First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria Read online

  It was only the question about romantic entanglements that worried me, since The Oneonta Sweetheart and I were still entangled at the time. The fact that I had a boyfriend was not something I wanted to lie about, since it clearly stated that lying would lead to immediate disqualification and possible prosecution. Besides, I had listed the Sweetheart as one of my half-dozen references. He told them nice things about me and I told them I'd break up with him to go into the Peace Corps. Good enough, I guess, because I was invited for an interview.

  I had long imagined that joining the Peace Corps would be like being ushered into a fraternity of like-minded peaceniks. I was sure that my history as a college radical and my present do-gooder job would grant me automatic entry into their club. I figured as soon as they heard about me, we'd all be holding hands and singing “Kumbaya.” But there was no hand-holding when John had called and insisted I come to New York City for an interview.

  “I can't possibly come to New York City. I work for a rape crisis center, traveling around upstate New York teaching elementary school kids about sexual assault prevention.” Hadn't this guy read my résumé? “You know, ‘good touch–bad touch,’ ‘say no, then go, then tell’?” The silence on the other end was not encouraging.

  “Anyway, it's a really tight schedule. I have to cover forty different schools and we are scheduled right through the end of the year. So if I miss one or two days, the whole schedule is thrown off.” I didn't bother to add the part about my having to waitress at night so I could afford to keep my low-paying, do-gooder day job.

  “Well, then, I'll assume you are not all that interested in joining the Peace Corps,” said John, in his clipped Boston accent. Did this guy even know “Kumbaya”?

  We reached a compromise when John offered to give me the last interview on an upcoming recruitment day at the University at Albany. For the entire ninety-minute drive there, I kept reminding myself that I didn't need to like my recruiter. I simply needed to get past him in order to get into the Peace Corps. But now, driving home, remembering the excitement in his voice as he talked about his little village in Burkina Faso and recalling how good my hand felt in his, I realized that I liked him very much. Now I wondered if I would have to actually go into the Peace Corps in order to get the recruiter.

  Answering machine, beep:

  Hi, Mom. I'm calling to fill you in on my Peace Corps interview. It lasted for two hours, and, well, I'm still not sure about going off to live in the jungle. But I am definitely going to marry my recruiter!

  One Day, We'll Tell Our

  Grandchildren About This

  Several weeks after our interview, I was still thinking about John. I hadn't gotten even the slightest romantic encouragement from him, and I really didn't expect to. He seemed far too reasonable a man to be interested in someone who: (a) was otherwise involved; (b) lived two hundred miles away; and (c) he was determined to send off to the Peace Corps for two years. So I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands.

  When schools were closed for Easter vacation, I told The Oneonta Sweetheart that I was going to see my parents. I did go to see my parents, and then I went down to the Peace Corps office in Times Square. But first I paid a visit to my local Salvation Army and picked up some khaki cargo pants and a pair of Birkenstocks. With my backpack on my back, I thought I looked as if I were already in the Peace Corps. And I hoped that just might be enough to win John's heart.

  “Um, the medical office is insisting I have my wisdom teeth removed,” I told John when he asked me if I was having any problems with the process. “My dentist says my wisdom teeth are so far below my gums that he'd have to break my jaw to get them out.” Apparently the Peace Corps wanted to avoid problems later on when I was “in country,” should my delinquent teeth finally decide to arrive, and then arrive impacted. This seemed like an awful lot of certain trouble (and pain) to go through in order to avoid potential trouble later on.

  “They always throw up roadblocks to see how badly you really want to go. Just have the dentist write a letter. I called down to Washington to check on your status and everything is moving along.”

  I wasn't really worried about the progress of my application; I was worried about the progress—or lack thereof—of John's interest in me. And as I looked around at his colleagues, all neatly dressed in business suits and skirts, I now worried that if in an effort to impress John, I had landed in the fashion no-man's-land between hippie and bag lady. But John invited me to lunch, which I thought was a good sign, although the restaurant he chose was awfully dark, which maybe was not a good sign.

  “The funny thing about my Peace Corps service is that I went to Upper Volta,” he told me while I picked at some kind of skewered meat. This might have been a good time to fess up to the fact that I was a vegetarian, except that Peace Corps volunteers are expected to eat whatever is put in front of them and I was determined to convince John that I was perfect volunteer material. “But I came home from Burkina Faso!” I tried to nod knowingly. Immediately after our interview, I committed Burkina Faso to memory and quickly found this tiny sub-Saharan country on a map of Africa. But until that moment I'd never even heard of Upper Volta. How many small, Third-World nations did this guy expect me to keep track of?

  “A few months into my service, Upper Volta had a coup,” John explained. “Thomas Sankara took over the government. Everyone called him the ‘People's President.’ He called us his ‘comrades’ and promised to give power back to the people. We loved him. He was going to help save this little piece of Africa.” John was animated as he spoke and I was reminded of all the Che Guevara wannabes that I had been infatuated with in college. Only John was more hygienic than most of them.

  “Wow! What did you do during the coup?”

  “Oh, I was fine.” John's green eyes crinkled as he laughed. “My neighbors took care of me. We stayed close to the village, and we were all fine.”

  “But weren't you in danger? Shouldn't the Peace Corps have evacuated the volunteers?” I knew that volunteer safety was the top priority. I had faithfully memorized the reams of paper I'd received from the Peace Corps so far. Ever the good girl, I was going to be ready in case there was a pop quiz.

  “The thing about the rest of the world, Eve, is that no one else has the comfort and security that we Americans do. We have things pretty cushy, you know.” He said this as if he was sure that I knew this too. “In Africa, no one counts on things going smoothly. You have to get used to a certain amount of uncertainty and discomfort and even insecurity.”

  “Were you glad to get back to America?” I asked.

  “Oh, I'm happy here. I'm happy to be closer to my friends and family and to drink cold beer.” John smiled again and I knew that I was staring into the handsome face of a man who could be happy anywhere. “But I miss Burkina a lot. I miss the people who became like family to me. And over there life is simpler and it somehow feels more real.”

  “Do you think you'll go back?” I asked, half dreading his answer.

  “I'm here now. I love being a Peace Corps recruiter. It lets me relive my experience every day. And I get to meet some wonderful people … like you, for instance.” He looked into my eyes and my heart raced. “And I'm planning on starting a master's program in International Development at Columbia University soon,” he continued. “But eventually I want to go back. Maybe to Africa. Maybe somewhere else.” He popped a piece of unidentifiable meat into his mouth and smiled.

  “So, what does your boyfriend think about you going?” he asked after he'd swallowed. I had no idea if he was being a recruiter trying to gauge if I would really end a relationship in order to go wherever the Peace Corps deemed me suitable, or if he was asking as a man, trying to gauge my availability.

  What boyfriend? I wanted to say. He and I are just killing time. “Oh, he's very supportive of me going.”

  “Really?” John raised his eyebrows.

  “I mean, it's not like I'm going to marry him or anything.” The Oneonta
Sweetheart and I had actually talked about marriage, but as much as we loved each other, it never felt exactly right.

  “Well, that's good, because most relationships don't survive the two-year separation. Either that, or the volunteer doesn't last the two years.”

  Before The Oneonta Sweetheart, I had been infatuated with a series of ponytailed and ponchoed hitchhikers. Guys who'd spent months sleeping in hammocks in the Yucatán or who had just rolled in from India still smelling of cardamom and cloves. I took a long look at John and no matter how I squinted I just couldn't imagine him in an alpaca poncho with a braid down his back; I inhaled deeply and smelled nothing but soap and water.

  “I'm sure it's not the case with you or anything,” John continued. “But you'd be surprised at how many people go into the Peace Corps committed to spending two years, but after a few months they quit and the biggest reason is because they left someone back home.”

  “Yeah, that would be hard.” But I wasn't thinking about The Oneonta Sweetheart.

  “Tomorrow a bunch of RPCVs—that's returned Peace Corps volunteers,” he explained, “will be getting together in the office. Why don't you come by if you're free? It'll give you a chance to hear about a lot of other people's experiences.”

  “I'll try to make it,” I said, sounding casual. But in my mind I was already scanning the clothes I had brought with me, picking out what I would wear. I was still determined to strike the perfect balance between total adaptability and irresistible adorability.

  It turned out not to matter what I wore the next day because I felt totally invisible among the group of RPVCs. They looked ordinary enough, except for a woman whose hennaed feet poked out from beneath the batik print she had expertly wrapped around her waist. She was every bit as white and ethnically bland as I was, yet she seemed so much more interesting. They all did, laughing and reminiscing about drinking warm Zairian beer and eating fou-fou with their hands. They told of run-ins with merchants, bedouins, and soothsayers in places like Timbuktu, Tierra del Fuego, and Zanzibar. John's face lit up when a blonde woman jangling her clunky wooden bracelets began a sentence with “When I was in Ouagadougou during the coup …” Oh, how I wanted to be a part of this worldly group, forever bonded by malaria dreams, gamma globulin shots, and wiping my butt with the pages of my Peace Corps–provided Newsweek magazine, and also able to convincingly wear exotic clothing.

  I couldn't help but wonder if John was romantically interested or already involved with someone in the group. Surely, these people were more his type than someone who regularly drooled over the Banana Republic catalog. Maybe after three years in West Africa John had a thing for hennaed feet.

  As the RPCV group was breaking up, John invited me to meet him after work for a tour of Covenant House, the shelter for homeless teens where he volunteered one night a week. Oh, c'mon, I thought. Can this guy be for real? Or maybe the real question was Can this guy be single? Or straight? And again, I wondered if the invite was an indication of his personal interest in me, or just another thing that a good recruiter does to impress a recruit. But I certainly was not going to pass up an opportunity to spend more time with John.

  The reception he got from everyone at Covenant House—from the guard at the door, to the director, to the teens themselves—convinced me that John really was as nice as he seemed. But as we said good-bye, I still didn't know if he was single, straight, or the least bit interested in me. And even if he was single, straight, and interested, I had no idea if there could be any hope of a relationship between a recruiter as dedicated as he was and a recruit as seemingly dedicated as I'd made myself out to be. And John wasn't giving any hints.

  Worse, he seemed about to send me on my way and I wasn't sure how many more excuses I could come up with to visit him at the recruiting office. Of course, there was always the chance that the medical office would tell me I needed to have my appendix removed. But I couldn't count on that.

  Luckily, an angel whispered into my ear just then. Touch the small of his back, it said. And of course, you may wonder what the hell an angel was doing involving herself in such a base affair, when she ought to have been saving a child about to fall from a sixth-story window or a preoccupied pedestrian in danger of being flattened by a bus. But there is no other explanation for what occurred to me just then or for what I did.

  “Well, thanks again for making time for me,” I said, reaching out my right hand to shake John's. He took my hand, and, as we shook, I pulled him slightly toward me. I extended my left hand and, ever so gently, touched the small of his back.

  “You know, Eve, I'm meeting a friend for drinks after work on Friday,” he said. “Why don't you join us?” Just as if he had thought of it all by himself.

  We met outside of his office after work on Friday and walked a few blocks to the bar. I was struck by the obvious fact that he was a good foot taller than me. Of course, I had noticed his height before. But now, as I struggled to keep pace with him while keeping up my end of a witty conversation, I wondered if size really did matter to men.

  I feared that in the battle to win John's heart (which might or might not be up for grabs), I now had two strikes against me. One, I was not a member of the international jet set, as witnessed by the fact that I didn't look natural in a sarong, serape, or sari and wasn't keen on drinking warm beer, Zairian or otherwise. And two, he'd have to bend way down to kiss me, assuming that he did, indeed, ever want to kiss me, of which there had been depressingly few signs up to this point. Then again, there was the fact that I was slated to go away for two years and he was the guy trying to get me to go. But if I figured that into the equation, I'd have three strikes against me. And though I have never been a sports fan, I definitely still wanted to be in this game.

  It was obvious before we even set foot inside the bar that the ongoing Times Square beautification project had yet to reach this particular joint. It took my eyes a few minutes to adjust to the musty darkness inside, and I wasn't sure I really wanted to see it all that clearly anyway. But John strode over the sticky floor to the nearly empty bar, pulled out and wiped off a stool for me, and greeted the bartender like he was an old friend.

  “I don't recommend the mixed drinks here,” John said in a low voice. “But the bottled beer is safe.” I had yet to be in a place where the bottled beer wasn't safe, but figured that was just another of my lacking Third-World experiences.

  “I'll have whatever you're having,” I said with a shrug.

  “Well, here's to you,” John said, handing me a beer. “And here's to the Peace Corps.”

  John's friend, Andy, joined us a few minutes later, and the two men hugged each other warmly.

  “Andy, this is Eve,” John said.

  “So, going into the Peace Corps?” Andy extended his hand. He knows about me! Does he know about me because John called him to say, “I'm bringing this wonderful woman to join us for drinks tomorrow?” Or does he know about me because John brings all his recruits here to toast their impending departures?

  “I remember when this guy was on the big sleep,” Andy said, patting John on the shoulder. “That's what we called John's three years in Africa.”

  “You've known John since before he went into the Peace Corps?” I asked.

  “Oh, Johnny-boy and I go way back to our freshman year at UMASS,” Andy said. I found myself hoping that John would need to go to the john, so that I could pump Andy for information. But several beers later, all I knew was that John and Andy were best friends, had had some wild times in college, and that John seemed to have an iron bladder.

  Andy looked at his watch and announced, “I've got to go meet my girlfriend.”

  “Oh, you have a girlfriend?” I asked, sensing an opening. Does John??? I tried to ask telepathically.

  “A fiancée, really,” Andy added. I thought it was a good sign for me that John's best friend was both heterosexual and capable of a committed relationship.

  “Well, it was nice meeting you, Eve. You two have fun.”
>
  “Hey, would you like to go back to Brooklyn with me for dinner?” John asked soon after Andy left. “I need to make a quick stop at my apartment before dinner, if you don't mind.” Now we are getting somewhere, I thought as we took the subway to Brooklyn.

  “Excuse me, I've just got to use the bathroom,” John said as soon as we got to the third-floor brownstone apartment that he shared with two roommates. “I just hate public restrooms.” So he didn't have an iron bladder after all, just a thing about using public bathrooms, which seemed a little odd since he obviously didn't mind using outhouses. But I was willing to overlook the toilet issue, since it had gotten me into his apartment. It was a nice three-bedroom apartment with lots of the original wood detailing and a fireplace in the living room. Clean enough that I could imagine spending time there, but not so neat, or so well decorated, that it said “gay man” or “resident girlfriend.”

  By the time we were sharing sushi and hot sake at a nearby Japanese restaurant, I was pretty sure we were on a date. Back at his apartment afterward, John leaned in close. “May I kiss you?” he asked. I don't know what it says in the Peace Corps rulebook about that, I thought, but I was beginning to think you'd never ask.

  “Would you like to sleep under my African blanket?” John asked a few hours later.

  “You bet I would,” I purred. He led me to his bed, covered with a scratchy orange and black checkered blanket, and said he'd be fine on the couch.

  “Wouldn't you like to come to bed with me?” I asked. I was hooked, and I thoroughly intended to hook him too. I don't care what your mama says: SEX, not food, is the surest way to a man's heart.