by Beth Orsoff
They felt like velvet. Slimy wet velvet. But they were gorgeous and graceful, and they liked to play. We were all very disappointed when Jack told us it was time to leave.
When we arrived back at the resort, the five of us thanked Jack and Manuel for a great trip as they helped us off the boat. When the couples began walking towards the beach, I stayed behind.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked Jack, who was hauling a hose out onto the dock. I don’t know why I automatically assumed he’d be coming back to the resort with us, but I did.
“No, I have to rinse off the gear. I’m taking another group out this afternoon.”
“From our hotel?” Maybe I could tag along. I just had to get to the pool long enough for my big fight with Michael. He promised to meet me at 12:30 and it was already 12:15.
“No, from the Tradewinds. It’s on the other side of the island. But I’ll be back here tomorrow morning if you want to take the class again. A lot of people repeat it.”
“Um, maybe.” I wasn’t opposed to the idea, but I’d signed up for cave tubing tomorrow morning.
“Okay, Lizzie, I’ll see you around.”
Could he be less interested? Of course, he still thought I was married. I started to walk down the dock when I had an idea. A lame idea, I admit, but my only idea. “Jack, I think I wrote down the wrong room number on my form. Do you still have it?”
“It’s probably in the safe.”
That’s what I was counting on. This would all be so much easier if Jack walked me back to the towel hut and witnessed my break-up with Michael for himself. “Would you mind pulling it out for me so I can fix it? I wouldn’t want you not to get paid because I forgot my room number.” Ugh, it sounded even lamer when I said it out loud.
Jack smiled. He knew. He had to know. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out.”
I felt the color rise up in my cheeks but since my face was already sunburned I figured it didn’t show. And since I’d already humiliated myself there was no point in backing down. “I know, but I would just feel better if I could fix it.”
“Manny,” Jack called to the captain who was still on the boat. “Would you mind taking Lizzie back to the pool so she can get her form from the safe?”
“Sure boss,” Manuel said. “But wouldn’t you rather go yourself?”
They exchanged a look and Manuel laughed before he jumped down onto the dock.
“And don’t get lost on the way back,” Jack said, tossing Manuel a ring of keys.
“No worries,” Manuel said, before he turned his attention to me. “So how long you been married?” he asked, as he walked me down the dock.
“Not long,” I said, trying to hide both my embarrassment and disappointment, which were present in equal parts.
“And your husband doesn’t mind you going off without him?”
“Apparently not.”
“Well I’ll be free at five if you want some company,” which he followed with a gold-toothed grin.
Great. The sleazy boat captain wants to keep me company, but Jack won’t even walk me back to the pool. “Thanks, but my husband’s a very jealous man.”
“I’ve met jealous husbands before,” Manuel said, before looking me over from head to toe.
“I bet you have.”
When we arrived at the towel hut, Carmen was manning the desk. “Where’s Jack?” she asked.
“Back at the boat,” Manuel replied and knelt down in front of the safe.
“Tell him Carmen says hello.”
“Si, si,” Manuel said, then sighed as he shuffled through a stack of papers he pulled from the safe. “Lizzie Mancini?” he asked
I nodded and Manuel handed me my sign up sheet. I grabbed a pencil from the cup on the counter, but before I finished writing “Papaya Suite,” someone yanked the paper from my hand.
“Michael, what are you doing here?” I hoped that sounded as convincing as it had in the bathroom mirror.
“I thought I’d check in on my wife, but it seems like you have other plans,” he said, glaring at Manuel, who was still staring at my padding enhanced bikini top.
I could smell the beer on Michael’s breath. Maybe he thought it would improve his performance. “Actually, I just got back.”
“From a trist with your lover?” he shouted.
I looked around the pool. The six other guests were staring at us, just as we’d planned. “No, I was scuba diving. I told you I was going, don’t you remember?”
“Right, with scuba boy. What’s his name again?”
“Jack?” Carmen shouted. “You’re sleeping with Jack?” She was so incredulous I was almost offended.
“I’m not sleeping with Jack!” And this was not the story we’d rehearsed. Michael was only supposed to accuse me of not loving him, which I was going to deny and point out that he was the one who was always abandoning me. Then he would say I only married him for his money, I would tell him he was crazy, and he would tell me this whole marriage was a mistake and he was leaving. I was supposed to be the injured party here, not Michael.
Manuel came around to the front of the counter. “Hey mon, I think you need to calm down.”
“Who the hell are you?” Michael shouted.
“I’m captain of the scuba boat. I’m telling you mon, nothing’s going on between Jack and your wife.”
“Does that mean you want her for yourself?”
“Michael!” He was going too far.
“Hey mon,” was all Manuel managed before Michael took a swing at him. Michael missed, but Manuel’s return punch connected. In an instant the two of them were rolling around on the pool deck.
“Call security,” I yelled to Carmen, who was watching like it was a boxing match on TV. Some of the other guests ran over, but no one jumped in to stop them. I couldn’t blame them. Anyone who did was likely to get hurt.
Jack and the security guard arrived at the same time. Jack grabbed Manuel from behind while the security guard lifted Michael off the ground. The guard tried to lead Michael away, but not before he tried to hit Jack in the jaw, warning him that he better stay away from his wife. Luckily, the hotel manager arrived a few seconds later and between him and the security guard, they managed to wrestle Michael over to a lounge chair and keep him there.
I wanted to check on Jack, but I walked over to Michael. He had a bloody nose and his shirt was torn, but otherwise he looked okay. “You need to calm down,” I said, and I wasn’t play acting.
Michael winked at me before he said, “Get away from me you bitch. I can’t stand the site of you.”
“Screw you, Michael, I’ve had enough of this.” I really had.
“So have I,” he said. “I want you out of my life. And you’re not getting a dime.”
In that moment, even though I was looking at Michael, I was seeing Steven. But it was Michael who received my wrath. I won’t repeat every word I said, or screamed would be more accurate, but after calling him the most selfish, self-centered, bastard I’d ever known, I told him if he ever came near me again I’d make him wish he was dead.
In retrospect, I probably should’ve chosen my words more carefully.
Chapter 16
THE POOL WAS SILENT. Michael stared at me closed-mouthed, the security guard and the assistant manager stared at me open-mouthed, and when I looked over at Jack, he looked away. I reached down and picked up my Discover Scuba consent form from where it had landed on the deck, wiped Michael’s blood off on the wall of the towel hut, and threw it on the counter. Then I hurried out of the pool area through the closest exit I could find.
I hadn’t felt this awful since the night Steven walked out on me. Having this fight with Michael was like reliving the entire experience. What was I thinking planning this charade? In fact, what was I thinking getting involved with Michael in the first place? This whole thing was ludicrous. All I wanted was to go home.
I unlocked the door to my room and went directly to the safe. I’d already pulled out my airline ti
cket so I could call and change my flight before I remembered the room had no phone. There was no way I was going to the lobby to use the guest phone after the scene I’d just made. In fact, there was no way I was ever leaving this room again. I was going to die in the Blue Bay Resort’s Papaya Bridal Suite. I laid down on the bed and cried until I fell asleep.
I awoke a few hours later to knocking on my door and someone calling my name. I ignored it, hoping whoever it was would go away. When it was clear they weren’t going to, I got up and answered it.
“Cheryl, what’s up?”
“I just came by to see how you’re doing.”
Could she know about me and Michael already? I didn’t remember seeing her at the pool today. “Okay.”
“That’s the spirit. You were too good for him anyway.”
She knew. That was the same speech everyone gave me after Steven called off the wedding. I opened the door wider and Cheryl walked in. “Who told you?”
“Have you met Michele and Kevin? They’re from California too.”
I shook my head.
“They were at the pool today when you…,” she appeared to be searching for the right word, but finally shrugged and said, “you know.”
I collapsed against the wall and dropped my head in my hands. What was I thinking? This was worse than I imagined. “Does everyone know?”
“I don’t know about everyone, but it’s a small place.”
This was definitely the worst vacation of my life. “Cheryl, can you do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
I handed her my airline ticket and my credit card. “Can you go to the lobby and call the airlines for me. Just get me on the next flight that goes anywhere with a connection to L.A.”
“Are you sure? That’s gonna be a lot of money. Besides the change fee, you’re going to have to pay the difference in the ticket and last minute fares are expensive.”
“I don’t care.” It was worth a few hundred dollars to get home, crawl under the covers, and be anonymous again.
“Sure,” she said. “But I don’t need to go to the lobby.” She opened her purse and pulled out her cell phone.
“Yours works here?”
“It’s John’s. He travels internationally. Don’t worry about the charges, his company pays.”
Cheryl read my Vanity Fair while I called the airlines. When the service rep told me it would cost $2200 to leave tomorrow instead of next Monday, I decided to stay.
“You were right,” I said, handing Cheryl back her phone. “It looks like I’ll be here through the weekend.”
“Good. You shouldn’t let that jerk ruin your trip. In fact, you should stay longer and run up his credit card bill.”
If she only knew.
Before Cheryl left she insisted I meet her and John for dinner. Cheryl told me worked at an animal shelter back in Chicago, so I guessed she viewed me as another lost pet in need of rescue. I didn’t have the will to argue with her. I was argued out.
At five o’clock I forced myself to shower and get dressed, so when John and Cheryl arrived promptly at six, I was ready to go. I couldn’t work up the energy to put on makeup, but at least I’d blown dry my hair.
John and Cheryl introduced me to the water taxi service that left from the hotel’s dock. The wind had picked up from this morning and so had the surf. By the time the taxi dropped us off at the restaurant’s dock, my hair was in knots and Cheryl was puking over the side of the boat. It only took a few minutes on dry land for Cheryl to recover, but my hair was beyond repair. Since I didn’t have scissors to chop it off (which was probably a good thing since at that moment, I might have used them), I opted for a sloppy bun.
“You should wear your hair up more often,” Cheryl said when I returned from the ladies room. “It’s very becoming.”
I appreciated the effort, but nothing was going to improve my mood tonight. Cheryl did her best to engage me in conversation, but after awhile she gave up and went back to gossiping about all the other guests at the resort. I learned about the couple from New Jersey who were having trouble conceiving, the husband and wife in the Mango Suite, both criminal lawyers from Boston who fell in love while acting as opposing counsel during their first trial, and the twenty-something couple I thought were newlyweds were actually married to other people. I could only imagine what Cheryl would tell everyone else about me and Michael, assuming she hadn’t already.
After dinner, Cheryl suggested dancing, but I declined.
“Oh come on,” she insisted. “We’re not going to let you go back to the hotel alone. It’s not like they have TVs in the rooms.”
“They have one in the lounge,” John added, and Cheryl shot him a look.
“C’mon Lizzie, it’ll be fun,” Cheryl said. “Maybe they’ll have line dancing.”
At that moment I couldn’t think of anything less appealing than line dancing. “I can’t, I’m wearing flip-flops.”
Cheryl slipped her arm into mine and started walking. “The disco’s only a few blocks from here and we’re not taking no for an answer.”
“Disco?”
“That’s just what they call it. I’m sure they don’t actually play disco.”
Disco wasn’t all they played, but I heard more Donna Summers songs that night than I’d heard in my previous twenty-eight years. The DJ also rotated through reggae, funk, hip hop, and classic rock ‘n roll. But at least no Macarena. I danced one song with John and Cheryl, then planted my butt on a bar stool for what I hoped was the rest of a short night.
I studied the crowd as I sipped my club soda. It was a mix of both locals and tourists, and it was obvious which was which even before they spoke. The locals didn’t have sunburns, Belizian men didn’t wear Dockers, and the native ladies didn’t dance in designer shoes.
A few local men hit on me—apparently in Belize if a woman goes out alone it means she’s on the lookout for a man. After the bartender explained this to me, I handed him a twenty dollar bill to spread the word that I intended to leave on my own. The advances stopped after that. Until Manuel arrived. He slid in behind me at the bar and gave my shoulder a squeeze.
“Lizzie, good to see you. We were worried.”
Manuel had fared better than Michael. He didn’t have a bruise on him. “We?” I asked.
He turned around and called to Jack who was at the other end of the bar. Manuel motioned for him to join us and, to the displeasure of the two women who were chatting him up, he did.
“Sorry about that,” I said, nodding at the small purple bruise on his lower jaw.
“It’s okay,” he said, rubbing the spot where Michael’s fist had grazed his face. “It was a lucky punch.”
After that it was Manuel who kept the conversation going. When I finished the last of my club soda, he offered to buy me another, until he found out what I was drinking. “You’re on vacation. You need a cocktail.”
“I had one already. I don’t need any more.”
“Do you like rum? Of course you do, everyone likes rum.” Manuel called out a drink order in Spanish and the bartender returned with something tall and yellow with a cherry on top.
“What is it?” I asked, as I sniffed at the glass, which smelled like pineapple and orange juice.
Manuel told me in Spanish, which Jack translated into English with an embarrassed smile. “It’s called a panty-ripper.”
Yesterday that would’ve made me smile too. But my post-jilting depression relapse had managed to cool my ardor for all men, including Jack. Spending the rest of the week alone was actually starting to sound good to me. I took a sip of my x-rated cocktail, which tasted sweet and warm. Whatever it was, it went down easy.
“Come,” Manuel said, “we’re having a party in the back. It’s Jesus’s eighteenth birthday. I promised him I’d get him drunk and laid, not necessarily in that order.”
I didn’t know who Jesus was and I didn’t care. “Sorry, but I’m not really in a party mood.”
He prodded a bit more,
but soon gave up. When he started to walk towards the back of the room, Jack followed but Manuel stopped him. “Jack, mon, you can’t leave the lady alone.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’d rather be alone.”
“A beautiful lady should never be alone.” Manuel gestured toward the rowdy crowd next to us. “Jack will escort you; protect you from the hounds.”
Jack looked as uncomfortable as I did.
“I don’t need an escort either. I came with some people from the hotel.”
“Where are they?” Manuel demanded. “I don’t see them.”
“They’re dancing.”
“Then you need an escort. Jack, I’m leaving you in charge. Don’t let me down, mon.”
They exchanged another one of those looks before Jack raised his hand to his forehead and saluted. “Aye, aye captain.”
When Manuel had gone, Jack leaned in and I caught his briny scent again, this time mixed with soap instead of sunscreen. “Do you want to talk?”
“Not really.”
“Good,” he said, visibly relieved. Then he called to the bartender and ordered us another round.
Then another.
And another.
Chapter 17
I DIDN’T REALLY NOTICE how drunk I was until I hopped off my bar stool. I was having trouble walking a straight line. After I found the ladies room, I located John and Cheryl on the dance floor and told them I was ready to leave. I returned to the bar first—I wanted to say goodnight to Jack—but he was already gone.
I managed to walk the few blocks to the water taxi stand without falling down or crashing into anything. Cheryl helped. Then the three of us waited and waited, with no boat in site, until a golf cart screeched to a halt in front of us.
“You want a ride?” Jack asked. “The next boat won’t be for at least half an hour.”
There was no discussion. I immediately climbed into the front seat, and John and Cheryl slid into the back. I introduced them to Jack and by the end of the ten minute drive, Cheryl had decided that she and John were taking Jack’s scuba class the next morning.