A Small Fortune Read Free

views of the ocean. Most have small tables and chairs, and when I imagine having breakfast up there with the blue ocean spread out before me, I feel a warm affection for Jonathon.
    “It’s beautiful,” I say, as Jonathon translates dollars into pesos. “Oopsy,” he says, “that’s not right.” Oopsy? Since when does Jonathon say oopsy ? Oliver helps the driver pull the luggage from the trunk. A green-and-yellow bird flies overhead and lands on the branch of a tree covered in pink fuzzy blossoms. The air has the distinct tropical smell I know from Florida and the Bahamas. A lush, moist green mixed with sand and salt, and as the breeze picks up there’s the smell of smoke and meat and garlic on a grill.
    It’s far more arresting, more alluring and peaceful than the picture Jonathon showed me on the computer. It’s easy to imagine a place like this transforming one’s apocalyptic stress, to borrow a phrase from Joella Lundstrum. The ocean breeze picks up, and I’m taken by surprise when the caress of linen against my skin makes me think of sex. Not the kind where a touch leaves me feeling more alone, but the greedy kind I experienced during the affair I had with Seth Reilly. For years I boarded up the wonder of that affair into a hidden corner of my mind. For the sake of my marriage I repressed memories too painful and dangerous to release. But as I begin to unwind, the memories escape—breathless chases up the stairs to his apartment above his bookstore; deep kisses inside the door; one by one, the shoes, scarf, jeans, blouse, bra, dropping across the floor; the final pull of panties down my freshly shaven legs. I can nearly feel myself standing there reading the spines on his bookshelves while he gazes at my naked body, his fingers twirling the tips of my long hair, his lips warming my cold, rain-soaked wrist. Anna Karenina, Les Miserables, Moby Dick , aphrodisiacs in my mouth and in my eyes.
    “We’re heading upstairs,” Jonathon calls out. “Are you coming?”
    The cab has already pulled away.
    Jonathon slowly emerges into focus, fumbling with the luggage in his arms, a gentle wind lifting his fine, thinning hair.
    “Yes,” I say, taking a step toward him, and then another, as my linen clothes stir in the breeze.

2
     
    The only thing I notice about the condo is the clean, white-tiled floors and the modern wicker furniture. I’m too busy rummaging for my swimsuit, leaving the rest of my clothes in a heap next to my luggage on the bedroom floor. I slip into the red bikini I bought for the trip, and over that, the silky, chocolate-colored cover-up. I pass Jonathon looking through cupboards in the kitchen, and Oliver in the living room inspecting wires on the television for video games.
    I reach for the door and turn. “You sure you don’t want to go for a swim, Ollie?” I cringe. Why did I call him that? He’s hated it since he was twelve.
    Oliver surprises me with a laugh.
    “I know. I forgot,” I say.
    “It’s no big deal,” Oliver says with his dimpled smile, and my heart dissolves into a bowl of steam. It’s no big deal . He may as well have said he loves me.
    “I’ll join you in a second,” Jonathon says without looking up.
    I close the door.
    I’m in Mexico, clattering down a stone path in my flip-flops on the way to a pool. It’s eighty-five degrees. Sunny. It feels good to lay out the facts in my mind. I’m starting to breathe clearly again after months of sucking air through what has felt like cotton-filled lungs.
    Then I think of the BlackBerry and Jonathon’s smile in the cab. The other day I happened to walk into the bedroom just as he was throwing his BlackBerry across the room, which is something I’d do but is so unlike Jonathon in every way that for a second I felt frightened. He pinched his temples and shook his head at the floor, and then he apparently realized I was standing there and quickly composed himself. “I’m sorry,” he said. “The thing keeps losing calls.