The House on Carnaval Street

  With the problem solved, at least for now, Bodie offered to help with the cleanup. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty, but we did manage to bundle up every stinking rag and towel, along with the sweaters and jeans and blankets I had neatly folded and stored on the closet floor, and handed them to the laundryman Bodie had phoned, the one who promised to have everything back within a day, but didn’t, because somewhere in between, the laundryman got shot.

  “Welcome to Mexico,” said the gang upon my next visit to Macaws. The violence had now arrived at our front door. Some in Centro had even heard the shots that rang out from the passing red motorcycle, killing the laundryman for who knew what reason, and now any red motorcycle cruising the streets became a source of high anxiety for all of us.

  But of course, life went on. And indeed, I felt as though a phase of my initiation period had passed. Little by little, I was starting to belong.

  When Bodie wasn’t around, sometimes I’d sit and have coffee with Sharon and Glen, who owned Macaws and Casa de Leyendas, the restored colonial mansion turned B&B that housed it. Glen impressed me as the laid-back drummer type he told me he had been before getting sucked too deep into the corporate world. Mazatlán had given him back his sense of humor, and had made him open to anyone and anything. Sharon, on the other hand, seemed a little more aloof. But there was a certain vulnerability about her that I thought I recognized.

  One afternoon I noticed a gorgeous photo of a sexy blonde inside the B&B’s spacious foyer and seized the opportunity for an icebreaker. “That’s a great shot of you, Sharon. How old were you there?”

  Sharon rolled her eyes. “That’s not me. That’s my mother.”

  “Wow. She was beautiful!”

  “She died last year.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  Sharon shrugged her shoulders.

  “But really, I mean it. So gorgeous.”

  “She would have been thrilled to hear that. She lived to be admired for her beauty.”

  “Was she a model?”

  Sharon snorted a little. “Not exactly.”

  “Well, she sure looks like one.”

  “Actually, Debbie, she was a Playboy Bunny.”

  “Right. And my mom was Cleopatra.” There was no way a woman like Sharon, so natural and unaffected, with her hair swept back in a simple ponytail, lips shining with a pale gloss, and a baggy dress that hid what others would have flaunted with pride, could have been brought up by a Playboy Bunny.

  “Seriously, Deb. She worked in the club in St. Louis. Serving drinks.”

  “Hmm,” I answered in a lame attempt to sound matter-of-fact. “So she was a cocktail waitress.”

  “Yeah,” Sharon said with a laugh. “A cocktail waitress with two ears and a tail.”

  “It’s a living.”

  “I guess. She never did hold down a normal job. Bartending, masseuse, those were more her type of thing. She’d do anything to not be dependent on a man.” Sharon went into the kitchen and returned with a bottle and two glasses. I checked my watch. Sharon poured. “It’s okay, Deb. Late enough. Here’s to my mom.”

  “To your mom. May she rest in peace.” We clinked glasses and dragged a couple of chairs into the shade next to the pool.

  “I’m not so sure resting is what she’s doing, if she has anything to say about it.” Sharon kicked off her flip-flops. “We lived like Gypsies, moving all the time. One day, she packed up the car with my two little brothers and me and took off for California. I have no idea what she thought she’d find, but the four of us ended up living in a Hollywood dump with a prostitute as a roommate. Wild, huh?”

  “She sounds like a piece of work.”

  “Yeah, she was pretty unorthodox, as far as moms go.”

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, right?” I wondered what Sharon would have thought of my parenting style.

  “To a point.” Sharon sipped her wine. “Seriously. Once she told me she slept with some of the Rat Pack back in the day. What kind of a mother brags about that?”

  “Seriously,” I echoed, not really sure how to react.

  “And here’s one for you. Once she claimed to have been abducted by aliens.”

  I tried hard not to laugh, though Sharon herself was smiling.

  “Really.”

  “Yeah, really.”

  “Well? At least you got her looks.”

  Sharon laughed. “There is that. But she was relentless with me, always trying to groom me to be a model, just like she always wanted to be. I know I was a huge disappointment to her. But that was her dream, not mine. I’m definitely not the model type.”

  Wow. The daughter of a Bunny, I thought, looking at Sharon with newfound awe. In a way, though our mothers were polar opposites, I felt like I could relate to Sharon’s story. I could still picture the look on my graceful, delicate mother’s face when the Sears saleslady would direct her and her big, bulky, bellowing daughter to the Chubby department. “Yeah.” I sighed. “I was always envious of my mom’s looks, wished I was as beautiful as she was.”

  Sharon laughed. “I wasn’t envious, Deb! I was embarrassed. I never thought she was that pretty. I never thought I was pretty. Everyone used to say that I looked just like her. I hated that. I always claimed to have my dad’s eyes, and his eye­brows, too.”

  From my perspective, Sharon must have been one tough little girl. Me? My reaction to the all-too-obvious differences between my mother and myself was my absolute certainty that I was adopted. All that bragging she did about never showing when she was pregnant? Obviously a cover for the mysterious lack of pregnancy photos. Year after year, I’d use my birthday as an opportunity to invite my mom and dad to come clean about my parentage. I knew it was just a matter of time before they’d agree I was old enough to handle the truth. It wasn’t until I was fourteen, and suddenly began to see a little bit of my mom’s face in the mirror, that I gave up on that idea. I envied Sharon’s candor. I was liking this woman who could talk so freely about such a drama-laden life, one who could come through all that mess to end up creating the unbelievably warm, welcoming environment she had built at Casa de Leyendas. The B&B was stunning, perfectly decorated and accessorized down to the last detail. How did Sharon become Martha Stewart growing up with Anna Nicole Smith? I felt honored that she had shared this part of her past with me, that she had opened the door just a little bit wider to welcome me into the group, and into her life. I was getting a sense already that Sharon and I were destined to become good friends.

  The night I got the call from Barb was when I knew I was really starting to belong. It was ninety-four degrees outside, and not much cooler inside. When my cell rang I barely had the energy to answer.

  “Deb, it’s Barb,” she said very calmly. “Bob is dead.”

  I shot straight up on the couch. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. That’s terrible! What can I do?” I blathered into the phone, picturing her sweet, elderly husband that day at the beach.

  “I can’t find Bodie’s phone number. I need someone to get rid of the body.”

  My mind flashed for a second on a Barb I’d never imagined, one holding a bloody knife or a brain-splattered hammer over the kitchen sink. “Um, Barb? Don’t you think you should call the coroner? They have those here, right? Or the hospital? Or perhaps the police?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “How did he die, Barb? Where is your husband’s body?”

  “He died on the living room couch just a little while ago and . . . husband? Who said anything about Art? Bob is our dog, Debbie.”

  I tried to cover up the sound of my sigh with a little cough. “Of course, that’s what I meant. Let me make a few calls and I’ll get back to you.”

  I quickly dialed Bodie’s number, anxious to get him started tapping into his network of fellow animal lovers. No answer. With no phone book to be found at my
place, I rushed down to Macaws, where Glen and Sharon and Cesar the bartender were just closing up, and we got to work searching for help. In the middle of it all, Bodie called back. Though I swear I made it clear that a dog had died, I learned later that all Bodie heard was “Bob died, and we need to get rid of the body.”

  Silence.

  “We’ve called a few twenty-four-hour numbers listed for cremation services, but none of them answered,” I explained.

  Still, silence at the end of the line.

  “We thought about double-bagging him and putting him in the parking garage but I think he would begin to stink in this heat. I’ve asked Glen and Sharon if they have an empty freezer just to keep him cold through the weekend, but all their freezers are full.”

  More silence.

  “Bodie, are you there? We just need a number for someone to take Bob away.”

  “Maybe you should call the American embassy.”

  The embassy? Seriously, I’m thinking, you report dead dogs to the American embassy here? I wasn’t about to go down that road. After all, when I had tried to report that my son had received a kidnapping threat and that my life was in serious danger, I got jack shit out of the American embassy. I highly doubted the American embassy was going to be the answer now. It was time to call for reinforcements.

  I alerted the rest of the troops, and soon the phone lines were on fire. One vet was too drunk and said he’d come by on Monday. Two others claimed they didn’t have a freezer big enough to store the mutt, and that we’d have to wait until after the weekend. The rest of the round-the-clock services didn’t even answer. A nice funeral was obviously out of the question. Now it was simply a matter of removing the body from the living room. Bonnie headed to Barb’s house to help deal with the dog on the couch. She had an idea, remembering that Roger the Realtor lived nearby in a big house with a lawn. Perhaps Bob could be buried there.

  But Roger’s big lawn had been recently cemented over, in his gringo attempt at the preferred local style. Roger pointed out the empty lot across the street. We were jazzed, and relieved. “Who has a shovel?” someone asked. Glen said that he thought he might know someone who knew someone who had a shovel, but as we stomped on the hard ground we realized what we really needed was a pick and an ax.

  We then considered a burial at sea, but feared the waves would just wash him back up to shore. Mafia-style was floated as an option, as in a bag and some rocks, but we had no boat, and it was late. Maybe a Hindu pyre on the beach? With no wood, and an overeager police force, we knew we’d never get away with it. And in the middle of all this, the reality of losing their beloved Bob was just beginning to sink in for Art and Barb.

  Finally, Bonnie, who spoke more Spanish than all of us combined, got hold of a vet and, though she swore he sounded drunk, successfully persuaded him to come get Bob. We still don’t know what became of Bob. All I do know is this: in Mexico, it’s not a good idea to die on the weekend. I’d have to remember to be extra careful on Saturdays and Sundays.

  We traveled around like a revolving herd of goats that summer, stopping to graze at the nearest taquerías and ­quenching our thirst at a variety of watering holes. Now there was always something to do and someone to do it with, no matter what day of the week or what time of day. We’d gather for roof parties at sunset, or wander down to the water to watch the cliff divers floating through the sky.

  One Thursday evening a few of us headed to Zaragoza Park, where older Mazatleco couples would tango and two-step long into the night. I had heard that it was a pickup scene for the Mexican geriatric crowd, the place where a widowed grandma or a spinster aunt could go with her head held high, all dolled up with silk flowers in her hair that matched the folding fan in her hands. The men, with their perfect posture and pointy white shoes, led the women gently across the plaza with an air of elegance that seemed to have come from another era. That night a couple of mustachioed men asked me to dance. “No, gracias,” I said with a little smile. I couldn’t imagine dancing in that heat. It was hard enough to survive just sitting there watching from a plastic chair. Besides, I didn’t dance in any weather, at least not in public. Never did, and doubted I ever would. I envied these women as they spun and twirled proudly and gracefully across the plaza.

  Sunday nights, we’d meet down by the water to watch the clowns. Me, I got more of a kick out of watching the spectators splayed out in a giant circle on the plaza’s hard ground, ­mothers and fathers and children totally and equally engaged in the silly slapstick, as if it were the original Broadway production of The Lion King. They really love their clowns down there. Whole families of clowns have been prancing around in their giant shoes and fright wigs entertaining generation after generation of Mazatlecos for years. And boy, do those clowns rake it in. I’ve heard they even earn more than doctors. Even so, I’m glad my mom was a hairdresser and not a clown, because then I’d have to be one, too, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in those mismatched outfits and that gaudy makeup.

  As the season changed, so did Mazatlán. Of course, weather-wise it only dropped a few blessed degrees, but in terms of the vibe, it was as though the volume had been turned up about a hundred decibels. The snowbirds were flocking back from Seattle and Vancouver and Winnipeg and Minneapolis, and along with these fair-weather residents came the charity fund-raisers, the wine tastings, the gallery openings, and more parties than ever. There was a buzz of anticipation along the Malecón, with people shouting and waving to each other, hugging, kissing, showing off new hairdos and clothes as if it were the first day back at school. To me, it felt like those of us who had endured the marathon that was summer were being trampled by a bunch of sprinters with a bit too much enthusiasm. Where were all those guys while we were holding down the fort with our heat rash, wilted hair, and bubbling sewage? ­Personally, I was proud to carry the badge of honor that comes with being a full-timer, and felt lucky that I had gotten the chance to know the hearty group I met over the summer. I had learned a lot from them, so now I simply followed their lead, embraced the new energy, and dived right in.

  It was way too easy to get lost in all that chaos. I was always good in chaos. It didn’t leave me much time to think about myself and, for the most part, that seemed to suit me just fine. This perpetual fiesta sure beat that interminable sitting around that the Indian had prescribed up in Napa. I started to think that maybe this was all I needed in the first place. But when I took the rare quiet moment to have an honest conversation with myself, I also feared that, though I was certainly having more fun than I ever did in California, I had allowed myself to become distracted. Mazatlán was one giant distraction. It was easy to live a life without a responsibility in the world, a life disconnected from everything, including myself. And I knew that, in the long run, that would get me nowhere fast. I’d lived a lifetime searching for that someone or somewhere I thought might bring me happiness. And though I was certainly hopeful about my new life in Mexico, deep down I knew that the only one who could make me happy was me, and that the only place I’d find happiness was a place deep inside myself, a place that was becoming increasingly difficult to locate amid all the noise.

  I had come down to Mexico determined to do things right this time, and I wasn’t about to give up on that. So even if I wasn’t yet sure how to work on the inside, in the meantime at least I could keep working on the outside. The hairdresser in me was a huge believer in the look-good, feel-good philosophy.

  The gym thing had sort of fizzled when Roberto, the owner, got shot. As happens down here, nobody really talked about how or why. They just padlocked the doors and went on with life. And so did I.

  It was a visit to my mother that pushed me to pursue another avenue of self-improvement. Not an actual visit to my mother, but rather it was the thought of a visit that prompted me to apply for my FM3 visa, the one that would allow me to leave the country without my car, should I have to do so in the case of an emergency. I wanted to
be able to just hop on a plane in the event that my aging mother needed me. So, apparently, in order for me to be granted the rights that this visa offered, the Mexican government needed to see, and photograph, a naked face. That meant a face devoid of all hair, including, for example, hair strategically parted to mask a broad forehead, bangs cut at exactly the right length to cover a droopy eyelid, a curl placed just so to distract from a sinking jawline. Not one stray hair. And they wanted to see your ears, which apparently can only be made truly identifiable when standing face forward at attention with cotton balls shoved behind them until they stick out like a cartoon mouse. “Sin sonrisa. No smile!” The shutter clicked.

  “I’m hideous,” I cried to Sharon when I showed her my card. “How can I even see anything with those big old sacks hanging down over my eyeballs? And what the hell is that under my chin? Tell me I don’t really look like this.” Sharon just laughed. “What do you think?” I asked, stretching my cheeks back as far as the skin would allow.

  “You look like Bruce Lee,” she answered.

  “Don’t you think I’d look a lot better with just a little work?”

  Sharon shrugged her shoulders. “I think you look just fine.”

  “C’mon. A little lift?” I raised my brows to the ceiling. “A little tuck?” I flattened my chin with the back of my hand.

  “It’s a big deal, Deb. It’s major surgery.”

  “Ooh, I know what you need, Debbie,” piped in Analisa from behind the counter, where, to the joy of both of us, she was now working the day shift. It was adios Mamita’s for her. “Cirugía estética vampiro,” she said. “I have a girlfriend, she got this.”

  “Cirugía estética vampiro? What is that?”

  “You know, it’s like a . . .” She pushed her front teeth out over her bottom lip.

  “Why would I want buck teeth, Ana?”