To Cassidy’s surprise, Elizabeth, a postdoc from the University of Washington, accepted the hand of Eduardo, a researcher from the local observatory, and they disappeared into the throng. She watched them move in time to the beat and wondered where Elizabeth, a volcanologist specializing in feldspar zonation, had learned to salsa dance. She bobbed in time with the beat, and the others in her group did variations of this, sipping their beers and chatting in loud voices over the music. Héctor was laughing with Dennis, a postdoc from Cambridge, but caught her eye. Cassidy looked away.
A moment later, he was at her side. “Let’s go, profesora,” he said, his hand at her back.
“I can’t,” Cassidy said, her body rigid. In graduate school, she and two friends had taken a Latin dance class, but she had never used it. Pete didn’t know how, and they had never gotten around to trying it together. Just one of the many things they hadn’t had the time to do.
“I teach you,” he said in his rich voice, his lips close to her ear. She watched him for a moment, took in his curly brown hair that was touched with a few strands of gray at the temples, his solid, trim body. At that moment, his smile was warm, mischievous. She had known Héctor since her first trip to Arenal. He was strong, had an easy laugh, and could fix anything. Her pause must have signaled some kind of acquiescence because he led her out to the dance floor.
Cassidy had been awake, listening to the geckos chirp softly for some time before the dawn. It might have been the squall that had woke her or the distant thunder. She had never been very good at sleep, so wasn’t surprised to be awake. Héctor breathed softly next to her, his muscular back exposed from the sheet and thin blanket. The memory of his touch lingered on her skin, and she tried to savor it, take it for what it was—a lovely, sweet moment with a caring, attentive lover. Her first since Pete.
She slipped out of bed and moved to the window, peeked through the wide, wooden slats. Her hotel room had no view, only a partial of the street outside and the jungle, which extended to Arenal’s black, bald cone. Dawn wasn’t far off—she knew that because the frog song was fading, and the half moon, free of the clouds, hovered low in the sky.
A sudden glow lit up a small area of the floor, where she had deposited her shorts—no, where Héctor had let them fall. The memory made her blush in the darkness. The glow came from her phone, which displayed another text from Rebecca. She slipped on her glasses and read the message: Q told me you’re still in CR. It’s about Reeve. I think he’s in trouble. Has he called you?
Of course, Rebecca had called Quinn, Cassidy’s biological brother and best friend. And, of course, the urgent message was about Reeve, her stepbrother and perennial screw-up. Rebecca’s: I think he’s in trouble rang in her head. Cassidy gazed through the window’s slats again to pale pink hues weaving into the jungle. She sighed and felt her shoulders drop in resignation. When wasn’t Reeve in trouble? Rebecca’s suggestion that Reeve may have called her wouldn’t settle in her mind. Reeve never called her—the last time she had seen him, a police officer was shoving him into the back of a patrol car.
Her fingers scrolled through her WhatsApp call log. She remembered vaguely that Reeve had been in Costa Rica for about a year, doing what she didn’t know. Hopefully, getting his shit together. The log was full of correspondence with her CR team, as she had readied for her trip down, details she had been coordinating for weeks before her travel. Then, she saw it: a call from Reeve on October 5th at 9:18 p.m. No message.
Cassidy’s skin pricked with goose bumps.
She did not need to wrack her brain to figure out why she had missed it. That was the night she had spent holed up in her house, suffocating in grief.
A warm hand slid over her shoulder, making her jump. “Everything all right?” Héctor asked, his voice soft in her ear.
Cassidy hadn’t heard him get out of bed. He leaned down and kissed her, his warm chest brushing against her body.
“Come back to bed,” he said, pulling her gently by the hand. She dropped her phone into her pile of clothes and followed him.
Two
Cassidy tried calling Rebecca a third time, but with no luck. Ironically, she would have had better reception in the field, but her work on the volcano was finished. She had packed up her equipment, dirty field boots, tool bag, field notebooks, and other small necessities, and returned the keys to the jeep.
Her awkward goodbye to Héctor hung over her like a fog. It was not that she had regrets; it just felt different in the daytime. And no, she didn’t want to talk about it and was grateful that Héctor hadn’t tried to. He had just said, “Adios,” with a smile, and kissed her one last time. Her team had already dispersed. Elizabeth had left early for the airport, Dennis was on a bus to the Mineral Hot Springs resort for
