Page 60 of The Deepest Lake

When I enter the cabin, I see Mercedes already sitting inside, fully dressed in traditional huipil but tucked into bed, eating a cookie. When I ask her where she got it, she points toward my desk. The surface has fewer papers than I remember. I open a drawer. My passport isn’t there. My journal isn’t, either.

“Someone was in our cabin?” I ask her.

She lowers the half-eaten cookie, eyes wide.

“Did you see anyone take things from my desk?”

Her bottom lip begins to quiver.

Whoever invaded my privacy knows that Mercedes isn’t a talker. Maybe the cookie was just to keep her occupied so she wouldn’t run off to Concha before the snooper was finished.

Tears begin to flow. Mercedes raises her fist up to her face, hiding behind it.

“It’s okay,” I reassure her. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

But the tears keep pouring.

“Never mind. We’re going to have fun tonight. Let me change my clothes and then I’ll braid your hair, okay?”

An hour later I’m still trying to believe my own promise. This will be fun. Eva’s only comment: Let’s be sure everyone’s having a good time.

After the shawling and once everyone has a glass of wine, I spot a woman with stringy dyed-black hair that’s shaved on one side. She’s standing in the food line, talking with a woman four times her age.

“Well, your hair’s okay,” the older writer says. “But the tattoos and all that—it’s just too much. I tell my granddaughter, ‘If you want a good job at all . . .’”

“And what kind of work does your granddaughter do?” the much younger woman asks politely.

“Something with computers. And what do you do?”

“I’m a musician.”

The old woman leans back to look at her again, as if to say, I don’t recognize you.

But I do.

“I think your granddaughter will find her way,” Zahara says. “I’m sure she was raised with a good work ethic. It’ll turn out fine.”

A nice person—though admittedly eccentric. In addition to the grunge outfit, she’s wearing white gloves that look like something British royalty would wear.

I’m getting my cabernet refilled when I hear the same pleasant, unhurried voice at my back. “Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.” She’s reading the tiny, vertical typewriter font running down the back of my right triceps. “Wow. That’s like the motto for why we’re all here.”

I turn and see two kohl-rimmed eyes looking up at me. She’s a wisp of a girl, swimming in an oversized men’s T-shirt and overalls. In photos, holding her guitar under bright stage lights, she looks bigger in every way.

“Hey,” I say. “You’re right.”

“George Orwell. Your tattoo, I mean.” She reaches a free hand out to shake, then drops it when she sees my hands are full. “My name’s Zahara. I’m really coming across like a dork. And I guess it’s dark enough to take these off.” She peels off the gloves and stows them in her overall pockets. “Sorry, I’m a hand model. Yes, it’s weird, but I need the money. Let’s get that out of the way. It’s fucking bizarre!”

I start laughing, not sure what to say next. “No one ever gets that my tattoo is from Orwell. Not even people who have read 1984.”

“I wrote a song called ‘Clocks Striking Thirteen,’” she says, taking a glass of white wine from Gaby, who’s bartending.

“Is 1984 your favorite?”

“No, Homage to Catalonia, actually.”

“That’s my favorite, too!”

“Oh, wow,” Zahara says. “I’ve never met anyone under fifty who’s read it.”