In the morning she checked her work email on the annoyingly slow connection, then packed sunblock, hand sanitizer, bug repellent, water bottles. At the last minute she threw in the new Christmas swimsuits, just in case. They all ventured forth, blinking in the sunlight, from the cocoon of the giant ship. Gunther’s friend pulled into the taxi area, in a boxy black military-looking Mercedes SUV. The husbands piled in and were off.
Marcus and Sebastian wandered away to look at the giant bollards the ship was tied to. Junie held Nora’s hand. Penny, not fully awake, leaned against Liv. It was already too hot for clinging kids. Liv wasn’t sure where to go.
“It’s so early,” Penny said. “Can’t we just stay on the ship?”
A woman with a clipboard directed them to a smiling young man. He was slight, in his twenties, with a handsome, friendly face.
“I am Pedro,” he said. “Welcome to my country. I will be your guide.”
He gave Nora an extra-welcoming smile, which made Liv look at her cousin. Nora was wearing white shorts, a bright blue tank top, and aviator sunglasses, and she looked trim and sporty and young. Pedro led them all to a van with a toucan painted on the side. He offered his hand to Nora to help her in, and Nora gave him a funny look, then took it.
He offered the same help to Liv. “No thanks,” she said.
Camila had signed up at the last minute, and boarded with her kids: Hector in madras shorts and a polo shirt, Isabel in a sundress with her hair loose. The teenagers looked like they’d come from a photo shoot, attractive and long-limbed, with sun-streaked hair and clear, tan skin. Liv wanted to ask Camila if they had some fancy European or Argentine acne product that could help Penny through the awkward years. The children clustered at the back of the van.
“Seatbelts!” Liv called.
“So, you work for a local company that contracts with the ship?” Nora asked Pedro, when they were under way, on a winding road.
“Exacto,” Pedro said.
“Do you think we’ll see monkeys?”
“So many monkeys!”
“Do they ever attack people?”
“No! They are very shy.”
“You hear those stories about chimps,” Nora said.
“Chimps live in Africa,” Pedro said. “These are howler monkeys. Maybe a few capuchinos, if we’re lucky.”
“Cappuccino like the coffee?” Nora asked.
“Like the monk. They wear a little cap.” He clasped his hands over his own head to demonstrate.
“Oh, of course,” Nora said. “Capuchins.”
Nora’s cheeks had gone pink, and Liv looked again at Pedro. Was he that appealing? The idea of a twenty-five-year-old just made her kind of tired.
Just then there was a sharp blast, and the van jerked sideways. There were small screams from the back, and Liv looked to see her children’s eyes wide on hers, seeking reassurance. The van hobbled down the road, tilting to the left.
“The tire,” Pedro said. “It’s okay.”
“Car!” Nora said.
A green car was coming toward them, and there was a jarring crash, and the van was spinning, flying. The children were really screaming now. The world was full of noise. “Hang on,” Liv heard herself saying into the din. “Just hang on.”
When they came to a stop, there was a strange stillness. Liv’s heart raced. She had to get her seatbelt off. If she could only reach her children, she could protect them. But her hands shook and she fumbled at the clasp.
“Is okay,” Pedro was saying. “Is okay.”
Leaves and branches pressed against the windows. Liv got herself free of the seatbelt and made her way to the back. Her legs trembled. She clutched her children to her. They were crying. Nora was there, too.
Marcus had his hands over his ears.
“It’s all right,” Nora told him. “It’s all fine.”
“Will the engine explode?” Marcus asked.
“No,” Pedro said, without conviction.
“That’s only in movies,” Liv said.
“Everyone out!” Nora said. “Now!”
They trooped off the van and surveyed the damage. The front left tire had blown, leaving ragged edges of fibrous rubber around the wheel well. They must have veered into the oncoming lane, where the other car hit them. The van’s right front corner was mangled and crushed. The other car, small and green and crumpled, had parked on the shoulder, and the two drivers were talking near it. Pedro climbed back into the van to use the radio.
Liv and Camila took out their phones, but neither of them could get a signal.
“I called my company,” Pedro said when he emerged. “There is no other van now.”
He had hit his head and was definitely bleeding. Nora fished a hand wipe out of her bag and gently cleaned the blood away.
“I asked for three taxis,” he said. “It will take a long time, on a ship day. They are all busy. There is a bus at four o’clock.”
“Four o’clock!” Liv heard the desperation in her own voice. “We can’t stand here on the side of the road all day.”
Pedro lifted his shoulders, then frowned across the road in thought. “Do you have your swimming clothes?”
“Yes,” the women said.
“I think there is a beach,” Pedro said.
“Are there sharks?” Liv asked.
“No,” Pedro said. “There is a reef.”
“Anything else that’s dangerous?” Nora asked.
“You could trip and break your leg,” he said. “Or the coatimundis could take your lunch.”
“We were supposed to get lunch at the zip line,” Nora said.
“I have snacks,” Pedro said. He pronounced it “ess-nacks.”
Camila asked him something in rapid Spanish that Liv didn’t follow, and they had a short conversation. Then Camila pressed her lips together.
“I think we go to swim,” she said. “It is boring to wait. The children will complain. And this road is very dangerous.”
“You’re sure this is a good place?” Liv asked Pedro. “No riptide?”
“It is very protected,” he said. “Very calm and safe. A river comes out to the sea.”
So Liv and Nora shouldered their bags. Pedro pulled a cooler and three inner tubes out of the back of the van. He passed one to Hector and one to Marcus. “We go to another river sometimes,” he said.
There were ten of them: Liv, Penny, Sebastian, Nora and her children, Camila and the Argentinian teens, all following Pedro. Liv thought they must look absurd, trooping along on the shoulder, carrying inner tubes. But a trail soon veered off from the road, and Pedro led them into the trees. The undergrowth seemed ready to reclaim the trail the moment humans stopped trampling it.
Pedro stopped, and Nora bumped into him. Marcus, holding an inner tube, bumped into Nora, and Liv bumped into Marcus.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Up there,” Pedro whispered, pointing. A magnificent bird was perched on a branch above them, green with a blue head and a black mask. It had a long double tail with teardrop blue feathers at the end. It turned its head, revealing an orangey-brown throat.
“What is it?” Nora whispered.
“Blue-crowned motmot.”
“See the bird?” Liv whispered to Penny and Sebastian, and they ooohed appropriately. How had evolution made that? The bird flew off, trailing its ludicrous tail. Real nature! Her kids were too protected. This unexpected adventure would be good for them.
They trooped on. Nora and Pedro chatted about birds. Sebastian and June scampered ahead.
The trees opened and they walked out onto a pretty little beach at the mouth of a river, just as Pedro had promised. They could see the protective reef in the distance, and no surf made it inside. It was perfect. The children clamored for their bathing suits.
“Where do we change?” Penny asked.
“Right here,” Liv said.
Penny looked doubtful, but she wasn’t going to miss swimming for the sake of modesty. Hector peeled off his polo shirt. Isabel was already in a yellow bikini, her adolescent hips and small breasts resplendent in it. She must have had it on under her sundress. Liv averted her eyes and checked her phone again. Still no signal.
She held up a towel for the children to change, and smeared more sunscreen on their faces and shoulders while they squirmed and squinted. She removed Sebastian’s insulin pump and sealed the port with its plastic cap. Then she looked to Pedro.
“You promise there’s nothing dangerous in that water?”