"Hey, don't worry about it," Cooper said with a rueful smile and a nod. "It's a story that deserves to be laughed at. Here," he added, nudging Sarah's water goblet toward her. "Hold your nose and take a long drink. That always cures hiccups for me."<br/><br/>His tuna-stuffed olives were right at hand, right next to his glass of white rioja. He had heard neither being set down. Just like the servers themselves, the food seemed to materialize from nowhere.<em>Who staffs this place? Ninjas?</em><br/><br/>"Well." He scarfed down a pair of olives to fortify himself for the tale. "Flash back to eight weeks ago. I'm working not quite full time as a mechanic in Waverly, Indiana. Plus I've got a little business on the side, some ..." He paused there, just a tick. How to describe what he had done for Eleanor, exactly? "Small appliance repair." Yeah, that was close enough.<br/><br/>"Not making much money at either of those, and my social life was a bit dead at the time. So I'm hanging out at Shaky Joe's Java Hut one afternoon - the local coffee shop. I had just picked up some items to take back to the shop. This posh Euro-style guy sits down next to me at the counter and introduces himself. Joao do Baixoa. Hella smooth, you could spend a half hour just listening to him saying his name.<br/><br/>"After a minute I realize I had passed him at the store where I made the pickup. He had been waiting to talk to the owner. Tells me he's a representative for a new resort opening up in Ibiza. It took me a second to figure out what he meant, because I had never heard anybody pronounce it 'Eebeetha' before."<br/><br/>Cooper paused to take a pull of wine. His throat was getting parched. Plus this was the point where the story started to get really dumb.