Excuse Me, Do You Speak Spanish? (Part 2)

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Lazy waves hum, cars chuckle over cobbled streets, and layered thick above this I hear tinny music piping through the hot air. I take The Boy’s hand and we walk deeper into Puerto Vallarta, the music growing fatter. Soon we intersect a parade swaying towards the chapel tower we’d heard ringing in the morning. I step in line with Mexican kids that barely hit the hem of my skirt, and a priest splashes holy water on the children, on me.

“Watch out that it doesn’t burn!” The Boy calls across the river of people.

I smile and nod, teetering into the church on vintage hooker heels. I stare up towards heaven, and see centuries-old paintings of Christ suffering, watching over a naive scene of natives singing his praise. I feel a presence focus on me, and I turn my eyes earthward: there’s a teenaged boy eying my legs.

I meet his eyes, and in a snap the congregation’s songs sound as they are: rusting Spanish that will never rise above the decaying church walls. I search for The Boy, and see him walking down the aisle. I squeeze his ass in my own worship of god’s creation, and we leave. The morning burns away as we weave around town and its seaside, our stroll ending at a hotel’s near-private beach. In sandals and white skin, the hotel waiters assume we’re guests. We swing into a hammock hanging above the pearly sand, and soon The Boy’s snoring, while my mind jumps and plays in the ocean sparkling behind my feet. I can’t sleep…

“Jewelry for you?”

I blink awake to high sunshine.

“Oh, that’s muy nice,” says The Boy. He raises his head, completely alert though he’s just awoke. He tips down his sunglasses to better see a display of turquoise and silver. “I know you paid one peso for this. So I’ll give you dos pesos. That’s quite a return on your investment.”

“Dos pesos?” asks the man. His skin is burnt caramel like the leather on the bracelets in his plastic briefcase. “What you buy with dos pesos? Loco.”

“Para dos pesos?” asks The Boy. He points to me. “Mi chica de nochas, my girl of the night.” He speaks a stream of Spanglish, and I catch “boom boom,” “titties,” and “dos pesos.”

I hold up two fingers in confirmation: dos pesos, or peace.

The man’s replaced by another seller, his twin, only smaller, roughly female, and carrying a rack of tie-dyed scarves stitched into dresses by locals. Of China. The Boy rattles off in Spanish again — I catch “huevos” and “nina” — , and the woman squints, smiles, then waves her hand at him in eager disbelief.

“What did you tell her?” I laugh.

“I said,” says The Boy, “‘This is my beautiful daughter. She likes to eat eggs for me.’”

“I know what huevos are.” I nod at the seller, slide my index finger in and out of my ring-shaped hand, and she scuttles off.

Finally we rise, floating on higher heat, and the rest of our afternoon is a melt of pear-shaped people and seafood burritos in a dirty cafe, and –

“Starbucks!” I shout. “I’m so ready to get ripped off, authentic whitey style.” The Boy rests outside while I trade fifty pesos for a venti chai soy latte. I wait for my name to be called — the “r” rolls on “Krrrees!” — and I admire the espresso machine whistling like a ranchero, the pastries’ sugar twinkling like white sand, and the English rolling like an invisible ocean in the air conditioned space.

So exotic.

We walk back to our condo, and undress. I pin The Boy down on the bed. “Sexito!” I demand, but he climbs up and changes into swim trunks. “Ayyy, El Nino,” I say. Then I slip on my cut-out one-piece and we shoot up to the roof to rinse in the pool. And though the azur pool melts into the hot sky, a blue ceiling holding in moist heat that frizzes my hair into a Betty Boop fro, the water is ice. We step in, shivering in the waist-deep bath.

“Look at that bird.” I point far in the distance, and The Boy turns away from me.

And I splash him large.

“Hey!” He flashes around, preparing to strike back.

“You can’t hurt me!” I shout. I throw water on myself, so cold showers my sunglasses, and mini rivers run over my skin.

“Are you sure about that?” asks The Boy. He grabs my soy latte, holding it hostage over the side of the pool.

» TO BE CONTINUED…

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