by R. M. Green
It was evening before the party broke up. Jorge took the Mayor back to his Hummer while Tom inspected Wilfredo’s work in the soon to be newlyweds’ house. As he left he arranged to pick Wilfredo up the next day so he could complete his wedding present purchase at Daly.
The wedding was four weeks away and Tom spent most of his days in Santa Maria helping Wilfredo finish everything in Jorge’s house. A week before the wedding, it was ready, complete with kitchen sink, and both men were very proud of their work. Mabel had joined them some evenings, and she and Delia cooked tasty chicken or fish meals, served on earthenware plates overflowing with yucca and plantains, rice and beans, corn and avocado, and they often chatted about the old days, as older people do, late into the evening.
Rafael Avila popped over from time to time as his duties permitted and now that Susana was finally back from Miami, he spent most of his spare time at the ranch with her. “Any excuse to avoid having to play golf,” Susana teased him, although there was a grain of truth in that. But they did visit Wilfredo and Delia a couple of times, and despite her elegant coiffure and exquisite manicure, Susana was a good sport and a very accomplished guitarist. This little gently ageing group, ranging from fifty-five to sixty-three delighted in each other’s company and the prospect of the forthcoming celebration of youth that was to be the wedding was anticipated with much joy and just a touch of wistfulness.
Miguel, Rafael’s younger brother by two years, did not approve. He didn’t approve of his brother, the Mayor, hobnobbing with these peasants or with the sole American who didn’t live at El Dorado. “He thinks he’s better than everyone else, living in that shack, never drinking in my bars or playing on my golf course!” Miguel would grumble to himself and he spat every time he sped past the faded red truck on the highway in his white Range Rover Evoque. “And the girl works as a maid here, for God’s sake. It isn’t dignified!” Miguel would complain out loud to himself whenever he saw Rosita on her way to clean apartments. The truth was Miguel was a petty snob and a jealous, lecherous fool. He was always ogling the young cleaning girls and had it not been for the abject fear of what his sharp-eyed, powerfully built Nicaraguan wife, Isabella, would do to him if she ever found out what a would-be philanderer he was, Miguel would surely have done more than just leer.
Rafael had given his brother the job as PR manager at El Dorado mostly because it kept him out of mischief and from causing too many problems for the family. There was a well-trained sales team for the resort, all bilingual, and even a small representative office in Miami. The extent of Miguel’s responsibilities was meeting prospective clients at the airport and giving them a PowerPoint presentation, a few cocktails and a tour of the resort in a golf buggy. Even so, he still succeeded in putting a few live prospects off with his pompous manners, false charm and general loathsomeness.
This time however, a combination of his lust, his jealousy and the perceived opportunity to get one over on his golden brother and Tom, that uncouth hillbilly, combined to give him an idea. Sitting back in his red leather desk chair, rocking slightly back and forth with his hands steepled in front of him, Miguel decided to act.
Miguel was a short, pudgy man with thick black eyebrows and a ridiculously obvious toupée, which he bought online. The model was called, ‘the Heartthrob’. Even if it had fitted well, it was still thirty years too young on him. However, his vanity knew few bounds, and his spiteful tongue and tyrannical manner towards the staff at El Dorado (over whom he had no direct authority but still, he was an Avila) meant that no one laughed to his face.
He had always been jealous of Rafael; his easy charm, his popularity, his success and his beautiful wife. But this time, he vowed to himself, he would make Rafa look like a fool. Miguel determined to wreck the wedding. It would serve that peasant girl right for having ideas above her station and embarrass the Mayor.
So Miguel concocted his plan. As his intellect was limited, so was his plot. He planned to get Jorge fired so the wedding would have to be postponed. Next, he planned to circulate the rumour that Rosa was sleeping with that damn gringo, Tom. That would fix it and make Rafael look like a naïve fool at the same time! Miguel picked up the phone on his desk and dialled the extension of Las Olas. “Chef Angelo! This is Avila. I think you could do with a night off!”
A few days before the wedding, Susana arrived unannounced and unaccompanied, and took Delia to one side. Half an hour later, she emerged from the little house and left. Delia spent the rest of the day humming to herself and when Wilfredo asked her what was going on, she merely winked and said, “You’ll see!” Delia spent the next day whispering into the little mobile phone Susana had given her when no one was looking.
That same evening, Miguel invited the Martins to dinner at Las Olas. The Martins were a recently retired couple from Omaha who had sold their dry-cleaning business and with a modest but profitable portfolio and a reasonable annuity, they decided they wanted to buy a retirement condo somewhere warm, with a beach and it didn’t really matter where. On more or less a whim, and after an evening in an expat advice chat room, they made arrangements to see four places on the Pacific coast. The first two were far too expensive, the next one had been perfect but too far from a hospital as Lucas Martin was diabetic and Mavis Martin had had a triple bypass a couple of years earlier. Their last port of call before returning to Nebraska was El Dorado. They had been quite impressed but after a long discussion, listing the pros and cons, they had decided to forego the Latin American plan and look into Hawaii. Besides, they couldn’t wait to get away from that horrible little Mike person who had been clinging to them all day. But as the Martins were good, decent people they didn’t want to offend the man, particularly as they were about to turn down the opportunity to spend $320,000 on a three-bedroom condo in the Casa Real complex. So, they accepted his invitation graciously and at eight o’clock the three sat down at Sr Avila’s table in the tastefully decorated and surprisingly busy (for a Tuesday), Las Olas restaurant.
About the same time as the party of three were examining the menus, Tom pulled up outside in his truck. He had a cheque he wanted to give Jorge as a wedding present but he wanted to do it discreetly and not make a big deal of it. So, Tom figured he would catch him at work and avoid the fuss and grateful hugs. As he got out of the truck, Tom noticed the flashy white Evoque in the car park and always eager to avoid the reprehensible Mike, he walked round the back of the restaurant to where the kitchen door was ajar. Just as he was about to walk in and look for Jorge, he saw Miguel Avila come into the kitchen. No doubt to tell them how to do their job, thought Tom grimly and decided to wait until the odious little twerp had gone. The waiters and the entire brigade de cuisine scattered leaving only Jorge standing with a ladle hovering a few inches above the lobster bisque which had come up a bit too thick and was now rapidly forming a skin.
“Ah, young Diaz! I hear it’s quite a week for you, my boy! Head chef for the first time and getting married to boot! I just wanted to wish you luck in both endeavours! Such a lovely girl! Congratulations, my boy! My brother and all the family are so happy for you!” And with that, and before an astonished Jorge could utter no more than a strangulated thank you, Miguel put his short arms around the slender chef and hugged him, patting his back like a long absent relative at an airport reunion. Without another word, Miguel turned on his heel and walked briskly out of the kitchen back to the table as the startled kitchen staff filtered back to their stations.
What no one knew, what no one saw, was that in that moment of warmth and emotion, in that avuncular embrace, while Miguel was clasping Jorge to his bosom and clapping him firmly on the back, from his cupped palm a handful of small white pills fell silently into the rapidly thickening bisque. Well, almost no one saw. Tom pushed the kitchen back door open wide, brushed straight past poor Jorge, swiped the saucepan with the bisque off the hob and with the entire dumbstruck restaurant staff in tow, including the utterly bemused Jorg
e still clutching the ladle, marched through the swing doors into the main restaurant and right up to the farthest table from the kitchen. The table where Miguel, who sat open mouthed with his napkin tucked into the front of his shirt, and the startled Martins were seated. They were confronted with a tall man with wild white hair, a naked torso and no shoes banging a copper saucepan down onto the tablecloth, knocking over a glass of ice water as he did so.
“Sir, Madam, forgive the interruption,” Tom said quietly. He didn’t need to raise his voice; you could have heard a cotton bud drop let alone a pin. Indicating the pan with the lobster bisque, Tom directed his question at the Martins while Miguel sat absolutely motionless as if turned to stone. “I wonder if you wouldn’t mind taking a peek in this saucepan for me and telling me if there is anything unusual in it?” The Martins both half stood up to peer into the pan. While Lucas Martin squinted through his glasses, Mavis, who had very pretty and very sharp green eyes exclaimed, “Why there, on the surface, it looks like a tablet.”
Unfortunately for Miguel, his interruption of Jorge’s work in the kitchen a few moments ago had so shocked the young chef that the bisque remained unstirred and the skin had indeed formed. Half submerged in this yellowy-orange skin, the pretty green eagle eyes of Mavis Martin had discerned a small white pill.
“Thank you, so much. Sorry for the interruption and please enjoy your meal. Young Jorge here is an excellent chef,” Tom said graciously and picking up the saucepan with one hand and grasping Miguel by the elbow with the other, he made an irresistible suggestion that the two go for a little walk. Miguel stood up, as if in a trance, and allowed himself to be shepherded into the parking lot.
Inside, it was the young chef who regained his composure first and in excellent, although heavily accented English, as the usual din of a busy restaurant returned, he personally went through the menu with the Martins who were charmed by Jorge’s demeanour. They went for the clam chowder.
“What was it, Mikey? Laxatives, sleeping pills? You slimy bastard. I don’t know whether to kick your ass or call your brother. Maybe I should do both.”
“Take your hands off me, you oaf! Who do you th—”
“I’d stop right there, Miguelito. We both know you slipped those pills into the bisque. What did you want to do, get Jorge fired? Force them to postpone the wedding? Make your brother look foolish?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, you must be drunk,” Miguel protested but even he wasn’t convinced by his own phoney outrage.
“Well, you won’t mind having a taste of this delicious bisque now, will you?” said Tom as he grabbed Miguel by the throat and brought the saucepan towards his face until it was an inch from Miguel’s quivering lips.
“Ok, ok! Enough, enough! What are you going to do?” There was no more defiance in the voice now, just a hint of a whine. Tom lowered the saucepan and poured the contents over Miguel’s shoes.
“I am going to be nice, Mikey, nicer than you know how to be. I will forget everything I saw tonight and we can just say I was a bit tipsy and was playing a joke on you if that will save your fat face. But you have to do something for me, agreed?”
Miguel opened his mouth to say something but just exhaled, looked down at his bisque-coated alligator shoes and nodded.
“Good boy! Now listen…”
The wedding day dawned bright and warm with a slight breeze off the ocean making it bearable rather than oppressive, and the wedding party and most of Santa Maria walked to the little church. Everyone was there since practically the whole family on both sides lived within ten miles. Tom and Mabel were present and Tom was even wearing a white linen suit, although he still wore his uncomfortable green deck shoes as a gesture of defiance. Rafael and Susana Avila arrived unfashionably on time in an old Toyota so as not to steal any scenes and Wilfredo, the happiest man and the proudest father, gave his beautiful Rosita away to her beloved Jorge.
The reception was due to take place in the cantina right in the middle of the village and as bride, groom and father of the bride set off on the short walk from the church everyone else stopped.
“Mama?” asked Rosa with a note of concern.
Suddenly with a blast of horns that would have saved Joshua some time at Jericho, three brightly painted old American school buses pulled up and led by Tom and Mabel, everyone got on as if it were rehearsed. Everyone that is, except Wilfredo, Jorge and Rosa who all looked as if the world had gone mad.
“Come, Fredo,” said the Mayor gently taking his friend by the arm as Susana and Delia guided the newlyweds away from the cantina.
“This is our wedding present to you.”
Wilfredo, Delia and Susana took a seat on of the bus which Wilfredo now noticed had been decked out in ribbons and the Mayor of San Lorenzo himself guided Rosa and Jorge into the front seats and took his own place at the wheel and with a loud honk of the horn, the convoy set off for the El Dorado Country Club, the most lavish resort in the province if not the entire country. Twenty loud minutes later, the merry trio of buses pulled into the car park of the El Dorado.
No expense had been spared. The Mayor had laid on everything from lobster and champagne to smoked salmon and the biggest wedding cake anyone had seen for many years. There were the inevitable, glorious fireworks and a live band (and obviously the karaoke machine as well) and the party lasted until three in the morning.
The biggest surprise came the next day when Jorge and Rosita awoke from their first night together as man and wife in the newly and beautifully refurbished house; Jorge saw that his car, his late father’s 1978 orange Datsun Cherry had disappeared and in its place was a brand new blue Honda Accord. Delighted and surprised Jorge and Rosa danced around the car while barefoot children ran around them shrieking with laughter. A few hours later, Jorge drove Rosa to the Mayor’s office and asked to see Sr Avila. Presently the Mayor, looking a little hungover came down to greet them rather than ask for them to be sent up, and was taken aback to be hugged by Jorge and receive kisses all over his cheeks from Rosa.
“What on earth is the matter? Are you two still drunk?” asked the Mayor in confusion.
“Sr Mayor, we just had to come and say thank you. Thank you so much for such a wonderful wedding present. It’s such a lovely colour!” said Rosa half laughing, half crying with joy.
“What is? What’s a lovely colour? I don’t understand.”
“The car! Your wedding present!” the newlyweds exclaimed as one.
“My dear children! I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about!”
Four months later, three men are sitting in a beautiful newly-built wooden Dory fishing boat. The man at the oars is tall, with wild white hair, bare-chested and smoking a pipe. The man in the prow, gazing intently at his line with the practised eye of an expert, pushes his battered straw hat back on his head and breathes in the ocean breeze as if drinking the sweetest of wines. The third man, wearing jeans and somewhat incongruously, cowboy boots is pouring something we suspect is not coffee from a flask into an elegant small solid silver cup.
“So, my friends, we have been on this exquisite new boat made by a true craftsman and an honorary San Lorenzan. That is Fredo’s pleasure. Next time we must go to my ranch and spend the day in the saddle. That is my pleasure. And Sr Tom, what would be your pleasure?”
“Well, Your Honour, what would you say to a round of golf?”
THE INTERPRETERS
Early one Sunday morning, during the height of summer, Pascal Cheung was hot and flustered, and enduring a barrage of abuse from the small crowd gathered round the open hatch of the Angel Mart. Volley after volley of insults and wagging fingers were directed towards his sweating face from the angry and exasperated group standing in the dust outside the tiny shop, which was in effect, two twenty-foot containers knocked into one, painted red with white lettering in the classic Coca-Cola style anno
uncing that Angel Mart was open and were purveyors of drinks, ice and general groceries. Pascal felt frustrated, angry, hurt and very confused all at the same time. His one consolation, ironically, was also the reason the mini mob was so angry; he couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
For Pascal Cheung spoke no Spanish at all. And for a shopkeeper in the only store for nine miles in any direction in an insignificant northern province of an oft-overlooked Central American backwater, not speaking Spanish was a distinct handicap.
In truth, Pascal was neither the owner nor the regular manager of the Angel Mart. That was his son, Henri. But Henri was back in Hong Kong having been refused a renewal of his residency due to a technicality. The technicality being he hadn’t come up with the $5000 necessary to get the visa officer at the consulate to overlook his criminal record again and grant him a further four years. The crimes for which Henri had a record were minor and were more transgressions of youth; joyriding in a stolen Volkswagen Beetle and stealing a goat, albeit a goat that belonged to a Hong Kong government official when the Union Jack still flew over Government House (that rather modest looking colonial building facing Victoria Peak on the main island). However, Señor Canto, the visa officer at the consulate was not interested in the severity of Henri Cheung’s crimes. He was solely interested in when the $5000 could be discreetly handed over, in cash and naturally, out of office hours. So, Henri was stuck in the New Territories driving a cab with four cell phones attached to his dashboard, each of which represented the lines of communication to the various pies in which he had his desperate fingers in order to earn the money as quickly as possible. His current pies included the taxi, a water-cooler maintenance enterprise, a courier service and a failing tourism venture to give tours of the bay and the islands by boat. This latter undertaking, which he got into with his cousin, Lee, was failing for one clearly identifiable reason: the Canton Rose, the motorised junk which the cousins hoped would gain them their fortune, had been deemed unseaworthy by the harbour authorities and at the present moment was also impounded due to an outstanding tax demand.