Read Online Losing Clementine by Ashley Ream - Free Book Online Page B

faded from too much UV exposure. I scooted away from the window, a futile exercise trapped in the front seat. There was no air-conditioning, and I felt my spleen start to melt. There wasn’t enough sunscreen in all of Mexico. I put a thumb against my delicate forearm skin and pulled away, inspecting how quickly the white spot turned back to pink. Was I burning or just getting heat stroke?
    We passed a sushi restaurant, a disco shaped like a cave, and a BMW dealership. When we stopped at a light, street vendors walked between the cars with armloads of candy, flowers, newspapers, bottled water, and sunshades. School-aged kids braved the intersection to break-dance for coins. I was considering purchasing a sunshade when the light turned green again. We turned, and the neighborhood got less affluent. An auto repair shop made out of corrugated metal had a mural of a bikini-clad woman painted on the side. It was surrounded by a fence topped with razor wire and, every so many yards, a cross. Lust, self-protection, and, when all else failed, prayer. I could appreciate that.
    The taxi pulled over on the south end of Revolucion. “This okay?” our driver asked in English.
    It was. We climbed out and started down.
    The veterinary shop I’d read about was two blocks off the avenue on the northern end. Somewhere between where we were and where I needed to go, I had to find someplace to stash Richard.
    The avenue was nothing like what we’d enjoyed the night before. Quickly the stores on either side of the street became nothing but trinket shops, strip clubs, and tequila pushers. On every block stood a donkey painted in black-and-white zebra stripes. Its owner stood ready to hoist a tourist onto the beast’s back and plop a sombrero adorned with the word Tijuana! and pom-pom fringe on his or her head. Now and again, the keeper would toss a corncob onto the ground for the animal to chew and would try to wave us over.
    Store clerks ran out to us as we passed. “Come inside,” they demanded in English, “just for the hell of it.”
    We shook our heads and kept going.
    Old men with nut-brown skin approached us with silver necklaces that would turn your neck green. They pushed them toward our chests.
    No, no, no.
    A few feet later another man holding the same necklaces.
    No again.
    The strip club bouncers took their turn. The barmaids. Hostesses at restaurants. “Mexican food!” one of the women in a waitress uniform shouted at us, trying to shove menus into our hands.
    I stopped looking at faces or scanning the storefronts for fear of attracting more attention. I heard myself saying no, no, no, no, thank you, no, on a loop. I was developing tunnel vision.
    At the end of the avenue, mariachi bands in full dress stood on the corner, perhaps half a dozen of them, waiting to be picked up by a passing car to play a party. On the opposite street corner, women in high heels and skirts not made for the hour waited for passing cars and parties, too. To the left and down a couple of blocks was the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Its spires stood tall over the city, watching. The hookers paid it no mind. To the right, somewhere down there, was the store I needed.
    I nudged Richard and pointed at the church. “I’ll meet you in there.”
    â€œWhere are you going?”
    â€œI’m not doing this again.”
    â€œClementine.”
    I had been pushed passed sympathy already.
    â€œYou can wait for me at the church or you can go back to the hotel, but you’re not coming with me.”
    â€œThat is ridiculous.”
    â€œIf you try,” I said, “I will scream bloody fucking murder, and everyone will look, and it will be a scene, because we’re white.”
    â€œAre you actually trying to use racism to your advantage?”
    â€œIf I have to.”
    The muscles in his neck and face were tight, but he shook his head and turned his back on me, headed to the left. I