“I haven’t,” I said, hanging my head. “I will first thing tomorrow, though! I need to be in the right frame of mind. You know how she is. She gets so worked up and cries and shit. I’m not ready for all that yet.”
She put her hands up. “Hey, I get it. I’ve got two Dominicans on my ass with the guilt trip every time we talk.” she said it, raising two fingers up to the screen. “I don’t blame you.”
I laughed at the exasperation on her face, like her parents hadn’t been like that her entire life.
“You must be a ball of feelings, sweetie, but I’m glad you’re liking it. Tell me about the people. Have you met anyone cool? Is the coffee beyond?”
I swooned, already fantasizing about the macchiato I was getting as soon as I ended the call. “Oh man, the coffee really is amazing. I may have to start setting down hard and fast rules around amount consumed per day, because at this rate I may permanently injure myself with caffeine.” She rolled her eyes at my strung-out expression.
I took a moment before answering her second question, thinking of how to proceed. “I haven’t met that many people yet. Just the woman who’ll be my boss, and she’s really cool. The co-worker I rode down with today is pretty nice.” I coughed, averting my eyes. “Very interesting.”
She smiled, completely innocent to my extremely bad choices. “How is he interesting?”
“Well, I don’t know that much about him, really.” Not because my nosy ass hadn’t tried. “But he’s a psychologist—cultural psychology, actually. He’s looking into how colonization impacts the collective psyche.” Her eyes widened with genuine interest. “He’s really into Frantz Fanon.”
She really perked up at that. This was the type of stuff she loved. “Whoa, that’s some majorly woke shit right there. That is interesting. A bit intense, but hey.” She lifted a shoulder and gulped from her huge mug. “You don’t mind intense.”
“I don’t, and he is kind of intense, not in a bad way though. We were listening to some music on the drive and he got incredibly deep about ‘Poison & Wine’ by the Civil Wars. I mean, all of their songs are like, life-or-death good, but still.”
Luce made a sound of approval and nodded. “Yep, they’re bomb.” Then her face got all sad. “I still get bummed out when I think about them breaking up.”
“Yeah.” I sighed, and for some incomprehensible reason, asked the last thing I should be asking. “So, have you heard from Miguel?”
This was not a question that would go over well. I averted my eyes to a spot over her head as soon as the words came out of my mouth. I knew Lucía had him on her shit list forever and would (a) not pick up the phone if he did call, and (b) not tell me because she knew it wouldn’t lead anywhere good.
The eye roll and growl she proffered confirmed I knew exactly who I was dealing with. “That come mierda knows not to dial my number. God, just thinking of that fuckface makes me mad.” She ran her tongue over her front teeth, probably envisioning throat punching him, and crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s he gonna call me for? Besides, I assume he’s too busy planning his country club wedding in Santo Domingo with that skank he’s engaged to.”
“Come on, Luce,” I said, trying to keep a straight face. “We don’t really know she’s a skank.”
“Whatever. He’s an asshole and I’m glad you’re like, twenty countries away and getting all that drama out of your system. You deserve someone who worships and sees you and your beautiful heart. Not that trifling asshole.” She twisted her mouth to the side, like even the thought of him left a bad taste. “No dick is that good.”
I groaned at that hard truth. “Agreed. His wasn’t, at least. And you just say that because I’m your favorite.”
“You better believe it.” Her expression was a mix of affection and worry. I knew she thought I’d spend the entire time I was here moping about Miguel. But it all seemed so distant now. Maybe he’d been right, and none of it had been that deep after all.
I looked back at Luce and noticed her eyes were getting droopy. When she yawned, she gave me a rueful look. “Babe, I gotta go. I’m about to keel over. I’m glad you got in all right and already have a potential friend. Love you and talk soon, okay?”
I cringed internally at the mention of my new “friend” and blew her a kiss before signing off.
As I opened up the documents I wanted to review before our dinner meeting, I considered what I was feeling. I’d left DC feeling numb and lost, and now that I was here, I felt…different. Before getting on the plane to Addis Ababa, I’d been wondering if I even wanted to do this work. Never mind the acceptance to the NYU social work master’s program for the fall, I’d been avoiding thinking about. All that was still up in the air.
Yeah, I was still lost, unsure about what I’d do next, but that numbness had turned into something more like anticipation. I tried not to probe the source of it too much because I knew it probably had to do with my ill-advised crush on a certain logistics coordinator, and that was not advisable in any sort of way.
Dinner was a long and serious affair since we had a lot to prepare before our first survey day. By the time I got to my room it was past ten, but as tired as I was, sleep would not come. The hotel room had mosquito nets on the beds, and the ceiling
