The Furthest City Light (36 page)

I hurried to the nearest phone, dialed the number, and this time Vickie picked up after the first ring. She sounded distracted, as if she were in the middle of something. I almost hung up but instead I said, “Hello.”

There was a long silence. “Hey,” she finally said.

“Hey yourself.” And to think I once made my living using words.

After an even longer period of silence, she cleared her throat and said, “Well first of all, I want to thank you for the phone messages,” as if I were a stranger who’d recently contributed to the American Cancer Society. “Maggie told me what happened in Jalapa, but I had no idea where you went afterward. I was pretty worried.”

“But not too worried to go on your river trip,” I quipped, thinking it would sound like a joke, but realizing too late that it sounded more like an accusation.

Vickie, however, simply chuckled. “No, not too worried to go on my river trip. It was a great trip, really fun. So, how are you?”

I blew out a deep breath. “Overall I’m good. Except right now I’m feeling kind of shy and awkward. It’s been too long—my fault of course—since we’ve heard each other’s voices. I’m sorry I didn’t send you any letters and that I didn’t call you sooner. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“You don’t have to, Rachel. It’s okay. I’m not mad.” She hesitated. “Well, at first I was. That’s when I sent you that letter. But after a few more weeks, I decided it was actually for the best.”

I opened my mouth, closed it, and thought for a moment. I was leaning against a beige carpeted wall, which felt odd and wrong, as if I were lying down but didn’t know it. Finally I asked, “What do you mean for the best?”

She laughed airily, as if I were being much too serious. “I mean it was good to have some time and space to think.”

I forced myself to say it. “About us?”

She cleared her throat again. “About us, about me, about everything.”

“Well that’s a bit vague.”

“Come on, Rachel, we’re on the phone. Let’s just leave it. When you get home, we’ll talk. No rush.”

A few feet away from me, an elegantly dressed man was shouting into the phone at his secretary for not packing the right papers into his briefcase before he left the office. What was I doing? If our conversation continued down the same road, in two or three minutes, we’d reach an intersection where my girlfriend might be forced to turn left while I steered straight ahead. “You’re right,” I said. “Later, when I’m home, we can lie in bed and talk for hours. In the meantime, I’m just calling to apologize and tell you that I love you. That’s all.”

This time, I could have wandered over to McDonald’s, purchased the least bad thing on the menu, and wandered back before she answered.

“Rachel, I’m not so sure about us anymore. I didn’t want to say it on the phone, but my silence was beginning to feel deceptive. I haven’t decided anything, but you have a right to know that I’m questioning the relationship. We can discuss the reasons when you get here.” She paused. “So, are you still at Sonia’s and what are you doing?”

Until that moment, I hadn’t decided whether to tell her I was still in Nicaragua or en route to Mexico, but suddenly (finally) the idea of lying seemed despicable. “I’m in the Dallas airport,” I said.

“Oh.” She sounded surprised. “You’re actually coming home? I mean I wasn’t expecting you for at least another month, maybe longer. Wow, I don’t think I’m ready. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but is there any way you could postpone it for a while?”

A young female Hare Krishna with long blond hair was approaching me with a pamphlet in her outstretched hands. I shook my head, but she was used to that. So in Spanish, I told her to go away, that I needed to pay attention to my phone call. She looked confused, then turned toward the elegantly dressed businessman who told her to fuck off. She murmured something in Sanskrit, a blessing or a curse, but then she left.

“Sorry about that,” I said into the phone. “Listen, in a way this is perfect. You don’t have to be ready. I’m definitely coming home, but not right now. First, I’m going to Mexico. I need to rest there for a while. I haven’t fully recovered from my illness.”

“You’re still sick?”

It was the concern in her voice that woke me from my dream. It was as if I’d been hypnotized to think I could put everything in my life on hold while I searched for peace and happiness or at least some equanimity, and then suddenly like the sound of snapping fingers, I heard my lover’s voice and I was wide awake. Staring at the enormity of my potential loss.

“A little,” I admitted, “but I’m getting better every day.” How could I have risked losing the one person who put me before everyone else, who knew me better than I knew myself, who’d hitched her life to mine expecting only that I would love and cherish her the way she’d cherished me?

“What are your symptoms?” she asked.

“Nothing that bad.” I was desperate now. “Vickie, listen, you were right about almost everything. I had no business going to Nicaragua, but I was having what you termed in your letter a spiritual tantrum. Anyway, whatever it was, it’s over. Ironically, I feel more at peace than I have in years. And I’m thinking much more clearly.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“Vickie, could you forget about my illness for a second and tell me if anything I’ve just said makes any difference?”

She made a soft plaintive sound, as if she couldn’t bear to hurt me. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. In the meantime, I have to go to bed. Tomorrow, I have patients scheduled every thirty minutes from eight in the morning until six at night.”

“Vickie, wait! No matter what you’ve been thinking, we’re not irrevocably fucked. We can pull this out. The most important thing is that we love each other.” Before she could disagree, I told her I was heading to Zihuatanejo. “I’ll try to find that little place we rented, the one with the pink balcony overlooking the bay. Come and stay with me. I just want to talk, that’s all.”

I could almost hear her shaking her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a lawyer and lawyers are trained to influence people. I need to think about this on my own. I’m sorry, Rachel, but it’s late and I have to go.”

“Okay, I’ll call you from Mexico.”

Vickie sighed. “Do me a favor and wait a month. I need more time to think.”

My heart was aching, but I kept it light. “I thought that was my line.”

“Things change.”

I was beyond exhausted. My brain was shutting down. With my last couple of IQ points, I said, “I’ll wait if you promise not to break up with me in your head before we speak.”

“Rachel, I have to go.” She hesitated. “All right, it’s a deal. Take care of yourself.” And then she hung up.

I replaced the receiver and then sank to a sitting position with my back against the wall. I had a month to heal and figure out how to make things right with Vickie. At the same time, I’d have to accept the possibility that despite how hard I tried, I might not be successful. A tall order, but I wasn’t exactly a novice. I would practice what I’d learned in Nicaragua, the art of hopeful resignation. For the past two months, I’d been training with the pros.

Six weeks ago, when I arrived here in Zihuatanejo, my goals were very modest: Sleep as much as possible, eat well, and try not to panic. My spirits were good, but in my life so far, there had never been a time when all three of what I’d always considered to be the essential ingredients for happiness—good health, a loving relationship and a satisfying career—seemed to be in such short supply. If I could, I would replenish them all and if I couldn’t, then at least one or two of them. In the plus column, I’d landed in a safe comfortable place (the same studio apartment overlooking the water that Vickie and I had rented three years earlier), I had resources, and I had time.
Time
. A precious commodity now that I’d slowed down and had nothing to do, and almost irrelevant when I was a public defender juggling more than a hundred felony cases.

Each morning for the first two weeks, I woke up as late as possible, strolled to the nearest market, about a quarter of a mile away, bought the healthiest food I could find, strolled back, rested, and then made a hearty breakfast. After that, I napped a few hours, ate a light lunch, and then went out on my balcony to gaze at the junction of water and sky, contemplating how it was that I’d ended up here. I had no epiphanies, no world-shattering insights, but I didn’t really expect any. Like a sensible girl on a blind date, I was satisfied just to be having a pleasant time getting to know someone I might actually want to see again.

During the late afternoons and evenings, I read the five novels I’d bought in the Dallas airport and started writing letters. The first was to Allen, then to Liz, then Sonia, Maggie, a few other friends in Boulder, Donald and Ray at the public defender’s office, and finally when I was ready, to Emily.

Emily,
I wrote,
I’ll tell you all about my experiences in Nicaragua when I see you. Right now, though, I’m living in a
small apartment in Zihuatanejo, a fishing town on the west coast of Mexico about one hundred and fifty miles north of Acapulco. My apartment has a bright pink balcony that overlooks the ocean. You would love it, except sometimes, depending on the weather, the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks is so loud it’s impossible to sleep. Those are the nights I end up on my balcony marveling at all that roiling wildness and feeling small and vulnerable, an experience I used to find disquieting when I was still planning to save the world, one defendant at a time. Back then, I know you loved and admired me (as I did you), but I think you’d like me better now. As for you, I can’t imagine all the changes you’ve been forced to make, but I suspect you’ve made them gracefully, the way you always have. Which makes me wonder, between us,
who was the dreamer and who was the realist? Actually, I no longer care. As you said, we both did the best we could.

Please forgive me for being out of contact. I know you understand, but I’m still sorry for the blackout. You’ll be glad to know that I’ve made real progress toward accepting the verdict in your case. You were right; I suffer less, although I still feel sad. But I can stand it now. So of course I want to hear everything about your life inside “the gray bar motel.” As soon as I return to Colorado, I’ll get down to see you and from then on, you can count on me to visit regularly. In the meantime, write me care of my landlady.

Your friend,

Rachel

After about a week and a half, when I got tired of reading, writing and napping, I began wandering around the neighborhood. In the three years since I’d been there, nothing much had changed. A couple of buildings were under construction to make fancy condos, but most of the houses were still either rentals like mine, small storefront businesses (food markets, tiny tortilla “factories,” one-room restaurants) or plain humble homes where the locals lived. Although there was poverty here, it didn’t seem as desperate as Managua’s. The markets had plenty of food, the currency was stable and the country wasn’t wasting all its resources fighting a civil war.

Tourism, of course, accounted for much of the local prosperity—take away the threat of being shot or kidnapped and tourists will flock anywhere there’s a nice beach. I imagined that as soon as the United States stopped trying to destroy Nicaragua, as soon as we’d bent it to our will, developers would begin eyeing the possibilities. After you’ve finished bicycling through Vietnam (visiting the famous Vietcong war tunnels), relax at one of our new five-star Hiltons on the beautiful rugged coast of Nicaragua. Or better yet, buy your own little island on Lake Nicaragua, the second largest lake in Latin America!

By the beginning of the third week, I was longing to join my fellow tourists at the shore—it was all rocks below my apartment—and decided I was well enough for the two-mile trek to the bay. At first, I packed enough provisions for a walkabout in the desert, but before I got out the door, I realized my bag was much too heavy and that I had to jettison nine-tenths of the contents, retaining only the essentials: food, water, towel, pillow and a Windbreaker in case of a typhoon.

I had to stop and rest a few times before I made it, but when I waded into the warm turquoise water, I felt ecstatic, like a kid from the Midwest who’d only read about the ocean and was now finally able to experience it firsthand. For a while, I simply jumped around like an idiot, whirling in circles, splashing, shouting and laughing. After about ten minutes, I began to swim. When I couldn’t lift my arms for one more stroke, I dog paddled to shore, curled up on my towel and went to sleep.

Within a couple of days, I could hike to and from the bay without resting until I’d reached my destination. I wasn’t my old Amazon self yet, but I walked with a newfound confidence, no longer scanning ahead for a possible place to stop and wait for the dizziness to pass. Each day, I tried to walk a little faster, never pushing too hard, mindful that in the old days I wouldn’t have even considered this to be exercise. By trial and error, though, I’d learned that the path to health was not the steep inviting trail that always beckoned, but the slow meandering one that didn’t. I may have been a burned-out adrenaline junkie, but I wasn’t suicidal; I could see that getting high and coming down, even one more time, might kill me. Which would have greatly interfered with my current plans to live a long and even life, one that for now seemed a bit murky but would have to include moments of frivolousness along with a sense of purpose.

Often when I walked, I thought about Sonia and her friends, wondering how they were coping and what new schemes they were hatching to make a few extra
cordobas
. And, of course, I hoped that Sonia’s nephew was somehow still alive, that he’d managed to escape from the Contra camp in Honduras where he’d been held captive, or that he’d been wounded and had found refuge in some Good Samaritan’s hut until he was well enough to travel. I thought of a dozen scenarios, none of them likely, but so what? There’s no downside to hope. Bad news hurts just as much whether you wished for a different outcome or not, and if the news is good, well then.