“Heavenly. I was serious when I said I’m going to sleep out here tonight.”
“I made up both beds, just in case you change your mind.”
“Thanks.” Joanne pulled herself up and looked around. “I like it here. I like it here a lot.”
“I made a list of a few things we still need at the store.”
“Of course you did.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. Go on, Mel. You were saying we need a few things at the store.”
“Do you want to go with me, or should I just go?”
“Oh, now look who’s the brave one, eh? You sure got your second wind once we arrived.”
“I like to attain goals,” I said plainly.
“Yes, you do.” Joanne stretched. “I’ll go with you. Be sure to bring the key. I’ll put the big padlock back in place.”
We headed the opposite direction of how we had come when we reached the main road because Joanne insisted we see if another grocery store was nearby so we wouldn’t have to return to the older part of town. Her instincts proved to be right. A large, newly built grocery store was located not more than half a mile away. Not far down the road from the grocery store was a gated area with a guard station and a fancy sign that read, “Rio del Mar Resort.”
“Can you believe this?” I said. “It’s a new development. A new city being built outside the old city.”
As soon as we entered the grocery store, we realized the new grocery store catered to North American tourists. For starters, the store was air-conditioned. Many of the signs were in English. The freezer section by the front door was stocked with familiar ice cream treats like the brands we bought at home.
I made quick work of our shopping needs, but at the checkout counter I couldn’t help but ask a few questions since the employee spoke perfect English.
“Yes, it’s a resort,” the cashier explained. “But you buy the house and rent it out if you want. It’s not going to be a hotel. The main resort hotel in San Felipe is Costa del Sur, in case that’s the one you’re trying to find. It’s south of here.”
“No, I was curious about this resort.”
“The construction started a few weeks ago. You can still buy property. Not many of the lots have been bought yet. The clubhouse already is built with the pool. They have an office, if you want to ask questions.”
“Thank you. We may have a look.”
She handed me the receipt. “Have a nice day.”
It seemed sad, in a way. I preferred the sound of the many voices speaking Spanish in the grocery store we had gone to earlier in the old part of town. This air-conditioned, shiny store felt commercial, and as if this local girl had sold out to the corporate North American mogul who was transforming her sleepy fishing town into a money-making venture.
Joanne reached for the grocery bags along with one of the gallon-sized jugs of water. “I wonder how Uncle Harlan would have viewed this news.”
I turned to the checkout clerk and said, “By any chance do you know a man named Matthew who is visiting San Felipe with his nephew, Cal? Cal is about eight. This high.”
She shook her head.
“Melanie.” Joanne’s bristly words swept me out of the store. “You don’t have to play junior detective, you know. I don’t intend to search for Matthew all over town.”
“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “Sorry. I just thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
“Don’t ask anymore,” she said firmly.
“Okay, relax. I won’t.”
“Good. Now, do you want to check out this resort?”
“We might as well.”
The guard at the small booth let us in without asking any questions. We drove down smoothly paved streets to a clubhouse and office that looked out at the ocean. The measured-off lots looked like a setup for a cookie-cutter suburban development.
“How depressing,” Joanne said. “In six months this place will turn into a little dollhouse world. Let’s go in the office and find out how much the lots are going for.”
We stepped into an air-conditioned office and immediately felt chilled. A gentleman wearing expensive resort clothing greeted us in English and Spanish. He seemed to be eyeing our tousled appearance, as if to evaluate the potential of our actually purchasing one of his many soon-to-be-snatched-up lots.
“We’re interested in one of your brochures.” I wanted to cut off his presentation the moment he started it. “We have to go because we have groceries in the car.”
“I see.” He reached for a slick pamphlet. “Are you staying at the Costa del Sur?”
“No.”
“Camping on the beach?” he ventured.
“No.”
“Do you mind if I ask where you’re staying?”
Joanne stepped in and took over. “We’re staying at our uncle’s old place.” It was the truth, even though the trailer was now legally ours. At least the salesman stopped probing.
“If you have time to come back, I’d be happy to take you on a tour of our facilities and point out the lots that are still available. After the tour you’re entitled to a coupon good for a margarita at our clubhouse bar and free use of our swimming pool.”
“Thanks.” We turned to go.
“De nada,” he answered us then added, “Mi casa es su casa.”
Joanne and I looked at each other and shook our heads all the way back to the Jeep. That California boy had no idea what it meant to say that his house was our house.
“How much?” Joanne asked as we pulled out of the parking spot. She was driving, and I was flipping through the brochure.
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
“How much for a lot?”
“They start at two hundred thousand dollars and go up to four hundred thousand, depending on the size and how much of an ocean view it has.”
“That’s U.S. dollars, not pesos, right?”
“Right.”
“Are you saying they’re charging two hundred thousand dollars just for the lot?”
“No, that includes the house. They give four different floor plans to choose from. And get this. There are more than three hundred lots still available.”
“The big question is how will this development affect Uncle Harlan’s place.”
“Good question.”
After we put away the groceries, Joanne and I made sandwiches from the packaged turkey breast we had bought and munched on a bag of baby carrots. Our trailer didn’t have working electricity or water, but since we would be there such a short time, we thought it was best to make do without. I don’t think either of us would have been happy with that decision if we hadn’t stayed with Rosa Lupe and seen how cleverly she coped with neither of those modern conveniences.
Our late afternoon meal was a combination of lunch and dinner, so it seemed fitting to leisurely stroll barefoot along the beach at sunset. I had bought a flashlight and extra batteries and carried it with us on our walk just in case it became too dark on the way back.
The evening breeze skittered across the water on kitten’s paws, quietly stretching and taking its precious time to join us as we walked. Facing east meant the sun was actually going to set behind us and not into the water, the way it did whenever we had viewed the close of the day in British Columbia. The eastern sky was slow to dim as Joanne and I leaned low, looking for seashells. I loved the sensation of the warm, sugar white sand between my toes.
“What are you thinking?” I asked Joanne as a fleet of amber- and scarlet-shaded clouds scuttled out to sea.
“I’m thinking lots of things. What are you thinking?”
“That I can’t remember my other life.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means I feel as if I’ve been gone from home for years, not just a few days. I feel as if I have new spaces opening up in my brain, and I have time to think. I feel renewed.”
“So do I,” Joanne said. “Getting out of our comfort drones is a good thing.”
“Don’t y
ou mean comfort zones?”
“They might be zones for you, but for me, when I get comfortable, I turn into a drone.”
“Joanne, you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but I have to ask. Why did you jump in the water after that child?”
“I thought he was going to drown.”
“But you didn’t even think about it. You just ran and jumped in. I could never do that.”
“Yes you could. If you had seen all the suffering and loss of life I saw in India and you were presented with a situation where it seemed possible you could save a life if you acted immediately, you would have jumped in, too.”
We had turned and were now headed back up the beach toward our hideaway.
“Do you think you’ll ever go back to India?”
“Possibly. One day. What I’d rather do is raise an army of support for the work that’s going on there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to find a way to let people know what’s going on in India and how young girls are being freed from forced prostitution. If I go back to India, I’m one person. That’s helpful, of course. Very helpful. But if I can find ten people or a hundred people who will pray and contribute to the ministry, that’s even more helpful.”
“Are you doing that now? I don’t remember seeing any letters from you that asked for financial support for them.”
“I haven’t sent out any letters. I don’t know where to begin. I’m terrible at organizing and communicating and all the other stuff necessary to build a support base. That’s a bigger challenge to me than getting back on a plane and working at the center for the rest of my life.”
Writing a simple letter sounded elementary to me. I had organized a fund-raiser for Joy’s school choir while I had the flu two years ago, and when it turned out to be the biggest draw they’d ever had, they asked me to do it every year. I did it this year practically in my sleep.
“I know a thing or two about organizing,” I said. “Why don’t you keep me in mind, if you need help sometime?”
By the look on Joanne’s face in the dimming light, I saw she never had thought of me as a resource for such a project. “You’re right, Mel.”
“You know, I think that’s the third time today you’ve told me I was right. I love it when you say those three little words: ‘You’re right, Mel. You’re right, Mel.’ ”
“You know what they say about pride,” Joanne warned.
“Wear it with honor?”
“No, I was thinking of the verse in Proverbs that says pride goes before a fall.” She caught my ankle with her foot and tried to bring me down to the sand. I hopped quickly and avoided the tumble.
“How many times do I have to warn you not to start something you can’t finish, Joanna Banana?”
She took off down the beach before I could trip her. I ran after her in the firm, moist sand, but she was in much better shape than I. I’d never catch her.
Zigzagging into the shallow water, Joanne tried to get me wet as her bare feet kicked up a spray of salt water. I retaliated with a splash in her direction, and Joanne let out a loud yelp.
“I didn’t even get you wet,” I called.
She screamed, and I knew something was really wrong.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
Joanne hopped on one foot and wailed, “I stepped on something. Owww! I can’t see. Where’s your flashlight?”
I quickly turned the light on her foot. We saw nothing. No gash or blood. Only a slight puncture on the fleshy upper pad.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!” Joanne cried.
Turning the flashlight on the sand where she had been standing, I searched for the culprit, expecting to find the top of a ballpoint pen or something. No evidence lay in the wet sand.
“It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!”
“Okay, Joanne, let’s get you back to the trailer. Can you lean on my shoulder and hobble along?”
We did a crazy hop-shuffle dance step. I’d never seen Joanne fall apart like she was now.
“It hurts,” she whimpered, breathing hard.
“You don’t have any idea what it was?”
“No!” she screamed. “It hurts!”
“Listen, Jo, I’ll drive you to the clinic I saw in town. Do you remember seeing it by the gas station? No matter. Just stay calm, and I’ll drive as fast as I can.”
With my sister whimpering in the seat beside me, I drove like a crazy woman through town, barely stopping at the “Alto” signs.
“Here’s a bottle of water.” I reached behind me when we rolled to a stop at an intersection, and I heard the bottle rattle. “Pour some water over your foot. Maybe a little piece of shell is stuck in there. Hold on. I’m going to make a turn up here.”
With fierce determination, I clutched the steering wheel and drove my sister to the closest thing to a hospital this town had to offer. She didn’t have two broken legs, but I had jumped into the emergency as fully as if she did.
The good thing about taking a nurse-practitioner to a clinic is that she understands her diagnosis long before you do. And that’s an especially good thing when the diagnosis is mostly in Spanish.
Our helpful doctor was certain that a sea creature, possibly a stingray, had stung Joanne. He made her plunge her foot into a pan of steaming hot water. As soon as the water cooled, more scalding hot water was delivered. When I informed the doctor that our accommodations didn’t include electricity or running water, he insisted we stay at the twenty-four-hour clinic with the ready supply of boiling water until he felt confident a sufficient amount of the poison had been extracted from her foot.
While Joanne soaked, she quietly whimpered. I felt so bad for her. She barely had moaned after she was hoisted up from Ensenada’s water with the rope. For her to react like this, it must really hurt.
After the first two hours of rotating buckets of hot water, she said she could tell a difference. The sharp, burning pain was decreasing. She could partially wiggle her toes again. The panic was lifting from her eyes.
I bought bottles of Coke from a machine in the lobby, and we sat in metal chairs flipping through Mexican tabloids. Some popular Mexican television star was marrying some other popular Mexican television star, but some other blond woman wasn’t happy about it. We figured out that critical bit of news from the pictures. What we didn’t know was if it was happening in real life or on a soap opera.
Sometime close to midnight the doctor indicated he was going home and another doctor was coming on duty. I have to say that I had been very good the whole time we were at the clinic. My suspicion was that this was the clinic Matthew was associated with, and therefore the same clinic that received the dispatch about Miguel’s broken leg. The thought of asking about Matthew had plagued me for several hours, but I wanted to honor Joanne’s resolute request that I keep my fingers out of the matchmaking bowl.
Still, every twinkling Christmas light inside my brain lit up when the doctor said he was leaving. If God was dreaming up a charming surprise for my sister, how great would it be for Matthew to walk in and to see Joanne sitting there, helpless, with her hair going every which way, unbathed except for her swollen foot that was stuck in a bucket?
Well, maybe that scene wouldn’t be exceptionally romantic, but it would still work. Instead of the Cinderella slipper, Matthew could slip Joanne’s bare foot into another pan of scalding water, and they could live happily ever after.
That’s how I would have written the story.
Apparently God had a different plot in mind and wasn’t looking for someone with control issues to step in and help Him out. God is deliberate.
To my credit, I didn’t say a word when the new doctor came on duty and turned out to be all of twenty-something, wearing too much aftershave and a red bowling shirt. When we left at two-thirty in the morning, I didn’t sidle up to the doctor and ask if he knew Matthew. I didn’t leave a trail of clues for Matthew to follow if he wanted to find the “Joanne Clayton” who was logged in at
6:55 p.m. on Wednesday, December 3. I was hands-off out of respect for Joanne’s wishes.
And it was killing me.
The beds I’d made up earlier that day inside the trailer were a welcome sight by flashlight. Joanne said she had a screaming headache, and I realized I hadn’t replaced the bottle of aspirin I had given away. I prepared a cold, wet paper towel and stood by Joanne’s side, placing the soothing friend on her forehead.
“Just like when we had chicken pox,” she said.
“It’s not as effective as the aspirin would have been.”
“Ibuprofen,” she corrected me.
“Fine, ibuprofen.” With a smirk I added, “If I had tequila, I’d give it to you.”
“If you had tequila, the way I feel right now, I’d drink it.”
“You must be delirious,” I teased.
“I’m actually doing lots better. You can leave the paper towel. It’s helping.”
“And your foot?”
“It’s better. I would never have known to soak it in hot water. Especially such scalding hot water. It seems to have worked, though. Thanks, Mel, for driving me to the clinic and for taking such good care of me.”
“De nada,” I said, crawling into my little bed. The sheets weren’t exactly freshly cleaned, but they were better than what we had slept on the night before.
“Sleep deep, Joanne.”
“Dream deeper,” she answered me.
I don’t know if I dreamed deeper, but I certainly slept deeper than I had the first few nights of this trip. The trailer stayed cool and dark, which allowed Joanne and me to sleep until after ten-thirty that morning. Usually neither of us slept that long, but after what we had demanded of our minds, emotions, and bodies the previous few days, it was a wonder we didn’t hibernate for the entire day in an effort to rejuvenate.
Joanne’s foot was much better, she said, but I noticed she hobbled around as she tidied up her side of the trailer. I had purchased some boxed oatmeal bars for our breakfast and pulled them out along with a glass bottle of what I took to be Mexican orange juice that didn’t need refrigeration.
“This is orange pop.” Joanne placed her paper cup on the top of the collapsible kitchen table.