The Story of You and Me

by DuMond, Pamela

  I looked at his hand, but hesitated. “The hallucinating drug part of the Quest thing scares me,” I said. “Mushrooms? I think I’d like them on pizza. Not in my brain.”

  He laughed. “The drugs are different now. Even more natural than mushrooms. Plant medicine. South American Natives use it all the time.”

  “I’ll think about it. I’ve got an appointment with—”

  “Hello, Venusians!” a familiar male voice said. “I’m looking for Sophie Priebe. A pretty young lady with light brown hair, a twinkle in her eyes and flowers on her toes?”

  I smiled. Apparently Alejandro had grown tired of waiting and busted in on the private, invite-only gathering.

  Dr. Kelsey looked up for a second toward Alex’s voice that boomed from the other room. His gaze swiveled back toward me. “Your friend?”

  I nodded. “I’ve got to go. We’ve got an appointment with a curandero. Oh, and don’t tell my… friend… anything I’ve shared with you.”

  “Patient doctor privilege,” Dr. Kelsey said. “Whatever we discuss is between you and me. Completely private. Best of luck with the healer.”

  “Thanks.” I turned to leave.

  “In case you change your mind? We’ve got a Quest coming up next weekend. It’s booked, but someone always backs out at the last minute. I can almost guarantee you a spot. Email or call me.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to travel to a remote, nearly deserted mountain and take hallucinogenic drugs, let alone meet my “guides.”

  “Sure thing,” I said.

  Alex opened the door and strode into the room toward me. “Bonita?” He kissed me on my cheek, grabbed my hand and slid his fingers through mine.

  “Hey,” I said. “Right on time. Alejandro, I’d like you to meet Dr. Carlton Kelsey.”

  Dr. Kelsey stretched out his hand to Alex. “Pleased to meet you, son.”

  Alex’s face was devoid of emotion as he shook Dr. Kelsey’s hand. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Dr. Kelsey. Have we met before?”

  “No.” He smiled.

  “Then, in all due respect, sir, I am not your son.” Alejandro released my hand, wrapped his arm around my waist and hustled me out of the penthouse suite.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Alejandro and I drove the 5 Freeway south toward Mexico. It was a behemoth beast of a road. It ran from Mexico to Canada and was the only Freeway in the U.S. to touch both borders. On average it had six lanes heading north and six venturing south. We passed signs for beach towns, industrial towns, airports, amusement parks and military base exits.

  As we traveled farther south, I began to see signs that cautioned against running over people who were running across the road. We had the ‘Watch for Deer’ signs in Wisconsin, not the ‘Watch for Illegal Immigrants’.

  Mercury, the Roman God of Transportation, was with us. We had decent traffic ’till we hit the San Diego vicinity. That’s when we slowed way down to a sputter and alternated between twenty and zero miles an hour.

  Most of the vehicles surrounding us featured surfboards on top, bike racks attached to their backs and a wide variety of political bumper stickers. Cars jockeyed with each other to claim the lane that might be moving the quickest.

  The reality was every lane was moving slowly. The commuters could have saved themselves future high blood pressure, doctors’ visits and prescription meds if they’d just stayed put and skipped the ‘I need to be one car ahead of you,’ horn-honking dramas.

  And speaking of drama, I dove right in. “Do you think you could have been a little more creeptastic when I introduced you to Dr. Kelsey?”

  “Let’s dissect ‘creeptastic.’ Dr. Kelsey is almost fifty years older than you,” Alex said. “He’s got you in a fancy suite filled with organic appetizers like hummus, tabouli, and organic energy drinks. His followers are hopped up on life, love, drugs and whatever else. They looked like they drank the Kool-Aid and can barely form coherent sentences, let alone retain memories of what they did five minutes previously.”

  “So? A lot of people have short-term memory loss. By the way—who are you? Why am I in this car and where are you taking me?” I grinned.

  “Touché.” He reached over with one hand tugged the bottom of my shirt and tickled my waist.

  I squirmed. “Stop it!” I giggled and batted his hands away. My phone buzzed in my purse. I grabbed it, saw who was calling, hit accept and placed it to my ear. “Yay! Hi Nana! I’m so glad you called. What’s up?”

  “Nothing, really. I just miss you. Do you think you might get home soon for a visit?”

  I frowned. “I’m coming home when the semester ends.”

  Alex shook his head. “No you’re not,” he said.

  I shook my finger at him. “What’s going on? Something you want to talk about?”

  “Yes. I want to know where you are?”

  I held the phone away from my ear. “Where are we?”

  “La Jolla.”

  “We’re in La Jolla.”

  “I was there once a long time ago,” she said. “Beach town close to San Diego. They called it the Jewel by the Sea. Lots of cliffs and beaches. Very pretty. Who’s driving you?”

  “A nice young man. He’s respectful and smart and funny. I think you’d like him. Maybe you and Mom should come out for a visit? You could see the ocean again and we could eat guacamole and visit La Jolla. Besides, I’ve met some healers and I think—”

  “What’s his name?” she asked. “The young man who’s driving you?”

  “Alejandro.”

  “He doesn’t have a last name?”

  “Of course he has a last name.”

  “So why don’t you tell it to me?”

  “His name is Alejandro Maxwell Levine.” I heard her inhale. It was sharp and raspy. “You okay?”

  “Never better. Is he Jewish?”

  Alejandro shot me a questioning look. I shrugged. “Religion or heritage?” I asked.

  “I don’t discriminate. Put him on the phone with me. Right now.”

  My eyes widened. “My grandmother wants to talk with you.”

  “Huh. Okay. Why not? Guess it’s only fair I get to meet your family,” Alex said and beckoned to me with his index finger. “Can you put her on speaker?”

  I clicked speaker and extended my phone close to his cheek. My face was next to his face. Our shoulders were touching. I remembered what he tasted like when he kissed me. I remembered what he felt like the first time he caught me when I nearly passed out in the Grill. “Nana. You’re on speaker with Alejandro and me.”

  “Alejandro Maxwell Levine,” she said. “Are you Jewish?”

  “Half Jewish and half Latino,” he said. “But my parents raised me with both cultures as well as faiths.”

  “You were baptized, confirmed and had a bar mitzvah?”

  “Triple score,” he said. “You should have seen the presents.”

  “Perfect!” She sighed and started coughing. “Hang on! Stupid allergies make me ferdrayt.”

  “She’s learning Yiddish,” I whispered.

  “You’re feeling dizzy? Confused?” Alejandro said. “Are you okay? Do you want to get off the phone?”

  “You speak Yiddish too? Even better! No, I don’t want to get off the phone. I am fine. Just a little ver klempt. I am Sophie’s Bubba. My name is also Sophie Marie. You can call me Bubby Sophie. Even though my last name is Timmel, not Priebe. I don’t want you to get us confused. Hah!”

  Alex grinned at me and pushed the phone away from our faces for a second. “I’ve got this,” he whispered. Pulled my hand that held the phone close to his face. “Yes, Bubby Sophie.”

  “Perfect, Alejandro,” Nana said. “Are you in a romance with my granddaughter? You do know she is a shiksa, yes? It seems many young men of the Jewish faith will happily date shiksas, but not be serious about marrying them. Will this be a problem for you in the future?”

  “Nana!” I hollered and collapsed back into my seat. I face palmed my hand into my forehead i
n sheer humiliation that only a family member could initiate.

  Alejandro ran his finger over my cheek and traced my jaw. His fingers landed squarely under my chin that was collapsed in my hands on my chest. He gently lifted my head up. “Put the phone back toward me,” he whispered.

  I blushed but did as he asked.

  “Bubby Sophie?” he asked.

  “I thought for a second I lost you.”

  “You’re not going to lose me, Bubby. In fact, I can’t wait to meet you some day soon. In regards to your shiksa granddaughter? I’m crazy about her Wisconsin accent—”

  “What accent?” I slapped Alejandro’s thigh with my free hand. He caught my hand and interwove his fingers between mine and pulled me close to him. Which meant I was practically sitting in his lap.

  A man in a truck in the next lane honked, leered and said, “Get a room!”

  I glared at him. “Get a life!” I struggled to flip him my middle finger but it was currently engaged and wrapped tightly next to Alejandro’s middle finger. He squeezed my hand and winked at me. “Ignore the assholes,” he whispered into my ear and turned back toward the phone. “I adore your granddaughter’s snarky sense of humor…”

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “… her beautiful dairy queen face, the fact that she’s girlie but still thinks football is important and her sheer determination to get things done. So, no, I don’t care that she’s a shiksa. I also don’t care that she’s stubborn and that she’s probably going to test me even further once I get off the phone with you. Can you live with that, Bubby Sophie?”

  “Yes,” Nana said. “You seem like a nice young man, and I greatly appreciate you letting me practice my foreign language skills with you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Alejandro smiled at me.

  “I must run or I’ll be late for the sing-along in the lobby. We’re performing a medley of Michael Jackson songs this week.”

  “It’s my honor to have made your acquaintance,” Alejandro said.

  “And you, Alejandro Maxwell Levine.”

  I leaned into the phone. “I love you, Nana.”

  “I love you back, my favorite granddaughter.”

  “I’m your only granddaughter.”

  “I know,” she said. “Which is number six on my top ten reasons why I love you the most.”

  She paused for a moment and I heard her breathing, hard and raspy into the phone. “Nana? You okay?”

  “Never better. Just promise me one thing?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Life is full of mysteries, odd twists and turns. You think you’re traveling down one road only to discover you veered off and venturing down another. One that is completely unknown. And the new road has no fancy navigation system, no streetlights, or signs and you have no reception on your fancy phone. What do you do? Tell me, Sophie. What do you do?”

  Alejandro squeezed my hand. He gazed into my eyes for a second. Smiled. Then turned his eyes back on the road. A lock of his black-brown hair escaped from behind his ear and fell onto his high, sharp cheekbone. He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed it. Softly. Tenderly. I broke out in chills. Everywhere. “What should I do, Nana?”

  “Be kind,” she said. “Just be kind to each other.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  But she’d already hung up.

  * * *

  It took us a while to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Luckily, I’d brought my passport with me. When I left Wisconsin to travel to L.A., I had no idea if I’d need to hop a plane, a train or take a ferry, or even a cargo ship, to a foreign country to meet a healer at a moment’s notice. I was overly planning, but this is what I did best. Be stubborn. Be determined. And overly plan.

  An hour after we crossed the border, Alejandro and I were in Rosarito, Mexico. It was a popular beach town filled with surfers, partiers, families and the occasional drug dealer. We were starving and grabbed a bite at a casual restaurant across from Rosarito Beach. People parked their surfboards next to their tables like most folks parked their bikes.

  “I don’t understand why you don’t want to stay at my family’s place.” Alejandro said. “With the exception of the beach, it’s gated, has security guards and, no, I’m not going to try and seduce you or sneak into your bedroom at night.” He held up his hand in a Boy Scout salute. “Scout’s honor.”

  “You were never a Scout, were you?” I asked.

  He dropped his hand. “No, but it sounded good. Seriously, Sophie—you can trust me.”

  “I know I can trust you. That’s not the point. The point is I rely on you to drive me. I’m not going to mooch off your family, or make your mom think you’re hanging out with the wrong kind of girl.”

  “She likes you. She told me. She wouldn’t have sent us down here to meet with Señor Morales, the curandero, unless she believed you were the right kind of girl.”

  “I’ve already got a reservation for a hotel room. I found a deal online. This is non-negotiable.”

  * * *

  I stood at the front desk of the La Mar Hacienda and Suites, a festive four-star beach hotel where I’d reserved a room. The lobby was packed with vacationers rolling their bags and clutching drinks. A uniformed male hotel clerk pounded away on his computer but shook his head. “I am so sorry, Señorita. There is no reservation under the name of Sophie Priebe. I would be happy to rent you a room, but La Mar is booked solid tonight.”

  I stuck my paper printed with my reservation confirmation number in front of him. “Here’s my confirmation number. One person. One night. One queen bed. No oceanfront view.” Alex was suddenly at my side with my suitcase.

  “Problems?” he asked.

  I nodded and rolled my eyes.

  The clerk entered my confirmation number into the computer. “The confirmation code is for a reservation in combination with a cruise ship discount. Which cruise ship are you vacationing on?”

  “I’m not vacationing on a cruise ship. I’ve never been on a cruise ship because I’m a sucky swimmer and water scares me. Why in God’s creation would my confirmation number be connected to a cruise ship?”

  “I do not know, Señorita. But if you give me the name of your cruise ship? We can probably figure this out, muy pronto.”

  I turned away from the clerk, looked at Alex and sliced my finger across my throat.

  He hacked and clamped his hand across his mouth for a moment. “Señor, hablo español,” he said. “Can I help?”

  “Yes,” the clerk said. ‘Do you know the name of the cruise ship your friend is vacationing on?”

  * * *

  Alex and I stood in front of a smaller motel desk with a blinking, ancient, multi-colored neon sign on the wall behind the receptionist’s counter. No one was in the lobby except for a short, round, older Latina woman behind the counter. Fine by me. “That will be sixty-two American dollars for a single room with a double bed.”

  I smiled. “Perfect! You take credit cards?”

  “Of course. But we have to charge you ten dollars extra for credit card. Management policy. Seventy-two American dollars.”

  I thought about it. Looked around the lobby. It was kitschy, but clean. Dated, but sweet. And it was only ten more dollars. “Okay.” I dug in my purse for my wallet.

  “You share a bathroom. It is right down the hall.”

  I frowned. “There’s no bathroom in my room?”

  “It is practically across the hallway from your room.”

  A sunburnt young couple that looked stoned stumbled through the lobby past us. “You have the key,” the emaciated woman said to her male companion.

  “No. You have the key.” The skin and bones man rubbed his scruffy beard.

  I half-expected insects or tiny marijuana plants to erupt from his facial hair. I backed away from them.

  “What is it with you and keys!” the woman hissed. “I can’t trust you with anything. What did you do with the stuff?”

  “What stuff?”

  She ro
lled her hazy eyes in her hollow eye sockets. “You know. The reason we came here. The stuff?”

  “Oh,” he scratched his greasy head. “The last time I saw the stuff was in the bathroom. Next to the spoon.”

  I gazed at the woman behind the counter, slack-jawed. “I’d be sharing a bathroom…” I lowered my voice. “…with them?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Sophie. We’re not seeing the curandero until tomorrow. You could stay at my family’s place,” Alejandro said. “There’s plenty of room.”

  * * *

  Alex and I exited his Jeep and stood in the parking lot of a little motel next to a small truck stop and diner. There was a Vacancy sign lit up in the front window. In the distance the sun started to make its way toward the horizon.

  “Third time’s the charm,” I said. “This place is kind of cute. It’s called Margarita Villa. Look—there’s a van parked with a ‘Child on Board’ sign. What could possibly be wrong with this place?”

  A man and woman burst out of the motel’s entrance dragging suitcases as well as their two screaming kids. They raced toward the older Chevy van parked just yards away from us, scratching their heads, arms and ankles. The woman looked terrified. “Don’t freaking do it! Lice. We are the walking dead. Save yourselves!”

  “Thanks!” I hollered as Alex and I popped back in his Jeep and sped off.

  Chapter Twenty

  Alejandro and I laid back on cushy recliners on a patio that faced the Pacific Ocean, about one hundred yards away. He was still in boardshorts and a T-shirt. I had changed into my new slightly-revealing swimsuit with my V-neck, tangerine colored, beach cover-up. We sipped lemonades and watched the beginnings of another glorious sunset. I swiveled my neck and gazed back at the house attached to the patio.

  His family’s vacation home was a single story Spanish styled hacienda. The abode was simple, rustic, immaculate and on the freaking beach. It was all I could do not to grab my phone, snap a pic and send it to Triple M in Oconomowoc.