by Wendy Dale
As the months ticked by and I felt myself getting stronger and happier, even the pain that Francisco had caused me began to subside. I recalled him from time to time but no longer wished to have him physically present. In person, he was capable of weighing down my life, but I was the one in control of my memories. I could play them again in my head, picking out the details that I felt like remembering, rolling out the story the way I saw fit. In time, I suspected that I would be able to focus on what I had gained from him instead of dwelling on what he had taken.
I also knew that at some point, I would have to be heading back to Los Angeles. I had put off my return for nearly a year. The thought of starting over again—sleeping on a friend’s floor for a time, getting a temporary job—these things weren’t appealing, but after all that I had been through, they were really just minor inconveniences. I had tackled prisons and guerrilla war. I had become fearless.
Besides, I knew I could always call up my parents if things got too bad. For so many years, I had had nowhere to turn during the tough times. Although I still didn’t know what country my parents would wind up in, I now knew that help would always be just one overseas plane ticket away. My parents had never provided me with a stable home, but now I realized they had given me something better: the ability to make any place in the world my home.
Besides, my folks had their problems too. Their money situation was beginning to get precarious and they were thinking of heading back to the United States in the next few months, in the hopes of starting over again in middle age. My dad who had decades of experience as a well-paid mining engineer knew exactly what kind of job to get: He wanted to become a chef. My mother (who had never had a job and thought that working sounded like a fun, novel way to spend forty hours a week) began mulling over exactly what she was qualified for. The week following Christmas, since all of her children were in Bolivia for the holidays, she came to my sisters and me for advice.
“I’ll do anything as long as I don’t have to wear panty hose,” she informed us, asking us to look over a list of potential jobs that she had come up with.
Heather, Catherine, and I handed back a significantly shortened list, but my mother refused to get discouraged. Two days later, she came up with another idea. Inspired by an action adventure movie on cable in which Jean Claude Van Damme single-handedly defeats a dozen well-armed trained mercenaries, Mom came rushing into the kitchen to inform us of the message that Hollywood was sending. “I finally understand what pays well in America,” she informed us. “I need to find a job that’s in high demand and requires specialized skills.”
My mother was set on the idea of becoming a CIA agent— especially as it seemed that Jean Claude Van Damme was never required to wear tights.
My sisters and I knew that secrets stuck around our house about as long as my mother’s lemon squares, and we began to think about the fate of our nation depending on Cathie Dale. I could just imagine the day when Rich would stroll into the room and announce, “Mom said not to tell anyone, but we’re going to war.”
But my mother seemed pretty happy about the idea. She gleefully walked around the house practicing strange accents, fitting herself for trench coats, and trying to solve the mystery of why all of the vegetables in our house were turning into decorative rosebud shapes and where the balsamic vinegar and goat cheese had come from. My father, meanwhile, had narrowed his culinary school choices down to two academies.
My sisters and I watched the spectacle with detached interest, at times cracking up at the unique family we were all a part of.
“And you, Wend, what are you going to do?” Catherine asked.
The details for me were still kind of fuzzy. What exactly was I going to do? How would I start over again? It was the kind of situation that would have driven me crazy three years earlier, but I had been in Latin America long enough to let a little bit of wisdom seep in. There was a saying around here: “There are only two types of problems, those you can do something about and those you can’t. If you can do something about your problem, why worry about it? And if you can’t do something about your problem, why worry about it?”
In Latin America there were so many things that were out of your control. The check you were expecting might arrive or the bank could go bankrupt, wiping out your life savings in an hour.The bus you were expecting might come in an hour, or it might not come at all—which meant that you could stand in line freaking out, checking your watch, and asking everyone where the bus was, or you could set your bags down and start up an impromptu party with the people around you. Either way, the bus was either going to come or it wouldn’t. There was nothing worrying would do to make it come any faster.
This attitude was the only way to survive Latin America and it had taken a lot of time to make it finally sink in. After all, I had been trained from birth that everything was within my control. I had to be accountable, be responsible, make things happen. But now I understood that responsibility was only part of the equation—life was the process of finding the delicate balance between responsibility and spontaneity, adulthood and innocence, duty and joy.
In the United States, we placed so much stock in responsibility, because we held on to an illusory notion that we were completely in control of our lives. Any bad event was an aberration, an act that needed to be remedied. We believed in order: The movie was supposed to start on time, the ATM machine was expected to work, the mechanic would never be out to lunch when we needed a repair. Bad things weren’t supposed to happen, but when they did, someone had to be punished. If I slipped in a restaurant, it was the owner’s fault. If I got in a car accident, someone was always to blame. In the United States, there was an incessant need to control a world it was often impossible to control. Because the truth was, sometimes the plate simply slipped out of your hands.
I wanted to explain this to my sisters but I didn’t know where to start. How did I condense the past three years of my life into a simple response? So I just shrugged my shoulders and said I didn’t know what my plans were. I had no idea what would come next.
My sisters seemed to understand. After all, they had been raised by the same two crazy parents. Heather nodded sympathetically and insightfully commented, “You know, for our lives to get any weirder, we’d have to start hanging out with circus people.”
I laughed and said, “The bearded lady—I just bet she’s waiting for us outside.”
1 I never did learn why Catherine’s friend moved out of her parents’ so young—but I suspect that it was not because her folks were moving to the Third World in order to save on household expenses.
2 Strangely enough, this actually happens in most of Latin America—for some reason, people always sing “Happy Birthday” in English (granted, it comes out sounding like “Hoppy Burtday”).
3 For the record, it wasn’t actually Reagan but rather Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North who conducted the transaction with the Iranians. Based on circumstantial evidence, it’s likely that Reagan was aware of the proceedings but there has been no conclusive proof.
4 Flirting is currently unnecessary for anyone wishing to visit Beirut. A year after I made my trip there, the State Department removed Lebanon from its list of nations that Americans are prohibited from visiting.
5 The Druze are a religious group whose teachings are so secret that only an elite group of Druze is let in on them.
6 Israeli forces withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000, ending twenty-two years of occupation.
7 Wink Martindale was the most famous game show host of my childhood, whose list of credits includes Tic Tac Dough and Joker’s Wild.
8 This belief was so firmly entrenched that it would be two years before I encountered Lena, the only Latina woman I’ve ever met who had actually accomplished it. She was a bold, independent, and bright Bolivian capable of earning a living on her own who still struggled with the guilt laden upon her by her family for having left home at age twenty-five. She was also lots of fun and remains one of my favorite
people to this day.
9 Lisa doesn’t smoke pot anymore. Now she makes art with the corpses of dead animals. However, she’s thinking of moving on to another medium now that “that dead thing has gotten so trendy.”
10 In the event that you are reading this book sober, the thought may have occurred to you that most people in Colombia speak Spanish and therefore the cold knob should have an “F” for frio. But, of course, that would be logical and I remind you that this is South America.
11 A coyote is a guide, generally Mexican, hired by Latin Americans to help them sneak across the border into the United States.
About the Author
For a person who has spent most of her life trying to avoid working, Wendy Dale has held an impressive number of jobs. She’s been a corporate writer, a public relations consultant, a speechwriter, a desktop publisher, an ad copywriter, a screenwriter, and there was even a brief stint as a celebrity journalist. Among her many accomplishments: the television special she co-scripted, The New Adventures of Mother Goose, was nominated for an Emmy. She lives in Los Angeles with a pet cockatiel, a guy she picked up in Bolivia, and a massive caffeine habit. This is her first book.
Copyright © 2003 by Wendy Dale
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Three Rivers Press, New York, New York
Member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
www.randomhouse.com
THREE RIVERS PRESS and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dale, Wendy.
Avoiding prison and other noble vacation goals : adventures in love and danger /
Wendy Dale.—1st ed.
1. Dale, Wendy—Journeys. 2. Voyages and travels. I. Title.
G465 .D347 2003
910.4—dc 21 2003002164
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-41981-1
v3.0
