Chapter 40
Days fell one on top of another. María building fires in the morning, ironing the children’s uniforms. Louise calling me along a narrow alleyway, from the end of a watery tunnel.
Tom’s eyes fluttering as he moved above me, my head resting on the pillow, my legs draped open.
In these moments, it seems to me, I didn’t have a single desire that originated in myself.
And yet I was happy. We were becoming a part of Mexico in a way that was thrilling to me.
Ensconced in the cloistered cold of the town in winter, I crossed myself before the makeshift shrines, as I saw others do.
I exchanged kisses hello and goodbye with the other mothers at school, chatting loudly as we waited for the children to be brought out.
Henry was often invited to play at friends’ houses—elaborate new constructions outside of town with live-in maids and cooks and groundskeepers, or Spanish colonial homes in Centro that had been continuously in the family, their towering front doors made to accommodate a horse and carriage.
“I overheard the boys playing,” the mothers would tell me over plates of cookies or tres leches cake or pay de queso and cups of tea when I came to pick him up. “Henry understands everything, and his accent! ?Está perfecto!”
These women, too, knew me as Mia, a name that was easier to pronounce and prettier than Sally.
“Mia, you can’t go back to the States,” they implored me. “The children are adjusting so well!”
I soon let it be known—to them, the head of the kids’ school, Enrique and José Luis—that we had decided to move here and were searching for a house; I might even enjoy living in the campo.
After all, I confided, I’d lived in the countryside as a girl, my mother having given up her career as a dancer to devote herself to her family.
They nodded their approval, cheered my decision to stay. “Mexico is so much better for children!”
I reveled in these exchanges. The hyperbole, natural to me now, the warmth and jocularity, the absolute privilege of family over everything.
Winter break was approaching, and Tom and I had decided to take the children to a small fishing village called Huasquitico, with no hotels or shops, no restaurants to speak of, nothing but a few cabanas scattered along a pristine stretch of beach.
When I finally told Louise, she met the news with sarcasm.
“Eleven days without you and the kids! What will I do with myself?”
We were at the hot springs, huddled into lawn chairs. It was the Friday before we were to leave. “It’s going to be so blissful for me,” I parried back, not in the mood for her acerbity. “Ten days without internet or cell service, only us and the sun and sand!”
“And you heard of this place how?”
“From José Luis.”
“Oh, well then. Butchers always know the best vacation spots.”
“Yes. It will be so great to have time with Tom! All those nights…”
Louise set her mouth into a sardonic smile. “I’ve invited Fabiola, by the way.”
This caught me up. “What do you mean—now?”
She laughed lightly. “You know she and Carmen broke up, yes? It will be good for her to be with someone young and beautiful.”
I opened my mouth to object, perhaps announce that I had things to do in order to get ready and was about to leave. But just then, as if on cue, Fabiola’s husky voice came drifting over the grass. “Oigan, chicas, ?qué tal?” I turned to see her waving hello.
After kissing me on both cheeks, rather than take the nearest empty chair, she perched onto mine, bending her knees and stretching her sweater over her bare legs. “It’s un poco frío, no?”
“Get closer to Mia for warmth,” Louise said.
“Can I at least have some of the coat, please?” Fabiola said, leaning beside me, wriggling her body close to mine.
Taking out her camera, “Look how adorable the two of you are.”
“Don’t, Louise, I look a mess.”
Fabiola rolled her eyes, saying to Louise in Spanish, “As if she ever could,” the two exchanging knowing glances. A waiter was passing, and lifting her hand, Louise called in her leaden Spanish: “Dos micheladas, por favor.” Then, to Fabiola, “She’s leaving us, did you know?”
Fabiola stared at me in shock. “Not back to the States?”
“Only to the beach,” I laughed, flattered at Fabiola’s reaction.
“Where?”
“Huasquitico.”
With an entreating glance, Louise said primly, “She’s looking forward to being away from us.”
“She should be! It’s amazing there, completely unspoiled.”
I smiled and pressed my body closer to Fabiola, taking a petty delight in seeing Louise shut down, the two of us sinking lower, laughing as we tried to stretch the coat between us.
“Now my leg is out!” Fabiola protested, curling her face against my neck.
I could hear the muffled thundering of the chorro, the clicking of Louise’s camera as she snapped away.
When the micheladas arrived, Fabiola lifted her glass, sitting at the foot of the chair and locking eyes with me.
“To beach getaways! On the count of three: one, two…” We began to chug the drinks.
At the last moment, I broke into laughter, spraying red everywhere, Fabiola lowering her drained glass in triumph.
“And now we swim,” she said. “I haven’t been under the chorro en muchisimo tiempo. ”
“You two go ahead,” Louise said, as if we’d invited her.
“Yes, come, the two of us,” Fabiola said, making me screech as she tugged the coat away, reaching her hand back as she leapt ahead above the cold turf.
She went into the pool quickly, diving under the steaming water and when she resurfaced, smoothing back her glossy hair with her hands, then pulling herself in broad arcs to the mouth of the tunnel.
I followed with smaller strokes, keeping my face above water.
Halfway in, she turned and began to close the distance between us. “Stay where you are.”
“If you say so,” I laughed, amused by her bossiness, how unlike other Mexican women she was.
“Yes, I do.” She had reached me, her voice low, her breath coming in short, sharp sips.
For seconds, we treaded water as Louise and I had once done, our feet and hands now and then striking like muscled fish, retreating, her aggressive proximity making me drift backward toward the wall. “Hold still.”
“What is it?”
“You have tomato juice on your face.” Her mouth was nearly touching mine, the hot wash of her breath joining with the dampness.
Slowly she braced her hands against the wall on either side of me.
“Here, let me fix you.” She extended her tongue and licked my cheek with slow deliberation.
I had kept my eyes open and felt something deep within my body uncomfortably rending and giving way.
In the next moment, we were kissing. Not gently, girlishly, but frantically, Fabiola tugging at my hair, biting my lips as I met her lips and tongue with pants and moans.
If not for the appearance of an old man at the mouth of the tunnel, I don’t know what we would have done.
As it was, we parted hurriedly, falling primly into single file, taking turns in silence beneath the gushing water.
Louise wore a smirk as we fell back into our seat, saying to Fabiola, “Well? Was it everything you’d hoped for?”
I pulled incrementally into myself, as if to deny I’d given anything away, holding the rigid inch or so of distance between us, relieved when she said in a neutral tone only that the water had been relaxing, she was happy to have been invited, relegating our indiscretion to the realm of daydreams. The rest of the morning passed uneventfully.