Mexico

Mexico serves as a temporary refuge on DL and Frenesi Gates’s southbound flight, but not as a place of lasting escape: after a brief stay in the coastal village of Quilbasazos, the two cross back into the United States, and DL leaves Frenesi at the Las Suegras highway exit. The route also links their separation to an earlier family story, since Prairie Wheeler says her parents first met in Las Suegras.

The Route Through Mexico

After rejoining Howie and Sledge, DL resumes the journey south with Frenesi. She drops the two men at the University Avenue exit, then continues with Frenesi across the Mexican border. The pair have exchanged their jeep for a Camaro of uncertain age and color, wrapped scarves around their heads as a makeshift disguise, and scrupulously kept to the speed limits. Their passage is an improvised effort to avoid notice, shaped by caution rather than any secure plan.

Quilbasazos as a Brief Refuge

They reach Quilbasazos, a fishing village still outside the tourist fashion, a few difficult miles from the coastal highway. After sleeping in a decrepit inn on the village’s outskirts, they wake at dusk and follow music and food toward the harbor. They eat fish soup heavily seasoned with garlic, cumin, oregano, and chili, followed by rice, beans, beer, and cinnamon-dusted pineapple. When the restaurant owner warns that rain is coming, they move inside; a summer storm breaks shortly afterward. The meal and shelter offer a brief interval of ordinary companionship, but do not alter the direction of their journey.

DL later recalls that they stayed in Quilbasazos for one more day and night. The respite ends without reconciliation: she and Frenesi cross back over the border at Nogales, and DL drops Frenesi at the highway exit for Las Suegras. DL says she never saw Frenesi again. Mexico is therefore a passage between flight and separation, not the beginning of a settled life together.

Las Suegras and the Family Story

The roadside departure acquires an echo from an earlier generation when Prairie Wheeler says that, according to her father, Frenesi’s parents met at Las Suegras. The Corvairs were playing at Phil’s Cottonwood Oasis, and the meeting was described as love at first sight. DL answers that such beginnings are almost always like that, with more sadness than scorn. The place thus joins two sharply different moments: the parents’ remembered romantic beginning and DL’s final separation from Frenesi.