You Have to Leave (Stop Me)

*First published in Mothers, Fathers, Sons, & Daughters | An Anthology Volume II by the Blah Blah Blah Writer's Group, 2024*  

            

            Our layover is in Texas. 

We stay in a two-bed hotel room, eating dinner from a regional fast food chain that we don’t have in Illinois. I give my older brother my fries as I’m not so hungry anymore. Then I begin to eat my mom’s. She asks me why. I say that I gave mine to Skyler. 

Then we board our flight to Mexico. I fail to sleep on the dark plane illuminated only by the aisle lights. Mental scratches writh across my body in this horrid sleeping position. I try switching from head on the tray table to back on the seat. Dinner is a messy amalgamation of something my pickiness doesn’t let me feed on. 

Landing at the airport, weaving through the maze of dazzling, bright, phosphorescent shops and various advertisements, picking up our bags. A nice airport worker helps us carry them to the exit. My mom removes her wallet to tip him then sighs when she realizes she only has twenties. She still tips the nice man. 

Out of the airport and now into the bright Mexico sun, the pleasant warmth and orange glow smoothing my skin and invigorating my senses. The palm trees feel otherworldly and the grass greener than limes. 

My grandma, Mima, and her husband, Bob, pick us up and drive us to their condo. Three tall buildings stick high out of the ground in the gentrified area, surrounding the pool and lining the ocean and its sandy shore. American money goes far in Mexico, and Bob has quite a bit of it. 

We ride up one of three elevators in the atrium and down the hall, an outdoor one fit with a railing and a view of the small golf course, to our housing. A normal two-bed-two-bath, with the front door opening into the eating area and living room, and the kitchen on the other side of the door. 

MagicJack so Mima can make international calls. 

Tile flooring throughout.

An ancient scent resistant to that of outside. 

My brother, mom, and I unpack our belongings in the room we will be sharing, fit with two twin size beds that have a pull-out underneath them. 

The balcony, many floors up, is breathtaking. We have a view of the ocean and complex. I breathe in the fresh air, the novelty as energizing as the bright sun itself. 

People glide high up across the ocean. 

Sunlight casts diamonds across the monstrous water. 

Human noise echoes up. 

The last time I went to Mexico was when I was a baby. 10 years later, I have returned to the place of tropical bliss. 

Throughout the day, I make little origami bunnies that I learned from a Comcast On Demand video and blow them off the balcony as a treat for the hard-working maintenance men. 

I make friends with a girl my age who lives at the complex but only speaks Spanish. My grandma makes milanesa for dinner, an Argentinian flat fried chicken. It’s not as tender as I’d like it to be and the seasoning is strange. 

I stand naked in the bathroom as Mima fiddles with the shower knob and water, trying to get it warm as the plumbing isn’t great. 

Tonight, the moonlight is ethereal and the dark ocean ominous, the rhythmic waves slicing through the silence of the evening. My grandma rubs aloe lotion on my back as I pick at the skin peeling off my nose. I recollect my dad’s mom who died recently, with whom I never had a strong relationship as she was smothery. I come to terms with some of that regret.

At bedtime, I move in and out of sleep in the living room on the pull-out couch. I didn’t want to share a room with Skyler and Mama. My alive grandma stays up late quietly playing Solitaire and Rummikub at the small dining table. 

The sun rises.

I eat toast with the most delectable Mexican butter and juice that’s fresher than anything in America. 

Another bright, sunny, hot day. 

I prefer relaxing by the pool as the sand from the beach gets all over me. I’m uncomfortable using the outdoor showers to wash it all off. I dally in the kiddie pool that hosts a fun little array of stumps like flat mushrooms. 

Iguanas lurking in the trees. 

When the girl my age isn’t at school, we play together through the language barrier. Mima has juice boxes for us as I get out of the pool to retrieve them. She tells me something to tell the girl, teaching me Spanish right then that I shatter like a tongueless parrot, “If you want juice, you have to leave the pool.”

Dinners further into Puerto Vallarta, outside the safe condo complex. 

Stray dogs walk about. 

The streets are like Chicago on their very worst day. 

The buildings are stone and crumbling.

Rita and Bob choose this one small restaurant with no front walls. They order tortilla soup appetizers. Then Rita, Skyler, and my mom venture off somewhere for a moment, leaving just Bob and I at the table. Bob proceeds to remove pieces of cheese out of my grandma’s bowl and puts it into his. He holds a finger to his mouth and flashes a playful grin that challenges his sagging cheeks. When Mima gets back, she makes an upset comment about the restaurant never giving her enough of the cheese in her soup.

Bob is a bad man. He set fire to my grandpa’s van decades before I was born and won my grandma over with money, keeping her trapped ever since. 

I didn’t know this at the time. 

I didn’t know Spanish.

I didn’t know that brand of fresh juice was sold in American supermarkets.

I didn’t know my brother was miserable. 

When I’m not at the pool, I try to find TV programming in English. I wish I liked the Amanda Bynes show “What I Like About You” since it was one of the few English shows available. There is also Mexico’s zany day-time spin on “Saturday Night Live.”

Mima wants to stitch a blanket for me and asks me to select a pattern from her book.

Bob and I use binoculars to examine alligators on the hall railing. 

I ask Mama to show me her white teeth.

I practice the Hoedown Throwdown on top of my bed.

A tire on our car pops and Bob has to pull over on the thin cobble street. The rest of us stroll down the boardwalk, checking out the local vendors, as I tell myself not to worry about the car. 

A statue of a warrior merman somewhere I assume to be a restaurant. 

Trying to find a knick knack for myself, I pick out a metal scorpion made of screws. 

“250,” the man says, holding the scorpion on his palm like he’s showing off a diamond trophy.

“That’s $25,” I inform my mom.

Bob watches programming about stocks and conversions in the living room.

“Twenty American,” the man says back. His smile is wide and unyielding.

My mom buys the scorpion for me. 

Bob returns as we all try to find a place to eat. We pass by some twentysomething girls in bikinis and Bob turns around, flashing that grin again at me.

Lime tortilla chips and fancy salsa that I don’t enjoy. 

More restaurants.

Kids must eat all vegetables or dinner will be double the price. 

Mima finally buys Q-tips for us. Mama and Skyler sigh in relief.

I find it’s too dry for me. 

Another day we all walk around some outdoor shop-center. I can pick out a gift for myself again. One store owner presents some of her goods to me, useless toys that I have no interest in. I feel sorry for her, trying to make a sale and failing.

We pass by a stand with what I view as an actual fine good: small animal figurines covered in beads. The seller remains in the front as a woman that I assume to be his wife works on more of them a bit further in the back. 

Her hands are close up against the project with some kind of tool.

I buy a turtle.

Then we stop at a pharmacy because my mom needs itch cream for some bug bites. Well-lit, air-conditioned, workers in white coats. This is a good, stable job. People can make a real living here. 

We drive somewhere a bit further out, the high hills making my ears pop. Mountains sit in the distance. On the street, guys offer tomatoes for sale. My grandma buys a bag as Bob criticizes her for it.

Coarse sand getting into my toes, the restaurant lies just behind the beach. As we walk back to the car after lunch, my mom freaks out and claims that a horse sprung an erection after we passed by it. 

The elevator in the middle frightens me. The other two have windows. 

If a side one doesn’t show up, I use the stairs. 

Mima asks me to select an easier pattern. 

A public square of some kind with festivities taking place.

Fireworks.

Attractions. 

Then the sun set on Puerto Vallarta. 

When I return home, staying with my dad now, his girlfriend’s sister is there as well. It’s just the two of us at this moment in the condo. I scratch myself and point out my bug bites. Jeneatte gets into action and double-seals my clothes in garbage bags. 

I didn’t know that Rita’s place might have had bed bugs.

 I didn’t know that my brother lost his iPod on the plane. 

I didn’t know that when my mom got home, she called my dad and told him, “If I ever want to go on a trip like this ever again, stop me.”