Chapter Six – A final note

Everything was a rush that day in the hotel. The residents were around the pool or taking walks into town or along the soft white sandy beaches, generally just enjoying their holidays. Marissa was left in charge of the hotel. Her uncle was on a trip back to England. Or so he told her. He would regularly do things like that; disappear for weeks at a time. But Marissa was nineteen now she knew how to look after her self and the hotel she rightfully owned.

Marissa and the relation between her and her uncle were far from family like. Considering the only family they had was one another they would both have preferred to be as far away from one another as possible, but nothing was that easy.

FLASHBACK

“The last will and testament of Mr and Mrs Martinez.

Even though the two have left separate wills there was one joint account, to be read if, in this case when both parties were deceits. Shall I begin?” a short old bald headed man asked. He was sitting behind a large desk, in a wooden lined room. Marissa and her uncle Simon were sitting in the office with the man, they where the only remaining people in the Martinez family.

Marissa had met her uncle a few times previous but something about him seemed strange to her, twisted in a way.

The man behind the desk opened a sealed envelope, and began to read.

“Hey it’s Carol and Dave Martinez. You’re reading/listening to this because we’ve both gone. Now I know it sad and everything but business is business. We own half of Simon’s hotel. He thinks we don’t know, but Simon, we noticed the two hundred and five grand that went missing. So our darling daughter, Marissa half of that hotel belongs to you. Plus there’s a trust fund for you, after you’ve worked at the hotel with your uncle for seven years.

You never know, it could work for you.

Marissa there is a box in the family vault. It’s for you. Memories of you and us, memories we’re never going to forget.

Simon, we trust you with our most prized possession, our lovely daughter Marissa. She means the world to us, and if you don’t look after her and give her the family support she needs. Think about it. There are only you two left.

Marissa, we love you, if you need us we might not be there in body and life but we will always be there for you in spirit and mind.

And, Simon if you don’t look after our daughter I swear, we’ll haunt you for the rest of your days.” The man stopped reading.

Marissa turned to look at her uncle Simon.

“Looks like we’re in this together,” her uncle smiled at her.

“Here is the box from the vault, it has your name on it” the man passed a medium sized wooden box to Marissa. She studied its cover. On the top written in big bold writing was her name, Marissa Martinez. The writing was in her favourite handwriting, that of her late mothers. The tears welled up in Marissa’s eyes as she looked down at the final thing she had left of her mother. The last bit of her handwriting, the last few family pictures, the good OLD times…

As a tear fell from Marissa it hit the box. The small tear hit the box and created a tiny splash before forming a perfectly round puddle. Marissa watched it. The water in her eyes made her vision slightly blurry and made everything she looked at have a fuzzy out line.

Simon pulled out a tissue from the right breast pocket of his blazer. He held it beneath Marissa’s nose. With out looking at her uncle or the man who had just proclaimed she had to spend seven years with some guy she’d only ever met two times previous, she got up and left taking the resting box from her arms with her.

END FLASHBACK

That happened shortly after her mother and father had died. Since the death of her only remaining blood relatives she had stayed with a lady who her mother worked with, Betsy Taylor. Marissa and Betsy got on fantastically well, and Betsy had even decided to adopt Marissa to enable her to stay legally. But when the joint will of the Martinez family was read, Marissa had no choice but to follow her parent wishes.

A walkie-talkie crackled on Marisa’s hip. Marissa picked up the device and pressed and button on the side of it.

“SI” she bellowed into the speaker.

“Tenemos un problema podemos usted venir a la recepción inmediatamente” Marissa huffed, but headed to the reception anyway.

When she got there, there was only one woman behind the desk.

“What's the problem?” Marissa asked.

“No problem here, he want you” the lady on reception gestured toward the rep’s desk at Chris who was looking over at her and smiling. She paced over to him.

“What!” she asked smiling at him. No matter how had she tried she couldn’t be mad at him. She only had to look at him, his cheeky grin or those cheesy eyes.

“I just wanted to say… hey.” He beamed at her. She was standing over his desk, he knew she was wound up still from that morning but he just smiled and eventually she cracked. She began to laugh and they both started to joke around.

“So I was wondering would you like to go out some time?” he had waited five months to finally pluck up the courage to ask her, and when he did he was unsure why he’d never done it before.

“Well I finish her about eleven. Why? What you got in mind?” she threw him a flirty smile. As much as she tried to stop her self she actually had some feeling for him, but mostly like good friends. She liked the way his humour made her laugh, whenever he was around her. He wasn’t one of those guys who are really nice when it’s just you and him and a real pig when you’re around other people or his friends, Chris was Chris, nice, funny, and relaxed whenever and with whomever. She enjoyed being friends with him. He would always lift you up when you were down.

“I just wondered maybe we could go for a drink? Spend a little time together just the two of us, no hotel business to get in the way.” He was sweet and sincere.

“Sure, I’d love to.” Marissa left the rep’s desk and headed back to reception, the new arrivals would be here any minute and Marissa, being Hotel Manageress, had to be on hand if any problems or queries needed fixing or answering.