Lessons in Pure Life Read online

  “Okay, Lia.” He smiles distractedly, looking down at his phone. He’s been texting. I peer over teasingly, and he pulls it toward himself in a knee-jerk reaction. His brow furrows; he realizes he’s given something away. I don’t want him to feel he has. “I got to go.”

  “So what should I do?” I ask, leaning in for a loose hug.

  “Diego will take you.”

  Right.

  Diego doesn’t respond, and I take this to mean I’ll still have a guide to Esmeralda. Not going to think about being alone with him, just him, only him in the wild.

  Jose is already gone, his eyes soft, elsewhere.

  “Pura vida!” he calls, taking off up the main trail at a slow jog.

  That’s that.

  The two of us left face one another shyly. His legs are thick and sturdy, calves sloping into strong ankles. It’s actually funny how much I’ll slow him down.

  “You want to do this?” I demand frankly. May as well give him a “Get Out of Jail” card now.

  “Do you?”

  “Well, yeah. I’ve never seen it before.”

  “And you must see it. So, let’s go. Vamonos.”

  “Take the lead.”

  He turns, and we continue the way we’ve been heading, his butt the dangling carrot that keeps me aimed toward the heart of the volcano.

  10

  Diego’s making it easier for me by leading, going slowly so I can take the same steps. It’s very Avatar here, except I probably look more green than blue. We passed the marker for the final kilometer a while back, and I want to conserve energy for the swim and our return.

  The mid-day heat is stifling, obnoxious. A jerk. Whether or not the sunblock Diego so generously applied is working, my shoulders are burning into a stinging feeling. The forest ended a while ago and opened into a big bowl of a valley dotted with strange, pointy succulents half my height. Dry, dusty earth. Two small snakes nip under rocks like liquid. Startling, then fascinating. I skid to a stop in my runners so I can Instagram them.

  “They’re not dangerous,” he says.

  “I know. I want to get a look.”

  “You’re not afraid?”

  “Well, I don’t want to pick one up.”

  He laughs. “You’re not like the girls here.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know,” I shrug. “I’m just not that scared of snakes.”

  “All right. That’s good.”

  He shrugs back at me, and I put the phone away. We walk on in silence for a few more minutes, until I hear a low rumble coming from the north. We keep following it, Diego looking back at me more often now that the path has turned into a crumbly, steep slope. It’s a short climb down to where the ground is obscured by thick foliage. The rumble turns to rushing the closer we get, whooshing sheets of water I can hear clearly.

  Diego opens his hand, meaning for me to grasp his forearm as I come to the last foothold. His skin is pale and silky there, and so clean despite the dust and heat. Even in my exhaustion, my mind shifts primitively…

  “Whoop!”

  My foot slips and my calf skims along the side of the dusty rock, scraping me and staining my skin with ashy dirt. Goddamn. I steady myself before he’s turned around. He doesn’t miss the long scratch on my leg, but at least I didn’t flail. My recovery was actually pretty impressive, considering I’ve burned all the calories I had going for me. The heat and altitude are punching me in the gut and brain, respectively.

  “Okay?”

  “Yup.”

  “Your balance is really something,” he teases.

  He’s making fun of me in a way I can’t resist making fun of either. Exasperated, I laugh weakly.

  “Yeah, yeah. We’ll go ice skating and then see who’s got balance. Are we almost there?” I have to know. It’s starting to feel like there’s no Emerald City at the end of this road.

  “We are there. Let’s go, a few more steps. You’ll like it,” he promises good-naturedly.

  “We are?”

  He nods his head at the woods. “Just past the trees.”

  Diego’s standing there glistening at me, his chest heaving lightly with the heat. It must be hotter than usual, even for Costa Rica. It’s like an alien entity that’s far stronger than either of us. His hair is damp around the nape of his neck and his shirt is pressed against the valley of his back. I’m parched, my skin slick with sweat.

  I can just see the poster that used to hang in the Arts admin office at university that showed one circle with an arrow pointing to your comfort zone, juxtaposed against another circle with the words, “Where the magic happens.” I’m there, apparently, because I’m well beyond comfort. I’m not even in any kind of zone – this is no man’s land in Lia World. Here there be dragons. And Diego.

  The rushing is in my ears now. I actually believe him, since there’s audible proof that we’re close to a body of water.

  “Gahhh-ah-ha-ha-ha!”

  It’s the distinct call of a human, joyful as a child before her innocence whips away like a school project in the wind.

  A juicy splash follows the sound, and then I hear more bubbly voices, the occasional English word rising out of the chaos.

  Emerald City!

  “Here.”

  We’ve come to a fork in the path sheltered by trees, and Diego points me leftward.

  I turn and grind to a halt. Everything stops except the frothy stream of white rushhh. A shimmering green-blue mass laps in front of me. It’s a pulsating jewel, a dolphin dream, a natural pool the color of turquoise stone. It looks impossibly thick and murky, like my favorite earrings have been melted and the liquid is churning, pouring, and pooling in front of me.

  I feel my hand go over my mouth. Diego comes to a stop next to me; I can see him in my peripheral view. He doesn’t need to look at me to guess my reaction, and he certainly doesn’t need proof of my amazement. This is something to write home about; he’s brought me to a genuine natural wonder.

  The pool is large and mostly empty. A cluster of orange-haired, pink-skinned tourists is gathered by the charging falls that gush over a twenty-foot cliff at the far end.

  I stand in dumb awe opposite them and hold my hand up in silent greeting when they notice us. Two of them wave back, friendly. Happily dazed, like me.

  Diego’s found a spot to put his stuff down and I follow, peeling the bag from my back. Esmeralda mists my newly bare skin tantalizingly. I roll my shoulders, massaging the areas that have been straining against my bag. And then I realize.

  “Shit!”

  “Qué?”

  “I don’t have my swimsuit.”

  I know exactly where I left it. The lowest step of the stairs in my house is wearing my bikini uselessly, without the curves to fill it out properly. Motherfucker.

  He shrugs. “So?” Challenging, then watching for my reaction.

  I raise my eyebrows and say nothing. How can I respond to that?

  “I swam naked here when I was a boy.”

  As if to prove his point, he reaches to the elastic waist of his jersey shorts and lets them drop, revealing shorter, fitted black boxer briefs.

  Me gaping.

  I want to keep my cool, I really do, but he’s not making it easy for me. I’m not Gandhi.

  He steps out of the puddle of shorts at his feet and looks up at me like he’s done me a favor.

  Well, he has, but I don’t think he’s thinking what I’m thinking.

  “See? No big deal.”

  I laugh, not expecting this. “You dropped your pants for me,” I can’t help but point out. “Is this a cultural thing?”

  He smiles but bites it back, stepping closer again.

  “Si. It’s a traditional greeting,” he replies dryly.

  I try not to gape at his torso so close to me, but it’s taking up most of my field of view. Brawn as far as the eye can see.

  If I were his girlfriend, I’d walk over and wrap one arm around his waist and rest it in the small of his back. The other hand would smoo
th over the flat plain of his stomach, my cheek on the warm round of his shoulder.

  Girlfriend? Ugh. Don’t go there. Seal that up seven layers deep, six feet under. Fucking society and its gender-normification. Don’t need to be a girlfriend.

  “Uhh…”

  “I’m trying to be nice, gringa. A friend,” he emphasizes, looking away uncomfortably and scratching his chin.

  There’s been a restructuring sometime between the moment I got on the bus this morning and this version of Diego that extends his hand like it’s natural, as though he’d always been a kind of gentleman and not a cocky bronze statue. Mellowness pours over me in appreciation like the water gushing in front of us. It’s absurd to call it water when it’s thunder in my ears, a frothy tapestry.

  “Well… thanks, friend.”

  I let him have a real smile of true kindness normally reserved for gal-pals and my oldest guy friends, the ones who are like brothers to me. He is shy to return it, but it’s acknowledged.

  Hmm. So that happened.

  Maybe it will be easier this way, if I don’t feel pressured to act like a sexy stranger and instead can ease into him gradually, naturally. Yes. Friendship is a much simpler route. Besides, it’s not like I have a choice. He made a point to emphasize it.

  Before I lose my nerve, I pull my top upward off my body and drop it into my open bag. My shorts roll easily down my legs, and then it’s just me in my sports bra and cotton underwear with confetti-colored polka dots on them.

  A real classy outfit. Maybe he won’t notice.

  “Victoria’s Secret?” he asks, deadpan.

  “Shut up!”

  I smack him lightly on the arm and he rubs it, pretending to be in pain. Flirting already. Or is this how we’re friends? Five seconds into this and I’ve already got questions.

  “I didn’t expect to be showing them off, Tico! They’re supposed to stay hidden.”

  “Ha! She’s alive,” he announces.

  “She never died,” I insist, but it’s kind of a lie.

  “Bien, bien, perdoname. Here. Look.”

  He motions to his waist and I stiffen.

  “Not like that. Here.”

  He points to a little hole in the elastic waistband of his underwear, the hem of which strains around his thighs. His cheeks fold in an uninhibited grin, and his lashes fall on that thin skin that gets dark when you don’t sleep enough. Teeth bright against his tan.

  “I don’t know what’s happening right now,” I say, wide-eyed.

  “I’m showing you I don’t care about that stuff. Brand-name shit, holes, or buying cheap clothes or whatever.” He gestures at my undies.

  “Hey! What are you saying?”

  I look down at the scalloped elastic “lace” along the edges of the tissue-like cotton. The waistband is thick and baby pink, the words “Fruit of the Loom” branding me a discount five-pack shopper. Yeah, I guess I do like a bargain.

  Diego covers his mouth and his eyes narrow, trying to calculate how far to backpedal, like he’s backing a vehicle out of a muddy dead end, a long, thick arm draped casually over the passenger seat (in this dream, I’m in the passenger seat) as he twists to watch the road behind him. It would show his body off beautifully.

  “I’m fucking this up.”

  “It’s okay. Forget it,” I mumble, feigning irritation.

  My gaze has drifted down to his Jockeys. I remind myself that friends don’t look at other friends’ packages, and yet my eyes target the area like drones. Once the mission is accomplished I blink, look out to the pool. Anything to forget what I saw.

  Bulge.

  New friend. Fun, new friend.

  Water polo thighs.

  Friendship is key. New friends are the ones I should respect the most.

  But damn. More than a handful.

  Oh god! I’m the worst friend. I’m blushing and he sees it and I know it.

  “So—”

  “Want to—”

  Awkward laughter. I look away, sucking in my belly, scanning the rocks so I can climb down and get into the pool. It was so damn hot the whole way, and yet in the moment before I actually get to submerge myself into a crystal pool of magical mineral water, I’m covered in goose bumps.

  Misty wind blows across the sunken earth from the falls to my naked midriff. In my admiration of the emerald lagoon I miss Diego climbing up onto a large boulder. I only notice when the light flickers, like a bird eclipsing the sun as it flies overhead, and his brown body plunges in. He’s a great, dark fish diving down into the green water, an atomic bomb mushroom-clouding in the South Seas.

  I stand at the edge, toes testing like litmus paper in science class.

  Diego surfaces and wanders over to me, wading until he’s up to his waist, revealing an easy way to step gradually in. Me, I’m not one to hurl myself off boulders.

  “You look naked,” I blurt out, but my voice gets pummeled by the thundering water.

  “Que?”

  “Uh, never mind. Why is the water so cloudy-turquoise?”

  “It’s the minerals. All natural. Very good for you,” he calls over the din.

  Right, this whole place must be brimming with dissolved minerals and salts. I take a first step into the water up to my left ankle, and it’s a deep, underground kind of cool that knows a life and secrets I’ll never understand.

  As I tromp around the shallow end like I’m in slow-mo, a vague feeling of euphoria rolls in like fog. Maybe it’s the minerals; maybe it’s that I’ve found an oasis in a dry, dry place.

  My other foot goes in and Diego backs off, turning away. I glide in further, up to my hips now, and he circles back around, waiting. It’s like being in the water with a shark after you’ve watched a documentary on how sharks are actually pretty good guys. You can appreciate their majesty, but you still can’t quite shake your old fear. Diegoshark bobs up and down, his lower half mostly invisible in the oddly opaque water. It accentuates his skin, the color of fired clay.

  He’s wide through the ribcage – no wonder his shirts can’t ever seem to stay tucked in. Not that he’s the tucking kind.

  His lips are a little raw but roomy, still soft and wide enough to rest my fingertip on. Eyes half-cloudy, squinted. A good mood hangs about backstage, rippling at the corners of his face like those deep purple velvet curtains at the theater. An easy confidence that’s never known smallness.

  The water seems to pull me in, and I let it take me deeper, legs automatically treading like eggbeaters when the silty floor slopes deeper. I’ve always been comfortable in pools, where I could see the perimeter and knew there weren’t sharp teeth about to nip my toes off. The water laps up my shoulders, soaking the ends of my hair so it floats weightlessly around me. I dip my head backward, soaking my hair to the hairline, and then slick it back. Cooling my skull is marvelous relief, and I hadn’t realized my head’s been aching until I feel the giddy emptiness of vanished pain.

  The sum of these feelings is a golden bulb of thankfulness, and it’s lit me up like a sunrise.

  “Diego?” I call, and look over my shoulder to find him.

  “Qué pasa, gringa?” His voice has calmed, like this place is having the same effect on both of us.

  He swims over, lips and chin disappearing under with each stroke. Those bones below his eyes slicing the water like a ship’s bow cuts the ocean apart. Hair glossy like India ink. It should stain his cheeks and drip bluish-black down his jaw but it doesn’t. That’s how I know I’m not hallucinating.

  I rotate to face him fully, hoping my genuinely happy vibes are evident.

  “Thank you so much. This is the coolest place I’ve been since I got here. To Costa Rica, I mean. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful.”

  He drops his eyes shyly. I can see his tongue pressing lightly against his top teeth, mouth ready for the words he’s putting together.

  “This is one of Guanacaste’s crown jewels.”

  He exhales the last word as his body shoots b
ackwards with a flap of his arms like they’re fins. I follow him hesitatingly, a few feet closer. The myth is in reverse: he’s the siren, and I’m the haunted sailor without a chance.

  He mulls something over, it looks like, and then decides. Gives me an assessing look that makes me prod him.

  “What is it?”

  “Hey, gringa?”

  “Si?”

  He sniffs, humored by my one-word Spanish but undeterred.

  “Want to see something?”

  I’m not sure what he’s getting at. I wonder if it’s a part of his body.

  “Okay…”

  “I can show you a secret place, if you want.”

  He looks sideways at the orange people. They’re picnicking with backs to us, appearing to be more on their way out than in. Barely there at all.

  He looks back at me again and nods his head toward the falls. Then he swims toward the shuddering ripples where gravity yanks endlessly.

  I approach but slow down as we get closer. Am I supposed to go under that thing?

  Diego’s reached the edge of the curtain, and he’s staring up at it. Nervousness propels me forward. I’m getting that feeling like What am I getting myself into? Vibration fills my head like cymbals crashing, grinding together, one uninterrupted note.

  I’m right behind him now, but he doesn’t see me. Can’t hear a thing. He whips around suddenly and we’re facing each other, inches apart. We’re both startled.

  “Jesus.” I don’t hear him say it, but I see it on his lips.

  “Sorry!” I call out over the ruckus. The word vanishes, crushed by the bigger sound.

  He just looks at me. Gauging. The air around us is fizzy drizzle.

  “We have to go under!”

  This my ears pick up. Something about the lower tone of his voice cuts through the white noise and gets right inside my head.

  Going under. I fucking knew it.

  I must look somewhere between angry and terrified because he softens into an incredulous smile.

  “Whoa, gringa. It’s okay.” Issokay, sounds like. Maybe I’m just reading his lips and my brain is filling in the rest. It’s getting to know him better, this brain.