Nicaragua Way by Nina Serrano

Author:Nina Serrano [Serrano, Nina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical novel
Publisher: Estuary Press
Published: 2016-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

17: Day Trip

Lorna quickly threw a swimsuit, towel, and sunscreen into her blue nylon bag. She changed into a fresh tank top, slid on silver hoop earrings, and climbed into the GMC pick up. Guillermo started it up, saying, “Let’s go! The only restriction is that this excursion must be very low budget. State workers earn small salaries.”

“No problem. Is this your own truck?”

“No. I borrowed it from my brother to transport the shovels. He and his wife are driving my Mercedes for a few days.”

“That’s a fancy car for a modest salary.”

“It came with the appointment to the Ministry. When the Somocistas left, we nationalized their property. So I drive a seven-year-old Mercedes.”

“Nice,” said Lorna.

“Just to be clear,” Guillermo said earnestly, “most of the property that we nationalized is for schools, orphanages, or government offices. We placed some of the ministries in their mansions.”

“And commandeered their Mercedes for outings? No problem,” laughed Lorna. “So where we going?”

“To Xiloa. It is a lake created by a volcano. Mother Earth hates a hole, so she fills the crater with water.”

Laguna de Xiloa lay a half-hour’s drive northwest, in a peninsula formed by two volcanoes on the banks of Lake Managua. The beach was run-down and nearly empty, but the lake itself was inviting, full of reflections of the blue of the sky and the hills on the far side. As soon as they arrived, Lorna changed into her swimsuit in a cabaña with a pitted concrete floor, littered with Coke cans and cigarette butts. She wriggled into her bathing suit, pulling and tugging her fifty-two year old flesh to keep it from sagging out the bottom.

Guillermo was lying on his towel by the water’s edge, as tan and smoothly muscled as an Aztec warrior in a San Francisco Mission Street Mexican bakery calendar. Working in a ministry hadn’t made him go soft. Seeing her emerge, he waved.

She felt a little self-conscious about her aging body, but his admiring glance somehow allowed her to accept herself, putting away all thoughts of plastic surgery or liposuction.

“Can you swim?” Guillermo asked. “I never learned.”

“Don’t worry, I spent one summer as a lifeguard. I love to swim. I was on my swim team in high school. I swam, even when it meant going home with wet hair in those horrible, cold, windy Chicago winters.”

“Horrible cold, windy winters?” Guillermo asked. “What are those? Here we have hot, rainy winters. And hot dry summers.”

“Compared to Nicaragua, Chicago might as well be in the Arctic,” Lorna said.

Guillermo leaped up and ran to the water, throwing himself in, splashing wildly and happily, and then stood. “Come in!” urged Guillermo. “It’s perfect.”

Lorna ran down the sandy beach into the water, walking carefully over the shells and rocks at the bottom, then swam to his side.

“My mermaid captain,” he quipped, frolicking and splashing in the water. They tugged and tripped each other like children playing, then waded back to the shore and sat on their towels. Guillermo leaned back on his hands and looked at her.

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