Chapter 6
Tom headed back to his room to get his things, while Scott walked to the pier, which was just off the pool deck and down a flight of stairs.
He took a seat on a bench as a yacht cruised by, Christmas lights strung from its stern to its masthead.
A dozen partygoers danced on the back platform to a pulsating Latin beat.
A man with a hairy chest and a thick gold chain waved to Scott in between swigs from a gold chalice, unsteady as a loose sail as he gripped the ship’s railing.
“Feliz Navidad, chico!” he yelled.
In the distance, near the beach, a speedboat pulled a man in a parachute attached to a towline. The parasailer’s feet dangled in the air. Scott remembered doing that as a boy. His father always made sure that he left Acapulco with plenty of stories to tell his friends.
Something splashed off the pier. About fifty feet away, a snorkeling tube snaked through the water. The snorkeler blended in with the navy-blue water so well that without the occasional slap of his fins, Scott would've missed him.
The diver dove underwater and disappeared. A few moments later, a spray from his snorkel announced his return. When he brought his head out of the water he was facing away from the pier, so Scott couldn’t see his face.
The snorkeler held up an oyster which he placed into his net. He put his face back into the water and swam along the shore and away from Scott. His movements were so fluid, so at one with the sea, that Scott half expected to see a dorsal fin on his back.
The engine of an approaching boat rumbled in the distance just as Tom came ambling down the pier.
“Here they come!” Tom called out.