TEQUILA SUNRISE

chapter one

Soon after sunrise, when the only people on the beach were darkly bronzed men raking the sand surrounding the thatched sunshade of the Cabana colonies,and a few white-skinned tourists whose body-clock had not yet adjusted to the six-hour time-lag between Britain and the Caribbean sea board of Mexico, Maria sailed along the coast to fetch the supplies and the mail.
She and her father, George Rawlings, had lived near playa del Carmen since she was two years old.For most of her growing up years this stretch of the southern fring of the Yucatan peninsula had been untouched by tourists.
It was only since her sixteenth birthday,three years ago that the greedy eyes of the resort developers had focused on these quiet beaches.

For as long as Maria could remember the only access to the beach in front of their thatched hut had been by boat,or by a long bumpy dirt road leading to highway 307,known as the Cancun-Tulum corridor.It was called this because it connected Cancun, Mexico's resort, with Tulum,a fortified town built a long time ago by the Mayans and now a major tourist attraction.
Maria had never been to either place. Her father had turned his back on the world and kept her sequestered with him. It was only because he was not well that he had to allow her to come to town by herself.
'If anyone speaks to you, ignore them. Pretend you don't understand,' he had instructed her sternly.
What she did not understand was his hostility towards the gringo, the Mexican name for foreigners. Her father was himself a gringo: the son of an American father and British mother.
Compared with the Mexican and Mayans. Both people of small to medium stature, Maria often felt a giantess. Even barefoot she was inches taller than most local men. For most of her adolescence, had she had a short hair instead of the
sun-bleached hair which reached almost to her waist, she could have been passed to a lanky boy.
To her relief,at fifteen she had begun to develop a more feminine shape. She would never have the full breast and curvaceous hips and bottoms of the women of her mother's race or the tourists who, to her astonishment and her father's displeasure, lay on the sand almost naked.
'sinverguenzura... shamelessness!' he had muttered, the first time they sailed past several semi-nude bathers disporting in the crystal shallows washing the pale Coral sand of the first of the new cottage colonies.
Yet her father was not a prude. He had painted his wife without clothes and learnt his skills with pen and brush by drawing less beautiful bodies in the life classes at his art school
Unfortunately Maria had not inherited his gift. Her only talent is the bright embroidery which characterised the traditional Mexican dresses called huipiles.
But she wasn't wearing a huipiles as she brought the dinghy inshore. From choice she would have worn shorts and a t-shirt today. But her father had insisted on her wearing a full skirt of drab brown cotton and a loose white cotton shirt. He had her plait her hair and fasten it in a prime loop secured with a piece of black tape.
A small boy she knew was searching the beach for discarded bottles. He responded to her whistle and came running to help her beach the dinghy.
'Hola! Maria. Is your papa still sick?'
'Yes'
'He should see a doctor'
'I know, but I can't persuade him. Keep an eye on the boat for me, Julio
I won't be more than an hour'
Maria had completed her errands and was returning to the beach when a man lurched out of a bar and stepped in front of her.
'What's your hurry,babe? Where're y' goin'? His speech was slurred
Maria had never contend with a drunk before.
To her dismay,as she dodged, the beer-drinker grapped her by the arm, preventing her from escaping.
'You are cute. Why don't we get together and have ourselves a party'.
Laughing uproariously, he began to weave down the street, his grasp sliding down to her wrist and forcing her to go with him.
Without much hope that he would respond, she tried a polite appeal.
' please let me go, senor'.
'l'm not a senior and you are not a senorita. I'm from Detroit. Where're y'from?
Beginning to loose her temper, Maria was about to hit him with the supplies when another voice intervene.
'You are being a nuisance, amigo. Take your paw off the young lady and beat it!'
Both the drunk and Maria looked around. Standing behind them, focusing a steely glare on the drunk man was a tall, powerfully built man in a crisply laundered white guayabera and well pressed white trousers.
The beer-drinker decided to back down. 'ok...ok... take it easy,fella.didnt mean no harm. Only tryin' to be frien'ly'
As he reeled away Maria said gratefully,'thank you'
'My pleasure,'said the tall man. 'Let me carry that bag. It looks too heavy for you'.
'oh, no... please...i can manage'
Be he had already taken hold of her laden bag of rice,maize and other staples and she wasn't sorry to surrender it's weight. Already the sun was very hot. She was used to it's burning rays.
'You seems to have a lot of shopping? are you here with a group? staying at that place up the beach for back-packers?' he asked.
'No i am not a tourist I live here... not here in playa... but near'
She wondered what brought him to playa