It wasn’t until Kabul that I finally embraced the hairdresser in me. I saw that I was doing as much, or maybe even more with my scissors and dyes than a lot of people with fancy degrees and big titles achieve in a lifetime. Over there, I realized that it was about so much more than simply doing hair. For the first time in my life, I respected my job, and myself. I wasn’t “just” a hairdresser anymore! I was living proof that anyone could make a difference. You just needed a lot of determination, a good amount of energy, the willingness to take a few risks, and a good sense of humor.
But a few risks too many, and you might find yourself like I did—lost, confused, and starting all over again. By the time I got to Napa, I could no longer hear my mom’s voice. I couldn’t even call her for a reminder. By that time she was starting to forget things, and wasn’t really capable of helping me much. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t have it in her to tell me that I could be a princess anymore.
So now, with hairdressing and reigning over a kingdom of adoring subjects out of the picture, what was left? What would I do in Mexico? I didn’t have a clue. Part of me pictured myself spending the rest of my life sitting quietly on the beach, sipping a margarita. I was tired. Tired of men, tired of moving, tired of being scared, tired of being confused. But who was I kidding? I’m not one to sit quietly, anywhere. All I was hoping was that being in Mexico would give me the chance to figure things out.
I tried to focus on the one thing I knew was waiting for me down there—my little house on Carnaval Street. I could not wait to settle into my own place. After all that time in California squatting in someone else’s home, I was more than ready to plant some roots.
Mexico I could afford, at least for a while. The way I figured it, my savings would last for maybe a couple of years, if I was careful. So in a way, I realized, I should consider my house in Mexico to be an investment in my future. It was my house that would allow me the time to figure things out, to fix myself. That’s a lot of pressure for one little house, I thought. I hoped it could take it.
This was to be my last day in the U.S.A. The skyline of Tucson faded in the rearview mirror as Polly and I headed south down Interstate 19 toward Nogales, Mexico. We were off to an early start. Who knew what I’d find at the border? I began to picture humorless guys in sunglasses with machine guns, narcos and federales in blood battle, trigger-happy Border Patrol agents chasing down fleeing immigrants. In another life, those kinds of guys might have been a piece of cake. Now I just wished them gone, gone from my imagination and anywhere else they might be lurking.
Driving through that flat, barren landscape on a road that seemed to go on forever in a hypnotic straight line, my thoughts turned to my mother. How I wished she could see my new home. Hell, she might have even enjoyed this road trip, if things were different.
I had been able to convince my mom to visit me once in Afghanistan. She had never been out of Michigan, and by this time I was beginning to see signs of a slipping mind and slowing body, so I knew the time was short for her to enjoy an adventure. I really wanted her to see where I lived, meet my friends, and maybe do some hair in the beauty school. I was anxious for her to understand why I had chosen to make my life half a world away, and desperately wanted to hear her tell me that I had done well.
We arrived in Afghanistan together after a shopping spree in Dubai. She saw a lot during that first week in Kabul, but we both were yearning for a road trip. Of course, I doubt she understood what a road trip in that part of the world really meant, but I decided it was time for us to do something we’d both remember forever.
So one morning a bunch of us packed into a van and headed twelve hours north through the Hindu Kush mountains, into the open countryside leading to Mazar-i-Sharif. The next day we decided to have a picnic in the countryside near the Afghan-Uzbek border. It was really beautiful up there, with the fields in bloom. Mom kept insisting that Sam pull over so she could pick some flowers. I didn’t have the heart to tell her they were opium poppies. We eventually did pull over for lunch. Sam was excited about a new gun he had bought, so as we feasted on roasted lamb, naan, and pomegranates, we began to take turns at target practice, aiming at an abandoned old tank in the field. Seriously, that’s just the kind of thing you do for entertainment over there. We were all hooting and hollering and having a fine time when all of a sudden the turret on that tank began to turn toward us with a grinding whir.
“Run!” Sam yelled.
“Run, run!” I yelled at my mom.
“Why? Why?” she yelled back.
I grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the van, her headscarf slipping down over her eyes, and stuffed her in back while the others frantically gathered up the food. As the car doors slammed shut I started to laugh, uncontrollably. So did Mom.
Mom told me she’d never go on a picnic with me again. But she sure got her adventure. Oh, and when she returned to the United States, one of her customers asked her what her favorite part of Afghanistan was. Mom smiled and said, “Dubai.”
But now, all alone in another desert, I wasn’t sure I was equipped to handle that kind of drama anymore. Vultures circled overhead as the road began to bend and turn, taunting me with every twist. Go north, go back. Move ahead. Drive south. No, wait, turn around. C’mon, just go. Around me, the scorched brown hills stretched out for miles, broken only by the chain-link border fence that even I could have climbed over had I wanted to. This measly barrier couldn’t even keep the cows in, or out. I could see them squeezing under, heading north in herds in search of that elusive greener grass.
My pulse quickened as the first green border crossing sign loomed into view. As my last glimpse of American soil disappeared into the distance, the reality of settling in another foreign country began to seep in. I wasn’t going to know my way around, and the little Spanish I knew was laughable. Second nature would be a thing of the past, at least for a while, until I figured out how things worked. The simplest daily tasks, like getting gas, asking for directions, or telling a doctor where it hurt, would become huge chores. Everything that made life easy in the States, gone. And, on top of it all, I knew nobody, and nobody knew me. I could be dead in my house for days, weeks even, and no one would notice. Well, I thought, being really dead in Mexico is still better than feeling dead in California.
“Here goes nothing, Pol,” I said, the inside of my mouth so dry that I could barely part my lips.
It was as if I had entered another dimension. The crossing into Nogales was nothing, just a green light and a guy waving me through, but once on the other side, it was as though someone had changed the channel. Gone were the rows of neat, clean, cookie-cutter houses. Here it seemed more like Afghanistan, with little cement buildings crumbling down into the road. The rise in decibel level was instantaneous. Music blared from rolled-down car windows and open shop doors, mariachi and banda and pop all banging up against each other in one big shouting match. Horns blasted. Street vendors shouted out their offerings. Naranjas! Tacos! Cacahuates! Skinny dogs ran down the muddy streets, narrowly avoiding the buses and trucks and carts selling tacos and hot dogs and corn and flowers and newspapers with photos of dead bodies splashed across their front pages. And apparently there were no driving rules in Mexico, only one giant free-for-all, with lanes disappearing into thin air and everyone just rolling wherever they pleased. The chaos felt almost suffocating, but then again, it also felt strangely liberating.
I was in Mexico, for good this time. And was I going to panic? Of course I was. But first I had to get my visa.
With my satchel crammed with a million papers hanging on one shoulder and Polly in the pink carrier slung over the other, I approached the daunting white building.
“Bienvenido, welcome!” A chubby man in a crisp, short-sleeved shirt motioned me over to a counter, his warm smile taking me by surprise.
“Hi. Hola.” I plunked down a pile with everything I had; papers for me, papers for Pol
ly, papers for my car.
He began to leaf through the well-worn pages of my passport. I could see the stamps for Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India flipping by.
“CIA?” he asked, with only half a smile. “Military?”
I shook my head. “I’m a hairdresser.”
A flash of serious doubt crossed his face. I’d been down this road before, so out of my bag came a copy of The Kabul Beauty School, the Spanish version, always useful evidence in proving I wasn’t a terrorist or a spy.
“Una celebridad!” He began to pass the book around to his coworkers. Everyone seemed amused, except for the long line of impatient travelers growing behind me. Then he handed me a pen as he opened the front cover. “Your signature, please?”
Autograph in hand, he turned back to business. “So, you are vacationing in Mexico?”
I opened my mouth, and for a second, the words caught in my throat. I felt like I was perched on a mile-high bungee platform, summoning the courage to take the plunge. I took a deep breath and shook my head. “No, I live here. I’m coming to live in Mexico.”
His smile grew wider as he began to pound his metal stamp down on page after page of my papers—thump, thump, thump—each thump feeling like a whack at stamping out my past.
“Perfecto. Now you are a Mexican.” He handed me my papers.
“Mucho gusto,” I mumbled, stuffing the papers back into my bag. “Mucho gusto!” I repeated, a little louder this time, searching for any leftover courage that might still be lurking in my soul. So there I was. Starting over. This was no south-of-the-border vacation, this was for real. I had my cat, my car, my stuff. My brain felt pulled in a million directions, from relief at having arrived, to scared sick of all the uncertainty, to a nagging self-loathing about not being able to make things work in the States. But in my heart I felt a twinge of excitement. And I felt something else bubbling up from inside—a sense of control that I hadn’t been able to summon for two years. It was as if I had just found the corner pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that was my life. All I needed to do was figure out how to fill in the middle. Unfortunately, I never was very good at puzzles.
“Now what do I do?” I said out loud to myself with a sigh. The official took me literally, and pointed down the road to another building, where, after much confusion, a lot of bad attempts at Spanish, some feeble stabs at sign language, and a moment or two when I seriously considered, once again, turning around, as there was no way I was going to make it in a country where I couldn’t even figure out how to get in, I finally got my car registration.
I hadn’t gone five miles over the bumpy road that led away from the immigration office when two blue-vested, blue-hatted guys flagged me down. One leaned over, peered through the passenger window, and smiled. The other was saying something to me, but I couldn’t recognize even one word. Then they began to compare notes with each other over the roof of my little car. I dug deep into my bag, hoping I had remembered to pack enough pesos for a quick bribe.
“My friend thinks you are very handsome,” came a voice through my window.
I stuffed the bills back into my purse and laughed. “Why, thank you. And he is very handsome, too.” They waved me on, and I continued through the now-green rolling hills, past little churches and shrines and clusters of flower-strewn crosses to commemorate those who had died on the roads. The landscape grew cluttered with pampas grass and little pink flowers. Men with shiny machetes hacked at the thick grass dividing the two sides of the narrow highway.
That afternoon I drove only until I could see the sun beginning its slow descent toward the horizon. I was worried by all the warnings I’d heard about driving in Mexico at night. If the narcos or kidnappers don’t get you, the animals leaping randomly back and forth across the roads surely will. That, or one of the potholes the size of Texas that could swallow up a Mini in a nanosecond. But I was ready to call it a day. My only stop after Nogales had been a gas station, and my only human encounter, outside of toll takers, was the gas station attendant who stuffed my cash into a coffee can and hoisted it up on a pulley to an upstairs window, where his buddy took the payment and lowered the can back down, change and receipt inside. They were kept company by a weather-beaten old woman who stood guard outside the restrooms with a wad of toilet paper and a bucket of water that could be mine for five pesos. I made a note never to travel without tissues, hand sanitizer, and Wet Ones again.
Solé Grand Motel, read an oval sign atop a tall pole next to the highway. Toda La Semana $220 X 12 horas, excepto los sabados. Two hundred and twenty dollars, and for just half a day? I thought Mexico was supposed to be cheap! Then I remembered that it was pesos, did some quick math, and realized that the rate was cheap, only about sixteen dollars. Wow. I could learn to really love this place, I thought. I pulled off the road and followed the signs until I came upon a windowless stone façade with the hotel’s maroon logo splashed across the front. A soulless rock garden bordered the driveway that led to an electronic gate.
“Bienvenido,” came a faceless voice from a box outside the car.
I lowered my window. “I need a room?” I felt like I should be ordering fries and a shake.
“Cuántas horas?”
“Excuse me?”
“Cuántas? Dos? Seis? Doce?”
“One night!” I yelled back into the little box. “Just one night.”
“Te gustería un hombre? Una mujer? Un masaje?”
I had no idea what he wanted from me. “A room! One night!”
“Doscientos veinte. Two hundred twenty.” I grabbed some bills and stuffed them into the metal drawer, which pulled back with a bang.
“Veintitrés,” the voice answered as the gate swung slowly open.
I obediently pulled into a tiny open garage marked twenty-three, and was about to grab my purse and Polly to head out and stretch my legs a bit when the door behind me clanged down shut. A cold sweat sprouted from my forehead as I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark. As soon as I could make out the outline of another door to my left, I had no choice but to enter. Anything had to be better than getting locked inside this hot box.
And much to my surprise and delight, on the other side of that door was one of the nicest hotel rooms I’d seen in a long time. Marble floors, a king-sized bed, a sitting and dining area, big-screen TV, fluffy towels embroidered with the motel’s logo, the works. I reached for a chair to put down Polly’s carrier. It didn’t budge. Nor did the one next to it. I tried the ashtray on the table. Glued down. What kind of clientele did they get at this place, anyway? When I turned and saw the packaged condom next to the mints on the pillow, I finally got it.
But the room was so clean and spacious, and my carful of stuff was sure to be safe in the garage, and I was dead tired of driving, so I settled in to what I learned later was one of Mexico’s many no-tell motels. When I thought about it, it was kind of a civilized setup. In Afghanistan, of course, there was no such thing. One of my girls over there had told me a heartbreaking story about her sister, who had a husband who would lock her in her room with the kids, taking the key so he could bring women to the house. She would watch them come and go each night through the keyhole. Other men over there would bring young boys and prostitutes to parties, or frequent the Chinese restaurants that were, in reality, fronts for brothels.
I filled Polly’s litter box and poured her a meal, and realized that I hadn’t eaten all day. The room service menu offered all sorts of tempting snacks and drinks, so I went all out. Twenty minutes later a bell rang at my door, but in the seconds it took for me to answer, whoever had delivered my tray had already disappeared.
I kind of liked this place, where things were so anonymous that I almost felt invisible to myself, which, I have to admit, was sort of a relief. Maybe the old Deb could simply disappear into the Sonoran Desert—only just not literally. In my mind that was way too much of a frightening possibility. But what
if Mexico really could grant me a clean slate? What would that new Deb look like? Between bites, I began a list:
1.New Deb thinks ahead. She does not make rash decisions. She does not live her life as though it’s her own personal extreme-sporting event. She will no longer be known as “Crazy Deb.”
2.New Deb does not need a man. She might want a man, but if and when the opportunity arises she will be very, very selective. No more college sweethearts (too late for that), no more beach bums, no more closeted gays, no more abusers, no more wannabe warlords, and no more Mr. Nice Guys to make her feel like shit for not being able to be so nice herself. If there is another man, he will be the last man standing. Oh, and by the way? Marriage is not a mandatory thing.
3.New Deb does not wallow in her past. She will learn from her mistakes, not obsess over them to the point that she becomes a basket case who is constantly second-guessing herself and sobbing all over the place, eating too much, and making everyone around her crazy, and . . .
4.New Deb will be skinny! Well, maybe not skinny, but at least healthy and fit. She will cut out the junk food, she will ride a bike, she will not fall prey to the margaritas. She will, for once in her life, learn to feel good in her own skin. New Deb promises to love New Deb no matter what size she is.
(Here, I have to admit, I paused to finish my tacos and drain my beer.)
5.New Deb will never pick up a cigarette again. Ever.
6.New Deb is not afraid. She is as strong as she once thought she was.
7.New Deb will be her own best friend, not her own worst enemy. She will keep herself from taking two steps back every time she takes one forward.
8.New Deb will never pack her life in boxes again. In Mexico, she will find a way to make her head content and her heart full. And that’s that.
After a long, steamy shower I snuggled into bed, eager for the diversion of old reruns and cable news, courtesy of the remote that was bolted to the bedside table next to me. But as I surfed, it appeared as though the only things with even slightly visible reception were four porn channels and a soccer match, none of which was enough to keep my eyes open at that point. So I just drifted off all by myself, dreaming about the New Deb in my dark, quiet, safe, sex motel.
The House on Carnaval Street Page 7