Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
“You’re going to sit on the veranda with Manuel and Paula,” I said, as we started walking back toward the community center. “Distract them. Talk about something exciting.”
“ Fútbol. ”
“ That’s the most exciting thing you can think of?”
“To a Tico, yes.” He looked at me. “What are you going to be doing?”
“Just keep your stories spicy. If you need to throw in a doping scandal, do it.”
He shook his head but kept walking forward. I took his hand and squeezed it. “Why are you helping me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because of your eyes.”
“I thought you liked my brain.”
“I thought so, too, but now I have some questions. Particularly about your judgment.”
I laughed. I had questions about my judgment, too. We stepped into the clearing with the soccer field.
Manuel and Paula were sitting on the veranda outside the tasting room, sipping coffee. When Manuel saw us, he sprang up from his seat. “Dee! You’re back.” He came to meet us. “Are you okay?”
“No. I returned to use your bathroom.”
He nodded. Adrenaline swelled through my body as I ran into the mill.
I went straight to the bathroom and locked the door behind me.
I figured I had fifteen minutes before they began to suspect Adrián was stalling.
I heard Adrián’s low voice rumbling and then an explosion of laughter from the veranda.
This was my chance. I opened the window and crawled out, then sprinted toward the thicket in front of me.
I tried to suppress my anxiety as I crashed through the bushes.
The only things I could hear were the babbling of a small stream and the screeches of wildlife.
The only things I could see were monkey tail ferns, poor man’s umbrellas, and stigmata plants.
I wiped some sweat off my forehead and ordered myself to calm down.
You came to get soil , I reminded myself.
Quickly. I pushed my way through waist-high plants until I found the footpath I’d seen on the map.
Bright-orange butterflies were crisscrossing in front of me, and I followed them until the trees disappeared in an explosion of light.
When my eyes adjusted, I saw an unshaded field filled with hunched-over forms. There were no trees interspersed with the coffee plants, which was odd for a supposedly “shade-grown” organic farm.
I stepped behind the thick trunk of a laurel negro tree on the perimeter, before any of the pickers could see me.
Don’t freak out , I told myself. No one’s looking for you.
I pressed my body closer to the laurel negro and peered around the side.
I saw dozens of pickers on the north side of the fields, spread apart from each other at standardized distances.
I hugged the tree tighter and looked south.
There were four short forms. Instead of spacing themselves out like the pickers on the right, they were all clumped together.
I stared at them, wondering why they were so short, when suddenly it hit me. They were kids.
There were two boys who looked fourteen or fifteen, sixteen at the oldest. There was a little girl who seemed about eleven with tight curly locks sprouting out of her head like a doll, and a younger boy, no more than eight.
Whose kids were they? It was totally against Ethical Coffee International rules to have children help with the harvest. As I was staring at them, the taller of the two teenagers turned around and looked in my direction.
I wrapped myself back against the tree trunk and prayed he hadn’t seen me.
I was in shadow and he was in direct sunlight.
Maybe I looked like... a bird? A very, very large upright bird?
What was I going to do now? I needed a soil sample if I was going to report Café Alegre for violations.
But I couldn’t risk the kids seeing me and telling Manuel I had been there.
I heard footsteps approaching; there was no way to leave without being seen.
I closed my eyes and hoped for divine intervention.
Would the sanctified blood trick work here?
“ ?Quién es? ” asked a young male voice.
I sighed. No use hiding now. I came around the tree to face a tan, scrawny teenager with a broad forehead, thick straight hair, and shrewd brown eyes. His smile was angelic, but he had the voice of a hustler. “What are you doing here?” he asked in Spanish.
“Uh.” I looked around me, hoping a plausible excuse would paint itself in the sky or spell itself out in berries. “I got lost,” I said in Spanish.
“Are you an inspector for Ethical Coffee International?”
I looked at the boy’s expectant face and considered his question.
Did he want me to be an inspector? If he were exploited labor, I could say yes, and maybe he would confide in me.
But if he were one of Manuel’s relatives, then he’d tell him an American had been snooping around.
And then, well... I’m not sure what would happen, but I didn’t want to find out.
“Manuel told us a visitor was coming today,” he said. “But not to here. To the visitors’ fields.” He gave me a probing look.
“I’m just a lost tourist,” I said. I held up my camera as proof. “Okay if I take some photos?”
“That’s too bad. I wanted to speak to an inspector.” He stuck out his hand, confident. He had a sophistication that didn’t match his age. “The name’s Tomás.”
We shook hands. I shifted, very uneasy. “Why do you want to speak to an inspector?”
His eyes darkened. “Because this is a terrible place. Café Alegre does not comply with Ethical Coffee International standards. Like, at all. See the people there?” He pointed to the pickers on the north side of the field.
“They’re the nicaragüenses . They come for the harvest, with their kids, and they don’t even get minimum wage.
” I looked more closely. There were several kids working with the adult laborers.
“And them?” He pointed at the shorter teenage boy and the two little kids he had been picking with.
“Those are my brothers and sisters. We don’t get paid anything. ”
“Why not? Where are your parents?”
Tomás’s eyes narrowed slightly, but his voice stayed even. “Our mom went to the city looking for our dad, so she left us with Manuel.”
“Why would she leave you with Manuel?”
He looked down. “He’s our stepfather.”
Ohhh. I felt a pang of compassion. “Why doesn’t Manuel have you in school?”
“Because we’re not his real kids. We only go to school when he doesn’t need us.
” Jesus, Tomás was a real-life Cinderella.
“The Nicaraguan kids don’t go to school at all.
That’s why I want to speak to an inspector.
If they bust the farm, maybe I can get emancipated and move to the city.
” His voice dropped. “And find my mom.” The sophistication had left his eyes, replaced by sadness, and for a minute, he looked his age.
“Can you send someone out from Ethical Coffee International?”
“I’ll try. Do you know if the farm uses pesticides on the plants?”
“We put something on to combat the Rust, and something for the insects, but I don’t know what they are. They don’t smell great, and we have to wear gloves.”
I grabbed an empty Ziploc from my backpack. “Could you put some soil in there for me?”
“ Por supuesto .” Tomás walked over to the nearest coffee bush. While he filled the bag with soil, I took photos of the pickers with my Canon. After a moment, he returned and handed me the bag.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll try to get this to an inspector. And good luck. I hope you find your mom.”
“Do you need directions back?”
“What?”
He looked at me keenly. “You said you were a lost tourist.”
Right. That was my genius cover. “That would be great.”
I followed his directions to the footpath and started down it. I could feel his eyes on my back, burning little holes into my spine. I felt terrible. How could I leave him here? But what could I do about it?
When I got to the edge of the forest, I looked at the back of the community center.
I could hear Adrián and Manuel and Paula laughing on the veranda out front.
They wouldn’t be laughing if they knew I’d been chatting with their child labor and collecting proof of their pesticide use.
An awful thought occurred to me—what if they did know?
What if Manuel had seen through my pretense and was just waiting for me to come back?
Would he have me arrested for trespassing? Or worse?
I sprinted toward the back of the mill. The bathroom window was still open so I hoisted myself through it.
I looked at my face in the mirror. Sweat was running down my reddened cheeks and distress was pulsing in my eyes.
I needed to pull myself together before I went back to the veranda.
I sat down on the closed toilet and did breathing exercises.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
But that made me hyperventilate—which made me more anxious.
manuel knows you know and he’s going to kill you! screamed my uncooperative subconscious. jump out the window and run!
Someone knocked on the door but I couldn’t answer.
Air would just not go all the way into my lungs.
The knocking continued, my breathing slowed, and then all I could see was black dotted with little particles of light.
Was this a panic attack? I wondered. I’m pretty sure this is a panic attack. Unless it’s a heart attack?!
“Are you okay?” asked Paula, from behind the door. “Are you still sick?”
“Yes,” I gasped, head between my knees in an attempt to make the floor closer should I faint. Why did Adrián let Paula come for me? Because he was dead !
“Yes, you’re okay? Or, yes, you’re sick?”
“I’m okay...” I wheezed, now lying on the cold tile, face up.
The voice was silent, and I heard retreating footsteps. A few minutes passed while I tried to regulate my breathing. Then there were different, heavier footsteps.
“ ?Preciosa! Are you okay?”