Laurel’s face flickered, and she shifted position slightly. Reed froze. The awkward half-crouch he’d maintained was making his thighs hurt, but he stayed perfectly still until he saw her face drain of expression and relax back into whatever dream was drifting there beneath the eyelids.
This time Reed got the panel halfway open in one smooth push, enough that he could actually see something outside. As his pupils adjusted, the view below faded into focus like a photograph taken on Polaroid film. Reed leaned in over Laurel, and let out his breath so quickly that it was almost a gasp.
The plane hung only a few hundred feet above a spectacular swath of green-blue water with coastline so close he could count individual palm trees. The sand was smooth as a sugar cookie, its caramel edges crumbling into water too turquoise to be real. Vertigo swept over him. He inhaled sharply, as stunned by the brilliant azure below as by the chilling sensation that he was falling down into it, that he was somehow already underwater, sinking, down and down and down.
Craning his neck, Reed could see a long line of high-rise hotels lining the peninsula, the size of shoe boxes. Moments later he picked out the gold-and-black lion symbol that was the Grand Medallion’s trademark. A sudden gust rolled the plane to starboard, sending a crew member apologizing into a surprised passenger’s lap. Reed lost his balance and bumped Laurel’s empty cocktail cup. It fell off the armrest, scattering the half-melted cubes. The blue plastic swizzle stuck to the carpet like a broken compass needle.
Laurel sat up. “I was sleeping.”
“Look,” Reed whispered, pointing outside. “Our approach is going right over our hotel!”
She glanced out, disoriented. “That one? The pool looks tiny.”
“No, the other one, the one with the three big circles.” He laughed. “It looks like a big turquoise bio-hazard sign. Large enough to warn aliens away from space.”
“Fitting description from someone who will avoid it anyway.”
“I’m going to take swimming seriously this time. Learn to enjoy it.”
“You’ll treat it like it’s a puddle of Ebola.”
“You’ll be proud of me.” Reed let his hand drop to his wife’s thigh. He began walking two fingers gently toward her lap. “And who says we have to spend all the time at the pool, anyway?”
Laurel let the hand linger long enough to get his hopes up, only to dash them by flicking it away. She nestled back into the chair, closed her eyes, and readjusted herself against the leather. “Wake me up when we land.”
Reed closed his eyes and let the ocean’s electric blue linger in his retinas. Laurel wasn’t wrong to laugh about him learning to swim. How many times had he made that promise? Every trip to see her parents in Florida. Every visit they’d made to the Cape. Every time he signed up for the community adult education classes at the Y. Each time was going to be the time he learned to swim. But she didn’t know what he knew: this time would be different.
The plane seemed to rise up for a half-second, and then the tires screamed against the tarmac. The blue faded as the plane revved itself to a stop.
Mexico.
They were actually there.
As the plane taxied to its place on the tarmac and Laurel stabbed at her eyes with a mascara wand, Reed checked his cellphone, pleasantly surprised to see bars. He expected something from Dan already, the urgent scoop that only he could cover, but for once there was nothing. Maybe even his boss understood that he was serious about being here. Reed put the phone away and waited until the cockpit bell signaled it was okay to stand up.
As passengers filed out of the cabin, Reed pulled their Coach Boston bag from the overhead and put it on the seat between them. He wrestled it through the narrow aisle to the doorway and stepped onto the gangway into heat so intense that a restaurant kitchen at the peak of summer would have seemed refreshing. The air was a near tangible wall that smelled of citrus and cinnamon and flowers and salt and sunshine, so hot that it seemed to suck the air right out of his lungs.
“Oh. My. God,” Laurel gasped.
Holding the rail in one hand and the carry-on in the other, Reed descended and stepped onto asphalt that had the give of gummy bears. Passengers walked toward the customs entry in single-file groups of twos and threes like a line of Hawaiian-shirt-clad ants. Before they’d even reached the building, Reed broke into a sweat. He was glad when they opened the door and stepped into the polar chill of the air conditioning.
In the customs line, Laurel pulled out her phone and started reading Cosmo. Then she surprised him: She slipped her hand into his and gave it a squeeze.
Reed smiled and looked at her, trying to assess whether the warm hand in his palm meant they’d be making love at some point this week or if it was just familiar habit. They were in Cancún, after all. The most romantic place in the world. How could they be here for a week and not find a way to get a little crazy? The longer the hand stayed in his, the more he wondered if this was where they’d turn the corner and get beyond it all, get somewhere new and different and—he searched for the word—close. That was it. He hadn’t felt close to her in years.
As Laurel buried herself in the phone, Reed picked up a pamphlet about adopting from a table with piles of info on tourist visas, time-shares, and customs forms. Reed wondered what it would be like to just swoop in and save one of these disadvantaged children. They had thought about that once, years ago, before Laurel’s career took off and she’d decided on that over being a mom. Interested parties could call Sonrisa Children to set up an appointment. No commitment was necessary.
“Honey,” Reed said. “Look at this. They have an adoption agency right here in Cancún.”
She raised one eyebrow and stared at him.
“We could think about it,” he said.
“Let’s at least just make it to the pool, okay? Before we do any thinking.”
“I’m not saying we have to do anything.”
“Then fine,” she said. “Take the brochure, but don’t get any grand ideas.”
Reed folded it in half and tucked it into his shirt pocket.
When they’d gotten their tourist cards signed and passports back and collected their luggage and weaved their way through the horde of taxi touts offering “free” rides or timeshare opportunities, a young man in a crisp starched uniform was waiting for them outside the gate. He held a placard with their names on it, and in moments he’d ushered them through the crowd into the hotel limo-van.
He sat next to her for a few minutes, then slid to the other window where he could look outside at the town of Cancún as the van bumped and bounced toward the hotel zone. Busty women in bright colors led skipping daughters along the crowded sidewalks. Teens laughed or lounged on corners. Old hunched men in cowboy hats with toothless faces made their way in the hot sun. Dogs panted in the shade. A scantily dressed lady with too much makeup stood in the threshold of a door. A grandmother laughed as she held the hand of a toddler. As the van pulled up to a stoplight, a young boy balanced a soccer ball on his knees, looked up and caught Reed’s eyes, and waved, never letting the ball hit the ground. Reed waved back.
“Don’t,” Laurel said, “If you make eye contact, people will ask you for money.”
“Friendliness is part of the culture.”
“So is asking tourists for money.”
The van pulled forward and turned onto a wider, cleaner road. High-rise hotels towered in the distance. A manicured median strip separated the going and oncoming traffic with fifty feet of lush Kentucky bluegrass. Signs in English. Tourists with wide-brimmed sun hats and khaki shorts bumbled along the sidewalks, none of them looking happy or comfortable. As the vehicle pulled into the hotel’s parking circle Reed felt as if the trip to Mexico had already ended, and they’d arrived in Florida