She handed it to him with solemn eyes. It was the picture of Mamá.
It seemed to her the whole of Mazatlán had quit working, put on a straw hat, and gotten drunk. In front of the hotel Melissa hailed a Pulmonia, a sort of golf cart–cab, and rattled off in the direction of the Avenida del Mar and Carnaval. She was dressed for fun, in a sleeveless blouse, white shorts, light sandals.
She tried to call Oscar. “What’s wrong with the phone?” she asked the cabbie, pointing at her cell phone.
“What?” the cabbie shouted back.
“The cell phone. It doesn’t work.”
“Soon it work.” He smiled pleasantly.
Progress was slow. Buses clogged the Avenida, and the side streets were just as busy. They passed under a great decorated arch, where the cabbie stopped and she paid him. He turned the little Pulmonia and bouncing over the curb putt-putted away. The throng was so great Melissa could barely move. Pushed along, she found herself finally outside the bistro she and Oscar enjoyed the day before. It was much changed. The chairs and tables were missing. Men stood slopping beer on the wooden floor, shouting back and forth to each other. Melissa looked for the friendly waiters, Oscar’s waiters, but they were nowhere to be found. She pushed her way back onto the sidewalk. She didn’t like the way the men in there looked at her.
A sudden explosion sent screams and laughter rolling up the street. Some men were knocked down. Cries were heard as it continued up the street. A hand took her arm just as horses pulling a wagon tore past. “You shouldn’t be here,” a voice said. It was the man who’d pulled her to safety. He wore thick, round glasses. An old-fashioned camera hung from his neck.
“What?” Melissa asked.
“You need to leave. That way.” He pointed up the street. It was even more crowded than the one they were on. She asked him why and he simply shook his head. A parade and passing throng swept him away.
The crush was incredible. Melissa felt a hand on her neck. When she turned the hand was gone, and so was her necklace. She was pushed along, past drinking men, past stages of blaring musicians, past costumed dancers, past donkeys and horses. Some men in soiled T-shirts and police hats stood laughing and drinking beer. She tried to cross to them but a booming and tinkling mariachi band rolled
past, followed by buses and more buses and she was swept along in their exhaust. More explosions, and screams, real screams this time. Waves of people ran back against the crowds. Firecrackers or machine guns rattled. A rocket burst overhead, spraying them with cinders. Melissa tripped on something. Looking down she saw a man, passed out or dead, lying at her feet. Someone threw beer. She was wet, men were laughing. In a panic she pushed ahead. Dirty hands reached from everywhere. Stained, filthy fingers touched her bare shoulders, pulled at her blouse. They grabbed her breasts, grabbed her ass as wild-eyed men leered with laughing, drunken faces.
It was Oscar who found her.
“Melissa,” he whispered in the cathedral.
“Oh, Oscar!” she cried, jumping up from a pew and throwing her arms around him. “Thank God!”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I mean, I’m scared, that’s all. But how did you know I was here?”
“You weren’t in the bars.” He smiled. She was in no mood for jokes. They walked toward the great doors, part open, with sunlight slanting in. “Why did you come here?” Oscar asked her.
“You said it was safe,” she said. “Why did you look here?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Oscar, listen.” Melissa took his arm once they were outside. “I’ve been lying to you. All the stories about other men? It isn’t true.”
“How could it not be true?” he asked.
“Because it’s not.”
“So all those stories…”
“Made up.”
“The orgy?”
“Made up.”
“Two men?”
“Made up.”
“The girl at school?”