Chapter Two
THERE WERE NO boats on the pier, which meant that the men wouldn't be back. In this calm weather, it didn't surprise her. Fuel was relatively expensive, so the men preferred to use sails; but without any wind, they might not get back for another few days.
Mila turned and headed towards the opposite direction, away from the cluster of huts at the end of the desolate pier and the women rocking themselves in their paltry shade. Forty miles of sand later and she would reach Cancun. It was not the first time this thought had occurred to her.
It was easy to lose track of distance when she walked next to the sea, and sometimes she wished she could just walk all day and all night and disappear from the village and the little squalid nothings that kept the people there. But her father would drive out to bring her back; and he'd look so hurt that she'd have to lie and tell him that she was on her way back but she was just so tired.
She wasn't good at lying-her eyes were too honest. But he'd pretended to believe her the one time she had tried that, and, oddly enough, she was grateful that he did.
Her hair was a mix of rich brunette and sun-bleached highlights of honey and gold. Had there been a breeze, it would have floated around her like a waist-length cloak. Her eyes were an odd blend of gray and brown. She walked with the assurance and grace of an athlete, though she'd never been one in her former life, back in Boston. She liked to swim, but her school didn't have a swim team. In the pool of the YMCA, she used to glide through the water almost without effort, doing flip-turns with ease. It wasn't speed she was after, so much as the feeling of being alive, feeling the currents curl their way down her body. It was the only thing that got better after the move: what could be more alive than swimming in the ocean?
It was getting hotter by the minute, and she finally turned away from the beach and headed towards the scrub-mangrove trees and some other nasty and probably poisonous plants that grew until the soil became sand. She hoped to find a sandy spot under a tall tree, so that she could at least get some respite from the sun. No luck, at least not on this stretch of beach. She looked back at the house, now a small box that seemed an impossible distance away, thinking longingly of her air-conditioned bedroom. And then she thought of her mother and the never ending lists of chores she'd have for her.
A movement caught her eye, and suddenly she noticed-how she failed to see this just a minute ago was beyond her-a body lying on the beach. The upper half was lying on the sand, the lower half being licked by the gentle waves of the ocean.
She gasped, not knowing what to think. A dead body, she thought, as she found herself tiptoeing towards it, wondering if it was as terrifying as the movies made it seem. It-it felt odd to think of something human as an "it"-was naked; the water-logged skin lending a queasy gray cast to the dark olive skin. Setting down the egg basket she carried in one hand, she bent over him-she could see now that it was a young man-and pushed him over onto his back.
He rolled over, gelid and cold. His lips were blue, and the circles around his eyes were so dark one might think they have been painted on his face. His body was speckled with bruises and the skin on his elbows and knees looked as though someone had taken a cheese grater to them. Mila felt her face curdle with displeasure, but she forced herself to do the one thing she remembered from her lifeguarding course: she pressed two fingers to the cool and clammy skin under his jaw.
With a jolt, she pulled her fingers away from his neck when she felt the unmistakable pulse of life. It startled her-he was still alive-and for a moment her mind blanked and she caught herself scrabbling backwards away from the body.
Then the routine took over: check his airway-two-finger sweep, what her training partner (and-maybe-boyfriend) called "the real tonsil hockey"; tilt his chin up, blow two breaths, inflate his lungs. Check pulse again-still there. Another breath. Check pulse. One more breath.
He nearly cracked her forehead with his when he rocketed up to a sitting position, spewing water and gasping and coughing all at once. Mila caught his arm and smacked his back as his breathing slowly returned to normal. Once the water stopped coming up, he kept coughing for what seemed like an unspeakably long time. But eventually even that stopped, and when he looked at her for the first time, he realized the state he was in and moved his hands to cover himself.
Mila averted her eyes, which wasn't hard to do because his eyes were a startling shade of green-the color of a deep pool. And like a deep pool, their color seemed to change slightly depending on the light. There was a certain sadness about his eyes that made him seem very old, even though his body-from what she could see of it through the patches of sand that coated him-was clearly a young man's. His skin was tanned to a dark brown, while his black hair had matted into dreadlocks.
In her literature course at Quintana Roo, there had been a discussion board full of what one could discern from appearances: how accurate they were, how informed the impressions were by pre-existing stereotypes. What would they say about him, she wondered, besides the fact that he's indigenous?
"Are you okay?" Mila asked.
He cocked his head, but didn't answer. She tried again in Spanish, and finally in (bad) Yucatec. At least he recognized the words, unlike the other locals who pretended not to understand her, and he smiled and nodded gratefully.
"My name is Mila," she said. "What's your name?"
"I am...." And then he turned so pale she was afraid he was going to die, after all. "I don't remember."
Mila let out a breath she didn't realize that she'd been holding. "Well, then, what do you remember?" she asked.
He frowned with the effort, but his eyes began to well up with tears of fright. He reached for her hand and she took it, worried at how violently it was shaking.
"Nothing," he said, finally. "I remember nothing."
"Nothing?" Mila said. "How did you get hurt-"
"I remember nothing," he said quietly. But underneath the calm she could hear the edge of desperation, sharp and cold, as it threatened to cut through his demeanor and turn him into a quivering wreck.
"Well," she said, sitting next to him. "Come and stay with us until you do."
He smiled at her, relieved. "Thank you," he said.
Mila went up the beach a little ways and found a piece of fishing net that had washed ashore. She disentangled a disgruntled crab from it. It stank of dead fish and seaweed, but it would do to cover him. Not that there was anybody here to see, but her mother would probably have a slightly better opinion of him if he didn't show up in their house stark naked. As she went back to him, she saw him coming back out of the water, cleansed of the sand. For a moment, he looked like some kind of god, coming out of the calm waters, a dark and sensuous version of Boticelli's Venus. Then he caught her eye and turn red, once again reminding her that he was just a kid who'd nearly drowned and now had no memory of who he was. She handed him the scrap of fishing net, saying, "We've got stuff you can wear at home."
He walked back with her. Mila tried not to look at him, because she had the feeling that if she did, she would be hypnotized by his eyes and never break free of the spell. And, she had to confess to herself, the way the light slid around his body ignited thoughts and feelings she didn't think she would ever have as long as she was stuck in this little Yucatan village-and she wasn't sure she wanted them.
THANKKFULLY, HER MOTHER was busy setting up the guest rooms, so it was her father who greeted them. George smiled wearily at them as they entered through the kitchen door. He'd been eating lunch-a plate with tortilla crumbs and streaks of salsa was in front of him-and doing some more planning on a well-worn legal pad. He was a big man-he used to play football for Texas State-so it always caught people off-guard when they realized he wrote with delicately-nibbed fountain pens and sketched beautiful, pensive doodles in his margins. Lost in his abstractions, he didn't immediately see the young man come in after Mila. It wasn't until Mila said, "This is my father," that he looked up.
"Dios mio,"
he murmured. "And what did the cat drag in?"
"I found him, half-dead from drowning, on the beach," Mila said in Spanish. "He doesn't remember where he came from, or who he is, or how he got here-anything."
Her father sighed. "Mila," he said.
"At least let him have some of your old clothes," Mila pleaded, before he could flat-out refuse. "He's got literally nothing. If you're going to insist that he move on, you should at least let him be clothed properly."
"Mila," George said, again, but she could tell that he wasn't going to send him begging. "The government-"
"What government?" Mila snapped. "We live in the middle of nowhere. He could have washed in from Cuba, for all he knows."
She watched her father consider this. It was a delicate matter, negotiating with her father-she had to be sharp enough to goad him, but she couldn't piss him off or else he would dismiss her altogether. George began to doodle on the pad where he'd been planning things out. After a moment, Mila relaxed. She knew she'd won.
"Go get him cleaned up," George said, standing up. "I'll see if I have anything that will fit him."
Mila translated as best she could: He could stay. It wasn't the entire truth-there was still the matter of Gloria's permission, and the abuelos might object to a young man to whom she wasn't wedded living under the same roof, but George had tipped over to their side. Gloria couldn't argue with them, not when there were guests coming in a few hours; guests who would probably not appreciate her turning away an amnesiac in the middle of nowhere.
His eyes lit up with a smile when she told him that. "I will work," he said, as she led him to the bathroom. "I can work."
She reached over and squeezed his hand. It was strangely cold, in this heat. "Your help will be welcome," she said. "We must give you a name," she added, "at least, until you remember your real one."
He slid into a pensive stare when she said that. Mila cursed herself, silently. She had to stop reminding him of his memory loss. Otherwise he won't like me. It was odd how badly she wanted him to like heIThe last time she felt something like this was when she was twelve years old and crushing hard for the boys of 'N Sync. This feeling was not as intense; but it had a presence, a seriousness that prevented her heart from fluttering every time their eyes met and her hand from shaking whenever they touched, but at the same time kept drawing her eyes to him.
She drew a bath in silence and helped him into it. George came in, then, left some clothes and said he would set up a cot in one of the empty bedrooms until they could get him a bed.
"And does Mama know?" Mila asked.
Her father pursed his lips and whistled. "I told her I could use the help," he said. "She actually agreed."
It must be a cold day in hell, indeed, Mila thought, smiling despite herself. But then again, what else could she do? It wasn't as if there was anywhere he could go, anywhere he could be sent to. A wave of pride at having finagled something so major from her mother flooded her. Then she caught his liquid green eyes watching her, and she felt appalled at being so petty in front of him.