CHAPTER 1

Robert turned to Sharon. "Hey," he said.

Sharon was in a reverie as she watched somenothing show on television; something about adate gone bad and the couple was trading insults.

"Hmmm?"

"Let's do the monarch thing."

She didn't get it.

"What do monarchs do at this time of year?"

"You want to go to San Miguel?"

"Why not? It's my farewell tour to the world."

"Don't talk like that."

"Come on Sharon, if I can't talk to you..."

She switched off the television.

Five years before, he had read about San Miguel, an artcolony and retirement haven for well-off North Americans.Other than Acapulco, neither of them had travelled to anyother city in Mexico.

Acapulco had been Robert's choice at one time. He usedto be the camp director at a resort in northern Ontario andthere would always be a leeway of a week between the endof his summer job and the beginning of his teaching job inSeptember. As a reward at the end of his summer, he wouldinvite some of his favourite counsellors to travel with himto Acapulco. Sharon accompanied them reluctantly at first,wary of wayward teenagers stuck on beach mentality andcopious amounts of Margaritas.

But she grew to like it. The cost was cheap, the suntherapeutic, the kids just as intent in getting away fromRobert and her as she was from them. She and Robert hadbeen together 25 years by the time they first travelled toMexico. They used much of their travel time just absorbinglife around them. They weren't big on planning aroundagendas or being at a particular tourist attraction at aparticular time. They spent hours in restaurants, sometimesordering as much as three bottles of wine. They read in thesun. They slept in until gloriously late hours. They walkedunfamiliar streets.

Acapulco had been good for their laid-back habits. It wasa city big on spectacle and small on highlighting its historyand so they didn't feel obligated to check out museums orcathedrals. They could avoid the bronzed bodies on the beachand still luxuriate in their own uninterrupted pursuits.

But they were also adventurous. Mexico was not justAcapulco. There was a lot more.

One day in Acapulco a few years back, Robert wasreading a Fodor's Guide on Mexico when he came acrossthe section on San Miguel de Allende, situated in the centralmountains of Mexico.

"I've heard about this place," he mused.

He and Sharon were lounging by the pool at the ElMariachi Hotel. Sharon had almost dozed off and when sheheard his words, she instinctively brushed away flies fromher cuba libre. She shielded her eyes as she glanced over."What?"

"This San Miguel de Allende." He did not look over.

"Where is it?"

"Mexico."

She sipped at her drink, now warm and watery. But therewas something she liked about drinking warm cuba libres inplastic glasses. Especially in tropical locales. "Well I kindagot that ... It's big for retirees, no?"

Robert nodded.

"Are you trying to find a mistress, Robert? Acapulco'sbeen good to us, you know."

"Oh I love Acapulco. That doesn't mean I can't play thefield."

She watched a young couple, maybe in their mid-twenties,frolic and giggle as they tried to pull each otherinto the pool. The pool was so small that the woman's tits,so dangerously close to falling out of her bathing suit, wouldhave taken up all the space.

Near the bar came the sound of laughter. Everywherethey went, no matter what country they travelled to, therewas the ubiquitous fat, jovial woman who wheezed outlaughter as if she had ownership of everyone's air space.

"Does that turn you on?" Sharon was watching thewoman in the pool.

Robert looked up rapidly, then cast her a look of horror."Oh pleeeassse ... And even if it did, I'm not foolish enoughto think I'm even in the running." He placed the book on hislap. "My tired old dugs can match hers, anyway."

"You're still pretty hot to me."

"Yeah, right."

She swished around the sludge in her glass. "So tell meabout San Miguel."

"Well here's a picture of it." Robert let the guidebook fallopen at a well-worn page, so well-worn in fact that the spine'sglue could barely hold it intact any more. Little crumbs ofhardened, clear glue actually somersaulted down the page,missing Sharon's glass by an inch.

"Something tells me you know a lot more about SanMiguel than you've let on. Any other secrets you going toreveal?"

"Yeah, I'm really a woman trapped ..."

"Save it."

Sharon took the book gingerly.

The picture showed a cobblestoned street bakingin radiant sunlight. To one side stood the statue of whatappeared to be a monk; to the other stood a woman, smilingfor the camera, wearing a white dress embroidered withbright red frills. She was holding up a necklace that dangledsensuously between her fingers. In the background loomedthe Sierra Madre mountains, their imposing shapes scarredby lines of roadway and dotted by houses.

"Looks nice." Sharon handed the book back. "How doesit compare to here?"

"It's not on the water, for one thing."

"I can live with that."

"Doesn't get the temperatures Acapulco does. Most of theyear, the temperatures waver around the 70s and low 80s."

"I would pin that on the mountains."

"Gets chillier during winter. You need long pants andmaybe even a jacket for the winter nights."

Sharon narrowed her look. "But no snow. And no below0 temperatures. Tell me that."

"You think I'd even mention the place if those werepossibilities?"

"Forgive me." Sharon downed the rest of her lukewarmdrink. The lime rind sat blandly at the bottom of her glass,almost reproachful.

On cue, a waiter in an immaculate starched-white shirtmaterialized by her side. "Una mas, senorita?" He was askingher if she wanted another drink. His flirtation was obviousbut, to Sharon, not worth dismissing.

She batted her eyelashes. "Why of course. And the samefor my husband, thanks," she responded in Spanish.

The waiter understood and laughed. "Claro que si,senorita, claro que si."

Robert was not amused. "You just love it that I nevertried to pick up the language, don't you?"

"Hey, we have a partnership. You do the research on theinteresting places, I'll learn the languages."

The sun was always good for them. It took their mindsoff the real problems. They succumbed to the pleasures ofworldly experiences when they travelled and made promisesnot to drag in the monotony of their Canadian routines, northe medical concerns that had beset them in the past year.They could see in each other's face how travel softened thegrooves; how it added animation to the waxiness of theirfeatures; how it gave their eyes a look of restfulness insteadof watchfulness; the act of always being aware somethingbad was about to happen.

"What would you do without my command of thelanguage?"

"Hey, don't underestimate me. You know I know someexpressions."

The waiter returned, his shirt sparkling in the tropical air,the cuba libres looking refreshing but clinking oppressivelyagainst the continued onslaught of the sun. "Dos cuba libres,senorita," he said cheerily but his curiosity was on Robert'sguidebook, laid open at the picture Robert had shownSharon.

"Muchas gracias, senor."

"De nada."

The waiter lingered over Robert's book as if he wereabout to make a comment, but then winked, and made off.

"I kind of got the point that you were ordering for me,deary, but excuse me for misunderstanding the meaning...