Chapter 19
Breakfast was not delivered to the rooms of guests during the festival of San Fidel de las Cumbres.
Bread and milk would have been useless on a morning such as this, and an early breakfast would have also been pointless.
Everyone who chanced to crack their eyes open would do it close to noon, and the only tolerable lunch menu consisted of vast amounts of shrimp soup.
The scent of onions, garlic, chilies, and shrimp wafted from the kitchen throughout the ground floor of the house, promising relief to each person who had imbibed too much. There was no better remedy for a hangover.
“Hurry, Fito, finish washing those dishes,” the cook ordered. “You’re too slow today. How much did you have to drink last night?”
“Hardly a glass,” the boy said, although his eyes looked red.
Then again, the eyes of half the men staying at the house were crimson, and the women hid their dark circles under their makeup.
“A glass and a bottle, I bet,” Inés said, and she laughed as she helped Rita by carrying a couple of bowls of soup into the dining room, where the guests who had dragged themselves out of bed waited for the spicy broth that might alleviate their headache.
Aunt Perla was still asleep and likely would not rise for another couple of hours. Therefore, Inés sat herself in front of Ulises and looked at him rather than keeping her gaze low, and enjoyed the smile he gave her, which she returned with a smile of her own.
The dog circled the table, wagging its tail and hoping for a morsel. When everyone was done eating, she gave it a shrimp and began carrying the bowls back into the kitchen. Ulises assisted her with a few of the dirty dishes and paused next to her as she was exiting the kitchen.
“I want to talk to you,” he said.
“The dog needs to go for a walk. Come with me and we’ll talk outside,” she replied.
“I’ll take the camera with me.”
She grabbed the leash and Diógenes wagged his tail, delighted by the chance to venture out.
Later she’d have to iron her aunt’s dress for that evening.
It was a plain navy dress Perla had worn before, but Inés had altered the neckline to give it a little pep.
For the closing celebrations Perla had ordered a burgundy dress from the best seamstress in town, to show the people of Puerco Ahogado that she could afford such an expense, even though Inés could have manufactured it for a fraction of the cost.
Once they reached the street she spoke to Ulises. “What did you want to talk about?” she asked.
He leaned down, whispering in her ear. “I long to kiss you.”
She shivered. The words were a caress. They ventured on toward the town square, stepping over streamers that had fallen to the ground the night before, evading the glistening shards of a bottle that had shattered on the pavement.
“You can’t.”
“I know I can’t.”
“It was stupid, what we did. Never again,” she told him.
“Absolutely. But I had a marvelous time.”
He smiled and she didn’t smile back, but she wanted to, and it was hard to keep her lips pressed together, firm and serious.
She didn’t want him thinking she was soft, the kind of girl who grew giddy the first time a man bedded her.
It had been a silly impulse, that was all. A folly mixed with idiotic desire.
For a while they aimlessly walked through the winding streets of Puerco Ahogado.
He paused to take several pictures: of the church, of the flowerpots outside houses, of the sky.
They bought ice cream at a tiny shop and sat side by side, like corny sweethearts might.
But then it was time to head back and they slowly retraced their steps.
She looked at him. He was utterly handsome that morning. Not a hair out of place, freshly showered, with his shirtsleeves rolled up above the elbow. The night’s celebrations had not left a mark upon his face.
She thought that Perla had wanted to buy herself a man like Ulises, like she’d bought that expensive dress, to show the town that she could afford it.
“What would you do if you had money? Would you really waste it all on nightclubs and women?” she asked.
He knelt and snapped a photo of a pigeon that was bobbing its head and eating crumbs. “When did I say that’s what I would do?”
“You told me you’d have a reserved table.”
“I also said I might move to the countryside.”
“We’re in the countryside.”
“Puerco Ahogado is not the countryside. I want a fine house, with horses, and fancy furniture. And sunshine. It always rains here in the highlands.”
“Never for long.”
“That makes it worse. It’s like the weather can’t make up its mind,” he said, and they were walking slower, trying to stretch their minutes together.
They reached the gates of their “noble house,” as her aunt called it. Inés looked at the ancient iron gate with its sign that read: Rooms for rent, by the week or the month. Inquire inside. The sight of those words, juxtaposed with the slowly deteriorating house she’d grown up in, made her sigh.
She wrapped a hand around one of the bars of the gate and then looked at him. Never again, she promised herself. It was once and that’s it.
“We should go back inside,” she said.
“Yes, we should,” he said, replying with a sigh of his own.
—
Later that evening, when they headed to the café, Inés was careful to keep herself from looking at Ulises even though she wanted him to dance with her.
How she longed to feel the pressure of his arms around her, to sway to the music while she stared into his eyes.
He had a delectable mouth and that wicked grin.
Idiot, she told herself, and felt like kicking him for putting thoughts in her head, for stirring desires that ought to remain buried. But she couldn’t ask him to dance. No. Instead, she partnered with Bartolo, biting her lip when he stepped on her toes.
After she’d danced a couple of dances with Bartolo, Cándido offered to partner with her. She thanked him with a polite smile, and they moved to the sound of the marimba players wrestling the rhythm of a polka from the percussion instrument.
“I hope you’re having fun tonight,” Cándido said.
“Very much.”
“And no doubt you’ll have even more fun later, after the dancing is over.”
The sly way he spoke made her tense at once, and she looked cautiously at him. “Later I’ll go to sleep.”
“You mean you won’t entertain your lover?” he asked, and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I saw you in the alleyway with Ulises last night.”
Sheer panic made her want to rush back toward her aunt’s table, but Cándido held her tight in his grip and spun her around. She inhaled and gathered her courage, staring at him.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Don’t play coy, girlie. No wonder you never could find out anything useful about that rascal: you’re in league with him.
That detective who came to town, he must have been on the right track.
I bet Mr. Ulises Linares is nothing but a common thief.
The detective left a card at Beto’s house, asking our friendly police chief to give him a ring if the man he was looking for appeared in town.
Beto is lazy and doesn’t care for any investigative work, and he gave me the card when I said I was curious about this detective. ”
“There was nothing to investigate. Mr. Linares explained to you that it was all a misunderstanding.”
“I know he did. When I spoke on the phone with this detective, he said the same thing, that it seemed to be a dead end. The detective was looking for a fiendish thief who tried to bilk a widow out of her savings. A postal lothario she’d met via one of those magazines for lonely hearts.
There are many men like that, nowadays. Men who prey on the wounded and the weak, slipping away in the middle of the night with a lady’s hard-earned cash. ”
Her throat felt dry and when she spoke the words were hoarse. “I don’t know what that has to do with Mr. Linares.”
“I can put two and two together, you viper. Linares is the man the detective is looking for. The magazine the lothario used to contact the widow was Conmovedor. It’s the same cheap rag your aunt likes to read.”
She didn’t bother to mumble any more denials.
If he’d seen her, then he’d seen her. They’d been stupid and been found out.
Now it was a question of determining what benefit he hoped to reap for himself.
And knowing Cándido, he was thinking of how he would collect.
He could have spoken to her aunt earlier in the day if he’d been morally outraged by Inés’s transgression, so it was fair to guess he was not tattling on her for a reason.
The faster she could discover the reason, the better.
“What do you want?” she asked.
He dug his fingers into her arm, holding her too tight, making her wince.
“I want that lying asshole out of this town, and I want him out forever. I also want twenty thousand pesos, in exchange for the headaches he’s caused me.
I was supposed to marry your aunt this year, you know?
The money can be his wedding gift to me. ”
“They’ll still be married even if he leaves town.”
He relaxed his grip on her and smiled. “I’ll have the marriage annulled once he’s been gone for a few months. No woman would stay married to a scoundrel of that sort, and she’ll want to put the whole shameful episode behind her quickly.”
“She’ll marry you out of shame, then?”
She could already see it. Cándido slipping into their home to take what he regarded as his rightful place at Perla’s side.
To be lord and master, ultimate owner of every piece of furniture, every trinket, and every peso sitting in her aunt’s bank account.
He would no doubt achieve what Ulises and Inés had failed to achieve; the both of them were but a pair of blunderers, and she cursed herself as much as she cursed Cándido.
He seemed thoroughly pleased, smugly beaming at her.