A Man on an Island Ch. 03

"Whatcha got there, honey?" he grinned as he grabbed one of her buttocks with a loud slap and a hefty squeeze.

Cale stiffened, his left boot already extending the kickstand to get off.

The response was instant and the man reeled a little from the force of the slap that she left on his face with her free hand. He began to turn with a sour look, but he froze an instant later when he found himself looking at a pistol there in her hand, pointed at the ground next to her, though the threat was clear. Cale wasn't a completely innocent tourist, but he hadn't even seen her draw it. He was a little amazed, since it looked to him as though she'd pulled it out of the air. Her expression had changed completely and her voice had a hard edge to it.

"¡Chinga tu madre, cabrón!" she hissed, "And mind your business, ah? You want some of what I bought, then you go get your own and don't bother other people who work for a living. Go back to sit in your pile of shit truck and mind your business all the way back home. Texas needs you. We don't.

And I am not your honey," she said clearly looking as though she wanted to spit at him.

It was a bit of a tense moment that Cale lacked the insight to really understand, but he could see that the man understood what was said to him quite well as he watched the veins stand out on that forehead.

"All I asked was what you were carrying," the man aid, "Maybe I want to buy a little off you. Come on, Mamacita. Turn off some of that hate and -"

Even out here in the open, everyone heard it as she pulled back the hammer on the pistol, "¿¡Quieres callarte la pinche boca!? Get in your fucking truck. How stupid are you? Tú me estás jodiendo.

Hector!" she called to one individual and a man stepped forward to listen to what she said to him. Hector stepped a little closer to the now nervous-looking man and the man withdrew sullenly.

"One day, baby," he sneered at her.

She nodded with a bit of venom in her voice, "Touch me again when we are alone, Cabron. Te voy a meter una leche," she nodded. "Get the fuck back to where you came from."

The gun vanished then and Cale could plainly see the woman's annoyance as she got her bike started. She looked disgusted that Cale had seen the exchange, and she nodded to him as she put her bike into gear.

"Vamonos," she said and suggested with a motion of her head in the direction of the road.

As he rode, Cale wondered what that had been about, but he needed her to show him the way back to the motel at least.

When they got back, she opened her saddle bag and tossed him a couple of the bags, "I need at least one hand to get through the doors, my friend. Can you carry these three for me please?"

Cale caught the first one before he'd really had an answer ready, but he saw two more in the air on their way to him, so he caught them and followed her through the doors and all the way back into the kitchens.

"I'm really sorry that you had to see something as stupid as that," she said as she shook her head and offered her hand, "I didn't know that the asshole would be there or I wouldn't have led you there and I saw his truck after it was too late. My name's Maya Novarro, by the way."

Cale's mouth fell open at the abrupt and complete absence of the accent that he'd been listening to, but he managed to shake her hand, "I'm Cale Taylor. What the hell just went on back there and where did your accent go? For that matter, your pistol. ..."

She sighed, looking down, "It's a long, sad tale, my friend. Maybe I might get to tell some of it to you if you're half-interested sometime. For now," she tried to smile, "the name I gave you is real enough and legal, but it's not my birth name. Shit, a lot of people couldn't pronounce that, and actually, my first name is more than my name.

That bastard back there has connections to some of the gangs in Texas. There's enough of it here as it is. It's a rather stupid and dangerous game that he plays. The one that I called? Hector? He's a cop. Half of those men are undercover cops. They want that shithead bad, but he hasn't tripped over his tongue yet. I just want him gone – him and all of his kind."

She smirked a little, "I'm glad that you got your eyeballs back into your head. I've got a permit to carry the gun, if it makes you feel better." She washed out a carafe and poured some water into a coffee machine, "Hand me one of those bags?"

Cale was still holding them with one arm and was a little surprised that he'd forgotten all about it. "What uh, ... He looked from one of the bags to her as he handed it over.

Maya blinked and then laughed a little, "You think that – "

She laughed then and he liked the sound as she resurrected the accent instantly, "Go ahead, hombre," she said in a sultry tone, "Sniff it."

Cale lowered his nose and felt a little silly a moment later. Maya took the package and cut into the top with a pair of scissors as though what was inside was worth more than gold. "That little old lady back there buys GOOD coffee beans in small amounts from back home and then she does what her family has done forever. She roasts small batches of beans in her backyard by hand and grinds a little for me – by hand. You like coffee?"

Cale opened his jacket and pointed to the logo on his shirt, "Uh-huh. See?"

Maya laughed a little as she looked at the shirt again, "So that means that Canadians like to drink a lot of coffee, I guess."

"Yeah, though the shirt is an ad for a kind of beer there. Now that I think about it, we probably like to drink a lot of beer too."

"Show me somebody from someplace where they DON'T do that," she smirked.

She excused herself and had a conversation in Spanish with a woman who'd come bustling in to get something and then she led Cale to a little table by the wall and set down two cups. "I'll tell you a few things to put your tourista mind at ease," she said, "I work here – a lot. I have to because I run this place."

As they drank the best coffee that Cale had ever had in his life, they just chatted about bikes and riding, but there were moments where he got the briefest glimpses of a rather sad life, to his way of looking at it. He wasn't really aware of it, but Maya got similar glimpses of his as he spoke, though he hadn't really intended to tell anyone much of himself. The pieces just came out.

"That old bike is a little like a rolling shrine to me," she said, "and I care for it better than I care for myself. It's all that I have left of my husband."

She smiled a little, "I've had it for a lot longer than he ever did, but I met him through it and he took me places and - ," she laughed, "Now that I think about it, the damn thing was there when he took my virginity, so it's a part of me, I guess."

"Around here," she said a little later, "they call me 'La Viuda' – the widow. I wasn't born here, though I'm naturalised. I'm a Tz'utujil. It's an old name for my people from Guatamala, one of the Mayan groups, they say. It makes me think that I'm more of a museum exhibit than a person. I came here as a kid with my family, but I think of myself more as a ghost, since I'm about the only one left.

"But your accent ..." Cale said.

Maya shrugged, "It's kind of expected of me. People can meet a person from Mexico who looks very American, so they almost expect to be able to converse in English right away. But I don't fit a lot of those expectations. If I stand behind the front desk with my blazer on speaking this way, it buys me nothing but high expectations – especially from the women for some reason that I've never figured out. But with the same blazer on and talking like I just crawled over the fence, then it's easier to charm most of the serious customers – even the ones who talk down to me, and again. I don't know why that is."

She looked over at him and her face turned hard, "An if I gotta deal with the hard cases, it don' do me no good to sound like I'm the one with the bizness courses, ju know?" The accent disappeared again as she continued, "Better I'm in their face even before I say hello.

My husband was a gringo, but he could speak Spanish really well. He ran with a bad crowd and he died for it." She looked away for a moment before she turned back to him, "I was pregnant then and I raised my son alone. I was a dutiful daughter and niece. I had a little baby boy and I went to college for business administration. Now they're mostly gone and I'm still here.

There aren't a lot of opportunities around here for somebody like me."

She had another of her silent moments and she finally just said, "But it was all for nothing. I had to work at my uncle's business here and his health was failing him then. With me trying to be everywhere at once, my son Pedro was an easy mark for the gangs and he ran with them like his cousins. I think the only times that I saw much of him from when he was sixteen on was when I'd go to get him out of the police station. When he was eighteen, he came to me scared to death because he owed so much to the ones who used him. That's really the business that they're in. They had my man and then they took my son.

If those cops weren't there, I wouldn't have kept my gun down. I'd have had it in that asshole's face and to me, it's about a coin's toss either way whether I'd have pulled on him. One thought about my Pedro and I probably would have blown him away. Nobody would have seen a thing, but they'd probably help me to make a hole in the dirt to hide what was left. Slime like him are all the same and they feed on young people.

I scraped together every penny and I even took out a loan myself. I sat Pedro down and I told him that this was the only chance that I could give to him, so he should use the money to get himself as far out as he could."

Cale saw the tear then, but it was gone in an instant when she wiped her eye as she looked down. "He took the money and bought drugs with it. They found him eventually and then I had another man in my life to bury. I was eighteen when I had him. I wasn't even thirty-eight when I buried the pieces of my son that they'd left me. If I had to do it all over again, I'd have saved his life by not giving him one."

She stood up then and walked to the bar through a hallway and came back with a bottle and a couple of glasses. As she set them down, she poured them each more coffee. Cale watched her with a little curiosity.

As she sat down again, she smiled as she leaned forward to place her hand on his arm, "I'm going to tell you something that you probably already know. You and me, we're broken. I saw it in you from a mile off while I was looking at your bike. I'm broken too, Cale.

I'm trapped here, running a motel that does more business on Thursday, Friday and Saturday afternoons as a place where people come when they want to fuck with somebody who doesn't belong to them. I've got four big-assed washers and dryers, and near the end of the week, man, they never stop because I don't believe in offering people like you who come in off the road anything less than a bed clean enough for me to want to sleep in myself. But I need the business of the afternoon crowd all the same.

Now, I'll tell you what I want from you, Cale," she said as she sipped her whiskey, "You've only told me a little, but now I want to hear what the fuck you're running from. It takes one to know one, and brother, you're just as much of a ghost as I am."

It took a while, but she got it out of him. "You know," she said, "the way that you talk about it, I can see that where you're from, people are a little different. Around here or back where I come from, something like that could turn into a bloody mess. People die over shit like that sometimes. It has nothing to do with who your girl was cheating with. I see that it bothers you, though, and I think that it would be worse back home."

He told her far more than he'd have ever imagined that he'd tell anyone, but as she said, he must need to say it since something like that helps the soul in a way. "I can't think of why anybody would want to cheat on somebody like you, but that doesn't change the fact that it happened. I just can't see why, but that's me, I guess," she said.

Cale pulled his notebook out of his pocket and explained what the exercise had been about. Maya looked and sat back, "So, what you think that you see is that you love somebody, and at some point they cheat on you. Then you forgive them, but they do it again. So based on the pattern here, you're sure that no matter what she says, if you get back together with her, it'll happen again?"

He nodded, "Yeah, everybody else has. I just don't want to go through it again. I uh ..." He looked down for a moment, "I really put a lot of myself into it this time. I know that my conclusion might not be an absolutely solid thing, but I don't want to know anymore."

"You show me somebody who's really in love and doesn't put a lot into it as far as they're concerned," she said, "We all do that. I don't know about your life, but I know mine very well. I don't need to make a list. The only one who didn't cheat on me is dead. Everybody else – every single one, if they did it once, they do it again. So she's sorry?"

Cale nodded and walked out to get his phone. After Maya had read through all of the messages, she looked at him. "So, are you done with this one?"

He thought about it and nodded, "I don't want anyone now."

"Oh no," Maya smiled a little sadly, "It's not that easy. Very few of us can actually do that. It's what we are, Cale. Somewhere inside all of us, humans have more unending hope than a dog who sits and watches her master eat, always hoping and never giving up on the desire to be given just a little scrap, because to her, it's more than food. It's a little love too. Have you told her that you don't want to do this anymore?"

"No," he said, a little surprised to himself that he hadn't," I was a little blitzed then. I don't usually drink very much at all and I didn't trust myself, I guess. I didn't think this morning. I should have done that then."

"Well, you're not blitzed now - yet," Maya said, "So what are you going to do? She deserves an answer."

In a few seconds, Maya composed a reply and held the phone out to him, "I'm not trying to make a painful thing to think about even harder," she said, "but I think that you're at some sort of point here and she deserves to know. You either turn back or go on over the next hill."

He took the phone and read what she'd typed, "Pls leave me alone. Sorry 4 everything. Pls stop texting. Goodbye."

"Before you do anything one way or the other," Maya said quietly, "That's another person at the other end. Unless you tell her that you're coming back and all is forgiven, she'll be hurt, just like you are. I'm not telling you what to do; I just want you to know that it's unavoidable. Press the 'send' button and you'll have to block her number unless you want more drama, and then you'll have your peace, as painful and lonely as it will be. But you have to know that you'll hurt her and it looks like she's doing a pretty good job of hurting herself for what she's done. I'm not saying that she'll never do it again – I'm not saying that she will either. She's hurting now. People forget in time.

I've never messed around on anybody," Maya said, "but speaking as a woman, unless she's the kind who uses and doesn't give a shit, then I'm sure that she's probably cried a quart or two of tears for every message that she's sent."

"I don't want to hurt Emma," he said sadly, "but I want to stop hurting too, and there's only one way for that as well. I really ought to call her and tell her, but I'd likely just agree to come back. – and I can't. I know that I'd want to trust her, but..."

"I know," she said, almost in a whisper, "It's been almost five years since I even tried to be with somebody. You're not the only one who's been fucked around on. I was in the middle of everything with Pedro and trying to find him when I found out what everybody knew but me."

She got up to go to the bathroom, "I've cried tears of pain, and helpless rage, and hopeless sorrow many, many times, Cale. That was the first time that I cried all three kinds at once. The next time was after I'd forgiven my boyfriend and he did it again. Now I'm just like a ghost. I see everything around me, but I know that it's not for me."

When she came back, Cale was there, the phone was open on the table and the display had gone dark. Maya picked it up and through the dim display, she saw the words, "Call ended".

"I called," he said sadly, "She must be at work, so I left a message and then I blocked the number."

They talked for a long while after that, with Maya throwing their simple dinner together as though it was all leftovers though it wasn't, and yet, Cale was amazed at how good it tasted, and she'd done it while managing the whole place; from dealing with the everyday obstacles of running an establishment like this to coaching one of the waitresses on the best way to handle an obnoxious customer. At one point, Cale said that he wanted to pay for another night, but Maya shook her head and picked up the new bottle that they'd begun sometime not long after they'd finished eating.

"No, mi amigo," she smiled a little, "This is for us both." She took his hand and led him to the doorway before she pressed him up against the frame gently and put her arm around his neck, still holding onto the bottle by the neck in the other hand.

Cale wasn't even surprised when she said, "If you hadn't made your call, there's no way that we'd be standing here like this. I don't fool with another woman's man. But I think that you're back to being free now – and all that it means is that you're as cold and lonely as I am; every bit as empty, too. Welcome back to nothing."

He put his arms around Maya and they leaned on each other for a little while in silence. "Again," he sighed and he felt her smile against his cheek as she whispered, "Again."

Maya said it because she knew how it felt and Cale knew that she was in the same place.

"The way that I see it," Maya whispered to him after she'd stolen a soft kiss for a moment, "We are two broken people and there is no one for either of us. All that there is, my friend, are a very few more chances – less every day as time goes by. You and me, we try when we can, but I'm not much different than you. I just haven't made a notebook out of my failures as you did, that's all.

The world is a busy place, full of important people doing important things. I hope they all don't mind it too much if a pair of forgotten ghosts try to give each other a little comfort.

I'm really hoping that you'd like to make love with me tonight, my friend. It hasn't happened for me in such a long while, but I think that I remember what to do."

--------------------------

In the darkness of her room, they undressed each other slowly. This was about need, but not particularly about lust. They didn't speak for a long time, not wanting to break the silence as they stood there holding on to each other.

Maya eventually asked him to sit and she stood before him for a moment. "I think that you can see well in the dark," she said softly as she began to undo her long hair, "so I wish for you to know that I am not a young girl."

Cale nodded, "I don't need a young girl for anything," he said, "I need to feel you. I'm not alone when you touch me and right now, I see a woman, ... "

He stopped, "I want to say something here that I feel, but I'm afraid that you'll misinterpret –"

"Say it," Maya nodded, "You don't need to hold something back. Not here. Not with me, Cale."

He spoke again with a sigh leading his words. "I've never seen somebody with the kind of beauty that you have. I don't even feel like we're here. I feel like we're someplace else."