"What?" Gene asked. "Come on, don't hold back."
I passed over the form letter, making sure to hang onto the vouchers themselves. Gene raised an eyebrow but took the letter, reading quickly, his lips moving silently as he read along. His eyes opened wide when he reached the part that had shocked me, and he blinked twice before re-reading the whole letter. “Well, I guess you got your severance package. An all expenses paid vacation to the British Virgin Islands at a 5-star hotel. Not bad. You deserve it.”
* * *
The seaplane banked to the left as the pilot made a circuit of the island, giving the four of us on the plane a view of the resort. It was breathtaking, taking up all of the tiny island. I'd read the entire website on the resort, and knew that while the Forrester BVI was one of their oldest resorts, it was also one of the finest, and for years had served as the headquarters for the chain. The main hotel was in a classic Caribbean style and led to wide spacious sugar sand beaches that bumped up against the cobalt blue sea around it. I could see boats for taking guests out for snorkeling, and even what looked like scuba diving.
The plane banked again and aligned itself for landing on the water, which was smoother than I thought it would be. The initial coming down was harsher than landing but other than that there was no chopping or bouncing like I'd expected. The plane taxied over to the dock area, where a cute guy wearing nothing but a pair of swim trunks jumped in and swam out with a rope in his hand to help pull the idle plane the last few feet over to the docks. We touched the wooden side with a bump and suddenly we were there.
"Welcome to The Cay Forrester," the pretty guest relations rep greeted us as we got off the plane, using the resort's official name. "I'm Glendalyn, one of the members of the hospitality staff here at The Cay. If you’d all come with me, resort staff will unload your bags and bring them up to the front lobby."
"Ah, two weeks of sun, sand, and sex," said the girl next to me, a blonde whose every look and action screamed Daddy's Girl With A Trust Fund and whose body looked like she'd probably been teasing older men since she was jailbait. "This is going to be fun."
I rolled my eyes and held my tongue. I'd known girls like her ever since my high school days, when due to a weird jog in the school districting lines, I'd gone to the school on the good side of town. Pointing out her slut-minded idiocy to someone like that would be of no use, she'd just ignore you or try to cut you to pieces using her looks or her money as weapons.
Following Glendalyn, I got checked into my room, which wasn't one of the big suites, but was still a nice room. The resort didn't do single rooms, as it had been built with the intent that it was to be the more 'grown up' of the Forrester Caribbean hotels. As such, the smallest room was actually a double size, although I had a single king-sized bed in my room. The bellhop, who was wearing a really awesome outfit, a lot better than I'd expect for a resort hotel, refused my tip. “We have a no-tipping policy here,” he said with a big grin that revealed what seemed like a hundred startlingly white teeth in the middle of his sun-darkened face. "But thanks."
"Any recommendations as to what to do first?" I asked. "This is my first time at a resort like this."
"Most of the guests are," the bellhop said. "Don't worry, just enjoy yourself. I find the beach my favorite place to go on the island, but a lot of people like the bicycle paths and the fishing excursions. I'd say avoid those until either the evening or morning times, the fish be biting better then."
I nodded, nervous. I'd seen what the staff looked like, and from the look of the other guests I'd seen, I felt like I'd stick out like a sore thumb on the sand. Everyone here, both male and female, looked like models. “Can I ask you a question?"
"Of course Miss," the bellhop said. "What can I do for you?"
"Well, what is it with everyone around here? This place looks like it should be a set for an MTV show or something."
The bellhop laughed and leaned back. "You mean the in-crowd? This resort used to be quiet. But, when the big man and his wife fell in love here, the place got a reputation. We're nowhere near as bad as Hedonism in Jamaica or anything, but some of the guests, they like to walk on the wild side from time to time.”
I gulped, and the bellhop laughed. "Don't worry about it, you a pretty woman. And what happens at The Cay, stays at The Cay."
I grinned and laughed. "Vegas should sue you for stealing that line."
He shrugged and grinned. "Anything else?"