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I heard, then, a loud wolf whistle behind me, from
the direction of the Visitors Center, and turned
around.
There were three guys walking toward me, all in
T-shirts and shorts. One of the T-shirts said HOTEL
DEL SOL on it, with that now-familiar rising-sun logo.
One of them, a tall lanky guy in a white T-shirt, had
taken the two fingers with which he d whistled out
of his mouth, and raised his hand to wave.
I waved back.
 Hey! he called to me as he got closer.  We know
you. You re one of those girls from the hotel. We
know your friend Terri. (Was I mistaken? Did the
one in the orange T-shirt next to him roll his eyes
then?)  You re from Illinois, aren t you? So are we.
The sight of these three guys (vaguely familiar, or
was I inventing that?) from Illinois was such a relief
I felt like laughing out loud. I felt like throwing my
arms around them, although I didn t know them at
all. Their goofy Midwestern high school haircuts
one with a buzz cut and a big pirate hoop in his ear,
and the other two with some kind of bad chops that
gave them bristled crowns over the tops of their
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scalps and nothing but bare white skin in a circle
from ear to ear seemed incredibly simple, and
reassuring.
They d probably gone out and gotten haircuts for
this trip, and the one with the hoop earring had got­
ten the piercing thinking he d look tropical and cool
in Mexico with it, hoping to look hip for the girls.
But it hadn t worked.
The boys looked beefy-faced but soft, like boys
who d been overweight in elementary school, then
gotten on the football team or started cross-country
but never excelled, always retaining a shadow of
baby fat and awkwardness.
But I liked that about them.
Their T-shirts and shorts were reassuring, too,
and the fact that one of them had been dumb
enough to come out here in flip-flops and a muscle
shirt. I could see that the tops of his feet and his
shoulder blades had burned to a brilliant pink.
Soon, that skin would blister horribly.
 I am, I said.  I m from Glendale. My name s
Anne.
 I m Doug, the one with the white T-shirt and
buzz cut said.  And this is Pete  he pointed to the
134
one in the muscle shirt and flip-flops  and Robbie,
he said, pointing to the one in the Hotel del Sol T-
shirt and the pirate-hoop earring.  We re from
Forest Hills.
 Wow, I said.  Small world.
I had no idea where Forest Hills was, but I could
tell by the name that it was closer to where I lived
than I was now.
 What are you doing here, Pete asked,  by
yourself?
 I m not by myself, I said.  My friend s here.
She s at the top of the pyramid.
I pointed in the direction of Michelle, who was still
standing pinkly where she d been before. It looked to
me as if she had her hand outstretched, as if she were
trying to catch something in it. Behind her, Ander
had his hands on her shoulders.
 Yikes, Doug said. He started to rub his buzz cut
self-consciously, I thought. It was hard to tell whether
or not he was muscular. His arms were big, but it
might have just been fat. Still, it crossed my mind
that Michelle might like him. That gesture, the touch­
ing of his hair, as if it worried him, made me think she
might that bit of vulnerability on such a macho guy.
135
 Your friend s way up there, he said,  if that s
her in the pink.
 I know, I said.  I wouldn t go. That thing scares
me.
 Yeah, Pete said.  We just wanted a road trip, ya
know. We wanted to see what was around here
besides hotels. But this sucks.
 Yeah, Doug said.  I don t know. I thought it
would be different. This is too quiet. It s creepy.
 I think so, too, I said.  When she comes down
here, I want to leave.
 How d you get here? Doug asked.
 Well, I said,  that s the thing 
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ten
Michelle
SHE S FORGOTTEN THAT her hand is outstretched, that
she s waiting for the green feather to fall into it, but
then a bit of breeze blows it away from her palm just
as she remembers, and when she reaches out to grab
it, she loses her balance and begins to feel herself
slip into the air. Ander grabs her elbow and says,
 Whoa. He plucks the feather out of the air and
hands it to her.
 Thank you, she says.
She looks at it for a long time in her palm. It
seems to her she has never seen anything so beauti­
ful in her life, but also that it has always been hers.
She has been carrying this feather with her, inside of
her, since the day she was born.
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Ander says,  It is very steep. You must be careful
going down. Look at nothing but your feet on the
steps. And remember that most who climbed this
pyramid did not need to worry about coming back
down alive. But you want to be one who does.
 Let me, she says,  just look around for a
minute. Please.
 Yes, Ander says. He takes a hand off her shoul­
der and points to the right, to two long white walls
with an expanse of green between them.  There, he
says,  is the ballcourt. The captain of the team that
makes the first successful shot is sacrificed to
Quetzalcoatl. It is a great honor. A guarantee of
entrance into heaven.
Michelle squints, and tries to imagine the game,
the players, the ancient crowds watching, cheering.
A strange light shimmers over the grass.
 And there  Ander points to her left  is the
Temple of the Warriors.
Michelle looks. It is a massive structure sur­
rounded by hundreds of columns. The columns,
lined up as if they are the warriors, continue on into
the jungle as far as the eye can see, finally disappear­
ing into it, devoured by vines and branches.
138
 If you look there  Ander points beyond that
jungle  you see in the distance the cenotes. This is [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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