by Laura Resau
After a pause, she continues. “I bought him so I could bring him to a wildlife sanctuary.” Another silence.
“And then?” Layla prompts.
Meche’s voice grows quieter still. I crane my head forward to catch her words. “We discovered he—he had a health problem. His kidneys. The vet didn’t think he’d live long.” Her voice trembles. “They didn’t have resources at the sanctuary to care for him. They would have put him down. So I volunteered to nurse him.” Something close to a smile passes across her face. “It’s been ten years and my baby’s still alive.”
It’s this unexpected tenderness that gives me courage to address the other elephant in the room. I swallow hard and keep my voice casual. “I saw you and—Gatito—on a walk last night.”
She stares at me, her bottom lip quivering. Finally, she blinks and says, “I should prepare food for my kitten now. He gets grumpy when he’s hungry.” Abruptly, she turns and disappears into the house. Gatito lies down just outside the door, licking his chops. Our cake sits untouched on this side of the fence.
After a stunned moment, Layla says, “I bet she’s waiting for us to leave before she takes the cake.”
I’m doubtful, but I don’t feel like carrying it all the way back to the cabanas. Not to mention, the cake is the least of my concerns. As we tromp along the fence, Gatito watches us but thankfully stays put.
Once we’re well out of earshot, Joe lets out a low whistle. “I wasn’t expecting her to be so … pretty.” Quickly, he adds, “But not as pretty as you, Layla.”
“I couldn’t get a handle on her,” Layla says thoughtfully. “Usually I get vibes, but she was closed off.” She lets out a breath. “Maybe she’s lonely. She probably just needs time to warm up around new people. Hey, let’s invite her over for dinner! Or a bonfire.”
“What do you think, Z?” Wendell asks under his breath.
My mind is buzzing. “For starters, Meche’s our prime suspect for leaving the dead chicken curse. Second, no matter how much she dotes on this jaguar, he’s not good for our business. And third, the way she kept looking at me was … weird.”
Wendell processes this, running his fingers along the fence. “So what’s our next move?” He shoots an amused look at Layla and Joe, who are already burning incense and scattering herbs. “Besides gushing love and pink things?”
“Well,” I begin, “I don’t believe in witches. Or curses. But I do believe in strange neighbors. In this case, one who doesn’t want anyone interfering with her bizarre pet relationship.”
“She seems to really love him,” Wendell says, grinning. “It’s cute.”
“Now you’re getting all sweet and cuddly too?”
He tosses an arm around my shoulders. “Maybe Kitty’s harmless.” He suppresses a smile. “As long as he gets his five pounds of cow guts a week.”
I cross my arms. “And what happens when our guests run into Gatito? What would they say on the review websites? Paradise … except for the deadly predator that gets grumpy when he’s hungry?”
My heart starts racing just imagining this disaster. Anything further jeopardizing my home in paradise is nothing to joke about. I turn to Wendell. “We have to find out more about Meche. We have to get rid of that jaguar.”
I’ve never been the clingy girlfriend type. I’ve always been comfortable on my own, navigating my way through life. But after this taste of being so close to Wendell, I can hardly remember how my life felt before.
The thought of him starting his internship today stirs up melodramatic feelings. Ridiculous feelings. Feelings I’m embarrassed to have. It’s not like he’ll even be gone nine to five, just for a few hours in the afternoon. But as I walk with Wendell to the Turtle Center to see him off on his first day of work, I admit, I cling to him.
We’re passing the tacky souvenir booths as he tells me his schedule: he’ll be going out on the boat every day with Santy, taking underwater photos and video footage for promotion and exhibits. On an as-needed basis, he’ll guide English- and French-speaking tourists around the aquariums and pools on the grounds. He’s nervous in an endearing way—his hair neatly braided, his blue Turtle Center shirt looking humorously official over his worn swim trunks, his new waterproof camera strapped around his neck.
“You’ll do great,” I assure him. I don’t say a word about this lonely feeling that’s come over me, this black hole of four hours without him looming ahead.
When we reach the gates to the Turtle Center, Wendell waves to the guard and asks for Pepe.
“You get to work with Pepe?” the guard says, instantly warming to us. “Great guy. He’s right over there.” He points to a cluster of informational signs.
I walk right in beside Wendell, thankful that the guard doesn’t mind me tagging along. I’m still not quite ready to say goodbye.
Tourists are crowded around Pepe, laughing appreciatively at a joke. When he catches sight of Wendell, he holds up a finger, then walks over to us. “Zeeta! Wendell!” he says, offering friendly handshakes. “How’s everything up near Punta Cometa?”
Wendell’s forehead wrinkles. “Have the volunteers seen any more poachers on Mermejita?”
“Not one,” Pepe says, patting Wendell on the shoulder.
“Good,” Wendell replies, obviously relieved. “We’ve been staying away from the beach. Don’t want to disturb the nests.”
I know it hasn’t been easy for Wendell to stay off Playa Mermejita, with the turtles so close. But his desire to leave them in peace has won out. So far, at least.
“Great,” Pepe says, and tells us to head over to the boat.
After our goodbyes, we find Santy leaning against his boat, weaving his net by the surf.
“Buenas tardes, Zeeta,” he says cheerily.
I return the greeting, pleased he remembers my name.
“You coming out with us?” he asks.
Of course I want to, but that would push me too far into clingy girlfriend territory. “No,” I force myself to say. “I have work to do at the cabanas.” For a moment, I wallow in silly self-pity, thinking about the four lonely hours ahead of me. Just me and the jaguar, I think ruefully.
“See you in a few,” Wendell says, giving me a peck goodbye. He starts helping Santy drag the boat into the water. I stay on the beach, watching the white boat grow smaller, until it’s a distant pinpoint in the vast ocean.
Feeling oddly empty and thirsty, I decide to swing by Restaurante Tesoro Escondido on the way home. The restaurant is deserted now, at this time between lunch and dinner. El Sapo’s perched on a table, intent on his sketchpad of manga cartoons.
He lights up when he sees me. “Zeeta!”
I order an agua de horchata—blended rice-cinnamon water—and ask him to join me. He pours us both drinks, and as we sip, we talk. I might as well accomplish something this afternoon, I decide. And number one on my list is the jaguar. “Oye, Sapo,” I say. “Have any ideas how we can make Meche get rid of her jaguar?”
“Meche?” He pauses. “Oh, you mean the bruja.” After some thought, he says, “I guess you could call the police, see if she’s violating any laws.” He looks around, moves his head closer to mine. “But to tell the truth, I think the cops are scared of her too. They don’t want her to curse them in retaliation.”
I grin. “Um, honestly? I wasn’t too impressed with the cops here anyway.”
He laughs. “Chucho and Gerardo. They’re goofs. Of course, their salaries are supplemented by bribe money.”
“Really?”
He shrugs. “That’s how small-town life is. We’re used to it.” He glances around and asks with a smile, “So where’s your media naranja?”
“Half-orange?” I ask, confused.
With a laugh, he says, “Wendell!”
Media naranja. Must mean my better half, or something along those lines. Is it that obvious I feel like only half of something without him? “At the Turtle Center,” I say. “His first day of work.”
I tell him about Wend
ell’s internship, how Santy said he has a connection with the turtles.
“Some people do.” El Sapo nods. “And some turtles are special too. Like Gracia. She’s the superhero of turtles around here.”
El Sapo regales me with local turtle tales until a couple sits down at another table. Apologizing, El Sapo excuses himself to attend to them, just as Cristina, carrying an armful of laundry, emerges from a doorway at the back of a small courtyard. This restaurant, I realize, is attached to their family compound—a bunch of cement rooms painted aqua, wrapping around a patch of potted plants, flowers, and palm trees.
She waves to me, then starts hanging up sheets on clotheslines strung between trees.
I take the last sweet sip of agua de horchata, leave a few pesos on the table, and walk over to her. “Can I help you with that?”
“Really?” she asks, amused. “You want to do laundry?”
“Sure,” I say. “To thank you for the drinks during volleyball games.”
“Pues, adelante,” she says with a smile, motioning with her chin to the basket of damp linens. “If only my daughters had your enthusiasm for doing laundry.”
I start pinning up the linens, enjoying our easy conversation as birds chatter and whistle in the trees. The parakeets and parrots are perched outside their cages like bright blossoms, preening themselves on top of the bars.
After a while, Cristina looks around, and asks, “Where’s your boyfriend?”
“Working.” I wonder if I should confide in her. Why not, especially if she’s my aunt? And haven’t I always wanted an aunt? A woman to give me advice … advice that isn’t peppered with Rumi quotes.
My voice softens. “It’s barely been an hour and I miss him. There’s this tight feeling in my chest. Like he might not come back.” Heat rises to my face. This is embarrassing. I shouldn’t have said anything.
But her face holds only sympathy. “You love him. Of course you’re a little worried.”
I breathe out in relief. She understands. “But how can I deal with it?”
She takes a clothespin from her mouth, gestures to the birds. “While I’m out here, I leave their doors open. They always come back. This is their home, where their food is, where they’re loved.”
“Really? They always come back?”
“Pues,” she says, with a devilish grin, “except for when a cat gets them.”
A look of horror must come over my face, because she quickly adds, “But that hardly ever happens!”
I feel myself loosen up and laugh. The ice between us has been broken. She launches into stories about the changes she’s seen in this town—from a sleepy little village of fishers and turtle hunters to a haven for hippie travelers. It’s not hard to work Meche into the conversation—it turns out they went to high school together. Tentatively, I ask Cristina if she has advice on how we can make Meche get rid of the jaguar.
She takes a clothespin from her mouth and studies it, frowning. “I haven’t talked to Meche for years. She keeps to herself. But frankly, I can’t see her giving up that jaguar. It’s like a child to her. From what I can see, her life revolves around that creature.”
She gives a little shiver. Apparently, she doesn’t like talking about Meche any more than other people do. “Now dígame, Zeeta, tell me, you must speak a lot of languages, you lived so many places.”
I decide to drop the jaguar lady subject and let myself bond with this woman who might be my relative. When I mention I can hold simple conversations in a few dozen languages, her mouth drops open, and she asks me to teach her some. I give her a mini lesson of seafood menu items in French, instructing her to pout out her lips to pronounce poisson.
This throws her into a fit of giggles. Once she catches her breath, she says, “Speaking of France, you mentioned that señor you met—he was in France?” Her voice has turned deliberately casual.
I swallow and nod, suddenly alert.
“Was he—was he all right?”
I want so badly to tell her who I am. But more than that, I want my father to be the one to tell her. I don’t want it to feel like a dark, strange secret revealed. I want it to be a joyful occasion.
Still, there are things she needs to know in order to understand, to be patient. “This señor,” I begin, “he has bipolar disorder.” I say it in English, unsure of the Spanish translation.
“Bipolar?”
“He has ups and downs, manic and depressed periods.”
A damp sheet falls from her hands to the laundry basket. She stares at it, absorbing the full meaning of my words. Then, her voice quavering, she asks, “Is he in trouble?”
“He wanted to reconnect with his home, his family. Wanted to resolve something.” I measure my words, not wanting to reveal more than my father would want. Only what’s necessary. It’s a fine line. “He felt he had to do this before …” I search for the right words. “Before he could move on.”
Cristina picks up the sheet, pins it to the rope. She does the same with the other sheets and pillowcases. She’s biting the inside of her cheek, I can tell.
I grab a sheet and hang it on the line that crisscrosses hers.
Eventually, she speaks. “He’ll return to his home. Sooner or later. Like the birds. The important thing is that his family keep the doors open, welcoming.”
When the baskets are empty, she brushes her hands together. “Now come back tomorrow for more laundry, Zeeta!” She winks. “You can teach me Portuguese!” Then she bids me farewell in the French I taught her. “Au revoir.”
I take her hand in a lingering handshake. Our eyes lock, and I wonder if she has the sensation I do, of looking into a mirror. “Au revoir,” I say, and leave the cool courtyard, heading toward the sunny stretch of beach.
As I wave goodbye to El Sapo, he calls out, “Sunset volleyball tonight, Zeeta! Be there!”
How much longer can I keep this secret? It’s all I can do not to call back, Sure thing, cuz!
In the kitchen hut, battering fish for dinner, I can’t stop glancing up at the path, waiting for Wendell. When I finally do catch sight of him, my heart leaps, as if we’ve been apart years instead of hours. He’s jogging up the path, his camera bouncing on his chest. I’m just trying to find a towel when Wendell throws his arms around me, despite the bits of egg-and-bread-crumb goop stuck to my hands.
“Good first day?” I ask, laughing.
“Incredible!”
I can’t stop kissing his neck as he shows me the photos on his digital camera. Even though they’re tiny, I can see what he’s excited about: close-up after close-up of sea turtles that appear to be posing just for him. Santy was right—Wendell’s a natural. I look from the images to him, and it’s one of those flashes, when you see someone so familiar in a different light. Wendell has things to share with the world that have nothing to do with me. It’s a mostly happy feeling, tinged with something like sadness.
I kiss him again. “You’re incredible, Wendell.”
After dinner, we head to the beach for sunset volleyball. Approaching the court, I notice a commotion of flying sand and people yelling. It’s a fight, centered on a guy I haven’t seen before—a large, bare-chested guy about my age with a buzz cut and cutoff camouflage pants. He’s waving his fists around, his face red and furious. El Sapo’s gesturing for him to calm down. Other people are holding back another guy who’s struggling, calling out curses and threats.
“What’s going on?” Wendell asks Mayra. She’s huddled at a safe distance with Xochitl.
“That vato,” she says, scowling. “He keeps picking fights.”
“Who is he?” I ask. “I haven’t seen him before.”
“He came to town a few months ago,” Mayra says. “From Mexico City. Sometimes he crashes our games. He thinks he’s so tough.”
Xochitl nods. “See how he’s missing a finger?”
I catch sight of his right hand as he runs it over his stubbly head. The ring finger is just a small stump.
Wendell raises an eyebro
w. “How’d he lose it?”
“He says it’s from a gang fight with machetes. Says he ended up killing the guy.”
I shiver, trying to imagine this. Then trying not to. Joe has talked about the gang violence in Mexico City. Not to mention the kidnappings and drug cartels. I’m not surprised to hear this guy’s involved in violent crime. “You think his story’s true?” I ask hesitantly.
Xochitl gives a devilish grin. “Pues, we say he stuck his finger in a blender while it was running. While he was doing kitchen prep in some restaurant. He just blamed it on a gangster.”
Mayra laughs. “He’s not the smartest guy.”
I glance over at him on the court. Things appear to have calmed down. El Sapo walks toward us, breathing hard, frowning. After greeting us, he mutters, “Man, I wish El Dedo would stay away.”
“Dedo?” I ask. Finger?
“He’s never even introduced himself, so we call him El Dedo.” El Sapo glares at him. “That vato doesn’t talk much, communicates with his fists.”
“He doesn’t get that this is a peaceful place,” Mayra says. “Muy tranquilo. We don’t fight around here.”
“What’s he doing in town?” Wendell asks.
El Sapo shrugs. “Maybe he got into trouble in Mexico City and he’s lying low here.”
We jog onto the court, making sure El Dedo is on the opposing team. Whenever he’s upset, he gets in someone’s face or kicks sand or hurls the ball, hard. He doesn’t direct his violence at the girls, but I do overhear him making crude comments.
During the break, Cristina comes over with agua de tamarindo—tamarind water, caramel brown and tangy and cool. She distributes drinks to everyone but El Dedo, instead, scolding, “You’re lucky your mother doesn’t live around here, muchacho. If she did, I’d tell her exactly how rude you are.”
He narrows his eyes at Cristina but says nothing.
She walks away, muttering, “Qué cochino.” What a pig.
I turn to El Sapo. “El Dedo’s completely outnumbered. Why don’t we stand up to him, tell him he can’t play?”
