“You’re really going to stick with this separate vacation thing, Cat?”
“What Ineedis space. Are you going to give it to me or not?”
“I’ll give you whatever you want, but…” What was he supposed to say? The defensiveness, the wall, was resurrected between them again. A moment of frustration flared inside his chest because everything felt stacked against him. “Fine. I’ll leave you alone. You can have your space.”
Unexpectedly, her face fell, her gaze dropping. Perhaps she wanted him to keep fighting, but he was tired of it. What exactly did she want from him? He kept trying to give it all to her, every bit of himself, and she hadn’t wanted any of it.
“I looked it up,” he added. “The presentation we need to go to is at 10 AM tomorrow in Ballroom A. We’re going to that. Together.”
Her stance hardened again, but they both knew she’d make good on her word. “Fine,” she replied. “I’ll meet you there.”
After breakfast the next morning, as promised, Catalina waited for him in front of Ballroom A. Part of the room was set up with chairs in an audience and single speaker layout. There was a large monitor on the wall and, for some reason, posters of space. The other half of the room was set up with small tables and chairs, some of them already occupied.
“Hi. Hello. Welcome,” said a woman wearing glasses and a jacket in a tropical print, holding a tablet. “Can I get your names?”
He was a little embarrassed when Catalina ignored the woman, continuing into the room and leaving him behind. His wife pulled out her phone as she leaned against a wall and waited for him. Trey gave a sheepish smile to the woman with the tablet. “I’mTrey, and that woman is my wife, Catalina.”
She nodded when she located their names. “Schuster and Rosario?”
“Yup.”
“Great. We’re going to have you meet with Bill in a moment. Can I just ask you a few questions?”
“Sure.”
She adjusted her glasses, scrolling on her tablet. “I’ll try to make this quick. I’m Sasha, by the way. Okay, what’s your height and weight?”
“Uh. Sorry? Is this for some special gift or something, like a custom bathrobe?” Sure, they got a free vacation out of this, but he never had a nice bathrobe before.
Sasha burst out laughing. “A bathrobe. You’re so funny. We’re just trying to get basic information from everyone, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Okay.” He was only half paying attention because when Sasha laughed, she briefly touched his arm. This elicited an angry glare from Catalina. Interesting. “Six-two. One-ninety.” He leaned closer to Sasha and lowered his voice because he didn’t want to get into trouble while also welcoming trouble in case his theory about Catalina’s jealousy was correct. “I think Catalina is about…one-fifteen? I don’t actually know. She might get mad at me for guessing. She’s a few inches over five feet.”
Sasha nodded, tapping away on the tablet. “Great. And would you say you’re both in relatively good health? No heart issues?”
“What does this have to do with vacations?”
“Oh, i-it’s just…we want to make sure everyone is in good enough health to travel, or it lets us know if we need to make other…accommodations.”
“Wow. Really? You guys think of everything. In that case, no problems here. We’re both healthy.”
She smiled while marking this down. “Great.”
Catalina and Trey were then escorted to a private table to talk to Bill, who continued to ask more perplexing questions that didn’t seem to be vacation-related, including their occupations, current living situation, and emergency contacts. While Trey did think it was strange, he figured the company must be extremely thorough.
During this whole meeting, it was Trey who answered the questions as Catalina continued to focus on her phone, demonstrating she could be physically present while checking out mentally. Trey could hardly follow along with the conversation with Bill as he got more annoyed with Catalina’s behavior. Wanting to evoke a response from her, Trey interrupted Bill with, “You know what? I think this is a great idea. I’m all for doing whatever this is. Fuck it. Sign me up for a timeshare.”
“What?” Bill seemed just as surprised as Catalina that Trey was ready to make a timeshare commitment within the first few minutes of the pitch. While it was doubtful there were enough funds in Catalina and Trey’s bank account for any kind of timeshare situation, this was an insignificant detail to be worried about at a later time. All he cared about was Catalina raising her head, her attention fully captured, andhe was at the center of it.
But like a dog who had finally latched onto the bumper of a car, now that Trey had her attention, he wasn’t sure what to do with it. There was a small part of him realizing this could all bite him in the ass, but that was a problem for Future Trey. “Sure. If this long weekend could do wonders for my wife and me, imagine what a whole timeshare could do. Maybe we’ll just go on vacations all the time, like a non-stop honeymoon. Isn’t that right, Squirrel?”
Her eyes narrowed into slits, either at his use of the nickname or at him acting as if she was in on this scheme. Who was he kidding? It was probably both. He was definitely in trouble.
Through a gritted smile, Catalina said, “We’re just listening today,sweetie. We need to talk about this before we make any decisions.”
According to the vacation boundaries Catalina had set, the hoped for discussion would either never come, or it would be all bad. He also didn’t like the tone of resentment seeping through the wordsweetie, so this may be the only chance he had to talk to her. She was a captive audience here, imprisoned by her dedication to always keep her word.
He decided, for better or worse, to go for it. “You work really hard, and as your husband, I’m going to make an executive decision because I love you. We’re doing it. You deserve this.”
