He’d drink a beer in her honor, Jack decided, frowning into the wind. To Marcie and their lucky escape.
The Boeing 767 landed in Mérida on the Yucatán Peninsula early that afternoon. As Lorraine exited the aircraft, she peered over the customs counter, hoping her father had received her message and follow-up letter and had been able to meet her plane. The only photograph she had of him was the wedding picture, which showed him with long hair and a beard. He’d be fifty now, and Lorraine had no idea whether or not she’d even recognize him.
The map securely tucked in her purse showed that El Mirador was about seventy-five miles north of Mérida. She glanced around anxiously. It took an unusually long time to clear customs, with lots of people complaining about the unnecessary hold-up. From what Lorraine could make out, the small customs office was short-staffed because of some museum theft. Apparently every available officer was checking the luggage of passengers leaving the country.
After what seemed like an eternity, she was waved through. She collected her suitcase and carefully searched the waiting area, but saw no one remotely resembling the man in the photograph.
“Time for Plan B,” she muttered to herself, grateful that she’d thought this out beforehand. She made her way across the airport to the car-rental booth.
“Can I help you?” the clerk asked.
“Great,” she said, digging through her purse for her driver’s license. “You speak English.”
“Yes.” The young woman flashed her a toothy grin.
“I need to rent a car.”
“Very good.”
“I’m not sure how long I’m going to be needing it, possibly an entire month, unless there’s a rental agency I can return it to near El Mirador.”
The friendly smile faded when Lorraine mentioned the name of the town. The clerk looked over her shoulder and said something in Spanish that Lorraine didn’t understand. Right away the first woman was joined by a second, who appeared to be the manager. They spoke in rapid Spanish, and while Lorraine recognized a few words, she couldn’t catch the gist of the conversation.
When they finished, the girl with the toothpaste-ad smile turned serenely to face Lorraine once again. “I’m sorry, but my supervisor says we have no cars available at this time.”
Lorraine didn’t believe it. “But you were perfectly willing to rent me one a minute ago.”
“Yes.” She didn’t deny that.
“Why won’t you now?”
“El Mirador has no roads.”
“No roads?”
The clerk pulled out a rental agreement, silently read it over and underlined the appropriate section before handing it to Lorraine. People in the line behind her were becoming impatient, so Lorraine moved away and sat down to read the section the other woman had highlighted. With the aid of her dictionary, it did make some sense. Apparently rental cars were not allowed on anything but paved roads. In other words, El Mirador was well off the beaten path, and the roads leading in and out of it were either dirt or gravel. Getting there, it seemed, would be no easy trick.
“Okay, then. Plan C.” Except she had yet to figure out what that would be. There had to be another way to reach El Mirador. A bus. If she couldn’t get a rental car, she’d take a bus. Which meant she had to find the bus station first.
That decided, she picked up her suitcase and walked outside the air-conditioned airport. The blast of heat made her stagger. She felt as if someone had thrown a hot towel over her head. Almost immediately her linen pantsuit became damp and clung to her like a second skin. Summers in Louisville could be stifling, but she’d never experienced anything like this—and it was only May. She looked down at her limp wrinkled trousers and sweat-stained jacket; this was what she got for wanting to make a good impression on her father. Had she been meeting anyone else, she would have dressed less formally.
Joining the long line for a colectivo —cab—she patiently waited her turn. Unfortunately the taxi driver spoke little English, but with her pocket dictionary and traveler’s phrase book, she was able to get her message across. The driver nodded repeatedly at every question, then loaded her suitcase into his trunk, which he tied closed with a frayed rope.
Lorraine climbed into the backseat and searched for a seat belt. There wasn’t one. The instant he got behind the wheel, her meek and mild-mannered driver turned into a road warrior. Lorraine was tossed about the backseat like a sack of oranges, flung from one side of the vehicle to the other as he wove in and out of traffic. He switched from lane to lane, sometimes racing toward oncoming traffic at a death-defying rate. It would have helped had she found something to hang on to, but all she had were her wits, and those had scattered long ago. The one compensation was that she was too terrified to notice how miserably hot it was.
By the time she arrived at the bus station, she was grateful to have survived the trip. Her shoulder ached from being slammed against the side of the car and her jaws hurt from being clenched. She paid the fare with no argument but without any tip, either, and lugged her suitcase into the depot.
One thing was for sure: her presence certainly attracted a lot of attention. Every eye in the dilapidated place was focused on her. With what she hoped was grace and style, she squared her shoulders and made her way up to the window as if she’d done this every day of her life.
“I’d like a ticket to El Mirador,” she said in English, forgetting to use Spanish.
The man stared at her blankly.
Lorraine reached for her phrase book and flipped pages. She discovered that mentioning the name of the town wasn’t enough to achieve the result she wanted. She attempted a number of times to ask for a ticket, and each time the agent merely shrugged and looked blank.
Then he tried speaking to her. First he spoke slowly, then louder as if that would make her understand. After five minutes of this, she was ready to scream with frustration.
“Perhaps I can help.”
Lorraine turned to find a smiling clean-cut man standing next to her.
“Jason Applebee,” he said.
“Lorraine Dancy.” She held out her hand, noting that his was bandaged. “You’re American?”
He nodded. “I guess that’s fairly obvious, isn’t it? Around here I stick out like rice in a bowl of beans.”
“I take it you speak Spanish?”
“Fluently.” Then, as if to prove his point, he spoke to the man behind the counter. The clerk grinned, nodded and said something in return. His eyes moved to Lorraine; she couldn’t miss the relief in his expression.
Lorraine didn’t understand what either of them had said. By this point she was beyond translating even the simplest verbs. Jason turned to her. “Now, what were you trying to ask?”
“I need a ticket to El Mirador.”
“You’re joking,” Jason said, his face lighting up. “I’m heading that way myself.”
“Really? I thought it was just a small town.”
“Actually, I’m going to a place not far from there. I was planning to spend the night in El Mirador.”
“You mean there’s a hotel?” If things didn’t work out with her father, it was reassuring to know she’d have someplace to sleep that night.
“I guess you could call it that,” Jason said, and they both laughed.
Lorraine paid for her ticket, and Jason bought his, as well. When they’d finished, they sat in the