“What kind of timeshare thing did you drag usto, Trey? Is that really what it is?”
“I don’t know. Do you think that woman has something to do with us and Buddy and that strange room?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Can’t you ask these guys to help us out?” he asked, the food being forgotten at this point.
“How am I going to do that? They can’t even hear us or see that we exist!” She couldn’t stop the one bright spot of pride flicking through her chest because Trey had been right. Catalina understood more than she realized, and maybe she would get a hold on the language after all. It felt like an amazing achievement.
“We need to find her. She’s the only option for us right now. Where is she?”
“I don’t know. From what I can gather from the conversation, she might still be here. Maybe if we get inside the hotel, we can somehow find her.” Even though this plan reeked of impossibility, at least it gave them some sort of plan. They could worry about practicalities later.
“Maybe we can ride our iguana friend to the reception desk,” Trey suggested.
“You think they’re going to let an iguana wander around the inside of the resort? And how could we even direct it to go in a certain direction? With our luck, it’ll take us back out to the beach.”
“Bribe it with food?”
She gave him a flat look because how in the world were they going to be able to rig up something like a carrot on a stick? They had no resourcesexcept for their clothes, which were quickly turning into rags. It was frustrating that it took forever to get from point A to point B. What used to take them minutes to travel when they were normal size now took them days, even if they knew exactly where to go. By the time they got to their destination, the strange woman who was looking for the devil monkey could be gone. They needed a faster mode of transportation.
“What if we go with your first idea?” she asked, pondering the possibility.
Trey tipped his head in confusion. “What first idea?”
“We ride their feet?”
“But we don’t have dental floss to lasso onto their feet hair.”
“We don’t need to lasso anything. They’re wearing shoes, and that guy’s laces are hanging down. We can grab that and at least get inside the resort quickly.” She looked to her husband for confirmation on this plan. “Do you think we can do it?”
His face lit with the confidence and smile she loved. “I think we can do anything.”
New energy surged through her because they had a plan and full stomachs. Hope emerged. Together, she and Trey raced toward the one black work shoe with laces draped to the ground. They leaped on a single lace, latching on, and began the arduous climb upward. Having more upper body strength, Trey was faster, but he frequently reached to provide assistance to her. It was similar to climbing a rope in an obstacle course, except the weave in the shoelace providedareas to grip onto with her hands and feet. In her normal everyday life she avoided heights, and somewhere in the back of her mind she worried that riding someone’s feet might be similar to flying. Beyond this, though, she also felt like an absolute warrior, grunting with effort and pushing her muscles to work for her. The higher they ascended, the easier it got. It was less of a climb straight up as the shoelace curved across the upper part of the shoe.
They’d almost made it to the top when the first movements began. Her fears were valid This was worse than flying. It was a blast of movement before an abrupt halt. The first part stole the breath from her lungs, her hair whipping about her head. The second part made her afraid that she’d shatter her teeth from gritting her jaw so hard. She gripped onto the shoe, worried she’d fling off and get hurt. There was little reprieve in this method of transportation. Compared to iguana traveling, if this was a tourist excursion, she’d give it zero stars. It was more appropriate for extreme adventurers like those who want to swim with sharks or go bungee jumping off a skyscraper.
The only part she liked was Trey hauling her to his chest, wrapping himself around her, and providing extra security at their position on the shoe. “Hold on!” he said and kept telling her, “I’ve got you. You’re okay.” She believed him. He was the only man she trusted to have her.
At first, she kept her eyes squeezed shut but eventually cracked one open. They were inside of the building. The environment was noisier. Music playedon a radio somewhere. The air was filled with busy chatter. The words overlapped and echoed, so there was no way she could use her newly discovered skill of translation. There was the clatter of dishes. The ground was covered in flat, smooth, squared tiles all evenly spaced, and there were lots of greasy chrome fixtures above the floor.
“Kitchen?” she said to Trey.
“Yeah, seems like it.”
She had no time to say or think anything beyond this, as their shoe ride was on the move again. All she could do was hold onto her husband for dear life.
Chapter 23
Sasha
Sasha sat in the resort dining room with a plate of scrambled eggs, pastry, and a variety of fruit consisting of cut up honeydew, cantaloupe, and the occasional green grape. She didn’t know why she grabbed the latter from the buffet since honeydew always tasted like flavorless water and she barely liked cantaloupe. After being awake for most of the night, she was moving on autopilot and was lucky she functioned this well. Somehow she managed to take a shower and put no thought into her attire, accidentally putting on the same clothes as the day before.
After a lot of frustration and being no closer to any kind of discovery on what happened to the missing couple, she made the hard decision to schedule her travel arrangements and meet the rest of the team in Belize. While the feeling of guilt gnawed away at her, it also felt like she was wasting her time.
Sasha wished she could be as cavalier as the higher-ups at the company who shrugged their shoulders at the whole situation. It was as if there was an age-old saying of,If a shrinking accident happens in aCancun resort but no one notices, did it even happen at all? Apparently, the answer was no. If Trey and Catalina were fortunate, maybe the couple’s story would end up in the last five minutes of a news segment of some kind of unsolved mystery, where the only evidence was the unclaimed baggage left in their hotel room.
Sasha couldn’t help feeling bad for the people who would miss and mourn them. She tortured herself further, while picking at her breakfast, by scrolling through whatever public social media accounts she could find them on. They both were active on Instagram. While Catalina’s account hadn’t been updated for a while, there were photos of her cooking with children and at some kind of fundraising event she had attended with her husband. Trey also had images of him with kids, but more in a school setting. Plus, there were lots of pictures of Catalina in different parts of Los Angeles. In any selfies together, they were usually kissing, plus the one or two photos of him making a funny face. They were close enough to her own age they all could have been friends if they had ever crossed paths.
