They All Fall Down

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  The world didn’t know what was coming, what to expect from Miriam Macy.

  Like the two Mexicans working behind the desk at Molinero Ocean Charter Services. They didn’t know what to expect, either. The older man with slicked-back hair and the skinny college-age kid with skinny arms inked up to his knobby shoulders were studying a piece of paper. Both wore name tags—“Raul” was the older man, and “Andreas” was the kid, and both assumed that I didn’t speak a lick of Spanish.

  They didn’t know that I’d taken two years of required public school Spanish. Yeah. Hablo un poquito de español. Enough español to figure out that they had just said something about three Americans, that something-something was “dead,” and something about cocaine and narcos. Couldn’t hear much more than that, not over accordion music now blasting from speakers mounted beneath a taxidermied blue marlin. Didn’t bother me, that loud music—I was still riding the diazepam wave.

  The waiting area smelled of fresh-brewed coffee, seaweed, and the sour body odor of sweaty hombres who hadn’t bathed in days. And two of those sweaty hombres wore bulletproof vests with POLICIA stenciled in white letters. They roamed the dusty sidewalk holding the laziest-looking Uzis in the world. One slowed in his step, tossed me a glance, then looked away … and then at me again. Classic double take.

  Had he been stunned by my beauty, or…?

  Shit.

  My mouth dried and the smile I’d prepared for him froze on my face as I thought of the other possibility. The possibility that Detective Hurley had somehow found a way to reach me all the way in Mexico. The possibility that he had asked the Mexican policía for their help in detaining me.

  I shook my head. No. Impossible. Silly, even. Last night, I’d done nothing wrong. Technically. There’d be no reason to spend resources and time to find me and drag me back to America. Let me finish the game at least—that was my prayer.

  With weaker legs, I wandered back to the check-in counter. Tried to look natural as I looked back over my shoulder at the policía.

  “Estoy leyendo este derecho?” the older man asked the kid.

  Am I reading this right?

  The kid ruffled his sun-bleached brown hair. “La Serenata took the food and provisions yesterday,” he said in English. “Didn’t seem like enough for that many people.”

  I assumed they were talking about the competition—there wouldn’t be a lot of food since folks would be voted out of the house. So I cleared my throat and said, “Un momento, por favor.”

  Both men swiveled toward me. A .45 lived in a holster strapped around the older man’s hip. “Sí, how can I help you?”

  “Soy el primero aquí?” Am I the first one here?

  “You’re sailing over to Mictlan?” Andreas asked.

  I glanced back at the cops—could they hear this conversation? I glanced at the rotting ceiling tiles in search of hidden cameras—was I breaking a rule by answering his question?

  “Mictlan, sí?” Andreas asked again. His eyes also flicked over to the officers.

  A nervous smile found its way to my lips. “If that’s where Artemis is, then sí.”

  Raul blinked at me, then glanced at the paper in his hand.

  “A few others are around town, shopping,” the kid said. “You can relax for now.”

  I flapped my hands at my face. “Relax? It’s hot as hell out here, not that I’m complaining.” I chuckled. “Ha. Yes, I am complaining. It’s hot as hell out here.”

  The two men stared at me and said nothing.

  I chuckled again—my attempted wit had failed on two men who didn’t speak English … well. Or … good? Whatever. I shrugged and smiled. “Could you tell me who the other guests are?” Since I was already breaking the rules.

  The kid plucked the paper from the older man’s hand. “There’s Wallace Zavarnella; Eddie Sweeney; Desirée Scoggins; Evelyn Pemstein, R.N.; Franklin Clayton; Javier Cardoza; and … you are Miriam?”

  My stomach hardened—no use in lying, so I grinned and said, “Miriam since 1970.”

  The old man darkened, muttered in Spanish, then snatched back the manifest.

  I leaned forward on the counter. “I heard you two talking earlier, about three dead Americans?”

  The kid grinned and his gold molar twinkled. “I hear it was drug-related. That Felix Escorpion was responsible even though he’s in jail. Do you hear of him?”

  “Oh, sí, sí, of course.” Heck, yeah, I’d heard of Felix Escorpion. He was today’s Pablo Escobar, killing thousands while smuggling millions and millions of dollars’ worth of guns, heroin, meth, and cocaine into America. He now sat in a heavily guarded jail cell in Fort Worth, Texas.

  “I hear that he had a room in the big house with hungry dogs,” Andreas said. “Dogs who were fed the limbs and intestines of his enemies. I hear that he had marijuana plants and opium poppies growing all over the forest, and that there were men carrying AKs hiding in trees, taking out narcos and federales and—”

  “Andreas!” the older man barked. Raul turned to me with a grin that was closer to a grimace. His face was a mixture of glee and gloom, a study in light and shadow. “These were simply rumors, señora.” The older man patted, then squeezed the kid’s shoulder. “All that narcóticos was a long time ago. Before you yanquis came.”

  The kid’s head waggled. “Sí. A very rich man owns the island now. Bought it for nada, then built the new big house. No more narcos, they say. It is truly paradise now.” He nodded and smiled.

  And now, us yanquis were playing silly survival games on that same island. Maybe that’s why there were police wandering the harbor—protecting Americanos from something far heavier, more dangerous than a dance mom who’d gotten into a silly little skirmish back in L.A.

  Yeah, that made more sense.

  I thanked the two men and wandered over to the vinyl chairs beneath the salt-flecked windows. This was not Monterey Bay and Cannery Row with its charming pastel-colored buildings and ordered disorder, and the ghost of John Steinbeck lording over it all. Here in this part of Puerto Peñasco, flies swarmed over fish carcasses left behind by the gulls. The vendors looked as shaggy as the stray dogs sniffing through the trash, and their tables had been crammed to the edges with wooden totems, pottery, and seashell jewelry. Delirious seabirds were the port’s guardians. The peaks of the choppy green sea glinted with light sometimes, and at other times something like red kelp made the water look bloody.

  Vicious dogs. Men with guns. Drug dealers. Danger, danger, dangerous. Dangerous like the Crips in my neighborhood. Dangerous like skinheads wearing Doc Martens.

  I snorted and said, “Cute.” Because I felt no fear—only that hollowness near my heart and my lungs.

  The Valium was working.

  FROM: MorganDancer

  TO: Mimi Macy

  SENT: 1:08 p.m., Friday, July 8

  SUBJECT:

  Mom, did Prudence really hurt you? I asked her today and she said that she came over just to talk to you. I know she’s lying. But I also know that you lie, too. But I can’t blame her. I can’t blame you, either. At least not yet. So, what happened last night? Because Detective Hurley came by this morning, looking for you. He was not happy. But he’s never happy.

  Remember when you asked me what I needed to make things right between us again? I didn’t know then but I know now. You need to go back to therapy with Dr. Gail. You need to take your meds like you’re supposed to. You need to GROW UP and stop comparing yourself and stop comparing me to other people. Stop being so JEALOUS of Ashlee and Daddy. I know it’s weird and a little gross, but they really love each other. She really loves me, too, and she’s going to get me back to ballet.

  I want everything to be like it was. I want my old life back. Because people think I’m bad. I’m not. People think I hated Brooke. I didn’t. I just want to dance again and hang out with my friends and just be 17. But you can’t always get what you want. Daddy says that all the time. We can come close though. You say that all the time. />
  That’s why Ashlee and Daddy are taking me to Disney World next week, just to be a kid!! I’ll think about you during Fantasmic—you always cry during Fantasmic!!

  Mom, I don’t hate you. I shouldn’t have sent that text. I’m sorry.

  I don’t hate you.

  But I don’t like you, either. Not who you are now. You can change, though. I know you can. You are very smart. You are very strong. You just need to focus. Ha-ha, you also used to say that to me all the time about EVERYTHING!!!

  See U in 7 days. Please don’t embarrass me on TV. My life is hard enough.

  Love,

  Mo

  P.S. That was a cute pic u sent Krazy Lady. Can you please bring me a sweatshirt? A purple one if possible.

  P.P.S. I’ll bring you something back from the happiest place in the world.

  P.P.P.S. Slay KWEEN and bring home dat $$$!!!!

  3

  Disney World.

  No one asked me if taking my daughter to the other side of the country was fine. Also? I wasn’t jealous of Ashlee—being jealous meant that I wanted what she had. And I’d had Billy, and he wasn’t that great. He smelled like Novocain, didn’t like Star Wars, sighed more than he laughed, and would never order chicken or use hot sauce in public. He criticized my clothes (too flashy) and lamented that I never cooked quinoa and couscous and sushi (your food is so boring). I needed to exercise more (140 pounds, what a cow) and wear less makeup (no thinking man likes all that war paint).

  William Macy had killed my spirit with his own lack of imagination and his surplus of criticism, even before the Bad Times. Let the dance teacher (Morgan’s dance teacher, of all the women in the world to cheat on me with), let her have him and his tiny … Billy.

  My next act would involve a larger man—in every way. A man who enjoyed hot wings on one night and a dry-aged rib eye the next. A man who ran the trail beside me and realized and accepted that the layer of fat around my belly was neither offensive nor an accessory that I could put on or take off. My next act would involve a man with a lot of commas on his bank statement—because I’d married for love already and it had left me poor and alone.

  For the most part, dating after my divorce had been depressing. Daniel had thought he was funny, so funny that, at fifty, he’d quit his job as an IT senior vice president to pursue a career in stand-up comedy. His three jokes about computers had made me laugh, but the thirteen remaining minutes of his routine … Yeah. No. And Ethan the fireman had scared me. Literally. One date in, he snapped at me after I’d said, “Thank you” to our waiter. “Because you smiled as you said it,” he had explained. “Like you wanna sleep with him or something.” My last two dates had been with Josh, a showrunner for a cable series. He made me laugh, he didn’t kiss with his teeth, and he liked chili cheese fries and porterhouse steaks—and last month, his job had taken him to New York for who knows how long. Distance killed something that could’ve been.

  My next act? Would be with someone like the older white man now wandering the waiting area. He moved with confidence and had the stride of a powerful attorney or a neurosurgeon or a minister. And now, his head of luxurious gray hair was bent over a stand of Mexican pottery.

  Before going over to introduce myself, I checked my reflection in a makeup compact. My layered bob hadn’t moved—but my makeup … Gah!

  The woman at the Estée Lauder counter had promised me that this foundation wouldn’t run, even in the most humid conditions. That was then. This was now, and now, butterscotch soup trickled down my temples and neck, then dripped onto the neck of my silk tunic. Melting, I’m melting, what a world, what a world. It was three hundred degrees with 100 percent humidity in Puerto Peñasco—I’d been here all of twenty minutes and I was already breaking the first rule of competition: letting them see me sweat.

  Couldn’t save the blouse, but I dabbed at my face with a cosmetic sponge. Better. So much better.

  The posh-looking white man didn’t buy any Mexican pottery from the tiny brown vendor. Tchotchke-free, he crossed the lobby with his Louis Vuitton tote bag and matching suitcase (no story needed—it’s an LV) and sat near the door. He looked rich, yes, but he also looked sick. His slate-gray sports coat (He wore this jacket after he won America’s Cup…) looked like he’d borrowed it from a bigger man, and the eggplant-colored shirt (His consumption is conspicuous, he’d have it no other way) bunched at his shrinking waistline. That beautiful silver hair on his head … must’ve been a terribly expensive representation of his original head of hair. His yellow-tinged skin brought out the color of his eyes. Those eyes … they were the same violet hue as Elizabeth Taylor’s, and they now burned into me as I stood before him.

  “Hi,” I said with my hand outstretched. “I’m Miriam Macy.”

  “Ah. Yes. Wallace Zavarnella.” He gazed at my hand, then took a slow inventory: my face, silk slacks, the blouse stained with melted makeup, and my chunky necklace. “Dearest, did Dalí do your makeup? Because it’s very … melting clocks. Just being honest.” He finally took my outstretched hand with his fingers, barely pumped it before he dropped it. He sniffed, then lifted an eyebrow. “Do you smell eggs cooking? I smell eggs. That’s not you, is it?”

  Don’t embarrass me on TV.

  Anger flared in my gut and my grip tightened around my suitcase handle. So much for that cool jazz Valium high. So much for sharing a glass of wine with this man, and a kiss or two on a balcony overlooking the Sea of Cortez.

  “I don’t smell anything,” I said, sweetly. “And yes, I know that my face is dripping—thank you for sharing that with all of North America. Anyway, I’m sailing to Mictlan Island, too.”

  “Wonderful. Glad you could make it.” He took out an iPad from his tote, then glanced at his Patek Philippe titanium timepiece (Billy had a Patek Philippe and refused to call it a “watch”). He didn’t move his tote from the only available seat.

  “Have you seen the others?” I asked. “I hear there are seven of us going over right now.”

  Wallace grimaced and swatted at a fat horsefly buzzing near his hair. Old scars, pearly and faint, zigzagged across the life line and the meaty part of his right hand. “I’ve seen a few here and there, and between me and you and the flies? They look like they all belong on the short bus. But then, we’ll be joining them, which means that we also belong…” He gasped, then chuckled.

  The device on his lap chimed. “There she is, finally.” He swiped at the iPad’s screen. “Miriam, I need to finish with last-minute arrangements. Reaching the island will take a few hours—forty miles of ocean. There’s no reliable Wi-Fi over there, so could you please excuse me? We’ll have hours to get to know each other, to talk each other’s heads off over old fashioneds and share stories of the good ol’ days back when Times Square was nothing but sex shops and drug dens and whatnot. It’ll be a blast. Promise. Thanks. You’re a doll.” And then, he crossed his legs and shifted away from me.

  I had been dismissed.

  Wow. Okay. So much for him being a part of my next act. So much for esprit de corps and camaraderie. Fortunately, after some skillful editing of this episode, Wallace Zavarnella would come off as The Bitch.

  Chin high, I returned to my spot near the registration desk as heat and humidity, and the stink of old fish and dirty men, crushed me from all sides.

  Over near los baños, a muscular, middle-aged white guy wearing vintage khaki cargo shorts and a vintage Red Sox baseball cap (Dad tossed it high in ’67 after the Sox won the pennant…) rummaged through each of his big black bags. He was a cop or a fireman, I knew that for sure. Random Red Sox like him had ticketed me for speeding or jaywalking, and a whole posse of Red Sox had investigated me for … that.

  Nope. Move forward. Positive thoughts. I am the underdog.

  I took several deep breaths, then forced a smile.

  That’s when I spotted my real competition: a twenty-something-year-old brunette dressed in a blue stretch knit dress (Billie Holiday smiled at you from the stage and asked, �
�Where did you get that dress?”…) and a shades-of-blue scarf (When you waved good-bye to him at the port that day, you didn’t know that you’d never see him again). She plopped down in the seat next to Wallace Zavarnella—he had moved his tote bag for her. She wore perfume—I could smell it way over here. Smelled like cherry Laffy Taffy mixed with Johnson’s baby powder.

  “I’m Desirée Scoggins,” she said to Wallace in a super-sweet, twangy voice as sickening as her scent. “But you can call me Desi.”

  She’d only said her name, but I already hated her. The scarf around her neck, though, was gorgeous—it would go great with the yellow pantsuit now packed in my suitcase.

  Desirée Scoggins glanced over at me and smiled. Pale skin. Lips too big for her face. Tiny eyes set close together. Almost double chin. Not pretty, not really. But America would root for Desirée Scoggins. They’d call her “America’s Sweetheart” or “America’s Darling,” anything with “America” in it. And she was still smiling at me.

  So I tossed a smile back, then mouthed, “Hi.”

  Ugh.

  At the end of the day, I didn’t come to make friends and swear that I’d be buddies with these people after the show wrapped. Nor had I come to play the stereotypical Angry Black Woman. Because I wasn’t angry. I was just over it. Even before reaching Mictlan Island and eating grubs as big as my head and standing on one foot atop a pole and competing in—and winning—other ridiculous challenges, I was already over it. Still, I’d smiled at Desirée Scoggins and had mouthed, “Hi,” and thrown in a wave because I’d made a promise to my daughter.

  Don’t embarrass me on TV.

  I wouldn’t give America one reason to root against me. Nope. I came here to win.

  FROM: Ashlee Macy

  TO: Mimi Macy

  SENT: 1:42 p.m., Friday, July 8

  SUBJECT:

  Miriam, I know you’re in Mexico right now, preparing for some bizarre challenge with fire ants or quicksand, but I needed to email you. I don’t KNOW what you are up to BUT DON’T EVEN TRY IT!! Just STOP!! I’ve been SO patient with you and I GET IT. You and Bill were married for almost 20 years and you have a child together. Bravo. That’s something special. No sarcasm.