“Rogelio, we missed you last week,” I said. “We still had the fishing tournament but it wasn’t the same without you there.”
“The dive shop where I work sent me to a three-day seminar in Cozumel, Mr. Dennis. The dive association is really cracking down so all of us dive masters have to be up on the latest safety information.”
Our “fishing tournament” is really just five or six friends that get together once a week to go fishing in Mario’s twenty-six-foot Mexican skiff. Whoever catches the smallest amount of fish has to buy the first round when we get back to the bar.
“How was the seminar?”
“We had to study and learn a lot of safety regulations but it was good.”
“Hey, why are your eyes red? Now that you took your shades off it looks like you’ve been crying your eyes out. Is anything wrong?”
Rogelio looked shamefaced.
“Not really,” he said. “It’s because of this girl I met at the seminar.”
“What? Did she break your heart or something?”
“Nah. It wasn’t anything like that. We have a lot of tests that they give us so when I met this girl we decided to study together. We were studying in her room and one thing led to another and then. . .well, you get the picture.”
“I do. But that doesn’t explain the red eyes.”
“It so happens that she was married and had a baby at home. She started crying and then I remembered that I’m married, too, so I started crying.”
“But Rogelio, you’ve been back since yesterday and your eyes are still red. Why is that?”
“Mr. Dennis, when you sit around crying four or five times a day it’s gonna’ leave a pretty good mark.”
Share
Read more
