When time was young
An original short story set in Mexico
© Brent Cassie 1996
Leonard sat in the cocktail lounge of the hotel sipping a margarita from a chilled glass. It was early afternoon, too early, he thought, to be having a drink — but, then, what the hell? He was on vacation wasn't he?
As he looked out of the large plate glass windows toward the Pacific Ocean, watching the long blue swells move shoreward, allowing himself that forbidden afternoon drink, he thought about the fact that this was the first time he had taken a vacation by himself since his marriage thirty-one years ago. But now he was divorced, had been divorced for almost a year. He had thought a vacation would cheer him up, rescue him from a lingering melancholy he had fallen into of late. But instead of cheering him up, being in Puerto Vallarta had caused him to feel listless and lonely.
Leonard took another sip from his margarita, and looked around the cocktail lounge at the people. Most of them (except for the bartenders and waitresses) seemed to be American. Lost in thought, he gazed at the handsome expensive look of the room — the pseudo Spanish colonial furniture, the earth-toned walls decorated with Huichol Indian yarn paintings — and, of course, at the pretty young waitresses in their skimpy uniforms. How different Puerto Vallarta seemed from what he remembered thirty-five years ago when he was a young man.
Then there was no road, and one had to fly in from Guadalajara. There were only a few small inexpensive hotels, and now there were many large expensive ones: high rises situated all along the curve of Banderas Bay. Puerto Vallarta was now a modern city.
As his mind rummaged slowly through vague thoughts he noticed a woman walk into the cocktail lounge, then sit at the bar three stools away from where he sat. She was a handsome woman, he thought, and was, he guessed, somewhere in her late forties or early fifties.
There was something about her attitude — the way she looked at him when she sat down, then turned her head away quickly when their eyes met — that led him to believe she was alone. It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps she was available and he should try to meet her, to engage her in conversation. And then... what? He didn't know, didn't try to think beyond the initial approach.
He felt shy, inexperienced, and yet goaded by loneliness; and something deeper, something more urgent: it was time. The sense of time moving swiftly, the present speeding away from him into a future that seemed nearer and more limited with each passing day, each passing hour. Lately, in his office, at odd unexpected moments, he would suddenly be caught by the notion that another day was spent, and that there were too few left.
How should he approach her? What should he say? He didn't want to embarrass her, to make her angry, and to feel the humiliation of being rejected. And yet, what of the possibilities? He would never know if he didn't try.
With sudden decision he got up from his stool, holding his glass in one hand, and walked over to where she sat. He stood a step behind her and to one side, then leaned in her direction and said, "Hi. Mind if I join you?" He smiled, and trembled internally in spite of himself.
Startled she looked up at him, her hazel eyes wide and staring, looked away, then back again, hesitant, and said, "I — well — oh, no. I guess not."
There followed an awkward silence, Leonard not knowing what else to say, what one was supposed to say in such a situation, then managed to stutter, "My name's... my name is Leonard." And stuck his hand in her direction.
Hesitantly she reached over and shook his hand, looking into his face… then smiled as she said, "Mine's Marge."
Their attempts at conversation were somewhat difficult at first, both feeling embarrassed, unable to admit to each other — or to themselves — their loneliness and to the fact they both had come to the cocktail lounge hoping to meet someone.
They talked and found out some things about each other. He told her he was an accountant from Los Angeles. She said she had never worked — other than as a housewife, taking care of her husband and three children — and was also from California: Mill Valley, just north of San Francisco.
After this they became more at ease, and as they talked the subject of their current marital status came up. Both were able to confess they were divorced and single. This mutual confession of failure in marriage drew them closer together and their conversation became more animated.
Leonard also learned that Marge had come to Puerto Vallarta with a woman friend, a divorcee too, and that the friend was ill with dysentery and had been confined to her room since yesterday.
"Gee, that's too bad," Leonard said. "Has she been taking any medicine?"
"Yes, some pills my doctor gave me when we left Mill Valley, but they don't seem to be doing any good." Marge shook her head, looking worried. "She's pretty sick. If she's not better by tomorrow I think maybe I should try to find her a doctor."
"Shouldn't be difficult," Leonard said, his voice sounding sympathetic. "I would think the hotel could provide you with one."
There was a lapse in their conversation. Neither one seemed to know how to continue. She was staring down at her hands that were lying clasped together on the bar while Leonard, his head turned in her direction, looked at her out of the corners of his eyes.
He liked the way her shining chestnut hair, streaked with gray, fell to her shoulders. He could see that her figure was a bit on the plump side, and he saw the web of lines that had begun to form at the outer edges of her eyes. In another few years, he thought, the hair would be grayer and the lines would be deeper. But, in spite of the lines, the fading color in her cheeks, he found her attractive and thought she must have been very pretty when younger. He felt a pang of remorse for her, and for himself.
Leonard, noting that her glass of white wine was almost empty, asked, "Can I buy you another drink?"
"Oh, no, really. I'm not used to drinking in the afternoon."
"Me either," and smiled, then said, "but this is my first vacation in a long time so I figure what the heck. Come on, how 'bout it?"
"Well, all right." She looked at him and smiled. "I guess one more glass of wine can't hurt."
They talked, and she asked him, "What are you doing here? I mean, why did you come to Mexico?"
"Oh, I don't know. I guess it had to do with my divorce and that I haven't taken a vacation for a long time. And my job... I really don't enjoy my work anymore. I just wanted to get away, do something different." But he knew there was more… that it had to do with being fifty-five years old. And too, perhaps more importantly, there were his memories of Conchita: a girl he had met here in Puerto Vallarta and fallen in love with so many years ago.
When she had finished her second glass of wine, Marge said, "Well I've enjoyed our conversation, but I really must go. I want to look in on my friend and see how she's doing."
© Brent Cassie 1996
As she began to ease herself down from the stool, Leonard felt a moment of mild panic, wanting her to stay, but not knowing what to say… then blurted, "Uh, Marge, look, if — I mean maybe later, this evening, would you like to have dinner with me?"
Marge stopped, turned her head and looked at him, then said, "Why yes, that might be fun," paused, her eyebrows knit in thought, then continued, "but only if we could eat at the restaurant here in the hotel. I want to be near in case my friend needs me."
"Oh, yes, that would be fine," Leonard said. "Uh, why don't we meet here for a drink around seven and then have dinner."
After Marge left the cocktail lounge, Leonard walked through the lobby of the hotel, through the plate-glass doors to the street… then hailed one of the taxis that waited in front of the hotel. He asked to be taken into town, to the plaza, hoping it had not changed, that it would still be as he remembered it.
It was not, of course, as he remembered it. The plaza was still there, but the buildings that surrounded it were all new and different from the ones he remembered. He walked around the plaza… then sat down on one of the numerous iron benches.
Thirty-five years ago! Born and raised in a middle-class suburb of Los Angeles, Mexico and Puerto Vallarta had been the adventure of his life. He had met Conchita in the Rosarita: a dancehall that was, in those days, located — as he remembered it — just a block from where he now sat in the plaza.
He thought again about his presence in Puerto Vallarta, about Conchita, and that one summer of his long lost youth. She always came to the dance hall with her brother because her father would not allow her to come alone. She had dark eyes and black hair and her skin was a burnished golden brown. She was only eighteen and Leonard thought her beautiful. And when they danced he held her close, the warm softness of her body pressing against his own. Between dances they sat together at a small table in a dark corner hidden away from the table where her brother sat. Her eyes sparkled from the dim overhead lights as she looked at him, and he kissed her and whispered words of love into her ear.
He burned with desire for her and she told him, "Oh Lenny, I love you so. Some night, I tell you sure, we go to the beach and make love," and then she kissed him passionately in the dim light of the dance hall. How he had waited for that night! How his dreams became feverish with the thought of her kisses, her naked body... and he was certain he couldn't live without her.
Trying to recapture one's youth! He couldn't help but smile inwardly at the foolishness of it all; and yet he was glad he came. He felt he owed it to himself, if for no other reason than he needed the relaxation, the time off from a job he had come to dislike.
He sighed and got up from the iron bench. It was hot, the sky cloudless, the bright afternoon sunlight causing him to squint his eyes as he left the plaza and walked along the street, then turned a corner and stopped. He was not sure, but thought the two-story building in front of him was where the Rosarita had once been. If he was right, a farmacia now occupied the space of the former dance hall. He had been certain the Rosarita would be gone and yet, in spite of himself, he had hoped.
That night he had dinner with Marge. After they finished eating — the plates cleared away, and were each sipping from a glass of wine — they talked. He sensed an aura of sadness about her and suspected that it had been a long time since she had enjoyed herself. He wondered what her regrets for the past were.
"How long has it been since you were divorced," he asked, feeling he now knew her well enough to be a little more personal.
"Oh, a long time. About five years." She turned her head away from him, then after a moment, looked back at him, and asked, "And you?"
"Oh, it'll be a year in a month or so." He hesitated, wanting to say more, then added, "But the marriage was over a long time before we got around to an actual divorce. It was difficult for both of us to face up to the fact that it just wasn't working anymore."
Later, in his room, feeling restless, his head buzzing from the wine, not ready to go to bed, he slid open the large glass patio door and walked out onto the small balcony that overlooked the Bay of Banderas. The night was dark, there was nothing to see but the numerous lights of Puerto Vallarta strung along the curve of the bay, and further out from the shore the disembodied lights of anchored boats bobbing up and down on the gentle swells.
After a while, looking out at the dark vastness of the Pacific Ocean, his restlessness now replaced by a vague melancholy, he sighed, and then asked himself in an almost inaudible whisper, "What am I doing here?"
Turning from the darkness he walked back into his room, closed the patio door, and then undressed. But before he climbed into bed he stood for a moment looking at his naked self in the long mirror fixed to the inside of the closet door.
He saw a man of medium height, balding, his hair graying at the temples, and his body too thick in the middle. He patted the soft pad of his stomach, then felt the flaccid muscles of one arm with his other hand. He shook his head in dismay as he reflected that he had once been an athlete with a hard muscular body. He walked away from the man in the mirror, turned off the lights, and got into bed.
An aging fifty-five year old man, he thought, and Conchita would now be fifty-three. Probably fat, with five or six grown up kids and he groaned with despair… then shoved the thought from his mind.
In the morning Leonard sat in the coffee lounge waiting for Marge. The night before he had arranged to meet her here for breakfast. When she arrived she was alone and told Leonard her friend was feeling better, but still was unable to eat and had remained in their room.
After breakfast they decided to take the boat to Mismaloya to see the place where John Huston had made the movie, The Night of The Iguana.
When they returned from Mismaloya, Leonard realized he liked Marge and was aware she liked him too; but he was ambivalent about getting involved with her. Her presence, the possibilities she represented, made him realize he had come to Puerto Vallarta to meet someone, but someone younger: like his memory of Conchita.
Late that afternoon, after returning to the hotel from spending several long hot hours alone walking the old downtown section of Puerto Vallarta — trying to find some building, some street, some street corner, that he remembered from the past — he felt dispirited and went to the cocktail lounge for a cold beer, hoping that the beer would assuage his thirst and his longing for the past.
That night he and Marge had dinner together in a romantic little thatch-roofed nightclub and restaurant by the ocean. The night was warm and soft and a trio played dance tunes from the thirties and forties. When the trio took an intermission they could hear the sound of surf thumping upon the hard packed sand of the beach just below them.
"Why did you come here?" she asked. "Why not Manzanillo, or Acapulco, maybe Cancun?"
He hesitated, not wanting to tell her the real reason, then said, "Oh, I don't know, I guess it was because I was here once before. A long time ago when I was a young man."
"Yes, I think I understand," she said, that note of sadness in her voice that he had come to recognize. "Those things that happened to us when we were young... they sometimes seem more important than anything that's happened since."
They were silent for a moment, then Leonard asked, "So how about you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I've been doing all of the talking, telling you a little bit about my life. So how about you? What about your life, your divorce and all that?"
"She laughed, but the laugh seemed somewhat forced, then said, "I loved my husband. We married when we were very young, I was only nineteen and I loved him very much. There was never anyone else and I thought we had a terrific marriage — wonderful children and all that. And then when the children were grown, had left home, something seemed to go wrong."
She stopped for a moment, looking down at her plate, then looked back up at him and continued, "He found someone else, a much younger woman. I never met her, only saw her once, and I... was so hurt, felt so betrayed. I hated him and demanded a divorce. At first he fought against it, but in the end he agreed. I think he realized he couldn't face my anger, the guilt I instilled in him. It was an ugly business — the money, the children — a terrible mess."
She stopped, bent her head again, dabbed at her eyes with her napkin… then said, "God! How trite. It sounds like the script for a cheap soap opera."
"I'm sorry," Leonard said.
"Oh, no. Please don't be." She attempted a smile. "It's all been so long ago. And I must say I'm rather surprised at myself.. .that these feelings of hurt I thought laid to rest are still there.
She took a moment to recover. "So, now tell me what happened here when you were a young man."
"Oh, that," and Leonard smiled, looked away from her for a moment, then back, feeling a moment of hesitation, then said, "I was young and foolish and more than a little naïve, I guess. Mexico is a romantic country, or at least it seemed that way then... and, uh, well, I fell in love with someone I met here. A Mexican girl."
"Oh! That's interesting. It's a good way to learn Spanish, I would think." She laughed, though he detected a false note to her laughter.
"Well, yes, but there was more to it than that. I really thought I was in love with her, and I…" His voice trailed off.
"Well, what happened?"
"Oh, well, not much, really. It was an impossible situation. I mean, I was young, had no money, no job. And then there was... well, the truth was…" and Leonard paused for a moment. "Anyhow, I guess you're right. Things that happen to us when we're young... well, yes, they do stay with us."
That night, before he went to sleep, Leonard thought again about Conchita. He remembered that first night they had together... when they were both young and she was beautiful. They danced and when the dance was over she whispered to him to leave, that she would meet him later and told him where to wait for her on the beach.
The sound of the surf, the sound of her passionate sighs as they lay together, naked, on the blanket. And it was a warm soft night, far from home, far from the lights of the town, and only the stars above… and the universe was their two joined bodies.
After that night of passion and promised love he saw her as often as she could get away from home without being followed by her father, or one of her brothers. They always met at the same place on the beach and made love on the same blanket. She never let him take her home, saying she was afraid her father would find out about him and what they were doing. He spent two months in Puerto Vallarta, until his money ran out, and he was forced to return home.
On there last night together, holding her naked body in his arms, he told her he loved her more than he could say and as soon as he had some money he would come back, marry her, and take her back with him to California. And he meant it, but when he returned home — faced with the reality of his family, his future, the difference between his way of life and what he had known in Mexico — his romance with Mexico and Conchita began to fade. He knew he couldn't go back — and never did, until now.
He didn't see Marge again for four days. He avoided her, though he was not sure why; though he suspected it had something to do with his not really being interested in pursuing any possible involvement with her and he didn't want to hurt her.
He wandered around town feeling disconsolate and lonely. In the evenings he didn't go to the cocktail lounge of his hotel for drinks anymore, but instead walked to another nearby bigger, and more expensive, hotel with a large lounge that was continually filled with people.
He began to drink more than he was accustomed to and tried to pickup various unescorted women — mostly local Mexican women who frequented the lounge. There was a dance floor and a band that played every night and he began to ask some of the younger Mexican women to dance — though he hadn't danced for years and felt awkward. He was, he knew, looking for Conchita.
He didn't, of course, find her, but did find Consuelo. She was a dark pretty woman, though older, and not nearly as beautiful as he remembered Conchita to be. She allowed him to take her home... home being a small concrete-block house in a poorer section of Puerto Vallarta. She lived there with a large family, a lot of people coming and going, and Leonard was unable to identify father and mother, or brothers and sisters. She didn't let him come in, but did let him kiss her and fondle her breasts.
The next night, his courage bolstered by several drinks, he managed to talk her into going with him to his room. When they were there she let him kiss her and fondle her breasts once again. But when he became more insistent, tried to undress her, she made him stop, and told him what it was she wanted in return for his use of her body.
It wasn't money as he first expected, but was for him to marry her — a formality only, she explained, he didn't have to keep her if he didn't want to — so that she would be able to immigrate to the U.S. At that moment — aware of the irony of her request, as opposed to his long ago promise of marriage to Conchita — he lost his desire for her and sent her downstairs with enough money to pay for a taxi that would take her home.
The next evening he took Marge to dinner… and later, after he walked her to her room, he returned to his own. He slept and dreamed again of Conchita. It was night and they lay on the beach, her golden naked body pressed against him, the musky scent of her warm soft flesh perfuming the night air. But then the smell of her turned foul, her golden skin wrinkled and became an ashen gray, her once young and lovely face a grinning mask of horror and death.
He awoke from the dream with a start, his heart beating rapidly, and for a moment was confused, then knew it was only a dream. As he tried to go back to sleep he thought about Marge. He realized they both were vulnerable, that they could hurt each other if they were not careful; but he also knew he had enjoyed the evening with her, their conversation over dinner.
Maybe it could happen, maybe they could be friends, and more, could somehow find a way to love each other. He didn't know, or at least wasn't sure, but closed his eyes knowing only he would see her tomorrow.
He felt at peace with himself as he began to slide into sleep, the vast star-filled night beyond the open glass doors heavy with the fragrance of flowers, and possibilities — whatever they might be.
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