Ordinary World (28 page)

Marta took my hand. “If you are truly able to let go of love, then will you truly receive it.
Be
what it is you are wanting from him.”

I don’t know if I buy that
, I wanted to say, but instead sat silently. She turned a couple more cards, saying nothing, then spoke before turning the final card. “This man, he needs to stop rescuing you.”

Was that what had been keeping us together all this time? Was it what brought us together in the first place, eight years ago? Was he rescuing me? And did I want him to? Was it something I’d come to expect from him?

            “Nunca se pregunte. No, wait…” I knew I was using the wrong verb.
Preguntar
was to ask a question, while
pedir
was to ask for a thing or a favor…but how was I supposed to conjugate that?  I gave up and spoke English. “I never asked him to do that.”

            Marta touched my hand again, and this time I felt a surge of energy followed by a sense of well-being. Her compassion radiated from her touch.

            “David was given to you by God to heal things in your life that give you deep pain. But it is time for you to go to this next part of your life journey without him. Let your soulmate guide you instead.”

“What—do you mean
this
journey?” I tapped the table with my pointer finger. “To Machu Picchu?”

Marta shook her head. “You need to do it without
him
. And he cannot need you either.”

            “Do what? I don’t understand. Como sabes todo eso? Did I say that right? How do you know all this?”

            Marta turned over the last card and smiled.

“Is OK,” she said. “You are going to be truly happy again.”

No way.
Sure, it gets a little easier every day. I’m laughing, and having sex, and not watching twelve hours of TV while zonked out on milk and cookies anymore, but find true happiness again? Never. It died with Sam.

Marta rose, put her hands together, and bowed to me. Then she hugged me. At that moment, I felt nothing but love. And not the kind of love that I felt for Sam, or David or Maggie or my brothers, but something much greater.

            “Vaya con Dios,” she said.

            “Gracias,” I replied. “Y tu tambien.”

Chapter Thirty-two

Machu Picchu

T
O GET FROM LIMA TO MACHU PICCHU, MANNY AND I flew to Cuzco (which is at 11,000 ft. in altitude), where I got what is known as altitude sickness: shortness of breath, migraines, dizziness, nausea, etcetera. I thought I was going to pass out from the migraine. Manny found a doctor, who prescribed
dieta de pollo
, a kind of thin chicken soup. Most of the locals drank mate de coca to ease the headaches, but I refused, thinking it might very well kill me. For some strange reason, a combination of Peruvian chocolate and Extra-Strength Tylenol did the trick. However, it took me a whole day to recover, postponing our journey to Machu Picchu.

            The next morning we boarded the train from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes, which took about four or five hours, I think (still wiped from the altitude sickness, I slept through most of it, despite Manny tapping me on the shoulder to take in the views of the white water rapids and monstrous boulders along the riverbank—unbeknownst to me until I got home, he had taken pictures with my camera). Manny recommended I spend the night in Aguas Calientes in order to refresh and prepare myself for Machu Picchu. Because tourism had tripled in the last ten years, hotels and souvenir shops and little eateries had sprung up everywhere, leaving us with no problem getting rooms for the night.

“I read somewhere on the internet that the increased tourism was taking an environmental and ecological toll on Machu Picchu,” I said.

He agreed. “Certainly it takes away from the simplicity of Aguas Calientes,” he said.

I continued my regimen of dieta de pollo, Peruvian chocolate, and Tylenol.

Thank God for Manny.

The next morning we boarded a bus from Aguas Calientes that shuttled us up the tendril-like roads to Machu Picchu. Once off the bus, we did a lot of walking and climbing. We encountered crowds everywhere we went—a motley composite of tourists and locals ringing my ears with their languages. The locals tried to sell us oranges, hand-woven bracelets or coin purses, and maps. Julian had advised me to wear well cushioned shoes and carry a walking stick. He also warned me about pickpockets who target the tourists, which Manny confirmed. It was a sunny day, but hot, especially while we hiked. Fortunately I packed a lot of bottled water and sunscreen and dressed lightly in capris and a tank top, sun-visor, and Easy Spirit sneakers. All the traveling exhausted me, and I still felt lightheaded from the altitude.

            But it was worth it.

            The Sistine Chapel was a shitbox compared to the Incan remains of Machu Picchu. And that’s really saying something. The ruins, as well as the view, were definitively awesome. The unimaginably steep, sharp-ridged, richly forested mountains that marched off into infinity; the majestic white clouds sweeping overhead; the riverbank some one thousand feet below, seen from opposite sides of the ruins—the
enormity
of it all—took my breath away and weakened my knees, altitude sickness and a day’s hiking having nothing to do with it.

            And the
silence
—oh, the silence! No words could adequately describe it. Never had I known such silence. It seeped into my skull and pushed every mundane thought out of my brain. It penetrated and interacted with the cells in my body. It practically paralyzed me.

As I stood still, my only movement a pivot to take in another point of view, I wept, and couldn’t even tell you for what or who or why. One had to be standing where I was to truly understand why this site was chosen as a
huaca
, a sacred place.

            Manny came up behind me and rubbed my back in a big brotherly way. “Si,” he said, rubbing gently, back and forth. “Is OK.”

            Throughout my stay, I had wondered why Sam had chosen to set a portion of his novel in Peru, what made him want to come to Machu Picchu, of all places. I still didn’t have an answer, but right then and there, in the midst of that vastness, that sacred silence, I was certain that he had been searching for
something
. And it broke my heart to know that not only had he not lived to find it, but that I was no closer to finding it for him either.

Chapter Thirty-three

D
AVID PICKED ME UP FROM THE AIRPORT AND greeted me with a bouquet of red and white roses. He then took me back to his place. The postcards I’d sent sat on his coffee table. I picked them up and flipped through them, noticing that two hadn’t arrived yet.

            “I read them all at least twice,” he said. “The one on top just came yesterday.”

He put his arms around me.

            “Hey,” he said. “I missed you a lot.” He kissed me and we stood in each other’s arms for I don’t know how long. I kept thinking about what Marta had said about David being a rescuer, about my needing to be alone, to not need him. A feeling of dread passed over me like a dark cloud. He loosened our embrace and looked at me, pushing a strand of hair away from my face. “You okay?” he asked.

            “Yeah,” I said. “You know… it’s just the flight and everything... I’m exhausted.”

            “You want something to eat?”

            “I just wanna go to bed.”

            “Want me to take you home?” he asked.

            Too drained to even move, much less speak, I looked at him as if I couldn’t comprehend the question. As if I didn’t know what or where home was. I fell into his arms again. I didn’t want to be alone in my house. Didn’t want to go back to the emptiness, to the reminders of Sam. I didn’t want to go back to the uncertainty of my life.

            David’s hands rested lightly around my waist. I took hold and moved them to cup each of my breasts and massage them.

            “I missed you too,” I said in a near whisper.

            He leaned in close and whispered into my ear, “Show me.”

            I kissed him and tiredly unbuttoned his shirt while he slid his hands under my sweatshirt and pulled it over my head. He lifted me up and carried me to bed, just like a scene out of a soap opera, and we made love. The dread only grew more intense, almost into despair. I lay next to him, stroking his hair and gazing into his eyes, my own heavy and barely open.

            “I do love you, Dev,” I said, my words sounding sleepy.

            “I know you do,” he said, breathing lightly and evenly. “I love you too.” He pensively gazed back at me. “What if we had met in a different way? What if I had asked you out from the very beginning?”

            “I wouldn’t have gone out with you. I was too afraid of you then. Besides, I had too much to compete with.”

            “What if I hadn’t been an escort?”

            “Then I wouldn’t have learned what I needed to learn, and neither would you.”

            “And you wouldn’t have met Sam.”

            “Don’t bring him in here,” I said.

            “He already
is
here. He’s always here. Don’t you know that?”

            Of course I knew that. Dammit, I knew it better than anyone else. But I didn’t want him there in that moment. I didn’t want him anywhere I could see or feel him or be reminded of how upside-down my life still was, or felt.

            “Yes,” I answered softly. “Yes, I know. I just…” I paused.

            “I mean, I’m okay with that—I’m not complaining or anything. I just want you to be okay with it.”

           
The man is a saint,
I thought, amused by the notion.

My eyes grew heavy. “I just wanna fall asleep in your arms and not think about anything right now.”

            Marta was wrong, I decided. No—it was a scam. Manny knew my husband had died. He must have told Marta everything, including the stuff about David. I had played right into her hands by showing her the picture. She certainly had no psychic insight. To infer that Sam lived on this earth long enough to meet me so that either one of us could fulfill some mission was ludicrous, as ludicrous as the idea of a loving God, or of a former escort and his former client trying to have a real relationship. It was better when we were both faking it, I thought as I drifted off to sleep, smelling David’s body on me. At least then we knew where we stood.

Chapter Thirty-four

           
D
AVID DROVE ME BACK TO MY HOUSE THE NEXT morning. I sat in the car for a moment, silent, staring at the shapeless hedges and the lawn already covered by fallen maple leaves, some still brilliant New England autumn gold and crimson. Miranda had already left for work.

            “You okay?” he asked. He seemed to be asking me that a lot in the last twenty-four hours.

            I finally spoke. “Would you like to come in?”

            He did a double-take. “What?”

            “Would you like to see the house?”

            He paused for a beat, trying to shake off the shock. “Sure,” he finally said.

            I wasn’t sure what had prompted this invitation. But my stomach fluttered once he accepted. He carried my suitcase for me while I fished for my keys in my purse. The moment I turned the knob, Donny Most greeted me with a loud meow and brushed up against my leg. I couldn’t help but smile widely, as if I was exhaling after holding my breath for a long time. He circled me and barely let me take two extra steps until I scooped him up, squeezing and kissing him, while he kneaded my shoulders with his claws and rested his head, purring loudly. God, I missed him. David grinned and ran his hand down Donny Most’s soft orange back.