"Astrid! Wake up, breakfast is ready in the kitchen."
Carmen, our maid said to me- attempting to speak English as she put the last of my clean folded clothes in my dresser and walked out of the room. I woke up to the morning sun flooding in through my window as I made my bed and walked downstairs and into our kitchen. Our house was obnoxiously large with all of the bells and whistles. I secretly hated that our house had staff but I guess it comes with the territory when you were born into a family of world known drug lords.
"Good morning mija..."
My mom greeted me as she sat down at our kitchen table.
"Hi mom"
I said back to her while sitting down in my usual chair. Our chef placed our plates of eggs and chorizo in-front of us and we both ate and had small talk. My mom and I don't have much of a relationship. Her and my dad are madly in love and on top of that, she almost always spends her time at parties with him, attending her tennis classes, getting wine drunk with all of the other women with rich husbands or shopping for furniture, clothes, a new house, you name it. My parents buy houses like they cost nothing. My Dad however, is Mexico's most feared drug lord. He's basically the boss of every drug dealer and border smuggler in the country. I don't have much of a relationship with him either, our interactions are mostly him getting on to me about my studies or bossing me around. Oddly enough, My parents continue to keep up the facade of owning an "American wine buisiness" so that everyone around us will think we are wealthy Americans. They enforced when I was little that I had to have English as my primary language even though most people in public speak Spanish. But I understand that it's only to further prove our lie of a life.
"Mija, I need you to dress like a lady tonight for the party at Mr. and Mrs. Gonzales's house"
My mom said as I raised my eyebrows at her
"Do I usually dress like a man?"
I replied
"No.. but you know, dress formal. Don't embarrass us. I have a nice dress for you to wear"
She said.
"Is it the mysterious dress that appeared in my closet this morning?" I asked
"Yes," she chuckled. "Please wear it mijita it will flatter your shape. Or at least go pick out something new today, I'm gonna go for my tennis class in 30"
She said with her choppy English.
"I'll go to the store then"
I said as I walked upstairs to go change into something cute. I put on a floral sundress and some tan wedges, did my makeup and curled my dark brown hair, grabbed my purse and walked down to the strip.
Our house is in a gated community just behind the beach strip. There, they have clothing stores, restaurants, and tourist attractions. It's walking distance so I usually walk on the beach or the strip and listen to music or shop when I'm bored or frustrated. But today I had to find a new dress.
I walked into a couple of stores hoping to find something I liked but I couldn't. The last store I went into, was a Gucci store attached to a tourist attraction shop that just so happened to have girls party dresses in stock. The two stores were separated by a see- through glass wall on the inside. I found my way to the dresses and started to scope out the selection when I noticed something orange out of the corner of my eye. Out of curiosity, I turned around to see a tall white man with big, long, curly orange hair, a white t shirt, blue acid wash skinny jeans, and a frustrated look on his face. I watched him for a second before realizing that he was trying to ask the Mexican employee in the tourist shop a question while the employee stood there confused as the man with orange hair repeated his question over and over. I figured that the employee only spoke Spanish and the orange haired man was asking him a question in English. Me being myself, I decided that I should go help the guy out since I was bilingual.
I walked into the tourist shop and up to the two men.
"Hi! Can I help you with something?"
I said to the orange haired man.
He turned around to look at me.
"Hi!" he said as he chuckled and awkwardly gazed into my eyes.
"Yeah, um, can you ask this guy how much this is?"
Woah, that's a hell of a deep voice. I thought to myself.
He held up a bright blue towel that said "Cancun Mexico, 1992" in big pink letters.... "typical American tourist" I thought to myself.
"Sure."
I said as I proceeded to translate his question to the employee in Spanish.
"It's 10 dollars"
I said to him
"Thank you so much, you know I'm visiting here from the states and it's hard to find a translator all the time"
He said to me as he pulled out ten bucks from his wallet. He seemed to have a typical west coast accent... lucky guess. I like to watch american late night talk shows to further my speech in English.
"Yeah, I saw you from the store over there and figured you needed help. How long are you here for?"
I asked him
"Oh I'm here for about 2 weeks, I come down here every year or so."
He said to me as he smiled.
"Cool, yeah people usually come down here on vacation. I actually live about 2 blocks away from here"
I replied cheerfully
"Well I better get going, I'm meeting some friends on the beach... nice meeting you!"
He said as he started toward the door
"Okay bye!"
I replied as I started to look at some of the snow globes on the shelves. After a few seconds I turned around to see him standing right behind me.
"Actually, do you... maybe wanna go get some lunch with me?" He asked all shy.
Something told me that I should say yes. He seemed a lot more genuine then all of the people I'm usually forced to hang out with. I had nothing better to do and...he was actually... kind of handsome?
"Um, sure!"
I said as we started to walk toward the door together.
"There's a little shack right here that has ice cream and burgers and stuff, wanna go there?"
I asked
"Okay yeah!... my name's Dave by the way"
He said as he smiled and brushed his long orange hair out of his face to counteract the breezy weather.
"I'm Astrid, nice to meet you Dave!" I said smiling back at him.
He held the door open for me as we entered the shack. We walked up to order and the man behind the counter's eyes lit up.
"Hey your Raul's daughter right?"
He asked me
"Uh.. yeah. How'd you know?"
I replied
"How would I not know, he's like famous around here!"
He said to me excitedly
"Haha I guess?"
I replied. I get comments from random people like that all the time and I still never know how to reply or handle those situations.
Somehow we both ended up ordering vanilla ice cream even though we agreed on lunch. We decided to go walk on the beach as we ate our ice cream. Dave seemed different from anyone I had met before. For starters, I had never met someone that looked quite like him before. He had a particularly strong facial structure, hazel/green eyes, and have I already mentioned the giant orange mop on his head? But most notably, he had a very masculine, yet gentle and humble nature to him.
"So I have to ask you something." I said as I smiled at the ground.
"Go for it." He replied
"What's up with the hair?
I said looking up at him, noticing how tall he was compared to me.
"Haha what do you mean what's up with the hair? It's cool!"
He said with his super deep raspy voice
"I've never even seen a man with hair like yours before, it's all big and curly! I'm not saying it's bad... I like it." I said shyly
"Well thank you, can you tell I'm in the metal scene?"
He said smiling and expecting me (a sheltered Mexican rich kid) to know what he was talking about.
"Metal scene?... what is that?" I said knowing that he would realize that I'm extremely sheltered.
"Oh come on, are you serious?"
He asked all surprised.
"You know, Metal music?"
I stared at him blankly.
"Ok rock music?"
He asked prying out the light bulb in my head to go off and know what he was talking about
" I've never heard that kind of music before! I've only heard Mariache stuff and pop music."
I said embarrassed
Little did I know who he was...
My parents never allowed me to listen to any other kind of music except for classical. They didn't even know I listened to pop music. They didn't want me to be exposed to anything "corrupting" to my pretty rich girl image. Kind of condescending given that my dad is a crime lord.
" haha okay don't worry I'll teach you the ways... so you have a famous dad?"
He asked
"Yeah he owns an American winery. I actually live in that house over there." I said pointing to the humongous white mansion on the hill top.
"Woah, your dads got some dough."
He said in a surprised way.
Talking to Dave was refreshing, i could tell he wasn't like everyone else. He wasn't putting up a facade to seem "wealthy" or educated. He was funny and charming. Walking beside him gave me a strange feeling of safety for some reason. Like his presence made me feel peaceful. He looked very handsome in that moment. Almost angelic. His appearance reminded me a lot of the pictures of the Greek Gods, or the biblical imagery that I see from my books. especially with the sunset hitting his eyes and fiery hair. He was manly, usually long hair looked feminine to me but it seemed to make him more of a man. He carried himself confidently as he spoke. Is this what American men are like? I thought to myself. I didn't know what exactly appealed to me about him but I knew that I needed to know more about this person.
"What time is it?"
I said grabbing his wrist, so I could look at his watch.
"It's already 5? Shoot! I gotta go!"
I said frantically
"Oh okay, well... It was nice meeting you...can we meet at that shack tomorrow at 2? I mean if your not doing anything?"
He said as he looked into my eyes and grinned
I knew he was interested in me by the way he looked at me, and the fact that he asked me to spend time with him twice today on different occasions. I was attracted to him too, but I knew that i couldn't fall for a white guy because if I did...it wouldn't be good. I was sure of it.
"Yeah sure, I'll see you then!.. thank you for the ice cream Dave!" I said as I ran toward the strip.