Lost in Peru

Esther tells me she is not gay, just as the curtain rises and I’m forced to be someone else.  Peru.  We are on a helicopter - a Jet Ranger Airframe with no blades – and I think: We’re not moving.  But I must say it out loud because Esther gives me the look she gives when we’re at school and I’m only a student and I say something intimate, like: Butter, Miss Yeats?  Because I know what we did with butter one night, and I know that her last name is Caron.

She says, in her other voice: What will we do, Peru?   

But Peru is not a name.  It’s a country.  And I told her this when she first wrote the play.  I said: A woman named Peru is flying over Peru? Why can’t I just be Betty or Jo?  Or Betty-Jo? Even a fruit, for God's sake - like the celebrities name their kids?  And she’d said: What’s the difference if you’re a fruit or a country?  And I suppose I didn’t have an argument there – but every time she says it, I giggle.

Esther is only an average actor (to her disappointment) - but that’s okay, because she’s a writer.  And I loved the writing first.  It was bitter and lovely and utterly surprising - like a champagne explosion on a soggy day.  And then I realized that she was no different.

The play – conveniently named Lost in Peru, was simply a check off her bucket list, something she wanted to share with me.  But I can’t help focusing on the wah-wah Charlie Brown voice, and the fact that we aren’t moving.  Because we aren’t moving in life, either; the lesbian (me) and the sometimes-gay woman (her). 

“We must land!”  I say, pointing to the pretend sky as if a lightbulb just went off in my head – because the thought of landing wouldn’t have entered our minds before. “But surely, if we land,” she says, “we’ll die.  For what’s down there, but the natives and jungle?” 

I wanted to say (thinking of Lima): Civilization. Cars and restaurants and apartment buildings. Or: Nothing but a stage floor.  But I don’t, because I am hoping for sex later. And anyway, haven’t we always been different this way?  She, primitive.  Me, progressive?

The few friends we associate with are in the audience among the yawns and light chatter.  I am thankful, because someone needs to applaud.  I see Roger, the eccentric one, holding the play bill tight to his chest and sitting forward, as if he believes we’re really somewhere above the Amazon about to crash.  I want to jump off the stage and charge at him - Boo! – just to watch him scream like a peacock.

“Look at Roger,” she whispers.

“I see.  We must be good.”

She gives me the side-eye. 

“What?”

When I first took Esther’s English class, I found her dull.  She had a monotone way of speaking (an insult to her writing) and sleepy, barely-there eyes.  And I was busy with another girl named Setta, a wild card with hulk hands whom I couldn’t stop texting under my desk.  But one Thursday, when Esther decided to read a story: My Wild Axolotl, I found myself putting down my phone and voyaging with her right until she plunged into the water, as smooth and sharp as a katana sword.   

For the first time, I raised my hand.  “Who’s the author?” I asked. 

And she smiled, adjusting her glasses.  She’d wanted to get my attention. “I wrote it.”

Suddenly, I found myself wondering: What other treasures lurk beneath? 

Esther yells: “We’re going down, Peru!”  And I’m forced back into my role as she clutches her chest.  Not bad, I think.  And I remember Professor Larkin and the windy Friday he waddled into our space.  We were at dinner, my fingers stroking Esther’s bony knee, and then he was there, and Esther was pushing me away, white as a ghost.  “Miss. Caron,” he’d said, “It’s lovely to see you out and about.”  And he gave me a nod, pretending not to recognize – but he knew.  And then Esther farted – because she did this when she was nervous – and Larkin’s eyes became googly like a Muppet’s, and I tried to compensate by talking about the wind – and then I realized the irony of this, so I snort-laughed, knocking the red wine right into Esther’s blouse.  The transformation was amazing: Proper schoolteacher turns into blood-red, horror-movie.

I was certain I ruined her.  The gassy professor’s torrid affair.  But she wasn’t ruined.  She, the homely one, was respected and powerful in her own way.  And I fell in love.  And in bed, tangled in my cotton sheets, she was not insecure, not afraid to be naked.   I covered myself when I stood, never daring to let go of my robe – even though she liked to tug at it.  She wasn’t afraid to reach under the bed with her bare, dimpled ass, wide and open for the world to see.  What choice did I have, but to love her?

 “We’re falling!”  I say, imagining the chopper spinning out of control.  I grab Esther’s body, her heartbeat strong against my arm.  She covers her face with her hands, and I sense her fear, and then mine - and together we scream, shaking the helicopter – our bodies jiggling (specifically mine) into near-orgasm.  

The stage goes dark and there is only the sound of our breathing.  We did it.  We lived and we died, and everyone watched.

 “I’m not gay,” she says again, her salty mouth touching mine.

“I know,” I tell her.  And the curtain starts to close.  “But it doesn’t matter, because we’re somewhere dead in the Amazon.”

“No,” she says, “I’m not dead.  Only lost - in Peru.”