by Karina Halle
“Uh,” I went on, “I know you’re not in town for long but I thought we could grab a coffee somewhere. I bet you’re sick of all the tourist places and I know some really good ones. You know, local flavor.”
“As a matter of fact I am sick of the tourist shit. But I don’t want you to travel too far in your condition. Why don’t I come to you?”
I eyed Luz again who was looking resigned, like she knew she was at my bidding no matter what. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded bringing Derrin back here but there was a small, instinctual part of me that insisted that I meet him in public. As much as I liked to have fun, I rarely met men at my house. There was something a bit foolish about that.
“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.
Death takes away your life. But it also takes your fear.
When I woke up from the dream, covered in sweat, I was disappointed to see the room was still dark. There was something so dreadful about waking up from a dream in the middle of the night, adrenaline still coursing through your veins, only to see you have half the night, half a world of darkness, to go. Suffice to say, I couldn’t go back to sleep. Even though I sometimes wanted death in my dreams, I didn’t when I was awake. When I was awake I was governed by fear, through and through.
I carefully pulled my covers back on to me since they were usually kicked off as I thrashed in the throes of my dreams, my body still sore and aching, and stared up at the ceiling. Maybe that’s why I was so attracted to Derrin. He looked like the sort who could protect me, who could take care of me. He was a soldier. Those were the types who never showed fear, who never ran from anything. For the most part they were honest and noble and brave.
I stayed awake like th
at for a while longer, accepting the fact that I wouldn’t fall back asleep, and thought about him. I thought about him to the point where I was sure I was obsessing – which wasn’t new for me – but then I let myself do it without judgment. It was a distraction and a most welcome one.
At some point I fell back asleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
Alana
“That’s what you’re wearing?” Luz asked as I opened the front door to her.
I looked down at myself. I was wearing jean cut-off shorts and a faded yellow tee with a vintage Coca Cola slogan on it. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing,” she said adamantly. “It’s just I’ve never seen you so dressed down and casual before.”
“Yes you have.”
“But not for a date.”
She was right about that. “This isn’t a date.”
She rolled her eyes. “Goodness, just own up to it. It’s a date, sweatheart. Even if it’s coffee, in the middle of the day, with no sex, it’s a date.”
“Says you on the no sex thing.”
“Are you really going to fuck him the way you are? At a café?” She gave me a look and then shook her head with a raise to her lip. “You know what, don’t answer that, you’ve already told me your options.”
I grinned at her, quickly set the alarm and locked the apartment behind me.
It was a Monday and traffic was crazy congested as usual. I started to fret a bit, wondering if I was going to be late, how long he would hang around for, if he thought I was standing him up. The skin beneath my arm cast began to itch like crazy and I was flipping open the glove compartment to see if Luz had a pen or something.
“Will you calm down, you spazz,” she said, eyeing me out of the corner of her eye while laying down the horn in protest of whatever driver did something stupid up ahead.
“You calm down,” I retorted. “My arm is so itchy and you’re taking forever.”
“I’m taking forever,” she repeated, waving at the sea of cars on the highway, the thick dust that choked the side of the road. In the distance the jungle green mountains rose up from the dryness, offering respite. The area around Puerto Vallarta was always an interesting mix of the wild and the urban, the wet and the dry. “Do you want me to drive over the traffic? Because I totally would, you know, if I had a bigger car.”
I sighed, blowing a strand of hair out of my face as the car inched along.
Finally when we reached Nuevo Vallarta, we were already fifteen minutes late. All my sighing and foot tapping (the good foot, of course) couldn’t change that fact. I could only hope Derrin would understand.
We parked right outside of the Dos Hombres café and Luz helped me out of the car as quickly as she could. From the street, I couldn’t really see inside but it looked like the place was packed as always. It had a simple décor, a ton of indoor palm plants, and the best breakfast burritos, banana flan and spicy mochas that one could hope for.
It seemed we had caught the workweek lunch rush, so it took us awhile to actually get into the café and look around. If I didn’t have to lean on Luz – crutches were far too awkward to use than I had thought and I rarely used them – it would have been easy to do a quick sweep of the place.
But even so, he wasn’t there.
“Maybe he’s in the washroom,” Luz suggested hopefully.
Another heavy exhale escaped my lips. We were too late. Derrin was gone. Although there was a chance that he never came here to begin with.
“There you two ladies are,” a rough male voice came from behind us, speaking in broken Spanish. We craned our necks to see Derrin coming toward us holding two hot drinks in his hand. He was wearing knee-length cargo shorts and a grey wifebeater that showed off every single tanned muscle and plane on his body. I had to make sure my mouth wasn’t gaping open.
“Sorry, we’re late,” Luz said, switching to English. “The traffic was really bad.”
I found my voice. “Yeah. Sorry. I thought we’d missed you.”
He gave me a half-grin, something that made his face change from hard and masculine to soft and boy-like. I liked both parts of him. “Like I would leave so easily. I’m used to everything running on Mexican time by now. Mañana and all that.”
“Such the typical tourist thing to say,” I teased him.
“We only say it because it’s true,” he said and handed me my drink. “And you know it. I got you just a plain coffee, by the way. I didn’t know if you were lactose intolerant or on a diet or whatever.”
I thanked him and Luz muttered something along those lines as she took her coffee, while Derrin looked around the café. “It seems there is nowhere to sit.”
“There’s a park around the corner,” I said but even then I wasn’t too keen on the idea of having our date on a park bench surrounded by pigeons. Derrin didn’t seem like he liked it either. His smile sort of froze.
“Oh, look,” Luz said, pointing to the corner. “Those people are leaving.”
“But there are only two seats,” he said.
Luz gave him a look. “Nice try, but you know I’m not staying with you. I agreed to be a chauffeur, not a chaperone.” She eyed me, a hint of warning in them. “I’ll be back here in three hours. Any change of plans – and I really hope there aren’t any – you text me, okay?”
I nodded. She squeezed my shoulder affectionately, raised her coffee at Derrin as her way of saying goodbye and then she was gone.
“Come on,” Derrin said, stepping closer to me. “Let’s get you over there before someone else takes the table.” He put his arm around my waist so my own arm went around his shoulder. His skin was so taught, so warm, it was hard to hide the shiver that went through me. “Not a fan of crutches?” He asked as we hobbled between the tables.
I tried to ignore how close his mouth was to my face, the way his voice shot right through me and right between my legs. “No. Have you ever had to use them before?”
He nodded. “Yes. Broke my leg in Afghanistan. It’s why I was sent home. Tried to use them for about a day until I threw them out the hospital window. It was better to hop around on one foot than to knock over everything you came in contact with.”
I wanted to take that moment to ask him more about the war – something I was very curious about – but knew it wasn’t coffee shop kind of talk.
He eased me down to the seat and I was amazed I hadn’t spilled half my coffee during the maneuver. I was so frustrated being so helpless and awkward these days but I guess it wasn’t so bad when you had a man like him helping you.
“So,” he said, when he adjusted himself in his seat. He leaned forward on his elbows, his eyes staring warmly at mine.
“So,” I said right back. My chest fluttered with anxiety. “Tell me about the war.”
Ah, fuck. So much for “don’t mention the war.” Jesus, Alana, you’re a mess, I scolded myself.
To Derrin’s credit, although his brow lowered, making his eyes seem intense, he didn’t seem offended. “All right,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, how about how you broke your leg? Trading hospital stories might be fun.” But I regretted it the moment I said it. How could what I went through compare what he did? A hit and run, as traumatic, scary and damaging as it was, was nothing compared to honest to god war.
“It was silly, really. We were going down one of the roads – which are nothing more than faded tire tracks in the dirt – when a bomb went off.” I gasped and he went on, his voice monotonous. “It caught the front of our transport and flipped us. The driver died, so did another one of us. I broke my leg from the flip. We all broke something, everyone that survived.”
I felt like a hand had squeezed over my heart. Just the mention of a bomb – the very thing that killed my sister – was a sinister reminder of Violetta’s violent death.
“How could you say that was silly?” I whispered.
He exhaled sharply. “Because we should have known better. We should have seen it coming
from a mile away. The road hadn’t been checked and were weren’t using due diligence.”
“Why not?”
“Because we were young kids. Because we’d seen so much, every day, that after a while you become desensitized. You stop caring. And you think you’re invincible. Until it happens to you.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine,” he said. “This was a long time ago. I use due diligence now.”
“But you’re no longer in the army.”
He shook his head. “No. I’m not. But it doesn’t mean life isn’t waiting out there to get you unaware.”
I raised my brows and took a sip of my coffee while I mulled that over. He was sounding a lot like Luz. Perhaps they had more in common than they thought.
“So how old are you?” he asked, seeming to want to change the subject. I couldn’t blame him. I was sorry I brought it up to begin with.
“Twenty-four,” I told him. “Going on forty.”
He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “What makes you say that?”
I shrugged. He may have brought up his battles but I sure as hell wasn’t going to bring up mine. The fastest way to scare a guy off is to tell him your brother is the leader of one of the most powerful drug cartels and aside from your twin sister, the rest of your family was murdered in related incidents. Violent, messy, disgusting incidents.
“I’ve always felt older, that’s all.”
“No boyfriend? No husband?”
I tilted my head and gave him a wry look. “Do you think I’d be out here with you if I had either of those?”
“I don’t know,” he said, leaning back in his chair. His chest muscles moved smoothly under his tank. “Maybe you’re in one of those open relationships. You never know with Mexicans.”
“Hey,” I warned him. “If I wasn’t so cripple, I’d reach over and smack you right now.”
“Good thing you’re a cripple then. You seem to be part wildcat.”
I made a claw scratch motion with my good hand. “You have no idea.”