Lost. I’m lost in Mexico City. The kind of lost that seems almost existential, like God is having a bad hair day and taking it out on me. Because really, how else do I explain getting lost when the stupid cab dropped me off right in front of the internet cafe? Sure, the name painted on the window wasn’t an exact match to my pronunciation. Like that means anything. I’ve pronounced “Wal-Mart” wrong in Spanish and still gotten there. And sure, Nick and Inez weren’t waiting for me inside. They were just delayed somewhere in this delay-prone Land of Manana, I’m sure. All I needed to do was hang at the definitely-probably-maybe-right internet cafe and wait for them, right?

But then I started to panic, the kind of panic that begins with a foreign country and empty purse and no cellphone. A goosebump here, a goosebump there, until my skin was a carpet of fear. The big digital numbers on my runner’s watch were counting down the daylight — 3:39, 4:06, 4:41. I didn’t want to be trapped inside, clinging to hope and fluorescent lights while the city sank into a predatory darkness. So I circled the block, checking for other internet cafes and Nick’s Explorer with the Iowa license plates, and that led to crossing the street and circling the opposite block, and then the block after that, and next thing you know…

Like an idiot, I’m standing on a busy streetcorner and consulting a tourist guidebook and rubbernecking in confusion. Nick’s first rule for surviving Mexico City (or is it his second rule? or 14th? I lose track…) is NEVER EVER ACT LIKE YOU’RE LOST. Always walk with a purpose, as if you know exactly where you’re going, and duck into a store or restaurant to consult a map if you get lost. But detouring indoors every half-block gets old after a while, and this jutting tummy feels more like a bowling ball than a baby boy, and maybe someone will take pity on me and give me directions. So I lean against the hot metal of a lightpole and flip through my guidebook with a broken-nailed finger. Eventually I find the chapter titled “Zona Rosa”, which describes this posh district in between Chapultepec Park and the Aztec-old city center:

The Zona Rosa was named after all the buildings painted in varying shades of pink…

I glance around tiredly, really not caring about colors at this point. There are still pinks everywhere, but the palette has diversified — honey-colored yellows, watered-down purples, mint greens. Even more riotously colorful are the flowers blooming in decorative sidewalk planters and big concrete urns. This is the only place in Mexico City where I can’t smell the smog. Although I can still taste it, a grainy soot of vehicle exhaust that coats my mouth.

You will know that you have arrived in the Zona Rosa when you find yourself walking along streets that are named after European cities, like Geneva, Dublin, Oslo, Warsaw, and Nice…

Actually, the streets on this side of the Zona Rosa are named after famous rivers — Tiber, Congo, Mississippi. I’m standing at the geographic impossibility of the Nile and Amazon. Not that I’m complaining. Nick told me Mexico City has 100,000 streets and a third of them aren’t even named! Now if I could just understand why the block numbers on this side of Avenida Rio Amazona are 3800s…but the other side is 700s, beginning with that Citibank skyscraper, a towering inferno of reflective glass catching the sunset.

The Zona Rosa is the financial heart of Mexico City, where the bolsa (stock exchange) and many bank headquarters are located…

All I know is ATM machines are everywhere, embedded into facades, with beggars sitting conveniently nearby. They seem to constitute half the population of the Zona Rosa, human miseries parked on cardboard scraps with their palms upturned. Back in Tijuana my heart used to break for them, especially the impoverished dirty-faced kids. I’d burst into tears of dismay and frustration, wishing I could do something — anything — to alleviate their plight. But millions of beggars later, I’m just numb. I see them without seeing them. They’re part of the landscape that I blank out, like the garbage-strewn alleyways and ditches.

Be prepared for a lively and diverse nightlife, since the Zona Rosa has also become the heart of Mexico City’s gay and lesbian community…

What gay and lesbian community? The half of the population that isn’t begging is dressed in business attire, coats and ties and blouses and skirts, or just slumming in the tourist’s wardrobe of jeans and t-shirts. The blandness of urban fashion is disorienting. I could be back in LA. I could be anywhere, really. But no one is advertising their samesex orientation with a leather outfit or butch hairstyle or rainbow pin. I can’t spot a single person who looks even vaguely gay.

Finally on the next page — a stylized map of the Zona Rosa. Rose-colored streets grid across a pale pink background. Tourist traps are marked with miniature 3D drawings. In the upper righthand corner, a comedic skeleton is drowning in an outsize sombrero and clenching a rose in its teeth. It takes me a moment to realize its bony limbs are pointed in the cardinal directions. Despite the saccharine-cute design, all the streets are clearly labeled. I’m not as lost as I thought.

I force myself into motion, slogging through the slanty sunlight and long shadows. No time to waste. Dusk is creeping up the skyscrapers. I let panic fuel my tired legs, striding fast…faster…fastest. My momentum deflects a would-be purse snatcher, who steps out from the blackness of an alley and bobs alongside me, almost jogging, falling behind. I don’t bother to stop for a yellow-turning-red light, barging in front of bumpers, turning the intersection into a parking lot. Horns blare — until I glare at the brown faces swimming behind the windshields. I’m six feet tall and pregnant and evil-eyed. No mexicano wants to mess with me. I might, uh…shoot deathrays from my crooked eye, or whatever.

“Nooshin!” The voice is husky and female and Mexican, pronouncing my name as an exaggerated Noo-sheeeen! “Nooshin, over here!”

I escape the crosswalk onto the sidewalk, and vehicular motion resumes behind me. Exhaustion is coagulating in my limbs. I slow and stumble and stop. My backpack slides off my shoulderblade and freefalls to the crook of my elbow. I glance around.

Inez is carving through a sidewalk throng at me. Her spiky hairstyle is melting into a silvery lump. She’s dressed like a skate punk, wearing layered t-shirts over jeans with a wallet chain. Her lips are painted a glossy oxide white and twisted into a wavering line. I can almost feel the agony radiating off her. And Nick… I glance around, but Nick is nowhere to be seen.

Up close Inez’s eyes are pink-lidded. “Nooshin, I…he had to leave for the airport, his brother tried to commit suicide, he shot himself in the head and lived, oh god…” Her voice strangles away, then comes back again. “He got a call from his sister while we were waiting for you, he had to fly back right away, he…”

I’m more lost than ever. What Nick told me about his family can’t fill a memory. I don’t even recall his older brother’s name. No, wait — Brian. I think his name is Brian.

Inez is pressing something hot and metallic into my palm. The keys to the Explorer. Nick’s keys. “He wants you to drive back to Tijuana, right away. And…” She fumbles in a front pocket, digging into her jeans for a slip of paper. “Call this number. This is where he’ll be.”

The area code is 641. I imagine a numeric overlay on rural Iowa. Somewhere in that flat vastness of corn and soybeans is his family’s homestead, where Brian grew up and stayed. The same farmstead — the same family — that compelled Nick to leave and never look back. Until now.

A solicitation touches my elbow. “Nooshin? Are you okay?”

What am I supposed to say? I’m very NOT okay? I’m burning with resentment that Nick is suddenly abandoning THIS family — me and the baby — for the family he claims to hate? I’m super incredibly pissed that he just blew all our money on a last-minute plane ticket? I’m wishing he took me with him?

Instead I stare down at a phone number in his handwriting, and all my resentments crystallize into a single word — “Shit!” Inez doesn’t care, doesn’t even notice. Maybe a Muslim girl swearing is no big deal to her. Or maybe her thoughts are focused on Nick, just like mine are. In my mind I’m chasing after his presence. His receding presence. I already realize my life has changed again, tilting back into uncertainty.