Sweetheart Deal

by Linda Joffe Hull

  “I can’t imagine a more romantic setting,” I added.

  A golf cart with the Hacienda de la Fortuna roulette wheel logo pulled up via a foliage-obscured access path. Elena, the wedding planner, slid out of the passenger side and approached the happy couple complete with her clipboard, no-nonsense up-do, and take-charge stride.

  “Be sure your venue comes with an onsite wedding planner,” I continued. “Her services are often included in the deal you’ve negotiated with the hotel, or they can be for a small additional cost. A competent wedding planner will save you big money and bigger headaches by knowing everything from the rules about getting married in their country to the best local suppliers for extras not provided by the hotel.”

  I paused for a moment as a second golf cart arrived and Elena consulted with workers who began to unload the Lucite chairs Anastasia had added to her wedding package.9 As they arranged them in key spots for the rehearsal, Anastasia’s sister-bridesmaids appeared at the Cala de la Boda in camera-friendly jewel-toned sundresses.

  They were joined by the parents of the bride and groom. Behind them, two groomsmen materialized, both in Bermudas but wearing solid, bright polo shirts.

  Elena—ever camera-ready in her brown skirt, peach hotel-issue blouse, and perfectly coiffed French Twist—glanced in our direction and waved us over.

  “One thing’s for sure,” I said, wrapping up, “the wedding planner here at the Hacienda de la Fortuna has proven to be not only invaluable, but on anything but island time …”

  “Remember, everyone …” Geo announced, “just be natural.”

  “I’m a little nervous,” whispered one of Anastasia’s sisters—the one I’d quickly come to think of as Hair, due to her thick, lustrous, honey blond tresses.

  Given the sisters had largely interchangeable names and looked like not-quite-perfect versions of the bride, I’d named each of them for the one feature they shared with the all-around-stunning Stasia.

  “Forget about the cameras and focus on the beautiful occasion you’ve come to celebrate,” I managed before the word action filled the air.

  Sister Number Three, Body, who shared Anastasia’s flawless figure, but little of her composure, seemed to freeze. She remained that way for both takes of everyone introducing themselves.

  We’re Anastasia’s parents.

  I’m David, Phil’s friend.

  I’m Philip’s mother and this is his stepfather …

  “Who are we still missing?” The wedding planner asked, her accent somehow adding to and softening her authoritative edge.

  “No one, now,” Philip said as a short, homely, balding man materialized from the footpath and joined the group.

  “Everyone, this is my pal Steve. He’ll be officiating.”

  “Sorry folks,” he said. “I forgot to mention I was with the wedding party before I got caught up in a high-octane timeshare—”

  “Atención!” Elena said, not allowing his arrival to disrupt the flow. “Bridesmaids to my left, groomsmen to my right. Immediate family, please be seated on the appropriate side of the aisle.”10

  Anastasia and Philip gazed lovingly at each other while everyone fell in as requested.

  Elena scanned the group, giving each and every person a thorough twice-over.

  “Sara,” she finally said, having (admirably) memorized everyone’s names.

  Body took a step forward.

  The other sisters seemed to nod as Elena pointed to blond handsome Dave, the groomsman, and paired them off together.

  “Of course,” Hair whispered under her breath.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Before she could answer, Elena called her given name (Susan), assigned her to Philip’s brother, and motioned for me to join best man Frank.

  Who I’d once thought was my best man.

  Once the pairing off was complete, we stepped into our familiar, time-honored roles, following the detailed processional instructions. “Ladies, walk slowly but to the beat of the music. Once Maddie takes her place, the music will change, everyone will stand, and Anastasia and her father will start down the aisle …”

  The cameras—one trained on Philip, the other on Anastasia—captured both perspectives of their final practice run, then veered onto me and then Frank, respectively, as I pretended to accept the bouquet for the ceremony run-through.

  And Frank glanced lovingly in my direction as though blissfully reliving our own trip down the aisle.

  I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t cry another tear over the circumstances that obligated us to break our until death do us part vow, namely his cheating, but with the combination of palpable love between the soon-to-be-newlyweds and our faux reality, my eyes began to sting.

  “Marriage …” Face (Sally, by process of elimination) sighed. “If only it was half as romantic as the wedding.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek and tried to will away the sudden throb at my temples while Elena detailed the particulars of the service itself, introduced the couple as husband and wife, and instructed us to begin the recessional.

  The headache spread across my forehead. By the time Frank slipped his arm through mine and we made our way away from the marriage altar, I winced not only from the symbolism but from the sensation that my scalp was shrink-wrapped around my head.

  “You two are as cute together as the bride and groom,” said an elderly woman who was part of the crowd gathered just out of disruption range to watch the wedding rehearsal shoot.

  “We love you, Mr. and Mrs. Frugalicious!” said her companion, a red-haired woman I’d seen around the resort.

  “That’s me!” Frank said, leaning in to give me a kiss on the lips for our fans. “Mr. Frugalicious.”

  “No cameras?” A familiar voice asked from behind me as I headed for the suite to grab an Advil or three.

  I turned to find Alejandro leaning against the rails of a nearby footbridge, looking every bit as long, lean, and downright handsome as he had that morning.

  “Camera-free moments are few and far between,” I said, feeling flushed and slightly flustered. “I was just heading to my room to get something for my headache.”

  “Too many margaritas?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Doesn’t that make me at least partially responsible?” he asked with a sympathetic but playful smile.

  “There’s just been a lot going on today.”

  “Maybe I can save you a few minutes of rushing around,” he said, already taking me by the hand. “We have a fully stocked first-aid drawer in our offices.”

  “I’ve already been enough of a bother,” I said as we headed back over to the vacation sales office. “And I’m sure you’re anxious to get home to your family.”

  “Not at all,” he said, opening the door. “On Fridays, I usually stay late to complete paperwork. Particularly when we’ve had a good week.”

  “No thanks to me,” I said. “We’re likely to be signing before the end of the weekend, it’s just that I have a responsibility to my viewers to—”

  “No explanations necessary.” He smiled. “I wasn’t looking to make a profit on your deal anyway,” he said, leading me into the breakroom, where he reached into a drawer, grabbed a bottle even I could read (Ibuprofeno), and poured a few into my outstretched palm. “Not financially, anyway.”

  “Gracias,” I said.

  “Thank you, for bringing your show down here to our resort,” he said. “If everything continues to go this well, the payoff will be even better than I imagined.”

  “I can’t take much, if any, credit,” I said. “My producer had her heart set on a destination wedding episode.”

  “And a stunning wedding it’s going to be,” he said, looking out a window that happened to overlook the Cala de la Boda, where much of the group stood finalizing the last of the details with Philip and Anastasia.

  “She is going to make a beautiful bride,” I said.

  “With beautiful bridesmaids,” Alejandro
added.

  “Anastasia’s sisters are all very pretty,” I said as he led me over to the water cooler beside the front door. “Each in her own way.”

  “Not as pretty as you,” he said. Our fingers touched as he handed me a cup of cool water.

  “Thank you,” I managed, my cheeks suddenly on fire.

  The waning light shimmered in his deep brown eyes as he led me back outside. “Maddie, I—”

  “Maddie!” Frank materialized from around a stand of Tecate Cypress at exactly the key moment yet again. The clatter of equipment and voices filtered through the humid breeze from the pathway behind him.

  “That’s my cue, I’m afraid,” I said as Geo and some of the crew met up with Frank.

  “Buenas tardes,” Alejandro said, greeting them all with a friendly nod that belied nothing of whatever it was that had just happened between us.

  Which was …?

  I couldn’t help but notice that Alejandro wore a gold bracelet on his wrist, but no wedding ring to match.

  “We need both of you at the rehearsal dinner in ten,” Geo said, motioning the crew to continue on toward the private dining area off the main lobby.

  “No problemo,” Frank said, checking his cell phone—or rather, checking his makeup, hair, and teeth in the selfie picture mode. “Maddie, I thought you were headed back to the room before dinner started?”

  “I was,” I said, “and then I ran into Alejandro …”

  My cheeks still felt flushed as I stood beside a buffet table covered in brightly colored platters offering everything from enchiladas de rojos to shrimp posole.

  Not as pretty as you …

  “You ready to roll, Maddie?” Geo asked.

  I’d assumed Alejandro’s initial flirtation during our meeting, timely and flattering as it was, was simply salesmanship he was playing up for the camera …

  “Maddie?”

  I nodded, took a deep breath, and forced myself to focus on reality—or my TV reality, as it were—by smiling and delivering my rehearsal dinner spiel:

  “The pre-wedding dinner provides an opportunity for the bride and groom to thank everyone involved with the wedding. In general, the guest list includes the wedding party and their dates or spouses, immediate family, and anyone else participating in the ceremony. It is customary, but not required, that you invite extended family and out-of-town guests.”

  I plucked a giant strawberry from the top tier of a “cake” constructed entirely of fruit, took a dainty bite, chewed, and swallowed.11

  “At a destination wedding, however, ‘all-inclusive’ applies to more than just the food and beverages. Since your guests are travelling a great distance, everyone who makes the trip should be invited to all the events that take place over the course of the weekend. While this may seem costly, remember, the reduction in the overall number of people who actually attend typically more than makes up for the added cost per person.”

  As the camera shot switched to the buffet table, the veranda filled with partygoers, and the beginnings of what promised to be a spectacular sunset, I stole a glance out past the scrolled iron railing, and across the lush grounds, toward a single light in the window of the vacation sales office.

  What was it Alejandro was planning to say before Frank had interrupted him?

  I think you’re one of the most attractive women I’ve met in years …

  I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help but wish you were single …

  I haven’t stopped thinking about you all day …

  Despite feeling more jangly than hungry, I piled my plate high with assorted especiales de la casa and started for the head table, where Anastasia and Philip were dipping chips into the Hacienda’s signature guacamole and feeding them to each other.

  “Look,” Frank said as soon as I took my place beside him and the crew had given us the go-ahead for the next scheduled shot. He flashed a handful of tickets. “Tickets to the eco water park for the whole family!”12

  “What an incredible thank you present!” I said, amazed not only by Anastasia’s ability to pay next to nothing for her wedding, but her dual-purpose gift of a bathing-suit clad day at the local eco water park—just the wedding party, the camera crew, me, and my middle-aged body. Oh joy.

  “We’re all going to go on Sunday!” said groomsman Dave, who flashed a charming smile in shapely Body’s direction.

  As soon as we were finished eating, Face stood. She waited for the chatter to die down and announced that each of Anastasia and Philip’s siblings planned to share some stories to ensure the bride and groom “had all the facts” about their soon-to-be spouse.

  “I’ll start,” Hair said, tucking her blond locks behind her ears and smiling in my direction, as if to say she’d heeded my advice about ignoring the cameras. Her voice was a little shaky just the same. “Philip, I hope you’re prepared to always look your best, because Stasia is a stickler about grooming those around her. One time, she even used pomade on the cat and trimmed his whiskers. He was banging into walls for a week.”

  One by one, each of the siblings stood, and with varying degrees of trepidation, began to share tales of their own:

  “Phil once told me that thinking about your muscles will make you stronger.”

  “Do not, I repeat, do not so much as suggest to Stasia that there are ‘alternate’ ways to load the dishwasher.”

  “I hope you’re prepared for the fact that you’re going to have to cut the crusts off big, strong Phil’s sandwiches.”

  As I laughed along at their funny, insightful, sometimes TMI observations and comments—Phil says it’s an odd-looking inconveniently placed chest mole, but don’t be surprised if one of your children inherits his, how shall I say, third nipple—I noticed half the faces in the crowd also looked familiar from the afternoon timeshare presentation.

  Which got me thinking about Alejandro. Which got me thinking about the way our eyes kept meeting and the flirtation that seemed to slip so easily into the conversation. I knew he was trying to sell timeshares, but …

  As Face wrapped things up with a teary story about all four sisters getting their ears pierced together, Steve, the minister, stood and pinged his water glass.

  “We’ve heard a number of insightful stories about Anastasia and Philip as they progressed on their paths to each other …”

  Was there a real spark between Alejandro and I, or was I so rusty, not to mention entrenched in being Mrs. Frugalicious, that I’d over-interpreted our flirtation to the point where I felt like I’d landed in the first few pages of a romance novel?

  “I thought we’d cap off the evening by asking this question of you, their happily married friends and family,” he continued. “What is the secret to marital longevity?”

  There was a brief silence and then hands went up all around the veranda.

  “Never go to bed angry,” someone at a back table said, kicking things off.

  “Fight fair!”

  “Learn to say ‘yes, dear’!”

  “Embrace each other’s imperfections.”

  I suddenly felt a lot less like I’d been dropped into a bodice ripper and a lot more like I was trapped in a straight-to-DVD movie when someone else added, “Marry the right person in the first place.”

  Particularly when one of the cameras zoomed in on our table just in time for Frank to wink at me, look up at Anastasia and Philip, and pronounce, “Make romance a priority.”

  Both of the boys groaned in unison.

  “Gross,” Eloise added.

  The crowd laughed, clapped, and cheered as Frank lifted his glass and I stood beside him for a toast to romance and marital bliss.

  Our on-camera fauxmance continued as the rehearsal dinner wound down. The kids, now including Hair’s teenage son, Liam—a trim, well-groomed boy of about sixteen—went off to movie under the stars at the outdoor El Teatro de Fortuna, and I followed Frank back to our suite. With a few soundbites along the way about the beauty of the evening and the glow of the handsome, so
on-to-be wedded pair, we retired to our bedroom.

  “What’s with that kid hanging around FJ all night?” Frank asked.

  “He’s Anastasia’s nephew.”

  “He seems kind of …”

  “Kind of what?” I asked. “He’s nice, polite, and—”

  “Doesn’t seem very sports-minded, if you know what I mean.”

  “Sports-minded?” I said, avoiding where Frank might be trying to go with the conversation. I began to pluck the decorative pillows off the bed and arrange them in an orderly line down the middle to separate the his from the hers side. “I guess I don’t know what you mean.”

  Frank paused as if thinking about what he would (but likely shouldn’t) say next. He thought better of it and headed for the bathroom instead.

  Relieved I’d managed to avoid yet another go-nowhere conversation about Frank’s concerns over what he termed our son’s “potentially artistic tendencies,” I turned down the comforter. As I tugged at my corner of the sheets, I spotted a pale peach rectangle sticking out from underneath my pillow.

  The toilet flushed and the sink began to run.

  I pulled out what turned out to be an envelope with the hotel logo in the upper corner and Maddie written across the front.

  Frank emerged from the bathroom just as I was ripping it open. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Note from housekeeping,” I mumbled, figuring it had to be.

  “Say anything interesting?” he asked, lumbering past me to his side of the bed as I removed a single sheet of paper from inside.

  “Nope,” I managed. “Just one of those ‘we care about the environment so please conserve linens and towels’ messages.”

  “Gotcha,” he said, falling into bed, not noticing that my voice had cracked. Or that I was lying.

  The note, while written on the resort stationary, contained a very different message than the one I heard myself telling Frank.

  And it definitely wasn’t from housekeeping …

  What are the chances you can tear yourself away from your official obligations tomorrow evening and join me at the Poolside Bar? Say, 9 p.m.?

  —A

  9. Wedding packages typically include significant built-in discounts. While some people feel hesitant about the potentially impersonal feel of a prearranged package, remember you can always customize by adding on a few signature extras.