“Wow, you really can travel light.” Toni greeted me with one of her hugs that felt like she might squeeze the life out of a person. In board shorts and a scrappy tank top, she could have been any other gorgeous person on vacation here. Her skin had darkened further, from her time in Spain presumably, and her eyes twinkled with a relaxed kind of amusement that I found myself craving.
I had been true to my word and brought just one case and one bag. It had felt strange not to pack twenty pairs of shoes and multiple racquet bags, but it was a kind of strange I thought I could get used to.
“I rented a car, because we won’t get around too well without our own wheels,” said Toni. “I already got the keys, so unless you need anything in here?”
“Is the Starbucks on the way to the car?”
She nodded, hoisting her own backpack over one shoulder and wheeling her case that was slightly smaller than my own. Something in me liked the near symmetry of it. We looked coordinated, almost like, well, a couple. “Let’s go.”
I was expecting some compact car. Somehow that was all I ever pictured for rentals. Instead, Toni had rented a Jeep, one with a soft top that she instantly turned down with the press of a button. I sipped my iced coffee and slipped into the passenger seat.
“Don’t judge me for using SatNav,” she warned. “I know where I’m going, but I don’t drive it myself very often. My abuela will be psyched we’re making it for dinner too.”
“I don’t think I can judge—it’s not like I know the way. Is it far?”
“Forty-five minutes, maybe an hour in traffic.”
That I could definitely handle. I settled back, sunglasses on. “Driver picks the music,” I said, the cardinal rule of my house growing up. My dad had always tortured us with jazz and my mother with sports shows presented by rude men mostly interested in football. Toni, to my relief, picked some kind of pop music. I bobbed my head vaguely in time to the music and found myself enjoying the scenery once we escaped the confines of the airport’s seemingly endless parking lots.
“Can I suggest something?” Toni asked as we made short work of the highway.
“You’re in control of the car and I don’t know where I am, so… I guess you can suggest anything you like?”
Toni laughed at me, and I found I quite liked that. “No, but I thought maybe you deserved a real vacation. Shall we make a deal? No shop talk, all week. Abuela doesn’t really follow it, beyond knowing if I win things and I’m making enough money. I thought it might do us both good.”
It was something no one had ever suggested to me before.
“That sounds kind of perfect,” I admitted. “I’ve been trying to pick up some Spanish in my downtime, so it would be nice to talk about normal things with normal people for a few days.”
“Well, this part of Mexico is pretty popular with Americans and Canadians. You won’t have to suddenly get fluent or anything. But good, tennis is off the table until we leave. This is gonna be fun.”
I hadn’t known exactly what to expect, despite my best attempts to snoop online. The Cortes family residence was set too far back from the road to show up on maps.
The long and winding driveway brought us to a gorgeous structure, a two-storey white building with balconies at almost every window and an inviting turquoise-blue pool in the courtyard. A part of me wanted to drop my bags at my feet and dive right in.
The torrent of Spanish was music to my ears, and every time Toni or her grandmother addressed me in English, I gave the most expansive answers I could think up on the spot. I got the whistle-stop tour of the property, and while I had been picturing a house full of aunts, uncles, and cousins, I was surprised to hear that for the most part, Maria lived alone. A slight woman, she had none of Toni’s height or muscular build. On seeing a picture of her four strapping sons, including Toni’s dearly missed father, I could see where her natural athlete’s build had come from.
“Elin, por favor, my home is yours for as long as you stay. Anything you need, you just tell me. Or have this lazy girl get it for you.” She gave Toni a playful slap on the arm. “I have my work, but you two must relajar, okay?”
And wow, did we relax.
The courtyard and its immaculate gardens were well-shaded by cypress-like trees, giving us an oasis of privacy only interrupted occasionally by the gardener or some insects that got a little rowdy. Like teenagers with the house to ourselves, we quickly discarded going sightseeing at first, opting to lounge by the pool with the stack of books we’d each brought with us, listening to the CDs and boom box that Toni had unearthed from someone’s room. She found everything from salsa to Beethoven, via some truly awesome nineties pop that I somehow had retained all the words to.
I started my second day with a long leisurely swim, already being in the habit with my hip recovery. It wasn’t quite the same as my own pool at home with its view out over the Hollywood Hills, but it was pretty special in its own way. Before the sun had fully risen, I was doing my lengths, and a sleepyhead Toni joined me about halfway through.
She stopped when I did, clearly more interested in keeping pace than racking up a fixed number of lengths. Maria called to us from the patio that she’d bring breakfast outside. The thought of some good strong coffee was the only thing that could have gotten me out of the water at that point.
Toni clambered out first, basically hoisting herself out on strong arms and ignoring the ladder
