Chapter Thirteen
Genevieve
Starlike particles illuminated the air around me, the edges of the room soft and blurry, the feel of my body cloudlike as Adrián’s slick body surged on top of mine, the wet heat just what I needed to soothe my already lonely heart. His golden-brown skin glistened under the moonlight as he pounded into me right there on the lounge chair outside of his room.
Just when I was getting ready to come, Adrián’s body shifted. The starlike particles coalesced together creating beams of light. My heart raced, and I fought the restraints around me.
What was tangled around me?
Adrián’s hot flesh dissolved in the balmy air. The heat morphed into a sticky cold as I thrashed and turned in bed, waking up from another dream. Or was it a nightmare? My heart disintegrated as I fought to stay in the dream, stay close to him, the memory of his woodsy scent lingering in the air, the last vestige of Adrián abandoning me to my reality.
Fuck, not again.
For three weeks, I’d been dreaming of Adrián and our last time together.
Our last night.
After dancing in La Buenona, everything seemed to happen in a fog of desire and yearning. We drank with Claudia and Mario, chatted with the ladies staying at Villa Bonita, and danced some more. Made out like no one was watching. We made our way back to his cabin in a fit of laughter and heavy-handed petting and kisses; we ended up naked outside his cabana under the moonlight, making passionate love.
I burrowed into my bed now, hoping for sleep to catch me again, to escape into the dreamland where Adrián waited for me. At this point, I wondered if he was haunting me.
I’d asked Adrián for a clean break; he’d reluctantly agreed. Why would I want to stay in touch with the only man in my life who had made me second-guess my plans? I understood what he and I had was unique, but Adrián had a life and a family to support, and I had my own responsibilities. Never had I second-guessed a decision more than I did that night. How could I leave him after everything we had shared together? I’d opened up with him, shared so many fears and dreams, things only Gino knew. The ease of it all, of being with him in paradise, had convinced me if only for a few days, that my life could be different. That I could have this.
But reality had a way of never wavering, of reminding you to stay grounded. And at the end, that is who I was, grounded, determined, goal oriented. Remembering that, what was at stake for me in Florida, I decided keeping the lines of communication open with Adrián would be a mistake. It would be a reminder of a time where I allowed myself to dream too big, reach too far.
So that early morning, I kissed him while asleep, secure in the knowledge I had erased his number from my cell phone, and the same in his phone the night before, then asked Mario and Chichi to drive me to Panamá. They chatted it up all the way to the Tocumen Airport while pretending they couldn’t hear the sorry sniffles in the back of Adrián’s old SUV.
The sniffles became my best friend for the days to come. Pretending everything was well at work had never been harder. Expecting my knack to compartmentalize to kick in, then finding out I’d lost the ability because of Adrián’s absence was a heavy blow. Everything made me think of him, emails from Tropics Panamá reminded me of his pickups and drop-offs.
I started following the Black Travel Chronicles accounts where I saw pictures of the last night in Aguimar, of the colorful polleras waving in the night air. In one of the pictures, I spotted Adrián’s smiling face, so full of love for his people; I had to turn off the phone, and seriously considered removing my social media apps for a few weeks. Anything to remove the taste of his lips from my mouth, and the feel of his skin against mine. The sense of comfort I felt with him and the wonder lingered on, refusing to depart.
Giving up on any sleep, I changed into my workout clothes and went to my treadmill. After twenty-five minutes, at an obscenely high incline and a speed that required me to wear my hair up in a ponytail today and slick down my edges, I hopped into the shower to get myself ready for the day.
Two hours later, I was sitting in front of my computer, shocked at the email I’d just received.
“I see by your opened mouth you just read the good news.” Anibal strolled into my office holding two cups of coffee, looking dapper with one of his bespoke suits, the black fabric accentuating his warm complexion, his soft curls sleeked back, and that megawatt smile that had me considering re-whitening my teeth.
“You knew?”
“Here, drink your congratulatory coffee, future VP of LATAM and the Caribbean.” He handed me my cup. My chest tightened, and my shoulders lifted at his words. Words that confirmed what I had just read. The president of operations, Jan Ricard, had invited me to a meeting this afternoon, essentially calling it an informal interview. However, the email stated they wanted to offer me the position. They’d just opened it three days ago, and I thought I’d have to fight for it, but here I was, bursting a ceiling sooner than expected.
“Am I really going to get it?”
“Yes. You deserve it, and I couldn’t say much in Panamá, but Ricard had already told me it was almost a done deal. That’s why Anita, with her sharp tongue, needs to learn how to...”
“Mmm-hmm. Careful,” I harrumphed. I loved Anibal, but he had a few things that irked me sometimes. His weird animosity for Anita, who now would report to me, was one of them.
“What? I haven’t said anything.” He picked imaginary lint off his suit. Another thing that irked me. He was amazing, always treating me like a partner, always collaborative, but he remained aloof. Never fully opening up. Not that I was an open book, but since returning from Aguimar, I realized a lot of my relationships were more transactional in nature. It was interesting to see usually aloof Anibal flustered by someone. Flustered by Anita.
“Aha, you let nothing bother you...until Anita appeared in your life.”
“That makes her sound like a rash.” Anibal ran his hand through his curls, and one of them popped up, escaping the sleek hold.
“You know I’ma rat you out, right?” I said, relaxing the way I only could do with him and a few other colleagues in the office.
“Please don’t. I’ll be your counterpart as I have in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, and I really don’t wanna be fighting with her if I have to cover for you.”
“Well then, stop antagonizing her. That will fix your problems.” I smiled and sipped my coffee, enjoying riling my usually unflappable boss, soon-to-be colleague.
“I stopped by to congratulate you, and here you are, annoying me. I’ma leave.”
“Okay, bossy boss.”
“Another reason to celebrate, for you to stop calling me that nickname. Oh, your promotion is not effective till next week, so I’ma need that report of the next quarterly forecast for the Tropics Panamá on my desk by Friday.”
“Anibal, you’re thirty-nine years old, not a hundred. Can you stop talking about reports being on your desk...you know I’ll send that electronically. Why are you so annoying?”
“Because I can be. Later.” Anibal walked out, and I stared at his back, happy for his support and rolling my eyes at his antics.
Two hours later, I sat across from Jan Ricard, a fifty-year-old mestizo Latin woman with a kind smile, wearing a designer suit that probably would have me eating bread and drinking water for weeks. Her shrewd eyes studied me while I assessed the woman who had taken the company from middle-of-the-road results to the streak of growth we’d had in the past five years. She was a legend in these hallways. Ricard offered me the VP job, giving me a speech about her expectations.
“Thank so much, Ricard, I really look forward to a great partnership. I’m honored to have the position.”
Ricard waved my comments away, her bejeweled hand the only eccentricity in the otherwise composed woman.
“You deserve it. And it’s too few of us in C-suite positions. Once I retire to a remote beach town in Honduras, I want someone as driven and talented as me to take over. I’m all about the long game.”
Her words sparked a hunger in me that had been dormant since I’d returned from Panamá. This was what I had been working for. This was what I wanted. I’d lost track of it in talks of relaxation and recharging, on moping around for a future that wasn’t mine, but now that I had accomplished this, I could focus back on what really mattered—the next step in my career.
Right here, Ricard was the best example of why I needed to continue on. She had managed to move up the ladder, and she was planning to bring me up too. That was the only way we women could succeed. Images of Ricard leaving the office last and arriving the earliest filtered through my excitement reminding me of what would come for me. I’d never been afraid of hard work, but with my already meager social life, how would I manage with fewer hours outside of the office?
“But enough about my plans for world domination. We want to continue to foster organic but strategic growth in the area, inviting talented locals to helm each hotel. The main focus for you is expansion. We’re seeing great results from Tropics Panamá and Tropics Roatan.
“I want us to add five more hotels in the Central America area by the end of 2027. We have interested real estate owners already. They are willing to be presented locations with similar profit margins to what we see in Panamá. This will be the focus for you, outside of driving results in the region. We want a project as talked about and as exhilarating as Tropics Panamá with a history behind it. Those design features in Panamá have become one of the main drivers outside of the destination itself.”
“Absolutely, this sounds similar to my thoughts. The area is vastly underappreciated, and there is great potential for sustainable growth. My vision is to continue to partner with locals and bring economic impact, not to flow out of the areas but into them.”
“See, you get the mission. Fantastic. You start on Monday. Your office will move here to the thirty-fourth floor, and you’ll get your bonus package, and benefits will drastically change. Mick will provide you with the package by end of the day today, and you can review the offer. I need an answer by Friday. Does that work for you?”
A bubble of excitement threatened to burst out of me at the news. I wanted to whoop and holler. Instead, I flashed my teeth in a poised smile.
“Yes. I can give you an answer first thing tomorrow morning after I review the package in detail,” I said with fabricated calm.
“Fantastic. I look forward to seeing you flourish, Genevieve.”
I glided out of Ricard’s office, transported in my personal cloud. Who should I call first? I definitely wanted to text Gino; he was probably in mediation right now but would be available soon for lunch. Mom was the obvious choice, but instinctually, the first face that flashed into my mind, was the same one that haunted my dreams and my nights.
“Cheers to you, my friend. You gonna kill it!” Gino said over the bustle of the Korean restaurant that had just made a splash a few weeks ago. It was equidistant from my office and Gino’s law firm, the perfect location to celebrate. I hadn’t been able to break for lunch, so we decided to meet for dinner instead. I’d reviewed the package in detail and, after hesitating, had sent it to my mom. She’d already sent me bullet points for negotiation, all things I had planned to ask for anyway. Maybe it was time for me to start flying solo, but how disrespectful would that be to her?
“Thanks, babe!” I clicked my Mo?t glass with Gino. I’d panicked when he had ordered the bottle, but then I remembered I had some wiggle room out of my debts with this new move.
“So, are you gonna negotiate the pieces your mom recommended?”
“Yeah, it makes sense. I’m asking for $10K more than the original offer. I think Ricard would think less of me if I didn’t. I also plan to ask for reimbursement for dry cleaning because it’s one of the most annoying bills I pay per month. And for them to cover my Wi-Fi at home because you know I’ll be working late nights,” I said, digging into my spicy beef bibimbap, the umami flavor saturating my palette. Anything not to encounter Gino’s disapproving face. Anything to shut up that little voice that told me working late nights wasn’t the flex I thought it would be. Insidious thoughts that had no space on a day of celebration.
“Girl, I wish you wouldn’t. I’m very happy for you, but I know you’ll just work twice as hard, longer hours, and I’ll never get to take you out for ladies’ night at Kiki’s on Thursdays.”
“When was the last time I went to Kiki’s for ladies’ night?” I asked him while taking a sip of the Mo?t.
“Twenty-fourteen.”
“Exactly, the chances were always slim to none.”
“Old lady.”
“Take it back!”
“I won’t. So, are you gonna tell me now what is bothering you about all of this?”
I sighed. Gino knew me too well. I was excited, I truly was, but he wasn’t wrong. A lot more pressure and work loomed in my near future, and I always met additional tasks by barreling forward. The thing was, I had been barreling forward for years now. And I’d been able to tell Gino, and Mom, but I wanted to celebrate with the one person that was out of reach.
“Damn, that sigh was deep. What is it, honey?”
“I want to call Adrián.”
“Mmmm.” Gino kept his face down into his own bibimbap.
“What was that?”
“You deleted his phone number like a sixteen-year-old. Now here we are.”
“Yeah. That was a rash decision, but I didn’t want to be tempted to reach out, when he was clear there was no future, when I was clear of the same.”
“So, you can’t even be friends?”
“Remember Joey D from Ms. Ramirez’s Spanish class?”
“Yeah, it was everything or nothing. That dude broke my heart. I get it, okay. But, babe, life is too short. You’re about to go into overworking mode. Wouldn’t it be nice to have your sexy, tall, hunky friend to chat with here and there?”
“Okay yeah, but...how do I reach him now?”
Gino whipped out his cell phone with a flair, and started typing, then flashed his phone on my face, gesturing me to hold it. My heart skipped a whole stanza.
“Go ahead, send the email. This is the business mailbox for the transportation company.”
Suddenly my hunger disappeared and the bibimbap decided to start a party in my stomach. My heartbeats were audible, and I tried to pretend I was okay.
“Oh wow, you’re down bad,” he said.
“I’m no—Yes. Yes, I am. I dream about him nightly.”
“Email him, Gen.”
“Okay. I will.”
And with Gino’s help I typed an email reaching out to Adrián, my fingers shaking the entire way.