Exotic Stranger
By Isaiah Fields
Published by Publications Circulations LLC.
SmashWords Edition
All contents copyright (C) 2014 by Publications Circulations LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, companies and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
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Chapter One
"IT'S A GOOD THING the tourist season begins after the school year," said Camila's mother, Martina, as she barged into Camila's room with a full laundry basket balanced on her hip.
Camila opened her eyes, keeping her expression neutral. The clock on the wall said it was six in the morning but the halo around the curtains meant that the sun was high and hot already.
"These need to be ironed and folded," Martina said, dropping the basket next to Camila's bed. The sheets inside sighed softly, as though relieved. Martina Fuentes, standing an even five feet tall and weighing barely more than a hundred pounds after a full meal, was not someone to be argued with. "Remember, we have guests tonight."
"Yeah," Camila said. Poor suckers, she added silently. The bed-and-breakfast the Fuenteses ran would have been pretty cool had they been anywhere near a decent town. But it was halfway between Tulum, which few people had heard of, and Cancun, which nobody ever left. Their visitors came expecting a deserted beach, not realizing that along with a deserted beach was a semi-deserted, dying village which couldn't even be bothered to give itself a name. Ten fishing families, a plantain farmer, and a restaurant didn't even warrant a dot on the maps of the region.
Camila made no move to get out of bed -- a small rebellion against the tyranny of having to wake up at all. Yesterday was her last day of school (she took intro-level online courses at the Universidad Quintana Roo, since there were no schools here) and that warranted some kind of break. Thankfully, Martina left with only a small humph of disapproval and did not launch into yet another tirade about how hard they were working and why couldn't her daughter bring herself to work a little rather than daydream about boys? These arguments had been going on between them over the two years since they'd moved to Mexico. The Yucatan, more specifically, some of the people here were a bit touchy about being called "Mexicans."
Camila counted to ten before she threw the blanket off herself and swung her feet from the bed to touch the cool stone floor with her toes.
Theirs was a large house, even by American standards. It was once the small manor home of a local official, the realtor had told them, and then launched into a long spiel detailing the history of the place and the artful mosaics that had been laid into the floor. Not that she paid any attention to those details. Two years ago, she was just too angry -- at her grandparents for being so ill, at her parents for dropping everything in the US and not giving a damn about her, at the economies of both Mexico and the US that made it more worthwhile to stay, at the crazy language the locals spoke that made it impossible to make friends -- not that there were people her age to befriend. The people here were old and bitter, and their children had more sense than her father did because they left and never returned.
She was still angry but, during the winter, her father had at least installed air conditioning in the bedrooms, so now it was merely a resentful simmer instead of a full-on rage.
The house was a sprawling single-floor structure, built in the shape of a rectangle around an open courtyard. It was once beautiful, even Camila had to admit that. But size and beauty didn't matter so much when they discovered that the roof leaked in a thousand places and the house had to be rewired in order to handle the electrical load of a refrigerator.
Since the moment they'd bought it, it seemed like they'd done nothing but repair things; and even though the exchange rate greatly favored the dollar over the peso, Chico still blanched a little whenever he sat down to calculate how much he'd spent on repairs. Camila could see the conflict between her father's pride and the stark financial reality whenever she mentioned moving to the city -- when he'd sunk this much money into building them a new life, he wasn't just going to give up, damn it. The difference between her father and her, though, was that Camila no longer felt guilty for wishing that he would.
But for now, she had to iron and fold the sheets. Of course, the laundry was on the other side of the house, where the abuelos lived in what was once the servants' quarters. Her mother did this on purpose, of course -- otherwise the grandparents -- George and Fernanda, Pablo and Elena -- would never see their granddaughter.
Camila couldn't make her parents realize how awkward it was for all of them -- a granddaughter they'd never seen, who might as well have been from Mars, for all they knew of Boston. They had literally nothing in common except Martina and Chico; and lately those two had become strangers to all of them. Fortunately, at this hour, the grandparents wouldn't be up yet, and Camila could slip past them without having an awkward, just-out-of-politeness conversation.
As Camila ironed and folded and stacked the sheets in neat piles, she became aware of how still the morning was. It was unusual, and the silence sent shivers down her spine. Normally, there were monkeys chattering in the forest and birds raising a ruckus everywhere.
Today, though, even the chickens seemed subdued, and the stray dog she'd cleaned up (though for some reason she couldn't find a name to fit him) only burrowed deeper into his bed when she filled his bowl with kibble.
She finished the sheets and went to the backyard to collect the eggs. The chickens had gathered around the feeding trough but there was no frenetic back-and-forth squabbling for feeding space. She poured more feed into the trough and added more water to their pan.
That seemed to get them going, but even then their clucking seemed muted.
A dozen eggs today -- at least they weren't too sick to lay eggs, she thought. She could drop off half a dozen with the abuelos and she might be able to barter with Manuel -- the only fisherman in the village who's Spanish she could understand, as the others spoke a mixed language of Mayan and Spanish -- for some fish with the rest.
Still, it was unsettling how quiet everything was. A quick glance at her watch told her it was already eight in the morning. It was the time when Grandpa Jorge and Grandma Fernanda -- the nominally-healthier of the two pairs, with heart failure and emphysema being their two complaints -- usually make their coffee and set out the massive tray full of sweet buns. But the servants' kitchen the four elderly people shared was empty today. Camila didn't dare knock on the bedroom doors. She left the eggs in the basket on the counter. They'd find them. If they haven't died in the night, Camila thought.
And then she crossed herself, feeling guilty for having thought that. Angry though she was at her father and mother, she couldn't quite bring herself to wish that on them.
Chapter Two
IN THE MAIN KITCHEN, only her mother was awake, scrambling yesterday's eggs while the water for coffee boiled on the stove and the balls of masa harina sat on the counter, ready for pressing into tortillas.
"I swear, I don't know what's gotten into your father," Martina grumbled as she poured the eggs in a pan. "He wouldn't wake up this morning, and he said he was going to fix the abuelos' toilet."
Camila sat down at the table. Her mother had finished cooking the eggs and was now spooning them into a plate.
&n
bsp; It would be no use asking her mother if she noticed anything unusual, Camila decided, as she helped herself to a portion of scrambled eggs and poured herself a glass of juice. Martina was a practical woman. If the chickens weren't being normal, it was because they were sick. If the old people were still asleep, it was because they were tired.
If things were quieter than usual, it was because the weather was strange.
It was that simple. And the weather was strange, come to think of it. A heavy stillness hung in the air; as if the normal ocean breeze had something far more important to do.
"When you finish your breakfast..." Martina began.
"I'm going to see Manuel," Camila said, at the same time.
The air was electric with tension as Martina stared at Camila. How dare you, Camila, read into her mother's scowl, when there's so much to do here?
Fuck you. I never wanted to be here, Camila thought, returning the scowl. The sting of injustice at having been awakened at six in the morning on her first day after classes had ended seeped into her memory; and she straightened her back slightly and lifted her chin, daring her mother to say something.
"Bring back something nice," Martina said, finally.
And just like that, she turned back to the stove and the business of pressing the tortillas. Camila, too relieved at having avoided yet another fight, scurried out, bewildered at her good fortune.
There was something strange going on, she thought, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose as she ran out of the house. She didn't believe in ghosts or spirits or anything, but it wasn't until she was well away from the house, hot and flushed from the sun cooking the air around her like an oven, that she could bear to look back at the place.
She felt silly, even as she glanced back. It wasn't the house that had changed, after all -- it was everything else around it.
The whole place felt strange. And she couldn't explain why she felt like that, nor would she want to.
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.
Camila 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.
It's a dead body! she cried inside her head.
Chapter Three
CAMILA 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 that contained... scars. Like he had been flogged many times and the cuts have healed over and over.
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.
Camila 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 suddenly rocketed up to a sitting position, spewing water and gasping and coughing all at once.
Camila 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.
Camila 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 part indigenous and part foreigner?
He looked quite... exotic.
"Are you okay?" Camila asked, disturbed at herself for still finding time to look him over when he had just clearly survived the ordeal of the sea.
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 Camila," 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."
Camila let out a brea
th 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?" Camila 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.
Camila 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, taller than his age, with wide shoulders and naturally muscular chest -- dark and sensuous version of Boticelli's Venus.
Then he caught her eye and turned 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. Camila 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.
Chapter Four
THANKFULLY, her mother was busy setting up the guest rooms, so it was her father who greeted them.
Chico 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.