Sweetheart Deal

by Linda Joffe Hull

  “We were,” Trent said.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, already out of breath despite the treadmill wind sprints I’d been doing to make sure I looked as bathing suit–worthy as a middle-aged mom of teenage boys could possibly look on camera.

  “To the underwater caves,” Liam said.

  “Isn’t that where Eloise is?

  “That’s why we’re hurrying over there,” FJ said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We’re not sure,” Frank said, catching up to us and then sprinting ahead.

  “Did you hear from her?” I asked the boys.

  “No way for her to contact us from in there,” Trent said.

  “Have we heard from anyone on the crew over there?”

  “No, but—” FJ began.

  “Someone drowned,” our cameraman said as he passed by. “Or nearly so.”

  “Do you know what happened?” I asked one of the onlookers crowded onto the dock beside the entrance to the underwater caves.

  He pointed to a nearby boat. “They just sent a bunch of divers and equipment down to help bring the people up.”

  “People?” I asked, my stomach now churning.

  “How many people?” Frank asked, looking equally alarmed.

  “We should know shortly,” the man said.

  Shortly was an endless eternity as we stood staring at the water, jumping at the slightest rustle or fleck of color from a passing fish.

  A million seconds later, bubbles floated up from beneath the water and two people emerged. One was a water park employee in scuba equipment. The second wore some sort of weird breathing apparatus.

  My heart stopped when I spotted a blue-fringed bikini.

  Frank pushed through the crowd and dove into the water.

  He reached Eloise just as her rescuer removed what looked like an astronaut’s helmet from her head and handed it to someone on the boat.

  “I’m okay,” I saw her say to Frank as they helped her over to the dock.

  FJ, Trent, and I rushed over to meet them. Liam kept a respectful distance.

  “I’m okay,” she repeated to us as we helped to lift her out of the water. “That breathing thing was just to help get me out of there.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, grabbing a nearby towel and wrapping it around her shoulders.

  “I wasn’t hurt,” she said, despite the tears filling her eyes.

  “We were so worried,” FJ said.

  Trent nodded in agreement. “What happened?”

  “I’m still not sure,” she said in a shaky voice. “We were going through this tunnel to an underground cavern. I went in first, came up from underwater, and waited. Neither of them turned up behind me.”

  “Neither of them?” I asked.

  “Ivan …” She dug her head into her brother’s shoulder.

  “And …?” I prompted.

  “Geo,” she whispered.

  “Geo was with you?” I asked.

  “He was wearing the GoPro or whatever it’s called to get underwater footage.”

  “Not the cameraman?” Frank asked.

  “Geo really wanted to check out the caves, so he went instead.”

  Frank and I exchanged meaningful glances. “This isn’t good,” I said.

  “No.” Eloise began to cry in earnest. “I’m afraid …”

  “I’m afraid too,” I whispered to Frank. “If Geo was down there with them, and now Ivan is …”

  More commotion sounded as bubbles began breaking the water’s surface. Everyone stopped speaking and stared at the water, waiting. A diver and what appeared to be Ivan wearing a breathing apparatus identical to Eloise’s emerged from beneath the surface.

  “He certainly doesn’t look dead,” Frank said.

  “He’s definitely alive,” Trent said, as Ivan removed his oxygen helmet.

  “Thank God!” Eloise said.

  “Doesn’t look so great though,” FJ said.

  Ivan was, as FJ noted, shaky and pale as his rescuer helped him over to the dock and directed him toward a waiting medic.

  “You okay?” he asked, stopping to hug Eloise first.

  She nodded. “What about you?”

  “A little shaken up, but I’ll be fine.”

  “I was waiting and waiting and neither of you showed up,” she sobbed. “The next thing I knew, there were people in diving equipment and I had no idea what happened to you or Geo.”

  “This is all my fault,” Ivan said. “I wanted Eloise to see this one really amazing cave, but you have to hold your breath to get there, so I sent her in first to keep an eye on her. Geo was supposed to go next, but he insisted he go last so he could get some video.” Ivan’s voice grew more raspy. “I don’t know how, but he went into the wrong tunnel.”

  The water began to began to bubble a third time.

  “He was down there a while before I found him …”

  “Geo!” we all said in unison as he emerged from the water flanked by two divers.

  He managed the weakest of waves before they helped him toward us, not removing his breathing gear until he’d been taken out of the water.

  The moment he was on the dock, everyone began firing off questions.

  How long were you under water?

  Were you really stuck in there?

  You had to be terrified.

  Did you get any footage?

  “No questions right now,” said a paramédico. “Everyone that’s not family needs to disperse.”

  “Something pulling on my leg …” Geo finally whispered after everyone other than us was guided off the dock. He patted his head as if questioning his memory and checking for the underwater camera that was no longer there. “So twisted around …”

  “We checked him out for bite marks,” one of the divers said to the medic.

  “Anything?”

  The diver shook his head in a way that told me encounters with unfriendly wildlife weren’t as unheard of as Jorge had insisted.

  “Thank you,” Geo gasped, grabbing Ivan’s hand. “You saved my life …”

  24. Vacationers can easily fall into price traps and high convenience charges while they are trying to relax, but those dollars add up!

  Be ready to crunch numbers even in paradise.

  25. A commonly practiced type of reality TV interview segment where participants are captured away from the rest of the show’s cast in a private booth or area where they are encouraged to speaking openly and honestly about other individuals and events taking place on the show.

  26. Let’s face it, resort gift shops are one of the least likely spots to save money. In fact, the mark-up can easily be double what you’d normally pay, so try not to forget that toothbrush or nail clippers and splurge instead on keepsakes that will forever remind you of that special vacation.

  seventeen

  Geo was loaded onto a stretcher and rolled away to an awaiting ambulance.27 Eloise and Ivan were taken to the water park infirmary to be checked out more extensively, just to be sure they didn’t need any further medical assistance. Frank, the boys, and I were escorted to a shady grove outside the first-aid building to “relax” until they were released.

  Despite the lush scenery, comfy hammocks, and abundant shade trees, I could honestly say relaxing wasn’t even a remote possibility.

  “I was sure I had this all worked out,” I said, anxious for Eloise to rejoin us and get back to the relative safety of our hotel suite. “Now I have no idea what to think.”

  “I don’t want to say I told you so,” Frank said, “but—”

  “But you didn’t think there was anything to this whole situation at all?”

  “I never said that,” Frank said. “I said there was a logical solution.”

  I didn’t have to look at him like he was an idiot because both boys and the two assistants assigned to get us safely back to the hotel did it for me.

  “Any word on the missing GoPro camera yet?” FJ asked.

&n
bsp; “They’re looking for it now,” one of the assistants said.

  “And I’m sure they’re talking more to Ivan about what he saw,” Trent said.

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “I can’t believe someone tried to take out Geo,” one of the assistants said.

  “What are we going to do?” the other assistant said.

  “Drink heavily?” I said as waiter appeared pushing a mobile frozen margarita machine. “At least for the moment.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Trent said.

  “Trent!” we all said in unison.

  “Kidding,” he said, but not convincingly enough for my taste.

  The strawberry margaritas, however, were as tasty as could be. And given the events of the afternoon, they were necessary medicine for the of-age crowd. This included Eloise, who exited the infirmary just as the waiter filled cups for the boys from the nonalcoholic side of machine.

  Frank hugged her tightly. “How are you doing, sweetie?”

  “I was annoyed that they insisted on checking me out,” she said, accepting hugs from the rest of us, as well as a full-strength marg. “But it’s a good thing they did.”

  “Why?” I asked, my alarm growing. “Are you hurt, after all?”

  “I told you, I’m fine,” she said. “But you told me to find things out, so find things out I did.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning everyone in there was talking about what happened.”

  “In English?” FJ asked.

  “Mostly Spanish, but Ivan translated a few things I couldn’t understand,” she said smugly, as though he’d only filled in a word or sentence or two.

  “What did they say?” I asked.

  “A bunch of stuff about how crazy it was, and how nothing like this has ever happened here before.” She waited for the waiter to roll the cart out of earshot, and whispered, “And you know how everyone supposedly loved Alejandro at Hacienda de la Fortuna?”

  Everyone nodded but me.

  “Well,” she said, taking a dramatic sip, “one of the nurses knows someone who works at Hacienda de la Fortuna and she said that no one’s surprised he’s dead.”

  “Because everyone actually hated him?” I said.

  “You already knew?”

  “The store clerks at the gift shop told me they’d heard he was a tyrant around the resort.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us that, Mom?” Trent asked.

  “I really didn’t have the chance until now.” I felt badly to have preempted Eloise, who seemed disappointed not to have the scoop, but it seemed high time to feel out the assistants around us, who had to have more information than us, the on-air talent. “The clerks also mentioned they knew we were coming to the park today.”

  “We gave advance notice to the park that we’d be here taping either yesterday or today,” one assistant said, too quickly. “For weather reasons.”

  “Don’t you find it curious that I happened to rip my bathing suit, happened into the gift shop, and two salesgirls not only happened to know where I was staying, but happened to tell me that basically anyone could be a suspect?”

  “There was nothing on the call sheet or anywhere else about a setup in the gift shop,” an assistant said. “Not that I know of, anyway.”

  “Me either,” the other one added. “And Geo was determined to stay on schedule by having the investigation wrapped up by the end of the day tomorrow.”

  “And just how was he planning to do that?” I asked.

  The assistant shrugged. “He just said he had things all figured out, somehow.”

  “I wonder if he still feels that way.”

  “We gotta figure out who did this to him,” the assistant murmured as we all looked toward the entrance to the park where Geo had so recently been loaded into a waiting ambulancia and taken to the hospital.

  “When they find the camera, I bet we’ll be able to see something,” FJ said.

  “If they find the camera,” Eloise said. “It was pitch black in that area and Ivan told me there are underwater currents that could have carried a device that small and deposited it just about anywhere.”

  “How is Ivan doing?” Trent asked.

  “Physically, he’s fine,” she said.

  “But otherwise?”

  “He’s super upset about Geo.”

  “He’s a hero in my book,” Frank said, looking pointedly at me. “He saved the man’s life.”

  Eloise smiled. “That’s what I kept telling him, but he kept insisting that he’d dropped the ball by letting Geo follow behind him.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Does he remember seeing anything when he realized Geo wasn’t behind him and turned back to check?” I asked.

  “The security people were just starting to interview him about that when I left.”

  “And?”

  “He said all he remembers is looking back, not seeing Geo, somehow finding him, and getting him to the surface before it was too late.”

  “Too bad,” Trent said.

  “He definitely thinks someone, and not something, grabbed Geo, though.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He’s sure now that Alejandro was murdered,” she said in a whisper, checking again to make sure no other park guests were close enough to hear us. “He said he was suspicious before, but once this happened, he said he was sure the truth was being swept under the rug.”

  “Maybe because everyone hated Alejandro?” Trent asked.

  “He had to have known that already though, right?” FJ said.

  “Ivan said people grumbled, but that Alejandro was always cool to him.”

  “Did he say why everyone we talked to up until this afternoon claimed to love the man and couldn’t imagine that everyone else didn’t feel the same way?”

  “Maybe because they’re all managers and stuff?” FJ suggested.

  “They either hated him or were related to him,” Eloise said.

  “What?” I said.

  “Ivan told me that pretty much everyone in a position of responsibility at the resort is a brother, sister, or some sort of distant cousin.”

  27. . Illnesses and accidents can happen, and the resulting medical bills can be overwhelming. Before you travel abroad, be sure to check your coverage; if it’s not adequate, consider taking out a short-term travel health insurance policy.

  eighteen

  The first thing I did when we got back to our suite (after bolting the door, of course) was run into my room, open the bureau drawer, and check the other bathing suit I’d brought for loose seams, tiny rips, or any point of potential malfunction.

  Nothing.

  The second thing I did was open the leather-bound welcome binder from the Hacienda de la Fortuna and begin to scan for names, starting with the general welcome letter.

  It was signed: Enrique Espinoza Garcia.

  Meaning Enrique and Alejandro Espinoza were, in fact, related? I continued to leaf through the binder:

  Assistant Manager of Resort Sales: Antonio Espinoza Lopez

  Bell Captain: Jorge Lopez

  Head Chef: Benito Flores Olveras

  Wedding Planner: Elena Flores Espinoza

  The various combinations of the last names Espinoza, Olveras, Garcia, Flores, and Lopez repeated on from Head Groundskeeper: Ricardo Flores to CFO of De la Fortuna LLC: Esteban Garcia Cortez.

  I unlocked the safe, grabbed my laptop, booted it up, and Googled “Spanish last names.”

  The first website I clicked on seemed to explain the commonality between names: In Spanish, a last name is not called a last name but an apellidos, which translates into “surnames” because there are often two of them. The two surnames are referred to as the first apellido and the second apellido.

  Take, for example, a man named Luis Valdez Molina. Valdez would be the first surname of his father. His second surname, Molina, would be the first surname of his mother (in US terms—his mother’s maiden name).

>   His father: Jose Valdez Rivas

  His mother: Josephina Molina Salas

  Him: Luis Valdez Molina

  When Luis gets married, he keeps his name as is. His wife (let’s say Rosa) keeps her first surname (her father’s first) and often takes husband’s name as her second surname. Sometimes the word ‘de’ is added between the two surnames to show that the second surname is her husband’s.

  So, if her dad is Juan Barrera Rivera and her mom is Juanita Leon Pérez, Rosa’s birth name would be Rosa Barrera Leon. After marriage, Rosa becomes Rosa Barrera de Valdez or Rosa Barrera Valdez.

  As in, Luis Valdez Molina and his lovely wife Rosa Barrera Valdez.

  Whether she changes her second surname to Valdez or retains Leon, Rosa becomes Mrs. Barrera. This is very different from the United States, where if the change occurs at marriage, the woman assumes the husband’s last name. Luis is Mr. Valdez, while his wife Rosa is Mrs. Barrera.

  Luis and Rosa’s children’s apellidos will be Valdez Barrera.

  In the United States, the family as a group is usually addressed by the last name of the husband. In Hispanic circles, the family is addressed by the combination of the first surname of each of the partners in the marriage, which is the same as the surnames of the children of the marriage. So the family would be referred to as the Valdez Barreras. This makes it clear that it is the family formed by the union of a Valdez and a Barrera, and it also differentiates this family from their parents’ households (the Valdez Molinas and the Barrera Leons).

  I logged off the Internet, opened my spreadsheet, and attempted something of a family tree by cross-referencing the members of the various clans.

  Espinoza = Enrique, Alejandro, Antonio, Elena (marriage)

  Lopez = Antonio, Jorge, Alejandro, Esteban (CFO)

  Flores= Benito, Elena

  Garcia = Enrique, Esteban (CFO)

  The director of pool safety was a Cortez and the manager of the salon was a Lopez. As I looked for, but couldn’t find, any mention of our driver Felipe or his last name, I had to wonder why so many of the higher-level employees seemed to be close relatives. While the fact that they were related might explain why they were unaware of the pervasive hatred toward their sibling/cousin/uncle/whatever Alejandro was to them, how was it that no one seemed eager to question the unusual circumstances surrounding the drinking and drowning death of a family member?