Water from My Heart (21 page)

After an hour's worth of driving dusty, potholed dirt roads, lined mostly with sugarcane nearing twelve feet high, we turned down a coquina-layered drive where the smell of salt and the sound of seagulls wrapped around us. A half mile later, we arrived at a small resort on the beach: a row of concrete bungalows, hammocks stretched between the columns, surfboards leaning against every available wall, various bathing suits hung out to dry on laundry lines, a man and woman floating on inflatables in the pool, cold beer in their hands with limes in the tops and condensation running down the sides, four tanned guys with sun-bleached hair sitting on chairs staring out across a relatively flat ocean. An American guy about my age—beer belly, reading glasses on his nose, bathing suit faded, barefoot with Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned—was scurrying between the rooms and serving patrons in the pool. When he saw us, he raised a hand and said in a Midwestern accent, “Be right with you.”

While we waited, Isabella walked around the pool. Eyeing it. Paulo, Paulina, and I stood beneath an umbrella, waiting.

Moments later, the guy appeared in front of me, sweating, breathing heavy, and smiling. “What can I do for you folks?”

I showed him the picture of Zaul that I'd taken from the kitchen sink at Colin's house. “You seen this guy?”

He nodded and palmed the sweat off his head, flinging it onto the ground. He was not happy to see the picture. He squinted at me. “Sure have.”

“Mind telling me when?”

“Most of last night. Then this morning.”

“Here?”

He pointed at one of the bungalows, then around the pool. “He and his friends—if you can call them that—trashed my villa, partied at the pool till almost daylight, and ran off a couple of my guests. I'm just now getting the mess cleaned up.”

“Is he still around?”

“I sincerely hope not.”

“Any idea if he plans to return?”

“I told them if they did that I'd shoot them on sight.”

“That bad, huh?”

“They destroyed a brand-new flat screen, and I lost three extended-stay couples. Two had booked for a week. One for a month. I don't do business with kids like him as I can usually sniff them out, but the girl that works for me took the reservation.”

“Any idea where they went?”

He pointed out in the ocean. “They hired a charter to take them to the reef. Some big swells out there the last few days. Almost twenty feet.”

“You know where they caught that charter?”

“Nope.”

“Do you know if they had transportation? A car or anything?”

He stuck his thumb in the air. “Best I could tell, they were hitchhiking, which can be tough when you've got five guys with boards.”

“Would you mind calling me if you happen to see them again?”

“Not if you don't mind if I shoot them first.”

I turned to Paulina. “Can I give him your cell number?”

Paulina gave the man her number and he returned to his office. Paulo turned the truck around, and we were loading up when Paulina discovered that Isabella was not in the truck. We turned toward the water and found that she'd walked across the sand to what looked like the end of the yard and the beginning of the dune before the beach. Paulina hollered and told her to get in the truck. Isabella stood, staring at the ocean.

Paulina hollered again, but still no reaction.

I said, “She okay?”

“Yes, she's just never seen the ocean before. I told her we'd come back when we had more—”

I hopped out of the truck and walked up next to Isabella, who was wide-eyed and chewing on a fingernail. The wind was blowing in her face and amplifying the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. I held out my hand. “Come on.” She took it and we walked the well-worn surfer's path toward the beach. When we got there, I kicked off my flip-flops, as did she, and we walked down toward the water. The surf pounded the sand and, to her amazement, rolled up and across her toes, bathing her feet in sand and small shells. The Pacific was cool, dark blue, and she stood speechless as the water washed up and back. Wave after wave. A moment later, Paulina stood to her left and whispered, “Careful. She can't swim.”

I'd never considered that. Isabella walked a few feet toward the waves. Knee-high. Almost midthigh. I spoke more to myself than Paulina. “What kind of kid doesn't know how to swim?”

Paulina spoke to me while staring at Isabella. Ready to pounce. “The kind who's never had access to water and never been taught.”

Isabella turned, delight on her face, and walked out of the water.

I spoke again. “We need to remedy that.”

Paulina glanced at me but said nothing.

We climbed into the truck and were rolling out the driveway when I tapped on the hood of the cab and said, “Give me one second.” I found the man in his office, talking on the phone. When he hung up, I asked, “How much do you figure that crew cost you?”

He was still irritated but he calculated anyway. “Four-​h
undr
ed-​dollar TV. Two of the couples were a week at sixty dollars a night. Other couple was here a month. I gave them a rate.” He tilted his head. “Two thousand seven hundred dollars—give or take.”

I counted out thirty hundred-dollar bills and handed them to him. He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. “I'm…sorry for your trouble.”

Eyes wide, jaw hanging halfway open, he stuffed the money in his pocket and followed me out to the truck. “Mister?”

I turned.

He pointed to the picture of Zaul in my pocket. “You know that kid?”

“Yes.”

“He important to you?”

“Yes.”

He squinted against the sun and hesitated before he spoke—as if doing so was painful. “You know, he's real different than you.”

“I had a lot to do with making him the way he is.” I waved my hand across his resort. “If you want to blame someone for this, you can blame me.”

He held up the piece of paper on which he wrote Paulina's number. “I'll call if I see him again, but chances are—” He shook his head.

After Paulo had shifted into fourth, Isabella had fallen asleep in the front seat, and the wind had dried the sweat and salt and sun on our faces, Paulina nodded back toward the resort and asked through hand-shaded eyes, “What'd you do in there?”

“Asked him a few questions about Zaul.”

“And?”

“He told me.”

“And?”

“That's it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

I don't think she believed me, but I wasn't willing to tell her the truth.

At my hotel, I paid my bill, tipped the attendant twenty dollars, and pulled my bike around front. Isabella's eyes grew wide and round when she saw me sitting on it. She turned to Paulina and asked without asking. Paulina tried to shake her head without my seeing, thinking I'd be bothered by her. I spoke softly. “If you don't mind, I don't.”

Isabella needed nothing further. She stood next to the bike with her arms in the air. I asked Paulina, “You know how to drive?”

“Yes,” she said matter-of-factly.

I stepped off the bike and held it by the bar, motioning for her to ride. She smiled, stepped out of the truck, and straddled the bike, hiking up her skirt and then tucking it tightly beneath her thighs so the wind didn't pull a Marilyn Monroe on her. I lifted Isabella up and she sat on the indentation between the tank and the seat. I gave my Costas to Paulina and buckled my helmet on Isabella, pulling the shield down over her eyes to keep the bugs out.

Paulo drove the speed limit while Paulina followed us. Isabella's smile covered the entire inside of the helmet and Paulina's spread nearly as wide. I sat up front in the truck with Paulo—in the cab with no air-conditioning. Where it was a hundred and twenty degrees if it was anything. My sweat—trickling down my face, neck, back, and calves—stuck me to the seat like honey while Paulo, seemingly unfazed, drove in relative comfort.

Halfway home, he pulled up near a roadside store advertising cell phones and prepaid cards. He motioned for me to follow. I did. When we reached the counter, he bought a new prepaid card for his own phone and then pointed at the phones in the counter. “You buy?”

He was right. A good idea. Paulo helped me negotiate with the man for a new phone and a calling card. After we'd paid, he dialed my number in his phone and watched as my phone rang. Knowing he could now get in touch with me, he nodded and waved me onward.
“Vámonos.”

Paulina was right. If you needed something done, Paulo was your man.

Back in the truck, the heat returned and stuck my clothing to my skin beneath a layer of sweat. Paulo was growing more comfortable with me so every few minutes, he'd point through the windshield at something he wanted me to see or know or understand. And while I didn't understand a word he said as he unconsciously rattled off in Spanish, I do know that the words he spoke were beautiful. Tender. Paulo was attempting to share his world with me.

Over the next thirty minutes, I kept an eye on the girls in the rearview, listened to Paulo, nodded as if I understood completely, and lost five pounds in sweat.

It was a great conversation.

After dinner, I used my new phone to call Colin's house line. He picked up after the first ring. I said, “Ronnie?” and hung up.

Colin got a new SIM card every couple of days and nobody ever knew the number—because it wasn't intended for incoming calls. If I needed to talk with him, I called his house number and said the name of any president and hung up. That left him to call the number on his caller ID. Which he did. We'd had a decade's worth of practice. Seconds later, my phone rang and I answered. “How you guys getting along?”

“Better.” His voice sounded different. Even some levity. He also spoke softly, which led me to believe that someone was sleeping nearby. He was almost whispering. “Small progress, but it's progress. Any luck?”

“Some.” I backed up and told him about León. About Isabella, Paulo, the coffee plantation, his truck, and then the beach resort. He was quiet when I finished.

He said, “Any idea what's next?”

“Tomorrow I thought I'd get on the bike and ride up and down the coast. Surfers are particular about their waves so it shouldn't be too tough. Find good waves and I should find some surfers. Provided he's still with them.”

“You think he's not?”

“I think Zaul will be of use to these guys as long as he has money. He's lost his transportation and I'd bet he's running low on money, so I'm guessing his usefulness is running out—if it hasn't already.”

Colin mumbled in agreement. I tried to change the subject. “Any sign of Shelly?”

“She's been to see Maria every day. The reconstruction of her face was nothing short of miraculous. She stops in on her way home.”

That sounded strange because Colin's house wasn't on Shelly's way home. My silence told Colin I was trying to figure this out. He picked up on it. “She's…spending some time with an orthopedist from the hospital. When I asked about him, she said, ‘He's a safe bet.' He's got a place down on the canal.”

I did not see that one coming. “I hope she's happy.”

Colin cleared his throat. “He heard she'd called off the wedding and showed up at her work. Took her to dinner. All the nurses say she seems happier.”

“I hope she is.”

“She looks different. Peaceful.”

I could hear a noise in the background. I was scratching my head when Colin said, “Hold on. Somebody wants to talk to you.”

He handed her the phone. Maria sounded sleepy. Her words sounded thick, like she'd just come from the dentist and the Novocain had yet to wear off. “Hey, Uncle Charlie. I miss you.”

“I miss you, pretty girl. How you feeling?”

“Okay. It hurts less. You find Zaul?”

“Not yet, but I'm looking. He was always pretty good at hide-and-go-seek.”

She chuckled. “I remember. Uncle Charlie?”

“Yeah, baby girl.”

“When you find him, hug him for me. We all miss him. Mom cries most of the time now.”

I swallowed hard. “You heal up. I'll see you soon.”

“You bring me something?”

“You bet.”

She handed the phone back to her dad. Colin and I sat in silence. After a minute, I broke it. “That one's special.”

He sniffled. Blew his nose. “I been thinking a lot lately and I can't figure something.”

“What's that?”

“Why was one like her given to someone like me?”

It was a good question, and I'd been wrestling with many of the same emotions. I had no answer for him. “I'll call when I know more.”

I hung up, lay on my bed, and listened to the night. People talked in hushed tones in their homes around us. Dogs barked. Pigs grunted. A horse neighed in one direction and a noisy cat screeched in another. Every few moments, I heard a thud on the ground outside. Finally, I heard one on the tin roof of the chicken coop, which, when it landed, sounded like a bomb going off above my head and levitated me about four feet above the bed. I walked outside in the moonlight and stared up into the tree. A monkey was pulling on the mangoes and dropping them to the ground where several dogs had gathered. When I walked beneath the tree, he sat up straight, staring down at me. I picked through the mangoes, finding one that felt ripe, and washed it in the
pila
. After washing Paulina's knife, I peeled it, placed the slices on my tongue, and let the taste swirl around, filling me. Between the aroma, the taste, the juice, the texture, it was an all-encompassing experience.

That mango was a mirror image of my last few days. Once beautiful, placed on display for all the world to see, it had been ripped from its perch, thrown to the ground, rolled in manure and squalor, and left to rot. While that might have bruised it and soiled its skin, it didn't change its nature or what it freely offered, for once I peeled it back, an inexplicable sweetness was waiting to be discovered and tasted and consumed. There was just one catch—you had to be willing to get your hands dirty. Even sticky. To pick through it. Bathe it. Peel it back. And for so much of my life I had not.