She raised one eyebrow and stared at him.
“We could think about it,” he said.
“Let’s at least just make it to the pool, okay? Before we do any thinking.”
“I’m not saying we have to do anything.”
“Then fine,” she said. “Take the brochure, but don’t get any grand ideas.”
Reed folded it in half and tucked it into his shirt pocket.
When they’d gotten their tourist cards signed and passports back and collected their luggage and weaved their way through the horde of taxi touts offering “free” rides or timeshare opportunities, a young man in a crisp starched uniform was waiting for them outside the gate. He held a placard with their names on it, and in moments he’d ushered them through the crowd into the hotel limo-van.
He sat next to her for a few minutes, then slid to the other window where he could look outside at the town of Cancún as the van bumped and bounced toward the hotel zone. Busty women in bright colors led skipping daughters along the crowded sidewalks. Teens laughed or lounged on corners. Old hunched men in cowboy hats with toothless faces made their way in the hot sun. Dogs panted in the shade. A scantily dressed lady with too much makeup stood in the threshold of a door. A grandmother laughed as she held the hand of a toddler. As the van pulled up to a stoplight, a young boy balanced a soccer ball on his knees, looked up and caught Reed’s eyes, and waved, never letting the ball hit the ground. Reed waved back.
“Don’t,” Laurel said, “If you make eye contact, people will ask you for money.”
“Friendliness is part of the culture.”
“So is asking tourists for money.”
The van pulled forward and turned onto a wider, cleaner road. High-rise hotels towered in the distance. A manicured median strip separated the going and oncoming traffic with fifty feet of lush Kentucky bluegrass. Signs in English. Tourists with wide-brimmed sun hats and khaki shorts bumbled along the sidewalks, none of them looking happy or comfortable. As the vehicle pulled into the hotel’s parking circle Reed felt as if the trip to Mexico had already ended, and they’d arrived in Florida instead. He wondered if the adoption clinic was buried somewhere deep in the heart of Cancún proper and not in one of the hotels. Visiting would be a good excuse to see the real city again, if only from the window of a taxicab.
“Welcome to the Grand Medallion Cancún,” said the driver. “Let me get your bags.”
“Finally,” Laurel said, as they got out and entered the lobby. “I will be so glad to get into the pool.”
As the young man at the desk handed them two freshly minted keycards and a lovely young lady brought them each a welcome margarita in an ocean-blue, salt-rimmed glass, Reed felt a sudden ache for something undefinable, as if he were a caterpillar feeling for the first time that inexorable yearning for wings.
Day Three
The Third Girl
Reed found Laurel on the far side of the pool, a straw sun hat partially covering her face, one leg up on the chaise longue in a supermodel pose, her skin already a deep bronze in just three days. A tall glass of something pink and fruity was on the table next to her, and a dog-eared novel hung in her left hand. Nearby was a bowl of salted peanuts and an ashtray made out of a shell. A twenty-something waiter with chiseled biceps melted away from her as if a sixth sense told him that a husband was near.
Reed sat in the chair next to hers and for a while neither spoke, even though it was clear from the lack of turning pages that she was not reading anything anymore. An optimistic seagull was hanging in the sky above them, riding a micro thermal, as immobile as if it were a toy tied to a string. Only its head moved, the sharp eyes scouring the cement below for crumbs.
“I was looking all over for you,” Reed said.
“I’ve been right here.”
“You could have said you were going to the pool.”
“You were already in the shower.”
“If I didn’t know better I’d almost say you’re avoiding me.”
Laurel looked at him. “I know what you want this to be,” she said. “I’m sorry. We’re not there. Or I’m not there.”
“What’s that mean? What do I ‘want this to be’?”
She sounded more philosophical than sad. “This. This vacation. And it was a nice thing you tried last night. Getting the waiter in on it. I was touched.”
“Not touched enough to actually dance.”
“Because it was embarrassing.”
“Not as much as being the guy who couldn’t coax his wife up onto the dance floor. After all that. In front of all those people.”
“You should have told me. Given me some kind of warning.”
“So you could say ‘no’ right from the start.”
“Probably true,” she laughed. “It was sweet, Reed. That song will forever take me back to—” She stopped.
Reed smiled. “It’s like our little time machine.”
“Except, Reed, we’re not who we were back in college anymore. Sometimes I don’t even like hearing that song. It makes me sad.”
“What’s sad about it?”
“You’re hoping I can be who I was back then.”
“No, I want you to be yourself.” He wanted to be in the helicopter, soaring up like the seagulls that were forever above the pool, high enough above the world to see the big picture and not worry about the little details. “I just want that person to also be wanting the same things in life that I do.” He reached out and took her hand. “That’s not impossible, right?”
“I don’t think having kids is possible. Adopting, I mean.”
“People juggle kids and a career all the time.”
Laurel put her book down and looked out at the pool. “You know how it is. The moment an anchorwoman gets pregnant they’re out. It changes everything. God, I still get butterflies thinking about how that felt when I got that promotion. It was a dream come true. I don’t want that to crumble.”
“I still get butterflies thinking about you,” Reed said quietly. “But it’s pretty easy to tell it’s not mutual. Hasn’t been for a while.”
His wife stared out at something far away for a long time, then nodded slowly. “It’s hard to think about…about disappointing you. Hurting you. But I’m not in that place right now. I’m not sure I ever was, but I’m not there now. I know you want me to be there. I’m just…my heart’s not in having kids anymore. If it ever was.” Laurel kept staring out, past the pool, past the seawall, somewhere far out where the blueness of the Caribbean met the mapping of her own mind. She started to say something and then stopped, tried again, then slowly stood up.
