This evening, we met some dog park friends at Darbster’s, a vegan restaurant in West Palm Beach. It’s named after the owner’s dog, now deceased, so pooches are welcome. We met up with Lloyd, Paula, and her friends, Meryl and Jeff. We got seats outside, on the porch, where there was a nice cross-breeze and plenty of shade.
Our server was a masked young woman, with beautiful dark eyes. She spoke with a slight accent and I pegged her for South American. I finally asked her, in Spanish, where she came from.
“Venezuela,” she replied.
“Me too!” I exclaimed.
She looked shocked. “Where in Venezuela?”
“Caracas and Maracaibo.”
“Me, too!”
We chatted about dictators Maduro, Chavez, and even farther back, to Perez Jimenez, whose regime I lived under. “At least he built things,” she said,
And that much was true. Jimenez was responsible for building the autopista, the highway from Caracas to the coast. He also embezzled $13 million from the Venezuelan treasury when he fled the country and lived out the rest of his life on Miami Beach.
I left Venezuela was I was nearly 17.
She left when she was 17 and was now 27.
Her family was still there. Mine isn’t. She wanted to surprise her mom on mother’s day, but when she checked flights, she discovered a ticket cost $2500 and the trip took 23 hours. Apparently, any American airline that flies to Venezuela these days is one that goes through Mexico and a bunch of other spots before hitting Maiquetia, the Venezuelan airport.
Before we left the restaurant, I asked the young woman her name. “Me llamo Patricia.”
Honestly, I nearly swallowed my tongue. Patricia is my birth name.
“Sincronicidad,” I said to her before we left. Synchronicity.
And she nodded and put her arms around me and we hugged.
We traded cell numbers.
