A Small Fortune (3 page)

I’m determined to enjoy myself. Mexico. Sunny. Eighty-five degrees. I just want to relax, to be free of whatever has grabbed hold of me lately. I’m sure Jonathon has a very good reason for bringing winter clothes. He can be a little eccentric. The kind of man who brings two blankets, extra napkins, and real silverware to what is meant to be a quick picnic. He’s a carefully detailed planner, a cautious man with a tendency to prepare for the worst. But none of that matters anyway because by the time I wake and shower, Oliver’s rollercoaster mood is on an upswing and Jonathon has picked up chicken and beans takeout and has made margaritas, and the three of us have been playing poker and laughing for hours on the balcony beneath the midnight-blue sky. I’m so relieved to be having a good time with my family that when I’m finally alone in bed with Jonathon, I kiss his cheek and within seconds fall asleep against him, drifting away to the pulse of cicadas and somewhere in the distance a woman singing to a guitar.

The next morning I get up before everyone else to go for a run on the beach. On my way through the kitchen I lift Jonathon’s BlackBerry from the counter. The screen is locked. He’s put in a pass code. Has he always had a pass code? He’s president of a bank. Of course he’d have a pass code. I type in combinations of birthdays and anniversaries. Nothing puts me through. The sun and beach are waiting. I’m wearing my swimsuit beneath my shorts and tank top so I can stop for a quick swim in the ocean on the way back from my run. I promised to make orange juice and omelets for breakfast. Oliver might still end up in a sour mood no matter what I do, but I’m his mother, and seeing him well fed has a way of satisfying some primordial drive in the deepest trenches of my brain.

Outside a whistle blows and a man yells, “
Agua
!” as if he’s dying of thirst. I peek over the balcony to see a pickup rambling down the hill, its bed loaded with jugs of sloshing water for the coolers like the one inside our condo. A woman across the street waves from her window, and the driver blows his whistle once more and stops and gets out and hauls a jug to her door.

The air fills with the sweet perfume of a tuberose blooming in a large glazed pot on the balcony. I gaze into the open blue sky. After months of hunkering down beneath a blanket of gray, it feels as if someone has yanked the cover off my head to reveal the true colors of the world. Indigo, cherry, lime. So warm, so intense, they seem to vibrate.

I place the BlackBerry back where I found it and hurry out the door.

The sand gives softly beneath my running shoes. Vendors are already lugging their colorful bowls and handmade lace down the glaring white beach. “Something for you,
señora
?” they call out. Restaurant employees have finished raking the trampled sand into smooth lines beneath the tiki bar
palapas
. Others haul red and blue umbrellas close to the shore, and then go back for the yellow tables and chairs to put beneath them.

An American tourist with binoculars is telling a small crowd he’s spotted a whale. “Two!” he cries, and everyone vies for the binoculars as I run past.

The longer I run beneath the deep blue sky, the stronger and happier I feel. Why don’t we do this sort of thing every year? It isn’t that expensive, considering the dollar against the peso. It seems so ridiculous not to invest in a place down here and come every few months. Come on weekends even, just to get a jolt of this energy.

I feel my runner’s high, my breath evening out. My thoughts turn to the time when Oliver was still Ollie. Our days filled with hugs and tickle fights, evenings spent reading after his bath—
The Giving Tree
and
Where the Wild Things Are
—taking in the sweet honey smell of his hair and skin. The first time we watched
The Wizard of Oz
he’d bolted upright on the sofa and claimed that Dorothy sounded exactly like me. “It’s your same voice, Mommy, listen.” I thought it was just Dorothy’s long dark hair and light eyes that had fooled him into thinking we sounded the same. But when he said, “I love the way she sounds. I love the way you sound, Mommy,” I looked into his giant gray-blue eyes and all those freckles dotting his creamy little nose, and I was thrilled to be Judy Garland’s tonal twin.

Just because he’s sixteen now doesn’t mean he has to hate his parents. When I was sixteen my father had been dead for four years, and my mother was my lifeline, my savior, her arms a sanctuary against the cruelty of first loves and best friends turning on a dime into mean girls. The idea that my mother died before Oliver was born never stops feeling cruel. There are days, even now, especially now, when I feel like an orphan, the world too large and empty for me to feel that I belong. Oliver has no idea how lucky he is.

After several miles, the sandy beach becomes a rocky shoreline with no more access. I turn around and start back with the sound of waves rolling in my ears, a view of the mountains and jungle jutting out behind the “old town” where we’re staying. Layers of white stone buildings and terra-cotta roofs line the hillside beneath the rich green jungle, and hovering above everything is a picture book sky. Another notch in my stress comes undone.

Halfway back I slip off my tank top, shorts, and shoes, and dive into the ocean. I lift my face to the sun and let the water cool the sweat from my pores. I see what looks like the fins of two dolphins in the distance. I’ve read that whales and dolphins keep sharks out of the bay. Funny how something so fierce could be afraid of something so docile. I imagine rushing through the condo to tell Jonathon and Oliver how incredible it is to see dolphins during a morning swim. “You’re so right, Jonathon,” I’m going to say. “We’ve been due for a change, and that change is
this
.”

When I emerge from the water, a man is running across the beach toward me. I can’t be sure, but he looks like the matador from the pool.
Benicio
.

He raises his arm. “Celia!” he yells. A sense of urgency radiates from his whole body. Whoever he is, he knows my name, and that alone causes my stomach to clench.

I draw my wet hair from my face, conscious of standing there in a bikini. I glance to check that my bottoms haven’t slipped while getting out of the water. They’re fine. Goose bumps prickle my damp skin in the breeze. I stop far enough for the ocean to still lap my feet.

It is indeed Benicio.

“I’m sorry,” he says, sounding out of breath. He runs his fingers through his shiny hair. His skin is caramel in the sunlight, his eyes a deep amber. “There’s been an accident,” he says.

My stomach pulls tighter.

“Your husband needed me to find you. He said you were running on the beach.”

My mind races in several directions at once. I have to get back. Jonathon has sent for me. Jonathon is safe. Oliver.

“What kind of accident?”

“It’s your son. I don’t know what happened. I just came as a favor to your husband.”

“Where’s Oliver?”

“I don’t know.”

I’m already slipping back into my clothes, my feet caked with sand inside my socks. Adrenaline causes my hands to shake so badly I can barely tie my shoes.

“Wait! No! Wait!” he yells as I take off running. “I have a car!”

I skid to a stop in the sand.

“I came here with my cousin’s car. Over there. The white one.” He points down the beach to a street where an old white Corolla is parked halfway onto the curb. “I’ve been driving back and forth looking for you. Please,” he says. “It’s much faster this way.”

We round the corner and head in the direction of the condo. I recognize the streets from the drive from the airport, the Oxxo mini-mart with the giant Bambini Ice Cream ads, the old man on the corner posing for photos with his bored-faced donkey. Benicio tears down the streets the way the cab driver had, whipping in and out of curbs and people and traffic. He hasn’t looked at me once since we got into the car.

“Tell me exactly what my husband said.”

Benicio nods. “He just said there was an accident with your son and could I please find you on the beach.”

The car careens around another corner. We’re higher up the hill, and the white buildings are no longer piled on top of one another. Trees and grass begin to fill the spaces in between.

Jonathon was sound asleep when I left. Oliver, too. That couldn’t have been much more than an hour ago, two at the most. What could have happened in that short time? Where would they go? Wouldn’t Oliver still be asleep? My mind splinters with possibilities. Maybe Oliver hurt himself during some stupid teenage fit. Jonathon found him unconscious. Why would Jonathon go into his room this time of morning when Oliver always slept in? And even if he did find him unconscious, wouldn’t Jonathon have rushed him to the hospital?

“Where are we?” I ask. “I don’t recognize anything.”

“It’s a faster way. I cut around the outside so I don’t have to stop so much.” He wipes the sweat from his forehead while repeatedly checking the rearview mirror.

I glance back. A dingy white car like the one we’re in follows at the same breakneck speed. There are three, maybe four men inside.

My whole body heats from the inside out. A memory shoots up of the time Oliver broke away from me and darted into the middle of Twenty-third Avenue. He was two years old, convinced it was a game. I screamed for him to stop. He laughed over his shoulder and headed straight into the oncoming cars. The sound of horns and screeching brakes finally brought him to a halt. He looked around and smiled at all the sudden attention. I was furious. I jerked him by the arm to the sidewalk and spanked him, hard, three times on the rear, something I had never done before or since. He howled, and I grabbed his shoulders and shouted in his face.
That wasn’t funny! You could have died! Do you know what that means?
Of course he didn’t know, but it would take another twenty minutes for me to realize this, for me to calm down, let go of the terror, allow my rational mind to catch up: he’s safe, he’s safe, he’s safe.

I roll the window all the way down and tell myself that everyone drives this way here. I tell myself that if something is wrong with Oliver, I’ll know deep down inside the way mothers know things. In fact, something inside does feel terribly wrong. But only in the sense that if I don’t get out of this car right now, Oliver will never see me again.

“Stop the car.”

“What?”

“Stop the car!”

“Why? Don’t you want to get back?” The look of confusion on his face nearly makes me lose my resolve.

“Now!”

He hits the brake, and I brace against the dash to keep from pitching forward.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m not used to driving this car.” He pulls to the curb and stops. An emaciated dog skitters out of the way. “What’s wrong?” Benicio asks.

I don’t answer.

“I don’t think you should…” Again he searches the mirror.

I look behind us. The white car is gone.

He fidgets in his seat. “You’re obviously a runner. Are you fast?”

I narrow my eyes at him. I open the door and realize I don’t know how to find the condo from there.

“You sure you don’t want me to drive you?”

I jump out.

“OK,” he says. “Take that street right there, follow it back down toward the ocean, and go left at Badillo Street. You’ll see the condo on the left.”

I feel a wave of foolishness for being so untrusting, while at the same time I’m too uneasy to get back in. I hesitate, and my nose fills with exhaust and dog piss and the piles of garbage rotting in the heat. Flies buzz the car.

I’m about to shut the door when a commotion breaks out behind me. Brakes screech, car doors fly open, shoes trample cobblestones, someone yells orders in Spanish. From the corner of my eye I see the white car, and then the men who’d been inside.

There’s no time to run. My mouth’s already covered by a thick hand smelling of onions and soil, my own hands twisted at my back. Another man presses a sweet-smelling cloth over my nose. No! I scream, but barely make a sound. Everything happens so quickly. No! I struggle to breathe, fiercely sucking air, an instinct beyond the realization that this is what they want, for me to breathe as deeply as I can. No. I’m already woozy. My hearing fading away.

I’ve been an ungrateful, neglectful wife to Jonathon. A resentful mother to Oliver. They’ll never know how sorry I am, how much I wish I could make it up to them. I’ll never be able to tell them how in that moment, my love for them wrenches my insides more violently than the fear of what might happen next.

When I wake my first thought is that I’ve fallen asleep at the beach and am awakened by Jonathon coming to join me. My skin and clothes smell like the ocean. My face tight from salt. But it’s dark, and my head and neck ache. When I try to move I realize that not only am I sitting in a chair, my arms are tied behind me, my feet are bare and bound to the chair legs. The reason I can’t see is because I’m blindfolded.

I remember the car, the men, the struggle to breathe. The last thing I saw before I passed out was Benicio’s amber eyes locked onto mine, and they were filled with a kind of terror I’d never seen.

Oliver. Where is Oliver?

My brain pounds against my skull. My mouth tastes of gasoline. I drop my chin to my chest, afraid I’m about to throw up. I haven’t eaten all day. What I think is still today. I have no idea how much time has passed.

The room is quiet. The smell of sweat and sulfur. Someone cooking. The scent of burned tin on a hotplate. Cinnamon. I quiet my breath, steady the blood pounding my ears. I hear a distant car horn as if it’s traveling up a canyon.

“Hello?” I say.

“Celia. You’re awake.”

Benicio.

“Untie me!” My mind races through all the reasons they kidnapped me. None of them are good.

“I can’t,” he says.

How could that look of terror in his eyes have been an act? I yank at my wrists and ankles, bound by what feels like hard plastic zip ties, the kind police use these days for cuffs. The edges tear into my skin. “Of course you can,” I say.

A door opens and a ray of light creeps beneath my blindfold. “
Habla español, señora
?”

I go still.

“Hey.” Someone kicks my foot. “I’m talking to you.”

“My husband is president of a bank,” I say, my voice barely a squeak. “If it’s money you want, he can get it for you.”

An argument suddenly breaks out in Spanish between two men. A mad firing of rolling tongues, and the only thing I understand is my name. The voices continue to attack one another until the sound of a harsh slap silences them both.

Hands grip the blindfold at the back of my head and tear it away. I blink in the dim room, trying to see clearly through tears I have no way of wiping. It appears to be dusk, though the sun might also be rising.

Where am I? White stone walls. A small bed with a red and yellow Aztec blanket, red and orange handmade pillows, the kind the vendors sell at the beach. The ceiling is a series of low beams. One door. Thick knotty pine and slightly ajar, leading into a hallway. Something small on the terra-cotta tiles through the crack. A toy. A child’s alphabet block. D.

“So.” Whoever has pulled the blindfold off behind me steps forward. I look up long enough to see it isn’t Benicio. This man has short hair and a thick chest. The head of a howling wolf is tattooed on his beefy right forearm. Our eyes lock, and my first thought is that I’ve seen his face. It’s clear to us both that I can identify him. This isn’t a good sign.

“Celia,” he says in a way that makes my skin shrink.

“Let me go. I won’t tell anyone.” It sounds stupid, even to me.

The man laughs. Hoarsely. Thick with cigarettes.

“Please. I have a son who needs me.”

“We know what you have, Celia. We know everything about you.”

He’s just trying to get inside my head. “Then why’d you ask if I could speak Spanish?”

“You’re clever, aren’t you? Graduated at the top of your class. Reed College, wasn’t it?”

Blood races to my brain to help unscramble the fact that he knows this about me.

“And pretty. Just like Benicio said.”

My chest caves, wringing out my breath. “What do you want from me?” I steady my eyes on the bed. Tell myself to breathe.

“You know exactly what we want from you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe it will all become clear when your husband gets here.”

A surge of panic shoots through me. The bank was once robbed, and Jonathon held at gunpoint. By the time the police arrived, the gunman was weeping and Jonathon, a soft-spoken negotiator, had the gun in his hand.
It was lighter than I expected
, he had said that night, as if it were all in a day’s work. But there is no way Jonathon is going to talk these people out of whatever it was they want. And the thought of them nabbing Oliver hits me with a force that nearly knocks me out. “You lay a hand on my son and I’ll kill you!” I scream, pulling at my hands and feet.

The man laughs. “I think he underestimated you. You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?”

“Who are you talking about?”

“You’re a live one,” he says with a small laugh. “I like that. Ready to defend your family with your own life. That’s more than I can say for some people. Isn’t that right, Benicio?”

To my left a small window cuts into the stone and is filled with iron bars, jailhouse style, set inside the sill. Among the trees outside, a clump of bananas dangles like a giant, vulgar tumor.

Left of the window is Benicio, tied to a chair, no more than ten feet away from me. His right cheek bears the red imprint of a hand.

I jerk my head back to the man at my side.

“What?” He laughs. “Surprised to see your boyfriend tied up?”

I’m more confused than ever. If Benicio isn’t part of their plan, then he really was coming to get me at Jonathon’s request. And if that’s the case then something really happened to Oliver.

“Where’s my son?” I plead with Benicio.

He raises his eyes to the man. He lowers them back to me and shakes his head. “I don’t know anything about your son.”

“What do you mean? Why did Jonathon ask you to find me?”

“He didn’t,” the man says, pulling my hair, tilting my face up to his. “I did.”