VITRO

ONE: Sophie

"Skin Island," Sophie said for what felt like the hundredth time. "I know what I'm talking about. It's called Skin Island, and it has to be nearby. Please, can't you just check again?"  

She'd spent the last twenty hours in airports and cramped planes, nearly missing her second connecting flight after get- ting lost in the Tokyo airport and almost arrested for having a pair of scissors in her backpack, and she felt she would collapse if she took another step. She planted her hands on the travel agent's counter and refused to move until she had an answer. Behind her, the lobby of A.B. Won Pat International Airport basked in the afternoon sunlight that streamed through tall glass windows. Sunburned tourists and TSA agents navigated through the network of cordoned-off aisles and piles of suit- cases, oblivious to the turmoil churning in Sophie's stomach. Her flight to Guam had landed an hour earlier, but she still felt as if she were caught in a wave of turbulence.  

The travel agent's eyelid twitched. Sophie could tell that the man was nearing the edge of his patience. "I've checked every list, every database I know of, young lady. There simply is no Skin Island. It doesn't exist." He spoke with a tone of irritated finality, and leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. Sophie guessed the man was in his fifties from his balding scalp and drooping jawline. He had sweat stains under his arms and smelled of garlic.  

"I can pay you, I swear. I know it exists! My mom's worked there for years."  

"You could hand over the key to the national treasury, wouldn't make a bit of difference. It's not there, I'm telling you! I'm sorry, miss, but I can't produce an island out of thin air."  

She drew a deep breath to steady herself, feeling like a torn flag whipped and battered by a hurricane. "If you can't help me, then who can? There must be someone local who knows the surrounding area."  

"I'm telling you, there's no-"  

"Look . . ." She glanced at his name tag. "Randy. I did  

not come halfway around the world just for kicks. Give me something to go on--a name, a map, a fricking rental boat so I can go find the place myself." She glanced over the counter, at the desk he was sitting at, and spied a laminated map folded up and tucked between a mug of pens and a stapler. Before he could react, she lunged across the counter and snatched it, dancing backward when he tried to grab it.  

The Mariana Islands marched in a gentle crescent from southern Guam to some speck of an island called Farallon de Pajaros on the northern edge of the paper, but none of them was called Skin Island. There were, however, several small, unlabeled islands--perhaps one of these was the one she sought.  

The map disappeared as the travel agent--Randy, his name tag read--plucked it away, and she found herself star- ing at her own empty hands. He had risen from his chair in the effort, and now sat down again, making the chair squeak beneath him. Heaving a sigh, he methodically refolded the map and tucked it back into place.  

"You might check with the local charter pilots," he said. "Might be your island is too small to be listed with me, or goes by another name. Get a taxi, go to the Station--it's the bar where they all hang out. If they don't know your island, then it really doesn't exist."  

"Thank you," she said. They exchanged scowls of mutual annoyance before she turned and walked away.  

Outside the airport, she stood on the curb and waited for a taxi. It was the first moment she'd had since landing to stop and breathe and take it all in. Guam was a mixture of strange and familiar; strange, because for the last nine years she had lived in Boston, and the warm, damp air and tropical views seemed hardly real. Familiar, because the first seven years of her life had been spent on this island. It was home to her, but a home that was a distant, sepia-toned memory, a life that was folded between the pages of a dusty scrapbook. Now that she was back, she felt oddly shy, as if she were calling up a friend she'd not seen in years. Would anyone here remember her? How much had this place changed? It doesn't matter, she thought. I'm not here to stay. She was just passing through. Her mother didn't live on Guam anymore; she'd moved to Skin Island when Sophie was seven, and a month later, Sophie and her dad moved to Boston.