“Why don’t you go to the teen club? They’re making piñatas at ten. Bracelets at eleven. Might be fun.”
Amber rose from the lounge chair. “Okay.” Her mother grinned, seemingly pleased with how little resistance Amber gave her. But honestly, Amber would do anything to escape her parents for awhile.
The teen club was located off the lobby. Amber opened the door and peeked inside to find a bunch of twelve and thirteen years olds braiding each other’s hair and slurping virgin daiquiris. When the staff member asked her if she wanted to join, she shook her head. “No gracias.”
Then she headed back outside to the atrium and sat in a large wicker chair near the koi pond. She squinted into the distance, trying to see beyond the resort’s high walls and into the side streets where people were living their lives.
A staff member stopped her to take a drink order. Amber was primed to ask for a rootbeer when a thought occurred to her. “Is it safe to walk outside?”
“The resort is very secure,” he said.
“No. I want to go outside the resort.”
He smiled kindly—the sort of look you gave a child. “We can call you a cab to the shopping district.”
“That’s okay,” Amber said, returning his smile. “I’ll just have a rootbeer.”
“Very good, miss.” But, when the man would return, Amber would not be there.
No one prevented Amber from leaving the resort. It wasn’t prison, after all, no matter how claustrophobic she felt.
She stopped at the street corner and took note of the names on the signs so she could find her way back. Avenida Norte and Avenida Cruces. Then she crossed the street. She wouldn’t venture far, she told herself, just a quick walk.
Even so, her heart beat ferociously inside her chest. Her brain swam with the president’s voice decrying “drug dens” and “rapists on every corner.” Yet, all Amber saw were vendors and construction workers. Someone’s grandma hanging laundry to dry. A little girl pedaling a wobbly bicycle. A teenage boy listening to music on his phone as he waited for the bus. In fact, the entire area was so full of mundane life that Amber could hardly feel terrified. Whatever she’d been warned against, it certainly wasn’t out here.
Amber walked further down the street where she spied a large banner featuring Pepsi-Cola for 30 pesos. She popped into the store, which advertised sodas and candies—some brands she recognized, others she did not. A woman in a tight red T-shirt stood behind the counter. Spanish music blared from a portable radio behind her. The woman cocked a dark brow, but said nothing. Amber opened the fridge in the back of the store, which was about the size of the Fishman’s kitchen, and grabbed a soda bottle that advertised “hecho con azúcar” on its label. Real sugar. She brought it to the register. The woman recited a number in Spanish, which to Amber’s delight, she understood perfectly. Except, she only carried American money.
At first Amber stuttered, trying to find the Spanish vocabulary to ask if she could pay in dollars. The woman patiently waited. She didn’t jump into English like the resort staff did in order to save Amber the embarrassment.
“En dólares?” asked Amber.
“Dos dólares,” the woman replied, grinning, and holding up two fingers.
Amber smiled too and fished the money out of her pocket. She twisted the cap off the bottle—it hissed like a cobra—and gulped the liquid, acidic and sweet. Stifling a burp, she left the store, and wondered where to turn next, when fingers curled tightly against her wrist.
“Naughty girl,” Julienne purred. “Out alone.”
Amber flinched. “I thought you’d gone home.” She sounded accusatory, edging on hurt, and she blushed. The girls spent one afternoon together. Julienne owed her nothing.
“I’m sorry I bailed on you.” Julienne wrapped her arm protectively around Amber’s shoulders and squeezed. “Ale and I were hanging out.” She lifted her golden hair off her shoulders and fanned the skin on her neck. “I might ditch school all together and move here sooner.”
“Really?” Amber sipped her soda. The plastic bottle quickly warmed in the heat, the moisture making her hands slick. Julienne gestured for Amber to follow and she led her down a side street that opened up to a tiny park. A worn wooden sign read, “El Parqué de María Luisa.” It was nothing more than a swath of green grass with a few benches and a swingset, but some kids had gathered, eating mangos and popsicles, their faces smeared in orange and red as they talked to each other. Amber smiled. She understood them. Or understood most of what they said. Kids spoke so much more simply than adults.
“My dad will be livid,” Julienne continued. “But he’ll get over it. He’s in Paris so often, anyway.”
“Wow.” Amber’s biggest defiant moment was probably going to La Esmeralda Cove, or this, right now. She checked her watch. “I should head back.” She rose from the bench, trying to get her bearings.
“You want to come to a bonfire tonight?” Julienne asked. “It’s a half-mile down the beach.”
“I don’t know.”
“Ale’s going and he’s bringing friends.” She sang the last part, and it warmed Amber. She imagined telling Michelle or Hayden about sneaking off to a bonfire on a Mexican beach to meet boys. “I can’t believe you did that,” they would squeal. Then they’d invite her to sit at their lunch table or text her details for a party they were going to.
“Okay,” said Amber. “I’ll go.”
Julienne stood up now, stretching her tanned arms over her head. “I’ll meet you there. Just turn left at the resort cabana and walk until you see the flames.” Her eyes shone. “It’s going to be epic.”
After lying to her parents (“I didn’t see a party listed on the teen club schedule,” Mrs. Fishman said), Amber hustled to the beach, finding it easier to walk along the water where the sand thickened than toward the shrubbery. The sky was still lit, the sun clinging to the horizon as if refusing to go to bed.
She squinted in the distance and located a campfire, not quite the massive flames she had initially imagined. A group of kids no older than her encircled the pit, most of them clutching cans of Sol beer. Amber used her hand to shield her eyes from the setting sun and look for her friend. She’d purposefully left late, so as not to arrive early and wander around like some awkward loser. But, it hadn’t mattered for Julienne was not here.
A boy passed her a can of beer, not quite ice cold, but cool against her skin. He prattled to her in Spanish and her cheeks flushed. She barely understood a word. He pointed to himself and said, “Enrique.” She told him her name. Enrique then called out to the crowd. Amber heard him distinctly say “Americana.”
She settled onto a thick piece of driftwood and sipped the beer, feeling stupider by the moment. She’d been ditched. And by a stranger. Finally, fingers tapped her shoulder and she sighed, expecting to see Julienne, but instead she found Alejandro.
“Julienne’s friend,” he said, sliding next to her on the makeshift wooden bench. He wasn’t dressed in his resort uniform, but rather in denim shorts and a green polo shirt that highlighted the gold in his eyes. He was handsome. Amber couldn’t deny him that.
“Yeah,” she replied.
“You know her from the States?” he asked, his eyebrows arched.
She shook her head. “I met her here.”
“El Pelicano?”
“No,” she said, confused.
He pointed in the distance toward the shoreline. “I work at the resorts on this beach, rotating through them. Most of us do.”
Amber wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she simply said, “Oh.”
Ale shook his head, then made a circular motion around his ear. “Be careful. Ella es loca.” She’s crazy.
“That’s not a nice thing to say about your girlfriend,” Amber said quickly. Then she winced. “Sorry.” She wanted to slap her hand across her mouth. Filter, Amber, filter.
But Ale laughed. “Is that what she told you?”
Amber didn’t nod. It was what Julienne had to
ld her, but Ale’s question made her feel stupid. Perhaps the fault was Amber’s—she didn’t know these people. Maybe, she was the idiot for taking people at their word.
Frowning, she sipped more of the beer. It tasted bitter, but she was thirsty, so she drank it anyway.
“Want another?” he asked.
Amber shrugged, and Ale took that as his cue to fetch her a can. She watched the circle of kids grow with time, the minutes running together in a haze of alcohol. She recognized the pretty girl from housekeeping, the one she saw at both the Tesoro Playa and La Esmeralda Cove.
Amber’s eyes trailed the shrubbery that cut the mangroves from the beach. She stared at the figure of a blonde peeking her head out from one of the resort paths. Amber stumbled to her feet, trying to get a better look, raising her hand in a wave because it must be Julienne. There weren’t too many blondes here. But after blinking away her blurry vision, the girl wasn’t there. If it had been Julienne, then Amber was definitely and properly being ditched.
No one that matters, Julienne had said.
Ale never returned with the beer. Instead, he went up to the girl from housekeeping and put his hands around her waist. He drew her in and she giggled, pressing her hand against his chest. He kissed a patch of skin below her earlobe.
What a flirt.
So, what was all Julienne’s talk about moving here to be with him? Just talk? Amber couldn’t imagine spouting such bullshit all the time, and with confidence too. It made her skin crawl, like whatever compelled Julienne to lie might rub off on Amber if she wasn’t careful.
Amber felt like a voyeur watching Ale and this girl. Her heart thrummed inside her ribcage, like a timer waiting to ring. A strong sensation propelled her to leave, before Julienne arrived. If she arrived. What game was she playing?
Amber got to her feet, chucked the empty beer can into a trash barrel, and made her way back to the Tesoro Playa. She felt buzzed and weird, and worried her parents would notice.
Ale called out to her, “Tell Jules I’ll see her around.”
“Tell her yourself,” Amber yelled back. “We’re not friends.”
Amber slept fitfully that night. Her gut rolled from beer and lack of dinner. She longed to return home. This wasn’t her style of vacation. Killing time with food and swimming. Trying to deal with flaky girls. Watching boys who couldn’t make up their minds. This was no different than Jersey. This was not the Mexico she signed up for.
Eventually, she slipped out the hotel room to buy Tylenol from the gift shop. She then got an iced coffee and a palmera and headed to the beach. At this time of the morning, she could watch the pelicans dive for fish and revel in the quiet. If she closed her eyes and listened to the lapping waves, she could pretend she was on a Brazilian beach. Or a Mallorcan one. Wasn’t that the story of her life? Always wanting to be some place else.
But when Amber arrived, a crowd had gathered. Some were resort guests, but most were staff members from La Esmeralda Cove. Amber recognized their gold uniforms. They hovered around, many crying. Some of the guys screamed in Spanish, their anger directed at a man in a black uniform with Policía stitched on the arm. Other officers attempted to push onlookers away from—Amber squinted—a body.
Waves lapped the brown legs of a boy in jean shorts and a green polo. His arm extended out to the side, the white sand stained in red.
Blood.
She gasped.
Alejandro.
Amber’s stomach sank into her legs. She tossed her pastry into a nearby shrub and gently tapped a woman’s shoulder, an older guest already in her bathing suit and cover-up.
Amber whispered, “What’s happening?”
The woman eyed her. “A local boy was found. Stabbed to death.”
“Jesus,” Amber breathed.
“The police are looking for a teenage girl.”
Amber could barely breathe. “Who? A local?”
“An American. Jenny March.”
Jenny?
“Some kid from Pennsylvania. Her parents are booked at another resort, but she’d slipped into the Tesoro to use the pool. One of the housekeeping girls gave the police a description.” The woman squinted at her now, eyes roaming over her face, sizing her up, perhaps thinking she was the girl. She wasn’t, of course, but Amber knew who was.
Amber’s throat constricted. “Where’s Jenny now?”
“Who knows? Police are looking for her, or anyone who might know her or where she might be hiding out.” She cocked her brow. “Do you?”
Amber violently shook her head, and held up her wristband. “I’m here with my folks. They can vouch for me.” Her voice trailed away.
The woman softened. “Don’t let this sour your vacation, dear. Sometimes, crazy stuff happens.”
A boy was murdered. This wasn’t about lost luggage, or a forgotten dinner reservation.
Amber slogged back to the pool chairs, collapsing into one. Should she contact the police, tell them what she knew? Except, she didn’t know anything but the lies Julienne, or Jenny, had told her. She’d gotten Amber a piña colada, and sneaked her into a resort—that was it.
A man stopped by asking her for a drink order. “Agua,” she creaked out.
Her father’s shadow loomed over her. “You all right?”
Amber swallowed a lump, still stunned. “She said her name was Julienne and that she was nineteen. That her father was from Paris.” Amber stared at her father. “She lied.”
And a boy is dead.
“A lot of people on my business travels lie when they’re away from home,” he said. “To some, it’s a game.”
“To others?”
“It’s an escape.” He laid down on the chair next to her, and put his hands behind his head. “But that’s the thing. You’re still you no matter where you go.” He smiled, oblivious to his daughter’s distress. “Now, where is the waiter with my drink?”
Peach Party Dress
The Bitch Clique glares at me. I'm wearing my peach party dress, the one my mom picked out at the department store. The only dress, she’d said, that didn’t make me look like I’d escaped from an insane asylum.
I lean my shoulder against the trunk of a sickly maple tree, scraping my nails down the diseased bark while the girls titter at my bare legs and the boys suck their teeth and wag their brows in my direction. They both want me—just different pieces.
I stand under the tree canopy in a sea of dappled sunlight as the girls hover near the banquet tables, their heels sinking into the soft, green grass. Waiters in white jackets push trays of mini quiches and grilled meat in their faces, but they wave their hands away, each one trying to prove that they don’t have to eat. Well, I do. I’ve had about a hundred of those things.
The boys, in seersucker jackets, set themselves slightly apart as they pass a rolled joint between them. Whispers trail from their lips to my ears.
Poor, Teddy. Do you think he’ll make it?
Nah. Dude’s a vegetable.
Poor Teddy is right. He’s the only one worse off than me. Mainly because he’s in a coma from a hit-and-run. Police still haven’t caught the driver.
A breeze curls up the hem of my dress directing my thoughts elsewhere. Elliot MacIver glances my way before the sky, which is a bright, lascivious blue, steals his attention. It’s the same color as his eyes and tie.
It's obvious to anyone in the sophomore class that I'm not welcomed here. The invitation arrived a week ago. My mother plucked it from the mailbox and held the thick cream paper between her fingers. “See? I knew she wouldn't leave you out.” But, initially, she had.
Rebecca Green had lobbed details of her sweet sixteen over my head for the past month. She pretended like she was telling Melissa Gunner some new tidbit about her custom dress (“real crystals on the bodice”) or the decorations (“three-feet high floral arrangements in hand-painted teapots”), but I knew Melissa had been privy to this information the whole time. More than likely, Melissa helped select the theme (“a tea party—
so charming”) and insisted the boys be invited too.
“I’d invite you,” Rebecca had cooed at me one day in English class. “But it would be awkward. I mean you've screwed half the guys on the lacrosse team.” It’s not true, of course, not that she cares about facts.
Somehow my mother must’ve guilted Mrs. Green into an invite because the envelope arrived by the eleventh hour, and the next morning I was forced to confront Rebecca by her locker. In front of the Bitch Clique, I thanked her for the invitation and said I’d be happy to attend. Actually, I rather enjoyed that last part.
But now, I’m stuck at this shitty party while my mother has surrounded herself with the other moms in white hats and floral dresses. They can’t stand her, but she’s too oblivious to notice. They’re talking about Teddy, too. How his mother can’t get out of bed. How she might take him off the ventilator. How if she had only picked him up from work, he wouldn’t have tried to walk home on a moonless night.
I watch Elliot break away from his pack of wolves and swipe a mimosa from the beverage table. He checks to see if his mother is looking. I glance at the group of middle-aged women throwing back Champagne like water. Elliot’s mother is in the center, her dark hair piled on her head like a bird’s nest. She isn’t paying attention to her son nor will she care. The mimosas are for us—apparently it’s totally acceptable to imbibe teens with alcohol as long as it’s served with orange juice and presented in flutes. Elliot’s mother doesn’t see him dip the contents of his flask into the glass.
Everyone thinks I’m screwed up, but Elliot can’t function without using something to dull the edges.
Ashley Thompson sidles up to Elliot and rubs her hand down his bicep. She's wearing pink and it clashes with her red hair, a dye job. She used to be blonde like Rebecca and Melissa. But then again, so was I. A few years ago, my hair naturally transformed into the color of dry dirt, perhaps to match my eyes, but I haven’t done a thing to improve it, despite my mother’s protests. Ashley whispers something in Elliot’s ear and giggles. He laughs too, but his eyes dart in my direction. He wants to make sure I see this.
Mean Streaks Page 4