Margarita Wednesdays: Making a New Life by the Mexican Sea (10 page)

3. New Deb does not wallow in her past. She will learn from her mistakes, not obsess over them to the point that she becomes a basket case who is constantly second-guessing herself and sobbing all over the place, eating too much, and making everyone around her crazy, and . . .

4. New Deb will be skinny! Well, maybe not skinny, but at least healthy and fit. She will cut out the junk food, she will ride a bike, she will not fall prey to the margaritas. She will, for once in
her life, learn to feel good in her own skin. New Deb promises to love New Deb no matter what size she is.

(Here, I have to admit, I paused to finish my tacos and drain my beer.)

5. New Deb will never pick up a cigarette again. Ever.

6. New Deb is not afraid. She is as strong as she once thought she was.

7. New Deb will be her own best friend, not her own worst enemy. She will keep herself from taking two steps back every time she takes one forward.

8. New Deb will never pack her life in boxes again. In Mexico, she will find a way to make her head content and her heart full. And that’s that.

After a long, steamy shower I snuggled into bed, eager for the diversion of old reruns and cable news, courtesy of the remote that was bolted to the bedside table next to me. But as I surfed, it appeared as though the only things with even slightly visible reception were four porn channels and a soccer match, none of which was enough to keep my eyes open at that point. So I just drifted off all by myself, dreaming about the New Deb in my dark, quiet, safe, sex motel.

T
HE NEXT MORNING DIDN
’
T
start off so great. I found myself on the road way too early, thanks to the plaguing doubts about my move that had boomeranged back into my head at 4
A.M.
, and which were still running through my brain like hamsters on a wheel. Would I be able to make a living down here? Would I make friends? Was Carnaval Street a wise investment, or the biggest mistake I’d made in my life? Maybe things would seem clearer by daylight. It was still dark. Really, really dark. And I seemed to be the only person out at that ungodly hour.

Suddenly the darkness was broken by three arcing beams of light about a hundred yards up the road. As I approached, I could make out a trio of dark-clothed figures waving me over. My instincts kicked in as I stepped on the gas, not sure whether to congratulate myself for avoiding a setup or berate myself for being stupid enough to try to outrun the police. To this day, I still have no idea who those guys were. Regardless, I pulled over at the next gas station and parked under a very bright light, and waited for the sun to come up.

But even the light of day didn’t do much to soothe my nerves. The two-lane road was that in concept only. You could be going eighty miles per hour in the right lane only to come up against a huge bus at a dead stop right in front of your bumper. No place for you (or him) to pull over even if you had time to, just a drop-off that would turn a Mini into a pancake in one quick second. And the left lane? An overturned semi in the median was proof enough to me that it wasn’t a much safer option.

Then there was the humidity. I could almost hear my hair frizzing up as I rolled down the window to pay yet another toll. The hot, thick air shoved its way in like a pushy commuter boarding the 5:10 to the suburbs. At least it was a sign that I was getting closer to the sea.

Just fifteen minutes into the state of Sinaloa, a couple of guys in military uniform stopped my car. A shiny round face appeared at my window. “Qué está en el carro? What’s in the car?”

What wasn’t in the car? I asked myself, my mind scrambling to remember the Spanish word for cat, panicking at the thought of me being kidnapped and Polly left abandoned in the desert, or of poor Polly being catnapped and the Mini being carjacked and me left to die by the side of the road. The officer motioned for me to open the door and step out. My legs felt like rubber, and I could feel that morning’s hastily downed coffee making its way back up.

“Cat. I have a cat in there,” I pleaded in a voice that sounded nothing like mine.

He bent down to peer under the Mini’s roof. I felt faint.

“Fruta?” the guy holding the gun asked.

“What?”

“Fruta?” He called his partner over, and pointed inside. “Gato!” I finally remembered. “Gato!” But they weren’t paying attention. They were too busy laughing. I followed their gaze toward the backseat. The only things visible were Polly’s whiskers poking out from the carrier, stuffed between the space-saver bags that had by now, apparently due to the heat, expanded to the max, filling the car’s interior like a giant marshmallow man.

No sooner had I recovered from that episode than I came to the road sign for Culiacán—the headquarters of the dreaded Sinaloa Cartel, allegedly the most powerful drug-trafficking organization in the Western Hemisphere. A narco city that boasts of more homicides than any other city in Mexico. I had been warned, and had planned not to slow down, not to get gas, not to do anything but hold my breath and get through this town as fast as I could. I was beginning to feel like a character in a video game, leaping and hopping and ducking to avoid disaster at every turn.

By now the jungle-green roadside had turned into farmland—flat, flat, flat—with nothing but cows that I, in an attempt to remain alert, actually started to count as they whizzed past my window. Yes, I was counting cows. I was up to forty-seven when I saw it. Right beyond the road sign for Mazatlán, a dark sapphire stripe glittered under the blaze of the overhead sun. The Pacific! Palm trees swayed in the ocean breeze. It was like entering paradise. I rolled down the window and let the briny air fill my nostrils with each deep breath I took. I was almost home, as scary as it sounded to call this strange place home. I may not have had a clue about anything that was to come, but I did know how much I was looking forward to seeing my house. My tiny bungalow that had gone practically overnight from seaside getaway to my lifeline.

I’m still not sure how to interpret what happened next, though in retrospect I’m sure it had to be some sort of omen. At first I could
have sworn it was snowing. Airy flecks of white started blowing past my window, rapidly multiplying into a swarm as I continued down the road. They drifted up against the windshield one by one, then three by three, and then before I knew it in a flurry so thick I could barely see two feet in front of me. Butterflies. Billions of them. Everywhere I turned, there were butterflies. Butterflies as far as the eye could see. I could feel the unfamiliar stretch of my lips against my teeth as a grin began to spread across my face. “We’re home, Polly. We are finally home.”

Y
OU KNOW HOW SOMETIMES YOU
hold on to an incredibly vivid memory of a place in your head, only to end up gobsmacked by reality upon your next visit? Maybe it was the remote little inn where you stayed for your honeymoon, whose carpet stains and peeling wallpaper were invisible to you at the time. Or that childhood home you revisited. You could have sworn the house was a lot bigger when you lived there.

I am happy to report that, despite my worries, that did not happen to me when I returned this time to Mazatlán. I really can’t say it was love at first sight when Roger the Realtor had first led me to the house on Carnaval Street, on my last visit. But it was Carnaval Street! I could not believe there was a house for sale there. It must be meant to be, I thought. But the façade of the crumbling little box we stopped at looked like the aftermath of a bubble gum factory explosion. It was pink. Pink, bumpy cement. Pink all over, with a flat roof, one tiny window with blue and red and green and yellow opaque panes covered by a handwritten “Se Vende” sign, and a house on either side, with not even a hair of space between them. But something happened
when I went inside. Though it was clear that you’d have to wedge your way through the narrow shower to get to the bathroom sink and toilet, and I couldn’t tell if that frosted glass in what I realized was the house’s one and only window was there to hide the street from view or vice versa, the high ceilings and century-old tiles made the tiny house feel strong and solid and wise. It took fifty-two steps to circle the entire space, which I did three times before I sat myself down on the cool green floor, where the colored light streaming through the window splashed down like a bright, blurry Christmas tree. I wanted this house on Carnaval Street. How could you live on a place called Carnaval Street and not be happy?

Now, months later, I was back. And after the basic renovations I had overseen long-distance, including sanding and smoothing and the three coats of paint it took to turn that bubble-gum pink into a respectable ochre with forest green trim, my house was even better than I had imagined. Perhaps it was due to the fact that it was all mine, but I felt something being inside this house that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I felt safe. Maybe it was just the lack of windows.

I did hole up a lot at first. Though
shy
has never been a word used to describe me, it was clear that what had happened to me in Afghanistan and festered during my time in California limbo had snuck across the border with me. Trust, specifically when it came to trusting myself, had become an unreliable partner, and confidence—
real
confidence, not the crazy kind that compels one to, say, take off and drive halfway across Mexico—seemed as elusive to me as a marriage proposal from George Clooney. Even in my own home I was still a Debbie I had a hard time recognizing, and a Debbie who, frankly, was not much fun to be around. Especially in a hot little house with limited air-conditioning.

Had I been more calculating or, to put it more honestly, had I been more in control of my life, I probably would not have chosen summer as the time to move south of the border. This wasn’t like Kabul heat, where at six thousand feet you could almost see the sun’s rays sucking
the moisture from your skin. Here you were constantly drenched in a sticky sweat, as if you’d allowed an ice-cream bar to melt down your arms, onto your body, and in between your toes. If you had to wrap a scarf around your head you’d suffocate. At first I survived by jumping, soaking wet, from the shower to a spot in front of the fan and back again, or by sitting amid bags of frozen broccoli on my couch. I read a lot, and waited every day, all day, for the cable guy to arrive. In Mexico, waiting for the cable guy is sort of the same as waiting for the cable guy anywhere, but instead of saying they’ll be there on a specific day within a specific range of hours, they’ll only commit to a general time frame. As in “he will be there between now and when Jesus comes.”
Mañana, mañana,
they say when you call to check. For weeks I waited. No TV, no Internet, no landline. No communication with anyone but myself. Oh, I did have a cell phone, but without even one person in Mexico to add to my new “Five Friends Free” plan, it sat idle.

In the meantime, when evening would start to fall, my daily prayers for the cable guy appearing to remain unanswered, I began to notice my neighbors across the street gathering on their front steps. Music and friendly shouts and quiet laughter would echo off the low-slung cement buildings. Since it felt no hotter outside than in, I forced myself out to explore. I was determined not to start out in Mexico the way I had ended up in California, as a housebound hostage held prisoner by my own demons.

At first I’d just venture down a few buildings toward Abarrotes Josi, the local grocery. Carnaval Street comes to life in the evening—women in plastic chairs gossip around a game of bingo, babies get passed from lap to lap, and the older kids join each other for a game of soccer or tag or jump rope in the middle of the street. The street seemed to be the women’s domain. I figured the men must have favored cantina life. “Carro! Cuidado!” A synchronized warning would echo off the houses whenever a car approached, sending all the kids running for safety. Not a lick of English could be heard on Carnaval
Street, which suited me just fine. I always found a sense of comfort being surrounded by words I couldn’t understand, conversations that couldn’t distract me, arguments that didn’t involve me. I had enough noise inside my own head for all of us.

It wasn’t long before I found myself continuing down Carnaval Street a little farther than usual, down to the Plazuela Machado. It was twilight, and under a fading pink sky the lights around the square were starting to twinkle like fairy dust through the palm trees. Gleaming white-covered dining tables spilled out from under the spotlit arched façades of the restaurants lining the streets. I was hungry, and those tables looked so inviting. But being one who always hated eating alone, it took me three slow loops through the stalls in the center of the plaza, and one hundred fifty pesos plunked down for a pair of handmade earrings and a little woven purse, before I got up the courage to sit.

A cute waiter approached with a smile. “Buenas noches.”

“Buenas noches,” I said back with a smile.

“Qué va a tomar?”

“Vino tinto, por favor,” I responded, proud of my mastery of the language, at least when it came to ordering a glass of red wine.