Welcome to Tiny Worlds!
We’re shifting our focus to explore Mexico's eastern coast with twelve-year-old George Perez in the serialized novel: ISLA.
For longer fiction visit Stories, and for flash fiction go to Sketchbook.
Estábamos en una fiesta
Su oreja cayó en lo profundo.
Alguien lo alcanzo y lo tomó
Era una langosta roca
—The B-52s
January 1986
Fingers of heat clawed at the plane door, wrenching it open to the Yucatán sun—January be damned.
Down the aisles they reached, stretching over each row. When the swelter reached George, it felt like a slap, dragging his breath down to the center of his chest. “I’m sooo toast,” he murmured.
“What have you done?” was all Kathryn had whispered as they sat down on the plane, her voice descending in pitch as the plane climbed. And truthfully, he didn’t have an answer. The ear-splitting sound of the snapping branch, the repeating pattern of “Blue Monday,” was now lost to a sinking feeling that made his legs go numb the further the plane traveled from Chicago.
Somehow he’d managed to get them on a flight bound for Cancun—a stone’s throw to the island compared to where they’d started. Exactly how or why the gambit worked didn’t matter. Wait, George stopped himself, yes, it did! It absolutely mattered. He had lied—a whopper of a lie—and some poor fella was probably still being interrogated by the cops. He’d hardly be surprised if the local police weren’t waiting for them when they got off the plane.
Indeed—what had he done?
When Kathryn questioned him, literally while tightening his lap belt like a child, only choppy fragments tumbled out: “change of pace,” “break the pattern,” and, the nearly-in-tears cherry on top: “vacation?” Just words, hardly sentences that could be diagrammed, and not one of them formed a complete thought.
But as George saw Kathryn twist the caps off two small bottles of tequila from the flight attendant while she stuffed another into her purse, he thought the excuses–the lies, he corrected himself–might have been enough. Just enough.
Slumped against the edge of the seat, exhausted, she watched him in silence, studying him. For a long time neither of them moved until the ice in her glass, and the tequila were gone. Finally, with a huff, she blew the hair from her face and seemed resigned to the detour as she growled, “Three days…” Then, looking at the few bills in her wallet, she recanted: “Two days.” George thought he saw her almost pull out the third bottle of tequila before sighing, “I hope there’s a Western Union.”
George hid his face in the window as the clouds flowed beneath the wing, the land somewhere below. He suddenly felt untethered, free. That feeling was exhilarating… and frightening. This wasn’t like the giddy dreams of running full tilt through a toy store or, more lately, a record store, with money spilling out of his pockets like Scrooge McDuck, grabbing everything he wanted. This dream was uneasy, where the landscape was a tangle of question marks. George could feel an imagined compass in his hand, heavy, the arrow spinning in circles, never pointing true North.
Hadn’t he suggested they search for the island together? Yes, nearly every time he’d found the journal again—always between moves from one place to another. The last time, more than a year ago, they were standing at a busy intersection of cardboard boxes. She’d even stopped to thumb through the pages. George thought he detected a spark of something—recognition, maybe even whimsy at the idea—as she decoded the handwriting. But then, Kathryn's jaw set, her expression became distant, until she quietly closed the book and said, “These fairy tales belong to your father.”
Dutifully, he had packed the journal and the idea away… until yesterday. But now it’s all he can think about. And it became immediately clear that he had no plan for when they landed.
Stealing a glance at Kathryn—her eyes were closed, asleep, beginning the post-relationship recovery—George wondered if she had already made the connection from the journal to their destination.
“Of course she knows,” a voice said.
Startled, George was yanked from his daze as he scanned around for the source. He found it, just inches from Kathryn. Peeking out from the magazine pocket was the miniature face of a stewardess. Her eyes blinked over the edge of the upholstery.
Gently, trying not to bump Kathryn, George pulled open the pocket. The inflight magazine’s cover showed the stewardess posed, holding a single drink on a serving tray. She raised an eyebrow, looking right at George. Then, as if speaking to someone else, she said, “I mean, there’s no way she didn’t see right through that lie. Right?”
Another voice spoke up. The same stewardess in the same pose on a magazine right in front of George said, “Oh, absolutely.”
George pulled open that pocket, too. Both women were looking toward one another, their serving trays bobbling slightly.
In unison they turned to George and said, “Moms always know.”
He rolled his head back in a sigh, “So, what do I do?”
“Tell her the truth,” said the first stewardess, “The worst that could happen is—”
“No, no, no…” interrupted the second.
“What, he should keep lying?” the first asked.
“Yes! She should have listened to him before,” said the second.
George’s head swiveled between the women on the magazine covers.
The first admonished the other with a wry tsk-tsk as another voice, from another row called out, “Oh, would you two just leave him alone!”
The magazines twisted back as the women turned to look over their shoulders, over the edge of the page.
George shifted in his chair, leaning to look between the seats and over the knees of the passenger ahead. There, another inflight magazine was stuffed haphazardly into the pocket, its cover wrinkled making the stewardess on the cover look disheveled.
She plucked the drink from her tray and took a sip. Smiling at the taste. “Look, you’re already in the hole. Go big or go home.” She raised her glass and winked at George, “Give ’em hell, kid!” then drained it in a single gulp.
He let the straps from both seat pockets retract and put his head in his hands. They were right: his mother would eventually figure it out.
In this movie, Kathryn was the bomb wired to the underside of a table in a busy restaurant. Scene after scene, customers would walk by, knees would bump, oblivious. All the while her timer would be ticking down. If Kathryn caught sight—if he pulled out the map or breathed a word about the journal—KABOOM! George knew he couldn’t diffuse the bomb but maybe he could delay it just a bit. But, he argued with himself, that would mean telling more lies. Bigger lies.
Passengers shifted, watching for the seatbelt light, ready to exit the plane. George felt like he was running out of time as he glanced at Kathryn, still asleep—tick, tick—sweat from the heat outside beading on his forehead.
He’d already made the decision, though, right?
The lies had started at the airport, before he’d had time to think, then here in his seat. And they’d continue until… who knows when?
Yes. He’d decided.
Oh the lies you could tell if only you try.
And, oh boy, would he try.
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Music
Rock Lobster – The B-52s
Rock de la langosta – Grupo Langosta (YouTube)
"Oh the lies you could tell if only you try. And, oh boy, would he try."
You do what you have to do to survive, J. Right? I give this kid the benefit of the doubt. Great story.
Would it be pedantic of me to dispute the translation of Rock Lobster lyrics by the Grupo Langosta? Probably, so I'll leave that one where it is. (But it is totally a Google Translate job)