I think of going back to New York and our apartment. Our friends, who are more her friends than mine. Our jobs, which are more her jobs than mine. I spread my fingers and stare down at my hands. They look like hell. There are bug bites and dark red stains from burns. Scratches cover my skin, and my nails are ragged and still have rings of dirt under them. My pinky is splinted and my wrist is in a cast. Hand modeling’s an iffy job, and I’ll be out of it for a long time. I’m not a jet-setter like Rose was. She’d go off to Paris and Milan to walk the runways. I’d go to the QVC headquarters and hold a shoe for six hours.
I’m lost. Not just because Rose is gone and my hands are shit. I’m lost without Rafe. I need him to tell me everything’s going to be okay and to kiss my worries away. I think maybe that’s one reason why I thought we were so good for each other. I’m confident in all the ways that he’s not, and he’s take-charge where I hesitate.
I wish he could see that we belong together.
The stupid tears start again, and I wipe my eyes, then groan because I’m getting salt water in them. I grab the corner of my shirt and dab at my stinging eyeballs, mentally cussing.
When I look up, a woman’s coming down the beach toward me.
I think about getting up and leaving, but I’m so tired. I just want to sit here for a while longer and let the water relax me. So I wiggle my toes in the sand and pretend I don’t see her. I’m not here to bother anyone. I just want to be left alone until I have to leave.
To my surprise, she comes and sits next to me. “You the boss’s lady?” she asks me in accented English.
I look over at her. She’s beautiful with the gorgeous Brazilian coloring I admire. Dark hair, bronze skin, and hazel eyes. She’s also got a wicked scar slashing across one cheek to the next, as if someone cut her mouth open lengthwise and it was sewn up again.
“Who’s the boss?” I ask.
“Mendoza. I heard his lady was brought to the island.” She nods at me and crosses her legs, her feet not quite hitting the surf. “You her?”
“I don’t know. Why?” What’s this woman want?
She looks at me. “My daughter’s pregnant. She’s thirteen. Couple of other girls are pregnant, too. We need a midwife here.”
My eyes widen and I raise my hands. “Wait, hold up, I’m not a midwife—”
She laughs and gives a slight roll of her eyes. “I know. But you’re his lady. He’ll listen to you. We want you to go talk to him for us.”
“Why . . .” I lick my lips, thinking carefully. This seems important and I don’t want to mess it up. “Why don’t you go to him yourself and ask?”
This time, she’s the one that doesn’t make eye contact. When she answers, her voice is small. “We’re safe here, but we’re still scared. It’s hard to go to a man and ask for things. There’s no woman we can come to and talk to.”
Oh. It dawns on me. This is an island run by mercenaries, trying to make a better living for everyone that comes to them, but there are some things you can’t ask a guy when you’re a girl. Especially if you’re a girl that’s been abused in the past. “Is there . . . no midwife here? At all? No woman in charge? No female medical doctor?”
“No. And we need things. Pills. Diapers.” She eyes me. “Better tampons.”
I wince. “Let me guess. They’re men, so they buy what’s cheapest and not the stuff with the good applicators.”
She gestures at me as if to say now you get it. “You ever try to have a tampon conversation with a soldier?”
A reluctant giggle escapes me. “I guess that’s difficult.”
“Real difficult when you’re someone like me.” Her mouth trembles. “It was hard to come out here. To see you. I had to wait until you were alone.”
I soften. “Rafe’s a good guy. He would listen. I promise.”
“I know,” she says simply. “But sometimes it’s easier to come to a woman.”
We talk for another hour or two, sitting in the sand. Her name is Fernanda, and she worked at a brothel for over ten years before the men shut it down and rescued everyone and took them to the Tears of God favela. I look at her, and she has to be a year or two younger than me, which is horrifying to think about. That she’s been a whore since childhood and has a child that’s thirteen. God.
She says there are a lot of teen girls on the island that used to live in brothels. Several of them are mothers, and all of them have been abused. Most of them are terrified of men.
“In the favela, it wasn’t so bad,” she says. “We could wear our Tears of God symbols and no one would touch us. We could go get things we needed. We could see a midwife that wasn’t in the favela or bring her to us. But here on the island, we’re isolated. And we’re not sure how to ask.” She smiles. “That’s why we’re happy that you’re here. That the boss has a lady now. Because we can come to you and talk.”
I give Fernanda a soft smile and then look out at the ocean again. “I would stay if he wanted me here. But he doesn’t.”
“Did he say that?” She looks skeptical. “These men, they’re good with guns, but they’re not good with women. Maybe you need to tell him why he needs you. Show him what he’d be missing if he let you go.”
I think of my dream again. Of Godzilla, pounding away in the distant surf. Not the penis, but the monster from the Japanese movies. I think of my conversation with Rose.
Oh, Ava. I’ve always done what I wanted.