Sunsets of Tulum. Mr Raymond Avery Bartlett
made each toe look topped by a tiny seashell.
Reed stared at her as she slowly took in the hotel and pool grounds, seeming to commit the setting to memory as if she were going to reconstruct the scene later in her mind. When her gaze fell on Reed he tried to force his eyes away but couldn’t, holding his breath as if he’d been suddenly pushed underwater.
Reed reached for his drink and realized it was gone. When he looked up again, the girl’s attention was elsewhere, drawn to something on the beach or in the stairwell. She reached into her bag, unwrapped something and tossed it down out of sight to whatever hungry animal was below. Reed assumed it was a dog, maybe the same one he’d seen before. Dipping from the sky as if it had been shot, a seagull disappeared behind the wall, reappearing moments later with a tortilla in its beak. The piece flopped like a yellow sardine as the bird flew away.
She tossed a second piece down the stairs.
“If you keep doing that the stray will just follow you all day,” the rich-looking girl said.
“I know, Cecily,” the third girl replied. “But I’m going to feed it anyway.”
“You could walk up and down the beach for a million years and not help every dog.”
“I’m not trying to help every dog. I’m helping that one.”
“Just wait until it gives you rabies.”
Only when the girl was near enough for Reed to smell the piña colada of her sunscreen did he notice that her left arm hung strangely against her side. Just below the line of the T-shirt, Reed could see a band of skin pinched in around the bicep a little too tightly, making the contours of the wasted muscles beneath clearly visible. It was as if someone had placed a cable-tie around her arm and then pulled it tight. Some kind of childhood injury, Reed thought, or maybe a birth defect. The way she carried herself was so natural that he might never have noticed the injury had he not been staring.
“Is it okay if we visit the loo?” the tall girl asked the waiter, wincing as if to apologize for the intrusion. So that was why they had come, Reed thought. To scam a bathroom visit in the ritzy hotel.
The boy seemed confused. “You are here to see Mr. Loo?”
“The bathroom,” Reed interjected. “They need to use the bathroom.”
The waiter placed the drink on the table, then shook his head.
“I’m sorry. Bathrooms are for guests only.”
“What, should we just pee in the fucking pool?” the rich one said.
The man seemed unmoved.
The tall girl winced again. “Please? We’ve got to get the bus back to Tulum, and it doesn’t have a bathroom either.”
“They’ll only be a second, Carlos,” Reed said, reading the name tag.
“The access is locked to prevent theft.”
Reed fished in his pocket and pulled out a plastic card. “Then they can use my key. Hell, they can use my bathroom if they like. Room 1114.”
“But if they go to a room, security might—”
Reed laughed. “If they take anything, I’ll pay for it.” He turned to the girls. “Just go.”
“Thank you so much,” the tall girl said, reaching out for the piece of plastic. She winked at Carlos. “Shhh!”
The third girl approached and stood directly in front of him, her hips in line with Reed’s head. “Can you watch our stuff? While I steal the hotel diamonds?”
“Only if you split it, fifty-fifty,” Reed said, feeling his face flush, conjuring something witty to his tongue.
She smiled and then followed the other two, the thumb of her left arm hooked casually into the pocket of her shorts. Reed shifted in his seat and stared, praying she would turn around just once more, hit him just one last time with another flirty glance. She did. God. He felt his chest constrict, and he reached again for the cold cocktail glass just to have something to do with his hands.
He took another long sip of the new drink. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on the table and let his eyes drop to the girls’ stuff before him.
Neither bag had any obvious clues as to what the girls’ secrets were—no condoms or tampons or birth control pills. No medications. No visible money. A book blocked most of the view inside, but he could still see the tops of two bottles of sunscreen, Coppertone 30 and a Mexican discount brand of unknown SPF. A small towel, blue terry cloth and a flower pattern. The strap of a cellphone with a small Hello Kitty on it. They had to be college age at least to be traveling alone. It simultaneously thrilled and depressed him to think that if they were college freshmen he would be more than twice their age. A well-thumbed issue of Cosmo, the same one his wife was reading. Reed hoped that it didn’t belong to the brunette. He thought of how the dark-haired one had smiled at him just long enough for him to think that she meant it.
“Thanks,” the tall girl said, surprising him, already back. He hoped he hadn’t looked as if he were snooping. She handed him back the key card. “You’re a lifesaver.”
She bent down and began to lift the bag, but lost her grip on one handle and it dropped. The stuff balanced on top fell off sideways, sending the camera and the third girl’s bag to the floor, spilling the contents, scattering things under the table. There was a soft splash. Several coins rolled out across the cement, stopping eventually in ever-tightening concentric circles, a few dropping into the water and sounding like rain. The digital camera bounced off the hard terra cotta and came to rest near Reed’s left foot. Without the book to act as a stopper, the tiny purse emptied: a Pandora’s box of random tiny things onto the ground. Movie ticket stubs, coupons, two hair bands, a small comb, a foil and plastic package of small pills that actually did look like birth control, a wad of money that was not U.S. dollars and was not Mexican pesos. Euros?
“Shit,” the tall girl said.
“Wow,” Reed said, standing up, steadying himself on the table before moving to help. “Looks like you set off a grenade.” They looked at each other. She giggled.
“Right?” He said, miming pulling a pin and tossing an imaginary incendiary over the pile. “Boom! Stuff all over the place?”
The other two girls pushed open the bathroom door, saw the mess, and came running over.
“What happened?” the peroxide blonde said.
“It was all my fault,” Reed said, interrupting her. “I tried to hand it to her and somehow I just knocked the bag over. I’m sorry.”
“He’s just being nice,” the tall girl said. “Saintly. First the bathroom, now taking the blame….” She touched his shoulder briefly.
Reed realized she was flirting with him and wished it were the enigmatic brunette instead. But the brunette was just standing back, watching casually, not seeming to care that her stuff, along with the others’, was strewn over the cement.
“Damn it, Sharon,” the short blond said. “You dropped my camera? If it’s busted you’re going to pay for it.”
“Hah,” Sharon snorted. “If it’s broken just ask Daddy Warbucks to send you another.”
“If you broke it, you fix it.”
“If I’m buying you a new camera you’ll be getting a one-time disposable. Something that fits my budget. Or…what, you think I should turn tricks on the corner to pay for it?”
“Did you even turn it on yet?” the third girl asked. “Stop bickering. It’s probably fine.”
They waited as the other girl hit the power switch. Reed heard the telltale electric whine of the autofocus.
“Does it work?”