth. “I still don’t think you should do what Ryan wants.”
“Really?”
A memory unfurled within her, and she pushed it away. “Once . . . something was stolen from me. And I don’t want anything to be stolen from you.”
“Why not?”
“Because some things . . . you just can’t replace.”
“The best things?”
“That’s right,” Brooke replied. “The best things.” She thought about how he hadn’t asked what had been stolen from her. He’d sensed her need for privacy and chosen to respect it. “You’re so unlike your brother,” she said, gazing at the distant sailboats, wondering where they’d come from. “The two of you are connected, but different. Kind of like yin and yang.”
“In some ways.”
“Ryan wants action. He wants to protect me.”
“But you don’t want to be protected?”
“I don’t know what I want. But it’s not . . . some sort of knight in shining armor.”
Patch smiled. “It worked for Julia Roberts.”
“What?”
“In Pretty Woman. At the end. She asked Richard Gere to be her knight in shining armor.”
Brooke remembered the scene, and turned toward Patch. “Tempting. But extravagant. I don’t need all that.”
“Good. Then maybe I have a chance with the ladies. Because for a while, my prospects haven’t seemed great. Not without a job or any money.” He leaned toward her, smiling again. “Plus, I am a fugitive,” he whispered.
“Does that make me one too? Because I’m with you?”
“Probably.”
“Then we’ve got something on Richard Gere and Julia Roberts,” she replied, grinning.
Patch was glad to see her smile, and gestured for her to follow him away from the lookout point, along a little-used trail that ran into the jungle on the other side of the mountain. It took about ten minutes to reach a half-constructed home that had been framed, but never completed. The structure, which was little more than a collection of sun-bleached boards, had been built on and around limestone outcroppings and overlooked the northern beach.
“They ran out of money, I guess,” Patch said. “Suchin told me it’s been like this for a year. Some foreigner bought the land, started building, but never came back.”
Brooke wondered what would make someone walk away from such a dream.
“I’m going to take a few of those,” Patch said, pointing to a pile of unused boards. “If it’s all right with you.”
“Why?”
“I want to build Suchin and Niran a tree house, but I don’t have any wood.”
She gazed from one end of the structure to the other. “It’s just going to rot up here.”
“That’s what I think. A bunch of trees were cut down for nothing.”
“I’ll help you carry them,” she said, reaching down to hand hi
m a plank.
“You sure?”
“We’re fugitives, aren’t we? The Bonnie and Clyde of Ko Phi Phi?”
His smile returned. “I know a back way down to Rainbow Resort. No one will see us.”
“I’m not worried.” She handed him another plank, then lifted one. “Thanks for bringing me here. For taking your time with me. You don’t have to, you know.”
“I want to.”
“Why?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Brooke followed him away from the unfinished structure, seeing how slight he looked compared to the two long boards he carried. He didn’t appear to have muscles or stature, and yet he walked with a hidden strength. He’d found a new world and fit himself into that world as if he had been born into it.
For a moment Brooke was envious of him, of how he seemed able to make a new life. But the envy passed as she realized that she could easily carry two boards, and so she set her board down and hurried back to the site to grab another.
A minute or so later, she rounded a bend in the trail, a board in each hand, and saw that Patch was waiting for her. He hadn’t rushed back after her or told her to hurry, but was simply waiting. She nodded, smiling, following him deeper into the jungle, into a place of dampness and discovery.
LEK FOLLOWED HIS CHILDREN TOWARD the pier, wondering why they hadn’t changed out of their school uniforms, even though they’d been home for more than an hour. After all, such outfits were ill suited for soccer games or swimming. Usually Suchin and Niran shed their uniforms as if seamstresses had left needles inside the cuffs and collars.
More often than not, Lek took only one child to the pier, but he’d heard that the afternoon ferry was particularly full of tourists and had asked both Suchin and Niran to help him. He wished his English were good enough for him to approach the foreigners in a quick and precise fashion, but it wasn’t. Moreover, the tourists tended to respond favorably to the overtures of a child. And though he hated exploiting his children’s smiles and friendliness to lure customers to his resort, no other choice existed. Everything depended on snaring a tourist or two each day, and no one in his family was better at this task than Suchin and Niran.
The pier was more crowded than normal, and Lek was sure that his competitors also knew about the full ferry. He greeted them all politely, careful not to bump anyone with his sign. Remembering how Suchin had spelled out Rainbow Resort using brightly colored paints, Lek smiled. The sign had been her idea, and she’d spent a rainy afternoon working on it, following a design that her teacher had helped her draw on paper.
Lek moved to an open area of the pier. He didn’t see the ferry and hoped it wouldn’t arrive too late. Nearby, bungalow owners and hotel employees chatted, leaning against the long railing. These men and women wore frayed clothes, sun-bleached caps, and flip-flops. None of the Thais used sunglasses, their dark eyes accustomed to the bright, tropical sun. Lek knew everyone around him, knew that their challenges were the same as his.
Suchin and Niran started to jostle against each other, arguing about something that had happened at school. Niran pushed Suchin, then stepped away from her, staring across the empty sea. Though his children didn’t often fight, they were skilled at tormenting each other when the mood struck. Usually Niran was the first to complain to Lek, but now he just kicked pebbles into the translucent water below.
“Why so quiet today?” Lek asked, seeing a scab on Niran’s big toe and wondering how he’d hurt himself.
Suchin looked up. “Why do little brothers have to be so annoying? He’s like some sort of mosquito buzzing around inside my net.”
“You’re the mosquito,” Niran answered, moving closer to her, his face tight with anger.
Lek spread his hands apart. “Easy now. The ferry will be here soon, and we need to be all smiles. No one will want to stay with a couple of grouchy children.”
“Bzzz,” Suchin hummed.
Niran tried to kick her but missed, provoking her to make the sound again. Lek smiled at their antics, repressed his grin, and asked them to stop. “Why so grumpy today? And why didn’t you change out of your uniforms?”
Neither child answered him. He wondered if they might be upset because Sarai hadn’t met them after school. “Does this have to do with your mother?” he asked, the sight of her rubbing a customer’s foot still fresh in his mind.
“No,” Suchin replied, and glanced toward the approaching ferry, which was only a blur on the horizon.
Lek turned toward his son. “Niran?”
“It’s no fun walking home alone. I found a huge hermit crab and Suchin didn’t even want to look at it.”
“You find a lot of hermit crabs,” she replied. “If I stopped to look at all of them, that’s all I’d ever do. I might as well be a rock.”
“This one was special. It had a red shell.”
Lek nodded, wondering whether he had the time to occasionally meet them after school. “Have you both been studying hard?” he asked as an idea struck.
“So hard,” Suchin answered. “Today I learned that there are one hundred and ninety-five countries in the world. We counted them all out on a map.”
“That many?”
“Sure, that many. And some of them are huge. I bet twenty Thailands could fit into China. Kind of like how Niran crams all those fish into his tank.”
Lek smiled, and twisted toward his son. “And what did you learn?”
“What?”
“I asked, my little dreamer, what you learned in school.”
“Nothing.”
“How can that be?”
“Oh, I learned that trees need sun, air, and water.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
Niran nodded, his expression finally animated and alert. “And dirt, I guess. Their roots take food from the dirt. And that helps the leaves grow green.”
The ferry was now close enough for Lek to see people on its roof. “Have either of you missed a single day of school this year?”
Suchin shook her head. “Not one. My stomach hurt a few days but I still went. Mother wanted me to.”
Lek dropped to his knees, leaning toward his children, longing to make them happy. “You’ve both worked hard, I know. And as a reward, why don’t you stay home tomorrow? Just do your chores, practice your reading and numbers, and then have some fun.”
“Really?” Suchin asked, taking his hand. “You’re not joking, are you? That kind of joke wouldn’t be funny. And I like funny jokes.”
“I’m not joking. Let’s get a few customers; then you run home and play.”
As his children spoke excitedly, rising on their toes, bouncing up and down, Lek watched the ferry approach. To his surprise, a police boat darted from behind it, creating a turbulent wake. The police boat was made of fiberglass and featured a pair of outboard motors. Lek’s heart thumped with increasing vigor as the boat neared. Though he rarely sweated, he wiped his brow, glancing around to make sure Patch was nowhere to be seen.
The boat pulled up to the pier. Three police officers were aboard. They wore brown uniforms, and batons and pistols hung from their black belts. The men secured their boat, then climbed onto the pier. One officer began chatting with bungalow owners, while another headed into the village. The third man held pieces of paper and walked to the base of the pier, approaching a wooden bulletin board that provided tourists with official announcements concerning their health and well-being. Lek watched the officer staple four sheets of paper to the board.
Though the ferry was docking, Lek continued to stare at the bulletin board until Suchin tugged on his hand. He turned, aware of approaching tourists, raising his sign. Suchin and Niran waved to the foreigners, asking in their best English if people wanted to see Rainbow Resort. Suchin promised a free mango milk shake to anyone who looked at her bungalows. Niran added that some of the best snorkeling on the island could be found in front of their resort, and that he knew where to see lionfish. Though a group of blond-haired women stopp
ed next to Suchin and began to chat with her, Lek, for once, didn’t follow his daughter’s every word. He knew that the police officer had stapled photos of criminals to the board, as they did every month or two, and his stomach was churning.
Within a few minutes, Suchin was telling him that the women had agreed to see Rainbow Resort. Lek smiled at the tourists, apologizing for his bad English, and then promising that they would enjoy his resort and, better yet, his wife’s cooking. He asked Suchin and Niran to lead the women back, while he stayed and introduced himself to other ferry passengers. Suchin pursed her lips at his words, since by routine he always returned with her. But he nodded again, and so she turned and gestured for the strangers to follow her. As she walked, she began to tell them about what they could do on the island, her tongue moving faster than her feet.
Lek continued to hold his sign and point tourists toward his bungalows. Soon all of the foreigners had disappeared into the village and the pier had almost emptied. To Lek’s relief, the policemen returned, stepped into their boat, and headed back out to sea. He waited until they had vanished before walking toward the bulletin board, his heart threatening to burst from his chest when he recognized Patch’s photo on one of the flyers. Uncertain what to do, Lek moved closer to the board, leaned against it, and pressed his shoulder against Patch’s face. Lek studied his surroundings, following the actions of dozens of Thais and tourists, who were involved in the usual selling and buying of goods and services. No one appeared to be looking in his direction, and Lek reached behind his back, pretending to scratch his shoulder but actually pulling the flyer from the board. He crumpled it into a ball, still scratching. Finally he lowered his clenched hand but remained leaning against the board, sweat dripping from his forehead to his neck.
A fellow bungalow owner walked past, turned, and asked Lek if he was all right. Lek smiled, wiping his brow and stepping away from the board. He told his friend that he’d eaten some old leftovers that hadn’t agreed with his stomach. He was going to head home for a nap, he added, wishing his acquaintance well.