I pretend to not be me, and pivot toward the shoreline. As crowded and chaotic as the party is, the water is surprisingly quiet. There are a few people splashing about. Farther out, it’s empty, just moonlight reflecting on the water. Even at night, the water is bluer than I imagined it; it’s the only part of this trip that is coming close to meeting expectations.

I strip down to my boxers and dive in, swimming far out, until I reach a floating raft. I grip the splintering wood. The sounds of the guitars strumming “Stairway to Heaven” and the heavy bass of a reggae band reverberate through the water. It’s a good party, on a beautiful beach, on a soft, warm night. All the things that used to be enough.

I swim out a little farther and duck back under. Tiny silvery fish zip by. I reach out to touch them, but they whip out of reach so fast it’s like they’re leaving contrails behind. When I can’t hold my breath any longer, I come up for air to hear the reggae singer announce: “Half hour until the New Year. Until it all starts again. Año nuevo. It’s a tabula rasa.”

I take a breath and go back under. I scoop up a handful of sand and let it go, watching the grains disperse in the water. I come back up.

“Come the stroke of midnight, before you kiss your amor, save un beso para tí.”

A kiss for you.

Moments before I’d kissed her for the first time, Lulu had said another one of her strange things: I escaped danger. She was emphatic about it, her eyes had a fire to them, just as they had when she’d come between me and the skinheads. It had seemed a peculiar thing to say. Until I’d kissed her. And then I felt it, as visceral and all-encompassing as the water around me now. Escaping danger. I’m not sure what danger she’d been referring to. All I knew was that kissing Lulu made me feel relief, like I’d landed somewhere after a long journey.

I turn onto my back, looking at the canvas of a star-spangled sky.

“Tabula rasa . . . time to hacer borrón y cuenta nueva, wipe the board clean,” the singer chants.

Wipe the board clean? I feel like my board is too clean, perpetually wiped bare. What I want is the opposite: a messy scrawl, constellations of indelible things that can’t ever be washed away.

She must be here. Maybe not at this party, or on this beach, or at the resorts I visited, but somewhere here. Swimming in this water, the same water I’m in now.

But it’s a big ocean. It’s an even bigger world. And maybe we’ve gotten as close as we’re supposed to get.

Eighteen

JANUARY

Cancún

The bus is shaped like a monkey, it’s full of old people, and I don’t want to be on it. But Broodje does, and after dragging him to half the resorts on the Mayan Riviera, I’m not one to argue.

“First stop, Coba, then we go to a Mayan village. Then a zip line—not sure about these folks and a zip line,” Broodje says, nodding to our mostly gray-haired tour mates. “Then swimming in a cenote—it’s a kind of underground cave lake—then Tulum.” He flips the brochure around. “This tour costs a hundred and fifty dollars per person and we got it for free.”

“Hmm,” I say.

“I don’t get it. You’re Dutch on one side, Israeli on the other. By all rights, this should make you the cheapest bastard alive.”

“Uhh-huh.”

“Are you listening?”

“Sorry. I’m tired.”

“Hungover more like. When we stop for lunch, we’ll get some tequila. Hair of the dog is what T.J. calls it.”

I bunch my rucksack into a makeshift pillow and lean my head against the window. Broodje pulls out a copy of Voetbal International. The bus chugs off. I fall asleep, waking when we arrive at Coba. We plod off the bus, standing in a little clump as the guide tells us about the ancient Mayan ruins, a series of isolated temples and pyramids half overtaken by the trees and vines of the jungle. “It’s very unique,” she says. “This is one of the few ruins you can still climb. And you’ll also be interested in the lagoon, La Iglesia, or church, and of course, the ball courts.”

Behind us, a girl, the only other person our age, asks, “Ball courts? What kind of ball did they play?”

“A sort of basketball,” the guide answers.

“Oh.” She sounds disappointed.

“You don’t like basketball?” Broodje asks her. “I thought Americans loved basketball.”

“She’s a soccer player,” an older woman says. “She was all-state in high school.”

“Nana!”

“Really? What position?” Broodje asks.

“Striker.”

“Midfield.” He taps his chest.

They look at each other. “Wanna go check out the ball courts?” she asks.

“Sure.”

“Be back in a half hour, Candace,” the older lady says.

“Okay.”

Broodje looks at me to come, but I nod for him to go alone. When the rest of the tour sets off toward the lagoon, I turn straight for the Nohoch Mul pyramid, climbing the 120 near-vertical steps to the top. It’s midday and hot so there’s hardly anyone up here, just a family taking pictures. It’s still enough for the quiet to be loud: the rustle of the breeze in the trees, the squawk of tropical birds, the metallic chirp of crickets. A gust of hot wind picks up a dry leaf and carries it over the jungle canopy.

The stillness is interrupted by a couple of kids, who have started shouting each other’s names in bird chirps. “Josh!” the girl squawks, as her brother laughs.

“Allie!” the boy, Josh, presumably, chirps back.

“Joshua, Allison, shh,” their mother chides, gesturing to me. “You’re not the only ones up here.”

The kids look at me, cocking their heads, as if inviting me to call out a name, too. I hold up my hands and shrug because I don’t actually know the name I want to yell. I’m not even sure I want to yell it anymore.

Back at the Monkey Bus, I find Broodje and Candace sharing a Coke, one bottle, two straws. When we lumber back on board, I slip into a seat next to an older man traveling solo, allowing Broodje and Candace to sit together in our row. When I hear them arguing about whether Van Persie or Messi is the best striker, I smile, and my gentleman seatmate smiles back.

After lunch, we stop at a traditional Mayan village and are given the option of a ten-dollar spiritual cleansing by a Mayan priest. I stay off to the side as the others take turns standing under a smoking canopy. Then we’re herded back on the bus. The doors wheeze open. Broodje climbs on, Candace climbs on, my seatmate with the sandals and the socks climbs on, the guide climbs on. Everyone climbs on, except me.

“Willy, you coming?” Broodje calls.

He sees me hesitating by the door and comes back down the aisle to talk to me. “Willy, all is good? Are you mad that I’m sitting with Candace?”

“Of course not. I think it’s great.”

“Come on.”

I do the calculations in my mind. Candace said she was in town until the eighth, longer than we are. Broodje will have company.

“I’m getting off here.” As soon as I say it, I feel that familiar relief. When you’re on the road, there is always the promise of the next stop being better than the last.

His face goes serious. “Are you staying away because of what I said before, about you getting all the girls? Don’t worry. I think one actually likes me.”

“I’m sure of it. So you should make the most of it. I’ll see you back at the airport for the flight home.”

“What? That’s in four days. And you don’t have your things.”

“I have what I need. Just bring the rest to the airport.”

The bus driver guns the engine. The guide taps her watch. Broodje looks panicked.

“It’s okay,” I reassure him, tightening the straps on my rucksack.

“You won’t get lost?” he asks.

I paste on a reassuring smile. But of course, the truth is, that is exactly what I intend to do.