Chapter 22 #2
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 for a 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 kind of 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, which seemed 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, like cocina and platos.
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 words una mujer extrana and chaqueta something flores.
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!”
“What kind of timeshare thing did you drag us to, 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 resources except 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 provided areas 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 played on 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.