The Summer We Came to Life

Chapter

20





AHARI SCANNED THE BEACH LEFT AND RIGHT for anyone that might harm or bother his charges. He sniffed in satisfaction when he saw the beach empty but for the dark old man and American woman. Ahari had seen the way these two danced around each other, like children at play. Now the old man sat with the woman’s hands in his. They sat stiller than palm trees in the eye of a storm. Ahari held his breath as they studied each other. He couldn’t tell if they were speaking, but it appeared not. It appeared they were merely watching each other. It reminded Ahari how roosters squared off to measure each other’s courage by the look in their eye. The woman dipped her head ever so slightly and Ahari knew it would happen before she did. The sad old man leaned in and kissed her, soft as the brush of a blade of grass. Soft as a warm handful of sand, Ahari thought, and wriggled his toes into the beach. They kissed without touching anywhere besides their lips, not hurrying through it like young lovers would. They didn’t move at all, in fact, as if the slightest breeze would tip them over. When the woman pulled away, they resumed their rooster stares. The woman’s sudden loud laugh startled Ahari and the world rushed into his awareness again. Ahari could hear the rustling of the palms, the rhythm of the sea, the sighing of the stars. The man laughed, too. A laugh that did not sound as old as the man, nor as sad as his eyes. The pair resettled into their chairs and watched the citrus colors spread across the sky. The sun set at their backs, not over the water, but the colors subtly spilled across the sea like the sheen of soap bubbles. Ahari swelled with pride, seeing them watch his waves’ nightly performance. He’d made a flower garden to match the colors of his piece of sky—orange, yellow and pink. Ahari closed his eyes. He knew the procession of colors by heart and imagined them now as the man and the woman must be seeing them. He stood with both feet planted firmly in the cooling sand and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. It was a long time before the man and the woman got up to go inside.



Dinner was festive and loud. Arshan sat next to Jesse and waited on her attentively, serving her extra chicken and refilling her cup, as Isabel and I basked in compliments on our chop suey and our rum cocktails. Everybody joked about food poisoning and plan B to ditch the raw-food fad for the duration of their trip. Time to deep-fry and fricassee, in Jesse’s language.

Cornell, who always complained of one ailment or another, groaned about heartburn and indigestion and everybody teased him. “My God, Cornell, what’s left? Rabies?”

“No respect, no respect I tell ya,” he said to Arshan.

I watched the group and snuggled into the coziness of the evening. I kept thinking about the word gezellig, a word Wouter, my Dutch lover, had taught me in Argentina. A word with no English equivalent, it conveyed a mixture of homey, intimate and snug, but also described moments like this one—old friends united by good food, candlelight and laughter.

Maybe it was the food poisoning that had brought them closer. Or the car accident. Or maybe it was natural to fill the sinkhole left by Mina’s death by widening our circle. I experienced the expected pang of guilt at this thought, but it was more like being poked than kicked. I had no reason to fault these people. They were the ones who had raised me, for better or worse. An unlikely family, each loving me in their own way. Shouldn’t that add up to enough?

“I love you guys,” I blurted out, interrupting Isabel’s story about the tribulations of speed dating.

Nobody needed to ask where the sentiment came from. They raised their plastic cups on the porch by the beach and the palm trees.

“To family,” I said.

“To family, baby,” Lynette agreed.

“To surviving this trip!” Cornell laughed.

Jesse rolled her eyes and said with a puff, “Boys.” Then she raised her cup high. “To Mina!”

“To Mina!” we all echoed.

That made it feel all right somehow, hearing her name ring out like a mantra in a moonlit drum circle.

I sat back satisfied, and followed along with the resumption of conversation by firing off text messages to Kendra, relaying her the quotes of the night.




Text #1: Honduras is known for its butt injections that give you a J Lo booty. Seriously. I read it in Us-Weekly. (Jesse)





Text #2: Oh, whatever, you wear purple underwear. (your mother to your father) (sorry, dude)





Text #3: Your father has gas.





Text #4: Your mother thinks it is inappropriate to text you about gas.





Text #5: Your father says he loves you.





Text #6: “Tell her we all love her and miss her.” (direct quote from everybody, including me)





Text #7: We have all conferred and concurred that you have to talk to us about whatever is going on. No way can you be THAT busy. Call immediately.





P.S. We love you and are prepared to hate Michael or your boss or anybody you tell us to.





P.S.S. Equally prepared to forgive you for anything you could have possibly done or would ever think about doing.





P.S.S.S. Isabel says if it’s your health, we can take it and it’s worse not knowing.





After the plates were cleared away, bathroom breaks were taken, and another round of rum smoothies was distributed (“if it ain’t broke, buster, don’t fix it,” said guess who), we reconvened on the porch. I brought out more candles in hurricane jars and shut off the lights. Everyone shifted to get comfortable.

“So,” I said, “you gonna tell us what happened in Panama?”

All heads turned to Jesse. She blew a ring of smoke at us and smiled. A smile that made me want to check my skin for fire ants.

“If I must,” she said.

“You started it,” was Isabel’s equally misfired attempt at playfulness, as she brought her knees up to her chest like the frontline lifting shields.

Jesse dragged her palm across the splintered wooden table, adding to my sense of foreboding. But when she began to speak, I was surprised. It was a happy story that danced in the flickering gleam of the candles, holding the looming darkness at bay.



Jesse arrived in Panama to a big family welcome party. Cesar’s much older sister and his cousins were there, along with his parents, and thirty house staffers.

The house, described by Cesar as an estate, was more like a compound. The mansion was enclosed behind massive walls and a guarded gate that opened to an arced driveway stacked with a fleet of matching black security vehicles. The enormous house towered toward the sky with its stone front, looking down on two formidable structures on either side, homes for all the servants. In back of the house there was a helicopter pad, a glass-enclosed swimming pool, and a tennis court. Inside was a succession of fancy rooms all vying to outdo each other with splendor fit for Versailles.

An exuberant Jesse swirled through each room on a tour with her new family. The men chattered excitedly, showing off. The women quietly noted Jesse’s long glossy hair and short paisley dress with platform heels. Señora Guerra walked gracefully behind her husband, modestly deflecting his boasts of her decorating talents. “My wife, my little queen, she spent Cesar’s inheritance!” Alfredo Guerra exclaimed, taking Jesse onto his arm and laughing heartily. “That’s why the boy has to work for me now!”

Jesse, a sucker for excess, dove headfirst into her new life as a princess. She giggled when served five-course breakfasts on silver platters at a dining room table that seated fourteen. She thought it delightful that maids turned down her beds, ran her baths, and waited outside her door in the morning to escort her to breakfast. Three Pomeranians had their very own maid. The kitchen was industrial size, with a staff of six. Jesse prompted a round of laughter when she napped through supper one night and then tried to go down later to fix herself a snack. “My dear, the kitchen staff have gone home, of course. Call Ricardo, he’ll go out and get you anything you desire.” Jesse waved off their suggestion and left them sipping cordials to walk to the kitchen. It was locked. She could hear them laughing at her from the other room.

There were other problems in paradise. Learning Spanish was taking far longer than Jesse had anticipated. She spent many meals staring off into space, trying not to look bored or unkind. Cesar would try to fill her in, but she found that more embarrassing.

When after two weeks Jesse still had yet to leave the mansion grounds, Cesar awkwardly explained that his father could not afford the general public knowing she was there. With a pained look, he bumbled through the revelation that his mother and sister were uncomfortable with the wedding, and disagreed about the best way to inform society with the least amount of scandal. At that time in Panama, Americans were no longer in style and were, in fact, resented and disdained for their role in the Canal Zone. Jesse was shocked. “But they’ve been so nice to me,” she exclaimed while Cesar only smiled wryly.

The wedding finally happened the next month. The press was “persuaded” to present the union as the greatest of all romances. Jesse was presented in a designer gown chosen by Señora Guerra. Jesse tried hard not to let anything dampen her fairy-tale wedding. She danced the night away in a ballroom lit by thousands of candles. Plenty of her friends came, and her father and mother were flown in for three days, though she hardly got in one word with them. Everybody proclaimed it the most beautiful wedding they’d ever seen.

And finally Jesse was allowed to sleep in an enormous gilded poster bed with her husband.

For months after, Cesar and Jesse would meet every night in their room. After a day filled with entertaining important guests during endless meals, they reveled in their precious time alone together. They would often stay up all night, giggling and discovering each other, making love, and laughing at Jesse’s wide-eyed observations of her new life. They agreed it was the happiest they’d ever been.



By the next winter, Jesse’s feelings had almost completely changed. She started having anxiety attacks about being watched all the time. She hid in her room for most of the day, unable to deal with never-ending visitors or maids, or with Señora Guerra’s reproving looks. After four months at home, Cesar’s father sent his son off on a nonstop business schedule, introducing Cesar to all the bigwigs in every part of the country and abroad. He was gone the majority of the time. When he returned, he was always sweet and polite, but exhausted. And the rounds of fancy family meals and dinner guests never ended. Jesse was scolded whenever she suggested time alone. “In Panama, family means everything,” Señor Guerra told Jesse over dinner one night when he spied her tugging at Cesar’s shirtsleeve to be excused.

Cesar asked his sister to bring friends to meet Jesse, but that was a disaster. The women told stories of “friends” who had open sexual relationships, trapping Jesse into telling her own wild stories. Then the women maliciously turned on her and spread the stories far and wide through high society. Jesse was shunned from further contact. Señora Guerra was mortified—minus her husband’s indiscretions, she was not carefully sheltered from hearing the gossip.

Eventually, Jesse barely recognized herself in the forlorn, timid ghost of a woman who tiptoed from room to room to avoid the servants’ smiles and questions.

Then, just when the first thoughts of leaving him seeped into her mind, she found out she was pregnant. Everything changed again. She was no longer allowed to be a ghost. Her diet and health were suddenly of utmost importance to Señora Guerra. She bought Jesse a closet full of new “motherly” clothes and insisted she come to every family meal. She was sent outside every day to “get some sunshine on that yellow skin” of hers. Señora Guerra even forced a baby shower upon high society, which stopped the rumors but did not win Jesse any friends.

Six months later, Cesar came home from a supposed business trip to find his wife smoking in the bathtub.

Three months later, Isabel was born.

Jesse came alive again. She had given up on her happiness, but looking down on her tiny perfect daughter, she wondered why. Jesse, who hadn’t had anyone to talk to besides Cesar in two years, poured out her heart to her infant daughter. Every misery, every humiliation, every fear, every wonderful memory, every hope and dream she’d ever had. And there, reflected in Isabel’s turquoise eyes, Jesse remembered who she was and what she was worth.



“Well, look who finally decided to come to breakfast,” Señora Guerra said one morning, as Jesse entered the dining room with Isabel in her arms. “There’s my precious little baby, come let me hold you,” she cooed to the little chocolate haired infant.

“Back off, bitch,” Jesse snarled. Then she walked into the kitchen and pushed past a chef to grab a banana from the refrigerator.

Jesse walked back into the dining room where Señora Guerra waited primly with folded, shaking hands. Jesse ignored her. She sat down at the table, unpeeled her banana and slipped it erotically deep into her throat before biting off a mouthful. Then she flung the peel on the table and pulled up her shirt to offer an engorged breast to Isabel.

Señora Guerra said nothing, but even her eyeglasses shook with fury as she picked up her book and blocked Jesse from view.

The war of the queens had begun.



Jesse pulled out all the stops. She bounced around the house, singing Janis Joplin songs to Isabel. She moved a record player into her room, plugged Isabel’s ears with cotton, and played The Clash and The Ramones at top volume. She befriended all the servants, and hung out in the kitchen learning how to cook Panamanian tamales wrapped in banana leaves, while Isabel cooed from her playpen.

On one of Alfredo and Cesar’s rare nights home, Jesse talked the chefs into a surprise. Jesse emerged from the kitchen in an apron and served Tex-Mex burgers and beer in the bottle. This was when the war expanded to include Señor Guerra. Cesar looked back and forth between beaming Jesse and his seething mother and realized what had been happening. He put his hand over the knot in his stomach.

Alfredo Guerra slammed a fist on the table. “Afuera!” he screamed at Jesse. “Out!” Her smile faltered. She looked to her friends, the maids, who averted their eyes, terrified. Jesse snatched Isabel from her highchair and ran out of the room.

Cesar lowered his head. This was a fight Jesse couldn’t win. To his credit, he tried to warn her.

“Baby?” Cesar whispered into Jesse’s ear as she lay in their bed, pretending to sleep. A slight giveaway—she was shaking with anger. At them. At herself. At the world.

“Mi reina, my queen, don’t do this to yourself. To me. Please. It can only end badly. Worse than you can imagine.”

Jesse opened her eyes. Was that a threat? “I’m not scared of them, Cesar. Why are you? Why are you scared of your own family?”

Cesar sighed and wrapped an arm around his wife. “For reasons I hope I’ll never have to tell you,” he said, with a tiredness that swept into Jesse.

Jesse started to ask, but something in her told her to quit for the day. Isabel let out a cry from her crib. Jesse made to get up.

“I’ll go. Rest, baby. Try and calm yourself,” Cesar said as he picked up Isabel from her mound of blankets. He snuggled the baby into the crook of his arm and rocked her, her little fingers curled around his thumb.

Jesse watched them and a sob sprang to her lips. She was reminded in that instant what she had to lose.

The day after the dinner incident, Alfredo Guerra replaced most of the staff. He also bought a home in a nearby neighborhood for Jesse and Cesar that would be ready in two short months. Jesse was ecstatic. “Who said I couldn’t win?” she taunted Cesar. Cesar said nothing. He’d lived in that house for too long, and knew how things worked too well.



Another seven months, and Jesse was on her knees. “Baby, please don’t go. Or just take us with you. I’ve only been to the Valle house once. One time. What do you do there?”

“Business! Dios mio! Business everyday! What do you think I do?” Cesar replied, irritated.

Jesse remembered Cesar’s stories of his father’s mistresses. “Yeah right,” she snapped.

“Dammit! Pinche!” he pointed angrily out the window where there were two guards with rifles. “What do you think is going on out there, outside of this house? Eh? Do you have any idea—”

“How would I, you a*shole? How would I know? You never take us anywhere!”

“It’s utter chaos! Torrijos is gone. Dead. Killed by your countrymen most likely. And now Noriega is at the helm. Things change so fast, it’s all I can do to stay in the game, to carve out a piece of the pie for us. My father would like to sit back and wash clean his hands, spend the fortune I create by his methods.”

“Like the Guerras will ever be poor—,” Jesse said in pure spite.

Cesar looked at Jesse with eyes that would chill a bed of coals. “No, my family won’t be. But only because I am making sure of that. I am protecting my family.”

Jesse studied her husband. He looked ragged and mean. His face was leaner, but he’d grown a gut. Jesse could only imagine what he’d been up to trying to maintain the family’s millions. In the Guerra mansion, she’d seen suitcases filled with money. Once, Ana, her favorite maid, let slip rumors she’d heard about connections to drug cartels. She almost felt sorry for Cesar. Then she searched his face. All she could see was hardened evil.

“Don’t do anything to get arrested,” Jesse said finally, meeting him square in the eyes.

He tossed his head back and laughed as if Jesse had told the funniest joke in the world.



By the time Isabel’s third birthday came around, Jesse knew what Cesar had known would happen all along. She had lost. She was still a prisoner, now one in solitary confinement. To staff Jesse’s house, Alfredo Guerra had hired a senile old woman and a handyman/chef who only spoke Nahuatl, an Aztec language. Guards stood at the front gate, the only way out, round the clock. She had no driver and no car. She had to call for one from the Guerras, who then reported anyplace she went. Señora Guerra insisted on three days a week of visitation of her granddaughter. She came by in a car and sent a guard in to collect Isabel. Jesse was never asked to visit their house again.

The worst thing, however, was that she had lost Cesar as an ally. His father kept him always away, but even when he came into town, he would dine at his father’s house. He complained of the chef and of Jesse’s constant nagging. Jesse had started fanatically reading newspapers and trash magazines she bought at the grocery store, searching for clues about Cesar and Alfredo. It wasn’t long before Jesse found fuzzy pictures of Cesar carousing with a woman on a hotel balcony, and had thrown a raging fit the minute he walked in from a business trip. Cesar had picked up Isabel and walked back out the door.

“You can’t do that, you a*shole! You can’t just f*ck whoever you want and then walk out of here with my daughter!”

Jesse tore at her hair and pounded on the door after it slammed shut. Of course he could. Cesar Guerra could sleep with whomever he wanted and come and go as he pleased.



Jesse was desperate for attention. The supermarket was her only approved destination anymore, so Jesse would go in and strike up a conversation with anyone who would talk to her. She gave her phone number to the clerks and told them to call her. She didn’t tell them anything, not even who she was, though of course they knew. She just asked them about their lives and told them she was lonely. But that’s how Jesse found out that they monitored her phone records, when she went to the store after talking to Frederico late into the night and was told he’d been fired. The phone number he’d given her was disconnected. Cesar never said a word about it. That was when Jesse realized he no longer cared about her at all.



So, by Isabel’s fourth year, Jesse had not a friend in the world. Not for the first time in her life, she wished she had a relationship with her mother. She called her father but never managed to convey the situation. There was nothing he could do and it would only give him more to worry about. She talked to him about Isabel and the house and the weather.

Now that Isabel could talk, Jesse had to even watch what she said to her daughter. All day, she sat and played with Isabel. She took baths with her and invented game after game. More and more often, however, Isabel started to whine to go to casa abuelos. She came home from her sleepovers with boxes of toys and gifts and candy from Abuelita.

One day, Jesse caught her playing a trick on the maid. She stole her eyeglasses and told her Tenoch, the chef, had stolen them.

Something in Jesse snapped. For some reason, it was the last straw.

“Isabel! Get over here!” she yelled at her daughter. Isabel, surprised and guilty, inched a millimeter closer. Jesse ran over and grabbed her by her pink dress. “I will not let that family turn you into a monster. You hear me? You are not going to Grandma’s tonight! You’re going to stay here and have dinner with Marta and Tenoch and me. Now say you’re sorry,” she said into Isabel’s defiant face.

Isabel kicked Jesse in the shin. Jesse let go in surprise, and Isabel ran off. From the top of the stairs, Isabel called, “Abuelita will come for me!” and stuck out her tongue. “I hate you!” she added and ran to her room.

Jesse was stunned. And then the full hopelessness of her life hit Jesse in the gut.

An hour later, a guard arrived to pick up Isabel. Jesse didn’t answer the doorbell. Just as she was about to yell for him to go away, Isabel ran down the stairs as fast as she could, and Jesse heard the door open with the turn of a key. Jesse made it to the door in time to see the guard scoop up a gleeful Isabel. Jesse screamed like a madwoman, grabbing Isabel’s arm and scaring her, as the guard wrenched her away and locked her in the backseat of the car.

Jesse pounded on the windows as they drove away, then ran into the house, looking around wildly. She called the Guerras until all she got was a busy signal. Finally, she went outside and walked/ran the four miles to the house. Her guards didn’t chase her, but when she got to the Guerras’ gate, their guard held his rifle across his chest and told her to leave. After screaming and cursing at the top of her lungs, a car appeared on the street to take Jesse home.

It was a horrible three days. Finally, Isabel was dropped off on the doorstep. Isabel was delighted to see her, having no idea about the situation, and played with her new dolls and tried to cheer up her weepy mother.

Jesse sank into a depression. She no longer showered or dressed in the mornings. She lay in bed in a stained silk nightgown and kneesocks and listened to Pink Floyd records. One time when the guard dropped off Isabel, he left behind a bottle of prescription pills. Sedatives. Jesse briefly wondered if Señora Guerra was trying to poison her. With a strange feeling of glee, Jesse took the first of many pills she would take over the next months. It was during one of those droning, listless months that Jesse’s mother died. Jesse did not even ask to go to the funeral.