“She said her secret was knowing to put both sweetness and saltiness in each dish. She was more than a cook; she had magic. She told me the sun was a sweet orange in the sky.”
Unlike Claire with her parochial life, Minna dreamed of a specific place because she was already at home in the larger world. Claire imagined that the bookish sophistication of Cambridge and the hedonistic pleasures of her sister’s Paris had taken Minna further and further from the simplicities of that pink house. The exotic, the fantastic, possibly even the transcendent, held no surprises for her. Claire, on the other hand, had buried herself on the ranch until anything outside its borders frightened her. Now she felt alienated inside her own body.
When finally they waded back to shore, a Mexican family quickly turned around to walk in the other direction, the parents shoving their children along in front of them. The children turned back, jeered. A scene from the novel came to Claire: children taunting Antoinette, singing, Go away, white cockroach, go away, go away. Minna, oblivious to the snub, tied a scarf around her head, then put on her shirt. She handed Claire the straw hat. But Claire dropped it onto the sand. No more hiding.
* * *
When they returned to the restaurant, Claire made her way to the bathroom to patch together some semblance of a presentable face. After being in the company of Don and Minna, after being filled with new places, scents, food, after her revelation on the beach, she was under the illusion of returned health, and the death mask that stared back from the mirror shocked her. As if she could outrun her fate. Not a glimmer of health to be found no matter how she searched: shrunken head, skin bluish white like a ghoul’s. She wanted her hat back. What was this conceit of theirs that she belonged among them, the living, the loved?
Claire dried her hands, determined to go find the hat, or if it was gone, buy another. She took a left that should have been a right, found herself down a dimly lit hallway stacked with cases of cerveza, bags of frijoles and arroz. At the end of the hallway, she saw the back of their pretty, plump waitress on her knees, the heavy, oiled hair like a snake down her back. Don leaned against the wall, his pants down.
For a moment what she saw did not register. She stood stranded, confused as if in a dream, but Don’s eyes made her back away, made her trip over a box in her panic. The waitress turned. Claire fled, ran, as their laughter chased her. It wasn’t they who were mortified but Claire.
When she returned to the table, Minna’s eyes widened. “Are you okay?”
Claire nodded, speechless. Sat down and drank her water, then Mrs. Girbaldi’s.
The waitress came to deliver the bill and lavished a Cheshire-cat smile while presenting a wedge of flan on the house as Don came and sat down. Did Claire detect sadness in his eyes, or resignation?
“How kind,” he said, reaching up to straighten the waitress’s crooked blouse.
“Where have you been, Donald?” Mrs. Girbaldi said. “We’ll be late for our appointment.”
“Can I have your autograph, Señor Richards?” He signed a menu when she returned with change, leaving a piece of paper among the bills on which her name and number were written. When she turned away, Minna snatched it up and wadded it into her palm.
“What if I wanted that? Jealous?” Don asked.
Claire had rarely seen him so pleased. No sadness, certainly no mortification.
“Not at all. It’s a respect thing. Between women,” Minna said.
On the way out, the waitress stood at the entrance and again smiled. “Buenas tardes, Señor Richards. Please come visit again. I’m here every Tuesday through Friday.”
Even Claire fumed that the waitress treated them as beneath acknowledgment. White cockroach. Minna went up to her, stood close as she shoved the paper down the girl’s blouse, holding her in place by stepping down on her foot. Before releasing her, Minna ground down her heel, and the girl screamed.
The owner came running.
“I’ll sue you,” the girl said. “It’ll be in the papers.”
Confused over what had happened, the owner, a bent-over old man, took the girl to a chair, then hobbled into the bar for ice.
“I don’t think so,” Claire said. She felt a thrill of adrenaline go through her.
“Why not?” the girl said.
“Is the owner your father? Or an uncle? Does he know what you do in the back hallway?”
“Come close, ti sister. You and me need to seriously talk.” Minna leaned closer to the girl and spoke rapidly in whispered tones until the girl jerked her arm loose and escaped, limping away.
“I didn’t know you had it in you,” Minna said, putting her arm around Claire.
“You protect your own.” Claire couldn’t have imagined getting involved in something so tawdry, yet she felt thrilled by her own actions.
In the lobby, Mrs. Girbaldi looked shook up.
Don was smoking a cigarette. “So you speak Spanish?”
“Just socially,” Minna said. “The islands are full of pidgin French and Spanish.”
“Yeah, I saw. My lady is full of mysteries, isn’t she?”
“That little preview in the hallway that Claire interrupted could have made you famous. Her boyfriend over there behind the bar playing cameraman.”
Don stared hard at the young man cleaning glasses. “You’re not even jealous.”
“I’m only jealous of something I want and can’t have.”
* * *
They drove farther down the coast, stopping at whim at what captured their fancy — clay statues of dogs and tin mirrors and paper flowers — anything certifiably useless and unneeded, despite Mrs. Girbaldi’s protests about being late.
“This is Mexico. Time is elastic,” Don said.
Finally they arrived at the clinic: a tiny, pristine building that sat on a white, prim beach.
The director of the clinic came out in a starched lab coat. He was overly tanned, his thinning hair bound in a small ponytail. He would have looked more in place in a down-at-the-heels nightclub. “Bienvenidos!” he said, as if they had arrived at a resort for a holiday. A young girl in a short sundress served them small glasses of pink juice from a tray. They sat on white sofas, the sliding doors open to the beach, and an overweight, older nurse came out and took Claire away to have blood work done.
In the doctor’s office, Claire felt dizzy as she took off her clothes to put on a cotton smock. The nurse, too, was sweating in the heat. When she noticed Claire’s nerves, she smiled and patted her hand. With the most delicate touch, she pulled a syringeful of blood. Minutes later, the doctor came in reading her records, shaking his head. His teeth were bleached an unnatural bluish white. He held her hands out, studying her nails, pulled her eyelids down and looked at the tissue.
“You are not healthy.”
“An understatement,” Claire said, then leaned over and retched.
After an orderly cleaned up the mess, Mrs. Girbaldi and Minna were brought in. The doctor frowned at them. “You shouldn’t have traveled with her. Brought her here like this. We can’t help her in this condition.”
“Please,” Mrs. Girbaldi said. “We can pay handsomely.”
“Your cell count is dangerously low,” he said to Claire. “You need a hospital. There are drugs that will build the blood back up, but first you require a transfusion.”
A black wave was coming over Claire, darkness like water rising quickly around her.
“Help her,” Mrs. Girbaldi pleaded.
Don came through the door. “What’s happening?”
The doctor took her pulse. “What’s your blood type? Is anyone a relative?”