Margarita Wednesdays: Making a New Life by the Mexican Sea (8 page)

Two weeks without my husband was like a spa vacation, that is, if
your spa focuses on teaching CPR and the basics of decontamination. Then, two weeks after my training was complete, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 hit. I was on a plane to New York within hours of a call to come help. Day after day, I’d massage weary firefighters’ callused, pungent feet and listen to the horror stories of what they’d been through, happy to be able to give them even a few brief moments of comfort and calm, while at the same time trying my best to ignore the cell phone constantly buzzing in my pocket. My controlling husband and my sorry life seemed far, far away. Even in the midst of all that chaos and despair, or perhaps because of it, it became abundantly clear to me that it was time for my life to change, big-time, and that I was capable of being the one to make that happen. So when I heard that the organization I was working with was putting together a team to be sent to Afghanistan, I immediately began to campaign for a spot. I would spend a month, I thought, putting my training to work helping those who had suffered from the Taliban’s brutal regime. It would be the start of my new future.

Speaking of Afghanistan . . .

“C’mon, do we really need to go there? I did a lot of good things in Kabul.”

Sure,
the reproachful Debbie inside reminded me,
but let’s not forget that you ended up running away from there, too.

That one really hurt. On my best days, I understood that I didn’t run away from Kabul at all. I hung in there until it became impossible to do anything
but
leave. In fact, it was a voice inside, much like the one now bumming a ride to the border, that convinced me to stay as long as I did.
You can’t leave,
y
ou’ll let everybody down,
it would say, over and over.
You have no choice.
And honestly, if it had been just me on the line, I probably would have stayed. I had become used to putting myself out there, and had become weirdly inured to the danger. But when my son was threatened, the mother lioness came roaring out of me and whacked me back into reality. Staying would have, no doubt, ended in something I’d rather not even imagine. No, it did not
end the way I wanted. Of course, I was still struggling with the pain and guilt of leaving everything, and everyone, behind. And no matter what my situation might have been at home, I went to Afghanistan in the first place thinking I might, for once in my life, actually be able to do something good, perhaps make a difference. When the opportunity came to use what I knew best in a way that could help other women gain their own independence, to share the tricks of a trade that had, more than once, saved my own life, it seemed like it was all meant to be.

And where did that leave you? Running away again?

“I am
not
running away.”

You always run away.

“I do not!”

Do so.

“Cut it out!” I answered out loud. “Can’t you see I’m trying to drive? And that, I might add, is a big deal for me these days.”

Big deal? Driving? Who are you kidding, Rodriguez? You’re nothing but a . . .

Whoosh!
My heart jumped into my throat as the gust from a barreling eighteen-wheeler thrust my little Mini off onto the gravelly shoulder of the road. I slowed to a stop, shut off the ignition, and turned around to check on Polly, who was frozen in a crouch, her green eyes wide with fright.

“It’s okay, baby,” I lied, lighting a cigarette, the one I swore would be my last, with a shaking hand. An oven blast of sweet, dry air flooded the car as I slowly lowered the windows. In the distance I could see a range of snow-covered peaks jutting out from the flat desert floor. On either side of me, a strange vineyard of giant white fans turned lazily in a synchronized waltz, in rows and rows stretching out for miles against the cloudless blue sky.

Personally, I had to admit that it was hard to believe I was actually doing this. Mike (or rather Mike’s mother) breaking up with me might have been just the kick in the ass I needed to get me on the road to a
new phase in my life, but I was far from feeling sure about it. If only I could simply reach across, open the passenger door, and boot that belittling voice inside out into the scrubby sand. I still had more than a thousand miles to go before I reached Mazatlán, and she was starting to really, really piss me off. Instead I pulled back onto the highway and turned up the radio to try to drown her out.

Was I running away? How can you run away from something you never really had in the first place? Napa was not my life. It was more like my rebound life, the one your girlfriends warn you against and the one you jump into because it’s easier than facing up to the reality and pain of what just hit you. In Napa I had been on hold for two years, trying to make something work that probably never should have happened at all.

T
HE SKY HAD TURNED INTO
a melted neon Creamsicle swirl by the time I pulled up to the Days Inn on Palm Canyon Drive. I barely had enough energy to pour a bowl of Friskies for Polly before flopping down on the bed, the stiff polyester bedspread practically cracking beneath my weight. If I hadn’t been too exhausted to pray, I would have. But what would I have asked for? I would have had to come up with an actionable scenario, a clear-cut vision for what I wanted my new life to be. But, as usual, I didn’t really know what I was getting into, so instead I just held on to the little santo around my neck and hoped that this time things would turn out differently.

“M
AYBE
I
COULD DRIVE A
taxi down there. I’m getting a lot of experience, right? What do you think, Pol? Or maybe I could, if worse comes to worst, sell time-shares? We both know I’m a good talker. How does that sound?”

Polly didn’t answer. We were on our way to Tucson, and my poor cat was moping in her carrier, miserably wedged in the backseat between mountains of vacuum-sealed space-saver bags that, for some reason, seemed to be expanding by the minute. I was trying hard to keep
Debbie Downer from entering the conversation. But I couldn’t deny that my lack of a plan was more than a little scary. My future was staring me down like a pissed-off pit bull. It was hard to look away, but more frightening not to. Even the cactuses standing tall by the edge of the road, waving at me like funny, giant green men, couldn’t distract me from my anxiety.

One thing was for certain. I was not going to be a hairdresser in Mexico. Though I knew I was damn good at it, my dismal attempts at getting a salon job in California had done a real number on me.
Realizing that I was being looked at as an old hairdresser was like getting a kick in the teeth. The whole experience only served as a reminder of the negatives of the profession. When I really think about it, I can’t really say I ever actually wanted to become a hairdresser. Though it had been kind of fun playing hairdresser in my mom’s salon when I was little, folding the towels and taking the rollers out of the old ladies’ hair while they sat under the dryers, I was all too aware of what it actually meant to be a real one. I can, to this day, picture my mom on the couch at night, heating pad stuffed under her spine and swollen feet propped up on a cushion, her smile slowly thawing from having to remain cheerful whether she felt cheery or not. Back then I wanted to be a princess. That, or a famous opera singer. My doting mother never failed to indulge me in my fantasies. Nevertheless, when I turned fifteen, she sent me to beauty school. “It’s a great skill to fall back on,” my overworked and underpaid mother insisted.

So for a year after earning both my high school and beauty school diplomas, I worked in my mom’s salon. It was expected. It was easy. But I wanted more. Though I had struggled in school, I longed to be an educated, sophisticated world traveler, a woman of importance. So I told my mom that I wanted to go to college. “Oh, honey child,” she crooned in her sweet southern drawl, “you know you’re not college material.” After one year at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, I proved her right.

I fell back on hairdressing, of course. And when, a few years later, with a husband, two kids, two cars, and a house, I called my mom sobbing, she was perplexed.

“Are the kids okay?” she asked as she rushed through my front door, scanning the room for any signs of an accident or mishap. I nodded.

“Are you okay?” She took my chin in her hand, my tears cascading over her fingers and onto the floor.

“Yes. I mean, no. Oh, Mom, I just don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m miserable, and I have no right to be.” She went into the kitchen
and put the kettle on the stove. I followed. “I mean, I should be happy, right? I have so much.” Mom nodded. I plopped down on the kitchen chair. “I just don’t get it. Why doesn’t this work for me? I still keep feeling there has to be more.”

Mom poured the hot water over a tea bag and handed me the cup. “I’m not sure, baby girl,” she answered as she stroked my hair. “But I do know one thing. You can do anything you set your mind to. What do you want?”

“That’s the problem,” I said, sobbing. “I just don’t know.”

She pulled a tissue from under her sweater sleeve. “Well, that just doesn’t make any sense. You’re a dreamer. Always have been. Come on, what does your heart tell you?”

“I’m a hairdresser. I’m already a mom. What else
can
I be?” I whined.

“Listen to you. You don’t have to be just one thing, or even two. You can do anything you want. And that, child, is not a reason to cry.”

“I know, Mom.” I sighed. “I just wish I could figure it out.”

My mother sat down across the table. “You know, you always did want to be a princess. It’s not too late . . .”

I snorted a laugh in response.

“Well, that’s not very princesslike of you,” she admonished, producing yet another tissue.

“Thank you, Queen Mother.”

“Debbie, I think you can be a mother,
and
a hairdresser,
and
a princess.”

And as she reached across the table to take my hand in hers, I wondered if this woman, whose own mom had died when she was just a baby, who married at sixteen to escape a household of fourteen kids, living a dirt-poor existence in the Arkansas cotton fields, who remained trapped in a disappointing relationship until death did them part, had once wished for someone to tell her she could be a princess, too.

I carried my mom’s words with me wherever I went. They were there as I patrolled the prisoners’ bunks for shanks and battled the
misogynistic prison staff, they were there while I was swatting away the killer insects on the Bahamian beach, and they were there when I boarded that first plane to Afghanistan. I heard them every single time I stepped out of the supposed comfort zone, which, for me, was never particularly comfortable in the first place.

It wasn’t until Kabul that I finally embraced the hairdresser in me. I saw that I was doing as much, or maybe even more with my scissors and dyes than a lot of people with fancy degrees and big titles achieve in a lifetime. Over there, I realized that it was about so much more than simply doing hair. For the first time in my life, I respected my job, and myself. I wasn’t “just” a hairdresser anymore! I was living proof that anyone could make a difference. You just needed a lot of determination, a good amount of energy, the willingness to take a few risks, and a good sense of humor.

But a few risks too many, and you might find yourself like I did—lost, confused, and starting all over again. By the time I got to Napa, I could no longer hear my mom’s voice. I couldn’t even call her for a reminder. By that time she was starting to forget things, and wasn’t really capable of helping me much. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t have it in her to tell me that I could be a princess anymore.

So now, with hairdressing and reigning over a kingdom of adoring subjects out of the picture, what was left? What would I do in Mexico? I didn’t have a clue. Part of me pictured myself spending the rest of my life sitting quietly on the beach, sipping a margarita. I was tired. Tired of men, tired of moving, tired of being scared, tired of being confused. But who was I kidding? I’m not one to sit quietly, anywhere. All I was hoping was that being in Mexico would give me the chance to figure things out.

I tried to focus on the one thing I knew was waiting for me down there—my little house on Carnaval Street. I could not wait to settle into my own place. After all that time in California squatting in someone else’s home, I was more than ready to plant some roots.

Mexico I could afford, at least for a while. The way I figured it, my
savings would last for maybe a couple of years, if I was careful. So in a way, I realized, I should consider my house in Mexico to be an investment in my future. It was my house that would allow me the time to figure things out, to fix myself. That’s a lot of pressure for one little house, I thought. I hoped it could take it.

T
HIS WAS TO BE MY
last day in the U.S.A. The skyline of Tucson faded in the rearview mirror as Polly and I headed south down Interstate 19 toward Nogales, Mexico. We were off to an early start. Who knew what I’d find at the border? I began to picture humorless guys in sunglasses with machine guns, narcos and federales in blood battle, trigger-happy Border Patrol agents chasing down fleeing immigrants. In another life, those kinds of guys might have been a piece of cake. Now I just wished them gone, gone from my imagination and anywhere else they might be lurking.