Do Not Become Alarmed(58)

“Do you know where we are?” Sebastian asked.

“No,” she said.

“Will someone find us?”

“I think so.”

They kept walking. Penny scanned the ground for the paper bag, even though it was probably miles back. There was a wall of green trees on either side, and no sign of a trail.

“Did you hear that?” Sebastian asked.

“What?”

“That,” he said, and he looked toward the trees on their right. It was an engine noise, a car or a truck on a road. The last time they had followed an engine noise, it had been a bad idea. But they couldn’t stay alone here.

They left the tracks and made their way into the trees. It was darker there, and they had to climb over branches. A giant buzzing bug flew at Penny’s face. She swatted it away and wanted to cry.

“Do you think there are snakes?” Sebastian asked.

“Probably not,” Penny said, though they couldn’t even see the ground.

She thought about the time she’d been on an overgrown trail in Colorado with her mom and then reported to her dad that they’d been swashbuckling through the forest. Her mom had laughed and said, “You mean bushwhacking.” They still teased her about it, and would call this swashbuckling if they were here.

She wished they were here.

Abruptly they came out on the side of a narrow dirt road, but there were no cars.

“Should we walk?” Sebastian asked.

“Yes.”

“Which way?”

Marcus would know. But she’d left Marcus in the train. If they turned right, they would be going the same direction the train had gone, and she wasn’t sure that was a good idea. She didn’t want to go to Nicaragua. So she turned left, and Sebastian followed her.

An old red truck came toward them and Penny instinctively stepped back into the trees. Sebastian followed her. There was a man in the cab of the truck, who didn’t seem to see them. When it was past, Sebastian said, “Why didn’t we wave?”

“I don’t know,” Penny said.

“Someone has to find us,” he said.

“I know.”

They walked. Penny felt sweaty and miserable. Now that they had left the tracks, she would never find the bag of insulin.

A small yellow car came along and slowed when it passed them, then stopped. A woman looked back. Penny jogged toward the car.

The woman rolled down the window. “Por dónde van?”

“A mi casa,” Penny said, because she couldn’t remember how to say parents.

“Eres americana?” the woman asked. She had her hair up in a scrunchie and wore no makeup.

“Sí,” Penny said. There was something about speaking Spanish that made this feel like a game, like a test she could pass. “Somos los ni?os del barco.”

The woman looked startled. She looked around, into the woods. “Dónde están los otros?” she asked.

“On the train,” Penny said.

The woman reached over and pulled the handle to open the car’s door, but Penny moved toward the back seat.

“Can we sit together? In the back?” Sebastian was moving slowly, but Penny got him in. “Will you call our parents?” She mimed a phone at her ear. “Mis padres?”

The woman made an apologetic face. “No tengo teléfono. No podía pagar. No phone. No pay. Me entiendes?”

“Oh,” Penny said. “My parents will pay you.”

“I don’t feel good,” Sebastian said.

The woman looked worried.

“We need a doctor,” Penny said. “Please.”

The woman turned in her seat and started to drive.





36.



NORA TEXTED PEDRO to ask if he knew anything about the Herrera family. It was a perfectly rational, understandable thing to do. He might know something now that they had a name. But texting him still felt compulsive and shameful.

He didn’t respond, and she took the stairs down to the lobby and stepped into the heat.

Outside, it looked like some catastrophe had happened, and for a moment Nora was confused. It was as if her inner life had been suddenly externalized. The streets were deserted, postapocalyptic. The sidewalk was sticky with dried liquid. There were pieces of paper everywhere, stuck to the pavement, blowing down the empty street in the hot wind. Nora looked at one and saw it was a Page-a-Day calendar. Everything smelled like old beer. A man staggered up the block. New Year’s Day.

At least there were no reporters. A cab cruised by, the driver eyeing Nora, the only person on the street who might not puke in his car. She climbed in. She didn’t have Pedro’s address, but she had paid attention returning to the hotel, the last time. And her high school Spanish had come back to the surface. She explained where she thought she was going. They found the papaya-colored house together, no trouble, and she asked the cabbie to wait. She knocked at the barred door of the house. No answer.

She got back in the cab. “Momentito,” she said. “Por favor.”

They watched the house. No one came. The cabbie was playing American oldies on the radio. He turned up the volume and said he liked this song and asked her to translate it.

“Caballeros en satina blanca,” she began, then realized it probably wasn’t “knights” in white satin. “Nights” made more sense. “Wait, noches en satina blanca. Nunca llegando al fin.” She’d lost some lyrics and tried to catch up. “Lo que es la verdad, no puedo decir—um—de nuevo. Porque te amo. O, como te amo.”