The Indigo Notebook (6 page)

She gave birth to me in Italy. And then we moved to Nepal, where she hired a nanny to watch me while she
taught English. Supposedly, I was an incredibly easy baby. When I needed something—a diaper change or a feeding—instead of crying, I politely called out, “Agoo? Agoo?” Within a year Layla was ready to leave again, and she chose Tunisia. And thus began our wandering life.

All thanks to the vomit that wouldn’t quit.

“There’s something pink stuck to you,” Wendell says, pointing to my chest, right above my shirt’s neckline.

I look down and peel it off. “Oh. A rose petal.”

He tilts his head, eyeing me curiously. The morning’s cool, and he’s wearing a cream alpaca sweater with brown llamas encircling the neck. Gaby probably flattered him into buying three sweaters for twenty dollars. Light’s pouring through the café window, lighting up a patch of dust motes and settling on his sweater’s soft fuzz. “How’d a rose petal get there?”

“Long story,” I say.

“You’re mysterious, Zeeta.” Steam from his coffee is rising and swirling near his face before dissipating. I’m extra-appreciative of these details after the brush with death this morning.

I sip my coffee, my red bead bracelets clicking with the movement. Today I’m wearing all red and pink silk, inspired by the rose-petal ritual, feeling lucky that Layla’s still alive. After a moment, I say, “Okay, the long story involves hiking to a waterfall. And a near-death experience.” I raise an eyebrow significantly. “In
water
.”

Wendell looks alarmed. “Are you okay?”

“It wasn’t me. It was Layla. She nearly drowned. But then I helped her find her true love with rose petals. All before six this morning.” I stop there, trying to keep my tone light. A description of nude river bathing seems too much. And most of all, I just want to forget those horrible images of Layla helpless in the churning water. Even thinking about it gives me that same choking feeling as my middle-of-the-night panics.

“Wow. I’m glad your mom’s all right.”

I stare at him. “How’d you know?”

“Know what?” he stalls.

“You told me to be careful in the water.”

He studies a spot above my head. “I guess you mentioned it to me yesterday, and it sounded kind of dangerous.”

“I didn’t know about it then.”

“I bet I overheard your mom talking about it on the plane.” He shifts in his seat, uncrossing one leg and crossing the other. “So, what about our quest for my birth parents?”

I stare at him another moment, then give in for now and tell him Gaby’s advice about going to Agua Santa.

His eyes widen. “Sweet. A real lead. Let’s go tomorrow morning.”

“Wendell,” I say, opening my notebook, “what are you really looking for?”

“My birth parents,” he says, confused.

“I mean, deeper than that. Like, what made you come here now, at this moment?”

He shrugs. “School’s out and I had enough money saved up from my after-school job.”

I push harder. “But Wendell, there’s something, I know there is. What’s the precise thing that made you throw up your hands and say, ‘That’s it, I’m going to Ecuador’?”

He laughs. “You’re psychic, aren’t you?”

“I think you’re the psychic one.”

He shifts his eyes.

I tilt back in my chair and wait.

“Well, there’s lots of reasons,” he says finally. “Layers of reasons, you know?”

“So what’s one layer then?”

“Well, for example, there’s this girl,” he says.

“Oh.”

“She’s my ex-girlfriend, but I think we’ll get back together.”

“Oh.”

“Well, She—” There’s a certain way guys talk about girls they’re completely smitten with.
She
, infused with awe.
She
, with a capital S. “See,” he continues. “She said I was—I can’t believe I’m telling you this—She said I was too—”

“What?”

“She broke up with me because I was always afraid She’d break up with me. She got sick of it. She said I had abandonment issues. So I decided to come here and find my birth parents and go back home and be a brand-new person and She’d be so impressed She’d want me back.” He stares at a deep scratch in the table. “I’m an idiot.”

“Hmmm,” I say. That’s the best response when you don’t know what to say. Other people assume you’re having deep thoughts. And usually they just keep talking until you can swallow your disappointment and compose yourself.

“Okay, Zeeta, now that I spilled my guts, give me more details about this rose-petal thing.”

I look him straight in the eye. “I stripped off my clothes and rubbed rose petals over my wet, nude body in magical waters.” I raise an eyebrow. “And made a wish.”

As expected, he flushes and looks away, at the mountains. But then he asks, in a low voice, “Think it works?”

“Our landlady says it does.”

He moves his head closer across the table. “Will you take me there, Zeeta?”

“Why?”

“I want to wish for Her back.”

“Maybe next week,” I say, a little meanly. “I don’t feel like getting up before dawn again this week.”

“Thanks, Zeeta.” He pulls the sweater over his head and wraps it around his waist. That’s another thing about Americans—they don’t wrap sweaters around their shoulders like most people in the world do. But the around-the-waist way shows off Wendell’s broad shoulders under a snug white T-shirt. I try to ignore it. The shoulders are off-limits. They belong to Her.

Outside the café, we stand looking at each other for an awkward moment. He takes out his camera and moves the
knobs around and snaps a picture of me. “There’s another one,” he says, squinting at a place on my neck. And this time, now that we’ve forged a friends-only bond from the ex-girlfriend talk, he takes the liberty of reaching his hand to the tender space on my neck behind my earlobe and plucking off the rose petal himself.

I swallow hard. “Is the ex-girlfriend thing the deepest layer?”

“What?”

“The deepest reason for coming? What you’re really searching for?”

He looks at the sky and at the sidewalk and everywhere but my face. “I guess. Well,
hasta mañana,”
he says quickly, with a terrible accent.

“Hasta mañana
, Wendell,” I call after him.

I spend the afternoon at the food market, buying ingredients for a pot of hearty soup for Layla’s birthday dinner. Thirty-five years old. She says she’s officially old now that she has to round up to forty. Supposedly she’s found three white hairs, although when she plucked one out and showed it to me, it just looked light blond. “Look!” she insisted. “It’s a different consistency!” I’ve decided that cooking together will cheer us up, peeling and chopping and frying and letting the sizzling smoke wrap around us like a cocoon. She’ll forget about the waterfall and the alleged white hairs and I’ll forget about Wendell’s sort-of-ex-girlfriend.

She’s spending the day with the Taoist surfer clown in Quito to apply for her work visa, but she plans to be back in time for dinner. “It’s not a date,” she promised this morning. “It just so happens he needs to renew his visa. But don’t you think it’s pretty responsible of him to renew his visa?”

I head home, into the setting sun, one bag full of tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro, potatoes, dried lentils, quinoa, and onions. And in the other bag, inside knotted, doubled plastic, is a raw, bloody chicken, just chopped into four parts by a market lady’s enthusiastic butcher knife.

Wherever we live, Layla and I try to cook the local food, most of the time at least. When we’re lazy or just settling into a new place, we fall back on spaghetti, the old standby. Here in Ecuador, potato-chicken soup seems to be the staple, with heaps of fresh cilantro. People eat plenty of
canguil—
popcorn—as a side dish, but I can’t seem to cook it without either burning it or having kernels pop out all over the kitchen. Yesterday, our landlady smelled the charred popcorn and, out of pity, brought us over a bowl she’d made herself.

I’m walking past the Internet café, the bag handles digging into my palms, when I spot Layla. Her flowing white dress is what jumps out from the crowd first. The dress is thin cotton, backlit by the evening sun, a little see-through. She refuses to wear a slip, even though I beg.

And then I notice she’s walking next to someone.

Very close. Maybe even touching.

And it’s not an elderly person or a little kid or a clown.

It’s a middle-aged guy.

A few paces closer, I recognize him. The man from the plane. Handsome Magazine Dad.

He’s nodding and listening to Layla, who’s telling him a story, her arms spiraling in flamboyant gestures. He’s tall, stooping down to listen to her. He’s dressed in a tasteful light blue button-down with tan leather shoes and pants as white as his teeth. Today he’s stepped out of an ad for a family vacation at a giant, international hotel, like a Marriott or a Hilton.

Now Layla’s waving her hand and bouncing toward me, as he jogs to keep up with her. “Zeeta! It’s Jeff. On the way to the bus stop, the universe stuck him right in my path!” She gives me a meaningful look.

“Hi, Zeeta,” he says, holding out his hand, giving me a firm-yet-warm shake. “Nice to see you again.”

“Likewise,” I say, suddenly tongue-tied, as though he really is a magazine model or some other celebrity. Which he is, in a way, for me at least. He could easily be the star of any Normal Family fantasy. It’s strangely thrilling and a little nerve-racking to see him standing so close to Layla.

She beams. “We spent the day together. I know I said I’d go to Quito for my visa, love, but I’ll do it another day.” She looks so proud, about to burst. “And you’ll be happy to know I ditched the surfer clown.”

I’m practically speechless. “Great, Layla!”

“What serendipity!” she says, turning her face up to Jeff’s. “Did you know that the word
serendipity
comes from
Serendip?
An old name for Sri Lanka. These travelling
princes of Serendip went on a quest, but they kept stumbling across marvelous discoveries. And their discoveries turned out even better than what they’d been looking for.”

She’s starting to sound flaky and weird and soon she’ll start quoting Rumi. I bring the conversation back to earth, mustering up my most normal smile for Jeff, hoping Layla will seem less zany by association. “So,” I sum up, “Layla was looking for a bus and she found you instead. That’s great.”

“It’s serendipitous for me, too,” he says, looking fondly at Layla, as though he’s barely restraining himself from tucking a stray piece of blond hair behind her ear. “I was on a dating quest.” He grins. “For a quiet homebody type. And instead I meet this gorgeous world traveler. And I’ll tell you something”—he drops his voice, letting me in on a secret—“we’ve been having the best conversation I’ve had in years.”

Unbelievable. I silently thank Layla for not scaring him. For refraining from suggesting they find a grassy hill to roll down, which she’s been known to do with men she’s just met. She really is trying. I wonder how long it can last.

Jeff touches her bare shoulder. “Listen, I need to get back to the bank and do a little work tonight.” He turns to me, flashing his white smile. “Zeeta, I’m coming back to Otavalo for the weekend. How about on Saturday we all have lunch together?
Restaurante Americano
. One o’clock. My treat. Bring a friend if you’d like.”

It takes them ten minutes to say goodbye, with all the blushing and smiling and tittering. Finally, Layla and I walk
home, her carrying the bag of veggies and grains, me carrying the raw chicken.

She talks the whole way home, giving a Why Jeff Would Be a Good Boyfriend monologue, even though she doesn’t need to convince me of anything. I’m sold.

“You know, Z, he’ll be good for me. Nutritious, like quinoa.” She pulls out the small plastic bag of tiny, light brown, doughnut-shaped grains. Studying them, she says, “Quinoa’s the only grain that has all the essential amino acids, that’s what our landlady told me.”

She drops the quinoa back in the market bag. “It’ll feel strange at first, trying to be a new person and being with a different kind of man. But I’ll do it for you, and for us, because the waterfall this morning was a wake-up call. I need to change. It’s time. And Jeff will be my guide in the realm of responsible grown-up stuff, don’t you think? I’m excited about it. I really am. He’s good-looking, isn’t he? In a conservative way. You know, I really think he’d look great nude. He’s muscular, have you noticed? Apparently his big thing is working out at the gym. I’d love to paint him. Don’t worry. I won’t ask him to model for me right away …”

As she goes on and on, I nod periodically and try to wrap my mind around the significance of all this.

Maybe the near-death experience really has changed her.

Maybe the sacred waters really have worked.

Maybe my life has, miraculously, just veered onto the normal course.

For years, I imagined this moment, the moment my life would turn off the twisty, mountainous, forested, pebbled road to the wide, clean, SUV-filled highway. And now it’s actually happening. My stomach is jumping around and I’m picturing me and Layla laughing at a kitchen table in Virginia, and Jeff serving us pancakes and saying,
What shall we do today, ladies? The neighborhood pool? A barbecue on the deck?

“So what do you think about this Jeff thing?” she asks. “Aren’t you happy?”

“Of course.” Gently, I add, “And please try to be normal with him.”

“How?”

“For starters, lay off the Rumi quotes. Tone down your outfits. Just be normal.”

In silence, we walk toward our apartment, contemplating our possible new life, squinting into the setting sun, Layla swinging the bag of veggies and quinoa, me swinging the bag of bloody chicken.

T
he bus to Agua Santa looks as though it might have been elegant thirty years ago—faded red velvet seats, ragged gold curtains with fraying tassels. The smell of diesel and damp wool fills the close space. A few other passengers sit scattered on the bus, mostly indigenous Otavaleños. The women are dazzling, sitting straight and elegant in their shiny, white embroidered blouses with lace sleeves, and cream wool shawls. These are everyday clothes, what they wear to work the fields and feed pigs and butcher chickens and wash dishes.