The Jade Notebook Read Online Free PDF Page B

become more chatty. By the time I’ve served the last person coffee and sat down again in front of my notebook, everyone is relatively perky and lost in conversation.
    Joe sits beside me. “What’s in that mysterious green notebook of yours?”
    “Jade notebook,” I correct him, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. There’s something grating about him … or maybe, as Layla would contend, I just have unresolved feelings about clowns.
    “Jade,” he repeats. “What’s in your jade notebook?”
    I sigh. I might as well interview him, get it over with. I’ve already filled a good chunk of my notebook with interviews with our other guests. I grab a pen from my pocket and open to a fresh page. “Okay, Joe, what’s your idea of perfection?”
    I’m pretty sure he’s going to say
Layla
, because his gaze moves right to her in response. But he thinks for a moment, then says, “Perfection is this sick, sad world ending, and a shiny new one beginning.”
    “Right,” I say, regretting that I’ve given him an opening for another the end-of-the-world rant. I let him ramble on about storms and fires while I zone out and think about my own perfect world. Joe would not be in it. My perfect world would actually be pretty close to what I have now. The people I love—Wendell and Layla—in a beautiful place doing rewarding work, meeting (mostly) fascinating people.It’s like a puzzle that has come together for me, with just one piece missing—my father. Number five on my list.
    “But of course,” Joe is saying, “you can’t have perfection without complete destruction first. Annihilating the ego. Burning up in fire until the sparkling soul is revealed.”
    I bite my tongue and close my notebook. “Thanks, Joe. Very interesting.” I search for some reason to end the conversation. “Hey, look—everyone’s heading to the beach now. You don’t want to miss sunrise yoga.”
    Joe jumps up, his wig nearly falling off. Tripping over his baggy clown pants, he rushes in front of the others to join Layla, who’s leading the motley crew through the jungle toward the beach. As they go, I catch snippets of Layla’s melodic voice quoting Rumi to the eager guests.
“… graceful movements come from a pearl somewhere on the ocean floor. Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge of driftwood along the beach, wanting!”

    After Wendell finally wakes up—somehow he can sleep through Layla’s yoga bell—we eat breakfast, then head to Playa Mermejita. Sure enough, the first words out of his mouth are “Let’s check on the turtle nests!” As we walk through the surf, he pauses to take photos of water birds and shells. He plans to photograph the flipper tracks leading to and from the sand-covered, egg-filled holes. And maybe, if we’re lucky, a few turtles might still be straggling back to sea. The sun’s already blazing, but the water’s cool, lapping around our ankles and calves.
    “I hope they’re okay,” Wendell says, twirling his camerastrap around his fingers. “Especially that giant one. She’s my favorite. Like some big, wise, old grandmother, you know?”
    “Muy chida,”
I agree. Another variation of “really cool.” “At the rate she was going, I bet she’s still flopping back to the surf.”
    “She does have two tons of body weight to haul around.” He pauses, probably sifting through facts from all the books he’s read in preparation for his internship. “She must be decades old, to be that big. It’s amazing she survived through the time hunting turtles was legal.”
    I make a face. “Why would you hunt a turtle?”
    “People eat turtle meat.” He scowls. “And some people believe the eggs make men more virile.”
    “Ick.”
    The closer we get, the more animated Wendell becomes, his gestures excited, his pace quickening. “This’ll be
bien padre
. The lighting’s perfect for abstract sand patterns. I’ll get some great shots of the flipper marks.” He spreads his arms.