Chapter 4: The Best Arepas in the World

I: Zane

Walter Gates, despite his vulnerabilities, proved to be very good for passing time with, and engaging in friendly competitions.

Cartagena is on Colombia’s northern coast. It has been settled for over 6,000 years, although the present city dates to 1533. The old city, tucked inside fortress walls, is heavy with squat medieval buildings that lean eavesdropping over the city’s rainbow alleys. Everywhere are festive overtures: wildly colored pennants and umbrellas, cantinas and restaurants lit with pure sun, the palenqueras with their fruit baskets, their roiling dresses of saffron, maize, gold, emerald. Even Walter was energized by Cartagena.

We sat in a cantina and watched the street vendors outside peddle fruit, fat shrimp, rellenas, arepas de huevo, carimanola. My belly ached for something more than that morning’s coffee and bunuelos. The heat reached for the shade through the glassless windows, but we were happy to sit by the windows nonetheless.

“How are things in Pennsylvania these days?” I said to Walter.

“How did you know I’m from Pennsylvania?”

“Pittsburgh, yes?”

“Exactly.”

“Accent. Always from an accent you can tell a lot of things. Especially if someone tries to hide it, or they don’t.”

“And do I--?”

“--You know very well you try to hide it. Which means you are still in Pittsburgh, but that you don’t feel you fit in there. The suburbs of Pittsburgh, you would have a similar accent, but you would not try to conceal it so much.”

“Wow,” said Walter Gates.

“This, plus I saw in the retreat that you keep an Andy Warhol idea book for a journal. You got this at a museum gift store and there is, of course, an Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh. Now, sure, you could have traveled there and bought it as a souvenir but then it would have been a very special thing to you: As a writer, you have many journals and notebooks, you would have saved this one. No. It is well worn and half-filled: you use it because it is not difficult to replace because you live near the museum.”

“Well, my goodness, Zane,” he said, or something.

“Walter, anyone can do this.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Yes, as a writer, you can do this. Observe and report. That’s what we do. Take that young woman over there: now why is today a special day for her?”

Nearby, a local woman sat away from the sun, drinking a soda and lost in her phone. Her hair was tied back and she had dressed in jogging pants and sandals.

“I have no idea, Zane.”

“Yes. Look again. What is she doing?”

“Texting.”

“Probably. But this we don’t know. We can assume.”

“Why don’t you just tell me?”

“Of course. But let’s get drinks first. I am so thirsty - are you thirsty?”

“Dying of thirst!”

The woman saw me looking at her and I nodded and she smiled warmly. I turned my attention to the bar, the amber bottles in the cooler.

“Beers?”

“Perfect,” said Walter.

“Very good,” I said. “I will make you a bet. If I can tell you which state your father was born in, you buy the drinks. Deal?”

“Well, you won’t be able to tell that from my accent, that’s for sure,” said Walter.

“So it’s a deal, then? A bet?”

“It’s a bet, Zane. Shoot.”

“Your father was born in the same state as me: infancy.”

While Walter leaned back and threw up his arms, I ordered beers for the two of us. They were cool and heady.

“That was a trick, Zane. You have to give me another chance.”

“Of course,” I said. “Food, then? That is basically double or nothing.”

“Well, there’s no way you’re going to get me again. Because now I know you’re tricking me.”

“Of course you’re right. The woman over there: have you figured her out?”

“Not even a little.”

“This one, Walter, is very easy. Look.”

The woman pushed her spread hand away from her and admired her fingers.

“Oh! A ring - she has a ring; she just got engaged!”

“Yes! Exactly. And how do we know she just got engaged, besides the ring?”

“Tell me.”

“Look: She is dressed in workout clothes but not sneakers, sandals. She is not working out. And her hair is tied back, unfixed. She was up late, slept in, ditched work, and is here texting continuously: she is telling everyone she hasn’t already told. She is searching the web for things related to the wedding. Her young man, he is at work: I have watched her face and with none of the messages she has sent or read has there been the joy one might find in the face of a young woman texting with someone she has recently agreed to marry. She would be texting with him, of course. So he must be at work. Had they not spent a late night together celebrating their engagement, he would have taken the day off as well. And she has been fiddling with the ring and gazing at it intermittently since we came in. It is the only thing she looks at besides her phone.”

The young woman found me looking at her again.

“Felicidades!” I said, and raised my beer.

She looked puzzled, but was too happy to concern herself. She lifted her diet soda and smiled.

“Gracias!” she said.

“But how did you know that my father wasn’t born in Pennsylvania? Had he been born in Pennsylvania, I obviously wouldn’t have taken the bet.”

“Because you try to lose your accent, you know that your accent is different from his, and he is your father, your model for everything.”

“Damn.”

“It is just a matter of noticing things,” I told Walter. “For example, you have not even noticed that seated behind you drinking a beer and writing in her very expensive Moleskine is our Rhode Island friend.”

II: Faith

“You’re not going to get me again. I know you’re tricking me now.”

“So, it’s a good deal for you: It’s a game you already know and when I lose the bet, I buy us lunch.”

“I don’t know,” said Walter. “But just out of curiosity, what’s the bet?”

Zane leaned over and looked at Walter’s shoes beneath the table, pointed.

“That I can tell you where you got your shoes.”

“Now, how many shoe stores in Pittsburgh can you possibly know?” Walter said.

“Not many. Very difficult.”

“You’re going to just say ‘a shoe store,’ or something; my closet, you’re going to say.”

“No. No, not at all.”

“Screw it,” Walter said. It’s worth buying lunch just to find out.”

“It’s a bet, then?” said Zane.

“Yes,” Walter sighed. “It’s a bet.”

“Great,” said Zane. “You got your shoes on the floor, just like I do. Arepas, senor! Por favor!”

And that was the moment I understood one vital thing about that little lying rakish rogue with the devastating brown eyes and the smile that melted something inside me that wasn't even frozen yet: Zane Davis was dirt poor and flat broke. And yet he was at a $3000 invitation-only writing retreat in a tropical paradise drinking ice cold beer and eating the finest arepas in the world. The best, rather: the best arepas in the world.