Ticket to Paradise

When Carmen spoke Spanish, she sounded things out for me to make sure I understood and knew how to pronounce them correctly, and I repeated them until I said them seamlessly. And although I only knew how to say a few things, I thought my first day would have been fine.

What I hadn’t been expecting was how quickly they all spoke. I knew I didn’t have to know absolutely every word, that I just had to pick up the gist, but I was having trouble even doing that much. I had to say, “¿Perdón?” so many times that I slipped and said it to a couple of the English-speakers. Although, that kind of did add to the authenticity of it all, so I couldn’t really complain.

When I went back to the bar to get about five million drinks for an over-crowded table, I blew a stray hair out of my face and looked around. Since they sky had opened up that morning, unleashing rain worthy of Noah’s flood all over the resort grounds, all of the tourists were stuck inside, talking amongst themselves and slowly ingesting enough drinks to get them shitfaced by nightfall. Most of them were wearing bathing suits and cover-ups, their hair up in buns or hidden underneath floppy hats, just waiting for the rain to stop so they could dart out to the pool or the beach about ten steps away from the door.

I was so busy watching them critically that I didn’t hear the bartender say something to me, only catching the end of his mumbled statement. So I turned, widened my eyes so I looked innocent and said, “¿Perdón?”

He smiled a little, which made him look about ten times cuter than he already did, and repeated himself. Except I didn’t know a single word he said.

So I used my backup plan and giggled, grinning as I took the tray full of drinks so I could have an escape from the conversation.

Thankfully, God seemed to be in a pretty good mood, and the laugh was definitely the right response to that statement. He looked proud of himself for amusing me as I made my way back to the table of boisterous college girls, who were discussing the large number of attractive workers at the resort.

“I don’t even like fucking Mexicans,” a pretty blonde girl was saying, flipping her wavy hair behind her shoulder as I put a strawberry margarita down in front of her. “They’re usually so short and weird-looking. But some of these guys are hot as hell.”

I swallowed, trying to continue pretending like I didn’t speak much English, since that was clearly what they were counting on.

“I know what you mean,” a redhead agreed enthusiastically, showing off her ultra-white teeth. “Like, that bellhop that took up our bags was totally bangable.”

“Ew, Mandy! He was, like, two feet tall!” another blonde laughed.

“So? His face was movie-star worthy, and I like short guys. Sue me.”

“Is all?” I asked with my perfect accent after I put down the last drink, forcing my face to stay completely straight and dumb-looking.

“Yeah, yeah,” the first blonde mumbled. “Gracias.”

I nodded before moving on to an elderly couple, who just wanted two glasses of ginger ale. They looked sweet together, probably celebrating their four-hundredth anniversary together or something, and I couldn’t help but smile as I walked over to the next table.



Because my morning went so smoothly, I felt incredibly confident as I stepped into the break room for lunch. I’d wanted so badly to invade the buffet where most of the guests picked their lunch items from, but I’d been told explicitly during my interview that employees weren’t allowed to eat there.

Though, the break room was really nothing to sneeze at, so to speak. We had a smaller buffet area to ourselves, filled with all kinds of traditional Mexican foods that I wasn’t very familiar with, and there were a bunch of tables where the staff congregated and spoke really fluent, really fast Spanish to one another.

Just for the language barrier alone, I almost skipped out on lunch to hide out in the bathroom, which was actually incredibly spacious and beautiful and probably more expensive than my whole house back home. I would have done it, too, if my stomach hadn’t been growling for the past hour and starving it further wouldn’t have led straight to disaster.

So I filled my plate with the foods that looked the best and scanned the faces quickly to try to find somewhere to sit. I felt like a kid at the first day of high school, where everyone had their cliques and best friends all picked out, and I was just a weirdo trying to encroach on their territories.

I didn’t make eye contact with anyone, which I decided was probably the best thing, and I started heading for the back corner, which was completely deserted. At least if I sat alone, I’d be able to spit out any strange food I didn’t like without anyone judging me with questioning glares.

“Ay, camarera,” someone called out.

WAITRESS. I was so excited when I realized that I knew the word that I could have kissed anyone who walked by me. But instead, I controlled myself to turn in the direction of the exclamation, and I found the friendly bartender waving to me, a guy to his right looking less than thrilled.

Oh, how embarrassing. I really didn’t want to go over there. But all I could hear was Carmen in the back of my head, nagging at me that I’d chosen to take the impossible job, so it was the least I could do to pretend to be social and friendly with everyone.

“Hola,” I greeted shyly as I sat down, hoping to God they didn’t say anything too complicated at me.

“Hola,” the two boys chorused back with small smiles on their faces.

“¿Cómo te llamas?” the bartender asked in a friendly way, but it took me way too long to figure out what he’d just said.

Right. My name. I knew that. “Teri,” I answered simply. “¿Y Uds.?”

“Paco,” the bartender answered, followed by a bunch of other unintelligible words before he pointed to his friend and said, “Ricky.”

I nodded with a smile before starting to eat, hoping that the questions would end there.

And, somehow, Paco was able to read my vibe and started conversing with Ricky about something to do with the beach, I thought, glancing over at me every so often to make sure I was still involved in the conversation. Whenever he made eye contact with me, I just nodded and put some food in my mouth to avoid speaking or laughed when they did to make it seem like I was totally enthralled with the conversation.

After I finished eating all my food, which was way more delicious than I thought it would be, I escaped into the bathroom and pulled out my cell phone to check in with Carmen.

“Hello?” she answered, and her voice was quickly followed by the longest, highest-pitch scream I’d ever heard in my life. “Sorry, that was Isa. She’s a little energetic today.”

“Clearly,” I commented shortly. “But I just wanted to tell you that I’ve been doing pretty well so far. I even ate lunch with actual employees who spoke only Spanish throughout the whole thing without tipping them off that I didn’t have a single clue what they were saying.”

“Great job, Teri. You’re doing me proud.”

I laughed shortly before running a hand through my dark hair, examining the reflection in the shiny bathroom door. Which struck me as kind of creepy, actually, since I didn’t consider myself the kind of person who liked to see my reflection while I was peeing. But whatever worked for the owners of the resort.

“So what time do you think you’ll be home?” Carmen asked conversationally, almost with a bored tone.

I wanted to point out that her family’s house was not my home, but before I could get out a word, she exploded and screamed something very angry-sounding in Spanish. That was enough to make me keep my mouth shut. “My shift ends at five, so I’ll probably be there a bit after that. I have to get a cab, right?”

“Yeah, that’d be easier, and it’s safer for you than taking a bus you wouldn’t understand the directions of. You still have the address, right?”

“It’s programmed into my phone,” I assured her. “So I’ll call you when I’m leaving. Have fun with Isa.”

“I’m going to kill this child,” she whined into the phone, and I could almost see her lower lip sticking out in a dramatic pout. “But I’ll do my best to survive. I expect you’ll do the same.”

“Of course.”

“Bye, Teri.”

I hung up the phone and took a deep breath before stepping out of the stall, thankful to find the bathroom still empty.

“And back to my post I go,” I muttered as I slipped out the door, letting it fall closed behind me.