Love Her Madly (15 page)

“Do you believe the island is really haunted?” I asked Hector.

We took a few steps in silence. “I don't think so.”

“You don't think what,
hermanito
?” Marco asked. He pulled out a joint and lit it.

“I don't believe that the island is haunted.”

Marco laughed loudly, a huge cloud of smoke engulfing him. “Those are just old wives' tales. Or stories to scare children so they don't drown trying to swim there.”

“I thought you said it was walkable,” I said.

Marco passed me the joint and wiggled his brow. “Only at low tide, you hear me? Otherwise, it really is an island.”

“And even at low tide, you have to wade a bit,” Hector offered.

“That's true. Leave the long skirts and jeans at home,” Marco said with a laugh.

Once we killed the spliff, I announced that I was calling it a night. What I really wanted was a chance to talk to Cyn alone and find a way out of this ridiculous outing. No such luck, since the brothers insisted on walking us back to our hostel, saying the beach wasn't safe at night.

As we passed the bar, Sadie and Hannah emerged, both of them extremely wasted. Hannah ran up and threw her arms around me and began singing some dirty Spanish song the bartender had just taught her. Marco and Hector knew the words and joined in. Our very merry band made a ruckus all the way back to the door of the hostel, and once inside, we became the drunk people stumbling around in the dark.

I found my bunk, which seemed to be swaying on its springs, and the next thing I knew, the room was flooded with painful, eyelid-penetrating daylight. I swear the night was prematurely yanked away like a heavy drop cloth, my sleep stolen in some terrible prank. Across the room, Cyn's bed was empty. Blearily I remembered I had a mission and, ignoring the pounding behind my eyes, found a way to my feet.

I glimpsed Cyn on the hostel's back veranda, nursing a can of pineapple juice, looking hungover.

“Where'd you get that?” I grunted. She pointed toward a small cooler.

“It's part of breakfast. There's coffee and bread, too, if you want to make toast.”

I shook my head at the notion of eating anything and snapped open my juice. The hyper-sweetness of the fluid made
my stomach quiver dangerously. I sunk into a plastic lounge chair next to Cyn.

“No waves again today,” she mumbled, toying with a crust of toast.

I literally didn't have the stomach for chitchat, so I got right to it. “Did you mean what you said last night about Raj, or was that just drunk talk?”

“I meant it.” She kept her eyes trained on the ocean, as if she had a ship coming in at any moment.

“Does he know?”

She shook her head.

I looked out at the water, numb to the gorgeousness of the morning. The beauty of the setting, combined with Cyn's abdication of our lover, should have had me trembling with joy. Instead, I felt queasy and suspicious. “Did something happen between you two?”

She looked at me. “I need coffee to have this conversation. Do you want some?”

“Yes.”

As she went to the communal kitchen, I forced down the pulpy nectar at the bottom of my can, feeling like I was awaiting grim news at the doctor's office.

Cyn set two mugs on the table and sat down. “There's no milk, so I put in a ton of sugar.”

“Thanks.”

She took a long sip from her mug. “Well, the quick, sober version of what I was trying to say last night is that I feel trapped. It's not him. He's a wonderful guy, and I do love him, but it just doesn't feel right anymore.” She took another sip and glanced at me. “You're surprised.”

“Not as surprised as he's going to be.”

“Yeah, I know.” She sighed. “I've been thinking about ending it for a while, but I haven't been able to pull the trigger. I guess
telling you that I'm going to is sort of a dress rehearsal.” She raked her fingers through her hair nervously, reminding me, ironically, of Raj. “It's just that he's so serious about everything . . .”

I waited to see if she would continue. She didn't.

“Serious about how he loves you, you mean?”

“Yes, in a way. But I can't fault him for being who he is. I'm the one with the issues.”

“Has he told you he loves you?”

“No,” she answered quickly. Then she shook her head in resignation and closed her eyes. “Maybe.”

Hungover Cyn was not a great actress. “Maybe” obviously meant “yes.”

She finally looked at me. “Did he tell you?”

“No.” I drank half my coffee in one long pull, not caring that it was steaming hot and scorching the roof of my mouth. Tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks.

“Shit. Are you okay?” she asked.

I angrily wiped the tears away, but they kept coming. I saw with sudden clarity that if it was over between Cyn and Raj, it was over for me, too. He would leave school rather than see her around if he couldn't have her; he was already talking about transferring or dropping out. My love for him wouldn't even be a consolation prize. It would be a painful reminder of what he'd lost.

“He doesn't love me,” I whimpered, letting the words tear me to shreds. “It's so obvious. He only really wanted you. I was just the bonus girl.”

“That's not true, Glo,” she said forcefully. “How can you think that's true?”

“Because it is!” I sobbed. Cyn put her hand on my knee, a warning flashing across her face. I ignored it. “He never told me he loved me, so there's that. And anyway, if he really loved me at all, he never would have complained to me about you not fucking him!”

Cyn squeezed my knee hard, her cheeks coloring. I turned my head to see Hannah and Sadie standing by the cooler, staring at us. Sadie's mouth was hanging open in shock. Cyn dropped her head and let her hair surround her face. When I looked back at the cooler a moment later, they were gone.

“Fuck,” I muttered. “Great.”

Cyn shook her head angrily. “Who cares what they think? It's not a big deal. None of this is.”

“What are you talking about? It is a big fucking deal!” I shouted.

Cyn slammed back the rest of her coffee and shoved the mug across the table. “He really complained to you about me not sleeping with him?”

“Yeah. It was like he couldn't help himself.” The memory still carried a fresh sting. “And why didn't you want to sleep with him? Why did you even want him to be your boyfriend if you didn't want him like that? I don't understand any of it!”

“I know.”

“Well, you could try to explain it. I think you owe me that.”

She bit her lip and nodded vigorously. I looked up and saw Marco on the beach, approaching us with a casual swagger.

“Here comes your man,” I scoffed.

We watched him in silence.

“Do you still not want to go today?” she asked after a moment. Her voice sounded indifferent and flat, which was exactly how I felt.

I looked at Marco. He didn't inspire any worry for me anymore. Nor did the thought of a haunted island full of poisonous snakes and hissing tarantulas. It was like my cautious self had packed up and left. I no longer cared about what might happen to me in the next day, or the next year. I could no longer see the point.

“No, let's do it. What the hell,” I grunted.

Marco waved lazily at us. “Good morning,” he said. He stopped in the sand at the bottom of the steps leading up to us, next to a sign that said the veranda was for guests only.

Cyn got up and met him on the sand. They took a short walk toward the trees, and he paused to pull something out of his pocket to show Cyn. She laughed with what sounded like real delight and touched his shoulder. She pulled a few bills out of her jean shorts and I watched him put on a good show of trying to refuse the cash before finally accepting it. They exchanged a few more words, and he pointed toward the southern edge of the beach. Cyn nodded. Marco extended a hand to me and shouted “
¡Hasta luego
!
” I waved and forced a smile.

Cyn came back to the table carrying a red plastic bag. “Take a peek,” she said. I glimpsed half a dozen mushrooms with brown-and-yellow-speckled caps.

“Nice,” I said neutrally.

Her mood was considerably lifted. “I really think you're wrong about Raj. I think you totally underestimate yourself and your charms. You always do.”

I didn't respond to that. It sounded like utter bullshit. “So why didn't you sleep with him?”

She deflated visibly and slunk back against her chair.

“I wanted to. There was never any plan not to. But then . . . God, this is fucking scary to say.”

“What?” I demanded, growing annoyed. “How scary can it be? It's just me.”

Cyn grasped her empty coffee cup, forgetting she'd finished it, or maybe just stalling. Finally, she looked up. “I had a few clients who I slept with. For money. I was always safe, but I couldn't risk the chance of maybe passing something to you both. So I didn't sleep with Raj, and I didn't tell him why.”

Her eyes darted all over my face, fearfully awaiting my re
action. I closed my eyes and took a breath. She kept talking, hurriedly.

“I couldn't tell you about it, either. It was too low. I was in denial about it myself. Dancing didn't pay half of what I told you, and I was scared out of my mind that, despite everything I tried, I'd still have to leave school. So, I did it once, and it wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't so bad. Then I picked up a few more clients; men who I chose carefully. But then, that night when the cops brought me to Raj's, it wasn't because some random person was following me. It was one of my private clients. He was acting sketchy when I showed up for our appointment. He was a doctor, so god knows what he was on. He was flying around the hotel room, all manic, talking some shit about how he was going to ‘take me away from it all' which, the way he said it, scared the shit out of me. I got the hell out of the room, saying I was going to get some ice, but he came out and saw me getting into my car and freaked the fuck out and started screaming threats. I really thought he might try to kill me. I was so terrified, I went to the cops with the E Two parking lot story. I couldn't even report the doctor without incriminating myself.”

I felt ill. I opened my eyes and focused on the horizon, as if I were seasick.

“So you just slept with random men?”

“Not random. Five men. Including the one who went crazy.”

“Jesus.”

“When it went right, it was such easy money. A couple hours at most. They were all older guys, most with families. For some of them, it was either get their kicks with me or fuck the babysitter and lose everything.”

I tried to imagine what it must have been like for Cyn, selling herself to strangers. The horror of it was so abstract, so beyond my experience, that all I could do was shudder.

“God, Glo, won't you even look at me?” she asked, her voice tearful.

I quickly looked at her, managing a small smile, and she burst into tears. I pulled my chair next to hers and held her while she sobbed. She hardly made any noise, but her shoulders were heaving. A young couple wandered out to the cooler. They saw us, did a double take, and quickly walked past us down onto the beach.

“It's okay,” I heard myself repeating, over and over. “It's okay.”

She straightened up and wiped her face. “Do you really think so? Because I'm not sure I do.”

I wanted to feel pity for Cyn, but pity wasn't what I felt, and it also wasn't what she needed.

“You know what, Cyn?” I murmured. “Who cares?”

She looked at me with horror. “
I
do.
I
care.”

“No. I mean, I know you care. And I care. But you did what you had to do. It can be over. You can put it behind you.”

She studied the ocean, tears still rolling down her face. Neither of us spoke.

She broke the silence with a harsh, joyless laugh. “I really thought that I could keep that part of me separate, that with my history, I somehow had the personality for it. I didn't foresee what it would cost me. I think my real libido, the Cyn who once liked sex, is gone forever. I've been so stupid.”

“You're not stupid. You're a brave person who went a little too far. It was a mistake. We all make mistakes,” I intoned. “If things do fall apart with me and Raj, it won't be because of what you did or didn't do.”

“That's big of you,” she said. “I mean it. You're the best friend I could ever ask for.”

“It's the truth.” I felt like, as I was speaking, I was channeling some deeper consciousness. Like none of what I was learning could surprise or hurt me, because somehow, deep down, I'd
always known it would end up this way. Our relationship was an experiment that was doomed to fail.

“Once we get back, we'll just see how things go,” I said. “Obviously, I won't tell Raj.”

“You can if you want. It might be healthier for him to hate me.”

“He can study his feelings of hatred and use them to grow as an artist.”

Cyn chuckled and dropped her head into her hands. “I was hoping I would feel some relief after telling you, but I just feel like an even bigger asshole. You can call me a whore if you want, or any of those things. I deserve it.”

“No. I don't want to call you anything. You're my best friend.” I felt utterly exhausted. Beside me, Cyn groaned softly, letting her head loll back in the manner of the recently asphyxiated. Above us, the sun shimmered with brilliant indifference.

“Let's go for a swim,” I suggested.

CHAPTER SEVEN

We met up with Marco, Hector, and their friend Jorge in the late afternoon. Jorge was going to drive the four of us the few miles or so down to the other beach. We would walk across the sandbar while it lasted, and Jorge would join us by boat later, meeting us at the cove around sunset. Jorge's boat would be our ride back, since by the time we'd be ready to go, the tide would be in and the sandbar gone.

We bought two jugs of water, some peanuts, a couple of oranges, and a liter of cheap rum. Jorge, a hefty guy with an easy smile, helped us into the back of his pickup truck, where we arranged ourselves atop piles of wet, coiled rope. A damp fishing net was piled in the middle of the truck bed, its strong marine vapors attracting seagulls.

The sun was low, and the heat of the day was finally relenting. As we whizzed along the narrow road, we could glimpse the beach through the trees. I looked up, and Cyn was grinning at me, her hair flying wildly in the air. I smiled back. We'd passed the morning wandering in and out of the surf, lost in our own thoughts. My mood had been shifting erratically as I digested the morning's revelations, and I didn't trust myself to say much. After lunch, I passed out for several blissful hours. When I awoke, gazing up at the underside of a palm in a sea of bright blue sky, I finally felt calm. What would happen would happen.
There was no point driving myself crazy speculating which exact way things would self-destruct. Cyn seemed happier, as well. I was now glad she'd cooked up this island adventure for us. It would be a small way of reclaiming life as our own.

Jorge stopped the car along the side of the road. We weren't in a town, exactly, but there were some small shops dotting a short stretch of the road. Hector got out of the cab, and Marco jumped over the side of the hatch. He went over to Jorge's window, and the two began to talk. I grabbed one jug of water and a duffel with a blanket, my camera, and a flashlight. Cyn ­double-checked that she had the plastic bag with the mushrooms.

“
¿
Agua
?
”
Marco crowed when he saw what I was carrying. “Didn't you mean to grab the rum?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but he waved my words away. “I'm only joking. Water is always a good idea. Jorge will bring the rest of our things, right, amigo?”

Marco lifted the water jug from my hands as Jorge pulled away. We walked down to the beach and got our first look at the island. It was, as promised, connected to the main land with a ribbon-thin umbilicus of sand barely visible beneath the turquoise water. The island itself didn't look like much: a wide smudge of green that rose to a peak in the middle, surrounded by rocky headlands, with no beach to speak of.

“Our timing is perfect,” Hector exclaimed, childlike with glee. He slapped Marco on the shoulder.

“This is as good as it gets,” Marco said. “In an hour even . . .” He made a sweeping gesture with his hands.
“Nada.”

At the water's edge, I removed my hiking sandals and put them in my bag. We waded onto the strip, and I took out my camera. I ushered everyone out before me on the sandbar, snapped the shutter, and captured them, arms around one another's shoulders, the island rising in the background.

“Perfect,” I said. “I'll take another one when we're halfway out.”

We swished along in the ankle-deep water, watching the island before us grow bigger. Cyn chattered happily as we waded along.

“This is so exciting. And dangerous! We're totally unprepared for ghosts.”

“That's true. But how do you prepare for ghosts?” Hector teased.

“You don't go on their island on the night they're supposed to be haunting it,” I said, or attempted to say. My vocabulary was thin on supernatural terminology.

“Don't worry. We'll keep you safe,” Marco assured us, walking backward to face us. “What you need to be worried about are snakes.”

“Fantastic!” I shouted.

Cyn kicked water at me. I kicked some back.

Cyn laughed. “Aren't they more afraid of us than we are of them?”

Hector shrugged. “I don't know. I've never asked one. But it's a good idea to make a lot of noise on the trails. It scares things away.”

“But it attracts ghosts,” Cyn rejoined.

“I prefer ghosts to snakes anytime,” he said.

Halfway out, we took some more pictures. The sandbar was already submerged, so it looked like we were walking on water. Cyn and I posed together, back-to-back, with our arms crossed, grinning broadly. The water surrounding us sparkled, the low sun making each ripple appear coated in flecks of gold.

By the time the island drew near, we were wading knee-deep. I paused to look behind us, and the sandbar had disappeared.

“No going back now,
señoritas
,” Hector said with a smile.

From the island, I could see upturned fishing boats on the
mainland, but they were too far away to make out any detail. I snapped a few more pictures as Marco searched the tree line for the path across the island to the sunset cove.

“People don't come here as often as they used to,” he shouted as he poked around in the trees. “The trail is hiding.”

“Over here,” Hector called, waving us toward a narrow clearing in the brush.

We followed the brothers into the shade of the trees. The trail was not wide, so we walked single file. Even then, we moved slowly, holding rogue branches aside for one another as we progressed. The muddy sections of the path were marred with footprints, and old cigarette butts dotted the trail like breadcrumbs.

I pointed them out to Marco. “Ghost cigarettes,” he said, widening his eyes with goofy horror.

On either side of us, the brush was dense. Long, leafy ferns, thin trees decked out with vicious punk-rock spikes, and swaying palms competed ferociously for light and space. I kept an eye out for snakes or other animals, but other than buzzing mosquitoes and an assortment of butterflies, I saw no trace of nonhuman life.

We hadn't been walking long when the path forked. “We need to go right,” Hector advised, “toward the sunset.” After another short hike, we began to hear the ocean. The path dropped down steeply and opened up onto a small, rocky cove.

“Here we are,” Marco howled, spreading his long arms wide.

“It's gorgeous!” Cyn exclaimed.

I dropped my bag and took my camera to the water's edge. The beach was a narrow crescent of grayish sand, punctuated by large, dark rocks. The beach ended abruptly on both corners of the cove in a rocky abutment, backed by dense jungle. The trees from which we'd just emerged seemed to tower above us in a solid wall. The waves were rolling in strong and fast beneath the
sinking sun, teasingly revealing a menagerie of boulders lurking just below the surf.

I snapped a shot of Cyn laying out the beach blanket while Hector and Marco set up the kindling for the fire. When they were done, we sat in a circle on the blanket and divided the mushrooms into four shares. Unless he brought his own, Jorge would not be tripping with us, which was just as well, since he'd eventually be piloting us back to the mainland. I crushed my portion of the mushrooms in my palm. It created a fat handful, probably two disgusting swallows instead of one. I took a deep breath and poured them into my mouth, chewing as quickly as I could. Beside me, Cyn did the same, crinkled up her face in disgust, and reached for the water jug. She gulped hurriedly as I made urgent hand gestures for her to pass it over. She complied, and I passed it to the guys. Marco drank several large swallows, then swished some water around in his mouth and spat over his shoulder.

“
Hijo de puta
, those taste terrible,” he yowled, laughing. “Where is Jorge with that rum? I need something to clean the taste out!”

As if responding to Marco's command, Jorge emerged from the trees, sweating profusely, carrying a large canvas bag and, to my surprise, a guitar case. We all cheered in unison when we saw him, and he stopped and smiled, setting down the guitar to wipe his brow.

“I almost couldn't remember which way to go at the break in the trail. But I saw your footprints,” he said between gasps. He sat down with a sigh of exhaustion, and we offered him the water. He drank thirstily and then reached into one of the bags and produced a bottle of rum. He cracked it open and passed it around.

I took a large swig, some of the sharp sweetness running down my chin, and passed it to Cyn.

“Har, matey,” I said.

“Har, har,” she responded, raising the bottle high.

The sun inched closer to the horizon. The guys went into the jungle in search of more wood to add to the few pieces of plywood that Jorge had brought along.

I began to feel weird, a sign that the mushrooms were kicking in.

“You feeling anything?” I asked.

“Oh yes.” Cyn was leaning back on her elbows, gazing at the horizon. “You?”

“Just beginning to. I was starting to think these were duds.”

“I'm just glad they're not poisonous,” she muttered. “They're not, though,” she amended hastily. “Don't think about poison mushrooms.”

“Don't worry, I'm not.”

“This has been a strange day,” Cyn said slowly.

My lips and tongue began to tingle, and for the second time that day, I began to feel nauseated. I took a swig of rum and walked into the water, hoping the sensation of the surf might distract my brain from my roiling stomach. The bottom edge of the sun had just begun to kiss the horizon. I watched as it sunk gradually lower, the planet spinning away from it, pulling me along for the ride. I examined the few wispy clouds in the sky. Their edges morphed and twisted in unnatural filigrees; the commencement of hallucination. These mushrooms were strong, and we'd taken a lot. I felt a sudden shock of anxiety, but like the waves wrapping around my shins, it rolled on by as abruptly as it had arrived.

Behind me, I heard Jorge strum a series of arpeggios. They sounded warm and bright, like the setting sun made audible, and I happily returned to the blanket to be with my new friends. I sat beside Cyn, and as the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, she reached over and squeezed me in a tight hug. I looked up and saw that Hector was watching me. When I met his eye,
he looked away for a moment, but then looked back, his gaze calm and peaceful. I smiled. Beside him, Marco pulled out a tiny wooden case that looked like a chestnut. He opened it and pulled out a miniature Baggie filled with something white. He inserted the extra-long nail of his pinkie finger and lifted it to his nose. After a quick inhalation, he was grinning wildly, transformed in my eye back into the wolf we'd met the day before. He offered the coke to Cyn, but Cyn smiled and shook her head. He shrugged and returned the case to his pocket.

“We should start the fire,” Hector said.

The guys stepped a few feet away to get the fire started, but to me, they might as well have been on the moon. The 'shrooms were hitting me much stronger than I'd expected. I felt dizzy and irrationally anxious that the guys would burn themselves making the fire, so I lay down on the beach blanket and concentrated on the sky. The moment the guys were out of sight, I forgot about them. It seemed like time was passing very quickly, but the sky took forever to darken, slowly blushing from pink to magenta to, finally, a deep plum. Cyn was next to me on the blanket, talking about something. She might have been pointing out the faint traces of emerging stars, because her hands kept darting around before us. Whatever she was saying didn't seem to need a response. My panic disappeared without me noticing, and I was feeling happy again. I relaxed into myself, and soon the guys were cheering. We sat up and the fire was blazing.

Cyn was having a very good time. Every time I looked her way, she was laughing, her white teeth flashing. Hector was all liquidy warm eyes. Marco made me nervous, but I thought maybe he couldn't see me. It was all about Cyn for him. Jorge played song after song. Spanish became so hard to remember that I stopped speaking, but I remembered that
luna
was moon because I was soon shouting at it as it made a shy appearance on the horizon.

The moon emerged slowly out of the water; a glowing, ponderous sea melon. I had never seen it so big, and the shock made me feel like I wanted to cry, but instead I laughed. I tried to take a photo, but I couldn't make my camera work. Cyn scooped it from my hands and snapped the rising moon, then me. I saw my image in the display screen and was startled. My eyes appeared huge and catlike, and I had a wild look about me. We took more pictures of one another, and we remembered the rum. Jorge, who was not tripping, found us all hilarious, and kept inventing funny challenges for the brothers to attempt. Marco tried to stand on his head as instructed, and his little case fell out of his pocket and into the sand.

“My treasure!” he exclaimed, collapsing in a heap. We laughed hysterically. I looked over my shoulder, and the moon was well above the horizon, growing ever smaller. I found myself on a log by the fire. Cyn sat next to me, very close.

I heard a loud pop from the trees. Then one or two more. I thought it was a car backfiring, but then I remembered where we were.

Cyn asked what the noise was. I looked at her to see if she was afraid, because I wasn't sure if I should be, too. She looked calm.

“Ghosts,” Marco said, then he laughed too high and too fast. I saw he had the little case out again.

“Firecrackers,” Hector murmured, but his eyes darted to the trees and stayed there.

Cyn laughed and made a pair of guns with her hands. “
Narcotraficantes
,” she said. Drug runners.

Marco stiffened. He turned and said something to Hector, which I missed because there was another loud pop. Hector rolled his eyes and shrugged, and both brothers got to their feet. They told us they would return soon.

Jorge shrugged and picked up his guitar, singing softly to his
own accompaniment. I watched Hector's white T-shirt vanish into the jungle. After a few moments, I noticed that Cyn was rubbing her hand up and down my back. Maybe she could tell I was nervous, or maybe the mushrooms had made her affectionate. We sat that way, staring at the fire, for I don't know how long.