“Yeah. What’s up?” he asks as he looks up from his laptop with a cup of coffee in one hand and a Cup Noodles in the other.
“You seen BJ?” He twists his lips momentarily as his eyes try to gauge whether I have some hot story and I’m looking for her so that we can sneak off to cover it without anyone knowing. I don’t say anything further because he won’t believe me anyway.
All’s fair in friendship and reporting.
“Last I saw her was about two hours ago.” He sets his coffee down and glances at his watch. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. She’s been begging me to get out and do some human interest shots. And, man, I’m getting bored and antsy… Thought that maybe getting out in the city a bit would help some.”
“I hear that, brother. I hear that. If you go, just make sure one of us knows where you go… safety and all that,” he says with a wave of his hand.
“Thanks, Pauly,” I say with a smile, appreciating his friendship as I stride from the lobby.
By the time I reach Beaux’s floor, my texts to her have remained unanswered. A lick of panic creeps its way into my thoughts, but I shove it away, knowing she’s probably safe and sound in her room, in the shower or something.
But when I knock on her door and don’t get an answer, I immediately turn the handle. And the door is locked, but when I push against the door, it opens because the latch never clicked into place. I hesitate momentarily, the door a few inches open, deciding whether I should enter.
“Beaux?” I call out into her room, knowing damn well if she doesn’t answer I’m going in because it’s not like I’ve never been in her room before. Shit, I’ve slept in here on and off over the past few weeks, but it’s more the invasion of privacy factor that causes me to hesitate.
When she doesn’t respond, I enter cautiously and yet hopeful that she’s just so dead to the world asleep that she doesn’t hear me, but the bed’s made and the room is completely in order. I hate that I immediately worry, hate that for a split second I wonder if she’s with one of our other male colleagues.
Telling myself to calm down, that she’s perfectly fine and more than capable of taking care of herself, I wage an internal war over whether to leave the room and search the hotel floor by floor until I find her or slow the fuck down, take stock, and sit here and wait her out. Make her come to me so that I don’t look like some sap losing his shit when I have no reason to feel so concerned about her safety.
But holding on to your dignity is a hard task when worry rules your mind. It’d be ten times easier if I were foreign to this environment and hadn’t seen the atrocities and disrespect shown to Westerners, let alone their own people. So I sit and wait. Bide my time by watching the world below outside her hotel room window as I sit in a chair next to a table cluttered with cameras.
Minutes stretch into what feel like hours although very little time has passed. My elbow hits a camera beside me and draws my attention. My original intention when I turn the Canon on is to pass time. See if there are any photos on the memory card that will allow me to get lost in the world as Beaux sees it until she gets back. Save myself some worry by looking at the beauty she’s captured.
And I do for a moment. I scroll through pictures of dirty-faced children playing ball in a dirt parking lot, of women at the market with their arms around small children while armed soldiers stand nearby. Groups of shots of men gathered around a table, playing a card game, and wasting away the afternoon.