“Got my daypack?” she asked me.
I handed it to her, eyes averted. Would she notice I’d read her Everything Book?
But she just set the daypack on top of her backpack and headed for the door. “Who’s ready for some ruins?”
So she thought she could just pick up where we left off. After all she’d done.
“I’m checking my email,” I said stiffly.
So while Grandma Gerd and Hanks arranged for a taxi and Angkor Wat day passes, I used the computer in the guesthouse lobby to email my latest chapter, reassure my parents, and check if I had any messages.
I wish I hadn’t.
Amber: BAD NEWS ALERT! Vassar, it sucks to have to tell you this, but it turns out that the girl from our Advanced Latin Study Group that John Pepper wanted to take sailing (to Crescent Island for camp-outs) was—Wendy Stupacker!
Laurel: This has completely squelched his appeal in our eyes.
Denise: Maybe his laser surgery was faulty after all and he thinks she’s you.
Laurel: Or maybe he just has the worst taste in the world.
Denise: Or maybe his IQ is really 104 instead of 140. P.S. Keep those chapters coming—vent your anger and disappointment by writing.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Churning of the Ocean of Milk
We advocate frequent rests throughout the day, with plenty of bottled water. Don’t overexert or you’ll succumb to heat exhaustion. Take care of yourself. Yes, Angkor is a treasure—but so are you!
—The Savvy Sojourner’s Cambodian Guidebook
I slid into the back of the taxi next to Hanks. Grandma Gerd sat up front loading sepia film into her 1930s Brownie camera.
Our taxi lurched into the crowd of bikes, motorbikes, and pedestrians. We were on our way to Angkor Wat.
Hanks ran his hand through his pomp and replaced his cowboy hat. One of Grandma Gerd’s Polaroid cameras hung around his neck. He shifted the Chupa to the other side of his mouth. “So, how’s John Pepper doing today? Did he send you a love letter?”
I ignored him.
“Or was it one of those ‘Dear John’—”
“Would you shut up?”
Grandma Gerd looked back at Hanks and they exchanged “My, someone’s testy today” looks.
I pulled out a guava I’d bought at a stall near the guesthouse, washed it with antibacterial soap, then ate it as I stared out the dirty window at the scenery.
But I sure wasn’t in the mood for sightseeing. When I tried to focus on Angkor, images of John and Wendy wearing white nubby sweaters with ocean spray glistening in their hair floated before my eyes.
Wendy Stupacker. Of all the girls at the Seattle Academy of Academic Excellence, he picks her.
Denise was right: There is no God.
I opened my Savvy Sojourner’s Cambodian Guidebook and forced myself to read:
Mysterious Cambodia! Land of intrigue, blood-soaked earth, imperial kings, and revolutions. Angkor—magical, enchanting, most splendid Angkor—renders banal the pyramids and the Taj Mahal. A mere four miles outside the sleepy town of Siem Reap, Angkor is a wonderland of relics. There a stone tower peeking through the jade foliage! Here a spectacular temple! And there—is it merely a wall? No, it’s a row of elephants! And this, is it a balustrade? No, no—it’s a naga with scales and fins! Nothing is what it seems. Angkor with its endless ancient cities, temples, and palaces is simply one of the WONDERS OF THE WORLD!
I closed it, a touch heady from all the hyperbole. How could it possibly live up to all that?
Easily.
The majestic stone ruins of Angkor Wat rising out of the lush green jungle left me speechless. Immense pinecone-shaped towers silhouetted against the sky. Emerald rice paddies glistened beyond. I felt like a captive in The Arabian Nights and expected to see a prince with pointed slippers (like the ones Grandma Gerd had sent me) soaring overhead on a flying carpet. The ancient Cambodian temple was surrounded by a moat, which we crossed on a huge causeway made of sandstone blocks.
The spectacle distracted me from John Pepper. And it almost distracted me from the heat. Almost, but not quite. For if the heat in Malaysia was a warm, wet towel wrapped around you, here it was five sopping-wet sleeping bags suffocating you.
Oppressive.
“Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat,” I muttered in Latin.
“What did you say?” asked Grandma Gerd.
“It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.”
Hanks wiped his face and neck with a red bandanna, then tucked it into his back jeans pocket. “Conserve your energy, little lady. Take it slow.”
He was right. We’d barely spent an hour exploring Angkor Wat before I wanted to curl up into a ball under the nearest tree. With the combined humidity and heat, my energy was so depleted, my lips could barely form words. My big white hat and sunglasses weren’t shielding me enough from the sun. A line of Japanese tourists passed us: All the women carried umbrellas, and some even wore long white gloves. Now they were onto something!
And Angkor was not solely Angkor Wat, but seventy-seven square miles of ruined temples and palaces scattered throughout the countryside. If I was going to survive, I’d have to pace myself.
Monks dressed in saffron and novices dressed in orange strolled by. (“Notice the novices, boys who live the monk lifestyle for a short period of time … .”)
Suddenly, we were surrounded by rambunctious, dark-haired, dark-eyed Cambodian kids touting souvenirs.
“Hey, Mista, you buy hat? See, gold towers. Handsome, handsome. Four dolla’.”
“No, no buy from her, buy from ME!” An older girl pushed a younger girl out of the way and shoved her hat toward Hanks.
“Bracelets cheap cheap! Two dolla’!”
No one seemed to sell in the Cambodian currency, riel.
“Do you have any spoons?” I asked, guiltily remembering my promise to Laurel.
“Spoon? Lady hungry? Tasty tasty food this way … .”
Spoons turned out to be a highly unpopular souvenir in Southeast Asia.
“Cowbell one dolla’, cowbell one dolla’, cowbell one dolla’,” intoned a tiny, bored boy shaking a crudely carved wooden cowbell. On his head was a peaked hat made entirely of green leaves.
Grandma bought the cowbell. And his peaked leaf hat.
“Souvenirs?” I asked.
She seemed surprised. “No, for the collage. I don’t believe in souvenirs. That’s what memories are for.”
A boy missing his front teeth climbed up Hanks’s leg like a bear cub on a Sequoia tree. He refused to let go until Hanks bought an Angkor Wat-ch—a black wristwatch with the towers of Angkor Wat painted in gold on the face.
“Buy Angkor Wat-ch for lady friend, she like very much,” said the boy, grinning at me as he clung to Hanks’s leg.
Hanks laughed and asked, “So, lady friend, would you like an Angkor Wat-ch?”
“Tell them I’m not your lady friend.”
“We slept together, didn’t we?”
The kids all giggled.
“You’re so immature.”
“Well, didn’t we?”
“We just happen to share the same accommodations—”
“She your wife? Buy Angkor Wat-ch for wife?”
“Hurry up, you two,” called Grandma Gerd. “There’s something I want you to see.”
After we finally extracted ourselves from the children, we followed her down a narrow passageway to a series of bas-reliefs—stories told through stone carvings.
Grandma Gerd stopped short and flung out an arm. “My absolute favorite bas-relief in all of Angkor: The Churning of the Ocean of Milk!”
I gazed at the meticulously carved stone drama before me. Male figures, some facing left and some facing right, gripped a large snake under their arms. They seemed to be in a standoff. Below them was an ocean of marine life: schools of fish, eels, alligators—even a fish cut in half. Numerous nymphs danced in the sky.
“Is it fantastic or what??
?? Grandma Gerd asked, snapping photograph after photograph with her Brownie while Hanks took Polaroids.
“What does it mean?” I asked as I fanned my moist face with my white hat.
“It’s called The Churning of the Ocean of Milk. What more do you need to know?”
“Well, it’s a good thing I happen to have my Savvy Sojourner’s Cambodian Guidebook handy.” I flipped to the correct page, then read aloud:
“‘ The Churning of the Ocean of Milk depicts devils and gods playing tug of war using a serpent, and in so doing, churning up the sea in order to extract the elixir of immortality—’”
The guidebook fell onto the stone floor. I clutched my stomach.
“Go on,” said Hanks, peering closely at the serpent’s head.
“Oooh!”
I dropped to my knees, groaning. My stomach was churning! Churning like the Ocean of Milk!
Grandma Gerd turned to see me in a fetal position at her feet and said impatiently, “Must we? I’ve never liked charades.”
Hanks peered at me: “Worm? Snake? Pastry?”
“Guava!” I groaned. Why did I risk eating fruit without peeling it?
Hanks cocked his head. “Guava? I don’t see it …”
I scrambled to my feet. “I’ve got to go!”
Grandma Gerd frowned. “But we just got here. You haven’t even taken the time to really absorb—”
“The bathrooms are way over there, by the temple,” said Hanks, finally grasping the situation. He gestured off in the distance toward a Buddhist temple where monks were going about their daily business.
I leaped down the steps and sped across the grass, through the group of umbrella-wielding Japanese tourists.
Hold it,Vassar! Almost there, almost there! Hold it!
Wheezing, I careened around the corner of the wooden makeshift lavatories. Slamming the door shut, I made it over to the squat toilet—remembering to squat instead of sit—
Just. In. Time.
I felt relieved. Literally and metaphorically.
That is, until I realized there wasn’t any toilet paper …
And I didn’t have any Kleenex left.
That’s it, Vassar, you are never, ever eating anything ever again.
My eye fell on the plastic bucket of water with its floating plastic bowl. The extremely detailed paragraph in my guidebook describing the way the locals used the bathroom appeared before my eyes.
You have no other choice.
I prepared to do the unthinkable (use water and my left hand) when—
Ding!
I hoped Hanks wouldn’t notice.
“What happened to your socks?”
Why, oh why, couldn’t I ever get a break?
Fssst!
He snapped a Polaroid of my bare ankles.
“I think I’ll call this one Sacrificial Socks.”
I walked faster, ignoring him.
He caught up with me. “Maybe this will make you feel better … .” He put something around my wrist. The Angkor Wat-ch. “ … lady friend.”
We finished the day atop Phnom Bakheng, a set of ruins facing Angkor Wat, to watch the sunset (after I made sure my Imodium kicked in). My guidebooks had blathered on and on about how intense and extra colorful sunsets were in Southeast Asia. I’d been skeptical. But they weren’t exaggerating. This one was beyond merely colorful—the colors were so vibrant, so intense, so pure. Like Kool-Aid. I attempted to capture the vision for my novel.
Recipe for a Glorious Cambodian Sunset: Simply open one box of cranberry-flavored Jell-O and smear the granules across the dusky sky.
Pretty good, but slightly … smug.
I tried again.
Intense pastel reds, blues, yellows, and pinks dissolved into the horizon like Easter egg–dye tablets.
Nearby, Grandma Gerd was snapping photos with her Brownie. But where was Hanks? I scanned the crowd of sunset watchers and finally spotted his cowboy hat. He was taking Polaroids of the distant Angkor Wat towers backed by rice paddies and fringed by palm trees. The streaks of pink, blue, orange, and purple began to fade. A female backpacker with curly gold hair and a Celtic ankle tattoo approached Hanks. She said something, he said something, she laughed, he laughed, she touched his arm, he—
Why did he let her take his picture?
Who cares? It’s just Hanks. Annoying, drawling, wannabe-cowboy Hanks.
But I couldn’t pry my eyes off them, silhouetted against the molten sky as the golden sun submerged into the silver of the paddies.
CHAPTER FIVE
Frangipani
We’d been exploring the ruins of Angkor about a week when Grandma Gerd said:
“I want a Girls’ Night Out. Just the two of us. Hanks can fend for himself, he’s a big boy.”
So Hanks grabbed a bowl of noodles and spent the evening packing up Grandma Gerd’s found art to send back to MCT—the amount of trash she’d already accumulated for the collage was astronomical. (Of course to her it wasn’t trash, it was Art with a capital A … a capitalized, italicized, boldface A!) And he was getting her sepia-film photos developed. That way, if some didn’t turn out, she’d have a week to take more before we flew to Phnom Penh. I wondered how much Grandma Gerd was paying Hanks for his services. Or was Renjiro the one footing the bill?
I wasn’t too excited about the proposed one-on-one time with my grandma. Although we now shared a room, we were typically so exhausted by the end of the day, we barely managed “good nights” before passing out. Which eliminated the need for small talk or pretending to enjoy each other’s company.
However, perhaps tonight’s familial bonding would shed some light on The Big Secret … .
Grandma Gerd and I navigated our way down the dirt road into town using my trusty Maglite flashlight. We ate dinner in one of the Siem Reap cafés that catered to the Angkor tourists. Or rather, Grandma Gerd devoured lak (meat) and rice while I tentatively sipped clear broth, the only thing that didn’t seem to send my stomach into a tailspin. We sat outside under a large leafy tree with white flowers strung with twinkling lights.
“Nice watch,” said Grandma Gerd. “Souvenir?”
Figures she just noticed it, Ms. Absorbed in Her Own World. “Hanks gave it to me.” I added pointedly: “It’ll come in handy now that I don’t have my PTP anymore.”
Grandma Gerd grinned and drank her Merlot.
I decided to use this time with Grandma Gerd to pick her brain about The Big Secret. I figured that if I kept bringing it up, bringing it up, bringing it up—she’d finally give in and tell me. My version of Chinese water torture.
Just as I was about to start the “dripping,” a sturdy woman traveler with a long brown braid caught my attention. After the waiter presented her with a plate of rice and stir-fried meat, she promptly pulled out a bottle and sprayed it completely. Then, ignoring the dumbfounded waiter, she shoved a big helping of meat into her mouth and chewed away—mouth open.
“She reminds me of a sow I once came across in Chang Mai,” said Grandma Gerd, swatting at a mosquito.
“I think she’s onto something.” I got up and walked over.
“Excuse me, but what did you just do to your food?”
She grinned, puffing her bulging cheeks out even more, allowing me the privilege of witnessing the rice and meat in mid-mastication. Then she bellowed, spraying bits of meat at me: “Foreign Food Sanitation Spray! I swear by the stuff. It works something wonderful. You just saturate your meal with it—and bingo! It’s safe to eat!”
“Really?”
“No diarrhea, no gas, no stomach pains. Nothing! The spray kills anything alive—any critters that could pose any sorta problem! Zap! Gone!”
I gazed in wonderment at the metal spray bottle with bronze lettering next to her plate. The woman noticed and clasped her meaty fingers around it protectively. “Sorry, missy. Only got the one. But I can give you the Web site. They retail for thirty dollars a bottle, but it’s well worth it. Everything’s been coming out in firm li
ttle packages, if you know what I mean … .”
“She wouldn’t part with her Foreign Food Sanitation Spray. Not even for fifty dollars,” I said as I slumped in my chair.
“Hey, that’s my money you’re throwing around. Go easy. Besides, if it kills everything alive, what’s it gonna do to your insides?” asked Grandma Gerd.
As I watched the woman joyfully shovel spoonful after spoonful into her mouth, my eyes narrowed and my thoughts darkened. What about mugging her for the spray? Jostling up against her in the dark, muddy street, causing her to drop her bag—“Oops, so sorry.” Anything to have a normal eating life again.
Grandma Gerd paused, her wineglass halfway to her mouth. “Don’t even think about it, kiddo.”
How did she read my mind?
And, another thing:
“How come you always call me ‘kiddo’? Why don’t you ever call me by my real name? Do you not like it or something?”
She put down her glass and leaned back in her chair. “Okay. You caught me.”
“Really?”
“I’ve never liked your first name. It’s elitist, exclusionary, not to mention it sounds like ‘vasectomy.’ So, now that you bring it up, mind if I call you by your middle name instead?”
Stung by her assault, I said, “Well, I happen to like my name. Like that it symbolizes excellence. Like that it connotes achievement. And maybe if you’d shown a little more interest in your only grandchild, you’d know that I don’t have a middle name.”
“Sure, you do. Picked it out myself.”
I just stared at her, stunned by her capacity for fiction.
“Check your birth certificate if you don’t believe me. I convinced Leonardo—okay, bribed him—to let me choose it.”
“But my passport doesn’t have a middle name, and don’t they use the birth certificate to …?” I pulled my passport out of my money belt and handed it to her.