I Don't Have a Happy Place (14 page)

It's possible that Buzz is on a different vacation. He looks relaxed and already suntanned even though we just got out of the car. His personality now cranked up to high, he is euphoric because it is feeding time. He eyes the specials chalkboard. Buzz is a consummate overorderer. There is not an abundance of choice at the restaurant, but the options all feature avocado and fresh salsa, our favorites. It is Christmas morning in those too-close-together hazel eyes. Soon he will ask if I want to share that gross chicken
pibil
dish we got two years ago that I didn't care for or insist I try the shredded-pork tacos even though we both know I dislike that kind of pork. The small table will soon be overcrowded and the waiter will have to do some fancy maneuvering to fit the various plates on our table. It will appear that we are dining for twelve. He will ask the waiter so many questions and rearrange the menu offerings to get exactly what he wants. And then he will eat with his mouth open and go on about the chicken and the guacamole and “God, don't you just love fajitas?” and I will want to stick salty tortilla chips in my eye.

You'll just know
.

The food comes, so all the water glasses and sugar packets must be removed to make space. The waiter smiles and pretends to wipe his brow when he has unloaded his tray. After a round of
gracias
, Buzz places his forearm on the table, leaning in to start the eating. He is focused, an Olympian going for the gold. He makes pleased little noises as he chews. He doesn't even realize I am sitting across from him with that shoulder blade pain I thought was a tumor but Dr. Shapiro insisted was stress. I have had enough.

“I just want you to know,” I say, my voice calm and measured, “that I will be here on this vacation. I'll sit on the beach with you and eat and swim in those sinkhole things. But, when we get home, I will be getting my own apartment.”

Buzz does not look up. Instead, he dips chips into the homemade salsa. When finished, he reclines in his chair and inspects my face. He leans onto the table and says, “A one-bedroom or a studio?”

“What?”

“When you move out,” he says, “will you be getting a one-bedroom or a studio?”

The tears that were about to spill onto my mango quesadilla dry up. I suddenly feel like spitting. “I don't know!”

“Well, would you mind staying close by?” he says, resuming the chip dipping. “So I can still see the dog?”

In a move I learned from
Knots Landing
, I push my chair away from the table, with great emphasis on the floor scraping. I want to throw a drink in his face, push all the plates and glasses and silverware to the tiled floor. Alas, it is not Sweeps Week, so I walk out of the restaurant. But I walk really, really fast. Once at the room, I jam the key in the lock and, no matter which direction I jiggle it, the lock won't give. I long for the credit card swipe key but know deep down I can't use those properly either, and
I wonder why I can't just open a door like a regular person. I hear Buzz behind me because, much to my daily chagrin, he is a mouth breather. Without turning around, I throw my arm behind me with the key pinched in my fingers, which is code for
You open the door, idiot
. Buzz unlocks it with ease and I blaze by him and take to the bed. Curled into the fetal position, I start to cry. Grape-sized tears travel in all directions off my face, many ending up in my hair, which has already conspired with the humidity to make me look like Gabe Kaplan.

Even through my snarfling, I can hear Buzz unpacking his clothes and locking his passport in the safe. I start conjuring all the ways he could possibly die on this trip. Shark attack. Ripped apart by jungle critters. Ceramic iguana from the coffee table to the back of the head. There would be a pool of blood on the pale tile and I could run to the front desk, speaking in the bits of my childhood French, which, I'd later tell in court, was used because I didn't know Spanish and was in a panic and Canadian. One could get away with a lot more if you were from the Great White North. They would ask what happened to the loud, handsome fellow who made all the jokes and tried to get a discount on the room. I'd whisper how he fell out of bed, which, besides making him dead, would also make him look like a moron.

“Kim,” Buzz says to my back. “Let's talk. This is ridiculous.”

Unpacking is ridiculous
. “Leave me alone.”

“Come on. Don't be like this.”

“Go away. I'm serious.”

He sighs. “Kim, look where we are! Please stop crying.”

I continue crying.

“Let's just talk. Turn around. Look at me.”

“I don't want to look at you.”

“Turn around.”

“No.”

Buzz gets on the bed and tries to physically move me. “Kim. Turn. Around.”

“
Uchhhh
. You're an asshole,” I say as I flip myself over, only to be faced with a small black velvet box, its sparkly contents blinding my puffy eyes.

“Will you marry me?” Buzz says.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“I had a whole thing planned for tomorrow morning but I thought you might have a heart attack. Plus, you broke up with me at lunch.”

He places the ring on my finger. “You still haven't answered me, technically.”

“Are there any tissues in this stupid hotel?” I say.

I am covered in snot, and my fake sporty shirt that says
SHARKS
is drenched in self-pity. He kisses me anyway.

We are engaged.

“Are you still going to get your own apartment when we get home?”

Buzz is pleased with himself that I had a nervous breakdown in his honor. I start crying again.

“Seriously?” he says. “Again with the waterworks?”

I weep the very last tears I have left in my sockets. “
This
is our story?”

•   •   •

The next morning, before he even opened his eyes, Buzz said, “You moving out of the hotel room?”

I had been awake for an hour, clutching my face.

“What's with this?” he said, pointing to my cheek.

A pain in my mouth had started in the night. A paring knife to the gums.

“Open,” he said.

I shook my head.

“Just open.”

“Don't touch it.”

“I'm not going to touch it.”

Buzz always swore he wouldn't touch the sliver of wood in my foot or the weird wrist cyst that sometimes sticks up, but he always did. However, before I could even open my mouth, I suddenly needed to excuse myself and run to the bathroom. Which is where I stayed for the next three days. I didn't know what was taking revenge on me. I'd brushed my teeth with bottled water, I'd squeezed my face tight in the shower so as not to let a drop in by mistake, I didn't eat lettuce. Instead of being fetal on the bed, I was prone on the cold tile. And the pain that started that morning was teetering on the edge of unbearable. (
Signs
.)

“Should I find a doctor?” Buzz said to me.

“Here?”

“Yes, here.”

“No.”

Not only was I scared of what kind of doctor we'd find in the middle of the jungle, but I couldn't admit defeat. Buzz often told me that basketball players play with broken feet and concussions and the flu, whereas I skipped work if I felt sweaty. Plus I'd convinced myself that all the symptoms I'd ever experienced up till now had led me to this moment and I was definitely dying in the bathroom of the various tumors I knew were rotting my insides, along with the lupus and typhoid fever. Why didn't I take care of these things years ago?

“You're a vision,” Buzz said, the next day. My hair was a giant tangle, a Mexican bed Afro. Spanish saltine crumbs were stuck to my legs and arms, and crumpled tissues trailed toward the trash can like ellipses. I was now beyond what a cold compress and glass of iceless ginger ale could fix.

“Should we just cut our losses and go to Cancun?” Buzz said.

Even plagued with dysentery and a mysterious life form growing out of my jaw and exiting through my cheek, the word
Cancun
, especially during spring break, was grim. How could I take Traveler Buzz out of this postcard and plop him at Señor Frog's with a group of lacrosse bros?

“No,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I don't want to ruin the trip.”

The sun was bright, the sand sugary, the turquoise water Elysian. Buzz stared out the window, then back at me. “I'm going to make some calls.”

•   •   •

Worlds shifted when Buzz made calls. Deals were made, discounts had; companies never even saw it coming. When people saw Buzz in action, they all said the same thing: “Next time I buy a car, I'm bringing you.” There was nothing he wouldn't ask for. He was the guy who'd asked the CVS clerk if she could do better on a four-pack of Duracells. I apologize for walking into a store. It was spring break in Cancun. Girls were wild, boys were ­pillaging—no way was there a room to be had.

“We're leaving in the morning,” Buzz said, returning an hour later. “Three fun-filled nights at the Hilton Cancun.”

We would say goodbye to our eleven-room boutique eco-hotel for travelers not tourists, where the only sounds one heard at night were the waves and the faint whir of some weird lemur I was convinced would kill me in my sleep.

•   •   •

The Hilton Cancun had 426 rooms and 7 pools. The lobby thumped. Clumps of families stood by the gift shop wearing
bathing suits and snorkel gear, Cheez-Its and Oreos spilling from their oversized beach bags. Groups of office types gathered in the lobby in their casual attire, checking out one another's pale legs or arms, which were usually concealed in their air-conditioned offices. Staff was everywhere, smiling, with trays of drinks or maps or ready to mop up some guest vomit. Everything was shiny.

“Go sit on the couch,” Buzz said, as he had business at the front desk. I ambled over, looking like a kidnapping victim moments after being rescued from a chained radiator. I sat on the white leather as small children walked by with curious faces, covertly grabbing a parental hand. The hum and chatter and unnatural lobby light mingled with frosty temperatures gave me the panicky feeling usually reserved for large malls.

Buzz held my elbow and guided me toward the elevator bank, then led me down the long, carpeted hall. He swiped the room key (effortlessly) as I heard kids thumping on the floor above. Housekeeping pushed the large cart past me, and even through my dying haze I peeked to see what there was to steal. Buzz shoved me along even though he swore he wasn't pushing.

“Get into bed.” His tone was bossy.

The room was small but immaculate. Six pillows on the king-sized bed stood at attention. A dark wood unit (maybe walnut, I don't know my woods) housed a television. A windowed door covered an entire wall, looking out on one of those slivers of balcony that were just there for show, and a small dining table with two chairs.

The blanket and sheets were facelift-skin tight and I barely had the energy to fight with them to get in. Not wanting to ask Buzz for help, as he was busy reading the room service menu, I managed to get in by myself, then felt accomplished and athletic. I rubbed my legs around the cool sheets, settling into position.
Buzz handed me the remote, told me that he was going to stretch his legs and walk around. He closed the door and I could hear his flip-flops smack down the carpeted hall. I pressed all the buttons on the remote until the television turned on.
The Cosby Show
was on. In English.

“I fucking love Cancun,” I said to myself.

•   •   •

At sundown, Buzz ordered room service. I was still only gumming saltines, so he ordered dinner for one. He looked small slouching at the table near the sliding door of the non­balcony, eating room service shrimp fajitas to the sounds of Rudy Huxtable.

•   •   •

The doctor's office was in the basement of the hotel.

“It never occurred to me that hotels had basements,” I said, still dying but rested and ready for conversation.

“Mmmmhmm.”

“What, you don't want to talk?” I said to Buzz.

“I don't have anything to say.”

The doctor introduced himself as Dr. Alvarez and excused himself for a moment, letting us know he'd be right back. He patted my head before exiting.

“Is that Alfred Molina?” I said.

“I don't even know who that is, but no.”

“You know, Alfred Molina, the actor,” I said. “He's in everything.”

“I don't know who he is, but this guy's Dr. Alvarez and he is in the basement of the Cancun Hilton. Why would he be Alfred Molina?”

I shook my head. “You're no fun.”

Dr. Alvarez returned and had me sit on a folding chair.

“What do we have here?” he said, smiling like Santa Claus waiting to hear about the Cabbage Patch dolls I wanted.

I reported my symptoms and when they'd started. As I mentioned the stomach issues, he nodded.

“Sí
, sí, sí,”
said Dr. Alvarez, explaining the affliction. “Happens to many, many tourists.”

Travelers
. I didn't have the energy to correct Dr. Alvarez. Buzz sighed, because not twenty-four hours earlier he was a traveler and now—well, he was part of the group who felt proud of themselves for shouting
hola
whenever they could.

As for my face pain, he looked into my mouth and said that indeed something was there but he didn't know what it was. This was out of his area of expertise. He suggested a dentist and I nodded with interest but there was no way I was hitting a dentist's office in another basement. Dr. Alvarez spoke in a clipped Christopher Walken–style cadence.

“As for the stomach. I give you. This medicine. So you can. Sit. In the seat up there,” he said, pointing to an airplane in the sky. “And not. In the seat. In there.” Dr. Alvarez laughed as he motioned toward the bathroom, and then went to get me some medicine. After I took the pill, Buzz made me sit by the pool and get real air, convinced that was all I needed to fix this phantom pain hammering my face.