Chapter 2
2
MARCH 2018, XALAPA, MEXICO
‘What the fuck… What are you doing, Gallegita ?’ Hector murmurs as he sits up slowly from under the bedsheet. His wide trapezius rises from solid shoulders as he rubs cinnamon-flecked eyes with his palms, moving sleep out and up into dark brown soft curls that kiss his temples and rest gently above his forehead. When Hector is animated, his eyes are wide, flirtatious and impassioned, but in his resting state they are as thoughtful and earnest as a pleading revolutionary’s. Right now they are in transition as his fuzzy brain tries to figure out where in the world he is. In the doorway of their bedroom, Hector’s tiny bride-to-be drapes herself against the frame, bottle in one hand, champagne flute in the other, and curses the broken glass fizzing at her bleeding feet.
‘ Joder! ’
‘What was that?’ Hector says, no longer alarmed but puzzled by the smash as he reclines against the bare wall behind him. The rough spikes of the whitewashed plaster press into his shoulders, taking the focus off the thumping in his head.
‘Not “was”. What “is” that, baby,’ Pilar purrs mysteriously as she flicks broken glass off the arches of her feet. ‘No use crying over spilt cava – we can share this one,’ she says, shaking the remaining flute in her hand. Pilar steps over the debris on the terracotta tiles and wipes her sticky toes on the foot of the sheet, smearing Freixenet and blood onto their marital bed. Careful not to spill any more drops, Pilar edges up the mattress and curls her legs around herself primly as she sits facing Hector.
‘I didn’t think we owned champagne glasses,’ Hector says, taking the flute from Pilar’s proffered hand.
‘Something borrowed.’ She winks. Pilar’s hooded Moorish eyes, a constant reminder for Hector of her Old World blood, aren’t usually this playful, but this morning she is giddy. She takes a cigarette from the red and white Delicados packet on the bedside table and lights it with her free hand.
‘Baby, you’re a schoolteacher, you’d lose your job!’
‘Something borrowed!’ she repeats irritably, then laughs as she blows the first cloud of smoke into Hector’s face. His eyes narrow in discomfort. He feels too rough to have a drag and so shields himself by raising the glass to his lips and taking a sip of tepid cava. ‘I’ll take them back!’ Pilar snaps when she sees Hector isn’t laughing. ‘Well, I’ll take this one back anyway.’ Her defensiveness softens with a husky laugh as she pulls the glass away from Hector and tops it up from the bottle resting on the bed between her thighs.
Hector lifts the cigarette balancing dangerously between her thin lips and concedes to take a puff before resting it on the overflowing ashtray on the bedside table. He slips his hand inside her white-satin dressing gown and strokes her shoulder, his eyes less flirtatious than usual.
‘You didn’t steal them from Lazaro’s, did you?’
Pilar tuts and changes the subject. ‘Wanna surprise?’ she asks with a mischievous smile .
The robe drowns Pilar’s slight frame and her black backcombed hair looks three-days tousled, even though she just spent half an hour doing it while she watched her lover sleep. Pilar loves watching Hector sleep. When he sleeps, his long lashes sweep down over earthy-brown cheeks, kissed with a pink hue from the heat he works up while he’s dreaming. His small straight nose that looks like it was carved from clay is perfect and still, and his usually loud mouth is poetically plump and sealed in silence while he breathes rhythmically. Everything is peaceful and harmonious when Hector Herrera is in one of two states: sleeping or sketching in his notepad. There are no exuberant gestures or loud laughter, just serenity. His silence calms Pilar’s rage, and with a haughty nose she gazes down at him and wonders how she ended up with a man as beautiful as Hector.
‘More surprises? I’m still traumatised by that crash.’
‘That was an accident, baby. I planned this one,’ she says with a naughty wink as she sips more cava from the glass.
Hector pulls Pilar in closer, waking his dry mouth to place a kiss on hers. His Cupid’s bow lips are small but full and Pilar imagines the same mouth when she pictures their son in a far-ahead future. Hector tastes the cava on Pilar’s tongue and it takes away the stale remnants of vodka and excess on his. She slips her robe off her shoulder.
‘Look!’
Hector gazes at Pilar’s chest. Past the dents above her left breast, he sees a blue heart with his name etched across a ribbon in a swirly script. It is too big for such a small space. Hector’s eyes widen and he is lost for words among the famine of her sternum.
‘You don’t like it?’
‘A blue heart? For our wedding?’
‘Yes. You make me sad,’ Pilar says matter-of-factly. ‘I thought it could be my “something blue”. I thought you’d like it. You don’t think it’s cool?’
Now Hector understands why Pilar had been so unusually coquettish for the past few days. He thought she might be saving herself for their wedding night, or might feel uncomfortable that her parents and sisters were in town when she wanted to give off the aura of a virginal bride, despite the fact she was straddling him in a bar in front of thirty friends last night after her three prudish sisters had returned to their hotel to get some sleep before the big day.
‘You didn’t want me to see it,’ Hector says, piecing together the jigsaw puzzle around her heart, distracting her from his dislike.
‘I was saving myself for you too,’ she says, taking another drag of the cigarette from the ceramic ashtray. ‘Imagine how great I will taste tonight, mi amor .’
The bell on the cathedral clock chimes twice, meaning it is half past the hour. Hector must get up.
Pilar hands the glass back to Hector to finish the warm dregs as she swigs the remnants from the black bottle and puts it on the bedside table. She winces from the hit of bubbles and alcohol and gives Hector a quick double clap to move him along. ‘Right, let’s get moving,’ she commands as Hector stretches his body into his yawn. ‘I’m so excited, baby,’ she adds with wide eyes.
Hector, usually the giddy one, always the life and soul, the person people gravitate towards, is finding it hard to galvanise himself this particular morning. He doesn’t feel excited right now. He just feels sad.