“Have you seen this before?” I asked Deni. “There’s no TV at the
pesantren,
right?”
“No, there’s not. I only watch when I’m out.”
Out? So he went out often? I wrinkled my nose, then realized how silly I was being.
Of course he did. Why would I think this time with me would be his first?
“Why isn’t she wearing
a jilbab?”
I asked.
He shrugged. “On television some girls do not.”
“That’s okay?”
His eyes lit up. “Yes. But on television here they will never show a kiss. It would be vulgar. They show kisses on American television, I have heard.”
I blushed. “Yeah, they do.”
The dinner was fluffy coconut rice,
nasi uduk,
and
gudeg
, which Deni explained was jackfruit cooked for a long time so it looked like meat.
“You like?” Deni said, eyebrows raised. “It is mixed with kuda. You remember, horse.” He cracked up at my open-mouthed expression. “I am making a joke,” he said. “Only jackfruit, do not worry.”
Deni scooped up his food like there was no tomorrow. The jackfruit was cooked in palm sugar, sweet, almost too sweet, and dark brown.
We ate quietly for a while, new contestants appearing on
Indonesian Idol
. He stared at me for a beat before asking, “Why did you come to the
pesantren,
Sienna? Do you not have studies?”
“It’s summer vacation, so no school.”
“Did you want to travel to Indonesia?”
“At first I didn’t, but then I changed my mind.” I licked palm sugar off my fingers.
“I am glad you came,” he said softly.
“So am I. How are things going in the group with my dad? Is he helping you?” I asked, digging into a partially melted scoop of green ice cream.
Deni nodded. “I have a terrible nightmare night after night about my
ibu.”
“What happens? ... I mean, if you don’t mind sharing.”
His face clouded over. “She is dressed in black for mourning. It’s the day the sea came. She rises out of the ocean and reaches her arms out to me, trying to pull me under the sea with her to my death.” He shook his head as if trying to remove the image from his brain. “It is horrible.”
“That is horrible.” And then I realized I hadn’t had a nightmare in three nights.
Dreams are portholes into the subconscious
,
Sienna.
Was my subconscious getting better? My awake self sure was. That I felt.
“I wake up cold, wet, yelling,” Deni said. “My friends, they wake me up. Your father is teaching me ways to get away from the dream.”
“Is it working?” I asked.
He shrugged. “A little. It’s hard to change such a thing.”
“I know.”
He cocked his head. “You know?”
“I have a horrible dream too ... night after night ... about my mother.”
“Your
ibu?”
I nodded. “And the ocean. Do you really want to hear this?”
“Yes. It is Another Day.” He held my eyes. “But if you do not want to, do not tell me.”
I wiped my hands on my skirt. “No, it’s okay. It was a long time ago. I don’t talk about it very much. That’s all.”
“She drowned?”
“Well, her plane disappeared. Over the ocean. They never found the plane.”
His eyes waited for me to tell him more.
I took a deep breath. I never told that story. Ever.
“I was almost twelve years old. Mom and Dad were not far from here. In Thailand. They were doing relief work at a camp where the people had been relocated after a typhoon. They were passing out malaria pills and stuff like that. Anyway, Dad was busy with his patients and Mom heard that kids in a town just over the mountain needed first aid supplies after a school collapsed. Dad said it was raining. A bad storm. She left in a single-engine plane and something happened—they don’t know what—pilot error or engine failure; all we know is that she, well, she never came back—and she never showed up at the village. The kids were waiting for her. They were waiting and she never came.”
Tears stung my eyes. I didn’t want to cry. “They looked and looked. At first they thought the plane might have crashed in the jungle, but there was no evidence of that, so they just assumed it went down in the sea. That’s the reason I don’t surf or body board anymore. I have nightmares about her ... me ... drowning in the ocean.”
Deni reached over and wrapped his fingers around mine. Right there in the restaurant. Right out in the open.
“And to you now the ocean is an unhappy place,” he said, his eyes warm. “And so you dream of it that way.”
I nodded, biting my lip. “Not that it compares to anything that happened to you—I mean, I can’t imagine what you went through ... I don’t know how you do it, how you stay so sure of yourself... and having nightmares on top of it.”
He looked deeply into my eyes. “We do not choose what happens to us. We can only choose what we do after. What we do now. We can only choose to keep going.”
“Well, your family didn’t have a choice. The wave came. You all ran. But my mother had a choice. She didn’t have to go up in that plane in a storm, so why did she go?” I looked at Deni for an answer. My hand looked so safe wrapped in his. “And Dad won’t talk to me about it. I used to ask all the time for more and more details, so I could find out what happened, so I could go find her, you know? But he just said, ‘She’s gone.”’
“Your mother must have wanted to help. That was a choice you made too, to come here. You chose to come here to help. Even though you might think it was dangerous.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if that’s the same thing. I mean, there was a storm and ...”
“Maybe hers was not the choice you would have made. But you cannot go back and save her,” Deni said.
I wiped the tears streaking down my cheek with the back of my hand.
Deni set some paper money on the table.
“We go,” he said, gently rubbing my thumb.
Somehow, he got me out of the restaurant and back onto the busy street. When had it started to rain?
This time he wrapped his whole arm around me, pulling me close to him. We walked for a bit in the hot downpour, Deni’s eyes darting around, looking for someplace to hide from the rain or a place to be alone.
We ducked into a dirty alley filled with empty chicken cages and fell into each other against a wall. Rain splashed down. A tin overhang barely shielded us from the storm. And the drops pinged onto the metal.
Deni wrapped his arms around my waist. His eyes asking me a question I knew the answer to. I pressed my chest to his, and his lips moved against mine.
“Deni,” I whispered. And we clung to each other like we were drowning because, in a way, we were.
THREE YEARS AGO
THE DARE
I kissed Spider once.
We were playing truth or dare on Spider’s rooftop outside his second-story window.
Bev was the one who dared us.
“Truth or dare?” she said.
“Dare,” I said. Why’d she even bother to ask? I
always
chose dare.
Her eyes darkened with mischief. “I dare you to kiss Spider.”
I shook my head quickly. “No way. Changed my mind. Truth!”
Her hands flew in the air. “You said dare, you have to do it.”
“No, I don’t.”
Bev pointed at me, shaking her finger. “No take backs, Sea.”
Spider scratched his sandy hair. He looked nervous. “Bev, come on. Dare her to jump into the ocean without a wet suit or something,” he said.
It was dark. Middle-of-winter cold. I would freeze for sure.
But freezing or
kissing?
I’d take my chances. “That’s fine,” I said, agreeing with Spider’s idea. “Let’s go.”
Bev shook her head smugly. “Nope. A kiss. That’s your dare.”
I remembered looking at him. Brick red freckles sprinkled across his nose and cheeks. His blond bangs hanging over his eyes.
“Okay, fine.” I leaned over and kissed Spider, quick on the cheek, like he was Dad sitting in his easy chair.
Bev wasn’t pleased. “Kiss means ON THE LIPS. Try again.”
“Bev, come on,” I hissed frantically in her ear. “Don’t make me kiss your brother.”
I glanced over at Spider, who was turning all shades of lobster.
She rubbed her hands together. “Sorry. A dare’s a dare. What are you, Sea, chicken?”
My eyes burned in the moonlight. “You’re so mean sometimes.”
Bev shrugged. She knew how awful this was. SHE hadn’t kissed a boy yet either.
I wouldn’t do this to her.
“Leave her alone, Bev. This is lame anyway,” Spider said, picking at the roof tiles.
Off the hook. Then why did I feel so disappointed?
“It’s okay.” I shrugged, suddenly changing my mind. “I have to, Spider. A dare’s a dare. Just ... just close your eyes,” I prodded.
“If you insist,” he said with a lopsided grin, his eyes closed.
I scooted forward slightly, skidding my butt over the slanted rooftop, careful I wouldn’t slip off and tumble into the yard.
When I was close enough to feel his breath on my face, I sat on my knees and leaned in.
I’d never kissed anyone on the lips except Mom and Dad, and that was when I was a little kid. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and puckered up like a girl in a lipstick ad.
A tingling softness spread over my mouth that tasted like salt, tasted like the sea. Was that kissing?
“Spider! Beverly!” The twins’ mom’s voice suddenly filled the rooftop. My eyes flew open and I spun around. She was staring at me.
“Sorry, we were just ... playing a game,” I said.
“Truth or dare.” Spider leaned back a little, still flushed. I smiled at him and he smiled back.... It was like getting forced awake from a perfect dream.
But Mrs. Adams didn’t look mad. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. “Sienna—sweetheart,” she said slowly.
Her usual smiling face was sad, her lips quivering.
It was just a kiss. Was it that big of a deal? “I’m sorry,” I said again. “Bev dared me! We won’t ever do it again. Pinky swear.”
Spider laughed as Bev denied my accusation.
“You need to come inside,” Mrs. Adams said.
“Let’s go back in, you guys,” I said.
I scratched up my knees crawling back toward the open window.
Mrs. Adams had tears streaming down her face. Her hands were shaking. She was holding a red cordless phone that was beeping loudly, like someone on the other end of the line had hung up a while ago.
Why hadn’t she hung up her end?
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
I never forgot that sound.
“Sweetheart.” Mrs. Adams touched my thin shoulder. “I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know how to s-say this. Your grandmother just called—”
She hugged me like she was trying to protect me from her own words.
“You need to go straight home” was all she could manage to say.
SCARS
It was still raining when we snuck back through the white gate, but not as hard.
Deni let go of my hand when we got close to the dimly lit
pesantren
property.
My hand felt naked without his.
He turned and kissed a raindrop off my cheek. The half-moon reflected off the dark, grassy field.
“What happened to your leg, Deni?”
His shoulders hunched. “I walk crooked now. You noticed.”
“No. I can barely notice. I just ... well ...”
What? Admit I stared at him all the time? Had been watching him since I first arrived?
He leaned back against the gatekeeper’s post. Glanced up at the moon before he started talking, like telling the sky was easier than telling me. “It happened the day the wave came. I was escaping on my
motor;
people were grabbing at me, trying to cling on to my back as I drove. To get a ride. But I had no more room. A group of boys jumped on, fearing for the water, and the
motor
crashed. It landed on my leg. I looked behind me and the water was coming close. The boys ran and I pushed the
motor
off my leg and got back on. But my leg, here, see?” He lifted the bottom of his pants to show me a thick, deep blue scar clear even in the shadows. “This is what happened.” He shrugged. “But I am still here.”
“Did you go to a doctor? That scar looks deep ... Maybe my dad could look at it? He’s a psychiatrist, but he’s also a medical doctor.”
He waved off the thought. “There were thousands drowning.... My cut was nothing. It is still nothing compared.” He scrunched his face as if trying to force the memory out of his mind forever.
I imagined Deni, blood gushing from his leg, fleeing the tsunami.
It was stupid, but I wished I could have been there to help him. I wished I could help him now.
“Deni.” My fingers curled around his forearm. “You know I’m leaving in less than a week? I ... don’t want things to be weird for the rest of our stay. I mean, I want to be with you, but I don’t want us to get into trouble.” I gulped. “Especially you.”
His eyes shut briefly as if he was trying to decide. Then his dark lashes fluttered open and he traced an invisible line down my cheek with his finger. “So we make sure we are not caught.”
“When will I see you again?” I whispered, my face tilted up at him.
“I will find you,” he said in my ear.
And then, Deni started to slip away.
“Deni, wait!” I called after him. I wouldn’t let him go that easily. Not after all this.
He turned around quickly, as if he’d been hoping I wouldn’t let him go.
He wrapped his arms around my waist. “Dawn is not for a while,” he said, “and no one can see us in the dark.”
DAY SIX
HOPE
I’m not on a plane. I’m standing on a beach of white sand, staring out at a black sea. Except for larger-than-life gulls screeching above me, I’m alone. And then I’m not.