Forbidden Love

The next few days were...well...heavily scheduled. I knew that Juan would have to work for the first week of my holiday but I hadn't really thought through the implications of that. I had had so much fun the first trip with my co-worker and the other guests we'd become friends with that I didn't consider what it might be like when I was there on my own. Also not taken into consideration was the fact that I can get really awkward in uncertain conditions. I've always felt that I have a lot in common with a goldfish. In my usual waters, I'm a fearless, fast-swimming, leaping, wiggling, air-bubble-making fiend. But put me in a plastic bag and throw me in a new tank full of even newer fish and I will stay in the comfort zone of my bag as long as possible. There is actually a very good chance that I will never come out of that bag.

This is not what I actually look like, just a photo of an over-extended metaphor

As it turned out, the end of April was not exactly a hopping time for travel to Cuba. The resort was half-empty and the half-full part was not filled with very fun people. The tattooed Windsorites provided a little bit of companionship, until they both got food poisoning on the second day and retired indefinitely to their room. I settled for trailing Juan from activity to activity, feeling nothing like the exciting, vivacious woman he'd met in December.

From 9-12:30, I would participate half-heartedly in morning beach activities - stretching, bocce ball, aquacize, merengue...I would do it all, except for beach volleyball...there are some lines I just don't cross. From 12:30-3:00 we would leave the resort for lunch with a side of kissing and hand-holding at the Commercial Centre next door. 3:00-6:00 was pool-side darts, Spanish lessons, salsa, steppercize, ring toss, beer barrel balancing, throwing of balls through holes, throwing of suntanning people into the pool. From 6-6:30 the entertainment staff would have their daily meeting in front of the stage, I'd creep around the area, trying to act like I actually had some purpose in life besides counting the moments between Juan's breaks.

Through all of this Juan would try to throw me what scraps of attention he could - little surreptitious glances, a hand grazed across an arm, a wink, a foot against mine underwater, a quick pat on my head as he walked past my chair. But he was working and there were bosses everywhere. The entertainment boss, the restaurant boss, the head of security, the manager of the resort, they did not approve of inappropriate mingling between guests and entertainers and they were always watching. I tried to reason with Juan, we'd been flirting and touching up a storm on my first trip, why was he so scared to come near me now? He said it was different now, that he couldn't hide the fact that he had real feelings for me, that he couldn't act playful with me without it being obvious that it was not play.

Sometimes he could sneak off with me from 6:30 until 9, which is when the evening show began. Unless during that time he had door-opening duty at the main restaurant, in which case I would eat alone...or sometimes with a table of seniors who felt sorry for me. After the kids' show, and before the cabaret, there was social dancing, Juan's first dance of the night, every night, was with me. Of course the next dance was with a 13 year old girl going through an awkward phase, next up a cougar divorcee wearing her teenaged daughter's clothing, after that an extremely sunburnt woman on her honeymooon...but the first was always mine!

When the show was over and Juan had changed from his actorly clothes into some bedazzled evening wear, we'd sit around by the DJ booth with the other entertainers, all of them speaking rapid, slang-filled Spanish. I suspected even if I hadn't have dropped out of Spanish class after the 5th class, I still would have understood nothing. As it was, I would simply paste a fake smile on my face and try not to look as out of place as I felt.

Finally, just as I would be hitting a wall of exhaustion, the group would all stand up at once and start walking to the resort gates, heading to the one decent club in town. My heart would race in anticipation as we neared the exit, knowing as soon as we turned the corner past the last security guard, Juan would pull me towards him and hug me tight and kiss me and touch my face sweetly and tell me that it wouldn't always be like this between us, that someday it would actually be real.

Diving Back In

If you know me in real-life or have read more than one sentence of this blog, you will have already realized that I put the ART in Worry-Wart with my amazing ability to conjure up mental demons. I have always been this way. As a young child I would give myself stress ulcers by laying in bed at night worrying that my house might burn down while I slept. I chalk it up to having been cursed blessed with an over-active imagination. Unfortunately it has always been a dark imagination, it never imagines sunshine and smiles but instead takes me to straight to the worst possible outcome of any situation. Tell me that the lottery ticket I'm holding is a winning one and, instead of celebrating, I'll wait for a gust of wind to rip it out of my hand and throw it down a sewage drain. I wouldn't say I'm negative exactly, I'm just overly-prepared for disaster.

While this mental set-up might be helpful if I was the Managing Director of the Red Cross...it is not exactly a calm, cool place to reside when you're setting off to further romantically entangle yourself in a foreign country. To say I was stressed by the time I got on the plane is an understatement. My head, neck and shoulders had fused together into a solid block of pain, I couldn't feel my hands, I could over-feel my teeth, I hadn't slept for two nights, I wanted to barf. Oh love, what an amazing feeling!

I ended up sitting next to a young, heavily-tattooed couple from Windsor on the plane and the subsequent hour and half bus ride to the actual resort town. They helped distract me from my nervousness a little bit with their questions about which restaurants to eat at, which excursions to take and which to avoid, the nightlife of the area, the towel policy of this particular establishment - can you get a new one every day? what are towel-returning hours? how much do they charge if you lose it? do you leave it in your room at the end or return it to the Lord of the Towels? This is not a topic you want to tread lightly on, towels are serious business in Cuban resorts.

With all the talk about beach towels we didn't even have time to discuss towel art

 By the time we reached the first resort of the area I was feeling a little more relaxed thanks to the conversation and the Cristals I'd bought at the airport. Peeking through the throbbing pain of my head/neck/shoulders and the sour aching in my stomach was a feeling I hadn't let surface in a while - excitement. After 4 months of spotty communication and misunderstanding, longing mixed with sadness, tenderness mixed with fear, I was about to see Juan again, for real! With that thought, the beer hit my bladder.

We pulled up to our resort around midnight to the sound of bongos and singing. I ran off the bus and straight to Juan. We smiled like idiots at each other for a couple seconds, he handed me a flower and we hugged (chastely as his boss was standing right beside us). Before he could say a word, I blurted out 'I HAVE TO PEE SO BAD!!!' and started running for the lobby bathroom.

And they say romance is dead!