sometimes. But some tourists I quite enjoy.” I ogled him, and he matched my steady gaze.
By the time our third drink was delivered, I was aglow from alcohol and attention. I suspected that Sebastiano had been asking for doubles, because the cocktails tasted more rummy than usual. It was resort policy to water down liquor to counter our guests’ overindulgence and therefore reduce their accidental death liability.
“So, a pretty girl like you … you must have a boyfriend?” Serena stole the tiny cocktail spear from my glass and sucked on its pineapple chunk. The evening had progressed as I’d hoped.
“So?” Sebastiano persisted.
“No, no boyfriend … and no girlfriend, either.” I filched Serena’s cocktail spear, held it up in victory, laughed too loudly.
“Ah, so, you’re, how you say it in English … flexible,” Sebastiano quipped, waggling his eyebrows and taking a sip of his piña colada. White froth coated his upper lip. I wanted to lick it off.
“Yes, flexible is one way to put it,” I replied.
“Just like my wife, sí, Serena?”
“Sí.” Serena nodded.
∆
I awoke in the dark, sandwiched between the Italians, damp from sex and sweat. The clock radio glared 3:07, shocking red numbers. I didn’t normally do sleepovers; I couldn’t sleep well with strangers. Just before I’d drifted into unconsciousness, a sheet was draped over me, a soothing palm stroked my lower back, and I’d succumbed.
I crawled my way down the centre of the bed. Without rousing, Sebastiano rolled into the empty space. He nudged his pelvis into Serena’s lower back, and she reciprocated by shifting closer to him. Sensing that my absence barely mattered, I was tempted to sneak my way back into the heat between them.
In the darkness, I sorted through a pile of hastily discarded clothing and identified the cotton of my sundress. In the lit laneway, I inspected myself in a window’s reflection, combed my hair with my fingers, and fastened a button I’d missed. Walking away from the Italians’ villa, I sensed I was wearing the wrong underwear.
The resort was quiet at that hour, its inhabitants tucked neatly away into their beds, inhaling and exhaling the warm pre-dawn air. I slowed my gait. Without its daytime merriment, Atlantis almost resembled a sleepy rural village, like those on the Swiss tourism posters that hung in my old travel agency. I descended a staircase that led to the main restaurants and bar, pausing halfway to survey the landscape. To my left, the surf crashed against the shore and wind rustled the leaves of a tall palm tree. A small green lizard darted across my path. With my mind still hazy from the booze, I squinted and imagined the land before it was expropriated, before it was called Atlantis, when its inhabitants were Mexicans: verdant farms, thatched buildings, rolling hills.
I continued on, tripping over a poorly laid pavement stone. The path that intersected the main boulevard was under construction and a barely visible CUIDADO sign had been posted on a nearby fence. Beside it was a small hand-written note that read: CONSTRUCTION. I crouched and looked more closely at the jagged rock that had caused my stumble. Each flagstone was unique, differently shaped and sized, and fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. It looked to be slow, painstaking work.
A few minutes later, I passed the security station, and lowered my gaze. After almost three years, the officers could recognize me and the other foreign tour reps, even in the dark. They could tell stories about when this-one-or-that-one arrived home drunk in a taxi, or leaning on a guy she’ d just met, or weaving, all alone, down the long driveway. Foreign tour reps were known for that sort of thing and in contrast, I lived a pretty quiet existence.
I looked up, met the security guard’s eye. I considered Oceana’s online complaint about me, and its mysterious sender. Worry rippled across my belly.
Azeez
∞
I pocketed Nora’s phone number and deposited my keys on the cluttered dining table. No one was home to bid me farewell that afternoon.
On the way to the airport I jabbered non-stop about my new life in India. I told the driver about my academic job, and joked about how my mother, in that very moment, was searching for my wife. He was an older man, pink from the early summer sun, and a good listener. It was extravagant, but I left him a five-dollar tip.
At Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, I took my place in the long queue and fiddled with my passport and tickets. There were large groups of Indian families, some in Western garb, most dressed semi-formally as though about to attend a fancy party. I wore jeans and a T-shirt, and I’d packed a kurta to change into before landing. After almost half an hour in the snaking lineup, I checked my bags and was lucky enough to get an aisle seat. I hoped there wouldn’t be a bawling baby nearby or a seat-kicking child behind me.
At security, I watched tear-stained goodbyes. Relatives and friends clung to one another, gave good wishes, kissed cheeks. Family clusters split apart as passengers passed through security and their kin remained on the other side of the glass. Many of the travellers were teenagers, students who had likely just finished their term and were on their way to vacations with adoring grandparents. In one family, a father was the only one not travelling, in another, both parents. I wondered what it would be like to send one’s children away, even if only for the summer holidays. Were my parents bereft when they dropped me off five years earlier?
I knew that in less than a day and half, after one stop in London and a connection in Delhi, they would be at the Bombay airport to greet me — my parents, sister, and brother. We’ d have to squeeze into the car as we’ d done since we were youngsters. How much had they changed since I’d left? My younger brother had joined my father’s law firm. My little sister was already twenty-three, a young teacher, and recently engaged. I’d missed all the steps in between the days of their carefree youth and their solid adulthoods.
Thrice an announcer called out a delay and apologized for the inconvenience. The mood at the departure gate turned impatient, skittishness wrinkling the ladies’ silk saris and the men’s polyester suits. The children, oblivious to the adults’ unspoken anxieties, skipped and ran and laughed, the airport an adequate playground. One little girl wore a Brownie uniform, with a dozen badges sewn to her sash. She whirled through the terminal like a dervish, her brown skirt flying up around her thighs.
Dull pain pooled across my forehead from the previous night’s shenanigans, so I used the last of my Canadian currency to purchase aspirin and a cup of tea. I heard the words my mother used to soothe me: fikhar nahi. Don’t worry. I smiled, buoyed by the notion that I’d soon be home, amongst my relations.
Ameera
∆
Five hours later, I was dressed in a fresh uniform and ready to assist eighty-three crocodile-seekers onto their buses. I stood by the resort’s driveway, inhaling the warming asphalt, checking off names and collecting excursion coupons. As I watched the buses drive down the road toward the Tonameca Lagoon, I realized that Serena and Sebastiano were not along for the ride. Interesting.
∆
I hadn’t expected Manuela to be at the tour desk when I arrived there later. She was a staunch believer in Sunday as a day of rest. For her, church was good for the soul, but more so a venue for meeting nice single men. She’ d offered to take me to the Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe for both
