Lessons in Pure Life Read online

  “But you were going through a shitty time, and it was probably a relief to have something fun to look forward to.”

  He’s grateful, eyes round and affectionate.

  “I drove down to the site to meet her, and I felt all right on the way. When I stopped the bike I knew it wasn’t about finding her, or hooking up. I just wanted to keep driving away. But yeah, I was tempted, for sure.”

  “So you fucked her.”

  “I fucked her. I was filled with dread. It didn’t give me relief.”

  It should hurt to hear him say this, but he’s laying it all out for me, and I don’t mind it. It’s the friend in me, I suppose. Seems I really care about this one, regardless of how I factor in. California Girl is Past. I’m part of the Now.

  My yoga teacher used to say, as we stretched our asses to the ceiling in downward dog pose, that all we have is now. The past is finished – there’s nothing we can do. The future – nobody knows.

  “I was feeling depressed and restless,” he continues. “Maybe I was feeling sorry for myself, and so I didn’t think about what it meant to her. She was an escape from my family and the fear we all felt of losing Mama.

  “The next morning it was a bad situation. She was upset, I felt empty. I just wanted to leave; she asked me to stay. We argued and I left.”

  “Uh-huh…”

  “Later she took a taxi to my family home.”

  “Yikes.”

  “It was a very personal moment. My father was asking the priest to pray for my mother as we gathered to eat together as a family. Papa was already annoyed with me for being gone the night before. Then this gringa’s outside in a taxi with headlights shining in our faces.”

  “That sounds painfully awkward.”

  He shakes his head. “It was humiliating. My father was skeptical of my entire experience at an American university, and this did nothing to help. Bringing this unnecessary drama and selfishness into my home, in front of Padre Gustavo, was an embarrassment to my family.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I went outside. Talked to her. Apologized. She was embarrassed when she saw my family watching her from the window. She didn’t understand what she’d gotten involved in, but Papa wasn’t happy. My father makes no secret of his opinion. He can frown a man into the ground.”

  “What a mess.”

  “I blame myself. The whole thing was a bad situation, but I killed it that night. She left, just turned right back around to where she came from. Haven’t seen her again.”

  Well, that’s a relief. Glad they’re not PMing.

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Just over a year. Mama died a few weeks after.”

  “Oh.”

  Sinking heart.

  My hand goes to his hair; fingers burrow gently across his scalp, warm with life.

  “Diego, I’m sorry. When I think of what I could say, I come up with nothing. In a way, I wish I was there, to help you through it. And Genesis. God, Genesis.”

  “She’s so strong. But it was very hard on her, too. No one took it easily. We all dealt with it in our own way, together in the open for a while, but after the funeral we each went away and shut the door of our grief to each other. I wouldn’t have known what to do with you.”

  I wouldn’t know what to do with me.

  “I agree. It would have changed everything.”

  He holds my palm to his lips and kisses it lightly. “I think I was a different person.”

  “I was too. Taylor probably is too. It’s easy to get caught in someone else’s momentum. And it’s difficult to let go. I had my own romantic drama that was empty of substance. It was all repeated motions, dressing to impress. But what I was gonna say was that making those mistakes changed me. If they helped get me here,” I pause to kiss his forehead, “I must have done something right.”

  He leans down and disappears out of my field of view so he can breathe into my hair. I feel a response deep inside me, a tingling echo. Lips on my neck below the ear make my eyes roll up like I’m a sleeping doll. Glad he isn’t looking right at me; I’m all zombied and blushing. Shouldn’t be so aroused.

  He leans back, rests. Face a clear and empty sky, for once. Slaps at something on his knee, double-taking a big insect whizzing away over his shoulder, Godzilla. He turns back toward me, lingering on the horizon before coming to a stop at me.

  “I hope we can stop talking about the past.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think it’s good, it was important to both of us to get some context. But. Terminado.” He makes a chopping motion.

  “Can we go back in the water? I want to have a proper swim.”

  “You can do whatever you want, querida.”

  We spend the rest of the afternoon doing what I’d planned to do alone, basically. The sun shifts slowly across the sky as we dive and tan and play. We’ve been dozing on our towels for a while when he stirs.

  “Hey, are you hungry?”

  “Starving,” I reply.

  “Me too. Let’s go on a fucking date. Can we?”

  He’s looking at me like I’m his Christmas morning Nintendo. I can’t hold back a laugh. It sounds light and good-natured, and that’s a nice feeling.

  “Yes, absolutely. Let me get changed.”

  “I’ve been thinking about getting you out of that tight, wet suit all day.”

  “If you keep looking at me like that, we won’t leave for a while, and I need a solid meal in me. I’m a human first, woman second.”

  “So this is all part of your plan to eat dinner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh well,” he replies, standing up and dusting sand off his backside. “I’ll go anyway.”

  17

  The sand is crumbly brown sugar dissolving beneath me. I look like a drugged-out heiress, overdressed to be barefoot in a mint slip dress that trails out behind me when the wind catches it. My hair is big and salty, waving like I wore two-and-a-half-inch rollers all day. Nothing a girl can do but rock it at this point. I didn’t have anything with me except strawberry lip balm, so I MacGyvered it into sweet-smelling hair stuff and dabbed it on either side of my neck like perfume. Finally I rubbed the lightest layer along the tops of my cheekbones like a shimmery highlighter.

  Diego takes my hand as we head toward the cafe, and it shocks me. I thought he’d do the opposite, keep his distance in case we see anyone. When I look up, he’s looking at me shyly, a sheepish smile screwed into the side of his face. Like I gave the answer to a question he was about to ask.

  “I don’t want to hide you. It was rude. I’m an asshole. I’m your slave.”

  “I don’t want a slave. I just want to walk with you. But what if we see someone?”

  He stops, faces me. Shrugs with a smile. “Then we see someone. I can’t fight it anymore. It’s my life.”

  We walk on. He wears a casual button-down shirt open partway, sunset skin burning underneath. I can’t imagine the shirt could really close over his chest, anyway.

  I toy with the idea that I could reach over and stroke the spot where his heart chakra is supposed to be. The way my hand sits inside his is roomy and warm. He’s careful, holding it Fabergé-egg delicate as we venture forward, feeling what it’s like to stand together.

  The feeling is ubiquitous. My field of view is mostly Diego, his rising good mood looming all over me. Reminds me of that day at Arenal.

  He’s checking me out too. The difference in size between us is funny, something wonderful to adapt to, at least for tonight before time Niagara Falls us onward. His face is honest, a smooth outer layer hiding rough thoughts beneath. I’m imagining how it would feel to have him touch me, silky as coconut oil.

  The Supremes drift over in ripples on the breeze, coming from the patio we’re approaching. It sends me abuzz with the electric sentimentality that comes with memories of my youth. A whole other part of my brain lights up with euphoric response. It helps me be myself.

  A backlit sign advertises mari
squería, the seafood I’ve been craving all afternoon. Must be the swimming. I’m a predator queen feeding after a day spent bathing with the rugged heir to a throne in some kingdom far away.

  Deep-friedness hits me. God, I’m famished. A neon pink crab dances with a neon blue oyster. The sign hums loud like a fridge.

  When we approach, Diego points to a table in the far corner nearest the water. We’re guided by a thin, crisp young man with squint-smile eyes like Jose’s and a beauty mark above his lip. He grins with widely spaced teeth as he flips our glasses right-way up and lights the candle, replacing the lava red holder so we have a pulsing ruby between us.

  The place sounds fancy but isn’t. Doesn’t mean it’s not a luxury, though.

  Mismatched rattan chairs sit around simple square tables covered in white linen. Yellow Christmas lights hang along the awning above us. At each corner a globe lantern bobs like a buoy in black night water. In our corner the lantern sits almost directly above us, lending its mellow glow to our impromptu date. “Guns of Navarone” pipes in, the tinny sound of horns spiking me with delight.

  I have such a good feeling about tonight. He’s got it too. It’s almost like we’re watching something in the empty space between us. Like it isn’t empty at all. If anything, it’s the place we exist in when we’ve come out of our shells.

  We’re handed menus and left to consider our options. Alone, kinda dressed to kill, facing each other in a way we haven’t done ever.

  We order mojitos. Because drinking is the easiest, most convenient way to loosen the straps that tie us to the pretense we’re all on our own. It burns in me like I’m Captain Haddock fizzling with whiskey, marching up the Himalayas with Tintin, singing old navy tunes. My empty stomach resists, but I’m a little nervous and so I keep sipping, fueling up to come undone.

  It’s working.

  Diego has a smile stuck in his teeth. With his hair raked out of his face, my focus falls across the rise and fall of his bones, the breath cycling in and out of his broad throat to keep him alive. Keeping that smug expression floating on his face, making the corners of his lips curl up.

  Before I think about it too much, I lean forward. Elbows on the table, I take a sip with one hand holding the straw and the other slipping over the cool condensation of the glass. I gaze up at him.

  The reflection of the candle bounces off his eyes, which rest comfortably on me. So cool until he drops the connection and breathes a laugh like a choirboy discovering a Playboy mag.

  “You’re really beautiful.”

  Maybe it’s Elvis crooning from above now; he’s pretty suggestive. Or it’s mojito with her green magic opening doors in Diego’s head, letting some secrets free. Whatever it is, that thing that works is working again. I always forget and then remember, like I can never quite believe how easy it is: when you try to attract a guy and he becomes attracted.

  When you want him and he wants you, bad. More than you’ve realized.

  My companion relaxes in his chair like he owns the place, looking better dressed than anyone else, even though I saw him grab the clothes in two seconds. But there’s an invisible string rooted inside him that keeps attaching itself longingly to the shape of me, shimmering in front of him.

  I take a big gulp of mojito, and the sugar-mint glides through me smoothly.

  “The way you look at me, you make me feel like royalty.”

  Slow smile. He pulls his hand down over his mouth, stroking the shadow of a day unshaven. “Yeah?”

  “Yes,” I confirm, pressing my lips together.

  “I’m the king, so get used to it.”

  I can’t help rolling my eyes, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t turn me on. I like fire with my fire.

  “I don’t think a foreigner could ever really get used to this kind of life. Not if you’re from the north. I wouldn’t want to get used to it,” I respond, not meaning to dance around his compliment.

  “That dress…” He trails off into a look that runs from my forehead to my sternum and back for the return trip.

  I glance downward and finger the green spaghetti strap on my right shoulder. It’s this narrow thread of silk that holds the triangle top up, each breast secured in its own satiny pocket and held taut.

  To look down and see my own cleavage is as familiar and neutral as seeing a knee or an ear. It’s me, it’s the way I’m shaped. But it’s always been misinterpreted by others, an unwitting symbol of sexuality bursting out of my chest. So often I’ve felt more comfortable covering up. Hiding behind sweatered versions of myself that keep me at a safe distance.

  But I blend in here. I’m loved by this environment, and I can be myself in it. My body is welcome as it is, not implying a thing, the way it does at home where we wrap up to be guessed at, undressed in the minds of others.

  His eyelids droop as he follows my gaze, then he focuses on my face again.

  “Diosa,” he mutters, shaking his head like a TV-show cop. “Me vuelves loco.”

  I’m driving him crazy. Huh. I toss the straw out of my glass and take a proper drink, wiping my lips with the back of my hand. What a world.

  My foot finds his in the sand beneath the table. He blinks slow-mo, good humored. His ankle is warm against my skin.

  “Get anything you want.” He gestures to the menu I haven’t even looked at yet. My stomach responds to the thought of food.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, gringa. Like you said, you’re royalty. This is my kingdom.” He looks me over like a cloud rolls away from the sun, letting light spill all over the fertile valleys once more. “Be the queen.”

  “No one’s ever said that to me before.”

  “I’ve never said it either. But choose. Before I eat you.”

  Want to play it cool, but everyone has a breaking point. I stare at the menu, seeing nothing, heart drumming.

  “What’s good? Do you come here a lot?”

  He shrugs, still looking at me like I’m battered in coconut.

  “Not really. My friend owns it, but he doesn’t live here anymore. I haven’t been in a while. Anything you get from the ocean will be perfect. Ceviche, calamar, camarones, lobster tails. You like lobster?”

  Are you kidding? “I like lobster,” I confirm. Mouth waters.

  “It’s good. Let’s have it. How about, let’s get a big plate,” he holds his hands out signifying the shape of a giant plate, “with a little bit of everything. That way you can taste everything in my ocean. Yes?”

  “It’s your ocean, is it?”

  He nods ironically.

  “Thanks for your generous offer. The queen accepts.”

  His face breaks, lines splitting it with amusement.

  “I’ll be right back. Don’t go away.”

  I watch him saunter over to the bar and make his order.

  Remembering what’s on the other side of me, I lean back into the overstuffed chair cushions and fold my knees under my long dress so I can curl up and gaze out to the dark Pacific. The sun is gone, but the horizon glows faintly as if it’s still hot from the giant star that just eased into its evening bath.

  Loudest of all but hidden by sensory adaptation has been the water spilling over the sand in a loop. Today, less than a half mile away, I collected the swirly, conical seashells that cover this part of the coast. In the faint light I can see the uneven sprinkling of them embedded in the slick sand.

  My stomach gurgles. Guiltily, I long to suck meat out of a shellfish’s exoskeleton, the poor bastard. I’m ravenous, though. Craving the sweet, briny meat that I usually turn down. Mermaid syndrome, I suppose.

  My fingertips coast up and down my calves. Satiny and supple. Shaving your legs and bikini zone to swim can unwittingly catalyze a night, alter it into a wild one. I feel so free I could dissolve in water. The first stars have come out like the glitter on Cata’s pink sandals. The moon a sliver away from being full.

  A girl could call this home, couldn’t she?

  “Me estas gustando.”
Bass notes vibrate in my ear as he brushes his lips across my cheek.

  He sits back down and picks up his glass casually, like the old Diego I knew only from the outside. Can’t hide the pleasure it gives me to know there’s so much more below the surface. I want him to touch me. I want to know how it feels from the inside.

  “What made you come here, Lia?”

  It isn’t a naughty question, but it isn’t polite, either. It asks for truth.

  “That’s another long story.”

  He shrugs. “I told you mine.”

  “You want to hear it?”

  “Mm-hmm,” he murmurs through a sip.

  Swallow. Not nervous, but honestly unfamiliar with my old self. It's like she’s someone else, but I’m not quite Lia either. It doesn’t matter, though. I hear myself launch right in, like I want to tell it. And perhaps I do.

  “In university I was an arts major. When I was in first and second year, I felt like I was back in high school. There were so many students, some of them adults but many of them definitely not. It seemed like I was watching everyone else know what they were doing, or fuck up, while I stood still. I guess I was waiting to discover what my life was going to be about.”

  He nods like a good listener.

  “I had friends who could sit in the library for hours, like eight hours with coffee and a lunch break, just studying or reading.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. My mind just doesn’t work that way.”

  “Mine doesn’t either.”

  “My best classes were the ones where we were encouraged to do our own independent research, or to experiment. Flexibility is so important to me. That’s why I want to give it to my students.”

  He leans back, stretches his legs out, and crosses them at the ankles.

  “The thing is, what I’m trying to say is I didn’t start out this way,” I continue. “When Katherine told me I got the job here, it interested me and I was happy, but mostly it was the right job at the right time. I needed some money and a big change. But after a couple of weeks went by, of being here… I don’t know. A switch turned on.”

  “What was it?”

  “I think I started… caring,” I answer in amused fascination.