Ticket to Paradise

“Wait,” Carmen interrupted in the middle of me retelling my entire day, in excruciating detail, right after I mentioned Paco and Ricky. “You didn’t tell me that these employees were male.”

“I believe they had penises, yes,” I replied with a smart-ass tone, which only got me an irritated glare in return.

“Were they cute? I need details, Teri.”

I thought back for a second. “Paco was really cute, Ricky was alright. Are you satisfied?”

“Not really, but whatever. Go on. I’ll expect more detail later.”

“I’m sorry. I should have known to stalk these two individuals and take close-up pictures of their faces. I truly don’t know what I was thinking.”

“TERI,” Carmen laughed. “Just go on with your story, will you?”

So I picked up with after the phone call I placed, detailing about how a guy tried to hit on me after ordering an apple martini, which was a major turn-off, and I found that the whole Not Speaking English thing was quite useful on that front. Once I started saying random words in Spanish that actually didn’t make any sense, he looked really confused and bewildered before he turned back to the iPad on the table and typing out a status on Facebook. Probably about me and how crazy Mexican chicks were.

“Have I mentioned that you give me secondhand embarrassment?” Carmen looked completely serious as she asked me that, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “Teri, I’m serious. You could have let him down nicely.”

“But my way was more fun. Plus, he got the message loud and clear. Once he buried his humiliated face in his iPad, I just moved on.”

Carmen shook her head at me. “So was that it, really?”

“Yeah, basically. Most of the day was pretty boring. I’m getting along much better than I thought I would.”

“That doesn’t mean it’ll work forever,” she reminded me unnecessarily. “But it’ll be fine for now. And you’re doing a good job of covering for yourself when you have no idea what to do.”

I nodded and flopped back on my bed. “This is random, but do you know what I could go for right now?”

“What?”

“Red velvet cake frozen yogurt. You know, like the kind they sell at the little place down the street from my house? I have no idea why I just started craving it so badly, but my need is getting to dangerous levels.”

“You better get rid of it,” Carmen snickered, “because there aren’t any frozen yogurt places around here. I think that’s mostly an American-craze thing, with the whole push for losing weight and lowering the obesity rate and shit.”

“So no calling Aunt Elena while she’s out with Isa at her dance practice?”

“It’s a dance class, Teri, and no.”

I let out a long, dramatic sigh and propped myself up on my elbow. “So what else is there to do around here?”

“Do you want to go to the beach? It’s just down the street, maybe a five minute walk. It might be to your benefit, since you’re looking pretty pale.”

I didn’t take her poke as an insult, even if I was supposed to. There was nothing wrong with pale, especially when my pale was about ten shades darker than anyone else’s pale. “But the sun makes me tired.”

“Good. Because you need a nap, Grumpy Pants.”

I almost glared at her, but I refrained, since that would just prove her theory. “Alright, alright. Let’s go.”

About ten minutes later, Carmen and I were dressed in our bikinis, hers a pastel-colored tie-dye and mine a bright orange, bedazzled suit. I pulled on a pair of shorts to wear over my bottoms, just to make myself look a little less offensive, while Carmen decided on a black maxi skirt to wear over hers.

As she’d estimated, the walk to the beach was about five minutes when we cut through her backyard and the yard of whoever lived behind her. Although the neighbors and I hadn’t been introduced, it was clear that my best friend was acquainted with them, since she raised a hand and waved cordially when they stepped out on their porch to see who’d trespassed in their property.

“I’m just stating right now,” I started when my toes hit the soft, powdery sand that was so unlike the coarse sand that covered the lake-side ‘beaches’ back home, “that I’m not going in the water. I do not want to get my hair all wet and tangled.”

“Noted.” Carmen’s tone was lazy as she lied out her towel, promptly stripping off her skirt and plopping down on top of it. “Now stop talking and relax.”

It was clear she was planning on doing just that, since she bent one of her legs upward and put her hands down at her sides, closing her eyes as she basked in the sun.

But I hadn’t taken anything to entertain myself, so if she wasn’t planning on talking to me, then we were going to have an issue. Once I settled, I nudged her side with my elbow and said, “So what do you think Ronnie’s doing right now?”

A violent blush promptly pooled into Carmen’s face as she turned to face me, her eyes squinting as they struggled to adjust to the sunlight. “I don’t care. I’m going to college in the fall, and I don’t have time to worry about that deadbeat anymore.”

Harsh words, but they were well-deserved. Carmen made a promise to me at the beginning of our senior year that if Ronnie, the school bad boy, hadn’t made a move on her by the end of the school year, she’d go up to him and admit how she’d been feeling since the beginning of time. And, as she was always a girl of her word, she did just that at an end-of-the-year party a mutual friend was throwing. He’d just gotten really embarrassed and told her in the douchiest way possible that he didn’t feel the same way and that was actually planning on fucking another girl about ten minutes from then.

“That’s my girl.” Maybe I was mean for bringing it up, but I just liked to reinforce now and then that Carmen was a great girl who was better off without him. Bringing him up when she least expected it was the best way to gauge how sane she still was. I just hoped that she’d find another guy to have a fling with over the summer so she’d forget all about Ronnie.

There was another lengthy silence as I struggled to find something else to talk about. I had no idea what was going on back home, so I couldn’t gossip, and the resort-talk had already been exhausted, since there was only so much one could say from a single day’s work. “Do you think they’re going to pay me in pesos?”

“Don’t be dumb, Teri.”

“So that’s a yes, then? Does that mean that I’ll get more pesos or that I’ll be paid less than I would be in the U.S. because of the exchange difference?”

“I’m going to punch you.”

I took that to mean that she had no freaking clue and didn’t want to talk about it, so I just let out another sigh and crossed my arms over my stomach as I looked up at the sky. There were a couple of white, puffy clouds floating around, passing over the sun every so often, but for the most part, it was a really beautiful day. The sun and heat weren’t as intense as they’d been earlier, since it was closing in on six thirty at night, and it was a welcome change.

“Speaking of Ronnie,” Carmen started, even though we hadn’t been for a while, “do you ever think of what would have happened with Nelson if things had gone differently?”

I shrugged. My ex-boyfriend, who always went by his last name, even with his parents, was no longer a sore subject for me. I’d been crazy for him for the duration of our three-month relationship before he started to get bored and tried flirting with Carmen. Of course, she’d told me immediately, and even though it hurt, I dumped him on his ass without a second thought. Sometimes, I wished that he hadn’t been a dick, but there was no way I was going to be able to change him.

“I think everything turned out the way it was supposed to,” I finally replied, shifting on my towel and moving my arms so they were back by my sides. “I think everything turns out the way it’s supposed to in the end.”