Chapter 2 #2
“María Teresa.” Lo’s father turned away and rubbed his mouth, clearly frustrated.
He hated being interrupted. Good. Served him right.
After composing himself, he scowled at Mayté.
Lo hated the way he looked at her best friend.
As if she were even lower than the servants.
Yet, years ago, he would go carousing with Mayté’s father, back when the Robles family had money to their name.
Now it was as if that friendship had never existed. Disgusting.
“What brings you here?” Lo’s father asked coldly.
“Papá, please,” Lo sweetly scolded, ignoring the look of contempt her father flashed her.
Surely, he would punish her later. He always demanded that she spend more time with the girls in their social circle.
But Mayté was her best friend and the one part of her life she refused to include in this charade.
She really didn’t give a damn if something so trivial ruined her reputation.
“Buen día, senor. I’m doing well today, in case you were curious.” Mayté lifted her chin. “I came to see Lo.” No matter how many times Lo’s father tried to chase her away, Mayté was like a mosquito. Either she would get her feast of blood or she would die trying.
Lo absolutely loved her for it.
“Welcome, welcome!” Lo waltzed over and kissed Mayté’s right cheek before dragging her to the mirror. “Do you like my new gown?” She twirled once again.
“It’s very nice. The yellow suits you.”
“Oh, really? It’s becoming my favorite color, you know.”
“Is that so?” Mayté fidgeted, clutching the paper in her hands.
Lo studied her father through the glass. He impatiently tugged at the sleeve of his dress shirt. Waiting. Of course he was. Always around when he wasn’t needed. The butler, Alfredo, strode in and spoke to him in a hushed voice, then helped him into his suit jacket, brown and embroidered with gold.
“Lorena,” her father gruffed. “I have some business to attend to.”
Business. He always spoke of his business, trading and selling land, yet Lo wasn’t convinced that that was the full story.
Some nights he returned in the wee hours of the morning, suit coat wide open and shirt ruffled, with a stupid smile on his face.
Lo wasn’t all that old when she overheard whispers about her father’s mistresses.
Mamá had been sitting nearby watering her potted plants and hadn’t even batted an eye.
“Once you are done here, you are to tutor your sisters and continue your needlework until tonight’s dinner banquet, where you will sing.” Her father put on his hat and waited expectantly for her response.
A banquet and singing. On such short notice!
To some, it might appear that her father was simply keeping her on her toes, but she knew without a doubt that he did it to torture her.
These so-called banquets were all the same.
Suitors would arrive, teeth gleaming, ready to spend the meal sucking up to her father while she and her sisters performed and sat quietly unless spoken to. A dreadfully boring affair.
“Yes, Papá.” Lo obediently lowered her head like the dutiful daughter she never was.
She perked back up once he left. Mayté collapsed onto a chair, fanning her cheeks. By now, her entire face was flushed, almost as red as the flowers on her long, billowing skirt. “I thought he’d never leave.”
Lo burst out laughing. “At least you don’t have to live with him.” Ever so carefully, so as not to upset her already achy scalp, she undid her bun and shook out her hair. Her thick curls sprang back to life, happy and free.
“Hmph. My father’s never home,” Mayté teased. “Trust me, it doesn’t help.”
The two had perhaps the worst fathers in all of Milagro, and they had been together for it all.
Lo hid out with Mayté whenever her father was in one of his moods, breaking vases and raising his voice, while Lo lent Mayté dresses and coins whenever her family had to sell off their stuff to make up for her drunkard father’s shenanigans.
Both girls understood that the other was in a terrible situation, but it was never a competition to see who had it worse.
That was why Mayté was one of the only people Lo could trust. Even more so than her own sisters.
“Ay, you look horrible.” Lo sat across from her best friend and scrutinized her.
The dark circles under her eyes looked like black petals from a cursed rose.
All the wrinkles in her short-sleeved top gave away that she likely hadn’t changed clothes in at least a day.
Black paint stained her nailbeds, and there were flakes of green in her left eyebrow.
Lo bit back a laugh. “Were you up all night painting again?” She took the opportunity to snatch Mayté’s rebozo, tan and dull, and set it aside.
Lo had never liked the dreadful things. They weren’t very flattering and seemed like a hassle to carry around.
“Two nights.” Mayté proudly grinned, but then let out a sound somewhere between a huff and a yawn. “But that’s a story for another time. Look!” She handed the paper to Lo.
“Hmm?” Lo smoothed it out on her lap. A poster of a calavera.
She ran her fingers across the parchment, dark as night, and the lettering winked in the sunlight.
She skimmed the text, though she didn’t get very far before gasping.
“Fortune’s Kiss?” Her mind raced, but everything was a blur.
Like fiesta lights in the distance. They swirled into something beautiful, yet terrifying.
“Mayté.” Lo looked over her shoulder to make sure they were alone. “Is this real?”
It couldn’t be. But what if it was?
Her pulse quickened and a flush crept up the back of her neck. Ten years ago, when Mamá ran away, her destination had been Fortune’s Kiss. Loretta de León was supposed to return with a fortune big enough to set herself and her daughters free.
She had promised.
“Yes!” Mayté scooted to the edge of her seat and took Lo’s hands, giving them a squeeze. “Think of all the duos that have won. The Lucky Angels, and weren’t there those lovers from Milagro a long time ago?”
Lo remembered the legend of the Lucky Angels. Everyone did. Twin brothers named after archangels who stuck together and emerged from the game victorious. Their lives became heaven on earth. She couldn’t quite remember what happened to the lovers. “What did they win again?”
Mayté shrugged. “More than we can imagine. The point is, that could be us.”
It was true. The story was that every time Fortune’s Kiss appeared, there emerged a winner or two who left with a huge fortune and their wildest dreams fulfilled. But still—
“It’s risky,” Lo whispered. Those who returned from the game as losers were a mess. Not only broke and humiliated, but barely uttering more than a few words and never leaving their homes.
Many didn’t return from the game at all.
Like Mamá …
Whispers floated around that Mamá simply ran away.
Some were certain she fled with another man, while others thought she was dead.
But Lo knew better. Mamá definitely went to Fortune’s Kiss and must have gambled and lost. Surely, she was stuck repaying her debts.
Returning empty-handed wouldn’t have helped anyone …
“Well, I for one am willing to risk it,” Mayté said.
“I’m tired of the way things are, and I know you are too.
Those people who came back with nothing weren’t thinking things through.
If we lose, we can stay and spend a few years paying off our debts.
In the meantime, the house will travel the world and we’ll be along for the journey!
I know it’s not perfect, but isn’t it better than what we have now?
” She smirked, and all the exhaustion smeared on her face seemed to magically fade. “Remember our pact?”
Instinctively, Lo touched the scar on her right palm. How could she forget? She used to watch Mayté draw pictures in the dirt, imagining how Fortune’s Kiss looked: a castle made of clouds and rainbows. The perfect fairy-tale escape for two little girls. But that was all it had been, a fantasy.
Now it was real. Risk. Reward. Everything.
Lo shuddered and rubbed her arms. Back then, their dreams had been much simpler. To live like princesses without any burdens or responsibility.
That was before Mamá left.
Before Mayté’s family fell from grace.
“This might be our only chance,” Mayté continued, her dark eyes full of fire. “Don’t you want to gamble?”
Did she? Lo’s heart skipped a beat. She looked between the poster and her best friend.
Her fingers trembled. Mamá must have been desperate to risk it all.
Was Lo that desperate? Did she want to follow in Mamá’s footsteps?
She would have to leave her sisters behind with their father. Did she want to gamble?
If she won, she and her sisters could escape from him forever. And maybe, just maybe, she could get Mamá back.
The realization made her dizzy. Yes, yes, yes. “Let’s do it.” Even if she lost everything, her best friend would be by her side. She would follow Mayté to El Infierno if she had to.
“Then let’s throw our rebozos into the ring.” Mayté flung out her arm.
Lo snorted. “I’ll toss something much more fashionable, thank you.”
“Oh, hush, you.” Grinning widely, Mayté pointed at the bottom of the poster. “It says it’s at Centro Street. We should investigate that. Maybe we can get more information about getting in.”
It was so like Mayté to gather all the facts.
Despite the risk and everything that could go wrong, Lo’s heart drummed with excitement. At Fortune’s Kiss, there was so much more that could go right. And it would. It had to.