by Claire Cook
I headed down to the office to check my e-mail. I bought a bottle of water from the ancient vending machine, then sat down at the single computer in the alcove across from the main desk. I took a sip and clicked on the Internet icon. While I waited for it to upload, I put one elbow on the old metal desk and rested my chin on the heel of my hand.
I closed my eyes and wished for an e-mail from Anastasia. I knew she was fine, but I missed her. I pictured her sitting on the couch with Seth last night, like two peas in a pod, watching TV. Family was the most important thing, and mine was at home, waiting for me.
I typed in the Web address for my e-mail, then entered my password.
The message I’d wished for was waiting for me in the inbox. I smiled and double clicked.
Hey Mom
I got a 100 on my spelling test and then we made Japanese tempoora for dinner. Me and Cammy think your prettier than Dads friend Ileen. Miss u.
Love
Me
I fumbled in my shoulder bag for my cell phone as I pushed the office door open.
I chose a random path and half ran, half walked, until I lost myself in the tropical growth. I leaned up against a palm tree, struggling to catch my breath. The howler monkeys overhead were louder now, screaming away as if they were talking about me. Loser, I was pretty sure they were saying. What were you thinking?
The sound of the waves crashing across the street merged with the rage pounding in my ears.
Eventually, I unearthed my phone. My hands were shaking, but I managed to find Seth’s cell number in my address book. I pushed the Call button.
He answered on the second ring. “Hey. Everything okay?”
Just in case Seth had a sister I’d forgotten about, I said, “Who the hell is Eileen?”
“Oh,” he said.
I waited.
“Just a friend. How’s the trip going?”
I closed my eyes.
“Now I remember you,” I said.
“What?” he said.
“Now I remember you,” I said again. And then I hung up.
The monkeys screeched above me.
I looked up. “Thank you,” I said. “You’re absolutely right.”
I pushed Redial.
“Jill?” Seth said halfway through the first ring.
“Good guess,” I said. “Is she still in my house?”
“Of course not.”
“Is Eileen the woman you lived with in Africa?” I asked.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“It’s not what you think. She was in the area on business, and she just wanted to meet…to say hello. I mean, we were together for…we’re just friends.”
I drew a line in the hard-packed dirt of the path with the edge of my flip-flop.
“Seven years ago,” I said, taking the time to enunciate each word, “you shouldn’t have left us. Even if I wasn’t hearing you about the kind of life you wanted us to have, you should have kept trying until I did. Because we were a family, and that’s what families do. They stay together and they figure out a compromise. They don’t sneak off in the middle of the night.”
“I can’t take that back,” Seth said quietly. “It’s water under the bridge.”
For the second time today I pictured us on our honeymoon, walking hand in hand along the carriage paths and under the stone bridges, a lifetime of promises ahead of us.
“Sure it’s water under the bridge, Seth, but who built that bridge? Who took off and left me standing on that bridge with a three-year-old? Broke and scared, with no one to turn to. Do you know what I went through? What our daughter went through? There’s not enough water in the world to wash that away, Seth.”
“Jill…”
“Joni was right. I was stuck, totally stuck. Glued to my little house, my tiny world, afraid to move. I don’t know, maybe I thought if I stayed frozen in place, nothing else could happen to us. Or maybe I thought it might make it easier for you to find us, so we could all live happily ever after like we were supposed to the first time. God, what was I thinking?”
This phone call was going to cost me a fortune. I didn’t care. I was sick and tired of worrying about money. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I took a deep breath. “But I’m unstuck now, Seth. I am soooooo unstuck. I want a brand-new bigger life that’s not about waiting for you to grow the fuck up. Don’t you see? You’re doing it again. We hit a bumpy patch and, suddenly, guess who’s coming to dinner?”
“That’s not fair, Jill.”
“I agree,” I said. “It’s not fair that I’ll never be able to really count on you when the going gets tough. It was a lot to forgive, but if we both gave it our all, I thought we had a shot. Instead, I leave for five minutes, and you’re already cooking dinner with your old girlfriend and working on an escape plan. Or at least a backup plan.”
“But—”
I gulped in some air. “I think a quick update of the rules is in order. One: any decision that impacts all three of us is first discussed by the two grown-ups in the family. Two: before we expose our daughter to anyone we have dated, are dating, or might possibly date, the two of us have an adult discussion about the best way to introduce said person into her life. Got that?”
“What are you really saying, Jill?”
The monkeys were quiet now. Just a few yards away I noticed a garden filled with an amazing array of orchids. It was practically right in front of my nose, and I hadn’t even seen it.
“What I’m saying, Seth, is that I forgive you. And I let you go. I want us to be the best co-parents we can possibly be, but I’m ready to move on with my life. You should, too. Put Anastasia on the phone now, okay?”
37
CYNTHIA WAS SITTING ON HER BED, READING ELIN Hilderbrand’s The Castaways and drinking a bottle of water.
“Joni just stopped by,” she said, “to see if we want to take a belly dancing class with her.”
“Damn right we do,” I said. “Let’s go.”
At the door of the thatched-roof, open-air yoga hut that doubled as a belly dancing studio, I bought a chiff on hip scarf. It was bright turquoise, with rows and rows of gold coins that made a lovely tinkling sound. I deserved it, and I tied it around my hips without even a trace of guilt.
Cynthia chose a pale pink scarf with tiny silver coins, and Joni went right for one that was tie-dyed with sequins and coins sewn in a wave design.
A striking teacher with dark hair coiled on top of her head and exaggerated smoky eye makeup danced into the hut in full regalia: fringed and sequined bra, fitted hip belt, harem pants in the sheerest sea foam chiff on. She pressed a button on the CD player and smiled at us.
It seemed totally incongruous to hear Middle Eastern music playing in a hut in the middle of Costa Rica. It was soulful, exotic, and sexy as hell.
Our instructor never said a word. She brought us through a series of movements, isolating hips, pelvis, stomach, ribs, shoulders. She’d demonstrate, then we’d repeat. We made figure eights with our hips and shimmied our shoulders. We worked on traveling steps.
The dozen or so women in the hut were of every age, shape, and size. We moved with an energy that was sensual, feminine, life affirming. Nobody laughed or made self-deprecating comments about their bodies. Nobody said anything—not even Cynthia. It took our complete focus to follow the instructor’s movements. I willed my rib cage to move without taking my abdomen with it, made my right shoulder jut forward while my left slid back, all with a focus that felt almost telekinetic.
The air was less humid here in Tamarindo than it had been in San José, but even with a ceiling fan, it wasn’t much cooler inside than it was outside. Ten minutes in, we were all covered with sweat, but it only made our movements looser, more sinuous.
My head cleared and Seth slipped away. I actually felt him go, as if I’d been holding a helium-filled balloon closed with my hand so the air couldn’t escape, and when I let go it sputtered and swirled as it became
airborne, higher and higher until it was just a distant dot in the sky.
I felt lighter, too, as if I were transcending the weight that had been holding me down, holding me back. I didn’t regret the years Seth and I had been together. We’d loved each other. We’d brought our amazing daughter into the world. What I regretted was giving him the last seven years of my life by not moving on.
No more. It was my time now.
I moved my hips to the music like I’d never moved them before. The coins on my scarf tinkled and clanked, clanked and tinkled, calling out to the universe that my future would be filled with abundance. I would always have enough. I would always be enough.
“Ohmigod, I think that was better than sex,” Cynthia said when we finished.
Joni untied her hip scarf. “Let’s not get carried away.”
I walked past them and out the door of the hut, floating through the flowers and the sunshine.
“Hey, wait up,” Joni yelled.
I stopped and bent down to get a closer look at a clump of orchids near the path. Each one was more perfect than the one before.
“What’s the rush, girlfriend?” Cynthia said.
I looked up just in time to see one of my monkey friends swinging to the next tree. “I want to do it all. Yoga and zip gliding and butterfly watching. And I don’t want to miss a single sunrise or sunset while we’re here.”
“Welcome back, honey,” Joni said.
“DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING really hot I can borrow?” I asked.
“Sure,” Cynthia said. She looked up from her magazine. “Just about everything.”
“Black dress,” I said. “Sexy. I never ever wear anything sexy. Not I’m-looking-for-a-man sexy, but I-like-who-I-am-and-I’m-not-afraid-to-show-it-to-the-world sexy.”
Cynthia swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “Not a problem, girlfriend. It’s about time you asked for some wardrobe help. I’ve been trying to send you a telepathetic message about that since we got here.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m here for you, too.” I opened our tiny refrigerator and grabbed another bottle of water. Between the surfing, the belly dancing, and the yoga class I’d managed to fit in after lunch, I’d gone through at least six so far today.
I handed one to Cynthia. “First of all,” I said, “it’s telepathic, not telepathetic. Now I think you’re actually a very intelligent woman, and with a little bit of focus—”
Cynthia looked at me. She clunked her water bottle down on the bedside table. She flipped her magazine onto her bed like a Frisbee. “What is this, some new twist on My Fair Lady? You give me three new vocabulary words a day and I teach you how to dress like a ho? I said telepathetic because I meant telepathetic. It was a cross between telepathic and pathetic. It was a joke. Or do you need me to teach you how to recognize jokes?”
I looked at her. What a fascinating place the world was.
“Dress like a whore,” I said. “Not ho.”
Cynthia put her hands on her hips. “It’s ho or no.”
We stared each other down. I blinked first. “Fine,” I said. “Dress me like a ho.”
Cynthia reached into the tiny closet. “And just for your edification, My Fair Lady was based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.”
“As was Educating Rita,” I said. “Just for yours.”
“Pretty Woman,” she said.
“Mighty Aphrodite,” I said.
“She’s All That, Mannequin, One Touch of Venus,” Cynthia said as fast as she could. She handed me a stretchy, strapless black dress.
“Is there another piece to that?” I asked. “I’m not sure this part would make it all the way around my wrist.”
Cynthia opened one of the dresser drawers and handed me something flesh-colored. “Don’t worry, the Hide and Seek Hi-Rise Body Smoother will shave inches off your life.”
“I don’t know,” I said. I’d always dreamed of trying Spanx, just not in this hemi sphere.
Cynthia handed me a black push-up bra. “Just wait. It’ll be like you got a whole body transplant.”
I carried everything into the tiny bathroom, peed for about ten minutes from all the water, and jumped into the shower. The bathroom walls, ceiling, and floor were tiled in rough ceramic, and the shower end was curtainless and identifiable only by the drain in the floor and the showerhead on the wall. As I looked up at the thatched ceiling while I shampooed my hair, a tiny lizard darted out of sight.
“Cute,” I said out loud. “Just a little lizard. And not the least bit dangerous.”
I finished my shower in record time. The lizard was probably just a government plant to keep tourists from wasting water.
By the time I finished drying myself off with a highly absorbent, naturally antibacterial, 100 percent organic unbleached bamboo bath towel, I was sweating again.
I picked up the Spanx body-smoothing contraption. What the hell, I thought.
“Cheesuz,” Cynthia said when I came out. “Who knew you could look that good.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I stood in front of the mirror on the back of the door and spun around so I could get the full view. It was like I’d shrunk two sizes everywhere but my breasts, which seemed dangerously close to spilling out of both the strapless dress and the push-up bra.
“Wow,” I said. I couldn’t take my eyes off myself. “Okay, well, now that I know I can look like this, do you have anything a little more appropriate I can borrow for dinner?”
“Abstemious, triskaidekaphobia, and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” Cynthia said.
“What?”
Cynthia smiled. “Those are my three vocabulary words for the day. Now you have to go out there and own that dress.”
38
IT TOOK US A WHILE TO GET TO THE POOLSIDE RESTAURANT where we were meeting the GGG group for dinner, because Cynthia’s strappy leather sandals were half a size too small and impossible to walk in.
“This is ridiculous,” I said as I wobbled along the path. “I’m going back for my flip-flops.”
“You can do it, girlfriend,” Cynthia said. “After a while you get used to the suffraging.”
The outdoor restaurant was fairly crowded, so we stopped at the edge of the patio to look for our group. A local band was playing a wooden flute–heavy cover of Santana’s “Black Magic Woman.” We rocked our hips to the jungly beat, and Cynthia and I gave each other a couple of hip bumps. I yanked up the black dress before I lost it.
In the center of the courtyard, three round tables had been pulled together in the shape of a snowman. In the soft glow of candles and palm trees strung with white lights, I could just make out Joni sitting at the head table.
There was an empty table right in front of us, and a small ceramic vase in the center held three pinkish purple orchids. I reached for one and tucked it behind my ear. A stream of water dribbled down the side of my neck, and I wiped it off with the back of my hand.
“I can’t believe I have to pee again already,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the table.”
Going to the bathroom in Spanx might not be that tricky under the best of circumstances, but in ninety-something-degree weather and tropical humidity it was going to be a challenge.
There was a little split in the crotch, but I wasn’t sure if it was for ventilation or elimination, and somehow I wasn’t feeling quite that adventurous.
Music and laughter floated into the tiny thatched-roof bathroom as I thought my options through. Okay, if I rolled the dress up from the bottom, and the Spanx down from the top, it should work, right?
I tottered on Cynthia’s fancy sandals as I rolled her dress up under my armpits. Then I tottered some more as I peeled the stretchy fabric of the Hide and Seek Hi-Rise Body Smoother away from my hot, sweaty skin like a Band-Aid.
My torso was finally free, but the same elasticity that had taken inches off my midriff was now making it impossible for me to separate my knees more than a fraction of an inch. Slowly, I worked Cynthia’s Spanx
down around my ankles.
I sat on the toilet, my sweaty butt sticking to the biodegradable toilet seat cover. I took a deep breath and released my pent-up pee like a waterfall.
Just as I finished, I felt the hairy tickle of something on my left calf.
I looked down. Cynthia’s black strapless dress was rolled up over her black push-up bra, my ankles were bound in Spanx, and a black zebra tarantula the size of a small country was crawling up my leg.
Leave it to me to die in a bathroom in Costa Rica just when I was ready to start living again. I only hoped Anastasia was strong enough to get through the loss. And that her heart was already filled with enough memories of me to last her a lifetime. Seth would take good care of her, at least I thought he would, and if he didn’t, I’d find a way to come back and haunt him until he got on track again. Maybe I’d luck out, and the next world, if there was one, would turn out to be an endless whirl of belly dancing.
I forced my frozen body to move. Carefully, I wrapped a long sheet of toilet paper around my right hand like a bandage.
Centimeter by centimeter, I stood up, my heart pounding in my chest.
“One, two, three,” I whispered quietly.
“One, two, three,” I whispered again, because it didn’t work the first time.
I flicked the tarantula across the room with my toilet-paper covered hand.
I yanked Cynthia’s dress down. I tried to pull up the Spanx, but it was drenched in sweat and my hands were shaking. I un-buckled Cynthia’s sandals as fast as I could, kicked them off, then stepped out of the Spanx.
I grabbed the sandals and threw the door open, waving the Spanx behind me in case the tarantula tried to follow.
Billy Sanders was standing right outside the door. I threw myself into his arms.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
I pointed. “A tarantula. A black zebra tarantula. Do something.”
He pulled the bathroom door shut. And then he kissed me.