Cancún
The height of the Mayan civilization was more than a thousand years ago, but it’s hard to imagine the holiest of temples back then were as well guarded as the Maya del Sol is now.
“Room number?” The guards ask Broodje and me as we approach the gate in the imposing carved wall that seems to stretch a kilometer in each direction.
“Four-oh-seven,” Broodje says before I have a chance to speak.
“Key card,” the guard says. There are sweat patches all down the side of his sweater vest.
“Um, I left it in the room,” Broodje replies.
The guard opens a binder and looks through a sheaf of papers. “Mr. and Mrs. Yoshimoto?” he asks.
“Uh-huh,” Broodje replies, linking arms with me.
The guard looks annoyed. “Guests only.” He snaps the binder shut and goes to close the little window.
“We’re not guests,” I say, smiling conspiratorially. “But we’re trying to find a guest.”
“Name?” He picks up the binder again.
“I don’t know, exactly.”
A black Mercedes with tinted windows glides up and barely stops before the guards lift the gate and wave it through. The guard turns back to us, weary, and for a second I think we’ve won. But then he says, “Go now, before I have to call the police.”
“The police?” Broodje exclaims. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s just all cool down a minute. Take off our sweater vests. Maybe have a drink. We can go to the bar; the hotel must have some nice bars. We’ll bring you back a beer.”
“This is not a hotel. It’s a vacation club.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” Broodje asks.
“It means you can’t come in.”
“Have a heart. We came from Holland. He’s looking for a girl,” Broodje says.
“Aren’t we all?” the guard behind him asks, and they both laugh. But they still don’t let us in.
I give the moped a good frustrated kick, which at least means it sputters to life. Nothing so far is going quite how I’d expected it to, not even the weather. I’d thought Mexico would be warm, but it’s like being in an oven all day long. Or maybe it only feels that way because instead of spending our first day on a breeze-cooled beach as Broodje had the good sense to do, I spent yesterday at the Tulum ruins. Lulu had mentioned her family went to the same ruins every year and Tulum is the closest one, so I’d thought I might just catch her there. For four hours I watched thousands of people as they belched out of tour buses and minivans and rental cars. Twice, I thought I saw her and ran after a girl. Right hair, wrong girl. And I realized she might not even have that haircut anymore.
I’d come back to our little hotel with a sunburn and a headache, the optimism I’d had about this trip souring into a sinking feeling. Broodje cheerfully suggested we try the hotels, a more contained environment. And if that didn’t work out, he’d pointed toward the beach. “There are so many girls here,” he’d said in a hushed, almost reverent tone, gesturing out to the sand, which was covered, every square yard of it, with bikinis.
>It’s over now with Ana Lucia, too. I can feel it, even if she can’t. When I come back, defeated, telling her soccer season is over, she is sympathetic, or maybe victorious. She’s full of kisses and cariños.
I accept them. But I know now it’s just a matter of time. In three weeks, she leaves for Switzerland. By the time she gets back, four weeks later, I will be gone. I make a mental note to get on that passport renewal.
It’s as if Ana Lucia senses all this. Because she starts pushing harder for me to join her in Switzerland. Every day, a new appeal. “Look how nice the weather is,” she says one morning as she gets ready for class. She opens her computer and reads me the weather report from Gstaad. “Sunny skies every day. Not even so cold.”
I don’t answer. Just force a smile.
“And here,” she says, clicking over to a travel site she likes and tilting the laptop toward me to show me pictures of snowy alps and painted nutcrackers. “Here it shows you all the things you can do besides skiing. You don’t have to sit at the lodge. We’re close to Lausanne or Bern. Geneva’s not even so far. We can go shopping there. It’s famous for watches. I know! I’ll buy you a watch.”
My whole body stiffens. “I already have a watch.”
“You do? I never see you wear it.”
It’s back at Bloemstraat, in my rucksack. Still ticking. I can almost hear it from here. And suddenly, three weeks feels too long.
“We should talk.” The words trip out before I know what to follow them with. Breaking up is not something I’ve done in a while. So much easier to kiss good-bye and catch a train.