That day, we stayed at the island a little later than usual and had a mid-afternoon happy hour snack to accompany our two-for-one drinks. A large plate of Thai meatballs with sweet chili dipping sauce and another plate of loaded nachos along with two rounds of mojitos filled our bellies until our 8:00 dinner reservation.
We showered, changed, and met up in the lobby. Beckett looked tan and relaxed in his khaki pants and polo shirt, and I marveled at the idea that this man could maybe actually be the one. My mom must have been thinking the same thing, because she looked at us as we hugged hello and said, “You two look like you belong in a travel magazine. You could be one of those honeymooning couples whose pictures are so beautiful that timeshare resorts use them in their pitches.”
“Is that so?” I laughed.
“She’s not wrong. Well, not about you anyway,” Beckett said, eyeballing my dress. “You look unbelievable tonight.” It wasn’t anything like last night’s dress; this was just a green maxi dress that I got from Target, which I paired with my white wedge sandals. But he looked at me as if I was wearing a designer gown, like I was heading to an awards show instead of an island dinner with my mother.
“Well, thank you,” I replied. “You don’t look half-bad yourself.”
We were seated at our table in the open-air pavilion. The swimming pools were lit up neon purple, blue, and green, and a steel drum band was playing lively music on a newly assembled stage. Our menus offered a wide array of options, including fancy drink specials and festive desserts. Beckett ordered the snapper; I got seafood linguine, and Mom got chicken carbonara. Just after our drinks arrived, Beckett said, “I have something for the two of you.”
“Oh?” Mom asked.
“It’s just a little something to say thank you.”
“For what?” I wondered.
“Well, for everything. You probably don’t realize this, but when I met you both in the airport, I was looking forward to this trip but was honestly more nervous about it than anything else. I mean, I was traveling alone out of the country to get away and change my headspace. The holidays are hard for me. But you both have made this holiday season one that I’ll never forget. So, I’m grateful. And I got you these.”
He slid a pair of small, flat, matching white boxes across the table. Mom smiled at me, that same, knowing smile, the one that saidthis guy’s a keeperwithout saying a single word. “Thank you, Beckett,” she said. “But you have to know, the pleasure has been ours.”
“Agreed,” I chimed in. “Still, this is very sweet of you.”
We opened the boxes. I held up a thin, delicate silver bracelet and inspected it. Across the middle was cursive writing, the words BON BINI engraved in a long, thin rectangle of silver. Mom had the same thing in her box.
“In Aruba, the language is called Papiamento. It’s like a Caribbean mix of Dutch and Spanish, I think. Anyway, bon bini means welcome. And I can’t think of a better word to describe how you’ve both made me feel on this trip.” He cleared his throat. “They’re just a little token, but I hope you like them.”
Mom looked at me, her eyes wide. A smirk played on her lips. “I know this is probably a little premature, but I hope to Jesus that you marry this guy,” she said.
“Mom!” I whacked her on the arm. “I’m sorry,” I said to Beckett. “This is really beautiful. Thank you.” I held my wrist out to him. “Put it on me?”
He smiled. “Of course.” Beckett fiddled with the clasp and affixed the bracelet to my right wrist, then followed suit for my mom’s bracelet.
We dined then. We laughed. We talked about New Year’s Eve traditions and how Mom and I really didn’t have any. Beckett was similar; he’d been to Times Square once to watch the ball drop with his parents when he was about ten years old, and that was more than enough for him. “It was so cold,” he explained, “and I was tired. And then we had to take the Long Island Rail Road home. Not fun.”
I nodded. “We were just fine watching the ball drop on TV.”
“Same. After that, I became pretty boring about New Year’s.”
“Well,” Mom explained, “here in Aruba there are all sorts of fun traditions. At 10:00 p.m., they’ll be lighting the pagara in the square.”
“What’s a pagara?” Beckett asked.
“It’s this tradition where they set off a zillion firecrackers to ward off bad spirits. It’s supposedly quite the spectacle.”
“Do you want to go out to the street to see it from there?” I asked.
Mom shook her head. “No, we’ll be able to see from the front of the hotel. It’s part of the program for tonight.”
“I like that idea: chasing away the bad spirits from the year before,” Beckett said. “It sounds so hopeful.”
“New Year’s always is,” I agreed.
Mom wasn’t wrong: the pagara was asight. It was a good thing she didn’t want to watch it from the main road, because the square was so full I honestly don’t know how we would have made it up there. They said it was about a mile worth of firecrackers. As they went off, the crowd cheered, music blared from speakers in the square, and it was easy to feel like this was the only place on earth worth being.
Around 11:30 p.m., we were behind the hotel by the pool, watching the New Year’s Eve show—a gorgeous group of dancers wearing peacock-like outfits, all sparkles and feathers, whose bodies looked surreal as they moved in time with the music. They were like art in motion, a whirlwind of color and sound and aura, dancing on the stage and among the people. The dancers approached different patrons sitting at their tables, and of course, it took no time before my mother was up on her feet, being spun around by a man in shiny purple pants with a matching vest and no shirt underneath. Beckett held his hand out to me. “Care to dance with me?” he asked, and my heart melted as I nodded.
We swayed to the music, bopping, two-stepping, and spinning our way toward midnight. Everything was smiles and laughter, a soundtrack of promises the new year had in store for us. I looked over and saw—of all people—Hugodancing with my mom. He used one hand to hold a fruity beverage and the other to twirl her around under the twinklylights. She threw her head back and laughed as he sang along to the Spanish lyrics.
