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The tires of Rebeca’s car squelch as she turns onto the wet pavement of a gas station parking lot. She shoots a smile at me in the passenger’s seat before cutting the engine, curtailing the animated Spanish that had peppered our ride. For a moment we sit in silence; two women listening to the sounds of the highway in the pre-dawn twilight. An old truck wheezes by, its driver indifferent to the crackling protests of his stereo system struggling to play bachata at full volume. I wonder if Rebeca also finds our situation strange, but perhaps this isn’t the first time she has brought home a stranger from the airport. “Chica, vamos a desayunar.” Breakfast. At a gas station? More bachata music pulses out of the restaurant speakers - its fevered rhythm oblivious to the early morning hour- and settles into pockets of air not already filled by molecules of humidity, kitchen grease, or sweat. A boisterous eruption of laughter from a nearby table competes with the clinking of glasses as toasts are made in commiseration or celebration of a night well-spent. Around the room, vociferous storytelling is punctuated with emphatic slaps of hands against tables or across the backs of friends. The only reminder that this is indeed a gas-station restaurant and not a nightclub comes from the faint blasts of car horn that drift in from the highway outside. I rattle off my order to an impatient waiter – traditional mangú, ordered at Rebeca’s insistence- sit back, and marinate in the boozy chaos. “´¡Chica! ¿A dónde vas después de República Dominicana?” Where to after the Dominican Republic? I smile wide: “Colombia.” Underneath our table my toes seek out the reliable undercurrent of bachata, happily tapping along to the syncopated beat - PUM pum PUM pum, PUM pum PUM pum. The revelry has infected me like a contagion and despite that it’s not yet dawn and I don’t know where I am, I’m giddy. The kitchen doors swing open in an exhaling huff of thick air and a platter of traditional Dominican breakfast clatters onto the table before me. The fabled mangú: stick-to-your-ribs hearty, savory with onion, and sharp with vinegar. As I dig in, a new crush of bodies enters the restaurant, bumps into our table, scoots chairs closer together and kisses and shoves and hugs and flirts. Chest hair pokes out from unbuttoned tropical prints, brightly-colored lycra stretches tight to contain cleavage, and everywhere are flashes of gold: peeking out from behind shirt collars, dangling from ears and wrists, sparkling from mouths open in laughter. Painted-on jeans, the tightest dress, the shortest skirt paired with the tallest heels, the biggest hair, jewelry that acts as its own percussion section when you walk into a room- this is the dress code. I contemplate the sleeve of my own bland cable-knit sweater. My outfit has been carefully curated for the purpose of remaining anonymous. Appropriate for everywhere that isn’t here: a place where you are meant to be seen, remembered, coveted. In the course of the hour we have been here the humidity has bequeathed my hair with sentience and the bags under my eyes now carry a physical weight. Never have I looked more haggard, yet felt so electric. Rebeca shakes her head at me in the same motherly way as she had on our flight when I told her of my plan to “just sleep in the airport until the buses start running, supongo”. “Chicaaa…not Colombia! You can’t trust anyone in Colombia!” she reprimands while swatting away my attempts to pay for the meal. I contemplate the last morsel of mangú left on my plate and look into her worried eyes. Rebeca is the only person in the entire world who knows where I am. PUM pum PUM pum, PUM pum PUM pum, my foot taps away. “I think I’ll take my chances.”