Nothing comes up. I take a breath of relief now that Iknow there’s not some hot model girlfriend draped in Gucci waiting in a mansion back home.
But does it really matter anyway? I’m not going to start dating abillionaire. Not when my life looks likethis.
“Drink up, fuckers!” Leah shouts as she stands up on the bus seat in the front and chugs a beer. “I’m getting married!”
“I’m getting a migraine,” Dad says and I snort out a laugh.
Everyone is cheering, except for us and the bus driver who’s giving the bride shit and asking her to sit down. Leah just ignores him and then falls into the aisle like a sack of potatoes when he takes a turn a little sharper than necessary.
We arrive to more chaos at the resort. There’s an unruly crowd of cranky tourists trying to check-in with only two overwhelmed workers at the reception desk to do it. Our group just adds to the pandemonium.
“Bride coming through,” Leah shouts, wobbly on her feet as she pushes and elbows her way up to the front.
Some people already in line take issue with that and they start going at it with Leah, mouthing off to each other. Taint tries to hold Leah back when it looks like it’s going to get violent and that really sets Leah off, and the bride and groom have a shouting match in front of everyone.
The whole thing is a disaster. It takes us over an hour and a half to get our room cards and everyone is starving and in a foul mood by the time we do.
Dad asks where to get a bellboy and of course, there aren’t any. We lug our bags over to our room, passing the massive pool on the way.
The music is ear-piercingly loud and the DJ keeps shouting unintelligible things into the microphone, making it even worse. All the chairs are taken and there are wet towels laid out on every inch of available concrete. There are towers of empty cups stacked everywhere and cigarette butts litter the inside of the plants and flower boxes. I look in the pool and cringe when I see a bandaid floating in the water.
It’s horrible. Worse than we thought.
“I guess this is what $449 gets you,” Dad says, looking ready to leave.
I’m sharing a room with Aunt Jennifer and it’s as disappointing as you could imagine. My view is a brick wall and the bed is as hard as a rock, the stained sheets like sandpaper. I don’t even want to unpack and have my stuff touching anything in here, so I just leave it all in my suitcase and meet my parents in the hallway so we can go get something to eat at the buffet.
We finally get a seat in the noisy buffet of chaos. The family next to us are in their wet bathing suits. The mom is wearing a G-string bikini bottom with no cover-up.
The food looks hazardous too. You can get anything you’d like—salmonella, norovirus, ebola. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next pandemic outbreak will originate here.
We get some bread and a few boxes of cereal—too afraid to touch anything else—and sit down. Dad is outraged.
“We have to go through all this and they’ll be divorced in three months,” he says, picking his dinner roll apart like it’s made of cyanide.
“Maybe marriage will straighten both of them out,” Mom says in a hopeful tone.
We both stare at her stone-faced and she sighs. “Yeah, that was silly.”
Aunt Jennifer comes rushing over when we’re almost done.
“What’s the matter?” Mom asks when she sees her sister’s ashen face.
“The wedding is off,” Aunt Jennifer says.
“Thank Christ,” Dad says way too loud. “I mean, oh no, what happened?”
“Leah blew up. She’s in a taxi on the way back to the airport.”
Dad smiles for the first time today. “So, we can leave?”
“I guess so,” Aunt Jennifer says, holding her elbow.
Mom gets up and comforts her while Dad stands up, grinning from ear to ear.
“I’ll call the airline and get us on the first flight out of here.”
I pull Adrian’s business card out of my pocket and slide it through my fingers, thinking. “I’m going to stay here, Dad.”
