Girls Who Travel Read online

  She blotted the sweat from her hairline. “Lochlon, eh?” She eyed him up.

  “Yup, he’s Irish, too,” I said, as if with that name I’d have to clarify.

  “And don’t I know you from somewhere?” she asked him with a slight lilt of apprehension in her speech. “You from Cork, are ya?”

  The girl kept staring at him as her two other companions reached us and collapsed down at our sides.

  “No, no. I’m not,” he said, barely glancing at her.

  “No,” she confirmed slowly. “You’re not from down south with that accent, are ya now?” She jostled her friend in the ribs. “I’m sure we know him, don’t we?”

  The three women examined him.

  Lochlon brushed his dusty hands on his jeans and wouldn’t make eye contact. “Right. We’re off now.” He snatched my elbow, and I let myself be tugged upward.

  “Get moving, will you?” he whispered close to my ear.

  I smiled apologetically at the girls, slightly embarrassed, as Lochlon led me down the stairs.

  “What are you doing?” I could barely keep up as he took the stairs in twos, but I let myself be dragged in my bewilderment. “That was rude of you.”

  His grip on the crook of my elbow tightened.

  “What the hell?” I said, twisting my arm away. As I trailed in his footsteps, I looked back and saw the redhead standing with her hands on her hips, scrutinizing us as we moved downward. We were now halfway down the steps, closer to the chaos of the street, but I still heard what she said next with perfect clarity:

  “Lochlon O’Mahone.” She waved both arms overhead.

  I halted when I heard. “Did you hear that? She knows your name. Do you know her, Lochlon?”

  Lochlon didn’t try to take my arm again. Instead, he took off faster.

  “It’s Ireland’s own Lochlon O’Mahone, feckin’ him, it is!” I heard the redhead exclaiming to her friends. It wasn’t a question; she knew his name.

  “Look at your man leggin’ it!” She laughed, motioning to Lochlon, who was hiding his face with his hand. She did some strange dance move, thrashing her hips front and back in an overtly sexual way.

  “Lochlon?” I called down in confusion. “Who is she?”

  But Lochlon wouldn’t stop or answer me, and instead broke out into a panicky jog when he reached the street. “I’m so sorry, Kika,” he hollered from over his shoulder.

  I looked down at my feet. I was frozen in the middle of the staircase like I had suddenly sprouted roots—I wanted to go up and ask the girl how she knew Lochlon, but I wanted to go down and follow him at the same time.

  At the top of the stairs, the girls’ laughter reached me in clouds of sound. They jumped up and down and rushed into their bags, their camera phones appearing a moment later. A barrage of flashes glinted in our direction. They were taking Lochlon’s picture. I swore I could hear the rapid-fire, automated click, click, click from here. My legs made the decision for me and transported me down the stairs.

  Lochlon had darted into beeping traffic like a skittish buck crossing a highway. He disappeared behind a brightly decorated bus for a moment. I craned my head back and forth, searching for him, and finally caught sight of his shirt as he ducked into a narrow side street.

  I hitched up my peasant skirt and sprinted after him.

  “Lochlon, will you wait up?” I called, but I knew he couldn’t hear me over the traffic. We didn’t have cell phones, so I couldn’t lose him now. I was actually worried that if I didn’t catch up with him I might never see him again.

  My sandals bounced off the hot asphalt as I turned onto the backstreet, finding him again. When I got close enough, I extended my arm, and I knocked him hard on the shoulder.

  “Gotcha!” I couldn’t help but hoot, as if we were playing a game of tag.

  He whipped around, his face stained with worry as he looked behind me to see if we were being followed.

  “Sorry,” he mouthed, fully out of breath.

  “Lochlon,” I wheezed, bent with my hands on my knees. A million questions swarmed my head. Why are you running? How did those girls know your name? And why were they taking your picture?

  But only one question made it out of my mouth.

  “Holy shit. Lochlon, are you, like, famous in Ireland or something?”

  10

  I ZEROED IN on Lochlon and fired my questions like a slingshot right between the eyes. “Does this have to do with your confidential past?” I demanded now that I had caught my breath.

  “Just calm down a minute, will you?” he said, pressing his palms toward the ground as if signaling to a rabid dog to stay, staaaaay.

  Like winding up a pitch, I sucked in the air to start my objection. But Lochlon forfeited before I could hurl my words his way. “Look, I’ll tell you everything, yeah? Let’s just get out of here.”

  I looked around and just then realized that we were standing in an alleyway spackled with graffiti and warm piss.

  “Come on now,” he said, offering me his upturned palm.

  I looked down at his hand and hesitated.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to grab you like that before.” He looked down. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked, changing his tone.

  I sighed, shook my head, and gave him my hand. We walked silently to a nearby outdoor café garlanded with blinking Christmas lights and whirring with Bollywood music, and we ordered our favorite drinks as if this was just any other day.

  My legs jiggled under the table in the shade of a blue plastic umbrella. Curiosity zinged through my nervous system, and our mango lassis vibrated on the tabletop from the tremors. Even the stray dog that had been sleeping at our feet whined in anticipation. I was too intrigued about his bizarre behavior to be angry about the way he had run from me before.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to tell me!” My stomach somersaulted.

  “You wouldn’t be a little less eager there, would you now, Kika?” Lochlon looked disturbed by my near giddiness and kept looking around as if those Irish girls were going to show up at any moment.

  “I think you’ll feel better once you get it off your chest,” I crooned.

  “Okay. I’ll tell you. Just know that I’m sorry—I’m so sorry that I had anything to do with it. Yeah?”

  “Stop being dramatic. Out with it.” I straightened in my chair. Maybe my mom is right and it was foolish to let our relationship get this far without knowing. What if what happened in his past really is a deal-breaker?

  “Well, I should tell you first,” he stalled, “that this is what people were into in the early 2000s in Belfast, okay? It wasn’t just me. I swear it. Lots of lads were there.”

  “Just tell me,” I coaxed, doing my best to keep a tranquil air. “Start at the beginning.”

  Lochlon scraped the plastic chair away from the table, ignoring his mango lassi.

  “Well, I suppose it all started with an advertisement—they were looking for boys.” He spoke slowly, the verbal equivalent of dragging his feet.

  “Boys?” I repeated. “In an ad?”

  “Yeah, they weren’t spelling out what it was for, but you could put it together because it was so popular at the time. They were after young boys and, you know, decent-looking ones. Fit and in good shape and all that. You need to look good in that industry. They don’t care what you sound like.” He shrugged.

  “I had just turned sixteen at the time . . . so young and stupid. It was nearly ten years ago now,” he said. He didn’t look at me but continued talking like he was reciting a monologue.

  “It was supposed to be easy money—I’d no interest in it otherwise. So I went on me own, didn’t ask anyone to come along. Didn’t even have the nerve to tell anyone I was going.” He paused then for a long time as if he were reliving that day in his head.

  “Where were you going?” I
blurted when he didn’t continue. My stomach moved on from somersaulting to performing a whole Olympic floor routine.

  He narrowed his eyes at a group of Indian teenagers at the table next to us, even though they weren’t paying us any attention. Then, he leaned in. “You know, to the audition!” he whispered dramatically as if he had just lifted the cloak off the whole thing. “They recorded us. It was just about how you looked on camera, in the videos. Oh, Kika, I don’t know why I did it. And now I’m to live with this for the rest of me life!” His voice splintered.

  I sorted the information he had just provided me with: the easy money, the audition, the videos, and all that stuff about having to live with it for the rest of your life.

  “Oh my God!” I gasped, suddenly getting it. Porn! He’s talking about doing porn! I tasted the mango lassi ascending in my throat. The look on my face must have showed him that I had figured it out.

  “I’m so sorry.” His skin was splotched pink in mortification. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. You’ll never look at me the same way, will you now? No. How could you?”

  I felt something akin to jealousy thinking about the girls who had recognized him. I pictured the Irish girl humping the air. Those girls saw him naked. The whole world saw him naked, I realized dumbly. I knew it was illogical, but it felt like an infidelity. I wanted to be the only one who knew him so personally.

  Lochlon continued talking very fast. “You can’t imagine my shame, Kika,” he babbled on.

  I shook my head. “How could you do it? It just seems . . . so unlike something you would do. Were you that desperate for money?”

  “But that’s the worst bit. We weren’t at all successful. I mean, if we were, even you would have known about us. There’s big money in it, of course.”

  “Us?” I whispered.

  “Of course,” he nodded matter-of-factly. “It was a group thing, you know. You can’t really do something like that on your own, could you now?”

  I thought about it. No, I guess it took at least two to tango—and to make porn.

  “But Kika, the videos”—he gulped—“the horrible, shiny matching outfits, the harmonizing, the dancing, the works—I mean, if I at least made some money out of it—” He spoke in a disjointed jumble.

  Wait. What?

  “It was a right disgrace. And the thing is, those videos, they’re still out there. On the Internet, like. Not that anyone would want to watch them. We were truly rubbish. Thank the Lord we never really got out of Ireland.”

  “Dancing?” I repeated in confusion. “Matching outfits?” What kind of weird pornos did he make, exactly?

  He nodded with downcast eyes.

  “Yeah, the rest of the lads and I had a whole dance routine in the video for our first single, and since we were marketed as the Irish answer to ’N Sync, we even did . . . some Irish step dancing . . .” His voice trailed off as if he couldn’t bear to continue.

  “Sometimes Irish people still recognize me and take the mickey out of me—like what happened back there.” He angled his head toward the direction that we had just come from. “That’s why I try to avoid them. It’s a right embarrassment.”

  My hand shot to my mouth. “Are you saying that you . . . were in a boy band?”

  Lochlon looked up at me.

  “Um . . .” He sounded confused. “Have you only just realized that now? Yes, that’s what I’m saying. What had you thought I was going on about this whole time?”

  “Oh my God, Lochlon, I thought you were talking about doing porn!”

  “What?!” His jaw dropped open. “How’d you figure that?”

  “You said they were auditioning boys for videos!”

  “I meant music videos,” he protested. “God almighty! I wish it were porn! That’d be fine. Rather cool, do you not think? Being in a shite failed boy band is far worse. I’m still paying for it! You wear one shiny suit and do one Irish step dancing sequence—”

  I busted out in laughter and quickly concealed it with a fit of coughing when I saw the heartbroken look in Lochlon’s eyes. Keep your face looking normal, I demanded to myself. But I had to bite my lip because I couldn’t stop picturing Lochlon reenacting Riverdance in lamé pants. It hit me: Those girls on the steps were mimicking his dance moves.

  “I cannot believe it. You? In a boy band? But you’re so—” I looked him up and down, scanning over his scruffy face and basic, untrendy man-clothes.

  Lochlon crossed his arms, looking vaguely insulted.

  “Wh-what is it?”

  He frowned. “Do you not think I’m a good-looking enough lad?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh out loud right in his face this time. “No! I’m sorry—I didn’t mean that—you’re very good-looking. It’s just that you’re so . . . dark and moody.” The wrong words were stumbling out, but I could do nothing to stop them.

  He stabbed the bottom of his drink with his straw. “Well, every group needs a bad boy, don’t they now?” He pouted in all seriousness.

  I dug my nails into the heels of my hands to smother my giggles. I felt my face growing purple. “Yes,” I said, mirroring his sincere mood. “You are right about that.”

  Appeased, Lochlon refocused. “But Kika, you must know I’m a different person now; I’m a serious writer and traveler. I’m to be published one day. You know that, don’t you?”

  I was silent for another moment, strangling another fit of chuckles.

  “Still, I understand if you want nothing more to do with me. I was a right loser for doing something like that.”

  Lochlon showed me his eyes. His irises were wine-bottle green, a beautiful, jarring shade that had no business being someone’s eye color.

  “Lochlon,” I announced, ensuring I had his full attention. I studied him over. He isn’t any less attractive to me, I thought with an ahh of relief. I still wanted to sleep next to him. He was still mine.

  “Yes?”

  “I. Don’t. Care.” (Of course I had a million questions, but I knew that Wikipedia could answer them.)

  “You . . . you don’t?”

  “Of course I don’t! Who cares if you were in some silly group ages ago?” I asked, fanning out my arms. “I assumed your dark past was going to be way darker than this because of the way you were going on and on. I can’t wait to tell my mom that it’s nothing serious—”

  “But it is serious. I’m still getting slagged on by the lads at home,” he said, interrupting me with adolescent touchiness.

  “Forget them. I mean, whatever, it is sort of funny. But who cares?”

  He chewed his bottom lip.

  “Thank you for telling me,” I said. “That must have been really hard for you.”

  “’S okay,” he mumbled.

  “This doesn’t change how I feel about you,” I reassured him then.

  He looked at me suspiciously. “So you still want to be with me?”

  I showed him my answer.

  11

  TAKING ADVANTAGE OF my newfound open schedule, I spent the rest of the week with Madison, which did little to lift my mood. I peeled off the lid of my third pudding cup, feeling vaguely ashamed. At least I had the decency to save one for Madison’s lunch box tomorrow—I wasn’t an animal.

  I licked the buttery chocolate lid as Madison played with her high-end American Girl doll, every upper-middle-class kid’s prized possession. Madison was less interested in the pudding and more interested in Kirsten Larson (the doll) and her inadvertently chic Peter Pan–collar dress.

  Raiding the snack cupboards was one of the unspoken perks of babysitting. I unabashedly stuck my tongue into the pudding cup to lick out the last bit, and Madison gaped up at me with her long-lashed doe eyes.

  “Don’t judge me. You don’t know my journey!” I told her.

  She just stood there. “Kika, can I cowor?”

/>   “Of course you can color, Madison.” I couldn’t help but grin at her adorable lisp.

  I pulled down her craft box crammed with construction paper, markers, and that white glue that looked like marshmallow fluff—no wonder kids were always trying to eat it. My cell phone rang just as I plunked her at the kitchen table with a sheet of fresh white paper.

  A strange number with far too many digits flashed on my phone. My heart pounced: It’s an international number; it must be Lochlon.

  After Lochlon told me about his candy pop past, we became closer than ever. Still, I wasn’t prepared for what would happen once we parted ways: We actually kept in touch.

  Lochlon emailed and called me from all corners of the globe.

  “I don’t get it,” I asked him recently when he was calling me from Cambodia. I clarified over the dodgy phone line, “I mean, you’re off living the dream. Why are you wasting your time calling me? I love hearing from you, I just don’t . . . get it.”

  I was scared of what his answer would be, but I was more scared of not knowing.

  “You don’t get it?” he mimicked back, entertained. In the background, I heard horns of tuk-tuks beeping and children shrieking with delight—his world was still uproarious; his life still crackled with wonder.

  “Gorgeous,” he said almost shyly. “I want you in my life. I want you in my life in any way I can get it. And right now, if that means just over the phone, then I’ll take it.”

  Even though he couldn’t see me, I smiled then.

  “But with any luck at all it won’t always be like this. And if I’m to have anything to do with it, I’ll make sure of it,” he told me. I knew then that we were both invested.

  Madison snapped me back into the present moment: “Your phone’s winging, Kika.”

  “Thanks, doll face,” I told her as I pressed my phone to my cheek. “Hello?” I asked, my voice hopeful and urgent. According to his last email, Lochlon should be in Indonesia by now. “Lochlon?” I asked into the phone, already dreaming up the interior of the Southeast Asian Internet café he’d be calling me from—sticky keyboards, plastic palm trees, bad electronic dance music.