The Jade Notebook (2 page)

When I reach the top of the sandy path, I leave the sea behind, following a narrow trail that slices through dense foliage. The moon is just rising, its light barely filtering through the leaves, just enough for me to make my way back toward the cabanas. Knowing the route by heart, I fly through the insect songs and tree shadows.

Instinctively, I slow down as I pass the first in a ring of signs around a section of jungle about a kilometer in circumference. These signs give me the creeps. The first, I can barely make out in the moonlight, but I know what it says:
¡TERRITORIO PROHIBIDO! ¡SE DEVORAN LOS INTRUSOS!
Forbidden territory! Trespassers will be devoured! More hand-painted
signs around the perimeter of the property offer variations on the theme: Trespassers will be cursed/taken prisoner/eliminated. Disconcerting, but I like to think that whoever made the signs just has a somewhat twisted sense of humor.

As I walk, I peer beyond the signs, curious. It’s our mysterious neighbors’ property, but it looks just like the rest of the area—enormous leaves, vines, branches, occasional flowers. I haven’t yet dared to cross the line, and I’m not quite brave enough to do it alone at dusk. What I do instead is shout past the sign, loud, in English, on some kind of impulse: “Fine! Devour me!”

As soon as the words come out, even though there’s no one to hear, a little wave of embarrassment washes over me.

And then, a noise shatters the night. A deep, vibrating noise that seems to tear through the forest, rumble the earth. It comes from what feels like just meters away. It’s so loud it makes me jump, sends my heart racing.

I freeze. What
was
that? A motorcycle engine? A chain saw? Motionless, I hold my breath and listen. The only sounds are my pounding pulse, the insects, the distant waves, a breeze through the leaves. All I see are shadows in hues of green and blue and purple. I breathe out and take a tentative step down the path.

Then it thunders again, filling my ears, resounding through my body. The noise wakes some primal fear in me. I barely resist the urge to run away at top speed.

I reassure myself under my breath. “Don’t be crazy, Zeeta. It’s just a noise.”

Silence again; only the familiar hum of the jungle at dusk. My muscles relax a little. The
TRESPASSERS WILL BE DEVOURED
sign must have put me on edge. I bet the noise was just a car engine that my imagination transformed into something monstrous. Again, I exhale, try to steady my legs and slow my racing pulse. Then I suck in a deep breath and take a step forward on the path toward home.

This time, when the sound rips through the darkness, I run. I tear through the trees, the branches scraping my skin, catching on my clothes. After a few minutes, my lungs are burning and there’s a stitch in my side. I stop and lean over, gasping, my hands on my knees. Then, tentatively, I peer into the shadows behind me. Nothing. My ears alert, I half walk, half jog toward the cabanas.

I settle on an explanation. It was something rational—like thunder in the distance, or a particularly loud wave crashing. The cliffs
can
produce unusual echo effects. The farther I get from the Forbidden Territory, the easier it is to shake off the creepiness, even tip my hat to whoever posted those signs. After all, they’re effective.

A few minutes later, as I round the bend to the cabanas, my heartbeat has calmed, my trembling subsided. Emerging from the jungle, I enter the yellow glow of the kitchen hut. There in the candlelight, beneath the woven grass roof, Layla and Wendell are eating fresh fish and laughing with the guests.

I hover at the trees’ edge and savor this moment, watching my mom and my boyfriend—the people I love most
in the world in this place I already love most in the world. Which is saying a lot for someone who’s lived in seventeen places in her seventeen years on earth.

Here, safely outside the jungle, wrapped in the aura of my perfect new home, it’s easy to let go of the strange noise, hope I don’t hear it again. Why bother even mentioning it? Why make waves in an otherwise smooth sea? Even paradise has to have a few flaws, right? It’s part of the package. Like the stinging jellyfish off Phi Phi Island when Layla and I lived in Thailand. Or the pickpockets in Marrakech. Or the deadly single-lane mountain roads in Nepal.

Wendell catches my eye, his face lighting up with his cute half-smile. He comes to me, folds me in his arms, wraps me in his cinnamon-soap smell. I press my lips against the comforting pulse of his neck, nestle my head on his shoulder. Yes, this is it. Paradise.

Within minutes, Layla whisks over, kisses my head, and sets down a steaming plate of fried fish and cilantro rice, a dish of flan, and a glass of
agua de sandía
. “Eat up, Zeeta, love!”

My mother is surprisingly skilled at running these cabanas. It was a good decision to branch out from her usual stints teaching English. With Wendell’s and my help, Layla is managing fourteen little palm-thatched bungalows—checking people in and out, tidying the rooms, cooking meals, giving yoga lessons at sunrise, orchestrating Mayan flower baths and sweat lodge ceremonies, hosting bonfires
on the beach, hanging out with travelers from all over the world. She’s thrown herself with blissful abandon into every little task … except for cleaning the bathrooms, which she usually leaves for me.

Layla is voluntarily washing dishes now—a first for her. In previous countries, the crusty plates would sit in the sink for days until I’d give in and do them myself. But here in Mazunte, Layla seems to actually enjoy the task, chattering with adoring backpackers as she works.

As I dig into my fish and rice, Wendell and I talk—a comfortable, meandering conversation about which flowers to plant in our garden. “Birds-of-paradise,” I say. “Heaps of them.”

He considers this, then, with a playful grin, says, “How about something carnivorous? Venus flytraps—you know, to devour any trespassers who slip through the cracks.”

I smile. Now’s the time when I could mention the sound in the jungle—a roar that might have come from something truly carnivorous. But I keep the conversation light, happy. “I’m thinking more along the lines of passionflower,” I say, taking a bite of my lavender flan.

In response, Wendell leans in and kisses me—sweet and golden. Then he begins clearing plates, pausing to chat with guests. Whenever he passes, he bends down and lets his lips brush against mine ever so lightly, sending a delicious shiver through my body.

After my last bite of flan, I bring my dishes over to the sink and lean against the counter, satisfied. For once, my existence
has roots, stability. Everything and everyone I need is here, now. My mother’s usually the gushing one, the flowery, rose-colored-glasses one, but now I can’t help spouting, “We’ve finally found it, Layla. Paradise.”

“I know.” She plunges her hands into the soapy water. With no electric lights on the grounds, we use only candles and lanterns, which make the suds glow orange. She playfully flicks bubbles at me. “This place … it’s
bien padre, güey.
”

Mexican slang seems to have endless ways of saying “cool, dude.” We use some variation of “really cool” constantly because everything here is indeed
bien padre
. Which literally means “really father.”

Layla grins. “Or, in Rumi’s version of really cool,
What souls desire arrives. We are standing up to our necks in the sacred pool.…
”

It’s poetry from her favorite thirteenth-century mystic. She never tires of quoting him. Normally, I’d roll my eyes, but this time I finish the line in a rare moment of complete agreement.
“Majesty is here.”

She lifts her hands from the dishwater. Iridescent bubbles cling to her forearms like bits of pearly sea-foam. Before I know it, she’s giving me a soapy hug.

And I let her.

It was right in this spot, a week ago, that she said, while washing dishes, “You know, Z, I could stay here forever.” And without missing a beat, I said, “Let’s do it! Let’s stay here, Layla. For good.” I kept going, letting myself lapse into extreme sappiness, speaking her language. “I belong here,
Layla. It’s like … It’s like …” I searched for words to describe the precise feeling this place gives me. “It’s like I’m finally home.” An otherworldly look swam over her face. She pushed her hair from her eyes, leaving a trail of bubbles.

“Maybe we both are.”

“Really, Layla?”

She nodded. “Let’s do it, Z! Let’s settle here. For good.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” she said, sealing it with a kiss on my cheek.

Unbelievable. After seventeen homes, Layla has finally agreed to let us stay in one place.

Of course, she’s famous for her flightiness and flakiness. She’s fallen in love with all of our homes, especially during the first few months—the honeymoon phase. And then, when the first year in a place is drawing to a close, she grows restless and fantasizes about distant lands. Her wanderlust always propels her—and me—on to the next country, our next home. It’s exhausting.

I want to think that this time it’s different. Maybe it is. She’s never actually promised that we could stay in a place for good—not until now. I guess that’s something. I wish I could believe her, but I know her too well. Her promise feels as beautiful and fragile as these soap bubbles. At any moment it could pop.

Knowing I’ll be leaving for college in two years makes me even more determined to protect this dream. I’ll need something that’s a constant. A home to come back to on semester breaks. And not just any home. My home here, on
the cliffs near Punta Cometa, on the magical border of sea and jungle.

After Layla releases me from the hug, I wipe off the suds and notice a scratch on my forearm. I must have gotten it in my mad dash through the jungle. I nearly forgot about the weird noise. For a moment, I consider mentioning it to Layla. Maybe she heard it and has a logical explanation.

But already, the incident has gained the dusky quality of a nightmare quickly dissipating. I don’t want to tell Layla about anything that might jeopardize our new home. Anything that might burst this precious bubble.

No, I decide. I will tell her nothing that suggests this place is anything less than a shimmering piece of heaven.

After we finish the dinner dishes, I do a couple of hours of trig homework by lantern light in the kitchen hut. Between problems, I look around in appreciation, wondering again what it is about this place that feels so right. Now that I know we’re staying for good, the feeling is intensified. I can’t help smiling to myself, shivery-happy with the knowledge that I’ll actually get to see these bushes and trees grow over years. I’ll get to plant flowers and build paths and form long friendships. For the first time in my life, I won’t have to tear myself away after a year.
If
Layla sticks to her promise.

Wendell’s sitting next to me, updating the cabanas’ website on his laptop. His just-washed hair, usually braided, is hanging loose and damp over his shoulders. The computer screen’s blue light bathes his face, his strong jaw, his soft eyes. After my last equation, I lean back and rest a hand on his leg.
Five months without seeing each other, and now, even after two weeks together, it feels like a miracle every time we touch.

We arrived here on the same day—January first—when Layla’s new job started. It was serendipitous that Layla and I came across the job posting. Back in France, where we lived last year, I did an online search for Punta Cometa and found an ad looking for a multilingual family to manage cabanas. Layla was game, so we left France earlier than planned and came here. And the luckiest part of it—Wendell had just finished up all his credits for high school graduation in Colorado. He scrambled to get an internship for his last semester at the Turtle Center down the road from the cabanas.

The precise, ordered new path of my life with Wendell stretches before me like a shiny ribbon. Layla has agreed to give him his own cabana and meals in exchange for maintaining our website and helping with chores. He’ll stay for the next year and a half, with a few short visits home to Colorado. He’ll focus on building up his nature photography portfolio while I take online classes for my last year and a half of high school. After I graduate next spring, we’ll go to college together—the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he’ll pay in-state tuition and we can live with his parents to save money. His parents are disappointed that he isn’t going to a fancy art college and is taking a year off after high school, but they haven’t tried to stop him. Secretly, I suspect they like the idea of his going to college close to home.