Acapulco Nights (18 page)

The doors opened on the fourteenth floor, and the eerie, suffused quiet of the hallway surrounded me. My bare feet padded down the hall on the soft carpet. I’m sure I left traces of sand on the floor with each step.

A maid laid a fresh copy of the New York Times in front of each door.

I wished I could turn invisible. It bore great resemblance to the ‘walk of shame’ from a frat house early on a Saturday morning. Everyone who saw you thought they knew how you spent your evening, and it wasn’t spent playing chess.

The maid glanced at me, taking in my bare feet, sand dusted calves, and wrinkled party dress. But she didn’t say a word. Guess she’d probably seen odder things happen in her tenure at the Playa Del Mexico. She turned back to her duties, making her way in the opposite direction.

I walked past with as much dignity as I could muster. I’d feel a lot better about the way I looked if my hair hadn’t been such a ratty mess. Several hours of walking in a steady sea breeze was about as bad for the hairdo as riding in the back of a convertible.

I reached our room.

A flutter of panic stilled me for a moment. What if he told me to leave again? What if he wouldn’t listen to me and my explanations? I couldn’t lose him. Not now.

I slid my room card through the reader next to the doorknob. The green light snapped on. I pushed on the handle, and the door opened.

The bright light of the morning shone through the window, and I stepped inside ready to fight for James. Ready to give him all of me. Every piece of my history. Every mistake I ever made. I was ready to lay everything bare.

The door shut quietly behind me.

What would my mother think?

I rode the bus heading back to Puebla when this thought came to my mind. Although it was only a few hours after the wedding ceremony, what seemed so right to me at the time, now felt impulsive. But here I was on the way back to the university to gather my things and start my new life as a married woman.

My father would probably take it in stride. His only child, married in a whirlwind ceremony in Mexico? How romantic, he would say. My impulsiveness could be traced back to him. He had proposed to my mother only a few weeks after they began dating.  He told me more than once that ‘when you know, you know.’ He had told me the minute he had seen my mother across the room at a crowded fraternity dance that she was the one, even though she had been his best friend’s date at the time.

I had known with Joaquin. In my arms at the civil ceremony it had all felt perfect. Yes, I was young. Yes, I wanted to finish school, but why couldn’t I finish my studies in Mexico? The horrible trip to Acapulco had been far from my mind.

My dad could convince my mom I’d done the right thing. She would probably have a fit, and then my dad would calm her down. I had been so dependable in the past, she would say. I had been on the right track—good college, good grades. She would panic. She would think I had ruined my life.

But my dad could bring her back. He had big dreams when he had been young. The wandering spirit. My mother had been his anchor in reality.

Now I had my own husband to think about. What a crazy feeling. I was no longer a girl. I was a married woman with a husband who loved me.

This would be my last trip to the
Universidad de América Central
. I would be transferring my credits to the UNAM, where Joaquin attended school, for the summer semester.

Then, I would call my parents and explain to them everything that happened. How I wouldn’t be coming back for summer vacation as planned. How I wouldn’t be going back to my job at the Dairy Queen. Maybe they could come visit us this summer, get to know their son-in-law.

*

When I walked into my dorm suite, Janice waited on the couch with a pinched look on her face. The minute she saw me, her face paled.

“Suze, where have you been?” Janice blurted out, leaping up from the couch her slim arms reaching out for me.

“With Joaquin,” I said quizzically. “What’s up with you?”

Janice’s face became paler than pale, her thin lips taut against her teeth. She held something back. “You got a phone call this morning.”

“And?” I asked, setting down my backpack. “Who was it?”

“Your mom.” She said this in a whisper, and then her hand flew up to her mouth. “Oh, God, Suzie.” The agony in her voice made my blood run cold.

“Tell me” I knew something was horribly wrong. “What happened? What did she say?”

Waiting even those few seconds for an answer had been agony. I had never seen Janice so serious, so pale.

“Your dad,” she began, and I heard a loud buzzing in my ears. I could anticipate what she was about to tell me. “He had a heart attack last night.”

I didn’t hear the rest. I didn’t want to. Dad had heart troubles for the past few years. Nothing too serious, we thought. He had a simple surgery to get rid of a blockage and some medicines that he took regularly, but I never thought that—

I sagged against the doorframe, my purse dropped to the floor. Then everything went black.

*

That same night I waited in the airport in Mexico City for my plane home. All of my bags were packed. The only thing I’d left behind was a shredded copy of my marriage certificate and the inexpensive gold band that was my wedding ring. I had planned on sharing everything with Janice before I left school for good.

I had no time to explain any of this to anyone. Professor Burnham took care of all the arrangements. I could barely think straight, much less figure out a way to tell Joaquin what had happened.

He would have to wait until I got back to the States. Once the funeral was over—

Then, a wave of sorrow hit me in the gut, making rational thought impossible.

My father was dead. My wonderful, doting, sweet-natured father was gone forever. My mind could not grasp it completely, no matter how many times I repeated the truth out loud. I’d landed in a horrible nightmare.

I had only spoken for a few minutes with my mother on the phone before I left for the airport. The conversation had been mostly tears and stray, meaningless thoughts about which tie Dad should wear or which dishes we should use for the buffet afterwards at the house.

One thing she said broke through the clutter of thoughts in my mind and stuck with me: “At least I still have you, sweetheart. You will be here for me, won’t you? Always?”

I had never heard weakness or doubt in my mother’s voice until that day. To hear her plead with me now broke my heart. As if in losing my father, she had lost part of herself.

I answered automatically, “Of course. Always.”

That’s when I knew I couldn’t tell her. I could never tell her. The marriage to Joaquin may have seemed like the right thing to do yesterday, but today, the world had turned into an entirely different place.

Yesterday, I had been a carefree college student in love with a handsome, young man. Today, I was a daughter whose mother needed her most desperately.

I didn’t even know the person who had existed that sunny Saturday afternoon in Mexico City, smiling in front of the judge, letting Joaquin slip the ring on my finger. That Suzie no longer existed. Joaquin would have to understand that.

Waiting in the Mexico City airport, I tried to force myself to call him, tell him where I was going, why I wouldn’t be at the bus station in the morning. My heart had grown numb, it didn’t want to feel any more emotions. If I had to explain my father’s death to him and hear his heart break over the phone, I didn’t think I could stand it. I barely had my sorrow in check, and I still had to make it through a four-hour plane ride, a funeral, and a long line of relatives, friends, and neighbors waiting to give their sympathies.

A phone call to Joaquin right now was out of the question. It could wait until tomorrow. When I had a chance to settle in, adjust to this new life without my father in it.

*

When I did finally get home, my mother enfolded me in her arms and we wept. No words passed between us that first day. There had been no need for them, we both were thinking the same thoughts.

When I didn’t make that phone call to Joaquin my first day home, I thought I would make the call the next day. Not a big deal. He would understand once I explained it to him.

But then another day went by.

And another.

Helping my mother to plan the funeral took everything out of me. In her grief, my mother couldn’t make any decisions; she needed me to lift that burden from her. I called the funeral home, the church, the florist, the organist. I called the caterer, the family lawyer, the secretary at his work. It all had to be done, and I had been the only one capable of doing it.

My mother spent those first few days curled up in bed, her head buried under a comforter. People called with their condolences, and my mother waved a hand at me when I brought the phone to her, a fresh glut of sobbing making even the most simple of conversation impossible.

Joaquin had been the last thing on my mind.

*

After the funeral, Janice called. She was in Puebla; the semester would be finishing up in a few weeks. After asking about my mom and myself, she brought up a topic I had been avoiding.

“Joaquin’s been calling for you. I didn’t know what to tell him.” She sounded tinny and far away, but I knew she worried about me.

“I know,” the guilt filling my voice. “I just can’t—my mother—”

Every time I explained my actions to her, my thoughts returned to my father. His body lying in a casket. His warm hands now cold and gray, his face once so animated now sunken and lifeless. And my mother, an emotional wreck. A strong, focused woman reduced to constant tears and hiding in her bedroom.

I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Do you want me to tell him what happened?”

“No!” I couldn’t believe I said it. “Don’t tell him anything. I’ll take care of it.”

My mother shuffled past the living room, her eyes circled and puffy. She had been wearing the same nightgown, bathrobe, and slippers since I had gotten home. Her hair was wild, and her hands clutched at the front of her robe, as if she were warding off a cold breeze.

“Janice,” I said with a sob, unable to hold it in any longer, “I have to go now.” I hung up the phone before I could hear her answer.

“Mom,” I called gently, crossing the living room in a few strides to catch up to her, “do you want me to make you some soup?”

Her blank eyes looked at me, unfocused, “Your father needs his clean socks. He can’t go to work without his clean socks.”

Putting my arm around her shoulders, I guided her back toward the stairs. “I’ll get them, Mom. Don’t worry. And then I’ll bring you some of that soup.”

She nodded slowly, and for a moment her eyes cleared. Looking at me, she cried, “Oh, Suzie, what are we going to do?” She gave me a tight hug and held me for a long moment. The strength left her body as she clung to me. “I need to get some rest.”

“Yes, mom, why don’t you do that? You can have the soup later. When you’re feeling better.”

She nodded and let go of me. “What are we going to do?” she mumbled. Tightening the belt of her bathrobe, she ambled up the stairs to her bedroom.

Before I entered the kitchen, I sat down on the bottom step and hugged my knees to my chest.

“Yes,” I said out loud to myself, “What are we going to do?”

*

For a few months, Joaquin sent letters. I never opened them. Not one. I didn’t have the courage. Instead, I stacked them in the bottom drawer of my bureau, tied with a string.

By the end of August, the letters had stopped. School was starting up again, and I thought ahead to the new year. With my father gone, I decided to transfer to a college closer to home. Even months after his death, my mother wasn’t the same person she used to be.

There were days where I felt guilty for what I did to Joaquin. There were days I thought about trying to find a way to dissolve our marriage, but I had no money and no real idea of where to begin something like that. As the months and years slipped by, it had been easier to pretend it had never happened.

Until I met James.

He had changed everything.

Our hotel suite stood empty. The bed was a mess of tangled sheets, and wet towels had been piled in the bathtub.

James’s suitcase was gone.

My God. He’d left. He’d checked out and left me.

My stupid too-full suitcase and my ice bucket of shoes occupied one corner of the room. He’d left no note, no indication of where he’d gone, nothing.

Trembling, I sat down on the unmade bed. My head slipped into my hands, its weight too much for me to bear. I’d been too late. He had gone. I had no opportunity to tell him anything, to explain anything.

Silent tears slid down my cheeks, and I let them come. I didn’t wipe them away. I didn’t grab a tissue. I sat there and let their wet softness glide down my face. What had I done? Oh, what had I done?

All that stupid time I’d wasted wandering on the beach last night. I should have spent it here, with James, trying my hardest to keep him with me. To explain myself. But I gave up. I left and gave up.

What kind of woman does that? What kind of woman leaves the man she loves?

I should have stayed and fought for him. For us. What an idiot I had been. I let the best thing that ever happened to me slip through my fingers while I was out taking a damn walk on the fucking beach. Sleeping on the goddamn lounge chair. What the hell was I doing?

Angrily, I wiped the tears away.

I stripped out of my dress and took a hot shower. As hot as I could stand. The sand and salt washed away down the drain. I took the soap and scrubbed my face, got rid of my streaked mascara. I wanted to be clean. I wanted to start this day anew.

If I couldn’t have James, I would at least fix the problem I should have fixed years ago. For myself. Not for anyone. Just for me.

Wrapped up in a towel, I sat down on the bed next to the phone. “Room 1210, please.” It was early, but not so early that Janice wouldn’t be up and about. Could be she’d decided to take a run right now, but maybe—

“Hello?”

Hello indeed. That was George on the phone. George, in Janice’s room. In Janice’s
bed
room.

“Hey, it’s Suzie. Um, is Janice around?”

I could sense George tensing on the other end of the line. Last night we hadn’t ended on the best of terms. “Hold on.”

“Janice? It’s Suzie.”

I heard her mumbling answer, “Tell her I’m not here.”

George cleared his throat. “Um, well—”

He was such a nice guy, he didn’t want to tell me that she didn’t want to talk to me. I had trounced on her heart, used her like no real friend would. “I’m coming down. I have to talk to her.”

I hung up the phone before he could protest. I had no time to waste. I needed Janice to hear my apology and to understand how stupid I’d been. What a huge mistake I had made by not bringing her into my confidence all those years ago.

I needed her friendship now more than ever.

I threw on some clothes, my wet hair plastered to my shoulders, and rushed out of the room. Today was not about looking good or playing the tourist, today was about saving the relationships that mattered the most to me. I hoped Janice would give me a few minutes of her time. Let me in the door.

*

“Janice, it’s me. Let me in.”

I knocked again on the door to her room. I could hear whispering and movement inside, so I knew she was there.

“Please, I want to talk to you.”

The door fell open. George stood there, fully dressed, a pained expression on his face. I could see Janice standing beyond him next to the couch where we had shared our screwdrivers that very first day of our trip, laughing and making plans. Now, her face looked pale and tired.

George looked over his shoulder at her.

She told him wearily, “Let her in. It’s okay.”

Without looking at me, he held the door open. Once I entered the room, he stepped into the hall.

“I’ll see you downstairs for breakfast in a few minutes,” Janice said to George.

I scrutinized her face, as the door closed behind me, looking for some sign she wanted to hear from me, wanted an explanation. But her thin features remained tight. She wore more Janice-y clothing this morning—an oversized t-shirt and a pair of baggy Bermuda shorts. Her legs appeared even thinner and more stick-like than usual.

But before I could open my mouth, Janice said, “So, when were you going to tell me?”

I knew what she meant, but it was hard getting the words out.

Janice rolled her eyes at me. “About a little thing called a marriage? To Joaquin?” Her arms crossed tightly and her left foot tapped the floor.

“I wanted to tell you, Janice, oh, God, did I want to back then. But I couldn’t. I promised him I wouldn’t—“

“How could you not tell
me
, Suze?” Her voice cracked. “I thought I was your best friend.”

“You
are
my best friend, Janice.” I reached out to touch her arm reassuringly, but she pulled away.

She looked up to the ceiling and took a slow, deep breath. “Yeah, right,” she huffed. “First, you get married behind my back, and then you use me for a free trip to Mexico.”

“Use you?” I said, aghast.

“God, Suze, you’re a piece of work.” Her mouth curled in disgust. “Do you really think I’m that stupid? That naïve?”

“No.” I knew I had lied to her, but I didn’t think how much that might hurt her. All the little lies I had told to get here. Each one had been another stab to her heart.

My worst fears were coming true. The truth came out, and my closest friend was pulling away from me. If Janice was this upset, how would James ever forgive me? I was a liar. A liar who had hurt the people I loved. What kind of person does that?

“You never were my friend, were you?” Janice choked on those words. I could sense her feeling of betrayal.

“Of course I’m your friend! If it weren’t for Joaquin being here—”

“See what I mean? It’s all about you.
Your
problems,
your
life. Who cares about Janice.” She turned away from me and faced the view of the ocean.

I had to convince her. I couldn’t lose my friend now, not when I needed her advice and help the most. “Do you think I’m really that cruel? That I don’t care about you?” I tried to turn her away from the view. I wanted her to see my face and know that this time I was being honest.

She turned, but she hid her face from me. “Everything you’ve done since you’ve gotten here was all about you and your problems. Just like when we were at the university.” She was right. Why would she expect me to act any differently a decade later? I showed her where my loyalties laid back then—that day at Teotihuacán, my trip to Acapulco with Joaquin. Why would it be any different now?

I had let her down in the past. Put my feelings before hers. I had been stupid then, but I had matured.

“That was years ago. Another me entirely. I was an idiot. I was selfish. And I never did apologize to you for that.”

She lifted her eyes to mine. The usual happy smile on her face disappeared, replaced by a frown of sadness and worry.

“So who is the ‘me’ here in Acapulco with me now? My friend? Or Joaquin’s wife? Oh, or, wait, James’s fiancé?”

James. The sound of his name cut me with an invisible blade.

“You told him.” We both knew the truth, but I needed to hear it said aloud.

“Yes, I did. He deserved to know the truth, Suzie. He’s too good for someone like you.” Her eyes were blazing.

She spoke the truth. I couldn’t deny her that. “You’re right,” I said. “I don’t deserve someone like him.”

I felt the tears coming again, and I fought them back. Crying wouldn’t help matters. I needed to stay focused, or I would never get James back or my friend.

My knees trembled, and I collapsed onto the couch. I couldn’t take this anymore. I needed her to understand me, and I’d only made things worse. If I couldn’t win back her friendship, then I knew I couldn’t succeed with James.

I heard a whisper of movement. And then Janice and those long, thin legs were next to me, sitting in the wingback chair.

“I don’t get you, Suzie. Why would you do something like that? Did you think I wouldn’t understand? You were my friend, and I wouldn’t have done anything to jeopardize our friendship.” I sensed a softening in her demeanor. A small hope grew in my heart that she might be able to forgive me for my transgression.

“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time,” I explained. “But when my dad died—”

A light grew in her eyes, a light of understanding. Maybe she was beginning to see how I had gotten myself into this mess in the first place. It hadn’t about me at all. It had been about everyone I loved.

“Your dad? Is that when you and Joaquin—?”

“Yes.” Tears pricked in the corner of my eyes. “Do you see now why I couldn’t tell you?”

“But after things got better at home, why didn’t you say something then?” Her expression hardened again. She still saw me as the liar, the selfish one. That look in her eyes hurt.

“By then, it had been months. The lie had grown bigger and bigger. There never seemed to be a good time,” I said, not even convinced by my own words. Nothing could ever truly explain why I had made the decision I did. “And then there was James.”

“Yes, James.” Janice echoed, deep in thought.

“And now I feel like such an idiot. Joaquin never really loved me—he used me to get back at Mercedes.”

“What?”

“That’s why she was there last night at the party. They have a daughter.” I let that fact sink in for both of us.

All those years of worrying about what Joaquin had been thinking and feeling had been wasted emotions. He’d never thought of me beyond what I could do for him.

“I think that’s why Mercedes left school back then,” I told her. “I think she was pregnant. God, what an idiot I was for not believing her. She tried to tell me. She tried to. And I wouldn’t listen. I thought she was jealous.”

Janice sat back, her face reflecting disbelief. Then, came the Janice-type comment I had been hoping for, “What a bastard. What a friggin’ bastard.”

Janice didn’t swear much.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

She patted me on the knee, all of her best friend responses starting to come to the fore. “Dick.”

She blushed when she said it.

I looked her straight in the eye. “Janice, I know I’ve hurt you. I know you feel I took advantage of you. I wanted you to know that’s why I turned down the trip in the first place—I couldn’t face you here, not after everything that happened between us in Mexico. I thought you would probably read it on my face the minute I stepped off the plane at the airport. But James insisted I go after you talked to him.”

“He did?”

“He wanted me to take this trip because he doesn’t think I know what I want. If I want to be with him, get married—”

Her brows knit together, “Oh, but you love him!”

“But he doesn’t think I do,” I divulged. I thought back to the conversation I had with James in the kitchen at our house. He thought this trip would be a way for me to analyze my feelings for him, get some perspective on things. “Especially not now. God, I don’t know what to do. How can I get him back?”

“You need to find him, Suze.”

I looked in Janice’s eyes and saw reflected there her faith in me and in my relationship with James.

“He’s already gone,” I told her. “It’s too late.”

“It’s not too late, Suze. He loves you—it’s not too late.” She reached out and grasped my hands in hers. I could feel some of the anger and hurt drain away from her in those cool, thin fingers.

“I have to take care of something first, though,” I said.

Without having to explain further, I knew she understood what I meant. “He still loves you,” she repeated, giving my hands a comforting squeeze.

“I don’t know.”

“He’ll forgive you.”

“But what if he doesn’t? What would I do, Janice?”

“He’ll forgive you,” she insisted, her eyes clear and her gaze unwavering. Janice, the goofy girl with too much energy and oodles of heart, looked into my eyes and said exactly what I should have known she would say. “Just like I did.”

I wish I could be as sure as she that James would forgive me. He had been hurt once by lies. Would this second time be too much for him?