Cover
Dedication
For the ancestors who continue to guide me long after they’ve left this world
Ameera
March 27, 2015, Huatulco, Mexico
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A DC8 droned above.
“Here they come,” I announced. Friday was our departure-arrival day. One sunburnt and grouchy group left for their northern homes, and another cohort, ecstatic and pale, touched down and took their place.
Roberto grabbed a plastic file box and gestured for me to sit beside him. I lowered myself onto the makeshift seat and wiped away a slick of perspiration from the creases behind my knees.
“Ameera, you hear about that tour rep getting fired over at Waves?” Roberto stroked his thin moustache.
“Nancy? Yeah, I’m still in shock.” I hadn’t known her well, but I’d gone clubbing with her and the other tour reps from our sister resorts a few times. She’ d seemed all right to me.
The airplane circled closer, and, in unison, we clapped our hands over our ears and tilted our chins to the sky. After it had rolled across the tarmac and quieted its engines, we resumed our gossip.
“What I don’t get is why someone in their late twenties would want to have sex with a fifteen-year-old.” Roberto shook his head, as though trying to dislodge the idea.
“But didn’t the kid lie about his age? He told her he was eighteen, right?” While I’d never in a million years sleep with a teenager, I could imagine how booze and loneliness could have led Nancy to her mistake.
“Who knows. There was no investigation.” Roberto slouched, his lanky frame folding into itself.
“True. It’s unfair.” It was strange that there hadn’t been an investigation. I couldn’t imagine our cheerful manager, Anita, firing anyone.
“At least we’re gonna get a local boss soon.” Roberto was referring to our company’s recent announcement that it would shift from an Ottawa-based management model to a Huatulco-based one. I was surprised he was raising the subject; we’ d all been skirting it.
“It’ll be strange though — one of us promoted over the others?” Not just strange. Awkward.
“Well, I think it should be Oscar. He’s been working in the industry since he was a teenager.”
“Maybe.” Truthfully, I’d been fantasizing about the promotion since the memo’s arrival. It would make staying in Huatulco for another three years worthwhile. So what if Oscar was way older than the rest of us? I had the best sales record.
I looked at our three co-workers: Manuela, Blythe, and Oscar, who stood listlessly in the glass-fronted airport terminal building. Did they all want the job as much as I did?
Luggage began to circle on the conveyer belt, nudging them out of their collective stupor. They sauntered our way.
“Still no tourists.” Manuela fished an elastic from her pocket and gathered her long black hair into a messy ponytail.
“The customs guys take too long in there,” Oscar said.
“It’s getting bloody late,” Blythe complained.
I checked my watch. We still had to welcome the incoming tourists, pack them onto Oceana’s buses, and offer a perfunctory tour of the stretch of highway between the airport and hotel. When we arrived at Atlantis, our home resort, the vacationers would hold things up at the front desk, arguing for better rooms with king-size beds and oceanfront views. The whole tedious process would take about two and a half hours, provided that there weren’t any lost suitcases, passengers, or other mishaps.
Manuela’s giggling fit interrupted my thoughts. Roberto, a head taller, grinned down at the blush spreading across her face and neck. Oscar, too, looked amused, his mouth tight, his chin jutting out. Even though I’d missed their joke, I smiled along with them. I liked seeing my three Mexican coworkers like this, relaxed and natural, so different from their formal work demeanours.
Blythe prodded Manuela for a translation; neither she nor I were fluent enough in Spanish to understand jokes delivered in double-quick time.
“They’re talking about that lady and her husband who left today. With the big muscles?” Manuela explained.
“Ameera, you know them. They spent a lot of time talking to you at the tour desk.” Roberto flexed his biceps and sucked in his gut. The bodybuilders from Buffalo, Marina and Mike. I tensed, wondering what he’ d seen.
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, trying to feign indifference. Roberto winked at me. Why do people wink? It’s such a stupid gesture.
“A girl shouldn’t get that big. Not natural. Women should have some fat on them,” Oscar opined. Manuela adjusted her skirt, and stood a little taller in her black pumps. Blythe rolled her eyes.
I crossed my arms over my chest and squeezed my soft biceps, remembering how flabby I was in contrast to the bodybuilders’ hard bodies. The previous night, when I’d straddled Marina, pinning her down on the bed, I’d felt foolish, like I couldn’t convincingly carry off the move. But she’ d played along, moaning and groaning while she pretended to struggle beneath my grip. I’d pushed my tongue into her mouth and my breasts against her flat chest. Meanwhile, Mike watched from the sofa, naked, except for a ridiculous lime-green sombrero upon his head.
“Bodybuilding is a very big trend these days,” Blythe said authoritatively, tucking a stray lock of blond hair behind her ear. She had a habit of offering us insights about our Canadian and American tourists, even though she hailed from a small town in England.
“Fea. Ugly. There is your Word of the Week.” Oscar peered over the top of his bifocals at me.
The others laughed — we’ d long ago turned my weekly vocabulary-building exercise into a joke — but I was in no mood for it. I scanned the runway. The plane that had arrived earlier, belching a couple hundred men, women, and children onto the tarmac, was now the site of the departing group’s mass exodus. I squinted to locate Marina’s red coif and Mike’s bright sombrero in the queue. There they were, at the front. I watched them climb the steps and disappear inside the dark of the airplane. When I turned back to my colleagues, Roberto was watching me with a bemused expression.
“Yes. Fea,” Oscar repeated. He rubbed concentric circles into his back. And then, changing the subject as was his tendency, he said, “We need chairs out here.”
“Chairs for us? Never gonna happen,” Blythe sing-songed at him.
“We’ll see,” Oscar blurted. He raised the subject on a weekly basis even though management had told us chairs were not permitted because of some arbitrary airport regulation. “I will bring my own then. Yes, that is what I will do.”
“Finally.” I pointed to the tourists who were now trickling through the baggage area.
The five of us stepped into formation, and a middle-aged man approached our kiosk, his eyes skipping across our reception line of artificial smiles. He focused on Blythe.
“Welcome to Huatulco,” she said blandly, reaching for their documents.
“You’re on Ameera’s bus. Bus Number Three, over that way folks,” Oscar said with forced cheer.
A group of four young men wearing khakis and T-shirts bearing my alma mater’s logo asked about welcome drinks and Manuela promised them that they’d be sitting at an overflowing bar in an hour. I was about to ask them about campus life, but a beverage vendor yelled, “Cerveza fría! Cold beer here!” and the men followed his voice, like lemmings over a cliff.
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