The Noel Stranger Read online

  “This sounds like something you saw in a horror movie,” I said.

  “Just look at how much you learn being around me,” Andrew replied.

  “What are you talking about?” the blonde’s sugar daddy asked, finally noticing how much attention his woman was giving to Andrew.

  “Squids and agave plants,” the blonde said.

  “Agave,” the man said. “That’s what they make tequila from.”

  The blonde leaned toward Andrew. “That thing sounds like a monster.”

  “It gets worse,” Andrew said. “The squid dragged the cameraman down nearly sixty feet before the rope he was tied to broke him free of the squid’s grip. The squid was so strong that the diver dislocated his shoulder and his wrist was broken in five places. Had the beast gotten its beak around him, it could have amputated his hand.”

  “Thank you for not telling me any of this before we snorkeled,” I said. “I’m not getting back in the water.”

  “You don’t have to worry. The Humboldt only feed at night.”

  “That sounds like the name of a horror movie,” the blonde said. She pressed her leg against Andrew’s. “They Only Feed at Night.”

  She’s talking about herself, I thought.

  Andrew shifted away from her. “And they only live in deep waters,” he said to me. “So you don’t have to worry about them close to shore.”

  “I’m still staying on the beach,” I said.

  From Pelican Rock, our boat sailed to Land’s End, the tip of the Baja peninsula, with a pungent ride past a sea lion colony, then on to El Arco de Cabo San Lucas, the famous stone arch.

  “Every four years or so, the tide changes enough to create a walkway under the arch,” Andrew said.

  “Can we walk through it now?” I asked.

  “No. Probably next year.”

  We stopped momentarily at the beach, where El Capitán made an announcement. “Friends, we are now going to Playa del Amor, also called Lovers’ Beach. It is very nice sand and calm and good swimming. Next to it is Divorce Beach. It is not so calm, and it has dangerous rip currents. I recommend that you not swim there. Let that be a lesson to you.”

  Everyone laughed. “I’ve learned that lesson,” I said.

  Andrew nodded. “Ditto.”

  “I will pull the boat up on the shore, and you will exit from the front of the boat. The clock time is nearly eleven. I will be back to get you at the same place I drop you off at four o’clock. Remember, our boat is the ABBA. Please do not miss the boat or make your fellow passengers wait for you.”

  The boat pulled into the beach until its hull was on sand and we made our way out over the bow in single file. I made sure we disembarked after the blonde. I didn’t want her following us.

  The sand was immaculate, soft and warm, framed by beautiful large rock formations that rose from the sand like sculptures.

  Andrew carried our things over to a vacant space about thirty yards from the water, where we laid out our beach towels and rubbed each other down with sunscreen. We spent the next two hours at Lovers’ Beach swimming and snorkeling, but as the crowds grew, we moved over toward the less populated Divorce Beach to sunbathe and eat our picnic lunch in privacy. We also ate ripe mangoes and drank passion fruit juice from local vendors. It was a lovely way to spend the day.

  Our boat arrived back at Medano Beach as the sun began to set. The blonde and her man were waiting for us on the dock. They invited us up to their villa for drinks, which the woman pointed out on the mountain. Their villa was nearly half as large as the entire complex we were staying at. Andrew thanked them but politely declined their invitation, explaining that we were on our honeymoon.

  “Congratulations,” the man said. “I hope you remain on Lovers’ Beach for as long as you can. Divorce Beach is expensive.”

  The blonde said nothing but looked at Andrew hungrily.

  “Honeymoon?” I said as we walked away.

  “I was just trying to refuse them politely,” Andrew said.

  We ate a simple dinner at a small bar called the Baja Cantina, where we had seafood chowder in sourdough bread bowls, coconut shrimp, and, my favorite, fish tacos.

  It was dark when we arrived back at the condo. I was sunburned and tired but happy. The condo was cool and I was glad that the air conditioner had been left on.

  I took a quick shower to get the salt and sand off my body, then met Andrew out on the patio. The moon glistened on the water like in a Van Gogh painting. The air was moist and comfortable.

  “What’s on the agenda for tomorrow?” I asked.

  “I thought that after all the travel today, we’d take tomorrow easy. We’ll sleep in, do some shopping in town, eat a nice lunch, and then, for after lunch, I made us a reservation at the Spa at Esperanza. It’s one of Latin America’s top spas.”

  “This just keeps getting better,” I said.

  “Even better than Utah?”

  “Never heard of the place,” I said.

  He grinned. “Would you like a strawberry daiquiri?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  He stood and walked into the kitchen while I just looked out over the city. About five minutes later he returned carrying two glasses with halved limes on the rims. He handed me one and sat down next to me.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I keep looking down at the water expecting to see a bunch of squid legs sticking out.”

  He laughed. “They’re tentacles, not legs. And I’m sorry I told you about them. I didn’t mean to ruin the water for you.”

  “Was that all true?”

  “Every word of it.”

  “That blonde would have liked to pull you under.”

  He looked at me with an amused grin. “She was just being friendly.”

  I took a drink of my daiquiri, then said, “Yeah, right. If we’d been there much longer, she would have ended up in your lap. I wanted to clock her.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” Andrew said. “I think that guy she was with was in the Mafia.” He took a small sip of his drink and set it down. “I like seeing you jealous.”

  “I’m not jealous,” I said, sounding like a liar even to myself. “Maybe a little.”

  He lifted his drink. “You should try this. It’s virgin.”

  “You’re drinking a virgin daiquiri?”

  He nodded.

  “I noticed that you don’t drink much.”

  “I used to. Especially whenever things went bad.” He looked at me dolefully. “Back then, a lot of things were going bad.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Marriage. Family. Business. Pretty much everything that mattered.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But today was a perfect day. Thank you again for talking me into coming here.”

  “I knew it would be good for you to be here,” he said. “And me.”

  “You know me,” I said.

  “I’d like to.”

  I looked out over the bay, then closed my eyes, feeling the warm wind pressing against my face, brushing back my hair. I breathed it in and felt right with the world. After a few more minutes of silence I said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like this.”

  “How is that?”

  “Happy.” I looked into his eyes. Then the words came out. “In love.”

  He just looked at me. I suddenly felt awkward. “I’m sorry. I—”

  “I feel the same,” he said. “You just beat me to it.”

  His words sounded like joy. I set down my drink and nestled into him. We stayed that way for nearly an hour. Finally I said, “I’m tired. I guess I’ll go to bed.”

  He kissed me on the forehead. “I’m going to sit out here a little longer. Good night.”

  “Night,” I said.

  We kissed and I got up and went to my room. As I lay in bed I couldn’t believe that I had told him that I loved him. I hoped it wouldn’t ruin our trip.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty
-Five

  When I first met Andrew, I took him for an attractive, simple man selling Christmas trees to keep the lights on. Not the case. He’s attractive, but he’s also smart, cosmopolitan, and possibly rich. He not only provided my plane ticket and accommodations, he’s also paying for all my meals and activities. Today we went to the Spa at Esperanza. (I think I spelled that right.) It was a day of perfect pampering. It was the perfect everything.

  —Maggie Walther’s Diary

  In spite of Andrew’s invitation to sleep in, I woke early. Andrew must have been exhausted because I peeked into his room and he was sprawled out on top of his covers asleep and lightly snoring.

  I put on my walking shorts and a tank top and went out walking, first around the complex, then all the way down to the edge of the beach and back. I passed a cactus garden with more than thirty different varieties of cacti. I had never realized how beautiful cacti were. I had just always thought of them as something painful to avoid. Maybe there’s a metaphor there.

  When I got back to the condo, Andrew was sitting outside on the patio drinking coffee.

  He smiled when he saw me. “Where’d you go?”

  “Just on a walk,” I said. “I walked down to the beach and back.”

  “I was afraid you ran off with someone else.”

  I walked over, sat on his lap, and kissed him. “I like seeing you jealous too.”

  A half hour later we drove downtown and parked just a little east of the mercado. The area was crowded with tourists patronizing the area’s street vendors, clothing shops, and restaurants. After we had walked around a while, we went to the flea market, which covered several acres and was filled with vendors hawking pottery, clothing, cheap jewelry, electronic gadgets, and all the usual touristy knickknacks. I didn’t buy anything except a shaved ice and a hat, as the sun was frying me.

  After the flea market we walked over by the marina and found a place to sit beneath the shade of a palm tree.

  “There are so many boats,” I said.

  “I counted them all once,” Andrew said. “Not that it means anything, since the number changes hourly. There were a hundred and forty-seven.”

  “What prompted you to count them?”

  “My OCD. I’m always counting things. Maybe that’s why I got into finance.”

  “Have you ever sailed?”

  “I used to,” he said. “A lot. Back when I had a boat.”

  “You owned a boat?”

  He nodded, his expression looking slightly nostalgic. “A thirty-five footer. I called her A Meeting.”

  “A Meeting?”

  “That way, when I was out playing and my clients called, my secretary could say, ‘He’s in A Meeting right now.’ ”

  I grinned. “Brilliant.”

  “I loved that boat. I had to sell her when the business went down.” He sighed. “I still dream of retiring in a little place on the sea with a fishing boat, just big enough to go in deep waters. Something about the size of Hemingway’s boat.”

  “Hemingway the author?”

  Andrew nodded. “Hemingway loved the sea. He had a thirty-eight-foot fishing boat called the Pilar, after his second wife’s nickname. He was an avid, if unconventional, fisherman. They said that he took a tommy gun with him on his boat to shoot sharks if they tried to feed on his catch.

  “Once he and a friend caught a thousand-pound marlin, the largest either of them had ever caught. As they tried to bring it in, sharks came after it. Hemingway got out his tommy gun and started blasting them, but his plan backfired. The shooting created so much blood and chum in the water that it drew hundreds of sharks in a feeding frenzy. They ended up with only half their prized catch.

  “It ruined the men’s friendship, since Hemingway’s friend blamed his use of the gun for the loss of the biggest fish he’d ever caught. On the bright side, the world benefited, as it became the impetus for his book The Old Man and the Sea.”

  “You are a surprising font of knowledge,” I said.

  “I read a lot,” he said.

  “I’ve always wondered what it is about men and boats.”

  “I’ve wondered too,” he said. “Maybe we’re just naturally wired with wanderlust, and the sea is our last viable frontier.”

  “Do you have wanderlust?”

  He didn’t look at me. “Sometimes I dream of disappearing,” he said softly.

  I looked back out over the marina. “My father’s boat looked kind of like that one.” I pointed to a sleek, twenty-plus-foot vessel in a slip across from us. “At least that’s how I remember it. I only saw it once.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It wasn’t for us. He bought it with the insurance settlement after my mother died. I didn’t see much of him after that.”

  For the next half hour we just watched the boats cruise in and out of the marina.

  “Look at the size of that yacht right there,” I said. “I wonder how much it cost.”

  “Probably a couple million,” Andrew said. “There’s money here.” He pointed to a boat idling about a hundred yards from the dock. “See that yacht out there?”

  “The one with sails or the huge black-and-gold one next to it?”

  “The black-and-gold one next to it. My friend used to own it.”

  “It’s giant. Your same friend who owns the condo?”

  He nodded. “It’s beautiful inside. I wish I could show it to you. It has marble countertops, hardwood floors, a formal dining room. It even has a dance floor.”

  “How much does a boat like that cost?”

  Andrew smiled. “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”

  “I already know I can’t afford it.”

  “A little over three million.”

  “Your friend is very rich.”

  “He was,” Andrew said. “Now he’s just rich.” He looked back out at the boat. “They changed its name. It used to be called Seas the Day.”

  “Carpe diem,” I said.

  “Except he spelled seize s-e-a-s.”

  “That’s clever.”

  “He liked word plays. It was either that or Nauti Buoy, naughty spelled like nautical, buoy like an ocean buoy.”

  “Was he?”

  “Was he what?”

  “A naughty boy?”

  “He was back then. Not so much these days.”

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  He turned to me. “I don’t think I want you to meet him.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He would like you.”

  I kissed him on the cheek. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  We ate lunch at a small seafood restaurant and pub on the marina, then walked around until it was time for our spa appointment.

  The Spa at Esperanza lived up to its billing. After checking in, we spent the first half hour in their signature therapy pool, the Pasaje de Agua, for a water-passage purifying ritual, which basically involved moving back and forth from warm to cool water. We started in a warm-spring soaking pool, moved to the steam cave, then out to a cool waterfall rinse.

  Afterward we donned thick terry-cloth bathrobes and sat in a quiet room until two therapists came for us. Andrew had booked us a treatment called “Romancing the Stone,” which consisted of a deep heat stone massage followed by a private soaking tub, then scalp and foot massage. The whole treatment lasted three hours and I don’t remember the last time that I felt so spoiled or relaxed. All my muscles felt like soft rubber.

  As we exited the spa, I noticed the price tag on our treatment was nearly a thousand dollars each.

  “What did you think of that?” Andrew asked as we walked out.

  I sighed happily. “I think I just went to heaven.”

  “Glad to take you there,” he said.

  We ate dinner close to our condo at a restaurant called El Farallón at the Resort at Pedregal.

  “What does el Farallón mean?” I asked.

  “Farallón is a rocky outcrop.”

  The
restaurant was built on a platform of rock jutting from the hillside. “Hence the name.”

  “Hence the name,” he said.

  I ordered carrot and coconut-milk soup with curry and goat cheese, then we shared a lobster ceviche with grilled pineapple. For dinner I had sea bass with saffron rice and bell peppers, and grilled corn with epazote mayonnaise. For dessert we shared a tres leches cake with raspberries.

  As in most Latin American restaurants, no one was in a hurry, so we ate and talked and laughed until past ten. I drank a little too much wine, so after dinner Andrew had to help me to the car, then up to our condo and my bed. I sat down on the bed and lifted my feet. “Please take off my shoes.”

  He knelt down and took them off. “Your feet are free,” he said. He stood and sat on the bed next to me.

  I leaned into him. “This has been the best day ever.”

  “At least until tomorrow,” Andrew said.

  “What are we doing tomorrow?”

  “What would you like to do tomorrow?”

  I touched my finger to his face, tracing the edge of his stubbled chin. “Be with you.”

  “That’s a given. I was thinking that we might go for a drive to Todos Santos. It’s a Mexican hamlet about an hour north of us. I think you’ll like it. It has a unique charm.”

  “If all I wanted was a unique charm, I could just stay here with you.”

  “And they have great fish tacos,” he said.

  I couldn’t believe how in love I was.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-Six

  Today we visited a lovely, quaint little town about an hour north called Todos Santos. Andrew took me to a remote beachfront house he’s seriously considering buying to escape to. I would like someplace to escape to. Or maybe just someone.

  —Maggie Walther’s Diary

  We ate a quick breakfast of coffee and black sapote—an indigenous fruit that tastes like chocolate pudding—and baked breakfast rolls stuffed with ham, cheese, and chipotle.

  We packed our swimsuits and towels, got in our car, and drove north to Pueblo Mágico Todos Santos. The Pueblo Mágico (Magic Town) title had been added a decade earlier by Mexico’s Tourism Secretary to recognize it as a colonial town with historical relevance.