Chapter 3
As soon as she was certain that her niece had left the house, Perla went in search of Ulises.
He opened the door with a grin on his face that made her think he’d been expecting her.
She walked into the room slowly, her head held high, a calculated coolness in her eyes lest he think her a stupid schoolgirl who wanted to take a second look at her would-be sweetheart.
She’d invited him on a whim. She’d exchanged letters with other correspondents, letters that hadn’t amounted to anything.
She’d written to stave off boredom, to subdue a restlessness that overtook her on melancholic evenings, to chase away loneliness.
Now that this man was here, she wasn’t sure what to do with him.
Miss Perla Inclán had a pristine reputation, one she’d polished with great care.
There had been men in her life. Nameless, faceless men she met when she went to the port of Veracruz—which in local parlance was simply referred to as “the port,” as if there could be no other port and no other shores—with the excuse of visiting her cousins.
There had been Plutarco. But each of those dalliances was dangerous.
There was, of course, Cándido lurking around. He did not have a pretty face, but Cándido would offer her the position she’d always coveted, as a grande dame of Puerco Ahogado.
That is, if he ever made up his mind and proposed. A real proposal, not his talks sprinkled with legalese.
Ulises Linares was supposed to be a trinket to show off around town, a trinket to make Cándido see she had options and opportunities and that he should hurry and pick a ring.
But now that she looked at Ulises in the flesh, Perla Inclán couldn’t help but wonder what might happen if she took this more seriously.
She hadn’t realized he’d be this attractive.
Pictures lied. She’d expected him to be potbellied, to be missing tufts of hair or even to have borrowed a photo from a friend.
But he looked exactly as he had in his snapshot, gray hair at the temples, with a lively, attractive face.
“Mr. Linares, I came to see if everything was satisfactory with your room. My niece can sometimes forget certain niceties. Do you have enough towels?” she asked, in a polite tone that she’d perfected through the many years she’d endured in servitude to her father, learning to choke down any nervous anguish and mask strong feelings.
“I do. But thank you for checking.”
Perla pressed a hand against the towels piled on a chair, then turned around to survey the space. The bed had been neatly made and the floor had been swept and mopped, as she’d instructed.
“Did Inés explain the particulars of the meals? I’m afraid I might have forgotten to mention that breakfast will be served in your room.
We have our supper at three p.m. in the dining room, and at seven p.m. we serve coffee, naturally, but also chocolate and cookies. On Fridays we like to play cards.”
“Wonderful. I’m great at canasta. I’m magnificent at any game of chance.”
“Are you, then?” Perla said, and glanced at the toiletries he’d lined up on the vanity, next to the porcelain pitcher and the washbowl. The jar of soap, the shaving brush, the razor in a Bakelite carrying case.
It had been a long time since a man had stayed in this room, since Plutarco, and these masculine implements—the studs resting next to a collar, the carefully polished black oxfords tucked under a chair, the bottle of cologne—reminded Perla of her lonesomeness.
“Quite so. You must be careful around me.”
“You don’t play for money, do you? Men who gamble for money are distasteful,” she said, suddenly picturing dingy, smoky dens of ill repute.
It was fine to play cards at home, in select company, but it would be quite another thing if he had a habit of playing poker and losing vast quantities of cash.
She was hungry for romance, but not for romance with a boorish man.
She’d had that, she’d had anonymous lovers, men from the port.
Rough men in coarse clothes. She’d had Plutarco, a married salesman who snored.
No, she would not do that again, and she almost shuddered at the thought of repeating the tired choreography of the clandestine assignations of years past.
“I only play among friends.”
“I’m glad to hear this, Mr. Linares.”
“I want to thank you for the opportunity to vacation here in Puerco Ahogado. I’m sure I’ll have a delightful three weeks.”
“Two weeks,” she corrected him. “In your letter you said you could stay for two weeks.”
“I’m certain I said three.”
“You’re mistaken,” she said firmly.
He shrugged amiably. “At any rate, I hope you’ll be able to show me the sights around town and that we might get to know each other better.”
“I’ll see what excursions I can arrange.”
“Thank you. It seems like a lovely town, and this is a remarkable house,” he said, hands behind his back, looking up at the high ceilings.
Then he looked at her with a delightful smile.
“Miss Inclán, I realize it might be presumptuous, but I’m wondering if I might call you Perla?
I felt, in our letters, that we were close to becoming friends, and I’d be much more comfortable speaking to you in an informal way. ”
“Mr. Linares, my family has lived in Puerco Ahogado for six generations—”
“It’s that old, this house?”
“Yes. Of course, my father greatly renovated it, he spared no expense and had electric lighting installed when it was still a marvel in the countryside. He wanted to have a home that was commensurate with our status. We’re well known around these parts,” she said.
“Because of your coffee business?”
“That, and the achievements of our family members. This is a noble house, sir,” she said as she carefully repositioned the vase with white flowers resting on the vanity.
She plucked a faded petal. “I’m a lady. It might seem old-fashioned to you, but I prefer to keep a certain degree of formality between people until a proper amount of time has passed. ”
She wanted to make sure he understood her position in town, as well as his own. He must not have any notions that this was to be a cheap, quick affair. She needed to dictate the limits of their relationship, should she choose to have one with him.
“Of course. What’s a proper amount of time?” he asked, and there was a youthful enthusiasm to the question that caught her by surprise.
Her face felt warm, and she carefully ran a hand against a stray lock of hair, smoothing it back.
It had been too long since she’d enjoyed the attentions of a man.
Cándido courted her, he did, but he was a bore even if he was one of the most eligible bachelors in town, at least when you considered the size of his bank account.
If he hadn’t had that sister of his, always whispering in his ear. If he’d been a tad better-looking.
“We shall see,” she said. “I should let you rest for now. Tomorrow a few friends are coming over for an evening treat. You might join our gathering. There won’t be cards, but we might play charades.”
“Thank you. That would be lovely.”
She nodded. When she was at the threshold, she paused and looked over her shoulder. “I’m pleased you’ll be spending three weeks with us,” she said, because he was enticing enough to make her revise her plans.
“Three after all?”
“I try to be hospitable.”
He smiled at her again. She closed the door and walked to her room.
Her father’s huge oil portrait hung above a secretaire that had belonged to him—she now kept her most precious letters and papers in this desk.
Truth be told, the whole room had once belonged to him.
The wrought-iron canopy bed with its white curtains was where he’d languished all those long years, and by the window was the crimson armchair where he’d sat, hunched over, looking more like a dried-up insect in a bell jar than a man.
She had not changed the room. The lacquered screen in the corner had been his, along with the carved, monogrammed chair; the full-length mirror hanging from the wall had once reflected his formidable frame; the cedar armoires with their iron grillwork had been filled with his clothes.
But now this room, this house, was hers.
Yet she had not altered it to suit her tastes, for her tastes were her father’s tastes.
She liked the grandeur and the sense of permanence that he had gravitated toward, that feeling that this place would withstand the rigors of time rather than surrender to the whims of the new.
She was also tightfisted with her money. She knew Inés thought her miserly, but Inés hadn’t had to withstand the tempestuous days of Perla’s youth, when they’d lost their livelihood.
“Venidos a menos.” The first time she heard someone calling them that, she thought she’d die of shame, and then came the horror of having to write to friends, to relatives, to her aunt Crésida, begging for cash.
No, Perla was not going to waste her money on fripperies, on new sofas and chairs, when they had magnificent furniture left from days of plenty.
In her old age, Perla planned to be happy and comfortable.
Later, Inés would be there to hold her hand and nurse her through her final days.
One day, far, far in the future, the house and whatever money remained would go to her niece.
This was the unalterable cycle of existence.
Yet something inside her hungered for change, screamed for radical alterations to her routine, demanded new beginnings. She’d spent many years chained to her father and she wanted to laugh in merriment.
She was free of him; she was the mistress of this house. She could do as she pleased. She could send her guest packing the next morning or keep him for those allotted three weeks. She could take him as a lover or rebuff any advances. She could marry or remain the spinster she’d always been.
She could. She finally could.
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