Shortly after meeting Justine, I took my eleven-year old son down to Atlantis in the Bahamas for February vacation. Atlantis is gigantic hotel-casino-water park on Paradise Island across from Nassau. We played in the water all day and then watched Gilligan’s Island on TV until around nine pm, when he would pass out. He never, ever woke up before six a.m. so I would sneak down to the hotel bar like a bad dad for a few drinks. 

The second night of our stay, I was talking to a barely-eighteen year old dude at the bar. He seemed to be enjoying his first legal drink, trying to look as cocky as possible, with a vertically positioned baseball cap pointed almost directly at the ceiling. I kept wondering how it stayed on his head.

 

Just then two teenage girls who couldn’t have been more than fifteen trotted up to the bar and asked for large glasses of cranberry juice. I whispered to the nearest one,"So where's the vodka?" She squealed and opened her purse to show me a little pint of Smirnoff. 

We started talking, and it turned out she was on one of those 125-ft yachts out back in the Atlantis marina. Apparently, her dad had driven it over from Florida. 

She said, “He named it the ‘Miss Brittany’ after me because he hates my mom.” 

I asked how long they had been divorced, and she said, “Oh, they’re not divorced - she’s on the boat.”

That development should have given me a good clue as to what was coming next.

She asked where I was from and I said, “Stamford, Connecticut.”

“Get Out! I’m from Greenwich!!!” she trilled. It seemed she was a Freshman at the High School. 

I said, “I went there myself.” 

Which elicited an even bigger, “Get Out!!” 

So, we chatted for a bit about our mutual high school experiences (separated by a good thirty-five years). Then she noticed the dude sitting in the seat next to me. Well, within fifteen minutes she was sitting in his lap, and they were planning the next move of the night. (I wonder if they were thinking the same thing?)

I turned and started talking to her friend, who was just an amazing little Lolita, bra-less with perky little boobs draped loosely by an airy summer dress. She had a killer face that looked way older than her probable fifteen years. She told me a story about how the previous evening they’d gone out to buy some ganja from the natives and almost got raped in the process. I silently thanked God I didn’t have a daughter. 

The she asked me where I'm from, apparently not having paid attention to my earlier conversation with Brittany. When I told her, she repeated Brittany’s mantra, “Get out!!” and added “that's where I live!” 
I told her I was raised there and how old I am, and she says, “GET OUT - my mother grew up there!” 

I asked when her mother graduated from Greenwich High School, and it was the year ahead of me. I asked her mother's first name and she said “Darla,” and I replied, “Omigod, you're Darla Perry’s kid?!?!?!? I've known her for years..."

And she turned as white as the background on her sun dress with the realization that I knew her mother – as well as way too much about her little adventure in Atlantis. 

Her mother Darla was one of the hotties in the class before me, a swimmer with a killer body and very cute face. I painted houses in the summers with her brother, who was still a close friend of mine. She just about wet that little dress when she realized I knew her family, and spent the next twenty minutes frantically trying to get me to swear never to tell her mother. I promised to keep a secret, and slowly she calmed down.

Soon after, Brittany announced that her new boyfriend was meeting some buddies outside and had invited the girls along. So, the two little devochkas departed with him out into the Caribbean night. I followed them as far as the parking lot to eyeball the group and see if I needed to intervene. They seemed like regular enough boys, so I gave my blessings (such as they were) and the girls trotted off with their new friends. I only know that they survived the night by telling her uncle the story when I saw him in town about a year later.

 
He told me that he’d already heard the story, because his clever niece had pre-empted me by telling her mother a sanitized version when she returned. I let my friend decide whether his sister needed to know any of the more sordid details. I don’t think she does to this day.

After that incident I started wondering just what kind of people come to Atlantis, a combination gambling and family center that seems to aspire to be a Caribbean Las Vegas. I looked around at the people for the next few days with a critical eye and found that there was indeed a common thread: the stereotype Atlantis family consisted of an overweight Player daddy accompanied by a trophy wife and at least two kids, one of whom is right at the jailbait stage. There must have been dozens of such family units scattered around the pools. 

When I saw that same Brittany with her family later in the week it mostly confirmed my hypothesis. Her father looked to be in his late fifties, with a sizable gut. But Brittany’s poor mom looked more like the trophy wife from the Nineties who was on the block for a trade-in. It was a sad picture.

 

My son and I made the most of our waterpark vacation, but I never took him back. Just not my kind of place.