Page 53 of Omega
I found a gas station with a small market, put one of my precious five-realbills’-worth of gas into the tank, and went in to the little shop. I got a bottle of water, what I hoped was a protein bar, and a map of the area. At the counter, I saw prepaid cell phones and minute cards. Of course, the instructions were in Portuguese, but I’m a smart girl, I hoped I’d be able to figure it out. I grabbed a phone and a card and passed it to the cashier. He rang me up, passed it all back to me.
And then, squinting, he spoke. “American?” He was an older guy, a little salt in his hair, wrinkles and weather on his skin.
You’d think with my hair and skin color that I’d be able to pass for a local, but apparently not. I just nodded. “Yeah. American.”
He chewed on something in his mouth, and then ripped open the phone, took the minutes packages and withdrew the SIM card, glanced at the instructions, and then spent a few minutes pressing buttons and listening. Eventually, he closed the phone—an old clamshell-style phone, the cheapest one he had, as it was all I could afford—and handed it to me.
He circled a set of instructions on the minute plan packaging and shoved it at me. “Dial home. Ring America. Easy.”
He must have assumed I was a student or tourist, lost, and trying to call home. True enough, and thank god there were still nice people in the world.
I was closer to tears at his kindness than I could remember being in a long, long time. “Thank you! Thank you so much!Gracias!”
He laughed at me, waving a hand. “Nah.Não é nada.”
I got in the car with my purchases, and as I checked my mirrors, I happened to get a good look at my face. Well shit, no wonder the old guy took pity on me: I looked like I’d gone three or four rounds with Manny Pacquiao, with predictable results. My left eye was quickly going purple, my lips were split and puffy, I had a cut on my right cheekbone, and I’d bled from the nose at some point, although it had stopped on its own, but had left a sticky trail of dried blood on my upper lip.
I got back out of the car and went in to the market, making a beeline for the bathroom. There wasn’t much I could do but wipe at the blood and rinse my face with cold water, but it was better than nothing.
“Bad boyfriend,” the clerk said, as I passed him.
“What?”
He gestured at me. “Boyfriend no good.”
I nodded, and felt an absurd compulsion to laugh. “Yeah, but you should see what he looks like.”
“You kick ass?” His face lit up with a grin.
“Yeah buddy, I kicked his ass good.”
He nodded, his expression fierce. “Hit girl no good. Hit pretty girl?Veryno good.” I laughed at that. Apparently hitting any girl was bad, but hitting a beautiful one was especially bad. Good thing I’m pretty, then, right? The old man gestured. “You go Guarujá. Drive too mar. Very pretty, much relax.”
“I will. Thanks.Gracias.”
He laughed again, pointed at me. “Nogracias.NoEspanhol. You say ‘obrigado.’”
“Obrigado,” I repeated
“Sim, sim.Obrigado.” He waved at me again, and I left.
I got back into my “borrowed” car, the interior of which felt like it was at least a hundred and fifty degrees, even with all the windows down. Brazil was fuckinghot, dude. I sat in the driver’s seat, the engine running, the radio playing some kind of local club music, examining my map.Rodovia dos Imigrantesseemed like my best shot for driving to this Guarujá—which I wasn’t even going to pretend I knew how to pronounce. Now I just had to figure out where I was currently and how to get to theRodovia-whatever-whatever. But first, it seemed, I had to go through both São Vincente and Santos, across a bridge, and through Guarujá. But then if I wanted to go the ocean, why not just stop in Santos? The old guy had specified Guarujá, though, so I’d go there.
I found the most direct route according to the map, dug a pen out of the glove box, and outlined the path I’d need to take, memorizing the numbers of the roads—the 160 to the 101 to the 248. So not through Santos at all, now that I checked the route again; I would be skirting north of there, staying to the mainland as opposed to going through the island of São Vincente. Whatever. I just had to get out of São Paulo. Find somewhere to lay low, get hold of Kyrie, and wait for Harris. Hopefully without any more super-fun run-ins with Vitaly’s army of assholes.
So, I took my mapbackinside the market and showed it to the clerk. He spent a few moments staring at it, finger tracing one road or another until he located our current location—which, it turned out, was only a few miles away from the highway I needed. He grabbed a pen from the counter and drew a path for me on the map so I’d know how to get to the interstate, or the highway, or whatever the road was called. The big road out of São Paulo.Rodovia dos-something-about-immigrants.
Let me try this once more, this time with feeling.
I actually left the gas station, followed the helpful clerk’s directions to theRodovia dos Imigrantes, and hit the highway. Except for a bunch of cars whose makes and models I didn’t recognize, and all the signage being in Portuguese, the trip was a lot like any road trip across anywhere in the US. Green grass on either side along with some scrub brush, palm trees in a hot breeze, semis and buses and passenger cars zipping back and forth.
I had two major concerns: running out of gas, and running out of food and water. I had one lonely little five-realbill left, unless my buddy Pedro had more cash stashed somewhere in his ride. I felt bad about stealing the dude’s carandall his bank, but a girl has to do what a girl has to do, right? I was alone in a foreign country, didn’t speak the language, and I’d just killed the right-hand man of a crime syndicate’s top boss.
Not going there. Not thinking about putting a ballpoint pen through Cut’s eye. Not thinking about the way he twitched and gurgled, or the fact that he shit himself. Shit. Shitshitshit.
I had to swing off the road and onto the shoulder so I could lean out the open window and retch.
Keep it together,Layla, I told myself. I couldn’t afford to fall apart. Not now.