The island was hard to get to. It took a redeye flight to Miami, then a tiny plane with absurdly good service, where I was given three Coke Zeros in forty-five minutes, then a thirty-minute boat ride.
Exclusivity was the point.
Everything was extraordinary: the hummingbirds and turtles, the palm trees and long green grass, the beaches themselves. The sand was pink like Himalayan salt, the sea not turquoise or aquamarine but neon, the colour of Windex and mouthwash, the foam frothy like so many cappuccinos I made for people years ago, people who never made eye contact, who left their cups lipstick stained and half finished, their tips in coins or beaten up bills they hid under the receipt.
I’d been a manager for a company that owns luxury hotels all over the world for three years, and I was recently promoted. I now travel multiple times a month to remote locations, trying to ensure quality control.
I had to act like being in a five-star resort on an island where Oprah and Richard Branson own houses is de rigueur for me, like I was richer and more successful than I could ever hope to be, like I was going to get kicked out at any moment.
I had to iron and steam my outfit. I had to use all of their organic British and French bath products, dry my hair, put on fourteen karat gold earrings that had been gifted to me by the CFO. I settled on a red and white caftan, my hair in a sleek ponytail, my face covered in a concealer, bronzer and SPF 25 combination. I put on a couple of gold paperclip-style necklaces, put on a Rolex that’s a good enough fake to trick rich people.
I sat down in the hotel’s restaurant, amazed at how empty it was.
It’s a good twenty minutes before someone takes my order. I’m jotting my notes meanwhile that I’ll feedback later, though always using an emoji system for efficiency and discretion.
I chose a beet carpaccio salad with burrata cheese and mint oil. They only had Diet Coke, not Coke Zero, so they’ve lost another point.
In the corner of my eye, I watch a family inch in. Parents, four kids: two little girls, one baby and an older boy. The girls are wearing matching floral dresses, holding hands. The older boy chewed a rubber necklace and stared at the floor.
Aurora, their personal butler, came over, smiling generously. “You’re finally joining us in the restaurant. How nice.”
The mom seemed apologetic, looked at her son and said, “we decided we’d try coming in today, since we’re leaving tomorrow.”
When they leave, a famous singer with a five-octave range and her entourage are due to arrive.
I know because I’m partly here to ensure that everything is just the way she likes it.
The dad busied himself with the baby. The daughters sat down and politely ask for waffles. One of their braided pigtails came undone, and the mom reached over to rebraid it.
Aurora took their order. The boy wanted two pizzas, all for himself, and the dad ordered them without blinking.
My salad still hasn’t arrived, but his first cheese pizza has. He grabs it with both hands, starts chewing and spitting out chunks of cheese and dough and mashing another slice with his fingers.
I’m nauseated, but also, fascinated. The parents’ salads and fish arrived and the girls’ waffles arrived, and the boy started throwing bits of pizza at them, the half-chewed pieces merging with their beautiful-looking food.
The dad raised his voice, but he was still too calm, and I stared in disbelief. Every item on this menu costs at least a hundred dollars, but it’s nothing compared to what happens next.
Quentin, a friendly waiter with a gentle smile, was holding a tray of glasses of ice water. The boy grabbed the tray and threw each of the glasses; there was ice and smashed glass everywhere. Quentin’s t-shirt and face were soaked.
The boy started laughing. “The man is dead,” he says. “He’s dead, he’s really dead.”
There was a splash of ice water across my hair, and across my chest, now visible through my flimsy dress.
I was upset but tried not to react.
The boy looked at me and smiled. “She has cancer. The lady has cancer. Shut up, lady.”
The mom’s face reddened, she looked like she was about to cry and she apologised to Quentin as her husband lead him off, along with their baby. The girls stayed in their seats.
“He’s autistic,” she says, her voice breaking. “He’s usually better when we travel. He loves the beach. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay, ma’am,” Quentin said, “My nephew is autistic.”
She turned to me. “I’m really sorry he disturbed your lunch. We haven’t been away for so long. It’s just exhausting. We’ve done everything for him, behavioural therapy, speech, occupational therapy, medication, routines with Velcro visual boards and lots of novel experiences, everything everyone told us to do, and nothing helps.”
She stared down at the floor, my periwinkle pedicured toes peaking out from behind my sandals, her dry calloused skin in her worn out Havianas.
I thought about commiserating with her. I thought about saying that I could see that she was doing her best, that the world was not set up for kids like him.
*****
Tony would always complain about ableism, how not only did the world not protect kids like his, it actively hurt them.
Tony who I’d loved, who’d loved me. Tony, who I used to work with, who had soft brown hair and lightly stained teeth from smoking, who loved mint tea and watching eighties and nineties comedies at 1:00 am when he couldn’t sleep.
Tony who had a severely autistic twelve-year-old daughter, a beautiful girl who struggled to talk, who shrieked BLOOD at the top of her lungs when she got her period and needed him to change her and clean her and their bathroom up.
I couldn’t imagine becoming her stepmother.
Tony asked me once if she’d been my daughter, if I would have felt differently. He looked mortally wounded when I shook my head.
I thought about something I heard him say once, about how parenthood felt like accumulating possessions, resources, money, anything that might one day help a kid, squirrelling them away in a secret compartment in your couch, and finding out one day that the compartment had a hole and everything you needed had leaked out and disappeared.
I couldn’t say that when I watched this family, what I felt most of all was relief. Relief that it wasn’t me who had to deal with meltdowns and limited vocabulary and stimming and tantrums and violence, relief that it would never be my problem. Relief that I didn’t have to funnel every penny I earned into treatments that didn’t help. Relief that all I had to do was make sure that the superficial things in life were perfect. To make sure that everything was a fantasy and a pleasure, no matter how lonely I sometimes felt, no matter how much I wondered if I should have at least tried to see her completely the way her father could sometimes see me.
