Love Her Madly Page 13

She bit her lip and nodded vigorously. I looked up and saw Marco on the beach, approaching us with a casual swagger.

  “Here comes your man,” I scoffed.

  We watched him in silence.

  “Do you still not want to go today?” she asked after a moment. Her voice sounded indifferent and flat, which was exactly how I felt.

  I looked at Marco. He didn’t inspire any worry for me anymore. Nor did the thought of a haunted island full of poisonous snakes and hissing tarantulas. It was like my cautious self had packed up and left. I no longer cared about what might happen to me in the next day, or the next year. I could no longer see the point.

  “No, let’s do it. What the hell,” I grunted.

  Marco waved lazily at us. “Good morning,” he said. He stopped in the sand at the bottom of the steps leading up to us, next to a sign that said the veranda was for guests only.

  Cyn got up and met him on the sand. They took a short walk toward the trees, and he paused to pull something out of his pocket to show Cyn. She laughed with what sounded like real delight and touched his shoulder. She pulled a few bills out of her jean shorts and I watched him put on a good show of trying to refuse the cash before finally accepting it. They exchanged a few more words, and he pointed toward the southern edge of the beach. Cyn nodded. Marco extended a hand to me and shouted “¡Hasta luego!” I waved and forced a smile.

  Cyn came back to the table carrying a red plastic bag. “Take a peek,” she said. I glimpsed half a dozen mushrooms with brown-and-yellow-speckled caps.

  “Nice,” I said neutrally.

  Her mood was considerably lifted. “I really think you’re wrong about Raj. I think you totally underestimate yourself and your charms. You always do.”

  I didn’t respond to that. It sounded like utter bullshit. “So why didn’t you sleep with him?”

  She deflated visibly and slunk back against her chair.

  “I wanted to. There was never any plan not to. But then . . . God, this is fucking scary to say.”

  “What?” I demanded, growing annoyed. “How scary can it be? It’s just me.”

  Cyn grasped her empty coffee cup, forgetting she’d finished it, or maybe just stalling. Finally, she looked up. “I had a few clients who I slept with. For money. I was always safe, but I couldn’t risk the chance of maybe passing something to you both. So I didn’t sleep with Raj, and I didn’t tell him why.”

  Her eyes darted all over my face, fearfully awaiting my reaction. I closed my eyes and took a breath. She kept talking, hurriedly.

  “I couldn’t tell you about it, either. It was too low. I was in denial about it myself. Dancing didn’t pay half of what I told you, and I was scared out of my mind that, despite everything I tried, I’d still have to leave school. So, I did it once, and it wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t so bad. Then I picked up a few more clients; men who I chose carefully. But then, that night when the cops brought me to Raj’s, it wasn’t because some random person was following me. It was one of my private clients. He was acting sketchy when I showed up for our appointment. He was a doctor, so god knows what he was on. He was flying around the hotel room, all manic, talking some shit about how he was going to ‘take me away from it all’ which, the way he said it, scared the shit out of me. I got the hell out of the room, saying I was going to get some ice, but he came out and saw me getting into my car and freaked the fuck out and started screaming threats. I really thought he might try to kill me. I was so terrified, I went to the cops with the E Two parking lot story. I couldn’t even report the doctor without incriminating myself.”

  I felt ill. I opened my eyes and focused on the horizon, as if I were seasick.

  “So you just slept with random men?”

  “Not random. Five men. Including the one who went crazy.”

  “Jesus.”

  “When it went right, it was such easy money. A couple hours at most. They were all older guys, most with families. For some of them, it was either get their kicks with me or fuck the babysitter and lose everything.”

  I tried to imagine what it must have been like for Cyn, selling herself to strangers. The horror of it was so abstract, so beyond my experience, that all I could do was shudder.

  “God, Glo, won’t you even look at me?” she asked, her voice tearful.

  I quickly looked at her, managing a small smile, and she burst into tears. I pulled my chair next to hers and held her while she sobbed. She hardly made any noise, but her shoulders were heaving. A young couple wandered out to the cooler. They saw us, did a double take, and quickly walked past us down onto the beach.

  “It’s okay,” I heard myself repeating, over and over. “It’s okay.”

  She straightened up and wiped her face. “Do you really think so? Because I’m not sure I do.”

  I wanted to feel pity for Cyn, but pity wasn’t what I felt, and it also wasn’t what she needed.

  “You know what, Cyn?” I murmured. “Who cares?”

  She looked at me with horror. “I do. I care.”

  “No. I mean, I know you care. And I care. But you did what you had to do. It can be over. You can put it behind you.”

  She studied the ocean, tears still rolling down her face. Neither of us spoke.

  She broke the silence with a harsh, joyless laugh. “I really thought that I could keep that part of me separate, that with my history, I somehow had the personality for it. I didn’t foresee what it would cost me. I think my real libido, the Cyn who once liked sex, is gone forever. I’ve been so stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid. You’re a brave person who went a little too far. It was a mistake. We all make mistakes,” I intoned. “If things do fall apart with me and Raj, it won’t be because of what you did or didn’t do.”

  “That’s big of you,” she said. “I mean it. You’re the best friend I could ever ask for.”

  “It’s the truth.” I felt like, as I was speaking, I was channeling some deeper consciousness. Like none of what I was learning could surprise or hurt me, because somehow, deep down, I’d always known it would end up this way. Our relationship was an experiment that was doomed to fail.

  “Once we get back, we’ll just see how things go,” I said. “Obviously, I won’t tell Raj.”

  “You can if you want. It might be healthier for him to hate me.”

  “He can study his feelings of hatred and use them to grow as an artist.”

  Cyn chuckled and dropped her head into her hands. “I was hoping I would feel some relief after telling you, but I just feel like an even bigger asshole. You can call me a whore if you want, or any of those things. I deserve it.”

  “No. I don’t want to call you anything. You’re my best friend.” I felt utterly exhausted. Beside me, Cyn groaned softly, letting her head loll back in the manner of the recently asphyxiated. Above us, the sun shimmered with brilliant indifference.

  “Let’s go for a swim,” I suggested.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  We met up with Marco, Hector, and their friend Jorge in the late afternoon. Jorge was going to drive the four of us the few miles or so down to the other beach. We would walk across the sandbar while it lasted, and Jorge would join us by boat later, meeting us at the cove around sunset. Jorge’s boat would be our ride back, since by the time we’d be ready to go, the tide would be in and the sandbar gone.

  We bought two jugs of water, some peanuts, a couple of oranges, and a liter of cheap rum. Jorge, a hefty guy with an easy smile, helped us into the back of his pickup truck, where we arranged ourselves atop piles of wet, coiled rope. A damp fishing net was piled in the middle of the truck bed, its strong marine vapors attracting seagulls.

  The sun was low, and the heat of the day was finally relenting. As we whizzed along the narrow road, we could glimpse the beach through the trees. I looked up, and Cyn was grinning at me, her hair flying wildly in the air. I smile
d back. We’d passed the morning wandering in and out of the surf, lost in our own thoughts. My mood had been shifting erratically as I digested the morning’s revelations, and I didn’t trust myself to say much. After lunch, I passed out for several blissful hours. When I awoke, gazing up at the underside of a palm in a sea of bright blue sky, I finally felt calm. What would happen would happen. There was no point driving myself crazy speculating which exact way things would self-destruct. Cyn seemed happier, as well. I was now glad she’d cooked up this island adventure for us. It would be a small way of reclaiming life as our own.

  Jorge stopped the car along the side of the road. We weren’t in a town, exactly, but there were some small shops dotting a short stretch of the road. Hector got out of the cab, and Marco jumped over the side of the hatch. He went over to Jorge’s window, and the two began to talk. I grabbed one jug of water and a duffel with a blanket, my camera, and a flashlight. Cyn ­double-checked that she had the plastic bag with the mushrooms.

  “¿Agua?” Marco crowed when he saw what I was carrying. “Didn’t you mean to grab the rum?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but he waved my words away. “I’m only joking. Water is always a good idea. Jorge will bring the rest of our things, right, amigo?”

  Marco lifted the water jug from my hands as Jorge pulled away. We walked down to the beach and got our first look at the island. It was, as promised, connected to the main land with a ribbon-thin umbilicus of sand barely visible beneath the turquoise water. The island itself didn’t look like much: a wide smudge of green that rose to a peak in the middle, surrounded by rocky headlands, with no beach to speak of.

  “Our timing is perfect,” Hector exclaimed, childlike with glee. He slapped Marco on the shoulder.

  “This is as good as it gets,” Marco said. “In an hour even . . .” He made a sweeping gesture with his hands. “Nada.”

  At the water’s edge, I removed my hiking sandals and put them in my bag. We waded onto the strip, and I took out my camera. I ushered everyone out before me on the sandbar, snapped the shutter, and captured them, arms around one another’s shoulders, the island rising in the background.

  “Perfect,” I said. “I’ll take another one when we’re halfway out.”

  We swished along in the ankle-deep water, watching the island before us grow bigger. Cyn chattered happily as we waded along.

  “This is so exciting. And dangerous! We’re totally unprepared for ghosts.”

  “That’s true. But how do you prepare for ghosts?” Hector teased.

  “You don’t go on their island on the night they’re supposed to be haunting it,” I said, or attempted to say. My vocabulary was thin on supernatural terminology.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll keep you safe,” Marco assured us, walking backward to face us. “What you need to be worried about are snakes.”

  “Fantastic!” I shouted.

  Cyn kicked water at me. I kicked some back.

  Cyn laughed. “Aren’t they more afraid of us than we are of them?”

  Hector shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never asked one. But it’s a good idea to make a lot of noise on the trails. It scares things away.”

  “But it attracts ghosts,” Cyn rejoined.

  “I prefer ghosts to snakes anytime,” he said.

  Halfway out, we took some more pictures. The sandbar was already submerged, so it looked like we were walking on water. Cyn and I posed together, back-to-back, with our arms crossed, grinning broadly. The water surrounding us sparkled, the low sun making each ripple appear coated in flecks of gold.

  By the time the island drew near, we were wading knee-deep. I paused to look behind us, and the sandbar had disappeared.

  “No going back now, señoritas,” Hector said with a smile.

  From the island, I could see upturned fishing boats on the mainland, but they were too far away to make out any detail. I snapped a few more pictures as Marco searched the tree line for the path across the island to the sunset cove.

  “People don’t come here as often as they used to,” he shouted as he poked around in the trees. “The trail is hiding.”

  “Over here,” Hector called, waving us toward a narrow clearing in the brush.

  We followed the brothers into the shade of the trees. The trail was not wide, so we walked single file. Even then, we moved slowly, holding rogue branches aside for one another as we progressed. The muddy sections of the path were marred with footprints, and old cigarette butts dotted the trail like breadcrumbs.

  I pointed them out to Marco. “Ghost cigarettes,” he said, widening his eyes with goofy horror.

  On either side of us, the brush was dense. Long, leafy ferns, thin trees decked out with vicious punk-rock spikes, and swaying palms competed ferociously for light and space. I kept an eye out for snakes or other animals, but other than buzzing mosquitoes and an assortment of butterflies, I saw no trace of nonhuman life.

  We hadn’t been walking long when the path forked. “We need to go right,” Hector advised, “toward the sunset.” After another short hike, we began to hear the ocean. The path dropped down steeply and opened up onto a small, rocky cove.

  “Here we are,” Marco howled, spreading his long arms wide.

  “It’s gorgeous!” Cyn exclaimed.

  I dropped my bag and took my camera to the water’s edge. The beach was a narrow crescent of grayish sand, punctuated by large, dark rocks. The beach ended abruptly on both corners of the cove in a rocky abutment, backed by dense jungle. The trees from which we’d just emerged seemed to tower above us in a solid wall. The waves were rolling in strong and fast beneath the sinking sun, teasingly revealing a menagerie of boulders lurking just below the surf.

  I snapped a shot of Cyn laying out the beach blanket while Hector and Marco set up the kindling for the fire. When they were done, we sat in a circle on the blanket and divided the mushrooms into four shares. Unless he brought his own, Jorge would not be tripping with us, which was just as well, since he’d eventually be piloting us back to the mainland. I crushed my portion of the mushrooms in my palm. It created a fat handful, probably two disgusting swallows instead of one. I took a deep breath and poured them into my mouth, chewing as quickly as I could. Beside me, Cyn did the same, crinkled up her face in disgust, and reached for the water jug. She gulped hurriedly as I made urgent hand gestures for her to pass it over. She complied, and I passed it to the guys. Marco drank several large swallows, then swished some water around in his mouth and spat over his shoulder.

  “Hijo de puta, those taste terrible,” he yowled, laughing. “Where is Jorge with that rum? I need something to clean the taste out!”

  As if responding to Marco’s command, Jorge emerged from the trees, sweating profusely, carrying a large canvas bag and, to my surprise, a guitar case. We all cheered in unison when we saw him, and he stopped and smiled, setting down the guitar to wipe his brow.

  “I almost couldn’t remember which way to go at the break in the trail. But I saw your footprints,” he said between gasps. He sat down with a sigh of exhaustion, and we offered him the water. He drank thirstily and then reached into one of the bags and produced a bottle of rum. He cracked it open and passed it around.

  I took a large swig, some of the sharp sweetness running down my chin, and passed it to Cyn.

  “Har, matey,” I said.

  “Har, har,” she responded, raising the bottle high.

  The sun inched closer to the horizon. The guys went into the jungle in search of more wood to add to the few pieces of plywood that Jorge had brought along.

  I began to feel weird, a sign that the mushrooms were kicking in.

  “You feeling anything?” I asked.

  “Oh yes.” Cyn was leaning back on her elbows, gazing at the horizon. “You?”

  “Just beginning to. I was starting to think these were duds.”

&nbs
p; “I’m just glad they’re not poisonous,” she muttered. “They’re not, though,” she amended hastily. “Don’t think about poison mushrooms.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not.”

  “This has been a strange day,” Cyn said slowly.

  My lips and tongue began to tingle, and for the second time that day, I began to feel nauseated. I took a swig of rum and walked into the water, hoping the sensation of the surf might distract my brain from my roiling stomach. The bottom edge of the sun had just begun to kiss the horizon. I watched as it sunk gradually lower, the planet spinning away from it, pulling me along for the ride. I examined the few wispy clouds in the sky. Their edges morphed and twisted in unnatural filigrees; the commencement of hallucination. These mushrooms were strong, and we’d taken a lot. I felt a sudden shock of anxiety, but like the waves wrapping around my shins, it rolled on by as abruptly as it had arrived.

  Behind me, I heard Jorge strum a series of arpeggios. They sounded warm and bright, like the setting sun made audible, and I happily returned to the blanket to be with my new friends. I sat beside Cyn, and as the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, she reached over and squeezed me in a tight hug. I looked up and saw that Hector was watching me. When I met his eye, he looked away for a moment, but then looked back, his gaze calm and peaceful. I smiled. Beside him, Marco pulled out a tiny wooden case that looked like a chestnut. He opened it and pulled out a miniature Baggie filled with something white. He inserted the extra-long nail of his pinkie finger and lifted it to his nose. After a quick inhalation, he was grinning wildly, transformed in my eye back into the wolf we’d met the day before. He offered the coke to Cyn, but Cyn smiled and shook her head. He shrugged and returned the case to his pocket.

  “We should start the fire,” Hector said.

  The guys stepped a few feet away to get the fire started, but to me, they might as well have been on the moon. The ’shrooms were hitting me much stronger than I’d expected. I felt dizzy and irrationally anxious that the guys would burn themselves making the fire, so I lay down on the beach blanket and concentrated on the sky. The moment the guys were out of sight, I forgot about them. It seemed like time was passing very quickly, but the sky took forever to darken, slowly blushing from pink to magenta to, finally, a deep plum. Cyn was next to me on the blanket, talking about something. She might have been pointing out the faint traces of emerging stars, because her hands kept darting around before us. Whatever she was saying didn’t seem to need a response. My panic disappeared without me noticing, and I was feeling happy again. I relaxed into myself, and soon the guys were cheering. We sat up and the fire was blazing.