The Grand Paloma Resort

The Grand Paloma Resort is a lush paradise in the Dominican Republic where guests enjoy incredible luxury,;and the staff is always eager to please--that is, until they are pushed to the brink. Laura is a manager at the Grand Paloma Resort, a Dominican woman who has risen this far through sheer hard work. Her idea to pair “platinum” guests with a resort employee to attend to their every need has been wildly successful. She’s mere weeks away from a promotion that will blaze a path off the resort, to a life of opportunity. If only her younger sister, Elena--who she’s looked after since the death of their mother – could get with the program. Elena;has tried her best to live up to her sister’s expectations. To escape the drudgery of waiting on rich tourists, she’s become increasingly dependent on pills and partying. As a babysitter at the resort, she’s at the mercy of guests who travel to indulge their worst impulses and need someone else to watch their kids while they do so. Now, after an accident, a child in her charge is believed dead, and Elena knows she''ll be held responsible. At a local beachfront watering hole, Elena runs into the child’s father. He offers her an obscene amount of money to give him private time with two young local girls. Elena pockets the cash to fund her escape and prays she’s gotten the girls out of harm’s way. Set over the course of seven days, <The Grand Paloma Resort< offers an unforgettable story of class, family, and community, building to an intense climax in which the true costs of luxury are laid bare, forcing Laura and Elena to reckon with long-held secrets and true acts of love.

Autorentext

Cleyvis Natera is the author of Neruda on the Park. She was born in the Dominican Republic, migrated to the United States at ten years old, and grew up in New York City. She holds a BA from Skidmore College and a MFA from New York University. Her writing has won awards and fellowships from the International Latino Book Awards, PEN America, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The Kenyon Review’s Writers Workshops, the Vermont Studio Center, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Rowland Writers Retreat, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is currently a Fulbright Specialist. She lives with her husband and two young children in Montclair, New Jersey. The Grand Paloma Resort is her second novel.

Klappentext

AN ELLE AND ELECTRIC LIT BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • The Grand Paloma Resort is a lush paradise in the Dominican Republic where the guests enjoy incredible luxury, and the staff is always eager to please—that is, until they are pushed to the brink.

Laura is a local Dominican woman who, through sheer hard work, has risen through the ranks to become manager at the Grand Paloma Resort. Her idea to pair a “platinum” guest with their own resort employee to attend to their every whim has been wildly successful, and she’s just weeks away from a promotion that could blaze a path for her off the resort and toward a life of opportunity. If only her younger sister, Elena—who she’s looked after since the death of their mother—could get with the program.

Elena has tried to live up to her sister’s expectations, but to escape the drudgery of waiting on rich tourists, she’s become increasingly dependent on pills and partying. As a babysitter at the resort, she’s at the beck and call of guests who are indulging their worst impulses and need someone else to watch their kids while they do so. Now, after an accident, a child left in her charge is believed dead, and Elena knows she'll be held responsible.

When Elena runs into the child’s father at a nearby beachfront watering hole, he offers her an obscene amount of money for private time with two young local girls. Elena pockets the cash to fund her escape and prays she’s gotten the girls out of harm’s way. But then the girls are reported missing.

Set over the course of seven days, The Grand Paloma Resort offers an unforgettable story of class, family, and community, building to an intense climax in which the true costs of luxury are laid bare, redeemed only by true acts of love.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

The tourist child’s mud-streaked body had become heavy and sweat made her slippery in Elena’s arms. As she made her way out from the tropical forest behind the Grand Paloma Resort, Elena headed not in the direction of the manicured grounds but into the water-starved, cracked dirt of the staff quarters. Looking down at the little girl’s unconscious form, she whispered, “Please, please, please don’t die on me.”

She wove through row after row of beautiful casitas. Alternating between vibrant turquoise and the brightest yellow, with a flash of hot pink every fourth or fifth little house, each decorated with flower beds full of birds of paradise and lilac hibiscus bushes, it was the kind of sight that would make a visitor sigh in delight. Unless they happened to touch the plants and realize they were plastic. Nothing got watered in this part of the resort.

Once she was safely inside the casita she shared with her older sister, Laura, Elena took a breath and looked around, unsure whether to lay the child on her bed or her sister’s. Relief washed over her. No one had seen her. It was as if the dusty ground of that forest had lifted and shrouded her.

She was paralyzed momentarily by the weight of the child’s body. What was she? Sixty pounds? Two hundred? Elena was dizzy from the heat and humidity. She’d been hired to care for the now injured and unconscious child, looking after the girl by day and sleeping in a tiny cot-sized room in the back of the kitchen of the penthouse suite that the girl and her parents occupied. She hadn’t been in the casita all week. Elena’s side was as messy as she’d left it—unmade bed, strewn clothes, shoes everywhere. It was shocking. Her sister always cleaned up after her.

Elena laid the kid on Laura’s neatly made bed. She called the girl’s name and shook her gently. No response. The blond bouncy curls that had swayed when they’d tried the latest viral TikTok dance that morning, before their outing in the forest, were matted with mud and blood. The kid’s flat chest seemed too still. Had it been a mistake, moving the girl?

Elena caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror. Her dark brown skin shone from the effort of carrying this kid. The bald head she’d shaved to celebrate her freedom from the global academy, from the confines of this place, appeared oversized. The big eyes that everyone always complimented her on were full of tears. The slender frame she worked hard at, swimming two, sometimes three times a day when she wasn’t charged with full-time work as a babysitter, made her seem fragile, prepubescent. She was seventeen but looked like a fourteen-year-old. The pink scrubs that identified her immediately to all guests as a babysitter exaggerated that image, softening her. She’d worked hard to appear revolutionary, but now look at her: a terrified kid.

Elena sat on the bed to take a breath. She was comforted by the smell of her sister’s woody perfume. Laura’s row of white uniforms—which denoted her rank as part of the senior leadership team of the hotel’s management—was rigid in the closet. On her sister’s night table was Elena’s final paper, the one she’d written just two months ago as a requirement for graduation from the international high school: “The Case Against Statelessness.” Her teacher had said it was great writing but had predictable conclusions. The questions you ask are important, she’d said, truly exc…