Just One Day 02: Just One Year by Gayle Forman

starts telling them about our day, embellishing it so that it almost sounds fun. It’s how all good travel stories are born. Nightmares spun into punch lines. But my frustration is too fresh to make anything seem funny.
    Marjorie, a pretty Canadian girl, clucks sympathetically. A British girl named Cassandra, with short spiky brown hair, laments the state of poverty in Mexico and the failures of NAFTA, while T.J., a sunburnt guy from Texas, just laughs. “I seen that place Maya del Sol. It’s like Disneyland on the Riviera.”
    At the table behind us, I hear someone snicker. “
Más
como Disneyland del infierno
.”
    I turn around. “You know the place?” I ask in Spanish.
    “We work there,” the taller one answers in Spanish.
    I put out my hand. “Willem,” I say.
    “Esteban,” he answers.
    “José,” says the shorter. They’re a bit of a spaghetti-and-meatball pair, too.
    “Any chance you can sneak me in?”
    Esteban shakes his head. “Not without risking my job. But there’s an easy way to get in. They’ll pay you to visit.”
    “Really?”
    Esteban asks me if I have a credit card.
    I pull out my wallet and show him my brand new Visa, a gift from the bank after my large deposit.
    “Okay, good,” Esteban says. Then he looks at my outfit, a t-shirt and a beat-up pair of kakis. “You’ll also need better clothes. Not these surfer things.”
    “No problem. Then what?”
    Esteban explains how Cancún is full of sales reps trying to get people into those resorts to buy a timeshare. They hang out at car-rental places, in the airports, even at some of the ruins. “If they think you
have
money, they’ll invite you to take a tour. They’ll even pay
you
for your trouble, money, free tours, massages.”
    I explain this all to Broodje.
    “Sounds too good to be true,” he says.
    “It’s no too good, and it is true,” José answers in English. “So many people buy, make such a big decision after just one day.” He shakes his head, in wonderment, or disgust, or both.
    “Fools and their money,” T.J. says, laughing. “So y’all gotta look like you’re loaded.”
    “But he
is
loaded!” Broodje says. “What does it matter what he looks like?”
    José says, “No matter what you is; only matter what you seem.”
    • • •
    I buy Broodje and myself some linen pants and button-up shirts for next to nothing and spend a ridiculous amount on a couple of pairs of Armani sunglasses from one of the stalls in the touristy section of town.
    Broodje is aghast at the cost of the glasses. But I tell him they’re necessary. “It’s the little details that tell the big story.” That was what Tor always said, to explain why we had such minimal costumes in Guerilla Will.
    “What’s the big story?” he asks.
    “We’re slacker playboys with trust funds, renting a house on Isla Mujeres.”
    “So, aside from the house, you’re pretending to be you?”
    • • •
    The next day is Christmas so we wait until the day after to set off. At the first car rental agency, we’ve practically rented a car by the time we realize that there’s no one there offering us a tour. At the second car rental agency, we’re met by a smiling, big-toothed American blonde who asks us how long we’re in town for and where we’re staying.
    “Oh, I love the Isla,” she purrs after we tell her about our villa. “Have you eaten at Mango yet?”
    Broodje looks mildly panicked but I just give a little smile. “Not yet.”
    “Oh,” she says. “Does your villa come with a cook?”
    I just continue to smile, a little bashfully this time, as if the largesse embarrasses me.
    “Wait. Are you renting the white adobe place with the infinity pool?”
    Again, I smile. Little nod.
    “So Rosa is the cook there?”
    I don’t answer, I don’t need to. An embarrassed shrug will do.
    “Oh, I
love
that place. And Rosa’s mole is divine. Just thinking about it makes me hungry.”
    “I’m always hungry,” Broodje says, leering. She