Sisterchicks in Sombreros (28 page)

“It’s organic. It’s going back to its original habitat.”

“It’s a thirty-year-old pickled, varnished marlin. There’s nothing organic about this guy any longer. The point is, I told Aunt Winnie I would bring Harlan’s fish back to her, and I’m going to try my best to keep my word.”

“Melanie, Aunt Winnie doesn’t even know where the fish is. She didn’t know Mr. Marlin was in the trailer, did she? She won’t know that you tried to stuff him in your suitcase to get him home.”

“No, but I know. We got him this far; I can’t give up now.”

Joanne stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at me.

“I like your idea,” I said.

“My idea?”

“What if I did try to stuff him in my suitcase? In pieces. I could saw him in half or maybe into three pieces, what with the nose being so long and all.”

“And then what? Glue him back together at Aunt Winnie’s? I don’t think so, Mel.”

“Okay, what if I just cut off the nose?”

“What if you leave Mr. Marlin under your bed for the maid to find once we’re off the ship?”

“Joanne!”

“You could buy a different fish at home and give it to Aunt Winnie, and it would have the same sentiment for her.”

“Look at this face.” I pulled Mr. Marlin out from behind the curtain and laid him out on my bed. “Where am I ever going to find another fish with a face like that? Aunt Winnie would remember this face.”

Joanne sighed. “I have a feeling I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to forget that face.”

“I’ll cut off the nose. That should do it. Then I can wrap the body in trash bags and duct tape and check it through as luggage.”

“Melanie, are you hearing yourself? Even if you get the stiff through baggage claim, you can’t keep the beak in your carry-on luggage. On the way here airport security searched my purse and confiscated my nail file. You think they’re going to let you go traipsing through X-ray with a swordfish nose in your wallet?”

“Maybe if I wrap it really well.”

“That does it.” Joanne went to the phone, picked it up, and dialed.

“Who are you calling? It’s almost midnight.”

“Hello.” Joanne ignored my question. “Sven? This is Joanne Clayton. Oh. He is? You are? Yes. And by any chance could you bring a saw, some duct tape, and some trash bags. That’s right. Oh, and some twine. Yes, please. Thank you.”

She hung up and announced to me that Sven was unavailable but his assistant, Georgio, was on his way.

“What are you going to do when you get home and you can’t dial up Sven every time you have a little problem?” I said with a sassy air.

Joanne stared me down. “I guess I’ll have to call you.”

I knew no other person on this earth whom I could talk to the way Joanne and I were talking to each other now. It had
been years since we had fallen into this feisty back-talk way of communicating, but it felt good. We could express our mutual frustration, yet both of us knew it was in love.

Georgio appeared with the requested items and an expression of curiosity. His Italian accent was in full swing when he entered the room and spotted Mr. Marlin stretched out across my bed with the bath towel bunny to keep him company.

“I’m thinking of sawing off the nose,” I said. “Just so I can wrap him up and get him loaded on the plane.”

“No, no, no, no, no!” Georgio said.

“That’s what I told her,” Joanne said.

“This is a black marlin. Not very common. Difficult to catch. I know a lot about these fish.”

“Is it valuable?” Joanne asked.

“Not so much, now, I think, but certainly to the fisherman who caught it. Was that one of you?”

“No, our Uncle Harlan caught it. A long time ago.”

“So this is your Uncle Harlan’s marlin.” Georgio grinned, as if he were the first one to notice the play on words.

“Yes,” Joanne said. “This grumpy-looking beast with the evil eye is Uncle Harlan’s marlin. And now my sister thinks she can get it back to Canada. I’ve been trying to tell her it can’t be done.”

“No, it’s not a problem.”

“It’s a huge problem,” Joanne said.

“No, I can ship this fish anywhere in the world. Where do you want him to go?”

I jumped in quickly before Joanne had a chance to voice, in her current brazen tone, exactly where she wanted this fish to go. “Vancouver, BC. I have the address right here.”

Reaching for some paper to copy Aunt Winnie’s address, I found the envelope that had been delivered for Joanne earlier on top of the extra towels. I tossed it to her and said, “You better look at this in case there’s anything we haven’t covered yet.”

Georgio pulled out one of his cards for me, and I copied Aunt Winnie’s address on the back of the card with strict instructions that the shipping cost didn’t matter. The important thing was for the fish to get there.

“Not a problem. I have shipped worse than this before.”

“Worse?” I questioned.

“Larger items and more fragile such as big clay pots and one time a rocking chair the guest bought in Ensenada. Your fish is not a problem. It’s a beautiful fish. Do you know the females are the largest? The males are never more than 140 kilos—about 300 pounds to you. This is a small one. But the small ones are fast. They can run on the surface for a long time, and you think you have them, but then they dive very deep and for a long time. When they leap from the water, you can see a faint blue line, right here.”

He traced his finger along the side before ceasing his lecture on black marlins. With both arms, Georgio lifted his new friend. “Do not worry. I will take good care to see that he gets to your home in one piece.”

“That’s better than what I was about to do.” I scooted
ahead of him to open the door. “Thanks, Georgio. I really appreciate it.”

“Ciao!” He called over his shoulder.

I stood by the open door, watching as he maneuvered his way down the narrow hallway lined with our neighbors’ luggage.

“Joanne,” I called softly, “you should see this. It looks like Georgio is doing the samba with Mr. Marlin. Isn’t that the dance where you take a few steps, stop, step some more and stop again? That’s what he’s doing. It’s hilarious.”

Joanne didn’t answer. Ever since I’d handed her the envelope with her name on it, she hadn’t said a word. I closed the door and looked at her. She was sitting on the edge of our small love seat with the open envelope in her lap and some paper in her hand. Her eyes were fixed on the paper, and her mouth was open.

“Uh-oh, give me the bad news. How much more do we owe in tips and service fees?”

“Ten thousand dollars,” Joanne stated without breathing.

“What? Pesos, not dollars, right? Did you say ten thousand? What for?”

I snatched the paper out of Joanne’s hand and read a handwritten note in beautiful cursive loops.

“Joanne.”

“I know.”

“Ten thousand dollars?”

“U.S. ten thousand dollars.”

“Did you see her return address? She’s from Morocco.”

“I know.”

“This is …”

“I know.”

We sat together in silence, staring at the letter and the cashier’s check.

“I guess you can move to Vancouver now without hesitation,” I said after a few moments.

“I didn’t need money to make my move possible. I don’t need this.” She waved the check at me. “This isn’t for me. It’s for those girls in India. This will buy freedom for so many young girls. It will make them safe.”

Aside from the low-sounding hum of the ship’s mighty engines, all was quiet. My sister had risked everything to save one life, and now she would be instrumental in saving many. This had to be a God-dream.

“What if,” I said slowly, “what if you offered this money to the ministry you worked with in India, and they used it as a matching donation?”

“What are you talking about?”

My organizational way of thinking was kicking into full gear. “Have you ever seen a matching grant? The organization sends out letters requesting donations, and your seed money is used to match their donations up to ten thousand dollars. It’s done all the time. Donors are asked to give by a certain date. That way you end up with twenty thousand, hopefully.”

“I think you and I have some planning to do.”

“Planning is a sweet word in my vocabulary,” I said with a smile.

Someone knocked on our door. It was one of the stewards checking to see if we had any luggage to put out since it was past midnight. Joanne had hers ready, and I scrambled to close my suitcase.

After we handed over the bags, instead of crawling into bed, Joanne and I sat up talking. We formulated a plan for her move to Vancouver by the end of the year and how we would all spend Christmas together, even if she hadn’t packed up everything and moved from Toronto.

The night slipped by as we snatched a few early morning hours of sleep. By eight o’clock Monday morning we were so tired yet so satisfied, we were barely able to get ourselves off the ship with our carry-on bags and make our way through customs.

“Mr. Marlin would never have made it this far,” Joanne kept telling me.

“So you’ve told me.”

“I hope Aunt Winnie doesn’t get so sentimental when the fish arrives that she puts him in a place of prominence in her apartment,” Joanne said. “I cringe at the thought of that beady eye following me around every time I go to visit her.”

“All I care about is that he’s on his way and I don’t have to think about him anymore.”

We picked up our checked luggage and chatted on the shuttle to LAX. The first thing I did when we were inside the airport terminal was to call Ethan. Our conversation was completely different from the one we’d had a week earlier when I apologized for the brick-face kiss and being so uptight. I told him I couldn’t wait to see him and that I loved him with all my heart.

Everything seemed wonderful until Joanne and I got past check-in and realized we were going through security at separate gates. She was flying back to Toronto, and I was flying to Vancouver.

“This isn’t really good-bye.” I gave my dear sister a tight hug. “It’s just ‘see you later.’ ”

“Just a few weeks, and we can start checking out Mexican restaurants in Vancouver.”

I nodded, keeping my teeth clenched so I wouldn’t cry.

“I love you, Melly Jelly Belly.” Joanne hugged me one more time and planted a kiss just above my ear in my freshly conditioned, clean hair.

“I love you, too, Joanna Banana.” I kissed her cheek, and one of her salty tears touched my lips.

“Adios.” She pulled away and gave me a smile.

“Adios,” I echoed. We started in our opposite directions through the crowded terminal. I stopped before turning down the wing where my gate was located, intending to wave at Joanne one last time.

Turn around, Joanne. Look over your shoulder
.

She kept walking and would soon be out of range.

Impulsively, I called out her name.

Joanne turned to glance over her shoulder, and with my free hand I waved and blew her a lopsided kiss.

She attempted to do the same, but she was still moving away from me. Before the kiss left her fingers, Joanne ran right into the chest of another traveler, causing her shoulder bag to tip and spill half its contents in the pathway of the oncoming travelers.

Oh, Joanne
! I chuckled and wove my way back through the crowd to help her out.
You and I can make it all the way to San Felipe and back without an accident, but we can’t make it through the airport!

I was almost to where she stood with her back to me when I stopped. My mouth dropped open, and my eyes stretched wide. Her wallet, brush, and a pack of gum remained on the ground as the man she had run into wrapped his arms around her in a hug.

“Joanne!” I scrambled to pick up the dropped items and held them out as she pulled away from the stranger’s embrace.

That’s when I saw his face.

Matthew
!

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t laugh. It was like a dream. A sweet, gigantic, larger-than-life dream. I was watching one of God’s dreams come true.

“I looked everywhere for you in San Felipe.” Matthew smiled at my sister. “I checked the hotels and rental houses, but no one had a record of you. Then I saw your name on the log at the clinic Thursday morning, and I knew you were still in town. Are you okay?”

Joanne nodded, all smiles. “I was stung by a stingray. But my foot is fine now. It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too.”

“So, how did you know we’d be here?” I asked. “Or is this a coincidence?” I gave Joanne a subtle wink.

Fixing his gaze on Joanne he said, “Do you remember telling me you missed the opportunity to be hands-on at work?”

Joanne shook her head.

“It was when you were holding Miguel down while I reset the tibia. I know you were joking about the hands-on part because Miguel was such a challenge to restrain, but I asked how long you were going to be on vacation, and you said you were flying home Monday. I hoped your flight was through LAX.”

With a shy grin he added, “I’ve been here since five o’clock this morning checking every flight headed for Canada.”

Joanne laughed that great, big, effervescent laugh of hers,
and I thought,
He came after you, Joanne. He pursued you. He found you, and you found him
.

“And here you are,” Matthew said, still grinning.

“Here I am,” Joanne said.

“So, may I buy you ladies a cup of coffee?”

Joanne turned to look at me. Her face was bathed in light.

I handed Joanne the items that had fallen from her shoulder bag. “I have a plane to catch. But, ah … I’ll see you later.”

“Hasta la vista
,” Matthew said. Then, I’m sure for my benefit, he translated his farewell by adding, “That means ‘I’ll see you later.’ ”

“Yes,” I said with a big smile. “I’m sure I will hasta la vista you.”