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I’m starting to realize how idiotic my blank-canvas policy was. “Right.”
    “So what has your group got planned for you this evening?”
    “I’m not a hostage,” I insist, even though he’s got it right.
    I’m pretty sure Glenna Heron said something about a Paraguayan restaurant. As if Guatemalan weren’t exotic enough.
    “So you can come across the lake for dinner?” The sun emerges from behind a cloud. With my head tipped back, I have to squint to see his face. “The lake?” I repeat, thinking of the painting. I feel a flutter of excitement.
    “What’s across the lake?”
    “Three volcanoes and twelve other villages, for starters.”
    “I know that,” I lie.
    “We’re staying at this guesthouse in Santa Lucía. It’s called La Casa Azul. Your typical backpacker haunt. The only one in the village. But it’s not so bad. Everyone cooks. You should come.”
    I wonder about the difference between a good backpacker haunt and a bad one. “How do I get there?” I ask, unsure whether I’m playing along, or whether I’m really considering going.
    “ Por lancha. By boat. Just head straight down Calle Santander—that’s the main road—to the lake. The boat drivers will descend upon you as soon as you get there. Make sure to catch the six o’clock to get there in time for dinner.”
    “Should I, like . . . get your number or something?”
    “I don’t have a phone.” He hops down from the wall and waves. “Bon voyage!”
    I watch him stroll through the crowd. His hair’s as dark as that of the locals, his skin almost as tanned. But even though he’s not particularly tall—maybe average height—he towers above them.
    All of a sudden, I think, How strange. We never exchanged names.
     

    Day 3, Evening
    The Most Beautiful Lake in the World
    The Art School Girl
    Anytime I’ve thought about art in the months after I gave it up, my mind has always wandered to the same incident: when our advanced-drawing teacher, Mr. Chiang, brought us to three Los Angeles art colleges in one day. I was a sophomore. Toby Kelsey didn’t go to our school yet.
    Back then, I ate art for every meal and slept with it under my pillow.
    The classrooms and faces smeared together with time, except for one: a girl with tangled hair, barefoot, her paint-stained jeans scrunched over her knees. She burst out of a doorway at my end of a long, dark corridor. In one hand, she gripped a paintbrush. I watched her soar down the hall, limbs flying, bare feet slapping, and vanish into a doorway at the other end.
    Until the moment I saw her, I didn’t know a person could radiate so much joy it seemed tangible. I could feel it shimmer through the hall. Ever since, I’ve wondered what it felt like to be that happy.
    The first time I see the lake, I think I understand.
    ~July 14, near Lake Atitl á n As our shuttle maneuvers the steep, cratered roads of the Guatemala highlands, the drops plunge deeper and deeper, until I’m certain the only thing keeping us from plummeting over the edge is my own willpower. I’m concentrating so hard my cerebellum aches.
    Then the lake appears through a crease in the mountains.
    It’s like a shock of blue light. A thrill punches my heart. I want to cry out, but stop myself just in time.
    The lake vanishes as we round a bend. I glance at Glenna Heron, passed out in her usual seat beside me. After showing me every one of her Chichicastenango purchases, she fell asleep—quite a feat, considering the bloodcurdling roads we’ve been scaling. I try the next seat over, because I want someone, anyone, to share the moment with. A white-haired couple stare at matching Dean Koontz novels. In front of them, Marcy distracts Dan’s driving with her animated screeching and flailing claws.
    No one seems to have seen the lake. But how could they have missed it? It was the color of a gas flame, so blue it nearly stung my eyes.
    I sit back in my seat, feeling like I’ve caught a glimpse of someone else’s dream.