Sisterchicks in Sombreros (9 page)

“Oh,” I said again. “Yes, he’s very articulate.”

“Of course, he wrote that in Latin, but I bought this modern English translation, and I think I’ve read through the little book five times.”

“Oh,” I said for the third time. I couldn’t figure out what was going on with my sister. At least, I thought she was my sister. She looked like Joanne, but she kept surprising me with traits I’d never seen in the Joanne of my childhood.

“I should probably finish packing.” I rose to my feet and tried to find a task. Being busy with my hands was usually the best way for me to clear my mind, and at the moment, my previously overloaded brain was about to spin out of control.

Joanne fell asleep before I did. I felt a heaviness pressing against my chest. Her last words before she snuggled under the covers, with the strangely adorable twisted swan towel still at her feet, were, “Don’t worry about anything, Melanie. God is going to work out everything in ways that will make our hearts swell and our mouths drop open. I love you, Melly Jelly Belly.”

I told her I loved her, too, but I didn’t call her Joanna Banana because I still wasn’t sure who she was. Or maybe I should say I didn’t recognize who she had become. I also wasn’t sure I liked the idea of my heart swelling or my mouth dropping open.

In the engine-humming, slightly rolling silence of the cruise ship, I lay in the darkness and reviewed the clues to the mysterious woman in the bed next to mine. She was in love, but the romance was reportedly with God and not a new boyfriend. She was not planning to be a nun, yet she was
reading and quoting a monk’s ancient confessions. She was hoping to move from Toronto to get away from some unnamed man, and to top it off, I had found out after all these years that she didn’t name her dog after Russell what’s-his-name.

I closed my eyes and felt the subtle sway of the ship. It hadn’t seemed very noticeable while we were moving around our cabin, but now that I was lying still, I felt like a baby being rocked to sleep in a cradle.

Releasing a long, low sigh, I thought maybe I should pray. I’d been too frantically active the past few days to even think about praying. Now that I was lying still in the comfort of this cocoon, being lulled by the gentle sway, my mind played with some of the lines Joanne had read to me. I remembered something about “rushing around like some monster loose in God’s beautiful world” and how “you shouted past my deafness.”

Have You been shouting to me
? I asked in an inaudible prayer.

The answer was apparently “no,” because only silence prevailed in our stateroom. For a long time I lay still, barely breathing, only thinking.

At last my heart whispered,
I won’t run around like a monster anymore. I’ll control my temper and stop being so full of anxiety about everything, okay?

I knew it wasn’t a confession comparable to Augustine’s, but it was all I had at the moment. At least it was a start. Apparently that was enough to calm my mind, for I fell asleep.

Joanne was up early. I know she was trying to tiptoe
around, but it’s hard to open a sliding glass door quietly.

“What time is it?” I muttered without opening my eyes.

“Seven o’clock here. Ten o’clock by my head.”

“Are we docked yet?” The motion of the boat seemed to have stopped, or else I’d become used to it.

“Yes, we’re in Mexico. You should come see this.” Joanne had wrapped up in one of the long terry cloth robes that were hanging in the closet when we arrived. She stood out on our small balcony, and the cool air from the new day filled our room. The faint scent of burning trash came in along with the air.

I grabbed the other thick robe and joined my early bird sis on the balcony. Variegated panels separated our balcony from the ones on either side, but we could hear our neighbors on the right side. It sounded as if they were moving their patio chairs around.

On the deck underneath us, the covered lifeboats were lined up and secured in place. Far below the lifeboats was the dark gray water of the Port of Ensenada. The day had not been roused for very long from its early December snooze, and though fully risen, the sun seemed to shine on us with the same grogginess I felt.

A faint haze floated in the air as Joanne and I leaned against the railing and studied the panorama before us. Low hills rose behind the sprawling city of Ensenada. Houses dotted the hills, their adobe-colored tile roofs blending with the dusty browns of the landscape. Directly below us was a modern-looking dock area complete with an outdoor restaurant, paved
walkways, and a duty-free store. Just beyond the newly developed tourist stop sprawled a soccer field void of a single blade of grass. It was more like a dirt lot that was set up to one day become a soccer field. However, from the general appearance of the town’s worn-looking structures, it seemed we were looking at a soccer field that was used regularly.

I couldn’t relate to any of this—the touristy area in the foreground, the dirt lot that served as a soccer field in the middle of my view, or the sprawling, foreign-looking jumble of buildings that made up Ensenada. But my stomach didn’t tighten at the thought of disembarking and heading out into the city on our own.

“You ready for the morning buffet?” Joanne asked, stirring me from my reverie.

“It’s so early. I was considering another half hour of sleep. We won’t be able to pick up our rental car until ten o’clock, so there’s no rush to disembark.”

“But we’re up,” Joanne said. “We might as well go to breakfast, then dress and have a little time to look around town before we pick up the rental car.”

“Don’t you mean dress and then go to breakfast?”

“No, we can go in these robes. Sandy said on the cruise she went on everyone walked around in their bathing suits and pajamas, as if they were at a big, floating slumber party.”

I had to admit the thought of sliding my feet into a pair of slippers and shuffling off to a bountiful buffet sounded decadent. “Okay, let me wash the sleepies out of my eyes first.”

“Do you think our family is the only one that says
sleepies
?” Joanne called after me.

“Possibly.”

“Hey, did you bring any sunscreen?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t seem that hot right now, but it might be a good idea to buy some before we take off on our trek across Baja.”

I plunged my hands under the running water in the bathroom sink and realized my stomach hadn’t lurched when Joanne brought up that we were going to drive across the desert today. That was a good sign. I wasn’t completely ready for the journey ahead, but at least I no longer was knocked sideways by the thought.

Tucking our room keys and cruise passes in our bathrobe pockets, Joanne and I trotted down the hall toward the elevators. An elderly couple, who looked as if they were dressed for a day of touring Ensenada, complete with fanny packs and bottles of water, joined us in the elevator. They wore matching dark red pants and tropical print camp shirts, and both of them had on bright yellow sun visors. I noticed they glanced sideways at Joanne and me, as if we were dressed funny in our slippers and robes.

The Port of Call Café was filled with morning people. Instead of sleeping in, half the vacationers appeared to have opted for the early buffet. Joanne and I headed for the end of the long line, and I realized people were turning around in line and looking at us.

“Joanne,” I whispered, “it looks like you and I are the only slumber party girls on board.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you see anyone else walking around in a bathrobe?”

Joanne scanned the room. “No, but that’s their loss as far as I’m concerned. We’re comfy, and they’re not. Here, have a plate. Don’t you love these big, oval-shaped plates? These jumbo platters make it easier for us to load up on food without looking like a couple of crazed foodies.”

“Crazed foodies? Why not? We already look like hospital escapees.”

“No we don’t.” Joanne reached for a slice of pineapple. “We look like two relaxed chicks on vacation. Trust me, I’ve seen hospital escapees, and we don’t come close. Can you believe all this fruit? Look at the watermelon! In the middle of winter, no less.”

For a moment Joanne reminded me of Aunt Winnie the way she skipped around topics. Her lightheartedness was catching, though, and I decided if I stayed close to her, I wouldn’t look so strange strolling around in my robe.

“What do you think this is?” Joanne reached for a slice of plump, deep orange fruit. “Papaya, maybe? Star fruit is yellow, isn’t it? This is probably a mango or maybe guava. Do you want some?”

“I’ll pass.” I held up my hand as Joanne tried to add a slice to my plate. “One tropical fruit disaster is enough for me on this cruise, thank you very much.”

“That’s right!” Joanne chuckled. “Maybe I shouldn’t get too adventuresome in trying new fruit, either. We share the same DNA, but no offense, I’m not eager to share the same maladies.”

Like a couple of discerning gourmets dressed in fluffy lab coats, we gathered samples of only the breakfast items whose ingredients we could identify with a reasonable amount of certainty. Joanne was enthusiastic about the huevos rancheros and eggs Benedict. I was more interested in the chocolate-filled croissants.

Finding an open table proved to be a challenge. We wandered around with our filled plates, watching people eat and gauging how close they were to being finished.

“People are still staring at us,” I muttered to Joanne.

“It’s not the robes,” she said. “It’s the way we’re circling like vultures.”

“Come on, let’s see if we can find any places open on the other side.” I led Joanne to several large tables by the windows where two seats were open across from each other at the end. The rest of the table was filled with vacationers.

As soon as we asked if the end seats were available, the woman nearest the open seats said, “You two were smart.” She nodded at our attire. “I wanted to wear my robe, but I thought I’d be the only one.”

As soon as she said it, she pressed her lips together, as if she realized she just pointed out the obvious.

Joanne laughed. “Well, now you know you wouldn’t have been alone!”

The woman laughed and pulled out a chair for me. “Are you two going to spend the day shopping, or are you going on one of the tours?”

“Actually,” Joanne said brightly, “we’ve rented a car, and I guess you could say we’re going on our own sort of tour.”

We suddenly had the attention of all the other diners at the table. It was as if Joanne whet their appetites for something oh so much more thrilling than rifling through stacks of woven Mexican blankets from a street vendor.

“Where are you going?” another woman asked.

I wondered why Joanne had been so open with our private information, but then I felt a cool breeze on my legs under the table and realized that a woman who walks around in public wearing a bathrobe has very little power to conceal any of her secrets.

A
fter Joanne told the people
at our breakfast table that we were driving to San Felipe, one of them said, “I wish we had planned something like that. Your overland trek across Baja sounds much more interesting than the tour we signed up for.”

“What tour are you going on?” I asked.

“We’re taking a bus to see La Bufadora.”

“What’s that?”

“A blowhole. According to the brochure, it’s a hollow rock formation at the coast where the incoming tides send a spray of water shooting into the air like a geyser.”

“Sounds interesting,” Joanne said.

“I’m more interested in the vendor carts that sell
churros
in the parking lot.”

“Those are the long donuts, right?” Joanne asked. “The ones with the cinnamon and sugar?”

“Do they dip those in chocolate?” another woman at our table asked.

“I don’t think so, but if you’re interested in a little chocolate this morning, you should go to the cake-decorating event in the main lobby,” the woman next to me volunteered.

“My sister used to want to be a pastry chef,” Joanne announced.

I gave her a pained expression. “That was a long time ago, Joanne.”

“I know, but don’t you think a cake-decorating contest sounds like fun? We need to start this day with a little zip. Our cruise didn’t exactly get off to the best start yesterday.”

But Joanne was right. Our spa treatment wasn’t stellar. Showing up for breakfast in our robes didn’t exactly enhance my sense of relaxation. We already were packed but couldn’t pick up our rental car for several hours. A cake-decorating contest might be fun.

“We could even show up at the contest in our robes,” Joanne said.

I wasn’t the only one at the breakfast table who strongly suggested we change. As soon as I swallowed my last bite of cantaloupe, Joanne and I trotted back to our room to dress for the day and join the lively bunch in the center of the downstairs lobby.

The event was set up in the same area where we had watched the guitarist last night, but the space was transformed. The plants and baby grand piano had been pushed aside to
make room for three rectangular tables that formed a U shape, open to spectators who now lined the steps and railing of the sunken center arena.