A Trip to Paradise and Back Again

David Cameron is a naïve idealist seeking the answers to unanswerable questions; Chuck is an elite athlete with a high IQ, but he grew up isolated and poor on a ranch in rural West Texas; Harry (Dirty Harry) is from a well-known political family whose connections have provided him with everything he ever desired; Charlie is cultured, educated, charming, and charismatic with the looks of a male model, but he struggles with the dichotomy in his life of having one foot in Mexico and the other in Texas . The four medical students spend their summer break on the Mexican Riviera at an apartment Charlie's parents own. The trip has a significant impact on all four of them, but it is the young women they meet there that change their lives forever. Rita and Jane are entertainers from Los Angeles, Susan is beautiful, intelligent, and wealthy, Jamie is Susan's lifelong friend and shadow, Lola is the product of an aristocratic Spanish family from Mexico City. They fall under the spell of Sebastian, a powerful mysterious gay man with a pet jaguar who lives in an exotic pleasure palace with an erotic sophisticated, former Colombian model, Rose. Dave meets Rita and Jane, two professional dancers, at one of his nightly gatherings, and Rose takes Charlie as a lover, despite their age difference. Chuck sees Susan at a local bar on the town square and immediately falls in love with her. The med students and women live together, swim with wild dolphins in the open ocean, dance at a club on the square, enjoy moonlight and cocktails at the hotel bar, and attend Sabastian's parties at his villa. They experience a Bohemian form of communal living in a tropical paradise. But a violent episode on the beach shatters their utopia. A troll enters their fantasy fairyland and turns it grim. Only Sebastian's long reach pulls them back from the brink of disaster. Back at school, the harsh realities of the pathos of the human condition and the crushing stress of his training, cause Dave to question his desire to become a doctor. The reality of being a physician shakes his fundamental paradigm, and he struggles to cope with the demands of his chosen profession. Longing for his carefree, idyllic life in Mexico, he seeks to distract himself with Amber, a NASCAR model, and Charlotte, a career businesswoman, but he cannot forget Jane, one of the two lovely professional dancers he lived with in Mexico. Eventually as he begins to accept the mantle of a physician, unexpectedly Jane reaches out to him. She declares her love for him and agrees to meet him in Paris on his summer break. Chuck's big, powerful body, and equally powerful brain propelled him into Susan's life in Mexico, and he continues to yearn for her as he slogs through the demands of the clinical years of medical school. Susan is privileged, ambitious, and surrounded by celebrities. The big soft-spoken man from an isolated small dirt ranch in Texas does not fit into her dreams for herself, or her mother's plans for her. But over time her lust for him turns to love, and she runs to him. In Mexico, in Rose's arms, Charlie finally throws off his mother's domineering control over his life. He returns to school his own man and master, but he longs for another chance with Jamie, so he arranges to meet her at the apartment for another Summer. Jamie, through her friendship with Rita and Jane, metamorphosizes from a caterpillar inching along in Susan's wake into an exquisite, colorful butterfly. She blooms like one of the orchids in the jungle and learns to live a life she never dreamed possible for someone like her. Rose brings Harry and Lola together, but Lola is married and even though her husband abandoned her, she keeps Harry at arm's length because of her Catholic vows. Harry is hopelessly in love with her, and he continues to pursue her. He returns to Mexico.