The Jade Notebook (7 page)

Wendell must notice how nervous I look. “You sure you’re okay, Z? We can wait—”

I shake off his question. “I’m tired of waiting, Wendell. I have to do this.”

I peer toward the back of the little shop, where a younger woman collects the steaming tortillas coming out of a machine, quickly piling them on a metal stand. Meanwhile, the older woman sits behind a little wooden table covered in a flowered plastic cloth, tending to customers. She weighs a stack of tortillas on her scale, adds a few extra with a wink, and wraps them in rough pink paper. There’s no one else in line, so we introduce ourselves.

She shakes our hands warmly, introduces herself as Elisa.

After some small talk about the weather, I feel more relaxed, braver. I take a deep breath and whip out my notebook. “Doña Elisa, do you happen to know a José Cruz from this area?”

She barks a laugh. “José Cruz?
Pues
, I know lots of them.” She tilts her head and hands me the pink package of tortillas. “A mountain of them!” she adds with another laugh.

My stomach sinks. “Well, this José Cruz is probably around forty years old. He left for many years and only recently came back.”

Doña Elisa shoots me a smile. “Now, that narrows the possibilities down to about twenty! Many men leave to work in the United States or Mexico City and then return to invest their money. Is that why your José Cruz left?”

I shrug, searching my memory for something useful. “He ended up in Europe at some point,” I offer.

She nods, considering this. “Well, I suppose some do.
I’ve never been farther away than Mexico City, so America or Europe—it’s all the same to me. Could be the moon!”

As I jot down notes, Doña Elisa asks Wendell if we’re here on vacation.

“No,” he says. “We’re living at the Cabañas Magia del Mar near Punta Cometa.”

A sudden shadow passes over her face. She presses her lips together, says nothing.

“How much do we owe you,
señora
?” I ask, filling the awkward silence.

“Eleven pesos,” she answers, her voice tense. She adjusts the shawl around her shoulders, pulls it tight, as if protecting herself from a chill.

As she makes change from my twenty-peso bill, Wendell gives me a confused look.

Before we leave, Doña Elisa leans toward us and says, “
Pues
, good luck to you.” She leans in farther, wraps her shawl more tightly at her neck. “And be careful up there, you two.
Tengan cuidado
.”

Careful? Flustered, I lift my hand in a small wave, then turn to go, digging the shopping list from my pocket.

“Weird way to say bye,” I murmur to Wendell.

“Maybe it’s a custom around here,” he says unconvincingly. After a silence, he eyes the list in my hand. “So, what’s next, Z?”

“Fish.” I turn my attention to the fishermen lining the curbs with coolers of shaved ice and freshly caught fish, all silver and rainbows in the sunlight. We stop by the cooler of
an aging hippie beach bum who we’ve come to think of as our fish guy. On our first day here, we saw him fishing off Playa Mermejita in his little boat with peeling pink paint. Of course, Layla loves the idea of buying the most local fish possible, from “our own little piece of sea.” So she insists we buy from this guy … but secretly, I think she just likes to patronize any disheveled vendor with such wild hair.

Finger-length dreadlocks sprout from his head like it’s a crazy agave; in front, they hang in his face, hiding his eyes. His skin is a deep mahogany color, probably from the hours he spends on his boat every day. His clothes are always a mess, carelessly thrown on; half the time his T-shirts are inside out.

He greets us with a subdued smile. He’s listening to music in his earphones, so I don’t try to get into a long conversation.

“Qué onda,”
I say in greeting.

He grins at my Mexican slang, and nodding at Wendell and me, echoes,
“Qué onda.”

As he wraps my order, he asks us in a raspy voice, “How’s life up there near Punta Cometa?”

“Bien padre,”
Wendell answers.

The fish guy nods in approval at our mastery—or maybe butchery—of local slang, then hands me the package of fish. He’s fairly quiet, harder to engage in conversation than Doña Elisa.

Taking the fish, I introduce myself and Wendell, and ask his name.

“
Pues
, people around here call me El Loco,” he answers with a soft smile.

El Loco. The crazy guy.

I raise an eyebrow. “Any special reason why?”

“Quién sabe,”
he says with a light in his eyes. Who knows. He tugs on one of his dreadlocks. “Maybe my hair? Or maybe my beachside mansion.”

“Beachside mansion?” Wendell echoes.

Fish guy chuckles. “My old pink boat. I just turn it over at night, sleep underneath it on the beach.”

Unsure how to respond, I smile, and then get to the point. “
Oiga
, do you know a José Cruz around here?”

He puts his hand to his stubbled chin. “José Cruz. I know many of them.” He sweeps his arm toward the market stands. “Maybe a quarter of the men here have that name.”

I swallow my disappointment and dig some pesos from my pocket to pay for the fish.
“Gracias.”

“Gracias, señorita.”
Then, he adds,
“Tengan cuidado, muchachos.”
Be careful, guys.

The same farewell as Elisa. Is this the first time he’s said that? Or has he always ended conversations that way and I never noticed until Doña Elisa gave us the same warning? I glance at Wendell. Judging by his expression, the same questions are going through his head. “Next?” he asks.

“Meat.”

We head to Carnicería Ernesto, wait in line for Don Ernesto. At least, I guess that’s his name, since he’s the only one we’ve ever seen working here. He’s middle-aged and hefty,
always dressed in a stained white T-shirt with his ample gut poking out over his leather belt. A small mustache grazes his upper lip like a black carpet scrap. His eyes look small, embedded in his puffy face. We usually get a backup chicken from him, since there are often a couple of guests who don’t like fish.
Telenovelas
blare on the little TV hung from the wall of his little cement store. It’s somewhat disconcerting to see Ernesto chopping through meat and bone with one eye glued to the crying or kissing or dying on the screen.

Despite a couple locked in an embrace on TV, his attention is fully directed to a customer now. It’s a beautiful woman with a curtain of long, dark hair, wearing a black cotton huipil that just grazes her knees. She’s about Layla’s age, midthirties, although it’s hard to tell with her face shaded by a wide-brimmed straw hat and huge sunglasses. She looks different from most local women, who joke around with vendors, their children in tow, comfortable rolls of fat around their waists, fake gold earrings and necklaces, jeans and polyester tanks, bulging plastic shopping bags.

This woman carries herself like some regal water creature—a swan or a heron—her head high, her neck long and graceful. Her fingers are laden with silver rings, her wrists and neck draped with beads of seashell and stone. With her traditional woven huipil and elaborate jewelry, she looks like the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. It occurs to me this might be someone famous—maybe an artist or writer—on vacation.

“Buenos días, señora,”
Don Ernesto says, keeping his eyes cast down.

“Buenos días, señor,”
the woman responds in a low voice.

Hardly any other words pass between them. Don Ernesto knows what the woman wants without asking. From a large bucket behind the counter, he scoops piles of raw, glistening, goopy cow organs—hearts, livers, kidneys, stomachs—and a random assortment of bloody bones. Flies are buzzing like mad. A ripe, foul smell rises from the innards, makes my stomach turn. He dumps them into three bags, each of which must weigh five kilos.

Now, I’ve observed plenty of people—all over the world—who immediately captivate me. Usually they exude something special, like a zest for life or generous wisdom. This woman radiates none of these qualities. In fact, she appears completely closed off, as if there’s a veil between her and the rest of us.

What captivates me about her is how out of place she seems. Too elegant for her surroundings … and for her bizarre and disgusting purchase. What on earth would a woman like this do with three bags of bovine innards and bones? My fingers are itching to open my jade notebook, grab a pen, and interview her.

With graceful movements, the woman takes the putrid bags, her arm muscles taut, and pays Don Ernesto a few bills. Then she says,
“Gracias, señor,”
in a voice barely over a whisper.

“Gracias, señora,”
he replies, still making no eye contact, and breathing a visible sigh of relief when she leaves.

I watch her walk away. She even limps like Frida Kahlo—who, as I recall from a movie I saw in France, was hurt in a streetcar accident. I wonder what happened to this woman.
Somehow, her uneven gait comes across as dignified, as if the limp is another accessory, suggesting some hidden tragedy.

Don Ernesto perks up considerably when she turns the corner and is out of sight. His eyes flicker to the TV screen for a moment; then he greets me with a warm smile. “Now, what can I offer you today,
señorita
?”

“Just a small gutted chicken,
por favor
.”

As he prepares the meat and wraps it in the ubiquitous rough pink paper, Wendell and I introduce ourselves, comment on how fresh the food here is, how pretty the beaches, how nice the people. After the usual chitchat, I ask, “Don Ernesto, that
señora
who bought all those cow guts—what will she do with them?”

Don Ernesto’s expression becomes heavy. He shakes his head and mutters something incomprehensible.

“¿Perdón?”
asks Wendell.

Don Ernesto’s tiny eyes dart around and he warns, “Not something to talk about. Best not ask questions.”

Wendell and I exchange glances. Now doesn’t feel like the right time to ask about José Cruz. As Don Ernesto counts out my change, he grows more relaxed, his eyes flicking happily between us and his
telenovela
.

And then I mention that we live in the cabanas near Punta Cometa.

He looks up, alarmed, then blinks a few times and shakes his head. Handing me a few bills sticky with innards goop, he cautions, “
Tengan cuidado, muchachos
. Be careful.”

I want to ask him what he means, but now other customers
are lined up behind us, and Don Ernesto has already moved on to them, appearing glad to end our conversation.

Wendell and I head down the street, past a few tourist booths selling cheap T-shirts and key chains and toys—all sea turtle–themed. Here and there, stray dogs follow us for a bit, attracted to the meat, until we wave them away. Wendell and I don’t say much—it’s as if the vendors’ paranoia has rubbed off on us, made us watch our words in public. We just shoot each other looks as we walk, limiting our conversation to the tasks at hand.

“What’s next?” Wendell says, nodding at the list in my hand.

“Bread, eggs, soap, fruit.” Then I add cynically, “And José Cruz.”

At each shop, after introductions and small talk, we ask if the vendors know a man named José Cruz who fits my father’s vague description. Everyone—the sisters at the bakery, the man at the pharmacy, and the lady selling plastic bags of eggs—has the same response as Doña Elisa and the fish guy: they joke about how many José Cruzes are in this town.

Apparently, José is by far the most popular boy’s name, and the custom is to give every child a second name, which is often used instead of the first. José Antonio, José Alejandro, José Manuel, and so on. Of course, we don’t even know if my José has a second name. To further complicate things, each person also has two last names—the father’s family name followed by the mother’s. And the Cruzes are a well-established family who’ve lived in the area for centuries. The
name is everywhere, like weeds sprouting between cement cracks.

The pharmacist chuckles, estimating that there are probably even about a dozen people with the last name Cruz Cruz. I suppress a groan. I’d guessed José Cruz was a common name in Mexico, but this is worse than I’d imagined.

On the way to our last stop, to buy fruit, Wendell puts his arm around me, comforting me. “Hey, listen, Z. You’re a seeker. Don’t forget it. You’ll find him.”

I force a weak smile. “Seeker.” That’s what the name Zeeta means. And so much of what I’ve spent my life seeking, I’ve found in this place—somewhere I belong, a true home. The only thing missing is my father.

We turn into the fruit shop, where we’re welcomed by a young vendor, round and cheerful in a tight yellow skirt and cherry-red top. Smiling brightly with rosy balls of cheeks, she fits in with the mounds of fruit around her—mangos, pomegranates, persimmons, guavas. She offers us a slice of cantaloupe, chitchatting as she weighs our bananas and pineapples and watermelon. In her chipper voice, she asks us where we’re from, how long we’re here, where we’re staying.

“The Cabañas Magia del Mar,” I say, watching her carefully. “Near Punta Cometa.”

Her eyebrows rise in alarm, and then her gaze falls to the fruit. Her smile disappears.

I study her reaction. There’s no doubt—something strange is going on. Quickly, she hands us the heavy bags and bids us farewell, avoiding eye contact. Her parting words are
“Tengan cuidado.”