Head Games, page 10
Lisa took no more chances. She did not venture outside the resort. She stayed in the shadow of the walls, moved stealthily between the bungalow and the pool, hid behind Don’s broad back when they walked to the dining room in the main building of the Villas del Mar.
One more evening to get through.
“I have no present for you,” Lisa said on Don’s birthday. “Sorry.”
They were sitting on the patio after dinner. She was in no mood for the faux-romantic night sky.
“But I have a present,” he said. “And it’s big enough for both of us.”
He handed Lisa a jewellery box. Inside, resting on blue velvet, was a diamond ring. There must be a mistake, she thought, and ripped open the envelope that came with it. Perhaps the card explained it all, but the message inside the envelope was even more mysterious. It was an application for a marriage licence, filled out, dated, and signed by Don. Only the Lisa Martinez signature was missing. She looked up and saw Don watching her face, expectant, hopeful of being kissed, embraced, thanked.
“Don!” she said. “This is a joke, right?”
His face fell. “I’m completely serious, sweetie. I wouldn’t joke about a thing like that. I love you, baby. Don’t you love me a little in return?” He hoisted his jowls up into a smile, but it was shot through with anxiety.
Lisa thought she had settled that question. She thought Don understood he was on sufferance.
“You’ve been very nice to me, Don,” she said. So much was true. “But.” The “but” was hard to spin into something definite. It made her squirm to think what came after “but”. Lisa wasn’t cut out for a message of that kind. It was too cruel to come from her mouth.
Don read her mind. He could tell that “but” would be followed by something devastating. He tried to ward it off.
“I’d do anything for you, Lisa,” he said.
“I know, Don, but I never thought of you as a – .” She didn’t say the word. It was bad luck to have Don and lover appear in the same thought.
“I’m too old, you mean.”
“You are more of a father figure to me.”
“That’s saying the same thing.”
“Don, please, let’s not talk about it anymore.”
Lisa held out the jewellery box to him. She wanted him to take the bad luck charm out of her hands, out of her sight.
“You’re in love with someone else.”
Lisa frantically tried to blot out all thoughts of Jim. She could feel her head going transparent and all her hidden thoughts being exposed to Don’s probing eyes.
“There is someone else, right?” he said.
“Stop interrogating me, Don.”
“I don’t mean to ‘interrogate’ you, sweetheart.
If you tell me there is no one else, I’ll wait. I am a patient man, you know.” He put his octopus arms around Lisa. “Please, give me a chance, baby.”
She struggled against his embrace. She felt sorry for Don, but she wanted out.
“Wear the ring. Please,” he said. “Wear it at least for the rest of the trip. That’s all I’m asking for. Think about me while you’re in Catamarca.”
“I don’t want to wear the ring. It makes no sense.”
“I just want you to take my proposal seriously. I’m asking for a few days, sweetheart.” He grasped Lisa’s hand. He straightened her fingers. He slipped on the ring. Lisa’s hand went into rigor mortis.
“And when I come back?” she said faintly. She felt tagged.
“When you come back, you give me your considered reply.”
“And if I say no, you’ll ruin the last few days in Buenos Aires for me. You’ll bug me all the way home.” “I swear, baby, I’ll accept whatever you say. I’ll respect your decision. Cross my heart.”
He picked up Lisa’s hand and kissed it. The ring flashed a terrible warning. It predicted disaster. Lisa could see it coming.
She said: “It’s crazy, you know, Don. I can tell you right now – ”
He put a finger on her lips. “No, don’t say it. I want to be hopeful for one short week. You’ll do that much for me, won’t you, ducky?”
Lisa made a mistake then. She lost sight of the flashing omen and looked into Don’s pleading eyes. “Okay,” she said, but she was thinking: I need to get away from Don and the easy comfort of his arms. I need to move out of his flat when I’m back in Toronto. I don’t care if it makes a hole in my savings. I’ll put someone else in charge of swatting the mariposas and clearing the air around me. Jim. She felt a sudden access of energy and confidence. The Don phase was over.
“I’m going to the beach,” she said. His presence was clotting her life, turning it sour.
“Wait for me,” he said.
“No, I need to be on my own.”
“It’s very late,” he said. “It’s not safe to go to the beach on your own.”
“I can look out for myself.”
“I’ll wait up for you.”
“Go to bed, Don. Leave me alone.”
He looked hurt, but his hands made no more demands on her. He retreated. Even so he was taking up too much space, jutting into Lisa’s life. She walked out into the night, past the bungalows, along the concrete path leading down to the beach. The fake gas lanterns made the concrete look an alarming yellow.
When she stepped out of the circle of light and on to the sand, a shadow unfolded into the silhouette of a man, an apparition: Santos. Was this the meaning of the flashing diamond and the alarming yellow path? A warning – watch out for Santos? This was a scene she was not prepared for, a play with no end in sight, a play with an indefinite run. On stage: Lisa in the spotlight. In the wings: men waiting their turn. Don goes off-stage. Enter Santos.
“What are you doing here?” she said to him.
“Looking for you,” he said and fell in step with her, trotting along like a shaggy dog.
Lisa sat down on the sandy ridge above the sea. He sat down beside her. Together they watched the waves rolling in on a crest and falling back into glazed smoothness.
“So when will you come to Tilcara?” he said, switching to Spanish, speaking with new-found precision. Correct grammar made him both more commanding and less exotic.
Lisa ignored his question and asked one of her own. “How did you track me down?”
“I phoned your mother. I told her I was going to Argentina. I was a friend of yours and wanted to meet up with you. She gave me your itinerary.” He looked at Lisa sideways. “You look annoyed. Why? I did nothing wrong. I asked a question, and I got an answer.”
Naturally. Lisa’s mother was a member of the crew that kept her on stage. She was the prompter. Go, go. Next scene: you’re on again, Lisa.
“I’m annoyed at you for asking, and at my mother for giving out the information.”
Santos picked up her hand, the one with Don’s ring, looked at it, and put it down again gently.
“Your mother said nothing of this,” he said and fell silent. The breakers were eating into the shore and etching white lines into the sand.
“She doesn’t know,” Lisa said. “Don sprang a proposal on me. I didn’t say yes. I told him I would think about it when I’m on my own.”
Santos curled his lip. “But you are never on your own. He is with you all the time.”
“I’m going to Catamarca tomorrow,” she said. “On my own. I don’t want Don around. Or you. Comprendes?”
He nodded, but it wasn’t a nod of approval. “When you are in Catamarca, go to the farmers’ market and look for Asu,” he said. “She works there.” He said it as if he was recommending a tourist attraction.
“Asu? But you said she was – ”
“I know what I said. But she is beginning to listen to the saints. One day they will show her the way home. You go to the market and look for Asu. Talk to her about Tilcara.”
“Santos, listen to me. I hope Asu finds her way home, but I’m not going to look for her or talk to her. I have problems of my own.”
“Then you must come to Tilcara.” The promised land, the magical place to heal all sorrows. “Your mother told me you are booked on a bus tour to the North. The bus stops in Jujuy, no? You wait for me at the hotel. I’ll pick you up and drive you to Tilcara.”
He said Tilcara so often, it was becoming a chant.
He pulled a flask out of his back pocket. “You want?” He showed Lisa the sepia label: Dr. Brown’s Magic.
Lisa needed magic in her life now that she had to contend with two unwanted followers. Her resolve weakened. One more time: to lift the weight of life. She drank from the bottle. She kept taking sips as they sat in silence.
“What time are you leaving tomorrow?” Santos said. His voice was echoing in the vast chamber of the open air.
“At seven. I should pack my suitcase now,” Lisa said. She tried to get up, but her legs were stuck in the sand. Santos hauled her up and frog-marched her to the bungalow. The concrete path had turned into a snaking ribbon. There was light in the living room. It came at Lisa through the shutters and slashed her face. Santos knocked on the door, and Don let them in. He didn’t seem surprised. He waved them in, or perhaps it was Lisa’s body that was waving. On the coffee table was a bottle of whiskey. Had everyone fallen off the wagon?
The floor was like jelly. Lisa avoided looking at the walls, she was afraid of getting lost in their crevices. She walked into the bedroom and dropped on the bed. It billowed like the sea. She balanced on the waves precariously, watching the two men through the open door. They were talking in the living room, one brown and skinny, the other white like the belly of a whale parting the waves, spurting water through his air hole, no, whiskey, no, blood through his nose. The colours were confusing. There was only red or green and nothing in between. Lisa closed her eyes.
A moment later, it seemed, Santos shook her awake. She was lost in the percussion of her heart, a gritty noise, then the noise flattened out, and she saw that it was morning. She squeezed her eyes shut, wanted to go back to the dark place inside, but Santos wouldn’t let her, was standing over her, his voice grating on her ears.
“Time to go,” he said. “Call a taxi.”
She sat up, tried to move her legs, make contact with the floor. She felt hot and sweaty. Her slept-in clothes were clinging to her. She couldn’t face the idea of washing up and changing, but she got out of bed, obedient to Santos’ wake-up call. Holding on to the dresser, the back of a chair, the walls, she made it to the bathroom.
“Don will take me to the airport,” she said, but she could see for herself. Don couldn’t possibly take her. He had turned to stone. He was lying motionless on the sofa in the living room, buried under a blanket. The whiskey bottle on the coffee table was empty.
“Don’t count on him” Santos said. “Call a taxi. And don’t forget: look up Asu in Catamarca.”
“I told you: I don’t want to see her.”
He looked at Lisa sadly. “But it’s your last chance.” “Last chance for what?” she said impatiently.
“To talk to Asu.”
“No. I said no.”
“Bueno,” he said. “I’ll see you in Jujuy then.”
By the time the porter came to pick up Lisa’s suitcase, Santos was no longer in the room. She couldn’t remember saying good-bye to him. She didn’t know how to say good-bye to Don. The porter looked at the man stretched out on the sofa and at the empty bottle. Lisa tipped him generously to wipe the look of pity off his face.
IN THE ARRIVAL HALL AT the Catamarca Airport, a travel agent held up a hand-lettered BIENVENIDO sign. His welcome wasn’t for Lisa but it set the mood. A sign is a sign. The air was thick with happy messages. And there was Jim.
“How was the flight?” he said and hugged her. Lisa burrowed into his chest, letting him stroke her hair and ease last night’s delirium.
“Rough,” she said. She reached up and touched her fingertips to his cheek. Dr. Brown’s magic elixir was crowding her thoughts, but in the untidy pile of self-loathing nausea there was something new and crisp, the joy of touching Jim. She kissed him gently, afraid of disturbing the current of happiness flowing between them.
The road from the airport cut a swath through the middle of the city, and suddenly she realized that she was in another country. It had taken her that long to become sensible of the difference. She had brought Toronto along in her suitcase, unpacked it every night in Mar del Plata and surrounded herself with the familiar props of unhappiness. Now she was beginning to breathe the foreign air, to notice the foreign sky. The balconies of the high-rises to the left and right were hanging over the traffic like baffles over a blaring orchestra pit. And now, the noise was entering through the fissures dissolving her euphoria. Or perhaps it was the effect of Jim’s words.
“Too bad you didn’t come last week,” he was saying. “This week is crazy. I’m up against a deadline. In fact, I shouldn’t even be here. I should be at the construction site. I’ll get you settled in at the hotel, and give you a quick tour of the centre, but that’s all the time I can spare today. Sorry. I have to drive out to the dam this afternoon. We’ll get together later.”
The disappointment was coming on so fast it fused Lisa’s thoughts to the tune of Alone again, naturally.
Jim reached over and put a consoling hand on her arm. “I’ll be back in town for the weekend.”
“But I’m booked on a bus tour,” she said, feeling the murmur of anxiety in her breast. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow.” She didn’t say: I was hoping you’d come along. Jim didn’t say: Why don’t you cancel the trip? Despite encouragement from me/No words were ever spoken. The O’Sullivan tune was hovering, but there was no place for it to settle down. Everything was cluttered with impossibilities.
“I’m supposed to meet Santos in Jujuy,” Lisa said. She might as well tell Jim the worst. Fate was against her. Nothing could be mended /left unattended. What do we do? What do we do? The signs were all wrong. Jim had withdrawn his hand. In the sky, a plane left a vapour trail, crossing out Lisa’s plans. The traffic came to a stop as the lights ahead switched to red. The stop was meant for her.
“You are still in touch with Santos?” Jim said. “I wouldn’t trust that man.”
I know, she wanted to say, but no one can escape fate. “He said he’d drive me to Tilcara,” she said instead. “He’s invited me to spend a day at his chacra.”
“You’d be safer staying with your tour group.”
“I don’t want to hurt his feelings,” Lisa said. She couldn’t say: I may have to consult the Saint of Tilcara. She knew what Jim thought of saints and séances. Instead she said: “I’m going because I’ve promised myself to tie up the loose ends.” I’ve promised myself to treat myself – . There was so much she had to do: find out about Miguel Soriano from his daughter and, if Hetta couldn’t help her, she had to consult the Saint. He was her last resort. “When I come back, I’ll start a new life.”
“With Don?” Jim said. The car was inching forward toward the crossing. They were caught in the honking traffic of the city centre.
“No, no,” Lisa said. The complications kept coming at her. She couldn’t fight them off fast enough. What do we do? What do we do? “I swear there is nothing between me and Don,” she said. “I had to cut down on my expenses, and Don offered me his spare bedroom, free. That’s all.”
“And he threw in a trip to Argentina? And a diamond ring?”
Jim had noticed the ring! His arm crept back to the passenger side. He took up Lisa’s hand, feeling the ring, as if her story was etched on it in Braille and could be read by passing a fingertip over it.
“My parents paid for the trip,” Lisa said, but she knew it was hopeless to defend herself. No words, no arguments could shield her from the coming evil. “The diamond ring – .” She took her hand out of Jim’s grasp and pulled at the ring, the omen. It was stuck at the knuckle. “It’s not what you think. It’s a complicated story.”
“You have a knack for complicating your life, Lisa.”
“But it’s all going to change,” she said, desperately wanting to believe in the possibility of change, of overturning fate, but she could hear the hum of failure in her voice. She could smell failure seeping through the car windows, the fumes of disappointment. “I’ll move out of Don’s place once I get back to Toronto,” she said. “And I’ll settle the Soriano question this afternoon. I phoned Hetta from Mar del Plata. I’m going to see her at four. It’s just a matter of confirming what I know already.” She was talking fast. There was so much to explain.
Jim was shaking his head. Lisa realized just how crazy her story was: from chaos to order in half a day. “Anyway,” she said, winding up where she had begun, the trip up north. “I’m off tomorrow morning.”
“When do you come back?” Jim asked.
“Sunday night,” she said. “And I leave for Buenos Aires on Tuesday morning.” Not much time to spend together.
“Okay,” Jim said. “On Sunday evening, we’ll celebrate the start of your new life.” He was smiling. She couldn’t make out what kind of smile it was, mocking or forgiving.
“But right now I’ll give you a tour of the city centre,” he said, “and then I’ll take you to my favourite place.”
A little happiness sneaked back inside her. Jim’s favourite place. Something special to share with him. There was consolation in that.
“The market,” he said, and Lisa’s hope died, struck down by the fateful word, rubbed out by the force of a word said too often, first by Santos, now by Jim: the market. Where Asu was working. Lisa did not want to see her, was afraid of Asu’s bad-luck eyes, but fate had run her to ground. The decision had been made without Lisa. Her will no longer mattered. Her whole self was suspended, kept at a distance from herself. Her arms and legs stopped obeying her mind and moved into the one-two zombie rhythm. She trailed after Jim. She looked at the sights of Catamarca with onetwo sightless eyes, as her mouth pushed out words to the one-two count of “nice” and “interesting.” Plazas, quaint courts, the cathedral.
