Merry Jones - Elle Harrison 02 - Elective Procedures (29 page)

But Susan had a different agenda. Consulting her travel book, she marched me along the
Malecón
, pointing out inanimate objects. Announcing that Puerto Vallarta was famous for
sand sculptures. Indeed, the beach alongside the
Malecón
was covered with them, intricate and ornate. I stopped to stare at one, a sculpture of two men at a table playing cards and drinking beer. It was too realistic. Couldn’t be made out of sand—had to be models in sand costumes. I watched, waiting for them to move. But, of course, being sand, they didn’t.

When I looked up, Susan wasn’t there. I looked ahead, across, behind. Saw throngs of people in every direction, but no Susan. I turned back toward the sculpture. Maybe she’d gone to get a closer look. Nope. I scanned the beach. Didn’t see her.

Oh, great. We hadn’t been in town for twenty minutes, and I’d already gotten lost. Faces flowed past me, families swarmed by. I waited for Susan’s to emerge from the crowd. Wondered how long it would take her to figure out she’d left me behind. Watched the crowd. So many people, none of them Susan. Finally, thought I sensed her behind me and spun around, startling a sun-wrinkled woman with dyed blonde hair.

“Sorry,” I said.

She kept moving.

I looked around. I’d been sure Susan had been there, that she’d been about to touch me.

“Elle?”

But she couldn’t have been. She was calling from about ten yards up. I scurried to catch up. Listened to her scold me about getting separated, not paying attention.

We walked on. My stitches felt itchy and tender, but I didn’t care. A man passed by in full Aztec: silver, black-and-red collar piece, scant loincloth, bracelets, and headdress. His thighs and shoulders glistened in the sun. I touched Susan’s arm, laughed at her eyes traveling up and down, taking him in.

As we walked, Susan talked about Puerto Vallarta’s art, pointed out famous statues. Elongated half-human, half-alien figures, facing out to sea. A boy riding a seahorse. Three leaping dolphins. A ladder leading up to the sky, being climbed by squat,
robed figures with outstretched arms and wide triangular heads. Susan narrated the name of each piece, recited the artists’ names. I didn’t pay attention. There was too much else to focus on. Children with wide brown eyes. Musicians. Vendors. Living statues—people coated in makeup textured like golden sand, standing motionless along the beach: A Santa Claus. Flamenco dancers. A fisherman.

And no guardrail. No fences. One side of the
Malecón
simply dropped off to the sand; the other was lined with shops, clubs, and restaurants. According to Susan, it went on for fifteen blocks. Apparently, she intended to walk all of it.

Every few blocks, though, I had to stop.

“Your leg?” Susan looked up from the guidebook.

It had begun to throb. The doctor had said to stay off it for a few days; I’d managed one. I sat on a cement wall around a cluster of palm trees, elevating my leg while Susan stood beside me, searching her guidebook for festival details.

“I can’t remember what time the actual parade starts.” She rifled through pages. A little boy dressed like a gaucho ran into her, grabbed onto her leg so he wouldn’t fall. She didn’t react, accustomed to children. “I think it’s three. Maybe four. We have time to wander. If you’re up to it.”

We wandered. For hours. Despite the complaints of my leg, we explored souvenir shops and art galleries. We looked at paintings, carvings, jewelry, ceramics. Susan bought an abstract alpaca weaving for her den. It was bulky, but they wrapped it with a strap so she could carry it like a shoulder bag. In one shop, women were gluing tiny colored beads onto ceramic pieces in Aztec patterns. I bought a small jaguar mask with beads of orange, red, yellow, and green. The shopkeeper said that the jaguar was the most powerful of all animals, that the mask would protect me.

We walked past an amphitheater and a row of historic arches into El Centro. I moved carefully, watching the ground;
the streets were speckled with gaping potholes. I was avoiding one when Susan grabbed my arm and pointed ahead.

I looked up, stopped walking. The orange brick and terracotta of the Our Lady of Guadalupe cathedral towered over us, its famous golden crown shining in the sun. Susan resumed her role as tour guide, reviewing the history of this place, the meaning of that. I tuned her out as she dragged me up the steps and shoved me through the crowd toward the door. I pressed against others, squeezing my way through, bumping a fleshy bosom, a sweaty arm. Feeling that I didn’t belong there—what business did I have shoving my way into a church? I was hot and tired and wanted to sit down. But Susan was behind me, her hand on my back. Pushing. People were on all sides of me, surrounding me, closing me in. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move in any direction. But Susan kept the pressure on, moving me forward and, finally, we crossed the threshold, entering the cathedral right in the middle of a Mass.

I slowed down, startled. The commotion was gone. I looked around. The air glowed. Light filtered in through stained-glass windows, glittered on a gilt-trimmed altar. There were white and gold statues of Jesus and images of Mary. Festive wreaths and icons. Burning candles. Stations of the cross. A throng of people crammed together, cushioned against each other like a single massive being. I felt its heart beating around me—inside me, and when I looked up, I saw golden light under the arches, felt its steady warmth beckoning. I imagined floating up weightlessly into that light, looking down at the people calmly wedged together, breathing together, praying together. The voices blended, cushioned, and comforting.

Susan grabbed my arm, ready to move on. Bumping people with her alpaca bundle, she tugged me out of the cathedral, down the steps, and onto a nearby plaza filled with booths selling everything. Cakes. Costume jewelry. Cotton candy. Pies. Purses. Baskets. Blouses. Trinkets. Toys. The opposite of the cathedral, the bazaar erupted with commerce, smells, and noise.

I had to get off my leg. Saw no place to sit. Just booth after booth.

Susan found a fountain across from the plaza and planted me there with her alpaca. I sat, hoping my leg would stop throbbing. Thinking about the feeling I’d had in the cathedral. I wasn’t Catholic, wasn’t even religious. So what had happened in there? Maybe the architecture had affected me. The height of the domed ceiling. Or the light.

Madam Therese shook her head. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. You were unburdened in the church. You felt calm and light because no dark spirits clung to you there. They couldn’t go in.”

Really? Where had that thought come from? Besides, how could spirits—if there were such things—how could they burden someone? Weren’t they weightless? Did they even have mass? Why was I even thinking about this? I wasn’t going to; I refused to let thoughts of spirits intrude upon my day. I reached into my bag, took out the jaguar mask. Admired the beadwork, the colors, and patterns. Felt someone behind me, also looking at it. A shadow hovered over me. Lingered.

Ignore it, it’s nothing, I told myself. Just a passerby. Don’t be so jittery. Stop taking it personally just because someone is standing behind you—it’s mobbed here. People stand behind everyone.

Still, I was uneasy. I rewrapped the jaguar and placed it in my bag and slowly turned as if casually looking around.

The moment I turned, someone darted off into the crowd. I didn’t see who it was, just a ripple of bodies reacting to it, a disturbance like a pebble dropping into water. I watched the crowd close in again, absorbing the newcomer. And I rubbed my arms, feeling chilled, even though the day was hot. Even though the shadow had disappeared.

Already that day, I’d felt someone watching me twice. Twice, I’d felt alarmed.

I was too nervous. Oversensitive. Imagining things. And I’d
been that way for a while. Even at Alain’s house, I’d had the feeling someone was slinking around in the shadows. I was too on edge. Needed to get over my jitters and have fun.

Fine. I would get over my jitters. I sat, getting over them, studying the spot where I’d seen the crowd ripple. Still getting over them, I picked up my bag and Susan’s alpaca and headed over there.

“Señora, take a look. I have good deals for you.” A vendor leaned out of a booth at the edge of the marketplace, holding up a pair of wool gloves.

“No, gracias.” I turned away, then back. “Can you tell me—just now, a minute ago—did you see someone go by? Maybe running?”

The man shrugged. “I see many people, señora.” He waved the gloves at me. “These are hand knitted with an authentic Aztec pattern. A very good value. Or maybe you’d like something else?” He put the gloves down, held up a scarf.

I kept going, entering the crowd in the marketplace, looking over people’s heads, up and down each aisle. I passed one booth, another. My leg nagged at me, Susan’s alpaca was heavy, and I didn’t know who I was looking for. Probably not that heavyset woman buying a tablecloth. Or the one with a little girl, trying on necklaces. Maybe that man? He wasn’t buying anything, just standing next to a booth with his arms crossed. What was he doing there? Had I ever seen him before? I moved closer, trying to remember. He seemed oblivious to his surroundings, bored. A woman came up to him, held up a baby dress for his approval.

Not him.

Of course it wasn’t him. It wasn’t anyone else either. I’d probably imagined the whole thing. No one had been following me here or watching me at Alain’s. People were here to celebrate. Their actions—standing near me, running into a crowd—had nothing to do with me.

I went back and sat at the fountain, watching for Susan. Assessing people who walked by. Trying in vain to regain the sense
of peace I’d found in the cathedral. Telling myself to be calm. Reminding myself that we were far from the hotel and safe from whatever dangers might lurk there. Nobody here knew us; no one had reason to follow or harm us. But when Susan showed up with lunch—enchiladas, pie slices, drinks, and fruit salad—I was still on guard, searching for a shadow. She approached from behind. And I wheeled around swinging, almost slapping the food out of her arms.

“What the hell?” She juggled tortillas and drinks, barely catching them before they dropped.

“Sorry.” I helped her gather up the food. “I thought you were somebody else.”

She cocked her head. “You what?”

“I mean I thought someone was sneaking up on me.”

“You thought someone was sneaking up on you?” Coming from her, the words sounded ridiculous. She unwrapped an enchilada.

“Never mind. I was wrong. It was just you.” I opened a bottle of lemon soda. I was thirsty and hot. And I didn’t want to annoy Susan by referring to events of the week.

“Elle, why would anyone sneak up on you?” She took a bite, talked with her mouth full. “Nobody even knows you’re here. We’re miles from the hotel. And besides, we agreed to leave all that—”

“I know. I shouldn’t have said anything. Leave it alone.”

“Relax, Elle. Nobody here is going to follow you or harm you.”

I nodded. Drank. Thought about Sergeant Perez, warning us not to go anywhere alone.

As if she could read my mind, Susan said, “What Sergeant Perez said about our safety applies in Nuevo Vallarta, not here. Here we’re anonymous tourists. Nobody knows or cares what happened there.”

I nodded again.

She passed me an enchilada, bit off another chunk of hers. “So, what happened? Why did you think someone was following you?”

Really?

“Forget it, Susan. It was just my imagination. Nerves.”

Susan chewed. And she talked. She went on about how beautiful the cathedral was. How she couldn’t wait for the parade. How there were a lot of potholes in the streets and we’d have to be careful to avoid them later, in the dark. How glad she was to be away from the hotel and, oops, how she was sorry for mentioning it and breaking her own rule.

Susan chattered, almost giddily, all through lunch. I rested my leg until Susan proposed visiting some more art galleries until the parade, and we set off, following her guidebook, winding through narrow streets that led away from the festival.

“Thank goodness,” she said. “It’s great to be away from the crowds, isn’t it? I can finally breathe.”