Xochitl and I hiked along a trail through the woods. I looked up at the canopy of leaves. Two and a half seasons’ worth of sun, wind, and rain had polished most into colorful autumn gems. Ahead of me, Xochitl walked in gym shoes, comfortable-looking jeans, and a denim jacket. Birds cooed and fluttered and the trees swayed in the breeze.
“Women at my office go to the spa, and I like that too. But I always feel like a nice hike slows the clock a little.”
“Feels like we’re not even in the city,” I said.
Xochitl looked back at me. “Are you all right, Eddie? You seem a little low. Even in the car.”
I was distracted by the fact that I still saw no solution to my missing forty thousand, but I smiled to let Xochitl know that I liked her attention and didn’t need to talk. She turned to watch her step.
“When I was fifteen,” she said, “I visited my grandparents in México. It’s all mountains. You go away from the town and in a minute it’s a little like this, but steep, up and down. I used to go for long walks.”
“There was usually somebody with us. Sometimes I went alone. I felt so comfortable.”
We came to a bend in the trail, where it turned to hug a slow-moving brook. There was a small clearing and a large tree that had fallen on its side. Xochitl put one foot on it, put down her backpack, pulled two water bottles, and tossed me one.
“How ’bout you? Travel much?”
“Oh yeah, all over the world, Xoch.”
“Seriously. Ever left the Midwest?”
I took a sip of water. “I went to the Big Apple, once. As a kid.”
“Family trip?”
“Sort of.”
Xochitl sat on the fallen tree. “Tell me.”
I sipped my water. “It was unexpected. One day in the fourth grade, I’m in class, daydreaming. Suddenly, I see my father’s face in the classroom door. He flashes this huge smile, which he used just on me, I think. All teeth. Anyway, he gets real grim, comes in, tells the teacher he’s sorry, it’s a family emergency, but we gotta run. I’m gonna be out for a couple of days.”
“What happened?”
“He wanted me to play hooky with him. So I grab my bag and he walks me out with his arm around me, like he’s prepping me for the bad news. We get outside and parked out front is a tricked-out ’72 Camaro Super Sport. Red with bright orange flames. Spoiler in the back, mag wheels.”
“Your father just bought it?”
“He had it. He holds up the keys. ‘Wanna ride to New York?’ I’m like, ‘Right now?’ He looks back at the school. ‘Unless you’d rather go back.’ I’m like, ‘Hell no.’ We jump in. The car’s got just one eight-track: Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. I go, ‘Pop, whose car?’ He pretends not to hear. When I asked if Mom was coming, he tells me, ‘I left her a note.’ ”
“Communication is the key,” said Xochitl, smiling.
“I wouldn’t know. We gassed up in Indiana. Ate in Ohio. Whenever I got out, I looked at the car. It got more beautiful every time. Slicker. More muscular. We hit mountains in Pennsylvania, with the sun going down behind us, and everything ahead of us bronze. The trees, the road, the clouds, the tops of the other mountains.”
“I love the light like that.”
“Me too.”
I made eye contact with Xochitl. She smiled and didn’t pull away.
I bent and picked up a smooth stone. “Whenever we couldn’t get the radio, I slipped in the eight-track. My dad liked ‘The Chain.’ I dug another song, ‘You Make Loving Fun.’ ”
“As a fourth grader?”
“I didn’t know what it meant. Maybe I still don’t. I just liked the way it sounded. But by Pennsylvania, we both dug ‘Go Your Own Way.’ We couldn’t get enough. He made me play it three times in a row. Anyway, at one point he pulls into a rest area. ‘Wait outside the door.’ I tell him, ‘I wanna listen to the rest of the song. I’m big.’ He looked at me for a second. He leaves the keys in the ignition and gets out. Then he leans in. ‘Eddie, listen. Do not open the trunk. Whatever you do, don’t look inside. You got me?’ ”
Xochitl widened her eyes. “Let me guess. As soon as he goes inside. . .”
“Believe it or not, no. I was afraid. And I didn’t want him to catch me.”
“What do you think was in there?”
“Something a ten-year-old should never look at.”
“Did that make you nervous?”
“Yeah. But then my dad came back, he winked, and all that melted. It was late when we crossed into New York. My dad told me about his life there, when he first came from PR at, like, twelve.”
“Did you stay with family?”
“We drove to the beach.”
“The beach?”
“My father shuts the engine. ‘Let’s take a nap.’ ”
“In the car?”
“Yup. When I woke up, the sun was slipping over the horizon. My father was outside, on the sand, by the water’s edge, smoking and staring at the ocean. I walked up to him. He looked down and put his arm around me. ‘I used to swim as a boy in Arecibo.’ He nodded at the water. ‘Taste it,’ he tells me. I smiled, bent, stuck my fingers in, then stuck them in my mouth. I gagged and said, ‘Sala’o.’ My father laughed and threw his cigarette in the sand. ‘That’s where we come from.’ ”
Xochitl wrapped her arms around her knees. “He sounds a little philosophical.”
“Not to write an essay about it, but yeah, a little. We found a bodega and bought one serving of eggs, bacon, and toast with two forks. My father divided everything in half, and we dug in. ‘That Camaro loves gas,’ he said. But then he winked. ‘I love this, Eddie. You and me eating out of the same plate.’ ”
“Cute.”
I threw the stone I had been playing with across the brook. It skipped along the surface and made it to the other side.
“We ended up in Brooklyn. My father found an empty parking lot and let me drive the Camaro in circles.”
“How old were you?”
“I could barely reach the pedals. After that, we drove to a garage. My father let me out across the street and up the block a little. He tells me, ‘Wait here. I don’t care what you hear, don’t go near that garage.’ He removed his watch and gave it to me. ‘If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, find a cop and tell him that your father went inside and never came out. Don’t go in with them. Tell them to come with their guns. You got that?’ I repeated it. ‘Good. Other than that, don’t move for fifteen minutes.’ ”
Xochitl said, “Oh, my God. I would have been trembling.”
“I was scared, but somehow I also knew my dad would come back. He drove up to the door, honked the clave pattern, and the door rose. He drove that smoking hot Camaro inside and the door came down. I checked the watch to set the time, but my father came out like ten minutes later, walking, light on his feet.”
“Were you sad about the car?”
“I expected it. My father shows me a thick roll of hundreds. He peels the top one for me. ‘You my little sidekick.’ ”
“A hundred was a hell of a lot of money back then.”
“For a kid? Candy bars cost a quarter. Anyway, we rode the train to Coney Island. It was overcast, and we were practically the only ones out there. My father goes on this ride. The Hammer. Basically it just flipped you. I was afraid. My old man says, ‘Wait down here,’ and gets on without me. He’s the only one on it. The thing spins him, flips him. I can hear him yell and laugh and scream my name when it flies past. At one point the ride freezes at the top, my father’s upside down. Coins rain out of his pockets, through the metal cage, to the pavement beneath the machine. I waited for the ride to stop, ’cause I didn’t want it to swing down at me. But then I ran for the coins.”
“You were getting paid left and right that day.”
I paused to look around the woods. I don’t know what I expected to see. The trees did not move. And Xochitl listened. I wondered whether I should tell her the rest. I looked her in the eye again. She seemed wide open.
“So when the ride stops, I run over to pick up coins. My dad comes down the steps with that pícaro smile. Hair’s messed up, shirt’s all crooked. He sees me grabbing. ‘Finders, keepers!’ He nods. I see another quarter and go for it. But then a few feet away, I see a tiny plastic bag with brown powder in it. Then another. I reach for the first bag, and suddenly, my dad’s like, ‘Eddie, no!’ He jumps down the metal steps and grabs my arm, I mean really squeezes it. He got in my face and pointed at the Baggie. ‘Never touch that! You hear me?’ He shook me. I noticed what looked like a rubber band half-hanging out of his pocket. ‘Don’t never let me see you touch that!’ ”
Xochitl made a sad face. “Did you cry?”
“That was one of only two times I ever saw real sadness in my father’s eyes. He picked up the Baggies and put them in his pocket. We rode the train to the airport in silence. When we got to our stop, he looked up and down the platform and went in a public toilet by himself again.”
“With you right with him?”
It was a question that had never occurred to me. “Later, as we walked toward the airport, he suddenly stopped. ‘Espérate.’ He spotted a garbage can, looked around, reached in his pocket, took whatever was left, and threw it in. Then he reached in his waistband and pulled a gun.”
Xochitl said, “Wow.”
“He wrapped it in a handkerchief and also tossed it in the garbage. ‘Can’t take that on a plane.’ We bought tickets and waited at JFK until the last flight of the day back to Chicago.”
Xochitl was still seated on the dead tree. She patted the spot next to her, and I sat.
She put her arm around me. “Did you guys ever talk about that again?”
“What would there have been to say?”
Xochitl shook her head and passed her hand over my cheek. “Tú eres tan humilde. That’s growing up too fast.”
I put my head on Xochitl’s shoulder. We stayed there for a while and watched the brook flow.
Xochitl and I headed back along the same trail, trying to beat the rain back to the car. The gray clouds finally delivered a light shower.
“I don’t think we’re gonna get back before it gets worse,” she said. “We’ll be soaked by the time we get there.”
The water thickened. Droplets popped against the leaves and stirred the smells of the forest. Lightning flashed, and seconds later the thunder. I recalled the trees that I had seen that day that appeared to have been struck.
“Maybe we should pick up our pace.”
We hustled, but by the time we got to the car, it was really coming down. Xochitl and I sat in the car, wet and cold and shivering, yet excited from the brisk walk. We drove for a while and held hands, without music, without the radio or conversation, just the sound of the windshield wipers, and the occasional moan of distant thunder.
Xochitl squeezed my hand. “You ever think about writing some of those stories?”
“Which ones?”
“Any of them. Like the ones you told at the museum. The guy with his teeth showing through the hole in his cheek.”
I twisted my face. “People are sick of prison tales.”
“How ’bout the one about your father and the Camaro? Maybe you should keep a journal.”
“Why?”
“To preserve it.”
“Sounds like homework. I told you I dropped out of high school, right?”
Xochitl turned the Lexus down Lincoln Avenue. Without warning, without putting on the signal, she pulled into a motel parking lot. My heart began to move. She shut off the engine and jumped out into the rain.
“Wait here,” she said.
She ran into the office. A minute later, Xochitl came out of the office and headed for a room, but did not look in my direction. She let herself in, and left the room door wide open.
I exited the car and ran to the room, trying to avoid the puddles. I locked the door behind me. Xochitl was already in the shower. I sat on the bed, then got up and sat on the chair next to the small table. The walls were a queasy pink, like the carpet in my room, and the carpet was a very faded orange. The cover on the bed looked like something left over from The Brady Bunch. The bed itself was big. I wondered if Xochitl wanted me to join her in the shower, then figured she would have waited, or she would’ve come out by now and said so. I felt cold.
I changed the thermostat and the heat came on full blast. The room warmed up quick. I checked myself in the mirror. There was not much I could groom.
The TV got bad reception, except for channel 3, where two women did a 69. I flicked it off as soon as I saw that. The radio worked fine and I went up and down the dial, but found nothing that felt right.
I heard the shower shut off, killed the radio, and scrambled to sit in the chair and find a pose that said that I was ready, but that I did not expect too much. Xochitl came out of the shower with a white towel wrapped around her torso and another one fashioned into a turban on her head. She rushed over to the bed and jumped under the covers like she didn’t want to be seen. She pulled the covers up to her chest and finally looked at me.
“Go take a shower.”
Once in the bathroom, I saw that Xochitl had written the word “Hurry” in the water that condensed on the mirror. I let the hot water run over me, and soaped myself, and thought about the parts of Xochitl’s body where the same bar of soap had been. My stomach stirred. I felt nervous, but something bold coursed through me.
I washed myself and dried myself more thoroughly than I ever had, and when I was through, I wrapped the towel around my waist and looked at myself in the fogged-up mirror. It would have been nice to have a toothbrush and toothpaste, but nothing is ever perfect. I walked out.
Xochitl sat on the edge of the bed now, wrapped in the white towel. Her hair hung loose as she dried it with the other towel. I stood next to the entrance to the bathroom.
“Ven.”
I swallowed my anxiety and walked over and stood in front of her. Xochitl looked up at me with an expression that I had not quite seen since our first encounter on the dance floor. She put down the towel she used to dry her hair and stood in front of me. Her fingertips and nails traced over my arms and across my chest, light and slow. She followed the lines of some of my tattoos.
Heat licked up my spine and into my throat. I kissed Xochitl and pressed against her there, next to the bed, and the soft warmth of her exposure slipped across my bare chest. Our tongues were inside each other’s mouths, as far as they could go.
Xochitl stepped back. Her eyes hooked into mine. She uncinched the towel around her torso, let it drop to the floor. She climbed into the bed without any shame about her nakedness. She pulled the bedsheet up to her nipples and looked at me with something other than a smile.
I stood wordless.
Xochitl tilted her head in that sly, cocky way of hers. “Quítate la toalla.”
I removed my towel and dropped it.
Xochitl smiled. “Bueno,” she said. “Now shut off the light.”