“We can meet half-way,” I told him. “There’s a really good café by Nuevo Vallarta. Do you know how to get there? The buses run there every half an hour or more.”
When he told me yes, I gave him more extensive directions before Luz cleared her throat with a very well-placed, “Ahem.”
I looked at her expectantly before remembering it had to go around her schedule. Luckily she had tomorrow afternoon free and wasn’t flying out until the evening, so as long as I was back at home by dinnertime, it would be fine.
After I hung up with Derrin, I said to her, “Jeez, I guess you might as well call me Cinderella.”
“It’s for the best,” Luz said. “This will prevent you from sleeping with him. Though if you ask me, I have no idea how you’re going to manage that in the near future with the way you look.”
“Hey, I look just fine. Besides my one hand and my mouth work great.”
She gave another disgusted snort, waving me away. “Okay now, that’s enough.” She pursed her lips. “I don’t know if I trust you with this boy, Alana.”
“Why? You think I’m going to break his heart?”
Her mouth turned downward for a moment and a grave look came across her eyes. “No, I don’t think so. I think he’s going to break yours.”
“That’ll be the day,” I told her. I’d never fallen in love before. I never did those big relationships with big feelings. My life was all get in and get out and have fun along the way. That’s the only thing that was safe.
She shook her head slightly and tapped her blood red nails alongside the clay mug. “I’ve got a feeling about this one.”
Seeing her so serious always made me pay more attention. Still, I tried to shrug it off. “You say that about everyone who’s not from Mexico. You racist,” I joked.
She glared at me. “This one is different. He’s …”
“Hot,” I supplied, before she could fill me with paranoia. “Built as fuck. Nice. Mysterious.”
“Yes,” she said, leaning forward. “Mysterious. And sometimes that’s not a good thing. Sometimes people are mysterious because they have something to hide.”
“We only just met him. I think it’s a bit too soon to be making these assumptions. Besides, I’m the one going after him here.”
She seemed to consider that before polishing off the rest of her drink. As she delicately wiped at the chocolate above her lip, she shrugged. “You’re right. But just be careful, that’s all I’m saying. I’m not going to stop worrying about you for a long time, you know that right? Dominga and I … we’re going to be your little watch dogs, whether you like it or not. Not until this,” she waved her nails at my brokenness, “is just a memory. Until then, everyone is a suspect.”
“Are you sure you weren’t supposed to be a detective instead of a flight attendant?”
“When you’re stuck thirty five thousand feet in the air with a bunch of idiots, you become really adept at reading people. You should try it some time.”
Even though Luz and I rarely flew together – airline crew was a lot more spread out than most people think – when we did, she was always the “bad cop” of the cabin while I was the good one. She’d be the one cutting people off from the liquor while I’d be giving free drinks to the well-behaved passengers.
Still, later as I was alone lying in bed and trying to ignore the aches and pains that were spreading through my bones, wanting to avoid taking any more pills, I thought about what she’d said. Maybe I did need to be more suspicious of everyone. My whole life seemed geared up to make me that way, hard and jaded. Perhaps I needed to start thinking more like my brother.
My only fear about that of course was that if I thought like him, I might become like him. There would be nothing scarier than that.
I shivered at the thought and pulled the covers over me, despite the thick humid air that settled in my room, remembering the last time Javier had involved me in his business. I had picked up his wife Luisa’s parents from the docks, them having come on a private boat all the way from the Baja. I took them into my apartment, which operated as a kind of safehouse until Javier and Luisa came to get them. It was a nail-biting, paranoid two weeks, made even worse when I discovered the thing he wanted me to take out of the cooler that had been with them and put in the freezer was actually a human head.
Yeah. A human head, not a fucking frozen thing of lettuce like I’d assumed. I wanted to take scalding hot showers for weeks after that.
Surprisingly, there was still a bit of a dull ache inside of me. Not because of the accident, but because of Javier. Though we spoke on the phone the other day, briefly, he had still not come down to see me. I wondered if I told him that I was scared or paranoid, if he’d then do something, say something comforting. But I put up a brave front with him and I guess he did the same with me.
***
I was a young child, trying to sleep. It was impossible. On one side of me was Marguerite who had this way of snoring, like she was a purring cat. Some might find it cute but when you’re trying to get rest for the night, it was annoying as hell. On the other side of me was Violetta, who always curled up under my arms like a doll. Even though our mama was lovely, she was hardworking, especially with father gone. Sometimes she just didn’t have the time to give Violetta – who was the youngest – any attention. For whatever reason, that usually fell on me.
We had two beds in our tiny room. It was supposed to be me and Marguerite, the twins, on one and Violetta and Beatriz on the other. But as Beatriz got older, she wanted her own space, so the three of us ended up sharing. Mama had her own room of course. Javier didn’t really have a room. When he was younger there used to be a cot pushed between our beds but now Javier slept on the couch. Even as a child, I’m not sure that he really slept at all.
He didn’t that night. It saved our lives. All of our lives, except my mother’s. But in my dreams, sometimes I was the one that died instead. I’m not even sure I’d call it a nightmare, because despite the dark and the terror and that horror, there was something about death that I welcomed. Every now and then, as I hid in the closet with my siblings and that door opened, the guns pointed at our heads, I didn’t scream or cry as the sicarios gunned us down. I smiled. I wanted it. I wanted peace, that safety that comes with death. Once death takes you, nothing can hurt you ever again.