Beneath Wandering Stars (10 page)

It's not like I'm on vacation. This walk is for Lucas. That's it! We've been apart for half a year, Brent. If I wanted to cheat on you, I could have done it a long time ago.

Brent doesn't reply for almost a minute.

Maybe you have
, he finally writes.
How would I know?

The growl rising up inside me must become audible, because a chat box from Seth pops up in the corner of my screen.

Trouble in paradise?

Seth sits at a desktop across the café, giving me his signature holier-than-thou smirk.

“You have no idea,” I say out loud before telling Brent where he can shove his self-centered attitude. For months I've been the perfect girlfriend, to the point of making
no
new friends so Brent wouldn't worry about what I was doing on weekends or who I was with.
He's
the one who still goes to parties and has flocks of half-naked groupies following his shows.

Ditch the boyfriend, Santiago
, Seth types.
It's time to move forward.

I assume he's talking about the
camino
, so I tell Brent I'll e-mail him later before sending my response to Seth.

Yes, sir, drill sergeant, sir.

• • •

“Why are you reading the
Iliad
again? It's not like you're in school.”

My question is kind of random. We should be sitting here in silence, mouths gaping at the amazing scenery. The outdoor restaurant is sheltered from the setting sun by a trellis of flowering grape leaves. As the orange globe disappears behind Pamplona's walls, the sky glows like it's smeared with crushed chalk the color of a pink rose. Something about the coolness that settles in with the dusk makes me bold enough to take another stab at getting Seth to come clean. This time, I have enough sense to start out slow.

“I'm reading it because it's the greatest war epic ever written,” Seth replies, confused that I have to ask. “Ever heard of the Trojan War?”

“You mean it was an actual war? Huh, and all this time I thought it was a campaign to combat the STDs sweeping college campuses across America.”

Humor tends to be the best attack against an impenetrable fortress, but Seth is immune. He stares at me like I'm an imbecile, so I release an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, Seth, I've heard of the Trojan War. Though I have to say, I liked the
Odyssey
a lot more.”

“That's because you're a wanderer, not a warrior.”

Interesting. Could that be the logic behind Lucas's gifts?

“Okay,
warrior.
Tell me how you sustained your wounds.” Though I'm pretty sure I know how he sustained his wounds, since I've seen facial scars like his before. “An IED?”

Seth downs the rest of his beer, his third in under an hour. “You never quit, do you? What part of ‘I don't want to talk about it' is getting lost in translation?”

“The part that involves my brother, which I have a right to know about.”

“A right? You have
a
right
?”

Yeah, I shouldn't have said that.

“What's with people these days thinking they have a right to everything simply because they exist?” Seth's brow furrows into an even deeper scowl as he waves over our server to order another adult beverage. This time it's hard liquor. Not an evening has passed on the
camino
without Seth having a drink or two, but tonight he's really on a roll.

“Fine, maybe I don't have a right to anything, but you should talk to
someone
about what happened over there. My dad says one of the most challenging things about soldiers suffering from PTSD is they don't feel like they can talk about it.”

“First of all, I don't have PTSD,” Seth snaps. “Why do people automatically assume that every pissed off soldier has a disorder? Maybe war just makes people pissed off.”

“Okay, fair enough—”

“But even if I was struggling with something,” Seth continues, “it's no wonder soldiers don't want to spill their guts when people like you either treat us like wounded puppies, or like some anonymous
nobody
. We're all the same, right? Just your standard issue G.I. Joe. Trained killers who come back damaged and need to be drugged ASAP.”

“I never said any of those things.”

“You didn't have to. Just know that there are a lot of different reasons guys come home from war changed, and not all of them have a convenient acronym. Sometimes it's because of what we did. Sometimes it's because of what we didn't do.” Seth throws back his shot and wipes his mouth on his sling. “All right, kiddo, I'll make a deal with you.”

Our meals arrive before he has the chance. The waiter sets down a hearty stew of tender meat chunks soaked in a red, oily sauce that smells amazing. Because we're in Pamplona, I ordered
rabo de toro
—tail of the bull.

“
Muchas gracias.
” The food smells glorious and I'm starving, but I return my attention to Seth. “If we keep eating like this, I'm going to burn through my money quick. But back to this deal. What do you propose?”

Also a meat and potatoes person, Seth digs into his
tortilla Española
and the largest steak I've ever seen outside of Texas. “Pilgrimage, the
camino
, it's supposed to be this big metaphor, right? One of those ‘life is about the journey, not the destination' kind of things.”

“Yeah, I guess. What's your point?”

“Well, seeing how you're so damn inquisitive, at each place we stop along the
camino,
I'll give you an answer to a different question. You can ask me anything, just not about what happened downrange. That has to wait for Santiago.
Maybe
by the time we get there, I'll have thought through things more.
Maybe
I'll know how to explain what happened.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Seth's fist tightens around his fork. He's on the verge of rage, an emotion I have a knack for inciting. “What don't you get, Gabi? I can't talk about something I haven't even processed myself. Lying on a couch sharing feelings all day doesn't work for everybody.”

What I
get
is that Seth is on his way to getting seriously drunk. “Fine. What do I have to do in return?”

“The same. Give me honest answers to anything I ask.”

I take a bite of stew and burn my tongue. If I were to be honest right now, I'd say I'm flattered that Seth cares to know anything about me at all. I assumed he saw me as his buddy's little sister. Someone he got stuck babysitting. A
kid
, as he so frequently likes to remind me despite my repeated objections. “Okay, what do you want to know first?”

“Why are you with that whiny emo boyfriend of yours?” Seth asks without missing a beat. He smirks and shoves more fried potatoes into his mouth.

“Brent isn't emo. Which isn't even
a thing
anymore, by the way. Wait—is that how Lucas described him?”

Seth wipes his face with a napkin and leans back in his chair, still smirking up a storm. “Is that your final question for the evening?”

“Heck no. When I ask my question, you'll know. I want dirt.”

“Sorry, babe. I'm Mr. Clean.”

Again, I seriously doubt that. The hard glint of steel that never leaves Seth's gaze assures me he's more complicated than he is clean, no matter how hard he tries to hide it.

“Lucas never talked about Brent much, but he didn't seem to like the guy either. The truth is, I perused your Facebook page before we left Germany, and I swear I saw a photo where the dude was wearing eyeliner.” Seth winks. “Not to mention skintight jeans that revealed parts of a man no self-respecting young lady should ever see.”

“So he likes his jeans tight. I'll give you that, but Brent does
not
wear eyeliner.” With my fork, I launch one of my potatoes at Seth's chest, which results in snooty glares from an older couple seated nearby. “Why were you stalking my profile to begin with? Creeper.”

Seth flicks the smashed potato off his shirt and shrugs. “Surrogate big brother duties.”

At the mention of Lucas being out of commission, the banter between us falls flat. I'm almost touched that Seth cares enough about Lucas—and maybe even about me—to keep an eye on the guy I'm dating, but it's annoying how they've both misjudged Brent big time. That's how soldiers tend to be with nonmilitary types. When it comes to red-blooded manliness, no one outside their tribe can ever measure up.

Seth's face breaks into a slightly sloshed smile. “Ah, you're a sneaky one. I asked
you
the question, and you turned it around and interrogated me. Perhaps we'll make a secret agent out of you yet, my young Padawan.”

“Have no fear, the U.S. government can't afford me. Once my eighteen years of involuntary service are up, I'm out. As for your initial question: I'm with Brent because he makes me laugh, because he's artistic, because he has talents that don't involve disassembling semiautomatic weapons in under a minute. We've been together for almost two years.”

“And that's enough of a reason to go to college with him? To give up on the once-in-a-lifetime experience of being an independent young woman striking out on her own, armed with nothing but a portable shower caddy and bunny-rabbit dorm slippers?”

I can't help but laugh. “What, like you did when you joined the Army all by yourself?
Oh wait
. You couldn't cut the cord, so you asked my brother to sign up
with
you.”

It can get intense when Seth and I go back and forth like this, but the lightning bolt of self-loathing that flashes through his eyes tells me I've gone too far. Seth gets up from his seat, even though I'm not finished eating yet. This time he doesn't offer to pay.

“It's getting late. I'll see you back at the
albergue
. We'll start out at sunup.”

It's only when Seth disappears into the dusky shadows that I realize I never got to ask him
my
question. Maybe that's what he had in mind all along.

Seth wasn't kidding about the early start.

“Ugh, it's still dark outside,” I moan when he shines his LED flashlight in my face. The stupid thing is so bright it feels like I'm having a close encounter with a UFO.

“We've got to walk thirty K today. Look at all the other people leaving.”

I peer over the bars of my top bunk. Right now there's a lot of shuffling going on. Pilgrims roll up sleeping bags and stuff laundry into their packs, but there's a common trait that unites these early risers. “Seth, they're German! Germans are
always
the first ones out the door. It's like this pilgrimage is a new way to conquer the world.”

“Funny. Now get up.”

“Seriously. Look at the flag patches on their packs.” I point out examples to support my case. “Swede. German. Finnish. These are Northern peoples. I come from the Southern Hemisphere, where we honor the concept of
siesta
and the health benefits of sleep in general.”

“You're only half Mexican.”

“And you're only half Jewish, but we both like to claim our more exotic sides.”

Seth is smiling now, but that doesn't stop him from whacking me on the head with a pillow. “For real. Up and at 'em, soldier.”

We're out the door in fifteen minutes flat. Before I have a chance to down my first
café
of the morning, I'm accosted by a trio of lady pilgrims who materialize out of the predawn mist.

Their leader pulls up alongside me like a police car. Flashing a toothy grin, she points to the action figure attached to my pack. “Oh, I
must
hear the story behind this.”

The woman's silver hair hangs down her back in a thick braid. Add to that a smattering of amber jewelry plus a billowing skirt, and I'm guessing she's a recovering flower child who recently slipped out of remission. This seems to be a common theme among North American pilgrims over the age of forty-five.

“It's a tribute to my brother,” I reply. Yep, this could be bad. I hadn't considered that G.I. Lucas might serve as an inconvenient conversation starter. “He's a soldier.”

The woman gasps as though I've discovered the cure for some rare disease. “What a wonderful idea! I'm a pacifist, but those boys need us to focus all our positive energy on finding a peaceful solution to this conflict.”

Yeah, I'm sure al-Qaeda members practice the Law of Attraction and tap into the power of positive thinking on a regular basis. It's probably part of the terrorist training manual.

Hippie lady holds out her hand. “I'm Harmony Jones from Vancouver, BC. And these are my traveling companions for as long as the
camino
wills it: Mary Kim Nguyen from Vietnam and Julia Ribeiro from Brazil.”

The older Vietnamese woman wears a wide-brimmed floppy hat and white knee socks beneath her sandals. A dozen rosaries hang from her pack, so I'm going to go out on a limb and assume she's walking the
camino
for religious reasons. Next to her is the smiley girl from Brazil. Minus her nose ring—which my father would rip from my nostril without hesitation—Julia and I could be sisters with our dark, curly hair, light eyes, and
café con leche
complexion. Based on the bottle of Campari
stuffed into the side pocket of her pack, she must be walking the
camino
for “cultural” reasons, if by culture we mean a nonstop party.

“Nice to meet you all.” I look down the road and see that Seth has sped up, leaving a considerable gap between us. Thanks a lot, comrade.

“Julia and Mary Kim only speak bits of English, but we communicate in other ways. Through the language of common humanity,” Harmony explains, beaming like a common light bulb. “Having such quiet companions works out well when the only sound you want to hear is the crunch of the
camino
beneath your feet.”