Passengers came down the aisle, passed us in our two-seat row, window for me, aisle for Bill. They put bags in overheads, click click of seat belts. The flight attendants walked behind them, snap snap, shut the doors of full overheads. Bill put his arm around me. He put his head next to mine and whispered. “This next part is going to be even more romantic than Mexico City.” He ran his hand up my leg and pulled me even closer.
I patted his hand. These seats were too small and too close, and it was hot.
We’d had three nights and two days in Mexico City and now were on our way to Oaxaca and after that to Puerto Escondido for the rest of this two-week vacation. This was my first big trip. On a plane! To another country! Bill had planned it all, booked it all, read up on hotels and restaurants. In the month before the trip, he kept telling me how much I would love it, how special it would be, how romantic. Him and me! Two weeks alone together! I packed plenty of books and magazines and looked forward to the quiet time, away from work and home and no one asking anything of me.
An older woman came down the aisle. She smiled at Bill and me cuddled up together, like she loved seeing all this love. I was too warm. Sweat damped behind my knees and spine and trickled down between my breasts. “Wow,” I said. “It’s really hot.” I shifted, and he had to let go.
We’d been together over a year, and I’d moved in with him a few months earlier. We were still mostly everything-is-green happy. But the green was darkening, not so fresh, not so tender. Bill expected honesty and would call out deception even when the deceiver was blind to it. He knew I had trouble being honest about what I wanted and didn’t want and hoped he would guess right. He knew how quickly my easy way could turn to anger, and my anger was raised voice, fierce and sharp. I knew he could be distant for days when he felt hurt. I missed our easy, falling-in-love days. Now our love had cuts and scrapes, dark spots and browned edges.
He put his arms around me again and pulled me even closer. “Twelve whole days.” His breath was warm and damp against my ear. “Just you and me.” His arms so much around me that he could have lifted me out of my seat and onto his lap. His love was like too much sugar, too much sweet. It filled me over-full and I found it hard to breathe. I didn’t want him to know, because this trip had been perfect so far.
Perfect, perfect. But I’d never been with someone who wanted so much of me. At home I had my work, me gone for nine hours, five days a week. He had his work, him gone for twenty-four hours every third day. We had our friends, separate and together; we had our families. We’d never been together like this. All-day-every-day us.
And now we were flying off to a new place and twelve more days alone together.
“The market is supposed to be really big,” Bill said. “We can buy stuff for all the kids. Plus it’s known for their black pottery. And rugs. We can get some for the house.” He already loved my nieces and nephew and I already loved his. Now he was inviting me to make his house my own.
“I can’t wait to see the hotel,” Bill said. “I think you’re really going to like it.” He moved his hand up my thigh. “I think you’re really going to like what I’m going to do to you when we get there.” His mouth on my neck and a small twisty knot in my stomach.
My smile felt like a stick-on smile. “Yes,” I said. Relevant to nothing. That twisty knot a little bigger, a little twistier.
Bill sat back. Tilted his head, like for a better view of me. “What’s going on?” He took his hand off my thigh. “Aren’t you having a good time?”
“I am.” It sounded flat and false. How could I not be? I had a passport! I had a bikini! I was traveling with the man I loved, and he loved me back. Why did I want to unsnap this seatbelt and run down the aisle and out the door?
I tried again. “I’m really having fun.” With an exclamation to it. “Really. Really. Fun.” I squeezed his hand. “And I love you. So much.”
“Good,” he said.
I smiled the smile again and patted his arm. He looked at me a moment longer. He smiled his own stick-on smile and patted my thigh. He moved his hand away and picked up a magazine from the seat pocket.
The last trickle of people came down the aisle. A woman with long wavy hair, a man with a beard. Another man.
This man.
Tall. Slim. White untucked shirt, loose khaki pants. Sandy hair, strong nose, blue eyes.
Blue eyes quick on me. Mine quick on him. Quick like maybe it didn’t happen. Then again, like it did. A breath-catch in my throat. He went by.
I waited one long breath, two, three. Sat up straight, raised my arms in a stretch and turned and looked over the seat back. That man was about ten rows back, putting his backpack in the overhead. He chatted with the woman and man who were with him. He looked my way over the woman’s shoulder.
His eyes, blue. My eyes. Open.
I didn’t blink. He didn’t turn away.
His friend tapped him on the shoulder and he did turn away. I sank back in my seat. Closed my eyes. Another long breath.
“You okay?” Bill said.
“Yeah. Maybe a little kink in my neck.” I pretend-stretched again. The man had taken his seat. I couldn’t see him.
The plane taxied. The flight attendant gave the seatbelt-works-this-way, exits-are-there-here-and-there and in-case-of-an-emergency directions.
Bill put his arm around me. He rubbed my neck. The plane moved fast, faster, fastest. “I can’t believe how happy I am to be here with you,” he said.
He was too bare, too easy, too much. I didn’t hug him back or smile or let my body relax in his arms. That man might somehow be able to see ten seats ahead to this man loving me and I wanted him to know, maybe I wasn’t so interested in this man loving me.
I pulled back, shrugged off Bill’s arm. “Can you not?” It came out tight. Mean and foul in my throat.
Bill’s cheek had that small tremble. “What is going on with you?” His eyes hoped for me to say something kind, something loving. Here it was again: how easily I could hurt him. A flash so brief it was gone before I saw it.
“No,” I said. “Nothing is. I’m sorry. I don’t. I’m maybe nervous to fly.” The lie came out with an edge of defiance. What was happening? Why had I taken this turn?
“Maybe I’ll read. It’ll take my mind off it.” Off what? This love right next to me so big I felt swallowed by it? That stranger ten rows back drawing all my attention like a magnet, pulling me even if I didn’t want to go?
Bill’s eyes were on me as I reached for my bag, found my book. I rubbed his hand like that would make it all better. I opened my book.
Bill put his head back on the headrest and closed his eyes. He was the distant one now. His one long sigh called to the better part of me. The part that knew this was my old way, my hurting, hiding way. The part that answered: Don’t do this to him. You were going to be the woman who didn’t hurt him. Don’t. The page of the book felt rough under my thumb.
We were in the air. We were free to move about the cabin. I put my hand on Bill’s leg. I moved toward him; I kissed him. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He opened his eyes. “Why?”
I couldn’t tell him it was because his love was too much. That would hurt him too much. “I. For. I know I sounded cranky. I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” he said. He eyes went glassy. He rested his head again on the headrest. His jaw clenched and unclenched. I knew this look. This was his gone-away look.
I moved fast from regretful and ashamed to mean and distant and angry. Inside me: If he couldn’t see I was sorry, then fine. If he couldn’t see I needed space, then fine. His distance was a dark relief.
I stood up, careful, stretched my legs over Bill and into the aisle. Down the aisle. That man was there, his head was down.
Look. Look at me. At. Me.
He raised his head. We held eyes, one row closer, two rows closer, right next to him. Past him. I went into the toilet and took my time in the cramped space. Squirt of soap, rinse under the tiny faucet. I slipped the lock open and folded back the door. He was there, waiting in line behind two women.
Eyes on eyes. I blinked. I moved past him. The space was so tight, my arm against his arm. Almost like it didn’t happen. I was sure he watched me all the way back up the aisle. I looked. He looked again.
No. No. Don’t. Don’t do this.
I nudged Bill’s shoulder with my hand. He moved his legs so I could get past him to my seat. I picked up my book. Felt the secret in me. That man back there, this one next to me. I put my hand on Bill’s thigh and squeezed once, twice. He kept his hands to himself.
When we landed, Bill only said what had to be said as we got off the plane and collected our bags. He had taken a step back. Closed his love away. I missed it like I missed the too-hot sun when I came inside to a cool room.
The taxi driver took us through the outskirts of Oaxaca, dust and sun, board and aluminum houses. Closer to the old city center, there were more people. Men on the streets in jeans and sandals; women in skirts and dresses, their long black hair loose and in ponytails and braids. Bill sat by one door and I sat by the other. Even the driver didn’t try to talk.
Our hotel was right on the zócalo, and the zócalo was crowded with people. The driver dropped us off. We carried our bags toward the hotel. On the zócalo, music played with drumbeats and flutes. Inside, the hotel lobby was cool. Water flowed on tile in a fountain in the courtyard, and purple bougainvillea bloomed in pots.
Our hotel room had blue tile and red-and-yellow woven blankets and a window that looked out on the zócalo. Cinnamon and chili scent floated up from the restaurant below along with shouts from the street. A vase on a stand next to the bed held flowers. Maybe Bill had planned this too. I didn’t ask. His shoulders were more curled in than usual, face shut down. He stretched out on the bed. I lay down next to him and touched his hand.
Drumbeats out the window, chanting voices.
“Are you okay?” I said.
He was still and silent. I felt bad. He was punishing me. I’d been a little bit mean, a little bit quiet, a little bit attracted to another man. And he didn’t even know that part.
The drumbeat, the chanting was closer. I got up and went to the window. A parade of people moved along the street. They were all dressed in white, shorter and darker-skinned than the people we’d seen walking the business area in Mexico City. They carried signs, and they chanted.
“There’s some kind of protest,” I said.
Bill said nothing.
I wanted him to come back to me. “Let’s go see.” My voice was pretend-nothing-is-wrong. The sidewalks and zócalo were filling with people. There were men in uniforms.
“I’m tired, Jackie,” Bill said. “I’m going to take a nap.”
“C’mon.” I sat next to him on the edge of the bed. The chanting was louder.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you, but something is,” he said. “You’ve been different ever since we got on the plane.” He held his eyes on my eyes long enough that I looked away.
I took a breath, ready to tell him he was wrong.
“Go for a walk,” he said. “Think about it. I’m tired.” He closed his eyes and folded his hands on his chest.
“Fine.” I took my purse and went out the heavy wood door. At the top of the stairs, I turned and looked at the closed door. I didn’t know what to do when he went away like this. When it was me that sent him away like this. I went down the stairs and looked back up, like leaving breadcrumbs, part hoping he’d come after me. I’d never been in a strange city all by myself.
The people in white marched like a parade in the street around the zócalo. Arms up and down with signs printed in red and black paint on white poster, words in a country where I didn’t speak the language.
I was alone in this city and this was a protest, and maybe I shouldn’t be out here. Maybe I should go back to the room, to Bill and his pushed-away love shoved down deep.
Maybe I would keep walking around.
The man from the plane stood at the curb. He was alone, no sign of the man and woman he had been with. How could it be, just like that?
I went to the curb and stood almost close to him. I looked the other direction, like I didn’t see him. The protesters came around again, chanting, drumming. My chest held the heat and the rhythm of the voices and this man next to me. Him alone, me alone. I pretended I didn’t know he was there until I looked left, where he was. A surprise. “Oh,” I said. “Hi.”
He smiled down at me. That strong nose. His pale skin. “You were on the plane.”
“I was,” I said. “You were too.”
The drumbeat in me. A familiar rhythm.
“Do you know what this is about?”
“It’s something about an election that’s happening,” he said.
“You’ve been here before?” We were talking, like two tourists. But underneath, my stomach thrilled with this new old familiar.
“Not in Oaxaca,” he said. “But Mexico. All over. You?”
I was a completely new woman to this dangerously safe unknown man. “No,” I said. “My first time.” Like I was alone. Like I was that kind of woman. Like maybe he hadn’t seen the man next to me on the plane, touching and holding and loving me.
The crowd pressed behind us and we were jostled closer. “Sorry,” I said, and he caught my elbow and looked into my eyes. His eyes went down to my chest, back to my face. Where would we go? What would we do? And then what?
And then what?
The thrill turned swirly and sick. This old saying came to me: You can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl. Here I was. New country. Same girl. I was sick of myself.
I glanced back at the hotel, the dark window of what was maybe our room. The man who loved me was there, hurting. Sweat slid down my spine, made my thighs tacky.
That dark window called to me as though Bill was calling to me. Come back. Tell me.
No one had asked so much of me before. To love. To be loved.
My scalp burned. The skin of my hand, the strap of my purse, it all burned. I was fearful not of this stranger but of what it would mean if I turned away from him. If I stepped back. The sun was burning his pale skin already.
“I have to go,” I said. It sounded as abrupt and rushed as it felt. “My boyfriend is waiting for me.”
“Oh, okay,” the man said. He turned back to the street and watched the protesters move along as though I’d never been there at all.
Back through the crowd with the drumbeat behind me. I entered the cool of the lobby, not missing the sun at all. Up the wide tile stairs, the metal latch, the heavy door. Bill still rested on the bed. He turned to me. His eyes were open, glassy and distant.
I went to him. The drumbeats and cinnamon and the scent of flowers held in the air. I sat on the edge of the bed. Bill shifted over, just a little.
I said, “I want to tell you something.”