Sisterchicks in Sombreros (11 page)

J
oanne!” I screamed
, and the toddler’s mother wailed at the top of her voice. The older woman restrained the distressed mother from leaping into the water. I ran to the edge and screamed again when I saw nothing but oily, dark water.

Just then Joanne’s head surfaced, followed immediately by her hands, lifting up the child.

“Joanne!” I shrieked. “Help! Someone help her!”

Beside me flashed the frame of a male passenger jumping into the water. A crewman rushed up beside me and tossed down a life preserver tied to a long rope.

The child choked and coughed and let out a tremendous screech so that Joanne couldn’t hear the man, who was now in the water, giving her instructions. She held firm to the little boy, who was panicked and trying to climb on her neck, forcing her head back under the water.

“No!” I screamed. “Get the baby! Get him off her!”

The mother was now beside me, collapsed into a wailing heap.

Joanne’s head resurfaced, and the man grabbed the life preserver with one arm and the child with the other. Then he yelled for Joanne to take hold of the life preserver.

“Grab it, Joanne! Hold on!”

A number of people had gathered by now, and many of the men stepped forward to toss a second life preserver to Joanne, whom they proceeded to pull up to the dock. She rose coughing, soaked, and battered against the side of the dock. Someone wrapped a Mexican blanket around her shoulders.

“Joanne!” I threw my arms around her. “Are you okay?”

She coughed and nodded. I could feel her shivering and held her close.

“The baby,” she sputtered. “Get the baby.”

“They have him,” I said. “He’s okay.”

We stood holding each other, watching as the gathering group of assistants gave up on pulling the man and the toddler to safety with the life preserver. Instead they lowered a long ladder over the side for the man to climb up with the screeching child secure under his arm.

The moment the mother reached for her child, I burst into tears. The boy instantly stopped crying and was wrapped in a blanket. His wet hair dripped over his unblinking eyes as he shivered and whimpered in his mother’s embrace.

“Is he okay?” Joanne touched the mother on her shoulder.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” the trembling woman repeated over and over with a thick accent. “Thank you.” She kissed Joanne on both cheeks and thanked her again.

All the color drained from Joanne’s face. She was leaning into me, relying on my strength, as if her knees might buckle at any moment.

“Let’s find some dry clothes for you.” I drew Joanna closer.

She nodded. The use of her voice seemed to have evaporated along with the use of her leg muscles.

“You okay?” I bolstered her up.

She didn’t reply. I thought she might faint.

“Take a deep breath,” I said. “We’ll stand here a moment. Is that better?”

She nodded. Someone handed us another blanket. I wrapped it around my wet shoulders and steadied Joanne as we took a few steps back to our luggage.

“Let me take that for you,” the ship’s photographer said. He handed his camera to the young crewman wearing the sombrero and reached for our luggage.

Joanne gazed over her shoulder as we headed up the gangway. The mother and her son were being assisted to the inside of the ship as well. The passenger who had jumped in after Joanne was standing still, dripping wet and holding on to the life preserver. No one seemed to know what to do or say. The shock remained in the air like electricity as the crowd silently dispersed.

I couldn’t believe what had just happened. The incident
couldn’t have lasted more than three or four minutes, but my heart felt as if I had held my breath that entire time. I gasped for air so sharply it hurt.

“Where can we go?” Joanne’s teeth chattered.

I quickly explained to the photographer that we were on our way off the ship and had checked out of our room. He led us back into the lobby and placed our luggage on the floor. We stood close, Joanne still dripping, me wet from holding her up, and both of us wearing the brightly colored Mexican blankets around our shoulders.

“Ladies, what has happened?” Sven appeared and stood with his mouth open as the photographer pieced together his account.

“Come.” Sven motioned for another crewman to pick up our luggage. “We will take you to the spa for warm showers, and then I will obtain new keys for your room.”

Numbly trotting after him, Joanne and I were shown into the private shower and sauna area of the spa. Everyone was in a flutter to assist us, but this time it wasn’t because we were Platinum Crown members. We showered and changed while our clothes were taken away to be cleaned and returned to us on our trip home. As we emerged, still stunned but feeling fresher, the receptionist asked if we would like to have a massage, compliments of the captain.

I can’t explain why that didn’t seem like a good idea. Yes, we were both tense, and it would have helped us to relax—as long as I wasn’t allergic to the massage oil. But a luxurious
body treatment felt out of place after being so close to a life-and-death situation. We asked if we could have the massages on our way home, and the receptionist said the captain’s offer was for that day only. We still declined.

“This has been a memorable trip for you two, hasn’t it?” the receptionist said.

Joanne and I looked at each other. Neither of us had any words to respond.

Sven offered us new keys to our suite and asked if we would like to return to the room to rest.

“I think we should get on the road,” Joanne said in a tranquil voice. “We need to pick up our rental car and start for San Felipe.”

“Joanne, are you sure you’re ready to travel?” I asked.

“I’m okay.”

Her calm was unnerving. My mind kept reviewing the near catastrophe. All it would have taken was one significant swell of the ocean while Joanne was in the water, and the mammoth force of steel would have pushed my sister into the unyielding dock and crushed her to pieces. Or the toddler could have forced her underwater and drowned her. What if she had jumped in and been unable to find the toddler under the water? What if …?

“Mel?” Joanne touched my shoulder lightly. “Is it okay with you if we get our rental car now?”

“It’s fine with me. Are you sure you’re ready to move on?”

She nodded and reached for the handle of her wheeled
suitcase. I followed Joanne off the ship, well aware of the looks the informed crew members gave her. My sister was a hero. A saint. And I was treading in her footprints.

We boarded a small shuttle that would take us the mile or so into the main tourist area of town where we would pick up our rental car. The radio blasted a lively song in Spanish, and the driver chattered in Spanish on his cell phone. The language change made it feel as if we had left all that was familiar behind.

Part of me wanted to wail at the top of my lungs, “Stop the shuttle! Take me back! I can’t do this!” The panicky sensation was the same I’d felt before I had boarded the ship. Only this time the feeling was smaller and deeper, like something dropped into the nuclei of my otherwise balanced brain atoms.

As the yellow light turned to red, the shuttle drove through a main intersection. Three more cars followed the shuttle, as if the red light were merely a suggestion. Cars coming from the opposite direction didn’t hesitate to move forward, horns blaring, drivers swerving to invent new traffic patterns.

“This is not a good sign.” I said.

“I don’t mind driving.” Joanne glanced at me.

“Shouldn’t you rest a little?”

“For the tenth time, Mel, I’m fine.”

It was as if we were teenagers again, arguing over who would be the one to drive the family car to an event we both were attending. In the past I usually won these squabbles because Joanne would acquiesce to save time. I didn’t know
how my new “superwoman” sister would respond, but I continued my role as the determined underling.

“I know you’re fine, but I can drive, Jo.” My tone was bossy enough to will away my terror of the unknown.

Joanne gave me an exasperated look. “We’ll take turns. Come on.” She rose from her seat and carried her wheeled suit-case down the shuttle’s steps. I followed her on the uneven sidewalk crowded with cruise ship tourists. Both sides of the street were lined with small shops that boasted the “best prices” with signs hand-printed in English but listing the “best prices” in pesos.

A leather handbag in the window of one of the newer-looking shops caught my eye. I knew we didn’t have time to shop now, but I told myself to remember this shop so we could stop when we returned from San Felipe.

“
Hola
,” a young man greeted us at the doorway of the shop next door. His small, narrow space was loaded from floor to ceiling with Mexican blankets, guitars, leather coats, embroidered blouses, and leather sandals that hung on a rope.

We both smiled politely and continued down the street without stopping to haggle with him over a souvenir or two. Three blocks down we came to the car rental place. It appeared more up-to-date than many of the shops we passed, and that gave me hope the car we had rented would be modern.

“Hello,” I greeted the young man behind the counter. He was wearing a cotton short-sleeved shirt with the car company logo above the pocket. “We have a reservation.” I pulled out
the papers Sven had prepared for us and handed them to the young man.

He looked at the papers and spoke Spanish over his shoulder to someone in the back office. An older man stepped out and greeted us with a wide smile that showed off his gold-capped tooth. “You want a car?”

“Yes,” I said. “We have a reservation.”

“You were not here when this time came.” He pointed to the printed pickup time on the papers. “We don’t have this car anymore.”

“Certainly you have other cars,” Joanne said.

“Yes, but not for this same price. We have better cars. I can get you a good price on a better car.”

“No thank you,” I said firmly. “We’d like the same price we were quoted when we made the reservation.”

“We have no more cars for that price.”

It didn’t take a lot of insight to see the setup. Did we stand here and try to fight with this guy or take what we could get and pay the higher price with the hope that we would be given a reliable vehicle?

Joanne stepped closer to the front desk. “What cars
do
you have for the price we were quoted?”

“No cars. Not for that price.” The man with the golden grin looked at the younger man.

With a straight face, the younger man said, “My brother has a burro he can rent to you for a low price.”

This was obviously not the time to take names and try to
report these two to the Ensenada Better Business Bureau, if such an organization existed. They saw us coming—two women with luggage in hand and no other options available in town. We were being taken, and we had to take what we were given. The mental image of Joanne and me plodding through the desert on the back of a burro for 150 miles did not bring a smile to my countenance. It only made me mad.

“Okay,” I said firmly. “What do you have?”

We were shown a laminated sheet of paper with pictures of a Mustang convertible, a seven-passenger minivan, and an all-terrain Jeep.

“The convertible looks nice,” Joanne said right away.

“No more today,” the man said.

“We’ll take the minivan then,” I said.

“The van is rented until tomorrow. Do you want to come back tomorrow?”

“No, we don’t want to come back tomorrow. We want you to give us a fair deal on a rental car today. What do you have available?”

“This.” He pointed to the picture of a Jeep. “I will give you a good price.” The man seemed to enjoy this game far more than any compassionate human being should.

“I guess that means we take the Jeep,” Joanne said.

With a gleam he said, “
¡Excellente!
” and sent his young associate to bring the vehicle.

The paperwork was reprinted, and the rate was listed in pesos. I tried to calculate the price in my head, converting
the pesos to Canadian dollars. By my sketchy estimate we were going to be paying close to sixty dollars a day for the Jeep.

“We don’t have much choice,” Joanne said in an effort to calm me down. “Let’s just go with it and take out all the extra insurance we can.”

By the time we finished the paperwork, my tolerance was stretched to its limits, and I knew we were paying far too much to drive across the Baja Peninsula in what turned out to be a canary yellow Jeep that had no roof.

“It’s not so bad.” Joanne loaded our luggage into the back. We still had the two Mexican blankets we had been handed when she rescued the toddler. Earlier we tried to return them to Sven, but he insisted we keep them. It was a good thing because the blankets provided covering for our two small suit-cases in the back of the open Jeep.

“As long as it doesn’t rain,” I said, heading around the front of the vehicle.

“Melanie.” Joanne stepped between the driver’s seat and me. “Let me drive. You’re much better at navigating than I am. You can tell me how to get out of town, and then we’ll switch, and you can drive. I’m not good at reading maps.”

“You just want to have control of the car, like in high school.” I tossed the accusation at her with a hint of surrender. If she was going to be so stubborn about this, I’d let her have her way.

Joanne laughed, and it sounded good to me. “Are you
going to make any threats about what might happen if both my legs get broken?”

“Not yet,” I teased back.

“Good,” Joanne said, her snappiness rising. “Then get in the car and pull out the map.”

We edged our way into the two-lane street just as loud music blared around the corner. Joanne stopped at the first
alto
sign, and an old convertible with fins turned in front of us. Speakers were fixed to the front and back of the long vehicle. On the top of the backseat perched a humorous-looking costumed character with a huge head. He waved at us with white-gloved hands.

“What do you suppose he’s saying?” I shouted to Joanne as the driver picked up a microphone and blasted out his advertisement over the loud music.