TWO SOGGY SITUATIONS
What’s in your daypack?
Cole:Sunscreen, insect repellent, two water bottles, a couple of granola bars, and my phone.
Bridget:My phone, reading glasses, lipstick, hairbrush, extra hair ties, a bottle of water, my passport, my wallet, trail mix, ibuprofen, and Pepto Bismol tablets for Gina.
BRIDGET
Holy. Shit.
I stared down at the reptile who was now in possession of both my passport and my phone. So, my life.
“What’d you lose?” Cole asked. “Do you need me to go after it?”
Oh mygod.First, he’d given me the jacket off his back, and now he was offering to fight a crocodile for my passport? Who was this man, and what had he done with stony Cole Campion?
“No. He devoured it. It’s gone.” I sank onto the gently swaying metal bridge. At least the rain had slowed, so I didn’t need his jacket anymore. Still, I didn’t give it back. It smelled faintly of his aftershave, and it had been warm from his body when I’d first put it on, making it feel disconcertingly like I was getting a hug from Cole Campion. Not that he’d ever touch me on purpose. Or that I wanted him to touch me. As surreptitiously as I could, I hugged it to my chest and sniffed the collar.
“What was it?” he asked, dragging me back to our soggy situation.
“My passportandmy phone.” A tiny moan escaped me.
“Why thefuckdid you bring your passport on a hike?”
“I don’t know,” I wailed. “I thought someone might stop me and ask to look at it.”
“You think the Costa Rican migration police patrol the rainforest?” He looked around mockingly. Then he shot me a deadly serious glare.“Neverwalk around with your passport.”
“It was a mistake. And it just slipped out of my wet hands. So did my phone,” I said mournfully. There were so many photos on that phone: all my sisters, my niece Ashlyn, my parents, my friends Tessa and Justine, and the rest of the Goddess Gang. Most of them were backed up in the cloud, but the ones I’d taken here were probably gone forever. And I’d taken such a cute photo of Gina and me standing next to a tree with an actual sloth curled up a few branches above.
“Forget about your phone. Your passport is the problem right now,” he said. “How are you going to get home?”
“Um, maybe there’s a form I can fill out online? Do you have any bars? Can I borrow your phone?”
“We’re in the fuckingrainforest.There are no bars here. Besides, you’re going to need to make a phone call. And go to the embassy in San José. I know this because a buddy of minegot pickpocketed while we were on winter break in Rio. It didn’t matter that he was the son of an ambassador. He had to stand in line like everyone else.”
I was a nobody, just someone who’d grown up in San Ramon, someone who’d qualified for free school lunches once upon a time.
“Are you okay?” His dark eyebrows slashed down.
It was only when he asked that I realized I was not, in fact, okay. My hands had gone cold and trembly, even in the Central American warmth, and spots appeared in front of Cole’s face. I put my head between my knees and tried to take a full breath. “No,” I said miserably. The rain started again, and I shrugged back into Cole’s jacket.
“I’ll go down there. Maybe the crocodile spat it out when he caught on it wasn’t a fish.”
“Oh my god, no! That’s a wild animal who might take a chunk out of you. I’d never forgive myself. I’ll get a new passport and a phone.”
“Today’s Sunday. The embassy won’t be open, but you can head to San José tomorrow and take care of it. You’d be back in time to wrap up the retreat on Tuesday.”
I lifted my head. Had he somehow oiled up my passport to sabotage me? Maybe there had been grease in the sleeves of his jacket to force the booklet out of my hand. He’d look like the hero for the end of the retreat, and I’d look like the jerk who couldn’t hold it together for four full days.Shit!
I took another breath. I was being unreasonable. He had nothing to do with my dropping my passport. It was all my own stupid fault. Still, there was no way I’d miss a minute of this retreat that was a crucial element of my ninety-day plan. “No, I’ll stay until the end and deal with it on Wednesday. I bet I can get to the consulate early enough to catch the last flight home.”
Time stretched when he said nothing. A toucan croaked nearby and a frog trilled. “Okay,” he said at last. “Want to turn around or keep going?”
There was nothing I could do about my passport today. “Keep going. I want to see the view from the top.”
That was the moment the rain turned into a downpour, and not even Cole’s jacket could keep me dry.
