“No,” I tell Kate. “It was courageous.”
“You both were courageous.”
But I wasn’t. Because I tried to send Lulu back. Cowardly. And then I didn’t manage to. Cowardly. I don’t tell Kate this part either.
“So you’re here in Mexico to do what?” she asks.
I think of the boys. They think I’m here to inoculate myself. To find Lulu, sleep with her a few more times, and get on with things.
“I don’t know . . . find her. At the very least, set the record straight.”
“What record? You left a note.”
“Yes, but . . .” I almost say it. Then I stop myself.
“But what?” Kate asks.
“But . . . I didn’t come back,” I finish.
Kate looks at me for a long moment. The car starts to drift off the road before she returns her attention to driving.
“Willem, in case you haven’t noticed, Cancún is back that way?” She points in the reverse direction. I nod. “The chances of you finding this girl seem unfavorable enough without you going to an entirely different city.”
“It wasn’t going to happen. I could tell.”
“How could you tell?”
“Because you don’t ever find things when you’re looking for them. You find them when you’re not.”
“If that were true, nobody would ever find their keys.”
“Not keys. The bigger things.”
She sighs. “I don’t get it. On one hand, you put all this faith into these accidents of yours, and on the other hand, you write off the chance of one even happening.”
“I didn’t write it off. I came all the way to Cancún.”
“And promptly went to Mérida.”
“I wasn’t going to find her. By looking.” I shake my head. It’s hard to explain this part. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
“Meant to be,” Kate scoffs. “Excuse me but I’m having a hard time buying all this woo-woo stuff.” She waves her arms in the air and I have to reach out for the steering wheel until she takes it again. “Nothing happens without intention, Willem. Nothing. This theory of yours—life is ruled by accidents—isn’t that just one huge excuse for passivity?”
I start to disagree, but then the image of Ana Lucia flits through my head. Right place at the right time. It had seemed like a fortuitous accident back then. Now, it feels more like surrender.
“How do you explain us?” I point back and forth to me and her. “Right now, right here, having this conversation, if not for accidents? If not because your car muffler broke and put you in Valladolid, where I wasn’t even meant to be?” I don’t mention the flipped coin being a deciding factor, even though it would seem to support my case.
“Oh, no, don’t go falling in love with me.” She laughs and taps the ring on her finger. “Look, I don’t discount a magical hand of fate. I am an actor, after all, and a Shakespearian, no less. But it can’t be the ruling force of your life. You have to be the driver. And by the way, yes, we are having this conversation because my car—lovely, sweet car that you are,” she baby talks, stroking the dashboard, “had some mechanical issues. But you were the one who asked me for a ride, persuaded me to give you a ride, so you discredit your own theory right there. That was pure will, Willem. Sometimes fate or life or whatever you want to call it, leaves a door a little open and you walk through it. But sometimes it locks the door and you have to find the key, or pick the lock, or knock the damn thing down. And sometimes, it doesn’t even show you the door, and you have to build it yourself. But if you keep waiting for the doors to be opened for you. . . .” she trails off.
“What?”
“I think you’ll have a hard time finding single happiness, let alone that double portion.”
“I’m beginning to doubt that double happiness even exists,” I say, thinking of my parents.
“That’s because you’re looking for it. Doubt is part of searching. Same as faith.”