I’m at the library. My classes are over, and I’ve had my meeting with my now official supervising professor, Dr. Bergstein. The steel and tile around me is a needed break from the silk wallpapers of the Queen. I can’t stomach going back home yet.
Last night, I shoved Luka out of my room, his yellow stare like ice while I did. I left without breakfast this morning so I didn’t have to see him again.
I’m so disgusted. Luka is a fixture at the Queen now. He used to spend more time than anyone outside, partying it up with his bimbos whenever he wasn’t quote-unquote working or, god forbid, doing med-studies-related stuff.
I can’t believe the way he tried to defame his brother, insinuating that Julian too worked flesh shifts for a living. And that’s not me being naive. Even if Julian had that much time on his hands outside, there’s simply no way my fiancé could have pulled off having sex on command.
Joy is coming to pick me up. We’re having a late lunch slash early dinner at a student joint around the corner. If I choose the right food, I don’t even need dinner at the Queen. The thought makes me feel bad for the other guys though. They’ve gone all out for me. My face heats a little at the thought while I download the latest research on the Lara’ people.
There’s an MA student who’s done a little digging into the beliefs and superstitions of the Lara’ women in particular. This far in, there isn’t much I can use, but I’ll keep reading.
I’m at a study desk by the window, my favorite spot here. It reminds me of the freedom of the Reading Room. Joy knows to look here and rolls down her window outside, firing off a friendly tap of the horn. I gather my stuff and walk out to her.
“That was quick.” She unlocks the passenger door while I let my backpack slip off my shoulder.
“Yeah, I was browsing at Barter’s. They have the bestest sale right now.” She tips her head sideways toward the mall. “You sure you don’t want to do Mexican for lunch?”
I smile. “So we can get an early buzz on?”
“Nothing wrong with margaritas, right?”
At Don Juan’s—seriously, that’s the name of the restaurant—we’re seated in a deep orange booth in a deep fuchsia corner. The rainbow threw up in here and somehow landed more than one color in our margaritas too.
“What kind is this?” I ask.
“El Unicornio,” she pronounces almost perfectly.
“Wow. This is a sign. Everyone I have beverages with lately prefers unicorns.”
Joy performs her folding of fists, one inside the other, before she leans her chin on her grip and stares deeply into my eyes. “So train wreck last night?”
“You could say that.”
“Loved your text rant during class today.” She can’t hold back a grin. “It wasn’t that it was funny per se—you know what I mean? It was just how you said it.” She undoes her studious pose to lift her hands against me, knowing I’ll object.
“It was bad, Joy. I hate him so much. I think I need to move out of there.”
“Because that makes sense when you’re heading off to the Amazon in a few months anyway, right?” Joy still has a ways to go on the whole how-does-that-make-you-feel approach to her future clients.
I open my mouth to reply. She’s right though—I won’t jump on my decision before I leave the country. Then, by the time I’m back from Brazil, it’ll almost be winter break and I’ll spend Christmas with my family.
“So you hate him. What made that particularly apparent last night?”
“He insinuated that Julian ‘worked’ too. I know for a fact he did not.” My cheeks grow hot with fury just recounting it.
“As in working in adult entertainment?”
“Yes. He all but said it out loud.” I crunch down on a warm, crispy tortilla chip heaped tall with salsa. Any other time in my life, this would have lifted my mood substantially.
“Yeah. Julian wasn’t the type,” she agrees.
“And he didn’t have the time. When would he have done that? There were no mysterious absences. Besides the Verenich family Russia trips, he and I were together nonstop, working on our projects, at home, even on vacation.”
“True. He definitely wouldn’t have had time for that.”
“And you’re right,” I say. “He wasn’t the type. I remember once I was feeling frisky on the beach. Everyone had left and we were in this secluded part of the bay. I was even wearing a skirt. He couldn’t do it.”
“He couldn’t get it up?” Joy grins.
“Nope. My man wasn’t a public sex kind of guy.”
In just a few weeks, our behavior at the Queen becomes the norm. The second week after my return from Portland, the Fratters keep an ear out for me after bedtime to see if I fall asleep without them. I don’t.
The third week, the routine evolves. The guys let me get ready and to bed, but then they enter and climb in on their own without waiting for me to get restless.
The shadow in my doorway becomes predictable too. Diego comes on Mondays, Lenny on Tuesdays, and Marlon on Wednesdays. The second half of the week has James on Thursdays, Nathaniel on Fridays, and Connor on Saturdays. Every night, I’m comforted in the arms of a warm, understanding man, someone who’s alive and caters to my needs.
I still have to work on my guilt once I’m out of the house in the morning, but even so, I won’t lock the door the next night either. I need them. I crave them. My head is black and my heart empty without them.
Sundays are the worst. I’m not going to mention it to the guys, because it’s clear what’s happening; Sundays are Luka’s nights. In stark contrast to the rest of the week, every Fratter except Luka seems to have something to do on Sundays around bedtime.
Three Sundays in a row, I’ve been fooled into thinking most will stay at the house until last minute. But then they get up. They leave. Some don’t even announce that they’re leaving, and belatedly, I find out that Luka and I are home alone.
It’s not that I’m scared of him. It’s our confrontations I’m afraid of.
I go to bed. He comes after me. Not once has he entered my room wearing only underwear like the others. Luka doesn’t try to get into my bed either. He sees me though. Watches me pull my duvet up. Registers the way my cheeks burn.
“I’ll just sit here until you fall asleep,” he tells me tonight. It troubles me that he’s in the window nook, our glass veranda, without as much as a cushion beneath him on the floor. He’s just there, knees bent and elbows on his knees, a moonlit shadow against the glass panes.
“I don’t want you to.”
“You sleep better with someone in the room.”
“I don’t sleep better with you here. You give me nightmares.” I fight the impulse to throw him a pillow.
“I’ve seen no sign of that.”
I sit up higher, clutching the comforter to my chest. “Why are you so stubborn? I know what I want, Luka, and that’s to be as far away from you as I can.”
A flare goes off in his eyes before they darken again. “I wonder why?”
“Seriously? You and your insinuations. First about Julian and now about me? Don’t even bother. You’re dreaming if you ever thought that… that I...”
“That you what?” He tips his head to the side, and it could have looked playful. We could have been flirting.
“That I’ve ever felt anything but disgust for you.”
He exhales heavily. “I see. And what did I say that upset you about Julian?”
I scoff. “Should be self-explanatory, don’t you think? The ‘work’ part.”
“I’m a little lost here.”
“You said he worked! I can only imagine you wanted me to believe that Julian earned money off porn too, but you forgot the minor issue of me knowing your brother really well.”
“Ha, no way. No one would have hired Julian. You gotta be a machine for my kind of job. Get it up and keep it up whenever for whoever and however long need be. Then you need to bust a nut on command. Julian didn’t have it in him.”
“You never say anything good about him,” I burst out and cover my mouth with my hand.
Luka rocks against the window frame, trying to get comfortable. “So it’s not good that he wasn’t in the industry?”
“Of course it is! It was the way you said it. Plus, what else could you have meant?”
“Just… relax, Geneva. Okay? Julian didn’t work.” He sinks back against the wall. There’s a slump in his shoulders, so small I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t looking right at him. “Go to sleep. I’ll leave once I see you doze off. I promise.”
Kenya isn’t just postponed. It isn’t happening for me at all. Deep down, I knew it wouldn’t, but here I’ve got it, black on white. Ashley, another doctoral student, left right before Julian died, and we were supposed to join her backup team, assisting her while fine-tuning techniques for our own research in Brazil. I just received an email from her, in which she gives me her deepest condolences—and the news that she’s chosen the only remaining male doctoral student to join her instead of me. I hate that I understand.
If I hadn’t counted on Julian, I might have chosen a less dangerous project; in the jungle, I’m the weaker sex. Look at Yarunami and how the villagers took advantage of her. Then there are the snakes, the mosquitos, jaguars, piranhas, stifling heat, and deadly bacteria. So many reasons not to go.
I do feel weaker than usual right now. I can’t imagine myself in the Amazon without my shield, my armor, my man who was supposed to be there, strong and tall and supportive. I was going to run our interviews. I was going to be fearless because I didn’t need to fear.
Staring into the glass bottom of my second beer, it dawns on me that Kenya isn’t what bothers me. Neither is it the fear of going alone to Brazil. No. It’s the devastation of the Amazon not panning out. Because it really is not.
“The Mikhailov Oracle funds were allocated a few months ago, correct?” Dr. Bergstein asked yesterday.
“They were,” I said, not adding that Julian secured the grant based on his Russian heritage, not adding that I haven’t contacted the M.O. since Julian’s death.
“Perfect. Your spreadsheet looks good. Between the Mikhailov Oracle funding and what we can funnel from the Markata project, you should be set for a ten-week trip with a partner. Have you found one yet?”
I postponed my answer with a slow blink in hopes that his attention would waver. It didn’t.
“People are busy,” I admitted.
Those small, shrewd eyes of his examined me, not budging while I worked to appear calm. “I know you’re aware, Geneva, but it merits a repetition: you can’t go alone. Despite the liability waiver you’re signing to get into the jungle, the department doesn’t make allowances for our students to put themselves in life-threatening situations.”
“It’s not life-threatening. The tribe and the territory have been studied before, and so far no one has found themselves in danger.”
“Over the last ten years, thirteen anthropologists have been that deep into the Amazon jungle.”
“Yes.” I raised my eyebrows in a polite version of see?
Dr. Bergstein crossed his arms. “How many of them were female?”
“I can find ways of protecting myself.”
“How many?”
I pretended to think even though a quick run-through in my brain gave the answer immediately. “Mariana Smith.”
“That’s correct. She was the only one. Who did she travel with?”
I ripped off the Band-Aid. “Two colleagues.”
“Exactly. Now, Geneva, I want you to know that you’re a brilliant anthropologist, and I believe in your project. I think it could potentially be groundbreaking.” Dr. Bergstein tilted his head, peering at me. “Have you landed on an interpreter yet?”
“I’ve reached out to a few, but I’m still waiting for answers.”
“Okay. If you want to anchor down the Markata funding, you’ll need to settle on a solid backup team. The combined interpreter/partner I initially thought we could pull off is a no-go. This means that as a bare minimum you’ll need a partner and an interpreter.”
I’m at the department and so frustrated I want to scream. Still, there’s a niggling at the back of my brain that never lets me wallow in peace. It harps about how I need to plow onward, how it’s the only way to clean up the mess.
I scour the internet again for Larengatu interpreters and get no new hits. I send a second email to the first batch of interpreters, crossing my fingers for an answer.
By the time I leave the department, I’ve visited four classrooms talking about my project, urging bachelor’s students and master’s-seekers to step forward if they’re interested in becoming a part of my field team. The ones doing so are tiny, blonde fairies I’d never dream of trying to keep alive in the jungle.
I’m defeated when I meet up with Joy, and she frowns, barely creating a fold between her honeyed brows.
“About the Larengatu-speaker you need. Why do you limit yourself to interpreters?” She wiggles a shrimp in the air, grilled antennas drooping.
“What do you mean? I need someone who knows the language.”
“Sure, but do they have to be formally recognized interpreters?”
I blink.
“Can’t they just be some Lara’ person who has moved out of the jungle and learned English?”
I crunch down on a shrimp of my own, forgetting to remove the shell.
Joy lifts her shoulders, emphasizing with a shrug when I don’t reply. “Worth a search, don’t you think?”
At the library, the world wide web takes me on one crazy goose chase after the other. They’re rabbit holes opened with leads that first seem promising then disappear.
I can’t go back to a night at the Queen without some sense of accomplishment, so I send off a few emails. Soon, I’m led to Twitter and find a young Lara’ woman who’s married in a village at the edge of the forest. I shoot off a message to @Akuntsa7, and she answers a few minutes later!
Thanks to Google Translate, I’m a quasi-expert in Brazilian Portuguese. Akuntsa doesn’t complain. She knows someone who can help me, she says.
Levari is the youngest of my uncle’s, and he left Lara’ Nation to join Brazil so he could study the universal languages of Portuguese and English. He is back now.
I wonder what “back” means. That’s great! Is he with the Lara’?
Most times. We will pick you up.
I don’t know what to reply to that. I want her to send me his contact information so I can talk with him, find out if we’re a good fit, discuss salary. What if I’m doomed to hiring a blonde fairy team from my department and Levari is my only male connection there?
When you come? Akuntsa asks. Do you pay?
I’ll pay him. Not sure when I’m coming, I reply honestly.
My cousin is kind.
Do you have his contact information?
She takes a while to respond. To Levari?
Yes.
He’s not computer.
But does he get online at some library? If he’s studied languages, surely he has at least a phone. How do I ask without being rude?
Is there an email or a phone number where I can contact him?
No, you say when, and he get you.
I have a flash-feel of human-trafficking victim-to-be, so I open Akuntsa’s Twitter photos. I track her on Facebook too, where she has a ton of unprotected pictures.
Akuntsa is small and plump, a beautifully olive-skinned girl with long, straight black hair. Calm kindness saturates her features. It makes me think she’s wiser than her years. She has the face of someone trustworthy so I send her a friend request.
Have a good night, Akuntsa. It was so nice to meet you. I’ll be in contact.
Good night, Geneva. She sends me a heart emoticon, which makes sense from someone with her appearance. Maybe this will work out?