An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant (25 page)

John
abruptly lurched from the dance floor and out through the entrance. Bending
over, he braced his hands against his thighs and breathed in.

“Too
much to drink?” Raimunda leaned against the doorway, her arms crossed.

John
breathed in and out several times before standing up. “No, I’m fine. Let’s go
back in.”

They
walked back into the stuffy restaurant, Raimunda’s arm entwined in his and her
hip rubbing his thigh. John’s gaze traveled to the dance floor where Tamarind and
Jesus still rocked and swayed to the loud Latin music.

“I’m
going to the toilet.”

“No
problem,
mi amigo
. I’ll just wait at the table and order another
Medalla, on you.” She smiled and dipped her eyelashes.

John
went to the men’s room and gripped the white porcelain rim of the pedestal
sink. In the harsh fluorescence, he stared at his reflection in the mirror. He
looked like a madman: strands of hair had escaped his ponytail holder, darkly
misting the outlines of his pale face; his wide eyes suggested that he’d just
witnessed his mother being raped and his father shot. Closing his eyes for a
moment, he leaned his head back and expelled his breath. Then he turned on the
cold water and splashed handfuls over his face. When his eyes had relaxed and
his breathing had evened out, he turned off the water, dried his hands, and
made his way to the bar. Raimunda sat looking toward the dance floor, a bottle
cradled in her hands.

“You
know that guy over there?” John gestured with his chin toward the dance floor.

Tomás,
who’d been talking to the bartender, looked up and out at Jesus. “
Sí
,
Señor Juan.” He shrugged. “He’s well known around Culebra, especially by the
women.”

“What’s
that supposed to mean?”

“He’s,
how you say it? A ladies’ man? Most of the ladies like him.”

“Most?
What’s that mean?”

 “Some
say he isn’t always sensitive about whether a
mujer
wants to be with him
or not.”

“Are you
talking about date rape?”

Tomás
shrugged again. “Who am I to say? Me, I think women always find something to
complain about. If it’s not the way they look, it’s how much money we spend on
them.”

“I
believe in the old adage ‘where there’s smoke there’s fire.’” John stared at
the couple. “Some women just don’t know they’re going to get burnt.”

He
looked at Tomás until the older Culebrense looked away. Then Tomás nodded and
turned back to the bartender. John left the bar and headed toward Tamarind and
Jesus. When he reached them, Jesus saw him first and swung Tamarind out and
away before embracing her. Jesus smiled at John over Tamarind’s head.

“Look,
mi
dulcinea
, it’s John. Hey,
amigo
, what’s up?” His grin didn’t reach
his eyes, as flat and malevolent as ever. “This time, I get the bird of
paradise, no?”

“No.”
John turned toward Tamarind. “Tamarind, dance with me.”

Jesus
spoke for her. “She’s with me.
Comprende
?”

Tamarind,
her smooth curls already frizzing from heat and sweat, lifted her chin and
looked at Jesus. “Don’t worry, Jesus. It’s just a dance. I’ll be right back.”

Jesus
slipped his arm around her waist, tight. “Just one dance,
cariño
. I
am—how you say
un amante celoso
? A jealous lover.” He turned to John.
“Take good care of her,
amigo
, or you’ll answer to me.”

Jesus
nuzzled Tamarind’s neck before kissing it, his eyes on John. She tolerated the
kiss but looked embarrassed. Jesus sauntered back to their table and grabbed
his beer. When he turned to watch John and Tamarind dancing, he crossed one arm
over his stomach while the other kept the bottle within easy reach of his
mouth. John didn’t look at Raimunda.

He
placed one hand around Tamarind’s waist and took her hand with the other. He
glanced over at Jesus and smiled as if he meant it. As they danced, he spoke
through his teeth; he found it difficult to take his eyes off of the small
Culebrense waiting for Tamarind at the edge of the dance floor. “Tamarind, you
need to be careful with Jesus.”

“Why?”
Heat from her seeped through his t-shirt and the front of his pants. She
smelled salty and like something else—like a mix of seaweed, sand, and
sunshine. She smelled like freedom.

“Because
he’s got a reputation for liking women. A lot of women.”

“So? You
seem to like a lot of women yourself.”

A
different heat scalded his neck and seeped out his palms. “That may be true,
but I never force myself on anyone.”

“Force
yourself on anyone?” Tamarind screwed up her brows. “I don’t know what you’re
talking about, John. I really must get back to Jesus. I think Raimunda—that’s
her, isn’t it?—is waiting for you.”

The song
still played but Tamarind halted and disengaged herself from John’s grip.
Slipping out of his arms, she skipped over to where Jesus sat and held her
hands out to him.

John
didn’t remain on the dance floor to see Tamarind and Jesus dancing again.
Instead, he returned to his table and leaned over Raimunda. Her dark hair
smelled faintly of cloves and musk. He’d tried, and it hurt like hell.

“What
was that about a meal? I’m hungry.”

She
smiled and slid the neck of the bottle suggestively into her hollowed mouth
before sipping. Then she licked the rim without taking her eyes from his face.
“Let’s go where we can discuss this in private.”

John
helped her to her feet and they walked out of Isla Encantada holding hands.
He’d left the Samurai at Posada La Diosa so they walked south along 251 toward
town. Here and there a few people sat on their patios in the dark, talking and
listening to music. Sometimes the glow of cigarettes and the clink of glass
joined the sounds of voices and Latin jazz energized the low-key gatherings,
but the parties remained contained.

Valerie’s
light still glowed in her room, but darkness shrouded the rest of the
guesthouse. A black shape darted in front of John’s feet as he reached the
front stoop and he nearly tripped over the stray cat that had adopted Valerie.
It growled when he stepped on its tail and hissed as he stumbled away. Raimunda
laughed, but the cat refused to come near her when she bent down and reached
out a hand for it. John pulled out his key and turned to the side so that the
moon illuminated the lock. While he fumbled to insert the key, Raimunda—still
bent over—ran her hand along his calf.

They
moved without speaking down the hall toward John’s room. John left the light
off and pulled Raimunda in after him, groaning before kissing her and shutting
the door. They tore at shirts, John pushing aside the low neckline of
Raimunda’s peasant blouse and grasping her full breast. He pulled his face from
hers, rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and then descended
upon the hardened flesh with a hot mouth.

Raimunda
raked fingers through his hair and then tugged at her skirt. Together, they
worked at the button at his waistband and struggled to lower his shorts to a
safe enough distance for him to climb out of them. Then they stumbled nearer to
his bed before launching themselves at it. Now John clawed, kneaded, pinched,
and sucked at every inch of flesh beneath him while Raimunda’s long hair
cloaked him in clove and something spicy sweet. Grasping a handful, he wound it
around his hand and pulled her face closer to his.

“Tamarind.”

“I’ll be
whoever you want me to be,
amigo
. Just fuck me.”

John’s
chest seized and his breath stopped. The airless room encapsulated him and he
couldn’t move, couldn’t think—couldn’t see in the suffocating black.
Collapsing, he trapped Raimunda under him. She responded by squirming and
kicking until she’d managed to roll him off of her and onto the bed.

“What
the hell is wrong with you,
gringo
? You’re as hard as obsidian one
moment and limp as seaweed the next—and you nearly crush me!” She sat up and
pushed him away from her.

John
opened his mouth, but nothing came in or out. Pricks of light danced in front
of his vision. His blood roared in his ears. He felt Raimunda get off the bed
and sensed rather than heard her search on the floor for her blouse and skirt.
He tried to remember the sound of Tamarind’s humming, to feel her arms around
him again as she promised to take care of him, but he couldn’t snag the memory
and he felt the darkness winning. As he lost consciousness, he heard the door
to his room click shut.

***

Ana
scurried into the plaza near the ferry dock, her bag slung over her shoulder.
She didn’t have much time.  She laid the bag on a concrete table and pulled out
the wire-wrapped Goddess that she’d bartered from Valerie, the hair that she’d
taken from Tamarind’s sleeping mat, and the potion that she’d brewed using both
items. Next came a copy of the destroyed blue batik dress, the one that John
had bought for Tamarind weeks ago and that she’d worn the night they’d gone
dancing. Muttering and turning, she waved her right hand in the air until the
cloaking glamour reflected the night plaza seamlessly around her. Should anyone
wander into the plaza, he’d see only empty tables next to the dock.

Stepping
out of her skirt and blouse, Ana lifted the batik dress over her head and let
it drop down over her shoulders. She squinted down at her discarded clothes and
frowned. Muttering again, she wove both of her hands in the air above them. Now
a small pile of paper cups and wrappers littered the pavement.

She
lifted the bottle from the table and hefted it in her palm. So small, yet so
crucial. She slid her thumbnail into and around the wax seal and then pushed
the stopper out. A minute pop issued and she felt infinitesimal droplets as
pockets of gas burst against the skin on the back of her hand. She waited until
the bottle grew warm in her palm and then she tipped it up and let it slide
down her throat in one breathless gulp. She coughed and wiped her lips with the
back of her hand. Her book said that the potion needed time to spread
throughout her body, trailing change with it, but she had been a midwife a long
time and had developed her own techniques, ones that improved upon the
original.

She
grasped the wire Goddess and rubbed the beads that Tamarind had so carefully
bound there. Tamarind had also bound some of her own essence as well and Ana
sought it now. Closing her eyes and whispering a chant, she drew upon the charm
to speed her transformation. After only a few breaths, she opened her eyes
again. It was done.

John came to
with
a sense of urgency
.
The room around him vibrated with the aftereffects of sound and he waited,
certain an alarm or clap of thunder would rend the air. He heard nothing but
the harsh rasp of his own breathing in the stifling dark. Sitting up, heart
pounding, he tried to think. He glanced at the clock and saw that Isla
Encantada had closed an hour ago. He groaned and twisted on the bed until his
feet touched the floor and the clothes he’d left there. Without searching for
the light first, he found his t-shirt and shorts and put them on. His sandals
still lay just inside the door where he’d kicked them earlier and he slid them
on, fumbling with the straps.

The
stray cat passed him in the hallway, this time rubbing against his calves and
purring. John ignored her and walked quietly past Valerie’s door. Once outside,
he glanced toward her window and saw that it was dark. He hurried down the
sidewalk. Everyone had long since gone to sleep in town; no streetlights lit
his way. Only the sound of water lapping at the canal and the squeak of his
sandals on pavement broke the utter silence.

He
didn’t know where he planned to go, but he walked north on 250. At this hour in
Isla Verde in San Juan, people wandered streets laughing and chatting while
cars cruised along the
avenida
. Casinos and restaurants catered to
restless tourists and young lovers, but here on Culebra, only wind and water
spirits kept him company. After a few minutes, he heard voices and he picked up
his pace. A young couple—he sat on the stoop and she stood between his bent
knees with his hands on her hips—talked in the shadows of a doorway. John
recognized the young man’s tennis shoes and his date’s ponytail. They were
college students from the U.S. who’d bought a
Let’s Go! Puerto Rico
and
had arrived on Culebra a week ago. Hearing his footsteps, they stopped talking
and glanced in his direction. John waved. They waved back and he kept on
walking.

As he’d
already known it would, Isla Encantada stood dark and empty when he came up to
its entrance. He sat down on the curb outside the restaurant and propped his
head in his hands. Darkness enveloped him like an old friend, its soothing arm
laid across his shoulders. He smelled the dust from the sun-baked pavement
around him, stale beer and cigarettes, old cooking oil, salt air and something
else—a thin tang of green life holding out against the strength of the ocean on
one side and the indifferent crush of humanity on the other.

Looking
up, he studied the sky. It loomed impassively above, innumerable tiny twinkles
mocking him. Culebra was a tiny island and he was just a speck on it. He sat
still, staring at this yawning chasm, waiting for it to swallow him and blot
out everything. Eventually the mosquitoes hummed so loudly in his ears that
they compelled him to his feet in search of a better place to loiter. He
shuffled onto 250 where not even the shadows had voices any more, his gaze
polishing the rough pavement just a couple of feet in front of his sandals. He’d
reached the fork in the road where 250 split into one-way streets, but just as
he thought to stay on the left and continue toward Posada La Diosa, he spied
something gleaming on the sidewalk at the fork. Bending down, he saw that it
was one of Valerie’s wire-wrapped Goddesses. He picked it up, tossing it
lightly in his palm and then absentmindedly rubbing the largest stone in its
globular belly with his thumb.