Tomorrow There Will Be Sun

by Dana Reinhardt

  In front of Villa Perfect a hammock hangs between two trees, completely still, with no wind to move it. I don’t remember seeing this hammock. Its U shape is a smile, beckoning me.

  Come, it says. Lie here in the shade of these trees. Rock back and forth like a baby in my cradle.

  I oblige its call and climb in. I’m weightless like in the ocean. It’s heavenly.

  I close my eyes. Maybe a siesta will finally rid me of this nagging, lingering hangover. It’s Peter’s birthday. I will need to toast him tonight. I will want to toast him tonight. He is fifty. We have spent two fifths of his life together.

  I reach my toes into the sand and kick the ground so my hammock swings side to side, side to side, rocking me back and forth, back and forth.

  I think about how when Clementine was a baby, she loved Johnny Cash. His was the one voice we could count on to soothe her. His version of “You Are My Sunshine” was nearly foolproof, even in the midst of a catastrophic meltdown. I never understood why such a gloomy song became a favorite lullaby, not only of my daughter’s but of generations of children.

  In my state of almost sleep I see Solly’s face. He opens his mouth and out comes Johnny Cash’s voice. He sings the forgotten verses in which it becomes clear that this child’s lullaby is about infidelity. It’s about the narrator’s pain and desperate loneliness in learning that Sunshine has been cheating. He or she—it never is clear—is willing to forgive and forget if Sunshine will just leave the new, undoubtedly younger and more attractive love object and come back home again. No questions asked. The song ends before we know what happens, but, let’s face it, the melancholy melody gives us a big fat clue about what Sunshine decides to do.

  Fucking Sunshine. What an asshole.

  “Jenna?”

  It’s Maria Josephina.

  I open my eyes and try sitting up, but that’s no easy feat in a hammock. I pull my pink cover-up down over my exposed thighs.

  Was I singing along with the Solly / Johnny Cash mash-up?

  God, I hope I wasn’t singing out loud.

  “Oh, hello!” I climb out of the hammock with less grace than I’d like. “I’m sorry. I just saw this hammock here and there was no chair left by our pool and I guess I was more tired than I realized and—”

  “You are welcome to it. The hammock is here on the beach and the beaches belong to everyone.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Tell me,” she says. “Did your husband like the bracelet?”

  “Sure. But it was just a little gesture.”

  “A tchotchke.”

  “Ha. Right!”

  She sits down, with her legs crossed, and rests her back against the trunk of the palm tree that holds up one end of the hammock. She is wearing a beige linen skirt and white T-shirt straight out of a Clorox ad. I sit near her in the sand. I can feel it sticking to my bare legs. We both face the ocean.

  “Today is his actual birthday,” I say. “Peter, I mean.”

  “Your husband.”

  “Yes. I didn’t buy him a gift.”

  “Other than the bracelet.”

  “I just . . . I guess I thought this trip would be enough.”

  “And it isn’t?”

  “It should be, shouldn’t it? But I don’t know. He turned fifty. And I’ll be fifty soon. In three years.” I have no idea how old Maria Josephina is. She could be thirty. She could be sixty. It’s nearly impossible to tell. I’ve barely seen her without her huge black sunglasses.

  “Fifty is not the end of living.”

  “No. I don’t suppose it is.”

  We watch a flock of birds land at the water’s edge and then quickly take off again just as a small wave threatens to lap at their feet.

  “Have you been to the Malecon?” she asks.

  “I don’t think so. What is it?”

  “It is our boardwalk. By the sea. With many not very nice shops. But still it is lovely. There is a sculpture, there are several, but my favorite is one by Sergio Bustamante. It is called En Busca de la Razón. Searching for Reason. You should go and see this sculpture.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “It is of a ladder. And on this ladder two figures climb, and one stands on the ground, arms open. Maybe to catch the climbers if they fall. Maybe to say, Come back, it is safer here on the ground in the life we already know. When I see this statue I think that I would like to be one of the climbers. Even if I do not know where this ladder goes. I always want to keep climbing. To keep moving toward whatever is next.”

  “It sounds beautiful.”

  “It is.”

  I’m not sure who I am in this sculpture. I think neither the one on the ground with open arms nor the one climbing into the unknown. I’d probably be the one checking each rung of the ladder to make sure it isn’t about to break.

  Maria Josephina sighs. She looks up at her perfect villa. “And now, I think it is time for a glass of wine. Would you like to join me?”

  I would. I would very much like to join her for a glass of wine. “I can’t,” I say. “I should go back to the others. Back to Peter.”

  “I understand. Perhaps there will now be a chair available by the pool.”

  Perhaps. But I suspect they’re still ensconced in their universes of two. I suspect that they will hardly notice I’ve been gone.

  * * *

  • • •

  WE EAT A LATE LUNCH because our dinner reservation isn’t until nine o’clock.

  Ingrid is far from thrilled with this plan.

  “That’s when Ivan goes to bed,” she says. “I don’t understand how you couldn’t have taken that into consideration.”

  “Because, my darling,” Solly tells her, “it was either nine o’clock or five o’clock, and though Peter is fifty and I will be soon, we are not quite ready to feast on the early bird special with the rest of the blue-hairs.”

  “So what are we supposed to do about Ivan?”

  Solly shrugs. “Make him take a nap.”

  “Ding dong,” Ivan chirps. “No nap.”

  Ingrid gives Solly a told you so look.

  “So, he’ll stay up later than usual. This is a special occasion. We’re on vacation. We’re celebrating. This is a party. You like parties,” he says to Ivan. “Right, champ?”

  “I like parties,” Ivan says.

  “That’s the spirit.”

  Ingrid shifts in her seat so that her back is to Solly. “We’ll just have to see how it goes.”

  Ingrid and Solly rarely quarrel. Not publicly at least. I always attribute this to the newness of them, though at seven years into their relationship, they can be considered new only from the vantage point of someone who has been with her husband for twenty years. It makes me like Ingrid a little bit more when I catch a glimpse, however fleeting, of her losing patience with Solly.

  Roberto, who has been making the rounds with seconds of avocados stuffed with chicken, bravely wades into the controversy. “In Puerto Vallarta it is more better going to dinner late. It is when the town is busy. The streets, they fill with people. And the restaurants, too. People will be going to the clubs for dancing. And during Semana Santa it will be even more like celebration.”

  Ingrid manages a smile at him.

  “At five o’clock”—his voice is apologetic—“it is not good. At nine o’clock it is much better.”

  Solly slaps his back a little too hard; Roberto almost loses his grip on the tray of avocados. “Thanks for backing me up, amigo.”

  “Dancing could be fun,” Clementine says. “At one of the nightclubs?”

  She is looking at Malcolm. The invitation is for nobody else but him.

  He nods his head. “Totally.”

  “I will tell you where is the best one,” Roberto says. “It is not far from the restaurant where you go to eat.”
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  Clem looks at me pleadingly. Don’t say no. Don’t kill the fun. Don’t wield your parental power arbitrarily like you do.

  I decide to try out Ingrid’s line. “We’ll just have to see how it goes,” I tell her.

  * * *

  • • •

  INGRID ASKS ME if I’d like to go to town with her early to look around a bit before meeting the others at the restaurant.

  “I’ll let Solly be the one to wrestle Ivan into his nice shirt,” she says. “I love him, but I haven’t had a minute away from him since we got here and I think I could really use the space.”

  Is she talking about Ivan? Or is she talking about Solly?

  Roberto calls us a taxi. We are two people: by his earlier calculus it should be safe for us to walk, but when you factor in that we are two women, and that it is getting dark out, and that Ingrid is wearing heels even though she’s already annoyingly tall, a taxi makes sense.

  We get dropped at the main square. It’s lit up with colored spotlights and a nine-piece band plays salsa or samba or some kind of music in the gazebo. Couples dance. Men get their shoes shined. Old women feed pigeons. Children chase each other in zigzags.

  “Isn’t this fabulous?” Ingrid puts her arms out and spins around. “It’s so nice to be out and unencumbered.”

  We wander around the periphery of the square and then onto the smaller streets, where the shops are still open and vendors sell food, sweets, toys and souvenirs from carts. Ingrid links her arm through mine. It’s a friendly gesture and practical, too—cobblestones aren’t easy to navigate in heels.

  We stop so she can buy a bottle of water. Back on the sidewalk she opens it, takes a long drink like she’s just run a marathon and then fixes me with a look.

  “So how are you, Jenna?”

  I try to figure out what she’s trying to ask. I’ve been with her around the clock since Saturday, so this isn’t just your default conversation opener. Is she wondering how I’m recovering from drinking too much last night? Is this about my writer’s block? My breast cancer? My shame over not buying my husband a birthday gift? My unease with Clem’s sudden and increasingly obvious infatuation with Malcolm?

  “I’m good,” I say with a little too much pep. “I’m great.”

  “Good,” she says. “That’s . . . good.”

  “Why do you ask?” To this she just shrugs her shoulders. “I mean,” I try again, “why do you ask like that? Like things maybe shouldn’t be good?”

  “Oh, no. No. I don’t think that. I’m just . . .” She takes my arm again and we continue our slow stroll. “I guess, I’m just, I’m not very good at this, am I? At this friendship thing? I’ve always been a little intimidated by you. Or maybe in awe of you. And I used to think you hated me, because, you know, of how Solly and I got our start and Maureen and everything. But now, I feel like we’re friends. We are friends, right?”

  “Of course we’re friends,” I say.

  “Good. That’s how I feel, too. So I guess I was just trying to be a good friend. I was checking in with you. I’m afraid I’ve done all the talking on this trip about my manuscript, and the stuff about Malcolm, and dealing with Ivan, and I just wanted to make sure that I took the time to see if there’s anything you wanted to talk about. You haven’t said much about yourself or how things are going for you.”

  This would be a whole lot easier if Ingrid would just have a drink. Then we could go to a bar rather than wandering through the streets with her arm in mine like I’m her doddering old grandmother. We could pull up some stools and settle in for a real conversation. It’s been ages since I’ve done anything like that. Life is so busy. There’s hardly time anymore for friendship. And maybe Ingrid could be a real friend. Maybe I could finally forgive her for banishing Maureen to the opposite coast. Maybe I could finally see her for who she is: a mother like me, a wife like me, a writer like me, a woman trying to make sense of it all like me.

  But if Ingrid is a real friend, then what to do with what I know about Solly?

  “And you’re feeling well? After all the . . . you know.”

  “Treatment? Radiation? Cancer?”

  “Yes. That. You’re back to your old self?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “That must have been so hard. Even though your prognosis is good, it doesn’t make it any less scary, does it?”

  “No. It really doesn’t. Thank you, Ingrid, for recognizing that.”

  “I just . . .”—she shakes her head—“think you’re amazing.”

  “Well, that’s very nice of you to say.” It is nice. Ingrid is nice. She’s so, so nice.

  “You’re such a great mother. And of course you’re such a great writer, too. How you’ve managed to raise a child and write four books—”

  “Three,” I correct her. “I’m still working on the fourth.”

  “Fine. How you’ve managed to raise a child and write three books is beyond me.”

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “You’re raising a child and you’ve written a book. Sounds like you’re on the same track.”

  “Yes, but I’m just messing around. It’s a hobby. I’m not an author, like you. I have no idea what I’m doing.” I don’t think Ingrid is fishing. Her undervalued opinion of her own work strikes me as genuine. As does everything else about Ingrid. “Ivan, yes,” she continues. “I’ll take credit for him. He’s a good boy. I’m managing to do that part well.”

  I stop. I take her arm out of mine and I turn her to face me. “Ingrid,” I say. “Your book is great. You are going to find an agent and then you are going to find a publisher and that publisher is going to have to win your book in a bidding war because everybody is going to want it.”

  She looks confused. “What?”

  Given what she is going to have to face in her own marriage, it can’t hurt to give her a little sliver of hope about her future as a writer. “I finished it. I love it. It’s so, so good.”

  She puts her hands up to her face. “No.”

  I nod. “Yes.”

  She reaches over and she puts her arms around me. It’s a big, strong, Solly-style hug. “You aren’t just saying that? Remember, I told you no good will come from protecting my feelings.”

  “I am not protecting anything. What I’m doing is telling you I think your book is really good.”

  She squeals. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”

  We start strolling again. This time when she links her arm through mine she pulls me closer, like we’re lovers. “This has been such a great trip, Jenna. I know how hard you worked finding the house and setting everything up and I just want to say thank you. Thank you from all of us. You’re our captain, and I fear you don’t get enough credit.”

  “I don’t need credit,” I say.

  “Oooh, look!” She pulls me toward a brightly lit jewelry shop. “Let’s do a little browsing, shall we?”

  We go inside. The woman who owns the place is a painter as well as a jewelry maker and the walls are lined with her paintings of dogs and chickens and children. They’re bright and fanciful and not at all cheesy, though they so easily could have gone in that direction. Ingrid heads straight for a case of necklaces.

  “Por favor?” Ingrid says. “Can I see this one?” She points to a big chunky necklace of silver and some sort of red stone, not clear like a gem, but solid like a rock.

  “Of course,” the woman says in perfect, unaccented English. “This is one of my favorite pieces. You have a good eye.”

  “Do you make these yourself?” Ingrid asks.

  “Yes,” the woman answers. “Most of what I sell here I make. I have a workshop in my home. Some of the pieces, not this one, but some of the others I buy from artesanos, local artists. For those I only keep five percent of the sale price.”

  “Oh, good.” Ingrid says. “I don’t mean to be nosy
, but it matters to me where and how things are made.”

  “I completely understand,” says the woman. “It matters to me, too.”

  Ingrid holds the necklace up to me. “With this outfit?” she says. “It is perfect on you.”

  I take a quick look at the price tag. “I don’t think so,” I say. I’d spend that kind of money on the painting of the chicken that everyone in the family could enjoy before I’d spend it on a piece of jewelry for myself.

  “I’m getting it for you,” Ingrid says. “And I’m getting something for me, too. I’m not going to argue with you about it. Everyone else got a watch today and what did we get?”

  She points to another necklace in the case, a similar one but with green stones cut into round rather than square shapes. The woman hands it to her and she fastens it around her neck. It looks like she’s been wearing it forever.

  She pulls out her credit card and hands it to the woman.

  “Ingrid. Wait.”

  “Nope,” she says. “No arguments.”

  I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The necklace isn’t something I ever would have picked out, but I have to admit, I love how I look in it.

  “Thank you, Ingrid,” I say. “You’re too nice.”

  * * *

  • • •

  SOLLY NEVER DID MANAGE to get Ivan into his good shirt. Nor into a pair of pants. Ivan arrives at the restaurant in pajamas with cowboys and cacti on them.

  “This is what the boy wanted to wear.” Solly looks at him proudly. “And when I say wanted, I mean insisted.”

  “But I packed that shirt special for tonight,” Ingrid says. “When is he going to wear it?”

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and say . . . never.”

  “Dammit, Solly. I asked you to do one thing.”

  We’re still waiting to be shown to our table. The area by the hostess stand is small and cramped and I’m quite literally in the middle of Solly and Ingrid’s argument. Clem has already acquired the wi-fi password and she hunches together with Malcolm looking at something on her phone. Peter catches my eye and rolls his, just a little. Not enough for anyone but me to know what he’s trying to say: Look at Solly and Ingrid bickering over a shirt. Remember when we used to do stupid shit like that? Now we’re better. We fight only about things that matter. And right now we aren’t fighting about anything at all. Yay us!