First night in the hotel restaurant in Puerto Vallarta, I take a table by myself. As eyes stray over to my table, I begin to invent my persona. Or maybe, at this point it is more of an erasure of who I have been and who I invent myself to be. I’m now prepared for the next time someone asks me, “So what brings you down to Mexico all by yourself?” Sure enough, within minutes I have my first bite.
“I’m here looking for my wife. She emptied out our bank accounts and ran off with her yoga instructure. He’s originally from Puerto Vallarta. A credit card transaction showed they’d been down here.”
“That’s terrible,” the woman from Arizona says, her face a mask of concern and sympathy. “How are you ever going to find her?”
“I’m not sure, I’ve left flyers at several clubs and yoga studios. My biggest concern is for Lui.”
A sharp intake of breath from the woman, “Your son?”
“No, my pet iguana. I’ve had him for fifteen years.” Choking up, “I mean, she can have the money, that doesn’t matter…but what can she want with my iguana?”
Her husband offers tentatively, “Well, Puerto Vallarta is a natural habitat for iguanas.” I heard a bump under the table and he pursed his lips.
The woman behind the lobby counter was waving towards me. I rose from my chair and lay the napkin on my seat. “Exuse me, just a moment.”
I crossed to the lobby desk where the hotel employee greeted me. “Ola, Senior Wood. Your housekeeper has changed your bed linen. I am so sorry it smelled of smoke. It is a nonsmoking room.”
“Thank you so much.” Feeling the Arizona couple watching me, I reach across the counter and shook her hand vigorously. “Thank you! Gracias! Gracias! Please have a crème brule sent to my room.”
I strode back to my table, the Arizona couple’s expectant faces turned to me. While scrawling my room number on my bill, I said, “They’ve spotted her. They spotted her down at the Happy Frog! I’ve got to go…” As I marched off I heard from behind me the plaintive voice of the woman from Arizona, “Good Luck!”
I walked quickly through the lobby, down the steps to the taxi turnaround, said “Buenos Noches” to the doormen, then slowed my pace as I rounded to the side stairwell, climbed to my fourth floor room, and watched a Mexican soccer match on the television while I used a spoon to tap through the melted sugar crust of my crème brule.
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