Almost Paradise

THE beach is on top of my list when it comes to choices of romantic settings in my novels. The reasons are much too transparent even to the readers.

Then, too, the beach, as a setting, provides a wide spectrum of scenarios that allow the main protagonists to interact in ways that tickle the imagination. Like, for example, a supposedly demure heroine with a stunning body will have “no choice” but to wear her bikini and, hopefully, dazzle the previously indifferent hero. On the other hand, another hero can unwittingly shed his usual nerdy attire, wear his Speedo that will show off his strong forearms and abs to the heroine who has always looked at him as dull, uninteresting, and worse, wimpy. The beach, indeed, is a place where one who has it can flaunt it and not be reprimanded for being an exhibitionist. In other words, the beach is a pragmatic choice of setting for an author of romance paperbacks.

The beach on my mind, however, is not complete without the word ‘resort’ after it. And since a couple of decades ago, there is one beach resort – actually, it’s an island resort – that had clung to my mind like spilt chocolate drink on the white shag carpet. This island resort, which I will call Almost Paradise, has been the setting of many of my romantic novels, and also the setting of my very successful romance-thriller series, Diamante (13 books in all and still unfinished until now). But then again, Almost Paradise Island Resort had showed me the many faces of the other side of romance during those times when I was, supposedly, on holiday.

This is a glimpse of one of several other curious love stories and relationships that got snagged in my memory bank in one of my working holidays in Almost Paradise…

The Tanned Couple

DAISY and Günther (not their real names, for reasons that will be obvious to you in a bit) arrived in style at Almost Paradise. I said ‘in style’ because rarely did guests arrive in this island resort by helicopter. The norm was for resort guests to take the plane from Manila; be picked up by the resort staff upon arrival in the postage-stamp sized airport in the provincial capital, and be escorted to the tiny wharf where a small ferry was waiting. The ferry would then bring the guests to the island resort.

It was a hassle, all those rides, to Almost Paradise but the 40-minute ferry ride across calm blue waters, with breathtaking views of the surrounding islets to your left and to your right, would compensate for the hassle. And as soon as the ferry approached the island itself, with its gleaming white sand and waters that seemed diamond-studded, all you could think of was paradise with a capital P. Any hardworking person on holiday was bound to lose, almost instantaneously, all signs of stresses. Almost Paradise was exactly that – almost paradise. (But take note not to travel there while there’s a raging storm, or you’d triple your current level of stress.)

But back to Daisy and Günther, the couple with overly bronzed skin, big floppy hats and oversized sunglasses, who, as I would learn later, had been using helicopters in their beach-hopping binge across the country like a “regular” taxi service.

Daisy looked very Asian; she’s Filipina but she could be mistaken for a Vietnamese or Thai. She was no taller than five feet so when she stood beside Günther, her European husband, she looked like a midget. Günther was about 6’5” tall and sort of gangly.

The couple was quite affable. Daisy was particularly warm and bubbly – but only to me, I would quickly notice, compared with the other female guests in the island resort whom she appeared not to notice at all. Günther was cordial to everyone although he had the kind of smile that only got reflected in his eyes. If other people smiled only with the corners of their lips upturned, Günther, it seemed to me, did not have that facial ability. Still, it was pleasant to see his crinkly grey eyes twinkling at a joke; sometimes, he laughed with a kind of laugh resembling a throaty rumble.

Socializing with the other guests in this island resort was easy. There was only one dining hall and one entertainment room with a big-screen television and a couple of pool tables. There were no TV set and telephone unit in the bungalows. It was part of its charm: not having to listen or watch to depressing news, or get calls from whoever. After all, people went to the island resort to “get away from it all” as its advertisement read.

There was a big swimming pool adjacent to the dining hall, but most of the guests preferred to swim in the clear blue waters. And oh, yes, there was a 9-hole golf course at Almost Paradise but its quality was not up to par with golf aficionados. But, still, some guests played there when they’ve had enough of jogging (by the beach), swimming, jet-skiing, glass-boating, snorkeling, and boozing in the floating bar. When it rained, the guests contented themselves playing Trivial Pursuit – and thank, goodness, there was no karaoke bar there at the time.

At the time, too, even when I was supposedly on holiday (from regular work in Auckland), I saw to it that I had brought deadlines to work on; not much, just small writing projects from the local publications. It was the way I always wanted my holidays to be – productive. So, while the male partners of the guest-couples were into their thing – like playing Trivial Pursuit or sharing common trivial experience while sipping single malt Scotch whisky, I either shut myself in the bungalow to write, or write away the lovely time at the front porch of our bungalow. The view of the beach, the sea, and the neighboring islands from the porch on a bright, cloudless day was just fantastic – and that was where Daisy had cornered me, so to speak, quite a few times, for some girl-talk.

Girl-talk, in this context, consisted of her telling me about her diet, her exercise, the new and fancy clothes accumulating in her closet but have not been worn yet, their vacation houses in Florida and Tuscany, her family background, her life before she met Günther. She told me how “young” she was but this was before putting me in a spot.

“How old do you think I am?” Daisy asked me with an impish grin. [This was after she showed me how to do crunches when we were in our bungalow’s porch. She was aghast, you see, when I told her I was not a member of any fitness club.]

I would have said that she looked as old as my mother, but being rude was not in my character. I remembered having mentioned a number close to my own age at the time. She laughed, very pleased at my stupidity. Then she told me that she was already 44-years old, a number I could not believe. She may be petite and slim but up close, without her floppy hat and large sunglasses, her skin was dry, nearly akin to a dehydrated prune. But in fairness, all the beach-hopping that she and her husband was doing, exposing themselves to sun as much as possible, must have done its damage without them doing something to protect their skin.

In our later conversation, I would also learn that before she married Günther, she used to work at the airport. Her father, who had just retired, also worked there and held a senior post. Daisy had also told me about her previous marriage to a foreigner, they had a son, and she retained custody of the son when they divorced. The son was already grown-up then and was in the care of Daisy’s parents.

In between these many conversations with Daisy, whether with just the two of us, or during meals at the dining hall, or walks on the beach, or having evening barbecues on the beachfront with the hubbies, I learned about Günther’s financial status. He was an engineer and the inventor of mobile wheelchairs. (There had been many other inventions since then pertaining to mobile wheelchairs so Günther’s anonymity is assured, I hope!)

It was a big, big deal at the time. To invent something as functional as a wheelchair that afforded mobility to its user was a guarantee for lifelong wealth. Günther also owned the company that produced other high-tech gadgets, but he had retired recently, leaving the management of his business to his son from a previous marriage. With Daisy, Günther, who was in his mid-50s, had gone on to their early retirement by traveling all over the world and enjoying life as if they’re in paradise.

No Cinderella

IF Daisy had came from a poor family, I would conclude that her love story was like Cinderella’s. But she was not from a poor family. They – her family – was relatively well-off, and this, despite the fact that her father did not use his position as a junior immigration officer assigned at the airport to acquire wealth. I was in awe when Daisy mentioned that. Corruption amongst the immigration/customs officers in the country was an open secret. And to discover that such an officer exists who has not enriched himself in office, I, naturally, admired this person.

Ironically, when Daisy mentioned her father’s honesty, the impression she gave me was that of disapproval. She thought he was impractical. Then I learned why. Daisy was the exact opposite of her father. She was a personal assistant, or PA, to an important customs officer, and she used her position to stuff her pocket and wallet with bribe money. I could not imagine how a PA could do that but, apparently, she used her boss’ name without him, the boss, knowing that Daisy was getting bribes. The bribes came from people coming in from overseas, bringing in highly taxable goods. Daisy facilitated the release of those goods for a “fee” which was a fraction of the right amount of tax that should go to the government.

I was dumbfounded.

But I haven’t heard it all yet.

If She Was Simply Man-Mad, or Even Sex-Mad…

WHAT was more shocking was this: Daisy, to that day, continued her illegal activities – despite her husband’s wealth!

“How could I do that?” she asked me, her eyes aglitter with amusement. She was obviously enjoying my open-mouthed perplexity with how she could still “earn” easy money the way she used to when she was the senior customs officer’s PA when she was no longer working for him.

“Oh, quite easy,” Daisy answered her own question. “I have many friends there. And my previous contacts, you know, the business people who brought in goods from, say, Hong Kong, still rely on me to assist them. They will usually give me a call, tell me when they’re flying back to the country, and I will be at the airport to meet them. I mean, I meet them and tell the customs staff handling the customs declaration documents that the arrival is a friend of mine. And off we go through customs without any problem. Of course, I have to share half of my ‘fee’ to my friends still working at customs. It’s SOP.”

“I thought you and Günther are traveling around the world, and not permanently based in Manila?”

Daisy laughed again. She really thought I was impressed with how clever she was in earning easy money.

She said, “I make sure we’re in the Philippines six months every year. Maybe only three to five weeks at a time, but within that period, I always get a call from friends coming in through customs who need assistance.”

I could not speak. What could I say anyway?

“Or sometimes,” Daisy added, “I fly to Hong Kong myself to join my business friends. It’s only a short hop. I fly to Hong Kong in the morning and return in the afternoon. It was easier if I claim to my friends at customs that the goods are mine.”

“Does your husband know?”

She laughed out loudly. “Certainly not! He will kill me if he learns I’m up to my tricks again. Günther did not even know I’d been to Hong Kong for the day. He thought that I was just at the gym or at the beauty salon all those time. Am I not clever?”

I should have asked Daisy if she had a pressing need for extra money, but I did not. It was transparent that she had no urgent need for that. Any couple who used the chopper like a normal taxi service in their island resort hopping, stayed in 5-star hotels, and flew to Singapore just to enjoy a dinner of authentic Hainanese chicken rice, must be rolling in dough.

When Daisy and Günther shared our dinner table that evening, I observed the couple a little more closely. I tried to perceive if there was something odd in the way they act, speak, gesture. I wanted to rationalize, in my mind, Daisy’s need to moonlight as cohort to small-time smugglers. But all I detected, up until the time when their private helicopter landed at Almost Paradise to pick the couple up, was a genuine loving relationship. It was a good material for a romance novel but one which I have not written about, until now.

There was no way I could twist or transform this story – basically, Daisy’s – to an acceptable read. I may sometimes pander to my readers’ need to read about a man-mad, even a sex-mad, heroine, but with the likes of Daisy, I simply could not shrug off my repugnance.

Daisy had it all: a supportive family, a loving husband, comfort beyond imagination of the ordinary mortal. It was safe to say that she was blessed with a life akin to almost paradise. But almost paradise for her meant nothing.

She had to trick and cajole Günther to take off Almost Paradise that day. A business friend had sent her a coded telephone message the previous evening. The friend needed her facilitating service; this friend just bought a huge shipment of faux designer shoes and bags and bales of fine silk. Daisy was to fly to Bangkok the next day, return to Manila the next in order for the friend’s shipment to breeze through customs sans duties.

It was disgusting and sad at the same time. Daisy and Günther could have joined the guest couples at Almost Paradise in an hour’s time – sipping champagne while watching the sun set on the horizon which resembled a palette of orange, pink, purple and golden hues. It was oh, so romantic.

But there was no romance in being money-mad.