Tomorrow There Will Be Sun

by Dana Reinhardt

  I could walk south. Nobody would see me if I walked toward the rocks where Malcolm took Ivan searching for starfish. But I don’t know what’s beyond those rocks, and I have walked the beach to the north. I know what’s around that bend. I know that I’ll pass the villas Shabby and Tacky as well as Villa Perfect. I know I’ll reach the stretch of private beach where I sat with Clementine and Malcolm, where they later escaped the club to be alone, where Malcolm would ultimately decide not to have sex with my daughter and this would crush her in a way I don’t fully understand because even if I try to inhabit that world through my fiction, it’s been too long since I’ve been sixteen.

  I go north. It feels better in this moment to walk toward something I know than toward something I do not.

  I keep close to the gate that protects the house from outside intruders so I can’t be spotted from the balconies. To be even more careful I drop to my hands and knees and I crawl the perimeter of the gate, staying in its shadow, catching my pajama pants a few times on the wood’s errant splinters.

  When I get a safe distance from the villa I stand up. I wipe the sand from my pajamas. I rub my knees, sore from the crawling. I know what Officer Delgado said. He told us to stay close to home, and that’s what I intend to do. I’m not going to walk all the way to town. Not with no shoes, in a stolen chef’s coat.

  I round the bend to the other three villas. Like the other day, they look empty. It’s too early for siesta. Maybe all the guests are gone. Maybe they got out before everything fell apart. Maybe they wrapped up their perfect vacations and headed to the airport, bags full of rainbow-colored blankets and chunky stone necklaces, to catch flights that were still leaving.

  But where is Maria Josephina?

  I see the hammock. It is not a U shape. It is not a smile beckoning me. It is flat, sagging and low to the ground with the weight of a seventeen-year-old boy.

  Malcolm.

  I try to sneak by him, tiptoeing up to the metal gate at Villa Perfect. There is a keypad. And a camera. I’m not sure what to do. This is a far more sophisticated security system than the splintery wooden gate with a latch that protects us at Villa Azul Paraiso.

  “Hey, Jenna.” I don’t want to turn around. I don’t want him to see me in my ridiculous getup. “What are you doing?”

  “My friend lives here.” I point at the house. Malcolm looks at me. A shadow from the palm trees falls on his handsome face.

  He has climbed out of the hammock and it swings behind him. He catches the rope in his hand and steadies it. “Everyone is wondering where you’ve gone. They’re, like, kind of freaking out, actually.”

  I pull Luisa’s coat tighter around me. “I’m sorry. I was just . . .”

  “It’s okay,” he says. “You don’t need to explain.”

  “Thank you, Malcolm.” He knows. Of course he knows. Everyone knows. And if they didn’t already know, they know now. I wonder what Peter has said to Clementine. By disappearing I have left him with the unenviable task of explaining to his daughter why I needed to escape from our perfect vacation.

  “So? What do you want me to tell everyone?” Malcolm asks. “You know, about where you are?”

  I turn back to the keypad. I have no idea what button to push to ring the doorbell. How do I let Maria Josephina know that I am here? That I need a safe place to hide? Should I push 9-1-1?

  “I’d rather you not say anything, if that’s okay.”

  He shrugs. “Sure . . . I guess.”

  “Malcolm?”

  “Yeah?”

  I might have slept for six hours, but I’m as tired and lost and hollowed out as I was before locking myself into the secret bedroom. I’m fragile. A husk. The hurricane winds have subsided, but still there is the storm, the tormenta.

  I want to ask him if his mother is happy. Does Maureen feel bitter and rudderless or does it feel like her life is hers again? Is she maybe even happier now than she was when she was married to Solly?

  Right then a loud buzzing noise comes from the metal door. I look at the camera. Its lens is trained on me. From a speaker I hear Maria Josephina’s voice.

  “Would you like to come inside? Have something to drink?”

  I could weep from the kindness of this invitation. I fear I might choke on my answer so instead I just reach for the door handle and push. It opens.

  I turn back to Malcolm. “Never mind,” I tell him. “I’m sorry.”

  “You really don’t need to apologize,” he says.

  * * *

  • • •

  MARIA JOSEPHINA STANDS waiting for me. She is wearing that sheer black cover-up which hides a tiny black string bikini. I can’t help but notice her taking in my bare feet, my pajama pants, my chef’s coat.

  I look around at the large deck with the infinity pool, a modern open living room and enormous kitchen with state-of-the-art stainless steel appliances.

  When Peter and I first moved in together, combining our two modest incomes to rent the duplex in West Hollywood, I couldn’t believe our good fortune. We had one and a half bathrooms! A guest room! When friends would come over we’d proudly give them a tour of our apartment that lasted all of a minute. But since I’d moved from a studio, and Peter had moved from a three-bedroom bungalow with four roommates, we felt flush. This was luxury living. Then we got married and starting thinking about having a kid and Peter started making more money and we bought our three-bedroom house with the backyard with fruit trees and it became hard to fathom how we ever coexisted happily in that tiny duplex.

  This is how it feels seeing the inside of Maria Josephina’s villa. I’d thought Villa Azul Paraiso was the apex of luxury living, but that is only because I hadn’t yet stood on the deck of Villa Perfect.

  She calls out something in Spanish to the woman in the kitchen who doesn’t wear a white button-up coat; she wears all black, a T-shirt and cropped pants. At first I’m not sure who this woman is—a domestic worker, a friend, a sister—but then she responds with “Sí, señora.”

  We sit at a glass table under a canvas umbrella. The infinity pool makes a hypnotic lapping sound in the background. The woman from the kitchen appears with a bottle of sparkling water and a bottle of white wine on a tray. She pours both of us a glass of each.

  “Jenna. Are you okay? Most people, they are not going outside of their homes since the events in town. Do you know about this?”

  “Yes,” I say. “My daughter was at the club the night of the kidnapping, but she left before it happened. And we don’t know much about what’s going on now because our villa is without internet connection.”

  “Ours, too,” she says.

  “I’m supposed to go home tomorrow. But I want to leave today. And the airport is still closed.”

  “Is it?”

  “There’s no other way for me to leave.”

  “Why do you need to go? Do you not feel safe? It is safe here. Where your villa is and mine. It is a safe place to be.”

  I reach for the sparkling water and take a long drink. My throat feels thick. “It is not a safe place for me.”

  “So this is not about the events in town.”

  “No. This is not.”

  “I see.”

  We sit in silence for a few minutes. The pool, the ocean, the glass table—everything reflects the punishing sun.

  “Thank you, Maria Josephina, for inviting me in,” I say. “You have provided me sanctuary with your kindness.”

  “It is my pleasure.” She clinks her glass against mine. “In vino veritas, in aqua sanitas. It is an old Latin phrase. Do you know this? It means in wine there is truth, in water there is health.”

  I take a long drink of the wine. It is cold and crisp and wonderful. This old Latin phrase has it all wrong. In wine there is escape. In wine there is rewritten history. In wine I am enjoying a leisurely Good Friday with a new frien
d I’ve made on my perfect vacation, an infinity pool lapping hypnotically in the background. In wine my life isn’t falling apart.

  And in water there are just bubbles.

  I want to know how she’s done it. How she’s made this life for herself. Endless sunsets and bottomless glasses of sauvignon blanc. But she hasn’t asked why I’ve shown up at her door in a chef’s coat and no shoes, so perhaps I shouldn’t ask how she manages to spend her days on perpetual vacation. Better that we behave like children, engaging in parallel play, side by side, drinking our wine.

  Before the silence stretches on too long, a man appears.

  Is he her Roberto? His hair is also slicked back. He also wears a uniform of sorts, all black like the woman in the kitchen. Across his chest: a thick black strap. Over his shoulder: the narrow black barrel of a machine gun.

  I freeze.

  They speak in a rapid back-and-forth. He is agitated. She is calm.

  He hands her a cell phone. She speaks into it for only a minute. She finishes with “Sí, mi amor.”

  My head is spinning. Who is this alternate universe version of Roberto? Why is he carrying a machine gun? Who is the amor on the other end of the phone? Wait . . . there’s cell service here?

  Maria Josephina reads my questioning face. She takes a sip of her wine and then lights a cigarette. She offers me one. I haven’t smoked a cigarette since college.

  I take it.

  “He has a . . .” I motion to my back. For some reason it is difficult for me to say the words machine gun.

  “Yes,” she says. “For safety.”

  “Has it gotten that bad? You said we were safe in these villas. I thought the danger is only for the men involved in the warring drug cartels.”

  She takes a slow drag of her cigarette. “Yes. This is true.”

  “But then why does he need a machine gun?”

  I know the answer to this question as soon as I’ve asked it.

  She watches me come to an understanding.

  “So . . . were you there?” I ask her. “At the club that night?”

  The girl in the street told me that the kidnappers took the men but left behind the women. If her amor was kidnapped, then Maria Josephina was likely one of the women left behind. If her amor was a kidnapper, she was likely home, safely ensconced in her perfect villa, sipping her wine.

  “Me? No.” She shakes her head. “I was not at the club.”

  I take a drag of my cigarette. I don’t cough, which I worried I might do. Smoking a cigarette is like riding a bike, though I haven’t ridden a bike since college either.

  I take another drag. I go for the smoke ring and nail it. I watch my perfect circle drift up and blow apart. Why did I stop smoking? What’s the point of making all the right decisions? Has my life been better because of all of the responsible, healthy, grown-up choices I’ve made?

  My wineglass is empty. I pick up the bottle to refill it, but the bottle is empty, too.

  “The amor on the phone. He is . . .”

  “My lover.”

  “Oh.”

  “We are not married. He has a wife. She does not live here. When he is here in Puerto Vallarta we are together. When he is not I am on my own. Free. It is a good life. It is the life that is best for me.”

  “It sounds . . . complicated.”

  “No. It is very simple. Marriage,” she says. “Now, that is complicated.”

  “Very complicated.”

  “And this is why you are here? Why you do not feel safe in your villa? This is because of your husband? Because of your marriage?”

  “My husband is having an affair.” This is now the second time I have said this sentence out loud and it still feels as if I were speaking a line of dialogue, saying something that someone else has written for me to say. Even my voice doesn’t sound like my own as I say it.

  “So he has a lover?”

  “Yes. But it’s different. We don’t have an understanding. In fact, our understanding is that we’re faithful to each other. Infidelity is for other people. Not for us.”

  “So you worry that your husband does not love you? That he loves this other woman only?”

  “No. In fact, I think things are over between them. And I do believe Peter loves me. I do.”

  The bottle is empty but Maria Josephina reaches for it anyway and holds it upside down over her wineglass. A few drops pour out. She drinks them. We sit staring out at the ocean.

  “I suppose it is hard for you to understand why I’d be so upset,” I say.

  “No,” she says. “It is not. Like we agreed: marriage is complicated.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “But I wonder if you are living a good life. If you are happy. If you are living the life that is best for you.”

  “I . . . don’t know.”

  “JENNA?”

  It’s Peter. What is he doing here? Did Malcolm tell him where to find me? I thought Malcolm and I had an understanding. I thought we were friends.

  “JENNA?”

  He’s walking up the beach in his shorts and a misbuttoned white shirt, hands to his mouth in an effort to amplify his voice, which grows more frantic with each repetition of my name.

  “JENNA?”

  He reminds me of Tom Hanks in Castaway with his scraggly beard and hair. His desperation is apparent even from this distance.

  “Who is this?” asks Maria Josephina. “Is this your husband?”

  I sit back a little farther in my chair. I wish I had her large sunglasses to hide behind.

  He stops and stares up at Villa Perfect. He puts his hand to his eyes to shield them from the sun. He is trying to decide if it’s me next to this glamorous woman in her sheer black cover-up on the deck by this infinity pool.

  “JENNA?” he calls.

  “JENNA!” He starts waving frantically.

  I take a drag of my cigarette. He drops his hands to his sides and cocks his head. If he were in a cartoon, the word balloon above him would read:

  That can’t be Jenna because that woman is smoking a cigarette.

  Jenna doesn’t smoke.

  And my word balloon would say:

  Fuck you, Peter. Maybe you don’t know every single thing about me.

  Maybe I keep secrets, too.

  “JENNA!”

  I take another drag.

  “Your husband,” says Maria Josephina. “He is very excited to see you.”

  “My husband knows he is in trouble,” I say.

  “JENNA!”

  “Is he a bad husband?” she asks.

  “No. Not entirely.”

  “JENNA!” Peter shouts. “PLEASE COME DOWN HERE AND TALK TO ME!”

  “And you? You are a good wife?”

  “JENNA! PLEASE! I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!”

  Am I a good wife? I have never cheated on Peter. When one is called upon to give an account of her role in a marriage, that fact matters. I have loved him—sometimes more, sometimes less—for nearly twenty years. I have never told him the big sorts of lies, only the small ones we all tell to make everything run more smoothly. I have faults; that’s for certain. I can insist on things done my way. I am not always patient. I am sometimes petty. I have shunned enough embraces that he has grown cautious in how and when he reaches for me. I can be anxious, worried. I sense storms on calm horizons. But I have, above all else, believed in the certainty of our marriage.

  Am I a good wife?

  “I think so,” I say. “I’ve tried to be.”

  “JENNA! PLEASE!”

  “He must love you very much. Why else would he shout like this?”

  “JENNA!”

  “He’s humiliated me. And maybe even worse, he’s gaslighted me.”

  “Gaslighted? What does this mean?”

  �
�JENNA!”

  “He has let me think I’m crazy. That I imagine things.”

  “Do you imagine things?”

  “JENNA! PLEASE!”

  “Yes, but sometimes what I imagine is true.”

  “JENNA!”

  Maria Josephina calls out something to the woman in the kitchen. She brings a tray with another bottle of wine and fresh wineglasses, which are unnecessary because the bottle is the same vintage we’ve already been drinking.

  “JENNA! PLEASE!”

  I take the final, delicious drag of my cigarette. “He’s been lying to me for months. He let me believe it was his best friend who was having the affair.”

  “It is not good to lie about these things. It is much better to live out in the open.”

  Peter drops to his knees in the sand. “JENNA! COME DOWN HERE AND TALK TO ME. PLEASE!”

  Maria Josephina watches him, laughing a little to herself. “This is why I do not have a husband.”

  I look at Peter. Prostrating himself before me. Alone on the beach in his misery.

  “JUST COME DOWN AND TALK TO ME.”

  “I’ll be fifty soon,” I say.

  “Yes. You tell me this already. And I tell you that this is not the end of living. It is not too late to have the life you deserve. To keep climbing the ladder like in the statue on the Malecon. I am fifty-five. And still, I climb.”

  “JENNA!”

  “Twenty years,” I say. “It’s a long time to be with one person.”

  “It is an accomplishment. Or is it more like a sentence? I do not know . . . perhaps it is both.”

  “I WON’T LEAVE UNTIL YOU COME DOWN HERE.”

  “Would you like some more?” she asks me, managing the bottle in one hand and the burned-down butt of her cigarette in the other.

  “PLEASE!”

  I look at the bottle and at my empty glass and then I look out at Peter. He’s shifted to a sitting position. He’s settling in. He isn’t going anywhere.