The Jade Notebook (4 page)

After a drawn-out kiss good night, Wendell disappears into his cabana—a small, octagonal wooden structure with giant windows and a palm-frond roof. I head into my own cabana, just past his. They’re nearly identical except for the starfish painted on the door of mine, the iguana on Wendell’s. His parents’ one condition for his staying here was that we have separate cabanas. At first I rolled my eyes, but now I’m secretly glad. I love having my own space, an entire little house to myself, even if it is just a room and bathroom. I’ve always had to share tiny spaces with Layla, put up with her propensity to throw silk scarves over everything—windows, lampshades, toilet tanks—but I get to decorate this place however I want. I’ve settled on minimalist decor—just a few carefully arranged shells and stones and pieces of driftwood.

And a jar of sand. I unscrew the lid, run the fine white grains through my fingers. My father gave me this sand. He’d saved it from the Greek beach where he fell in love with Layla—the beach he was sleeping on when, after one night together, she left him, without their ever having exchanged last names. His initials, J.C., were all she remembered. I later discovered they stand for José Cruz, which I suspect to be a fairly common name in Mexico.

I brush the sand off my fingertips back into the jar and secure the lid. Then I move on to the packet of carefully folded papers beside them. In France, he had these letters delivered, as he did with all his gifts. I untie the ribbon and flip through the letters, some crinkly and yellowed, addressed to Layla, written years ago, before I was born. Since he didn’t have her address, he couldn’t send them. Not until our paths crossed in France. My gaze sweeps over the words I’ve memorized, words that make my insides feel tender, sometimes in a good way, sometimes not. The letters are full of heartache, and grow increasingly heavy with despair. They capture my father’s illness—bipolar disorder—and remind me that he can become dangerously lost in cycles of depression.

I shuffle past the older letters to the two most recent ones, written half a year ago in France and addressed to me. I glance over the words for the hundredth time, idly searching for some clue—not so much to how to find him, more to why he hasn’t contacted me.

I move on to the second letter, written after I continued searching for him, against his wishes:

I’m tired of being patient. Part of me has the urge to crumple up the letters and throw them against the wall. Instead, I run my hands over the worn paper in a kind of prayer. I imagine a muddy speck of hope—hope that this is actually my father’s hometown, for starters. The clues that led me here weren’t airtight—just random memories my father shared with our mutual friend back in France. He mentioned that his childhood was colored gold from sunsets at Comet Point, that it was a famous nesting place for rare turtles. Which makes sense, since his nickname is Tortue—“turtle” in French. After online searches, I deduced that he must have been describing this little coastal village of Mazunte. But even if I’m in the right place, finding him won’t be easy if he doesn’t want to be found.

I press Play on the ancient CD–clock radio and my father’s music begins, undulating guitar melodies that seem in sync with the waves crashing on the beach below. Undressing, I shake off the last grains of sand, then slip on pajama bottoms.

On an impulse, I pull on the threadbare black Jimi Hendrix T-shirt my father gave me. I inhale the scent of the soft fabric—the musty, salty dampness that pervades everything here, a comforting smell. I breathe in again, trying to distinguish any last traces of my father’s smell, even though the shirt’s been washed a dozen times. I try to conjure up his voice, its warm tenor. I spoke with him in France without realizing he was my father. If only I could picture his face—but it was always hidden under mime makeup. I wonder what his sister looks like, the one who’s supposedly the mirror image of me. I try to subtract Layla’s features from my own face and imagine the part of me that came from my father’s genes. A frustrating task.

Finally, I crawl between the white sheets, make sure the mosquito net is tucked firmly into the mattress, and let my head fall onto the pillow. I’m just drifting off when a thundering sound makes my eyes fly open. My heart races. Am I imagining it? I listen, holding perfectly still. All I hear is my father’s song and the waves and crickets and frogs outside my window. The regular rhythms of nighttime. I do some deep breathing and, after what seems like ages, manage to sink into sleep.

But when I do, my dreams are strange. A giant turtle
is crawling out of the dark surf. He transforms into a kind of merman who reaches out flippers that morph into arms. For a long time he holds me, and I let my eyes close. I feel like a little girl, sinking into his embrace, and then, when my eyes open, I find myself in a bright, dazzling world of sunshine. All night, I try to recapture that feeling, but every dream ends with me swimming in the blackest sea, searching for the turtle merman, who somehow has slipped away once again.

Early the next morning, Layla makes her rounds past the cabanas, ringing a bell to wake the guests for sunrise yoga, belting out bits of mystical poetry.
“Rise with the sun. Turn away from the cave of your sleeping. That way a thorn expands to a rose.…”
She chooses a different verse each morning, always Rumi.

In the past, I was the one she woke up unreasonably early, but now she has our guests to keep her company in her predawn spiritual questing. I disentangle myself from my mosquito net, splash cold water on my face, and change into a sundress. I don’t bother brushing my hair. Bristles won’t penetrate its stiff coating of sea salt—nature’s hair spray, Layla insists. Her blond hair is rapidly heading toward ropey dreadlocks. Just her style. I pull my dark hair back in a blue silk scarf and head down the path spotted with mosaics of tile fragments and sea glass.

I wind through flowering bushes and herbs to the kitchen palapa, an open-sided shelter with tables made of cross-sectioned tree trunks tucked beneath a thatched palm roof. The kitchen itself is basically a counter with a mini fridge, some shelves, and a two-burner stove. One by one, in response to Layla’s bell, groggy backpackers emerge from their cabana doorways. Meanwhile, I heat water for tea and cinnamon coffee. Some of the guests need a little caffeine to make it safely down the jungle path to the beach.

Once I’m fully awake, I can appreciate this time of morning, when the air is misty and cool, the dew lingering, the sun still hidden, when the world is all green shadows and flitting birds. I perch on a stool behind the counter and take out my notebook. It’s jade, my favorite shade of the ocean here, the underwater world with sun filtering through. Every year, I write in a different-colored notebook, filling it with thoughts, observations, dreams, interviews, questions, unsent letters, musings. My notebooks are what’s kept me sane in my nomadic life.

I open to a fresh page, marked with a small brown bookmark made of
amate
bark, painted with a sun and moon. Another one of the mysterious gifts my father slipped me in France. I set it on the table, then write my plans for the day.

That will be the first thing Wendell wants to do, so why fight it?

This will be tons of work, but I’m excited about it. It’s mainly for the guests—a wild garden to enchant them, prompting them to write glowing online reviews. We need something special to set our cabanas apart from all the other rustic little resorts spotting the coast. But there’s something deeper, too, I realize. Years from now, I’ll walk the paths, knowing that my own sweat went into creating them. In previous countries, I’ve never bothered to plant anything more than potted flowers. I knew we’d be leaving before I got to see the fruits of my labor. Which reminds me …

I might feel more secure about her promise if it’s in writing. She’ll probably resist. She finds rules and contracts and obligations of any sort unsavory. And speaking of unsavory tasks …

I rub my fingers over the fibers of my bookmark, thinking of my turtle dream last night, the elusive merman. Why try to find a man who’s hiding? Maybe I shouldn’t look for my father; maybe I should be content in this paradise. I can’t shake the image of him lost in the water, the idea that somehow, he needs me, even if he doesn’t know it. I twirl my pen, thinking.

Hesitantly, I add a fifth item to the list. My hand shakes as I write:

Whatever his reasons for not contacting me, my paradise will not be complete without my father. If he can’t—or won’t—find me, I’ll find him. Even if it means going against his clear instructions
not
to.

I look up to see Layla returning from her rounds, gliding down the path barefoot in her white knee-length huipil—a rectangular piece of raw cotton with arm and neck holes, decorated with embroidered flowers. She’s taken to wearing huipils because they’re so comfortable in the heat. She looks completely at ease floating along the trail, as though she’s lived here for years and not just weeks.

“Oh, thanks, love!” she says, eyeing the water I’ve started heating. From the rickety shelves, she plucks mismatched, chipped teacups, wetting her fingertip on her tongue and rubbing the smudges she missed last night—a hazard of dish-washing by candlelight. Luckily, there are no health department inspections here.

I stand up to help her with the coffee.
“Qué onda, güey,”
I say, which roughly translates to, “What’s up, dude?” Literally, “What wave, ox?” Go figure.

She glows. “Today I’m tackling the Hummingbird cabana.”

The Hummingbird cabana is the most dilapidated one, the one we saved for last for repairs. It’s still uninhabitable. I thought we should tear it down and start over, but Layla
has been adamant that it can be saved, just as she’s felt about every other cabana. Our first day here, Layla gazed at the fourteen neglected huts lovingly and announced, “Now I know exactly how Michelangelo felt!”

“Michelangelo?” I asked doubtfully, watching a gecko scurry over the rotting wood.

“He could look at a stone and see the work of art waiting inside!” She’s always fancied herself an artist, specializing in turning junk into art. “This place will be my ultimate project,” she said. “Besides you, of course, love,” she said, kissing my hair. “And what a perfect name … Cabañas Magia del Mar … Magic of the Sea Cabanas.” A dreamy look washed over her face. “This will be the ultimate eco-resort—a refuge for anyone seeking an oasis of renewal.”

She set Wendell right to work designing the website for Cabañas Magia del Mar. I offered to write the copy, but Layla said she’d do it. A good decision, actually. Instead of her description of “a haven of rustic sustainability, sensuality, and spirituality,” I might have been tempted to be more direct: “Barely a step above camping, where your run-down quarters feature bugs, lizards, unmatched furniture, patched mosquito nets, no electricity, sporadic cold water, ample mildew.”

After she tells me her plan for the Hummingbird cabana, I think of number three on my notebook list. “Hey, Layla, let’s contact the owners of this land and extend our contract. Maybe to five years, for starters?”

“Well,” she says with a sheepish smile, “I actually haven’t even signed the twelve-month contract yet.”

“You haven’t?” I try to keep the irritation out of my voice. I should’ve guessed. So Layla. “We’ve already done all this work, and you haven’t even signed the rental agreement?”

“I just arranged it all by email through the real estate agent. That’s documentation.” She obviously feels proud using the word
documentation
. Something she’s famously terrible at, something I always have to force her to deal with so we won’t be deported from our country-of-the-year.

“We need a contract, Layla,” I say firmly. “Today. For five years. At least.”

“Fine. I’ll write the agent an email.”

“Good,” I say, making a mental note to keep on her about this. The only documents she’s ever been able to keep track of for any length of time are our U.S. passports and American citizenship papers. And when I was old enough—around seven—she dumped the job on me.

The one piece of paper Layla treasures is her List. She began her List shortly before I was born and over the past seventeen years has been jotting down every new place recommended to her by fellow travelers.

I glance over at the List, which Layla has nailed to the wooden beam over the kitchen sink. At times this List has been the bane of my existence, reminding me of all the places Layla would uproot us to and from. But now, I appreciate the poetry of what I see. The first place on Layla’s List might be—no,
will
be—the final place we live. Mazunte.