by Gayle Forman
“I’m more of a see-the-world kind of guy.”
Johnny laughs. “Me, too. See all the ladies of the world. So I take it you two bachelors have never to been to a vacation club before.”
“Can’t say that I have, Johnny,” Broodje says.
“I am telling you: this is the life. Why rent your vacation when you can own it? Why live half a life when you can live a whole one?”
“Or two lives, even,” Broodje says.
“Here is one of our pools. We have six of them,” Johnny brags. It’s surrounded by chaise longues and flowering shrubs. Beyond, the Caribbean glitters as if its sole purpose is to be a backdrop. “The view is nice, no?” Johnny laughs, pointing to a row of sunbathing women.
“Very,” I say, scanning them, one by one.
“So, what do you do, William?”
“Real estate,” I say.
“Ahh, so you already know how lucrative it is. You know . . .” He motions me closer. “I used to be a big movie star in Mexico,” he says in an exaggerated whisper. “But now—”
“You were an actor?” I interrupt.
This catches him off guard. “Before. But I make more money as an owner here than I ever did in the film business.”
“What films were you in?” I ask.
“Oh, nothing you’d ever hear of.”
“We get lots of foreign films in Holland. Try me.”
“Really, I don’t think you’d hear of them. I was in a film with Armand Assante. Mostly I was in the telenovelas.”
“Soap operas? Like Good Times, Bad Times,” Broodje says, scoffing a little.
“Here, they are taken very seriously,” Johnny says with a sniff.
“That’s cool,” I say. “That you made your living like that.”
For a second, Johnny’s face flattens out. Even his tan seems to fade. And then he snaps to. “That was then. I make so much more money now.” He claps his hands together and turns toward me. “So, William, what would you like to see?” He gestures out toward the grounds, and I have this first inkling, tiny but real, that she might be here. It’s a small thing, but somehow it’s the happiest I’ve felt in months.
“Every single centimeter of the resort,” I say.
“Well, we are more than one square kilometer so that might take a while, but I am glad to see you are so motivated.”
“Oh, you have no idea how motivated I am.” Which is a funny thing to say because I wasn’t that motivated yesterday. But now it’s like I’ve switched into character.
“Why don’t we start with one of our world-class restaurants. We have eight. Mexican, Italian, burger bar, sushi . . .”
“Yes,” Broodje says.
“Why don’t you show us the one that is the most popular for guests having lunch at this time,” I suggest. “I’d like to see the makeup of the crowds.”
“Oh, that would be Olé, Olé, our open-air cantina. It has a lunch buffet.”
Broodje grins. Lunch buffet. Magic words.
• • •
Lulu is not at the lunch buffet, or any of the seven other restaurants we visit during our five-hour tour. She’s not at any of the six pools or the two beaches or the twelve tennis courts or the two nightclubs or the three lobbies or the Zen day spa or the endless gardens. She’s not at the petting zoo, either.
As the day lags on, I realize there are just too many variables. Maybe this is the wrong place. Or maybe this is the right place, but it’s the wrong time. Or maybe it’s the right place and the right time but she was watching TV in her room when I was at the pool. Maybe right now she is sitting by one of the pools while I’m looking at one of the model rooms.
Or maybe I walked right past her and I didn’t even know it.
The good feeling from earlier begins to collapse in on itself. She could be anywhere. She could be nowhere. And worst of all, she could be right here and I didn’t even recognize her.
A couple of girls in bikinis sashay past me, laughing. Broodje nudges me but I barely look at them. I’m beginning to think that I’ve talked myself into a lie of my own telling. Because the truth is I don’t know her. All I know is that she’s a girl who bears a passing resemblance to Louise Brooks. But what is that? The contours of a person, but really no more real that a fantasy projected onto a screen.
Seventeen
“Cheer up, hombre, it’s almost a new year.”
Esteban hands me a bottle. He, José, Broodje, Cassandra, and I are crammed into a taxi, crawling through holiday traffic as we head north to that party in Puerto Morelos, the one Kayla told me about. José and Esteban know about it, too, so apparently it really is the place to be.
“Yeah, come on. It’s New Year’s,” Cassandra says.
“And you won’t go home empty-handed if you don’t want to,” Broodje says. “Unlike some of us,” he adds, full of exaggerated self-pity.
“Poor Broodje,” Cassandra says. “Am I saying it right?”
“Bro-djuh,” Broodje corrects, adding, “it means sandwich.”
Cassandra smiles. “Don’t worry, Sandwich Boy. We’ll make sure somebody takes a bite out of you tonight.”
“I think she wants a bite of my sandwich,” Broodje says in Dutch, grinning at the prospect. I attempt a smile back. But really, I’m done. I’ve been done since Maya del Sol, though I have dutifully checked out a few other resorts, thanks to José and Esteban, who told me how to get into Palacio Maya and got me wristbands for Maya Vieja. But it’s felt like going through the motions. I don’t even know who I’m looking for, so how am I going to find her?
The taxi skids onto a strip of undeveloped beach. We pay the driver and emerge onto a scene. Music throbs from huge speakers, and hundreds of people are scattered up and down the beach. Everyone seems to be barefoot, judging by the enormous piles of shoes right at the entrance to the party.
“Maybe you can find by her shoe,” Cassandra says. “Like Cinderella. What would a glass slipper for the modern girl look like? How about this?” She holds up a pair of shiny orange flip-flops. She tries them on. “Too big,” she says, flinging them back onto the piles.
“Would beautiful lady like to dance?” José asks Cassandra.
“Sure,” she says, grinning. They walk away, José already with a hand on her hip.
Broodje’s face falls. “I guess his taco was more appetizing than my sandwich.”
“As you keep reminding me, there are lots of girls. I’m sure one of them will want a bite of your sandwich.”
And there are so many girls. Hundreds of them, in all shapes and colors, perfumed and primed for partying. On any other New Year’s, it would be a promising start.
The line for the bar snakes all the way around the palm trees and hammocks. We’re inching our way forward when a girl wearing a sarong, a smile, and not much else stumbles into me.
“Steady there,” I say, righting her by the elbow. She holds up a half-empty bottle of tequila, curtseys, and takes a long slug.
“You might want to pace yourself,” I say.
“Why don’t you pace me?”
“Okay.” I take the bottle from her and swig. I hand it to Broodje who does the same. He gives the bottle back to her.
She holds it up, swishes it around so the larva inside somersaults. “You can have the worm, if you want to,” she says in a slurry voice. “Worm, worm, can the hottie eat you?” She holds the bottle up to her ear. “The worm says yes.” She leans in closer, and in a hot whisper adds, “So do I.”
“It’s not really a worm,” Broodje says. “It’s an agave larva.” Jose is a bartender and he explained this all to us.
Her eyes roll unfocussed in her head. “What’s the diff? Worm, larva. You know what they say? The early bird gets the worm.” She hands Broodje the bottle, then puts both arms on my shoulder and kisses me, fast, wet, and boozy, on the mouth. She reels back, grabbing her tequila bottle. “Gets the kiss, too,” she says, laughing. “Happy New Year.”
Broodje and I watch her stumble through the sand. Then h
e turns to me. “I forgot what it’s like, being out with you. What you’re like.”
Six months ago, I’d have kissed the girl back, and the night would be set. Broodje may know what I’m like, but I don’t.
When we get our drinks, Broodje makes his way toward the dance area. I tell him I’ll meet up with him later. Up the beach, away from the stage and dance area, I spot a small bonfire with a group of people sitting around it, strumming on guitars. I start off in that direction, but then I see someone walking toward me. Kayla of the car rental agency, waving tentatively, as if she’s not sure it’s really me.
I pretend to not be me, and pivot toward the shoreline. As crowded and chaotic as the party is, the water is surprisingly quiet. There are a few people splashing about. Farther out, it’s empty, just moonlight reflecting on the water. Even at night, the water is bluer than I imagined it; it’s the only part of this trip that is coming close to meeting expectations.
I strip down to my boxers and dive in, swimming far out, until I reach a floating raft. I grip the splintering wood. The sounds of the guitars strumming “Stairway to Heaven” and the heavy bass of a reggae band reverberate through the water. It’s a good party, on a beautiful beach, on a soft, warm night. All the things that used to be enough.
I swim out a little farther and duck back under. Tiny silvery fish zip by. I reach out to touch them, but they whip out of reach so fast it’s like they’re leaving contrails behind. When I can’t hold my breath any longer, I come up for air to hear the reggae singer announce: “Half hour until the New Year. Until it all starts again. Año nuevo. It’s a tabula rasa.”
I take a breath and go back under. I scoop up a handful of sand and let it go, watching the grains disperse in the water. I come back up.
“Come the stroke of midnight, before you kiss your amor, save un beso para tí.”
A kiss for you.
Moments before I’d kissed her for the first time, Lulu had said another one of her strange things: I escaped danger. She was emphatic about it, her eyes had a fire to them, just as they had when she’d come between me and the skinheads. It had seemed a peculiar thing to say. Until I’d kissed her. And then I felt it, as visceral and all-encompassing as the water around me now. Escaping danger. I’m not sure what danger she’d been referring to. All I knew was that kissing Lulu made me feel relief, like I’d landed somewhere after a long journey.
I turn onto my back, looking at the canvas of a star-spangled sky.
“Tabula rasa . . . time to hacer borrón y cuenta nueva, wipe the board clean,” the singer chants.
Wipe the board clean? I feel like my board is too clean, perpetually wiped bare. What I want is the opposite: a messy scrawl, constellations of indelible things that can’t ever be washed away.
She must be here. Maybe not at this party, or on this beach, or at the resorts I visited, but somewhere here. Swimming in this water, the same water I’m in now.
But it’s a big ocean. It’s an even bigger world. And maybe we’ve gotten as close as we’re supposed to get.
Eighteen
JANUARY
Cancún
The bus is shaped like a monkey, it’s full of old people, and I don’t want to be on it. But Broodje does, and after dragging him to half the resorts on the Mayan Riviera, I’m not one to argue.
“First stop, Coba, then we go to a Mayan village. Then a zip line—not sure about these folks and a zip line,” Broodje says, nodding to our mostly gray-haired tour mates. “Then swimming in a cenote—it’s a kind of underground cave lake—then Tulum.” He flips the brochure around. “This tour costs a hundred and fifty dollars per person and we got it for free.”
“Hmm,” I say.
“I don’t get it. You’re Dutch on one side, Israeli on the other. By all rights, this should make you the cheapest bastard alive.”
“Uhh-huh.”
“Are you listening?”
“Sorry. I’m tired.”
“Hungover more like. When we stop for lunch, we’ll get some tequila. Hair of the dog is what T.J. calls it.”
I bunch my rucksack into a makeshift pillow and lean my head against the window. Broodje pulls out a copy of Voetbal International. The bus chugs off. I fall asleep, waking when we arrive at Coba. We plod off the bus, standing in a little clump as the guide tells us about the ancient Mayan ruins, a series of isolated temples and pyramids half overtaken by the trees and vines of the jungle. “It’s very unique,” she says. “This is one of the few ruins you can still climb. And you’ll also be interested in the lagoon, La Iglesia, or church, and of course, the ball courts.”
Behind us, a girl, the only other person our age, asks, “Ball courts? What kind of ball did they play?”
“A sort of basketball,” the guide answers.
“Oh.” She sounds disappointed.
“You don’t like basketball?” Broodje asks her. “I thought Americans loved basketball.”
“She’s a soccer player,” an older woman says. “She was all-state in high school.”
“Nana!”
“Really? What position?” Broodje asks.
“Striker.”
“Midfield.” He taps his chest.
They look at each other. “Wanna go check out the ball courts?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“Be back in a half hour, Candace,” the older lady says.
“Okay.”
Broodje looks at me to come, but I nod for him to go alone. When the rest of the tour sets off toward the lagoon, I turn straight for the Nohoch Mul pyramid, climbing the 120 near-vertical steps to the top. It’s midday and hot so there’s hardly anyone up here, just a family taking pictures. It’s still enough for the quiet to be loud: the rustle of the breeze in the trees, the squawk of tropical birds, the metallic chirp of crickets. A gust of hot wind picks up a dry leaf and carries it over the jungle canopy.
The stillness is interrupted by a couple of kids, who have started shouting each other’s names in bird chirps. “Josh!” the girl squawks, as her brother laughs.
“Allie!” the boy, Josh, presumably, chirps back.
“Joshua, Allison, shh,” their mother chides, gesturing to me. “You’re not the only ones up here.”
The kids look at me, cocking their heads, as if inviting me to call out a name, too. I hold up my hands and shrug because I don’t actually know the name I want to yell. I’m not even sure I want to yell it anymore.
Back at the Monkey Bus, I find Broodje and Candace sharing a Coke, one bottle, two straws. When we lumber back on board, I slip into a seat next to an older man traveling solo, allowing Broodje and Candace to sit together in our row. When I hear them arguing about whether Van Persie or Messi is the best striker, I smile, and my gentleman seatmate smiles back.
After lunch, we stop at a traditional Mayan village and are given the option of a ten-dollar spiritual cleansing by a Mayan priest. I stay off to the side as the others take turns standing under a smoking canopy. Then we’re herded back on the bus. The doors wheeze open. Broodje climbs on, Candace climbs on, my seatmate with the sandals and the socks climbs on, the guide climbs on. Everyone climbs on, except me.
“Willy, you coming?” Broodje calls.
He sees me hesitating by the door and comes back down the aisle to talk to me. “Willy, all is good? Are you mad that I’m sitting with Candace?”
“Of course not. I think it’s great.”
“Come on.”
I do the calculations in my mind. Candace said she was in town until the eighth, longer than we are. Broodje will have company.
“I’m getting off here.” As soon as I say it, I feel that familiar relief. When you’re on the road, there is always the promise of the next stop being better than the last.
His face goes serious. “Are you staying away because of what I said before, about you getting all the girls? Don’t worry. I think one actually likes me.”
“I’m sure of it. So you should make the most of it. I’ll see you back
at the airport for the flight home.”
“What? That’s in four days. And you don’t have your things.”
“I have what I need. Just bring the rest to the airport.”
The bus driver guns the engine. The guide taps her watch. Broodje looks panicked.
“It’s okay,” I reassure him, tightening the straps on my rucksack.
“You won’t get lost?” he asks.
I paste on a reassuring smile. But of course, the truth is, that is exactly what I intend to do.
Nineteen
Valladolid, Mexico
Two hitched truck rides later, I find myself on the outskirts of Valladolid, a small colonial town. I wander around the central square, full of low-rise, pastel colonial buildings reflecting in a large fountain. Soon I stumble upon a cheap hotel.
It feels a world away from the Mayan Riviera here. Not just the lack of megaresorts or partying tourists, but how I got here. Not looking, just finding.
I have no schedule. I sleep when I’m tired, eat when I’m hungry, grabbing something hot and spicy from one of the food carts. I linger late into the night. I don’t look for anyone. I don’t talk to anyone. After the last few months on Bloemstraat, the boys always around, or if not them, Ana Lucia, I’m not used to being alone.
I sit at the edge of the fountain and watch people and, for a minute, indulge myself imagining Lulu being one of them, imagining that we really had escaped into the wilds of Mexico. Is this where we’d go? Would we sit at a café, our ankles intertwined, our heads close, like that couple over there under the umbrella? Would we walk all night, ducking into the alleyways to steal a kiss? Would we wake up the next morning, untangle our bodies, pull out a map, close our eyes and decide where to next? Or would we just never get out of bed?
No! Stop it! This is pointless. A road nowhere. I get up, brush off my pants and return to the hotel. Lying in bed, I spin a twenty-peso coin around my knuckles and ponder what to do next. When the coin falls to the floor, I reach for it. And then I stop. Heads, I’ll stay in Valladolid another day. Tails, I’ll move on. Tails.