“We need to think this through,” I said as calmly as I could.
Everything felt out of balance. I was supposed to be the bossy one, not Joanne. I was supposed to have all the facts about the distance from Ensenada to San Felipe, not Robert, the dessert connoisseur.
The light above the elevator door flashed, notifying us that our ride would be here in a moment. Robert pulled a business card from his pocket and wrote on the back. “Here’s our suite number, and this is my cell phone number. If Marti and I can help in any way, please let us know. And you know what? I’ll say a little prayer for the two of you.”
“Thank you.” Joanne reached for the card. “We appreciate your help. I think God must have some sort of surprise in mind for us. He seems to be directing us to something we certainly didn’t dream up.”
Robert grinned. “God is like that, isn’t He? Always dreaming up adventures we could never imagine.”
Joanne flashed a warm smile at Robert as the elevator door opened. The two of them seemed to be members of some special God club. I had the same feeling around them that I’d had around the Sisterchicks. I didn’t belong.
Robert gave us a wave as the elevator door closed, and Joanne and I rode it to the lobby level. The crew member at the front desk paged Sven, and within a few minutes our personal steward appeared. With calmness and steadiness, Sven listened to our plight and made several recommendations. The one that made the most sense was the one I liked the least.
“This is unusual,” he said twenty minutes later, when he handed me a printout of our rental car reservation. “But we are always pleased to make accommodations for our Platinum Crown members. As a reminder, when we dock in Ensenada around nine o’clock tomorrow morning, you need to have your luggage ready. Anything you don’t wish to take with you to San Felipe, I will store for you, and it will be waiting for you on your return trip at the end of the week.”
I took all the papers from Sven, thanked him again, and numbly made my way toward the stairs.
“Wow,” Joanne said.
“Yeah, wow. This isn’t at all what I had in mind for this trip.”
“I meant ‘wow’ about the music. Just listen to that.” Joanne leaned on the railing that circled the sunken center stage area of the lobby. A classical guitarist was positioned next to the grand piano where the musician had been playing when we first entered the ship. The guitarist’s head was bent forward in concentration as he strummed what sounded like flamenco music to my untrained ear.
“Isn’t that incredible?” Joanne asked, as if none of the upset in our plans in the past half hour bothered her and all she had to do was leisurely listen to the guitarist. Tears glistened in her eyes. “It’s so beautiful,” she whispered, smiling at me.
I smiled back even though I didn’t understand what she was reacting to so emotionally. She talked about the symmetry and deliberate passion of the music. I nodded, but the only sounds floating in my head were a scattered cacophony.
Do you know if the midnight buffet is tonight?” Joanne asked me.
“No, it’s tomorrow night. Why, are you hungry?”
“Not at all. I was interested in seeing the ice sculptures.” With a grin Joanne added, “And trying out some of those famous desserts. I guess that will have to wait until our return trip.”
For the past hour Joanne and I had been sequestered in our spacious room with the flowers and fruit basket adding the only cheer to the quarters. Well, actually the most cheer came from the elegant terry cloth swan that greeted us when we returned. Apparently our room attendant had been busy while we were at dinner. One of our abundant white bath towels had been twisted and bent into the shape of a long-necked swan and sat perched at the foot of Joanne’s bed like a stuffed animal.
Joanne leaned against the headboard, reading a Baja tour book Sven had dropped off for us. He said it was “his contribution to our courageous endeavor.” I’m not sure what he meant, but I told Joanne that if I was listed as the beneficiary on her life insurance policy, she still had time to change that, in case we both expired somewhere in the Baja desert. She only laughed.
I directed all my efforts to frantically organizing for our departure to San Felipe in the morning. The extra length of our trip wasn’t going to be a problem for me at work because I had unused time off and had scheduled to be gone all week.
What bothered me the most was the way my husband had readily agreed that driving across Baja was the best choice for Joanne and me “since we were so close.” I half hoped that, when I called to tell him the upsetting change of plans, he would say something like, “I don’t think that’s a good idea” or “You better come home and plan to go back to Mexico later.”
Instead he said, “I think God is doing the organizing for you and Joanne on this trip.”
It infuriated me the way everyone was spiritualizing this problem. I secretly wanted to blame God for the mix-up while Joanne, Ethan, and even Robert were giving God extra credit for His creativity.
“It says here—” Joanne rose from her bed and walked toward me with the tour book in her hand—“that outside San Felipe is a place called the Valley of the Giants. It has a cardón cactus that’s estimated to be eight hundred years old.”
“An eight-hundred-year-old cactus?”
“Look at this thing. It’s the largest cactus in the world.”
The small photo showed a tourist in shorts dwarfed by a massive cluster of spiny green fingers reaching into the clear blue sky. The tallest spear rose at least forty feet into the air.
“This is getting pretty exciting, Mel. We’ve never seen these kinds of natural wonders in our quarter of the hemisphere. Look at these rock formations.”
She held up another picture of a narrow road that wound over a desolate-looking hill covered with desert shrubs and lots of dry, pale yellow dirt. In the distance rose boulders that looked like the cartoon town of Bedrock, where Fred and Wilma Flintstone lived. A customized VW bug was the only vehicle in the picture. From the roof jutted a tall antenna, and a cloud of dust rumbled out the back.
“Did you read this?” I asked. “ ‘Off-road racers from around the world flock to Valle de Trinidad where their adventure begins on Highway 3.’ ”
“Highway 3? Isn’t that the road we’re taking to San Felipe?” Joanne asked.
“Yes, and did you take a close look at this picture? The road is not paved, Joanne.”
“I’m sure that’s only the off-road portion. I can’t imagine Highway 3 would be marked so prominently on this map if it wasn’t paved.”
“How do you know? It could be that in Mexico, a road is a road. Paved or unpaved.”
“You worry too much.” Joanne took the book back from me.
“One of us needs to.”
“Not necessarily. Worry doesn’t get us anywhere. What did Mom used to say? Worry is like a rocking chair. It keeps you busy, but you never go anywhere.”
“I don’t think our mother ever said that.”
“Well, maybe it was Aunt Winnie who said it.”
I looked at her skeptically. “How can you be so nonchalant about all this?”
She shrugged.
“You didn’t used to be this easygoing.”
“I think my time in India changed me. Nothing was certain there. Sometimes we had electricity; sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes the medical supplies arrived; sometimes they didn’t. We all learned to flex because none of us could control the daily situation. I see this detour to San Felipe as another chance to learn to be flexible.”
As much as I detested hearing Joanne say that, I knew she was right. Flopping on my bed, I let out a long sigh and told my headache to go away.
“Joanne,” I said flatly, “I have control issues.”
“Oh, really?” Joanne smiled broadly. I’m sure she was trying very hard not to bust up laughing at the obvious.
“Maybe I should have gone to India for a few years before I got married and had kids.”
“You would hav
e hated it,” Joanne said.
“Thanks a lot!”
“You would have. Hardly anything ever went the way we planned. It was like trying to paint a mural with a toothpick.” She paused and for added emphasis included, “In the middle of a circus with juggling clowns balancing on your shoulders and your pants on fire.”
“Okay. I get the idea.” I held up my hand to stop Joanne from going on one of her exuberance jags.
“Those five years changed me. Every day brought enough insanity to send any one of us over the edge.”
“But you didn’t flip out. You even stayed longer than you first agreed.”
“That’s because it was the best place for me to be at that time in my life.”
I tilted my head and studied my sister’s serene expression. “I’m sure you know this, but you seem younger and more lighthearted than you used to be.”
Joanne grinned. “That’s because I’m in love.”
I froze only a moment before throwing my arms around her. First I hugged her, and then I grabbed her shoulders and gave her a friendly shake. “Why didn’t you tell me? Who? When? Where?”
“You know him,” Joanne said with a coy expression.
“I do?” My eyes opened wide. “Is it Russell?”
“Russell? My dog?”
“No, Russell what’s-his-name. The guy you brought home for Christmas when you were in college.”
Joanne laughed. “Russell Wyzanowski? I can’t believe you remember his name.”
“I didn’t remember his name. Only the Russell part. He’s the only guy you ever brought home; of course I’m going to remember his name. I thought that’s why you named your dog Russell—after your old boyfriend.”
Joanne laughed again. “No! I never thought of that connection! My pooch was named Russell when I got him from a lady at work. I told you, didn’t I? She was moving to an apartment and couldn’t have pets.”
“Quit stalling. Who’s Mr. Wonderful?”
Joanne grinned. “It’s God.”
I waited for an explanation to what seemed like a miserly joke.
“I’m serious, Mel. I started to pursue a deeper relationship with Christ, or maybe I should say He pursued me, and I responded. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but if I seem more content it’s because I’m genuinely in love with God.”
Joanne and I had grown up in a strict, traditional church, and we both were baptized when we entered junior high. She never had talked about devoting her life to God before.
“Did you take a vow or something?” I asked cautiously. “When you were in India?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what do you mean? It sounds as if you’re planning to stay single and offer God a lifetime of service.”
“No, it’s not like that. I’m not trying to become a nun or anything. I would love to get married. Of course, I’d have to meet the right man first, which, as you know, has been the problem for quite some time now. That brings me to another topic I wanted to discuss with you on this trip. What would you think if I moved back to Vancouver?”
“To meet men?”
“Possibly. But that’s not my main motivation. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Do you remember Darren and Hope?”
I shook my head.
“You know, our cousin Darren in Connecticut. He and his wife, Hope, have three boys.”
“Is she the one who opened the tea shop a couple of years ago?”
“Yes. Have you ever ordered any of her ladybug tea? It’s wonderful. So is the hula hips tea.”
“Joanne, what does this have to do with anything?”
“I received a Christmas card from them last week, and Darren and Hope had a baby last spring. A girl, after three boys. They always wanted a girl.”
I still wasn’t tracking with her and used my aggravated expression to let her know.
“My point is, Darren is our age. Hope has to be at least forty. They just had a baby. In their forties. It’s not too late for me to start something new in my life or to make a change. I’ve been floating through life ever since I got back from India, and now my life is about to take some turns.”
“And moving back to Vancouver is one of those turns.”
“I think it is. You’ve been the one who’s had to make all the extra effort to look after Aunt Winnie and Mom and Dad. I can find a job there easily enough, and I have more free time than you. I thought if I moved to Vancouver, I’d at least have family nearby, and that’s becoming more important to me the older I get.”
“I love the idea of your being close enough to help out,” I said. “Especially with Aunt Winnie. You’re not thinking of moving in with her, are you?”
“No! I’m not trying to become her self-imposed caregiver. I’d get my own place. So, what do you think?”
“I’m all for it. But why now? What’s prompting you to make this decision after all these years?”
“Let’s just say there’s a man who is no longer at the top of my list of people I want to be around, and so, to be perfectly honest, I’d have to admit that 40 percent of my decision is based on the opportunity to move far away from him.”
“Joanne!”
“What?”
“This is all fairly significant information you’re handing to me all of a sudden.”
“We didn’t have a chance to talk like this earlier today,” she said. “I was going to tell you about the potential move while we were walking around the deck after dinner, but then we ran into Robert.”
“I’m just surprised you didn’t say anything about all this when we’ve talked over the phone the last few months.”
“I don’t like talking about intensely personal information over the phone. You know that.”
I looked at my sister carefully and realized that, no, I didn’t know that. What else didn’t I know about her? For instance, who was this man she wanted to get away from?
“Joanne.” I reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. “I want you to feel free to tell me all the significant details of your life.”
“Okay, what do you want to know?”
“Everything. Whatever you want to tell me. I’m trying to say that I want to be in your life more. You know how you said the older you get, the more you realize how important it is to be close to family?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the older I get, the more I’ve come to realize I only have one sister, and I don’t think I fully appreciated you when I had the chance.”
Joanne teared up. “Better late than never.”
We hugged, and she pulled away with a bright expression. “I came to love you late! That’s been the message God keeps bringing to me.”
I wasn’t tracking with her again.
“You have to hear this.” Joanne hopped up and pulled a journal from the outside pouch of her suitcase. “Listen.”
She stood in the center of the room and read to me from her journal.
“I came to love you late, O Beauty so ancient and new; I came to love you late. You were within me and I was outside where I rushed about wildly searching for you like some monster loose in your beautiful world. You were with me, but I was not with you. You called me, you shouted to me. You broke past my deafness. You bathed me in your light, you wrapped me in your splendor, you sent my blindness reeling. You gave out such a delightful fragrance, and I drew it in and came breathing hard after you. I tasted, and it made me hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned to know your peace.”
She looked up at me, her face glowing, and I thought, My sister has turned into a fascinating woman. I didn’t know she had such deep and passionate thoughts locked up inside her.
“That’s powerful,” I said. “Did you write that for anyone in particular?”
“Oh, no, I didn’t write it. Augustine did.”
I probably should have known who Augustine was, but I didn’t. My ignorance wasn’t something I wanted my sister to know so I merely remarked, “Oh.”
“It
’s astounding to me,” Joanne went on, closing her journal and putting it back in her suitcase. “That a monk in the fifth century could articulate so clearly the same things I felt when I came into this fresh relationship with Christ.”
“Oh,” I said again. “Yes, he’s very articulate.”
“Of course, he wrote that in Latin, but I bought this modern English translation, and I think I’ve read through the little book five times.”
“Oh,” I said for the third time. I couldn’t figure out what was going on with my sister. At least, I thought she was my sister. She looked like Joanne, but she kept surprising me with traits I’d never seen in the Joanne of my childhood.
“I should probably finish packing.” I rose to my feet and tried to find a task. Being busy with my hands was usually the best way for me to clear my mind, and at the moment, my previously overloaded brain was about to spin out of control.
Joanne fell asleep before I did. I felt a heaviness pressing against my chest. Her last words before she snuggled under the covers, with the strangely adorable twisted swan towel still at her feet, were, “Don’t worry about anything, Melanie. God is going to work out everything in ways that will make our hearts swell and our mouths drop open. I love you, Melly Jelly Belly.”
I told her I loved her, too, but I didn’t call her Joanna Banana because I still wasn’t sure who she was. Or maybe I should say I didn’t recognize who she had become. I also wasn’t sure I liked the idea of my heart swelling or my mouth dropping open.
In the engine-humming, slightly rolling silence of the cruise ship, I lay in the darkness and reviewed the clues to the mysterious woman in the bed next to mine. She was in love, but the romance was reportedly with God and not a new boyfriend. She was not planning to be a nun, yet she was reading and quoting a monk’s ancient confessions. She was hoping to move from Toronto to get away from some unnamed man, and to top it off, I had found out after all these years that she didn’t name her dog after Russell what’s-his-name.
I closed my eyes and felt the subtle sway of the ship. It hadn’t seemed very noticeable while we were moving around our cabin, but now that I was lying still, I felt like a baby being rocked to sleep in a cradle.
Sisterchicks in Sombreros Page 6
