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So many girls, I’d thought. Why am I trying to find just one?
Palacio Maya, another of the faux-Mayan resorts on my hit list, is a few kilometers north of here. We putter up the highway, breathing in the fumes of the passing tour buses and trucks. This time, we stash the moped in some flowering shrubs along the winding manicured road that leads to the front gates. Palacio Maya looks a lot like the Maya del Sol, only instead of a monolithic wall, it is fronted by a giant pyramid, with a guard gate in the middle. This time, I’m ready. In Spanish, I tell the guard I’m trying to find a friend of mine who’s staying here but I want to surprise her. Then I slip him a twenty-dollar bill. He doesn’t say a word—he just opens the gates.
“Twenty dollars,” Broodje says, nodding his head. “Much classier than a couple of beers. ”
“It’s probably what a couple of beers go for in a place like this. ”
We walk along the paved roadway, expecting to find a hotel, or some evidence of one, but what we find is another guard gate. The guards smile at us and call buenos días, as if they’re expecting us, and by the way they’re appraising us, like they’re cats and we’re mice, I see the other guards have called ahead. Without saying a word, I reach into my wallet and hand over another ten.
“Oh gracias, señor,” the guard says. “Que generoso!” But then he looks around. “Only there are two of us. ”
I reach back into my wallet. The well’s dry. I show my empty wallet. The guard shakes his head. I realize I overplayed it back at the first gate. I should’ve offered up the ten first.
“Come on,” I say. “It’s all I have left. ”
“Do you know how much rooms here are?” he asks. “Twelve hundred dollars a night. If you want me to let you in, and your friend, to enjoy the pools, the beaches, the tennis, the buffets, you have to pay. ”
“Buffets?” Broodje interrupts.
“Shh!” I whisper. To the guard I say, “We don’t care about any of that. We’re just trying to find a guest here. ”
The guard raises his eyebrow. “If you know guests, why you sneak in like a thief? You think just because you have white skin, and a ten-dollar bill, we think you are rich?” He laughs. “It’s an old trick, amigo. ”
“I’m not trying to sneak anything. I’m trying to find a girl. An American girl. She might be staying here. ”
This makes the guard laugh even harder. “An American girl? I’d like one of those, too. They cost more than ten dollars. ”
We glare at each other. “Give me my money back,” I say.
“What money?” the guard asks.
I’m furious when we get back to the bike. Broodje, too, is muttering about getting ripped off that thirty dollars. But I don’t care about the money, and it’s not the guards I’m mad at.
I keep replaying a conversation with Lulu in my head. Then one when she’d told me about Mexico. About how frustrating it was to go to the same resort with her family every year. I’d told her maybe she should go off the grid next time she went to Cancún. “Tempt fate,” I’d said. “See what happens. ” Then I’d joked that maybe I’d go to Mexico one day, too, bump into her, and we’d escape into the wilds, having no idea at the time that this silly aside would become a mission of sorts. “You think that would happen?” she’d asked. “We’d just randomly bump into each other?” I’d told her it would have to be another big accident and she’d teased back: “So you’re saying I’m an accident?”
After I told her that she was, she’d said something strange. She’d said that me calling her an accident might be the most flattering thing anyone has ever said about her. She wasn’t simply fishing for compliments. She was revealing something with that honesty of hers, so completely disarming it was like she was stripping not just herself bare but me, too. When she said that, it had made me feel as if I’d been entrusted with something very important. And it also made me sad, because I sensed it was true. And if it was, it was wrong.
I’ve flattered lots of girls, many who deserved it, many who didn’t. Lulu deserved it, she deserved so much more flattery than being called an accident. So I opened my mouth to say something nice. What came out, I think, surprised us both. I told her that she was the sort of person who found money and returned it, who cried in movies you weren’t meant to cry in, who did things that scared her. I wasn’t even sure where these things were coming from, only that as I said them, I was certain that they were true. Because improbable as it was, I knew her.
Only now it strikes me how wrong I was. I didn’t know her at all. And I didn’t ask the simplest of questions, like where she stayed in Mexico or when she visited or what her last name was, or what her first name was. And as a result, here I am, at the mercy of security guards.
We ride back to our hostel in the dusty part of Playa del Carmen, full of stray dogs and rundown shops. The cantina next door serves cheap beer and fish tacos. We order several of each. A couple of travelers from our hostel roll in. Broodje waves them over, and he starts telling them about our day, embellishing it so that it almost sounds fun. It’s how all good travel stories are born. Nightmares spun into punch lines. But my frustration is too fresh to make anything seem funny.
Marjorie, a pretty Canadian girl, clucks sympathetically. A British girl named Cassandra, with short spiky brown hair, laments the state of poverty in Mexico and the failures of NAFTA, while T. J. , a sunburnt guy from Texas, just laughs. “I seen that place Maya del Sol. It’s like Disneyland on the Riviera. ”
At the table behind us, I hear someone snicker. “Más como Disneyland del infierno. ”
I turn around. “You know the place?” I ask in Spanish.
“We work there,” the taller one answers in Spanish.
I put out my hand. “Willem,” I say.
“Esteban,” he answers.
“José,” says the shorter. They’re a bit of a spaghetti-and-meatball pair, too.
“Any chance you can sneak me in?”
Esteban shakes his head. “Not without risking my job. But there’s an easy way to get in. They’ll pay you to visit. ”
“Really?”
Esteban asks me if I have a credit card.
I pull out my wallet and show him my brand new Visa, a gift from the bank after my large deposit.
“Okay, good,” Esteban says. Then he looks at my outfit, a t-shirt and a beat-up pair of kakis. “You’ll also need better clothes. Not these surfer things. ”
“No problem. Then what?”
Esteban explains how Cancún is full of sales reps trying to get people into those resorts to buy a timeshare. They hang out at car-rental places, in the airports, even at some of the ruins. “If they think you have money, they’ll invite you to take a tour. They’ll even pay you for your trouble, money, free tours, massages. ”
I explain this all to Broodje.
“Sounds too good to be true,” he says.
“It’s no too good, and it is true,” José answers in English. “So many people buy, make such a big decision after just one day. ” He shakes his head, in wonderment, or disgust, or both.
“Fools and their money,” T. J. says, laughing. “So y’all gotta look like you’re loaded. ”
“But he is loaded!” Broodje says. “What does it matter what he looks like?”
José says, “No matter what you is; only matter what you seem. ”
I buy Broodje and myself some linen pants and button-up shirts for next to nothing and spend a ridiculous amount on a couple of pairs of Armani sunglasses from one of the stalls in the touristy section of town.
Broodje is aghast at the cost of the glasses. But I tell him they’re necessary. “It’s the little details that tell the big story. ” That was what Tor always said, to explain why we had such minimal costumes in Guerilla Will.
“What’s the big story?” he asks.
“We’re slacker playboys with trust funds, renting a house
on Isla Mujeres. ”
“So, aside from the house, you’re pretending to be you?”
The next day is Christmas so we wait until the day after to set off. At the first car rental agency, we’ve practically rented a car by the time we realize that there’s no one there offering us a tour. At the second car rental agency, we’re met by a smiling, big-toothed American blonde who asks us how long we’re in town for and where we’re staying.
“Oh, I love the Isla,” she purrs after we tell her about our villa. “Have you eaten at Mango yet?”
Broodje looks mildly panicked but I just give a little smile. “Not yet. ”
“Oh,” she says. “Does your villa come with a cook?”
I just continue to smile, a little bashfully this time, as if the largesse embarrasses me.
“Wait. Are you renting the white adobe place with the infinity pool?”
Again, I smile. Little nod.
“So Rosa is the cook there?”
I don’t answer, I don’t need to. An embarrassed shrug will do.
“Oh, I love that place. And Rosa’s mole is divine. Just thinking about it makes me hungry. ”
“I’m always hungry,” Broodje says, leering. She looks at him quizzically. I give him a discreet kick.
“That place is very expensive,” she says. “Have you ever considered buying something down here?”
I chuckle. “Too much responsibility,” says Willem, Millionaire Playboy.
She nods, as if she too understands the burdens of juggling multiple properties. “Yes. But there is another way. You can own, and have someone else take care it for you, even rent it out for you. ” She pulls out glossy brochures of several different hotels—including the Maya del Sol.
I glance at the brochures, scratching my chin. “You know, I heard about such an investment for tax-sheltering purposes,” I say, channeling Marjolein now.
“Oh, fantastic moneymaker and money saver. You really should see one of these properties. ”
I pretend to casually glance at the brochures. “This one looks nice,” I say, flicking a finger at the Maya del Sol brochure.
“It’s sinfully decadent. ” She starts telling me all the things I know about the place, about the beach and the pools and the restaurants and the movie theater and the golf. I feign disinterest.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Oh, at least take a tour!” She’s practically pleading now. “You could even do one today. ”
I heave a big sigh and allow my eyes to flicker toward her for a brief minute. “We’d planned to see the ruins. That’s why we’re renting a car. ”
“I can arrange a free tour of the ruins for you. ” She reaches for another brochure. “This one goes to Coba, and you swim in a cenote and go on a zip line. I can throw that in for you two. Gratis. ”
I pause, as if considering it.
“Look, you can go, spend the day. ” She beckons me closer. “Don’t tell them I told you but you could even spend the night. Once you get past the gates, you’re in. ”
I look at Broodje, as if seeking his permission to do the girl this favor and take her tour. He gamely plays along, giving me a put-upon look that says, well, if you must.
I crack a smile at the girl and she positively beams in return. “Oh, fantastic!” She starts to write us up the paperwork, all the while chatting about the tour we’ll go on. “And when you get back on the Isla, you must go to Mango. The brunches are to die for. ” She looks up from her paperwork. “Maybe I can take you. ”
“Maybe,” I allow.
“Will you still be here for New Year’s?”