“Maybe we should try to entertain them.”

He looked her in the eyes, but couldn’t tell if she was fucking with him.

“Should we eat first?” he asked.

“Definitely.”

She ordered Donny a dish that looked like orzo pasta but was in fact the eggs of some oversized species of ant. She ate blood-marrow tacos, and when he finally got her laughing for a moment she looked like a lioness enjoying her fresh kill.

It helped that she was laughing at him as he told a story of how he had accidentally tricked a federal prosecutor and a federal judge into putting into the public record a classified document about a new program for the monitoring of wayward journalists.

It wasn’t until they were stoned on margaritas and carving the face of George Washington into a shared block of flan that Donny learned Joyce wasn’t even based in Mexico City anymore.

“I’m in Managua, Donny. Mexico City isn’t safe any longer. Too many CIA mofos show up at the parties here, and too many federales on the payroll. I shouldn’t even be here, but we decided one of us needed to be here for the meeting.”

“Who’s the we?” said Donny.

“It’s Wade, Donny. You know that.”

She meant Wade Camacho, the singer-songwriter whom Donny decided had been deported for being too cute. Cowboy cute, with his denim shirts and five-day beards and annoying yodels about injustice.

She was right. He did know that. But the mind had a way of trying to convince you other things were possible. Even when you were separated by borders. By borders fortified with walls, guns, surveillance, and law. By the borders we build in our own minds, from language and feeling and our inability to ever really understand each other.

“How’s that going?” said Donny, doing his best to let the envy go, reminding himself that he was the one who chose to stay behind.

“It’s nice,” said Joyce. “Nice enough. We share a common cause, which is worth a lot. He’s entertaining. I mean, he’s a musician.”

“So are you.”

“Not like him.”

“No.”

“He’s kind of an airhead, which works very well for us, to my surprise.”

Donny smiled. “An airhead who’s a pretty good poet,” he admitted.

“Not bad,” said Joyce. “But the most important thing is that he makes me feel safe. Not just because he’s so tall. Cops and soldiers and politicians are all scared of him. You can tell.”

“That’s why I figured the White House deported him,” said Donny. “They were afraid he would sell dissidence as the sexiest thing around.”

“He is good at that,” said Joyce.

She looked around, sizing up the crowd for suspicious eyes.

“Is he with you?” said Donny. “On this trip?”