My shoulders slump forward as my muscles wilt from the heat. Finally, it’s my turn. I mask a yawn as I greet the dark-skinned man with the green uniform behind the counter. Deep lines mar his forehead. Dark rings under his eyes suggest he either has one hell of a hangover or didn’t sleep well. He asks me where I’m going. I’m moving to San Carlos, I say in Spanish. I realize, too late, that my voice sounds too jubilant and innocent. Like I’m moving into a new dorm room or something. Maybe that’s why the lines on his forehead multiply and now he has a unibrow. I bite my lip nervously, feeling idiotic.
The stamp in his hand pauses inches above my visa paper as he studies me and his lips purse in puzzlement. He’s wearing that same doubtful expression I saw on the faces of everyone I told about this crazy plan of mine. He, like all of them, must think I’m a complete nutcase to be moving down here.
But it’s not too late. I can make a U-turn, go back to the States, and tell everyone this was all a terrible mistake. The thump of the stamp on my visa and passport snaps me back to reality. The man pushes my documents in my direction, offers a faint smile, and tells me to enjoy my life in San Carlos. Gracias, I answer. As I walk back to my car, I tell myself I’m not going back to Tucson. I’m going to give this adventure a fair chance.
Back on the highway, I slam on the brakes when a construction vehicle veers in front of me without warning. When I saw the Entrada y salida de camiones (trucks entering and exiting) sign, I figured the drivers might at least look before veering onto the highway. Geez.
The highway alternates between a divided four-lane highway and a two-lane highway, with intermittent detours (desviaciónes) separating them. Often the orange signs that indicate a lane is disappearing are reversed, so when I think the right lane is ending, it turns out to be the left. The four-lane sections are similar to US highways. But on those narrow stretches where semis barrel toward me and cars make dangerous passes, it’s a nightmare. Beside the road, construction vehicles are digging and pushing earth, raising clouds of reddish-brown dust into the air.
I get trapped behind a slow-moving truck. The road is windy. Suspended dust swirls in the air. The view ahead is too obscured for me to make a safe pass. But that isn’t a deterrent to everyone. Two cars veer around me, overtaking my car and the truck in front of me. One drops in ahead of the truck just before another line of oncoming cars appears. Talk about a near miss. This is insane. I’m never going to make it to San Carlos alive. Maybe I should just follow the truck. At least it will make a good buffer if some idiot on the other side attempts a suicide pass.
I lower the volume on the radio. This is no sing-along drive. It’s more like a plead with God that I won’t die today drive. The kamikaze passing continues. Bulldozers and tractors move earth just inches from the road. A large team of men operate a metal machine the width of two lanes that is spreading concrete to construct what will one day be the other side of the highway.
I drive through the town of Santa Ana. There are people on bicycles. Pedestrians—even whole families with young children—dart across the road. Cars and trucks swerve randomly out onto the highway. Do they even look to see if anyone’s coming? And then there are the damn topes. The way high speed bumps that could bounce the teeth right out of your mouth if you miss seeing them. I brake for another tope. Even rolling over it slowly rattles my brain.
The locals use the slowing traffic as a sales opportunity. A skinny man wearing a shiny green and yellow soccer jersey holds up packages of freshly-made tortillas. A woman wearing a bright red blouse tucked into jeans so tight, she looks like she was poured into them waves bags of grapes toward me. I smile and shake my head. Another man runs up to my car, tapping on the glass to show me what looks like packages of spices. This feels so awkward. I can’t even remain anonymous in my car driving.
I finally reach a stretch of four-lane road that lasts for more than five minutes. I breathe out a sigh of relief and turn up the volume on the radio. It’s a Mexican station, so the songs are all in Spanish. But I’ve always liked Latin music. So much of the music is happy and has a great beat. American music has become so depressing lately. Turning on the radio to hear a whiney-voiced singer belt out, I just want to die doesn’t do much to boost my morale when my boyfriend of eight effing years dumped me.
Melodies blur from one to another as I drive across a barren stretch of desert toward Hermosillo. All at once, a song pulls me out of my trance. The man’s deep, sensual voice makes my speakers and my skin vibrate. What an incredible voice. I feel like I’m being seduced note by note. The rich sound of his baritone voice is so sexy and masculine, it makes my nipples tingle. I hear the words amor and corazón. He’s singing about love.
A visual image of the mysterious singer pops into my mind. I see a tangle of dark hair, large expressive eyes, and thick, full lips. His deep and resonant singing voice suggests he’s large and powerful. Maybe even an athlete. I imagine his biceps flexing as he holds the guitar in his lap while he sings. The mysterious man’s eyes are closed, his brows drawn together as he immerses his senses in the passion and love he’s feeling. A wave of jealousy rolls through me. I suddenly wish that his lyrics of love and longing had been written just for me.
As I tap out the rhythm on the steering wheel, I grasp to catch more of the lyrics. But I barely know Spanish. If I could just remember the lines of the refrain I might be able to search for the song and download it. This romantic Spanish ballad. With jazzy sounding instrumental accompaniment. I wonder what genre they call this kind of music down here. This song moves me in so many ways. I want to listen to it over and over again and imagine that this mysterious man is in love with me. What can it hurt? He’s not real, so having a silly crush on him is totally safe. Maybe the distraction of it and this change of scenery will be what I need to wipe Brandon from my mind for good.
The song ends. The loss of the singer’s comforting voice is jarring. For a few minutes, I had felt as if he were here with me. The hollow emptiness in my chest that’s been there since Brandon dumped me yawns larger than ever before. The end of the song reminds me that I’m completely alone in a strange country. I’ll arrive in San Carlos in a few hours. But there will be no lover waiting to pull me into a tight hug, no group of friends asking me to join them for dinner. It will just be me driving into town alone and checking into a hotel room and having no clue where to go for dinner. In this strange town—like so many nights in Tucson recently—I’ll lie in bed awake under the cold sheets, missing a man who never really loved me.
All I have is a memory of a song and a fantasy about a man I don’t even know to fill the empty void inside my heart. And my new vibrator—the one that got over 500 five- star reviews on Amazon—to meet my physical needs. I’ll get by on solo orgasms and romantic fantasies. I’m not interested in anything more than that. No hookups. No cozy chats. No lingering over breakfast. I won’t lay my heart on the chopping block again. It’s been sliced and diced badly enough already, along with my self-esteem. No más.
I don’t have the kind of looks that stop men in their tracks like my sister. I’m not a best-selling author—I don’t make a six-figure income. But I love what I do and I’m a human being with real feelings. That’s worth something, at least to me. I won’t let another man make me feel like an object that can be used and discarded when I no longer serve a purpose. It’s all well and good to imagine that some man will love me just the way I am. But it’s not reality. I so don’t want to have to lose ten pounds, go back to the engineering job I hated, or wear heels I can’t even walk a straight line in just to please a man. I want to just be me. I want to learn to be satisfied with that regardless of what other people think. Instead of making a choice that works for me—like my recent resignation from my day job to write—and then beating myself up over it for days after someone like Brandon or my sister criticizes me for my decision.
“Dream on, Jade,” I mumble to myself. Will I ever be able to like myself again after what happened with Brandon? I do
n’t know. It’s been thirty-two days since that fateful dinner, but I still feel as wounded and vulnerable as I did the morning after it happened.
Outside my car windows, the sky is a pristine azure, untainted by dust from roadwork. And so dry. I can’t see a single cloud. I drive for miles without seeing a building, only distant, rock-and-earth mountains and acres of farmland. Traffic is light. But the cars on the road are either zooming by me at well over 80 miles per hour or going ridiculously slow—like maybe 55. I have to be alert every second. I try to drive the speed limit—100 kilometers an hour—in case there are policia around. The last thing I need is a ticket or multa. I read on the Mexico Facebook forums that some of the cops ask for bribes instead of writing tickets. They demand a few hundred dollars when the tickets usually are less than 50 dollars. I’m not sure how I’ll handle it if I get pulled over, so it’s better to avoid getting stopped.
A sign ahead says Guaymas, 220 kilometers. Guaymas is the sister city to San Carlos. I must be near Hermosillo. It’s the largest city in the state of Sonora and I have to drive through it to reach my destination. On the city’s outskirts, there are gas stations, manufacturing plants, small shops, and even a fancy resort. Soon the road is clogged with traffic. It’s hard to tell where my lane ends and the next one begins. Apparently, I’m not the only one having that problem, because cars are drifting all over the road without signaling. Horns honk, and I hear the squeal of more than one car slamming on its brakes. Sweat drips down my face. Will I be able to get through this city in one piece?
The traffic lights are strange. They flash green before they turn yellow and then red. At least there’s more time to prepare for the light change. Not that anyone pays much attention to the signals. Often one or more cars run the lights. To say you have to be alert when driving down here is the understatement of the year.
My GPS indicates to make a left turn on the Periférico. Whatever that is. Maybe I’ll be out of this mess soon. Near the intersection where I’m supposed to turn is a cement plant and some ugly, run-down buildings. Several large semis are in the line to turn as well. I drum my fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for the light to change. Two young boys dash up to my car and pour dirty water on the windshield. Waving them away doesn’t work. They wipe and smear until I can barely see out the window.
Despite the disastrous cleaning job, they expect some payment. I power down the window a few inches and hand over some peso coins I got as change from the toll booths. They run toward the next hapless victims in the car behind me. The cars and trucks ahead of me begin moving. There’s no time to deal with my messy windshield. I follow the line of traffic around the corner and drive along a winding road. If I didn’t have my GPS, I’d never know where to go. There are so many turns and stoplights and the lanes are narrow. I start to wonder if I would have been better off driving straight through el centro. At least I wouldn’t be surrounded by all these trucks.
I drive alongside a yellow cement wall, adorned with colorful floral designs, toward an underpass, waiting to make a left turn. The lane I’m in is narrower than ever. A truck pulls up beside me in the adjacent lane. It’s only inches away. I grimace, waiting to hear the screeching sound of it peeling all the paint off the side of my car. By some miracle, I make it around the corner unscathed. I pass an OXXO convenience store, another Pemex gas station, and the substations that supply the city’s electricity. I turn on the wipers to clear away the mucky water from my windshield. I see only mountains and an endless stretch of highway ahead of me. I sigh with relief and wipe the nervous sweat from my brow. Finally, Hermosillo is behind me.
Now there’s hope this drive is going to end soon. Fortunately, there’s a long stretch of four-lane road with wide, cement lanes, plenty of shoulder and light traffic. Ninety minutes later, I take the San Carlos exit, wowed by the dramatic landscape. Jagged mountains of reddish-brown earth and rock are sparsely vegetated with cactus. Many are cone-shaped, like they were ancient volcanoes. The road into town is lined with palm trees. I catch a glimpse of a slice of cerulean blue ocean dotted with islands.
I drive past several tidy brick homes with wrought iron bars over the windows. A white building on a hill appears to be abandoned. I see more empty structures as I drive along. Skeletons of construction projects that were never completed. There are no fancy digital billboards around here. Only old-style signs. There’s a billboard about window coverings, a grocery store, and one encouraging visitors not to litter on the beach. Some flash bright colors and seem new. Others are tattered or are simply a cloth banner wrapped around a metal frame. San Carlos looks like a place that time forgot to take forward with it.
Where the road narrows, I catch my first expansive view of the Sea of Cortez. The brilliant blue-green color contrasts dramatically with the dry brown landscape. I’m overcome by emotion as I slow down to get a better view of this endless oasis. A surge of pleasure bursts through the layer of sadness that’s hung over me for more than a month. I practically squirm in my seat with excitement as I imagine immersing myself in that healing water. It was a good idea after all to come here. Every day I’ll swim. And day by day, those swims will wash away my suffering.
The hotel where I’m staying has no beach—it’s on the marina. But I see lots of beach parking as I drive along. I’ll check in, then grab a few things, and head to the sea. I pull up to the Marina Terra hotel and walk across the marble-floored lobby, once again noticing the heat. Don’t they use air-conditioning in this country? My body feels heavy and exhausted and the dull throb on one side of my forehead telegraphs that a bad headache is about to strike. The front desk attendant greets me. I answer and show him my online reservation. Our voices echo in the high-ceilinged room. After only a few words of bad Spanish, the man begins speaking in clear, crisp English. I let out a sigh of relief.
Within minutes, I’m in my room. I don’t bother to unpack. I slip on a swimsuit, grab a towel, my goggles and cap, and my key card. Minutes later I’m where I want to be. Floating on my back, my body rises and falls with the motion of the salty blue-green waves. My breath slows until it synchronizes with the rhythm of the waves. I feel at one with these waves, which carry away my heavy thoughts, one my one until they are all gone and all that’s left is sheer joy. The skin on my face tingles with elation. I watch pelicans glide over me. Clouds drifting across the sky. Time doesn’t seem important anymore. The salty sea is supporting my body, embracing me. I feel so safe and serene, like I could stay out here forever.
Coming here was the best idea I’ve had in a long time.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jade
There’s a real-estate office located in a strip mall just off the main boulevard. I ask the young woman at the front desk—who appears to be American—if anyone is available to show me properties. She says she will find someone and invites me to take a seat. A few minutes later, a balding man with sun-weathered skin approaches and greets me in English. “I’m Richard,” he says, extending his hand.
We exchange small talk for a few minutes before getting down to business and discussing price range and what I’m looking for. I say I want to live by the sea. He says condos are my only option with the amount I have to spend. I say no problem. I’m not picky. Something simple would fit the lifestyle I want now anyway.
The first condominium complex Richard takes me to is right on the sea. He doesn’t have a spec sheet with him, he says, but he can add me to a Mexican version of an MLS list where I’ll be able to view all the details on this property and others he’s planning to show me.
The white cement block buildings have cracked walls stained by streaks of rust from exposed rebar. We walk up a steep flight of stairs to the second-floor unit. Richard has to jiggle the key to get the door to open. The musty smell makes me sneeze the minute we step inside. The upholstery on the couch and chair is drab brown. The life seems to have been beaten out of the cushions. They’re misshapen and lumpy. The furniture comes with the place, Richard says, his voic
e pitching upward with enthusiasm. And that’s supposed to be a plus? Doubt rushes in again. Can’t I afford to buy something better than this?
I wander slowly around the small, two-bedroom apartment, trying to imagine myself living here. I’d need to live on Sudafed in this place. My sinuses are already congested, and I keep sneezing. I ask about the price. He says he thinks it’s too high. I don’t answer, but I’m thinking that’s the understatement of the year.
“What else can you tell me about this property?” I walk outside on the balcony, waiting for Richard to follow me. The view of the blue-green water is mesmerizing. It looks so inviting, I want to leap off the balcony straight into the water. If I could overlook what’s inside and sleep out on the patio every night, this place wouldn’t be half bad.
“Most of the owners here rent their condos out so it’s likely to be noisy. People coming from Hermosillo and Obregón like to party on the weekends. It’s also vulnerable to hurricanes. The first floor of this complex has flooded more than once.”
The place looks and sounds like a disaster. Why did he even bring me here? “This place isn’t right for me at all. I can afford to pay more than you say this place is likely to be worth. Can you show me anything else?”
“Of course. I wanted to show you a less expensive place first, so you would have something to compare to what we’re going to see next.”
We leave the smelly condo behind and take the stairs to the parking lot. Richard turns toward me before getting into the car. “Now I’m going to take you to another condo complex on the beach called Bahía Delfin. It was built more recently. It’s only ten years old.”
Jade's Song (South of the Border Book 2) Page 2
