“Biggest regret of my life,” he replied.
“I don’t know how doing it on an iguana even ends up on a person’s—”
“Stop talking. It doesn’t matter. It’s on the list now.” Trey was quite determined to convince her thatlovemaking on an iguana did indeed belong on a person’s list, and Catalina ran out of any additional arguments. She was easily converted into thinking her husband was full of the best ideas and there was nothing better on Earth than having public, adventurous sex in the early morning sunrise. She’d even go so far as to invent a new cocktail called Sex on an Iguana, which she imagined would be some kind of kiwi mojito thing. Coming up with creative signature cocktails wasn’t a good idea when a person didn’t have access to drinking water.
Luckily, Trey was there to distract her. He did it handily as she panted and moaned and begged him to just give it to her. She no longer cared who saw them, including the iguanas, as she was excited and turned on by the whole thing. Trey was happy enough to do just that. Turned out this was quite a pleasant way to travel.
While slow, the giant reptile traveled at a constant pace as though he had a regular standing engagement to get to, and soon they had arrived at the edge of the resort.
It appeared all the iguanas of the area had a breakfast appointment every day because they all gathered at one of the hotel’s back areas where there was a large bowl waiting for them filled with scraps of vegetables and fruits. Instead of stray cats, this spot supported stray iguanas. She was reassured by the items inside the bowl because it implied iguanas were vegetarian, which meant Cat and Trey were relatively safe from being attacked should they be noticed.
“I think we should go down and have some breakfast,” her husband said, getting up. “I’d rather avoid starving for as long as possible.”
She pressed a hand to her own stomach. Catalina was hungry as well, but the idea of eating what appeared to be kitchen scraps, plus the somewhat unappealing musty scent in the air of what she imagined old food, put her off. Although it didn’t put her off too much. When her stomach rumbled, kitchen scraps became more of a gourmet meal with every passing minute. What if she turned up her nose this time, and it was a while until they found another opportunity?
“Do you think it’s safe down there?” Maybe the iguana wouldn’t eat them, but there was always the danger of being stepped on. It was hard to leave the relative safety of the iguana’s back haunches, even if it made her similar to a flea on a dog. She was getting the appeal of it.
“We’ll be careful. Come on.” He took her hand, and together they made their way down the gentle slope of the iguana’s back end until they were low enough on the tail that they could jump off. They ran underneath the middle of the iguana toward the bowl of food looming in front of them, a promise of an all-you-can-eat kitchen scrap buffet. Her fear of missing out on eating something propelled her sore legs and made her less worried about dying. Because screw it, she was going to eat some old red cabbage, and no one was going to stop her.
It was even better when they discovered a small puddle and were able to use some of the water fora quick cleanup. It wasn’t the same as taking a long, warm bubble bath, but they at least looked somewhat cleaner than they had been before.
Some of the vegetables had sloppily fallen outside the perimeter of the bowl, and soon they found themselves standing in front of a cabbage leaf the size of a pirate sail. Reaching up, they each broke off a large chunk. She was happy to discover it wasn’t slimy, as she’d feared. Though dry, the leaf was crisp. Taking a greedy bite, the crunchiness exploded in her mouth in a satisfying way. Catalina never considered the light peppery flavor of red cabbage to be worth writing home about, but it was one of the most delicious things she’d ever eaten. Perhaps even in close competition with the empanada.
They took turns ridiculously grinning at each other as they continued snapping off bits from the cabbage and hungrily consuming it, neither one caring how feral they appeared. They were in absolute bliss, the emotion enhanced after discovering a drop of clean water within a small portion of a leaf, providing something to slurp up and quench their thirst. An euphoric feeling of joy blasted through her as if they were having the luckiest of days. Spending the morning having sex on an iguana and then feasting on discarded vegetable scraps in the back area of a Cancun resort became one of her top ten ways to start a day. If this were a tourist excursion, she would rate it eleven out of ten stars. Catalina was about to suggest to Trey that they find themselves a nice local seashell and live here for the rest of their lives. This was a different kindof happy ending she’d never expected to find.
She was so involved in her breakfast she barely noticed the pair of black work shoes that had appeared beside the wall of the resort and the glowing flakes of ash smelling of cigarettes falling nearby. There was a conversation happening in Spanish, and Trey did his usual thing where he bumped an elbow into her and said, “What are they saying?” as if she could magically act as a translator simply because she’d been trying hard to learn the language.
The old feeling of inadequacy snuck in. While she was becoming better at understanding the language through text, understanding words verbally required a great deal of concentration on her part and remained something of a frustration. The pressure to instantly understand something caused her brain to freeze up, followed by a feeling of failure. Besides, she was more concerned about filling her belly and replied with a shrug of her shoulders. “What difference does it make?”
“Maybe they’ll say something that we need to know or will be helpful. I think you understand more than you realize.”
She chewed thoughtfully while pondering her husband’s suggestion. She appreciated he hadn’t asked her to translate for his own amusement or to poke fun at her for not understanding Spanish well enough after spending a great deal of free time attempting to learn. He seemed completely earnest in his belief that she did understand the language. Trey had more faith in her abilities than she did, whichseemed to be a common occurrence in their life.
“Okay,” she said and did her best to listen to the conversation, using all her concentration to focus. At first, it was difficult because, from her tiny position, the words sort of echoed around her. It wasn’t easy to decipher them even if they were speaking a language she was fluent in. Plus, she put a lot of pressure on herself to understand and already felt frustrated, wanting to shout,Slow down!All she could pick up were a few words here and there, likecocinaandplatos. She guessed they were talking about something to do with the kitchen, but maybe she was wrong and they were talking about something else entirely.
It wasn’t until she’d mostly given up and was passively listening when things started to click and her attention was caught by the wordsuna mujer extrañaandchaquetasomethingflores. Again, they could have been talking about any number of things, but she turned to Trey and said, “They’re talking about a strange woman and a jacket with flowers…or a flowered jacket…something like that.” So far, this didn’t appear to be information that would be helpful to them.
“The woman who checked us into the timeshare thing yesterday had a flower jacket,” Trey said. “Do you think they’re talking about her?”
“Maybe. It’s a tropical vacation place. Lots of people wear things with flowers.” Catalina only vaguely remembered the woman Trey was referring to. “Besides, that wasn’t a jacket. It was like a weird lab coat or something.”
Trey shrugged while taking another bite of food. “Looked like a jacket to me.”
Yeah, because he was a guy who didn’t notice subtle garment differences—kind of like the men having a smoke break. “Okay, but did she seem strange to you?” Catalina wished she had paid better attention yesterday in the ballroom instead of spending the time pouting against the ballroom wall.
Her husband tilted his head in thought. “She did ask a lot of odd questions, like how much we weighed and if we had any medical conditions.”
“She did?” Wow, Catalina had missed out on a whole lot of weirdness then. She went back to eavesdropping. “I don’t know. They’re saying something about Carmen telling them about a strange woman in an office or something. She was on the floor. The floor of the office?” She was convinced she had this all wrong. Maybe she didn’t understand the conversation at all, or they were talking about someone else entirely, and it had nothing to do with the dark-haired woman in the lab coat. This was pointless and—
Then she heard a phrase that made the men laugh as though talking about something ridiculous but stopped her heart. “Mono del diablo.”
“What?” Trey asked, looking confused. “Devil? What’s mono?”
“Monkey. Devil monkey.”
“Ha! That’s exactly how I would describe—”
They both froze and stared at each other, exclaiming at the same time, “Buddy!”
