wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing my bare brown body and particularly my cellulite and stretch marks, which only someone dear to me can experience up close.
It all looks different. Everything is green and lush, with giant banana trees lining the asphalt path like a jungle and flowers I’ve never seen or smelled before. Those fuchsia-colored ones—what are they called?—oh yeah, hibiscus, and I think people eat those don’t they and then clumps of yellow and orange and white and I’m thinking my landscaper could learn something but what I am really beginning to notice for real is that everybody I mean everybody that works here is black. I love this but then again I am already beginning to wonder how much they’re getting paid and if they’re being exploited like slave labor and making insulting wages because there are so many people working here the grounds are swarming with men in cotton jumpsuits with brooms rakes hedge cutters and I know what it’s like in say Mexican hotels and I’m hoping that is not the case here.
I pass the workout room, which is basically outside. There’s a serious high-energy funk-pumping aerobics class in progress which a black Mr. Universe-looking guy in a unitard is teaching and I think maybe I shouldn’t run today maybe this is where I should be, aerobically speaking. To the left are weights and Nautilus equipment and I’ll spend some time in there or Krystal will be able to tell when I get home and we do those stupid lunges and I have no pep in my step or I whine when I have to do pecks or lat pulldowns. I’ll be back, I say to myself, and continue down the path toward the gigantic dining room or whatever it’s called where I was last night.
These folks do get up early. There are a hundred or more people already lining up and sitting down eating. I have until tenish to eat so I sort of walk by and as I do folks are waving and I’m looking to see if these are the same white people that were on my van but these are different white people and I wave back because I basically like most white people as long as they don’t act like Nazis or come across like they’re superior or richer or classier or smarter and shit just because they’re white.
I walk out by the pool and notice a big wooden armoire filled with towels and I can really see the beach now. It looks even prettier than on my commercial. The sand is for sure white. And damn, the water is like really turquoise, and I walk down toward it, past the boat with all the snorkeling equipment, the big water tricycles with the gigantic wheels, some paddleboats and kayaks and canoes and little sailboats, and there are about five hundred clean white chaise longues all lined up in rows on the beach, some under little fat palm trees, and toward my right the beach stretches and winds for what looks like about two miles before it comes to a point and I guess continues around a cove or something. I would love to run straight into the water but I have my sneakers on.
I start out slowly so I can take everything in. Just as I get my rhythm I almost run smack dab into a cow, which scares the daylights out of me. My heart rate monitor begins to beep beep beep informing me that I’m over my target fat-burning zone and then it subsides. Sand crabs scurry into holes as I catapult right over them. In less than ten minutes I am sweating and I realize I forgot to turn my Walkman on but I don’t need it because the music is coming out of the ocean and through the air and I’m pushing myself until I realize I can’t run any further because a crowd of trees juts out into the water and it’s impossible to go around it. On the way back I pass two lovers who are hidden inside a cavern. They are in their bathing suits but still wrapped within each other’s arms and kissing so deeply they don’t even notice me. It isn’t until I pass that I realize how much I envy them. They are in love. And it occurs to me that it’s been a long
It all looks different. Everything is green and lush, with giant banana trees lining the asphalt path like a jungle and flowers I’ve never seen or smelled before. Those fuchsia-colored ones—what are they called?—oh yeah, hibiscus, and I think people eat those don’t they and then clumps of yellow and orange and white and I’m thinking my landscaper could learn something but what I am really beginning to notice for real is that everybody I mean everybody that works here is black. I love this but then again I am already beginning to wonder how much they’re getting paid and if they’re being exploited like slave labor and making insulting wages because there are so many people working here the grounds are swarming with men in cotton jumpsuits with brooms rakes hedge cutters and I know what it’s like in say Mexican hotels and I’m hoping that is not the case here.
I pass the workout room, which is basically outside. There’s a serious high-energy funk-pumping aerobics class in progress which a black Mr. Universe-looking guy in a unitard is teaching and I think maybe I shouldn’t run today maybe this is where I should be, aerobically speaking. To the left are weights and Nautilus equipment and I’ll spend some time in there or Krystal will be able to tell when I get home and we do those stupid lunges and I have no pep in my step or I whine when I have to do pecks or lat pulldowns. I’ll be back, I say to myself, and continue down the path toward the gigantic dining room or whatever it’s called where I was last night.
These folks do get up early. There are a hundred or more people already lining up and sitting down eating. I have until tenish to eat so I sort of walk by and as I do folks are waving and I’m looking to see if these are the same white people that were on my van but these are different white people and I wave back because I basically like most white people as long as they don’t act like Nazis or come across like they’re superior or richer or classier or smarter and shit just because they’re white.
I walk out by the pool and notice a big wooden armoire filled with towels and I can really see the beach now. It looks even prettier than on my commercial. The sand is for sure white. And damn, the water is like really turquoise, and I walk down toward it, past the boat with all the snorkeling equipment, the big water tricycles with the gigantic wheels, some paddleboats and kayaks and canoes and little sailboats, and there are about five hundred clean white chaise longues all lined up in rows on the beach, some under little fat palm trees, and toward my right the beach stretches and winds for what looks like about two miles before it comes to a point and I guess continues around a cove or something. I would love to run straight into the water but I have my sneakers on.
I start out slowly so I can take everything in. Just as I get my rhythm I almost run smack dab into a cow, which scares the daylights out of me. My heart rate monitor begins to beep beep beep informing me that I’m over my target fat-burning zone and then it subsides. Sand crabs scurry into holes as I catapult right over them. In less than ten minutes I am sweating and I realize I forgot to turn my Walkman on but I don’t need it because the music is coming out of the ocean and through the air and I’m pushing myself until I realize I can’t run any further because a crowd of trees juts out into the water and it’s impossible to go around it. On the way back I pass two lovers who are hidden inside a cavern. They are in their bathing suits but still wrapped within each other’s arms and kissing so deeply they don’t even notice me. It isn’t until I pass that I realize how much I envy them. They are in love. And it occurs to me that it’s been a long
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