The Jade Notebook (33 page)

I explode with relief. In three bounds I’ve reached him, I’m hugging him. His body shivers in my arms. I lead him to a table, vaguely aware that the other figure has stayed at the edge of the woods. On seeing Wendell, Meche and Layla and Joe run from the kitchen and crowd around us. Wendell’s teeth are chattering violently; his face is a strange gray color, his lips deep purple.

Layla sits on his other side, putting her arms around him, sharing warmth. “Should we call an ambulance?”

Wendell shakes his head. He doesn’t seem able to speak.

“I’ll get some tea,” Meche says, hurrying into the kitchen.

Joe offers to get blankets and heads for his cabana.

I keep my arms around Wendell, willing my heat into his icy body. “Are you okay?”

He nods, trembling, and I press him against me.

In a few words, I tell Horacio what I see, giving him a visual to go with the sounds.

“And the other person?” he asks in a low voice, gesturing with his chin to the forest.

I’d forgotten about him. I peer over Wendell’s shoulder at the figure in the shadows. I can barely make out the silhouette. “Hey!” I call out. “You okay?”

The person nods, pushes back the blanket, just a little. But it’s enough. Dozens of little dreadlocks sprout from his head. Our fish guy.

“El Loco?” I murmur.

“Come on over,” Layla shouts. “Have some tea, warm up.”

The man shakes his head, raises a hand in a gesture of no thanks. I catch a flash of his bare chest. He must have given his shirt to Wendell—a damp black T-shirt peeking from Wendell’s blanket. El Loco starts backing up.

“Wait!” I call out. “Where’d you find Wendell? What happened?”

He continues backing up into the tree shadows.

Meche comes out of the kitchen holding two steaming mugs of tea. “Here,
señor
,” she urges. “Please, sit down.”

“I can’t stay,” he rasps. “But keep the boy warm. And safe. He’s been through a lot.” He turns and disappears into the jungle.

I face Wendell again, holding him tight. I’m dying to hear what happened, but at the moment, he can’t seem to talk. Joe runs over with a heap of wool blankets. I peel off Wendell’s wet T-shirt, then wrap the blankets around our
bodies and press against his bare chest, desperate to warm him up.

Wendell sips the tea as the rest of us watch anxiously. I’m just thinking maybe we do need to call an ambulance—what if this is hypothermia?—when he sets down the cup and says in a hoarse whisper, “Th-thanks.”

Everyone murmurs relief at his speaking. “Wendell,” I say, searching his eyes, which are glassy from shock. “What happened out there?”

“Th-that man saved me.”

“El Loco?”

He nods.

“But where were you?”

“I-i-in the ocean. For a long time. B-but then Gracia came.”

“Gracia?” Horacio asks.

I explain. “She’s a—turtle we know.”

Horacio makes a puzzled face, and then Meche chimes in. “Yes, Gracia! She’s famous around here.”

I turn back to Wendell. Thankfully, he seems to be thawing out. “Then where’d our fish guy come in?”

Wendell makes a visible effort to calm his chattering teeth. “Wh-when I couldn’t tread water any longer, I called to Gracia. She came up under me. Brought me to his boat.”

I glance at Layla, who doesn’t seem to find this at all strange. “You have a way with those turtles, Wendell,” she says, nodding. “Just like Zeeta’s father.”

Meche appears to accept this bizarre explanation too.
“Gracia has saved people for years, from the time our
abuelitos
were young.”

I close my eyes, trying to hang on to something logical. “Well, what was El Loco doing out so late?” I ask. “And in the middle of a storm?”

When no one offers an answer, Horacio clears his throat. “When I heard that man speak—El Loco as you call him—I knew his voice. He was the one who pounded on our doors. The one who warned us the night of the fire. The one who saved us.”

Once Wendell is warmed up and feeling more clearheaded, we call the fire chief, Alejandro, to file a report. Wendell gives the basics as I sit beside him, holding his hand and listening. He explains that he went out to the Turtle Center beach in the afternoon. Instead of Santy, two men were waiting for him, baseball caps pulled low over sunglasses. They said they’d be taking Wendell out today, that Santy was sick. It wasn’t until they were on the water that Wendell noticed one of them was missing a finger. El Dedo, he realized.

Wendell knew he couldn’t take them both on, so he stayed quiet and kept his eyes open for a chance to escape. They took him far out from the usual reefs, into the open sea. Finally, they cut the motor and pulled machetes from under the seat.

At the mention of machetes, I cringe, remembering what El Sapo said about death by machete—El Dedo’s preferred method of killing.

As I dig my fingernails into my palms, Wendell continues. El Dedo ordered him to jump overboard. They were surrounded by ocean—no land, no other boats. But Wendell had no choice. He jumped.

They took off, leaving Wendell there, treading water in the open sea.

As he tells his story in such stark detail, a wave of panic rushes over me. It’s painful imagining him abandoned in the cold ocean.

I squeeze his hand and force myself to listen. He says that after hours of swimming, he was exhausted. Night was coming, and so was the storm. The waves grew rougher, higher, the water colder. He thought he was going to die.

That was when he started noticing fins—shark fins, moving toward him—and teeth, glinting in the reflected lights of the clouds. Then a giant leatherback turtle rose beneath him. He hung on as it carried him away from the sharks, toward shore. By now, the thunder and lightning were wild, the waves crashing. But the turtle swam him all the way to a little fishing boat.

A man reached out, pulled him in. El Loco.

I want to interrupt and ask again what our fish guy was doing out in his rickety little boat in the middle of a storm. But I hold my tongue and listen as Wendell continues.

El Loco took off his own T-shirt, put it on Wendell, wrapped him in a wool blanket, and motored the boat to Playa Mermejita. Then he half carried Wendell up the path through the jungle to our cabanas.

Once Wendell finishes his story, he asks Alejandro to promise he’ll go over the heads of the local police, right to the state police, to investigate. Looking reassured, Wendell hangs up with a weary sigh.

I give him a long hug. “Come on, Wendell. You’re exhausted.” With my arm firmly around his waist, I walk him down the path to his cabana. Inside, I help him onto the bed and lie down beside him, arranging the mosquito net around us.

I move my face close to his on the pillow, stroke his damp hair. “Wendell, when you were missing, I thought about our future. I always wanted it to be easy—like a perfect, predictable path.” I pause, looking into his half-closed eyes. “But I realized it’s okay if we take detours.”

“What are you saying, Z?” he asks sleepily.

“Take the scholarship, Wendell. This time I really mean it. I want you to. I was scared before.”

“Scared?”

“Scared you’d go off and start a whole new life, one without me.” I pause to swallow my tears.

“Oh, Z …”

“But I’ll let you go, Wendell. And trust that you’ll come back.”

He twirls a strand of my hair around his finger. “Listen, Z, I know we’ll be together again … even if it might not be for a while.” He kisses me, then whispers, “It’s like those turtles that always come back to the same beach. You’re my beach.”

“And you’re mine,” I manage to say, my voice breaking.
We kiss again, and just before he slips into an exhausted sleep, I say, “So you’ll take the scholarship?”

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

And despite the stab of pain, there’s a rightness to this decision. A decision made from a place of love, not fear.

I stay awake, listening to the rush of ocean, wondering where we’ll be in a year, ten years, what we’ll be doing, whether we’ll be together. My mind wanders to Gracia, swimming around out there, full of old secrets. And to El Loco. I picture those crazy dreadlocks half covering his eyes, his earphones playing unknown music, his sandy, salty voice, his ratty old clothes, his weatherworn pink boat, his cooler of shaved ice and shiny fish. My eyes rest on the huge conch shell he gave me, sitting on my bedside table.

What was he doing out in the ocean? Looking for Wendell? But how did he know Wendell was out there? And how did he know about the fire? Is he the one who’s been watching us from the jungle? Why? Who is this man?

I manage to sleep for an hour or two, restlessly, waking often to check Wendell’s breathing, his heartbeat, his temperature. At the first light of dawn, I climb out of bed, not bothering to try to sleep more. Now is usually the time Layla rings the bell for sunrise yoga, but with the events of last night, everyone’s sleeping in.

I take a quick shower to wash off the dried mud still coating my legs, then throw on a yellow sundress. Wendell is still sleeping soundly. From the back of my wooden chair I pick up the shirt El Loco lent Wendell. It’s still damp, and
coated in mud. I’ll wash it and bring it downtown later today, I decide. El Loco is usually at his spot behind his fish cooler on the street by midmorning. He can answer my questions then.

I carry the shirt outside into the chilly dawn air. Stepping over storm debris, I head down the stone path to the big washbasin under a small, open-sided hut. I fill the sink with water, pour in powdered green soap. Rays of morning sun peek through the sugar cane roof overhead, illuminating the bubbles. As the shirt soaks, I survey the destruction from the storm. Tree limbs have cracked, their leaves torn off and matted on the ground. A few palm fronds were blown off the roofs, but overall, the cabanas held up well.

I scrub the T-shirt, then rinse it with clear water and wring it out. I hold it up, inspect it to make sure all the mud is out. The T-shirt lettering is swirling script that spells out Illusion. The name of my father’s performance troupe in France.

My head spins. It’s him. El Loco, Tortue, El Tortuga, J.C., José Carlos Cruz Castillo. My father. Is he the one watching us in the jungle? The invisible one protecting us? The one who saved us from the fire? Pelted the poachers with stones? Defended the sea turtles? And defended us? I remember, suddenly, that Lupita said her son was an expert tree climber, with amazing slingshot aim. And the treasures and shells he gave her—he gave one to me, too: the smooth conch shell. My mind scrambles to put together the pieces.

For a second, I consider bursting into Layla’s and Wendell’s
cabanas, telling them to get dressed and come with me to find my father. But that would mean waiting. And explaining. And after waiting so long already, I can’t bear to wait any longer. Not even for ten minutes.

I tear through the jungle, heading toward the cliffs of Punta Cometa, toward the tiny crescent of beach where he keeps his pink boat. Fallen branches litter the path, but I crash through, clutching the dripping T-shirt, not caring about the scratches on my legs.

As I run, I try to conjure up my father’s face, the shape of it, its expressions. But in France, it was covered in white paint; the only image I see is a mask. What I remember more clearly is his voice, so tender. I try to recall El Loco’s voice. There’s a raspiness to it, a sandiness, as if he’s just crawled to shore. Now that I replay it in my mind, it sounds as if he’s been holding back waves of emotion, just barely. The hoarseness of a man about to cry. Or cry out. Was he ever teetering on the verge of telling me? Why didn’t he?

I pick up my pace, determined to find out.

Finally, I emerge from the jungle onto the rocky peninsula of Comet Point. As I run, skidding down the steep part, dashing around cacti, these details work themselves out in my mind, the bits of random knowledge I have of this man, my father. And by the time I reach the edge of the cliff, the only question left is
why?
Why hasn’t he shown me his face? If he knows I’m here, looking for him, reaching out to him, why hasn’t he met me halfway?

I skid to a stop at the edge of the cliff, sending a few
tiny pebbles soaring into the surf below, smacking against the cliffs. There’s the pink boat, upside down on the beach, surrounded by flotsam from the storm, piles of sea-worn garbage. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I shout, “Tortue!” The ocean swallows my cries. Louder, I try “Tortuga!”

Nothing. He must be asleep. I’ll go down to his boat, wake him up, I decide. But how do I get there? The little beach is surrounded by steep cliffs on three sides.

I could turn back, look for him downtown later today. That way, Layla and Wendell could come with me. But what if we’ve scared him off? What if he’s planning to run again? Now that I’ve figured out who he is, and know that he’s so close, I have to find him.
Now
.

My heart racing, I scan the cliffs for some kind of path. Finally, my eyes rest on what might be a trail, with a few spindly trees and a smattering of cracks in the rock that could serve as foot- and handholds. I head toward that section of the cliff, darting around cactus outcroppings and hardy shrubs.