Lost in Oaxaca Read online

  LOST IN OAXACA

  Copyright © 2020, Jessica Winters Mireles

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2020

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-880-4

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-881-1

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019911278

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1569 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC. All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  To my family here and in Mexico

  “The sacred is not in heaven or far away. It is all around us, and small human rituals can connect us to its presence. And of course, the greatest challenge (and gift) is to see the sacred in each other.”

  –ALMA LUZ VILLANUEVA

  CHAPTER 1

  Until she hears the bus driver swear, Camille isn’t worried. After all, it was only a minor accident. One minute they were chugging down a mountain switchback; the next, the tires lost their traction with the road. With little fanfare, the bus glided into the side of the mountain with a gentle thud.

  Camille listens to the whine of the engine as the driver tries to back up the bus. The acrid fumes of diesel fuel seep in through the cracked windows, aggravating the headache she’s had since leaving the city.

  “¡Pinche pedazo de mierda!” the driver curses, hitting the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.

  She cracks a smile. Even with her limited Spanish, she understands that he just said goddamn piece of shit. But then she notices the veins pulsing in his neck. There are new rings of perspiration under his arms. Her smile fades.

  She takes several deep breaths, trying to tamp down her rising anxiety. It doesn’t work. If the bus driver is nervous, then she should be too. She leans forward and cradles her head in her hands, listening to the rain pound the roof of the bus. What the hell is she even doing here? Why couldn’t she have left well enough alone and stayed home? Now she’s somewhere in the mountains of Mexico on a dilapidated bus the color of Pepto-Bismol—if Pepto-Bismol were blue instead of pink. And she’s stuck in the mud, to boot.

  This is definitely not the Mexico she’s seen splashed across the glossy pages of her mother’s travel magazines. Here, there are no turquoise bays or white-sand beaches—no five-star hotels with infinity pools that disappear into the ocean. There is only the monsoonal rain, the buzz of mosquitoes, and the accordion music playing from the tinny speakers at the front of the bus.

  And this humidity! The air is so thick with moisture Camille feels like a wet dishrag that needs wringing out. She sits up and rolls up her long red hair into a loose knot at the top of her head. Sweat slides from the nape of her neck and down her back.

  Wearing shorts was another big mistake. Her legs are stuck to the plastic like someone has spilled maple syrup on the seat. Gritting her teeth, she focuses on the gaudy decal of the Virgin Mary glued to the center of the bus’s windshield. Her thighs sting with pain as she slowly peels her legs from the grimy plastic. The Virgin stares back at Camille, her half-closed eyes looking more than a little disappointed.

  The tires spin in the mud. With a bang, the engine sputters and quits. The passengers all begin talking at once, their voices swelling like a crescendo. Camille can’t understand a word. After four years of high school Spanish classes, she assumed she’d at least be able to understand something. No such luck. Most of what she’s hearing isn’t even Spanish.

  She wants to scream. Instead, she closes her eyes and hums the melody of her favorite Bach prelude.

  She feels a light touch on her shoulder. Startled, she glances up to see that an indigenous woman has moved from across the aisle and taken the vacant seat next to her.

  The woman begins to stroke Camille’s upper arm. “S’okay, s’okay, señorita,” the old woman says, nodding. Her smile resembles a yellowed piano keyboard missing most of its ivories.

  Camille is so shocked that a complete stranger is touching her in such an intimate manner that her breath catches. Even her own mother has never touched her with such tenderness. Although the heat inside the bus is sweltering, she begins to shiver.

  She has no idea how old the woman is—she could be seventy or even ninety. Her skin, the color of caramel with a touch of cinnamon, is creased with deep wrinkles. A white braid coils around the top of her head like a dollop of whipped cream. Her eyelids droop so low Camille wonders if she can even see through all the excess skin. Although the material of her white dress is stained and worn, the vibrant embroidered flowers and tassels have not faded with time. Attached to a thin leather string around her neck is a pendant adorned with three small silver crosses.

  Considering the intimate caressing that’s going on, Camille decides she should at least introduce herself. She extends her hand and says in her best Spanish, “Mi nombre es Camille. ¿Y usted?”

  The old woman giggles like a young girl and covers her mouth with surprisingly delicate fingers. She doesn’t shake Camille’s hand or even offer her name, but continues stroking her shoulder while chattering away like they’re old friends. Her singsong dialect is unfamiliar to Camille, but she recognizes two words: metropolitana and Americana, which the woman repeats several times. Her head bobs up and down with vigorous approval, as if Camille is the most exciting thing she’s seen since the Pope visited Mexico.

  The woman starts massaging Camille’s forearm, then works her way down to her wrist and fingers. Before she can pull her hand away, the woman turns it over and draws her thumb across the hardened scar tissue that spreads across Camille’s right palm. She stares at the red lines crisscrossing Camille’s hand, then attempts to straighten her bent fingers. She squints up at Camille, a concerned look on her face, and tilts her head in a questioning manner.

  Camille’s throat tightens. “It was an accident,” she lies, pulling her hand from the woman’s grasp. “Un accidente.”

  The old woman gives her a look of such compassion that Camille’s eyes fill with tears. She fights the urge to crawl into the woman’s lap and cry.

  A flash of blue light is followed by an immediate boom of thunder that violently shakes the bus. A child cries for his mother as the sky opens up again and rain pounds the roof. Without warning, the bus driver leaps up from his seat and hurries down the aisle, shouting at the passengers in rapid Spanish. Although Camille doesn’t understand him, everyone else does. They quickly rise and gather their belongings. Frightened, Camille follows suit. She lifts up her backpack and slings it over her shoulder.

  The roar of the rain soon drowns out the nervous chatter of the passengers as they funnel into the aisle and head toward the emergency exit. The old woman says something in her dialect and motions for Camille to follow her. The aisle is packed with so many people that Camille must wait for it to clear.

  “¡Rápido, rápido!” the bus driver yells from the back of the bus.

  When Camille finally reaches the emergency exit, she
places her backpack on the floor. Steadying herself, she prepares to step off the bus.

  From below, a man reaches out and firmly grasps her hand. She can’t see his face, but she does notice how much lighter her skin is than his. With her other hand she quickly fumbles for her backpack, but before her fingers can grab onto the straps, the man yanks her off the bus.

  The ground is slick; she loses her balance and falls facedown into the mud.

  “Hey!” she shouts, getting up and spitting out a mouthful of earth. Her once-white clothes are now covered in a reddish-brown goo. She looks around for him, her fury rising. “You don’t have to be so rough!”

  The next thing she knows, strong arms are grabbing her around her waist and dragging her down the road. A voice with a heavy Mexican accent yells, “RRRRUN!”

  “What the hell?” She tries to twist away from him, but he only holds on tighter. Her sandals slip off her feet. “Let go of me, you jerk!” she shouts. “I have to get my backpack! It’s on the bus!”

  “Shut up and RUN!” he shouts, forcing her down the road.

  Mud squishes between her toes, and her eyes are so blinded by the rain that she can only see blurry streaks of color as she flails along. She trips over a rock and almost falls, but before she hits the ground, his hands reach around her waist and catch her. He hoists her up onto his back and carries her down the hill.

  When they are a safe distance from the bus, he sets Camille down and disappears into the rain. She looks around for him but realizes she has no idea what he looks like—she never did see his face. She couldn’t pick him out of a crowd if she tried. The only part of him she’d recognize is his hand. And possibly his voice.

  Camille wipes the mud from her eyes and sees that a group of passengers are staring up at the top of the road. She turns to look, and relief floods through her body. The bus is moving again! No doubt they’ll be back on their way in no time.

  My backpack. Everything is in there: her passport, phone, credit cards, and a large amount of cash. She can’t risk losing it. She begins to hike back up the road, the rain stinging her face. Several passengers put out their arms to block her, but she moves around them.

  A man calls out to her, “¡No, señorita! Mucho peligro!”

  What danger is he talking about? She’s already soaked to the skin and completely covered in mud. What more could possibly happen to her? She keeps walking.

  “Pinche Americana estúpida,” the man mutters under his breath as she moves away.

  Irritated, she turns around. “Hey—I’m not stupid!” she protests, but before she can say more, a loud snapping noise draws her attention back to the top of the road.

  The bus is still reversing, but now it’s moving at a faster speed. She’s incredulous. Who in their right mind would drive so recklessly in this kind of weather?

  Then it dawns on her: no one is driving the bus. With a loud whoosh, the trees on the slope above the road begin to wave their branches back and forth. The crowd lets out a loud, collective gasp. Like a slow-motion scene from a Hollywood disaster movie, a massive wall of reddish-brown earth slides down off the mountain, carrying the bus straight toward them.

  Screaming, the passengers scatter. Whether because she’s in shock or because her bare feet are now cemented into the thick mud, Camille is unable to move. She squeezes her eyes shut and waits to die.

  Nothing happens.

  She opens her eyes. The bus has shifted its direction. The mudflow is now pushing it away from her and toward the edge of the road. For a moment, sweet relief floods her body. She’s not going to die after all.

  Her joy is short-lived, though. With a terrifying screech of scraping metal, the mudslide pushes the bus over the side of the road. It tumbles into the green abyss below, taking Camille’s backpack and every single one of her possessions along with it.

  CHAPTER 2

  Whatever you do, Camille,” her mother had said, “make sure you don’t go wandering off alone while you’re down there.” She had finally accepted the fact she had failed to talk Camille out of traveling to Mexico by herself. Still, she’d said “down there” with a look of utter distaste on her face, as if she were talking about Skid Row or someone’s dirty underwear.

  It was the night before Camille was to leave for Oaxaca. She was feeling frazzled because she still hadn’t finished packing for her trip. It certainly hadn’t helped that she had wasted almost three hours having a “quick” lunch with her mother. In her usual form, her mother had shown up thirty minutes late to the restaurant and then insisted on ordering two glasses of wine before she would even think of looking at the menu. Five minutes after sitting down, her mother had reached into a side pocket of her Louis Vuitton handbag and pulled out a handwritten list with all of the reasons Camille shouldn’t go to Oaxaca. Over the course of lunch, she’d proceeded to go over each point in great detail. By the time lunch was over, Camille had a migraine.

  “Well, at least she’s out of my hair now,” Camille said aloud—and instantly regretted it, knowing she had just jinxed herself.

  Sure enough, her cell phone began playing the haunting theme from Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, and MOM lit up her screen.

  “Crap,” Camille said, adrenaline flooding through her like she’d just downed a triple espresso.

  For a moment, she considered letting it ring. But she knew if she didn’t answer, her mother would show up anyway, bitching about how rude it was for Camille to ignore her calls. That she was such an ungrateful daughter, especially after everything she had done for her over the years. Camille had heard the speech so many times she could recite it verbatim.

  Camille was not unappreciative of her mother’s help. She was well aware that living rent-free in the estate’s guesthouse was indeed a very sweet deal. After injuring her right hand during her senior year, Camille had dropped out of college. Her mother had insisted that she come back home to Santa Barbara to recuperate. When Camille balked, her mother had offered her the one-bedroom guesthouse so she’d have some privacy. Camille had agreed, thinking she’d be out of there and making it on her own within the year.

  It had been fifteen years now, and Camille was still living in the guesthouse, still not making it on her own. And privacy? She didn’t know what that meant anymore.

  The phone continued playing Bach. Camille considered turning off all the lights and hiding in the bathtub, but there was no point. Her mother knew she was there. She always knew.

  She took a deep breath and slid her finger across the screen. “Hello, Mom.”

  “Camille,” her mother rasped, “it’s your mother.”

  “Yes, I realize that. That’s why I said, ‘Hello, Mom.’ What’s up?”

  Her mother cleared her throat. “I want to come over and say goodbye to you one more time before you leave for Mexico.”

  Camille clenched her jaw. A sharp pain shot up the back of her head. “Mom, we already said our goodbyes at lunch today. Please don’t come over now. I’m in the middle of packing.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. “Oh. Well, I just thought I could be of some help. If I’m going to be a bother, I’ll stay away.”

  Camille’s shoulders tightened. “Mom, you’re not a bother. It’s just that with all I have to do, I’m a little overwhelmed.”

  “Well, that’s because you always do things the hard way. Let me come over and help you get organized. If I do say so myself, I’m quite the expert at packing. And I have something for you to take on your trip that I forgot to give you. I’ll only stay for a bit.”

  Camille wasn’t buying it. Her mother wanted to come over for a singular reason: to try one last time to talk her out of going to Oaxaca. Not that she hadn’t already spent three hours at lunch doing just that. Highlights from her mother’s list had included how dangerous it was for a single woman to travel alone in Mexico. How she would get dysentery from the water. That it was the beginning of monsoon season and there were sure to be terrible storms. Camille’s person
al favorite was her mother’s insistence that because she was a fair-skinned redhead, she would be an easy target for those terrible “cartel people” who keep kidnapping attractive American women in exchange for huge ransoms.

  “You watch yourself, Camille,” her mother had warned, signaling the waiter for a third glass of chardonnay. “It’s all over the news these days how Mexico is overrun with criminals. They’ll take one look at you and figure out you’re a rich American. Then they’ll hold you hostage until they get what they want. And guess who’s going to have to come up with the money to get you back? I am—that’s who.”

  And then, as usual, her mother had brought up the fact that Camille hadn’t always made the best choices. Since her hand injury all those years ago, she had become accustomed to having others take care of her—primarily her mother.

  Camille had no problem accepting that she’d made mistakes. Some very big mistakes. She was even willing to offer her mother one final shot at trying to talk her out of going to Mexico. In her heart, she knew she wouldn’t change her mind. She was going to Oaxaca, and that was that.

  “Fine, Mom. Come over,” she told her, pinching the bridge of her nose to relieve the pressure that was building up behind her eyes. “But please make it quick. I’ve still got a lot to do before I go to bed.”

  “I’m heading over right now,” her mother said, unable to hide the relief in her voice. “I’ll be there in two minutes.”

  Closer to forty-five minutes later, her mother let herself in through the front door of the guesthouse. Camille could hear the purposeful tap-tap of her mother’s spectator pumps on the hardwood floor. Then she was standing in the doorway, surveying the chaos that had invaded Camille’s bedroom with a sharp eye.

  Camille was kneeling on the floor, folding clothes and stacking them into piles on her bed. She knew she looked ridiculous; that was another reason she didn’t want her mother there. She was wearing cut-off jean shorts and a purple sports bra. The skin above her lip was swathed in a mustache of white bleaching cream. Her red hair was tied up into a lime-green bandana, lending credence to the term “carrot top.” Piles of brightly colored dresses, skirts, and blouses were fanned out across the bed like a crazy patchwork quilt. An oversize black backpack blocked the doorway.