Aliah T. Gill

Adventures at the Palacio

Eighteen months in Estoril and Deeva still felt out of place. Working at the Palacio Hotel, she fit it about as well as a kitten living in an aquarium. She spoke just enough Portuguese to get by and even then she feared her Australian accent stuck out in all the worst ways. It was ungainly, awkward. Not the elegant, aristocratic elocution of the wealthy British tourists who spent holidays there, gambling and drinking away their trust funds without a care.