As soon as I enter the room I know we've waited too long. Carla has already abandoned all hope of us returning and has launched into a story about the man she's sleeping with. Or, that's how she tells it.

The others are all paying rapt attention to her story about going for a walk through a dangerous jungle, but my eyes search the room for the votes. Which obviously are nowhere to be found, because that would be too easy. Why didn't they just let us count them, again?

"And that's when we arrived in Coxen Hole and I saw this strange man, it looked like, walking around without a head. Like this man was full on committed to the Headless Horseman motif, you know? And his jacket was on point so I ran after him."

"You ran after a headless man?" Divya shouts, spilling her tea in the process. "Why are you always running toward the danger? We can't leave you alone for three seconds."

"I wasn't alone, I was with Bryan. Anyway, so I follow the guy to the edge of town and then I turn toward the sea because I swear I saw the guy turn down to the dock, but he's not there."

"So where was he?" one of the groomsmen asks. "Where did he go?"

"Well, that's what I'm trying to explain," Carla says, lowering her voice and beckoning us closer like we're around the bonfire at summer camp. "When Bryan finally did catch up to me, and I told him who I was chasing, he went white as a sheet and fell down right at my feet. 'Plop' right into the water."

"Is he okay?" we all ask at once, and I have to admit, even with my mind mostly on the votes and Óscar's mysterious disappearance, I'm invested in the story.

"Of course he's okay. Are you all listening?" Carla brushes us off. "What I'm trying to tell you is when he came to, I asked him what happened and he told me a story you are going to want to hear."

Carla leans back in her chair and looks at each of us in turn, conspiratorial look etched across her narrow face.

"Well?" I finally ask. "Are you going to tell us? Or am I going to get the result of your votes?"

"We have to wait until Óscar gets back," Divya reasons. "Give us the story, Carla."

"Self-serving," I mumble, earning myself an elbow to my rib.

"Fine, I'll tell you. Don't all jump at once."

We all lean in and I fall into the only empty chair.

"Back in the early days, Pirate Coxen was on the lam from the British Navy, which was not a good place to be, as you know. But he found his refuge here in Roatan, where he hid in the caves and forest around what is now Coxen Hole, but back then was little more than a jut into the ocean."

Carla waits for confirmation before continuing. "Well, he had a sweetheart on the other side of the island where the British had set up a settlement, so seeing her was risky and less frequent than he liked. But he loved her more than anything. Isn't that romantic?"

"Something tells me this is not going to be a good wedding story," Divya says from beside me, pulling her legs under her.

"But it's so romantic," Carla swoons back into her chair. "He loved her every day and while he was away, keeping himself alive, she took up with another man. And not just any other man, either. He was the enemy."

She pauses for us all to gasp, some more seriously than others. And I will not answer as to which camp I was part of.

"So Pirate Coxen, battered and broken but still alive, finds his way back to Roatan only to find his sweetheart had taken up with an English Naval Officer. And he just can't bear to lose her so he finds the guy and takes him out." She pauses to make a death motion with her hands.

"Well, that can't have been good," Divya says, sliding to the edge of her seat and resting her elbows on her knees. "Did the British find him?"

"That's the thing! The British Naval Officer obviously wasn't alone, so it didn't take long for them to figure out who Coxen was or what he had done and now he was enemy number one, right? I mean, he'd taken out their friend and colleague. But of course they had to prove they were more civilized or whatever so they executed him like in the same way Henry VIII did his wives."

"What happened next?" Divya is eating this ghost story up and I don't have the heart to tell her it's all a lie.

But before Carla can answer, Óscar materializes in the doorway and continues. "The story goes they laid him and his head in a grave not far from here but didn't have time to bury the body right away. They came back to the graveyard later to finish the job and his head was gone. Naturally, a search was conducted, but no one has ever found his head."

"Exactly," Carla agrees. "So now he's confined to the area he knows well enough without his eyes and ears: Coxen Hole. And he wanders the town periodically, searching for his head."

"And that's who you saw?" I ask. "Some historical reenactment or something?"

"You've seen the pirate Coxen?" Óscar asks. I guess he's team Divya.

"If you'd been here earlier, you would have known," I snap. "Can we just hear the results of the vote so we can move on?"

"Not until I finish my story, we can't!" Carla cries. "I have to tell you about—"

Her phone interrupts us all with a loud, blaring trombone rendition of Single Ladies playing from the speakers. "Hello," she says, pulling the vibrant orange phone up to her ear. "No, I was just telling them all about it!"

"Is that Bianca?" I ask as quietly as I can, waving my hands to try and catch Carla's attention. "Carla?"

"No way!" she shouts. "Just one second. I have to ask... uh huh, I will."

She pulls the phone slightly away from her ear and covers the bottom like she's trying to hide our conversation from whoever it is she's speaking to. Maybe it is Bianca.

"So, Bryan has this party he wants me to go to tonight but apparently it's super fun and you all should come too. Please?"

"You think I'm letting you go to a party with a stranger without supervision?" Divya asks. "Of course we're in."

"I know a guy with a bus," Óscar pipes up. "I could get us there. Where is it?"

I shoot him a death glare, but he keeps his own gaze firmly fixed on Carla.

"Some place called Turtle Lagoon? He says it's a band dance being hosted by a Miss Emmeline, I think. Something like that."

"I know it," Óscar says, pulling out his own phone and dialing as he shuts the door between him and us.

"We can't be seriously thinking about going to a party while we're supposed to be working on decorations for Bianca's wedding," I say, hoping to bring reason—and the result of my vote count—back into the conversation.

"We won't be out forever," Divya reasons. "Plus, we don't have to be up until like ten tomorrow. Loads of beauty rest time. Come on, we're only here for a while. It's a fun cultural experience."

She has a point there. I need an article that will impress Mercurio and so far, due to some unforeseen circumstances with Óscar, I don't have as much content as I would like. "Sure, fine, let's go."

"Oh, awesome!" Carla squeals. "Now let's get dolled up and ready to party!"

She pulls my hand toward her bedroom and shoves me and Divya into the room, shutting the door.

"Everyone out!" she calls. "We have outfits to prepare!"

Some grumbling and a discussion of timing from Óscar and then they are all out the door.

"We'll be ready when we're ready and you'll appreciate it," Carla shouts, clicking the lock. "Men."

It doesn't take her long to pop the bedroom door of her suite open and shuffle into the room with a large suitcase I hadn't noticed before.

"How long did you plan to stay here?" Divya asks. "Forever?"

"I'm a fashion designer and... well, if I'm being honest I'm not sure how long I'm planning to stay. I can work from anywhere, you know?"

"You aren't coming back?" I can't say I saw that one coming.

"Of course I'm coming back." She waves us off with a casual flick of her wrist and then slams the suitcase open on the floor. "I'm just going to have a little vacation first. Is that a crime?"

"No," Divya and I say at the same time.

"I just didn't know you were planning to extend your vacation, is all." Diffusing the situation has never been my strong suit when it comes to Carla, but it feels like the right thing to say.

"Because I haven't decided yet," she answers simply. "What I do know is that you need a better outfit. Because I'm not having your pajamas at a party."

"These are not pajamas!" I object. But I can't really fault her assessment. "I'll let you put me in whatever you want if you tell me who won the bet."

"Not going to happen," she says simply.

"Fine, buy me one of those sandwiches for breakfast tomorrow."

"You drive a hard bargain," she laughs. "But I accept. Oh, I'm so excited. I have just the thing for you to wear to impress a certain someone."

"I'm not trying to impress anyone, Carla."

"Sure you aren't." She digs around in her suitcase for no more than a minute and comes out with a small piece of folded fabric.

"Go put it on," she demands, pointing at the bathroom. "Any complaining will result in immediate forfeiture of the prize and you'll still have to hold up your end of the bargain."

~ * ~ * ~

It takes us longer than expected to get ready so by the time we're rushing out the door, everyone else has been calling and texting for at least fifteen minutes.

"I cannot believe I let you do this to me." My dress is skin tight and short. I've worn shorter things, but not in foreign countries with a bunch of strangers. Okay, I have done that, too. But never... in Roatán.

I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that when a fashion designer tells you to get all dolled up, she means it. 

I'm just grateful she allowed me to wear something other than one of her tastefully cut bikinis. Because they are beautiful, but I don't think I could pull that off with this much anxiety coursing through my veins.

I still don't know who won the bet and I really want to rub it in Óscar's face. But I can't get it out of Carla no matter how hard I try. 

The last time I asked, while we were doing my makeup, she took the votes out of her bra and threw them into the sink, drowning them in water and then smushing them up into a lumpy clump of grey paper.

I'd lost all hope of finding out, but my brain was working a mile a minute trying to find some way to get it out of her even as we race down the hallway.

"I'm not telling you the results until we're home from the party," she says, noticing my sulking again as we push open the door to the stairwell. "You ruined my fun, now I'm going to ruin yours."

"By putting me into a dress tighter than your ponytail?" I ask, slightly out of breath from our journey down to the main floor.

She stops abruptly and whirls around to face me. "I'll have you know that dress is stretchy enough for Christmas dinner. I could have done far worse. Remember that."

I put my hands up in defeat. "Fine, I yield."

"Are you children ready to go?" Divya calls up from the bottom of the stairs. "The rest of us are already on the bus, including Enrique and Bianca so be on your best behaviour."

I guess hounding Carla for who won the bet is off, then. Clever minx.