I stepped out of the terminal in the Ecuadorian backwater and hailed a cab. It took me two flights to arrive, a direct one to Quito, the capital, then a puddle jumper here, to the middle of nowhere. The cabbie told me it would be an hour trip to Vilcabamba.
I settled in the back and pulled out my phone. One new message caught my eye. It was from the dealership where I’d leased my car. They’d taken a picture of me standing in front of my red coupe on the day I signed. Now they sent me a note congratulating me on my second anniversary, no doubt hoping I’d think fondly of them the following year when my lease was up. How ironic.
After our trip to Tahoe, Anthony had another two-week business trip, this time to Sweden. He didn’t call me once while he was gone, which I could have easily brushed aside as being due to the time difference. But I knew better. Our big fight was forcing him to rethink things. Everything was percolating in my mind, too. So many emotions were bouncing around in my gut that I lost my appetite, which was saying a lot—food was usually my comfort go-to.
On the one hand, Anthony was the perfect guy: handsome, successful, Italian. He was a gentleman in a world where those were hard to find. A voice in my head told me I was nuts to let him go. He wasn’t one of those guys afraid of commitment. Just the opposite, he dated me because I so perfectly fit his picture of a future wife. He’d buy me a palace and treat me like a queen.
Yet, for all its glamour, the life we saw in Tahoe lacked the coziness I craved. I wanted the intimacy of a family that spends tons of time together and works like a team.
Anthony’s sheen fizzled in my eyes with each passing day, so there were no butterflies when his name showed up on my phone. He’d just gotten back, he said, and invited me out to dinner. No show. No concert. No after-hours party. No asking me to cook him dinner. We met at the Olive Garden, an insult to any Italian worth his shirt.
The conversation was as pasty as the food. We parted on polite terms. Not angry, not passionate, not distraught. Polite. That pretty much summed up everything. I felt sorry for Anthony. There was a time I’d dreamed of exactly what he had to offer, but things had changed. I couldn’t be the wifey of some high flyer. Not anymore.
A year and a half later, I was still alone. A series of bad blind dates and short-lived relationships made it abundantly clear that whatever I was doing wasn’t working. That’s what brought me to Ecuador. I needed to get away, to come to a place where I could get full clarity on what I wanted and how to get it.
My body had begun to defrost as soon as I’d gotten off the plane. The cabbie took me to the vacation rental I had my cousin rent for me under her name. The owner stood outside, waiting for us, looking both tanned and relaxed. He came down a brick path and walked directly to the trunk to get my suitcase. By the time he slammed the trunk shut, I was already standing at his elbow.
“Hello, Dylan.”
“Amber!” For a moment, he looked at me like I was an alien who’d dropped from the sky. “What are you doing here?”
My heart was fluttering so fast it made everything shake inside. “I came to recover something I’d lost.” I searched his face for a sign. Was he happy to see me?
But Dylan was speechless. Never one to force out words when none would come, he took my bags and carried them in. The house had a sizable kitchen, a single bedroom with a full bed covered in a tent of mosquito netting, a comfy couch, and stunning views all around. Still, it had that unlived-in, vacation rental feel—not at all like a home.
A bottle of white wine with two wine glasses stood on the table, a welcome gift from the owner to the renter. Since I was a paying renter, I took the bottle and opened it. “Care for a drink?” I filled two glasses, then carried them out onto the deck, where we had an amazing view of the sunset over the valley.
He accepted a glass from my hand, but his expression was still blank with shock. “What are you doing here?”
We sat facing a forest canopy, filled with trills of tropical birds at sunset. I gripped my wine glass and gulped the rest of it down. “I came to beg for another chance.”
“Amber, look—.”
My chest clenched. “You don’t have to give me an answer right away. I rented this place for two weeks.” I looked down and licked my lips. “But I do at least hope you’ll show me around. If you’re not too busy.”
“Busy? Not down here, no.”
“Excellent.” I feigned a yawn. I didn’t want to have this talk with Dylan right now. I wanted him to stew over it first. “I’m exhausted from my trip. I think I’ll head to sleep early, but I’m dying to get into these mountains. How about you take me hiking tomorrow?”
“Hiking?” Dylan’s eyes darted around, uncertain. Was he nervous about reopening his world, his heart, to me? “Sure. What time?”
I knew his favorite time of day. “When does the sun rise?”
“Just before 6 am, but it starts getting light around 5.”
That was awfully early, but I wasn’t going to flinch. “5 am it is. I’ll be waiting.”
By 5:30 the next morning, we were on the trail, hiking to a place called Yamballa. Dylan taught me about the plants and birds that surrounded us. I hadn’t brought up our relationship again, nor did he, but I could see he was enjoying himself.
I stretched my arms up over my head. “So how is it that you’re able to come out hiking on a moment’s notice?” We’d stopped to snack on green mango with lime and salt that Dylan had prepared. “Shouldn’t you be off working two jobs? Or is your decade of deprivation already at an end?”
“I decided to end it early when I moved down here a year ago. Of course, that was partially your fault.”
His words stung. “I’m so sorry I hurt you, Dylan.”
Dylan laughed. “I’m not talking about you breaking up with me.”
Oh. “Then, what was it?”
“Two things. One, you made me realize I was already financially independent. I’d been so focused on hitting an extreme goal, that I hadn’t stopped to see just how far I’d come. I wasn’t yet making enough to support a family, but I’d already been living on less than my passive income.”
“And the other thing?”
“You encouraged me to leave my job and BRRRR instead.” Dylan bit into a piece of mango and puckered from the sour taste of the lime. “I was hesitant to do it, but when I agreed to take that house from you, I had no choice. I would have lost more money letting it sit empty than I’d been making from my job.”
“You quit to work on The Death Trap on Haber?”
“You should see it now—it’s no longer a death trap. When I finished it, I was able to refinance it and get more than my investment back. Then I took that money and repeated the process.”
“You must be doing great on the Haber house.” I guess I could no longer use my old nickname.
“I am. Real estate has gone crazy these past two years. You ever regret giving it up?”
I swallowed and looked him straight in the eyes. “Yeah, but I regretted giving up the guy more.” An awkward silence filled the air. The tension was broken when a fly landed on my nose, and I had to swat it away. “But you didn’t answer my question. What are you doing down here?”
“I’m living the life. I was financially independent in America as long as I kept my lifestyle meager, but after we broke up, living in The Crypt lost its appeal, and I didn’t yet have the means to quit and live well in the States. But it’s a different story here. We’re right now in the Valley of Longevity, where people live longer than almost anywhere in the world.” He stretched his arms out over the valley. “It’s gorgeous, it’s spring all year round, and it’s dirt cheap compared to the US.”
“So you decided to move here and live off the revenue from your Cash Machine.”
“That was my intention, but it hasn’t worked out that way.”
I shouldn’t rejoice at his difficulties, but part of me was glad he was still struggling. “So reality finally caught up with you? Living on your passive income hasn’t turned out as easy as you thought?”
Dylan shook his head. “No, it’s the other way around. I intended to live on the passive income from my Cash Machine, but I haven’t had to tap into it.” He had an ease and confidence I hadn’t seen back home, where he seemed like a square bum in a world created for round corporate pegs. “I’ve never exactly been lazy; I just didn’t want the pressure of having to work.”
“What have you done?”
“For money? A variety of things.” He pointed down the mountain with the mango in his hand. “That house you’re staying in is one of two vacation rentals I own. There are quite a few tourists around here, and periodically I’ll work as a guide for a day or two. I’ve also been coaching people remotely on how to build Cash Machines of their own.”
“And what do you do not for money?”
“There’s a village close by building a small school.”
“Putting your construction background to good use?”
“You could say that. I’m not doing any hardcore construction, but I volunteer my time here and there to help them out.”
“Sounds like a pretty good life.”
“Pretty good.” Dylan started us hiking again, covering the last stretch to a lookout just before sunrise. “But, I’ll admit something was missing.” Dylan took my hand.
“Does this mean you’re giving me a second chance?”
He faced me with a glint in his eye. “Yes, Amber. You’ve got your chance.”
I grabbed him, pulled him in tight, and kissed him just as the golden glow of the sun flooded the morning sky.
We stayed at that lookout for over an hour, then started our return through the valley, hand in hand.
Dylan shot me a look. “What will your family think about you getting back together with your bum of an ex-boyfriend?”
“I’m not one bit concerned about them.”
“No?”
“Remember how in college you frat boys used to joke that a girl who started the night a ‘6’ would be a ’10’ after four drinks?”
“Not our finest hour.”
“Yeah, well, that’s sort of how my family works. When I was 22, they thought their precious daughter deserved someone with more than just an undergrad degree. By the time I was 25, undergrad was fine, but a college dropout, no way.”
“And now?”
“Now I’ve got another two years and another failed relationship under my belt. They’re getting ready to accept any guy with a job.”
Dylan helped me over a log that cut across the muddy trail. “You do realize that I’m unemployed and living in South America?”
“The problem with you, Dylan, is that you never learned spin. You are not some unemployed hippy backpacking through the Andes.” I put on my best British broadcaster voice. “You’re a real estate magnate who owns homes on two continents and lives off the fruits of his success.”
Dylan let go of my hand. “You’re back to me wanting to spin the facts to impress your family?”
“I’m just telling you the facts as I see them. But you tell my family whatever you like.” I stepped on a boulder to be as tall as Dylan, grabbed his shirt, and pulled him close. “I have no intention of asking their opinion this time around.”
When we got back, Dylan took me out to lunch at a place with a stunning 360-degree view of the valley. It felt so strange, sitting with him in a restaurant. When the waiter came, Dylan ordered in perfect Spanish. I had no idea what he was saying, but it sounded delightful coming off his lips.
Five minutes later, the waiter returned and laid three small plates before us. “You ordered appetizers?”
“I figured you’d be hungry after the early morning hike.” Dylan cut himself a piece of plantain. “I sure am.”
I was ravenous actually, and it wasn’t long before we’d emptied all three plates. Fortunately, just as I finished the last empanada, the waiter returned.
“Is that steak?” I asked in a tone that was embarrassingly loud and accusatory.
“I’m sorry. Did you want something else?”
“What happened to not eating out? What happened to living simply?”
“Amber, this entire meal is the cost of a burrito at Chipotle.”
I felt almost betrayed. What happened to the Dylan I knew? “But—.” It felt like my mind had turned to glue. “What about your Cash Machine?”
“Building a Cash Machine is like rolling a boulder down a hill. It takes tremendous effort to get it going, but once you get it rolling on its own, it will keep building momentum without you.” He cut off a piece of steak. “Now I get to reap the rewards.”
After lunch, we went back to Dylan’s house. His place was no larger than my rental, but it had the coziness of a home. “This is what I need,” I said, “a fully stocked kitchen.” Copper pans hung from a rack over the island, and the drawers were full of chef knives, ladles, and everything else I’d need.
“I’m afraid you’ll find the selection of Italian cheeses at the local market rather limited.”
“I didn’t come down to Ecuador to cook Italian. I want to eat like the locals.” I tugged at his shirt. “Let’s go to the market. I want at least one of everything.”
“Let’s do it.” Dylan grabbed his keys and headed for the door, but I hesitated.
“There’s one thing we should do before we go.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s winter break, so vacation rentals are probably in high demand now, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So you should relist the place I rented. I won’t be needing it.”
I learned a few things that night:
One: I like sweet plantains far better than the green, savory ones. Take a sweet one, top it with shredded coconut and local cinnamon, bake it for a half-hour and prepare for a bit of heaven to melt right on your tongue.
Two: That crap they sell in South America that looks like angel hair is anything but. Avoid it at all costs.
Three: Ecuadorian hot chocolate tastes a hundred times better than the Swiss Miss I grew up drinking.
Four: I caused two people needless suffering when I refused to allow Dylan to touch me our second time around.
Dylan’s strong hands never rushed as they massaged away two years’ worth of stored up tension. I don’t remember falling asleep that night, but I will never forget waking up the next morning in his arms, roused from my dreams by the cacophony of birdsong that fills the valley at sunrise.
I’d been so eager to hit the mountains that first day, but today, I felt no desire to go anywhere.
A week into my stay, Dylan and I headed to a local craft market. “What are these dolls I’m seeing everywhere?” I pointed to a paper mâché man tied to the front fender of a car. “I didn’t notice them when I first got here.”
“They’re effigies.”
“You’re not serious. Actual effigies? Like voodoo doll type things?” We walked past a bench with life-sized representations of old men sitting arm in arm.
“Oh yes. See that one?” Dylan pointed to a paper mâché doll stuffed with T-shirts and painted with salt and pepper hair, red lips, and brown eyes. He wore a dress shirt and slacks that must have come out of someone’s closet. “You’ll see a lot of him. He’s the president of Ecuador.”
“Wow, people must hate the guy.”
“Actually, it’s considered an honor to be burned in effigy on New Year’s Eve. People aren’t saying they want him to die, just to burn off the bad decisions and sins of the previous year, and start the new year fresh. You’ll even see tons of people making effigies of family members.”
We came up to a store with hundreds of masks on display. “Not that one.” I pointed one out. “Batman was an orphan, remember?”
“Yeah, you’ll see a bunch of superheroes and cartoons too. It’s all part of the fun.”
“And then they do what? Burn them at New Year’s?”
“Yep. At midnight, you’ll see bonfires all over the city.” Dylan put on a mask of Donald Duck. “Want to get one?”
I bent over laughing. It felt good to be playful with Dylan. Last time around, we’d spent too much time talking about Cash Machines. “You should make yourself an Amber doll.”
“That’s OK. I have no desire to burn you.”
“You won’t be burning me, remember?” I tapped him on the chest. “You’ll just be burning away my poor decisions that kept us apart all this time. What do you say? I’ll make one of you too. It’ll be fun.”
“You have a problem with my decisions?”
“Absolutely.”
Dylan took off the mask. “Like what?”
I grabbed his cheeks and shook him. “Like letting me go.”
Dylan turned away and put down the mask. “Amber, you dumped me.”
“Yes.” I pointed at him the way Grandma Maria used to do when she got all bossy with Grandpa Lou. “And you’re going to burn up that horrible decision of mine. But just because I dumped you didn’t mean you had to give up on me.”
“I couldn’t force a relationship on you, Amber.”
“Would it have killed you to fight for me a little? Couldn’t you see that I was hysterical and acting irrationally? Didn’t you notice what I wore the day I came to the house to bring you the paperwork?”
“My favorite blue dress.” At least he wasn’t totally clueless.
“Exactly.” I reached for his arm, but it stayed stiff, unmoving. “Couldn’t you see that I wanted you to take me back?”
Dylan’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m supposed to gather that from what you wear?”
“What do you want me to do, hold up a sign?”
“It would be nice. There’s nothing wrong with communicating your feelings.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with fighting for what you want.” I headed towards the edge of the store, to a display of art supplies. “I’m going to buy myself some paper mâché and burn away that wussiness of yours. We’re going to start this year on a whole new foot.”
Dylan’s paper mâché skills blew away my own. I built a doll that was somewhere between Dylan and He-Man. But his Amber doll looked eerily similar to me (would it have killed him to make the butt trimmer than reality?). So what did we do with these dolls? We acted like the Ecuadorians, strapped them to the roof of Dylan’s Jeep, and drove them around wherever we went.
On December 31, a day hardly anyone was working, we hit our first traffic driving through our small Ecuadorian town. I leaned out the window and couldn’t believe my eyes. “Tell me those aren’t prostitutes soliciting the drivers ahead.”
“They’re not prostitutes soliciting the drivers ahead.” Dylan held a straight face, but his chest shook just enough to make it clear he knew something I didn’t.
“What are they?”
“They’re widows.”
“Widows? They don’t look like widows to me. Those skirts look way too pink and way too short to—.” My mouth fell open. “Has that one got a beard?”
We inched forward, and suddenly five figures surrounded the jeep. Men wearing miniskirts, tight sweaters, and bras stuffed with socks danced, gyrated, and grabbed themselves in wholly inappropriate places. I couldn’t help but giggle. “Why are they doing this?”
“They’re the widows of the effigies we’re going to burn tonight. They dance at the street corners for donations.” Dylan took out a bunch of coins and passed them out to the widows, one of whom was rubbing up against our hood.
“You’ve moved to a bizarre place.”
Giant bonfires sprouted up all over town as we counted down the final hours to midnight. Live music was everywhere, and Dylan and I walked through town, carrying our effigies, and taking in the air of celebration. Dylan bought me a pod the length of my arm. “What the hell are these?” I asked.
“Ice cream beans.”
“Ice cream beans? You’re joking, right?”
“Go on, try them.” Dylan took the pod, which looked like a vanilla bean only a thousand times larger, and twisted it open. I pulled out the white, fuzzy fruits from within. I sucked off the fuzzy fruit layer, which looked and felt like caterpillar slime—sweet, delicious caterpillar slime, mind you—then spit the giant seeds into the gutter.
When midnight hit, Dylan threw his effigy into a bonfire. Much as I didn’t like the fat butt, I was bummed to see Dylan’s beautiful Amber doll go. I prayed it would burn all my sins and poor decisions away and give Dylan and me a brand new start. I kissed my He-Man Dylan doll on the cheek (for even when Dylan made poor decisions, there was never anything malicious in him) and threw it into the fire. A few seconds later, its features distorted, then burned up. That was the old Dylan, the cheap Dylan, the one who resigned himself to a life of deprivation. Let him go with the old Amber, the one who wanted to impress her family with her choices rather than listen to the calls of her heart. That Amber was no more. It was a new year, a new start, and a new me.
Dylan drove me back to Quito for my flight home. We arrived in the exhaust-filled bustle of the capital on the morning of my last day. Dylan insisted there was a mountain we had to climb.
“Normally, when I think of mountain climbing, I expect to use my legs,” I said as we rode the teleferico, a cable car up the side of the mountain.
“Don’t worry, this only gets us to 13,000 feet. We still have plenty of climbing to do when we get off. We won’t hit the peak of Ruku Pichincha until well past 15,000.”
From the top of the cable car, we could see Quito laid out before us, an expanse that seemed to go on forever. Dylan pointed out the snow-capped cone of the Cotopaxi volcano in the distance. I wrapped my arms around him. “This country is breathtaking.”
Dylan grabbed my hand, and we hiked several miles of gradually rising trail. Just below the summit, the trail grew too steep to walk, and we had no choice but to climb our way through the mass of cliffs and boulders leading up to the peak. Dylan kept pausing to pull me up the harder stretches, his strong arms easily taking my weight.
I jumped up and down when I reached the top, pumping my arms. Dylan just sat on a boulder and pulled a thermos from his backpack. “I brought us a little treat.”
“Ooh, is that a final dose of hot chocolate? You do know the way to my heart, don’t you?” I kissed his cheek, then sat beside him. “These have been the best two weeks of my life.”
“I’m so glad you came down here to chase after me. May these two weeks be only the beginning.”
Something in his words caught me. “A new beginning for our relationship, you mean?”
“Our relationship, our amazing life down here, our—.”
“Dylan, you do realize that I fly back home tonight?”
“Well, sure. Temporarily. You came down here to rekindle things between us.” He removed the hair that had blown across my face and ran it behind my ear. “I assume you weren’t just looking for some two-week fling?”
“Of course not. But this isn’t our home.” I met his hand and wove my fingers between his. “I came down here to bring you back.”
“Ecuador is my home now, Amber.”
“After all we’ve had these past two weeks, you’re not going to come back with me?”
“After all we’ve had these past two weeks, you’re going to leave?”
We sat in silence, the air between us filled with tension, with confusion, with all the feelings I’d hoped we’d burned away at New Year’s. How could I get him to understand our logical next step?
“Dylan, come on.” I tried to smooth things over by rubbing his hands between my own, ignoring how tight they’d become. “You know we can’t just...live here.”
“Of course we can. We’re fully financially independent down here. We can stay for the rest of our lives and have everything we need.”
“But, Dylan…this isn’t my life.”
He gripped my knee. “It can be.”
I searched his face. The man of my dreams was slipping away. Again. “You’re really not going to come back with me?”
“You’re really going to leave?”
He’d been too grounded in numbers before, and now he was up in the clouds. “Dylan, come on. I’ve got a job.”
“Amber, I’m retired.” He rubbed my shoulder, working away at the tension forming there. “You can be as well.”
“I’m 28 years old. What the hell would I do in retirement?”
“I thought we’d build a family together. You always said you wanted the option to not work when you had kids. Is this so different?”
I turned towards the horizon. “It sounds like a dream, Dylan. But it’s time for me to return to reality.”
“If you can live it, it’s not a dream.” Dylan’s fingers touched my cheek ever so gently, and goosebumps ran down my neck. “We can live this, Amber. Who says reality needs to be drudgery? There’s nothing more real than dollars and cents. I’ve studied the numbers. We can make this work. Forever.”
“Can’t you also make it work back home?” I faced him again, my voice growing into a pleading tone I knew was beneath me. “You said you’re not even drawing off of your Cash Machine down here because you’ve got other income coming in. With that other income and your revenue from your Cash Machine, won’t that be enough back home too?”
“What income? Guiding tourists into the mountains of Ecuador? Kind of hard to take that with me. And the vacation rentals? The numbers on those only make sense if I’m here to run them.”
“But you said you were coaching people in building Cash Machines.”
Dylan waved that away. “I do that a couple of hours a week. That money goes a long way in Ecuador, but hardly amounts to anything back home.”
“Couldn’t you ramp it up?” I squeezed Dylan’s hand to a deep shade of purple.
“Maybe, but I’m not looking for a career. It’s fun having a couple clients, but to be bound to a business to support myself? No, thank you.”
“But you lived so frugally in the States.” Was I whining? “You were financially independent before.”
“As long as I lived on the cheap, yes. But what am I supposed to do? Go back to not eating out? To not having a car?”
“Why not? You did it before.”
“It’s not so easy to go back. That’s why I started this journey so young, before I got used to having luxuries in my life. I’m now at a point where I don’t have to deprive myself. Why should I go back to living like a pauper?”
I popped up. I had a perfect solution. “What if you came back and lived with me? Your cost of living wouldn’t be that high.”
“What would I do with myself all day? I’m hardly ever bored here. I hike, I raft, I interact with a constant stream of new visitors, and I volunteer building a school. Back in the States, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I wasn’t working. And I’m not going to live like some leech, letting my girlfriend support me.”
“Can’t you do more of that BRRRR thing?”
Dylan shook his head. “It’s getting harder and harder.”
“Why, because the real estate market’s been doing so well?”
“Exactly. The cost of houses in our area has almost doubled since I bought that quadruplex. Meanwhile, rental prices have increased less than 5%. Cash flowing properties are harder to come by.”
How did we get back to talking about money and real estate? “What if you just came for a few months until we figured things out?”
“I’ll make you a deal. I can see you not wanting to quit in the middle of the school year. I’ll agree to come back with you until school gets out if you agree to quit at the end of the year.”
“And you expect that I’d move down here?”
“Why not? It’s a fabulous place to live. Though if you don’t like it, there are dozens of other countries we could choose from where we’d still be financially independent.”
“I don’t know, Dylan.” An image of my father in his hospital bed popped into my mind. “I don’t want to leave my family.”
“Amber, you hardly ever see your family. We could return to the US a couple of times a year. You might have more time with them if we come for a few weeks each visit.”
“I know, but there’s something about having them close by.” I shrugged. “When my father had a heart attack, I was able to be there on a few hours’ notice. I couldn’t do that from Ecuador.”
“So you never want to be far from home, just in case someone needs you? I thought you were done letting your family decide your path?”
My body curled into itself. “Can we just not talk about it anymore?”
“Then what are we going to do?”
I swallowed back tears. “We’re going to spend one last, fabulous afternoon together. Then tonight, you’ll drive me to the airport.”
“And then?”
“We’ll have to let the future figure itself out.”
Needless to say, the afternoon was not fabulous. We climbed down Ruku Pichincha in silence, and when we boarded the cramped cable car, Dylan stared through its glass bottom the entire descent.
