Sunsets of Tulum. Mr Raymond Avery Bartlett
avocado good? Here, have another piece.”
She handed it to him. The flesh of the fruit was the texture of butter, soft and perfect, the place where she’d cut it already discoloring in the air. Cindy held out a wedge of lime, he nodded, and she squeezed it for him. He slipped it into his mouth, savoring the combination of sweet flesh and tart juice, letting his tongue move around the flavors, tasting it as if for the first time.
Marisol approached. “Found them. They’re in the girls’ dorm. You can’t go in there normally, but since I’m okay with it, it’s fine if you poke your head in. Nobody’s changing clothes or anything.”
“Go get ‘em, Romeo,” Cindy said, sounding sad.
Reed took a final swig of beer to calm himself, then went to the dorm and knocked.
“Come in,” someone said, and he turned the handle.
The room was small and dark, with a row of bunk beds along each wall and a set of lockers. Someone had hung up three sets of panties on a coat hanger to dry. The three girls were on a lower bunk, sitting close together. One of them, the rich type, was crying. The other two were comforting her. A bottle of red wine with a dark blue label was at their feet, unopened, along with some plastic cups.
“Excuse us?” the tall girl asked, frowning. “This is the girls’ dorm.”
“Marisol said it was okay to ask you if….” He trailed off. “This is a bad time?”
The brunette looked at him, her face as unreadable as a beach smoothed by a wave. She could have been bemused or furious by the intrusion and he wouldn’t have been able to tell. He felt his cheeks flushing.
“Kind of,” the tall girl said. “Is it important?”
Reed shook his head.
“No, sorry. This can wait.” He shut the door quickly, the book still in his hand. He returned to Cindy and sat down beside her.
“Crash and burn, huh?” she said.
He held up his bottle and Cindy tapped hers to it. They drank. He could see her watch. Twenty full minutes before the bus left gave him time to finish his beer.
“Don’t feel bad. It doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
Cindy looked at him. “You okay? You need a back rub? I was studying to be a masseuse for a semester in college.”
“No thanks.”
“But I’m really good,” Cindy said, reaching for his shoulder. He pulled away. Cindy’s weight shifted away from him, and they finished their beers in silence. When he’d had the last sip, Reed excused himself and went to the bar.
“Another?” Marisol asked.
Reed nodded. “Can I get it to go?”
“Don’t drown yourself in sorrows,” she said.
“Here. Just tell her it’s from me.” He handed it to her.
“That’s a sweet gesture,” Marisol said. Then she handed it back. “But there she is.”
Reed turned around. The girl had just closed the door of the female dorm and was walking toward the back of the garden. She had a thin journal under her arm. Reed watched her choose a hammock, pull the top over her head, then fall back into it, as natural as if she’d been born a Maya.
“You can tell her yourself,” Marisol said.
“Give me a bottle of wine,” he said. “The one with the blue label.”
Marisol handed it to him. “I’ll put it on your tab.”
Reed swallowed, picked up the warped book in one hand and the bottle in the other, and crossed the courtyard. He realized he would be staying overnight in Tulum. The monumental implications of this fact passed quietly through his head as he walked toward the girl on the hammock, someone who probably didn’t care if he lived or died, someone he might never see again. Yet even if he regretted it for the rest of his life, he was going to force himself to talk to her.
Clione Roux
Reed’s footsteps crunching across the gravel made the girl shift position and look up from her journal. She’d been writing, and as she turned her expression seemed to shift from curiosity to annoyance. For a moment Reed thought he should just head into the bungalow, pass right by without even bothering to say anything. He could melt past, forget about it. Anything would be easier than trying to fumble through a conversation.
But as he glanced at her he remembered how her eyes had opened just slightly when they’d met his as they’d picked up the purse items under the table at the pool. The way everything had spilled. The way she’d mouthed the word “drama.” Something had been there. And why had he even come here if he was going to let the moment slip away?
The girl looked at him, gently swinging the hammock back and forth, her bare feet hardly touching the ground. Her hair was wet and tied back with a green ribbon. Even from far away he could smell her fresh shampoo, the same scent he’d remembered when they’d been picking stuff up together by the pool. Coconut. Sea foam. A linen blouse just transparent enough for him to see a lavender bra. Her Guatemalan print skirt gracefully hugged her hips, and on an ankle as perfect as porcelain hung a thin embroidered friendship bracelet.
Reed didn’t say anything. Their eyes met and he clung to her gaze, forcing himself not to look away even though it was brighter than staring into the sun.
“You remember me?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said. Her glance flickered towards the reception desk. Reed imagined her making a quick calculus of how much time could pass before she leapt out of the hammock and ran for the door. “In Cancún. At the pool.”
“I have something for you. A gift.”
She took the package as slowly as if it were a bomb about to blow. “Feliz Navidad? Um, it’s not my birthday. “
“Open it.”
She unwrapped the paper.
“My Murakami book?” She flipped a few pages. “Jesus, what the hell did you do to it?”
“This is kind of a long story,” he said. “But to understand how funny it is you have to know that I hate swimming. I really hate it.”
She looked at him, her eyes slightly narrowed, the look of someone worried they’re going to be asked to buy trinkets or sunglasses.
“I can swim,” Reed continued. “I just, I don’t know…there’s something about it, about the water closing in around me that makes me panic. Even though I can keep my head above water I’ll do anything to stay out of the pool.”
“And this relates to your stealing my book, um, how?”
“Because I didn’t steal it!”
“I’m listening.”
“So it turns out my wife and I kind of had a fight,” he said, recounting the events of how he’d found the book. “It was floating there like a dead opossum.”
“How dramatic.”
“I just couldn’t live with myself thinking you’d forever and ever remember me as a book thief.”
“I forgot and forgave. Mainly forgot.”
“I didn’t. And it killed me that I never got to even know your name.”
Reed felt his knees shaking and leaned against the smooth coconut palm to steady himself. He became aware of the sounds of conversation in the dorm rooms, of the whoosh of a car driving by outside. A light wind crackled the palm frond leaves. The k-k-k-k of a gecko kissing the dusk. His hearing widened, deepened, until he could hear, far away, the crash of waves colliding with the