Chapter UNO

“Bienvenidos a Costa Rica.  Flight number five-five-one—go to baggage claim number four.”

The plane unloaded us into an empty waiting room and I immediately ran to the closest bathroom. Being cooped on a plane for the past six hours did nothing for my appearance and even less for my broken heart! I still couldn’t believe it. Roman broke-up with me only because I had to go on this ‘family’ trip. Like I had a choice!  He was like, “Umm, Penelope, it’s, uh, impractical for us to continue a long-distance relationship at this stage of our lives.”  What he meant was HIS life!  “Yeah, um, you know, at sixteen I’m just way too young to get serious and stuff. So, you wanna be friends?”

Friends!?! 

I gave him the best of my high school years, (OK so I still had like two more to go) but still, we were together for almost two years since I was thirteen… he did not just say ‘let’s be friends’?!

What was I going to do now? Who was going to be my date for the Junior Ball? Well, technically it’s his Junior Ball, oh no, this was way worse than…

 “Excuse me,” someone said as I came out of the bathroom, “did you hear what baggage claim number we need to go to?”

I turned to answer and had the wind knocked out of me, “Umm…uhh…” I didn’t even know guys could look this good, putting on my best smile, I wondered, what was the normal grievance time for brutal breakups, was two days enough?  “I think they said number four,” my smile stayed plastered on my puffy face, “I’m Penelope,” I continued talking only to realize he already turned and left!

Help! I was forever doomed to spinsterhood! So naturally I wanted to hide in mortification, but when I looked around I found myself surrounded by a roomful of hot guys scrambling around looking for the baggage claim.

Hooray, Costa Rica!

  ::::::::::

People went nuts! They made ultra-fast U-turns with their carts delivering killer blows to my ankles and pushing me to the brink of my sanity.  Whoever said traveling was fun was dead wrong.  I gave up, and strayed to the back relying on my folks to retrieve my bags. 

As people rescued their stuff leaving gaps by the conveyor belt I saw my brother Sammy, curiously full of energy, attacking each bag falling out of the hatch. 

I walked over to my parents to see why we were the only ones left hanging around, “What’s happening?”

“Your father’s camera equipment hasn’t come out yet,” my mom filled me in.

The reason my family and I wound up in Costa Rica in the first place was thanks to my dad, or more specifically—his job.  My dad was some big-shot photographer who has been in way too much demand these past several years.  It didn’t bother me too much (one less person to answer to), however, it bothered my mom.  As a matter of fact, she was so bothered she threatened divorce a few months back.  That was how I became affected as well.  I never saw my mom so hurt. I really wanted to help her. But every time I said anything she’d smile and give me a huge hug saying, “you and Sammy are the greatest things that have ever happened to me. Don’t ever forget that!” then she’d walk away holding her smile until she reached the safety of her room. Once the door shut, I heard a thump on the bed and her crying.

Not wanting to lose his job and his family, my dad said that for his next big assignment, i.e. Costa Rica, the family goes too. 

Mom refused.  But he persisted.  He begged and pleaded.  He bought her flowers; took her out to fancy dinners.  This went on for like decades until she finally bought it. 

Since home schooling was the new trend, my parents had no problem convincing our schools to let us go for a month which brought on the break up from my ‘loyal and devoted’ boyfriend. 

So, here we were six thousand miles from home standing around waiting for my dad’s bag to plop out.

“What’s next on our to-do list?” I asked.

My dad took out a piece of paper which Roger, his agent (although at times he acted more like my dad’s babysitter), had printed out for us. 

“We’re staying at the Marriott and after breakfast tomorrow we hop into the rented Range Rover and off to Tamarindo,” my dad explained in a tired voice.

The strain of the day had taken its toll on all of us.  At six in the morning a taxi picked us up from our house in Westchester County, New York and brought us to J.F.K. International Airport. Since most flights to San Jose, Costa Rica were always behind schedule, we sat around twiddling our thumbs for over four hours, (three of which I spent in a bathroom stall bawling my eyes out).

“Tamarindo?” I repeated.

“Yep!” my brother said energetically.  What was with him?  Did he drink a gallon of Red Bull before we got off the plane? “Mom promised to sign me up for surf camp.”

“I said I’d think about it, Sammy,” my mom responded and turned to me with a wink.

“Surfing?” No wonder all the hotties were equipped with huge surfboard bags. 

“That’s right. Tamarindo’s the best break in Central America and I’m going to learn how to ride the waves.” My brother jumped up and landed with one foot in front of the other, pretending to ride a surfboard.  I’d never seen him this stoked about anything other than physics and the latest computer program for calculating the sizes of different atoms. 

(By the way, my twelve-year-old brother didn’t know the real reason why we were here. My parents did a semi-decent job at hiding their problems from us.  The only reason why I knew was because I was overly sensitive to my mom’s state of being (and I accidentally picked up the phone while she was talking with her divorce attorney). My little brother, as oblivious and lost in trance as he was, had no clue that anything was wrong.)

“Let’s go surfing now, everybody’s learning how, come on a safari with me,” he sang as he dove for another bag that looked like ours but wasn’t. 

“Since when are you a fan of surfing?” I asked.  My brother, Mr. Number-one-contender-of-science-fairs throughout New York State and Nerd-of-the-year for the past three years, had developed a cool streak? 

He threw down a bag that looked like it had been riding this carousel for the past year and whipped out a sheet of paper.  He handed it to me with a proud look and exclaimed, “This is the reward for good surfing!”

I looked down at a torn out article from some surf magazine with a young kid about my brother’s age holding a huge trophy in one hand and hugging a beautiful, tanned, six-foot model with the other.  She was hugging him in a way that the photographer got a great shot of her perfect butt cheeks peering out of her thong bikini.  I mean this was a butt every girl in the world aspired to have.  She either worked out every waking moment when she wasn’t posing with way-too-young surfer boys or she found a great plastic surgeon; regardless you couldn’t take your eyes off of her.  Beneath the picture, in boldface lettering, read: ROBBIE ROY, 13, CHAMPION OF JUNIOR QUIKSILVER SURF COMPETITION AND GRAND PRICE WINNER OF $20,000.

“Wow, that’s a lot of money for a kid,” I remarked.

“Who cares about the money!” Sammy let out a sigh and pointed directly to the girl’s buttocks. 

Oh my god!  Sammy’s into girls! Two weeks ago my brother got more thrills by looking at his periodical table than a picture of a girl.

Just as I was about to break the news to my folks, my father threw his arms up in the air and thundered, “This is ridiculous!  We’ve been waiting here for the past hour and my camera bag is still not here. I’m going to talk to the baggage people.”

He stormed off and left my brother drooling over the blonde in the picture. 

Five minutes later my dad came back red-faced and sweaty. “Is everything OK?” my mom asked.

“The guy had no idea about my bag and he wanted to know if I was sure that I had a bag, or maybe I forgot it at home!” he boomed, “Can you believe his idiocy?  He made it sound as if there was no bag to begin with, but if I’m not lying to him then I should contact the main office of the airline tomorrow morning and they’ll take care of it.”

“Should you call Dr. Gunther?” my mom whispered in concern.

“Who’s Dr. Gunther?” I cut in.

“He’s the herpetologist working with your dad.”

“Herp what?” I exclaimed.

“Forget about him. Let’s get out of here!” I heard my dad yell as he burst outside with our carts.

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