Prism - By Rachel Moschell Page 0,48
a sleek banana plant, and a gaggle of scraggly chickens pecked lazily in the powdery dirt. There appeared to be a larger clearing beyond the house, and sure enough, a straw-colored airplane was sheltered under a structure made of corrugated tin sheets. And in the distance, a spacious, cleared area with dirt tracks down the center: a runway.
Alejo hollered out a greeting in Spanish and a stout, balding guy wearing a stained white undershirt swaggered out from behind a sheet fluttering over the house’s open door. “Alejo!” The man’s ample face instantly spread into a grin. He covered the distance between himself and his visitors quickly, clasping Alejo’s hand firmly in his own beefy one. There was a tattoo of a mermaid with red scales and a set of panpipes on his upper arm.
Wara knew she should be wondering who this guy was, but thinking about the Martirs made her feel dizzy. Her face still hurt. A lot.
“Che, how’s it goin’?” The guy with the mermaid tattoo slapped Alejo on the shoulder. “You gonna take Helda up?” He turned to greet the girl at Alejo’s side but stopped short of the kiss on the cheek when he saw the condition of Wara’s face. The balding man took her hand carefully instead and held it, frowning back at Alejo in concern.
“Che, what have you been doing to this woman? I hope it wasn’t you, eh?” He was trying to joke, but the alarm in the guy’s eyes said he suspected it was indeed Alejo who was responsible for the condition of Wara’s nose.
She suddenly felt ashamed, standing there with bare, filthy feet and dried blood caked on her tank top. Alejo laid a hand on her shoulder, and she cringed, stepping away.
“Boris, I’m taking her to the doctor.” Alejo saw her glaring at him and smiled tightly. “Since I’m going into Cochabamba anyway on business.”
“Well, good.” The fat, mermaid tattoo guy named Boris nodded, shooting another worried glance at Wara. “Don’t forget. You’ll bring me back Helda tomorrow? Maybe bring some tourists back?”
“Sure, if we’re lucky. But now I’ve gotta fly like a bat outta hell. Do you think we could get her up in five minutes?”
“Why not?” Boris shrugged and his belly jiggled under the white undershirt. “On the way back we can have a beer. I won’t tell the Khan. Just sign the log please, and I’ll get her ready.”
Boris winked and pulled a tattered notebook sporting the fading image of the Incredible Hulk out of his back pocket. Alejo pulled the lid off a ballpoint pen with his teeth, scribbled something in the notebook, and flipped the pen and notebook back towards Boris. The portly airplane owner whipped around with amazing agility and started towards the airplane, shouting instructions into a small black radio he had somehow produced and now held up to his mouth.
“Boris!” Alejo yelled after him. Boris turned around distractedly as he dictated what appeared to be flight coordinates to someone across the radio waves. “Let your daughter lend some clothes to this poor girl.” Wara wanted to sink into the ground as Alejo motioned towards her with a sheepish grin. “C’mon! I’ll bring her something new back from the market in Cochabamba when I come.”
Boris must have nodded his approval, because Wara heard Alejo holler “gracias”, then motioned her forward towards the ramshackle house. He yanked the blue-checked sheet draped over the doorway aside so Wara could enter the house. She clenched her fists as she squeezed past Alejo’s sweat-soaked t-shirt.
The room just inside the door was cramped, graced with a burnt orange couch with torn upholstery and a few armchairs. An antique wooden shelf holding a murky fish tank and an army of porcelain clowns and teddy bears was stuffed in a corner. With the low glass coffee table in the middle of the room there was barely space to turn around. A wicker ceiling fan swirled above, lop-sided and losing the battle to cool the room from the tropical heat.
A chubby teenage girl with deep red lip liner and a black Brittany Spears tank top with rhinestones stuck her head out of the doorway of one of the back rooms. “Hey, Alexis,” Alejo greeted the girl. “What’s up? Say, your dad said I could ask you a big favor. My friend here would like to borrow some of your clothes. I told your dad I’d bring you something new back from the market in Cochabamba.”
Alexis kissed Alejo on the cheek but looked