Marcus Vega Doesn't Speak Spanish

At the hotel reception, the group is overwhelmed by the opulence surrounding them. Melissa asks to see Mr. Marcus Antonio Vega, only to be gruffly told that he is in a meeting and is very busy. Charlie is mesmerized by a basketball game playing on a big TV, and Marcus checks himself out in a large mirror. He is worried that he looks too dirty to meet his father. While they wait, Melissa spots Marcus Antonio through a window. She points him out to Marcus, who is stunned at how different his father looks from his ID photo. He looks like a clean-cut businessman, not the outdoorsy man on the ID in Marcus’s pocket. Marcus feels torn, questioning why he wanted to meet this man who looks as though he “turned into someone who is nothing like us” (214).

Marcus’s father comes over and greets Melissa, but neither Marcus nor Charlie looks at him. His father offers to show him and Charlie the hotel pool. After a frosty exchange between Melissa and Marcus Antonio about why Charlie can’t swim, the three of them follow Marcus Antonio on a tour of the hotel. Melissa always stays a few feet behind her sons and her ex-husband. Marcus asks his dad about his unfinished businesses, but his father dismisses them and continues showing off the hotel. Marcus Antonio cannot understand Charlie. He turns to Marcus every time Charlie speaks to ask, “What did he say?” (219), which infuriates both Charlie and Marcus. The real reason for the tour dawns on Marcus when his father suggests they ask Melissa to purchase a time-share at Maravilla, adding, “We could see each other at least one week a year, more depending on the package your mum chooses” (220). Marcus feels sick with disappointment and fury. Ignoring the ongoing sales pitch from his father, Marcus interrupts him and demands to know why he left them. His father doesn’t have a good answer and vaguely says, “It’s complicated” (220). Marcus responds by listing the complications in his own life that were caused by his father’s absence, such as having no money and no help for Charlie. Marcus tells his father how lonely he feels being the biggest kid at school and having everyone see him as a monster, and he shares how worried he is about getting expelled. The only thing his father seems to hear is that Marcus punched a kid. To his disbelief, his father starts lecturing him. Marcus cuts him off and asks again, “Where have you been, man?” (221). His father has a list of bad excuses. Eventually, Charlie steps in and tells his father, “You broke the rules! [...] You stole fizzy lifting drinks, so you get NOTHING! You lose! Good day, Sir!” (222). Charlie is referring to a test that Willy Wonka put the fictional Charlie through. Marcus’s father doesn’t understand the reference, but it makes Melissa and Marcus burst out laughing.

Angela, Hilda, Maria, and Sergio arrive at the pool, firmly telling their guide that they don’t want to buy a time-share. Before leaving, Marcus tells his father that he wanted to meet him and introduce him to Charlie, “the coolest kid in the world” (224), but now he sees that it is his mother who is the family’s hero. His father doesn’t respond. Marcus fights the urge to punch him as he hands back his father’s ID and turns to leave with his mother, his brother, and his newfound family and friends, leaving his father behind.

The group is more relaxed during the taxi ride back to Old San Juan. Marcus realizes that everyone was right about his father, but they understood that Marcus had to see this for himself. As Marcus reads the Spanish billboards, he thinks about the contradictions that exist in Puerto Rico. He knows he will return to Puerto Rico, having found much more there than just his father.