Caray, Caray!

We open with our heroine Helena at the cemetery. A strange guy in a hoody (Juan Carlos, now JC) is lurking behind trees. She has flowers for him because it's his birthday. Along comes another woman, and another, one leaves a red bra on his tombstone, the aunt of one of them comes along (she also was one of JC's conquests).

Here comes a batch of mariachis accompanying a couple drunk women, one in a fur coat, they call themselves JC's courtesans and say "He shared with all but gave his heart to none."

Heroine, who's been watching this in amazement, says "That guy deceived all of us, he just deserves to be forgotten." Dozens more women arrive as the mariachis wail. Behind the tree JC whispers: "Helena, you are the only one I've ever loved. When will you forgive me?"

MONTHS EARLIER...

In Acapulco: JC pulls up in a nice car and a nice white suit. The Grand Resort hotel is opening, joint project with a US firm. Reporters swarm him - he blabs smoothly, then grabs one of them and makes an appointment for later.

With his buds Santiago y Fernando by the pool, all three are ogling. One sidekick is married so he's sad looking at the unavailable fruit. JC says to the other: "don't ruin your life, there's time to get away from her, jeez, you already smell married." Then: "Remember our code: no very young women; old women and single mothers don't exist." JC wants his own children, not somebody else's.

"A goddess" arrives in a red dress. JC moves in and though his line is very crappy, she takes a look at him and immediately accompanies him into the empty hotel where they proceed to make out against a wall...

... while her FIANCE, an old gringo dude, turns out to be boss of the US company and is signing papers to join his gringo $$$ to Grupo Imperio... He says his future wife is "The ideal woman: young, beautiful and only opens her mouth when necessary."

While bragging about the up-to-the-moment security of the hotel, they turn on the closed-circuit tv feed and JC's groping with the affianced goddess is shown to all, with the result that the old gringo dude tears up the contract and leaves snarling, "You'll be hearing from my lawyers."

In Mexico City: In her son Lalito's bedroom, Helena practices a presentation on her six-year project, the eco-touristic Majagua Beach.

She lives with her parents. Her dad has been grouchy with her for years - I think he'd like to charge her rent. He scolds her for a marriage that left her with debts. He hands her a hefty private school bill she has to pay. He says nobody will pay attention to a project created by a woman. Helena's mother is nicer.

Turns out Helena had an appointment today - made three months earlier - with JC himself - to discuss her project! But he's in Acapulco... She sits down to wait, and she waits and waits, but then she gets a call from her friend at the hotel where she works - she's needed. She leaves her notebooks with the G.I. secretary saying, "This is my entire life, put these right in JC's hand." She leaves.

Moments later, of course, Adriano Reyes the boss re-arrives from Acapulco after the shattered deal, followed by everybody (the evil Plutarco, JC's buddies, JC, etc). The secretary gives Helena's notebooks to JC and he immediately tosses them in the trash on his way in to his boss's office. Because no project cooked up by a woman could be any good.

The boss yells at him and says, "Unless you come up with a project as good as the one you just ruined with your skirt-chasing, you're fired and so are your buddies."

Behind the hotel desk, Helena fixes something very efficiently for a guy connected with the Canadian "Alberta Trouble Company" [sic]. Impressed, he says she's over-qualified for her job and hints he might have something for her (his business is in competition with Grupo Imperial)

Later she goes home and her son (who is not horrid so far) reminds her that if her project is a success they will be able to buy a house and a dog.

In the hot tub: Plutarco and his girlfriend play wet footsie. He is married to Antonia (the plus-sized sister of big boss Adriano Reyes, himself a sexist skirt-chaser), whom his girlfriend calls "the manatee." Antonia calls him and he goes home briefly (after all, she IS the boss's sister). She is dressed in lingerie. There are sadly going to be a lot of fat jokes. Plutarco spurns her and goes, I guess, back to the hot tub, where he plots with his girlfriend to kick JC while he's down.

In a big house somewhere: JC goes to see his mother Eugenia who was in the theater and now has memory problems. She says she can fix his woes.

Finally: Helena gets a phone call from Grupo Imperial and goes in. She think's it's JC calling her in to discuss her project, but instead it is Rebeca Oropeza, who mocks her for thinking she could see such an august personage as JC: "He doesn't have time for you. But he left this for you. You're fired."

Labels: por-ella