by Kirsten Koza
Still chewing, she nodded.
“What’s it going to be? Is he taking you bungee jumping in Brazil? Getting you an audience with the Pope?”
“Actually,” Louise replied sheepishly, “he and his mates are heading out to Peter’s castle next weekend.” She took a sip of her drink.
“He knows Peter?” Another of Louise’s friends, who was now a person I sometimes sat next to at dinner parties. I shook my head in amazement at the interconnectedness of her world.
She nodded, beaming. “I told you, we know some of the same people! We would have met anyway, it just happened earlier because of Spain. The castle is leaky, drafty, and has dismal plumbing, because it’s a real fourteenth-century castle. But, there will be gobs of people.” Her face brightened, like she’d just had a novel idea. “You should join us!” She reached over and tugged at my sleeve. “Bea’s coming too, and I think Lily wants to join us. She rather fancied one of his mates at the club in Barcelona. You really must come,” she wheedled. “It will be good fun.”
I hesitated. On the one hand: I had too much work to get through, and definitely the wrong wardrobe for gallivanting around a castle in the countryside. On the other hand: I could call it research, you never know what might turn up inside, and it was one place I was certain I wouldn’t run into the ex-boyfriend. But—
Abruptly, the tense Parisienne at the next table turned her head and said in exasperated, accented English: “Please. Just. GO.” She looked like she was ready to poke us in the eye with her fork.
Mouths agog, Louise and I both stared at her in astonishment, as much for the fact that she spoke English as for the fact that she’d gotten so fed up with us that she’d lost all sense of decorum.
“Beg pardon?” Louise retorted in coldly polite tones, her hair bristling up dangerously.
“Go,” the brunette repeated darkly. “Why are you here?”
Thunderclouds were gathering over Louise’s head. She was about to go all Lady of the Manor on this woman, and it was not going to be pretty.
Throwing her napkin down on her plate, the Frenchwoman pushed back her chair and stood up in one sudden move. The girl fight was about to begin. Around us, polished heads were turning, supercilious eyebrows were raising, pursed lips were silently clucking. A dinner fork is not for stabbing fellow patrons. How perfectly gauche! If you really cannot restrain yourself, please use a napkin and a steak knife. She glared at both of us, her face a grim mask. “Never!” she exclaimed in thick French accent. “Never turn down an invitation to a castle!” She wagged a long finger at me as her eyes darted to the empty chair across from her, which suddenly transformed into a horror story.
Tossing her head back, she summoned the cringing waiter with an imperious hand. With a barely disguised expression of relief, he darted forward with her bill in one hand and the credit card reader in the other. With a swipe and a sniff, she paid for her meal, and swanned out the door without a backward glance.
The room watched her depart, then, with a collective shrug, resumed dining as usual.
“Well then,” Louise said, taking a sip of water as we pondered her odd speech while trying to ignore the waiter who’d moved in to clear the abandoned table. “You heard her: ‘Never turn down an invitation to a castle’!”
I smiled weakly. “That sounds like a euphemism....”
“...for an adventure with naked men!” Louise squeaked, laughing from deep within her belly. “So you’re coming. It’s settled.”
Except it wasn’t.
.....ggggrrrrrp.
“Don’t look at me,” I said airily. To my great glee, this time the gastric burbles were coming from Louise, who looked utterly mortified by the sound of seafood being badly digested.
....bloooop!
She threw me an anguished glance. “Where...?” she began.
Smoothly, the waiter, still brushing crumbs off the tablecloth, leaned forward slightly and murmured discreetly in proper British tones, “...the W/C is to the back,” as he continued whisking crumbs with an expression so impassive that I wasn’t sure he’d actually said anything. Straightening up, he headed back to the kitchen, but not before turning his head ever so slightly and dropping one eyelid in a perfectly executed wink.
With an equally bland expression, Louise winked back.
A secret code reminding me that it really is true: no matter where you go, everybody speaks English.
Paula Young Lee is a faculty Fellow at the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University and the author of several books, including Deer Hunting in Paris: A Memoir of God, Guns, and Game Meat, winner of the 2014 Lowell Thomas Travel Book Award from the Society of American Travel Writers.
BETH MERCER
Costa Rican Red and a Golden Shower
Endless Summer meets Freddy Krueger on
The Beach.
AS MY EYES BEGIN TO FOCUS, ALL I CAN SEE IS RED: FUZZY, SLIPPERY, shiny, redness. What is it? Where am I? What the? Oh, no! It all goes black. My eyes once again open to red but this time there are patches of white. Hard, cold, white, mixed in with all the red and then bang, darkness. What the hell is going on? My head hurts, my face is in agony, and I can’t see clearly. I am cold. Where am I? I’m not at work—this isn’t a film set. This is real. And why do my teeth feel like they are about to snap off? Why am I naked, prone on a bathroom floor? I realize I’ve been trying to push myself upright but have been passing out before I can get into a seated position. In the process I’ve been repeatedly smashing my face into the tile floor. My God, the red I see through the fog is blood. My blood. Massive amounts of it are gushing from my flattened nose and my ripped lip. Are my teeth still there? I collapse, slamming my face into the crimson-soaked floor once again. Was it a robbery? Some kind of violent attack? Maybe home invaders?
I’d arrived the day before in the town of Nosara, Costa Rica, with the intention of spending three glorious weeks surfing, sunning, running, and writing. There was a storm off the coast, bringing in a huge swell accompanied by enormous crashing waves. This was fantastic for the local boys but not so fantastic for the aspiring, over-40 surfer chick. I rented a board from a local dude named Alejandro who had the biggest mass of dreadlocks this side of Jamaica. He spent the day catching wave after wave and watching me get hammered in the thundering surf. I was a pathetic-looking creature when I returned to his rental hut at dusk with my board trailing behind me. Alejandro and his cute young surfer buddy Marco took pity on me, offering up a beer and a reefer the size of my head. I took the beer but abstained from the weed.
As we swung in hammocks, drinking Imperial and listening to Bob Marley, Alejandro and Marco smoked and pontificated about the sea, the waves, and the need to be one with the water while surfing. That was exactly what I came all this way to do—become one with the waves. Well, that and to be able to stand up on my board long enough to get a ride or two in. As the sun began to set, Marco mentioned they were going out to a little known point break down the coast the next morning. Alejandro figured it would be perfect for me. With my liquid courage flowing, I arranged to meet them at dawn the next day.
We drove about two hours down the wild coast on a bumpy, dirt track. It was the perfect morning. The boys were lovely, the conversation easy, fun, and interesting. As we rounded the last corner, a small deserted beach stretched before us. Not a soul in sight. No yoga-posing girls, no bongo-playing hippies, and no families with screaming children, just the three of us, miles from the tourist hub of Nosara. This was turning out to be my fantasy vacation.
The break looked fantastic. The waves were the perfect size and distance apart and the paddle out reasonable enough even for me. With confidence and excitement I followed the boys into the crystal-clear water. Just as the waves lapped my knees, I felt a little pinch on the second toe of my right foot. A crab perhaps? I pulled my foot out of the surf and looked at my toe. “I think I’ve been bitten by a crab.” Blood was pouring out of it into the water. I c
alled to Alejandro, “Hey, if I am bleeding do I need to worry about shar…” Searing pain shot up my leg. It was on fire. I must have yelled because the two men were at my side in a second pulling me out of the water.
“¡No, no, no es crab, es la raya, la raya!” Marco yelled.
“What? What the hell?” I had no idea what he was saying. All I knew was the pain in my leg was intolerable.
Marco continued repeating “la raya, la raya” in an increasingly loud voice as if that would help me understand the words of a language I didn’t speak. Except this time it did work. I finally understood. La raya meant stingray.
It explained the shooting flames of agony. I knew exactly what had to be done from watching Friends, the one where Joey says pee will cure Monica’s jellyfish sting, but he can’t do it so Chandler does. I didn’t like the idea. I’ve never been turned on by the thought of a golden shower. In fact it’s disgusting, but at that moment all I wanted was for those two cute Tico boys to pee on me. “O.K., O.K. I get it. It’s a stingray, so do what you have to do. Pee on me, please, now hurry. Just do it. Pee on my foot! Pee on me!” I shrieked between blasts of pain. They both stopped dead and looked at me with blank expressions.
“What are you waiting for? I’m dying over here.” All I could think of was the Crocodile Hunter man and how he got hit by a stingray right in his chest, and it killed him. I didn’t want to go the same way. “God damn it, pee on my foot to neutralize the venom.” What was wrong with them? Everyone knew this, even Joey.
Alejandro was the first to figure out what I was saying. He looked at Marco and explained in Spanish what I was demanding of them. They turned in unison, with visible expressions of disgust and amusement, and looked down at me writhing in the sand.
Alejandro said, “It’s la raya, the only way to stop the pain is to submerge the foot in boiling hot water for two hours.”
Then Marco kindly offered to fulfill my request of peeing on me if it would stop the screaming.
So where do you find boiling hot water on a deserted beach, miles from the lovely little tourist town with its restaurants, yoga studios, coffee shops and medical clinic? Why, of course, at the fisherman’s dilapidated hut hidden in the trees. They carried me through the brush, leaving a thick trail of blood streaming out of my foot and onto the sand. I was left rolling on the porch as they roused the fisherman and explained the problem. I have no idea how he managed to produce a big bucket full of boiling water so fast from the back of a 200-square-foot shack, but there it was, bubbling and steaming. It took all three of them to hold me down as they plunged my foot into the boiling water. I admit it immediately took some of the stinging pain away, as the only sensation I had was the burning of my flesh from the knee down. Maybe I wouldn’t die from the stingray sting, but death from the gangrene in my burned off stump of a leg was still a distinct possibility.
As I sat on the porch, foot jammed in a white bucket of scalding water, the three men told me stories. The old man had been stung six times on the same rocks where the ray got me. He pulled up his pant leg revealing the large scars all over his feet that he proudly displayed like Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws. My cut was barely a centimeter long across the top of my toe but after looking at him, I knew it would be with me forever. Both Alejandro and Marco had grown up surfing those same waters and had never been stung. They emphatically stated it was good luck to be chosen by la raya, but I figured that’s like saying getting shit on by a bird is good luck, so the target doesn’t feel like a loser, even though he’s covered in bird shit.
As the nerves in my toes began to activate once again, I felt a new, sticky sensation. I looked down into the bucket and was greeted by a view of chunky tomato stew. The blood had turned the water a Campbell’s tomato soup red, and it was starting to coagulate into one solid mass. The fisherman took the bucket of congealed Beth blood and disappeared into the back room. I have no idea what he did with that mess but we repeated this routine three or four times. The pain was constant, the source alternating between the venomous sting and the poaching. And then, just as if a switch went off, the pain subsided. I looked at my watch. Two hours had passed, exactly as Alejandro said it would. Whew! Time to get back to civilization.
The boys wrapped my foot tightly in a towel. I had to use the ladies’ room—or more accurately, the hole in the floor—so I made my way to the back of the shack. As I stepped down the towel fell off my foot and blood began shooting out of my toe and up the wall! It was a scene worthy of Tarantino, and all I could think about was Mr. Blonde chopping off Marvin’s ear in Reservoir Dogs, except this was my very real toe. I yelled out in horror, and the boys came running. They all stopped dead and stared at my foot. Who knew the heart could pump hard enough to shoot blood that high in the air through one small toe? The fisherman made the first move, grabbed the towel and wrapped my foot as the two boys snapped out of it, picked me up, and carried me to the truck.
The beautiful beach drive was far less romantic in this direction, and it seemed to go on forever. I held the towel tightly to my foot, but the blood just kept pumping, turning the terrycloth pink, then scarlet. I tossed the towel out the window and grabbed another. Two towels later we made it into Nosara and pulled up at the clinic. The doctor was busy so we waited in the tiny immaculate lobby and I continued to bleed all over the floor. A little Consuela-ish cleaning lady, complete with yellow rubber gloves (just like on Family Guy), tottered by every ten minutes or so to smile and say “no, no” as she mopped up after me.
By the time I got in to see the doctor, I had been bleeding for well over four hours. As he stitched up my still oozing toe, he kindly informed me of the proper procedure for neutralizing the ray’s sting. He said heat was good for deactivating the proteins in the poison; however, simmering over a low heat was just as effective as a rapid boil and much more comfortable for still-living flesh. Two stitches later the bleeding finally stopped. I had my foot nicely bandaged and was returned to my surfer dude saviors, Marco and Alejandro. I wondered, should I tell them about the slow-cooker method for the benefit of the next victim? I decided against it. Why rob someone else of the adventure?
As the boys dropped me off, I could tell they were glad to be rid of me and my constantly erupting toe. I hoped they managed to get the crusty blood off the dashboard of their spotless truck. That wouldn’t be good for business.
Now, eight hours later, I am face down, buck-naked on the bathroom tiles in my best slasher-flick pose. Blood covers the floor and there are red handprints on the walls and the sink. It’s no use trying to drag myself off the floor. I lie in the pool of blood for an eternity. My hair is matted and my body is covered in a skin-tight bodysuit of blood. But why am I naked, smashing my face into the floor? Could I really have lost that much blood from a tiny stingray bite on my toe? I guess I bled for about five hours. I must have gotten up in the night to use the bathroom, stood up too fast and then passed out face first on the floor. That’s it. No robbers, no gunmen, no monster wave, no crazed psychopath, not even a giant shark. My broken nose, black eyes, swollen lips, and huge foot are the result of one little stingray, a bucket of boiling water, and an old fisherman in a tiny hut on a deserted beach.
Two weeks later, as I board the flight home, I glance down through bruised eyes at the stingray victim—my burnt right toe. I have dubbed him Freddy (as in Freddy Krueger) due to their striking resemblance. A drop of blood oozes from beneath the bandage. What? Still? I never should have named my toe Freddy Krueger—Freddy is coming home and Freddy doesn’t like me.
Beth Mercer is a writer and script supervisor based in Vancouver, BC. She has worked in film and television for 25 years on series such as The X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, Smallville, Alcatraz, Dead Zone, and many more. Beth teaches a course in Script Supervision. When not keeping track of the famous and infamous on a film set, Beth can be found exploring the globe, skiing off cornices, biking down volcanoes, and surfing the little waves. She inherited her passion for trave
l, mountains, and writing from her mother. Beth’s website: www.travelswithmyselfandanother.com
DANA TALUSANI
A Real Good Deal
Banana hammocks and twinkly tits in Cancún.
“I HAVE SUCH GOOD NEWS FOR YOU, NANA,” MY MOTHER-IN-LAW SAYS to my husband. I imagine her Indian accent lilting in excitement over the phone line. “That surprise trip you were thinking for Dana? For birthday? Well, I did some checking around on my break, just looking, and I found incredible deal. Amazing place, price so low! And best news—price even better if book by the end of today!”
“Well, that’s great, Mom,” my husband says hesitantly. “You’re sure about this place? It’s not too much trouble?”
“No trouble,” she insists. “You busy with work. Leave things to me. Everything great.”
“You really think we can afford this?” I ask my husband, buckling myself into the airline seat. “I mean, it’s sweet and all…”
“Mom totally took care of it,” he says breezily. “She scored us a crazy package rate. When she called with the price, I almost couldn’t believe it.”
“Your mom is downright spooky. She can sniff out the cheapest deals on anything,” I say.
“She’s Indian,” my spouse smirks. “It’s in her blood. Tell an American person they’re cheap and they’ll be offended. Tell an Indian? They’ll smile proudly and say, ‘Thank you very much.’”
“Welcome to Cancún!” says the greeter at the resort. “Complimentary Tequila Sunrise for you?” He hands us cups of a boozy, coral-tinged concoction.