Claire Cook

by Seven Year Switch (v5)

  I blew out a long gust of air and reminded myself to savor every single detail of this trip. Who knew when I might get the chance to go somewhere again.

  About twenty minutes later, everyone but Cynthia had their luggage.

  “Don’t even tell me,” Cynthia said.

  Vianca draped an arm over Cynthia’s shoulder. “Come on. I’ll help you fill out the lost-luggage form. With any luck, they’ll deliver your belongings to our hotel before we fly out tomorrow.”

  “Lost luggage,” Cynthia said as she made quotation marks with two fingers of each hand. “Right. How do we know somebody didn’t just steal the suitcases with the best clothes?”

  “We’ll fill out that form, too, while we’re over there,” Vianca said.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You can always borrow some of my clothes.”

  Cynthia gave my T-shirt and jeans a once-over. “Or we could shop,” she said.

  AS SOON AS Cynthia and I checked into our bungalow, I made a dash for the business center to check my e-mail. Nothing. I checked my cell phone again. Not a single message.

  My eyes filled up. No news is good news, I reminded myself. Anastasia and Seth had lots of catching up to do, and it was perfectly understandable they’d forgotten all about me. It was a good thing, and because of it, I was in San José, Costa Rica, having the time of my life.

  A single tear rolled down one cheek. It dead-ended at the corner of my mouth, and I wiped it away with the back of my hand. I opened a blank e-mail and started writing to Anastasia.

  Dear Asia,

  I hope you’re having as much fun with Dad as I am in Costa Rica! If you have time, I’d love to hear all about your day, but if you’re busy, especially if you’re doing your homework, which I know you won’t forget, I completely understand.

  Love, Mom

  I reread it. I knew the chances were slim, but if I happened to get eaten by a shark or a crocodile while I was surfing, this was not the letter I’d want my daughter to remember me by. I deleted it and tried again.

  Hi Honey!

  I’m having a great time in Costa Rica! I miss you oodles, but know you’re having adventures of your own. I can’t wait to hear all about them.

  Ugh. What kind of mother misses her daughter oodles? I highlighted the whole thing and pressed Delete.

  Dear Anastasia,

  I love you more than life itself, and as hard as it is for me to be away from you, even for a night, I know when we both look back, we’ll see this as a significant growth period in both of our lives.

  Yikes. If this e-mail didn’t send her straight to therapy, I didn’t know what would. Why was it so ridiculously hard to write a letter to my own daughter? What was my problem? I lifted my hands off the keyboard and shook them hard, then tried again.

  Hey Sweetie,

  Having a great time! Wish you were here!

  Love, Mom

  I pushed Send fast. Then I opened up a blank e-mail for Seth. I stared at it for a while, thinking of all the things I should and shouldn’t say to him, about Anastasia, about us. Finally I wrote:

  Seth,

  Please let me know if this e-mail goes through.

  —Jill

  33

  I STOPPED FOR A MOMENT TO LISTEN TO THE PIANO player in the lobby, then made my way out to the open-air sidewalk café. Most of the women were already seated at round tables shaded by deep salmon market umbrellas.

  “Don’t sit next to anyone you already know,” Vianca was saying to two women who’d walked out just ahead of me.

  The women rolled their eyes, but they separated. Joni and Vianca were each at a different table, so I took a seat at the third table.

  We were spending the night at the Gran Hotel Costa Rica, a 1930s pale salmon and white-trimmed throwback to a grander time. Not only was it an official national historic landmark, but the location was also perfect—according to my notes, we were surrounded by the pedestrian-only streets of he Plaza de la Cultura and directly across from Teatro Nacional.

  I could still hear the piano music, something jazzy and unidentifiable, through the open windows, and when I looked through the wrought iron fence at the throngs of people milling past, it almost seemed as if they were walking to the beat of the music. I couldn’t imagine a better place to feel the Latin rhythm of San José.

  “Can you believe John F. Kennedy stayed here?” one of the women at my table said.

  I smiled at her. “So cool. And Harry Truman, too.”

  “Let’s not forget Julio Inglesias and John Wayne,” one of the other women said.

  Cynthia came out of nowhere and sat down in the chair directly across from me. “Don’t you just hate that? I mean, you think you’re doing something totally different, and you find out everybody else got here first.”

  She was wearing my favorite skirt, the one from Anthropologie. Even though I’d bought it on clearance and had had it forever, I’d kill her if she spilled anything on it. She looked down at her new pink gift shop T-shirt. PURA VIDA was splashed across the front of the shirt in optimistic green letters. “I bet everyone probably has a T-shirt like this, too,” Cynthia said.

  It might not have been unique enough for Cynthia, but pura vida was my favorite Costa Rican expression. The direct translation is “pure life,” but pura vida could also mean everything from “you’re good people” to “the good life to you” or “to life.” If something was cool or awesome, you could even say it was pura vida.

  I checked my cell phone one more time to make sure I hadn’t somehow missed a message, only to have it pop up with better open-air cell reception.

  A tall, dark, and handsome waiter came over and asked for our drink order in English. One of the women ordered guaro, which I’d read was similar to a rough and not-so-great Costa Rican vodka.

  “No way, José,” our waiter said with a look of mock terror.

  Even though he probably used this line on all his tables, we cracked up.

  “What would you suggest then?” the same woman asked.

  “Caipirinhas are the new mojitos!” our waiter said with an adorable wink. I hoped he got a commission on them, because every woman at our table ordered one. A couple of them looked like they’d order up the waiter, too, if they could.

  Since I’d done my research, I knew the caipirinha (kaipur-EEN-ya) and the mojito share two primary ingredients, lime and sugar. The mojito adds rum, mint leaves, and soda water and is served in a tall glass. The caipirinha adds only crushed ice and Cachaça (ka-sha-sa), a Brazilian rum distilled from sugarcane juice, to a lime muddled with two tablespoons of sugar.

  “Whew,” one of the women said as we tried our first sips. “Those Brazilians sure know their rum. I might have to think about a trip to Brazil next.”

  “A-okay?” the cute waiter asked, making a little circle with his thumb and index finger, and extending his three remaining fingers.

  “A-okay,” we all chorused, imitating his gesture.

  He winked. “I make my highest effort to comfort your stay,” he said. When he walked away, we all turned to follow him with our eyes.

  One of the sorority sisters made a swooning sound.

  “Well, you can’t argue with that,” the recently divorced woman said. I was pretty sure her name was Janice. “If my ex had made even his lowest effort to comfort my stay, I might not be spending the money I got divorcing him on this trip.”

  “Do you think we should ask for menus?” the lawyer said, clearly hoping to redirect Janice before she started talking about her divorce again.

  I was glad I’d gone over my trip notes again on the flight to Miami. “An assortment of bocas is included in the trip,” I said. “ Ticos, or Costa Ricans, love to snack, and bocas are Costa Rican appetizers. GGG has ordered us a boca feast fit for a Tico. Gallos—tortillas piled with meat, chicken, or beans, and cheese; ceviche—a marinated seafood salad; tamales—stuffed cornmeal patties wrapped and steamed inside banana leaves; and patacones—fried green plaintain chips.�
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  “Don’t get her talking about those,” Cynthia said, “or we’ll be here all night.”

  “Don’t forget whose skirt you’re wearing,” I said, as if I were only kidding.

  Cynthia took another sip of her caipirinha. “Don’t remind me. Does anyone know what time the stores open in the morning?”

  “I’m dying to go to the jade museum,” somebody said.

  “I hear the Teatro Nacional is amazing,” somebody else said. “I wish we could see a performance there, but I definitely want to at least take a tour.”

  “I hope we start with the outdoor market,” the sorority sister said.

  “All I want to do is surf,” one of the surfers said.

  A woman leaned forward. “How much did it cost you to bring your surfboard on the plane?”

  The surfer shrugged. “A hundred dollars.”

  “Each way, Michelle?” somebody said to the surfer.

  She nodded.

  “Couldn’t you rent one cheaper than that?” I said.

  Michelle shrugged. She was probably in her thirties, long limbed and all angles, like a tomboy who didn’t quite know how to grow up. Her sun-bleached hair was frizzy and wild, and her nose was sprinkled with freckles.

  Michelle shrugged some more. “It’s just not the same. It might sound crazy, but once you get to know your board, I don’t know, it’s almost like you’re looking out for each other. And once you get a bad case of board love—”

  “Board love?” somebody said.

  “You’d never want to cheat on it?” Janice said. “Oh, puhlease. Can you imagine a guy worrying about how many boards he rode?”

  “I’m so not going to touch that line,” somebody said.

  Two new cute waiters cut through our laughter to place the first of our bocas on the table. I took one more look at my cell phone, then put it away in my shoulder bag.

  “Did anybody else have a hard time leaving your kids?” popped out of my mouth.

  “Ohmigod,” a woman with salt-and-pepper hair said, as she reached for a tamale. “It’s the worst. And mine are twenty-eight and thirty-two.”

  After the laughter died down, a woman who hadn’t said anything yet spoke. “There was this robin?” she said.

  We all waited.

  The woman blushed.

  Janice put a patacone back on her plate and rested her hand on the woman’s. “Go ahead, tell us. Linda, right?”

  Linda nodded. She had dark hair and beautiful skin, like the old Pond’s cold cream commercials.

  “I’m here with my sister,” Linda said. “We’re both so busy we never see each other, and we used to vacation at the beach when we were kids, so we picked this trip as an excuse to get together. Anyway, at home I’ve been watching this robin who built a nest outside my bedroom window. You know, kind of tucked into the wisteria snaking up the drainpipe?”

  We all nodded encouragingly.

  Linda took a breath. “The nest is above eye level, so I couldn’t see inside, but I could watch the mother robin sitting on it. One day I noticed fluffy new feathers and tiny beaks peeking over the edge of the nest. Then before I knew it, one of the babies started hanging over the edge, and the mother would have to sit on its head to push it back down into the nest.”

  “Been there,” someone said.

  We all laughed.

  Linda wrapped both hands around her drink, as if she were trying to keep it safe. “Occasionally another adult bird would stop by to sit next to the mother for a while.”

  “Probably the father,” I said as the caipirinha reached my brain, “swinging by between stints in the Peace Corps.”

  Fortunately, the caipirinhas must have reached their brains at the same time, because everybody laughed.

  “I bet it was just a girlfriend dropping by to chat, or to borrow a cup of worms,” the salt-and-pepper-haired woman said.

  “Or to see if she wanted to go out cruising for boy birds,” Michelle said.

  “I hope she had more sense than that,” Janice said. “That’s what got her stuck in that nest in the first place.”

  Linda waited until we settled down. “Then right before I left this morning, one of the babies was sitting out on a curled branch of wisteria. Just sitting there, like, bet you can’t make me come back to the nest.”

  Linda’s eyes teared up.

  “What?” somebody said.

  Linda was sobbing quietly now. Janice handed her a tissue, and Linda dabbed her eyes and blew her nose.

  “I know this is totally crazy,” Linda said. “But I can’t stop thinking that when I get back home, they’ll all be gone, and I’ll never see them again.”

  Linda blew her nose once more. Somebody else sniffed.

  “Okay, it’s a little bit crazy,” Cynthia said, “but not too bad.”

  I tried to catch Cynthia’s eye, in case making her shut up was even a remote possibility, but she was too busy picking all the shrimp out of the ceviche.

  Cynthia bit a shrimp in half. “Birds will come and birds will go,” she said as she reached for her caipirinha. “I mean, what ever. But here’s the thing: eventually we all have to learn to friend for ourselves.”

  34

  “BINGO,” JONI SAID. “ LOOKS LIKE YOU FOUND IT.”

  We were standing outside a stall at the outdoor market on the Plaza de la Democracia. I was going with the plaza’s theme by electing to keep my distance from Cynthia, so I wouldn’t have to kill her.

  When I’d awoken this morning, Cynthia’s bed was empty and the bathroom door was open. I poked my head into the tiny bathroom, just in time to see Cynthia aiming my toothpaste-laden toothbrush at her mouth.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said.

  Cynthia turned. “What?”

  I grabbed my toothbrush out of her hand.

  “It wasn’t my first choice either, girlfriend,” Cynthia said. “But as long as what’s mine is missing, I just figured—”

  “What’s mine is yours?” I said. “I don’t think so.”

  I waited while Cynthia finger-brushed her teeth, then brushed my own. I pocketed my toothbrush and went down to check my e-mail.

  A message from Anastasia’s e-mail address popped up right away.

  Mom,

  Me and Dad and Cammy are doing awesome.

  Take your time.

  Love, Asia

  P.S. Dad said to tell you the e-mail came thrugh.

  I’d printed out a copy of Anastasia’s e-mail and tucked it into my purse. I’d already taken it out and reread it twice. I resisted the urge to go for a third time. Instead, I held a little hand-painted oxcart outside the stall, so I could see it better in the bright San José sunlight.

  In the next stall, I heard Vianca’s rich, melodic voice. “Artisans in Guanacaste make these pieces, which are re-creations of pre-Columbian Chorotega-style pottery. There are some wonderful examples here, and the prices are good. I can help you arrange for shipping, so you don’t have to lug them to Tamarindo, if you’re so inclined.”

  “Anastasia will love that one,” Joni said.

  I was still looking at the oxcart. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s almost pink, but I think it’s really more of a red.”

  Joni pointed. “It’s close enough, and look, some of the details are painted in a pale pink.”

  I tilted the oxcart. “I think that’s just the red paint showing through the white.”

  Oxcarts are an important part of Costa Rican history, since they were traditionally used to transport coffee from Costa Rica’s Central Valley to the deep-water ports of Puntarenas. We’d passed bright hand-painted oxcarts big enough to carry a person, and smaller ones that had been made into napkin holders. I’d never admit it in a million years, but part of the draw of the one I was holding was that it was the perfect size to fit a hamster.

  I decided the oxcart was close enough to pink. I also couldn’t resist a framed, hand-painted feather, another specialty of Costa Rican artisans. It was signed by a lo
cal painter who had managed to fit an amazingly realistic and brightly colored hummingbird, a frog, and flowers on a single feather. Anastasia would love it, and I knew she’d want to paint some of her own as soon as she saw it. I’d have to remember to keep my eye out for feathers while we were here.

  I added a hand-painted PURA VIDA T-shirt in Anastasia’s size. My shopping bud get was essentially shot for the trip, but I’d have my Costa Rican memories, so it wasn’t as if I needed a souvenir for myself.

  Some of our group looked on as the stall owner and I bartered away. When we reached the expected 80 percent of the asking price, we both smiled as I handed over my colones.

  “If you both know you’re supposed to get a discount, why not just lower the price?” one of the women asked as we headed for the next stall.

  “It’s all part of the game,” Joni said. “You don’t want to ruin the fun.”

  “Speaking of fun,” I said as Joni and I walked ahead of the others, “don’t you think you’ll miss all this?”

  Joni looked around at the bustling marketplace. “This? I haven’t done this in years. It’s amazing how even the most creative business idea can turn into nothing but bookkeeping and bill paying before you know it. What I’m trying to dig myself out from under are the mountains of paperwork. Maintenance and paperwork.”

  “What made you start GGG?” I couldn’t believe I’d never asked her before.

  “Good Lord, it feels like a million years ago.” Joni stopped to look at a display of pre-Columbian reproduction jewelry. I recognized the figures as huacas, images of ancient deities resembling animals. I knew Panama, Mexico, and Costa Rica each had their regional designs.

  Joni picked up a silver and jade frog with splayed feet.

  “Aww,” I said. “It’s so cute. You should definitely treat yourself.”

  “The last thing I need is more stuff,” Joni said. She put the frog pin back down and picked up a pair of bird earrings. “What was the question again?”

  I opened my mouth.