Man Detox: A Novel Page 8

  The small group in attendance mixed with the wedding party enjoying cocktails and finger foods served in an area cordoned off from the beach. Irene found her way to Ethan feeling the surge of attraction she had felt on few occasions before.

  “I couldn’t recognize you at first,” she started out saying. “You look great,” she added and stretched out her hand.

  What was she doing? After an awkward handshake, she got closer to him and whispered. “Are you having fun?”

  “Yes, if you don’t count the awkwardness of wearing this… Ridiculous, isn’t it?”

  “I like it. You look like someone who… is serious… You know like, serious businessman, or secret agent…”

  “I would have failed if I were a secret agent, breaking the first rule of blending in the environment, wouldn’t I?”

  “You have no risk of blending anywhere from what I read about you…”

  “So, you have been doing homework on me then?”

  “A little…”

  “That’s more than I can say,” he smiled.

  “Because you are not curious about me?” She asked.

  It would take a while to comprehend how much of a curiosity she had been to him. From the moment the cars collided and he saw her through the window, he was struck by her. Initially by the fear that she might have been harmed, but from up close, she was composed and controlled.

  Ethan wasn’t immediately attracted to her. What drew him to her was her resemblance to Rose, the little girl in fifth grade, who was his first official crush, who had transferred out of his school and disappeared from his life never to be seen again. Curiosity had led him to dead ends on multiple searches for her whereabouts. He couldn’t believe the resemblance had been uncanny kicking off an immediate interest to dig up information about Irene.

  Living in the 21st century makes easy for someone of Ethan’s wizardry, money, and access to accomplish any feat he sets his mind to. Rebooking Irene’s tickets were simple enough given his excessive frequent flier miles that he doesn’t get to use much. What was tricky was finding a way to stay connected with her.

  Before he parted from the crash scene, he had given it a more than seventy percent chance of Irene being Rose. But in the hours that followed, he found out about Irene’s upbringing in Colorado and decide the two were different people.

  The more he learned about Irene, the more intrigued he was, requesting to have lunch with her the next day. For complicated reasons, he was ready to move on until she called him asking for a rescue.

  Now, as he looked at her, looking more beautiful than he imagined Rose as grown woman, uncomplicated and unassuming in her mannerism with no pretense, he was drawn to her. It was no accident the two were brought together by a freak accident. He didn’t feel bad about canceling a business meeting that may end up costing his company hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  Ethan was sure Irene couldn’t have known much about him from reading the fluff piece in the magazine. What impressed him most was she didn’t seem all that obsessed about him or his accomplishments, a rare quality hard to come by in his circles.

  “I am plenty curious,” he said to her. “My actions speak to that, don’t they?”

  “Yes, they do. I still can’t believe nothing happened at the accident. It was my first ever. The loud banging and the sound of glass shattering from the windows… It was pretty scary… Thank you for handling the insurance, the taxi driver was so nervous…”

  “My pleasure. Lucky we all came out alive. Maybe it was a sign.”

  “Sign for what?” Irene asked anxiously.

  “That this was meant to happen…”

  “Do you believe in signs?”

  “Signs, not so much. I respect outlier events, though, the types that are rare but have disproportionate impact…”

  “Is that like the Black Swan?” Irene asked, delighted she could share something substantive. When was the last time her random reading habit had given her this sort of opportunity to impress a very intelligent guy?

  “Exactly. I’m impressed, Irene!”

  “Why?”

  “Not many people know about that book…”

  “I thought it was pretty good. Kind of scary, too, right? How clueless we all are. The thing that stuck with me was how we make flawed assumptions based on the past and how little prepared we are, as individuals and organizations, to face unexpected events.”

  Ethan looked at Irene, proud of the spontaneous decision he made to be there with her. He had dated any number of beautiful girls, some fashion models. He hadn’t once met a girl who surprised him by her instinctive insights. It was as if she was speaking his language, referencing one of his favorite books, unprompted and in a context wholly relevant to their conversation. He liked her more for it.

  “Right. How nerdy to be talking probability and events and predictions in this setting?”

  “Now, that, I would consider a sign,” Irene said, breaking her rule and taking a sip from the flute of champagne she had been holding in her hand for a while.

  “How so?”

  “Well, what are the chances that you and I would meet in the first place, then you step in a make everything right, which was totally unexpected and generous of you, by the way; then we were supposed to meet and almost didn’t, then something unpleasant happens here, and I reach out to you, then you agree to come here… As if all that wasn’t enough, we meet here and are talking about a book that is entirely unrelated to the setting or the occasion. I think it is a pretty good sign…” She said finishing the drink and picking another glass as a waiter passed by.

  “You make a compelling case indeed…”

  Lauren came by and stopped the flow of conversation, “You’re the most sharply dressed man in the entire group.”

  Irene flinched. Surely, Lauren couldn’t mean that. One would think her focus would be on Tom, she thought as she tried to think of something to say.

  “Can you guess my bestie here had declared a man detox before coming here?” Lauren added. This was turning out to be a disaster, Irene thought as she looked around to find something to say or do.

  “Is that right?” Ethan said, curiously looking at Irene. She could see his narrow and focused eyes through the light brown shades.

  “Exactly! My reaction too,” Lauren said. Irene couldn’t tell what she was getting at.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Irene countered. “Isn’t it time to sit down for food?”

  “You are invited to sit with us, Ethan,” Lauren said.

  “Thank you!” he answered simply, smiling at Irene.

  Man detox? What does that mean, Ethan asked himself? Another layer of intrigue was added to the Irene equation. And it was in his nature to doggedly pursue equations until he solves them completely.

  ∫---∫

  Chapter Thirteen

  As the sun set on the horizon behind splattering of clouds that emerged, dinner conversation at the head table focused on the shenanigans of the wedding party in the days past. From the drinking games, beach and pool volleyball, to daily visits of the Club, and outdoor aquatic sports adventures, there was plenty to cover. Each trying to upstage the other with one embarrassing story of misadventure after another.

  Irene had remained disengaged, observing the contrast between Jared with his insatiable interest in dominating the conversation and Ethan, who kept quiet for the most part nibbling on the food he didn’t appear to enjoy. Every once in a while, knowing glances exchanged between the two as if to say they couldn’t believe how ridiculous the topics of discussion were. They stayed on, however, listening to it all and seized the opportunity to get to the dance floor soon after the couple’s first dance.

  “Were you bored?” Irene asked, getting closer to his ear to speak.

  “I imagine this is the most fun some of them have had in a long time…”

  “I’m sorry if it was annoying to you. It is like they regress to college years when we get together…”

 
“Don’t mention it. It is a wedding. They have the right to celebrate any way they deem appropriate. I should actually be the one apologizing for keeping you away from the fun…”

  “Not me.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t know. I feel like we need to do more age appropriate things as we grow up. You know, like find a way to have fun that is also meaningful.” Irene said as Ethan stretched his hand out and swirled her around.

  “And you say that as an old woman of what? Twenty years old?”

  “I’m twenty-three, and that is not young.”

  “I suppose. Have you had all the care-free fun you could ever want?”

  “Not necessarily…”

  “Well, you spoke and dissed your friends as if you had seen it all.”

  “I just think there is a time when we need to grow up… I mean, it’s all nice and good to be in a college mood, but it gets old after a while, doesn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t know because I never finished college…”

  “You know what I mean, though, don’t you? As we speak, the Arab spring is spreading through the Middle East like wildfire. People our age are out in the streets fighting for freedom, some of them dying and getting abused by the police. When you think about that, it feels silly to obsess about who drank or got laid more, right?”

  “Would you like to take a walk?”

  “I would love to…”

  Holding hands, they walked off the dance floor and took the path leading to the beach. The resort complex was constructed to keep dining and entertainment facilities on one end and residential buildings on the other. From where they stood, the coastline extended at least a quarter of a mile into more isolation and darkness. It was the perfect romantic escape from the noise of rowdy tourists and celebrants to the balmy night filled with stars.

  As they kept walking away from the scene of the wedding, they were drawn to each other. They passed a couple returning in the opposite direction whose mannerism appeared one of complete shock. Barely clothed and laughing as if they had just gotten away with doing something naughty.

  Irene sensed the moment and worried she might be putting too much pressure on Ethan. She was the one that dragged him here despite his preference for postponing their meeting. Now that he was here, he had made a huge difference. She wasn’t sure she could have made it through the day without him.

  How would she get to express her gratitude for what he had done for her since their first encounter? He didn’t strike her as the type who would want payback. Then the thought appeared to her instructing her to go with the flow. If he holds her hand, she will hold him back. His he does more, she will do more.

  “You have surprised me quite a bit,” he said to her, their fingers were now interlocking with each other as they held hands.

  “How? You must think I don’t like to have fun, right?”

  “No, it’s not that. I am just surprised that you are more serious than you appear…”

  ‘What do I appear like?”

  “Good looking. Pretty. Beautiful…”

  “So you thought I would be an empty head, right?”

  “Maybe. I’m afraid to say my experience hasn’t disproved that first order approximation.”

  “Well, I am glad I got a chance to provide you more perspective. Why were you so kind to me? Are you like that all the time?”

  “I try the best I can…”

  They had been walking alongside a concrete path parallel to the beach when they came across a bench. Before they sat down, a person in the resort servant uniform appeared from the other side.

  “Signor Ethan Anderson?” The person asked.

  “Yes?” Ethan said looking around.

  In the next many seconds, four other men came out of nowhere and descended on the scene. Without leaving any chance for Irene and Ethan to react, they grabbed them both and dragged them into the darkness behind the trees lining up the walkway.

  In the first instance of recognition that something terrible was about to happen, both were stuffed with pieces of cloth soaked in some sort of chemical that made that them nauseated and lose consciousness. Before fainting, they both felt lightheaded and warm, soaked in a cold sweat, they were dragged through the darkness out on the other side of the compound to an idling van on the dirt road.

  Neither of them knew where they were or how long they had been away from the resort by the time they woke up separately in scarcely lit huts. Irene kept her eyes closed for as long as she could disbelieving what was happening.

  Could they actually be kidnapped as she had feared before she came here? Did they pick them up indiscriminately? Why did the man ask for Ethan’s name? Could they have targeted him knowing that he is wealthy and influential?

  As soon as that last question came into her consciousness, through the ache and pain that filled her body, she felt an overpowering guilt. None of this would have happened if she hadn’t insisted on bringing Ethan here. Because of her recklessness, she had destroyed both their lives.

  The little she knew of gangs was enough to send chills down her spine. Upon regaining her consciousness, she noticed her hands were tied together behind a pole in the middle of the room. She sat on the dirt floor, her legs tied together. Slight move to adjust herself results in excruciating pain in her shoulders. She wept wondering what might have happened to Ethan.

  Ethan was sitting in the cold space in his boxers and t-shirt. His hands and legs were tied to the chair. He could barely move. He could hear murmurs of people talking on the other side of the wall. He knew they were in trouble and there was only one way he will ever get to escape from this ordeal. He had been through survival school in case something like this happened to him.

  The problem was he had been dispossessed of all his belonging and without the access to his legs and hands to initiate the last resort measure. When the temptation to panic started to percolate, he tried to suppress it by repeating to himself he shall get through this. All he has to do is recall his training, which he paid big money for.

  As he assessed the hopelessness of the situation, he wondered if he had misjudged Irene. Where was she? He feared they might have harmed her. And then he also wondered if she might have had something to do with the kidnapping. He tried to retrace all his activities since he came in contact with her.

  No one except for his trusted assistant and security chief knew he was in Mexico. No one also knew that he canceled his planned meeting to be here. The cancellation wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Irene’s insistence that he visited her out of the blue. He couldn’t have agreed if he hadn’t sensed something was wrong with her. The unavoidable question after this line of thought was what if she had something to do with this situation?

  If Ethan’s worst fear were to be realized, this would turn out to be his biggest slip of judgment. He was usually good at sniffing out girls with ulterior motives. He knew criminal acts can be haphazard. But something like this couldn’t possibly be. It was merely an accident that their cars collided…

  Was it an accident? He now remembered how his chauffeur had said the taxi driver had acted recklessly and driven directly into their lane without signaling… Did she target him on purpose? For what? What if he didn’t but the tickets for her?

  Ethan couldn’t imagine that a highly coordinated attack crossing borders could be carried out on a whim without someone big controlling the levers of power behind the scene. As he strained to keep his head clear, he could feel his legs chaffing against the hard and unvarnished roughness of the chair he was sitting on. Everything seemed ominous.

  The stench of rotten and decaying organic matter immediately constricted his nostrils. It was hard to breathe. Difficult to think clearly, too. Every which way he tried to imagine an escape, he kept coming back to the recklessness of his decision to fly all the way to here. He rarely made impulsive decisions that weren’t thoughtfully and thoroughly considered.

  Could the publicity from the magazine cov
er have brought more exposure and impromptu recognition when he showed up on foreign territory? It was a nightmare all around. The worst of it all, he left himself completely unprepared for the security pitfalls. Whether Irene was a part of the scheme or not, he was going to have to figure out how to extricate himself from the crisis.

  ∫---∫

  Chapter Fourteen

  “How is the family vacation going for you?”

  Irene heard the familiar growls of a voice from recent memory. She was teetering into a state of madness, crumpled and leaning against the pole, her arms getting scratched by the roughness as splinters of wood got lodged into her skin. More primitive than her cocooned upbringing exposed her to.

  What was terrible was she had always had an aversion to horrific life stories, including in fiction, which gave her nightmares. Life, in which violence and chaos were distant concerns of faraway places, didn’t prepare her for cruelty that extended beyond spreading unfavorable gossip around the office or the scornful gazes of disappointment her parents expressed on those rare occasions of not living up to their expectation.

  So here she was processing the voice of the same person that was seated next to her. As soon as the recognition of his voice registered in her brain, she was at once relieved. Perhaps this had all been a mistake. Maybe Roger had come to rescue her...

  In this excruciating state of despair, all his unbecoming and untowardly behaviors were all forgotten. In the place of overzealousness, all she could conjure up in her mind was eagerness and earnestness, neither of which were particularly harmful. How wrong she had been about him?

  “Roger, is that you?” Irene asked, straining to see through the darkness.

  Her eyes ached. She couldn’t tell what had happened to her. From the vague recollection of being on a moving surface, navigating a road littered with potholes by sharply swerving left and right had brought her back. She could sense there was another body lying next to her. Reaching behind with her hand had informed her as much. Hands tied together with a plastic strap. They had seemed lifeless to her, still warm but immobile as if they had surrendered to the finality of the crisis.