“Wow,” she said.
“At Escuela de Alegría, Leila wanted all the students, even the boys, to learn how to dance!” He stretched his arms into a ballet position and pirouetted around the room.
“Angel, you paint, you dance, you create with hair and makeup,” she said, admiring his moves. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
He danced over, took her in his arms, and waltzed her around the room. Towering over him, she laughed. She broke away and began to dance a Slovak polka, hands on hips, her feet kicking in the air.
“I can’t do that!” He plunked down on the floor.
“Yes, you can!” She pulled him to his feet and danced around the room with him, “la la la-ing” to an old Slovak folk tune she remembered. “After being sardines in a taco truck, this feels great!”
“Bravo!” Claudia walked into the dance studio with the Walmart shopping bag. “You forgot this in the truck, Angel. Papa dropped it off for you!” The paper tore as she set the bag down on the floor. Angel’s red Gucci satchel flopped out.
“Ohmygod, ohmygod,” he said in an imitation of Moon. He broke away from Natalia, ran over and playfully hugged it. “Without this, I can’t turn you into a princess for your prince!”
Natalia sat on a folding chair in front of the dance-studio mirror. Angel flitted around her as he put the finishing touches on her makeup. He had showered and changed into jeans and a guayabera, a traditional short-sleeved white cotton shirt that he said Mexican men wear to parties. His mother had found them among the clothes that Angel left at her house when he went to the United States. Oralia had also brought over a pair of Angel’s old cowboy boots for him to wear. They were black, and Natalia was sure that they had three-inch elevator insoles, but he had grumbled when he put them on. “Yo, first thing I do tomorrow after you’re, like, safe and sound with your dude, is go out and buy myself a pair of red-alligator cowboy boots with silver heels.”
Oralia had also brought clothes to the school for Natalia to wear, some from her own and some from Claudia’s closet: a white Mexican peasant skirt that was supposed to be ankle-length, but which came only to Natalia’s knees; and a white Mexican peasant blouse with vivid orange, yellow, and pink-embroidered flowers bordering the scooped neckline. On her feet Natalia wore black-rubber flip-flops, which Angel jokingly called “Mexican Manolos.”
Angel had given Natalia a quick mani-pedi, using nail polish loaned by Claudia. It was shocking pink and sparkling with pink glitter. She was grateful that Angel had sent Claudia to Target to buy her a black nightie, some bras and undies, plus a toothbrush, toothpaste, and makeup.
She studied herself in the mirror and patted her hair. “I’m sure glad Moon kept an extra Natalia wig in his garment bag and that you remembered to bring it.”
“You’re welcome.” Angel was brushing blusher on her cheekbones.
“And I love the way you do my makeup.”
“You’re welcome again.”
She sighed deeply. “I guess I look pretty much like I did before we started our little adventure.”
Sensing her disappointment, he studied her face in the mirror. “It’s the jutting eyebrow ridge, right?”
She nodded. “The caveman look works if you want masculine. But feminine? Not so much.”
Getting an idea, he rummaged in his satchel. He pulled out a roll of duct tape, then removed Natalia’s wig.
She saw that the hair was starting to grow in on her bald head. “I’m as fuzzy as a teddy bear. It’s a start!”
Angel ripped off a four-inch length of tape. “This goes on your finger for now.” She held up her finger. He attached the tape lightly to the tip. He did the same thing with another piece of tape. “Watch this.”
Studying her face in the mirror, he pressed his thumb just above Natalia’s right eyebrow and pulled the drooping skin of her forehead upward, toward her scalp. He quickly attached the tape to the top of her head—it held the raised forehead skin in place—then repeated the process with the skin above her left eyebrow. He carefully replaced the wig on her head. Her drooping forehead had all but disappeared and neither piece of tape showed. “Magic!” he said.
“Magic?” Without moving her head, Natalia looked up and down, then right and left. The skin on her forehead drooped again and the end of both strips of tape showed below her wig hairline. “I wish.”
Angel rested the wig in Natalia’s lap, tore off fresh pieces of tape, and repeated the eyebrow-lifting process. She did her eye-movement thing and got the same result: Both eyebrows drooped and both pieces of tape showed. He sighed, removed the wig and started over again.
“Stop,” she said.
“Dude, I’m just getting the hang of it.”
“No.” She put the wig back on. “I don’t need it. I’m fine like this.”
“Don’t you want to look, like, perfect?”
She met his eyes in the mirror. “Aren’t you the guy who said, ‘You’re out of the White House, out of the public eye, Natalia? You don’t have to look perfect anymore?’”
“You’re right. I said that. But what about Prince Vaclav?”
“Y’know, in the past few days, I’ve eaten whatever I want: ribs; onion rings; and tacos loaded with carbs, processed sugar, and saturated fat. The only exercise I’ve gotten is walking around in the desert at midnight, trying not to step on a rattlesnake. Am I fat?”
“No.”
“I haven’t had a sip of Evian, San Pellegrino, or Perrier in three days. Have I died of dehydration?”
“No.”
“Right. In fact, I feel pretty damn good!” She stood up from the chair and groaned. “Except for right here.” She put her hand on her lower back. “That’s from spooning with you in the taco truck.”
“I’ll give you a massage.” He stepped behind her and started to rub her back. She brushed his hands away.
“Vamanos!” From the floor, she grabbed the plastic Target shopping bag holding her new clothes and sundries. “It’s almost sunset. My dream was to run into Vaclav’s arms on the beach as the sun sinks into the ocean. I don’t want to miss it!”
“Okay, okay!” Angel scooped the makeup and other beautifying gear into his satchel. As he zipped it up, he noticed that Natalia was staring at herself in the mirror, her eyes wide with what looked like terror.
“Chica, you look great! You look beautiful! He’s gonna take one look at you and, like, come in his pants!”
“Eeeeewwww! Gross!” She playfully slapped his arm, then softly said, “Are you sure?”
Angel stood on his tiptoes and kissed the tip of her nose. “Yes, mi amor, I promise.”
Chapter 46
Rosarito Beach, MX
December 19, 5:00 p.m.
Fog wrapped the beach in a gray shroud. No romantic ocean sunset tonight, Natalia thought. She reminded herself to stay positive. Sitting in Claudia’s beat-up old Escuela de Alegría VW van, she could see Angel talking to the receptionist in the glassed-in lobby of the Hotel Paraiso. “Paradise” is definitely not the best name for this place, she thought, noticing the fountain with broken tiles and a trickle of dirty water, the anemic palm trees whose fronds had been snapped off by the wind, and the neon “Vacancy” sign that randomly blinked on and off, as if rats were chewing on the wires.
Stay positive, she repeated to herself, taking a deep yoga breath.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the rear-view mirror: She was wearing oversized sunglasses and a ridiculously large sombrero that Angel had dug out of a costume box at the school. “It’s a perfect disguise,” he had said playfully. She nervously toyed with a tiny plastic Ronald McDonald figure that she had dug out of a hole in the plastic seat cover. On the floor she spotted a crumpled Happy Meal carton, no doubt left over from one of Claudia’s excursions with her students to the local Golden Arches. The sight triggered a memory of Rex: His mouth opening wide, like a shark’s, as he took an obnoxiously big bite of a Big Mac, his chin dripping with grease, his eyes glued to his own i
mage on FOX News.
“I must not think of Rex,” she said aloud. “Rex is zlý, bad! I must think of Vaclav. Vaclav is dobrý, good!”
Except, where was Vaclav?
Because Angel’s tunnel plan had bombed last night, it was now hours later than when he had told Vaclav they would meet him here. She hoped that Vaclav didn’t think that she had chickened out, or that Rex had sent Secret Service men who tracked her down and whisked her back to the White House. If he did, she wouldn’t blame him if he had climbed into his rental car, driven back across the border, and hopped on the first flight to Prague.
“He’s around here somewhere.” Angel said, walking over to the van. “The dude at the desk says a guest with a Slovak passport and, like, a weird accent, hasn’t checked out.” He pointed to a dusty Honda Civic with an Enterprise Car Rental sticker in the half-empty parking lot. “That’s his car.”
“Vďaka Bohu,” sighed Natalia. “Thank God!” She grabbed her Target shopping bag and climbed out of the van, determined to find him. She walked around the outside of the three-story hotel, its white paint blistered in patches that revealed the cinderblocks beneath. On the ocean-side of the building, a patio with a swimming pool extended to a steep bluff overlooking the beach. The wind was so strong, it rippled the surface of the water in the pool and nudged the empty chaise lounges on the patio, their aluminum legs scraping the cement like cats’ claws.
Natalia saw a few joggers and people walking dogs on the beach below. Along the shoreline, two blonde American teenagers in shorts were galloping on horses, the horses’ hooves kicking up spray. The riders were laughing and screaming, “Yee-haw! Yee-haw!” An old Mexican man in a straw hat straggled behind them on a donkey, his shouts swallowed by the wind. She figured that he had rented the horses to the girls and now was terrified that because of their recklessness, either they or his animals would end up dead.
Natalia remembered how she had dreamed as a child of owning a horse, but for a poor Slovak girl it seemed no more achievable than becoming a fashion model. When she married Rex and her modeling career ended, she took a few riding lessons in Central Park. She enjoyed it so much that she asked him if he would buy her a horse so that she could compete in dressage. Rex said no: “The only horses I like are the ones you can bet on.”
“Natalia?” Angel’s voice pulled her out of her reverie.
She turned around. He was walking toward her with a handsome Mexican man about his age, a backpack with a Four Seasons Hotels logo slung over one shoulder. He was tall and lean and he towered over Angel, but with their arms around each other she thought they made a cute couple.
“Raphael?”
“Si Señora!” He greeted her with a warm Latino two-cheek kiss. “Mucho gusto!”
“I’m pleased to meet you too!” She could see that Angel and Raphael were nervous as they talked quietly in Spanish, their fingers touching lightly. She wondered if it would be like that for her and Vaclav when they met.
If they met.
She searched the beach again, her eyes suddenly squinting into the rays of a sunset that emerged from under a fog bank, a narrow band of gold shimmering on the horizon. The sunset backlit a figure jogging on the beach about a half mile away. She hadn’t noticed him before. He was tall and lanky and took long strides, his ponytail flopping against his neck each time his foot hit the sand. Was it Vaclav?
Natalia took off her sunglasses and shielded her eyes so that she could see him more clearly.
“Ohmygod, ohmygod, it’s Vaclav!”
“I told you!” Angel put up his hand to slap her high-five, but she was too excited to notice.
“I can’t believe this is happening!” She grabbed him in a bear hug. “Oh, Angel, my angel, I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for me!” She stepped back and looked into his eyes. “You’re my best friend ever. How can I live without you?” She felt tears on her face and noticed that his eyes were moist. “Hovno, I’ll ruin my makeup!”
“You look beautiful. Nothing can ruin that!” He grabbed her hands. “See you, like, soon, okay? You and your prince will come to Todos Santos. Me and Raphael will be waiting for you.” He nodded toward the beach. Vaclav was still running, unaware of them. “You better get your butt down there, or he’ll run away!”
She wouldn’t let go of Angel’s hands. “What if I don’t love him? What if I hate Vaclav and he hates me? How will I find you?”
Raphael pulled a couple of shiny new Google Pixel 2SL smartphones from his backpack. “Angel asked me to get these for you. I already keyed in your phone numbers.” He gave one to her, the other to Angel.
“Wow, this is, like, state-of-the-art,” said Angel. “Thanks!” He pocketed his phone.
“Thank you, Raphael.” With no pockets on her white Mexican peasant skirt, Natalia stowed her new smartphone in the plastic Target shopping bag filled with her belongings.
“So, we’re, like, good to go, right?” Angel looked at her intently and nodded, as if urging her to nod too.
She tried to think of something else to say, to stretch out their goodbye. It hit her that she couldn’t bear saying farewell to him because she was terrified about saying hello to Vaclav. She spotted him running on the beach. He was so far away now, that he was just a speck. “I can do this.” She took a deep breath, as if preparing to dive into ice-cold water.
She turned back to Angel and kissed the top of his head. “Be safe, be good, and don’t forget me, okay?”
He looked up at her, his lips trembling. “I won’t, if you won’t.”
“Deal.” She hugged him tightly, then clutched the Target shopping bag and climbed down a narrow wooden stairway from the bluff to the beach. When she reached the sand, she discovered that it was too soft and deep to run wearing flip-flops. She kicked them off. She turned and looked up at the bluff, to give a last wave to Angel. He and Raphael stood with their arms around each other, watching her. They waved back.
She broke into a run. As she jounced across the sand, her sombrero and sunglasses flew off. She dumped the Target shopping bag so that she could use both hands to hold her wig down and keep it from flying off too.
As she drew closer to him, she saw that Vaclav had stopped running and was cooling down. He was walking back and forth along the shoreline, breathing hard and gazing at the sunset.
“Vaclav!”
He turned and spotted her. “Natalia!” He waved, then began running toward her.
Natalia needed to stop and catch her breath, but a sudden burst of exhilaration forced her lungs to open wider and her heart to beat faster…
She raced toward Vaclav, dizzy with joy and hope and love.
On the ocean bluff, Angel watched Natalia run into Vaclav’s arms. He and Raphael were too far away from the couple and it was getting too dark to see the looks on their faces, but he could hear their shrieks of joy and laughter. The lovers on the beach spun around, as if dancing to music as beautiful as the lavender hues of the waning ocean sunset. Natalia’s wig fell off, but Vaclav didn’t seem to care. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed every inch of her fuzzy head. His kisses moved to her neck and then to her face. Embracing fervently, they sank down onto the sand.
First Natalia was on top of Vaclav, then Vaclav was on top of her. Suddenly Vaclav flipped her over onto her stomach. On his knees, he crouched over her. Angel and Raphael saw a flash of white as Vaclav pulled up Natalia’s Mexican peasant skirt.
“Uh-oh,” said Raphael. “I think this is where we stop watching.”
“Wait,” Angel said. “He’s not going to hump her. He’s, like, IDing her.”
“Huh?”
“She’s got a mole shaped like a heart on her butt.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“Long story.”
Raphael looked at him suspiciously, as if wondering whether he had had sex with her.
“Yo, it’s not what you think.”
In the gathering darkness, from what he could see so far awa
y, it appeared that Vaclav found Natalia’s identifying mole. He kissed it lovingly, then with more fervor.
“Uh, this is where we stop watching,” he said.
At that moment, the last sliver of sun dipped below the horizon. Angel took Raphael’s arm. They walked south, along the bluff.
With his new 600-mm telephoto lens, Phil took photo after photo of Natalia’s reunion with the man he guessed was her old lover, as if it were in dramatic, movie-screen-worthy close-up: their first passionate kiss; their twirling with joy on the beach; their collapsing into each other’s arms on the sand. He even captured the moment when the man flipped her over and pulled up her skirt. The lens was so powerful, that it picked up the mole shaped like a heart on Natalia’s butt cheek. If he sold that photo to the National Enquirer, he imagined earning not only thousands of dollars for himself, but that thousands of women would run out to their nearest tattoo shop and request the exact same valentine-shape tattooed on their own butt.
Phil was breathless with excitement about the amazing shots he was getting, grateful that he had been able to tail the Mama G’s Tacos truck through the Mexico border crossing, all the way to the surprisingly beautiful school in the shantytown. He had parked his car under the one eucalyptus tree that he could find nearby and staked out the school for nearly an hour. Finally, a tall woman in a traditional Mexican skirt and blouse, but with a Natalia wig, sunglasses, and an over-the-top Mexican sombrero, had stepped outside the school gate. In Phil’s opinion, there was no way that she was not Natalia, the First Lady of the United States.
As if to confirm his hunch, Angel, the First Lady’s gay Mexican hairdresser, had then driven up in the rickety school van. Sitting beside him was a young Mexican woman who could have been Angel’s twin. He watched as Natalia climbed inside the van. At that moment, Phil wished he could high-five himself. All his research had paid off. His targets were within his crosshairs.
The First Lady Escapes Page 21