We Were Never Here(3)
The third trip—Cambodia—was when things had gone awry. It was our first time meeting up from opposite corners of the globe, and I couldn’t wait for all that concentrated face time, the kind we took for granted when we both lived in Milwaukee. I never imagined it’d take a turn for the terrifying, become my own personal horror movie. But Kristen, as always, had helped me, saved me, taken care of me. And here we were, with our final hours in Chile’s Elqui Valley dwindling like the flame of an old candle, and everything felt gushing and good between us.
Kristen plucked a grape from the bunch and tossed it into the air, catching it neatly in her mouth. She grinned as she chewed.
“Open your mouth, Em.” She held another up, like a dart.
“No!”
“Let me try! I have really good aim.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“Hey, you’re talking to King of Kings’ three-time basketball MVP. Here, throw one in my mouth.” She unhinged her jaw.
“This is not going to end well,” I warned, giggling as I pitched a grape her way. It bounced off her chin and landed, rather miraculously, in her empty glass, and we both stared in quiet awe.
It’d taken a few hours to find our rhythm here in Chile. On the long drive up from the Santiago airport, I’d been grateful to bask in Kristen’s aura again, her casual confidence and glinting wit. But my nerves had hardened and sparked when she’d crunched our rental car onto the dirt in front of an empanada stand. We ate lunch leaning on the car’s hot hood as the cook, a stout lady with leathery skin, looked on. A woman out here all alone, nothing but stubby trees and choky dust for miles—I tried to give her a friendly smile.
Packed inside each doughy triangle was an entire hard-boiled egg and seasoned ground meat, and without thinking, I lifted my phone to snap a photo.
“What are you doing?” Kristen swallowed her bite and raised her eyebrows. “Did you forget?”
“I wasn’t gonna post it,” I muttered, blushing.
“Hand it over.” The sun beat into Kristen’s open palm. UV rays shooting onto each crease in her palm, each groove of her fingertips. I didn’t move and she flicked her wrist. “You know the rules.”
A breeze sent the bushes and shrubs around us hissing. The woman glanced up from the counter, where she was rolling out dough.
I dropped my phone into Kristen’s hand and grinned. “Digital detox commencing now.”
It hadn’t come up again. Our phones were in our purses now, there in case of emergency, but turned off, dead blocks of metal and glass. Our Cambodia trip had involved a no-phones-allowed two-night yoga retreat at the beginning, and we’d both agreed to keep it up. And then the decision had served us so well. So much luck, so many incidental details lining up to bring us here: alive, safe, free.
“So where should we go next year?” I asked.
Kristen rolled a grape between her fingers. “Turkey’s still high on my list. And didn’t you say you’d heard good things about Georgia?”
I shook my head. “Georgia, the country? I don’t know anything about it.”
“I could swear you were talking about it.” She narrowed her eyes.
“Well, Turkey could be cool,” I said. “Istanbul’s supposed to be super vibrant.”
“I was also thinking Morocco. Haggling in bazaars and riding camels in the desert and whatnot.”
A thought cropped up and I swallowed it just in time: Aaron went to Marrakech a few years back. He and I had been on four dates, after months of casual banter at the coffee shop where he worked. Apparently four dates was just enough for him to hijack my mind, my daydreams floating out like bubbles toward potential coupledom.
I hadn’t mentioned him to Kristen yet—not after she’d dismissed my “Met any cool guys lately?” on the first night with a scoff and a no. Kristen hadn’t had a serious boyfriend in all the time I’d known her, and she’d gotten rid of her dating apps six months into Sydney, disappointed to learn that mate-seeking was just as frustrating there as it was stateside. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to tell her, I just hadn’t wanted boy talk to dominate the week, drowning out the conversation around our dreams and plans and inner worlds…and I’d sooner die than rub my dating luck in her face. Aaron was the first guy I’d felt this excited about in years, and I didn’t want to jinx it. I’d even set up a stupid, secret test: I’d turn my phone on sometime soon and see if he’d bothered to text me. If he was still demonstrably interested, I’d tell Kristen about him.
I jumped—out of nowhere, the distillery’s owner leaned over my shoulder. He scooped up both our glasses. My fingers tingled from the cortisol spike, such an outsize reaction.
“Do you like anything else?” he asked. “We are closing now.”
On the way out, Kristen extended her hand and asked for his name again. “Thank you so much, Pedro,” she repeated, and behind her I stamped the air with a few more gracias-es. We’d joked about it on the drive from Santiago—she read out every road sign the American way and I threw on my best Spanish accent, my tongue flitting the way I’d learned in grade school: “That’s Chigualoco, and I’m glad I can repay you for your chauffeur services with my terrible translation services.”