Ticket to Paradise

I sighed and put the visor I was forced to wear into the locker I was assigned on my first day of the job. Although I loved working at the resort, working twelve hours straight had not been fun, and I had no desire to do it again. More than anything, I looked forward to getting back to Aunt Elena’s house, collapsing on my bed, and sleeping through my entire day off.

As I packed up, I repeated to myself about a million times that I would be home soon enough and would get off my aching feet, which was probably the only thing keeping me from collapsing right then and there.

Then, just before I escaped out the front door, I heard male voices calling to me. I turned to find a couple fellow waiters coming after me with looks of total glee on their faces.

One of them said something quickly, and I blinked, trying to pick out a word I knew from it. But I came up blank, so I replied with my go-to catchphrase: “¿Perdón?”

The second waiter laughed, probably thinking that I was getting angry instead of genuinely confused, and handed over a long broom, saying something about the new girl. And then they were gone, joking and giggling back and forth, leaving me stuck with a broom and a hot temper.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they stuck me with, so I dragged the tool behind me all the way back to the theater, grumbling under my breath about how there was no amount of money in the world that was worth staying an hour extra to clean up after rich tourists.

But I did it anyway because I was too new of an employee to complain, and the sweeping was probably some kind initiation process. It was better than running through the woods naked, anyway, so I had to take what I could get.

I’d finished sweeping about three rows, picking up pieces of trash and empty glasses as I went, when I heard a door close and a voice call, “Ay, chica. ¿Hablas inglés?”

I straightened with wide eyes and turned to look at the source of the noise: the attractive male dancer from earlier. I coughed uncomfortably, blushing like crazy and thankful for the dim lighting of the environment, before nodding.

“Great,” he replied with almost no accent whatsoever. “I may be Mexican, but talking to so many English-speakers makes me more comfortable with a foreign language. Crazy, no?”

I laughed and shrugged. “Nah. There are weirder things on this Earth.”

He grinned at me before taking one of the seats I’d already cleared. “You don’t really look familiar to me. What’s your name?”

“Teri,” I replied. “I just started a little over a week ago. I usually work as a waitress in the lobby.”

“That would explain why I don’t know you.” He nodded understandingly before running his hand through his hair, making it stand up even straighter. “I’m one of the guys who run activities down at the pool and the beach.”

“Our paths would not have crossed,” I agreed simply before sweeping down another row. “You were great in the show, by the way. You’re definitely a talented dancer.”

“So you are the waitress I caught watching us instead of doing her job.” I raised my eyebrows, but he put his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I’m not judging. I’d do the same thing if I were doing your job. It’s gotta get tiring, no?”

“It does,” I agreed with a shrug, “but it’s not a big deal. I’m still functioning enough to clean the theater, so I’ll make it.”

“They always do this with the people who work in here for the first time,” he explained, confirming my previous thought that it was an initiation thing. “You’re lucky it didn’t get too trashed with this show. One of the things we do is like, um, a mock pageant thing, except we get guys from the audience, and they have a beer drinking contest, where they have to drink the beer as quickly as they can out of a glass through a straw.” I could tell the boy was on the brink of hysterical laughter as he told the story, so I stopped and watched him, leaning against the broom. “And this guy had way too much to drink already, and sucking down that one beer did him in, and the second he finished, he turned to his left and puked all over the guy next to him and the stage. It was disgusting.”

Although he said it was disgusting, it looked like the experience brought him quite a bit of joy, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “That is disgusting.”

“The poor girl who had to clean that up that night.” He shook his head sadly. “I feel for her. But she made it, so it’s fine.”

“So do you make a habit of talking to whoever’s cleaning the theater after the show…?” I trailed off at the end of my question, since I realized that he hadn’t told me his name, even though I’d given him mine.

“Johnny,” he filled in. I had to admit, I was surprised, which may have been a little racist, but I’d really been expecting him to have a Latin-kind of name. Unless Johnny was a nickname for something, but I couldn’t think of any Latin names that could be shortened to Johnny. “And only the ones who can speak English, honestly.”

“But you do speak Spanish?” I tried to clarify.

He nodded. “Like I said, I grew up here. I’m just growing less familiar with the language, since I live alone and have had to adapt to speaking to the tourists, who are mostly from the U.S. I think you’ll understand what I mean when you work here longer. Although, your English is really good.”

Again, I thanked everyone I’d ever met in my entire life that the theater was so dark as I felt myself flush with embarrassment. “Thank you,” I replied. “I had some very good teachers in school.”

“You’re lucky you knew it when you got hired,” he responded. “I knew barely any, so I tried to teach myself by sitting down and watching trashy reality shows from the States during all my free time.”

Oh, dear lord. That would teach him all the wrong words to say. “How did that work out?”

“Not so well. I failed so horribly at communicating that Paula enrolled me in English classes and told me that I couldn’t come back until I learned the basics. Then, from there, I watched more English television, and I’ve improved a lot over the years.”

“Years? How long have you been working here?”

“I started when I was seventeen as a busboy, I think they’re called, and I was promoted to a waiter a couple weeks after I turned eighteen. But now I’m twenty, so I’ve been here for a while.”

“No wonder your English is so good.” I chuckled and started sweeping again. Johnny was so easy to get along with and talk to that he was making it increasingly difficult to do my job.

“Right,” he agreed before leaning over and checking the watch he wore on his wrist that I hadn’t noticed until just then. After reading the time, his eyebrows rose a little bit, and he slapped his thighs as he got to his feet. “Okay, Teri, it’s been lovely talking to you, but I have to head home now. Good luck with your cleaning.”

“I’m sure I will,” I replied with a fast wink. “Goodnight, Johnny.”

“’Night.” And with that, he was gone, slipping out the door and letting it fall closed behind him, shrouding me in almost complete darkness.

When I finally made it back to Aunt Elena’s about an hour later, having done kind of a half-assed job on the theater after Johnny left, Carmen tried her best to question me what had happened, since she claimed I was flushed. “You told me that you were staying late to do more work, but what kind of work were you doing, exactly?”

I snorted a little, too tired to laugh fully. “You know what, Carmen? I will tell you absolutely anything and everything you want to know about my life and your life and Joe Shmoe’s life in the morning. I will fill you in on the meaning of all human existence, if you want, but it will have to wait until I have at least ten and a half hours of sleep.”

“What if you don’t even remember in the morning?” Carmen whined as I climbed under my covers and pulled up the comforter over my head.

I thought about that for a second. My memory was pretty bad, but I didn’t think I’d forget Johnny so easily. “I swear I won’t. We will talk later. Goodnight.”

“Fine,” she groaned, but I barely heard the word before I fell asleep, my entire body aching with exhaustion.