“I don’t know,” I say.
“Oh, at least take a tour!” She’s practically pleading now. “You could even do one today.”
I heave a big sigh and allow my eyes to flicker toward her for a brief minute. “We’d planned to see the ruins. That’s why we’re renting a car.”
“I can arrange a free tour of the ruins for you.” She reaches for another brochure. “This one goes to Coba, and you swim in a cenote and go on a zip line. I can throw that in for you two. Gratis.”
I pause, as if considering it.
“Look, you can go, spend the day.” She beckons me closer. “Don’t tell them I told you but you could even spend the night. Once you get past the gates, you’re in.”
I look at Broodje, as if seeking his permission to do the girl this favor and take her tour. He gamely plays along, giving me a put-upon look that says,
I crack a smile at the girl and she positively beams in return. “Oh, fantastic!” She starts to write us up the paperwork, all the while chatting about the tour we’ll go on. “And when you get back on the Isla, you must go to Mango. The brunches are to die for.” She looks up from her paperwork. “Maybe I can take you.”
“Maybe,” I allow.
“Will you still be here for New Year’s?”
I nod.
“What are you doing?”
I shrug, open my hands, as if to suggest so many, many options.
“There’s this great party on the beach at Puerto Morelos. Las Olas de Molas, this wild reggae band are playing. It’s usually the best thing going in all of the Playa. A lot of us dance all night, and sometimes catch a ferry to the Isla for hangover brunch.”
“Maybe I’ll see you there.”
She grins. “I’ll cross my fingers. Here’s everything you need for your tours,” she says, handing me some paperwork, as well as a card with her personal cell phone number on it. “I’m Kayla. Call me if you need anything.
• • •
The same sweating, sweater-vested security guards are manning the gate to Maya del Sol, but they don’t recognize us. Or they don’t care. In the backseat of a taxi, with official paperwork in triplicate in hand, I am transformed.
We are deposited in the front lobby, an enormous atrium full of bamboo, flowers, and tropical birds tied to perches. We sit down on a wicker loveseat while a burnished Mexican woman takes our IDs and makes copies of my credit card. Then we are delivered to an older Mexican man with a flip of golden hair held back by a pair of tortoiseshell Ray-Bans.
“Welcome!” he says. “My name is Johnny Maximo, and I’m here to tell you that at Maya del Sol, fantasy becomes reality.”
“That’s just what he’s hoping for,” Broodje says.
Johnny grins. He glances at the piece of paper in hand. “So, William, Robert. Is it Robert or Bob?”
“Robert-Jan, actually,” Broodje says.
“Robert then. Have you ever owned a vacation property?”
“I can’t say that I have.”
“What about you, William?”
“I’m more of a see-the-world kind of guy.”
Johnny laughs. “Me, too. See all the ladies of the world. So I take it you two bachelors have never to been to a vacation club before.”
“Can’t say that I have, Johnny,” Broodje says.
“I am telling you: this is the life. Why rent your vacation when you can own it? Why live half a life when you can live a whole one?”
“Or two lives, even,” Broodje says.
“Here is one of our pools. We have six of them,” Johnny brags. It’s surrounded by chaise longues and flowering shrubs. Beyond, the Caribbean glitters as if its sole purpose is to be a backdrop. “The view is nice, no?” Johnny laughs, pointing to a row of sunbathing women.
“Very,” I say, scanning them, one by one.
“So, what do you do, William?”
“Real estate,” I say.
“Ahh, so you already know how lucrative it is. You know . . .” He motions me closer. “I used to be a big movie star in Mexico,” he says in an exaggerated whisper. “But now—”
“You were an actor?” I interrupt.
This catches him off guard. “Before. But I make more money as an owner here than I ever did in the film business.”
“What films were you in?” I ask.
“Oh, nothing you’d ever hear of.”
“We get lots of foreign films in Holland. Try me.”
“Really, I don’t think you’d hear of them. I was in a film with Armand Assante. Mostly I was in the telenovelas.”
“Soap operas? Like
“Here, they are taken very seriously,” Johnny says with a sniff.
“That’s cool,” I say. “That you made your living like that.”
For a second, Johnny’s face flattens out. Even his tan seems to fade. And then he snaps to. “That was then. I make so much more money now.” He claps his hands together and turns toward me. “So, William, what would you like to see?” He gestures out toward the grounds, and I have this first inkling, tiny but real, that she might be here. It’s a small thing, but somehow it’s the happiest I’ve felt in months.
“Every single centimeter of the resort,” I say.
“Well, we are more than one square kilometer so that might take a while, but I am glad to see you are so motivated.”
“Oh, you have no idea how motivated I am.” Which is a funny thing to say because I wasn’t that motivated yesterday. But now it’s like I’ve switched into character.
“Why don’t we start with one of our world-class restaurants. We have eight. Mexican, Italian, burger bar, sushi . . .”
“Yes,” Broodje says.
“Why don’t you show us the one that is the most popular for guests having lunch at this time,” I suggest. “I’d like to see the makeup of the crowds.”
“Oh, that would be Ole, Ole, our open-air cantina. It has a lunch buffet.”
Broodje grins. Lunch buffet. Magic words.
• • •
Lulu is not at the lunch buffet, or any of the seven other restaurants we visit during our five-hour tour. She’s not at any of the six pools or the two beaches or the twelve tennis courts or the two nightclubs or the three lobbies or the Zen day spa or the endless gardens. She’s not at the petting zoo, either.
As the day lags on, I realize there are just too many variables. Maybe this is the wrong place. Or maybe this is the right place, but it’s the wrong time. Or maybe it’s the right place and the right time but she was watching TV in her room when I was at the pool. Maybe right now she is sitting by one of the pools while I’m looking at one of the model rooms.
Or maybe I walked right past her and I didn’t even know it.
The good feeling from earlier begins to collapse in on itself. She could be anywhere. She could be nowhere. And worst of all, she could be right here and I didn’t even recognize her.
A couple of girls in bikinis sashay past me, laughing. Broodje nudges me but I barely look at them. I’m beginning to think that I’ve talked myself into a lie of my own telling. Because the truth is I don’t know her. All I know is that she’s a girl who bears a passing resemblance to Louise Brooks. But what is that? The contours of a person, but really no more real that a fantasy projected onto a screen.
