The mid afternoon sun beat on my head as I walked back to the hotel, an old converted villa at the edge of the village. It sat on a long peaceful beach covered with perfect white sand.
Maria was in the cool garden behind the old building. She had ordered a large pitcher of ice-cold orange juice and as I sat she poured me some. I stared at it. Moisture condensed on the outside of the smooth glass and ran down onto the tablecloth, like dying white corpuscles.
“Roberto!” she said impatiently.
I grunted. She nibbled on my ear. She was sensuous and hated to be ignored.
But still I ignored her.
“Hey!” she said grabbing the collars on my shirt. “Why so glum? Somebody die?”
***********
Maria was a sweet girl. She wanted to go home with me. She dreamed of shopping at Sack’s 5th Avenue, eating in fine restaurants, drinking champagne and spending lots and lots of money. I tried to explain that back home I was only a poor freelance journalist and could not support a high maintenance chica with a fetish for French shoes and silk sheets. Even though I owned a nice little loft in So Ho, I did not have a car, an Aloe plant, goldfish, or an urge to commit.
“But think of all the fun we could have together!’
“Making babies?”
“Not right away, but someday.”
“I’m allergic to baby shit.”
“He could grow up to be the President.”
“It’s a shitty job too.”
I met Maria at a hotel in the capital where she organized tours for people too lazy or frightened to go anywhere on their own. She read the magazines tourists left behind. She said she believed in me. I was a great writer who would win a Pulitzer and make lots of money selling my memoirs and giving motivational seminars all over the world. A pox on People Magazine and a double, triple pox on Opra and Dr Phil.
We’d been in Puerto Escondido about one week. I’d finished my assignment for The New York Times and decided to take a holiday with Maria, before heading home.
“I don’t know why we didn’t rent a car?” Maria whined as the noisy old school bus descended from the cool highlands into the sweltering coastal plain, heading for Puerto Escondido. The road was dusty and full of potholes.
“It’s an opportunity to see the real people of your country,” I told her. The truth was I’d worked out a budget for the trip. We could stay at a nice little hotel but the car was out.
The man in the seat behind us held two chickens tied by their legs and the woman in front had a baby pressed to her brown breast, feeding it when it cried. Dust flew in the open windows and the air grew close. Maria sulked until I opened a book and started to read, and then she wanted to talk. She can’t stand being ignored.
During the Christmas Season, servants Jane Meyers and Alfie Dawkins search for missing persons from opposite sides of the social spectrum: a homeless man and the Duke's son.
