“More water, mi amor?” Carloalberto asked Emma, offering her a plastic bottle.
“Not right now, papi, but keep it handy. We’ll need to stay hydrated.”
Their interaction was far more cordial than at the icy dinner the other night. Maybe Carloalberto had acted fast enough on the balcony that his wife didn’t suspect his fling. Maybe it didn’t even occur to her to consider the screenwriter a romantic rival, or maybe she just didn’t care.
Carloalberto checked his cell phone every five minutes and complained about the poor Internet connection. Emma listened to Manuel, looking bored with his stories.
“She always looks like someone has farted in her face,” Sarita muttered.
As for Helen, she seemed to be having problems with her smartphone. She kept touching the screen and cursing under her breath.
“It’s not just the Internet, I can’t even access my voicemail,” she said, exasperated.
“Smartphones are stupid,” Emma deigned to say. “What’s worse, they make people stupid. I barely use mine. I check my email only once a week, if that.”
Marlene had the impression that Emma had called the screenwriter “stupid” in a not-so-veiled way.
“It’s like the devil himself is messing with me,” Helen muttered, ignoring the comment.
“Now, let’s not bring el diablo up,” Manuel said with a smile. “He might decide to pay us a visit.”
“I hope not. But I’d gladly throw this damn thing at him!”
Finally, Carloalberto helped Helen figure out how to take pictures with her phone. She started snapping away.
“Not to sound like a dinosaur, but I prefer plain old cameras,” Helen said, looking critically at the shots. “Just like I prefer to write my scripts by hand. I only use a computer to type up the final version.”
Carloalberto chuckled.
“Wow, she is a dinosaur,” Sarita whispered to her aunt.
“Well, so am I,” Marlene replied. Despite herself, she was starting to feel sympathetic for Helen.
The road led to the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, the only jaguar preserve in the world. A few tourists craned their necks outside, hoping to get a glimpse of a wandering jaguar, although Manuel had already told them it was extremely rare to see one in daylight.
To keep them entertained during the two-hour trip, he told them about the Mayan civilization that had inhabited the area long before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores: their use of obsidian tools, their ball games and elaborate calendar.
“So what happened to them?” a tourist asked. “Why did they disappear?”
“They didn’t disappear,” the guide replied. “Look at me! I am Mayan. My wife and I speak Mayan at home. The shamana we are going to meet and her family are all Mayan. Although many of the original inhabitants of this region up and left, possibly because of a drought, others stayed and mixed with Olmecs and Toltecs, and later with the Spaniards. We are still here, but hidden in plain sight.”
Carloalberto was taking pictures of the landscape, Manuel, other passengers and a few selfies for good measure. Emma rolled her eyes but said nothing. Except for Sarita, who looked enthralled, no one else on the bus appeared to recognize him or his companions.
“Are you sure you and your friends aren’t the only ones who watch that Terrific-whatever program?” Marlene whispered to her niece.
“Of course not! It’s super popular!” the girl replied, offended.
“If you say so.”
“This bus is just full of people who live under a rock.”
The shamana’s domain was a compound built around a big palapa structure. A brick house and five straw huts were scattered nearby. There were mango and orange trees, flowering shrubs and blooming orchids everywhere. It smelled of damp earth and smoke.
Someone was cooking on a wood stove outside the palapa. Marlene sniffed the air. Yes, it was the unmistakable aroma of rice being boiled in coconut oil. The visit included lunch, and her stomach growled in anticipation. She was getting tired of the cruise menu. No matter how good the chefs were, food made for thousands of people always tasted mass-produced because, well, it was. Except for the desserts at The Ambassador, which seemed to be in a class of their own.
The group was led to the palapa, where they sat on red, blue and yellow cushions on the floor. The shamana, a short woman with jet-black hair and intense obsidian eyes, brought them snacks: Mayan-style chocolate mixed with cornmeal, ripe mangoes and round pastries drizzled with honey.
Her talk revolved around green medicine and herbal remedies.
“The cocolmeca or male dioscorea has a Viagra-like effect,” she said with a wink. “Boil it in water and take three cups per day. The results are miraculous!”
Some took notes, either using their smartphones or on old-fashioned pieces of paper. Carloalberto asked the shamana if he could record her talk on his phone. The shamana agreed, joking she should charge him extra for it. When she got ready to take the party for a walk of her botanical garden, Helen asked, “Aren’t we going to do a ceremony first?”
“Yeah!” Carloalberto said, enthusiastically. “Something for good luck, like a limpia.”
Emma rolled her eyes again.
“I could do a tzite seeds reading,” the shamana answered. “The tzite is one of our most sacred trees. It’s not for good luck, but more of a prediction tool.”
“That’ll be fine too.”
“Bear in mind that I tell it as I see it. Sometimes people get bad news and yell at me. This isn’t ‘for entertainment only,’ as clairvoyants do in your country. Here, you have to be willing to hear the truth.”
“How much will that be?” Helen asked.
“Twenty dollars per person,” the shamana replied. “Readings aren’t included in the regular tour.”
“Fair enough.”
The botanical garden walk was forgotten as people got in line for their readings.
“What a waste of time and money,” Marlene complained, but she got in line as well.
The readings were fast. A quick-and-dirty consultation, Marlene ascertained. Most of her fellow passengers were beaming when they came out of the straw hut where the shamana had set up shop.
“It’s like she knew me my whole life!”
“Remarkable. It was all true.”
Americans were so naïve. Marlene smirked, now completely convinced that the woman was a con artist. How come no one had received the promised bad news? But she couldn’t avoid feeling apprehensive when her turn came and she sat down in front of the shamana. Between them was a red and white rug that smelled strongly of copal.
The shamana opened a blue cloth bag—“my sacred bundle,” she called it—took out a bunch of bright red seeds, blew on them, prayed silently and spread them over the dirt floor. That reminded Marlene of her friend Padrino, the santero. Sometimes he was right, she conceded. Bah, probably by chance.
“Your life’s about to change,” the shamana said.
Marlene waited, unimpressed by the platitude. Wasn’t everyone’s life constantly changing?
“You used to make a living following blood trails, and you’ll do it once more,” the shamana went on. “You are a natural-born bloodhound and will soon follow another trail.”
Marlene was too shocked to say a word. She handed the shamana twenty dollars and hurried out, the smell of copal lingering in her nose. She wanted to stop Sarita from going in, but it was too late; the girl had pranced into the hut within seconds.
“I’m going to fulfill a dream of mine, but in a way that’s totally unexpected,” she reported five minutes later. “Maybe it’s about me becoming a journalist?”
“Hmm, it’s possible,” Marlene said. “Did she say anything about that Carloalberto guy? I bet you asked about him!”
Sarita’s ears burned hot. “It looked like my ne
ws may have something to do with him. Now, would you please give me a twenty so I can pay this lady?”
“Fine,” said Marlene, pulling the bill from her wallet. “But I want to hear more about it later.”
She couldn’t believe she was so concerned about the shamana’s predictions. Of course these things were just local lore! But the accuracy of woman’s earlier words had unsettled her.
When the readings were over, Manuel called the tourists to the palapa, where dishes piled high with steaming rice and vegetables awaited them. Marlene took her time to join the group. She noticed that Sarita had managed to sit next to Carloalberto. Shaking her head, she walked toward the palapa, but her hunger had vanished.
6: The Pastry Chef
It was well past two when Marlene woke up on the lounge chair where she had been taking a nap. Sarita was in the Jacuzzi, talking to another girl and, her aunt noticed with a mix of astonishment and annoyance, taking selfies. It was their final day in Belize. In the early morning, they had gone for a short visit to a nearby bird sanctuary, returned at ten-thirty, before it got too hot, and hung out in the pool area until Marlene found a cool spot under a big blue umbrella and fell asleep.
Sarita wasn’t hungry. She had been snacking at the Forest Café since they came back. But Marlene was starving. She took a shower and changed into her new yellow tunic dress that made her look younger and carefree. A pair of amber earrings she had brought would have complemented it nicely, but she didn’t wear them. She wasn’t trying to impress anybody, after all.
She went down to The Ambassador alone and ordered fried ravioli and eggplant parmigiana. For dessert, the waiter suggested a slice of bonbon cake.
“It’s our pastry chef’s signature dish,” he said.
“I’ll take it!”
The cake had a thin layer of solid chocolate on top, strawberry- and almond-flavored meringue inside, and truffles all around. Tiny pieces of chopped almond and chocolate chips added texture to the icing. It was served cold with two scoops of pistachio ice cream. Marlene nearly swooned when she had the first bite. She was always looking for inspiration and new items to add to La Bakería Cubana’s offerings. Like the guava bread pudding, this one was a keeper. She savored it slowly, having trained her palate to identify the flavors in order to reproduce them. There was a hint of vanilla. Nutmeg, perhaps? Definitely a bit of Kahlua.
It would be perfect for a wedding cake, she mused. A week ago, she had made a coconut cake crowned with meringue-covered figurines. In a bonbon cake, the groom’s suit and tie would be dark chocolate. The bride’s dress, whipped cream frosting—
Her dreamy expression prompted the waiter to ask how she had liked it, and her enthusiastic response brought the pastry chef to her table. He was of medium height, with fine features and an olive complexion. They started chatting in English, but soon found out both were native Spanish speakers and changed linguistic gears.
Benito, the pastry chef, was from Oaxaca, Mexico. “Like Benito Juárez,” he remarked with a smile and a twist of his dark eyebrows.
“Your cake,” Marlene said, “has no mother.”
She had learned this expression from her Mexican friends. To say that something had no mother, or no grandmother, meant that it was terrific. It could be used to mean the opposite too, but it was clear that wasn’t the case here.
“Thanks!”
After some small talk, Benito, who had finished his shift, invited her to walk around the promenade deck. They had just departed from Belize. It had cooled down, and the breeze off the ocean was refreshing.
Marlene asked him about the crew’s daily life. She had thought of joining an onboard security team in the unlikely event that she got tired of the bakery. Benito seemed to enjoy answering her many questions.
“I’m on a three-month contract, so I have no days off for twelve weeks,” he said. “After five or six trips, it becomes a rotation of faces going around to the same places. But some faces,” he raised his eyebrows at Marlene, “stand out. I noticed you the first day you came to The Ambassador.”
She briefly regretted not having worn her amber earrings, but swatted the thought away. She’d never been a flirt, and he was just trying to flatter her. No way he would have noticed her with so many younger, more attractive women around.
She stopped herself. Now I’m the one thinking like an insecure teenager.
“I imagine it never gets old,” she said.
“It does, believe me. There comes a time when you can finish the passengers’ sentences and even predict when a fight’s going to happen. Not that we have too many, of course.”
“Is security here tight? I’ve heard passengers are on camera more often than they’d suspect.”
“Except for the staterooms, most areas are monitored, yes. There are always shenanigans going on. We just need to make sure they don’t get out of hand.”
Shenanigans, huh?
“Do you like working here?” Marlene asked.
“It’s been good, despite the crazy hours. I don’t have to commute, do laundry or pay rent while I’m on board. But I’m only planning to be here until the end of the year, then quit and work in a restaurant or patisserie to see another side of the business before I open my own place. It’s a dream I have had for a long time.” He leaned against the railing and grinned, “Well, enough about me. What about you? What do you do?”
Marlene smiled knowingly. “I had the same dream once. Made it a reality two years ago in Miami. It’s called La Bakería Cubana.”
“But a vaquería is a dairy!”
They laughed.
“Just a bit of Spanglish wordplay. Most people don’t even catch it,” Marlene said.
“Are you Puerto Rican?”
“Cuban. But you have a good ear. Our accents are very close, just like our flags.”
“Oh, Cuban!” He looked surprised. “Órale. Have you always been a baker?”
“Not really. I used to be a detective in Havana.”
“A detective . . . for Castro?”
“For the police force, making sure people were safe.” Marlene hoped politics wouldn’t ruin the conversation. Her brother had advised her to say she used to work in a paladar, a Cuban private restaurant, but she hated lying. She was relieved when Benito said, “Of course, I’m sorry. That was silly of me to say.”
Goodness, a man who could apologize! It ticked a few notches in his favor. “Don’t worry, I get it all the time. And worse.”
“What brought you to Miami, Marlene?”
The answer was long and too complicated for a new acquaintance. It involved her slow, painful disillusion with the system, wanting to mend her relationship with her brother, who had left Cuba on a raft in the nineties and, though she would never admit it to herself, the way things with Yoel had ended. But she only said, “Family matters and wanting to start my own business.”
He laughed. “The only family I have is a Chihuahua. How about you? Married with children?”
Marlene smiled. “No, neither. But I have a dog too, a Rhodesian Ridgeback”
“I thought the girl you’ve been with this entire time was your daughter,” Benito said.
So he’d noticed them earlier.
“She’s my niece.”
The North Star was on the open sea now. There was no trace of land in any direction, as if the ship was suspended between ocean and sky.
“You know,” Benito said, “That bonbon cake you liked so much, I’ve been perfecting it for years. One day, I’ll serve it to guests at my wedding.”
7: A Tragedy
Marlene was waiting for Sarita on the promenade deck. It had become her favorite place after that walk with Benito. There, she could look at the ocean and enjoy the fresh air away from the noisy crowd congregated around the swimming pools and Jacuzzis on deck fifteen. Sometimes she smoked a cigarette, feeling both smug for g
etting away with it and ashamed for being unable to quit.
They were still sailing. There wasn’t much to do on board that evening, only a Spanish-language lesson in the library, which neither Marlene nor Sarita needed, and a bingo game that had made them yawn after the first five minutes. The casino and all the boutiques were open, but Marlene was neither a gambler nor a compulsive shopper. Even Sarita was tired of seeing the same overpriced stuff.
Marlene had been thinking back to her meeting with the shamana. She wondered if there was some signal she’d given the woman that she’d once been a “bloodhound.” And the prophecy that she would be one again? She doubted it. There were too many reasons to never go back to that line of work in Miami, her limited English and longing for a quiet life among them. It was why she had opened La Bakería Cubana, which had become popular among the new wave of Cubans looking for mazarreales—thick guava pastries, as opposed to the traditional puffy ones—croquettes and yuca fries.
The trip had been good inspiration for the bakery. Being away from the oven was giving Marlene the time she needed to think up new recipes. Right now, she was concocting a pastry filled with Mayan-style chocolate, sprinkled with coconut flakes, perfect for the mild Miami winters. She would run it by Benito. And ask him about that bonbon cake . . .
Her reveries were cut short when Sarita appeared, sobbing.
“Ay, Tía! What a tragedy!”
“What is it?” asked Marlene, startled. “What happened?”
“Carloalberto!” the girl sniffled. “He’s been eliminated.”
A shudder ran through Marlene. “What do you mean?”
“From the show. He and Helen were finalists, and everybody expected them to win, but the vote was today, and they got the boot. The hosts seemed disappointed and said Carloalberto had a future in the film industry, but still—”
Marlene let out a sigh. “That’s what you call a tragedy, mijita?”
“For me it is! For all his fans. He must be devastated. Would it be wrong to go up to him and offer my condolences?”
Death of a Telenovela Star (A Novella) Page 3