A Couple of Nice Christian Girls

By Craig Fishbane. Published on August 11, 2023.

“I hear they’ve got some nice girls down there,” Tom said when I got the confirmation email from the surf resort. We were out having drinks that night after my weekly guitar lesson. Tom was managing an instrument repair shop at the time and I was trying my hand at freelance travel writing. Thin lips curled across Tom’s ruddy face as he glimpsed at the image of a thatched-roof cabana on my phone, his smile skirting the border between excitement and embarrassment.

“Those Costa Rican girls aren’t just good looking,” Tom said as he lifted a mug from the counter. His voice had an unusual tone, all at once pleading and suggestive. He sounded like a seminary student trying to crack a dirty joke. “They’re very respectful,” he said. “And very obedient.”   

“Every country has beautiful women,” I told him. “I don’t know how obedient they are.”

“They know how to treat their husbands.” Tom ran his pale fingers through a mop of rusty hair and shifted in his stool. “I’ve been doing research.”

This was hardly the first time that Tom had investigated the character traits of potential brides available across the border. Last year, when I returned from South America, he was positively rapturous about the dark-eyed beauties of British Guyana. Since, more than anything, Tom was looking for encouragement, I found the best course of action was to wait until he changed the subject. 

“So how much to does it cost to go to Costa Rica?” Tom said.

“More than you could afford.”

My answer was designed to give him pause. Tom was an expert at hoarding money. He had been wearing the same set of flannel shirts for the two years I had known him. His apartment was furnished with discarded tables and bookshelves he had lifted off the sidewalk. Tom was committed to a life of hand-me-down sofas and refurbished computers.

“How much does it cost?” Tom said. “Tell me.” 

I told him.

“Really?”

“It’s the going rate.”

“Because I was thinking that maybe I could go with you,” Tom said. “And maybe we could look for girls together.”

When the conversation took turns like this, my temptation is to slink back to my apartment and jump into the shower. The last thing I needed to be was Tom’s international wingman, his Slumdog Matchmaker.   

“I have enough trouble with women,” I said. “You’d just make them run away.”

“Seriously,” Tom said, “we could find the kind of girls we’ve been looking for.”

I decided to overlook the suggestion that he and I were in fact looking for the same kind of woman. Or, for that matter, that we had ever discussed what kind of women we were hoping to meet. Tom had a habit of finding common ground between us that simply did not exist. 

“Haven’t you ever thought of it?” he said. “In all the places you’ve been, you’ve never once thought about bringing home a girl and starting a family?”

“That’s not why I travel.”  

Tom shook his head. His smile was on the verge of hardening into a smirk.

“What do you do when you’re out there all by yourself?”

“In Costa Rica,” I said, “I’m going to be surfing.”

“How much time do you need to surf?”  

“They have a really tight schedule,” I said, hoping that Tom would not remember all the times I boasted about traveling without an itinerary. “Everything’s planned out,” I assured him. “Morning, noon and night.”

“Those nights must get lonely.”

“They can.”

“We don't deserve to be lonely.”  

“Probably not.” 

“I just wish it weren’t so expensive,” Tom said. “Maybe we can work something out for the next time. Have you ever been to the Philippines?”

I signaled to the bartender for the tab. 

“What makes you think it’s such a good idea to marry a beautiful girl from a poor country?” I said.

I expected Tom to be taken aback by the bluntness of my question but instead he looked at me as though he had been struck by the kind of vision that saints were seeking in the desert, a glimpse of the soft framework of eternity emerging from barren fields.  

“You’ve got to believe in something,” he said.

Tom came to my apartment the Friday after I got home from Costa Rica, showing up at six for my guitar lesson. We had been practicing together ever since I moved into the building and responded to the flyer he had posted in the lobby. During those two years, Tom had become my ideal audience, the one person consistently amazed by my ability to navigate streets with foreign names. He was a prime enabler of my travel habit, an addiction funded by an inheritance from my grandmother.

As Tom set up his amplifier, I described my unsuccessful attempts to master the art of hanging ten. I told him how I was possibly the worst student in the history of surfing, constantly falling off my board and crashing into the rocks. Although Tom listened patiently, I could see that something else was on his mind. He kept fidgeting with his guitar. Even as I mimicked how my instructor groaned after each wipeout, Tom was still adjusting the tuning of his guitar.

“What happens when you land?” he finally asked as he sat on the couch. “What do you do when you get off the plane?”

I went to get my Fender acoustic out of the closet and then sat down in the easy chair on the other side of the room. 

“You mean passport control?”  

“Who picks you up if you don't know anyone?” Tom said. “I wouldn’t want to get ripped off.” 

“Everyone gets ripped off a little.”

Tom leaned towards me. I could tell by the way he was smiling, I wouldn’t want to hear what he had to say.  

“I’m planning a little trip,” he said. “Can you help me set it up?”

“You might be better off with a travel agent.”

“Do you know how much those guys charge?” Tom said. “Besides, I’d rather do this with a friend.”  

When I didn’t answer right away, Tom reached for the laptop on my coffee table and began typing.

“I found this great site for guys like you and me,” he said. “You can’t imagine how many girls there are in the Philippines looking for husbands.”

Tom turned the computer around for me to see. A dusky woman, presumably from within shouting distance of Manila, was smiling back. She had white teeth, almond eyes and long black hair that shimmered against a blue backdrop. The caption indicated she was a client of International Relationships Unlimited, a limited liability company.

“Does this look even remotely legitimate?” I said.

“What’s not legitimate? These are nice girls who want to come to America.”

“Why don't you just do OK Cupid?” 

I knew this wouldn’t be a winning line of argument. The last time Tom tried online dating there were fifty messages sent, zero responses received and, after a bit of haggling, a complete refund.    

“American girls aren’t for me,” Tom said. “They just want rich guys with a fancy cars.”

“And what are your internet brides looking for?”

“These are nice Christian girls,” Tom said. “They read the bible.”

Tom waved me over to the couch so we could look at the website together. As I sank into the cushion, the screen filled up with pictures of smiling foreigners, each girl no older than twenty. Tom clicked the picture in the top left corner, a dark haired beauty with a chiseled nose and bee stung lips. The paragraph on the bottom of the screen informed us that her name was Maya. According to her profile, Maya lived in Cebu, loved cooking and aspired to be a good wife.

“Above all, love each other deeply,” Tom said, reading from the passage that she had selected from the New Testament. “Love covers over a multitude of sins.”

“How long do you think it takes to find a quote from the Bible?” I said. “Give me a break, Tom. You can do better than this.”

“Maybe this is as good as it gets,” Tom said. “You just have to believe.”

“Believe in what?”

Tom gestured at the samurai sword glistening on the wall behind my TV, a steel blade suspended above a silk tapestry. Two sets of Maori masks were hung on either side, wooden carvings of angry gods flashing their tongues through ravenous teeth.  

“Don’t tell me these are the only trophies you’ve been hunting for,” Tom said.

“You’re not going to find what you want,” I told him. “Not this way.”

“At least I’ve got hope.”   

“Isn’t Hope a girl at a strip club?”  

Tom reached for his guitar and began strumming the chords to a Pearl Jam ballad we had been practicing, intoning the lyrics about a stillborn love affair. The way the laptop was angled, Tom was serenading a snapshot of Maya resting in the shade of a palm tree. I turned the computer towards me and hit the back button on the browser. The main page for International Relationships Unlimited came back onto the screen and the faces of a dozen more aspiring brides were waiting for my consideration, each one supported by a quote from Judges or Mathew 22.

I begged off my guitar lessons for the next several weeks, ostensibly so I could work on the travel pieces I was hoping to compile into a book. Although I really did have a manuscript in mind—one of those self-deprecating accounts of all my failed adventures across the globe—I mainly wanted to avoid Tom. 

Of course, I couldn’t escape him completely. He called several times to discuss his progress at attempting to establish an international relationship. Tom would provide updates about how well he was clicking with a receptionist from Manila named Rita. They were apparently emailing each other every night, confessing their loneliness and sharing their favorite bible passages. 

Tom finally spotted me on a Sunday morning. I was reading a newspaper while waiting for breakfast at a diner. He had just finished eating and walked to my booth. His shirt was pressed, his hair was groomed and he seemed to have lost a little weight. He wrapped his knuckles on the edge of my table and glanced at the empty seat. I folded up my paper and motioned for him to join me.

“It’s the travel writer himself,” Tom said as he got seated. “Where’s the next big trip? Africa?”

“Close,” I said. “Thailand.”

The busboy brought Tom a glass of water.

“Let me ask you a question,” he said. “Could help me find a room in Manila?”

“You’re not serious.”

“I’ve got vacation time coming and I’m finally going to use it.” 

Tom leaned across the table to hand me his phone. The waitress brought my food as I began to scroll through the album titled, naturally, From Rita with Love. Each of the photographs featured her in a different tableau. There was Rita at the beach, laughing as the wind blew back her hair. There was Rita at the swimming pool, showing off her demure one-piece bathing suit. And there was Rita in bed, posing in front of a wooden cross hanging from the wall.  

“How old is she?” I asked.

“Just turned 22.”

“And when do you turn 40?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Tom said. “She just wants a man with a good heart.”

“You mean she wants someone with a cardiologist’s income.”

“I spoke with her last night for nearly two hours,” Tom said. “You wouldn’t believe how much that cost, but it was worth it.”

I buttered my bagel while Tom spoke. He rambled on about how Rita wanted to meet the same kind of decent, respectful partner that he did. He talked about her love of the ocean and her deep reverence for scripture. Above all, he told me how he wanted to finally get away from the computer and onto the streets of Manila so he could be with Rita in person. 

“Can you show me how to book a room?” Tom said. “I want to set this up for next month.”

I stirred my coffee. It would have been easy to just get it over with. A few clicks on Expedia and Tom would have been set. He was so new to this, so lacking in standards, that he would have been delighted with any room I found for him, any cubicle with a clean bed and air conditioning. 

I could have left him to his fate and gotten on with my manuscript. I probably could have even stalled his plans, found some pricey accommodations that would have convinced him that Manila was not Cupid’s outpost on the South China Sea. But even that strategy entailed the risk that Tom would get more comfortable with the process of scouting for lodging. I didn’t want to help him find the deal that would fit his budget. 

“I don’t think I should get involved in this,” I said.

“So it’s alright for you to go to Thailand but it’s not alright for me to go to Manila?”

Tom stared at me with pleading but pungent eyes, his face flush with wounded innocence. 

“What exactly do you think I do when I go away?” I said.

Tom squinted at me as he got up from the booth.

“I guess it’s none of my business.”

Tom emailed me later that day to see if I was upset with him. My reply was succinct. I wrote that, in fact, I didn’t know whether to be pleased or pissed-off that he had me pegged as a sex tourist, hooking up with bar girls from one beach town to the next. Unfortunately, I added, my own itinerary was a bit more pedestrian—temple hopping in Bangkok and then trekking through the forests near Chiang Mai. I closed by saying that although I personally was too proud to pay for a woman, I wished him the best of luck in finding the best bride that money could buy.

Tom got the hint and left me alone for the rest of the month.    The next time I saw him, he was jogging across the parking lot of an office supply store. I had just walked through the sliding doors, carrying two bags of paper and ink. When he called out to me, I put the bags down and leaned against a row of shopping carts. Tom sprinted towards the entrance in a blue sweat suit. At least I knew how he was losing weight. He bent down to tie the laces of his sneakers and stuttered his way through a litany of small talk.  

“I’m off to the Philippines next week,” Tom said. “Turns out I was able to get a room through the International Relationships Unlimited website. Not a bad price either.”

“Sounds like you’ve got everything worked out,” I said.

Tom stood up and then shifted his weight from one foot to another.  

“Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry about what happened at the diner. I guess I shouldn’t make assumptions.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Good luck with your trip.”

I was hoping that this would be a cue for Tom to share one final pleasantry, but he didn’t say a word. He stood in place, biting on his lower lip as he stared at the asphalt.

“Is everything okay?” I finally said.

“I’m actually a little worried about Rita’s mother,” Tom said. “She’s not doing well.”

I should have just offered my sympathies and moved along. There was no reason to listen anymore, let alone care. I felt like an actor in a B-movie, disenchanted but still obligated to play out my role to the end.  

The story of Rita’s mother was pure, predictable hackwork. All the essential elements were there: the moaning in the night, the long journey to the hospital and, finally, the recommendation for an operation, an urgent one that could not be put off for very long.

“That must cost a lot of money,” I said.

“Rita didn’t ask for one penny,” Tom insisted. “But, still, I’ve been thinking about it.”

“I know you have.”

“What’s the point of having money in the bank if you can’t help someone?”

“There is no point,” I said. “And you’re not going to find one.”

Tom glanced at the sliding glass doors of the store. He looked like he had been abandoned, stranded at the international departures terminal without a boarding pass.

“I guess I’ll have to figure out what to do when I get there,” he said.

Tom called me that night in a panic. He left a message that he desperately needed my help. Against my better instincts, I called him back and Tom told me how his uncle, who had agreed to take him to the airport, had to loan his car to a niece at an upstate university. Tom started to run down the options. He speculated about the assistant manager at his repair shop and a trainer at his gym before I cut him off and said that I wouldn’t be able to take him. 

I told him that I was seeing my travel doctor that morning to get myself squared away before my own trip. After several seconds of silence, I suggested that Tom give Uber a try and when that didn’t get him off the phone, I offered the number of a reliable car service and wished him a safe flight. 

Tom called me nine more times that week, but I never answered. There was nothing more to say. The voice mails were a jumble of monologues, the topics ranging from how much he should pack to when he should broach the subject of the mother’s hospital bills. The final message was a more cryptic rumination on what he should do about some unspoken problem with Rita’s sixteen-year-old sister. On Sunday night I could swear I heard him tapping on my door, pale fingers making a noise so soft it sounded like a prayer. 

Tom was waiting outside the apartment building on Monday morning, staring at his wristwatch. He was dressed like a man prepared for either a business trip or a funeral: tailored black suit, pressed white shirt, thin black tie, polished shoes. When he noticed me coming out the door, Tom looked at me with that familiar abject expression, the smile of a penitent aspiring to be a pilgrim.

“Coming to see me off?” he said.

I reached for my car keys and reminded him about the doctor.

“Can’t go anywhere without those malaria pills,” Tom said.

“What time is your flight?”  

“I have a few hours,” he said. “I just don’t like depending on strangers.”

I told him that everything would be alright and went to shake his hand. Tom looked like he wanted to hide behind the fabric of those freshly starched lapels. 

“Something strange happened last night,” he said. 

“Oh yeah?”

“I called to see how Rita’s mother was doing.”

Tom checked his watch again and then told me how Rita’s sister had picked up the phone. The teenager was dumbfounded when he asked about the mother’s condition. She had no idea what Tom was talking about. The sister said that her mother was relaxing in the next room, watching her soaps the way she always did. Before Tom could inquire further, there was a bout of screaming on the other side of the line. Finally, Rita got on the phone. In her sweetest voice, she explained that her sister didn’t know anything about the mother’s health problems. The family had been keeping it secret so the sister wouldn’t worry.

“It’s kind of confusing,” Tom said.

“Confusing?”

“I mean, I guess I can understand it. No need to get the poor kid upset, right?”

A sedan pulled up in front of the building. The driver rolled down his window to confirm that this was the airport pickup. Tom wheeled one of his bags to the curb and the driver popped the trunk.

“Don’t you see what’s happening?” I said.

“Everyone’s just a little tense because of the operation.”

“And you believe all this.”

Tom lifted the suitcase and lowered it into the trunk.

“What choice do I have?” he said. “This is all I’ve got.”

He walked back to the curb to pick up the other piece of luggage.

“I’m sorry,” Tom said. “I’m not like you.”

I had spent the better part of our time together trying to make Tom come to this conclusion. But now that I heard the words come from his mouth, all I could think of was how I had set him up. Because I kept my distance, I had left Tom with nothing but his own fabulous speculations about what filled that vast dark gulf between continents between his life and my own. By playing at a stance of moral squeamishness, I had insinuated myself in the awful initiation that awaited Tom on the other side of the Pacific.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” I said. “I let you down.”

Tom lowered his bag into the trunk and looked at me.

“Remember when you asked about me those trophies on my wall?” I said. “The way you said that I was hunting for something more?”

“Yeah.”  

“Those trophies are all I’ve got, Tom.” 

Tom slammed the trunk shut.

“When you’re on the other side of the world,” I said, “it’s easy to forget who you are. You feel like you’ve become a different person, an ideal version of yourself. But you have to come home sometime and that’s when you see that nothing’s changed. You’re the same person you always were, except now there are some new souvenirs hanging from the wall.”

Tom brushed back his floppy bangs.

“So what are you trying to say to me?” 

“I’m probably just as lonely as you are,” I said.

I could have used stuck or trapped or even pathetic to better convey my awareness of both of our situations but lonely worked well enough. I thought of the word as a gift, a promise for both of us—the kind of promise that travel once held for me, the hope that somewhere, in some godforsaken village barely discernible on the map, you would find that wandering stranger who needed company as much as you did. Not someone to marry or even fuck. Just a person to remind you that you weren’t the only one searching for something better, something different.

“I wish you had told me this sooner,” Tom said. “Can’t we talk about this when I get back?”

“I don’t think you should get on that plane.”

“But I have to,” Tom said. “I bought a nonrefundable ticket.”

The horn honked and the driver leaned out the window to warn about traffic on the expressway. Tom hurried toward the back door. He slid into the seat and checked to make sure he still had his passport in his pocket. 

“I wish you could’ve come with me,” Tom said. “Even if things didn’t work out with Rita, I bet we would’ve met a couple of nice Christian girls.”

I shook my head as Tom closed the door. He leaned forward to ask the driver a question and then fastened his seat belt. Tom looked through the window and waved at me as the car pulled away, and I waved back. There was nothing more I could do. Tom was going to be a traveler now and it was time for me to stop acting like an authority. I was nothing more than a fellow supplicant, wandering the Earth in search of some stray moment that felt like a blessing.

“You’re right,” I said as the car made a turn at the first light. “I bet we could have.”

Craig Fishbane is the author of the short fiction collection On the Proper Role of Desire. His work has also appeared in the New York Quarterly, The Fabulist, Hobart, The MacGuffin, Lunch Ticket, New World Writing, Fiction Kitchen Berlin and The Nervous Breakdown.