The Golden Tulip
It is the second last hotel in a long line of hotels on the strip. In fact, they warned me that when I leave the hotel never turn left, always go right. (I have never gone left in my life.) Apparently, there is a huge favela (slum) if you go left. I can see this favela from my balcony. At night, I sit out and watch people walk up and down the steep paths through the slum. I wonder about their lives. Or, I watch the ocean. The staff said they felt sorry for me and gave me a nice room.
Femme Fatale in Fortaleza
I spent practically every night dining alone on the patio overlooking the sea surrounded by barbed wire. And every night I had the same waiter, Ricardo. My friends were at a different hotel and they were all caught up with the drama of surgery and doctors. I didn’t want to have anything to do with that.
So there I sat, night after night with the dark sea in front of me, a cool, fresh breeze lapping over the patio, and moonlight glinting off the barbed wire. Some nights, as I sipped my caipirinha, I would imagine that I was the wife of a rich and powerful man, who was well taken care of but neglected, essentially. Then I would pout and look sad. Other nights, I would pretend that I was a femme fatale on the lam like Kathleen Turner’s character in Body Heat. Then I would gaze steely-eyed into the vast inky expanse as if planning my next conquest. And in the background, there was always Ricardo, wondering who I was and where I came from. A true woman of mystery…with whom he was slowly falling in love.
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