The Travel Writer (29 page)

I went to the counter to postpone the last leg of my flight. I had met Pilar’s aunt once before. Pilar and I had stopped over for the afternoon in Miami so we could take her out to lunch. At the time, I had hoped this was an official family introduction, and perhaps it was. Her aunt squinted at me suspiciously as I moved in to kiss her on the cheeks. She had immigrated from Spain via Puerto Rico many years before, but never lost her Spanish snobbery. We went to a real Spanish restaurant, one that served an authentic
cocido madrileño
, a thick chickpea stew that no other culture ever thought to specialize in. I tried to ingratiate myself by asking her about Spain, but she was more interested in complaining about the waitresses at the diner where she worked—
stupid Cubans, all of them, and fat. She wouldn’t be at the diner now; a month after that lunch Pilar had told me she’d been fired for being too slow. But I thought I could find her.

I could think of no one else who might know, or could help me to figure out, Pilar’s last secret. At the hotel, Hilary had told me that something had happened to Pilar in the last few months, something that rendered her “ready to move on”—which meant, evidently, ready to betray her employer, to lie to me and the rest of the world, and to risk the anger of Condepa. What had made her so bold or so desperate? It could have been something as mundane as being passed up for a promotion or hitting the max on her credit cards. It could have been something far more interesting—something involving a new love, or an old one. Perhaps even me. Far more likely she had fallen in love with someone better than me, a man whose only fault was an urgent need for money to escape his country, his job, the police, narcotraffickers. No, maybe love had nothing to do with it—Pilar had seen an ad for a little inn by the beach on Sanibel Island, and now the only thing standing between her and the life she wanted was cash to meet the asking price. Whatever had changed Pilar, the woman who had raised her, who had talked to her every week, who Pilar till the end had supported—she would know what it was. First I’d have to tell her what had happened.

A directory chained to a phone booth provided her number and address. I thought about calling ahead, but the romance of showing up in person, like the uniformed U.S. soldiers, to break the terrible news appealed to me. I’d take my chances. Where else would an old woman be but at home? The clerk at Budget rent-a-car patiently traced the directions on a photocopied map. While I waited for the car to be processed, I bought a few minutes at an Internet-connected computer and sent a query to the only person I knew at
The New York Times Magazine
, asking her to send it as far up the masthead as she could. At least it wasn’t a travel guide gig.

On the road, I rolled up the car windows and set the air conditioner to Arctic Gale to prevent sweat from further stinking up my body. I tried to anticipate how Pilar’s aunt would react. She might break down and sob. Perhaps that would give me an excuse to shed a few manly tears with her. I hadn’t cried since I was a child, and all it had done then was leave me tired and thirsty, but crying would be cheaper and less exhausting than a whiskey bender or some other manly way of treating my grief.

I cruised into her neighborhood, passing an aqua-blue McDonald’s, an auto-body shop that apparently specialized in eighties Buicks, a gang of old men outside on folding chairs playing dominoes, a Seventh-Day Adventist church. Pilar’s aunt was an old woman; maybe she’d want to pray. If she asked me, maybe even if she didn’t, I’d tell her I too believed Pilar was in Heaven, embracing her parents. The lie would be my gift to her and to Pilar.

It was a semidetached stucco house, with chipped pink siding that swirled and clumped
like badly spread frosting. I knocked, and a woman’s voice called in Spanish: “Who is it?”

“Mrs. Salamanca?” I said. “I’m a friend of Pilar’s.”

How would I start? I hoped she’d offer me coffee, so I could sit down and compose myself before casting off into my story. I’d never had to break bad news before. I hoped I was good at it.

“Mrs. Salamanca?” the voice echoed. The door opened a few inches, revealing a swath of skin that belonged to a woman much younger than Pilar’s aunt.

“Oh! I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m looking for Mrs. Salamanca. Does she live here? I have news about her niece.”

The door opened a few more inches, until its chain was stretched taut, just in front of the woman’s forehead, a thin golden crown.

“You mean the old woman who used to live here?” she asked.

“She’s not here? Do you know where she is?”

“She passed away.”

The woman didn’t know how much sympathy to express to me; with my accent and pale skin, I surely wasn’t a relative.

“The landlord said she was very sweet,” she added. “I never met her.”

“She died?”

“A few months ago. We just moved in.”

Something large roared by on the street behind me, a bus or a garbage truck, and I felt its dragon breath on my back. Already I was oozing sweat everywhere. I hated Florida.

A few months ago must have been just before Pilar concocted or agreed to the scheme. Pilar had told Hilary that she was now free. Free from her aunt, who had loved her and hadn’t lied to her. After her aunt’s death, there was no one left to care if Pilar disgraced herself, or got fired, or killed. No one who mattered. I thanked the woman and turned back to the car.

I twisted my body in the car seat as I groped in my pockets for the key. So that was all the truth I would ever get. What did I expect? I had been listening for a voice from the dead. But hadn’t Pilar herself whispered secrets to a photo of her dead parents? They used to speak in my dreams, she had said. Perhaps I would hear Pilar in my dreams, now, before her memory faded. Perhaps my subconscious believed in the afterlife. I would find out next time I fell asleep.

What would she say? Perhaps she’d creep into my arms, weeping and laughing at the same time, and apologize for all that mortal silliness. Unlikely. Perhaps the dream would be a nightmare; she would grow fangs and chase me screaming through an underground labyrinth, until I could feel her claws on my back. I’d take it. I knew I’d never hear her voice, but I wanted just for a moment to believe she was alive, in however weird a manner.

As I started the car, I wondered whether I should change my ticket yet again and try to snag a night at the Delano in South Beach, or at least the Richmond. I had written up both several times. The rooms at both were quiet and bright. I’d lay my notebook on the writing desk in my suite and start planning the rest of my life. And I’d sleep better at a good hotel, I thought, as I eased out into traffic.

After I surrendered my car to the valet parkers, I saw a message on my cellphone. It was from the editor in chief of
The New York Times Magazine
. “If you really found Hilary Pearson,” he said, “we want the story. Give me a call.”

I called.

Formerly an editor and writer for travel guides, J
EFF
S
OLOWAY
is now a book editor in New York City. In 2014 he won the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award from the Mystery Writers of America.