She felt a needle drive into her spine again. The sailing memory bubble collapsed into a noisy fizz, and she scrambled to compact herself before the avalanche of mental snow buried her in its suffocating blue.
This time, as her anger began to rise with the pain, she wondered if there would be more gifts of memory waiting. She would consider this a fair trade. As the pain cascaded toward her, she curled up into herself. She folded into a child who shriveled into a fetus, then an embryo the size of a peppercorn, who decomposed into a zygote, then nothing but coiled strings of DNA and a tail.
She discovered that the less of her there was, the less they could hurt.
chapter 13 PALE PINK LIPS
The crow of a rooster woke Will Lucero long before dawn. The rooster’s crow alarmed a dog and triggered a competition of howls and cock-a-doodles that continued for hours. He wedged his head between two pillows but it was futile to pursue sleep with all the racket outside. By the time the sun began to illuminate the edges of the dusty window curtains of his rented room, he had been awake for two hours, and yet he wasn’t at all irritated. As his feet stepped down on the cool tile floor, he had the sensation that he was waking up to a different world from the one he had gone to sleep in the night before. Sometime during the night, he had woken up and attached words to the absurdly premature feelings that had taken hold of him over the last week.
I’m falling in love.
When the four words came to him, they zipped into his room like a line of fireflies, buzzing and snapping with eerie luminescence. Their arrival left him stunned and unable to do anything but repeat them over and over, watching their secret display of fire and magic.
It was the closest thing to the mighty “thunderbolt” he remembered reading about in The Godfather—Michael Corleone sees Apollonia for the first time on a trip to Sicily, and in a sudden, blinding flash he is transformed into a man who is so in love he can’t even remember his own name. Not exactly the same thing here, Will thought. He’d first walked into Monica’s office in late May, so he’d known her for over a month now. Still, he recognized the truth in the fiction. It really does shoot you out in another dimension. The proof was that he found it amusing and even slightly charming to be woken up by cocky farm animals two hours before dawn.
He stared at his face in the mirror as he brushed his teeth, then rinsed his mouth with bottled water. This new state of heart didn’t feel at all disloyal to Yvette. For some time now he had begun to imagine that Yvette’s soul was already in the next place, waiting for him. He believed it was Yvette who had sent him this gift because she could see that his time on earth would be long.
He looked up at the bare clay tiles of the ceiling. “Yvette,” he mouthed. “Thank you, baby.”
Sylvia wouldn’t see it that way, of course, but he decided not to worry, there was no need to act on anything at this point. For now, he just wanted to enjoy the feeling of being totally smitten, like slipping into a warm bath on a cold winter’s day.
He stepped into his rubber flip-flops, took his shaver, shaving foam, soap box, and towel and headed down the hall to the shared shower. Inside, there was no electricity, and the only light came through in beams of sunshine blasting through the perforations in the decorative brick that butted up to the ceiling. The shower had a single knob and a single temperature—freezing cold. He remembered the innkeeper’s suggestion that he shower in the afternoon, because her method of warming frigid well water consisted of piping it into a large outdoor cistern that was painted black in order to absorb the sun’s heat during the day. But he was a creature of habit, and so he stuck one shin into the spray and grimaced as he forced himself to step into its stream. Goose bumps sprang up on his arms and chest. He almost cried out as the needles bounced off his chest, and he soaped himself up in record-breaking speed.
As he showered, he wondered if Monica had thought about him as she laid her head on her pillow the night before. He felt himself grow warm down below at the recollection of holding her for a brief moment the night before. He impressed himself with his body’s healthy reaction to the memory, considering that he was standing in a cascade of ice water.
As he dried himself with a towel, the warm, salt-heavy air lifted the chill. A cloud passed over his breezy morning humor when he thought of the difficulty that this new beginning might face: Monica was not comfortable with his circumstances; she had made that clear last night. Still, he understood that he had entered a space of possibilities. Existence in this intoxicating space was usually the privilege of the very young—where some aspect of the future can still be impacted by boldness, imagination, and luck.
the posada, guesthouse, was built in a square, in the tradition of the old Spanish colonial style, with an overgrown courtyard at its center. On the inside, each room along the edges of the square opened directly to a hall lined with wicker chairs and rockers in various states of disrepair. Will found Bruce sitting in the hallway, drinking his coffee and talking to an old man. They both faced the garden, which was alive with the strange clicks, chirps, and calls of tropical birds, frogs, and insects.
There were few guests at the posada. In the dining room Will got a cup of coffee and a slice of flat, sweet, delicious breakfast bread rolled in sesame seeds. He pondered the day ahead: more meetings with the Caracol staff. He had to call in to work. He had left at the height of the Mystic Victorian project, and even though his father and brother had told him not to worry, he had serious concerns about their juggling the finances in his absence.
Despite his concerns about Yvette and the clinic, the trip was an unexpected mental vacation. He liked El Salvador, at least he was impressed with the natural beauty he had seen on the trip down from the capital—the looming volcanoes, the lush mountains, and the dark, desolate virginity of Negrarena. He was surprised that the capital itself was so hypercommercialized. His only point of reference was Puerto Rico, since he had never been anywhere else in Latin America. Despite Puerto Rico being part of the United States, the two places were similar in the blocky, concrete constructions of the middle class, the iron bars over the windows, the walls and gates and thick foliage that waved in the tropical air. But even the wealthiest Puerto Ricans didn’t necessarily have the live-in servants that were commonly employed by middle-class Salvadorans. “Even the maids here have maids,” Bruce had said. “You can get a live-in to work full-time, six days a week, for about a hundred and twenty dollars a month. I pay almost that much in Connecticut just to have my house cleaned once.”
The part Will was not prepared for was the shocking, highly visible poverty—children running around naked, little huts made of adobe and sticks, or the occasional rash of shacks made out of tinplate and cartons. There were barefoot men peddling enormous bundles of coal or wood, which they carried on their shoulders like Atlas bearing the weight of the world. And despite the billboards advertising American brands, the place had a certain rawness—a feeling that its origins were closer to the surface, less diluted by the outside world, more cleanly contained. Perhaps the inability of the largest part of the population to afford imports kept the culture a bit unspoiled.
Will sat down on a rocker with his coffee and warm, fragrant bread next to Bruce and the old man. The old man, who hailed from Venezuela, had a white mustache that didn’t match his thick, black eyebrows. He said that his grandson was at Caracol, but had not responded to treatment. He claimed he had seen two patients get up and walk out with their relatives. He pointed a finger at Will’s face, got really close, and said, in Spanish, “Your wife could emerge. Get ready.”
“Ready?”
The man nodded. “She won’t be the same person, though, you know that?” He pressed his thumb between his index and middle finger, as if lowering the plunger of a needle. “The venom is to brain stupor”—he pointed to his head—”like a jumper cable to a dead car battery.”
“A battery has to be in a certain state to accept the charge,” Will replied.
“Exactly,” the m
an said. “That’s the unknown factor—does this person have any capacity left? And then, what’s it going to look like when that brain receives the charge? One of the patients left Caracol a raving lunatic, strapped to a wheelchair up to the neck. By coming here you’re greatly increasing the chances of an emergence but abandoning the gentleness of a slow, natural awakening. The person is altered by the jump forward in their capacity to be conscious.”
Will’s recall of Monica’s words outside her house in Connecticut coincided with her appearance in the hallway. I felt something when I massaged her, Will. I felt life. He felt a little current wash through his body, and he wondered if it was obvious because he noticed Bruce looking at him oddly. Will stood up as she approached and the two older men followed suit.
“Did you all hear the rooster and the dog making all that racket this morning?” Monica said. She was wearing a marigold sundress, fitted on top and falling loose almost to her ankles, with a white seashell necklace around her neck. Her hair was twisted behind her head, and a few coils of it had escaped and curled at the base of her neck. She wore no makeup except for a soft wash of lip gloss. The scent of acetone followed her, and the nails on her fingers and toes were a shiny, wet, pale pink. Her eyes seemed a bit darker today, green and speckled like the skin on an avocado. He laced his fingers behind his head and dared to take in a long, thirsty look at her while her father looked directly at him. Monica was the most refreshing sight he had ever laid eyes on, clean and simple and beautiful. Her presence implied coolness and sensual joy: a glimpse of cascading water on a hot, stifling day.
The older men groaned at the mention of the noisy animals, and the old man said he had searched for a machete to slice off the rooster’s head, but had had no luck because it was too dark to find anything. Monica laughed and kissed her father lightly on the cheek. She looked up. “And you, my friend?” she said to Will.
“I woke up a new man today,” he said. “C’mon. I’ll show you where they keep the coffee.” As she followed him into the dining room, he wondered if indeed it was her gaze that he felt run up and down his body, lingering somewhere in the middle—or if it was just his own memory of watching her last night, mixed with a bit of wishful thinking.
To conjure last night’s sense of intimacy and camaraderie, Will thought he’d pick up the conversation at the point they had left off. “What about Maximiliano’s wife?” he whispered to Monica as a servant woman put yet another wheel of cheese bread upon the dining room table.
Monica looked at him, startled. “What about her?”
“You said he had a wife. What ever happened to her?”
“Can we talk about her after I’ve had my coffee? Tell me how Yvette is doing.”
Will poured himself another cup of coffee and took a sip, then handed her a clean set of silverware. “And what makes you think I want to discuss Yvette’s imprisonment before I’ve had my morning coffee?”
She clinked her empty mug against his. “That’s your second cup.” He noticed that she carefully examined the inside of her mug, then took a napkin and wiped it before she let him pour her coffee.
“Why’d you do that?”
“Bug parts,” she said. “Welcome to the jungle.”
BRUCE AND WILL headed to Caracol at eight, but Monica chose to lounge around the guesthouse during the morning hours. A driver would come get her around eleven. She felt relieved to have some time to herself after the excitement of the last few days.
Monica was grateful for her own restraint the night before and resolved to try to avoid being alone with Will. She thought about Yvette, tried to imagine what her life with Will had been like. Had they been happy? Monica didn’t know for sure, but her guess was that they had been happy in a normal, if not extraordinary, way. Sylvia had shown her some snapshots she kept around to try to help Yvette remember her own life. Monica could see that Yvette had indeed been pretty, and that she had been social. There were even a few pictures of old boyfriends. “Will understands,” Sylvia had said. “Showing her these pictures can help her reconstruct her past.” But one photo in the pile had made Sylvia frown, one of Yvette holding hands with a tall, dark-haired hunter who was dangling a dead pheasant in the other hand. Sylvia had scratched at the surface of the photo and said, “Now why would she want to remember you?” And she returned the photo to the pile.
Monica thought it would be a privilege to witness Yvette’s unlikely recovery, to witness impossibility melting into miracle, to watch the emptiness of grief flush and engorge with relief, gratitude, awe, and love. It would be a gift to all, a sign that God is neither cruel nor passive, that He was at least willing to meet man halfway. Being smitten with Will made her understand what beauty and light this girl would return to. It would allow her to cheer in a louder voice. Will was Yvette’s to keep, and Monica did not want to covet what was intended for another—especially someone as helpless as Yvette.
Monica sat in one of the rocking chairs and listened to the birds in the courtyard while she glanced at one of the local newspapers. She made a mental note to call in to work, call Paige, Marcy, and Kevin. She was about to get up to inquire about using a public phone when she remembered the shell catalogs. She felt like having more coffee, so she went to get the catalogs out of her room and sat back in the rocking chair, lazily leafing through the last of the pages she hadn’t yet seen, pausing at length only when she ran across mollusk discoveries and interviews with marine biologists.
What caught her eye about the Hexaplex bulbosa, or swollen murex, was that it had been discovered in Costa Rica. Most of the new discoveries were in Indo-Pacific waters; Central American discoveries were rarer. This shell had rose-colored bands and was unusually inflated through the body, with a long foot and large spines with jagged edges. She studied it for a moment and scanned the text below, which was written in a print that was tediously small. She was about to turn the page when a word snagged her attention like a protruding nail. By now she had already turned the page, and she flipped back, wondering if she hadn’t just imagined it. If the page had been stuck, she would have moved on. But, no, there it was, at the end of the paragraph. The name of the discoverer.
“Borrero.”
Monica shook her head. What were the chances? And in Central America.
Scientific protocol did not include listing the person’s first name, so the book offered no more information. Had one of her estranged cousins been inspired by her mother’s collection at Caracol? It was certainly possible. But to actually discover a new species of mollusk was the work of a careerist. If Bruce insisted they be secretive about their family ties—well, she would just have to research it on her own. It wasn’t that hard to do, considering she had been planning on calling Paige, researcher extraordinaire. Paige did fund-raising research for UConn’s development office, and she had access to a universe of members-only commercial and academic journals, databases, and archives. Monica looked at the picture of the shell again. It had been found in a researchers’ expedition off the Panamic coast of Costa Rica, in 1999.
Borrero.
She skipped the extra cup of coffee and ran to find a phone.
LETICIA RAMOS looked vaguely familiar to Monica. She was in her fifties—short, squat, with graying hair pulled back into a bun. When she smiled, she flashed a row of lab-coat-white teeth as perfect as piano keys, which were striking against her dark skin. Bruce and Will were sitting in the two chairs across from her desk. Bruce had just finished interviewing her. Monica sensed tension in the room as she stood at the doorway. “May I come in?” she asked.
Will stood and offered her his chair, and Monica accepted it while a passing staff member brought in another, then returned with a tray of small china coffee cups for everyone. “I hope I’m not interrupting,” Monica said. “It sounded like you were finishing up.”
“We were,” Leticia said eagerly. Will flashed Monica a look that suggested the contrary. He forced the conversation to return to issues of regulation and accountability,
and Monica, who sat observing in silence, noticed that half-moons of moisture had sprung up under Leticia Ramos’s armpits. Monica studied the face. She had seen her before. But where? She was connected to the Borreros in some way—not by blood, of that she was sure. Was she related by marriage? Was she a step? An ex?
“Whenever you’re ready,” a voice said out in the hall.
The men stood. “This is my daughter, Dr. Fernanda Mendez,” Leticia said. “She is the brain behind this clinic.”
So there was a real Fernanda behind the old pseudonym. Monica turned and looked behind her. It took less than a second for her to figure out who these women were. Fernanda was about her own age and looked very much like Leticia, except for one thing: the unforgettable, pumpkin-colored eyes of Maximiliano Campos.
Monica stood and held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Monica, his daughter,” she said, pointing at Bruce. “You look familiar to me,” Monica dared. “Did you by chance go to grade school in a little town called El Farolito?”
The woman smiled, baring a row of tiny, coffee-stained teeth that were too small for her mouth. “As a matter of fact I did live in El Farolito,” she said, and paused, waiting for Monica.
“I lived with my aunt for a short time, and I was enrolled in school at El Farolito for a few months,” Monica lied. “I was quiet, you wouldn’t remember me, but I never forget a face.” Monica didn’t dare look at her father, lest she invite reckless denial.
“Who was your teacher, do you remember?” Fernanda asked.
“Oh, gosh, I don’t remember.”
“Well, then, we’ll have to get reacquainted while you’re here,” Fernanda said. “We can talk about the good old days.” She rolled her eyes at the last part, then paused, cocking her head. “I’m surprised I don’t remember you. El Farolito is a poor town in the middle of nowhere. Someone like you, with those green eyes, would have stood out.”
The Heiress of Water: A Novel Page 17