“But there is one thing,” she says.
“Tell me.”
“Medicine. Ointments and creams with all the antibiotics. The best hospital in Manila has them. Pero”—she bites her lip, fighting tears—“walang pera.”
“Walang pera?”
“No money.” She shakes her head. “There’s never money.”
Henry puts his glasses back on. “Well, how much do you need?”
“Bahala na, mahal, it’s okay. Please don’t worry.”
“How much. Tell me.”
“I can’t accept.” She swivels her chair away from the screen. “I’m too ashamed.”
“Just tell me. Please.”
She takes a deep breath, nods. “Twenty-two thousand pesos.”
“Pesos? How much is that?”
“Four hundred dollars.” She turns back toward the camera. “USD.”
Henry says nothing, just listens.
“Half the money for the doctor, the other half for the medicine,” she says. “In the Philippines, if you have no insurance, medical care is very expensive, it’s almost impossible, talaga. It’s not like in the States.” She dabs her eyes with her pinky and, with her other hand safely out of camera view, reaches for the switchblade next to her computer. She flicks it open and twirls it between her fingers, a thing she does when anxious or uncertain, when the inevitable is on the edge of finally happening.
On-screen, Henry is motionless, his face a blank. “Mahal,” she says, “are you there?”
Finally, he moves. “I’m here,” he says, “sorry. The screen froze for a sec. Where were we? What were you saying?”
“Money. For the medicine.”
“And how much was it? Five hundred?”
“Five, yes,” she says, nodding. “Five hundred. USD.”
He looks toward the ceiling and blinks, like he’s adding up figures in his head. “Let’s make it six hundred, okay?”
“Six?” She shakes her head, says no, no, no, starts to weep. “It’s too much, mahal, too much—”
“Sshhh,” he says, a finger to his lips. “There’s no price on love, di ba?”
She laughs. “Di ba! Yes, that’s right.” She wipes her eyes with a Kleenex, says it’s almost one p.m. in the Philippines, time for her to go. She gives quick instructions when and how he can wire money to an online account, tells him she’ll let him know when the payment goes through. “This will help me so much, so much. Thank you, mahal, thank you,” she says. “And soon, one day, I promise, we will meet.”
Henry nods. “Yes, mahal. And when we do, we’ll sit in the countryside, put on some Shania, and then”—he leans into his camera, filling her screen again—“we’re gonna fuck like bunnies.” He winks and kisses the air, and the blade spins faster in Maxima’s hand.
They say good-bye and Henry signs off, disappears from the screen. But Maxima is still there, and for a moment she watches herself, tilts her head slightly, like her face is one she recognizes but doesn’t quite know.
She turns off the webcam.
She lifts her shirt, carefully peels away the wound, a trick of rubber and glue, then jots down quick notes in a small spiral notebook. She picks up the switchblade and opens her closet, where on the inside of the door she’s tacked up a human target, the kind found at a shooting range. She steps back, stands against the opposite wall.
She raises the blade, aims, and throws. She misses the heart, but not by much.
1
Excel is not a child. The man behind the ticket counter says he looks like one.
The man opens a binder, flips through laminated pages, then quotes Greyhound bus policy. “‘All unaccompanied minors between the ages of twelve and sixteen must have written consent from a legal guardian to ride the bus alone.’ So unless you’ve got some ID, a license, or a passport . . .”
“If I had a driver’s license,” Excel says, “why would I take a bus?”
The man spits bits of sunflower shell into a paper cup. “Beats me.”
Excel searches his wallet for some kind of ID but finds nothing, not even a library card. He kneels on the ground and unzips his backpack, digs through rolls of shirts, underwear, and balled-up socks, feels around for a thin piece of plastic, an old high school ID. He pulls it out, sets it on the counter. “This was four years ago” he says. “I was fifteen then, I’m nineteen now.”
The man takes the card, holds it up to the light. “You look the same to me. Could be a fake.”
“What would I do with a fake high school ID?”
“People have their reasons.”
“It’s real,” Excel says. “I swear.”
The man shrugs, spits out more shell.
Excel takes back his ID. The one-way ticket from El Centro to San Francisco costs $70; the $340 crammed into his wallet is everything he has. He decides to spare five more. “For the ticket”—he sets three twenties and a ten on the counter, then holds out a five—“and for your help.”
“You’re bribing me. With five bucks.”
“No, sir. It’s just a tip.” Excel tenses up, feels sweat slide down the back of his neck. “Should it be . . . more? Or a little less?”
“Kid, if you’re going to bribe someone, especially at five a.m., aim higher.” He types up Excel’s travel information, takes the seventy dollars. “I’m going on good faith that you are who you say you are”—he prints the ticket, hands it to Excel—“and that you’re just going where you need to go.”
Excel has never traveled like this before, and the black, all-capital letters of his name, last then first—MAXINO, EXCEL—surrounded by reference numbers and the dark lines of a bar code, make him feel official, as if the journey ahead is a mission, not just a long ride home.
“Thanks,” Excel says, “and please please don’t call me kid.”
He steps out of the station and onto the bus, a handful of passengers already aboard—a sleeping couple, young and white, pierced all over; a trio of men speaking Spanish in low voices; a ponytailed guy reading a National Geographic. Excel passes them all and takes a seat in the rear by the bathroom, the air a mix of Pine-Sol and urine; nobody, he thinks, will sit back here. But as soon as he’s settled, an old woman in a checkered flannel and overalls—she looks like a lumberjack—boards, sits across the aisle from him. She smiles at Excel, but he just nods, turns away, and shuts his eyes, hoping to sleep off as many hours as he can. The bus pulls out, and barely thirty minutes into the ride he feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns and sees the woman standing over him, holding out an egg. “Hard boiled,” she says. “Want one? I got plenty.”
Excel shakes his head, says he’s fine.
“Oh. You looked hungry. Never mind.”
Excel turns back toward the window. He closes his eyes, wakes an hour later at the next stop (he doesn’t know the name of it), and finds in the empty seat beside him a paper sack with a sticky note attached that reads “When you do get hungry.” Across the aisle, the seats are empty.