#The gunk slip one past skin#

Carried that photo of the ring with you everywhere. “It’s just-you know that ring cost more than our car, right? And you went out of your way, for, like, months, to tell me that you wouldn’t accept any other ring. “Are you going to call or just talk to me about the millions of dollars lost in hotel bathrooms?” Like hundreds of pieces of jewelry-just down the drain-” I mean, right? People must lose rings, earrings, cuff links, whatever, down the sink all the time. I bet this kind of thing happens all the time. “Shanya! That is a four-carat princess-cu-” But the bathroom lighting was flattering. Her hair was loosely pulled back from her face-her hands raised on either side reminiscent of that painting about a silent scream. She stood slack-jawed in front of the mirror. It would be said that Shanya’s ring slipped off her finger and circled the polished marble sink like a speed skater on a track before disappearing down the drain when she was simply trying to wipe excess sunscreen from her hands. Long sleeves in this heat? Tral thought, while Shanya used her hand to keep the sea breeze from blowing her hat from her head while she took selfies. He read Take a Photo of Me on the back of the man’s long-sleeved shirt. And when the sunburned kids and their picture-taking parents scattered, Tral watched the man trod up the beach with shoes that kicked sand into the air. He thought back on this exchange while he watched a tired-looking man in long pants charge tourists twenty dollars to take a photo of the red, yellow, and teal parrot that sat on his shoulder. “But you know what they say: happy wife, happy life.” Some Frapin Chateau Fontpinot and a Cuban.” None of which he’d experienced. He ran his hand through his thick hair, flashing the gold watch his father had given him when he moved away. I see you.”īut the comment made Tral feel unseen. “Platinum Coast? Baller! I didn’t know you had it like that, Tral. Shanya’s idea,” he said with a well-rehearsed no-big-deal-to-me shrug. On his last Zoom call, he casually dropped that he was getting away for a few days. “The vacation.” “The escape.” “After all they’d been through.” “As if the pandemic wasn’t enough.” And after confirming the Platinum Coast did indeed get a strong Wi-Fi signal, Tral agreed that the escape had potential. It would be said that it was all Shanya’s idea.

#The gunk slip one past skin#

An island where the sun crisps most visitors’ skin while some argue the merits of “trickle-down economics” and the value of “hard-work ethics.” An island where Gloribel and Herman, and thousands like them, shove guava-juice-stained, and chocolate-stained, and semen-stained, and blood-stained, and diarrhea-stained sheets into searing-hot water to reclaim their gleaming whiteness before being retucked around feathery mattresses-or trashed when resilient stains won’t budge. An island where Gloribel and Herman, and thousands like them, rake perfect tracks into the sand to rid the beach of excessive seaweed, or cigarette butts, and say, “I’m excellent,” behind masks, through gritted teeth, when asked “How’re you doing today?” after high-paying visitors place orders for two baskets of french fries, a bottle of champagne-“With the ice bucket this time”-and a strawberry daiquiri from a lounge chair in the 9 a.m. Five days and six nights on what had been billed as the Platinum Coast of an island with a history that had been scrubbed clean for high-paying visitors like them who wanted to bury their feet in white sand and stare at turquoise waters without having to think about the people who’d been dragged along the beach from the hulls of ships after spending months, chained, at sea.

The escape from crowded subways and crowded coffee shops and all the ways they weren’t meeting expectations-dips in social media followers, passed-over promotions-appealed to them both. The all-inclusive aspect appealed to Tral. And to be fair, stressful situations bring out the worst in all of us. But that they were the most unpleasant sorts wouldn’t be entirely true-for they each had redeeming qualities, no matter how deep said qualities were buried. That the powers that be had got the best of them, had duped them, had made them believe that they had to do the things that they did. That they were reckless, greedy, shortsighted, not too bright, disrespectful, ignorant, lazy, entitled. It would be said that they were all the most unpleasant sorts.