Page 81 of Almost Not Quite Engaged
From: [email protected]
Subject: Hope to be brave enough to show you someday
Zane
My real adventure. Bangladesh...on the search for your tree and myself. Hope your footsteps are worth it. I’m not sure what to make of this place, it seems lost. Maybe it’s a good place to get found.
Kat
I set out looking for noodles, seems like a safe choice. The sun’s thinking about setting. My windows open onto the building on the front of Zane’s last real postcard, pre-blog. I take a series of shots of the building framed by the window, my left hand in the foreground, ring sparkling. These are my first Bangladesh photos.
I snap random photos of streets at dusk. I’m wandering around paying no attention to where I am, just to the light. It’s almost hazy in quality, and I’m obsessed with this shade of orange. The breeze smells spicy, like it’s seasoned. The buildings feel significant but fragile.
For the first time in my entire life, I’ve no idea where I am. I never wandered off as a child. I’ve never been lost physically. I pat down my pockets and rifle through my camera bag. No fucking phone. Must be in my bag at the hotel which is who the fuck knows where. I have no map and not quite sure of the hotel’s name.
I inhale and exhale like they taught me in my two days of Shaman school. Panic begins. I’m breathing too fast. Where’s Serge when you need him? All I need is a hotel concierge. Breathe. Wow. I can’t calm down. Really lost. My pulse is thready. Can you tell if you’re thready? Is that possible? I think I’m a bit thready all over. It’s almost dark now. My eyes well up. I don’t think I can stop a full-on cry. Okay, now I’m starting to hyperventilate. In and out. Repeat. Or do I hold my breath? I breathe into my shirt like it’s a paper bag, which is something else I don’t have. It doesn’t help.
The evidence of my fear is now running down my face. I pull the brim of our Breakers hat to shield my face. The streets are crowded. I sit down on a bench and put my wet face into my camera bag and try to regulate my breathing but I’m sobbing too hard. It’s not the genteel WASP weeping my mother is fond of. It’s championship hysterics. It’s a big old ugly cry. I look like street theater.
My head floods with thoughts, new and ancient. The tears of so many years of nothingness pour out of me. It’s the release of things I didn’t grieve or celebrate. My first kiss or my hamster dying. All my sorrow and joy are flowing through me at once. I’ve been riding the middle lane for so long. Choosing something just for me made me realize I’ve never done that before. And now I’m completely alone. Then I look up, and I’m not.
They’re all speaking in words I don’t understand, but universal gestures and my world opens a bit. I didn’t bother to research common phrases, so I wave them off. A strange older woman with several teeth and rough hands is comforting me. She’s rubbing my back, and her dry ass hands are pulling at the t-shirt fabric making a cringe ASMR sound, but I don’t react. I hope she likes me because if I don’t figure out where the fuck I am, she may need to take me home. I speak aloud.
“I’m fine. Thank you so much. Okay, go about your business.”
A little girl jumps as I speak. She’s holding a well-loved stuffed bunny. She smiles and motions the bunny towards me. I take her picture, smile back, and shake my head no. The crone’s still rubbing my back, and I wish to God someone would speak English.
Then someone does. “So far so good, huh? This is about how I thought I’d find you.” The timbre of her voice makes me leap at once. I scare the crap out of the matron.
I whip around and answer, “Why?!”
“Why should you get a dream trip, and I have to stare at your wall in my living room?” I fly over the back of the bench into my sister’s arms.
“How did you find me?”
“Anna’s location circle.”
I scramble in my camera bag only to discover I had my fucking phone with me the whole time.
“Why didn’t you fly with me?”
“Didn’t know I was coming until someone presented me with a ticket that got me here faster. Just call it mad money.”
Dad. Also, how did he know? We were all keeping it on the DL so they didn’t worry or bother me about why.
I hold my sister a little too hard. “Does Mom know?”
“She said you were surprising Zane, so it’s not weird. But Dad insisted I come. Did you tell him?” I shake my head. Had to be Porter.
“Also, do you know there’s a more direct flight than what you took? Come on. Let’s find a Bangladeshi Fireball equivalent.”
She takes my hand and my messenger bag, and I sling my camera bag on my shoulder. I snap the crowd and my sister who sticks her tongue out. Then I move her into the soft hazy light of a streetlight and snap another. I show her and her mouth drops.
I want to convey my gratitude and heart to the crowd. I bow. I’m in a country in Asia, I hope I’m not too far off the mark.
“Ginny showed me the bathroom. Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
