Life and Other Near-Death Experiences(28)

“You’d better not,” he scolded. “Anyway, what I was trying to say is that I want you to know that I love you, and so do Charlie and Toby and Max. It’s all going to work out okay. I promise.”

I almost fell right off my rattan chair. If Paul had traded our I-love-you-the-most game for the kitten-and-rainbow routine, I was officially in trouble.





FIFTEEN


I didn’t make it to Milagros’s for drinks the first night, but I wandered over to her place the following evening. I found her on the tiled patio behind her house, chatting with an elderly man.

“I’m sorry,” I said when I spotted them lounging in a pair of chairs. “I didn’t realize you had company.”

She waved me in. Her patio was lined with potted fruit trees, many of which had colorful orchids hanging from their branches. “It’s my party and everyone’s invited. Libby, this is my cousin Sonny. Sonny, esta es Libby.” She pointed in the direction of the beach house to indicate my provenance, then turned back to me and mock whispered, “Sonny is deaf in both ears.”

“Milly!” Sonny squawked.

Milagros whacked him on the back. “Just kidding, Sonny! Libby, can I get you something to drink?”

“I’m good,” I said, but she was already well across the patio. I sat on a carved wooden bench across from Sonny. “Hi,” I said.

His face lit up.

“Do you live near here?” I asked.

He laughed like I’d just made a sidesplitting joke. I bit my lip: Was he screwing with me?

“I wasn’t joking,” Milagros said, coming up from behind me. She slipped a drink into my hands and leaned in conspiratorially. “The man can’t hear a thing. If he shows you his dentures, that means he’s just playing along.”

“Oh.” I glanced at Sonny, who was grinning at me with large ceramic teeth.

“Eh, Milly,” he said, and began telling a story—or so I imagined, as he was speaking in Spanish. Milagros cackled along with him, occasionally interjecting a sentence or two. I smiled the way humans will when bearing witness to others’ happiness, even though at that moment I was ill with envy. I wanted to live into my seventies or eighties or however old these two were, so I could tell long-winded tales to my cousins (who I technically couldn’t stand, but that was but a minor detail to be hammered out over the next four decades of this alternate life I was wishing for myself). I wanted a chance to be wrinkled and deaf and without a care in the world, confident I had lived fully and completely in the way that only the old can.

“Libby, you really need to learn espa?ol. This is so ridiculous that I couldn’t translate it if I tried,” Milagros told me, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

She was right about Spanish. I’d spent the morning exploring the shore, and as I tossed a pound of seashells into my bag and dug my toes in the sand and snuck glances at what I was certain was a couple doing the dirty in the ocean, I contemplated what, exactly, I would do during the rest of my vacation. (As I have mentioned, I didn’t put much thought into this before hopping on a plane out of Chicago.) By the time I dragged my sunburned butt back to the house, it had become painfully apparent that beachcombing could take up only so much of my time.

“I was hoping to do just that,” I told Milagros. “Do you know of any Spanish tutors on the island?”

“Tutors? Tutors?!” she said, and I flushed, wondering if I’d made some unintentional gaffe. She pointed her finger at me. “I can teach you Spanish.”

“Really?”

“Really. I taught English for forty years.”

I was already in command of the English language, but judging from Milagros’s enthusiasm, I thought it best not to clarify. “Okay. That would be great.”

She clapped her hands together with delight. “Bien. We can start whenever you’re ready.”

I thanked her, then lifted my glass to my lips and took a small sip. I had to will myself not to gag as I swallowed. “What’s in this?” I coughed.

“Rum, claro.” She chuckled. “If you don’t like it now, you will in an hour.”

My eyes watered as I took another drink. “Uh-huh.”

At one point, Sonny drained his cup and walked off without saying good-bye. When it became clear he wasn’t going to return, Milagros looked at me and said, “So, Libby. What are you running from?”

I frowned. “What makes you think I’m running from something?”

“Single woman rents a beach house for a full month, with no plans to meet friends or family? I’m no detective, tu sabes, but I’m not stupid either.” She laughed, then leaned back in her chair, waiting for my answer.

So I told her—mostly. “Well, let’s see. I recently learned that my husband of eight years is attracted to men.”

“Dios mio,” she cried.

“Yeah, not great news. I found out less than two weeks ago,” I said, and took another drink of the cocktail, which tasted not unlike lighter fluid.

Milagros mistook my sipping as a sign of enthusiasm. “Here,” she said, producing a pitcher from beneath her seat. “Have a little more.”

“I really shouldn’t,” I said as she filled my glass.

“If ever there was a time, this is it. Now tell me, what happened after you found out?”