Crossings Ch. 06

"Outstanding! Now the cooler," I said, and we carried the remaining half of the wahoo onto the dock. Callie brought out the leftovers from the fridge, then we walked up toward the house together. The owner was leaning against the gate, an older woman, small and broad with skin the color of milk chocolate and a face like burnished leather, a woman who looked as if she were accustomed to being in charge. I perceived some sense of magic around her but didn't have my extrasense or I might've known more. She was also the same person I bought Callie's feathers and torc from. She glanced briefly at me, her small smile more like a grimace, then smiled much more warmly at Callie.

"Your man has good taste ... those feathers look very beautiful in your hair," she said, "but then you are already very beautiful."

"Don't flatter him," Callie said, blushing. "He'll be even more insufferable."

"I love your house," I said to her. "I've never had a night like I did here, I'll remember it with great pleasure as long as I live. Your sailboat is wonderful, too ... I hope to remember details someday." I glanced at Callie, who was smirking.

The woman's eyes were on Callie. She seemed a little annoyed that I'd spoken. "I'm glad you were able to use the bath and garden for their intended purpose; I seldom have a visitor of your capability and I am very happy you could restore a little balance to this misguided world."

"It was good for both of us, I think," Callie said.

"I'm certain it was," the other woman said, her eyes dropping to Callie's bikini under that thin white blouse tied at her waist. While Callie's figure was no longer as extravagant as it'd been an hour ago, she was still spectacular and this woman seemed to appreciate it very much indeed. She was barely acknowledging me. "Perhaps you will visit again?" Her voice was thin, as if her mouth had gone dry.

"I'd like that very much," Callie said.

"We have extra fish in the cooler," I said, "it's wahoo, ono, caught last night and delicious, 4 or 5 kg."

The woman made another of her annoyed grimaces but nodded to Callie. "I would be very happy if you could bless it," she said.

"For you, and your ... friends ... anything, it's the least we can do," Callie said, gulped audibly, opened the cooler, reflected a few moments, and began.

Blessed be the Earth and Sea for leading this, their child, to us
My companions for bringing it to our table
To nourish mind, body, and spirit
Blessed be this child of the Sea who gave its life for our nourishment
To all who consume it, their friends, families, and loved ones
May it bring health and happiness
Blessed Be

"Beautiful," the woman said.

Callie closed the lid. Mariano and I picked it up and followed the women inside.

"We need to be on the road," Callie said, "right after Bob and Mariano shower. Perhaps we can talk while they do."

The woman nodded. Twenty minutes later, cleaned up and all of us dressed for the road, Callie wearing the necklace I'd bought for her and absolutely radiant, the woman led us out her front door. She offered her hand to Mariano and me much as Grace had, we brushed our lips against her rings, but she kissed Callie on the lips.

"Bless you, child, bless the work you do and all the love and wisdom you bring to this world," she said.

"Thank you so much, honored mother," Callie said.

Mariano and I also gave thanks, but I'm not even sure she heard. We got in the car and backed out the driveway, Mariano at the wheel.

"I never learned her name," I said. "That was a little weird."

"She didn't want to hear you speak it, so we didn't tell you," Callie said. "She lives a very different lifestyle, as I'm sure you noticed."

"Uh huh. I got the sense that she would rather not have interacted with either of us men at all."

"Oh, she interacts with men all the time, but on her terms, which are something like those you and I had during our night here. There wasn't time to teach you her rules, and if I know you, you might not have followed them anyway." She took my chin in her hands and looked deep into my eyes. "Bob, honey, while I had a truly wonderful time with you and Mariano here, I'm kind of glad this part of our journey is over and we can start getting back to the kind of life we had together before, at least for this week. But you should know that more change is coming."

I nodded.

"This trip had been like a dreaming sleep, a rest from immediacies."
-John Steinbeck

We were on the road by 10:30, bypassed Guaymas, stopped for lunch in Esperanza, crossed into Sinaloa and continued on to Culiacán, where we arrived in time for dinner. Callie had reservations at a small luxury hotel with another very nice suite, a bistro downstairs but there were many restaurants in walking distance and we wanted something other than a place full of expats and well-heeled tourists.

Back at the hotel, Callie took Mariano swimming in the pool while I looked over my grimoire again ... I'd been doing that pretty much the whole time we'd been in the car. I was still able to learn about one spell per hour, but it helped my focus to do something else in between. Callie and Mariano returned to our suite, showered, and then it was bedtime. I could hear Mariano talking on the phone with Jess, but I don't remember a damned thing that happened from two minutes after Callie and I first held each other in bed until I woke, the sides of my lower back under my ribcage aching horribly. An ache that faded until by mid-morning I felt entirely whole.

Sing me to sleep tonight
No memory tonight

The next day was much the same, we finally turned inland after more than 4 days on or near the Gulf, crossed another time zone, stayed overnight in someone's very nice house in Guadalajara, several good local beers I'd never heard of before in the fridge, but when I woke in the morning it felt like my jaw had been dislocated. That, too, faded quickly. This next day, Wednesday, on our way past Mexico City and Tulancingo, was our last long drive ... Mariano's people had a house there, not far from the sanctuary he'd once protected and hoped to protect again. I felt a little more pent-up than I'd grown used to with all the loving women of Newberry, as if I hadn't come since Guaymas. Three days of driving, 26 new spells plus a handful more that plumb evaded me, it felt like I'd done three days of hard labor. Mariano was exuberant to be back and disappeared with his friends.

The smallish house was a very different kind of accommodation than we'd been spoiled by on our trip ... sparsely furnished rooms, thin drafty walls, seven people sharing space, but Callie and I had a full-sized bed in our own freshly cleaned room. We arrived before 4:00 PM, which was two hours ahead of Pacific Time. Pat had told me Joanna might call today, so I made myself available. There weren't any official parks near to take a call in the relative privacy of the outdoors, but Callie walked outside with me anyway. Few homes in the neighborhood had walls around their yards, just metal bars over windows and doors, grass and concrete mostly carefully tended, sometimes with a couch or chair in a shaded place, but it was hot and getting hotter. Half a block away was a space that could've been a large vacant lot between two fractured calles but there was grass and a few boys kicking a soccer ball, old sneakers hanging from tied laces on a streetlight, a dog lying lazily in front of a house two doors away while its owner strung up clothes on a line to dry. Callie and I sat cross-legged on a blanket in the shade of a spreading tree, some kind of ficus, an unfamiliar world unfolding around us as we breathed and saw and heard and smelled. She was wearing expensive fitted tan slacks that flattered her slim waist and lovely hips and long shapely legs, her feathers in her hair. One of the grimoire spells dumbfounding me revealed itself, something to do with heat and light and optical illusion and possibly Art: a fata morgana, a name that woke a part of me that hadn't stirred for days, and also might explain why distance had sometimes seemed so difficult to judge from Nahual. I squeezed Callie's hand, then one of the boys brought her a wildflower, which made her smile. Then, while a pair of girls giggled at us from the other side of the lot, trying to hush each other, every boy there brought her another.

"That woman at the Guaymas house was right ... you are very beautiful," I told her, and just as she had then, she blushed.

Mariano found us, carrying a 12-pack of cold cola, even the condensation on the outside of the cans refreshing as I held it to my forehead. Mariano smiled at the boys and the girls, most of them seeming about 11 years old. One of the boys tentatively walked over, obviously the boldest of them but still shy, the others following further back. His eyes moved from the cola to my face, questioning.

"Sí," I said, handing him an unopened can, and he smiled.

"Gracias, señor," he said with a little dip of his head, and retreated to his friends, all of them chattering to each other. A second boy approached and I gave him a can, waving another to the girls, causing an explosion of giggles and a hasty retreat. Callie placed two on the grass in front of her, motioning the girls over. The boys came one by one, each thanking us gravely, and when they'd retreated the girls scampered to Callie for cans of their own, thanking her almost inaudibly, then scampered away out of sight, perhaps to their homes. Callie and I each opened a can and I drank mine and part of hers, the rest going to neighborhood kids. I tossed the last of our cans from behind my back and the boy I threw it to caught it perfectly. Two women, the right age to be mothers of one or more of these kids, scowled at us from sidewalks before disappearing as quickly as they'd appeared.

"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
-Carl Sagan

It got late for dinner and no one called. Mariano drove us to a place he knew well, a place like Callie or I had seldom experienced but often hoped to: great inexpensive food, animated informed company, a sense of belonging, even good fresh pulque. Mariano disappeared for a few minutes after his first taste. Many of Mariano's friends spoke English, some had attended the local technical college. We talked beer and soccer and baseball and liquor, good company and philosophy, even a little theology, though that was obviously a sensitive subject. I pronounced myself willing to listen and several people had something to say. Mariano and his friends seemed to mostly follow the way of the Madre Vieja, the Old Mother, whose name(s) they don't speak. A few voices might've been raised, but, really, what better pursuit in a social place could there be than open-mindedly seeking someone else's passionate informed thoughts on a complex question?

Walking back to the house with Callie, Mariano still with his friends, me somehow fuddled while crossing an avenida, perhaps from all the conversation and pulque and from being with my lovely Callie, her on the sidewalk behind, a semi truck with its headlights off came coasting down the street and slammed into me at about 65 kph, maybe a little more ... law enforcement or anyone else will never know, distracted or not it truly wasn't that driver's fault. He continued on without slowing, not even noticing the collision -- I barely scratched his shiny heavy steel grill guard. It should've killed me. Callie must've carried or levitated me back, she wasn't always that strong but lately she was anything she wanted to be. I woke in darkness in a too-small bed, broken but no longer on the verge of system collapse and oblivious death, Callie sobbing over me.

I woke again just before dawn, feeling almost well. Callie was lying nude next to me, the woman she'd been when we met: slender, athletic, graceful, strong, lovely shallow conical pointed breasts, sexy slim hips, silky soft long toned legs and still-stupefying ass. One of her arms across me, draped over me, no more long nails, her warm wonderful body pressed close. There were gaps in my memories of last night the way there always seemed to be lately, but right now, snug and dreamy as she held me, was not the time.

I woke again later with Callie kissing me, stroking my forehead. The same beautiful loving Callie who'd taken me down when she first inveigled me to wrestle, the Callie I'd fallen for, literally and otherwise so irretrievably, the Callie I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

"You up for breakfast?" she asked.

"Goddess yes," I said, my body realizing just then how famished it was.

She held out her hand and I rose to take it, something in me surprised that I could, that it didn't hurt to bend at the waist, to get to my feet, to hold her lovely hand in mine, Callie's expression communicating her profound relief at a very heavy weight indeed lifted, or at least lifting. The angle of sunlight and shadow on the walls told me we'd slept in longer than usual.

We were at the table well after everyone else had finished, but Mariano was there.

"You'll want to eat quickly," he said, his eyes somewhat unfocused, his voice distant. He'd made us more huevos rancheros, still sizzling in their skillet, delicious just as they'd been on the sailboat even with a little chorizo instead of that wonderful wahoo. I finished a very large portion in less than 10 minutes, wanting to stay with Callie but she shooed me out the door with a blanket and my phone, hardly able to look at me, to find the ficus in that makeshift soccer field and sit in its shade again, waiting, missing how wonderful it'd felt to be sitting here with Callie yesterday. The world turned around me, the air heating as the sun climbed the sky, a soft breeze bringing more of that heat into the shade of my tree. I didn't have my extrasense, not really, but I was feeling more tuned into this world than I'd ever felt without it before, as if ... as if ... maybe as if everything I thought I understood was about to change.

A phone rang, the same one Morgan's father had given me. It'd never been used before and with my thoughts aswirl at first I wasn't sure what it signified. I found the little green glowing chiclet "Send" key, pressed it, and held the phone to my ear.

"Bob?" a voice said, a voice I hadn't heard for months, a voice that penetrated straight to my heart.

"Joanna," I said. "It's so good to hear your voice."

"Where are you? What happened?"

I took a deep breath. "It's a long story, but the short version is from the time I left our house until a week ago when I called you, I was having a kind of amnesia, I had no idea who I was or how to get back to who I'd been."

"It was that woman, wasn't it?"

"It wasn't Mari. I got her away from us, to the airport, kept our family safe and sound as far as I knew. Then I took a bus home and almost made it the whole way before this other thing happened."

"What other thing?" Joanna asked, her voice querulous.

"Someone else pretty much wiped my brain. You remember how Mari could make you do anything she wanted just by looking at you, the way she made you leave the house, the way I told you she did to me in Minneapolis? Well, she's not the only one. This was a different person I'd never seen before and haven't seen since. I spent about two weeks on the street, got beat up a few times, all my stuff stolen, no way to remember until recently, no way to get back to you."

"Another woman?"

"There were two, a man and a woman."

"Where are you now?"

"Mexico, near Mexico City."

I heard her take a deep breath, like she was about to start yelling. I also thought I heard someone whispering to her, and then when her voice came again it was still calm, if a little shaky.

"Bob, I'm having a hard time with this ... what the hell are you doing in Mexico?"

"One of the people I met while I wasn't myself ... I saved his life and helped save it a second time, and ... well, he's from here and I wanted to help him put his life back together. Then I came out of my amnesia and called our neighbor Pat. She told me to wait until you called back, otherwise I'd be home now."

"So he's with you?"

"Not within earshot, but yes, he's not far. We're both safe now." I could hear someone whispering to Joanna again. I could probably have made some magical adjustment so I could hear everything going on there better, but really, I felt like she deserved space.

"Joanna, Pat told me something happened two months ago but wouldn't tell me what it was, something that made you and Rowan change all your phone numbers and leave the neighborhood. What happened?" More whispering. I could almost hear Joanna's head nodding.

"Bob, I'm not going to get into that right now. Honestly, while in some ways I want us to be together, I'm also struggling with a lot more, and one of the things I'm struggling with is money. I need you to help support our family, something you haven't done for months, and the bills are piling up. It's making me crazy."

"Joanna, honey, I actually have almost sixty thousand dollars that I would love nothing more than send to you."

"How the fuck did you get $60,000 when you didn't even have the sense to call me and ..." Yeah, she was angry now, but I could also tell that someone else had put a hand over her phone. More whispering, quite a lot more, in fact.

"Joanna?" I said.

"Wait," she said, then there was more whispering, back and forth this time. I really wanted to know what they were saying, but I wasn't going to do that.

"Is the money in an account?" she asked finally.

"No, but I can open one ... I wanted to talk with you first."

"If you can open an account there, do it. Immediately. It needs to be an escrow account. Call back at this number when you've done that. How long do you think it'll take?"

"I'll ask my friend. His name is Mariano. He might not know, but we can figure it out. I'll do that right away -- the banks should be open a few more hours." There was silence for a few seconds.

"Bob, is anyone else there with you?" I heard whispers to the effect that whoever was with Joanna didn't want her asking that question. Yet.

"Not within earshot, but yes, there is."

"A woman? Mari?" I sighed. This needed to happen sooner or later. Might as well be now.

"It's not Mari, I haven't seen her since the last day I was with you, the day I almost made it all the way home, but yes, the other person I'm with is a woman."

"Fuck, I knew it. Fuck you Bob, a vacation with another woman in Mexico when you should've been here with your family, and ... you'd better not have more than $60,000 that you're keeping for yourself!" The line went dead.

I needed a minute or ten to let it settle, eyes closed, until I could no longer hear the blood rushing through my ears, smell the death stench of loss, see the motes of sorrow floating inside my eyes, taste the bitter bile of disappointment as a life I knew and cherished was angrily severed. "Immediately," Joanna had said, but this world spinning around me, this world that'd just turned for the worse in a way I'd feared but not expected ...

Now I stand here
Nothing to hide like the new born
Hungry and wild
But the ground I want to explore
Doesn't feel like before

Callie was alone at the dining room table, crying softly. I sat next to her. She scooched away, just slightly, so we weren't touching.

"That was hard," I said, sighing.

"I bet," she said from behind the curtain of her lovely long straight light-brown hair.

"I need to deposit my share of Sati's money into an escrow account," I said. Callie looked up at me.

"Escrow could mean your wife wants a divorce," she said, but without emotion. "It's the first thing that happened when ... my parents ..." I wanted so much to put my arm around her so I did, and in a few moments her tension passed and she leaned her head onto my shoulder.