The Middle of Somewhere (13 page)

The group was silent for an awkward moment before conversation turned to lighter subjects. Liz and Dante had their second helpings, and excused themselves to go back to their cabin.

They'd forgotten to bring a flashlight to dinner, and the moon had yet to rise, so when they stepped beyond the light emanating from the kitchen windows, darkness encircled them. Liz placed her feet deliberately and tried to remember if there were any ruts or large stones in the dirt road winding through the ranch. In the corral to their left, a horse nickered and snorted, then another joined in. She was about to ask Dante whether he thought the horses could see them, when he spoke.

“You might have stood up for me in that discussion.”

“You seemed to be making your point just fine on your own.”

“Maybe, but aside from jokes, you were pretty quiet on the subject.”

She did not want to get into this now. Or ever. “Look, Dante. You're absolutely right. People should take their vows seriously.”

“So why couldn't you have said that?”

“Because everyone believes it already. The problem is that what people should do and what they actually do don't line up very well. The road to hell . . .” She stopped short. “We go right here, don't we?”

“I think so. Isn't the light over there the bathroom?” They walked on in silence for a few moments. “I think couples should try harder not to act in ways that will destroy their relationship. And having sex with other people is bound to do exactly that.”

She was tempted to remind him he had never been married. Had, in fact, never lived with a woman before her. She wanted to point out that people did stupid things, rash things—even calculated, deliberate, horrible things—to the ones they've promised to love until death. But he knew all that. Everyone did. He was willing to risk sanctimoniousness to drive home the point that lovers should remain true. Who was she to argue?

“You're right. You're absolutely right.”

He slowed. “Liz, shouldn't the cabin be here already?”

Indeed it should have. She could make out where the trees met the sky and, faintly, a low building on her right, but she had no clue where the Tenthouse might be.

“Let's go back to the last place we recognized.”

Dante tripped on something and swore. They retraced their route with halting steps, then went straight where they previously had veered to the right, away from what they thought was the bathroom light. The outline of a tented cabin appeared. Up ahead was the Tenthouse, crouched in the shadow of a wall of trees.

“Naughty of you, Tenthouse, hiding from us.” Liz found the railing and ascended the stairs to the deck. She pushed aside the curtain and picked her way to the opposite wall where the light hung.

Dante moved close behind her. “We need to remember to not go anywhere without a flashlight.”

She knocked her hand into the pull string and tugged it. The naked bulb blinded her. She blinked several times and noticed one of their sleeping bags had fallen to the floor. She picked it up, tossed it on the bed, and bent to arrange it. The bag on the far side was bunched. Reaching across, she pulled the other bag toward the foot of the bed.

A loud rattle, the sound of dried beans shaken in a cardboard box.

She yanked her hand away, clutching the bag. A snake. Its body, thick as a child's arm, lay coiled upon the quilt. Instantly, it whipped its head high, and retracted its neck, tongue flicking at the air, ready to strike. Its tail shook above the coils like an aspen leaf, emitting a constant rattle.

She gasped and jumped back, colliding with Dante and knocking him down in the doorway. Her heart pounded in her throat. Only three feet away, the snake tracked her with its head, swaying and moving toward her, tongue darting.

She screamed, the sound ringing in her ears.

Dante scrambled to his hands and knees and crawled out to the deck. Liz stood frozen to the spot, legs dead, eyes fixed on the snake's head as it weaved from side to side.

Dante grabbed her arm. The snake lunged, missing her narrowly, and struck the air beside her. Dante pulled her backward. Her trance broken, she stumbled outside. Dante ran down the steps with Liz on his heels. He stopped at the bottom, but she flew past him into the darkness, and thought she heard, over the noise of her pounding feet and panting breath, a laugh that was not a laugh, coming from the woods close behind her.

S
he was trembling when they returned to the dining room, empty except for Paul, Linda and a trio of young men. Liz told them what had happened. Dante ducked into the kitchen to find someone who knew how to deal with snakes.

Linda patted the bench beside her. Liz sat. “Thank God you're all right. You want some water or tea?”

She shook her head.

“Aren't you in the elevated cabin?” Paul said.

“Not elevated enough, apparently.”

“I can't imagine a snake going up there.”

“Neither can I. And Dante was lying on the bed right before we came to dinner, so it couldn't have been there then.”

“It might have been under the bed or somewhere you couldn't see it,” Linda said.

Liz shivered at the thought. “True.”

Dante and a man they'd seen earlier with the horses came in from the kitchen. The man's face was stern. “You sure it was a rattlesnake?” His tone suggested a lot of folks came through who couldn't tell a snake from a fence lizard.

“Yes. I got a really good look.”

Dante said, “It rattled. Like in those John Wayne films.”

The man peered at him sideways. “Okay, I'll go have a look-see.”

Liz said, “I don't think I could sleep in there. Any way you could grab our packs and let us have another cabin?”

“Sure,” he said. “If I don't find it and kill it, I wouldn't be sleeping in there myself.”

•   •   •

He came back fifteen minutes later and said he'd come up empty. Liz and Dante followed him to another cabin—one with a real door. The bed was piled high with their gear and damp clothing. “Sorry for the mess,” the man said. “Didn't know what else to do with it.”

They thanked him and he left. With few words, they organized their belongings, hanging clothes wherever they could, and went to bed. They lay awake a long time. Eventually, Dante's breathing slowed and he drifted off to sleep. Liz's thoughts turned away from her near-death experience with the snake to the topic that had occupied most of the evening: infidelity. And that was how she came to think about radishes.

Dante had taken Liz to meet his family a year after they'd started dating. He'd never said so, but the meeting was a hurdle in their relationship, whether for both of them or just her, she wasn't certain. He'd proposed the trip soon after their first discussion about moving in together, a discussion prompted by Liz receiving notice that her rented apartment was going up for sale.

“Let's visit them for Christmas,” he said.

“This year?”

“Yes.”

“That's in nine days.”

“Yes! Spontaneous!” He opened his laptop. “I'll book the flights.”

His parents lived in Mexico City but were spending the holidays in the city of Oaxaca, known for its clean air, mild climate and spectacular radish festival each year before Christmas. During their flight south, Dante briefed Liz on his mother's festival fetish. The majority of her travels centered on a festival, either within Mexico or farther afield: festivals of art, music, film and dance, celebrations of Day of the Dead and the feasts of saints, wine and harvest festivals—Felicia Espinoza loved them all. Her husband, Carlos, joined her if he could, but was often called away on business, at times suspiciously close to an upcoming festival. Carlos would then arrange for the company of one of their daughters or friends. Felicia was too high-strung and naive to travel on her own, given to wailing if a train were delayed, leaving her handbag in a hotel lobby or behaving inappropriately when strange men spoke with her, as they readily did, drawn by her expressive face and girlish laugh.

“You're lucky,” Dante said, finishing off his in-flight tequila. “This one's only radishes. The summer I was eight she dragged us to Zacatecas for La Morisma. Thousands of people reenacting medieval battles between Christians and Moors in old Spain, including firing cannons. It was so loud I let go of my mother's hand to cover my ears and got lost. I wandered into the battle scene and nearly got my head chopped off by a broadsword.”

“I can see why you'd prefer radishes.”

A taxi deposited them in front of the Camino Real Oaxaca, a sixteenth-century nunnery converted into a luxury hotel. The bellman led them under broad archways and along Saltillo-tiled corridors lined with frescoes, and paused across from a courtyard with a tiered fountain. The shrubs were alive with birds. He unlocked a dark oak door, placed their bags inside and informed them Señor and Señora Espinoza were currently at the pool. They could, when they were ready, join them there.

“I never expected the nuns to have it so good,” Liz said, exploring the room. It was decorated in colonial design with brilliant white stucco walls and beamed ceilings. An intricately painted wooden cat crouched on the dresser. Liz recognized the style as local, knowledge she'd presumably picked up from her mother, although she couldn't say when.

“We treat our sisters very well,” Dante said.

The pool was crowded, but they easily spotted Dante's family. They were arrayed in a loose group of twenty or more, lounging on chairs, or standing at the pool's edge supervising their children.

“Dante!” someone cried, and every head turned to face them. Half were versions of Dante himself. Liz smiled and gave a self-conscious wave.

On the plane, he had schooled her about his sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews, but when the battalion of Espinozas and their spin-offs mobbed her, she forgot nearly every name she'd learned. Worse, she was blindsided by several unexpected aunts and uncles. Everyone talked at once in rapid-fire Spanish. She offered her cheek to them all.

Dante's mother threw herself at her only son, clutching at his back and sobbing as if he had returned unexpectedly from war.

“Mama,” he said, taking her hands firmly in his and looking her in the eye.
“Todo está bien.”
All is well. He introduced Liz, and Señora Espinoza rallied, swiping the tears from her cheeks. “Call me Felicia,” she said in English. “Please.”

“
Gracias
, Felicia.”

Felicia put her fingertips under Liz's chin and drew the attention of her husband, several yards away.
“Mira, Carlos! Que bonita!”
Heat rushed to Liz's cheeks. Señor Espinoza nodded at his wife and smiled at Liz, tight-lipped. Dante caught his father's eye and offered a nod, and a tentative smile, in greeting. Señor Espinoza turned aside. Dante had warned Liz that his father's reception would be cool and implored her not to take it personally. He had chosen to live in the States of his own accord, long before they'd met, so she was blameless. She understood the situation, and thought she was prepared for it, but she was not. The anguish in Dante's mother's embrace pained her, as did the sting of his father's scorn. At that moment she would have welcomed Claire's tepid disinterest. She reached for Dante's hand and held it.

The radish festival formally started in two days' time, December twenty-third, but the next day Dante's mother hustled everyone to the main plaza, the Zócalo, for a preview. Liz couldn't imagine it any more festive than it appeared. The Zócalo was bursting with people: busking musicians, vendors selling candy, balloons and hats, and onlookers sitting on benches in the shade of gigantic Indian laurel trees. The base of each tree was encircled with dozens of poinsettias, and lights had been strung between the lampposts. Booths of radish carvings lined the plaza perimeter and faced sidewalk cafés where people sat drinking and laughing.

Dante's father's attitude had softened overnight—at least toward Liz. He escorted her around the displays, explaining in fluent English the festival was the brainchild of two Spanish friars who wanted to create a marketing buzz for local produce. They instituted a competition for radish carving, and the indigenous people took to it with a passion. The radishes, some the size of watermelons, were carved in elaborate displays, many with religious themes. Liz admired radish cathedrals, radish nativity scenes (with tiny radish baby Jesuses), and a four-foot-high Our Lady of Solitude radish with an elaborately rendered crown and robe. The vegetable artists also exhibited vignettes of daily life: radish mariachi bands, radish markets and, her favorite, a radish agave farm and tequila distillery complete with radish people falling down drunk. If all the festivals were this bizarre, she could see why Felicia was hooked on them.

Carlos Espinoza explained the significance of the less obvious carvings, then excused himself to take a call. When he finished, he searched out his wife, who was photographing a carver spraying radishes with water, and guided her to a nearby bench. Liz watched the conference with concern. Dante's mother gesticulated wildly and threw herself against her husband. Her back heaved with sobs. Señor Espinoza waited a few moments until his wife had recovered somewhat, then returned to the group to pluck Emilia, the eldest, from the company of her sisters for another conference.

Dante appeared beside Liz. “What's going on?” she asked.

“I don't know. But it looks serious.”

The Espinozas appeared to be berating their daughter, who hung her head. Carlos looked as though he was struggling to control his temper. Felicia clutched his arm and scowled at her daughter, who would not meet their dark glares.

“Emilia!” Señor Espinoza said sharply, attracting the attention of everyone around them. His daughter lifted her head, and he pointed in the direction of the hotel. Without a word to the rest of her family, Emilia gathered her two children and left.

Hours later, Dante returned from a visit to his parents' hotel room and told Liz the call had been from Emilia's husband, Rico, who was to join them in Oaxaca tomorrow. He had taken Dante's place in the Espinoza's company three years prior, preserving the legacy, after a fashion. Today he'd stopped at home after a business trip and discovered Emilia had left her phone behind. On it were several text messages providing him with incontrovertible evidence of the affair he'd long suspected his wife of having.

Dante slid onto the bed next to Liz. “She's gone home.”

“Wow. Just like that?”

“Yes. And we won't be seeing her—or speaking with her—again.”

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

“But you don't know the story. It might be complicated.”

“In our family, loyalty is never complicated.” He hesitated, as if weighing whether to say more. He sighed and leaned back on the pillows. “And the matter of the company came up. Again.”

Liz had been thinking of Emilia, Rico and their children. The business implications hadn't dawned on her. “If your family excommunicates Emilia, does it change Rico's position in the company?”

Dante shook his head. “My father didn't share the details of their arrangement with me, but my mother begged me to move back. Literally. She was on her knees.”

“That's awful.” He looked crushed. Liz's mouth went dry at the possibility he had given in and would leave the States—and her. “What did you say?”

“I didn't have to say anything. My father answered for me. He helped my mother off the floor and said, ‘Rico is my son.'”

Now Liz lay in bed at Muir Ranch with a sleeping Dante and realized he had not mentioned talking to Emilia in the ten months since the radish festival. Not long ago he'd said his youngest sister, Rosalinda, was spending time with Emilia in secret. Their parents had found out and given Rosalinda a stern warning, accompanied by the threat of a substantial hit on her inheritance. Liz could not fathom having three siblings, much less losing one by decree. What had been the price of a sister?

Liz stared into the darkness. Strictly speaking, she wasn't Dante's family, but she doubted that would change how he'd view her indiscretion. If Emilia and General Petraeus were damned, so was she.